Chapter 21

Escape, Part 2

Coulson

I risk some valuable time getting confirmation of the Capitol girl's identity from Howard. He runs her name and a picture of her I snap against the Capitol records he's hacked into. "Yes, she was arrested for … aid and comfort to the enemy," Howard says, and I can hear the sly smile in his voice. We know there's a reason Spruce saved her and we can guess who received the aid and comfort and I guess Howard is making some assumptions about the nature of it. I don't care about details, I just want to keep her safe. "Let's get you to a safe place … then I'll look out for Clint …"
"I'm in training to be a doctor – I have basic medical training. I can help him," she says. I'm so glad – I was afraid we'd have to pull Prim between checkpoints, and Clint can't afford to wait.

I take them to my quarters and lay him in my bed, then rush to find the nearest med kit. It includes a couple of units of O negative blood and saline – both of which she's probably going to need. I return and find her already trying to tighten the makeshift tourniquets she made. I hand her two proper tourniquets, and then I shoot him with morphine while she ties them on – poor kid could use it.

I watch as she puts the tourniquets on what's left of his fingers – I know it means he'll have further amputations to remove the stumps because of it but I don't see another choice.

She runs the IV next – we let the blood flow into his veins, and hope it brings his volume up enough to reverse the shock. If not we'll give him saline as well, all though my (admittedly limited) experience with field medicine says blood tends to work better. I looked at Marty's wound really briefly, and he only got winged by a bullet – I'll have her look at him once Barton is ship shape (if that happens). Once the IV is going, she starts stitching the place on his arm where his tracker was. I watch the blood as it goes in, knowing he'll definitely need the second unit but hopefully not the saline.

She gets him sewn up and – yes, stabilized, judging by his vitals – and my next worry is that he smells. If I just stowed him under my bed, which is what I want to do, and Peacekeepers come aboard and check this room, they'll smell him from a mile away. But I need to worry about Betty first. "OK Betty – let's get you hidden. I'll worry about the rest." She nods tearfully – she's been in tears this whole time.

"Was Spruce in shape this bad?" I ask.

"Not quite – they made me clean him up before they experimented on him, and they fed him a little better … but they still whipped him and shocked him all the time," she answers. "They … They shot a little girl from his village in front of him, and he freaked out and attacked the guards, killed two of them with his bare hands, and they thought they could use that to their advantage." I cringe at the thought – but I'm not surprised at all. I wonder if we could have saved her if we had gone after them.

"It's all right – we'll pick him up when we can," I tell her truthfully, even though I don't know if we can.

I hide her in a supply closet behind some mops – I hope it's good enough.

I put the kit up, change my sheets (hoping they don't check the laundry and see all the blood on the sheets I just threw there), throw his clothes out the window, making sure they hit the ground and don't get caught on the train, and set him in my bathroom by the shower. Without his clothes, I can see how tortured he really was – it's all I can do not to cry when I see the keloid scars on his back from being whipped and the electric burns from being shocked, and the places where he's been cut, and I can count his ribs and feel his spine beneath my hands. I'm not a crier, at all, so that says a lot. There's no telling what psychological things they did to him – I see injection marks and I suspect hijacking. I start the water and dampen a washcloth in the stream, and start to gently scrub the dirt and grime and probably dried body fluids from his body – starting with the places he's least going to want me to clean since I want to do it while he's asleep from the morphine. Creatures crawl on his head and his body – body lice and head lice. My skin crawls but I try not to be squeamish – he needs me.

Carol confirms she's picked up the Avengers – the mission status is not good but I focus on the one I'm still in the middle of.

I haven't got him halfway clean when I get the warning we're approaching the checkpoint. I curse and try to think quickly. Gale can stall for a little bit, and he will since Clint's discovery would lead to everyone else, and even Gale's not that stupid or bitter, but it won't be long. I lift Clint into the shower, and turn it on full blast. I hate to do that to him on fresh stitches and with his fingers still open, but it's about to get even worse. The basic transport trains aren't exactly fancy, but they do have two or three scents in the showers – I turn them all on and blast poor Clint with them. It'll cover the smell.

Then I realize I'll need to be wet to sell it. So I apologize to him and hope he doesn't wake up and think he's about to be violated – and it suddenly occurs to me he might have been by the Capitol, all though I didn't notice any damage to that area when I cleaned him. But I'm no doctor. I stow my headpiece in its hiding place, strip off and step in the shower, standing under the water and the horribly clashing scents, and wait.

I hear them coming from a mile away – they thunder down the hall in force. I react quickly – I step out of the shower, not bothering to put on clothes or even grab a towel, and step out of my bathroom. When they knock, I open the door – I've perfected the wide, unfocused stare of a morphine addict. If I had other options I would not be standing naked in front of a bunch of Peacekeepers acting like a drooling idiot, but modesty and dignity are things I'm willing to sacrifice to save the lives of thirty-nine victors, Prim, Clint Barton and our young Capitol traitor. I give nonsensical answers, and act like I'm struggling to follow their questions – all while the water is still running. I hope the sound will cover any sound of Clint moaning in pain if he starts to wake.

I follow them, still naked, and make vague protests as they open some of the crates. Some of them have tributes and victors in them – I manage to still look unaffected even though this is the part that makes me most nervous. They don't bother to move things aside, thankfully. Gale sees me and red comes to his cheeks once more but he keeps a straight face.

Satisfied, the Peacekeepers agree to disembark. I wander back to my room, and I hear Gale telling one of them, "I told you – I'm the only one who isn't hooked on morphling on this train," exasperatedly.

I turn the shower down so it's not on Clint and turn off the scents – the only good thing is Clint is somewhat cleaner now and I probably just drowned a bunch of lice, plus he's still sleeping peacefully. I dry off and put my clothes back on, then continue washing until he's clean. It's the least I can do for him – I can't believe we left him and Spruce to rot in that horrible place. It's the least I can do for his brother, who joined us on blind faith. He'd probably go on a rampage and murder us if he knew we suspected his baby brother was alive and being tortured all along and did nothing – frankly we'd deserve it. I find a pair of scissors and cut his hair very short, practically to his scalp – they'll do that at base anyway – and throw the hair I cut in the trashcan and douse both the trashcan and Clint's head with a lot of rubbing alcohol. It's a horrible waste I would have balked at in 13, but I want to kill as many of the lice as possible. I'm more careful about rubbing it on his body, careful to avoid fresh wounds – it'll just sting and I know it's not actually that helpful about killing bacteria, and especially considering I'm going to give him oral antibiotics as soon as he's awake enough not to choke, it would just be needlessly cruel.

I get him clean, finally, and retrieve the med kit once again. I rub some burn ointment on his shock burns and some cut cream on his cuts and whip wounds, even though I know it'll do nothing for the latter. I find some clean clothes, a blanket, and a pillow for him. I dress him and set up a little bed for him under my own – then I carefully place him under it and tuck him in, before dropping the bed skirt so he's not obviously visible if we get stopped and searched at the next checkpoint. I set up an IV to try to get him rehydrated, and hide the pole by setting it between my wall and the post of my bed, and let him rest.

Time to get Betty to look after Marty.

Marty asks about Spruce – of course he does. I'm afraid Betty will burst into tears again, but she keeps it together and answers his question. I realize they're still trying to recreate the super soldier technology that Erskine brought us – but judging by the description Howard fed me of the huge creature Spruce has become, they haven't quite figured it out.

Once Marty's taken care of, I start to take Betty back to her hiding place, but as we walk through the cart where Prim is hidden, she calls to me. She doesn't know my name, so she calls me "Mr. Rebel Person." I smile at that.

"What do you need, Prim?" I ask.

"I want to see Clint," she says.

"Once we get through the last checkpoint you can get out and stay out unless they surprise us," I tell her. "He's in good condition now – Betty did a good job taking care of him."
"I know I just … I want to see him," she says. "I want to see the boy my sister loves." I am very glad Gale is not with me and that Peeta's in a different cart, and it suddenly occurs to me that all three of the "boys who love Katniss" are on the same train, and I don't know if she loves any of them that way. Oh dear.

But I have bigger problems to worry about. Now that we're through the first checkpoint and everyone's been looked after medically, I have time to sit back and brood about the failure of the primary mission – which failed due to the fact it had the team I never wanted on it. Snow is alive, Shale is dead, and our cover was almost blown. One of the kids we left, against my wishes, is running wild through the Capitol and I have no idea if we can pick him up or fix the damage. The other one is currently sleeping under my bed, stable for now but tortured and under who knows what brainwashing. All in all, not the best day for the rebellion.

But then again, we have thirty-nine pissed-off victors now, safe and sound and with gratitude to us. That has to be worth something.

Author's Note

I have Phillip refer to it as "morphine" instead of "morphling" because I think District 13 has a lot of technical proficiency, so I don't think the word would have evolved there the way it did in most of the districts.