Chapter 54

Four days later, Abigail had been trained on how to stitch people up and draw blood, getting the hang of things rather quickly. Melina was ecstatic, sending everyone who needed their blood drawn to Abigail, along with injuries that involved blood. It didn't bother Abigail and she found herself enjoying helping people, getting to know others within Wonderful besides just Mark's inner circle of friends and confidants. Stephanie was doing well, still in the medical wing, and would hopefully be able to go home with John and the baby tomorrow. Taking her gloves off, Abigail tossed them in the trash and turned around just as someone walked through the door, her eyes narrowing slightly at Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins. It didn't take her long to see he was slashed on the side, his hand coated in blood and he looked rather pale, gritting his teeth.

"Please help him." Seth begged, knowing they had no other alternative and didn't know Abigail worked in the medical wing.

Nodding, Abigail had to push her personal feelings for Dean aside and instructed Seth to put him on the table, slipping on a fresh pair of gloves. "What happened?"

"Some of the hogs we breed for food, they're sometimes boars, from interbreeding with what we bring in," Seth explained, helping to strip Dean out of his coat and shirt. "We were down helping with de-tusking the bastard and Dean got the fun end of a tusk."

"Not. Fun." Dean grunted through gritted teeth. He had been holding the animal steady, it had panicked and began struggling.

"Fuck…" Seth winced when the t-shirt was completely off, taking in the wound. "I can't, I'm going to hurl." He bolted out of there.

Dean began laughing weakly at that. "Pansy…"

Abigail frowned thoughtfully at the deep gash and wondered if stitches would be able to hold this wound closed. No, it would have to be stapled, which she'd also been trained in. However, she hadn't done nearly as many staples as she had stitches, so this would be quite the practice.

"Okay Dean, I need you to keep perfectly still. I'm going to inject you with some lidocaine that'll help with the pain." She informed him softly, beginning to clean up the blood while applying pressure to it with gauze. "You're going to need staples."

"I really hope you don't use whiskey to disinfect, babe," Dean said, not bothered by the idea of staples, which couldn't hurt worse than being nearly gored. "Don't waste the drugs on me, Abs, save them for someone else."

Pain was good, it let him know he was alive. Dean figured other people might not tolerate it as well as he did. His eyes roamed the room before landing on her, flashing her a grin through his clenched teeth.

"You playing doctor now?"

"Don't call me babe. Abbie or Abs is fine, but not babe." Abigail ordered, pulling out the lidocaine, and could see he was serious.

He wanted to go through the agonizing pain of being stapled shut. That wound was very deep and would require extensive stapling. If that's what he wanted, who was she to deny him?

"Fine, and yes I have to use Jack Daniels to disinfect the wound." They didn't have anything else like peroxide and Jeff told her alcohol was the best disinfectant. "Take a deep breath, this is going to hurt." Then, she poured a healthy dose of Jack Daniels over the wound and shut her eyes when Dean actually bellowed out.

Maybe next time he would take the lidocaine.

"Always going to be babe, Abs." He chuckled hoarsely, holding out a hand when he saw that stapler. "Wait a second, let the whiskey do its work." Dean really hoped that they had told her not to constantly rely on liquor for antiseptic, not on superficial wounds at least because that would actually deaden nerves permanently, on top of cleansing a wound. "Okay, good. We're good."

"Stop telling me how to do my job and shut up. I've been trained, and I know what I'm doing, Ambrose." Abigail snapped, not amused by the way he was talking to her, and rolled her eyes, shaking her head. "Just keep your damn mouth shut and let me do this."

She knew when to staple his wound and how long to wait for the alcohol to work through the wound. Alcohol was all they had for an antiseptic, so he could either deal with it or find another way to close his wound unless he wanted to bleed to death. Without warning, she put the first staple in while holding the wound closed with her hand, remaining perfectly steady.

He began laughing as she stapled the wound, snorting when Abigail paused. "I wasn't trying to tell you how to do your work, Abs, just didn't know how long you'd been at this. Did your boy Hardy tell you what else whiskey does to a person? Besides cleaning the damn wound?" Because he bet Jeff hadn't. That was a side effect they didn't want to have to explain, he guessed. "It can kill the good tissue, the live tissue, deaden nerves. Soap and water work just as good." Unless she did know all that and was just being mean, in which case, he was going to be mad. Abigail had nailed him in the balls with a sharp spray, they were even as far as he was concerned.

"Yes, he told me all of that, but with a wound THIS severe, there's no time to scrub it clean with soap and water, especially since you need STAPLES, not stitches. You're lucky you didn't puncture a major organ with that damn animal!" Abigail had to take a deep breath, her temper currently up, and shut her eyes before continuing the staples. "If you wanted me to use soap and water, or do this a certain way, you should've told me." No, she didn't use the alcohol on purpose just to cause him pain, Abigail wasn't vindictive like that. "Four staples in, I'd say you need at least ten."

"Hey, they tranquilized that hog, shouldn't have been an issue." However, it was, shit happened, and now here he was getting stapled by Abigail, of all people. Life was just funny and cruel that way, he supposed. "No, with a wound like this, whiskey is quick and kind, scrubbing it would have been a bitch for us both. I just wanted to make sure you knew, they didn't tell Melina right away." Melina had been very whiskey happy for a while, then she had lost David and began drinking a lot of whiskey.

"If they knocked the hog out, why did it charge you? It should've been knocked out." Abigail pointed out the obvious, focusing on trying to keep this wound tight to where she could staple it due to how deep it was. Something told her they didn't give the hog a strong enough tranquilizer, which resulted in Dean being nearly skewered alive. "Okay, a couple more and you'll be good to go after I wrap your midsection. You're going to need to clean this wound at least twice a day, change the bandage, and if you can't manage it without fucking it up, you come back here, and I'll do it for you." Because Melina was too squeamish, even with closed wounds because they still sported a little bit of blood at first. "If you get a fever, you better come straight here because that means you have an infection."

"Goddamn, you're cute, Abs." Dean chuckled, sitting upright now, gingerly, and watched as she retrieved her supplies. "They tranquilized the damn thing, didn't knock it out. We try to just keep them calm, outright sedating one of those beasts takes a lot." They were all about conserving supplies. "Look, just wrap me up and I'll get out of your hair, okay? I know how to handle it from here."

This wasn't his first rodeo and likely not to be his last. Hell, if he had known she was the one in here, he wouldn't have come in the first place. Abigail had made it abundantly clear she hated him. When she stepped up to wrap him, Dean extended his arms and held still, his electric blue eyes fastened intently on her face.

"I'm sorry, Abbie."

Dean knew he shouldn't have said what he said, or did what he did, but how had she expected him to respond to the news she gave him? Did she really think anyone who cared about her was going to be all right with that? But… it also looked like it hadn't ruined her relationship with the Deadman either, just theirs. She made the mistake of looking up at him, sitting on the bedding in order to wrap the gauze around his midsection now that the staples were done. His words should've fallen on deaf ears, but Abigail found herself staring into his eyes and saw the truth in them. As much as she claimed to hate him, she couldn't because of everything he'd done for her.

"You told me you didn't have feelings for me, that you didn't think of me that way. You told me you understood how I felt about Taker. You lied to me." Abigail kept wrapping him, keeping her voice carefully neutral, and lowered her eyes to focus on what she was doing. "I trusted you and you lied to me, Dean."

All Dean could do was shrug, not feeling the least bit ashamed of it either. And really, who was she to call him out on that, of ALL people? She would have never told Taker the truth, which he had been fine with, and that was pretty much in the same category as lying. He wouldn't have told Taker either; if he had known the sneaky asshat was nearby, he wouldn't have said what he did.

"You do that, Abs, when you care about someone. You lie, especially if it means them being happy, and babe, I'm not an idiot. It's him that makes you happy. So I lied because it put your mind at rest."

Dean was a cock, he could admit it, but he wasn't selfish enough to make her miserable by telling her things she didn't want to hear. That wasn't easy to hear, but there was nothing Abigail could do about it. She was with the man she wanted, the man she loved, and would never hurt him again.

"You were the first actual friend I made here, Dean. You didn't judge me or ridicule me or make me walk on eggshells around you. I trusted you, that's why I asked you to help me rescue Malcolm after I was turned down by Taker. And after outing me to Taker, forcing me to relive what happened between us, I realized how wrong I was for being intimate with you and doing what we did." Taking the two clips, she fastened them into the gauze and stood up from the bedding, ripping her gloves off. "I'm an idiot. I trust too easily. And I've learned a valuable lesson not to trust people right away, so thanks for that. And for the record, I DID care about you, but I don't anymore. You ruined that. You ruined our friendship by being a dick and opening your mouth about something we both swore we'd never talk about again and then you kissed me, put your hands on me, without my consent. Thanks for that too, it opened my eyes to what kind of asshole you really are. You can let yourself out." Turning the light off, she stormed out of the medical wing and breathed in the fresh night air, heading toward the tower for a much-needed shower.

All he could do was laugh, a hand on his side. She was so damn stupid. And she had gone and done the one thing he had hoped she wouldn't, she had turned into one of THEM. Abigail would despise him forever because he had cared, and she really did not see her own self being selfish and a hypocrite. Dean was the asshole because, in a moment of serious panic, he had reminded her of something she was trying to hide from the man she did love. He had kissed her and griped at her. Apparently, as long as Taker had forgiven her for a mistake she had never intended to own, fuck him. Shaking his head, Dean vacated the medical ward. Maybe it was time to leave Wonderful. The wonder was gone for him.

By the time she arrived at the tower, Abigail was a little calmer and didn't realize she'd gotten blood on her yellow tank top until she looked down to notice it. Mark wasn't here yet, which wasn't a surprise since he and Malcolm had been spending a great deal of time in the forge. Peeling her clothes off, Abigail tossed them in the nearby hamper and started the shower sprays, stepping into them to wash away the day's, and part of the night's, events.

Dean could go to hell for all she cared. She didn't care what he thought about her, she didn't love him and never would. Leaving Wonderful would be in his best interest, but where the hell would he go besides the DOV? Wonderful was the only place of salvation away from the DOV, but then again, Dean claimed to be the jack of all trades. Snorting, Abigail washed her hair, rinsed the suds out, washed her body, and stepped out half an hour later, wrapping a towel around herself. Tonight, she would be discussing with Taker when he wanted to leave to put an end to the DOV and Bray Wyatt.

Father and son – Mark and Malcolm – had learned the hard that way Mythril could be ground down. They had also learned that it was going to be a very slow process. Malcolm was also missing the end of his left-hand pinky.

"I told you to mind the grindstone… you don't put your damn hands in the wheel's pull."

"I wonder if I could grow it back?" Malcolm said as they walked the path towards the tower, studying the now blunt, shorter pinky. It didn't hurt, magic had seen to that and the clean scar, but… still, he had a stubbed pinky.

"Magical lizard man…" He snorted, figuring he had gotten his common sense from his mother because Malcolm was very… curious and sometimes that was dangerous when one didn't reign it in with common sense.

She heard the door open and smirked, not realizing Mark wasn't alone. Still in her towel, Abigail was ready for some loving tonight and decided to shed her towel nonchalantly, dropping it to the floor. Mark would walk in, see her naked and take the invitation since they hadn't had sex in 4 days. He was holding back because of the two other times they had been intimate. Tonight, she would be rectifying that. That was until Mark walked in with Malcolm and she let out a shriek, stumbling out of the bed and FLEW into the bathroom, her cheeks a deep crimson red.

"Good lord…" Malcolm had slapped a hand over his eyeballs, but that hadn't stopped him from seeing Abigail's VERY naked body for a brief second. "I – uh – I will leave you to it, son." He cleared his throat, his own cheeks red, and decided he could handle his pinky on his own.

Abigail was mortified.