Full Strength

Twenty-Lillian❤️‍🩹

I was terrified.

Looking at all of the water, looking at Logan's cast, and looking at the life preserver on the wall, my nerves were sky-high. My job is all about healing people. I bring people further from death, not perilously close to it.

Swimming, water therapy, that was all normal. I'd done it before with athletes, usually with people who had broken collarbones or torn meniscuses. I couldn't believe that Jack had approved this. Logan was still fragile. One wrong move, one stretched muscle and his leg would not only be useless, but seized with pain. He would sink like a rock.

I was determined for that not to happen.

As he took off his winter coat, I snuck a glance at his torso. To my surprise, his shoulders were well-defined, although that was probably because of the crutches. His stomach, which had once been ridiculously carved, was now lean. A pang of sympathy shot through me; to go through such change in a matter of two months had to be weighing on him. He'd once had almost superhuman strength, and now he was a little stronger than normal.

It only made me more determined to have him recover. Completely, to the point where he was even better than he was before.

I slid off my winter coat, setting it on one of the chairs. At first, I had figured I wouldn't need a swimsuit, but then I'd realized I would quite literally have to be at Logan's side for every second. So I'd put on my two-piece, the bottoms black with a high waist and the top crimson.

Logan was still looking at the pool, although now I caught a faint blush scrawled across his cheeks. My own blush came quickly; had he been staring? It took me a second to realize that if he had been, I didn't really mind. Instantly, I kicked myself. Today was important. Today was emotional. Today was all about paying attention so he wouldn't get hurt.

Today was not a day for involving whimsical crushes. A crush that I wasn't even sure I had.

"Let me undo your wraps," I said, immediately ignoring that today wasn't a day for crushes. I knelt on the floor in front of him, peeling back the layers of tape and gauze that hugged his skin until his upper thigh. His hip only needed to be wrapped when he was walking around on crutches, so that had been undone for a few days now. He sat perfectly still, watching as I pulled off the layers of wraps.

Logan winced as the last layer of cloth came off. His leg was covered in various scars and cuts, all of them closed up but still looking like he'd been run over with a bulldozer. Not to mention the few good patches of skin were horribly bruised, a swirl of purples and greens and blacks. Some of it was simply from being injured, other parts from the surgery.

"It still looks so bad," he said in a small voice. The fingers he had on the arms of the chair were white, his arms shaking.

I looked up at him, my heart straining at his expression. "In my professional experience, it looks really good," I said in a soft tone. "I know it looks scary. But it really looks good. No infections, no open cuts. It's healing."

He exhaled slowly, raking his fingers through his brown hair. "Right. Yeah. Okay."

"Okay, ready to swim?" I said, smiling brightly as I stood. I needed to take his attention away from his wounds.

He nodded, biting his lip. He swung his way over to the stairs, which were unfortunately more decorative than functional. With short steps and no handle, they weren't ideal for him.

"Here, use me as a railing," I said, stepping in up to my calves and offering him a hand.

Logan took a deep breath, taking my hand and awkwardly hopping down the stairs. As soon as he was deep enough, his other hand went to the cement edge of the pool.