Not That Lucky

#30: End of the Line

"Luck is my middle name. Mind you, my first name is bad." –Terry Pratchett

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"How do you feel?"

It took every ounce of my small frame not to roll my eyes at the question. From the moment we woke up in the hostel from hell, that's all Bucky has said to me. Every twenty minutes or so he'd ask for my status as if I was going to spontaneously drop dead.

"Oh, I'm dying." I replied dryly. "Definitely dying right now unlike half an hour ago when I was completely and totally fine."

Bucky shot me a glare over his shoulder, and I raised an eyebrow at him in response. To be honest, I really wasn't completely and totally fine. My shoulder ached something awful, I had a headache, and every time I was dumb enough to try and move my left arm I'd get a shooting pain down to my fingers. That was worrisome, but I wasn't going to bring it up in conversation.

"Bucky, where are we going?" I pressed and hurried my steps so I was in stride with him. He had ditched the bike, claiming we needed a new vehicle, and since I didn't have the experience to know any better, I just followed along with his plan. That left us walking though which was less than ideal at the moment.

"There." Bucky replied and nodded ahead. Down the street was a small clinic nestled between two other buildings. "I called ahead this morning. Offered the doctor a lot of money to clear out the clinic and just see you."

"I thought we agreed that I was fine."

"You are not fine, doll." Bucky shot me another hard look. "I see you wince every time you move. You nearly cried this morning when you tried to put your book bag on."

I twisted my lips and just silently walked beside him. It wasn't like I could argue successfully with him on this. Bucky was an observant guy. Plus, if he already went through the trouble of getting me a sketch ass appointment then I might as well go. The shooting pain was suspiciously nerve like, and I was worried the bullet might be pressing on something it shouldn't be.

"Come on." He held the doors open and ushered me in. When he stepped in behind me, I had hoped he'd offer me his hand or arm like yesterday, but Bucky kept a good foot of distance between us this morning at all times.

Bucky barked out something in Romanian and I just glanced around the tiny foyer we stood in. There was a staircase pressed to the wall to my right and an open archway in front of us past the stairs. Chairs lined the wall of the room, it must have been the makeshift waiting room, but like the rest of this part of the city it looked rundown. This building was very obviously not designed to be a place of healthcare. People were just making do.

A man walked down the stairs. He was chubby and balding with eyebrows that seemed to furrow together naturally, but the brown eyes behind his wire rimmed glasses held a kindness in them. He wore business clothes and a stethoscope around his neck. The doctor said a few lines in Romanian and Bucky replied back in ease.

"My name is Dr. Escu. Follow me, miss." The doctor said suddenly, and it took me a minute to realize it was English and directed at me. I jogged after him down a dim hallway with Bucky only a few steps behind me. The doctor stopped outside a door and turned to me, "Can you tell me what happened in your own words?"

I glanced back at Bucky in worry, but my grumpy friend just nodded once. I turned back to Escu, "I was shot. In the shoulder. Entry wound, but no exit wound." He nodded at me patiently, but I was sure he had heard all that from Bucky. I hummed, "Uh, symptom wise... pain, obviously. My shoulder is really sore—" I glanced at Bucky briefly before looking back. "—and, I, uh, I think I'm having nerve pain now. Anytime I move my shoulder I get pain down to my fingers."