“Yeah, honey, I did,” he said quietly, moving his hand so that it rubbed up and down the length of my spine. “That shit was… I don’t even know what it was, but to be honest with you I’m struggling with it.”
Lifting my head up, I tipped it back so that I could look up at him, and saw the emotions swirling around in his eyes. “But you’re like the stone guy from that superhero movie. How are you struggling with it?”
Snorting, he looked back down at me, not once pausing the movement of his hand on my back. “The stone guy from the superhero movie? Which one’s that?”
Thinking about it quickly, I tried to remember the name of the movie but I was shit at things like that, so I ended up just shrugging and going with the truth. “If I could remember any names, I’d have said them instead of calling him a stone guy from a superhero movie. He’s big and smashes things, I think?”
It was his eyes that changed first, crinkling at the sides as the darkness in them lifted slightly, and then he started laughing softly. “You got me there, baby,” he muttered, and lifted his hand to tuck a piece of hair that had fallen out of my ponytail behind my ear. “I already thought what you did was hard, being part of a unit that was there to save people’s lives and make them better, but this?” he shook his head, blowing out a breath. “I’ll never look at a medical professional the same way again.”
Pulling away from him, I moved over to the couch and sat down in my usual spot. Normally I would snuggle up in a ball and relax, but today I sat looking at the floor with my elbows on my knees. “Cases like this cut me up. It doesn’t matter if it’s a woman, an adult, a teenager, or a child… abuse is hard for me to stomach.”
I heard him moving, but it still shocked me when he crouched down in front of me and lifted my chin with the tip of his finger. “You did good today, baby. You saw it and acted quickly when you alerted the doctor, and then you got the boy to safety.”
“I missed it,” I croaked, fighting back tears. “I even felt under his arm to see if his glands were swollen and I missed the injuries. But do you know what’s worse?” I waited until he shook his head, and then laid it out, “He didn’t cry or make a noise, and they had to be so painful, Raoul. He had burns there, deep scratches that were just healing, and he didn’t even flinch,” I choked, losing the battle and letting the tears fall.
Pulling me off the couch so that I was sitting on his lap on the floor, he tucked my head under his chin, holding me tightly against him. “Jesus.”
I don’t know how long I cried for, but he held me for every last one of the sobs and tears, murmuring things I couldn’t even make out as I released the emotions inside of me. When I finally stopped, he stayed where he was and tightened his arms slightly, letting me know not to move as I listened to the soothing beat of his heart against my ear. Well, that was until it started to speed up a bit and I felt him tense up slightly.
“What the fuck is that?”
Lifting my head up, I looked around the room, trying to figure out what he was talking about until I saw my cat Rex. Rex was a tabby cat who was supposed to be a nice ‘normal’ sized cat. I don’t know if it was a flaw in his genes, or if I’d been lied to, but the cat was freaking huge and ate everything he came across, which would account for his girth. His size would also explain why Raoul sounded so shocked and horrified when he’d asked his previous question.
“That’s Rex,” I explained, biting my lip. “He’s a cat.”
Pulling back so that he was holding my face in his hands, he asked, “Did you name it after a T-Rex? Rose, honey, if that’s a cat, you might wanna put it on a diet for a while. That thing looks like he’s one meal away from a heart attack.”
For the first time since I’d met him, I didn’t feel the need to argue with him, especially seeing as how he was telling the truth. “He’s on a diet,” I told him, watching as he did a doubt take at my kitty.
Figuring it would lighten the atmosphere slightly, I decided to tell him what I thought was a funny story - at least I thought it was funny now. At the time, not so much. “Five months ago when I got home, it looked like someone had tossed the place. There were big holes in the wall, and the curtains had these long cuts in them. Ellis and DB came over and did a walk through, and then called me in to look around and tell them what was missing, but nothing was.” I watched as his eyes narrowed, probably wondering why this was the first he was hearing about all of this. “Come to find out, I’d bought one of those plug-in things that’s meant to keep cats calm when they’re home alone, because he used to tear things to shreds while I was out, but instead of calming him, it’d…”