Long Way To Go

[Evandria Sericks]

“Lorcan, I brought you roast beef from the Swallow,” Evandria announced gently as she opened the door to the room. The young woman had gone to the fancy restaurant just to get the Lorcan’s favorite dish ever since she noticed how unappetizing his hospital meals were. While he was not one to whine about anything, he deserved more than a bit of pampering.

The sergeant peeked inside, mabeefking sure that Lorcan wasn’t asleep. The warm orange glow of dusk filtered through the window, casting a golden sheen over the galdori who sat on the bed. His leg was wrapped in a thick cast, bound stiffly to a splint. Flowers filled every corner of the room, gifts from his family and the other Seventens.

Lorcan smiled as he saw her entering, the lines on his face easing. “What’s the occasion? It is the first time you are visiting me without the uniform.” Today, the constable was flushed with color and was sitting up right. It was progress and that was enough to take the weight of her chest at least a bit.

The young woman smoothed down her clothes without thinking and grinned. She was clad in one of her usual attires, navy velvet dress trimmed with silver. “For your sake, I got home and bathed. I finally found someone to cover my patrol tonight, so you will be stuck with me for the rest of the night. I am sure you don’t want a companion drenched in sweat and wearing dirty clothes.” It had been five days since the accident and Evandria hardly had the time to visit him for more than half an hour. Even those she got by rushing to the hospital when her work hours were offer. With Lorcan off duty, she would have to cover his shifts until HQ can find a replacement.

“How are you feeling today?” she asked, dragging a wooden chair to the side of the man’s bed. The box she had been carrying she placed on the nearest before finally sitting down. She had the strongest urge to fix his crooked blanket, but she doubted Lorcan would appreciate the gesture. He had been grumbling about how fussy she was ever since he came to.

His smile softened as his hand rested on hers, his finger toying with the golden bracelet around her wrist. The galdor’s field melded with her, sending silent reassurances. “Like I could get up and run out of here today.”

“And you will. In no time at all,” the Hoxian said firmly, her gaze wandering to his leg. The injury she had caused. Lorcan had always hated being still and now he was trapped in a bed for the gods knew how long.

“I will feel much better if I can get out of here,” Lorcan replied as he leaned back into the pillow propped behind him. His gray eyes flicked around the room with distaste. “I am getting fed up of this place already.”

She laughed lightly. “You haven’t even been here for a week. The doctors said that you’ll be hospitalized for at least two of them.” Her gaze turned to the window, squinting at the sharp light. “Do not worry. Once Doctor Palevi allows for you to go outside, I’ll take you on a moonlight stroll.”

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Early Evening, 38 Yaris, 2719
Constable Lorcan's Room, Grand Mercy Hospital

It had grown late. Niccolette had not watched the time; she never did, while meditating. But when she had knelt, the light had had the bright, sharp clarity of early afternoon, and now it was slanted through the window, spilling pale and shadowy over the flickering candleflames. The Bastian swayed, lightly, back and forth, drenched in sweat and breathing hard, her chest rising and falling. She felt dizzy; she caught herself on her hands, and bowed her head, and whispered the words to extinguish the candles.

Niccolette took a deep breath, inhaled it and let it out ago – not the rhythm of her meditations, this time, but something else. She shuddered, and she thought for a moment she might weep; she did not know why she could not. She thought perhaps she was wrung dry, that the heat that had built up in the small room had squeezed all the moisture from her already, but then – it never seemed to have stopped her before. Niccolette cradled her face in her hands, and doubled forward, thick damp hair spilling over her shoulders and down before her, brushing her bare knees and the ground beneath.

It is all right, she told herself, if you need to weep. There is no shame in it.

But the tears did not come, and instead Niccolette rose, and left the small room with its candles behind. She washed, quickly, with soap and cold water, and wrung the sweat from her skin and hair; she brushed it out, and rang for the maid, dressing in a pale lavender gown, with large silver buttons on the neck and down the front; layers of fabric rippled over one another, asymmetric cuts across the skirt creating texture without volume.

Niccolette poured herself a glass of water, and drank it, and the ache in her head faded. She tried to drink another one, and felt herself expand against the constraints of the corset, and had to stop, doubled over with one hand pressed to her stomach. When she could move again, Niccolette painted a little eyeliner around her eyes, and put pale pink lipstick on her lips, laced up delicate pale gray boots, and made her way downstairs to a carriage.

In the hospital, comfortable now, she shrugged on the pale gray coat of an observer, made polite, smiling conversation with Sy’rien for a few minutes, and left with her smile fading in the hallway. The suggestion to check on Lorcan was a welcome relief, and Niccolette made her way down the hall unhesitatingly. She knocked lightly at the door, and stepped inside without waiting.

“Constable Lorcan,” Niccolette said, casually. She had come with Sy’rien a few times, and by herself only once or twice. He was sitting upright, she noticed. It seemed promising, Niccolette thought, glancing down at the angle of his leg. She was not so sure about Sy'rien's principles of pain management, but the fact that Lorcan could sit up seemed to her a good sign; then again, rarely had she watched the progress of a patient after such surgery. “Sergeant Sericks,” Niccolette nodded lightly at Evandria as well, and came a little further into the room; she hadn’t seen the other woman since the night of Lorcan’s surgery.

Niccolette had the distinct sense that she was interrupting, but she did not let it bother her. Her right hand settled across her body, curling into her side beneath the long gray coat, and she took a few more steps into the room. “I shall cast, and then leave you alone,” Niccolette said, and then she grinned, suddenly, bright and vivid and teasing, looking between the two galdori with lightly raised eyebrows.

[Evandria Sericks]

When the door opened to reveal Niccolette Ibutatu, the Hoxian had to resist the urge to leap from her seat and pull away. She reminded herself that she was off duty and that it was perfectly normal for a superior to accompany her subordinate in such trying times. Outside the uniform, she was at least given more freedom when interacting with her constable. Still, after years of putting up a professional façade, it became Evandria’s first instinct to keep her distance.

At the Bastian’s meaningful raise of her eyebrow, the sergeant looked back to the gray-eyed galdor. The thing between them had always been complicated, especially after what happened last year. Unfortunately, it did not stop her body from being painfully aware of his touch on her hand.

A near indiscernible flush colored the dark-haired woman’s cheeks as Lorcan ran his thumb over her knuckles before he finally pulled his hand away. The constable greeted Niccolette with a vibrant smile, definitely more cheerful than most men in his situation would be. “Ah, Mrs. Ibutatu, impeccable timing. Will you please tell Eva that it is completely fine for me to be taken out for walks?”

“I am sure five days is far too soon for you to get moving again. You should rest a lot more,” Evandria interjecting, shooting Niccolette a hopeful look. As much as she wanted to make his time easier, the memory of him in her arms and covered in blood kept rushing at her when she least expected it. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, feeling the silver vipoxz around her head shift at the gesture.

“You are no doctor. Besides, are you really so cruel to let me rot here after I saved your life?” Lorcan pointed out with a not-so innocent smile. One that brightened his stormy eyes and had won her more than a few times before – and he knew that fact very well. The constable tugged at the collar of his hospital robes, as if it was restricting his breaths.

Still, the young woman refused to be swayed. “Considering you are cruel enough to play the guilt card on me, maybe,” she retorted playfully. Her dark eyes slid over to the other woman once again as she stood up, realizing that their banter was probably taking too much of the healer’s time. “But he is making good progress, right?”

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Early Evening, 38 Yaris, 2719
Constable Lorcan's Room, Grand Mercy Hospital

There was a moment, for Niccolette, of amusement – happiness, even – at the sight of the two, Evandria in a more relaxed dress, Lorcan looking exceptionally cheerful, stroking his thumb over her knuckles – and her grin held. And then, slowly it faded, and an ache rose in her chest, and Niccolette was sorry that, earlier, she had not been able to weep. Her gaze flickered away, finding the window, the soft distant light of Vienda outside, and she crossed the room to the back of Lorcan’s bed, finding the notes there and skimming them. She had learned something of how to read them, these last days, the handwriting and the slang both.

Niccolette occupied herself with reading for a moment, raising her eyebrows up at Lorcan when he asked about going for a walk. She was just as glad she did not need to interrupt to answer immediately; it was clear that he and Evandria could amuse themselves without issue. She just smiled, and shrugged faintly.

Evandria stood and turned to her.

“As far as I know,” Niccolette said. “You should ask Dr. Palevi about the rolling chairs they use for some patients,” she suggested, and she thought of another restless man, and the memory of trying to keep him in bed to recover ached in her chest and prickled, hot behind her eyes. “Perhaps there is one such that the leg can be kept straight for a brief walk."

She set the notes back down; Niccolette had hardly been able to focus on them, but she had looked long enough. She knew, if she tried later, she would be able to visualize the page in her mind, the writing as clear as any monite – today’s, and the day before, and all the rest which she had looked at. She had always been able to do this, even as a child.

Niccolette stood at the edge of the bed, and studied the cast, and began to chant, her field rippling etheric – not the full-powered cast of living mona, but the softer, stranger, slippery sort of feeling of quantitative mona, woven through her bright sharpness. She curled the spell, and bowed her head for a moment, filtering through the information that had been shared. After a moment, she nodded, and picked up the sheaf of notes, and scrawled her own onto them in a fairly neat hand, noting the date, the spell cast, and the result.

“Yes, I think you are healing well,” Niccolette said, thoughtful. She did not have anything of Dr. Palevi’s manner, and she tempered the comment with a faint shrug. She had, naturally, read a handful of papers on the process of healing shattered bones, and so far as she could tell from those, everything about Lorcan’s progress seemed normally.

“How is the pain?” Niccolette asked curiously. In truth, it was not her purview; Sy’rien had only asked her to check in on the bone. But she was curious; she imagined it could not be pleasant, one’s leg knitting together. Naturally a spell to achieve the result would be quite painful – sharp and brutally unpleasant, if one even had the force to achieve a full healing; it would take a healer of exceptional skill and one willing to expend a good deal of extra energy to make it easy – but she wondered if it was the same with the body healing on its own, unguided.

Rolls

Quantitative spell to check the leg: 3

[Evandria Sericks]

Since Niccolette did not shot down the idea, Lorcan’s smile turned triumphant. Something brighter than the ones he had offered these past few days. “I expect a rolling chair waiting for me the next time you visit then.”

The Bastian’s field flared around her and the sergeant found herself holding her breath. She recognized the familiar words of a quantitative spell, even though she could not pinpoint exactly what it was calculating. Evandria kept her gaze on the healer’s features, trying to see if it gave anything away. At least she wasn’t left to guess for long. Niccolette declared that everything seemed in order.

“That is good to hear,” the young woman responded as she felt Niccolette’s spell dissipating. Her hand ran across smooth fabric of her skirt, resisting the urge to reach out for Lorcan again. Some of the tension lines on his face visibly eased as he took in the words. She had been his companion for far too long not to notice the little details, “Thank you, Mrs. Ibutatu.”

Between magic and their advancements in science, Lorcan’s condition should be something that could be solved. Evandria had seen her fellow officers surviving far worse injuries and lived to return their posts unbothered. She had to believe that Lorcan’s path would be no different. It was what she told herself every time at least. Still, her mind dawdled to the possibility that he may never walk the same again – even after Dr. Palevi’s reassurance that it was unlikely.

Niccolette’s voice brought her to the present once more. “How is the pain?”

Lorcan shrugged, his gaze wandering to his broken leg. “I don’t feel it at all.” Feeling Evandria’s disbelieving glare, the constable continued, “No, truly It is hardly noticeable, if at all. Though admittedly, I am barely awake most of the day. It’s been difficult to keep my eyes open most of the time. Is that common?”

“At least that way you have less time to plan an escape from the hospital,” Evandria teased despite the worry that started to bloom. The smallest things could set off her anxiety, it seemed. The sergeant had some experience with painkillers back when she was healing from a gunshot wound to the shoulder. It did make her sleepy. She hoped it was nothing worth concerning about. “Besides, you need the rest. You haven’t had any real time off since last Vortas.”

The dramatic roll of the man’s eyes was impossible to miss. “And whose fault is that?”

“I have, on multiple occasions, insisted that you take vacation, yet you always ardently refuse. How is it my fault?”

“And as I said, on multiple occasions, I am more than happy to get some vacation if you do too.” This was an argument they had before and a pointless one. They both know that neither of them would back down and it was hardly a conversation in polite company. Niccolette did not come here to hear their endless bickering, after all.

Lorcan seemed to realize this the same time she did, so his eyes shifted back to the Bastian. “What’s next on my treatment plan? Anything we need to prepare for?” After another second, the constable added, “Any chance that I might be discharged early?”

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Early Evening, 38 Yaris, 2719
Constable Lorcan's Room, Grand Mercy Hospital

Lorcan looked triumphant, Niccolette thought. She was smiling, too, faintly, but it ached. He looked so familiar, and she could scarcely bear it.

Niccolette had not dealt directly with so many patients here at the hospital. Sy’rien was a surgeon; he was specialized, and so largely his work was targeted. He would go for the surgery, whether a consult or to do it himself, and more often than not another doctor would supervise the aftercare. Only in rare cases, he had explained to her – complicated ones, like Lorcan’s – did he supervise himself. And so, over these last few days, Niccolette had seen a number of patients being wheeled into surgery – brave, terrified, confused, cheerful, anxious, numb – and very few in recovery. It was, she was learning already, quite different, and quite surprising. She had not known it would hurt; she had not known she would care.

Had it been different, so long ago at Brunnhold? Niccolette could not remember. She had liked the practicum in that it was interesting. Of her patients, she could recall their files, but little of their faces; little of their personalities. Had she ever looked at them, as she looked at Lorcan now, and recognized –

Lorcan said he was not feeling much in the way of pain. Niccolette’s eyebrows raised, slowly, and she made as if to glance at the chart again, although she did not really need to. She thought, perhaps, she had misremembered – she traced her finger down to the dosages he was given, glancing up at him again, and set the chart down, carefully. It was a surprise to her, she thought; she had taught herself something of these medicines, in the last weeks, and she would not have said the dose sufficient to…

Niccolette shrugged, and was just as glad not to answer. Is that common, she thought; no. At your dosage – no. But she doubted Lorcan would like to be told he might be unusually sensitive to opiates; men were terribly insecure in such regards. She would, Niccolette decided, refer to her casebooks later. Surely such effects were within the normal range of things – someone might have documented a similar patient.

Nicolette set the chart down, and looked up at Evandria and Lorcan when they spoke to her once more. She shrugged again. “I think you shall have a lot of resting and healing to do,” the Bastian said. “But I am not a doctor. It is best you ask Dr. Palevi about such things,” she smiled, faintly, although it was harder to muster than she had thought it would be. Her right hand settled comfortably on her side, curling against it.

“I shall let you visit in peace,” Niccolette said, and made to leave; she did not bother with good-byes or pleasantries. She had never seen the point, and she did not see it now.

[Evandria Sericks]

“Thank you, Mrs. Ibutatu,” the constable replied with a nod.

Evandria let the Bastian leave as she started setting up Lorcan’s meal. The smell of roast beef filled the small room, making her own stomach rumble. Her plan was to sneak little bites from his fancy dinner. All the juicy meat, potatoes, and carrots certainly looked tempting. However, there were still things she wanted to talk about with the healer, things that were left unheard by her constable. He did not want her to worry, but that was the one thing she could never do.

“Oh, I almost forgot!” the young Hoxian exclaimed as soon as she finished setting up the table in front of him. Evandria reached for two jars of cookies nestled in the depths of her bag. They certainly turned out far better than what she would have imagined. She dared say that they might even have a place in Vienda’s nicest bakeries.

Lorcan’s eyes brightened at the sight. “Do tell me that those are for me.” His gray eyes then traveled to her face and back to the cookies. “On second thought, if you made it, I’d rather not. I am already in a hospital, I don’t need another reason to put me into one.”

She rolled her eyes as she gathered the glass jars to her chest. “Very funny. No, it is not for you. But I’ll be sure to tell Lysandra to bring the rest of the batch tomorrow morning when she visits.” Heading over to the door, she turned her head back. Lorcan was already leaning forward to breathe in his meal. “I’ll give this to Mrs. Ibutatu and come back.”

The young woman jogged outside, hoping that she had not stalled too long and ended up losing Niccolette. Her brown eyes, scanned the hallway for a lavender gown. Fortunately, Evandria caught sight of the woman just as she turned into a corner. It took some weaving through nurses and nearly tripping over her dress to close their distance.

“Mrs. Ibutatu!” she called out before she finally fallen in step beside the other woman.

“I have a something for you and Dr. Palevi. It is a small thank you from my squad for taking care of Lorcan. All of us helped make it, sort of.” While Evandria could claim to be quite the masterful cook, she was impossibly terrible at baking. Her doughs either never rise or ended up solidifying into a rock. So, she had happily let Lysandra do most of the heavy lifting. Ryker was also surprisingly good at shaping them. “We were not sure if you even like sweets, so I can assure you if none of us would be offended if you decided not to eat it. Nevertheless, we are insisting that you take it first.”

Evandria paid close attention to the Bastian, looking for signs if it was perhaps a bad time to bother her. If it was, she would refrain from holding her up too long. Niccolette was her best chance to learn the details of Lorcan’s recovery. It was far more difficult to catch a conversation with Dr. Palevi – the man seemed to always be busy with something. Or at least that was what the front desk and nurses told her.

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Early Evening, 38 Yaris, 2719
The Hallway, Grand Mercy Hospital

Niccolette made her way out into the hallway beyond Lorcan’s room. She took a moment just outside, once the door closed, to breathe in and out, deeply and steadily. She counted the breaths in her head, and let herself find the familiar rhythm that called to the mona. A passing orderly’s head jerked towards her, and Niccolette sighed, and exhaled, and released her meditations, the sensation of power fading in her field. She did not routinely dampen it, here in the hospital; there were plenty of indectal ramscotts here, and some surgeons whose fields were as strong as her own – if, Niccolette thought idly, somewhat differently focused.

There had been gentle probing questions so far, mostly from some of the more senior doctors. They had not been hard to deflect, politely.

Niccolette’s hands were cold, abruptly, and she grimaced and tucked them into her pockets. She turned and began to walk, making her way down the hallway.

“Mrs. Ibutatu,” Carleton said, hurrying down the hall towards her. Sy’rien’s red-haired assistant had a worried, pinched look to his face, as always; his field hovered tentatively in the air around her, the perceptive mona avoiding a deep caprise.

Niccolette stopped, turning to look at him. She raised her eyebrows, lightly.

Carleton cleared his throat. “Dr. Palevi asked me for your update on Constable Lorcan’s leg,” he shifted, uncomfortably, and withdrew a step.

Niccolette shrugged. “I have added the notes to the chart. I see nothing unusual in the quantitative casts.”

Carleton nodded, then nodded again. He shifted; he cleared his throat, and opened his mouth as if to speak. His eyes darted away, then, and he bowed lightly. “Thank you, Mrs. Ibutatu,” he said, instead. “Nurse Grainger?” Carleton turned and darted away; Niccolette noticed the faintest trace of sweat stains in the armpits of his light gray suit.

The Bastian held, a moment longer, frowning softly. She kept walking, then, turning the corner, only to stop again at the sound of her name from behind her. She glanced back over her shoulder towards Evandria, her eyebrows lifting slightly.

Niccolette did not like sweets, or even sweet foods; she never had. Her eyes dipped down to the glass jar of cookies, and lifted back up to Evandria. “It is not necessary,” Niccolette said after a moment. Her hands were together at her front, and she twisted her wedding ring slowly around her finger with her ring hand, fingers sliding over the smooth gold. Niccolette was not sure why the gratitude caught her so off-guard; she knew, if no one else, why she was truly here.

Niccolette let go of her ring, and reached for the jar, a small frown knitting her face. She took it carefully in slender hands. She would not eat them, of course; she would give them to Aremu, Niccolette thought. “Thank you,” The Bastian said, quietly, after a moment. She looked back up at Evandria and nodded; she had thought to go, but Evandria was watching her, and she hesitated, instead, raising her eyebrows.

Niccolette thought she understood, then, and she grinned slightly, relaxing. This, she thought, she did not need to feel poorly about; there was nothing wrong with a bit of gentle bribery. “Is there something else?”