Ed Archer sat down at a table in the cafeteria. He drummed his fingers methodically on the tabletop, then stared down at the table and at his smudged fingerprints on it. He pulled the longshot off of his back and set it on the table. Withdrawing his knife he pried open the barrel assembly. He tested a tension rod and went to work tightening it. He detached a sliding bolt, poked around his fingers. Yes, it was a shoddy job but even though he didn’t know how the gun was made he tried to do his best to keep it fully functional. He scraped at a bit of mineral build up which he had no idea of how it got there. He nodded to himself and gripped the bolt between his thumb and knife blade. With a diagonal flick, it snapped into place again, sturdily held. He smiled slightly at his handiwork, glad he studied up on what makes the world go round ... physics a la huumunnity. No wonder it took so long to invent gun powder, he thought. Then he murmured in Syrynykk, "Shaman and builders are not friends." He tapped the casing closed with the butt of his knife, hoping he could find something better ... something big and metal to realign the magnetic couplings with at some point in his future. ::The young woman made her way to the cafeteria. She saw the food table and quickly head that way. Her throat was dry and she muttered hoarsely, "Sure hope these people have water."
Chumba, doing some work in the cafeteria, overheard Arty as he swept the floor. "We sure do hun," he told her. "It's in the cooler there … it's purified." He smiled to her and continued hid duty. She thanked him got her water and made her way to a table, her back to the wall, her eyes on the door. When Chumba finished up his sweeping, which generally was an exercise in futility anyway, he moved over to properly introduce himself. "I'm Chumba … the Janitor. You need help finding anything in the hospital … you ask me. I can find anything."
"Thank you," she said. "My name's Alexia, but most people call me Arty." Chumba nodded and pointed out the doctor in the room, Terra Skye and explained who she was. He told the woman he was pleased to meet her and she returned the sentiment.
"It’s nice to see a friendly face once in a while," she said and sipped her water. A heavy sigh left her as the water soothed her dry throat. She looked around the room once again before taking a small notepad from her pocket with various and sundry scribbling on it. She tended to it as if it were a prize possession and was careful not to let anyone see it. The janitor wasn’t a problem as he’d gone on about his mopping and cleaning.
Sitting at the table with her, Justice turned to Terra. He explained quietly that he needed a favor for the fruit and water he’d brought previously. Terra nodded, aware that they owed him and he explained it was a shower card that he wanted. Tired as she was, she smiled and went to get him one. Certain he knew where to go, she passed the card on to him and he gathered himself together to go clean up. He exchanged glances with Bliss expecting her to remain so that they could talk and she nodded in understanding.
When he’d gone, Bliss moved over to Terra to ask how she was and whether or not she knew how to dispose of a thorn from the sentient She vine. Terra suggested the incinerator and Bliss agreed that this seemed the wisest course. Bliss fell silent as Chumba, done with his mopping up in the cafeteria, brought Terra a glass of water.
"Here Doc," he told her. "You look like you could use this." She thanked him and offered him a seat with them at the table. Relived to have a moment’s reprieve from constantly cleaning up the ER messes, he sat and they chatted for a bit. She asked how he was doing with his new knee that the prosthetics department had brought him. It was working out fine for him. When he learned that her burns from the laboratory explosion were healing he was silent a moment then he told her how sorry he was about her loss of her husband, Garth.
If it seemed odd to him that she smiled, gently, tiredly, but definitely smiled; he made no verbal notice of it. He patted her back in a grandfatherly fashion and said, "Some of us just aren't supposed to marry," as if that were a comforting thing in the desolation of widowhood.
"Wounds heal. Both physical and mental," she said. Perhaps he thought her wise for her years. He had been around for nearly 70 on his own – surviving this and that, not to mention the Great War itself. He’d have said more, but a page came then for the doctor on call and Terra sighed. "So much for rest." She stood and pushed her chair in. "I’ll be back."
Bliss considered her options and murmured, "The fumes and toxins from the thorn shouldn’t get out from the incinerator."
Ed had listened as Bliss and Terra chatted and smiled to himself at their conversation. His hand tensed a bit and relaxed and then he shook his head and slung his rifle over his shoulder. He stood and walked over to Bliss. He stopped a few steps from her. "You have a She thorn?"
Bliss glanced up. "Yes?"
"Is that a question or an answer?"
Bliss looked the slightest bit irritated. "Yes I have one."
"Give it to me." He ordered flatly.
"No," she said immediately and just as flatly.
"I have ways of handling these things that you, noticeably, lack."
"Well, that was smoothly put," she told him, her pale brow lifting.
"Was it?" He extended his hand. "You hold on forcefully to something you don't want. Is this greed I detect?"
She laughed. "It's called caution. I have a memento that would be better destroyed. I don't know you or what you would do with it."
He muttered softly, "Huumunn..." it was very nearly a swear in and of itself. "Look, miss, you don't understand..."
"I understand I can't help being human."
"It is less of a momento when burned. Understand that?"
"Not really. I intend on destroying it..."
"You intend on wasting nature's wonders...due to your own paranoia."
"Not paranoia, it's the thorn that ended up embedded in my mothers arm. She became part of-She-."
"You don't turn into She from a thorn. Otherwise I'm sure you would have died long ago."
Bliss tried to explain, frustrated. "The thorn stuck her, embedded in her skin and she did become -She-."
Equally frustrated, Ed insisted, "It broke off in transformation."
"No," Bliss shook her head. "I was there, I saw it stick her … and over time she became -She-."
"You know nothing, girl," he told her derisively and rolled up his sleeve. Along the underside of his arm were sparse patches of foliage ... what might be assumed to be partial buds. In a low, irritated voice he said, "Ask an expert." Then he dropped the sleeve down just as quickly, so no roving eyes would catch any glimpse. Bliss’ eyes widened and she stood, moving away from Ed, her eyes on him. "Give me the thorn...I need it."
Without further objection, Bliss took out her locket. She opened it and removed the plastic sealed thorn. "All yours."
Ed took it and grinned. He said, "Thank you," as Bliss made her way out to the lobby, all the better to be further away from him. Ed’s smiled faded as he eyed the thorn, dry and lifeless in the plastic enclosure. With a shake of his head, he retreated to another table. He had no idea how much pain was involved with She's invasion of the body. With the thorn as dry as it was, he needed to prepare it so that it would deliver it’s natural anesthesia into his arm. In the wild, the thorns provided the victims of the vine’s assimilation with a certain senselessness about their condition, making the vine’s gradual take over less overtly invasive.
Ed took his knife and whittled at the barbs on the sides of the thorn. When one side was thin and dual-edged, he replaced his knife in it’s sheath and slid the thorn into the skin of his arm. The "natural" anesthesia eased the pain in his arm somewhat but it was lacking because of the age of the thorn. Withdrawing the pointed spine, he put it to his mouth and sucked lightly on it. Nothing but a dry taste… "Hmm," he murmured. "Oh well." He rolled down his sleeve so no one would notice. He didn’t care much about the possibility of infection since he believed he was dying in any case. He stowed the thorn away with various other odds and ends in his journey pack.
The lobby doors whooshed open and a woman fell through. As she lay in the doorway holding her bleeding leg, she moaned quietly.
Terra saw the medics running to help the fallen woman with a gurney between them. She finished up with the patient she’d been paged to help and made preparations for the next as the medic called, "Doc, we got one for you!"
Terra made her way over as the medics carefully moved the woman to the gurney. The woman looked up and began to explain, her green eyes filled with tears. "Freemen… I… They," she said, sobbing and moaning in between the cries of pain and humiliation. She held her leg as if she alone was able to stop the bleeding.
"Easy now," Terra said. "I’m Dr. Skye. I would like to look at your leg…"
"Freemen," the woman said again. "They ... came from. ... nowhere. I ... tried to ... get away ..." The tears ran down her cheeks. "They ... wanted ... wanted ... " She tried to say the words, her voice choking with the pain and shame that comes with such a proclamation. "Rape me ... but ... I kicked ... him ... and ran. They fired."
"I see," Terra told her, finding the tale difficult to take in. "You’ll be okay. Let’s get you fixed up." She ordered X-rays and ordered the painkillers they’d need to remove the bullet. She tried to comfort the woman right up until the x-rays were taken. She needed to be out of the way during that, to keep the danger to the babies she carried to a minimum. After careful examination of the films, she knew where the bullet was and what to do. It wasn’t embedded deeply or the woman wouldn’t have made it as far as she had on her own. The "Freemen" who’d fired must’ve been a terribly bad shot, Terra thought.
The woman kept sobbing about how much it hurt while the medics cleaned and prepared the injury for surgery. The topical anesthetic quickly took care of that initial pain. When all was ready and a curtain had been set up to keep the woman from seeing the actual bullet removal, Terra told her, "In a few minutes you will be as good as new." She smiled, confident about that. She tested the leg for numbness and when they’d waited and the patient had no reflex response, Terra set to work. While she incised and injected another layer of pain meds, the student medic took her personal information for the records. It helped to process the records and to keep the patient’s mind off the work.
Terra used forceps to find the bullet and had to fiddle a bit to get it out. It had split in two and lodged in two portions of muscle. It must have been hell just walking after all.
It was frustrating to have to work with limited tools when all the Union members knew that the knowledge had existed and yet existed, to do everything they did in the hospital faster and more efficiently than they could in the present day. So many times a patient had to be put in danger of infection because antibiotics weren’t available or sufficient to counteract the bacteria they’d encountered just on their way to the hospital to be treated. Then, the stay itself was dangerous if the necessary equipment was in short supply. Clean bandages…the proper procedures… the after surgery care. Fortunately, bullet wounds of the type suffered by this patient were a dime a dozen and effective, efficient shortcuts had been found.
"For the record," the student Medic asked, "What is your name?"
Terra salved the wound with a herbal antibacterial concoction recently developed in the labs that had proven very effective and began stitching up the wound with three-oh silk and a sterilized needle. The woman was looking at the Medic and saying, "Annaree Lowinn."
Terra's eyes widened as she nearly dropped the needle.
Private Arty had come from the cafeteria to see what the commotion was about and stood by, quietly listening to the woman’s story. She was disgusted by what she heard and returned to her seat slapping the notebook she’d been writing in down again on the table top. She muttered to herself quietly, angrily and Chumba asked her if she were all right. When she explained that she was, he told her to just call him if she needed anything at all for which she weakly thanked him.
Ed, having completed his ritual with the She thorn, rose and gathered together his stuff. In moments, he was moving down the hall to the exit, his interest in the rest of the night’s events abruptly cut off. He drifted out into the night away from NRMH and the darkness swallowed him as easily as if he hadn’t existed.
With the awareness that this was Garth’s *wife* Terra found her hands trembling. She handed the needle and thread to the medic who stood with her, and told him to finish the job of stitching up the patient’s wound and she would put in an order for her medicine. As she moved out of the room, her heart was racing and her hands seemed to shake that much the more. "Impossible," she whispered quietly to herself.
She ordered the medicine, ordered a set of crutches, fiddled with her files, checked the surgical charts -- anything to keep busy before having to walk back into that room. The other medic finished stitching and dressing the wound. "There you go," he said with a smile. "The doc should be back with you soon."
Anna sighed and looked down at the wound. "You do it...even faster...these days."
"We have lots of practice," he told her. An orderly brought in the ordered crutches. Anna would need to keep her weight off the wounded leg a while. Terra walked back in, her face masked behind her smile for all occasions.
"Here are your medicines, one for pain, one to prevent infection. You should be fine. Walk with the crutches and take this according to the directions."
She looked at Terra and smiled. "Thanks."
Terra’s smile lasted a moment longer, then faded. "Your name is Lowinn?"
"Annaree Lowinn. But please ... just Anna. Do I know you?"
"Uhm, I don’t believe so ..I have heard of you however. Can you tell me where do you live?" She asked with chart in had as if she were taking information for the hospital records.
Anna nodded. "For the past few months I've been at the Church compound." She looked down at her bloodied pilgrim robes.
"So, that’s where do you live?"
"Yes," Anna said.
Terra nodded and pointed to the pain medication. "This.. should help your pain. If you notice any fever," she stammered just a bit, "please come back." She turned to go and Anna stopped her with a hand on her arm.
"Wait...maybe you can help me. I was coming here for a reason. Before this happened."
Terra turned back and regarded her quietly. "I .will try " She had her left hand in her pocket, hidden, and making a fist
The woman sat up, her green eyes staring into Terra's smoky grays. She held up her hand, to show off the silver wedding band, matching the one Garth used to wear. "I'm looking for my husband...a Commander Garth Lowinn. He's with the Freemen. I haven't seen him in months ... he probably thinks I'm dead."
Terra just looked at her, her mind racing because she was trying to figure out what to say. When it came down to it, she figured the direct approach was best. "Mrs. Lowinn?"
"Please, just Anna."
"Anna, your husband … recently died. I am sorry to inform you of this." She watched the woman’s eyes widen afresh and how her mouth opened and closed with no words to come out. Terra felt the pang of that deep inside her own heart. Anna’s eyes filled with tears. "I’m sorry," Terra said again.
"He's dead?" She shook her head. "I don't believe you."
Terra was curious about how it was that Anna Lowinn was a Church of the Nuclear Messiah member and her husband, Terra’s own husband, was a Freemen. But it would have been heartless to comment on it, even if she began to have the odd feeling that something wasn’t quite right here. "I can pull up his file if you wish. He is deceased however," she tried to keep her voice sounding sympathetic.
"No...no...that’s...that’s impossible..."
Terra felt the need to flee. Anything, plasma guns, even facing fang face again would be better than this. "I am sorry for your loss," she managed. "but.. if you will excuse me.. I have some patients to tend to " Terra nearly ran from the room, relieved.
Anna sat, turning and turning the ring on her left hand. "Garth...dead...." She sobbed quietly, her head sliding into her hands, the silver wedding band sparkling in the harsh glare of the ER cubicle.
Perhaps because he was old, perhaps just because he was tired, Chumba growled when another bleeding patient came in. He’d just finished the clean up of the woman who’d fallen in the door way, her blood splattering everywhere when this fellow, clutching his arm, walked in. Blood was running between his fingers, staining the fabric of his trench coat and dripping to the tile floor.
"Hey, I just mopped here…"
"Sorry to bother you, but how would I go about getting treatment?" The man asked.
"Sit over there and wait for a doc, and don't bleed everywhere," the old one muttered.
"Thanks," the man said amiably. He tiptoed around the freshly mopped floor and found an open chair. He looked around the room waiting for a medic of some sort. He scratched at the drying blood near his wound and continued to keep pressure on it.
"There's only one Doc on tonight," Chumba said, somewhat less harshly. "She'll be out in a bit she's with someone now." The man began to tap his feet while he waited. Chumba finished his mopping and noticed that the man kept the rest of his blood from dripping onto the floor with a modicum of satisfaction. It made him feel downright friendly. "Care for a water or some stew?" He asked the man.
"Water please?"
Chumba pointed down the hall to the cafeteria. "It's down there," he said. "Help yourself, it's clean." The young man thanked him and began to make his way down the hall. At this point, Arty, who’d checked her chronograph and realized she’d needed to get going, moved out of the cafeteria and down the hall toward the double doors leading outside. She said goodnight to Chumba who’d been so nice to her and made sure not to walk where he’d had to mop twice already as she went out into the dark night.
Relieved at the respite from dealing with Garth’s first wife, Terra sighed softly in the hall outside the exam room where Anna was dealing with the news about Garth’s death. Chumba directed her to the departing fellow who needed assistance and she moved off after him down the hall. Bliss caught Terra’s attention as she moved, from where Bliss sat at an Elliot terminal. Bliss had been sitting there since leaving the cafeteria earlier. She was trying to stay quiet and not bleed so that Chumba wouldn’t take to yelling at her too. She smiled at Terra and the doctor gave the girl a very strange look that Bliss found impossible to interpret. Terra’s hands were clearly trembling however and she watched Terra till the doc moved out of sight. Bliss rubbed the back of her neck, reminded that Terra had given her pain pills to take for the discomfort. She thought about taking some, but was distracted by some interesting information at Elliot’s terminal and decided to do a bit of study. She would keep an eye on Terra when the woman was in the room… she thought of it as a favor to Garth. She owed him.
The injured young man made a movement with his good arm and Terra could see the blood on the other. "May I help you ?"
"Yes, I seem to have a problem," he said which seemed terribly obvious to Terra because of all the blood. A sight only made worse by the man’s motion to reveal the wound across his forearm. "I thought I'd stitched it shut, but I guess I didn't do a good enough job," he said.
Terra nodded and said, "Follow me " He obeyed as she led him to another cubicle for treatment. "So tell me what happened," she said, smiling slightly, trying to regain her beside manner. A doctor’s assistant joined them to clean the wound while Terra listened to the man’s tale.
"Well, I was just tryin' to find a place to stay the night when these men tried to mug me, I had to fight them, off, but they cut me here. I stitched it shut after they'd run off, but it opened up again about an hour ago and hasn't stopped bleedin' since."
"OK." She went to fill a syringe with antibiotics as well as pain meds.
"I think it's infected cuz I can't feel my hand.
"We will have to flush it out and clean it thoroughly." Something she’d planned to do anyway.
"Wait, before you do this... Will this cost me anything?"
"No," Terra managed a smile. It’d been a while since anyone was concerned with paying anyone at the hospital. "This’ll cost you nothing."
"Thank you," the man said with a smile. He looked around the room absently as his wound was tended to. "So what's your story doc?"
"Mine?"
"Yeah, everyone's got a sob story nowadays, what's yours?"
She shrugged. "I treat patients here and am one of the researchers. Other than that, things are just peachy." She smiled again, lying though her teeth. But it wouldn’t be comforting to a patient to tell them all one’s woes while you were stitching up their wounds.
"Sure they are," he said with a chuckle. "And I'm the picture of health."
Terra couldn’t help it. Her fake smile faded to be replaced with a real one, if slight. "Heh. I am here to make you better." She laughed softly at his expression.
"I hope you're not laughing because you can't make me any better."
"Well.. lets get this closed up, and we’ll see." She began to painstakingly slowly stitch up his wound. He cringed as the needle slid through his skin. Terra’s stitches were precision and pretty. She was taking pride in her work for this man who’d made her smile.
"Wow, you're much better at that than I am."
She just smiled, again, genuinely. When she finished with the stitching, she said, "OK. I am ordering some antibiotics and painkillers for you."
"Thank you very much ma'am."
Terra made a quick call from the ER cubicle’s internal communications system ordering the man’s medications and asking the pharmacy to deliver them. That way, she could avoid running into the discharged Anna Lowinn for that much longer. When the medication and the thin slip of durafilm printout was brought by an orderly, Terra explained the dosages to her patient and the cautions. "If you start running a fever ..or have a reaction . get back here immediately, OK?" She smiled to him.
"Okay." He stood up and extended his hand. "Thank you."
Terra shook his hand as he offered it to her. "Take care... Also, if you’re hungry the cafeteria might be open."
"I'll keep that in mind," he said while he pulled his hood up over his head. Terra nodded and made her way back out to the ER desk nearest the lobby to look for Bliss.
Her medicine and information in hand, Anna looked up, the ER visible through the partially open cubicle door. She wiped futilely at her tears and pushed herself from the gurney to limp slowly out of the ER into the lobby. Moving awkwardly with the crutches, her eyes wide, her cheeks flushed and tear stained, she tried to remember the layout of the hospital. When she couldn’t, she sobbed softly as she slumped into a chair in the lobby, holding her head in her hands and crying softly, "Garth...how...why..?"
Bliss heard the name Garth spoken and peeked up over the terminal. Chumba, she saw, walked over to Anna. "You all right Ma'am?" As he looked her over carefully, he said, "Do I know you? You look awfully familiar."
"Chumba," she murmured, clearly knowing the hospital’s janitor. "He's dead..."
"Anna?" He gasped and his eyes opened more widely. "Anna. It is you."
"Chumba..." she said, heartbroken, unable to smile through her tears though she seemed glad to see him.
"We thought you dead. So did Garth, I met him … he was … quite a man."
"Yes, he was..."
"He brought a great joy to Terra’s life for the small time they were married. It's a shame it was so short," even as he said it, Chumba seemed to realize that it was the wrong thing *to* say. Bliss’ eyes were dark with concern as she watched as well, listening to their conversation.
Anna’s jaw dropped and she said, "Terra!" Her doctor? "They were married?"
Chumba nodded. "Garth married her a while ago. Just a few short weeks I guess before his death."
"How ... I haven't been ... gone ... but only ... a few months!" She was shocked, he could see it in her eyes. And he was confused because it had been some time since he had seen Anna himself. Sometimes he doubted his memory but …
"Garth behaved as if it had been years. While he was being treated here he fell deeply in love with Terra," Chumba said has the very woman came out of a cubicle. "She needed him. She deserved him," he continued.
Anna’s sadness flashed into anger and she stood. "Garth loved me!"
"I’ve no doubt of it. He wore the locket until his death. But, he fell in love with Terra. I don’t have to tell you that war does strange things sometimes."
"He must have run to ... to ... Terra," she said, her voice filled with loathing, "in order to ... to ... " She struggled with the concept of Garth loving someone else. It must have been just for sex… just for comfort… and she finished by saying, "To help him get over me." As if it could have been no other reason and no love could have been as important to him as Anna was.
Terra overheard Anna Lowinn’s vehement denial that Garth could have loved anyone else. She saw that Bliss was still by the Elliot terminal and that the girls’ eyes were on the janitor and Anna. The man she’d just treated had come out of the cubicle and was already heading for the cafeteria. Terra reasoned it would be a good time to go there herself and began to follow him, none too steady on her legs. He turned, noticed her and waited till she came along side him to ask her if she were all right. "Just tired," she claimed. "Just tired."
"Cripes, how long have you been up for ma'am?" He asked as he took a drink of his water.
"Going to be a long night," she said as she moved to make a cup of tea.
He looked at her and let out a soft, quiet, pitying laugh. "You do have a sob story, don't you?"
"You said everyone does. "She shrugged. "It doesn’t help to dwell on it."
"Yeah, but I find it makes you feel a little bit better to get someone else's opinion."
"Maybe. But, it still changes nothing. Things are the way they are. It’s best to live with them."
"I agree with you there, but it's been my motto to make the best of things."
"Ohh yes," she said, not as if she really agreed at all. "I agree." She smiled and sipped her tea.
"So, what kind of story do you have, tragic family? lost love? Dismemberment?" He smiled to make light of his question.
Terra again found herself unable to help but laugh softly – and she was glad of the feeling as it came. "No no dismemberment." His regard as he smiled brought a soft blush to color her cheek.
"Would I be too forward if I said that you're very beautiful when you smile?"
Terra smiled and looked down. "Uhm, thanks." Terra blushed slightly. Was it wrong to let someone’s words make her feel good after so much pain and so much stress? She didn’t think so. She sighed. Like Bliss in the lobby, Terra didn’t understand why Anna had remained in a Church compound never bothering to let her grieving husband know she was alive. Anna wore the markings of the church, her Freemen husband’s hated enemy and gave no explanation for it. Garth had believed her dead and finally been able to move on. So, while Chumba and Bliss tried to convince the woman who said she was Anna Lowinn that Garth had indeed fallen deeply in love with Terra and that it wasn’t just that he’d needed someone to fill the gap, Terra realized that distancing herself from that was probably the wisest thing. It was going to be a long enough night without having to defend the love she had for Garth to a shadow from his past. Sitting with a thankful patient and enjoying his company was just exactly what the doctor had ordered – for herself.
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