Chapter Thirty-Six
Jefferson stumbled as he and Aurora appeared in Victor's lab. Aurora tried to keep Jefferson on his feet but he was too heavy for her and both of them fell to their knees. Jefferson let out a cry as pain once again rocketed up his body.
"Sorry Jefferson. I am sorry but you have to get up." Aurora heard a clacking of bottles from the other side of the room but she was too busy trying and straining to get Jefferson back to his feet, to look over and see who was in the room with them.
"I don't think I…" Jefferson paused giving his lips a lick. "can." He managed to finish as legs gave out from underneath him again causing both him and Aurora to collapse back down to the floor.
"Jefferson?" Victor asked looking over the metal slab in the center of the room not believing what he was seeing in his lab. "Princess Aurora, is that you?"
Aurora looked up. "Victor! Thank God! You are here." She looked so relieved to see him. "Jefferson's hurt. I can't get him back on his feet." Aurora commented as she took Jefferson's travel bag and swung it over her shoulder for safe keeping.
Victor came around the slab taking Jefferson's right arm he helped Aurora bring him over to sit on the slab. "Jefferson what happened?" Victor asked as he helped Jefferson out of his coat.
"I had a run in with the wrong end of something pointy. Think you can fix me up Doc?" Jefferson managed to get out followed with a laugh which he cut short because everything hurt too much.
"Yes that is obvious." Victor rolled his eyes at Jefferson's sarcasm, as he started to unbutton Jefferson's vest.
"Why didn't Rumple or Aurora just heal you? In fact why is Aurora out of the castle?" Victor turned to face Aurora noticing for the first time the blood dripping from her nose. "Princess are you hurt?" Victor made a movement towards her.
"I am fine." Aurora took a step back and wiped at the blood drying on her face, but because her hands were bloody from trying to heal Jefferson's wound she only made her face look worse. "I used all my magic to protect myself and Jefferson. I can't heal him. But you can, can't you Victor?"
"You used all your magic? I still don't understand that statement. Hell I don't understand what were you two are doing out of Rumple's castle together?" Victor questioned.
Aurora took one look at Jefferson who was barely able to sit up straight on the table, his skin had gone all clammy and his eyes were starting to glaze over. Jefferson was obviously not going to be able to come up with a plausible lie, so she jumped in.
"Rumple sent me on a job with Jefferson. It was to test out my skills. You know to see how I would handle things in the real world. But I failed and Jefferson got hurt. We couldn't go back to Rumple and let him see that. So we thought you would be able help us. You can heal him right Victor?" Aurora forced herself to look away from Jefferson and look up at Victor. "And then we can go back to Rumple and he won't know I messed up."
Victor looked from Aurora's teary eyed confession to Jefferson and stated. "I will do the best I can."
"You did good Rory." Jefferson whispered giving her a soft smile before his eye's rolled back into his head and he started to fall backwards.
"Jefferson!" Aurora cried moving forward to grab Jefferson to stop him from falling back over the table, but she was too slow.
Victor was closer and he managed to grab Jefferson by his scarf and pulled him forward to keep him up right. Victor pulled the scarf and the vest off of Jefferson tossing it to the floor with his coat, before turning him and laying him back on the slab. Aurora helped him lay Jefferson down by swinging his feet up on to the slab.
"He's going to be alright won't he?" Aurora asked tears quietly falling down her blood stained face.
Victor tugged on Jefferson's white shirt pulling it out of from under his leather pants, lifting it up over Jefferson's head and added to the growing pile of clothes on the floor. Victor leaned in and took a look at Jefferson's wound.
"Your science is just as good as magic when it comes to saving people, right?" Aurora questioned nervously.
"It looks deep and he has lost a lot of blood. But I think I can stitch him up." Victor answered confidently
"Stitch him up? Like a piece of cloth?" Aurora asked appalled at the thought.
"Yes, it is quite similar." Victor noticed the look of horror on Aurora's face. "I assure you Princess it is a normal procedure here in my land. And one I happen to be quite good at."
Aurora moved to the top of the table her bloody hands nervously trying to fix Jefferson's messy hair, but she only succeed in making it look worst by staining his hair with his own blood.
"Why don't you just go upstairs and get cleaned up and I will come get you when I am finished." Victor suggested as he went over to a cabinet going through some medical supplies.
Aurora forced herself to swallow and look up away from Jefferson to face Victor. "I will clean up once you finish." Aurora caught the look Victor gave her it just screamed this is no place for a woman let alone a Princess.
"Don't worry I won't get in your way or bug you. I will just sit over here." Aurora pointed to the stairs which lined the left hand side of the room. "But I am responsible for what happened to Jefferson and I am not leaving his side until I know he's going to be all right. Understand?"
"Of course I understand." Victor brought the supplies over to Jefferson and set to work.
Aurora picked up Jefferson's coat, vest, scarf, and shirt before she took a seat half way up the stairs where she could see everything that Victor was doing, not that any of it seemed to make sense to her.
Aurora had to bite her lip as she watch Victor pick up a small knife like object and he had actually cut Jefferson's wound even more to be able to get inside it and clean the inside part of the wound first. Then he had sewed something up inside of Jefferson. Aurora thought about asking but didn't want to upset or distract Victor from his work. Once he was finished with the damage on the inside Victor worked on cleaning the outside of the wound and stitched it up.
"He is going to need a blood transfusion." Victor stated walking over to the bottom of the stairs to look up at Aurora as he wiped Jefferson's blood off on a towel.
So much blood, he's lost so much blood and I don't have any magic to make him better. "A what?" Aurora questioned not understand what Victor was implying? All she could see was the red blood on the white towel.
"He's lost too much blood I need to replace some of it." Victor tried to explain.
"How do you do that?" Aurora asked.
"I just need to know his blood type?"
"His blood type?" Aurora questioned looking down at Victor completely lost in this conversation and feeling incredibly stupid, which was a feeling she really did not enjoy having.
Victor turned and went over to the cabinet. "They don't have blood types in your world, do they? I always forget you don't have real science over there." He picked up a blood bag. "I will just give him O Negative it is the universal donor type."
"But that isn't blood it is black. Blood is red." Aurora demanded standing up but still clinging to Jefferson's bloody clothes.
"Princess I know you are in shock from whatever happened before Jefferson managed to get you both here. But look around everything here is what you would called black, white, and shades of gray. There are no colors here like your world. But I assure you human blood is blood no matter what world you happen to be in. This," Victor held up the black blood bag. "will help save our dear friend."
Aurora gave a small nod and sat back down noticing for the first time how everything in the room was black and white and shades of gray like Victor had stated. I need to keep my head clear and pay attention to what is happening around me. Victor is going to want to know what happened and Jefferson is in no shape to come up with a story. Think Aurora what are you going to tell Victor, and how can you get him to agree to not tell Rumple we are here, on the off chance Rumple thinks of calling on him.
Victor brought over a stand to hang the blood bag from as he came back across the room to Jefferson. Hanging it he took out a needle and stuck it in Jefferson's arm. He attached the tube coming down off the blood bag back to the needle he placed in Jefferson's arm and Aurora watched as the blood left the bag and started to flow down the tube into Jefferson's arm. Satisfied that the blood was flowing correctly Victor turned back to Aurora. "He's going to need something for the pain and to reduce the fever he is running. Then I will have to bandage the wound."
"Do you have some in those potion bottles over there?" Aurora asked pointing to the cabinet he had taken the medical supplies from before.
"Yes, but they are not potions they are medicines."
"What is the difference?" Aurora asked placing Jefferson's bloody clothes to the side of her on the steps before she stood and walked down the stairs to join him in front of the cabinet. "If they can heal Jefferson just like a potion or a spell they are still magical."
"These," Victor pointed to the row of labeled bottles, "were all created by the best and brightest men of the scientific age. They took natural elements of our world and created cures for sicknesses and common problems. There was no magic hand in their creation only science."
"Jefferson's talked about nature reactions in potions before. There are plenty of potions in our world which do not evolve a magical touch. So call it Science if you want to Victor, but it sounds like your Science is just a different name for potions. In fact those kinds of potions are Jefferson's favorite, since he doesn't have much magical capabilities himself."
Victor laughed. "Jefferson pops in and out of worlds with a spin of his hat and you stand there telling me Jefferson doesn't have much magical capabilities. Now who is selling who short there my dear Aurora?"
"Most of Jefferson's magic comes with the use of magical aides. Rumple, Regina, Maleficent and I we are magic." Aurora blushed slightly as she repeated Rumple's words from one of their lessons to Victor. "We were born with or came into a great deal of magic, and we can produce it on our own without magical aides to guide us." Aurora drifted away from Victor back over to Jefferson's side, taking ahold of his right hand. Jefferson's hand felt cold as she watched his chest rise and fall in a steady pace.
"If that is true," Victor asked as he filled a syringe "then why couldn't you fix Jefferson yourself?"
"Because magic is like energy if you use too much of it you can burn out." Aurora continued as Victor filled a second syringe. "I used too much to keep us save and enable us time to get away."
"Interesting…" Victor muttered more to himself than to Aurora as he came to stand across from her.
Aurora didn't really like the look Victor was giving her. It made her feel uncomfortable like he was studying her, or wanted to study her to see how her magic worked. Finally after a long moment Victor turned his attention back to Jefferson.
Aurora watched as Victor stuck the first needle of medicine into Jefferson's arm. "Jefferson, Rumple, and Regina seem to make magic out as an unlimited source of power, which can do everything but bring back the dead."
"Well Rumple and Regina are a lot more powerful than I am." Aurora watched as Victor stuck the second needle of medicine into Jefferson's arm.
"Is that because they are older, and more experience. Or have they gone out and acquired more power?" Victor wondered as he started cleaning and bandaging Jefferson's wound.
"A bit of both really." Aurora felt slightly uncomfortable talking about this with Victor. "When you enter manhood or womanhood you come into your full powers. Each person has different natural levels of magic but there are items and ways to gain or steal power from others." Aurora felt a chill at the thought of how Maleficent wanted to kill her and steal her powers for her own evil gain.
"So a normal person could steal such a magical item or power from a magical person and use it to gain powers."
"Yes of course. How do you think Rumple came into his powers?" Aurora stopped herself, looking up from Jefferson realizing she was saying too much.
"Rumple didn't always have his powers?" Victor asked raising an eyebrow at her looking up as he finished dressing Jefferson's wound.
Aurora looked down at her bloody hands noticing blood on her dress for the first time. "I think I will go clean up now, that you are almost done with Jefferson." Aurora hoped to change the subject.
"The wash room is upstairs third door to the right. I will finish cleaning Jefferson up and have Igor help me carry him upstairs to a more comfortable resting place for the night." Victor walked Aurora over to the bottom of the stairs. "I will find you some clean clothes to change into as well. I am sure one of Elizabeth's dresses will fit you just fine. After you clean up we can have a cup of tea and continue our little talk. I am very interested in finding out what you and Jefferson were up to before you popped into my lab.
"Yes, of course." Aurora gave a little nod as she started up the stairs. "A cup of tea sounds wonderful."