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Grace loved getting working with the Astrophage. It’s the planet's first contact with other worldly life and Grace was the world's leading expert. He needed to find out as much as he could about it.
Grace hadn’t left the lab for the last two days, He slept at his desk, granted his back hated him for it, but he would hate himself more if he missed something whilst sleeping. It was like he was back at university. He did graduate early for a reason and that reason was stubbornness combined with sleepless nights.
Grace yawned, stretching his back, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He’d meant to ask for some of those heat pads for muscular pain. As he brought his hands back down, he swiped at a conical flask on the lab table.
Just as quickly as it was falling, his arm was reaching to catch it, but he misjudged it completely. The back of his forearm hit the floor first, followed by the conical flask hitting — and shattering — against his forearm.
Grace didn’t even register the pain at first. All he saw was the shard of glass protruding from his skin with the blood spurting out of it.
“Oh god.” Grace was just completely frozen, the blood was pooling on the floor under his arm now. “That’s a lot of blood.”
Grace — stupidly — quickly stood up. The sudden head rush combined with the amount of blood that was coming out of his arm made him dizzy. He knew he wasn’t great with blood, but this was a lot of blood. A lot of his own blood.
Grace fell against the cabinet behind him. His legs completely failed to hold his weight any more and crumpled under him. He slid down the cabinet, landing on his backside with a thump.
He needed to check the time, he was meant to be in a meeting with Stratt soon, but there’s no chance he was getting up now. He could practically see his skin getting paler with each second that passed.
Part of his brain was screaming for him to get up, but the other half was fighting the urge to vomit. That was the last thing the wound needed was him throwing up in it.
Grace managed to get his other hand to grip somewhat around the wound, in a pitiful attempt to stop the bleeding. The bleeding, which had now soaked the leg of his jeans and was still running onto the floor. Grace didn’t want to keep looking at it, it was just making him feel worse, but he also couldn’t take his eyes off it.
A knock at the door of the lab was the only thing to draw Grace’s eyes away from the wound. He wanted to shout for them to help him, but his voice just came out a small whispered groan.
“Doctor Grace?” That was Stratt’s voice. Grace breathed a small sigh of relief. “We are due for a meeting now.”
Grace tried to move to get the door but in moving his arm, he seemed to reactivate the nerves in his arm. He also let out a loud cry of pain at the very least which caught Stratt’s attention.
The door swung open and Stratt walked in, her face had no signs of panic on it bar the tension between her eyebrows.
“Doctor Grace?” She scanned the room for a moment before finding Grace against the cabinet.
Grace never thought he would see the day when her stern look would finally break, and she would show emotion. The sheer panic on her face made Grace panic a little more too.
“What happened?” Grace tried to gesture with his arms to the broken glass on the floor but stopped as more blood spurted out of the wound. “No, no. Keep still and keep as much pressure on that as possible. I’ll radio for help.”
Grace watched as he knelt down beside him, keeping one hand on the wound with him as the other held her radio. She was applying a lot more pressure to the wound than he was right now.
“I need a medical team to Doctor Grace’s lab now. I have a shard of glass impaled into Doctor Grace’s arm with moderate blood loss.” Grace could only watch her as she tried to help him, she took her scarf from her coat pocket. Grace watched as she made it into an emergency tourniquet at his elbow before she raised his arm above his head. Grace groaned through the sudden change. Stratt tried to be as careful as possible not to touch the glass shard as she raised his arm above his head.
“You have to stay awake, Doctor Grace.” Grace knew she was right, but it was so difficult to focus. His eyelids were so heavy. Sleep felt like a good idea right now. He could just about make out Stratt’s facial features, she was clearly getting more panicked as Grace could hear her voice getting louder but couldn’t make out any words.
Stratt could feel Grace fading. His strength in his arm was declining as he started going more and more limp in her hold.
“Grace, stay awake. You have too—” Stratt felt his arm go completely limp as his other hand fell away from where he was trying to apply pressure to the wound. The blood was rolling down his arm, soaking his shirt and dripping onto her now as well. “Ryland?”
The door to the lab swung open as the medical officers rushed in. Stratt briefed them on what she thinks may have happened given Grace couldn’t explain. She stepped away from Grace as instructed by the medical officers and just watched on.
Stratt couldn’t move. She felt Grace’s blood all over her hands and arms.
“Stratt?” Carl placed a gentle hand on her shoulder, bringing her back to reality. Grace had been taken on a backboard, and she hadn’t noticed. Carl’s face was etched with concern.
“I’m fine.”