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Thaddea blinked at her twice, “What?”
“Let me look at your eyes,” Anah already had her torch out.
She winced and held up a hand to block the light, “Eugh, stop that. It hurts. If I wanted bright lights in my eyes why wouldn’t I just hang around in the Silver District until their great big ugly cars inevitably dazzle me with their headlights?”
“I think you have a concussion,” she said carefully. “That was quite a fall and I saw your head bounce off the ground. Have you ever had one before?”
“Hm,” she made a face. It was identical to her drunk-Thaddea-thinking face. “Maybe? It wasn’t as bad as this though.”
“No,” she said. “Well, that’s lucky. When was it?”
“Don’t you already have my medical records memorised, Doctor Kahlo?” she grinned at her sleepily.
“Eyes,” she said, brandishing the torch as a weapon, or a shield. “Now. Let me look. It’ll only take a second.”
“Fine.”
She only looked for a few seconds, but Thaddea was already wincing away. Sensitivity to light, she noted mentally. As well as the fact that one of her pupils was fully dilated while the other was as small as it could get. The corner of one of her sclera was bloodshot but she wasn’t quite sure if that was related. Knowing Thaddea, it could be a completely different injury. “Yep. Concussion.”
“What do I do now?” she groaned. “Go home and sleep it off?”
“Absolutely not,” she said, standing up. She was a lot shorter than Thaddea but she was able to pull on her shoulders until she managed to haul herself to her feet. “We’re going to the Teaching Hospital. I don’t think this is so bad, but they can look you over before we send you home.”
“We?” She looked blank. “Who?”
Anah sighed. Confusion. “I mean you can sleep at home, that’s advised, but it’s Teaching Hospital policy to just get checked out first if an injury happens on campus.”
“I never do that when I get injured on campus,” she said.
Anah muffled her oof sound as Thaddea dumped most of her weight onto her. “How much time do you spend at the gym?”
“Which gym?”
“Come on,” she said, trying to engage her muscles a little more so she wasn’t completely crushed. “Teaching Hospital is this way. It’ll be better soon.”
“Thank you, Kahlo,” she said, and before Anah could register it, she felt a slightly wet kiss be placed on the top of her head. “You’re the best.”
“I know,” she grumbled. “Come on.”
“I didn’t think it was so bad,” he said, showing her the shiny red mark. “I mean, it’s just a splash of oil.”
She grabbed his other hand and pulled, ignoring the stares of the rest of Unit 919 around Francis’ kitchen table. “Cold water, ten minutes. You can thank me later.”
“I can?” he blinked at her as she turned on the tap.
She watched carefully as his expression changed, going from surprise, to alarm, to hurt. “Alright, fine.”
“It’ll probably be okay,” she said, looking at it. “The oil wasn’t too hot. It’s not like you’re going to need a skin graft, just keep it under there, and I’ll take another look at it when you’re done.”
His face turned purple, “Skin graft? From where?”
“Your arse!” Hawthorne yelled. Morrigan rolled her eyes at him. “No seriously, that’s what they did to Homer when he dropped a teapot on his face when he was wee.”
“You’re not going to need one, probably,” Anah assured Francis.
“Thanks,” he said. “It’s really cold.”
“It’s cold water,” she rolled her eyes. “I’m getting more soup if you’re okay standing there?” She checked the clock. “Nine minutes to go.”
“Is it alright if I-” Anah paused, her hand knocking past the spot on the wall she had been knocking on. “Morrigan?”
Her friend was sitting on the floor, mouth hanging open. She might have seen her eyes flicker slightly at her in response, but honestly that could have been her imagination. There was a beautiful crystal palace, in miniature, in front of her, the glass stained in all sorts of different colours.
She stepped past it carefully, and kneeled down next to her, “How are you feeling?”
“Hm,” she muttered, nodding slightly. It was a little like one of the babies at the nunnery orphanage when they were tired and/or hungry.
Anah took Morrigan’s hand in hers, pressing two fingers to the pulse point on her wrist, counting it out. A little slow, but normal.
“Did you overdo it?” she asked her.
Morrigan’s head inclined ever so slightly. Right then. What had she said Rook had brought her last time she had done this? Soup?
Anah scrambled around in her pockets. No soup, but she managed to produce a battered chocolate bar from the other day and unwrapped it, pressing it into Morrigan’s hand. She was able to feed herself at least.
She watched as her friend came back to herself, the colour returning to her cheeks, so subtly that she wouldn’t have noticed it had been gone at all before seeing that.
“It’s very pretty,” Anah said, nodding at the miniature crystal palace. “But maybe you should take a snack-break?” Instead of being borderline catatonic for however long you’ve been on the floor?
“Yeah,” Morrigan agreed, making a face. “Sorry I took your chocolate.”
“It’s fine,” she said, bumping her shoulder against hers. “Are you feeling better?”
“A little,” she made a face. “I have horrific stamina. When I get into the weaving properly, I lose track of time. Thank you for-” she nodded vaguely. “Yeah. Thanks, Anah.”
“At least you didn’t jump off another building.”
“Or get mauled.”
“You’re going to die of something stupid and preventable one day,” she said, standing up and brushing down her clothes. “But not today apparently. Go home and rest. Doctor’s orders.”
She rolled her eyes a little, but she was smiling, “Will do. Cheers, Anah.”
Cadence glared down at her ankle as Anah prodded at it, the swelling already beginning to rise. “Is it broken?”
“I think so,” she said, standing up. “What’s the pain like out of ten?”
“Four?” she shrugged. “Six, maybe? I mean, it hurts.”
“Sorry,” she said.
“You didn’t trip me up,” she glared at the pothole she’d managed to put her foot down wrong in. “Can Wunsoc pressure the City Council into actually fixing the roads? This is basically on campus.”
“Maybe you should sneak into a budget meeting and mesmerise them into it?” she was joking but she could see the idea land and develop in Cadence’s head. “I didn’t mean-”
“Chill, Anah. It’s not like I’m using it for nefarious purposes. If I… did get myself involved in fixing the roads, wouldn’t that be for the best?”
“It would be unethical, and immoral,” she helped her up, off the road and onto the pavement. “It’s not due process.”
“As if those people care about due process and not making buckets of money and sticking their names on things that will crumble in a few decades anyway since none of them are capable of forming long-term policy, apparently.”
She sighed. She couldn’t really argue with that. “Are you okay waiting here while I go call an ambulance?”
“Sure,” she said.
Her eyes were welling up, but she broke eye contact with her before Anah could see her cry. “Does it hurt more than it did?”
“A bit,” she admitted. “Can you go call that ambulance, please? I don’t want to be here any more than I have to.”
“’Course,” she hurried off, her hand digging in her pocket for change as she hunted down the phone box they had passed a few blocks ago. “On it.”
Arch rubbed the side of his wrist again.
“How’s the physio going?” Thaddea asked him, her head pressed into the join between Anah’s neck and shoulder.
“It’s going,” he said shortly. “Still not allowed to play the violin.”
“Sucks, Arch,” Hawthorne said. “Can you still pickpocket?”
“Not with this hand,” he said, grimacing. “And my dad’s dog destroyed the exercise ball I was using for my exercises. None of the others are the right… tension or whatever it is.”
Anah frowned. There was a collection of medical supplies like that in the hospital wing, but you were supposed to have a direct recommendation or prescription to get it. She said this to Arch who shrugged.
“Honestly, that sounds like a lot of bother. It’ll probably clear up on its own soon enough. Don’t give me that look, Anah.”
“I’m not giving you any look,” she crossed her arms and sat up. Thaddea groaned as she was shifted off her and forced to move back into her seat properly. She was looking at him normally!
But she had a plan.
“What’s this?” Arch stared at the bag of exercise balls she had just handed him. “Where did you get these?”
She bit her lip, “The Teaching Hospital.”
His eyebrows scrunched together. They reminded her of the fat caterpillars that sat outside her windows when it was warm and munched on the plants in the garden. “But I thought you said-”
“Well,” she shrugged, trying to summon a single piece of Thaddea’s sheer audacity or Hawthorne’s disregard for most rules. “I got it anyway.”
“Did you steal this?” his voice pitched in a way close to what only dogs and bats could hear. He coughed, looking around but there was no one else on the path with them.
“Did I take it according to the policies of the hospital or with permission? No.” She grimaced. The scriptures of the Divine Thing dictated that all should be done to promote health and wellbeing. This was her moral duty, as well as the right thing to do for a friend. “You should have gotten the permission, but since you wouldn’t-” she clutched onto the right thing, the good thing. The hospital would not be bereft of supplies. They would have given it to Arch anyway. It was the right thing to do. The good thing to do. “Just- take them, alright. Use them according to whatever the physio said to do.”
He smiled awkwardly and reached up with his non-injured hand to scratch the back of his head, “Thanks, Anah.”
“My pleasure,” she said, turning on her heel so she could get to hometrain on time. It was the right thing. The good thing.
She turned on the light when she came in the room, “Lam, why are you on the floor?”
“Light,” she groaned, crouched in the corner of the classroom. “Please. Off.”
Her hands fumbled for the switch, trying to memorise the layout of the desks in the room so she could make her way to her in the dark. “Is it your head?”
“Migraine.” Her voice was like nails on a chalkboard.
Anah plunged the room into darkness and closed the door so that only a sliver of light was visible through the seam in the door.
“What can I do? Have you taken any painkillers?”
“No,” she said. “Gave my last one to a first year who ran out and got cramp yesterday. Haven’t refilled my supply yet.”
“Okay,” she unzipped her bag, feeling through it to try and find the blister packet, to feel for the right shape of pill, the right size. “When did you last eat something?”
She just groaned again, “Don’t make me eat anything.”
“Okay,” she discarded that blister packet. “Best just take the other ones then. Can’t have those on no food.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” she kept scrabbling until she came up with something. “Here. And here’s my water bottle,” she uncapped it. “We’ll survive sharing this once.”
“I suppose so,” Lam said, shifting. She could make out her outline, sitting up a bit more, and pressed the bottle and the two pills into her hands. “How many medical supplies do you have in there?”
“The normal amount to have.” In her opinion. Which was every kind of over the counter painkiller, mild antihistamines, plasters, a roll of bandages, some antiseptic, and cotton swabs. It was a perfectly reasonable supply in her opinion.
Lam snorted, and swallowed the pills. “I need to speak to Miss Cheery about this. My headaches have improved since I started at Wunsoc, because of-” her head tilted slightly. Her training, Anah inferred. “But they’re sort of coming back again.”
“I can come with you, if you’d like,” she offered.
“Can you?” Lam said. “My sister used to sit with me when I had these at home, and she talked to my tutors for me. But she can’t now,” Anah ignored the sniff. “And I miss her.”
Without planning on it, Anah interlinked her fingers with Lam’s, “Sisters for life.”
“Yeah,” she heard the way her hair rustled as she nodded. “True as a knife. As a scalpel?”
“You need to workshop that before presenting it anywhere,” she said.
“I’ll do my best.”
“And how did you manage that?” she stared at the arm, hanging at a completely unnatural angle. 100% broken.
Mahir’s eyes tracked up to the ladder on the bookshelves. He was ever so slightly too short to reach the top shelf, even using it, Anah noticed.
“I can’t set your arm on my own,” she said.
“I don’t like the Teaching Hospital,” he whined.
She closed her eyes, trying to remember the scriptures. Be good. Be kind. She recalled her lectures on appropriate bedside manner. She removed the whine from her memory and replaced it with naked words. “It’ll be over as soon as we get there. I will,” she took another breath. Bedside manner. Bedside manner. “Come with you, if you like.”
He didn’t smile but he was less difficult, “Fine. We can go to the hospital.”
“AH! Yeouch! That’s cold,” he whimpered as she applied the salve.
“Sorry, Hawthorne,” she said. “That’s the temperature it comes at, I guess.”
“It’s terrible,” he winced.
“As bad as sticking your arm in a fire in the first place?” she raised an eyebrow. She was glad her practice in the mirror was finally paying off. “Just stay still. You won’t even need a skin graft. Nurse Tim says you’re very lucky.”
His lips twitched, “From my bum?”
“Are you five?” she asked, trying not to smirk as she pulled out the bandages. “It’s sometimes taken from your leg anyway, you know?”
“Less funny,” he shrugged.
“Well,” she said, wrapping it around his arm. “That’s you done. Great. I accept payment in chocolate or your mum’s oat biscuits.”
“Feel free to take the biscuits,” he jumped off the bed. “Oats and treats should not be put together if you ask me. Blasphemy.”
She rolled her eyes, “Bring them in tomorrow?”
“Sure, fine.”
She collapsed onto her favourite beanbag like half her body had been carved out of lead and she couldn’t hold it up anymore.
She opened her eyes some time later with a cup of tea pressed into them, and a blanket being tucked around her neck, and the vaguely sweaty smell of Thaddea in her nose. “What’s happening?”
“Long day, Anah?” Francis asked. He offered her the opened polar bear biscuit jar and she took a ginger snap and dunked it into her tea.
“The longest,” she said, pulling it out in just enough time to not lose half her biccie to the tea. “Long life, really.”
“It’s the weekend now,” Mahir said. She could see the doodles Hawthorne and Thaddea had left on his cast, as well as everyone’s name, and what she assumed were his notes on Elvish scripts or whatever.
“Go home and rest up,” Morrigan ordered, smirking slightly. She took the jar off Francis and put it to the side.
Miss Cheery looked up from the front of the train, “Everything alright, everyone?”
“Just fine,” Anah said, smiling at her brothers and sisters. “We’re alright.”