:edited by maple the wacky tree:
Open Doors. SIX
"Barking spiders, this hurts!" Deryn clutched her chest. She was trying to keep up the façade of a boy, hiding the pain by spitting out as many swearwords as possible, but tears kept falling slowly every breath she took. She was a wreck.
"Please relax, Mr. Sharp! I am trying to help." Dr. Busk and another doctor were trying to hold Deryn down, but she was putting up a fight.
"No! Get Dr. Barlow! NOW!" Deryn was being stupid, with the immediate pain in her chest, close by her heart. A piece of a machine had shot her like a bullet and she was losing blood. Fast. Deryn felt the piece move, but even so, she shouted for the doctors to get back.
Unable to console his patient, the doctor gave up and order, "Retrieve Dr. Barlow!" Dr. Busk rushed his helper out and gently tried to remove Deryn's flight suit. She had to stop the man. If he tore open the suit, he'd see what lied beneath.
"Ouch! No, stop! Can't you just put—?" Deryn couldn't speak, the piece must have moved up more in her lungs. Deryn could only let herself scream as she felt the piece move again. She imagined it sliding towards her lungs, imagined that blood was filling every nook of her body. She seemed to feel it everywhere as her head whirled.
"Mr. Sharp, wake up!" A sharp slap forced Deryn to fully open her eyes. It was the lady boffin.
Over the agony, Deryn felt a spring of hope. "Dr. Barlow, close the door and get everyone out," she whispered hoarsely. Speaking was a struggle with the metal piece was digging more and more into her.
"Mr. Sharp, do not be ridiculous. Let the doctor help you!"
"Help Mr. Sharp," the boffin's own loris said in a strangely calm voice, crawling down onto Dr. Barlow's lower arm.
"Help? But I—"
Deryn howled in pain again, clenching her teeth to try to keep it together. "Ma'am, losing time here, but I have to tell you something and you can't tell anyone!"
"Tell me what, Mr. Sharp?"
"I have to tell you . . . tell you . . ." Deryn felt her eyes become heavy. She was losing the battle to stay awake. Lights flashed dizzily, and then the pain was fading into black. But she had to tell the boffin. "I have to tell you . . ."
She had to tell Dr. Barlow the secret she had not even told Alek, the person she trusted most of all.
One more tear fell.
Alek, I'm sorry.
"Wake up."
Deryn stirred, the new light burning her eyes. "W-who's there . . . ?" She felt numb but could still turn her head to the voice. It was Dr. Barlow. She was cleaning blood off her apron and removing gloves.
"When you feel up to it, you can tell me everything. Better be quick though. Alek came bursting in here like a madman and almost saw—" She stopped to take a breath and pet a jumpy Tazza. "—well, your little secret."
Deryn closed her eyes. It seemed so much easier just to sleep all the dizziness out of her attic. She didn't want to deal with anything right now. She didn't want to think about anything right now.
Then it came back.
The engine on the side of the ship was making some barking noise, and she had remembered what little mechanics Alek had taught her. All she wanted was to reach into the small slot that old Klopp couldn't get into. Maybe even show off her newfound mechanic skills to Alek. It had failed, however. She made a mistake; a sharp metal piece popped her in the chest and everything went pear-shaped from there.
. . . Deryn had told Dr. Barlow her secret.
Deryn tried to sit up in her cot, but her body refused to let her move an inch. "Ma'am . . ." She looked to the lady boffin, who was now sitting in a chair by the front of the cot, Tazza's head on her lap.
"From the beginning, Mr. Sharp," she said gently, but she wore a face of disappointment. Whether if it was with herself for not figuring out Deryn's secret earlier, or with Deryn's action, the girl couldn't tell. It was too hard to think straight.
Deryn let out a slow, long exhale. "My name is Deryn Sharp. I just wanted to join the air service." She looked down at her pale, folded hands and added in a tiny voice, "I meant no harm."
"Well it did do harm . . . Deryn." Dr. Barlow lingered on her name, maybe getting used to saying it in place of Mr. Sharp.
"It wasn't like I planned to be on the Leviathan!" Deryn replied indignantly. "I was at the scrubs and the Huxley—!"
Dr. Barlow put her hand up, rising from her seat to sit on the side of the cot. Deryn saw her eyes, dark and inquisitive. The boffin was lost in thought. Deryn felt the stiches and bandages around her chest. Her skin seemed to tingle for some bizarre reason. When she saw Deryn grimacing, Dr. Barlow stated, "You're lucky I know something about human anatomy. That was a severe injury, and I had no help from the real surgeon."
Deryn tried to look away, but her head was forced back. Dr. Barlow had Deryn's face in hand, and she looked at her with the saddest brown eyes the young girl had ever seen. "Look at me, young lady," Dr. Barlow said, sounding very much like Deryn's ma. "Like it or not, Miss Sharp, you are a girl, and though I admire your stealth into the British air service, I must ask what might be a personal question. If you answer me, truthfully, then I will promise to keep my mouth shut." She let go of Deryn's cheeks and cleared her throat.
Deryn swallowed. At least it the boffin wouldn't rat her out. That, after all, was why she had trusted Dr. Barlow to see, to know. Dr. Barlow cared nothing of bending the rules as long as her curiosity was satiated. A squick of dizziness caused Deryn to shut her eyes and pray that the question wouldn't be too unbearable.
"Why did you do it?"
Deryn's eyes shot open. Gone was the motherly worry. In its place was the same, familiar boffin smirk saying, "I'm interested, now please me. Give an answer to a clever-boot so they can mark it down in their endless sponge of a brain."
"What?" She asked, slowly rising to rest on her elbows. Deryn felt the stiches stretch again, almost like something was squirming inside, but she was too concentrated on the lady's smirk to care.
"Why did you sneak into the British air service? What in the name of King George possessed you to do this?" It seemed Dr. Barlow was laughing as she spoke, the smile on her face not making anything less barking mad of her. Deryn thought back to why, and how. How she went from a rough tomboy in Glasgow, to a soldier on the Leviathan. Though that was technically an accident.
"Well, since my Da flew in his balloons, and always took me up with him, I guess I fell in love with being up in the air. Flying is what I love, ma'am, and the only way I could fly was—"
"—was to join the service? In a time of war?" Deryn looked up, this time now the lady boffin really was laughing, apparently at Deryn's stupidity and recklessness. Tazza bounced on his hind legs, catching his master's infectious mood. Even Dr. Barlow's own Loris was also laughing.
"How was I supposed to know I'd end up on the Leviathan?" She felt her face flare, and her lips turned down in a pout. Deryn was acting like a girl, but it was safe here, with the door locked. No one dared come in.
Dr. Barlow stopped her chuckles and got off the cot, making her way to a cabinet to fetch a spare blanket inside. "I suppose you're right, though I still find this reckless." She removed a light sheet from the cabinet and came back to Deryn. She took the sheet and wrapped it around the girl, making sure her exposed, bandaged chest was covered.
"Aye, but I don't regret it. I love flying, and I'll serve my country if I have to."
Deryn looked to the doctor, who was smirking again. But this one was nicer, reminding Deryn of her Ma again. "Very well then, Mr. Sharp. I'll keep your little secret, but I'm afraid I must let Alek inside before he breaks down the door." Deryn nodded, double checking herself with the sheet. Then she remembered something.
"Oh wait!" Deryn called out before Dr. Barlow set a hand on the door.
"Yes?" The woman looked back, brows raised.
"Um, how'd you save my life? I lost a lot of blood and . . ." Deryn saw the gleam in the boffin's eyes and was shocked when Dr. Barlow returned to sit on the cot in a squick.
"Well, glad you asked," Dr. Barlow gushed, almost as if she had been waiting for this particular question. The doctor proudly pulled out a piece of paper and a pen, drawing a quick sketch of a human body. "They're my latest creation. I call them Plasimus reparios, or Plasma repair. They feed of metal and metal minerals inside your body and blood stream. I put them inside you wound. The fix the insides while I stitched you up, and while they ate away at the metal, they produced more blood for you. Amazing little beastie, really. I am quite pleased with myself."
Deryn's head spun for a while before all the woman's mad babble made sense. "What?" the girl exclaimed. "Are you saying I have barking beasties inside me?" She clenched where her stiches were, where the beasties had entered her body and blood stream. No wonder she felt a little strange.
"Calm down." Dr. Barlow stood up, dusting her hands for an odd reason. "They're quite harmless, though I'm afraid you'll need to eat more iron and protein to maintain their diet. But other than that, think of them as your blood, all good and simple." Dr. Barlow went to the door, slowly turning it open. "Oh, he fell asleep."
Deryn leaned over her cot a little, trying to see what was outside. A dark lump sitting near the door began to stir. Dr. Barlow nudged the lump a little. Suddenly, with a grunt and a snort, Alek was on his feet, eyes half open but otherwise fully alert. Alek locked eyes with Deryn, dark green eyes pulling her in.
"Dylan! God's wounds!" He ran to the little cot, taking Dr. Barlow's place and putting his hands on Deryn's shoulders. That tingly wrapped her body in shivers, but she smiled through them.
"Aye, you look a wreck," she joked.
"I could say the same to you." Deryn saw Alek's eyes. They were shaking. He had black grease spots on his forearms, jacket and face. His reddish-brown hair in spiral messes.
"I'll leave you boys alone then. Come along, Tazza." Dr. Barlow left, shutting the door to the medical room.
"Heh, alone? Not with this chatter beastie." Deryn looked to Bovril, perfectly resting on Alek's shoulder.
Alek let out a chuckled and scratched the beastie's head. "He's asleep, but Dylan." Deryn met dark green again, but they were different. Though he seemed to be trying to hide it, Alek's eyes looked a touch moist. Pain stabbed Deryn's heart. "Are you okay?"
Those words made Deryn's face warm up, but she had to be cool. "I'm fine. You look scared to see me alive. What? Were you wishing to be rid of—oi!"
Alek rushed at her, cutting her off as he wrapped his arms around her. Deryn nearly squeaked in surprise, which would not have been a good thing.
"I thought I was about to lose my only friend," he choked out. He squeezed her tighter, holding her over the edge of the cot. Deryn couldn't think, couldn't speak. A tight lump formed in her throat. Alek was hugging her, holding her because he'd been afraid she was going to die on the table. But Alek still didn't know her gender, and she'd gone and told the boffin over him.
Deryn shyly gave a quick hug and pat to Alek's back, enjoying the moment while she could, as she stuffed the guilty feelings away in a dark corner of her mind.
"Aye, aye. What is this? Worry about me too much, and you'll look older then you already are." Deryn pulled back, missing the warmth, but smiling through it as Dylan.
"I'm just so relieved," Alek admitted, sighing out. "Newkirk said you'd been shot by a piece from the engines. I-I panicked and tried to bust down the door while Dr. Barlow was healing you." Deryn couldn't but let out a chuckle, feeling that tingly in her stomach like butterflies.
"I'm fine now, aren't I? Relax already! I can already see your hair graying." But he was still shaking. Deryn kept her smile locked in place. I'll tell him, but not now, she reasoned. IF she told him now, the poor boy might have a heart attack.
"So, what did she do? If the piece went inside you . . ." Alek looked over on Deryn's chest. The sheet prevented him from seeing anything, but it still made her face flare with heat when his eyes rested on her bust.
"It's covered by cloth. I can't see nothing big. But that crazy boffin said she messed with my blood!" Deryn stuck out a skinny white arm, showing the puzzled prince her visible blue and violet veins.
"What she do?" Alek held her wrist puzzedly, sending another tickle to her stomach.
"She put beasties in my blood!" Deryn exclaimed. "They eat away metal and make more blood as their waste. Now I gotta eat more iron and protein or they die in my veins. But they ate away at your clanker piece in my heart." Deryn stopped as soon as the words were out of her mouth. The double meaning made her laugh a little bitterly.
A piece of Clanker in her heart.
Alek . . .
"Wow, metal eating fabs now?" Alek replied, trying to keep his voice light, even though it was apparent he didn't quite approve. "What's next? Oxygen suckers?"
"Hey, don't give that lady boffin anymore ideas, you ninny."
Alek chuckled, never removing his eyes from Deryn's veins. Was he scared now that the things he feared most were inside Deryn's body? She pulled back her arm self-consciously. Did he see her as a monster now? The thought almost choked her with fright.
"Alek," she whispered, grimacing when her voice sounded a little too feminine and pathetic. "Are you afraid of me now?"
Alek's head shot up, his green eyes wide. "No Dylan, no! I mean, I'm a little shocked that . . . they can live inside humans now . . . but your still my friend!" His eyes softened, and he wore a small smile. Relieved, Deryn returned it.
After a moment, Alek looked around him. "I'm kinda tired now. Mind if I sleep in here? It's warmer than my room."
Deryn saw no harm, as long as she was fully covered by her blankets and woke before Alek. That wasn't too hard, she was used to waking up before the sun; the prince was used to sleeping in.
"Thanks, I'll take this cot here." There was another bed in the medical room, covered with the same white sheets. Alek climbed on and laid facing Deryn on his pillow. "Goodnight Alek." She waved a hand across the way and turned down the lamb of glow worms. She said it again softly in German. "Gute Nacht."