Healing
by Shadowy Star
January 2006
Disclaimer: I dont own the Coldfire trilogy. It belongs to C.S. Friedman. I do own this story. Do not archive or translate or otherwise use it without permission.
A/N: Sometimes, healing means more than just that of body.
Set months after the end of the series.
Chapter One
With a Seeing Eye
Damien sighed, taking off his hospital clothes and pulling on his shirt. Closing his locker, he looked out of the window. The dawn was busily spreading her rosy skirts over the skies, with all three moons already gone. The Core's bright golden spiral ascended unhurriedly from behind the horizon.
He was tired. He'd worked hard through the last twenty-four hours and now he was glad to go home and get some sleep and a much needed bath. The night had been a bad one, the emergency room of the Queen of Mercy filled with victims of a shooting between city guards and a street gang. Pistols had become very popular since everyone could use them without the danger of misfiring. And since the fae wasn't reachable anymore all Damien could rely on were his knowledge on fae-free healing methods and what he'd come to call his Healer's Sight, a kind of diagnostic insight allowing him to find the injury or the cause of an illness by a single touch. He was thankful for that, the one and only left to him of his former faeborn abilities. He remembered the first time he'd felt it nearly one year ago, back at the Black Ridge Tavern as a tourist accidentally got shot by her companion who had been a little too enthusiastic in shooting demonlings.
He'd touched the woman's arm and somehow he did know exactly where the projectile stopped in its way through the body and whether or which vital organs were damaged or not. Maybe it was then, he mused, that he'd made up his mind. He hadn't gone back to Ganji - what for? Instead he'd come here, to Jaggonath, and got a job at the Queen of Mercy, one of the two better city's hospitals.
He stepped out of the staff room and turned to leave as a strained-looking nurse came running in his direction. Oh no, he thought and speeded his steps. Perhaps he could reach the door before...
"Doctor Vryce," the nurse called.
He stopped, sighing heavily again. "I'm going home, Marisha," he said. "My shift's over."
"I'm sorry," Marisha said. "But there was an explosion at the 'Phoenix Enterprises', and they're bringing all the injured to us since the 'Prophet's Glory' is closed because of growing water damage after that quake last week."
"Dammit!" Damien said, turning around to go and change his clothes again.
When he stepped out of the staff room again only a minute or so later the emergency room was practically flooded with the injured and what staff was still here and not on their way back home.
He stopped another rushing-by, distressed-looking nurse. That one he didnt know. 'Nurse Samantha,' the tag on her chest ran.
"Samantha, this is a case of crisis," he said calmly despite his words, letting the almost despairing nurse take strength from his tone. "Go call anyone of the staff who's living in any close neighborhood. They are to be here as soon as possible even if that means they get here in their pajamas," he advised. "We can't manage this with the staff of one shift only. Then call the 'Prophet's Glory' for whatever staff's left there. They are also to get here right the instant they receive the message. Then try to get more nurses from each little hospital you can think of. Got it?"
The nurse looked at him with an expression that was five parts awe, four parts admiration and one part horror. "Yes, Doctor Vryce," she nodded.
"Then be off with you," Damien said, smiling encouragingly.
She hurried off.
"Aortal dissection, worsening rapidly," Damien said many hours later, removing his hand from a womans shoulder. "Call for the surgeon team, and fast," he advised and steeled himself for the next touch. He was covered in blood up to his elbows and the front of his shirt was soaked through with blood and sweat both. God of Earth and Erna, was the flood of the injured to stop anytime? Well, most probably not anytime soon. He'd lost track of time somewhere after treating the fifteenth wounded. Or after the fiftieth. The explosion had been a big one, or so he was told when hed paused for a moment to sip at the no longer warm coffee a cup of which someone had shoved into his hand between one CPR and the next. The explosion had happened just after the work had begun and had been located at the part of the building where the most of the scientists worked. That explained the great number of the injured. The pattern of the injuries encompassed burns of various degrees, cuts of various depth and severity, broken limbs in any possible combination, head injuries and blindness. That last surprised him. What the Hell were they working on? Trying to catch a lightning?
His inability to Heal was the worst. He imagined to tap into the fae for it, imagined wounds closing under his guidance, bones rebuilding, blood loss restoring. But there were no way for that now not in this brave new world he'd helped to create.
He placed his hand onto the chest of the man before him, and the touch helped him to cut off this train of thoughts. "Head injury but a mild commotion only," he said. "A broken leg, uncomplicated, no vital arteries opened, no peripheral nerves damaged. He will throw up violently but nothing worse. Stabilize his leg, give him a bowl and a minimum dose of whatever analgesics we have left, and put him somewhere out of the way," he advised the nurse apprentice standing next to him.
"Yes, Doctor Vryce."
"And when you're finished with that go run to the 'Prophet's Glory' for supplies. We're running short of bandages, syringes, and analgesics. Advise them to bring anything they've left here. Understand?"
The apprentice nodded.
"Good girl," he said. "And now bring in the next one."
He saw her waving in the next two helpers carrying a stretcher between them before hurrying off to carry out his instructions, and turned away to wash and disinfect his hands. They had been out of examination gloves for hours.
"Onto the table," he advised over his shoulder, the advise itself an absolutely unnecessary one. But he knew well that helpers, too, needed help themselves and if it were just the strength they could draw from his calm voice and sure demeanor well, he would give it. He heard the noise of a human body placed onto a hard metallic surface and of a stretcher removed. "Thank you," he said to the two man, turning, and smiled encouragingly. "You do a great job."
The younger man, almost a boy, blushed a deep pink to the roots of his wheat-blond hair while the older one simply smiled back. "No, Doctor Vryce," he disagreed. "You do a great job. We're just helping."
With that, both exited the room, leaving Damien to his next patient.
When he turned to the table his breath caught painfully in his chest.
The next one was a young man, and for a split of a second Damien couldn't help but stare.
Long black hair, braided into a now messy and dust-covered braid at the back of the neck. Long lashes black as True Night, closed over eyes he simply knew to be just as black. A profusely bleeding gash on the forehead. Obviously unconscious.
Oh God he thought. Oh God, no oh please, not him...
Overwhelming concern swept over him and in another split second he was beside the other man, reaching out, touching a slender hand. When his fingers made contact with the far too cold skin, he knew in an instant what was wrong, what had happened...
He gasped at the sudden, undeniable, terrible revelation, almost despairing, but fought it back violently and inhaled deeply. He needed his composure intact now. He needed to function. Gerald -no, not Gerald, not,- he told himself firmly needed him.
He straightened then, reached for the bottle of antiseptic and went to clean the still bleeding gash - not surprising, this, head wounds always bleed much. The other didn't regain consciousness at that which was both a good thing and a bad one. It was good because by now they wouldn't have any analgesics left -he just hoped the apprentice hed send would return soon- and it was bad because it meant the other would suffer a terrible nausea and splitting headache for longer than just a few hours. There was no permanent damage to the brain but for a slight concussion, nothing really bad and this wasn't what had made him gasp in shock.
He picked up a kit of surgical needles, searching through it, hoping to find one fine enough to not leave scars. When he began to stitch the gash close, stitch after careful stitch, the other's lashes fluttered.
"Shhh," Damien made automatically in a soothing voice, not even realizing he did before he actually heard himself speak the words, "it's alright. Don't move."
The black eyes opened with some effort.
"Where am I? And why-?" an impatient, if weak, voice inquired.
"Lie still," Damien intercepted the question he knew was coming.
The other gasped, obviously surprised. "Vryce? What are you doing here?"
Damien grinned. "Well, you're in a hospital. And I'm a Healer, remember?"
Gerald frowned. "Of course I remember! And-"
"And I remember to have told you to lie still," Damien interrupted again. "I need to stitch that gash. Unless, of course, you prefer a scar on your forehead?" He finished the last stitch, noticing the other wince slightly. "I'm sorry for the pain but we're out of analgesics."
Geralds eyes were unfocused, looking nowhere.
"So, you managed to get yourself into trouble again," Damien said, trying to distract the other further. "I guess you should consider yourself fortunate that it's only your left ulna and radius that are smashed and not your stubborn skull." If those were the worst of Gerald's injuries, Damien would have consider himself fortunate. Broken bones healed. Drawing on the strength and detachment of his Healer persona, he inwardly distanced himself from the other man.
"What the Hell happened?" He wasn't curious, not yet at least, though he knew he'd be but later once he got time to process everything that had happened. But right now he needed time. Time to regain some of his professionalism again. Emerging himself into the simple, familiar task of bandaging a wound, he tried to think of a way to keep his knowledge from Gerald.
"We were experimenting with concentrated li-" Gerald broke off sharply and the beautiful face went ashen when the realization struck.
TBC...
Yes, I know. Evil cliffy.