A/N: Hello! I have been away for some time and for that I apologize. I have been extremely busy the past few months and have not had the time or motivation to write. I hope to do a significant amount of writing in the next few weeks to make up for it. For now enjoy this new chapter! Just a warning for those that are sensitive to it, this chapter has a bit of bloodiness in it.

Mina and Thali were busy at work in the crop fields, when their work day was interrupted by the sound of a man screaming. Both women's head shot up and turned in the direction of the scream. Mina halted her work and acted quickly, running in the direction of the other workers in the field. She soon came across the sound of the scream. One of her fellow farmers, a man named Liam was lying on the ground, clutching his leg. Bright red blood was seeping through his fingers and falling onto the ground. Mina's eyes slid over to the farming instrument on the ground that had caused the wound, a pickaxe that had broken off the handle and hit Liam in the leg.

"Oh dear," she muttered under her breath as she kneeled beside the bleeding man, "Liam I need you to hold very still. We need to get this bleeding under control."

Liam's face was twisted with pain, but he nodded in agreement to Mina's command. Thali came up behind her kneeling sister and covered her mouth to stifle a gasp.

"Oh god! Liam!" another woman shouted as she came across the scene. Liam's wife Annie had joined them on the ground, grabbing onto her husband hand.

Mina quickly reached behind her and undid the strings for her apron and proceeded to tie the clothing article around Liam's upper leg. She pulled it as tight as she could in an attempt to slow the bleeding. The small group around Liam was growing steadily as more people came over to see what had happened. Mina turned to one of the men in the group and shouted a command at him.

"Quickly! Go get help!"

The man was quick to obey her command and took off towards the town, searching for help. Mina knew that they had little time, as Liam was still losing quite a lot of blood. She waved some more people from the group over and started issuing commands to them.

"Grab his arms and legs! We need to get him closer so the help doesn't need to come so far. You two grab his legs and you grab his arms. Annie I need you to hold his head. I need you to help my sister support his body while I apply pressure to his leg. Thali give me your apron."

Everyone did as she said, and Mina pressed her sister's apron over the wound, applying pressure as the group of them slowly moved Liam across the field. When they reached the edge of the field, they were greeted by the help she had sent for. Two men with a stretcher met them and they gently placed Liam on the stretcher. As the men carried him towards the entrance to the compound for medical help, Mina continued to walk alongside, holding her hands on the ever bleeding wound. The small group moved as fast as they could, with Annie running in front of them telling people to move out of the way.

Liam had lost consciousness as soon as they had put him on the stretcher, which concerned Mina. Soon enough they had descended into the compound, rushing down the hallway towards the infirmary. When they entered the room, Corric was ready for them, meeting them at the door and taking Mina's place. Mina stepped out of the way and watched as Corric rushed to save Liam's life. Annie sobbed at her side, shaking like a leaf. Mina wanted to reach out and comfort the woman, but her hands were covered in blood.

She felt almost as if she were in a haze, watching Corric work before her. She almost didn't register the person that touched her arm to get her attention. She shook her head to clear the hazy feeling and turned her attention to the person. The woman beside her guided her to a sink to wash the blood from her hands. Once she had been cleaned up, she followed the woman's direction to a small waiting room off the infirmary. Annie was already there, pacing back and forth across the small space. Her head whipped towards Mina as she entered the room.

"Did you hear anything? Will he be alright?" she asked in a shaky voice.

Mina shook her head again and gave the woman a sympathetic look.

"I'm sorry Annie, I don't know how he is. They ushered me out."

Annie's hands went to her hair and she began to anxiously run them through it. Her eyes fell to Mina's front, which was still covered in blood. She began to sob again and returned to pacing the room. Mina found a seat, knowing she couldn't do anything to help Annie.

They waited in the room for what felt like hours, Annie almost leaving track marks on the floor from her pacing. Finally the door opened, revealing the same woman that had brought Mina to the room. She looked relieved.

"You can come in Annie. Liam is out of surgery."

Annie practically ran from the room into the infirmary. Mina stood from her seat and moved to follow her. The woman at the door held out her hand to stop her.

"Corric wants to speak to you as soon as he tells her how Liam is doing. He asked me to tell you to stay out here."

Mina nodded and retook her seat. A few minutes later, Corric came through the door and made his way across the room to where she was sitting. He offered her his hand to shake, which she took. He released her hand and sat beside her.

"You are Mina Delaine right? Caleb's sister?"

"It's Mina Kolya actually, but yes."

"That was some quick thinking that you did. Where did you learn that?"

Mina's mouth quirked up in a small smile as she remembered that it had been her mother that had given her the medical training. She had made sure she knew how to take care of a wound in case she needed to help someone in their militant society.

"My mother taught me when I was younger. I'm surprised I remembered what to do since I was 10 when she taught me."

Corric seemed impressed with her skills, especially since they were so unpracticed.

"I could use someone with your quick thinking to help me. If you hadn't been there when Liam was hurt, he would have bled out before the help got to him, not to mention before he got anywhere near me. We don't have enough help down here and I can't be everywhere I'm needed."

Mina looked at Corric in confusion. She wasn't sure what he was saying to her.

"I'm sorry, are you offering me a job?"

Corric let out a light laugh.

"I guess I am. I will have to talk to Cowen about it, but I could really use your help. You wouldn't have to leave your current post. You would actually be where I need you, on the surface. I can't always get there when I'm needed."

Mina's smile widened at the idea that Corric was proposing. She could do something that would be helpful and more productive than her daily farming tasks. At the same time, she wouldn't have to abandon Thali and lose the time she spent with her sister.

"If you can talk Cowen into it, I would be more than happy to help."

Corric looked relieved that she had accepted his offer. He stood and offered her his hand again to shake.

"I look forward to working with you in the future."

As Mina emerged from the entrance to the underground portion of the settlement, she was ambushed by her younger sister.

"Mina!" Thali shouted her name as she grabbed Mina's arms to grip her full attention, "what happened? Is Liam alright?"

Mina nodded in answer to her sister's question.

"He lost a lot of blood, but he will be alright. Had I not thought quickly, he would have been much worse. Thankfully the training I got from mom came in handy."

Mina watched as her sister's face fell at the mention of their mother. Thali always had a hard time discussing the woman that she had never met. When she was younger, she had thought it was her fault that she had died, but luckily she had grown out of that thought process. Mina quickly changed the subject, moving away from the topic of their mother.

"You want to walk me home, I desperately need a change of clothes, and people might get the wrong idea if I am walking home alone in the dark covered in blood."

Thali's expression quickly changed from the down state she had entered. She let out a small chuckle and linked arms with her sister.

"People might think you killed someone," Thali joked.

Mina laughed at her sister's attempt at humor.

"Who would I have killed?"

Thali shrugged as they walked on, having trouble thinking of a person that her nonviolent sister would want even want to hurt, much less kill.

"I don't know, but you still look suspicious."

Mina laughed again, glad the mood had changed so quickly.

"Thanks a lot Thali."

The two sisters walked through the darkness until they reached Mina's home. It was still dark inside, which meant that her husband had not yet returned. Mina bid her sister goodbye and entered her home. She walked into her bedroom to change into some non-bloody clothing, not bothering to turn on lights as she went. She lit a candle as she entered the room, not wanting to bother turning on the gas lamps. While she was searching for some clothing in the dim lighting, she heard the front door open, signaling that her husband had returned home.

"Mina?" she heard him call out as he turned on a light in the main room.

Mina stopped her search for new clothing and exited her room to see her husband standing in the middle of the main room. As she walked into the light, her eyes soon caught sight of the bright red liquid on his forehead. She let out a gasp.

"Acastus! You're bleeding!" she shouted at him, running to grab the first aid kit from the bathroom.

Kolya's hand went up to his head and he brought it back down to see blood on his fingers. He shrugged as if it was nothing.

"I didn't even notice."

Mina sighed in frustration as she gestured for him to sit at the table so she could stitch him up. She muttered under her breath about bleeding men as she got to work.

"How did this happen?"

"Sora was lucky today and managed to strike me. I bandaged it up earlier, and I thought it was fine. I guess I was wrong."

Mina was surprised at the small spark of jealously that she felt at the mention of Sora. The girl was well known among the Genii for her good looks. What was her husband doing spending time with Sora?

She shook her head to clear that thought, remembering that it was her husband's job to train the members of the Genii military. She wasn't quite sure where the jealousy had come from. It wasn't like they had a normal marriage. He had already given her a chance to find someone else, so he wasn't connected to her in that way that would encourage her to be hurt by him paying attention to another woman.

Mina scowled at her own thought process, turning her focus back to what she was doing. She finished stitching up the wound on her husband's forehead and wiped the remaining blood off with a wet cloth.

"All finished," she said, walking around to the front of Kolya to get a better look.

Kolya looked up to thank her and she saw his eyes widen.

"Mina! You are covered in blood!"

Mina looked down at the front of her clothes. She had forgotten that she had been interrupted from changing them by her husband's entrance. Kolya stood from his chair and gently grabbed her arms, his eyes scanning her as if he was looking for wounds.

"A man was injured today in the field by a pickaxe. He was bleeding a lot and I helped get him to the infirmary. I haven't had a chance to change my clothes yet. I was in the middle of doing that when you came in, also covered in blood I may add."

Kolya used his grip on her arms to turn her around, guiding her in the direction of her bedroom.

"You can go clean yourself up, don't let me stop you."

Mina did as he suggested, returning to the main room minutes later in bloodless clothing. Kolya was sitting in his chair, and he looked up when she entered the room. Mina gestured at her clothes.

"There. No more blood. For either of us."

Her husband gave her a small smirk as he stood from his chair. He crossed the distance between them and gently grasped Mina's hand. She looked up at him in confusion, but he said nothing. He simply led her to the kitchen, pulling out a chair for her. Mina sat in the chair and for the first time noticed that the table was set before her. In the short time she had been gone, he had fixed a simple salad for dinner. This was the first time she had seen him prepare food in the three and a half months that they had been married.

"You didn't need to do this Acastus. I could have made dinner."

Kolya shook his head as he sat across from her.

"You've had a busy day it seems. Why don't you tell me what happened?"

Mina recanted the day's events to her husband, excitedly telling him about the job that Corric had offered her. He seemed to think that it was a good idea.

"It will give you a chance to see what goes on beneath the surface. Not many people that are raised on the surface have that chance unless they join the military. Our lives will be a little more connected this way."

Mina tried to grasp what he was trying to say. It almost seemed like he was happy that she would be working closer to him. Corric had said he needed her on the surface, but the way he made it sound, he needed help everywhere. Maybe this was the thing she needed to get closer to her husband. She smiled to herself at that thought. The accident was almost a blessing in disguise, as it brought her to a new point in her life.

As they finished their simple dinner, Mina glanced across the table at Kolya a number of times, trying to gauge what he was thinking and if it matched up with hers. She felt a small amount of hope flare up in her chest. Maybe this was their chance.

A/N: Odd switch from bloody accident to domesticity, but I think Genii life would be like that sometimes ;). I hope to update again sometime in the next few days, when I have time to write some more. Hope you enjoyed the chapter! Please review and let me know what you think!