16. The Smell of Blood

'Girls?' a familiar voice yelled as the door rattled again.

'Percival!' Blanchefleur shrieked. She was off her feet before any of the other girls had even registered who it was.

'Oh thank God,' Evelyn breathed, practically melting into Zoe's side. For her part, Zoe trembled with relief, unable to move. Lucia merely sighed and pulled herself away from Zoe, turning away and brushing her dress free of wrinkles.

Liliana laughed, hugging Zoe tighter to her. 'We made it. We made it.'

'Percival, are you alright?' Blanchefleur pulled frantically at the barricade of furniture, sending some of it tumbling to the ground with a loud clatter.

'Don't do that. Leave whatever you've got against the door there,' Percival ordered.

'No! I want to get out of here!' Blanchefleur threw a few more pieces of furniture away from the door.

'Don't be so childish,' Lucia said, gliding over to the door. 'What's the status of the battle?' she asked, as casually as though she were enquiring about the weather.

'Victory for us, we're just moving our wounded and driving the last woads away. It's not safe to go out yet, but we won,' Percival said. He sounded tired, and he was breathing quite heavily.

'And you? Are you injured?' Blanchefleur asked, pressing herself to the wall next to the door.

'Not seriously. Wait here, someone will come for you when it's safe enough for you to go home. I've got to go,' Percival said, and his footsteps receded until the girls were left in silence again.

'We're safe? We're not going to die?' Anora asked, from where she was huddled next to her sisters.

'No. If Percival says we've won, we've won,' Lucia said.

Liliana laughed. It was a short, uncontrollable bubble of laughter that she quickly smothered, looking at the other girls guiltily. When her eyes met Casta's, Casta started to giggle, before blushing and pressing her hands over her mouth in a vain attempt to suppress them. Soon all the girls were laughing in a pile on the floor. Zoe was laughing so hard she had tears running down her cheeks, her stomach hurt and she could barely breathe. There wasn't anything funny, they weren't laughing because something was humorous. They were doing it because they could.

'I don't see how you can laugh. There's men out there dying right now. It's not funny. Not in the slightest,' Lucia said disdainfully, watching the tangle of laughing girls.

And that had the same affect as a bucket of cold water. Slowly they all stood up, standing in sombre silence. Anora had an arm around Casta's waist, and Kalare was gripping her hand tightly.

'Do any of you have men out there to worry about?' Liliana asked suddenly, looking at the three of them.

'My betrothed. He's not a soldier, but he works in the kitchens. It's not as safe there as it is here,' Casta answered.

'My brother, Aleron,' Bellona said. 'He works with the horses. He always tells me not to worry about him, that working with the knights isn't dangerous, but...'

'My cousin's in the kitchens too,' Blanchefleur whispered, just loud enough so that everyone could hear. 'And Percival's still out there.'

'Gawain,' Zoe said softly, so softly that only Liliana heard her. The blond knight was still out there fighting. Maybe he'd been hurt. Maybe he'd killed. Now that she knew she was safe, all of Zoe's fears for Gawain, for all the knights, came rushing back.

Liliana's arm curled around Zoe's shoulders, pulling the smaller girl into her side. 'He'll be fine. He's a good fighter,' Liliana whispered to Zoe.

Zoe was incredibly grateful that Liliana wasn't making a big deal over her admission that Gawain was someone special to her, but she knew her friend was smirking inside. She poked Liliana's ribs, and the girl yelped, jumping away from Zoe. She's forgotten Liliana was ticklish.

'Mean,' Liliana accused, mock-glaring at Zoe.

'And?' Zoe asked, smirking.

'And we need to be ready to leave as soon as they come for us,' Lucia interrupted.

'You always spoil our fun, Lucia,' Liliana pouted, turning to gather up the bandages that they'd made despite her words.

'You think this is fun?' Lucia snapped.

'Of course not. I know that there are men out there who fought to keep me, my family and my friends safe, and that they are dying, or that they're dead already. But for now, I'm happy to be alive.'

The other girls ignored the heated exchange and gathered their things. Their cloaks were fastened around their necks, the laundry returned more or less to order. The girls stood around, waiting for the knights to arrive and take them home.

They all cheered when they heard footsteps coming towards them and, when Bors told them to open the bloody door, they did it in a matter of seconds.

When the door opened they found the big knight, covered in blood and other muck with Lamorak and three Roman soldiers, not nearly as pristine as they had undoubtedly been before the attack.

'Right, girls, we're your escort home. There's still some of those woad buggers running about, so don't run away without us,' Bors said.

'Is Percival all right?' Blanchefleur asked, pushing through the others to get to Bors and Lamorak.

'He's fine. Not hurt too bad, just a bit of a graze on his neck,' Bors said. 'Now, are we going home or what?'

The girls all agreed and started to file out of the laundry and waited for the men to lead them away.

'I just want to sleep,' Evelyn said, leaning on Liliana.

'I want to see my brother,' Bellona said, holding tightly to Casta's hand while she spoke softly to one of the soldiers. What she heard seemed to relax her, because she smiled and spontaneously hugged the soldier, unconcerned about the blood, mud and other things that transferred from his clothes to hers.

'Do they need help in the infirmary?' Lucia asked Lamorak.

'Any help they can get. Zoe, Braewyn's asked that you come up and help,' the knight replied. 'It's not safe to go anywhere without a weapon, so follow me.'

Lucia picked up the bandages that they'd made and handed some to Zoe as they said goodbye to the other girls. 'See you…whenever,' Zoe said, waving tiredly at Evelyn, Blanchefleur and Lilana.

'I'll come to your house tomorrow,' Evelyn promised. The other two just waved back as Bors and the three Roman soldiers took up positions around the group of girls.

'Where'd you get the bandages?' Lamorak asked, leading Zoe and Lucia up the familiar corridors towards the infirmary.

'Made them,' Lucia replied calmly.

Lamorak looked over at her, and she apparently felt the need to elaborate. 'We were useless, sitting there. We needed to do something that might help.'

'Good thinking,' Lamorak said, nodding at the two of them. 'Watch your feet.'

Zoe looked down and nearly gagged. There were puddles and drips and smears of blood in the corridor, all leading in one direction.

'Why's there blood?' Zoe asked, surprised at the shakiness of her voice. 'Did you fight in here?'

'No. This is the quickest way to the infirmary from the doors.'

'So much blood,' Zoe said, staring at a red handprint on the wall.

'Snap out of it,' Lucia hissed, grabbing her bicep tightly, digging her fingernails in. 'Of course there's going to be blood, Zoe.'

Zoe nodded. Of course there was going to be blood. She shook her head and took a deep breath through her mouth. She could help, Braewyn had asked for her help. She was going to help.

'How many men?' Lucia asked Lamorak.

'Too many. Marius, the Roman physician, has too many for him to handle, and the others who've got knowledge of healing are working as hard as they can in the Roman barracks. Braewyn's doing her best, but she's all alone. I can't treat much more than scrapes, so there's a lot of soldiers bleeding in there.'

The two girls, noticing the anger and self-reproach in his voice, said nothing and walked silently. Lucia walked with purpose, head up, eyes surveying and assessing everything the saw. Zoe, however, was trembling. All the blood was getting to her, and she grew more and more afraid of what she would find in the infirmary.

'We're here,' Lamorak said, opening the doors. 'Remember, don't leave without one of us. It's not safe.'

The infirmary was full of men. All the beds were occupied, and there were even men standing, sitting or lying in between them. The smell of blood was terrible and coppery and it made Zoe feel queasy.

She tried to ignore the screams of the men in there, tried to ignore the moaning, but the sight seemed to be burned onto her eyelids. There was a man, a Roman soldier, three beds from the door, whose intestines were visible, pale and slimy through the blood pumping from the wound that bisected his stomach. He was writhing and screaming, even as another man moved to sit on the bed, talking to him and pressing blood-slick hands to the wound and calling for some rags.

Another Roman, a few more beds down on the other side of the room, had a crushed leg. Zoe could see splinters of bone, his tendons and muscles mangled and mixed with the bone fragments. Blood was pumping out of his leg, despite the tourniquet. The man's face was pale, and he wasn't screaming, he was crying silently.

Braewyn was standing at his side, covered in blood like some crazed witch rather than the sweet old lady Zoe knew she was. She beckoned Lamorak to her, and the knight walked over. A few words were exchanged, and he nodded and walked away swiftly. Braewyn pressed down on the tourniquet, and the man on the bed let out an unnatural scream, his face twisting in agony as blood oozed around Braewyn's hands.

Zoe tried to look away, but her eyes were drawn instead to the worst sight of them all. A grizzled old veteran was lying on a blanket, and four of his comrades were picking it, and him, up. A younger Roman was pleading with them, grabbing tightly to the blanket despite a bloodied bandage on his leg and a cut down his face, but the veteran shook his head.

'I'm dying. They got me good in the guts. No fucking hope,' the older man said, his face twisted in pain.

'No. You know about this witch. She can help you. She can help you!' the younger man was saying, even as the veteran was carried out past Zoe. As he was carried out, the blanket he was on dripped blood on the floor, and, when Zoe glanced inside the blanket, she saw that his intestines had been slashed open, and she guessed his bowels must have been hit, too, because there was a terrible smell in the air around him.

Zoe gagged, leaning against the wall for support and closing her eyes. She didn't think she could deal with this. This was worse than waiting in the laundry to find out if she was going to be killed or not. This wouldn't happen at home, this wouldn't happen. There'd be a proper hospital with doctors and nurses and antibiotics and morphine and bandages and proper surgery and…

'Zoe, Lucia, come help us,' Braewyn called, beckoning the two girls over and shocking Zoe out of her panicked thoughts. Lucia went willingly, Zoe considerably less so.

'Hold his body down, Lucia, if you please, Zoe, take his other leg. Lamorak, if you would…' Braewyn looked over her shoulder and moved away to grab something out of the room's one fireplace. It was a metal rod, glowing red with the heat of the flames.

'When do you want me to…?' Lamorak asked, holding a sharp-looking saw in his hand.

'Whenever you're ready,' Braewyn said. 'Girls, hold on tight.'

No anesthetic, Zoe thought hazily, watching as Lamorak rested the knife against an undamaged part of the man's leg, a little more than an inch up from where it turned to bloody pulp. She tore her eyes away and grabbed the Roman's other leg and dragged it off the bed so she could sit on the floor as Lucia sat on his chest, holding his arms down.

No painkillers, no morphine, no sterilization and oh God they're cutting his leg off right next to me! Zoe thought, clutching tight to the wounded Roman's leg and closing her eyes. They were going to cut the leg off, and she didn't want to have to see it. She didn't want to be anywhere near it. She didn't want to be here.

She sat on the floor, holding the man's leg as it kicked and jerked. She heard his groaning as Lamorak sawed away at his flesh. She smelt burning meat as Braewyn cauterized the wound and she gagged again. Her head spun and she pressed it against the now-limp leg trying to breathe deeply through her mouth, so she wouldn't have to smell the poor Roman's flesh as it burned.

'Done. Pass me a bandage, Lucia. They're sitting next to the bed. On your right, yes, thank you,' Braewyn said, winding the requested bandage tightly around what was left of the the man's leg.

Zoe stood up, and watched in disgusted fascination as Braewyn tied the bandage over the stump that used to have a leg attached to it.

'He'll probably live,' Braewyn said, straightening and kneading her back as best she could. 'Zoe, I need you and Lamorak to run down and get some more things from the storeroom. There's more of the ointment I put on wounds down there, as well as some for burns and more bandages and rags. If you could fetch them, please? Burn ointment has yellow thread tied to it, the one for wounds has red. Lucia, you can help me here.' Then the old lady was gone, onto the next bed. She shook her head at the soldier lying inside, ignoring his pleas for her help and moved on.

'Braewyn?' Zoe asked, scuttling after the old woman in an attempt to stay close. 'What about him?'

'He'll die no matter what I do. There's people here I can save who need me quickly. Now shoo, go with Lamorak,' Braewyn gently pushed Zoe towards the door, where Lamorak was waiting.

'But you have to try!' Zoe protested. 'You can't just let him die!'

'There's nothing I can do,' Braewyn answered briskly, looking regretfully at the dying Roman.

This wouldn't happen at home. If he had proper medical care, a real doctor, he'd survive, Zoe thought, letting Braewyn push her towards Lamorak.

'Remember-'

'Bandages, rags, burn ointment with the yellow threat, wound stuff with the red thread,' Zoe recited, trying not to think of the doomed man in the infirmary. 'I'll bring as much as I can carry.'

'Good girl. Now hurry!'

'Where am I taking you?' Lamorak asked as Zoe picked her way through the wounded men and to the doorway where he was standing.

'Storeroom,' Zoe replied, walking through familiar corridors rendered menacing by puddles or drops of blood.

'Lamorak,' Zoe said suddenly, not looking at the knight. 'Do you know about the other knights? If they're all unhurt, I mean.'

'We were fighting for most of a day, do you think we'd come out uninjured?' Lamorak snapped. He sighed when Zoe flinched and rubbed his eyes tiredly. 'Sorry. You didn't deserve that.'

Zoe didn't say anything, just opened the door to the storeroom anyway. 'But do you know what's happened to everyone?'

'Bors is getting treated at home-he's only got small cuts on his hands and Vanora can treat them well enough. Just wash and wait. Dinadan got his nose broken-again. He'll scare all the ladies away, because the hit that broke his nose cut his cheek and it's going to scar pretty badly. Bedivere's hands are wrecked worse than Bors', but that's because he was fighting with a dagger. Some bloody woad knocked his sword out of his hands. Dag's arm's broken, but I know how to splint stuff, so I did that and sent him to his rooms. Caradoc's just got small cuts all over him-nothing too serious. Percival got a grazed neck from an arrow. An inch to the left and…'

Lamorak trailed off when he saw how pale Zoe was. 'Did I say something wrong?'

'No. No. It's just that…' Zoe took a deep breath while she tried to figure out some way of saying this without saying I'm from the future and I've never seen this much blood before in my life. 'It's...I know these men, and they're literally inches from death, and I'm not used to it because stuff like this just doesn't happen where I come from.'

'Get used to it. It happens a lot here,' Lamorak said bitterly.

'And…Arthur? And Gawain? What about them? Lancelot and Galahad, they're not…dead, are they?' Zoe asked as she found what Braewyn had asked her to collect.

'Nobody's seen them. Percival went out looking with Caradoc, and Tristan's somewhere out there.'

'Tristan's not badly hurt, then?'

'Even if he was, he'd have to faint before he shows up in the infirmary. Crazy bastard,' Lamorak said, arms full of bandages and rags. 'Want a hand?'

Zoe nodded and shoved as many jars of paste or ointment or whatever it was at Lamorak as he could deal with, and then took just as many in her own arms.

'What is this, anyway?' Lamorak asked.

'Burn paste-stuff, I've seen Braewyn making it, for helping the people whose wounds have been cauterized, I guess,' Zoe said. It was much easier to talk about these things when they weren't right in front of her, she discovered. 'The ones with the red thread are for wounds; Braewyn said that the herbs they're made of stop things from festering, and encourage healing.'

'You sound like Marius,' Lamorak complained.

'Marius?'

'The Roman physician. I asked him to teach me how to deal with wounds and stuff, but he just babbled on about Humours and prayer and a bunch of shit that doesn't have anything to do with the fact that your blood's leaking out of your body.'

'Well I just know what Braewyn's told me. I've helped her make these things before and she told me what they were supposed to do.'

Lamorak just grunted and left the room, with Zoe following. 'You do know that if a woad jumps out at us, these jars are going to be dropped.'

'If a woad jumps out at us my first thought will obviously be for the jars,' Zoe replied, with a faint attempt at her usual humour.

Lamorak let out a sharp bark of laughter, and continued walking. They'd made it about halfway to the infirmary when they saw two men limping ahead with them, heading in the same direction. The taller man was leaning on his slightly shorter companion and struggling to remain upright.

'Arthur!' Lamorak called. He shoved the jars at Zoe and ran to his commander, ignoring Zoe's protest and the sound of shattering pottery. At least the rags and bandages weren't soaked in them. Zoe, careful of her thin boots, dodged around the pottery fragments to reach the knights.

'You take his other side, we've got to get him to Braewyn,' Lancelot was saying.

Lamorak slung Arthur's other arm around his shoulder and Lancelot pressed his hands against Arthur's side as hard as he could. There was blood covering his hands, and Zoe hoped not all of it was Arthur's. The man was pale and he looked like he would barely be able to make it to the infirmary.

Lamorak glanced over his shoulder at Zoe. 'Keep up,' he demanded.

Zoe nodded, and she did keep up, although a few more jars were lost on the way.

By the time they reached it, Arthur's head was lolling about, and he was practically unconscious. Lancelot took in the crowded infirmary and muttered something that sounded like 'Cador's room'. Lamorak nodded and the two of them turned towards the knights' quarters.

'Zoe, get Braewyn, tell her it's Arthur,' Lancelot ordered.

Zoe walked back into the infirmary, forcing herself not to look at the blood and the dying men and walked over to Braewyn, completely disregarding what she and Lucia were doing. 'Braewyn, Arthur's wounded. Bad. Lancelot said to get you.'

'Put the supplies over on the bench before you drop them,' Lucia said, not looking away from the injured man.

Zoe let out a noise of exasperated impatience and dumped her things on the bench. She stomped back over to the bed but stopped dead in her tracks when she saw who it was.

'Oh God,' Zoe whispered. She felt as if she'd been punched in the stomach and her knees buckled, sending her to the floor at the side of the bed. 'It's Gawain.'

He was covered in blood. Even the crude bandages across most of his chest and stomach were soaked in it. His face was splattered with blood, his hair was matted with it. And he wasn't moving. Or screaming. Or groaning. He was barely breathing.

'Gawain?' Zoe asked, putting one hand on the knight's arm and shaking him. 'Gawain?'

'He's unconscious and better off that way,' Lucia said. 'Braewyn, there's a Roman who needs me now.'

'Yes, yes, go,' Braewyn said. 'Galahad, press here.'

The younger knight, pale, but determined, did as Braewyn instructed and pressed a wad of new bandages over Gawain's stomach.

'Harder, you need to stop the bleeding,' Braewyn ordered.

Galahad nodded and did as he was told, not even looking perturbed when blood started seeping through the bandage he was holding to his friend's stomach, or when Gawain let out a soft, pained moan.

Zoe grabbed his wrist and tried to find a heartbeat. Please, please don't die. There was a pulse, but it was weak. Zoe glanced at Braewyn. The old woman's face was expressionless, which was a bad sign.

'How bad is Arthur?' Braewyn asked, looking up from Gawain. 'Is he as bad as this?'

'I-I don't know,' Zoe said, not able to tear her eyes away from Gawain.

Gawain had a large slash across his chest and stomach. Crude bandages were still bound across his chest, but the ones across his stomach were new, and were being held down by Galahad. They were rapidly becoming stained. Gawain was pale, paler than Galahad, paler than Arthur had been. He wasn't moving. He was barely breathing.

'Clean his wounds as best you can while I check on Arthur,' Braewyn ordered, pointing to a rag and water lying on the floor next to Galahad before leaving.

Galahad looked pleadingly at her, his eyes clearly begging her to do something for Gawain. Zoe looked around desperately for Lucia and some help, but a glance across the room showed Lamorak was back and helping Lucia cut someone's arm off while his comrades held him down. She was on her own.

Zoe took a deep breath and tried to ignore the smell of blood. Once she felt as calm as she would get in this situation, she carefully peeled some bandages away from Gawain's upper chest. The wound wasn't bleeding anymore, but, from the colour of the blood on Gawain's stomach, she guessed the wound got deeper further down.

'How did this happen?' Zoe asked, dipping the rag in water and dabbing gently at the crusted blood on Gawain's chest.

'Too many of them. One of them got in a hit,' Galahad said. He snorted in bitter amusement. 'He did kill the bitch, though.'

'A woman did this?'

'Woads train their women to fight,' Galahad said, not looking away from where his hands were pressed to Gawain's stomach.

Zoe didn't say anything, she just continued pulling bandages away and dabbing the skin clean of blood, trying to treat it as one large scraped knee. It wasn't working. Zoe felt like throwing up. 'I don't think I should take this off,' Zoe said, once she reached the bandages Galahad was holding down. They were still leaking blood.

'It's deepest here,' Galahad said.

'We should wait for Braewyn.'

'I'm here. Zoe, Arthur's not as badly off as Gawain. I need you to do exactly what I tell you.' Braewyn's bloody hand grabbed Zoe's and gripped it tightly. 'Promise.'

'What do you want me to do?' Zoe asked.

'Promise me that you'll do everything I tell you to. Quickly, quickly,' Braewyn insisted, squeezing Zoe's hand harder.

'I promise.'

'Arthur's in Cador's room, you need to go to him and take out the stitches Marius put in Arthur, and put in new ones. Tight, small stitches, ones with no chance of ripping apart on their own. Choose undamaged skin to sew so that they don't tear open anyway. Then you need to wipe all the blood away, and put some of this on his side,' Braewyn gave Zoe a jar with red thread tied around its neck. 'Bandage him up and make sure you tell Lancelot that he'll need to drink as soon as he wakes up. Water, not alcohol.'

'Why me?' Zoe asked. 'I can't do this!' Zoe set the jar down and wrapped her arms around herself, shaking her head frantically. The thought of having to stitch skin together, to dig a needle in and pull thread through living flesh, to have blood ooze over her hands and to have Arthur's life resting in them made Zoe gag.

'You can, you promised to and you will because you don't want Arthur to die. Lucia will be working on other men. Men with more serious injuries. I'll be working on Gawain. You're the only one left.' With that, Braewyn pulled Galahad's hands away from the remaining bandage and then pulled it off. What Zoe saw, coupled with what she had promised to do made her knees weak and she felt sick and dizzy and she just couldn't take it. The hours of fear while she'd been trapped in a laundry, completely defenceless. The blood. The screams. The dying men all around her. Now this.

She ran outside the infirmary, away from the men bleeding and groaning and dying in it. She ended up in a corridor near the knights quarters, on her hands and knees, crying and vomiting onto the floor.

'Zoe? Braewyn said you'd stitch Arthur up.' It was Lancelot, sounding anxious, something that she had never thought the self assured knight capable of.

Zoe shook her head frantically, trying not to throw up again. She'd seen blood, she'd seen people's insides. Insides weren't supposed to be visible from the outside. It was gross, it was wrong, and she could still smell blood. She retched onto the floor.

'She said you'd take care of him.'

'I can't,' Zoe sobbed, wiping her mouth on her sleeve. 'I can't do it.'

'Well then who will?' Lancelot yelled. 'There's nobody else!' He sounded desperate, and his face, when Zoe managed to look at it, was twisted with anger and contempt.

'I can't! I just can't.' Zoe sat back from the puddle of vomit on the ground, screaming up at the knight.

'Why the hell not?' Lancelot demanded, grabbing Zoe's arm and shaking her.

'I've never done anything like this before!'

'Well try! Arthur's in there bleeding and you're out here crying because you haven't done anything like this before? Go in there and do it, throw up after if you have to, I don't fucking care as long as Arthur gets better.' Lancelot tried to pull Zoe to her feet, but she resisted, trying to pull his hand off her arm, scratching at it.

'Then you fucking do it!' Zoe screamed, wrenching her arm away from his.

'I can't! If I could I would, then I wouldn't have to rely on pathetic women like you! But, in case you haven't noticed, my fingers are broken. Please, Zoe!' Lancelot begged, kneeling down in front of her and stroking her face. If Zoe had been less distressed she might have melted into the seductive move, but she barely noticed.

'I can't. I can't.' Zoe thought of digging a needle into someone's flesh, of blood on her hands. They were shaking. What if Arthur's ribs were showing? What if she hurt him? What if he died because she couldn't do it properly? What if he died because she didn't do it?

'You're too scared to. You're a fucking coward!' Lancelot screamed, pulling away from Zoe in disgust and standing up. 'Congratulations, because you're such a coward, Arthur's going to die! And let me tell you, if he dies because you were too weak to do anything, I'll kill you myself!' Lancelot left her in the hall, giving her a black glare. If looks could kill, Zoe would be dead ten times over. At least.

This wouldn't have happened if she had still been where she belonged. If she was at home, really at home, she wouldn't have to do these things. She wouldn't be threatened with death by a scarily loyal knight because she didn't want to poke his commander with a needle. She wouldn't smell like blood, be sitting next to her own vomit or have seen intestines. She'd had enough trouble with the rat dissection in biology, how could Braewyn expect her to be able to stitch Arthur up as if he was another piece of clothing? How could Lancelot expect her to do that?

'Zoe, you forgot this.' A jar with red thread was plopped down next to her. 'Now get off your ass, wipe your face and go help Arthur.' Lucia grabbed her shoulders and shook her. 'I can't do it, there's a man in there with his guts spilling out of his stomach. I need to put them back in soon, or else he'll die. Painfully, slowly. Compared to me, you've got it good, so stop being such a child and do what you promised to.'

'How do you do this?' Zoe asked.

'I learned from Marius, you know, before I was married,' Lucia said, not looking at Zoe. She sounded sad. 'I do this because it lets me sleep at night. It's better than doing nothing and knowing that men died for me; men who I could have saved with what I know and with what I can do. Don't kill him by doing nothing, Zoe. We need him. We need Arthur.'

Then she was gone, back into the infirmary to shove someone's insides back where they belonged. And Zoe was still in the corridor, next to a puddle of vomit and a jar of paste that was supposed to be good for wounds. And Arthur was in a room, lying on a bed, slowly bleeding out.

'Fuck!' Zoe screamed, letting out one last sob. 'Please God, if this is just a joke, take me home now!' Zoe yelled in English, pounding her fists on the ground.

But nothing changed. She wasn't zapped back to the house she'd been sharing with her friends before all this shit had happened; she didn't suddenly wake up in a hospital. Nothing changed.

And Zoe had no choice.

Zoe staggered to her feet, trying to take deep breaths. She scrubbed at her face with the sleeve of her dress, trying to stop any more tears from coming out. She gritted her teeth and started to walk down the hall. She didn't know if she'd be able to do it, to heal Arthur and stop him from dying, but she did know she had to try.

xxx

A/N: Sorry for the long wait, but this chapter was really hard for me to write. Thank you to all the reviewers, you guys kept me going on this when I just wanted to throw something at the screen. Thanks to my beta, homeric, for her hard work on this. As always, reviews are loved, and advice on characterization appreciated.

Disclaimer: Not mine-I don't own anything.