When Nora returned to Deacon, he was sound asleep. As anxious as she was about letting him sleep with his injuries, especially not knowing if he had internal bleeding, she opted to let him sleep a while longer. She'd give him at least an hour before trying to wake him up and get him coherent. That is, as long as the blast door held.
She did lean forward in her chair and take his pulse, frowning at how rapid and faint it was. If he had a punctured or otherwise collapsed lung, fluid and air could be gathering in the space his lung was no longer filling, which in turn would deflate it even further in addition to putting pressure on his heart. Damn it, she had just enough medical knowledge to scare herself, but not enough to be confident or truly useful. She was a lawyer, after all, not a medical practitioner.
"Thanks, Nate," she murmured under her breath. As tension had risen in the world and the threat of nuclear destruction loomed over them, he had insisted that she take a course in survival medicine. It was training he'd had as a soldier, and he wanted her to have that knowledge in case he was deployed. Or dead...that was the part that they never verbalized. If only he had been the one to survive instead of her.
But he wasn't. She was. She liked to think he'd be proud of her, the way she was adjusting to the world after their world ended. She hoped he would be, anyway.
"I'm doing the best I can."
"Of course. That's all anyone can ask of us, is our best."
"Hmm? Oh, I'm sorry, Danse. I didn't realize I'd spoken aloud."
"It's OK, soldier. How are we holding up back here?"
Nora shrugged. "Hard to tell." She said quietly. "I thought maybe if we let him rest a little. How's the front?"
"Door still holding. It's actually been pretty quiet. They threw a couple more frag grenades against the door after you came back here, but I guess they wised up and are thinking of another plan that won't waste their resources."
"Great. Patient and tactically conservative. That just means that the next thing they launch will be huge."
Deacon suddenly rolled to his side. Apparently his lungs didn't like the new position because almost immediately he pushed himself upright, gasping for air. Nora moved to him quickly.
"It's all right, honey. You're all right. C'mon, Deacon, stay with me."
"Can't...c...can't breathe."
She removed his jacket and tossed it on her chair. Then she grabbed a stethoscope from the medical kit and took a careful listen to several spots on his back, then his chest. Just as she feared, the sounds that would normally be there as his lungs filled were nearly absent on the left side. His right lung was taking up the slack, but if they didn't do something soon, it could follow.
Deacon slumped in to her and she grabbed him to keep him from falling forward. Simultaneously an orange flight suit caught her eye, and she pulled her own .44 snubnose from her rear holster and aimed it with one hand.
"Whoa, Paladin. Don't shoot! It's just me!"
"Rhys? When the fuck did you get here? HOW the fuck did you get here?"
"I brought him." Scribe Haylen announced as she stepped out from behind Knight Rhys. "We came in through the back tunnel."
"There is a radio frequency that is no longer used by the Brotherhood. I set up a distress pulser to that frequency, and that's how I've been communicating with Haylen and Rhys." Danse explained. "I'm sorry. I should have told you. I set it going when I first realized we were trapped here and he wouldn't be well enough to get out through the tunnel."
"So, are you, uh, going to put that weapon away, Paladin? I know you and I don't exactly get along, but Christ."
Nora held the gun ready for just another moment, just enough to make Rhys wonder, all the while keeping a protective arm around Deacon. Then, she put it away and returned her full attention to Deacon, hiding a smirk as she heard Rhys sigh in relief.