Remedy

23

"Go fish," Arthur spoke while eyeing up Percy.

"I bet you're cheating."

"He probably is cheating, he is a swore loser." Dot shuffled passed the two as they played Go Fish. She double took and stepped back and pointed a finger at Arthur. He looked as shocked as he could and nodded at her. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Ah..." Arthur lowered his cards to the table face down and looked at her. "Sorry, slipped my mind."

"So help me, Arthur Simon Blake I will throw all this iodine on you if you don't answer me properly."

"You're threatening your own brother?"

"A brother who is a massive pain and who kept something big from me."

"What are you two on about?" Percy asked utterly confused by their argument.

"James is alive." Dot said while drumming her fingers on the railing of the trolley in front of her.

"The Captain is alive?" Percy asked a look of wonder flitted onto his face. "Good lord how? He was right at the front...I mean, that's brilliant! Captain is alive." Percy corrected himself after a glare from Arthur.

Dot looked at the two of them and rolled her eyes. She didn't even retort to Percy's words she just continued on to try and find a Sister or the Matron. One of them, or both, needed to know that James had woken up. She would discover Arthur's reason for hiding this from her later on when she hadn't got other things to do.

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It was rather lonely in this room. Wherever this room was, looking up at the darkened ceiling James slowly pushed himself up. Much like earlier on, everywhere hurt. His chest, his arms, his head, literally everywhere. He didn't think it was possible for anyone to hurt this much.

"Is it a friendly visit this time, Nurse Blake?" A male voice said happily.

"Well," Dorothy's answer came hesitantly. "Maybe in a minute." Footsteps were approaching where he lay, two sets to be exact.

Against his better judgement, James panicked. The curtain opened and a woman in her mid-forties appeared standing next to him. She swiftly looked from him to Dorothy who was standing with her hands entwined in front of her. She looked blank faced but every so often looked down at him. James was stuck for things to look at so he just looked up at her.

After being weirdly stared at for a few more seconds the elder nurse stood up and nodded at Dorothy, she briskly walked after her. There were hushed whispers from the other side of the curtain and soon Dorothy popped back through.

James lifted his head up and looked at her, she smiled and then laughed. "I take it you cannot move, and the only thing you can move is your head?"

"It's not funny, it isn't very polite of you, Nurse Blake to laugh at your patient."

"She does that a lot!" A voice cheered from somewhere else in the room.

"Ignore Harry, what he fails to say is that I have a brilliant sense of humour and laugh when my patient says something funny." Dorothy smiled and disappeared for a second, she reappeared again with a trolley.

Walking to his side she held as gently yet firmly as she could onto his arm. "Time to move James." So through working through the pain he now found himself sitting up in bed. "You look so confused."

"Well this is the first time I have sat up in..."

"Fourteen days." Dorothy said while sorting out things on the trolley. He double took and stared up at her. "I'm not kidding, fourteen days." She turned and looked at him, "How much mobility do you have?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Because I was going to ask you to do something because...I erm...well," Dorothy stuttered around her words and even in the dim lighting James could see the light colouring on her cheeks.

"Are you usually this embarrassed around your patients?" James raised an eyebrow at her, she pouted and then smiled.

"Fine," Dorothy clapped her hands together. "I shall be blunt then, take your shirt off." James's eyes widened, now he could see why she was being embarrassed over the matter. So, slowly he reached up and started to painstakingly undo the buttons on his white hospital shirt. He looked down at himself with confused eyes. Where skin should be there was only bandages, bandages which were a varied colour of red and orange and a mixture of both. "That's iodine," Dorothy pointed to the orangey coloured bandages. "Stains horribly, does a good job though." He ignored her words and just looked at himself, there wasn't much skin peeking out through the bandages that he could see of.

He now found out why his chest hurt so much, managing to wriggle out of the shirt he looked at his arms. Which were much like his chest, all bandaged up and a varied colouring. James looked up at Dorothy with a confused and shocked expression, she sat down on the bed and looked at him.

"The war," she said, "It's taken its toll on many people. It does not look as bad as you think." Standing back up again she picked up a pair of scissors. "I have to warn you that this will most likely be very painful."

"Is you pre-warning me meant to help?" James asked while frowning up at her, he knew taking his anger and confusion out on her wasn't fair but she was the only person here.

"Somewhat." Dorothy answered blankly while holding onto his arm and taking to cutting away the bandages.

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(Edited: 29/August/2019)