Chapter 9: healing
He carefully carried her into the infirmary, down at the base, weaving around all the tanks that had been parked everywhere. There were two rooms used as infirmaries. One was completely full, so he took her to the other one, in which there were, only two other people. He set her down in an area that was on the other side of the room.
Jaymee contemplated her situation. She was saved, but who knew for how long? She was injured, and in such a place that it would be very difficult to keep the fact that she was a woman hidden among the rest of the soldiers. She relaxed as much as her wound would let her on the bed. She watched as Grell dragged a chair and sat down beside her.
It was odd. Having narrowly escaped death, all her senses had seemingly gone on overdrive, amplifying everything. She could feel her aura of death, the strong and menacing stench of fresh blood and the weight of many lives on her hands. But the strange thing was that this aura was being overshadowed by something else. Something much more powerful that was coming from… him. How was this even possible? She was the Red Princess. She, who had ended the lives of more than one thousand soldiers. She, who had killed enough equivalent to the population of a city. She, who had the highest killing record of anyone in the army, so how could it be possible that someone else could have a more powerful aura than her?
She put that thought behind her as the door to the infirmary crashed open.
"Knightwood, are you all right?" The Colonel ran in, with a doctor at his heels. "I heard that you were injured, so I sent for a doctor."
"Thank you" She said, clearing her throat. "I'm fine, it's just a little cut."
Grell tried really hard not to laugh. A little cut. She'd nearly died of blood loss because of it and she still called it 'a little cut'. He coughed several times to mask his laughter.
"Would you please recount what happened?" The doctor asked, sighing, like this was something he had to do every day. So she told him. "Well you're very lucky you're alive, young man. I'll need you to take your shirt off so that I can look at your wound."
He said, setting his medicine kit down on the table. Jaymee looked at Grell, her sky blue eyes filled with panic. Help me, she mouthed. She had to do it quickly, so she had no idea how well he understood, but he seemed to get it.
"So, Mr. Doctor. How much experience do you have in your field?" Grell asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Not much" He admitted. "I've been practicing for half a year. I know it's not much but I'm the best we have at the moment."
"I beg to differ." Grell said flamboyantly. "I've been training for five years now. I don't really feel like trusting such a close friend to an amateur such as yourself. I do believe I can handle things from here."
The doctor shrugged, seeming slightly offended. He left; muttering something about that if Jaymee died it wasn't his fault any longer. Jaymee breathed out a sigh of relief.
"You're a life saver." She said.
"I know."
Grell dragged some curtains around her bed area, and without her noticing, scratched a few magical incantations into the walls around the curtains. It was something he learned from Leah. Having such a good spellcaster around did come with its benefits. Now, anything they said would be forgotten about in a few minutes. Since they weren't alone, such precautions were necessary. Now, Jaymee could approach any one of the patients and tell them she was a girl, tell them anything in the world. They would register what she was saying, but immediately forget what she said in the next minute without realizing, and would never remember it. He ducked back under the curtains.
"Nice lying" She said, smirking. "Now, do you actually know how to do any of this?"
"I guess I can remember a little bit of it." Grell said. He was starting to panic a little bit. He forced himself to calm down. How many times had he been beaten up, and how many times had Leah patched him back up again? He'd seen her do it, it wasn't that hard, but he was a Grim Reaper. She was a human, and therefore much, much more fragile.
Okay… first thing was to disinfect the cut and then stop the bleeding with several bandages. She carefully took off her uniform. The multiple layers of bandages she had put on to conceal her figure had stopped a little bit of the bleeding, but were still nowhere near the area that was injured the most. Her hand instinctively went to the ugly white scar on her stomach. She didn't want him to see it, much less ask about it.
She breathed out a small sigh of relief when he asked her to turn on her side. He hadn't seen it, and she wasn't really ready to disclose what had happened in her past that had made her get that scar, and why it was still so bright on her skin.
"This is going to hurt a little bit, so just bear with it for a little" He said. He offered her his hand and she gripped it so hard that he thought the circulation in his hand would cut off. Not that it was a problem, but the pins and needles feeling wasn't too pleasant. By the way she gritted her teeth, he knew that the disinfectant was working, but it must have been really painful.
"Ok, you're good as new." He said, smiling. She returned the smile weakly.
"If only…." She said. "I hope I'm back in shape for the next battle. They'll need me."
Seeing the worried look on his face, she laughed.
"Don't worry. I won't be so careless as to let this happen again." She said.
"You never know" He said seriously. It wasn't like him, Jaymee noted. Where was the flamboyant Grell she was used to?
"What's the matter?" She asked quietly.
"I care… quite a bit… for you, Jaymee." He admitted. "I don't want you to get hurt again. I guess I could compare you to a rose. A rose that's prettier than the rest. I don't want that rose to get picked and eventually die."
"I care quite a bit for you too, but this isn't going to happen again. I don't want to lose. This is like a competition for me. I'm fighting for my brother, for my family, and for you."
"You don't know how unpredictable death is." He said. "One minute, it might not look at you at all, and then the next it's staring you in the face. Just go home. Pretend that you're too hurt to fight any longer."
"Will we be able to be together after the war?" She wondered quietly. "I would like to see you again."
"I would too, but there's a big problem." He said.
"What is it?" She wondered. "Is it the fact that I'm a commoner? Will your friends not like me?"
"No, that's not it…" He hesitated, wondering how he was going to say this.
"Then what?"
"I… I'm not exactly a human being." He said, looking sideways. To his surprise and anger, she began to laugh. This was serious.
"Ha, that's a good joke." She said, laughing. "You're so funny, I thought that for a moment you were actually being serious…" Her smile faltered when she saw his serious expression. "Oh god, you're not joking, are you?"
He shook his head.
"Are you sure you're feeling okay?" She asked. "Did you hit your head somewhere, maybe get hurt? Do you need any help?" She started to say something else when he put a hand over her mouth.
"Please, just listen." He said.
He explained everything to her, from beginning to end. To prove his point, he materialized his chainsaw in and out of nothingness several times, and moved from one side of the bed to the other at blinding speeds.
"And that's it…" He said. Jaymee was silent. He tried to read her expression, but all he got was sadness. Why was she sad? He didn't get it.
"How old are you, Grell?" She asked.
"Twenty five" He answered automatically.
She shook her head. "That's in shinigami years. What's that number in human years?"
"Close to two thousand"
They were still holding hands. She took a look at them sadly.
"That means I'm only temporary to you." She said quietly. This took him aback.
"What do you mean?"
"In two hundred years, you're still going to look the way you do now, perfect." She whispered. "Meanwhile in a comparably short period of time, I'm going to get old. I'm going to die one way or another, possibly by your hand, definitely by that of another shinigami. In a couple of hundred years, you're going to forget I ever existed."
"That's not true" He said. "It doesn't have to be like that." He said. He hated her expression, the sad and wistful face, the incredibly large, incredibly beautiful blue eyes that had tightened slightly. She blinked up at him.
"Do you remember the friend I told you about, Leah?" She nodded. "I've been talking to her recently, and she says that there might be a chance for you to become one of us. You can get rid of your old life, you can forget about any problems you ever had and come be with us." He said all of this in a rush, hoping to get her favour.
For a second, her expression remained the same, shattering his hopes. But then she smiled, so brightly and happily that he was taken aback.
"You really do care" She whispered happily. He reached down and hugged her.
"I always have, darling"