It didn't them take long to finish of the remnants of the horde. Somehow it no longer felt like the most pressing issue. They caught up with the Captain just outside their headquarters having sprinted most of the way, the engineer huffing to keep up, while he had kept up a steady march. Pilot still wasn't moving.

Captain laid him on a dilapidated sofa. Then he left.

The engineer unfastened the leather straps and drew back his hood. His eyes were closed, roaming restlessly under pale lids. Snippy chose to take that as a good sign. There were a few bruises around his jaw where a hand had gripped it, but the real damage would be on the back of his head where it had made contact with the wall. Carefully, they shifted him onto his side.

Snippy turned away. He despised himself for his weakness but he couldn't bring himself to look back at the wound. He felt sick enough thinking of the way Pilot had fallen, crumpling like tinfoil, or the way his arm dangled and his head hung back when Captain picked him up like a doll. And now this…

There's blood – blood in his hair –

"I don't think it's as bad as it looks." The engineer sounded calm, if serious.

The sniper turned back, forcing himself to look.

"I know what you're thinking. There's a lot of blood. But head wounds are renowned for bleeding profusely. There's a high concentration of blood vessels in the scalp."

Please stop saying "blood".

"And it looks particularly bad given his colouring, but that's just a case of contrast."

Snippy didn't think he would ever forget the sight of sandy locks drenched in scarlet.

"I need to clean this up to get a clear look." He thought for a moment, then directed Snippy to fetch the latest box he had brought from his bunker. He took out a tin flask of water and a bottle of vodka.

"It's probably for the best he's not conscious right now, because this is going to sting like a bitch." The engineer got to work, dabbing gently at the gore, gradually cleaning the golden strands. Snippy calmed down a little as the red patch receded.

It still didn't look great.

An ugly gash cut across the base of his skull and stretched to his right ear. The engineer frowned, thinking. Finally he looked up at the sniper.

"I need you to go to that chemist's we found a few weeks ago." He was referring to a relatively intact pharmacy only a few blocks away. They had noted that it had low levels of radiation and a lot of surviving stock, but nothing useful. Hair removal products and fragrances became less important after you had survived the apocalypse. "Do you remember the way?"

"Yeah, but… why? They didn't have any first aid kits. We checked, remember?"

"I know. That's not what I'm looking for."

He ran most of the way there, not taking the usual precautions about making noise or keeping near cover. He could only focus on his destination, his objective – and the hope that Gromov knew what he was doing.

He was back soon, afraid that while he was gone – but no, the pilot's chest was still rising and falling lightly when he burst back into the room. Gromov took what he had asked for and thanked him in a low voice. The engineer's calm and business-like demeanour was freaking him out almost more than anything else. He thought longingly of better times past - just that morning they had been snapping insults at each other. They could afford to.

As he watched the engineer prepare his tools he recalled the conversation they had had not long before. Gromov's idea.

"He needs stitches."

Snippy's heart had sunk as he realised what that would entail. "Can you do it?"

"I'm familiar with the theory." A glimmer of the old arrogance, a hint of sarcasm?

Snippy chose to take that as a good sign.

"But – what do we use?"

"Dental floss."

"Dental floss?"

"Yes. Hence the chemist's."

"Dental floss."

"Please stop doing that." Gromov sighed. "Look, unless you've found any fully stocked, radiation-free medical supplies you neglected to mention, it's the best we've got. It's strong, flexible, and the coating means it's not absorbent like thread – that means it can't draw moisture or bacteria into the wound."

Snippy glanced at the crimson wedge, then quickly away. "Are you sure?"

"Yes," he said firmly. "That wound isn't going to heal cleanly by itself and that increases the risk of infection. When this much flesh is exposed -"

"OK," the sniper hurriedly grabbed his rifle. "I won't be long."

"Good," said the engineer, reaching for his toolkit.

By the time he returned Gromov had laid out his selection of tools, and was disinfecting them with a flame and more vodka. The sniper had always imagined the kit to contain spanners and screwdrivers, the kind of tools engineers carry in cartoons. He realised now how stupid this was, not only because of the kit's small size but knowing this engineer's area of expertise. The tools were delicate, slender, possessing a kind of beauty in their functionality; designed for the intricacies of electronics and computer hardware. Gromov picked one out and snapped off a small section to serve as a needle.

"Can you fix that?" asked the sniper, because underneath his concentration there had been a sadness to the breaking. The engineer half smiled.

"I suppose I don't really need it anymore. I'm not going to be working with state-of-the-art electronics again." He glanced up and smiled a second time, but couldn't keep the bitterness away. "Probably a good thing for anyone left alive, right?"

Snippy couldn't bring himself to answer.

The engineer threaded the needle, holding steady hands up to the dim light filtering through the window. He knotted the thread and directed Snippy to push the hair back out of the way. The sniper had been trying to think of an excuse to leave without letting Gromov know he was feeling nauseated but in the end settled for looking away. After a while he looked back, curious. It wasn't so bad – reassuring, in fact, to see the deft strokes, the skin being drawn back together by neat sutures and the glistening flesh concealed once more, even if he couldn't help wincing a little as the needle went in.

So it turns out I killed off the zombies too soon. Please enjoy this exciting chapter on the topic of improvised surgery.