Alinnya walked as steadily as she could down the steps and into the captain's quarters, where Jack was in the bunk, under the sheets, and stared at the two holes within his chest, literally within inches of each other. Any lower and either would have killed him. The men looked at her, the galleyboy and Josh both looking dangerously pale, Cal and… Evans, wasn't it? looking grim.
"Go man the helm, get back to work," she sighed. "I can do this myself."
They all left, save Josh.
"I told you to leave," she sighed, grabbing a cloth and the bottle of whiskey.
"Are you proposing to stitch up yourself?" he asked, quietly. She looked down, sure enough, the side of her wrist was sliced open, fat and skin separated to show the muscle rippling underneath. It had stopped bleeding, she didn't even feel it, it was quite fascinating, really…
"Let me finish him," she sighed, rolling Jack over. One bullet had gone in right over his shoulder blade, and angled out cleanly. The other one was still in there. She spilled the whiskey over her hand and around the wound, looking at him for a moment.
"This'll hurt love," she whispered, and she grabbed his good hand in her own, using it for balance, as she kissed him hard, pushing her fingers into the first would, searching for a piece of metal.
He jerked awake, screaming into her mouth, and though part of him was thankful that she was thinking of his pride, the rest of him wanted to shove her off the plank. He passed out again, far too quickly to do a damn thing about it.
She could feel the shot in his shoulder, her fingers were brushing right against it, and she knew it hurt like hell, but she just couldn't… there. It came out with a sickening pop, and
She stared at the ball for a moment before grabbing a rag, dumping it in the whiskey and coating the now- bleeding wound with it, leaning into it with her whole body, her wrist dripping blood onto the cloth, mingling with his. Josh watched, not sure what to do, and learning the hard way, as she grabbed the needle and thread, washing the needle in the hot water, cleaning off the gaping holes, threading the needle, dumping the whole thing through another load of whisky, then doing her best the sew the flesh shut, pulling tightly as she continued, and going over twice, to hold it. Jack flinched, but not much else. She did the same with the second wound, then the one on the back, sweating with the effort while she wrapped bandages around his chest. She wiped his hair out of his face, a strange look coming over her eyes. She looked at Josh.
"Can you do that?" her voice was barely a whisper. He nodded.
"I'll need help."
"I know," she winced. She poured most of the whiskey down her arm, hissing in pain as she did so, and cleaned it off with the last towel, prepping the needle and thread. She held out her arm to him. "Get as deep as you can."
Josh took a deep breath, willing himself not to panic, or do anything stupid, and jabbed the needle at the closest point to her wrist. Her knuckles on both hands cracked, she gripped the table so hard, and she let out a small scream from the pain, but nodded, urging him to finish. She made it halfway through, crying with the pain and her own attempts to remain intelligible through the ordeal, before she passed out. Josh tied up the stitches as best he knew, and bandaged them, picking up his first mate and putting her in the bed beside his captain, not trusting himself to carry her any farther. He knew she wouldn't mind.
With that, he went back on deck, almost terrified at the prospect of sailing the ship alone.