In a small voice she said, "You need stitches."
"Then get to it." Trent affirmed.
Deshavi gestured at her shaking hands, "I'll hurt you!"
"You've already hurt me Deshavi, now it's time to start putting the pieces back together."
Crying she nodded and reached for the threaded needle.
It wasn't pretty, but Trent just sat there stoic faced, as Deshavi becoming more and more flustered did more harm than any good to the wound. I couldn't take it any longer. I moved forward and knelt behind Deshavi and molded my fingers to the backs of hers, steadying her shaking one's. Together we made a halfway decent job of it, but Trent would always have a significant scar by which to remember today by.
Having finished Deshavi started to move out of reach, but Trent's arms came out and enfolded her pulling her closer. She resisted at first, but gave in and let Trent hold her, as her own arms tentatively found their way around him. I backed off and busied myself elsewhere in the cut leaving them to be alone. Thank God for my wife's miserable cat!
Things were better after that, but Deshavi still kept off to herself somewhat. Two more days passed by and finally it stopped snowing and got warmer on the outside. Hopefully another day of warmth would have the snow down far enough to make our way through it. Again the temptation was to just stay here in this haven, but as nice as it was we had nowhere near the food or supplies needed to make it through a long winter here. We needed to keep moving south before it was impossible to.
I'd smoked all the meat that I could and I was just finishing with wrapping up the last of it, when Trent walked up. I glanced up, he seemed anxious about something. The only thing he was ever anxious about was Deshavi so it must be something to do with her.
"So what's up with you and Deshavi?"
He gave me a look of 'how did you know'?
I just smiled knowingly in return.
"I'm concerned about Deshavi. She smells."
One of my eyebrows rose at that statement and Trent was quick to respond with, "I know we all smell somewhat gamey, but she's different since yesterday. I'm worried that some of her cuts have become infected. She isn't about to let me check on them and I was wondering if you would take a look, because she might let you."
His concern was touching, but he had a few things to learn about women. I knew what he was referring to, as I had smelled it too, but unlike him I had once been married.