Chapter 34: Medical Attention

  As soon as her boots touched the marble floor of the Night Haven foyer, Dania called out for help.

  "Elarienne! Get a room ready! Joe, if you can hear me, I could use your help, too. We've got wounded!"

  Across the space, the elevator dinged and the doors slid open to reveal Elarienne there, clutching her teddy bear. She lifted one hand to beckon them forward. Hush glided to her as if the battered woman in his arms weighed nothing, and Dania followed at a run, the little boy still clutched to her chest.

  The elevator took them to the third floor, where Elarienne led them to a wing Dania hadn't yet explored. Unlike the long hallway that held the bedroom suites she, Jake, and the others had claimed, this space seemed organized in clusters, with four or five doors all facing a central area that pulled at something in Dania's memory…

  It's a nurse's station! she realized abruptly. Gods above and below, is there a freaking hospital in here?

  Elarienne opened the first of one of the doors and stood to the side. Sure enough, as Dania walked in the room, she could see a standard hospital bed, complete with IV setups and the basic suite of monitors she would have used in the ER.

  "Hush, lay her on the bed, please," Dania said. She bent to set the little boy in a chair just as Joe rolled up, his companion plant Audrey still sitting on his shoulder as she'd done before.

  "What's going on?" he asked Dania, and then looked down and smiled at the toddler. "Hello."

  The boy stuck his thumb in his mouth and regarded Joe with wide, suspicious eyes, and then glanced sidelong at Elarienne. While Dania moved over to the woman's bedside, she glanced up to see Elarienne holding her teddy bear out to the boy. Audrey, too, seemed very interested in the boy, as she slid down to kneel in Joe's lap, peering at him.

  "They were at the third address on the list," Dania said tightly. "No one else was there. She was like this when we found her, with the kid crying next to her calling her Mama. Amari and Jake stayed to call a card cop we know. I'm hoping he can bring a healer for her. "

  Joe pursed his lips and nodded. In his lap, Audrey, his plant, let out a kind of a trilling noise and he hummed in what sounded like agreement. Dania spared a glance to see the plant holding a blue and purple bloom she'd produced from somewhere. She tilted her head and offered this to the boy, who took it with shaking fingers and a big sniff.

  "Little man," Joe said softly. "Is that your mama?"

  The boy nodded and clutched the flower next to Elarienne's teddy. "Mama owie," he said softly, tears heavy in his voice.

  "Yes, sir," Joe said. "Mama's got a big owie. That's my friend Ms. Ellis. She's a nurse. She's gonna help your mama, okay?"

  The boy nodded again.

  "Good. Why don't you come with me? Elarienne can show us where you can get a snack and then maybe you can lie down and watch a show. That way, Dania can work on helping your mama, all right?"

  The little boy stared at Joe long enough for Dania to get the IV fluids started on the woman, but then he gave another tiny nod and slid out of his chair, then toddled over to raise his arms to Joe in the universal toddler signal for "pick me up, please."

  Joe let out a chuckle and pulled the kid onto his lap. "Ms. Ellis, we'll be in my room. I've got some flowers I think this little man might enjoy looking at. You'll send Amari my way when she gets here."

  "Yes, sir," she said. "And you know you can call me Dani, right?"

  "I know. Thank you, Ms. Ellis."

  Dania shook her head and bent to look closely at the woman's face. "Are you still with me?" she asked quietly.

  "Where…?"

  "You're at the Night Haven. It's not a hospital, exactly. You're safe here. My name is Dania. I'm a nurse. We're going to take care of you."

  "My…baby?"

  "Your little boy is with my friend Joe, they're in a room close by, looking at plants. He's safe, too. Nothing will hurt either of you while you're here."

  "And…?" The woman lifted an arm and curled her hand protectively over her belly. Dania bit her cheek lightly before speaking.

  "I will be honest with you, whoever worked you over was really thorough. You are at risk of losing your pregnancy. If we can go to a hospital, then you could deliver via cesarean section and—"

  "No. No hospital. He'll…kill me. Kill…us…all."

  "Okay, okay, relax," Dania said, reaching out and laying a calming hand on the woman's elbow. It was the least bruised part she could see. "We won't do anything you don't want to do, but you need to take it easy, all right. Can you tell me your name?"

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  "K-Kendra. Stone."

  "Kendra Stone. Like I said, I'm Dania. What is your little boy's name? Is he your son?"

  "Ethan. Yes."

  "Ethan. Nice name. Okay, Kendra Stone, mother of Ethan. I'm going to give you some—"

  Footsteps pounding on the floor heralded the arrival of Jake, who skidded through the door to the room with Rhett hot on his heels.

  "Dani!" Jake said, excitement threading through his tone. "Sergeant Walker has a doctor card!"

  Dania looked up to meet Rhett's eyes, and he nodded gravely. Only then did Dania notice the gold, beige, and gunmetal-gray cards floating in front of his chest. He touched the center one, and a spiral of beige and gray light flowed to pool on the ground. Out of this pool, a figured gowned and masked as if for surgery—albeit some futuristic surgery that required body armor—arose.

  "Patient status?" the card asked. Dania concentrated for just a second, and his stats appeared over his head.

  #

  Captain (Dr.) Myles Dante, Cybernetic Surgeon

  Unique, Rare-equivalent, Tier-1 Equivalent Mortal/Golem (Military, Civic, Cyber) Minion

  Health: 14

  Attack: 1

  Defense: 8

  Magical Attack: N/A

  Magical Defense: 8

  This minion can add 1 equipment card with the (Cyber) type to any non-deckbearer, non-card entity as if they were a deckbearer at no cost, and with no time in play, per tier of card. This card may also install non-great game medical devices as if a surgeon of extraordinary skill or perform any other medical procedure as if a surgeon of average skill with unlimited time in play while performing such procedures. This card adds 25% to the effects of any building with the (medical), (healer), or (herbalist) keywords.

  Special: Battlefield Trained [2]: This Minion Card may be played as a creature for 2 power of any of its types in any combination

  Special: Healer [10]: When this card is played to the field, it may restore any one creature’s health to maximum or restore 10 health to one deckbearer. No deckbearer may benefit more than 1/day from this.

  “We have barely begun to touch the possibilities inherent in synergizing biology with advanced technology.”—CPT (Dr.) Myles Dante

  #

  "Patient status?" Dr. Dante snapped again, moving to Kendra's bedside.

  "Oh! Um. She's stable, for now. How old are you, Kendra?"

  "Twenty," Kendra whispered, and Dania saw Jake's eyes go wide and Rhett flinch behind the figure of his card. She buried her own reaction to the girl's age and focused on what she'd been trained to do.

  "Okay, Kendra Stone, twenty-year-old female. Thirty-four weeks pregnant, her second child. She's got extensive lacerations around the head and face, as well as probable skull fractures…"

  ***

  Hours later—Dania had no idea how many—Dr. Dante pronounced that all operations had been successful, and promptly disappeared into a swirl of beige and gray light that arrowed back to Rhett's chest. Dania blinked, and then looked down at the sleeping Kendra's bandaged face.

  Next to the bed, a tiny hospital bassinet held the blanket-wrapped form of Kendra's infant daughter.

  "You okay?" Rhett asked her in a low undertone. She blinked herself out of her reverie and nodded.

  "Come on," she said. "Let's let her sleep. I want to wash up, and then I'm starving. Where's Jake?"

  "He left about an hour ago, when Dante said he was finished with the surgical procedures and didn't need any more components…Dania, what is this place?"

  "It's Jake's building, the Night Haven," she said as she followed Rhett out of Kendra's room and closed the door softly behind them. "It exists in a dream realm, and as far as I can tell, it becomes whatever Jake wants. Tonight, we needed a hospital environment, so it created…this." She waved a hand at the empty nurse's station, and the other rooms. "Shit," she said then. "Someone needs to stay in case either of them wakes up."

  Elarienne stepped around the corner that led to the stairs and elevator. She smiled and pointed to herself. She didn't have her teddy bear. Dania wondered if she'd given it to little Ethan to cuddle.

  "You'll stay?" Dania asked. Elarienne nodded. "How will you let me know if she wakes?"

  Dania's phone buzzed. She blinked, pulled it out of her pocket, and saw Elarienne's face smiling at her. "But you don't have a ph—you know what? Nevermind. Dream realm. Got it."

  Rhett put his arm around her shoulders. Dania was so tired, she didn't bother to shrug it off.

  "Come on, Dani," he said. "Let's go get you cleaned up and fed. Strong work in there, just now."

  "That doctor card was amazing. I didn't even realize cards like that exist!"

  "Well, Dante is a unique card, but yeah. He's come in handy a time or two. It really helped that you—or Jake, I guess—had this place with the right setup. Dante gets cranky when I ask him to patch people up without the right environment and supplies."

  Laughter bubbled up from deep inside Dania, spilling out before she could stop it. Her whole body shook with it, enough that she had to stop and lean against one of the walls while the gales of near-hysteria washed over her.

  "Dani?"

  "I'm…all right," she gasped, holding up a hand to forestall Rhett's worry. "Just…need a minute."

  She sucked in a deep breath and tried to force her mind to be calm. Tears threatened at the edge of her awareness, but she pushed them away.

  Just a little longer, she told herself. Stay functional for just a little longer, and we can cry it out in the shower. Fuck all, but it's been a long day!

  Eventually, she started moving again. Rhett walked with her all the way to the door to her suite, though he didn't say anything else until she put her hand on the door.

  "You sure you're going to be okay?" he asked. "I'm a little worried about you."

  "I'm too tired to lie to you," she said with a half-smile. "I'm going to go get in the shower, turn it on as hot as it will go, and I'm going to bawl my eyes out."

  Rhett's eyebrows shot up. "What? Why—?"

  "Because there's a girl in this building who was beaten to within an inch of her life, and who consequently gave birth to her second baby tonight. Because my kid saw that, and has had to grow up too damn fast because of it and all the other shit that's been going on. Because I'm so fucking tired that I can barely stand up, and because I'm not sure what we do next, if anything at all. But most of all, because it's been a long-ass day, and I need the emotional release. Don't judge me, Rhett. It's a hell of a lot healthier than some other coping mechanisms."

  Rhett looked at her, his eyes wide and dark in the shadowed hallway. Then he, too, lifted the corner of his mouth in a half-smile before reaching out and tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

  "I do judge you, Dani," he said softly. "I judge you're amazing."

  Dania went still, her heart hammering in her chest. Rhett swayed toward her a fraction of an inch, his lips moving toward hers…

  And then he stopped. She saw his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed. His smile deepened, and his gaze dropped to her lips.

  "Have a good shower," he murmured. Then he closed one eyelid in a wink and turned to walk away.

  Dania stared after him for three heartbeats, and then she shook her head and opened the door to her room.

  You know, she thought as she made a beeline for her bathroom. I'm not even going to think about…whatever that was. Ain't nobody got time for that much trouble wrapped up in a pretty package. No thank you. Not tonight. Not ever.

  And as she turned the lever on her shower all the way to the "H"…she almost believed herself.

  Books 1 and 2 are now available in KU, and Please check it out and tell him I sent you!

  So, true story, I got my start writing fanfiction a million years ago in the early days of the internet. Consequently, I have a soft spot for fanfiction in my heart even now. And I think ones that mash up different properties are kinda cool. Here's one you might like, if that's also your jam: