29/10/07
11:20 AM
The Truro Centre

Zaf was lying very still. It hurt to move, even with the drugs. There didn't seem to be an inch of flesh on him that wasn't damaged in some way. He hadn't yet found a way to lie that didn't hurt something. When one area clamoured more loudly than anywhere else, he shifted his weight off it, then developed muscle pains from doing that. And moving was difficult. He couldn't put any weight on his hands or feet without crying out like he had when they'd broken his bones in the first place. They came in to turn him over every few hours, so new bits of him started hurting. His head felt like it was full of cotton wool, he was simultaneously detached from his pain and aware of it, almost to the exclusion of all else. And he felt sick. Not the kind of sick you felt from eating something bad, the kind where you could feel you were ready to throw it back up again and be rid of it, this was slower, more insidious. Somehow it didn't feel as though throwing up would help at all. And he was cold, cold that seemed to come from deep inside him, but he was still sweating. That suggested to Zaf that he was feverish.

He could still hear their voices in the back of his head. He tried not to let his mind go back there, but he could no more shut them up now than he could have done at the time.

"Do you know what this is, Zaffar? Do you know what it's for?"

"They think you're dead. No one is coming for you."

"You can lie there and whine all you like, you dirty little arab bitch. Sooner or later, you are going to give me everything I want."

"Oh listen to him! Listen! He's crying for his Mommy!"

A doctor had been in earlier to talk to Zaf about his hands and feet. He'd been told before then that he'd need a lot of surgery to ever hope to be able to use them normally. The doctor had explained what he was going to do, in terms Zaf didn't understand. He didn't think he'd have understood them on a good day before. He certainly couldn't now. Then he'd asked for Zaf's consent. That seemed pointless to Zaf. He didn't understand what the doctor was going to do, he assumed the man knew what he was talking about, he couldn't hold a pen to sign… None of it made sense to Zaf.

"Zaffar?" Female voice. Then footsteps. "Zaffar?" That was the northern nurse, Tia. The footsteps stopped. He opened his eyes. She was crouched right in front of him, at his eye level. "Are you in pain?" He hesitated. She tilted her head at him, as if to say she knew the answer. He nodded slightly. "Do you do the ten-point scale?" He nodded again. "And?"

"Seven?" He said.

"Where is it? Bones? Bruising? Mouth?"

"Hands are worst."

She reached for his nearest hand, swollen and bandaged. He tensed.

"You're afraid of me even touching it, aren't you?" He didn't answer her. She sighed. "Zaffar, you're allowed to be in pain. There's no expectation to tough it out here. You've got about thirty broken bones. That is going to be painful. I've got permission to put you back on the ketamine if you want me to. It's just about the best thing for bone pain, but it will knock you out."

"That's fine." Being drugged out was safer than sleeping. He didn't dream when he was drugged, or if he did, he didn't remember.

"Do you feel up to eating something first?" He shook his head. "Not even some soup or something?"

"It's not just my mouth."

"You feeling sick too?" He nodded. "Unfortunately that's the methadone, one of the painkillers, but have you had maropitant?" She glanced across at a sheet of paper. "No, well I'll try and get you some of that, that should take the edge off the nausea."

She got up and left again.

Ten-point scale: A very subjective way of measuring a person's pain. Zero is no pain, ten is the worst pain the patient can imagine.

Ketamine: Can be used as a painkiller if managed very carefully, but can also cause very vivid hallucinations and coma.

Maropitant: A drug that makes the brain poorly able to register a need (or in this case perceived need) to vomit. Not actually widely used in people, but it would probably help Zaf quite a bit.

Note: The fourth thing Zaf remembers his captors saying is based on a line in the last episode of season six, but it is entirely possible that the character who spoke that line was lying.