"Across No-Man's Land," a Queen of Swords fic
Rating: PG
Pairings: None.
Warnings: Included within are references to canon-typical violence and my best guesses at Helm's medical practice.
Other Notes: This was my 2006 yuletide gift for fresne. (I have no idea why I didn't post it here after the author reveals back then.) I owe many thanks to my super-betas, gem225 and angel_negra. Any mistakes are mine.
Across No-Man's Land
In the light drizzle, the world looks like a watercolor painting. Faint sunlight illuminates the blurred seams of objects, places, and people. Even through the rain -- and the dust that it stirs into the humid air --, Robert can recognize his surroundings as a dirt road through the center of a busy town. He sees everyone in the faces around him, yet knows no one.
A sharp crack tears across the sky as lightning flashes. A young man beside him falls, bloodied and broken, followed by an old woman. A little girl and her doll crumple down the street. They all hit the puddled earth with loud, splattering thumps. Crying out, Robert lunges to try to catch a woman at his right, but she slips past his fingers, wet now with more than rain. The storm and heavy thumping continue long after he can see anyone moving or anything but the water streaming down his face. They continue even as he jerks upright, alone in the bed at his office in Santa Helena.
Robert scrubs sweat-damp palms over his face and shakes his head, which effects no change on the outside noises of rainfall and a dull, arrhythmic pounding, which he finally connects to the lower part of his office door. He stumbles out of bed and into the main room, where he lights a lamp and tries to pull open the door just far enough still to keep out most of the rain. Instead, his floor gets soaked as Colonel Montoya tumbles inward from what must have been a slump against the door.
"Colonel?" he asks, his voice thick with surprise and the last vestiges of sleep.
Montoya groans. Robert kneels on the hard floor and slides his hands under Montoya's shoulders as the colonel struggles to rise. Only when Montoya is standing, and subsequently tilting toward the floor again, can Robert see the dark nation of blood staining the back of his uniform jacket slightly to the right of center.
"Oh, Christ." Robert guides Montoya to the examination bed and helps him lie -- or collapse, really -- on his stomach with his head facing sideways there, then tries again to rouse him. "Colonel Montoya."
When there is no response, Robert reaches for the bottle of ammonia. He waves it briefly under his own nose, more to verify its contents than to waken himself further, although that doesn't hurt. He feels his nostrils and eyelids flare, and watches the same effect occur on Montoya's face.
Montoya stares, dark eyes wide and disconcertingly blank in the warm yellow lamplight. He blinks a few times and finally commands, "Doctor Helm. You will treat me."
"You're injured. As you've so often pointed out, I'm a physician. I would tend to think that means, yes, I'll treat you, Colonel. Even in the middle of the Goddamned night on December twenty-fourth. What the hell happened to you?"
The smile flitting across Montoya's face, though ragged at its edges, is as supercilious as ever. "Ah, but you have just reclaimed your medical qualifications; should you not be quite able to tell me about my own wound?"
Rolling his eyes, Robert begins unfastening and peeling away the layers of clothing around Montoya's torso. He tries, perhaps not as hard as he otherwise would, to be gentle where the blood has begun to clot and fuse skin with cloth.
Still Montoya hisses, and Robert says, "Sorry. I don't suppose it would do me any more good to restate my question as, who the hell did you piss off, at this time of night on Christmas Eve, so badly that he tried to run you through?"
"What makes you certain that my attacker was a man?"
Robert piles the bloodied garments in a basket near the door. He studiously focuses on washes his hands in a ceramic basin before pressing a clean wad of cloth to Montoya's wound. "Firstly, she probably would've succeeded more thoroughly. Secondly, this isn't her style."
"Mmm. Her style impresses you, does it not?" Montoya observes. "You value her anarchistic breed of justice -- her bloodlust?"
"I wouldn't say that." A second lamp joins the first, creating a nexus of light and shadows around the examination bed's occupant. Robert lines up his instruments, including two freshly sterilized needles and a spool of surgical thread. "I value her desire to protect the real laws of this land, even when I don't condone her methods. And I wouldn't recommend that you start a conversation with me about bloodlust, Colonel. Among the two of you, the so-called Queen of Swords is the one who hasn't tried to take my life."
Montoya makes a vague attempt at waving his left hand, the movement echoed by its shadow preying across the wall behind him. "As has been so often true, Doctor Helm, you misunderstood the situation. I am sure I could persuade you to see it from my perspective."
"Situations, plural, and somehow I find that rather unlikely. Now, swallow this."
"What is that concoction?" Turning up his nose at the proffered spoonful of brownish muck, Montoya winces.
"The devil's work." After a moment of lowered-eyebrow suspicion from Montoya, Robert explains, "That's a common name for a plant called datura, a small amount of which I've boiled with peppermint for a more palatable medicine. It will lessen the pain."
"That, I will gladly accept, Doctor," Montoya says, and does.
"Good." Robert directs Montoya to turn his head so that he faces the wall. "Don't move."
"Why did you have me do that?" Montoya asks slowly, each word like the snapping maw of a lion in an unlocked cage.
"If you look that direction, the alignment of your spine will help me to sew more cleanly and leave you with a less gruesome scar. Also, I won't have to deal with you swooning as I stitch your flesh" . . . with what Robert is beginning to wish were rusty needles.
"And this devilry you fed me will distract me further from this procedure that you wish me not to watch? You are perhaps hoping that the secrecy of my mission tonight will provide you with an easy alibi, were I not to survive until morning."
With Robert pressing the cloth to Montoya's wound with one hand, that swath of cream has grown nearly as crimson as Montoya's uniform. The heel of Robert's other palm on the back of Montoya's head keeps him from turning back.
Robert mutters, "Didn't I just tell you not to move? I make no claim to Hippocratic perfection, but I believe we've already reinforced the salient points of my occupation as a healer. So, if at all possible, don't be such a horse's ass."
Montoya snorts -- rather like a horse's head -- but merely comments, "I must remind myself tomorrow, then, to find myself a new horse, as I believe the one that brought me here has fled the scene."
"Smart animal."
"So bright, como las estrellas en mi pueblo." Montoya sounds almost dreamy. "Did you know there are stars dancing along your windowsill, Doctor Helm? Stars and comets and lovely little pixies con alas de plata . . ."
Montoya's voice drifts off into space, apparently joining his thoughts.
"Finally," Robert says.
He discards the stained cloth, splashes alcohol across Montoya's back, and sets to work at the base of the wound with the first shining needle. He barely notices the twinkling notes of its reflections below the window. What does catch and hold his attention is the gash beneath his fingers. It's a bit wider than he first thought, and as jagged as an iceberg through Montoya's clammy skin. Whoever caused it was either very angry, as Robert assumed, or very desperate, which would be equally understandable in Montoya's presence. The colonel's lack of qualms about murdering or simply barreling over anyone in the way of what he wants brings acid to Robert's mouth and blurs his vision.
In Montoya's wound, Robert sees a road, the buildings central to a town, and its people, drowning. How small a task it would be to sew up that crevasse another way.
His needle is slippery, its silver sheen entirely obscured by blood. With a start, Robert moves to exchange it for the other and finds that his hands, too, are caked in angry blotches. He plunges them into the basin, the cool water looking like wine has been spilt into it. He stands, taking in deep, harsh breaths. He lets the water swirl around his wrists and hands until his fingertips are nearly numb and the clarity lost to the water has returned to his mind. Then he rubs his hands briskly on a cloth.
He returns to Montoya's side and picks up the second needle. The thread slides through its eye with simple precision, and he brings the point back to where he'd left off, not far below the bared nape of Montoya's neck. After one more moment's pause, Robert inserts the needle. When he is finished, he draws up a sheet.
*~*~*
Robert can't help the twinge of satisfaction that comes with slapping Montoya's cheek, even gently.
Cursing, Montoya opens his eyes and glares.
"You weren't responding to the ammonia this time," Robert says, shrugging and sitting back in the chair near the bed, "and I needed to waken you."
Daylight streams through the windowpanes and dawns on Montoya's face. His frown loosens. "I wonder if I ought to feel lucky that I am waking at all."
Robert crosses his arms. After having slouched, half-awake, in this chair through the last few hours of the night to make certain that his work wasn't undone, what he really wants to do is just crack all hell out of his strained neck. He keeps his gaze steady. "Consider it the only Christmas present I'll ever give you. You're welcome."
"Well." Montoya rolls, slowly but with determination, onto his side and then upward, planting his feet on the floor. "If you would be so additionally kind as to lend me a shirt, I will gift you with my absence, and payment to follow."
"Are you crazy? You can't go anywhere until your body has had more rest," Robert insists as he steps in front of the bed.
Raising one eyebrow, Montoya gradually maneuvers around Robert. "On the contrary, my physician has only moments ago advised me of the importance of my being awake. I shall rest again in my own bed."
Robert groans in exasperation and retrieves an overlarge, mud-streaked tunic left behind by one of Santa Helena's residents. He drops it around Montoya's shoulders before opening the office door to the outside, where the rain has soaked into Santa Helena and left her dry once again. "Fine. Do what you will. I clearly haven't the slightest influence over you."
"Perhaps only time will tell, Doctor." Montoya signals to a passing soldier for assistance back to his home. His smile at Robert is not quite friendly, and Robert might be imagining the hint of gratitude in it.
Robert smiles in return, with bite. "No, Colonel. The only horse's ass I can handle is my own. You'll have to try harder to keep yourself out of trouble."
Making his way with the soldier across the road, his dependence barely evident even to Robert's watchful eyes, Montoya calls back over his shoulder, "Ah, but what would la Navidad be without animals, blood, and a guiding star?"
- end -
Pairings: None.
Warnings: Included within are references to canon-typical violence and my best guesses at Helm's medical practice.
Other Notes: This was my 2006 yuletide gift for fresne. (I have no idea why I didn't post it here after the author reveals back then.) I owe many thanks to my super-betas, gem225 and angel_negra. Any mistakes are mine.
Across No-Man's Land
In the light drizzle, the world looks like a watercolor painting. Faint sunlight illuminates the blurred seams of objects, places, and people. Even through the rain -- and the dust that it stirs into the humid air --, Robert can recognize his surroundings as a dirt road through the center of a busy town. He sees everyone in the faces around him, yet knows no one.
A sharp crack tears across the sky as lightning flashes. A young man beside him falls, bloodied and broken, followed by an old woman. A little girl and her doll crumple down the street. They all hit the puddled earth with loud, splattering thumps. Crying out, Robert lunges to try to catch a woman at his right, but she slips past his fingers, wet now with more than rain. The storm and heavy thumping continue long after he can see anyone moving or anything but the water streaming down his face. They continue even as he jerks upright, alone in the bed at his office in Santa Helena.
Robert scrubs sweat-damp palms over his face and shakes his head, which effects no change on the outside noises of rainfall and a dull, arrhythmic pounding, which he finally connects to the lower part of his office door. He stumbles out of bed and into the main room, where he lights a lamp and tries to pull open the door just far enough still to keep out most of the rain. Instead, his floor gets soaked as Colonel Montoya tumbles inward from what must have been a slump against the door.
"Colonel?" he asks, his voice thick with surprise and the last vestiges of sleep.
Montoya groans. Robert kneels on the hard floor and slides his hands under Montoya's shoulders as the colonel struggles to rise. Only when Montoya is standing, and subsequently tilting toward the floor again, can Robert see the dark nation of blood staining the back of his uniform jacket slightly to the right of center.
"Oh, Christ." Robert guides Montoya to the examination bed and helps him lie -- or collapse, really -- on his stomach with his head facing sideways there, then tries again to rouse him. "Colonel Montoya."
When there is no response, Robert reaches for the bottle of ammonia. He waves it briefly under his own nose, more to verify its contents than to waken himself further, although that doesn't hurt. He feels his nostrils and eyelids flare, and watches the same effect occur on Montoya's face.
Montoya stares, dark eyes wide and disconcertingly blank in the warm yellow lamplight. He blinks a few times and finally commands, "Doctor Helm. You will treat me."
"You're injured. As you've so often pointed out, I'm a physician. I would tend to think that means, yes, I'll treat you, Colonel. Even in the middle of the Goddamned night on December twenty-fourth. What the hell happened to you?"
The smile flitting across Montoya's face, though ragged at its edges, is as supercilious as ever. "Ah, but you have just reclaimed your medical qualifications; should you not be quite able to tell me about my own wound?"
Rolling his eyes, Robert begins unfastening and peeling away the layers of clothing around Montoya's torso. He tries, perhaps not as hard as he otherwise would, to be gentle where the blood has begun to clot and fuse skin with cloth.
Still Montoya hisses, and Robert says, "Sorry. I don't suppose it would do me any more good to restate my question as, who the hell did you piss off, at this time of night on Christmas Eve, so badly that he tried to run you through?"
"What makes you certain that my attacker was a man?"
Robert piles the bloodied garments in a basket near the door. He studiously focuses on washes his hands in a ceramic basin before pressing a clean wad of cloth to Montoya's wound. "Firstly, she probably would've succeeded more thoroughly. Secondly, this isn't her style."
"Mmm. Her style impresses you, does it not?" Montoya observes. "You value her anarchistic breed of justice -- her bloodlust?"
"I wouldn't say that." A second lamp joins the first, creating a nexus of light and shadows around the examination bed's occupant. Robert lines up his instruments, including two freshly sterilized needles and a spool of surgical thread. "I value her desire to protect the real laws of this land, even when I don't condone her methods. And I wouldn't recommend that you start a conversation with me about bloodlust, Colonel. Among the two of you, the so-called Queen of Swords is the one who hasn't tried to take my life."
Montoya makes a vague attempt at waving his left hand, the movement echoed by its shadow preying across the wall behind him. "As has been so often true, Doctor Helm, you misunderstood the situation. I am sure I could persuade you to see it from my perspective."
"Situations, plural, and somehow I find that rather unlikely. Now, swallow this."
"What is that concoction?" Turning up his nose at the proffered spoonful of brownish muck, Montoya winces.
"The devil's work." After a moment of lowered-eyebrow suspicion from Montoya, Robert explains, "That's a common name for a plant called datura, a small amount of which I've boiled with peppermint for a more palatable medicine. It will lessen the pain."
"That, I will gladly accept, Doctor," Montoya says, and does.
"Good." Robert directs Montoya to turn his head so that he faces the wall. "Don't move."
"Why did you have me do that?" Montoya asks slowly, each word like the snapping maw of a lion in an unlocked cage.
"If you look that direction, the alignment of your spine will help me to sew more cleanly and leave you with a less gruesome scar. Also, I won't have to deal with you swooning as I stitch your flesh" . . . with what Robert is beginning to wish were rusty needles.
"And this devilry you fed me will distract me further from this procedure that you wish me not to watch? You are perhaps hoping that the secrecy of my mission tonight will provide you with an easy alibi, were I not to survive until morning."
With Robert pressing the cloth to Montoya's wound with one hand, that swath of cream has grown nearly as crimson as Montoya's uniform. The heel of Robert's other palm on the back of Montoya's head keeps him from turning back.
Robert mutters, "Didn't I just tell you not to move? I make no claim to Hippocratic perfection, but I believe we've already reinforced the salient points of my occupation as a healer. So, if at all possible, don't be such a horse's ass."
Montoya snorts -- rather like a horse's head -- but merely comments, "I must remind myself tomorrow, then, to find myself a new horse, as I believe the one that brought me here has fled the scene."
"Smart animal."
"So bright, como las estrellas en mi pueblo." Montoya sounds almost dreamy. "Did you know there are stars dancing along your windowsill, Doctor Helm? Stars and comets and lovely little pixies con alas de plata . . ."
Montoya's voice drifts off into space, apparently joining his thoughts.
"Finally," Robert says.
He discards the stained cloth, splashes alcohol across Montoya's back, and sets to work at the base of the wound with the first shining needle. He barely notices the twinkling notes of its reflections below the window. What does catch and hold his attention is the gash beneath his fingers. It's a bit wider than he first thought, and as jagged as an iceberg through Montoya's clammy skin. Whoever caused it was either very angry, as Robert assumed, or very desperate, which would be equally understandable in Montoya's presence. The colonel's lack of qualms about murdering or simply barreling over anyone in the way of what he wants brings acid to Robert's mouth and blurs his vision.
In Montoya's wound, Robert sees a road, the buildings central to a town, and its people, drowning. How small a task it would be to sew up that crevasse another way.
His needle is slippery, its silver sheen entirely obscured by blood. With a start, Robert moves to exchange it for the other and finds that his hands, too, are caked in angry blotches. He plunges them into the basin, the cool water looking like wine has been spilt into it. He stands, taking in deep, harsh breaths. He lets the water swirl around his wrists and hands until his fingertips are nearly numb and the clarity lost to the water has returned to his mind. Then he rubs his hands briskly on a cloth.
He returns to Montoya's side and picks up the second needle. The thread slides through its eye with simple precision, and he brings the point back to where he'd left off, not far below the bared nape of Montoya's neck. After one more moment's pause, Robert inserts the needle. When he is finished, he draws up a sheet.
*~*~*
Robert can't help the twinge of satisfaction that comes with slapping Montoya's cheek, even gently.
Cursing, Montoya opens his eyes and glares.
"You weren't responding to the ammonia this time," Robert says, shrugging and sitting back in the chair near the bed, "and I needed to waken you."
Daylight streams through the windowpanes and dawns on Montoya's face. His frown loosens. "I wonder if I ought to feel lucky that I am waking at all."
Robert crosses his arms. After having slouched, half-awake, in this chair through the last few hours of the night to make certain that his work wasn't undone, what he really wants to do is just crack all hell out of his strained neck. He keeps his gaze steady. "Consider it the only Christmas present I'll ever give you. You're welcome."
"Well." Montoya rolls, slowly but with determination, onto his side and then upward, planting his feet on the floor. "If you would be so additionally kind as to lend me a shirt, I will gift you with my absence, and payment to follow."
"Are you crazy? You can't go anywhere until your body has had more rest," Robert insists as he steps in front of the bed.
Raising one eyebrow, Montoya gradually maneuvers around Robert. "On the contrary, my physician has only moments ago advised me of the importance of my being awake. I shall rest again in my own bed."
Robert groans in exasperation and retrieves an overlarge, mud-streaked tunic left behind by one of Santa Helena's residents. He drops it around Montoya's shoulders before opening the office door to the outside, where the rain has soaked into Santa Helena and left her dry once again. "Fine. Do what you will. I clearly haven't the slightest influence over you."
"Perhaps only time will tell, Doctor." Montoya signals to a passing soldier for assistance back to his home. His smile at Robert is not quite friendly, and Robert might be imagining the hint of gratitude in it.
Robert smiles in return, with bite. "No, Colonel. The only horse's ass I can handle is my own. You'll have to try harder to keep yourself out of trouble."
Making his way with the soldier across the road, his dependence barely evident even to Robert's watchful eyes, Montoya calls back over his shoulder, "Ah, but what would la Navidad be without animals, blood, and a guiding star?"
- end -