Chapter Text
If he had to be honest, Henry Haluki was surprised at how many people survived Gondoleery's last stand.
Across the weather barrier, Quill was nothing more than a burnt, smoking corpse. It would be nothing but ash soon enough, the fire beginning to ebb and die out. It had started… Well, Henry wasn't entirely sure. He had been cooped up in the hospital wing, running around like a chicken with its head cut off, since before the battle had even started, and adrenaline must have carried him through some separate dimension where time didn't exist. It was just patient after patient, a never-ending stream of wounds and burns to tend to.
He had a steady hand, sure, and indeed some of the sutures and bandages fell to him, but the other nurses took care of the more gruesome wounds more often than not. The little Dr. Haluki, as some had taken to calling him now, was smarter than he was skilled, so he diagnosed and prescribed and soothed, and he saw each and every face that entered the hospital wing as he went.
That was why he was in the perfect position to notice that, in all actuality, not that many people had ended up in the hospital wing this time around—and most were Artiméan.
It made sense that the Quillens, whether they sympathized with Gondoleery or not, had mostly made it out unscathed; and even though they had wanted to hold tight onto their world, once the flames had started, they had been quick to flee. It did not make them any more accepting of Artimé's magic and knowledge, however, and Henry guessed that most of the injured were likely hiding it. For a place that looked down upon lies and creativity, the people of Quill were incredibly good actors, when they needed to be.
He just hoped that didn’t mean that they were suffering more than they needed to. They left the door propped open, just in case, and a certain cat and warrior duo were noticeably absent from their perches just outside.
Perhaps a few hours had passed after it was declared that anyone who survived was in Artimé when Henry took up his favorite spot near the medicine cabinets in the front of the hospital wing, finally snatching a water bottle and a deep breath. All of the patients who had been seriously injured were reassured that they would be okay and had settled down. A few of the other nurses still raced around the hospital wing, but even they were starting to slow down. Some of them left to go to sleep after the hectic day, giving Henry a pat on the shoulder as they did so.
Most of them knew better than to suggest that he leave to rest. They had all seen enough battles together to know that it wasn't worth it—the most they would get was a faint smile and a shake of the head. Henry would not leave until he was certain that everybody had been seen to and had a plan for recovery.
He watched the stream of people meandering outside in the main hallway for a quiet moment, then turned away to continue drinking his water. His brain was about ready to turn off, so he would stay up for just a little bit longer, that would be fine, and he would make sure that he did his rounds and that someone else could take his place before he went and passed out. Maybe he’d even ask Crow—
“Haluki.”
Henry tried not to sputter water all over himself, choking it down the wrong tube out of surprise. He coughed a few times, swiveling to look at who was interrupting him. It stole his breath away so thoroughly that his body seemed to forget that it had been fighting for air just a few seconds earlier.
“Crawledge Prize,” Henry whispered, setting the water bottle down in front of him and wiping his mouth.
The Quillitary soldier’s grey eyes followed the water bottle as Henry set it down, then met his again. He didn't look any different than Henry remembered from his childhood, the stocky kid down the street from him, except that his face was rougher, his skin tanned, scraps of a beard having grown in patches and been only half-shaved away. He had been, what, six years older than Henry? His father had been a governor, and so he'd been declared Wanted with little difficulty.
And, of course, then he had joined the Quillitary, and Aaron's Restorers…
“Do you need something to drink?” Henry asked, plastering on a smile, even though he knew exactly who Crawledge was, and what he had done. He started looking around for a spare water bottle. He usually had a stash in here somewhere, but clearly the day’s events had depleted his supply, since there were none there, or there, or...
“I’m alright.” Crawledge set a soot-covered hand down on the tabletop. “This is the hospital, right? You…fix wounds here?”
“Yes, absolutely!” Henry said, jumping up out of his seat. “How can I help you out?”
Crawledge gave him a blank look for a minute, then looked all around him, studying each face with the slightest squint. Trying to hide bad vision, Henry noted; and the fall of his shirt, betraying that he was thinner than standard, and his hair curling around his ears that low—
Crawledge finally nodded and offered Henry his other hand, and Henry just about threw up.
Many of the wounds he saw were fatal, blood and maybe organs spilling out here and there. Sometimes they were still spewing, sometimes simply oozing, but both could be patched up and dealt with in one way or another. Few, if any, of his patients had the opportunity for their wounds to get infected, and certainly not to fester and rot for however long this one had.
Even though Henry tried to bite back and gulp down his reaction, Crawledge must have noticed his panic, because he immediately started begging. “Please, Haluki, tell me this isn’t a death sentence. Please tell me you can fix this.”
Henry nodded quickly, his mind beginning to race for what he needed to do next. “Ummm. Yes. Okay. Yes. We’re going to have you sit down—there are empty beds down at the end, extras, even, if you want some privacy. I’m going to get some stuff, and we’re going to have to clean that guy out. Just… Yeah. I’ll be back. Go down to the end!"
Henry rushed away to the little room of extra supplies, where a few of the other nurses were stood discussing the events. They watched him curiously, offering help and asking what was going on. Henry waved them off.
“I have it handled; just be on standby, I guess. I want to talk to him first. Alone."
He ran back out, a bunch of supplies cradled in his arms. Scalpel, scissors, stitches, bandages, water, soap… He counted as he sped to the back of the hospital wing, bed after bed passing by in his peripheral vision. A few people sat up as he went by, leaning forward to watch him go.
Crawledge sat on the very last bed in the hall, and Henry dumped all the supplies out beside him. There was a curtain hanging from the ceiling that he pulled closed behind him, and a chair he dragged forward so he could sit in front of Crawledge.
“What in the world happened here? How did it get this bad?” He grabbed for supplies, making a messy pile in his lap, and starting dousing the wound with water.
Crawledge sucked in a sharp breath, but tried not to show how much it affected him. His face was the practiced calm of a Quillitary soldier. “I don’t know. After the battle, when the ice… I couldn’t go back. Not after that. It’s gotten worse from then.”
And how long ago had that been? Weeks, at least, Henry was certain of that much. Good heavens, it was going to be a miracle if they didn't have to amputate this thing, but he kept that thought to himself. “Why couldn’t you go back?” Henry asked, starting to clean out the wound with soap. He tried not to gag, and Crawledge tried not to squirm. Neither was very successful. “You never had problems going back to lick Aaron’s boots before. What changed?”
“Gondoleery.”
A silent moment passed between them, every muscle in Crawledge's body tensed, sheets curled in his fingers, while Henry fumbled for his scissors.
"She killed Dred."
Henry’s fingers stumbled. He had moved to cut away the dead tissue, but now his hand slipped, cutting a little further than he intended. Crawledge hissed, finally unable to keep himself collected.
“I’m so sorry,” Henry said, squeezing his hand and trying to keep his own steady. Fittingly, a two-in-one apology; Crawledge, he knew, would never accept one for Dred on its own, but it felt wrong not to say it. “Why did she do it?”
Crawledge shook his head. He swallowed hard, the muscles of his throat contracting with a pained motion. Patching up this wound came first; then Henry would see to his hydration.
“He… When the ice… He slipped. One of your people hit him with a— a spell, just as the ice went down, and he slipped. I didn’t see it, just stumbled across his body after…” The fingers of his free hand clutched the blankets tighter, knuckles turning white and voice starting to break. “I tried to get him up, tried to get him to walk. Whoever it was fled the scene or something. He couldn’t walk on one of his legs. Couldn’t move it at all.”
Henry put down the scissors, pausing before he found his suture kit to just look at him. Henry could see the tears beginning to well in his eyes. “Crawledge…”
“I had to pick him up. I tried to ignore the sounds he made. I fled, like a coward, from the battle, back through the Quillitary ranks. I didn’t even care about the people yelling at me and threatening me, I just kept going… I needed him to be safe. If I left him there, he would just get killed, no matter what.”
He choked back a sob, his breath beginning to quiver. “I stayed by his side, the whole time he was in the Quillitary hospital. We grew up together, you know. He was in my year. Just down the street. He’s the only person I’ve ever really cared about in the whole world, and we were supposed to have each other forever.
“They said…he would never walk again. That his leg was too broken to ever be fixed. And then, after the battle, the order came through from up high. Kill anyone who was unfixable. The Unwanteds. The wounded. Any and all deserters, Gondoleery wanted them gone. They took Dred away in front of me and kicked me out. Told me to get back on my feet and serve.”
Crawledge wiped his face with a languid motion, hand coming away wet with tears. He was fully sobbing now, hiccuping and gasping. “She didn’t want to ‘waste resources.' It was her ice that did it, and then her command that killed him for good. I… How was I supposed to go back, after that?”
He looked into Henry’s eyes, his face twisted in agony.
“You did the right thing,” Henry insisted.
Crawledge shook his head. “No. I should’ve taken him far, far away from here. I deserted from the Quillitary. I’ve been living on the outskirts for a while now; I should’ve taken him with me. He was fine, he was fully sane, he just couldn’t walk, he wasn’t going to die…”
Henry stayed quiet, starting to wrap up Crawledge’s now-bleeding hand with bandages.
“How am I meant to keep going, after that?”
“You just do, Crawledge. You just do."