Lan Fan didn't know what to say to her father. What did one say to someone they hadn't seen in seventeen years? She still wasn't sure this whole thing was real. But as Greed said it was real enough. Instead of engaging in conversation the two of them simply sat together. Feng put his arm around her; Lan Fan rested her head upon his shoulder. He combed his fingers through her short locks.

Perhaps this dream wasn't so terrible. When she woke she would tell Ling. Lan Fan wondered if Feng had given Prince Ling a silly nickname as well, or if he'd merely called him the little prince. She didn't ask.

It was enough for Lan Fan to sit with her father like she had by the hearth in their small home.

Lan Fan couldn't ask for anything more.


Margot administered another cubic centimeter of epinephrine to her patient. One more dosage would have Lan Fan maxed out on the medication. The haggard looking bodyguard continued compressions on her behalf, while Margot took Lan Fan's temperature for the upteenth time.

Eighty-seven degrees fahrenheit.

They were running out of time. Lan Fan was running out of time. Very soon she'd be warm and dead, and there'd be nothing left to do.

"Move," Margot told Bolin.

The bodyguard got out of the automail doctor's way. The former combat medic located Lan Fan's sternum with two fingers, moved them an inch upwards on her chest. Margot formed her other hand into a fist and brought the ulnar side down on Lan Fan's chest with an audible thump.

The redheaded pressed two fingers to Lan Fan's carotid artery. There she felt a flutter. Margot took her stethoscope from around her neck and checked the girl's heart for a rhythm.

Margot heard a heartbeat. Before she could say as much blood flow reached her patient's brain. Lan Fan sucked in a sharp breath of air. The sound startled Bolin. He bumped into the bed behind him, knocking Lan Fan's automail arm and Margot's spanner off the surface. The appendage and tool struck the floor with a metallic clatter.


Lan Fan Liu Zhang's world went from white to black. There were no nightmares or dreamscapes. Into darkness she disappeared.


Ling shot up from his seat against the wall next to the door at the sound of a crash. The Emperor reached for the door handle right as Lieutenant Qiyin Gao opened it.

"Is she all right?" Ling tried to move passed him into the room. The lieutenant bodyguard blocked him with an outstretched arm.

"Lan Fan is breathing. Doctor Fontaine is assessing her injuries as we speak" said Qiyin.

Before Ling couldn't sense her qi. Now he felt it yet it seemed so threadbare. Just as it had in the desert when infection and fever threatened to steal her away from him.

Ling Yao felt he himself would unravel if he did not see Lan Fan breathing for himself.

"Please I have to see her," The emperor begged.

"Just for a minute," Fontaine snapped the curtain open. "If you get in my way I'll throw you out myself."

Ling maneuvered around his bodyguard. He rushed to Lan Fan's bedside and held her too cold hand between both of his own.

"Lan Fan," Ling whispered.

His Lady Bodyguard gave no reply nor any indication that she heard him. Lan Fan's hand lay limp against his palm. He squeezed her hand gently to let her know she wasn't alone. Even if she couldn't hear him he hoped she somehow knew he was there.


Margot Fontaine returned to the other side of the bed with a penlight from her bag. The automail doctor checked her pupillary light reflex. Fontaine frowned at the sight of her uneven pupils.

"Lan Fan can you hear me?" she asked.

No response.

Margot grabbed the reflex hammer on her way to the end of the bed. She untucked the blanket providing passive warm to Lan Fan's legs. The doctor ran the point of the reflex hammer up the inside of her arches. Lan Fan's toes curled up instead of under.

"How is she?" Ling inquired.

"Shut up," she snapped.

The former combat medic grabbed a fresh hypodermic needle. With it she stuck each of the Xingese's legs, then reached across her body to stick her right arm.

No deep pain stimulus response.

"What are you doing?" The emperor exclaimed.

"Thinking. Shut up or it's back to the hall with you."

The Emperor of Xing shut his damn mouth. Wisely so.

Margot washed her hands at the sink before examining Lan Fan's head wound. Blood matted Lan Fan's hair but the bleeding appeared superficial. She ran the symptoms through her head and settled on a diagnosis.

"Subdural hematoma," she said, primarily to herself. Centrally located if she was correct. "She's bleeding into her brain. Someone get me an alkahestris. A competent one not the hack who owns this office."


"Fetch Mei Chang at once," the emperor commanded.

There was no one Ling Yao trusted more with Lan Fan's life. His sister saved her once, she could do so again. While Bolin bolted from the room Margot set up an instrument tray. The automail engineer lifted Lan Fan's head, turning her face toward Ling. She snatched a pair of scissors from the tray and proceeded to snip short a section of his Lady Bodyguard's hair.

"What are you doing?" Ling couldn't help himself.

Lan Fan's hand began to warm between his own. The return of warmth brought her liege a modicum of relief. The bodyguard's pale complexion pinked up as her circulation improved.

"Time for you to go," Margot said in lieu of an answer.

"I'm not leaving her."

Margot Fontaine leveled him with a glare.

"I'm about to drill a hole into her skull," she informed him in no uncertain terms. "If I don't relieve the pressure on her brain she will suffer permanent damage and die. You want to be here for that?"

Ling laced his fingers through Lan Fan's.

The idea of witnessing such a procedure filled him with dread. Lan Fan hadn't wanted him in the room when Doctor Knox debrided her shoulder or to witness the reattachment of her automail. Be that as it may, she wasn't awake to dissuade him this time.

Ling Yao had quite enough of being sheltered from Lan Fan's suffering. He intended to see her through it. He fixed the automail doctor with a dead serious look.

"I will not leave her."

Margot appraised him for a split second.

It seemed the surgeon did not find him lacking for she resumed her preoperative procedures. The automail doctor ordered Qiyin to scrub his hands and take a spot at the head of the bed. She handed the lieutenant guard an open mask layered with gauze to place over Lan Fan's nose and mouth along with a drop bottle of ether.

"You've just been promoted to anesthetist. Twelve drops a minute for two minutes then one drop a second for five," she instructed.

Ling took the gold pocketwatch from his waistcoat.

The emperor snapped the cover open and set the watch on the exam table within Qiyin's line of sight. In the silence of the room the second hand ticked audibly. Lieutenant Gao placed the mask over Lan Fan's mouth and nose, and began administering the anesthetic per Margot's instructions. While the bodyguard ensured proper sedation, Margot swabbed the shaved section of her patient's head with iodine.

Retrieving a scalpel from the instrument tray to her right she took a deep breath and sliced through her scalp down to the bone. Margot inserted a self-retaining retractor into the incision. The surgeon dropped the scalpel into the basin and grabbed the trephine.

Ling looked away when Margot put the hole saw to the back of Lan Fan's head. The sound of the surgeon hollowing out a section of her skull sickened him. The emperor swallowed hard against the taste of bile at the back of his throat.

Margot removed the circular section of bone, dropping it and the trephine into the basin beside the scalpel. The automail doctor picked up a sharp hook and fresh scalpel. She removed the remaining bone fragments then hooked the exposed membrane with extra care. Margot Fontaine drew in a deep breath, let it out slowly, and sliced through the dura with a steady hand.

Blood shot out from the incision. The oxygen rich substance spattered on the linens and across Margot's immaculate blouse. The surgeon didn't even flinch. She moved on to irrigating the subdural space with saline until the opening no longer oozed blood.


Mei Chang arrived at Master Hsu's office in pyjamas and slippered feet. Lan Fan's subordinate opened the door for her. The Little Chang Princess shrieked at the blood soaked scene before her. She covered her mouth with her small hands.

"Mei," Ling said her name with such desperation.

"You're here. Good," Margot proclaimed.

The princess removed her hands from her mouth.

"What is going on? What have you done?" Mei cried.

The automail doctor irrigated the incision with saline once more for good measure then removed the retractor.

"I need you to close the burr hole I've made. Can you do that?" Margot inquired in a clinical manner.

"Did you think about asking that before you drilled into her head?" Mei shrieked as she approached the exam table.

"There wasn't time. Not if we wanted to have any chance of preserving her brain function," the doctor replied.

"Hands off of the table!"

Mei drew her knives from the pocket of her pyjamas and threw them into the table around Lan Fan's head. Ling, Qiyin, and Margot pulled their hands away just in time. The princess activated the purification circle. Taking care she healed the open wound in her bodyguard friend's head.

"What happened?" Mei demanded.

"Head trauma and subsequent hypothermia," Margot washed her hands, grabbed a bore needle and intravenous tubing, and moved to the other side of the table. The emperor moved out of her way before she moved him. "You're up O neg."

Bolin joined the surgeon at Lan Fan's side. The bodyguard turned nurse turned blood donor rolled up the sleeve of his uniform. Margot swapped the inside of his elbow with disinfected before setting up the transfusion between subordinate and commander.

"Good man," she proclaimed him. "Shouldn't need more than a pint. If you start to feel faint say something."

"Yes ma'am."

Margot checked Lan Fan's pupils with the penlight and declared them equal. She checked her plantar reflex; Lan Fan's toes curled under just as they should. Her temperature rose to ninety-seven degrees fahrenheit thanks in part to the introduction of warm blood. Between the two of them, Margot and Mei cleaned Lan Fan up and changed the blood stained sheets.

Without further ado Margot Fontaine walked over to the sink and removed her bloody blouse. The gentlemen in the room averted their eyes as the redhead washed the blood from her skin wearing only her brassiere. Once her skin was clean and dry she donned her jacket. The suit coat still revealed a good deal of her bosom, but all things considered modesty was a minor concern.

"What do we do now?" Ling asked.

"Now we wait for her to wake up."

As it turned out they would be waiting a long time.