First Step Toward Recovery

Melissa continued to scream all the way back to Edan. As far as she was concerned, she was going from one evil Methos to another! She did not equate the man on the horse with the one who had given her medicine not too very long ago; she only knew it was the same face that had been repeatedly abusing her for the past few days.

Methos was able to hold her on the horse well enough - after all, he'd had practice - but once they got to town he began shouting for the doctor to come out.

To his surprise, two men ran out of the little clinic, both of them wearing his face! And neither one of them was Dr. Helm. As Methos pulled Alice to a halt in front of them, Sarah Jo elbowed her way between the two and reached up to pull the girl down to the ground.

"Where's Dr. Helm?" Methos asked.

"Right behind you," the nurse said. Sure enough, the horse that Helm was riding came sliding to a rough stop a few feet away. "I followed in case I was needed," he explained.

"Someone help me untie her," Sarah Jo called out as she pulled the gag from Melissa's mouth.

Methos eyed the doctor, and the other two who were clearly also physicians. "Great. You wouldn't have one in there who doesn't look like this poor girl's attacker, would you?"

"No," Sarah Jo grumbled, "but Kat is a qualified midwife. She is over at the house doing some sewing."

Considering the way Melissa was shrieking at the sight of all these men, Methos thought it the best course of action. "Meanwhile, why don't you take her inside?" He turned to Giles, Helm and Alex. "Who wants to go and get the midwife?"

"Midwife?" asked Alex haughtily, as if he had never heard anything so backward.

Helm eyed the youngster and said, "Fine. I'll go." He seemed to have decided against liking Alex already.

"You'd work better with Kat anyway," said Methos. "You've probably had practice with midwives. No offense," he said to Alex. "Why don't you go in and see if you can get her ready for a pelvic exam."

Alex turned a bit pale and said, "I think I'll get the midwife after all," and he rushed off without asking which house it was.

"I'll do it," Sarah Jo said, slipping her arm around the hysterically sobbing Melissa's waist to steady her as she helped her walk inside. "The less she sees of you guys right now the better. Now get." It was obvious from the fire in the little nurse's eyes that she meant business.

Methos looked helpless. "I didn't do anything to harm her," he said, but he knew it would hold no water. As she got Melissa inside, Methos and Helm said hello and shook hands with Giles, who seemed a thoroughly charming young man.

Once Sarah Jo got Melissa into an examination room, she got the bloodstained clothing off of her and slipped a gown over her head before helping her to lie down. "It will be all right, sweetie," she said gently. "I won't let anyone hurt you anymore."

Melissa hardly heard. The same face haunted her - everywhere she looked! Everywhere but Sarah, of course. She was just starting to relax, though she was still panting in terror, when Katherine entered with Giles and Helm.

At the sight of them, she started to scream, reaching out to cling to Sarah Jo for protection. "Out," Katherine said quietly to the men. "You can give me advice from outside the room."

They grumbled - all but Alex, who seemed well free of it - but they did as she asked. "Tell us exactly what you see," said Giles, who had more modern knowledge and, while more trusting than Alex of the midwife's talents, still wasn't sure she should be doing the exam alone.

Katherine did a quick visual exam of the girl's breasts and pelvic area, then covered her up with a sheet, leaving Sarah Jo to continue comforting her. Leaving the room, she motioned the doctors aside. "She has numerous bruises and a bite mark that broke the skin on her left breast. She has definitely been raped. Repeatedly. She is going to need some repair work on her perineum area, and from the extreme tenderness in her lower abdomen, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that she had a Urinary Tract Infection. I didn't do an internal, but I would be willing to bet she has a severely bruised cervix as well."

"Damn it," said Helm. "We're going to have to examine her."

"Is there any way we can put her out?" asked Giles.

They went through the cabinets in the room until the more modern doctor found something Kat could give her. "We'll give her a full look see while she's under," he said.

Katherine took the sedative back into the exam room, and had Sarah Jo gently turn Melissa onto her side. Lifting up the girl's gown, she gave her the injection into her back side, all the while talking quietly and explaining what she was doing to her each step of the way. Once it was done, she and Sarah Jo held Melissa's hands and soothed her until the sedative took effect.

When it did, the doctors were finally allowed in. Alex said he'd wait outside, in case anyone else needed help while they were busy. Helm gave him an odd look and Giles just shrugged. Then they forgot him and devoted their attention to their patient.

"She's so lovely," said Giles, looking at her sleeping face. "Such a waste."

"With proper care and counseling she can recover," Katherine said quietly. "I know. I've been in her shoes myself."

"It had to be someone who looks like us," Helm said. He was arranging her for examination. Giles nodded, then went to get something to put on her bite. It was a few days old, but the bruises looked recent. Helm looked disgusted. "She was sodomized as well."

"From the bleeding, I would think that it was the most recent attack on her," Giles noted. Sarah Jo, her jaw tight, was silently setting up a surgical tray so that the lacerations could be repaired.

"There's no way to tell if it has been done before, but there's very little tearing to the front," Helm noted. He performed a thorough pelvic to determine if there was any internal damage. Even sedated, Melissa moaned when he pressed down on her uterus and bladder area, but there appeared to be no other lacerations other than the ones already noted.

Helm waited for Sarah Jo to give him the suturing needle, and then he went, very carefully, to work. Giles was impressed with his colleague's patience. Meanwhile, he found something to give her for the infection. There weren't many antibiotics there, but there were a few that would work. He wondered what they would do when they ran out. Grow mold?

Once she had been stitched up, the doctors moved aside and let the two women work on cleaning her up. "All done," Sarah Jo said with a shake of her head. "Who gets the honor of carrying her up to one of the bedrooms upstairs? I'll sit with her until the sedation wears off."

"I'll do it," Giles said. His voice sounded almost tender. He was looking at her face again. The chances of him getting to see it again were not very high, he thought, and everyone in the room would agree with him.

She was surprisingly light, and he and Sarah Jo had no difficulty getting her upstairs. As she watched them go, Katherine mumbled something in a language that Helm didn't know, but sounded nasty. "I'm going to have a chat with Methos," she said, tilting her chin up at him. "But first I imagine he will want a full report from you."

"I shouldn't wonder." He paused, then said, "He didn't do this, you know. Whether it was someone with his face *and* his name, it was not the man we know."

"I know," Katherine said, not going into any details. "But I want to hear him say the words anyway." The little midwife and Dr Helm left the clinic. The streets were filling up with people returning from the battle and Methos was standing off to the side, talking to a gloomy looking Duncan.

Actually, he wasn't talking, he was listening. He was tired. He didn't want to talk any more tonight, and he actually didn't want to listen, either. After sending two new men in to the surgery, he had wanted to go right to bed, but Duncan had cornered him and was droning on and on. It was almost hypnotic.

"Duncan," Katherine said softly, slipping her arm in his to steer him away from Methos. "What's wrong?"

"They were dead!" he moaned. "I took their heads myself. But they are alive and well again here on this world!"

Methos shook his head. "How do you think I feel? First Adam Pierson, and then . . . that one." He sounded extremely depressed as he waved toward the other side of the river. "If myself at an earlier time can come here, then someone can come before they died. Look at Sarah Jo - she came from the early 20th century, not modern times."

Katherine's face drained of all color as a flash of hope went through her. "Do you think there is a chance that...," her voiced faltered. If other men who had fallen victim to Duncan's sharp sword were there on Edan, what about Connor? Why wasn't he there as well?

Of course, she didn't know that at that very moment, Connor was returning to the fort as part of Sharpe's team.

Neither did Duncan. He shrugged, and the small seed of hope died inside of Katherine. "I've got work to do," she said quietly. "Let me know when the girl wakes up. I'm sure I can help her get through the trauma of what has happened to her." Not waiting for a reply, she turned and walked away.