["When they bring her in you are sure she's going to die. Her temperature is too high and her body is too small and she's bleeding everywhere, coughing up blood and rattling around unconsciousness." avox!rachel taking care of quinn in the healing center. contains lots of very sad graphic stuff but also lots of healing so. just be aware.]
& if i sing you are my voice
.
do you remember? do you remember being solid? do you remember life before the hole? before you were empty and needed to be filled? there was a time when everything was enough. there was a time you didn't try to get out of your own skin. remember?
—amy reed, clean
…
1
When they bring her in you are sure she's going to die. Her temperature is too high and her body is too small and she's bleeding everywhere, coughing up blood and rattling around unconsciousness.
There are gashes littering her entire torso, smaller ones up and down her arms and legs, webbing across the back of her neck. The left side of her face is smeared in so much red you can't even tell where it's from yet.
You don't want to know what happened to her.
You don't want to know what happened to anyone here.
You find out:
Name: Quinn Fabray
Age: 17
You find out:
Classification: Trauma
Torture
You knew this already.
You always know these things.
Even with the left half of her face sliced open, she's so young and so beautiful. But that doesn't save anyone, and you still think she's going to die.
.
2
Regardless, you set to work stitching her skin. You and Brittany examine the gashes to see where you should start—and there are so many—but the worst are by her ribs, exposing bones. Brittany quietly agrees to treat her ribs while you clean off your face, and you nod.
I know her, she says after a few minutes of steady, quick, careful work. I mean, I know her family. Were they—
She leaves the question there because you shake her head, and she loses her composure for a moment before steadying herself with a deep breath, setting her shoulders. You love Brittany, because she's funny and kind and gentle, from apparently Quinn's same town in the north of District 4.
Brittany starts to hum softly, and you wish you could join her because Quinn is fidgeting and her face is twisting in pain, but your running short on morphling and she's not going to remember this part of everything if she survives—her fever is too high. You wish you could join her because you loved to sing. It was one of your favorite things in the world. When you worked in the factories in District 8 you would sing all day, careful stitches of fabric and notes occupying your day.
Before things got so fucked up. Before a beautiful girl gets dropped off in front of you, about to die after being tortured, and you can't say anything to make her feel better.
Brittany works quickly and deftly. She made nets before the war started, and her hands are calloused and graceful, even with all of the blood. She looks over to where you've gotten the blood off of Quinn's face, and she's slack-jawed and moaning as you start to stitch the gash from her eyebrow to her jaw, and she says, She's so pretty, isn't she?
You nod.
She looks just like her sister, Brittany says, and she hits an especially tender spot because Quinn thrashes once. Brittany stops what she's doing and puts her hand on the right side of Quinn's face, cups her cheek.
Hey Quinn, she says.
Quinn, you can tell, tries to pay attention. She's crying, but she's holding in as many noises as she can, whimpering instead of screaming. Her eyes are unfocused and terrified.
Brittany rubs her thumb over Quinn's cheek. You're in the healing center in 4, okay? Remember me, Brittany? I knew Fran.
Quinn nods a little, stilling as much as possible.
Brittany nods toward you. This is Rachel. You have a cut on your face and you gotta stay still so she fix it, okay?
Quinn takes a few quick breaths, and you're worried she's going to start hyperventilating, but Brittany kisses her forehead and says, You're safe, Quinn. You're safe.
She stays relatively still after that, and the fever is wearing on her, and she's on as many antibiotics as you can give someone of her size, and her eyes start to close. Brittany frowns, but she keeps working.
Even if Quinn dies, Brittany wants her to be as whole as possible.
You knew this already.
.
3
She makes it through the night. You don't leave when your shift is over because you have nothing you want to go home to, and at least here the horrors might be able to be helped by your hands. They're all you have left.
So you hold hers. You're twenty-seven, and Quinn is seventeen, and you think maybe in another universe you might've loved her a lot. There's something about the lay of her eyelashes on her cheeks—she looks like a lot of the people from 4, pale skin and blonde hair, but she doesn't have blue eyes. Quinn's eyes are almost gold, from the brief moments you saw them wide open in fear and pain.
You loved someone in 8, a tall boy named Finn who made you smile and held your hand and told you all kinds of stories about stars.
But he's dead now, and you'd never be able to tell him you loved him anyway.
So you hold Quinn's hand, and when it gets lighter outside, you start to think maybe she won't die, maybe she'll get better. Maybe she can.
You find out:
Her hands are calloused.
The rest of her skin is very soft.
You find out:
Temperature: 103.4º F
You knew this already, because her hand got cooler overnight, but not cold.
Morning is worth something, isn't it. You brush your lips over her knuckles and sighs.
.
4
You get a new shipment of morphling and she's the first person you make sure gets some.
She sleeps for a long time.
She sleeps for seven days, tossing and then still.
It makes you wonder if she is some kind of ocean herself.
.
5
She wakes up on the eighth day, in the afternoon.
Brittany is there with you, and you're on your lunch break. You spend a lot of time in Quinn's room, the both of you, because Brittany sort of knows her and you know Brittany.
Quinn is groggy when she comes to, and she's so scared she starts trembling. Brittany stands calmly and sits beside Quinn. She doesn't try to touch her, but she says, Hey Quinn, you're in the healing center, okay?
Quinn looks confused for a few seconds, but she says, Brittany?
Brittany smiles this dazzling thing. Yeah.
Quinn starts to cry, and she says, They killed everyone, and her voice is heavy and deeper than you'd imagined and wonderfully rough.
Brittany doesn't ask who everyone is; instead she says, Can I hug you? very softly, and Quinn nods.
They stay like that for a long time, Quinn shaking into Brittany's shoulder.
You slip out to go get more morphling, because still needs rest and you have absolutely nothing comforting to say.
.
6
You'd run away after they'd cut out your tongue, horrified and choking on your own blood, and it wasn't even your fault, your dads didn't mean it, but no one seemed to care and your voice stopped on a scream, and you ran and ran and somehow ended up by the sea. You don't know how—you don't remember at all—but you end up by the sea and then in a damp, pretty house and someone is telling you that you're safe and that you're nowhere near the Capitol.
You couldn't talk so you weren't sure you understood. But you nodded.
Later you became a healer because those gentle hands saved you in many more ways than one.
.
7
You're changing Quinn's bandages a few days later when she says, You're an avox.
You nod.
She's quiet and stoic and refuses to look down as you move toward her chest.
They used fishing hooks, she says. Her voice is hollow. You imagine that's how you would sound.
You want to cry and you want to say you're so, so sorry, but you just make sure you're profoundly gentle instead.
I'm sorry that happened to you, she says.
You nod, and she takes a deep breath, looks down.
Her eyes well up and you want to say something to help, but she stares at her half-healed scars and then collects herself.
I know there's one on my face, she says quietly.
You just keep changing bandages.
She waits until you're done, until you have to look her in the eyes—and today they're greener—before she asks, Do you think someone could still love me, even after all of this?
You rake your finger through her hair, smooth and short and blonde, and you nod as steadily as you ever had before.
.
8
She's out of breath and hunched over, arm through the crook of your elbow. She's heavier and taller than you, but you're strong.
You're walking a little outside, and she's wearing boots and a hospital gown and a sweater, and she's very young and adorable, and if you could laugh lightly and tease her for it, you would.
I like girls, she says.
You nod calmly, smiling a little.
My sister thought it was funny, she says. You remind me of her sometimes. She was quiet and gentle and really smart. She painted a lot. Did you—what did you do—
You see the indecision clouding her face, the worry.
You take a pen out of your pocket and take her hand.
I sang, you write, and her face falls, like she's about to cry.
I—she starts
It's okay, you write.
She sits down on a bench then, just plops ungracefully from your arm, and she puts her head in her hands, and she weeps.
.
9
She's going to leave. You take out her stitches and it's over fifty scars and she just works on breathing.
I used to dance, she says.
You take out a notepad and you write, You should keep dancing.
She smiles and gives you a hug. Thank you, she says.
.
10
Brittany brings her a thick sweater and warm leggings and wool socks and boots and an olive green canvas peacoat for Quinn—and you know they're from the same place and that it's winter and cold and the ocean is darker than Brittany's eyes.
Quinn gets dressed with a little help from you, and she's lost weight since she came in.
Make sure you eat, you write.
She smiles gently. It's beautiful. I will, she says.
She's still a tiny bit unsteady on her feet still, but she's graceful. She links her arm with yours and you make your way out of the hospital.
It's raining slightly outside, and you put up an umbrella to walk her to the train.
She doesn't start crying this time. She smiles, and the scar on her face is bright red and cleanly healed.
Thank you so much, she says, for everything, Rachel. I promise to visit.
You nod. And you smile.
She gets on the train with a small falter up the steps, but she catches herself easily. She's stitched you up a bit too, and she waves, and when you wave back, you can see your breath float up in the air, full of life and infinite.