The bandages were still on when she woke up, one arm dangling over the edge of the bed and that rotten cotton taste in her mouth from where she had been drooling into her sleeve. Ugh. Face boullion.

There were goosebumps along her arms. Either it was colder than it should have been for this weather or her mysterious nurse had left the windows open, or she was more sensitive to such things since she'd been blinded. Even odds, and she didn't want to think too hard about it. Could you cry when you had seared your tear ducts shut? Pamela didn't know but she'd been giving it her best try.

Even getting up brought her to banging her hand against the lamp on the bedside table. She bit her lip to stop herself from screaming; twenty four hours home from the hospital and she already wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. She wanted to throw things only she couldn't fucking well see to grab something she wouldn't miss later or aim it at something that wouldn't break. She wanted her eyes back, but that was as unlikely as any of the rest of it. No matter what the doctors said, or that soft-voiced nurse. She was blind, blinded doing a good turn for the Winchester boys (which should have told her something, much as she'd liked them, especially the cute one, because few people got involved with the Winchesters and lived to talk about it) and blinded doing what she had formerly done best. She hadn't tried to contact so much as a dead cat since she'd gotten out of the hospital, and certainly not while inside it. One power flicker at the wrong time and bye-bye grandpa.

Mostly, she'd used the excuse that it would exhaust her too much but the truth was she was scared. Terrified to discover that her Sight had failed her as well as her sight, even if she knew the theory that one didn't need physical eyes to See. The world was full of blind super-powered superheroes. She just hadn't wanted to be one of them. No matter what that soft-voiced nurse said.

Her fingers fumbled around for what would have been his business card, not that it was any good to her now. He must have left it along with the paperwork that someone else would have to read for her and sign. Maybe Bobby.

Her eyes.

She sat down on the bed, fingers brushing over the bandages that nice, soft-voiced nurse had re-done for her. He'd been real sweet, for a nurse. The kind of guy she would have flirted with given less dire circumstances and, you know, her sight back again. His hands had been warm and firm clasping hers in greeting, gentle on her skin when he'd examined her wounds, and the whole time he had talked to her so she wouldn't be afraid. That was what he'd said.

"Don't be afraid."

"How? How the hell am I supposed to not be afraid? I can't see."

"Sight is one of many ways of perceiving the world. You should know that better than most." His thumb traced the outline of her eyes, or what would have been her eyes. Her sockets, now, she guessed. Over the top of her scarred eyelid and down beneath her burned-off lower lashes, so gentle she barely felt it disturb the surface of her scars.

"You got a soft touch."

"I've had to practice, recently."

Pamela didn't ask what that meant. She was pretty sure she didn't want to know.

"You're healing quickly."

"Thanks," she said dryly. Sarcastic. The kind of sarcasm that would have gotten her reproached by Bobby or Deacon, if they were around now. "I still have no eyes."

He didn't say anything to that. No comments on how she would learn to function without her sight as well as she had before, no apologies for circumstances beyond his control, no nothing. Just that same gentle touch around her face now. She wasn't sure what that had to do with her eyes but it was relaxing, and he sounded sweet. She wasn't going to complain. Voices were about as much sexy as she had to flirt with these days. And touch.

She cleared her throat when he didn't say anything, though. "So, what's the prognosis, doc? Is the patient going to live?"

"I'm not a doctor," he reminded her, or rebuked her, but there might have been a smile in his voice. He had one of those voices where it was kind of hard to tell; he probably went around looking solemn and stern all the time, too. "And yes. You will live a long and fruitful life."

"Whatever that means." She forced a smile, made it sort of flirty. Something like how she would have smiled, or at least she thought it was. "Hey, you can smile once in a while. I mean, I won't see it, but you could."

"Maybe I am smiling."

"No you're not."

There was a rustle of fabric that she decided sounded like a shrug. Hey, maybe she was getting better at this. But then his hands fell from her face and for a second she was disoriented. Almost dizzy. Her hands flew out forwards to try to orient herself, meeting empty space, swishing through open air. "Oh god..." she whimpered.

"I'm here."

Warm, thick hands on her shoulders, holding her upright. Pamela caught her breath and wondered what the hell had just happened, if she was really that thrown by simply not being able to see. She hadn't done that in a long time, even when all the lights were out in the middle of a moonless night at her house. Then again, this was the most moonless her nights were ever going to get. No more moon, no more sun, no more stars. Not ever.

"Sorry," she muttered, deciding she didn't want to pull away after all and risk flailing around like a complete moron again. "I have better balance than that, I swear."

"I know."

Pamela shook her head slightly. "What do you mean?"

If he said anything she missed it when his hands came off her shoulders and she was freefalling through space again. Her hands flew out and met no resistance, nothing. No sound of movement in the room, no sounds at all except the birds and the boys outside her window, cruising past her front door. She needed to get out. She needed to move, somewhere, find something where she could get her bearings. The nurse was nowhere to be found. One shaky step forward, and then another.

"This way."

She opened her mouth to say something but where his name would come out or even his title came nothing. She couldn't remember his name now and she felt awkward asking it again when he'd introduced himself, she thought, when he walked her to her door. "What?" came out instead. It sounded helpless. She fucking hated helpless.

"This way. It's all right."

Calm. Steady. His voice was steady. Her hands were very far from steady as they groped the air in front of her, one creaky-board footstep after another. Her wrist-bone slammed into the doorway. She slipped on a rug. And when she kicked the pile of books and overcompensated for how her feet and ankles seemed to want to go one way and her legs the other his hand grabbed her wrist and held her firm and strong. Warm. Like a space heater in a winter room. Like her flea-market flannel blanket when she was crawling into bed late at night.

He pulled, or more like guided, up the stairs and around the corner and she stepped forward and into a rush of familiar smells of patchouli, sage, the deeper scents of musk and vanilla and sandalwood. A breeze right where a breeze usually was when the window was cracked open. She reached out to her left and smacked her other wrist into the dresser. Her bedroom. She'd walked into it often enough in the dark in the middle of the night, glass of water or sometimes a shotgun in hand. All right. "What, it's bedtime already? It's only afternoon."

"You need your rest." He still wasn't smiling. She could tell that in his voice. "You need to sleep. And you'll sleep better in your own bed."

There. There was something there, some way his voice relaxed that made her relax, or it was just that he was right and she did need sleep. She followed him to the middle of the room and the next time she tripped it was deliberate. Just to get a sneak peek.

Her hands met cloth first, not your standard nurse's outfit. It felt like a button-down shirt of some kind, and she could feel a pocket under the last two fingers of her right hand, the buttons under her thumb and her left index finger. She could feel the hitch of his chest as he took a breath to maybe say something, but if he'd meant to say something he swallowed back the words before he did. Her hands crawled up before either of them could lose their nerve.

Strong features, at least. Not solid per se, but strong. There was a very little bit of stubble on that jaw, just enough to be felt. Lips, full but not plump and just a little chapped, face more round than oval but still not quite there, eyes that didn't smile too often. No laugh lines. An ample crop of short-cropped hair that she ran her fingers through, sliding them over his furrowed brow and through what would have been his bangs if they were a little longer.

"Well, you're a handsome fellow, aren't you," she said with a smile and forced bravery. Curiosity drove her fingers down to his lips to see if he smiled at that but, as she'd suspected, he didn't. "You should smile more. Couldn't hurt."

His lips did move then but it wasn't enough for a smile. Was barely enough for her to tell his lips had moved, probably, if she hadn't been touching them at the time. His fingers closed around her wrists and pulled her hands away from his face, firm but gentle. It was a no, but at least it was a polite no that didn't mean to offend. That was something, right? He pulled her hands away and she leaned forward and somehow touching his face was too personal but holding her wasn't. Not that she minded that. Her fingers curled into that pocket and on the other side of the buttons and she pushed her head into his shoulder like a kitten. He was a nurse, he had to be used to this kind of thing, right? Patients breaking down on him in the first stages of grief for their missing limbs and organs? She wanted to cry but the best she could manage was a pathetic whimpering sound.

There was a light touch of a breeze on the back of her hair until she realized that it wasn't a breeze. Fingers carding through her hair, impersonal and soothing at the same time. His other hand pressed between her shoulderblades and he smelled of aftershave and frankinsence. Did she really have that much incense lying around?

"You should sleep," he said again, and when he stepped back she didn't cling even as much as she wanted to. He was going to leave, and then she was going to be alone and blind in a house with no one in it. God, she missed Bobby. She even missed Jesse, just a very little. He was steering her towards the bed with an arm around her shoulders. "It'll be all right."

"Yeah?" she muttered, too tired to resist but not too tired to argue. One hand reached out and found the bed, patting the covers until she found the top of them and then pulling them back. "Are you sure about that?"

"I asked."

There were sounds of movement and she pulled back the covers and sat on the bed and he practically put her into it. Took off her shoes, her socks. Unbuckled her belt and took down her pants with no intentions whatsoever, hands that were strictly professional on her bare legs. Hands that were soft on her bare legs, making her think of unprofessional things she wanted him to do to her. If she'd had her eyes she might have suggested it. Then again, if she'd had her eyes he wouldn't be there.

The covers closed around her shoulders and she felt the backs of his fingers brush over her shirt. A part of her thought about stretching out on the bed, one knee cocked up, shoulders back, easy smile. It worked a lot less well when she had bandages over the scars on the backs of her eye sockets. She curled up into the fetal position instead, just in time to feel his lips on her forehead.Her breath sucked inwards, caught.

"Sleep."

Sighed out. She slept.

"Don't be afraid."

Well, how was she not supposed to be afraid? For that matter, what was she not supposed to be afraid of? Were there things it was all right to fear? Great job, Pamela, think of all those things to ask him, to throw at him now that he was long gone. Which was stupid in the first place, she was blind, right? Wouldn't she need someone around her full time to help her adjust or whatever? How did you adjust to something like this, anyway?

Her thoughts were swimming in circles like a shark through chum, and she at least knew the layout of her bed and bathroom well enough to manage. Feet out of bed again and onto the floor, feeling carpet and then hardwood floor and then cold tile in the bathroom. She kept a pretty handily stocked medicine cabinet. Her fingers fumbled over the bandages, some sort of twisted masochism peeling off layers of surgical tape and gauze and cotton. The whimper was back again. It didn't sound like it was coming from her mouth but it must have been because it didn't start until she was taking off the bandages and it got louder as she went through the layers and then her fingers touched crusted flesh, scarred eyelids. So gruesome. Like a horror movie character who couldn't stop walking into that dark place despite knowing the monster was there. She opened her eyelids

blind

light

blinded. By the white light coming through the window, coming from the bulb above her sink because she'd turned the switch automatically when she'd come into the room but this was impossible. She had no eyes anymore. No eyes to see.

Her fingers crept up along her cheeks until they touched the tears that were falling, either because of dryness or stress or because she'd just tried to touch her eyeball. She had eyeballs again. The light was clearing although spots still danced before her vision (she had vision again!) and she had to blink many times in order to focus on her face in the mirror, staring and red-eyed and unable quite yet to comprehend the fact that she was healed. Could see. Words sprang to mind, words so familiar and so fitting that it made her burst into simultaneous laughter and tears of full-on hysteria. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound.

Go to the top! For you have reached the bottom.