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“It’s a long process,” he said. “You’re not even fully in the reparative stage. Then there’s the remodeling stage.”

She leaned back, trying to look at him. “Remodeling? You make it sound like flipping a house.”

“That’s what that part of the process is called,” he said.

“Process,” she muttered.

“Yes. First the body reacts by rushing white blood cells to the damage, to prevent infection. But some of those white blood cells aren’t good for the body, so they don’t hang around long, and other things take over that fight. But the inflammation keeps going, because it’s part of the repair process, and the pain keeps you from moving it and doing more damage.”

“I noticed,” she said dryly.

He hadn’t heard another sound of pain from her, figured his attempt at distraction was working, and since they were only about halfway there, he kept going. “Then the growth hormones kick in, and that draws fibroblasts and epithelial cells. And you start building new capillaries to increase the blood flow.”

“Wait…new blood vessels?”

“Yep. But they don’t stick around, after the healing’s done and they’re not needed anymore.”

“How do you know all this?”

Because since you got hurt, I’ve spent most of my spare time researching it. “I read a lot of stuff,” was all he said.

“So it’s not just the bone ‘knitting’ itself back together, like I always heard?”

“More like stitching. Those fibroblasts build a sort of framework to support the new bone. Like a matrix.”

“So now I’m a sci-fi movie?”

“Kind of cool, huh? Well, aside from the pain, I mean.”

“Little trouble setting that aside just now,” she admitted, and it sounded like her jaw was clenched.

He stopped wheeling the chair. “We can slow down. Less bounce.”

She seemed to study the distance to her door, another thirty yards or so. “I’d rather just get there.”

“But you’re hurting.” He stepped around to the front of the chair. “I’ll just carry you the rest of the way.”

“You don’t have to—”

“Pain slows the process,” he said. “Your body needs to focus now.”

“Another medical pronouncement?”

Maybe not medical. Maybe something much more elemental.

But he didn’t give her much chance to argue. And when he bent down, she put her uninjured arm around his neck as if it were the most natural thing in the world. And it felt right to him. Just as lifting her into his arms, slowly, with gentle care, felt right. As if seeing to her, taking care of her, was exactly where he was supposed to be right now. And for once he didn’t stop to analyze it, didn’t try to understand, didn’t slip into trying to figure out what it all meant, he just went with it.

With her cradled against him he started walking, slowly, taking care not to jostle her, working to cushion every step as he had up on the ridge. Her head came down to rest on his chest, and the feeling grew, the rightness of it, that feeling of being where he was supposed to be, doing what he was supposed to do.

“Thank you.” The whisper was so soft, so quiet, he wasn’t even sure it was aimed at him. “And don’t shrug, please.”

That answered that. And made him smile. “I wouldn’t. It might hurt.”

She moved her head slightly, and then he was looking into those bright blue eyes. “This is much better than the chair.”

He swallowed tightly at all the ways that could be interpreted. “Good,” was all he managed to get out.

And in those few minutes, as he walked toward the place he’d never set foot inside before, that feeling of rightness became almost overwhelming. Yet at the same time it was as if the world had compressed down to just the two of them, as if nothing else mattered, as if nothing outside them even existed in this moment.