Healing

Chapter Two

You Don't Need Eyes to See

Dammit! So much for his attempt on the art of distraction, Damien thought.

He could see an immense effort to steel himself straining Gerald's features before the other spoke, and he composed himself.

"The light is on in this room," Gerald stated calmly.

"Yes," Damien confirmed, gently, placing a hand onto Geralds shoulder.

A breath drawn in so slowly it was nearly imperceptible, and the briefest flicker of shock in the still face Damien could only see because he knew what to look for.

When Gerald spoke, his voice was so very unsurprisingly calm. "I'm blind?"

Damien nodded, the whole of his being still too overwhelmed with a mix of grief, concern, compassion and so much more, to muster the strength for anything else except the most rational reactions. Only his deep ingrained healer's instincts prevented him from starting to worry helplessly, and he was drawing on it. When he remembered the other man couldn't see the movement, he spoke softly and as calmly as he himself could manage, still not removing his hand from Gerald's shoulder but squeezing it gently instead. "Yes."

The shoulder under his palm was rigid, the muscles beneath the slowly warming skin tense. He stroked that shoulder gently, a soothing touch, turning the gesture from an impersonal one of a healer to that of a friend. Somehow he just knew that was what Gerald needed and all he would tolerate. Alright, he could do that. After a while, the tension lessened a little.

"How bad?" Gerald inquired then.

There, it was. Damn, Damien thought helplessly.

"How bad, Vryce?" Gerald insisted, traces of impatience to his voice again.

So very Gerald, Damien thought. He steeled himself again. "Your retinas are destroyed. Beyond repair," he said gently. "I'm sorry."

The other tried to shake his head. With tried being the constructive word. "How can you know that?"

Damien smiled a sad smile. Again, so Gerald, seeking knowledge even in a situation like this.

"Damien."

Damien drew a sharp breath. Unusual. Then he swallowed a few times, concentrating and trying to get some measure of control over his voice. When he was sure it wouldn't betray him he answered. "I call it my Healer's Sight," he began. "It's all I've left of my former abilities and I can't control it. When I touch an injured or sick person I can tell the cause of the illness or the extent of the injury. It works even when the person in question doesn't know about the illness and thinks him- or herself healthy."

"Interesting," Gerald murmured absentmindedly. Then his unseeing eyes snapped back to Damiens perfectly working ones. "Were you ever wrong?" His voice was, of course, as even as before. Damien felt black claws of grief slowly tear at his heart.

He drew breath slowly, to calm himself, to keep his own voice strong. He was used to deliver worse news than this, after all. Somehow that thought didn't make the task at hand easier as it had in many situations like this one before. "No," he said, surprised at the calmness of his own voice.

Gerald tried to rise to his elbows, and his face went sheet white as he fought down his nausea.

"Thats a bad idea," Damien remarked belatedly. Alright, it was an idiotic idea but he couldn't bring himself to say so. Instead he went on explaining. "You've got a concussion as well."

He slipped his arm behind Gerald's shoulders and carefully helped him lie back down.

"Something else you didn't tell me till now?" Gerald inquired, voice too weak to carry the doubtlessly intended sarcasm.

"No. I have to stabilize the fractures," he said. "And to readjust the ends so the bones can heal properly." He hated this, hated not being able to Heal, not able to take away the pain. "I'm sorry."

Gerald rolled his eyes which seemingly wasn't a good idea either to judge from his expression. "Vryce, I know its going to hurt."

Damien cursed again silently that he had only his hands for that. Thankfully, Gerald lost consciousness as soon as Damien had begun to align the ends into their correct position.

He was almost done with bandaging Geralds forearm, all the while keeping his fingers on the other's smooth skin to be sure he didn't ruin his own work, when another anonymous nurse apprentice in dark blue clothes of the surgery team opened the door.

"Doctor Vryce," he called, looking and sounding every bit as tired as Damien felt. "Doctor Ryller needs you again."

Torn between his wish to stay with his only ... -friend he told himself firmly-, and his duty he had to restrain the urge to growl at the poor boy. Or wring his neck. Or both.

Making a decision to do nothing of those tempting alternatives, he beckoned the boy inside while rising himself and turning Gerald onto his right side to minimize the danger of aspiration. "Sit with him," he ordered. "Make sure he doesn't aspirate should he throw up. The bowl is down there."

"But sir, they probably need me in the surgery room..."

"What for? For you throwing up into their op area?" he asked with a quick quirk of his lips to make sure the joke was taken for what it was.

The boy smiled brightly. "No, sir, I'm in my second year, I've been through that already!"

Damien pulled his brows together into that special look he quite successfully used to frighten students of medicine he sometimes had to teach. The boy shrank back a little, obviously deciding it had been an unfortunate idea to volunteer go call that particular physician in the first place. A very unfortunate one.

"That was an order, young man. Not up for discussion," Damien said. And added another smile to lessen the effect, now that the apprentice had learned his lesson.

"Yes, Doctor Vryce," the boy said enthusiastically. For a moment Damien wondered whether that enthusiasm stemmed from fear or from beginning hero worship. Damn! In both cases.

With a last worried look at Gerald who was still unconscious, Damien exited the room and entered the chaos behind its door. The chief surgeon winked at him as soon as he walked around the corner. She looked even more tired than before.

"Over here," she signaled at him, pointing at a man on a stretcher at the same time. Damien forced his legs into walking a little more and put his hand onto the man's shoulder. Instantly, the force of his Sight overwhelmed him and he struggled to sort through what he was seeing. "Complicated fractures of femur on each side, complete severing of the femoral artery to the right, consecutive intramuscular and subcutaneous bleeding, internal bleeding from two enteric arteries, enteric infarction..." He stopped though he could have continued for a while. Something heavy must have collapsed onto the man. "You can't save him," Damien added sadly. At least, not with means available. Technology couldn't evolve fast enough to compensate for the loss of fae-centered Healing methods.

Doctor Ryller nodded, just as sadly she, too, obviously abhorred to lose her patients.

"Doctor Vryce," someone called from across the ER and Damien snapped out of his dark mood. Maybe they couldn't save everyone but damn it when he didn't try to save as many as he could. He told so himself firmly, hurrying over.

He had to hold onto this thought many times that morning before finally, the flood of the injured slowly seemed to cease.

When he then collapsed onto an empty container of syringes turned upside down -seats were just as rare- and he could see less injured patients sitting right on the floor, someone touched him at the shoulder. Only then he realized he'd fallen asleep for a few seconds. Alright, perhaps more than few.

He looked up to see Nurse Celine, usually from the evening shift, standing before him. "What time is it?" he asked, confused.

"Something past midday," the nurse answered, tucking a strand of almost completely gray hair behind her ear. "It's over, I think. You should go home, Doctor Vryce."

Damien rose, nodded agreement that yes, she was right, and yes, he should go home, and yes, he knew that and walked into a direction quite opposite to where the staff rooms were.

"Doctor Vryce," the nurse called after him.

He ignored it.

The apprentice boy nearly shot up from the narrow seat when he entered the room.

Damien smiled. The poor boy managed to not fall asleep. Good.

"How is he?" he asked.

"No change," the apprentice reported. "He has vomited a little," he pointed at the bowl that was empty and cleaned out again, but didn't wake up. I'm sure he didn't aspirate.

"Well done," Damien said softly. "Go home," he added. "It's over."

The boy almost swayed as he rose, and nodded. "Thank you, sir, f-for everything."

Damien smiled again. For someone so young the apprentice had understood well. It was not only the permission to go home the boy was thanking him for. Sitting with an injured was way less demanding a task then assisting a surgeon and Damien had seen the boy's exhaustion. "What's your name?"

"Jonny, sir."

Damien rised a brow at that.

The boy stood straighter. "Jon, sir."

"Well, Jon, if your exam marks are no lower than B I'd like to have you in my team next year."

"Oh yes!" the boy beamed.

"And now go," Damien insisted good-humoredly.

Definitely hero worship. Damn!

When the apprentice left the room as soon as his tired legs allowed, Damien was still smiling. He did not smile when he turned to Gerald, who was lying still and unconscious at the examination table.

He couldn't tell when he'd move, when he'd raised his hand. Few inches before his fingers made contact with Gerald's forehead he stopped. He needed to know how well or bad the other's body was dealing with the injuries but to see those devastated retinas again...

Don't be a coward. You're are a Healer, you've seen worse. Much worse, in fact, he told himself firmly and touched Geralds forehead gently. As he more felt then saw the extent of the damage again, sadness clutched his throat once more. Though Geralds bones were beginning to heal properly this never would. Never. It was almost worse that the eyes themselves were perfectly fine. It would have been easier to come to terms with that if Gerald's eyes had at least looked burned. Perhaps.

He realized he was crying only when small hot wetnesses of tears fell onto his hand. Tiredly, he wiped the tears away with the back of his hand and took a step back. It was then when the room started to spin around him, reminding him mercilessly of almost thirty-two hours of hard work, no meals and not enough fluid, and he almost stumbled. He knew he was exhausted and dehydrated but he'd been through worse. Now that no one seemed to need him more immediately than Gerald nothing would move him from his other's side. He only needed to sit down for some minutes. Yeah, if you say so, someone all smart-ass and sarcastic pointed out in the back of his head. A second later, the backs of his knees collided painfully with the narrow seat, nearly sending it to the floor, and his sight went a little fogged. He sat down, drawing the stool closer to the table and curling his fingers around Geralds uninjured right wrist. The pulse beneath his fingertips was strong and steady. It somehow echoed through his own body and when he leaned closer the table seemed to move on its own and meet him halfway. He was asleep before his head met the cold surface.

TBC...