Canicula
When the call crackles in over the walkie talkie hanging from her belt in a burst of static, the Farm's resident doctor is already swamped, busy tending to the life-threatening wounds sustained by several members of an off-Farm team in an artifact retrieval mission gone terribly (predictably, routinely) wrong.
They had had to make a sudden emergency reroute to the Farm, as the wounds had been far beyond the scope of their newly added junior field medic; herself an unexpected - but not unwelcome - addition that had apparently come part and parcel alongside their new Historian.
To her credit, the junior medic - who until that moment had been lingering awkwardly in the wings of the surgery - gives no outward sign of how badly she is startled by the sudden noise save a slight tensing of her muscles, a coiling of her posture that suggests a readiness to fight; which quickly relaxes when she sheepishly realizes there is no immediate threat to be had in the Mentor's urgent tones as he makes a request for medical attention to an incident in the training grounds.
The doctor shares a brief look of consternation with her assistant before glancing down helplessly at her bloodied gloves and the man lying sedated on the table between them and then-
"We can go." The field medic eagerly volunteers.
After a moment's hesitation, the doctor nods, trying her best to keep her relief from showing on her face.
She doesn't bother to wonder at the 'we' - the team's Historian has been the medic's ever-present shadow since the moment of their arrival, which makes sense; survivors from cells that had been wiped out tended to stick together, after all - and even though no one had outright said as much, the doctor was willing to bet that whatever had happened to the pair's previous team prior to joining retrieval, it hadn't been a trip frolicking through the daisy fields.
The Historian let out a quiet noise of discontent - but when his teammate turned and darted out of the room, he wordlessly pushed himself off of the wall and followed with a measured, stalking stride.
Good. They had both seemed, by the doctor's estimation, to feel somewhat useless for not being able to help their injured teammates as much as they would like, at least - if the distressed, guilty looks the field medic kept sharing with the Historian were any indication.
Neither of them seemed inclined to idle, nervous chatter; a fact for which she was both grateful and oddly disappointed. What few things they had to say had been mostly limited to clipped, short one word sentences, most of them only in response to questions she or her assistant asked.
She takes a moment, as she works, to wonder what kind of tragic and unhappy circumstance would force a promising, capable Enforcer and cool-headed Bureau Master [and she knows this is what they are - or were - it was immediately, painfully obvious to anyone with eyes] to take on roles so disparate from their skill sets and training; and then she remembers the blood slicking her gloves and tools, the way her wing is full of too many injured and too few staff, the defeated mein of those who did survive and the dull, numb acceptance displayed for those who did not; and suddenly, she finds she no longer has to wonder.
[With the blood from his facial injury smeared across him in broad streaks, there is a momentary uncertainty in how and were, exactly, the boy was injured. The off-farm medic can treat the knife wound, but, unsure of what to do with his unconscious state or the unusual, erratic way it had come about, can do little beyond requisition the aid of a pack of nearby Enforcers and bring the boy back to the medic's wing of the Farm's center of operations.]
Desmond does not notice anything at all until he surfaces into a dazed state half an hour later.
For a moment he is preoccupied with the sudden, alien weight of new old memories reasserting their place, but when the warmth of the sun begins to slide into cool dark shadows across his face, his eyes snap wide open.
As awareness slams back into him like a blow to the gut, his first instinct is to fight; to fight the hands, the straps, the gurney, anything and everything that tries to hold him down, keep him from-
He wants to go back he wants to go back he wants to go back-
Someone is leaning over him but that doesn't matter because their neck is right there and -
No one will ever trap him or trick him or hurt him again and -
He has not forgotten the hands that took his hands in their own, the hands offered in false-friendship, the hands that made false promises their owners couldn't keep and-
He might not have any weapons but he still has his and-
Here you die, Deceiver!
[The man moves as he lunges upward and his teeth catch on the enforcer's ear instead. It matters precious little to the boy's panic-riddled mind. The enforcer yowls in stunned pain, hands swatting in a useless flailing effort to dislodge his assailant, and his fellows gawk in surprised horror for several seconds before instinct kicks in, one of them reaching without a second thought for the stun gun at his belt.]
It is Desmond's turn to howl in pain; A sharp and sudden pain in his side, a burning sensation that lances across his nerve endings; on the wrong side, different from before. Enough to hurt. Not enough to stop him.
Irrelevant.
["Are you trying to fucking kill him? Using a stun dart on a patient in transit? No. Fuck you. I don't care if he had ripped your entire ear off right in front of me with nothing but his teeth, this kid is Important-with-a-capital-I, got it? No, It doesn't fucking matter what I meant by that - If your Mentor doesn't kill you himself, I sure as hell fucking will."]
He shakes his head like one might try to dislodge a buzzing fly; and the buzzing fly of low words in a language he should know rises in pitch and volume and to his left among the sea of grey and white, the twin steady blues of ally-kin-protector bloom with a sudden flush of wine-colored irritation-surprise-alarm-worry.
Irrelevant.
[The medic swears violently as she shoves the Farm enforcer aside and into the Historian's waiting arms, and the moment William's boy is restrained enough, swiftly removes the stun dart, thanking her lucky stars under her breath that the Farm's armory mandates stun guns with dart removal heads built in.]
Hands in his peripheral vision.
Hands trying to reach his neck. Hands grab his head, and hands push down on his shoulders. Hands pinning his hands to his side. He snarls in response and lunges against their restraint with a sibilant hiss.
Irrelevant.
[No sooner than the dart is removed than does the boy jerk his head violently to the side after the medic's hand, teeth clicking together on empty air, only seconds too slow, eyes laser focused on her fingers with singular maiming intent.]
Hands in his peripheral vision.
Hands grab his arms, press against his chest. Hands, dragging him back down onto a bed of fabric and metal. Hands, dragging him back into the cold and the dark, away from the warmth and light of the sun and the kin he has missed since seven winters old-
No!
He fights with all his worth, straining with singular purpose towards the blurry sunlight-gold wanted-looked-for-needed-important-target of the open doorway, of escape, of freedom, of home-
Hands in his peripheral vision.
Hands tie straps about his arms and legs and-
Hands tie straps.
And his mind skips with terror and hysteria on the thought, and-
Hands tie straps. Hands tie ropes-
Hands tie straps tie ropes make oaths break oaths tell lies make scars bring pain bring poison bring h-
His vision whites out.