Fire: Chapter Four

CLOSER

After what seemed like hours, but was really only minutes, of struggling through the mud, Shannon spotted the outline of the croft through the
teeming rain. Finally! She could get Michael inside, then start the car and drive him into town to get help. Now more than ever, she regretted not
getting a phone installed. She had wanted peace and quiet - no interruptions while she was writing - it hadn't occurred to her to consider emergencies like this. But at least she had transport.

"Come on, Michael," she said, a little more gently. "We're here - this is my home. I'll get you inside where it's warm and dry, and go start my car, then we can get you to the hospital." The response was a wordless mumble. Shannon booted the door open, dragged Michael inside and laid him gently down in front of the fireplace, grabbed her car keys and ran to her dependable little 1952 VW beetle which she had inherited from her uncle. Key in the ignition, turn. Clunk. "FUCK!" she snarled. "Dependable, my arse!" Shannon pounded on the dashboard. "Come on, dammit! Start!" But there was no use giving orders to a car: the battery was dead flat! Cursing through still-chattering teeth, Shannon ran back to the croft.

This changed everything. Michael was hovering between moderate and severe hypothermia, and Shannon herself, she knew, had a mild case. There was no-one for miles, as far as she could tell, and she had no phone and no transport. There was only one choice.

"Michael!" Shannon ran over to where he was lying prone on the rug in front of the fireplace. "Honey, I'm sorry but the car's dead - I have to get you warm, and there's only one way to do it safely." No response from her patient, who appeared to be asleep. Shannon's training told her, however, that moderate hypothermia shaded very quickly into severe, and that both were life-threatening if not addressed promptly. There was no time to lose.

Shannon gently turned Michael over and began stripping off his undershirt. It was soaked through and freezing cold; it had to come off. Same deal with the leggings, even though he was not wearing anything underneath them, Shannon noticed with a slight frisson of alarm. "Get a hold of yourself" she scolded. "You're 24 years old, you've seen a naked man before!" Life-saving action always trumped bashfulness. "I'm sorry, honey" she whispered to Michael. God knows why, he couldn't hear her. Still shivering violently, she stripped off every stitch of her own sopping wet clothing, and ran to grab a couple of large towels from the bathroom.

Gently and carefully, Shannon dried every inch of her unconscious patient, including his hair which she rubbed a little more vigorously to get as much of the wet out as possible. Then she did the same to herself, undoing her braid and rubbing her hair as dry as she could. The act of doing this made her feel a little warmer, and she could feel her core temperature responding to the warm, dry air. Michael was a different matter, however. His core temperature must have fallen to about 35 degrees C, and she had to get it back up or he would slip into severe hypothermia and die.

Quickly, Shannon opened the damper on the woodstove and threw on a bunch of dry logs. Then, she grabbed a thick blanket from her bedroom and wrapped Michael in it. She closed all the window shutters and finally, climbed under the blanket and pressed her body against Michael's, putting her arms around him and holding him as tight as she could. Skin-to-skin contact was the only safe method of re-warming a moderate-to-severe hypothermia victim.

It was about as erotic as cuddling up to a side of frozen meat. Shannon started to shiver again as the cold from Michael's body seeped into hers.
But she knew she was in far better shape than he was, exposure-wise, and that eventually the warmth from her body core would get through to his. Mentally, she went through a check-list: he was unconscious, not shivering, his skin was pale and very cold, his pulse was slow and his fingers, toes and lips were slightly blue. Did she get him here in time? She wouldn't know, until he started to recover; she didn't want to think about the alternative. Shannon breathed deeply, clenched her chattering teeth, shut her eyes, and held him closer.






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