"Here, drink this," Gabe said.

Shawna was hunched over the only private toilet in the Compound, put there by the builders fifty years ago to accommodate patients too sick to make it all the way to the nearest public bathroom.  It had come in handy a lot of times since then, now as much as ever.

Shawna was feeling worse than ever before.  She thought she had gotten past the worst of her withdrawal symptoms, but it was as if they were back at full force.

"What's happening to me?" she asked, face over the bowl and not liking it one little bit.

"The treatments I've been giving you are wearing off; you're feeling the full affects of your withdrawal symptoms.  I had to wait for this stage before I could treat you again; the stuff I use is pretty powerful and I have to be careful."

"What stuff?"  Shawna asked.

"Trust me, you don't want to know," Gabe said with a grin.  "Now, come on, drink this."  He helped her to sit back on her heels and handed her a cup.

Shawna had been dry heaving into the toilet for the last twenty minutes, and she felt done in, but she obediently took a sip of the drink Gabe gave her and made a face.  "What IS this shit?"

"Don't talk, drink!" ordered the doctor; she choked it down.

To her surprise, her stomach instantly felt better; she no longer had the urge to throw up.  She actually smiled.

Gabe smiled back.  Half an hour ago, he had woken up alone in bed, memories of the night before flowing through his head.  At first, he had been shocked at his behavior, and Shawna's.  He believed in the moral position the community held that sex was inappropriate out of wedlock, and yet he knew he hadn't put up too much resistance to Shawna's advances.

Still, he couldn't deny that the pleasures of the flesh were very pleasurable indeed.  If only they didn't make him feel so guilty.

It was while he was wallowing in his guilt that he realized that Shawna was not sleeping beside him, nor was she asleep on the floor pillows.   He got up and found her in one of his spare bedrooms, shivering under a blanket in a bed of her own.  The floor looked like she had vomited where she lay.  He knew what it was, and helped her out of bed to the toilet, where she continued to heave.  He refrained from mentioning their night together; it didn't matter at that moment.

He helped her over to his examination table again; the solution he had given her settling her stomach but not doing much more.

"Stay there," he said, "I'm going to get Vicky, and we'll go to work."

"Gabe?" Shawna said, stopping him at the door.  "About last night?"

"Not now.  It's something we have to talk about, certainly, but not now.  Let's get you well first."

Shawna looked at him for a second, then nodded.

---***---

Paul and Rhianna had made the long hike up the mountain to where Shawna had been discovered almost a week before.  They made the walk in silence, partly because they were too busy with their thoughts to talk, and partly because it didn't seem right to invade the quiet beauty of the woods with mindless chatter.

Both of them wore pants and shirts, for the morning was a cool one; and Paul carried a pack, a requirement for long walks, which contained a sleep sack and other survival gear.

Every adult in the Compound could survive out here naked if they needed to, but that didn't mean they had to.  Taking the pack was extra insurance; one like it had already saved Shawna from death by hypothermia.

"This is it!" Rhianna said when they reached the spot.

"You sure?" Paul asked her, and Rhianna gave him a dirty look.

The couple wandered around, examining the area for anything that shouldn't be there, but found nothing out of the ordinary.

"Why did you bring me?" Rhianna asked him at one point.  "Matthew could have shown you this place, and I know you men generally like to go on these trips yourselves!"

Paul grunted; he wasn't in the mood to argue women's rights with her this morning.  "I need YOUR professional expertise, not his."

"Oh," she said, feeling a little dense.

"Tell me, Rhianna, if you had a sprained ankle, how far do you think you could walk out here?" he asked her.

"Shawna's ankle wasn't sprained, but even so, I doubt she made it too far.  But then we don't know if she hurt her foot in the crash or later on!"

"Still, how far do you think?"

Rhianna thought about it for a moment.  "Let's go uphill, she might have been able to come down from as far as the snow line."

Paul agreed and the couple continued their journey.

---***---

Grady woke up feeling sore and stiff, and he sat up to see where Shawna was so she could get him something to drink.

He was surprised when he didn't see her, and then he remembered what happened.

"Oh shit!" he said, collapsing back on his bed.

---***---

Vicky was helping Gabe out with Shawna.  They were going to give her another body wrap, and she was mixing the poultice that would help draw the toxins from Shawna's body.

She hadn't asked about Shawna being at the clinic--everyone pretty much already knew that she had been brought here after leaving Grady's--but Vicky was curious as to why her brother was walking around naked.  It was as if he hadn't had time to dress, which was unlikely, or that for some reason he felt comfortable being around Shawna nude, which seemed even more unlikely.

Vicky stopped her task for a moment to go peek in each of the patient rooms.  None of the beds looked used, and Vicky began to wonder where Shawna had slept last night.

---***---

"What's that up there?" Paul said, pointing uphill.

"Looks like burnt vegetation," Rhianna answered.

Paul grunted and kept on climbing.

---***---

Grady managed to get some pants on, and he staggered out of his apartment.  He was feeling better than he had the day before, although a little weak, but his head felt like the worst hangover he had ever had.  He decided to head over to the clinic for a pill or something.

Besides, no doubt, that was where Shawna was, and he felt they needed to talk.

---***---

Vicky finished applying the last of the mixture to Shawna's body, making sure she was covered completely from the neck down in the sticky goo.

Shawna looked down in disgust at what they had smeared all over her.  It was dark green and it stunk of something very rotten.  "You sure this will work, Doc?" she asked.

"It worked before!" Gabe replied, bringing the hot blankets over.

Shawna was glad she had been delirious the first time they put this on her.

She stood patiently as Vicky and Gabe began wrapping her in the blankets.  They went from neck to toe, trapping her arms by her sides and mummifying her quite well.  They wrapped her standing up to start, and then laid her down to finish her legs.  When done, she was in a tight cocoon and could barely move; yet she could feel the goo on her skin squelching around as she shifted.

Vicky and Gabe lifted her up and carried her over to a large wooden tub in one corner of the room.  They laid her inside and Vicky went to fetch the jug of water heating over a small grill.  Gabe tested the temperature of the water before pouring it over Shawna, soaking her blankets and making her feel even more trapped.

"You make this up yourself, Doc?" Shawna said.

"Nope, this was one of Granddad's little concoctions.  He was a great one for herbal remedies and mountain cures.  Most of the non-traditional remedies in the book were written by him.  I think he was the smartest of the Gabe Miller's we've had so far."

"Oh, I don't know, Doc, you seem pretty good to me!"

Vicky was interested to see her brother blush slightly.

---***---

Grady made it to the clinic without any problem, although a number of people stopped him to ask how he was.  They all looked at him funny, and Grady wondered what their problem was.  He began to wonder if Shawna had told what happened already, and what kind of slant she had put on it.

Could she have tried to blame him in her anger?  Make it seem that he had come on to her?

Somehow, he didn't see her doing that, but he wasn't sure.  Just when he thought he was beginning to know her, something changed.  He still didn't know what brought on her sudden amorous attack, but it disturbed him greatly in more ways than he cared to think about.

He needed to talk to her, and as he pushed the door open, he hoped she wanted to talk to him!

---***---

Paul and Rhianna sat and looked at the remains of the light aircraft that had crashed on their mountain a week ago.  Neither of them were feeling much like talking; the grisly discovery of a half burned, half eaten body in the pilot's seat had unnerved them both.

Neither were strangers to death.  Rhianna had seen her share of bodies both in the Coast Guard and in the FBI, and Paul's position as the Compound's Guardian meant he was in attendance for every death in his community.  But this was more gruesome than either had ever seen before.

"Do you know, exactly, what killed it...him?" Paul asked her eventually.

Rhianna shook her head.  "No, it could have been anything from that branch through his chest, to the fire, or even simple exposure.  We need to bring a forensics team up here, and an autopsy is the only way to determine cause of death."

Paul grunted.

Rhianna looked up and sighed.  "There's no way we can keep this a secret, you know.  I know you like to keep outsiders off the mountain, but this is too important.  People are looking for this plane, and for Shawna, not to mention the money!  They won't stop until it's found."

"Do you think...do you think it's possible that...Shawna might have killed him?" Paul asked.  He needed to know; he felt helpless to figure out a course of action because there were too many questions.

Rhianna looked over at the plane again.  She remembered long ago classes on crime scene reconstruction and thought about what she had seen inside the plane.  She had needed to step carefully when she looked inside; barefoot as usual, she didn't want to step on any broken glass.

"No, I don't think so.  That branch was driven in with a lot of force; it went right through his body and the seat behind him.  She could never have put it there herself; it had to have happened in the crash.  It's doubtful he survived the initial thrust; but if he did, he would only have lasted a few minutes more before he bled to death."

Paul sighed in relief.  "Good," he said.

"Why is that good?" Rhianna asked him.  "You can't be thinking of letting her stay with us, she's a wanted felon!"

Paul had stood up, and was making his way back down the mountain.

"Paul, listen to me," Rhianna said, hurrying to catch up.  "We have to turn her in, it's our duty."

"Yes, I know, but..."  Paul stopped, staring at some bushes.

Rhianna looked over at them for a moment, and saw what he had spotted.  Three cloth sacks, not very well hidden under the bush. She walked over to them, opening one.  Then she started to whistle.

"So that's why she went up the hill the night she attacked Vicky," she said quietly.

Paul heard her muttering under her breath.  Intrigued he looked up.  "I don't understand."

Rhianna's hand went inside the bag and pulled out a thick wad of bills.  "She was going back for the money!"

---***---

Grady stepped inside the clinic and crossed through the waiting room.  He looked in Gabe's examination room, and saw that Gabe, now dressed in pants and a shirt, was sitting on a stool next to his desk writing out his report.  Gabe kept records of everything he did medically, as did the Doctor Miller's before him.  Under his apartment was a stone lined room where the records were stored for safekeeping.  Even if the place burned down, the records would be safe.

Grady saw him and nodded a greeting, then he saw Vicky and Shawna across the room, Shawna still tightly wrapped and laying in the wooden tub.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"I could ask you the same question," Gabe said, closing his notebook.

Shawna looked up at the sound of Grady's voice, and struggled in her mummy wrap.  She was feeling somewhat better now despite the smell; the natural medications being absorbed into her skin.

"Grady!" she said.

Grady looked at her for a moment, indecision on his face, then he turned to Gabe.  "You have an aspirin, Doc?  My head is killing me!"

Gabe nodded and took Grady's arm, leading him back out to the waiting room.  "Stay there!" he ordered.

"Doc, is Shawna okay?"

"We'll talk, but stay put!"

Grady nodded and waited while Gabe went back into the examining room.  He reappeared a moment later with a few items and proceeded to give Grady an examination.

"Your fever is down, but it's not gone completely.  I want you to spend another day in bed."

"Sure thing, Doc; but what about Shawna, what are you doing to her?"

"Nothing that concerns you," Gabe snapped.  "I'm taking her off your hands, it's evident that neither of you are happy with the arrangement the elders set up."

"She said that?" Grady asked him.

"No, but the fact that she was brought here crying usually means that things aren't going well."

"What did she tell you about last night?"

"Nothing, but do you deny that things aren't going well?"

"No, but...No.  You're right, Doc.  But I want to talk to her, to apologize."

"I don't think that's a good idea," said Gabe, not wanting Grady and Shawna together.

"Please, Doc.  I...I didn't get a chance to...please."

Gabe looked carefully at Grady for a moment.  The man was genuinely distressed, and for some reason Gabe was encouraged.  Since his wife's death, Grady had shown little need for any social contact, yet here he was pleading for that contact now.  Gabe wasn't sure what his own feelings were toward Shawna; and the thought of her and Grady spending time together at this critical juncture made him uncomfortable. But this was the first real sign that he had seen of Grady reaching out to people, and as a doctor, he couldn't ignore this step toward Grady's recovery.

"I'll go ask if she wants to talk to you," Gabe said eventually.

"Thanks, Doc!"

Gabe went inside, and a few minutes later he came back with a mug in his hand.  "Drink this, then you can go in.  But only for five minutes, then it's back to bed with you."

"Yes, Mom!" Grady said with a grin, and he drank the contents of the mug.

His head still throbbing, Grady went in to talk to Shawna.

Shawna felt at a definite disadvantage when Grady came over; try as she might, she could not wriggle out of her cocoon.  She glanced at Vicky, who smiled encouragingly before leaving Shawna alone with Grady.

Grady sat down on the stool Vicky vacated.

"Hi," he said, looking rather nervous.

"Gabe said you had something to tell me?" Shawna asked him, looking up at his towering bulk from inside the wooden tub.

"Yeah...I...er.  Look, about last night.  I..."

Suddenly there was a commotion out in the waiting room, and everyone's attention was caught by the people rushing into the examining room.

"Doc!" one of them cried, "You gotta help him!"

Shawna saw it was a group of men, all rather filthy, carrying another man between them.  They laid the man on the examining table and Shawna saw that he was covered in blood.  The source of the blood was easy to see, a thin metal bar was lodged in his chest and projected out nearly a foot.  One of the men was holding a rag on the wound, pushing down to stop the bleeding.

Vicky took over from the man, and Gabe shoved the others aside and started to examine the injured man.  "You idiots!" he yelled.  "Why did you move him?  You could have killed him!"

All the men were bigger than the Doctor, but they reacted like reprimanded children at Gabe's rebuke.

"Sorry, Doc," said one of them, "but he was bleeding pretty badly."

Gabe ignored him and continued his examination.  "Someone go get my Dad," he yelled, "and someone else go get Tracy and Harriet.  I'm going to need all my people for this!"

Two men left in a hurry.

From her recumbent position across the room, even Shawna could see that the injured man was very pale; he had obviously lost a lot of blood.  That fact wasn't lost on Gabe either.

"You," he said, pointing at the guy who had been holding down the compress, "take over from Vicky."

"Yes, Doc," said the young man.

"Vicky, go to cold stores and pull all the bags of 'O neg' blood, I want them all.  Then go find the list of 'O neg' donors and send runners to look for them.  Hurry!"

"Yes, Doctor," said Vicky, white faced herself.  Vicky had never seen such a gruesome injury, but knew that in the future she would have to get used to it if she wanted to be a nurse.  In another month, she planned on leaving the Compound to go to nursing school, returning when she was properly trained.

A moment later, Gabe's father, Gabe Miller III, showed up.  The older man had been the Compound's doctor for many years before he let his son take over.  While he enjoyed the life of relative retirement, he still helped out when his son asked him to, especially at moments like these.

"What have you got?" said Gabe Senior.

"It's not as bad as it looks, Sir, but he's lost a lot of blood," said Gabe.  What he called his father in for was a second opinion on whether or not they should attempt to remove the metal bar, but after examining the unconscious man himself, Gabe Senior said no.

"We're going to have to call an air ambulance," he said, "we need a proper operating room."

"Could you make the call, Dad?" Gabe asked, his hands covered in blood already.  "I want to get the IV's started.  We need to replace the blood loss as fast as we can."

"You have it coming?"

"Yeah, sent Vicky."

Gabe Senior nodded and moved away, confident his son could handle the patient.  As he walked to the door close to where Shawna lay, he glanced down at her.

Shawna blushed, thinking she looked very strange, but Gabe Senior made no comment.  Instead, he unlocked the combination lock on the door and opened it wide.

Shawna and Grady, who were both feeling forgotten and out of place in the rush, had a good view of what was beyond the door.  It was a large storeroom that evidently served as the clinic's drug and equipment locker.  They saw Gabe Senior cross to another door on the other side, unbolt it, and open it to reveal the outside of the building.  Just beyond the door was a canvas-covered shape, which once uncovered was revealed as a generator.  It looked rather old, but it only took Gabe Senior a couple of pulls to start it.  Its loud motor making quite a din.

Gabe Senior came back inside and disappeared into another part of the room.

Meanwhile Gabe Junior had his hands full.  Harriet, another of his volunteer nurses, had just arrived and had taken over compress duty.  Vicky came in with an armload of plastic bags filled with blood, and she and Gabe began hooking them up to IV lines.

Shawna was amazed at how prepared Gabe was.  Despite the fact that these people tried to avoid modern man's creations whenever they could, they did not seem to apply that philosophy to medicine.  Shawna, squelching in her mummy wrap, watched in amazement as Gabe did a very professional job of stabilizing his patient.

Out of curiosity, Shawna glanced back into the room where Gabe Senior had gone, and saw him messing with something sitting on a counter.  It looked to her like an older model cell phone, one with a base that had to be plugged into a power source to work.  That was what the generator was for; a bright orange cord now ran from it to the plug on the end of the phone's power cord.

But Gabe Senior was having problems.  He was pulling, tugging, and shifting the cord around, as if it wasn't working.

"You make that call yet, Dad?" Gabe called out.

"Damn phone is out again, I can't get it to come on!" Gabe Senior yelled back.

"Have you tried lifting the cord?"

"I know what I'm doing!"

Shawna looked over at Grady, who was watching things intensely.  He knew these people; he worked with them.  He had already figured out what must have happened.  These guys were from the metal shop next to his Smithy.  They had a huge pile of scrap in one corner that he knew they were in the process of sorting out.  He would bet that the pile collapsed, driving that rod into Raul, the guy on the table.

"Grady," Shawna said, grabbing his attention.

"Not now, Shawna.  We can talk later," he replied.

"No.  Get me out, unwrap me!"

Grady shook his head.  "No, I expect the Doc will when he's done."

"Grady, you have to unwrap me now.  I can help!"

This made Grady look at her.  "You?  What are you, a doctor too?"

"No, but I can fix their phone.  It's what I do, electronics."

Grady wasn't sure, he just stared at her.

Shawna couldn't wait.  "GABE!" she yelled.

"I'm kind of busy now, Shawna!" Gabe called back.

"Gabe, tell Grady to let me out.  I can fix your phone!"

"You what?"

"You need the phone to call for a helicopter, right?  I can fix it; it's what I do on the outside!"

Gabe stared at Shawna for a moment, then made a decision.  "Grady, get her out of the tub and unwrap her!"

Grady shrugged and did as he was told, and as he lifted her, Gabe Senior came over to her.  "You said you could fix this?" he asked.

"I can try, Sir.  It depends on what's wrong with it, but I'm an electrical engineer.  Electronic gadgets like that are what I work with all the time.

"I hope you can, girl, because if you can't, we may have to operate here, and to be honest I'd rather not!"

Shawna nodded and began to struggle out of the blankets that bound her, while Grady unwrapped.

She emerged covered in green slime, and almost gagged from the smell.  But she grabbed a towel and wiped her hands before following Gabe Senior into the storeroom.

On the bench was indeed an old style cell phone, and Shawna gingerly picked it up and looked it over.  It had evidently seen better days; its case dented and pockmarked, its cords frayed and worn.

"Ever think of getting a new one?" Shawna asked, dripping slime on the floor.

"Not many models allow you to plug in an external antenna," Gabe Senior said, pointing to one cord that led up to the ceiling.  "We need the extra antenna to reach the nearest cell tower."

Shawna grunted.  Modern cell phones were a lot better now then they used to be, but she wasn't going to get into that now.  "I need a screwdriver."

Gabe Senior produced a rather pitiful looking tool kit from another shelf, but there was a screwdriver small enough for Shawna to use to take the phone's case apart.

Standing in a corner out of the way, Grady watched her work.  He was quite amazed at what he saw; this was a different Shawna, a woman in full control.  She held herself proudly as she worked, her concentration on her job. And while she looked somewhat bizarre covered in the green goo the Doc had her in, Grady found himself admiring her as a woman.

Again he felt guilty, and tore his eyes off her body, but what he saw of her now impressed him.  He took a deep breath and continued to watch her work.

The case off, Shawna immediately saw the problem.  The contact on the circuit board where the power cord attached had come loose.  It would be a simple fix if they had the tools.

"I don't suppose you guys have a soldering iron do you?" she asked.

The men shook their heads.  "Why, what's wrong with it?" Gabe Senior asked.

"All I need to do is reattach this contact.  Then you should be good to go.  All I need is something hot!"

"How hot?" Grady asked.

"Hot enough to melt the solder," Shawna answered him.

"There might be something we could find at the Smithy," he offered.

Gabe Senior grasped it immediately.  "Go, now!" he ordered.

Shawna thought the idea a good one as well, and she picked up the phone and the tools she needed to put it back together.

She and Grady ran through the examining room, making Gabe Junior look up in surprise, and out of the clinic.

"This way!" Grady said, and Shawna was hard on his heels.

It was only as they were running that Shawna remembered that apart from the thin coating of green slime that still coated her body, she was completely naked.  She could see the people they passed stare at her in amazement, and was glad to know that SOME forms of nudity were still shocking to these people.  She might even have been shocked herself if she weren't in such a hurry.  As it was, her blush was hidden under all the green.

If a nude green woman was a surprising sight in the hallways of the Compound, a nude woman of any color was even more rare in the Smithy.  Deep in "Men's country," women rarely ventured this far.

The Smithy was where the men who worked the various craft shops took their breaks, and of course, there was a good crowd of them in there discussing the accident.  All looked up as Grady and Shawna entered, and all quit talking at the sight of the green woman.

"What do you need?" Grady asked her.

"Er..." Shawna was very aware of the dozen or so pairs of male eyes looking at her, and the layer of green slime on her skin suddenly felt very, very thin.

"Shawna!" Grady yelled, getting her attention.

"Er, I need a rod, very thin, like a pencil with a point.  Heat it up to just below red hot!" she said.

Grady started giving orders to the men, and there was a mad scramble as a suitable rod was looked for.

Shawna laid out the pieces of the phone on a workbench and got it ready for fixing.  She felt cloth at her shoulders, and turned to see that one of the men had taken off his leather apron and shirt and was handing her the shirt.

Shawna smiled a thank you, and pulled the shirt on, wearing it like a dress.

She waited patiently for a few minutes, looking around as the blacksmiths heated up a thin iron rod.  The Smithy was large, with a big open door at one end that let in the outside world.  Shawna saw a paddock beyond the door with a couple of horses in it; customers for shoeing, Shawna thought.

The other end of the Smithy was dominated by a furnace run by a couple of the men.  One of them pumped a huge bellows, bringing the heat up inside the furnace for the job at hand.

Shawna expected the place to be dirty, but it was very clean, except for some mud in the doorway.

She looked over at Grady, handling the rod carefully as he heated its tip.  Unlike the other men, who all wore thick leather aprons to guard against the heat, Grady was still bare-chested, and the fire in the furnace reflected off his sweaty muscles.  It was a sight she appreciated; and he looked so at home here, Master of the fire!

She wondered why he had given this up to work in the stables, what the real reason was.  He belonged here; even she could see that.

Grady pulled the rod from the furnace, handling it carefully with thick leather gloves, and brought it over to her with a rag wrapped around one end.  The point on the end was glowing slightly, and Shawna knew it was too hot.  It would melt the solder fine, but it would be so hot that the solder would all run away.  Shawna knew she had to be careful; one wrong move would destroy the phone.

She waited until the glow disappeared and then carefully picked up the rod by its cloth handle.  Manipulating both it and the cord, she placed the iron against the cord's very end, using the cord itself to melt the lump of solder that had originally bound the cord to the circuit board.

It was delicate work, but Shawna was a deft hand; and after a moment, she was able to report success.

"Good girl!" Grady said, a big smile on his face for the first time in months.

Shawna smiled back, liking what she saw on his face, and the rest of the men cheered.

Shawna quickly put the phone back together, and the couple made their way back to the clinic.

Both Doctor's Miller were happy to see them, and Gabe Senior lost no time in plugging the phone in to make his call.

It worked fine, and he ordered a medical pick up from the Ranger Station on the next mountain.

There were smiles almost everywhere, and Vicky offered Shawna a quiet thanks.

"Shawna!"  It was Gabe Junior.

"Yeah?"

"Thanks," he said, looking up from his patient for a moment.

Their eyes met, and Shawna wished they could take the time to talk about what had happened between them.

Gabe smiled and told her to go take a bath.  "Wash all that green gunk off you before you turn green permanently!"

Shawna was suddenly worried that she would really stay green.  "You're not serious!"

"Go!  We have work to do here."

"I'll take her, Doc," Grady said.

Gabe looked up at him for a moment, his smile fading.  But he nodded.  "Okay.  But I want to see her again tonight...No, tomorrow.  I'll have to fly in to town with Raul today."

"Sure thing, Doc," said Grady, and he led her out of the clinic.

---***---

Paul and Rhianna were just coming within sight of the Compound when they saw the helicopter lift off and fly away from its landing site beside the river.

They both knew that the helicopter only came in emergencies, and they stepped up the pace to get home as fast as possible.

It was as they met the first few citizens that they heard the story already flowing around the community.

The new girl, Shawna, had fixed something for the Doctor, something no one else could have done.  She saved Raul's life!

There was talk of how lucky they were to have her around right now, and how valuable she was to the community.

After hearing this, Paul and Rhianna looked at each other, their thoughts the same.  How would the news they brought affect the community now!
 
 

End of Part 12.