THE CAVERN OF DEEP HARMONY

PART NINETY-THREE:

His head hurt. Oh...God...how his head hurt! He was rising up through thick layers of clinging blackness and the further he rose, the more his head hurt.  Was there no way he could simply let go, simply slide back down into the nothingness where there was no pain? He tried, desperately

he tried, but his rise continued inexorably, accompanied now by a low moan coming up his throat. He felt nauseated and clamped his teeth, fighting the bile back down. Where he was, what had happened, were not thoughts he felt well enough to bother with. Surviving the next second. That was enough.

He lay there, his eyes still closed, breathing slowly, absolutely swallowed by the pain in his head. His right hand fisted in the covers but his left seemed somehow positioned where he couldn't do that. Effort could not be spared to think of the why of that, either. He gritted his teeth, fighting down more bile, more ragged moans that kept trying to force their way through the bile and find expression on his lips. Minutes did not so much pass by as stab their way, one by one, along some tortuous route of time.

It took him quite a while to venture to open his eyes and when he finally managed a half-lift of

his weighted lids  he seemed to have no ability to focus and there were two wavering forms in

the dim light where one bedpost rose darkly in the room. He closed his eyes again, willing himself to fall into some abyss of blackness, but it wouldn't come. Then he became aware his back and shoulders hurt, too, and tried to shift himself a little without moving his head. Something seemed

to be pinning his left side, though, preventing that and he opened his eyes a slit, turning his head just slightly to the left.  That small motion, though, sent fresh waves of pain ripping into his head and the taste of bile came into his mouth. He faded then into blessed nothingness, brief as it was, and came to himself moments later, his head still turned to his left.

Again he opened his eyes a slit, that need to shift to relieve his back and shoulders very present.  Why couldn't he? Something was there on his left arm. He licked his dry lips, his mouth bitter,

and tried to discern what it was.  A single candle, burned down to a mere inch in remaining height, sat on a stand beside the bed. Yes, he was in bed. He'd decided that much, though it had taken great effort to get that far with his thinking.  He blinked several times, trying to see well enough

to understand what held down his arm. Briefly he made the mistake of looking directly at the candle's flame and the light from it pierced his brain as though someone had driven a stake through each eye. He had to close his eyes and take a while to recover from that. Lying there

like that, he wasn't sure he wished to open his eyes again, but the need to know what was on his arm prevailed after an unknown length of time and he barely cracked them.

Hair, blonde hair. That was his first impression.  He wasn't entirely sure, however, it was hair as

it waved and moved in his distorted vision.  It was taking much too much energy to discover what was beside him and he didn't dare turn his head more to facilitate the process.  He let his eyes

close again, but his body had tensed with the pain, only serving to magnify it.  A long, broken

moan escaped his lips.  Breathe, he told himself, just breathe. He inhaled through his nose, held

it a moment, then let it slowly out through his mouth. Again and then again. It finally came to

him that he was aware of the sound of soft breathing even when he was holding his own breath.

His eyes slivered open. A curve of something white was there, mere inches from his face, its top edge limned with candlelight that wavered in his sight.

What? He blinked again, forcing his gaze downward without moving his head. It was...no, that wasn't possible. Despite the cost, he did tip his head more, sinking his teeth into his lower lip.

It was...yes...a cheek. Susannah's cheek. His breath came out of him as though he'd been struck

a blow to his chest. Every muscle tensed in utter shock and once again he fell into the abyss.

Slowly he drifted back upwards, impelled by some need to know that had followed him in his plunge.

His eyes opened and her face was there, right beside him, her face. He felt bleary with confusion, with a loss of sense of place, of time, of event.  This was truly impossible that she should be there. There was no way.  Something was wrong with him, very wrong, though he had no idea what. She could not be there, she simply could not.  His eyes closed as he dealt with the unreality of it. Why was his mind doing this to him? Had he somehow fallen ill? Where? Where had he been...last?

Even if she were not really there he needed to see her phantasm, so he looked again.  Her face

was somehow vague, distorted by his inability to focus clearly, but it was her face.  If only this

were real. If only she were really there. He sighed in his longing for that to be so.  It took a while longer for it to dawn on him that she was why he couldn't move his arm.  A phantasm wouldn't

be tangible, wouldn't have weight to pin him so.

"You are dealing a great deal with her on his arm," Marshall commented.

"I'm remembering something, that time when you and I went on a picnic and sat on a blanket

in a park. We threw pinecones for Waddy to chase. Remember that?"

"I do. It was then I discovered what a great describer you are."

"Well, your left arm was still in that sling and you went to sleep on the blanket with my neck across your right arm, rather like Susannah is lying on Morgan's. I could tell you were having an unpleasant dream and it hit me that I had your arm pinned like it was by that branch in
the mud. So, anyway, that's where this is coming from."

"Nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could," he half-sang, a smile on his face.

"So, one presumes, somewhere in your youth or childhood, you must've done something good?"

"Many things." His smile broadened. "And when I can get you to stop writing, I fully intend

to do something very good...all over you."

"OoooOoooo! I think I could be, um, prevailed upon, husband mine, to take a wee break right, um, now."

"Wee?"

"Ok," she chuckled, "as long a break as may be required by the exigencies of the circumstances."

"I can be very exigent."

"I'm quite sure of that, love of my life, and I...." But he'd begun nibbling at her earlobe and

poor Morgan was just gonna have to wait a while.

A definitely unwee time later, she was back at the keyboard, pausing to comb her fingers through her rather tousled hair. "Exigent, indeed," she murmured to herself then began to

type.

Morgan's arm seemed to be both under and curved around her. He tried to think of the why of

that but could come up with nothing. His left hand had not fallen away because she had both

of hers over it, holding it to her chest. If he were imagining this, he thought he was doing a very good job of it.  He wanted to see her more clearly, forgot himself, and shook his head a bit,

which sent him into such a spasm of pain that he pulled his knees up, a sharp gasp of agony escaping his lips.

Susannah woke abruptly at the sound, her half-sitting motion releasing his arm, which he instinctively lifted, pressing both hands to his face. "Morgan! Oh, Morgan, you're awake!"

His teeth were clamped on his lip and he couldn't answer, gasping as wave after wave of shark teeth slashed their way back and forth through the inside of his head.

She heard the sounds he was making and her hands sought his face, finding his clamped hands. "Oh....Morgan," she moaned, desperate to do something that would help.

After long minutes, he stretched his legs out again, let his hands fall to his sides, and just lay

there, each breath accompanied by a small little sound of hurt.  As though from inside some

minute speck of space somewhere deep inside himself where his consciousness had gone, had curled itself into a tight ball, he felt her fingers begin to move over his face.  He was separated from that, though, his body a mere dull encasement for that tiny speck, and it was like a great distance separated him from what she was doing. She whispered his name over and over and for him her voice came from some hazy mountaintop, filtered through vast layers of clouds.

"Please, Morgan," she begged, "please be all right!"  Her brief thrill that he was awake had

been broken off with such terrible swiftness that the jagged edges of it pricked relentlessly at her tear ducts and moisture welled in her eyes.

He couldn't move, couldn't speak, could only lie there in his inward ball and wait. If he survived this...then...but not yet.

Susannah remembered that Layla had brought a fresh basin of cool water and a cloth before

she'd left. It should be on the night stand. Perhaps that might help? She twisted around, her

hands exploring toward where the little table was.  Her fingers found the candle flame first, and she jerked back with a small exclamation. Soon, though, she'd located the basin and had wet the cloth. Feeling with her left hand, she touched his face, then with the cloth in her right began with the lightest touch she could manage to wipe his face.

It felt good, what she was doing, and he began to have the ability to unball himself. Wetting the cloth again, she folded it, laying it over his brow, which felt even better.  He let out a long,

sighing breath and filled his body with himself again.  Her hand was still on his cheek and he

lifted his, covering it.  "I wish you were really here," he managed to mumble, his eyes closed.

She leaned forward, brushing her lips across his, having gotten way beyond any sense of reticence with him.  Her lips still light and warm atop his, she whispered, "I love you, Morgan Kent. With

all my heart I adore you."

His eyes came half-way open.  Her face was right there and she lifted it enough so that he could see all of it. Her features still moved for him, not remaining in place where they should, but it

was the face that occupied his heart and he sighed, "Susannah."

"I'm here," she said.

"Wh...where?"

"In my house. We, Papa and I, brought you home from Graylands."

"Graylands?"

"The ball. Remember we were at the ball?"

"Wh...what?"

"Parker." He saw a frown crease her brow.

"He...he...?"

"He came up behind you with a whip. Your neck. He pulled you backwards."

"I...I danced...didn't I? With you? Outside?"

"Yes, that's what we were doing when he came."

"I didn't...."

"He was behind you. You wouldn't have known."

"Neck?" He moved his hand down, discovering the bandage, aware for the first time of a line

of stinging that curved completely around it.

She lifted his hand away, kissing it several times. "You...you're...here?"

"I am here, yes."

"Real? You...you're...real?"

He saw her smile and something in him strengthened in response to the fact of her reality. But...how? How was she here with him? Why was she...allowed...to be here with him? "You can't...."

But she pressed a finger to his lips. "But I am and I shall continue to be."  She removed the

cloth, wetting it again, replacing it.

"Head...hurts," he mumbled.

"You fell backwards onto the bricks Papa said." 

"Your father...he...knows you're...."

"Yes, Morgan, he knows."

"But...."

"It's all right. I promise you, it's all right."

"I can't...," but his lids were too heavy and a pathway had opened again for him to sink into darkness. Briefly, he opened them a slit, looked at her with a mixture of amazement and longing, but turned and let himself fall.

Under her hands, she felt the change in him, the relaxation of his tense muscles. He had come

back to her, though, and her world had ceased its wobble out of orbit.  She sighed as something jagged and too terrible to name was pulled from her heart.

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