Chapter Thirty-Six: Morning Greetings
Doc hummed to himself as he fished in his pockets for the infirmary keys. After pushing aside loose change and a tiny cat toy which he had brought to put up in the infirmary in order to try and make the place so many inmates died in a little more cheerful, he found the infirmary key and pushed it into the lock. Only to discover the door was already unlocked.
"Huh... weird," Doc muttered. He pushed open the door and took two steps inside.
"Morning," he heard a voice greet him nonchalantly.
"Aaaah!" Doc jumped away from the voice, and his eyes shot to O'Malley, who was lying on one of the cots. And immediately clapped his hand over his mouth. "Oh. My. God."
Doc was too shocked to even apologise for saying 'God' and offending all those who followed Christian religions by taking the Lord's name in vain, as well as all those who didn't because... well, they might be offended, who knew.
"Isn't this a great way to start your morning?" O'Malley said weakly. "Admittedly, getting horribly beaten isn't my favourite method of seeing you... and I'm probably going to pass out soon, so... hopefully you'll be competent enough to stop me from dying. I've been bleeding all night, so that might be difficult."
"What happened to you?" Doc quickly found the drawer with the bandages, as O'Malley was still wearing a makeshift turban. Which looked ridiculous, and in any other situation (any situation which didn't involve copious amounts of blood, at least) Doc might have thought it funny. But the bloodstains counteracted that.
"Oh, you know how it is... I either tell a lie and you believe me or I tell the truth and you don't believe me. Why bother explaining?"
Doc sighed. "Tell me. I'll believe you."
"Oh, well in that case... Last night Santa Claus kicked my door down and said 'O'Malley, you are on the naughty list.' And then he attacked me with a giant candy cane and left me for dead. Very spry for a fat, old man in a red suit."
"That's not funny."
"And yet you said you'd believe me. It's not good to lie, Doc."
Doc had a strange sense of deja vu. Maybe because the situation was strangely similar to the one last week. O'Malley covered in blood and Doc wiping it off. Although this one was more serious, and O'Malley had yet to try and tackle him this time. He didn't look like he would be... his eyes were a bit glassy, and they kept shutting, like he was having problems staying awake.
"Are you going to tell me who really did this to you?"
"Nn." O'Malley's eyes closed again as the infirmary door swung open and South walked in.
"Well, about time you got here! Not that I need to tell you or anything, but he's in pretty bad shape." South gestured at O'Malley while Doc dipped a cloth in water. "I carried him up here. He didn't try to bite me or struggle or anything, even when he woke up after I accidentally dropped him. Twice."
"That bad? How'd it happen?"
"How should I know?"
"Wasn't it your shift last night?"
"It was North's damn shift, alright? They need to start putting first names on that stupid shift list! Not the point! He was just all bloody when I opened the door this morning. Not a good start to the day," South told Doc. "Is he gonna die? Good riddance if he does."
"I don't know. Help me out, get the blood off him, would you?" Doc handed over the damp cloth he was going to use to wipe the blood away.
"Try it and I'll bite your fingers off," O'Malley whispered, eyes still shut.
"Yeah, not a chance. I'm running late on feeding the rest of the crazies as it is, thanks to him." South tossed the cloth back. Doc pointed at the tray of medication he had left out the previous night.
"Then take those down to the prisoners. Names are on the cups."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Didn't sign up for this shit..." South picked up the tray and left, grumbling under her breath. Doc sighed and turned back to O'Malley, who wasn't moving. He had passed out, but he was still breathing at least.
"Alright... keep breathing, you'll be fine. And you better not stop breathing just because I told you to breathe," Doc told him, even though he wasn't sure if O'Malley could hear him or not. And to himself he muttered, "Calm down. I can do this. No-one's died under my watch recently. I can do this. I can do this. He isn't going to die on me. Hopefully."
Donut rinsed his hands in the bathroom sink.
He could hear the showers going, although at this time it tended to be used by very few inmates. Most of them were eating at this time. Inmates normally visited after work, since depending on the work it tended to involve getting pretty sweaty. Donut tended to avoid the showers when they were crowded. He may be somewhat used to prison now, but the old fear about being forced to 'bend over and pick up the soap' hadn't gone away.
Occasionally inmates would walk past, wandering in to use the toilets or wash their own hands. There was always a guard standing in the corner of the room in view of the showers, making sure no-one tried to strangle anyone else and making sure they kept to a time limit. As Donut scrubbed at his hands with the cheap, scratchy soap, he heard a crash, a yelp and then Caboose's voice.
"Ow. Stupid slippery tiles... Captain Buttermuffin!" Caboose wandered out of the shower section, his hair dripping, holding his jacket. Donut saw him in the mirror while he continued to wash his hands. "You are not usually in here at this time. Are you okay?"
"Sure, I'm... what? Nothing's wrong," Donut insisted, still holding his hands under the water.
"I heard you making eep noises. During bedtime."
"Oh. Just nightmares, it's fine." Donut watched the water run over his hands thoughtfully. Caboose tried drying his hair with his jacket. Didn't work too well, the fabric didn't absorb water that well.
"You are washing your hands?"
"Yeah. Just felt like it."
Caboose stood there for a while, rubbing his hair with his jacket. "You felt like washing your hands for several minutes?"
"Yeah."
"You are weird."
"Mmhm." Donut gazed downwards at his hands, then looked at Caboose. "You... you ever get nightmares about the people you killed?"
"No. I did not kill anyone."
"Right. Then... did you get nightmares about the people who fell over around you?"
In the reflection of the mirror, Donut saw Caboose fiddle with one of the buttons on his damp jacket.
"Why are you asking me?"
"I was just curious. I asked Simmons already. Response was kinda creepy... I just thought I'd ask."
"I...I, uh..." Caboose swallowed nervously. "I do not want to talk about it."
"Sorry, that's probably not the best thing to be asking people. I won't ask you again."
"That is good. It is very hard to pretend when people keep asking things. It is better not to think." Caboose looked at Donut's hands. Still dripping. "You should not think about it. If you... think about the bad things too much, everything starts to feel bad. And people who feel really, really bad in here usually die. Like Joannes. Do not think about it." Caboose nodded. "That is what Church told me."
"Did he, now..."
Don't think about it and it can't hurt you. It was simplistic logic. Donut wondered if it actually worked.
Donut wiped his wet hands on his jumpsuit pants. "Alright. I'll stop thinking about it starting... now."
"Good. Now... breakfast time!" Caboose grabbed onto the sleeve of Donut's jacket and started tugging him in the direction of the cafeteria. "Eating time!"
"Uh, you realise breakfast is probably over now?"
"Aw, crap."
Donut's hands still felt sticky.
Doc had finished bandaging and stitching O'Malley up, but O'Malley hadn't stirred since. And Doc had no idea what to do. There had been injuries on his head (it looked like someone had hit him pretty hard) and so Doc had stitched up the worst of the injuries. But he felt like there had to be something more he could do. Then again, his medical knowledge was never great. A job at the prison was the only job that would take him.
Doc sighed and massaged his forehead. Then he remembered he was still wearing bloody, plastic gloves. He quickly washed up, tossing the bloody gloves into the bin.
He heard the door swing open behind him, and turned to see York standing in the doorway.
"South told me about... you know." York jerked his head at O'Malley. "He alive?"
"So far. I think he'll live, he was still awake when South found him. If he hadn't bandaged his head up, he probably would have lost too much blood for me to do anything. As it was, I don't think he'll be in any condition to move for a while."
"You sure you want him in there? I heard he tried attacking you last time. Isn't that why he was in solitary to begin with?"
"He's in no condition to be attacking anyone. Trust me. He'll be lucky if he can sit up without vomiting when he wakes up." Actually, having O'Malley in the infirmary for a prolonged length of time made Doc incredibly nervous. Doc decided he had to install extra locks on the supplies before O'Malley woke up. "You know a lot about locks, right? Know any good places to get some good ones?"
"There's a place couple of blocks away from the station. I'll write down directions."
"Thanks. You wouldn't know how O'Malley got like this, would you?"
"Uh. No. No. Why would I know that?" York said, just a little too quickly. "I wasn't even patrolling around there, though heard a ton of thumping. Maybe... he was just hitting his head against the wall too much? Uh... oh, look. My phone's ringing."
"I... I don't hear anything."
"Oh, it's... one of those special phones that some people can't hear. Yeah. Gotta go take this." York backed out of the room quickly, walking back down the corridor.
Doc shook his head. He might have a habit of believing obvious liars... but York was such a horrible liar that it even tipped Doc's 'bullshit' radar off. Doc sighed. Maybe he'd have to ask Wash. Wash and York often patrolled around the same areas. Wash would probably know.
But in the meantime, Doc didn't want to leave O'Malley alone in the infirmary. For several reasons, one of them being that if O'Malley woke up and managed to get to his feet, he didn't want O'Malley breaking into the medicine closet and swapping the medication around or something stupid like that. Doc really wouldn't put it past him.
Donut was ironing jumpsuits (a surprisingly pleasant change from folding them) when he felt someone poke him in the back.
"Talk to Miller today. Nothing heavy. Just friendly chit-chat," Tucker muttered behind him. "Don't let anything slip that shouldn't be slipped. Alright? Don't bother digging for information today, it might make him suspicious. Just be friendly."
Donut nodded. "Okay. I'll try."
"You better do more than just fucking try, Dye-Job. If you try and fail, that's gonna be shit for all of us." Tucker moved away to carry some jumpsuits to the clothing pile. Donut returned to ironing, pondering subjects to talk about that didn't include soap-carving or interior design.