The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible.
-Arthur C. Clarke

"This is a dumb idea." Lucy bit her lip as Rebecca swabbed alcohol on the blonde's inside left elbow.

"Will this even work?" Rebecca asked worriedly. "We don't even have an IV..."

Lucy shook her head. "I don't know. This is all we have. Desmond needs blood, or he'll die."

Rebecca sighed. "Right. You're sure you're not sick? We only have one syringe to transfer the blood."

"And are we sure he's not sick?" Rebecca wondered. "I don't like this, Lucy."

"Doesn't matter." The blonde looked up from where she was sitting. "It needs to be done, no matter what happens."

When Rebecca heard this, she arched an eyebrow, but went to fetch the syringe anyway.

"We have to clean and bandage his leg first," Lucy stalled, flexing her left arm, fully aware of the alcohol already in place. Reaching down to grab the irrigated syringe, Lucy cleaned most of the dried blood and pus out of Desmond's wound. She wiped it with disinfectant, then examined the position of the cut in comparison to his major arteries.

The wound was millimeters away from Desmond's femoral artery. Had it hit the major blood vessel, the Assassin would've been dead in a matter of minutes. But it hadn't, and though it still bled heavily, it didn't kill him.

Nervously, Lucy picked up the needle and thread. Hoping against hope she was doing the right thing, the blonde slowly sewed her way through Desmond's wound. It actually closed up rather nicely, and, cutting the excess string with scissors, Lucy leaned back and breathed a sigh of relief.

"Help me with these bandages," Lucy called. Rebecca came padding back, setting the prepared syringe down on the bed she had left minutes before.

The two women wound bandages tightly around the unconscious Assassin's right thigh until there was no more blood.

"All right," Lucy sighed, leaning back again. "Let's do this." She peeled off her gloves and threw them out: Rebecca kept hers on.

Rebecca nodded, then tied a short length of rope around Lucy's upper arm. Picking up the syringe and making sure it was totally empty, the brunette inserted the sharp needle into her friend's inner arm.

Breathing in and out deeply, Lucy leaned her head back. She hated needles. Looking back, she watched as Rebecca injected her friend's blood into Desmond—only a syringe's worth.

"How many times do we need to do this?" Rebecca asked, worried.

"Three or four should be fine," Lucy said, trying to sound confident. She actually had no idea; how much blood did Desmond actually need? She knew that the human body had ten pints of blood, but could survive with as little as five.

Yeah, three or four should do it.

And it seemed to be working. Two needlefuls of blood later, Desmond was breathing stronger and his pulse beat with renewed energy.

"Last one," Rebecca muttered, drawing yet more blood from Lucy. The blonde distracted herself by clenching and unclenching her left fist, watching as her blood was pumped into Desmond's left arm, where an IV should've been.

Untying the rope from her arm, Lucy noticed Desmond already looked a lot better; colour was returning to his face. She snatched one of the Band-Aids from the first aid kit and, ripping it open, smoothed it over the needle mark on her arm. Fervently hoping the man in front of her didn't have any type of disease, Lucy poured alcohol and swabbed it lightly on Desmond's wound. In doing this, she had to lean over him - the wall was to his left - and she couldn't help thinking about what had happened on the roof.

Was she wrong to shoot him down like that? It seemed so cruel, letting him kiss her and then telling him she had been - what was it? - acting on the moment.

"Bitch," Lucy hissed to herself as she swabbed alcohol slowly on Desmond's wound, then stood back up, reflecting as she peeled open another Band-Aid.

She was a bitch. She remembered the look of pain and humiliation on Desmond's face as she'd told him, essentially, how much of idiot he was. Lucy closed her eyes against her shame, then reopened them to look at Desmond's still-pale face. His eyes had started moving against his eyelids—he wasn't unconscious anymore, just sleeping.

Lucy leaned back over to lay on the Band-Aid.

As Desmond swam back into awareness, the first thing he noticed was the beautiful smell drifting around him. Then the pain hit - and an additional, smaller one in his left arm - causing his eyes to snap open.

Lucy was leaning over him, her blonde bangs, coming out of their tight bun, hanging down over her face. Focused on his arm, she didn't notice Desmond had woken up until he spoke up.

"Well, this is awkward." He grinned, causing Lucy to gasp loudly and jump back.

"Desmond!" she panted. "Shit, you scared me."

"Fuck," Desmond muttered, feeling the pain again. "What happened?"

"That's what I'd like to know.." Lucy stared at him. "We woke up and you were lying on the ground, unconscious."

Remembering his dream, Desmond shuddered. He didn't want to talk about it. Not yet.

"Shit," he hissed as he moved his hand. "Stop talking and just reset the bone!"

"Ah, he's awake?" Rebecca's voice floated across the room. Desmond turned his head to see her in the far corner, washing something with a water bottle. Dismissing it, vowing to ask questions later, he sat up slowly—the pain in his leg was less harsh.

His legs felt rather cold, and, looking down, Desmond notched that once again he had woken up in this bed with no pants on.

"...Where are my pants?" he asked slowly.

"Uh." Lucy looked rather embarrassed. "I - we - had to take them off to give you stitches and bandage your leg."

Desmond felt blood rushing to his face, realizing he was sitting half-naked in front of the woman he had kissed. Taking a deep breath, he wiped the emotion off his face - a trick he'd learned from Altaïr - and nodded. Propping himself up with his left arm, he looked at Lucy pointedly, deliberately moving his right hand so she'd notice it.

Lucy took a deep breath. "Right." Turning around, she called out to her friend. "Hey Becca, do that later, I'm going to need some help. Just in case, you know."

The brunette nodded and set down the item she had been cleaning—a syringe. Desmond was curious, but asked no questions as he was ordered to swing his legs over the side of the bed and plant his feet on the floor.

"Okay, this is going to hurt," Lucy warned.

"I know," Desmond scoffed. "How many times do you think—" He let out a muffled cry of pain as Lucy pushed - hard - on one of his broken fingers.

"Oh, just shut up." Lucy smiled wryly. "No matter how much it happens, it still hurts every time." Desmond nodded, clamping his mouth shut.

"Now..." Lucy muttered, gently examining his hand. Quickly, she jerked out and reset his broken bone—the proximal phalange (1) on his index finger. Desmond couldn't help but let out a strangled scream, jerking his hand away.

"None of that," Lucy chided, taking it back. She wrapped non-adhesive gauze around his index finger, tightly, so the bone could mend together in the right spots, securing it with a small piece of duct tape.

Desmond raised his eyebrows at the duct tape, to which Lucy shrugged. "It's all we have," she said, practically reading his mind. "And you have to try not to move your fingers for the next couple weeks," she warned. "Last thing we need is more injury."

Desmond nodded obediently, too distracted by what was to come—the resetting of two more bones.

"Okay, on three," Lucy encouraged. "One, two—" She jerked the bone back into place. After Desmond's surprised yell, she leaned back and said "Three."

"Fucking dirty trick," Desmond muttered, but allowed his ring finger to be bandaged.

"Okay, this one's going to be tricky." Lucy held up Desmond's hand, examining his middle finger. "It's broken really near your third knuckle. I might have to do it more than once to get it right."

The middle finger was the one that hurt the most. It throbbed in time with his heart, making it feel like the end of his finger had its own pulse.

"Ready?" Lucy looked up at him.

Taking a deep breath, Desmond replied, "As I'll ever be," and steeled himself.

Lucy yanked on his finger. Desmond howled in pain, his cries echoing off the hard stone walls, and instinctively pulled his hand back—the hand that Lucy was still clutching.

Desmond's middle finger gave a loud popping sound as he yanked it away while Lucy was still holding on to it. It hurt more than anything he'd ever felt in his entire life—more than splitting his lip open, more than the feel of that psycho's knife in his leg, more even than breaking his hand in the first place. Desmond screamed harshly, cradling his hand to his chest—Lucy had let go of it like it was made of burning metal when he'd screamed.

"Fuck," Lucy cursed. "Desmond, I need to see it; I think your finger just dislocated."

"My finger what?" Desmond shrieked, the beginnings of panic creeping up on his brain.

"Calm down," Rebecca urged, stealing a quick glance at her friend.

"It hurts," Desmond moaned. He knew he probably looked and sounded ridiculous - a full-grown man, sitting in his underwear, complaining about how much his finger hurt - but he didn't care; it was true. He'd rather have his finger amputated than feel the pain of having it popped back into place.

"Let me just see," Lucy coaxed, touching his hand lightly. Desmond slowly allowed her to handle it carefully, stroking his bent and swollen finger. Then, without warning, she wrenched it toward her, to the side, then back into its socket. Desmond howled, the cry breaking off at the end into sobs. Lucy quickly grabbed back ahold of his hand so he couldn't pull away, bandaged it similarly to his other two fingers, then wrapped all three in gauze together so he couldn't move them, securing the whole thing with more duct tape.

"Sorry," Lucy said genuinely. "It needed to be done."

"Doesn't make it hurt any less," Desmond whispered, keeping his hand close, then, louder: "Can I put my pants back on now?"

Lucy nodded, and Desmond stood up slowly, relieved at the not-so-sharp pains shooting up his leg—at least he could stand. Rebecca handed him a new pair of jeans - where she got them, he didn't know, and didn't really care - then went off to finish cleaning her syringe.

Desmond gingerly put his legs through the leg holes in the jeans, then pulled them up to his thighs with just his left hand. Because most of the main fingers on his other hand were bandaged and broken, he had to use just the thumb on his right hand. After much struggling, his pants were finally up to his waist. But...

"Fuck," was the only word for it. In order to do up the button on his jeans, Desmond had to use either his index or middle finger: the fingers that were still burning in pain.

Lucy, who had been cleaning up the remnants of a couple Band-Aids, looked over. "Problem?"

"Ah... no," Desmond said lightly. He tried using his thumb and right knuckle to pull the button closer to his left hand, but it wouldn't fit together. Then he attempted to actually use the broken fingers, which generated a hiss of pain from their owner.

"You sure?" Lucy chirped. Desmond looked up and she was smiling, unsuccessfully trying to hide it.

"I can do it," Desmond muttered, but proved himself wrong when he gasped out his pain again.

Lucy wandered over. "Let me?" Then, without waiting for an answer, she crouched down and did up his button and zipper. Desmond, taken by surprise, just stood there, eyes getting wider and wider as her fingers... well, you know. The lights in his head, finally remembering what they were doing, sprang to life and told him - ohmigosh, big surprise - to kill her now—oh God the time is just right, take her completely by surprise. Desmond could practically see the perfect spot to do it... shit, what was he doing? He growled softly at the voices. Shut up, shut up.

"There." She stood up, finished. A silence settled over the two of them as they thought about what had just happened.

"Um, thanks," Desmond muttered.

Lucy looked like she wanted to say something, but just nodded and turned away, picking up the garbage she had been sweeping up and tossing it in the trash. "Take off your shirt" she said, turning back to Desmond.

"Wait, what?" Desmond was taken aback.

The blonde held up the box of pins and smiled. "To make a sling. I can do it with a t-shirt."

"Oh, right." Desmond cursed himself for the other reasons he'd thought Lucy wanted him to take his shirt off. Undoing his sweater zipper and taking it off, he laid it on the bed, then managed to peel off his black t-shirt with one hand. Standing like an idiot, shirtless, with his shirt clutched in his left hand, he asked, "Now what?"

Lucy took the shirt from him. "You can put your sweater back on," she replied, and he obeyed, doing it up to his neck again. The zipper was cold against his bare skin.

"Now, let's see if I can still do this right," Lucy muttered, snapping open the small plastic box of safety pins.

Five minutes later, Desmond had a successful sling around his right shoulder, keeping his hand up close to his torso.

Lucy stretched. "Well, you might as well go back to sleep; I'm still on night shift so-"

"No," Desmond cut her off. "You go to bed, I'll take over." He didn't want to go back to sleep—just in case.

"You sure?"

He nodded. "I couldn't sleep even if I wanted to." And it was the truth; he was afraid of what might happen in his dreams. "Could you just put my blade on for me?" he asked, holding out his left arm. Desmond always took off his blade and his watch before he went to bed, and stowed them under his cot.

"You'll be fine with your broken hand?" Lucy asked as she was doing up the straps on Desmond's hidden blade.

"Of course," Desmond reassured her. "I've trained with just one hand before."

Finishing the last buckle, the blonde looked up at him from under her bangs. "You mean Ezio's trained with one hand before." She stressed the word Ezio firmly.

"...Right. I know that."

"Lucy?" Rebecca came back from cleaning. "I wiped this whole thing down with water and disinfectant. Where do you want me to put it?" she asked, holding up the syringe.

"We'll have to throw it out," Lucy answered, turning her back in Desmond. "It's not safe for use except for in emergency; put it back in the kit with the cover on and I'll buy more syringes when I go out again." Rebecca nodded and, kneeling, replaced the plastic needle cover and set the syringe back in its box.

"You can go back to sleep too, Rebecca," Desmond told her. "I'm taking the rest of the night watch." He actually had no idea if it was actually night, or they were just calling it that because that's when they slept. He didn't know the time or even the date; his watch was still under his bed, unable to be worn on a slung hand.

Rebecca smiled warmly. "Thanks, Desmond."

"Now wake me if anything happens, okay?" Lucy said firmly, turning back to Desmond.

He nodded. "I will."

1 - I looked that up 8D No one will know what that bone is—it's the one closest to your palm.

Another chapter where nothing happens D: I can only torture Desmond so many times, though. I'm starting to feel bad for him O_o Also, the reason why there hasn't been a lot of killing it because there's no one TO kill. I can't just randomly kill off the last person (and we all know who it is); it has to be done at the right time. I know that right time, don't worry :3