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Kai wasn’t one to startle easily, something to be expected given the nature of their job, unless there was something on their mind that bothered them deeply. Today wasn’t the type of day where they would admit to themself what they were thinking about when the phone rang, though.
They were rarely phoned for anything important, most of their superiors opting to use a pager in case Anastasia had them out of the office, but it would be undisciplined for them to not answer the phone immediately. The voice on the other end was one that they have heard before, but not familiar enough to recognize over a call.
“Lieutenant Waykes?” They heard the voice ask. They must’ve mumbled something in affirmation, though they couldn’t quite realize what they said. The voice continued. “The prisoner needs surgery. We just need a confirmation that you want them alive.”
This time, they distinctly heard themself say yes, but they didn’t think they knew what it was supposed to be about. They found themself pacing to the door of their office, an open file still clutched in their hand, before they stopped themself from rushing out without even knowing where they wanted to go. They set the file down, pressing with their thumb and smoothing out the corner where their grip had left a crease, and anxiously adjusted the position of everything on their desk, and then their uniform, before heading toward the med wing.
The place was empty, a large room set aside for prisoners with a couple of cots along the back wall next to windows covered with grey curtains. A small desk sat in the corner with a locked shelf next to it, and inside sat a few bottles with their labels obscured with the thick plastic screens of the doors. Certainly, it would be better for a prisoner to be brought here for help than to be in the cells being tortured everyday, but the place was no less gloomy. Swallowing thickly, they tried the door that they knew connected this room to the main medical office. It didn’t budge, and it was clear from the uniformly dull copper knob that it hadn’t been touched in a long while, but there was a tint of dark red hidden behind it, and a splotch on the old yellow paint of the door that looked faintly orange, brown even.
They left through the front door again, pulling it shut behind them, and somehow it felt like the hallway had brightened up as they did. The outside of it was painted a shade of green only slightly lighter than the walls, and with a few more steps down the hall, it was easy to forget the room even existed. The next room had double doors, propped open with two battered pieces of triangular wood, and the sunlight spilled through the tall windows, but the lights were still on overhead, buzzing with their harsh white glow.
“Can I help you?” The nurse sitting by the door barely looked up only to glance at the small silver bar on their shoulder. Kai stared back, scanning over the table and the pile of papers, more organized than their own desk ever had been even on their first day, and the nurse’s neat uniform, an ironed crease down the middle of the red cross printed on a clean white armband sitting right below the sewn-on double chevrons of his rank.
“Hm?” Kai responded, hoping they hadn’t zoned out long enough for it to be weird. “Right. I’m looking for a prisoner I sent over there yesterday.” They gestured toward the other room, and there was a shelf where they remembered the door being. “There’s no one there.”
“They’re in surgery,” The nurse replied. “It’s all hands on deck over there. There’s not much staff assigned to prisoners in the first place. It’ll take a few hours.”
Kai thanked him with a nod, asking him to tell the others to give them a call when it was done, and walked out, making the trip back to their office. They hoped no one would stop them and assign them some other task, walking close to the walls with their eyes down, their finger skimming against the rough chalky paint as they moved, feeling the friction that soon turned from grounding into numbness.
They sat in front of their desk and picked up the same file as before, laying it in the center of their desk so the spine aligned with the knob on the drawer right in the middle. The crease from their grip before was still there, sharper on the left than the right, and they smoothed it out with the side of their left wrist while they picked up their pen with their right hand.
The same grey walls that they had usually felt secure within suddenly felt too close, too tight, and they knew they needed a change of scenery. They would never admit how often they felt like this in their officer after they came back from the cells, how the walls were painted the same color and how they could very well end up in the other type of room with a single misstep. They found themself thinking that they would prefer even the gloom of a storage room that had been converted to heal only to prolong suffering.
They tucked a stack of files under their arm and once again walked to the med wing, opening the door to find the room as empty as before. They found a chair by the window, setting their stuff down on it and reaching to draw open the curtains. They expected to find dust floating in the rays of light that spilled in, but there was nothing. They didn’t know if they should be glad that the place was at least clean or hate it for how dead it seemed. They spread their things out on the windowsill, trying to ignore now the peeling paint making crinkling noises as they wrote. Leaning against the side of the window and pushing their work into the sunlight to see better, they almost felt like a young student posing for an aesthetic photo of themself studying.
The thought occurred to them that they still had no idea where the operating rooms were when they heard a bed being wheeled down the hallway toward them. It can’t be far, but they never bothered to look for them. They had little time to wonder, anyway, the doctor seeing them in the room and directing the others to push the bed right to them, rolling the rebel, still unconscious, onto the closest cot.
“Here,” She tossed them a pair of cuffs, grabbing the rebel’s hand on her side and attaching it to the railing of the bed. “Get them cuffed up. They’ll be waking soon. And close the curtains. They always try to look out and plan to escape if they can see through the windows. Every one of them.”
“This one definitely would,” Kai looked down at the rebel who looked defiant even while unconscious. “I’m sorry for the trouble, ma’am. Captain Kolettis didn’t tell me it would be this bad.”
The doctor sighed, stepping aside to let a nurse put in a new IV. “You know, we don’t usually expend so many resources for prisoners. We had to pull staff from the normal care team today. I’m a doctor, and I will save their lives when I need to, but they don’t deserve to take up medicine and manpower that are meant for our own soldiers. This one lost their right to it when they decided to betray us. Next time you want someone alive, make some effort yourself instead of dumping all the work on us.”
“Captain Kolettis doesn’t care about what Captain Ridley would do if she killed the rebel, but I would prefer not to cross her after she made me promise I would get a confession from her prisoner.” Kai moved away from the bed, following the doctor to her desk. “I’ll get them out of your hair as soon as they’re good to go back to a cell.”
The doctor looked at them in silence, wariness showing on her face. “They’ll have to be here for a while. If you want a confession from them, you’re gonna have to wait. They’ll be too delirious to say anything for a day or two.”
Kai hummed, rushing back to the prisoner’s bedside when they heard the cuffs clanging against the railings of the bed as they started waking up. “Do you want me around or would I just get in your way?” It seemed like in the movies, people always tried to rip their IV out as they were half-aware, waking up in a hospital, but the rebel just struggled, the edge of the cuffs digging into their wrists.
“Sure,” She scribbled something at the bottom of a document that looked too messy to be a signature, even for a doctor’s handwriting. She pushed it under a clip and snapped it closed, looking around as if looking for something. “I’ll leave one nurse here, then, so it doesn’t get too crowded. Do whatever you want. I don’t care, as long as you don’t damage them up too much and then need me to fix it again.”
“Yes ma’am,” Kai muttered, not looking up at her as she left the room. They cupped the struggling rebel’s face, pressing them down into the bed and whispered against their forehead. “Hey. I know you can’t really understand me right now, but you know I don’t like so much struggling.” They weren’t able to tell before from the fleeting touches on their wrist, but now that they were close, they could feel how hot their skin burned. “I’ll have to punish you later if you keep struggling like this, okay?”
Kai didn’t know if it were the threat or the cool touch of their hand on the rebel’s forehead, although they doubted either would be really effective. They stilled, arms falling limp, but they jerked their head to the side, trying to escape Kai’s touch. They mumbled something, but Kai shushed them, thumb brushing over their lips as they leaned in to whisper another threat in their ear. “It’s okay, you’re alright,” Kai said when they’ve quieted again. “They just had to do surgery to clean you up so you wouldn’t die on me. Anastasia should’ve been more careful with you, you’re too beautiful to be killed like that.”
“No Kai please-” The word “surgery” seemed to have sent them into a frenzy. They arched off the bed, then collapsed down and tried to turn onto their side and curl up. Kai grabbed their shoulders and shoved the point of an elbow into their chest to force them down. Their eyes were open, but they were more feral than clear. “You can’t, please, don’t let them cut me open again, Kai.”
That seemed to take all the strength they had in them in their current state. Their eyes slipped closed and their shoulders trembled with quiet almost-sobs, but there was nothing left in them to struggle anymore. Kai ran their hand through their sweat-soaked hair, picking away the tangles. A whimper escaped their tightly pressed-together lips when Kai placed the back of their hand on their forehead, but soon their both hands were warm and the rebel was still burning hot.
“Private,” Kai waved at the nurse where he sat, probably just catching up on paperwork like everyone else. “Is there something I could use to cool them down a bit? I might as well while I’m here.”
“Yes sir. You probably should if you want them to recover fast so you can ask them questions.” They pointed to the sink. “Would you be alright grabbing it yourself? There’s rags in the top cabinet, and get one wet with cold water.”
“Thank you, private,” They nodded, and they didn’t remember themself getting up and walking over, just that the next moment they had the rough fabric in their hands, held under the running water. They stayed there for much longer than they had to, feeling their fingertips go numb under the cold water. They knew people maladapted to this job for whom washing their hands all the time was the only way to chase away the feeling of invisible blood forever sticking to their hands, but for them it was simply easier to let go of their thoughts while they felt the flowing water take it away from them. They glanced at the nurse again, but he paid them no mind, hopefully not nothing how long they stood by the sink.
They wrung out the cloth and used it to wipe their hands, folding it into a neat rectangle and laying it on the rebel’s forehead. They mumbled something incoherent and Kai hummed as if agreeing, taking hold of the rebel’s hand with their own, rubbing their cold fingers into their palm. “Does that feel better? Just relax and sleep now, you won’t be hurting so much when you wake up.”
“Promise?” Their eyelids cracked open a bit, but Kai doubted they could see the reassuring smile they flashed them. “I don’t… wanna hurt anymore…”
“Mhmm,” Kai nodded, squeezing their hand and feeling them squeeze back gently. They couldn’t promise them no more pain, but at least nothing would be as bad as what Anastasia had done. What they had helped to do. Flipping over the wet cloth, they muttered a quiet apology, but the rebel was already unconscious again. They bore witness to their suffering, and now they will stay by their side in their vulnerablity. It wasn’t much, but at least they could convince themself they did what they could.