HAI. Just back for a quick break from SPRING BREAK. I'm in between trips to the "middle of nowhere", so I figured while I could give you guys this while I had internetz.

P.S. What kind of topics do you guys think Grin would brush up on when talking to Duke?

P.S.S. I'm still attempting the "slight-Brooklyn accent". It's still hard as Hell to write...

Disclaimer: I don't own MD:TAS. If I did, I'd be rich


Tanya knocked on Duke's door with her right hand as a tray of breakfast was balanced on her left. "Duke, you awake?" She figured that he wouldn't be, seeing that it was only nine forty-five and he hadn't been waking up lately until well after ten thirty or so. But she figured that it was polite to ask anyway.

When no answer came through the door, she pressed a button on the keypad next to the door to let her enter. The door 'whooshed' open, and she entered. Placing the tray on a table in front a couch nearby, she looked at his bunk to see Duke in bed, facing the wall.

Figured he'd still be asleep, she thought, making her way over to the side of the bunk. Placing a hand on his shoulder, she shook him a little. "Duke, wake up," she said. "I've got breakfast-"

Then she noticed something wrong about this picture. The ex-thief was laying on his left side - where Falcone had given him the horrendous wound - while his right arm was laying on the bed, looking as if he had been in mid-reach for something on his bunk shelf.

"Duke?" Tanya asked, confused about this. She shook him a little harder. "C'mon Duke, this isn't funny."

She heard a groan come from him after a few minutes. His red eye opened and he looked towards her. "Tanya?" he asked. "How'd you get here?"

"The door," she replied, rolling her eyes. "Are you feeling alright?"

Duke groaned again as he tried to turn over onto his back and succeeded. He looked at her, not looking so great. "Mornin'," he greeted. "And not really. My side's kinda…burnin'."

Burning? thought Tanya. She placed a hand on the drake's forehead. "Well no wonder," she said, taking her hand away and bring her Omnitool up to check his temperature. "You've got a fever. Now let's see how - uh - high it is."

After a few moments, the wrist instrument came up with a reading. Tanya whistled. "You've got a temperature of 102," she said. But why would he have a fever?

She thought for a moment as Duke closed his eyes. "Duke, let's check your side and see if it's infected."

Duke half-opened his eyes and sat up as Tanya flipped her comm open. "Grin, can you hear me?"

Grin's face appeared over the communicator. "Might I inquire what the trouble is?" he asked.

"Can you bring a First Aid kit to Duke's room?" she asked. "I need to check his side, but I'm gonna need new bandages and gauze when I'm done." She thought for a second. "And probably some - uh - peroxide to clean it with."

"I shall be with you momentarily." With that, Grin's face disappeared from the communicator and Tanya closed her own.

Duke turned around on the bed so his body could face her, but his eyes were still only half-open as she looked at him. As a small cutting knife popped out of her Omnitool, she said, "Alright, I'm going to cut off these bandages since I gotta - uh - change 'em anyway."

When the ex-thief simply nodded, she began to cut off the old dressings. It didn't take long before she was through, and by the time she was done, Grin had come and gone with the First Aid kit that she had asked for.

Tanya took all the old bandages that she had just cut off (along with the slightly bloody gauze that had been covering the slash that Falcone had given him) and placed them on the floor. She then took his arm out of the sling so she could get a better access point, opened up the kit next to her and pulled out some gloves that were in it. "Okay Duke, you can lay back down now, but do so on your right side," she told him.

He did as he was told, laying his arm down on the bed, and closed his eyes again, feeling more tired than earlier. When Tanya started probing (with gloved hands) at the gash on his side, he winced a few times. Once or twice, he even gritted his teeth because it hurt. And he wasn't even sure why. Puck, the ex-thief hadn't even felt anything until he had laid back down again earlier. Why was he feeling so bad now?

After a few more minutes, Tanya quit poking at the wound, pulling out a cotton ball and the peroxide. "Well, it's definitely an infection," she told him as she began to clean his side. He hissed as she cleaned. "That would - y'know - explain your fever." Then she glared at him as she continued to clean. "Have you been doing more than you're supposed to?"

"Not really," he said, keeping his teeth clenched.

Tanya looked at him in disbelief, then finished cleaning the wound. "If you say so," she said, taping fresh pieces of gauze on the gash.

Duke sat back up as Tanya began to dig through the kit for new bandages, when he realized something really important.

"Hey Tanya?"

"What is it?"

"I nev'a got to thank you."

Tanya looked up at him, a tad confused. "For what?" she asked.

"For savin' my life."

When the female duck just stared at him, not knowing where he was going with this, he began. "These marks on my chest-" he pointed to the two healed burn marks on his chest where his feathers were coming back in "-weren't there before. The only way they could've gotten there was by burnin' the feathers off with somethin'. And since the only thing I can think of that can do that is those paddles you keep in the Infirmary, I'm guessin' that you had to use 'em."

Actually, he knew perfectly well that she had had to use them and for two reasons: one, because he had heard the monitor flat line before his world went black during his comatose state, and two being that Wildwing had told him a bit later on.

"So I wanted to thank you," he said, finishing up. "For takin' care of me and bringin' me back."

Tanya looked at him for a minute, stunned as she felt her face heat up a little. Then she smiled softly. "You're welcome," she simply said, bringing the bandages up to his chest and began wrapping him back up…

RVRVRVRVRVRVRV

Tanya took one last look at Duke when the doors of his room opened. He was laying back down, new bandages around his chest and arm back in its sling, drifting in and out of sleep.

The team tech smiled. After finishing with the rest of the wound check, she let him eat breakfast (she had brought French Toast made by Mallory today), and they worked for a little while on a crossword that had been started a day or so ago before Duke started getting tired. Figuring that it was the fever that was making him feel that way, Tanya thought it would be best for him to get some rest before the next guest got to come.

So she looked back at him and smiled. She hadn't thought that he would've ever known about flat lining back in the Infirmary, but after he said that, she figured out that Wildwing must've said something.

In all honesty, she hadn't been expecting a 'thank you' from anyone, least of all Duke. She hadn't even thought of it; being the team tech/medic was sort of her job, just as it was Wildwing's to be the leader. So it had shocked her when the ex-thief has given his appreciation.

With those thoughts, she turned and left the room.