Chapter Fifty

It was a fine fall afternoon, but Devin barely glanced at the turning leaves, sun glinting down through them as he followed the path down toward the Institute.  He considered finding something to eat, but a deeper and tougher ache than hunger turned his thoughts from food.

A reddish-brown streak hurtled out of nowhere.  “Debbin!” cried Runner, giving him a bouncy hug.   One of his legs was a little thinner than the other, but the cast was off and he seemed none the worse for wear.  Devin half-smiled and gave the young squirrel a weary pat on the shoulder.

“Hey, Runner, old pal. Looks like that leg’s mended up nicely,” Devin noted.  “Haven’t seen you much since the memorial service.”

“Don’t like foonerals,” Runner screwed up his face.  “Sad, so sad.  Thad was my firs’ one!”

“Not mine,” Devin shook his head.  “What have you been up to?”

“Jus’ been skibbing rocks down by the waberfall and thinking bout Gadgit.  I miss her a lot.”

Devin sighed.  “You and me both.  Hey, find a few good rocks for me, maybe I’ll join you tomorrow.  I’m sure Gadget--” he teared up a little, but put on a brave face for Runner.  “I’m sure she’d be proud to hear how well you’re talking these days.”

Runner cocked his head to the side.  “Gadgit hears me.  Jus’ cause she don’ talk back don’ mean she don’ listen,” Runner balled up his paw and punched Devin lightly on his good arm.

“Easy, easy.  I hope you’re right.  Maybe she can hear us.  Well, I’m going to head up, maybe get a little sleep.”

“You should go hobe instead,” Runner shook his head.  “Tibby and Teema got your room all cleerd out—get out of the hosbiddle for a while.”

“You know me, sport,” Devin chuckled wistfully, shaking his head.  “Work, work, work.”

****************

Gadget opened her eyes but couldn't move.  A dull bloom of bone-deep ache had taken up residence all down her side, and zigzagged off into different directions when it reached her stomach.  Her first coherent thought was, Thank God, I'm alive.  She was certain that terrible spiking sensation, and the blackness that followed, were the period at the end of her sentence.  The story, blessedly, seemed to pick back up where it left off, but she was fuzzy on the details.

This much she knew as she stared up at the acoustic-tiled ceiling: she was in a hospital, surrounded by whirring and wheezing machines, and one of them was breathing for her.  Flicking her eyes to the side she saw the black shape of the respirator bellows, moving like an accordion trapped in a glass jar.  A breathing tube snaked between her lips and her throat; it felt like it'd been there for a long time.  Her chest rose and fell with no effort on her part, and she quickly decided not to try breathing against the ceaseless rhythm the machine forced on her.  Outside the reinforced window, nurses and doctors flitted by on their rounds, not looking in her direction because none of them expected her to look back.  She darted her eyes around the white room with its I.V. stands and crash cart, but they came to rest on her most hoped-for of sights.

Devin was sprawled out in a chair at the foot of her bed, with his foot paws propped up on the foot board.  Gadget's medical chart was open on his lap, a pen dangling loosely in one paw as he snored, looking scruffy in clothes left unchanged for too long.  His lab coat—the old grungy normal one, not the one made out of Turner’s miracle fabric—had become even more stained and frazzled.   Devin stirred in his sleep, brushing his whiskers before settling back in.  I must still be in awfully rough shape, she thought.  Sure, the chart’s upside down, but it’s got more ups and downs than the Swiss Alps…

Oh, but if I'm this bad off, what about the baby? Please, God!

Gadget tried to speak around the blue plastic tube, but only managed a low wet gurgle.  Okay, she started an inventory of herself, is there anything I can move? Arms, legs--nope.  The connections were all still there but she was too terribly weak--or just plain stiff--to do much more than twitch them.  They were coming back, but only slowly.  Her tail, though pinned halfway under her body, responded to her request for action, with a sleepy sideways flop.  Maybe if I can reach the call button--she snaked her tail down alongside the bed and fumbled it across the switchplate there.  A light went on by the door, blinking in its metal grille.  A faint, far off buzzer sounded, and clicking heels announced the approach of a nurse from down the hall.

"Dr. Packard?" The nurse stuck her head into the room.  Devin startled and sent the medical chart crashing to the floor.  Gadget rolled her eyes wildly, trying to attract attention.  "Sorry.  Did you ring the call bell, Doctor?"

"Not me," Devin yawned, and bent to pick up the chart.  As he did, he saw Gadget's tail hanging over the side of her bed.  He straightened suddenly and locked his eyes on hers.

Thank God, she blinked in relief.

"Gadget? Gadget! You're awake!" Devin beamed.  He spun to face the nurse.  "Get the attending!"

"Right now, that's you," the nurse reminded him.

Devin pounded his forehead.  "Then get me someone with respiratory therapy.  Anybody.  Just get me backup!"

Devin sprinted to the head of Gadget's bed, putting a paw under her chin and falling to his knees beside her.  "Gadget, can you hear me?" She tilted her head for yes, feeling the breathing tube pull at her.  "Do you think you can breathe without the machine now?"

Hell, yes, she tilted again. 

Devin slapped a few switches and unhooked the long hose from its attachment to her mouth tube.  The respirator fell silent, but Gadget's breath whistled strongly through the tube left in her throat.  "Okay, now this is going to feel weird--when I tell you, breathe out.  "Gadget nodded more freely now, but Devin put a gently restraining paw to her forehead.  He grasped the end of her mouth tube with his other paw.  "Okay.  One, two, now. "

With that, he carefully drew the tube out.  She pushed forward and the tube came free with a whoosh of her breath.  She coughed, grimacing at fresh pain in her chest which luckily went away as soon as Devin set her head back in its place on the pillow.

"Graakk," she croaked.

"Try some water in a second," Devin suggested, and she nodded once more.  He filled the cup with water from a jug on her bedside table and tipped it to her lips.  "Is that better?"

"Oh, I'm so glad to see you, Dev," she hoarsely voiced her gratitude as he drew the cup away.  "I thought was dead for sure."

"Not if I have anything to say about it, sweetheart." Devin checked her pulse and began massaging her sore arms.  "Been trying to keep your muscle tone up a little."

"How long?" Gadget felt like a time-traveler with a one-way ticket.

"Over a week, Gadge.  You had us all worried."

"The baby, Dev, is the baby all right?"

Devin grinned proudly.  "It was a close thing, but she's a fighter, just like her mother."

"I have a daughter? " Gadget whispered in wonder.  "Oh, thank God, and thank you, Devin.  You saved her! "

Devin stuck his paws in his lab coat and shuffled his footpaws in an aww-shucks sort of way.  "Well, I had little help.  You know, your father could’ve made one hell of a surgeon himself.  We kept you alive—you kept your daughter alive.  You fought."

“I’ll pat myself on the back later,” she promised.  “Right now, though," as weak as she was she reached out, arms heavy as lead, her paws seeking, "my daughter.  Let me see her.  Please. "

Devin gently pushed her paws back down onto the coverlet.  "Are you okay if I leave you alone for a second? We moved you close to the nursery, so if--" he winced at the thought, "--so when you woke up--"

"I'll be fine just as long as you come back packing a papoose," she reassured him.

"Can do," he said, standing up and bounding out of the room.

Gadget grinned wearily.  I’ve got a daughter!  Wow!  A baby goose is a gosling, a little bear is a cub, but what the hey is a baby half-mouse called?  Never mind—whatever she’s called, she’s going to grow up with the coolest damn toys on Earth.  I get to hear her call me Mama for the first time, watch her take her first steps, help her put together her first internal combustion engine...

She drifted off for a minute, but a cranky voice and the clatter of a collision in the hallway outside her room shook her out of her daze.

“Ack!  Watch where you point that thing!”  came Timmy’s voice.

“Communications breakdown, ‘s always the same,” groused Dennis.  “Wot, we got ta put tairn signals on your blinkin’ behind, now?”

“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” cautioned Bianca, as Dennis wedged Bernard through the door in a wheelchair.

“Remember who you’re talking to,” Tina pointed out, holding the door open wider.  Just behind came Timothy, who had traded his own chair for a pair of arm-brace crutches.

“Jeez, Timothy,” Gadget greeted him.  “You look like one of those land-striders from The Dark Crystal.”

Timothy did a quick 360-degree turn on his crutches.  “Want to give it a try, little miss ‘staying-conscious-is-too-much-trouble’?”

“Good to see you too,” Gadget huffed.  “Word must spread quick—”

“Devin’s shouting it to the mountaintops,” nodded Bernard.  “I think everybody must know by now.”

A confused-looking respiratory therapist leaned into the doorway, paws full of equipment.  “Hey, only two visitors at a time,” she warned.

“Oh, put a sock in it,” Gadget called from the bed.  The therapist shrugged and retreated, to the laughter of all assembled.

“You gave us a terrible fright, darling!” cooed Bianca.  “Try to stay away from exploding machines for a while, all right?”

“No can do,” Gadget shook her head.  “I’m kind of a mad scientist, remember?  It’s in the job description.”

“Inventor,” Geegaw corrected her, feeling his way into the room as Runner held his paw.   He wore a wraparound pair of dark sunglasses, but tilted them down over his nose and squinted in her direction.  “How’s my favorite blur doing today?”

“Daddy?  Oh, daddy, I’m so glad to see you,” Gadget reached out for him.  The others cleared a path as he picked his way to her bedside and carefully felt around for her headfur, patting her face to get its shape back into his memory.  He picked up one of her paws and gave it a whiskery kiss, tears leaking from under the sunglasses.

“Tha’ tugs at the heartstrings, it does,” Dennis pulled a plaid hankerchief out of one pocket and blew into it.

“Can’t see you too well, yet,” choked Geegaw.  “Good to hear and feel you moving around, though.”

“You were so brave, Papa, you and Devin—thank you for saving me up there—”

“All my work comes with a lifetime warranty,” Geegaw promised, “but if you need any more service or repairs I think I’ll leave that to Devin.”

Runner mock-impatiently tapped a footpaw, crossing his arms.  “Whassa squirrel got to do to get a hug aroud here?”

“Get within reach, silly,” Gadget waved him over.  He gingerly leaned in—she wrapped her arm around him and he gave her a peck on the cheek.  She rubbed the spot and clicked her tongue.  “Well, small fry, aren’t you frisky?  You’re lucky Devin’s stepped out for a—”

Someone knocked at the door.  Flanked by Elizabeth and Justin, Devin stood there, beaming and cradling a small blanket-wrapped bundle.

“Ran into a few people,” Devin started, taking in the scene.

“A few more people, he means,” chuckled Justin.

“Give her here, Devin, give her here,” cried Gadget.

“Easy, easy,” shushed Devin, brushing toward her hospital bed with all the grace of a Steadicam operator.  He nestled the precious cargo against Gadget, and she touched her daughter’s tiny whiskers in open-mouthed wonder.

“She’s beautiful, Dev—just look at her!”  Oh, her chubby little paws, her—stripes? And those two little front teeth--  “Huh—that’s strange—”

“What’s that, sweetheart?” Devin cocked his head and leaned in for a closer look at mother and daughter.

“I have the strangest feeling I’ve seen those teeth before,” she wrapped her paw around her daughter’s much smaller one—a strip of bright floral fabric was clutched tightly in it.

“I don’t recommend trying to take that away from her,” warned Devin.  “She wouldn’t stop crying for the longest time, but she latched onto that, pulled it right out of your hair, and she’s been right as rain ever since.”

“That—that was Dale’s!”

“So is she,” Devin grinned.  “She’s half chipmunk, we’ve checked.”

Gadget gasped.  “Don’t you play with me, Devin—”

“I swear,” Devin put his paw over his heart.  “Rescue Aid had a DNA sample for Dale in some of the files that survived.  I’d tell you why, but you’d laugh and pull your stitches.”

“Oh, I love you, Dev—not just for that, but it helps—” Gadget sighed, extremely relieved.  “You,” she told her daughter as she wrinkled up her little nose, “are going to have a complete lack of fashion sense, just like your father.”

“I’ll say.  His shirts were so loud we thought about renting him out as a lighthouse,” Bernard murmured, earning an elbow in the ribs from Bianca.

“What to call her, what to call her,” Gadget tapped one pawpad on her chin.

Runner shuffled his feet guiltily.  “Debbin?  You wanna tell her?”

“Tell me what?” Gadget looked up suspiciously.

Devin winced.  “Well, we couldn’t keep calling her ‘Baby Hackwrench’,” he started.

“Tried keeping up with tradition,” Geegaw grunted.  “My father was Doodad, I’m Geegaw, you’re Gadget… for this new addition we tried out Connie, short for contraption… no good.”

“Gem, short for Gimcrack, that was in the running,” remembered Bernard.

“Just say no to ‘crack’,” Gadget narrowed her eyes at him.  “Can you imagine the trouble she’d have at school?”

“I voted for Maggie, short for ‘thingamajig’”, laughed Elizabeth.

Gadget growled.  “Enough is enough.  Come on, out with it, you furry fiends, what have you been calling my daughter?”

“Hilly!” Runner stuck out his chest proudly.

“Runner came up with that one,” Devin explained.  “And it stuck pretty well.”

“It’s not bad,” mused Gadget.  “How’d you come up with it, Runner?”

“Hilly, because a hill is what comes after a Dale!” Runner’s whiskers twitched hopefully.

“Hilly Hackwrench,” Gadget breathed, trying out the right-sounding name as Devin squeezed her paw.  All her friends (and a little bit of family) drew in closer for a better look at her daughter. 

“I love you, little Hilly,” she said.

THE END

Button images by Keith Elder