"Abigail," she repeats after a few seconds, her wet eyes locked on Marcus' face. And then she rolls them and coughs; her body starts shaking wildly. Jackson rushes to her side, checking the pulse. He unfastens the belts on her neck, shoulders and one arm and silently – but very quickly – nods to Kane for assistance: they flip the woman's body to a side enough for Jackson to inspect her back. Her legs remain bound. Her movements become stronger.
The gurney appears to be covered in blood.
"Damn it!" Jackson yells, pressing his palm to the small of her back and then calls for the nurse. "This wasn't bleeding before," he comments to answer an unspoken of his Chancellor. Marcus nods: he'd imagine it must be hard to tend to all the cuts when there are at least fifty of them, most still covered with dried blood and dirt.
He watches Jackson and the nurse cut off the remaining cloths of the prisoner. The grounder cries out when a nurse presses a cloth with alcohol to the bleeding wound.
"We need more stitches," the nurse says under her breath as she presses the trembling figure of the grounder woman down to the gurney. Abigail still tries to fight: with her left arm free, she waves it chaotically, almost hitting the syringe Jackson uses to inject her.
"How much can we actually use?" doctor asks once the prisoner passively falls onto a gurney. Her struggling has opened up three more wounds on the back.
"We need her alive," Marcus answers with signs of irritation. It vanishes the moment they start removing dirt and blood from the prisoner's body: there can't be less than a hundred cuts on her flesh, all different shapes and depth. As the nurse washes them with a mix of alcohol and water, Kane grimaces: saving this grounder takes way too much recourse. It better be worth it.
"Every day we wait, our people get killed by the grounders, sir" Major Bern walks into Kane's office and he immediately knows what she wants to hear. He puts away the map and gets up. Major comes closer, her voice gives up her nervousness. "We can't just wait till she recovers; it might take forever given her injuries."
"So you would rather kill her right away?" he smiles bitterly. It's been two days since the grounder prisoner first woke up, but she's been too weak to be talked to. They tried, of course, but that didn't get them anywhere. Every time Jackson thought she was stable, the prisoner proved him wrong and went into a cardiac arrest.
"No, sir," she responds dryly, folding her hands on the chest, "but we are running low on water, so we'll have to go out again soon…" He knows. He wishes they'd find a way to communicate with the woman they have in the medical. But they are forced to keep her sedated most of the time: when she wakes up and the painkillers wear off, she becomes way too agitated. "Have you heard from the Ark, sir?" Bern suddenly changes the topic, and it takes Marcus a moment to realize what she's asking about. He might be a Chancellor here on the ground, but the real one is still up there, and as loyal as Bern is to her superior officer, she still needs to know the chain of command.
"They've split their resources last time we talked. It seems like they might be able to arrange one more drop ship even before fixing the air." He hopes they do, but then he wonders how they are going to choose who gets to go. The last time it was simple: nobody knew if the Earth was survivable, so it came down to whoever felt like going. This time things are different.
Marcus watches the woman on a gurney as the doctor and a nurse wake her up: this is the fifth time they do it since they got her. He does hope it'll finally work: at least, this time Jackson sounds much more optimistic (he made a mixture of low effect sedative and painkillers that should keep her awake and lucid, yet, not let her suffer too much). Her naked body is all covered with stitches and bandages, and then a pale blanket lies on top of that.
Abigail slowly moves her head and opens her eyes. She seems disoriented.
"Please, don't!" she cries out when she spots Jackson approaching with a syringe. He gives Kane a wondering look. Kane nods and the syringe is put aside.
"Why?" Kane asks, not sure what it is he wants to know. Is she just afraid of it or does she actually know what injections do to her and she doesn't like it? "So you speak our language, don't you?" he continues when she doesn't respond. Her eyes are moving from Kane to Jackson, then onto the nurse and then back onto Kane. He takes a deep breath and walks closer.
"You didn't kill me…" she speaks, her voice breaking and barely audible. "How?.."
Kane raises his eyebrows. The woman's breath is heavy and she bites her lips every few seconds even though she's not supposed to be in any pain at the moment.
"You will stay alive if you answer my questions." He says it slowly, word after word, not fully sure whether she understands him. She blinks. Marcus glances at Jackson, but the doctor offers no comment.
"You didn't go through all the trouble of fighting for my life just to kill me…" the grounder whispers, barely moving her bruised lips, and Kane smirks. She hears him and – perhaps – understands more than he'd want her to.
"So you do speak our language," Marcus stretches his lips into what someone might mistake for a smile. It's not. He's not amused. He's tense and he almost feels like he's been played, even though it's clear there could be no play there. "Who are you?"
"Why did you save me?" she answers with a question and tries to move her arm. It's strapped to a gurney, so there isn't much she can do. Abigail jerks her arm again: the belt digs into the bandage covering the wrist.
"Stop that," Kane motions towards her moving arm, "or he'll have to sedate you again. You seem to not want that, correct?" She freezes, drilling him with her eyes.
"Won't your people kill you?" she murmurs, shifting her body under the blanket – she can't move too much, just an inch or two, the belts aren't too tight but they are there, guarding her shoulders and legs to prevent her from hurting herself.
"For what?"
"Saving the enemy," she licks her lips and grimaces in disgust.
"Would yours?" She moves her head a little only to realize there is a belt on her neck. Marcus can guess she's tried to nod. "Is that what's happened to you?" It's a hunch, he admits, but the more he tries to understand why or how she could've gotten all these cuts, the more he thinks it must've been a punishment of some sort. That, and the fact that they are still missing three dead bodied; presumably dead, he corrects himself. They don't really know if those people were really killed.
"Water… Please…" Abigail gives as a response.
"Answer my question… Please," he retorts with yet another smirk. "Did you capture our soldiers alive? Answer me!" he shouts and clenches his hands into fists.
"Just one, but he was beyond saving. I…" she notices Jackson coming from behind Marcus, "I did what I could, I…" her eyes roll once again. Jackson grabs a flashlight and checks her eyes. Pupils are dilated and what seems to be a little trembling quickly turns into a seizure.
It takes them two more strokes to understand that the prisoner is allergic to their painkillers.
