As soon as they arrive at the Radcliffe, the radiating capabilities of the women are no longer needed. The hospital has mattresses heated with warm water, heated blankets, and heated air for hypothermia victims to breathe. Machines draw their blood out, heat it, and return it to their bodies. Slowly their temperatures rise, one degree at a time.
Jean and Laura take their bags of clothing to a locker room where they have been directed. They dress in silence, both of them shivering now.
Laura emerges first, and she spots John from the ambulance team slurping a cup of something hot. She stares at the cup, envious. He feels her gaze and looks up.
"Doctor Hobson! You and your friend will be needing something hot, I should think. Go through there and you'll find a staff room with coffee, tea, and chocolate. Feel free to help yourselves. You two were part of our team tonight, sure enough."
She smiles her thanks, but first approaches him, her voice kept low.
"John, how do you think they are? I mean, have you seen this kind of thing before?"
He considers a moment. "Well, never a one this far gone. By the time we find them, either they're conscious but in bad shape or they're dead." He notices her stunned expression. "Oh, sorry, Doc. I didn't mean your two lads would . . . I expect they'll be pretty much okay in the end."
Innocent emerges from the locker room, and Laura thanks John for his candidness. Then she steers Jean to the room where they both clutch steaming mugs of tea and swallow most of it as soon as they can do so without burning their throats. An aide hands them each a warmed blanket and they wrap up, cozily.
Laura studies the other woman a moment. Then she makes a confession.
"I feel like I'll never be warm again, you know? As though I'm chilled from the inside out, rather than the other way."
Jean's mouth forms a line. She is naturally competitive, and she does not want to admit weakness to another woman. Or anyone else, for that matter. But she and Laura have shared something here, she knows. And the men they care for are still in too much danger to make light of anything that has transpired in the last several hours.
"It was horrible, wasn't it? I felt as though I was clutching a marble version of Hathaway. Hard, cold, and rapidly drawing the warmth out of my own body." She shudders at the recollection. "I was shivering before the ambulance got out of the drive."
Laura smiles at her, tears collecting a little in the corners of her eyes as she remembers the same sensations. What these two women have been through is nothing, of course, compared to what the two men are experiencing. Still, Laura feels an unexpected camaraderie with the chief superintendent. She inhales, then lays an arm around Jean's shoulders. Biting her lip at first, she cannot say much, but manages a little.
"We've done everything we can. It's up to the wizards of medicine now."
Jean snorts. "Wizards? They'll have to be. It'll take some kind of magic to put those two back to rights."
Laura stifles her tears in a smile. Jean smiles in return. But then her smile fades, and uncertainty haunts her eyes. She breaks eye contact to study a spot on the ceiling.
"Laura, what we did today, lying essentially naked with these men . . . No one needs to know about that, right?"
The conspiratorial grin she gets in response is all the answer Jean needs.