Remedy

24

Dot's eyes skimmed over the letter in her hands. Alice didn't stay at the same hospital as her, in fact the one she was working at was about an hour and a half away. Her letter was just saying she'd settled in all right and she hoped everything was well at Dot's end. Dot had swiftly replied telling her how Arthur, Percy and James were here and that settling in didn't take to long.

"I think walking with crutches is an art form." Percy said, Dot looked up at him, she was sitting on Arthur's bed, Arthur at the moment was walking around awkwardly. She had told him to lay back down, or sit down somewhere. Walking on an injured ankle wasn't going to help him heal.

"Come on Percy!" Arthur cheered and soon got the other injured men to join in cheering him on. Dot laughed it was a slightly funny thing to watch.

Percy pouted and looked down at the floor, slowly but surely he put the crutches forward and then swung his body weight forward too. After his first step everyone cheered and clapped. Everyone was encouraging each other, it was amazing in Dot's opinion.

"Can we visit, Captain?" Percy asked while turning and taking slow steps forward again.

"I don't know, he's not coping too well with everything." Dot answered truthfully. Today would be the second day James had been awake, he was blunt, confused and not to talkative. It pained her to see him have changed so much in character.

"Maybe he's just lonely?" Percy piped up while sitting down next to her, his attempt at sitting down was just him collapsing on the bed. Dot helped him sit up and looked at him.

"After all I have Arty for company, who does he have?"

"You make it sound like Arthur is such brilliant company." Dot smiled.

"I heard that!" Arthur exclaimed from his position in a chair next to another injured soldier. The two of them were seemingly talking about trivial things like the weather.

"Come on then," Dot stood up and then walked over to her brother. "Want to come?"

"Yes," Arthur said and stood up quickly, the three of them walked along the corridor slowly. They passed numerous halls filled with beds. Some beds had the curtains around so none of the patients could see each other.

From experience Dot had learned that those with the curtains around were the men who had suffered the worse injuries at the hands of enemy fire. Opening the curtain quickly of a certain bed she smiled at James, even though he looked utterly confused by her being here.

"Captain!" Percy exclaimed while hobbling over to his side on his crutches. "It is so good to see you are well."

"It's good to see you too, Percy," James smiled and looked at Arthur who nodded slyly towards his sister, considering he was standing behind her, James raised an eyebrow confused at Arthur. The elder twin in return smiled and shook his head bitterly.

"You remember the way back?" Dot turned and asked Arthur, he nodded. "Brilliant, I have other patients to see to so enjoy catching up." She waved bye to them and disappeared.

----

"You said some very important words to me, Captain," Arthur said while leaning against the end of the bed. "I am not one for kicking a man while he's down...or in your case, sitting in bed. But you hurt my sister anymore, emotionally wise, so help me..."

"Give the poor man some credit, Arthur, he's only just woken up. He was technically dead, heck we all were!"

"It's hard to adapt." James looked down at his bandaged hands. It was discovered that when Dorothy changed his bandages the other day that his chest had been riddled with bullets, those bullet wounds were also on his arms. His hands were injured from where he obviously fell from Joey and scrapped the ground.

"Can I ask you something, Captain?" Arthur pushed away from the end of the bed and sat down. James frowned at him, he wasn't taking too kindly to the dark haired man making himself at home in his little space. "Would you rather have woken up here, knowing she's still over there? No, of course you wouldn't. I can see it, you are glad she's here. Also, you two get to...and I don't believe I'm going to say this, do all the things you two couldn't technically do when we were back at that base." Arthur paused and looked at the floor. "You get any funny ideas of what I've said, you'll regret it. Touch my sister, and I'll kill you myself."

"Arty!" Percy shoved him off of the bed with the end of his crutch. "Ease up, honestly."

"It's all right, Percy," James looked up at the man beside him who was still waving his crutch around wildly. "Can you control that please?" James leaned away from the crutch as Percy put it back on the floor.

"Now!" Arthur exclaimed while standing up, "I saw a wheelchair back there, you up for a little stroll, Captain? I swear I'm a good driver."

"You've never driven before in your life you liar." Percy muttered while rolling his eyes.

James smiled, "Sure," Arthur grinned and walked as quickly as he could off to find the wheelchair. He was feeling a bit better from Arthur's blunt words. All in all, James thought he just needed a good talking to. It was obvious Dorothy wouldn't say the words which were needed to be said, but her brother on the other hand could.

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(Edited: 29/August/2019)