(no subject)
September 17, 2006
It’s all happening too fast. Things are spinning out of control and, damn it, she does not have enough information. She’s put her trust in MI-5 and thrown in with Harry Pearce and now...well, the tide is turning and it feels like they are all being pulled out into the deep. This should not be happening. Not with her contacts, not with the bloody Home Secretary by her side. How could they have been so blind? How could Millington and Myers and Collingwood have advanced things so far, so quickly, without anyone having noticed? She’s missing something. She must be.
And Myers, that insufferable bastard, having the gall to sit there and dictate terms while admitting, actually admitting that they have been responsible for the deaths of innocent citizens. To dare to give the Prime Minister an ultimatum. To look the Home Secretary in the eye and denounce democracy. She feels the anger and the outrage welling inside of her but she can’t risk allowing herself to be clouded by emotion. There is simply no time for that luxury. No time to indulge in any fantasies of revenge, at least not until this nightmare is finished, one way or the other.
She follows Nicholas out and into the waiting car, her mind spinning with possibilities. Contingencies. They’ve been given a week’s cessation of hostilities, but that is so little time really. So terrifyingly short a time in which to attempt to stop this repugnant coup d’etat. And she can feel their support eroding from beneath their feet.
It isn’t until they’ve nearly reached Whitehall that she notices something is wrong. The hairs on the back of her neck standing on end as she looks around.
“What happened to our escort?”
They turn the corner and her mobile rings, Adam Carter’s voice tight and urgent. “Juliet, get out of the car. Get away from the vehicle. Just do it!”
And she’s yelling at the driver to stop the car, to stop now. Please. And she’s dropping her mobile as she reaches for the handle of the door. Everything slowing to a crawl and all she can hear is the pounding of her heart, her panicked breath, the seconds ticking away. Too slow, she’s too slow.
The explosion lifts her off her feet, knocking the air from her lungs as she’s struck in the back by flying debris. She feels nothing at first but then there’s pain cracking white hot across all her nerve endings. And she’s falling. It’s as though time has stopped until there is nothing but this one moment of fear, of agony. And she screams.
"Harry! HARRY! Please, someone help me!"
But all she can hear is silence.
Jack heard a woman screaming for Harry in that urgent tone of someone who had just appeared and expected there to actually be someone named Harry nearby to help. He knew from experience that anyone finding themselves here, just like that, was going to be rough. He turned and ran toward the woman.
She smelled like gasoline and smoke. That was never a good sign.
"Hey. Hey, you're okay," he said, reaching out to help her up. Her clothes were nice. Professional. A sharp contrast to his t-shirt and jeans. "I'm Jack. I can help. Are you hurt?"
"Help me," she says again. Not able to quite make out what the stranger is telling her and too panicked to try and slow down enough to sort it out. The ringing in her ears overwhelmingly loud. "Please. The car. There was a bomb in the car and --"
An intense wave of pain hits her and she can't entirely hold back the scream. Her eyes swimming with tears as she reaches for his hand, desperate for some kind of physical contact. "They blew up the car. The Home Secretary. Is he alright? Where is Harry? Please."
Car bomb. Marvelous. Jack held up his hand to quiet her.
"It's okay," he said, carefully enunciating his words. As loud as she was being and a car bomb? He doubted she could hear at all. "I'm Jack. I can help," he added and then began to check her out. Over. Check for injuries. He noted that no matter how much she moved, her legs remained still. That didn't bode well.
She wants to turn over, wants to be able to sit up and see what's happening, but she can't. As hard as she tries, she just can't. And the panic is threatening to overtake all other thoughts.
"I can't feel my legs. Oh god, I can't feel my legs." Gasping, she begins to cry, no strength to spare to hold it in. Far too terrified and in far too much agony to worry about appearances. "You have to --"
Her voice breaks again and she closes her eyes for a second. Trying desperately to hold it together, at least long enough for emergency services to arrive. "Please, this is...national emergency. I need Adam Carter. Or...or Harry Pearce. They may still be in danger."
Adam Carter? He'd been and gone and now there was clearly someone new from his world. Right now that didn't matter as much as her legs. If she was simply hurt he would have scooped her up and taken her to the clinic, but if she was injured like that...he didn't want to move her. And he didn't want to just leave her here in this state.
"It's okay. Calm down," he said loudly, taking her hand and gently pressing her shoulder to try to get her to be still. "They're fine. It's okay. Who are you?" It was a little lie- he had no fucking clue if Harry and Adam were all right, but it didn't matter here and now anyway.
Calm. She has to be calm. She tries to take a deep breath but that just sends another shock of pain through her and she can barely bite back the scream. Panting softly, she opens her eyes again lifts her heads enough that she can see him. Trying to focus on his face. Trying to see if she recognizes him but he isn't at all familiar.
"Juliet Shaw," she says finally. Her voice raw and her throat burning. "National...National Security Coordinator. The Home Secretary was in the car. Is he safe?"
She thinks she may be repeating herself but her thoughts are terribly disjointed. Nothing seems to be making any sense. And she suddenly feels desperately tired.
"Juliet? Good. Okay, Juliet," he replied. He reached to run the back of his fingers against her cheek to try to calm her down and get her to be still. He doubted it would work. Very few people just laid down and took suffering lightly.
"We need to get you a doctor. I need you to be still. Juliet? Okay, don't close your eyes on me," he said, trying to keep her alert.
She tries to do as he says, tries to keep her eyes open and keep herself focused on what's happening, but it's so difficult she can hardly stand it. This is a disaster. An absolute bloody disaster and she wants Harry. She needs him now and she can't understand why he isn't there. Hadn't their car been only a minute or two ahead? It didn't make any sense. None of this makes any sense.
"Yes, ok. Ok." Juliet isn't quite sure whether she's talking to herself or to this man, but either way the result is the same. Just saying the words helps to ease back the panic enough that she can breathe, though everything still seems to be happening in the wrong order. "They said they wouldn't. Our escort. How could they do this? God, it hurts."
Jack was torn. She needed help. Genuine medical attention. That meant leaving her alone to go fetch a doctor. And he wasn't sure he should really do that. There could be shock. There could be other injuries. She could just flat out panic.
"It's okay. It'll be okay," he assured her as he debated with himself over running to the second clinic, staying and watching, moving her himself and risking further injury, or just screaming for help. More often than not, Jack was impulsive. It was a miracle he'd stopped to think this through.
"I don't...I don't understand. Where are they?" Her eyelids flutter and she can feel the darkness right around the edges of her mind but she tries to shake herself out of it. Tries her best to stay conscious, despite the pain and the confusion that's eating away at her.
Her fingers are digging into the grass, her muscles so tensed she's nearly shaking. She's desperate to get up, to get away from there. Desperate for someone familiar. For Harry. God, please let him be alright. Let Nicholas be alright. She's starts to softly cry again and, oddly enough, it helps somehow.
McCoy's always on his way to the main lab these days, feels like. Sure, he still comes to the second clinic, but all his samples are up at the Compound and there's more people lately -- including someone who might know enough to help him with Rogue. It's on his way with medkit by his side that he's interrupted. It's enough to make him drop everything and hurry to the scene, finding a woman he's never seen before, but that's never mattered. "Okay," is all he says to begin with, looking her over and then glancing up to Jack. "You, in the clinic, there's a stretcher. Get that while I scan her. Miss? My name is McCoy, I'm a doctor. I'm here to help you."
He's already got the hypospray out, loading it with a sedative and looking for the best place to localize it, inevitably going with the thigh to get it pushed into the bloodstream as quickly as possible. "I'm gonna take care of you, best that I can."
Another voice and it finally manages to cut through the haze of shock and confusion that they both sound American. Something else that doesn't make any sense, but she can't find the strength to try and work it through. She's just so overwhelmingly grateful that emergency services have arrived. It's like a weight's been lifted and she can finally, finally let go.
"Oh god, thank you." Crying more openly, she tries to reach for his hand but the gesture is cut short by the blackness that starts to swallow her down. The pain receding until her eyes fall shut on a sigh.
Jack didn't need to be told twice. To do something, anything, was better than just sitting here. He nodded once. "Her name is Juliet," he said. "I'll be right back."
He ran to the clinic. No jogging, nothing half-assed. He flat out ran. It only took a moment to locate a stretcher and then he was on his way back, hoping he wasn't taking too long. Jack couldn't run quite as fast with the long thing making it awkward going. By the time he returned, he saw Juliet was out cold.
McCoy's busy fiddling with the osteoregenerator, scanning the woman's lower half carefully. When he's sure that she's out and that it has to do more with the sedative than with the pain, he turns to the man -- Jack, he's pretty damn sure -- and remains glad that he hasn't touched a drop of drink yet, today. "How did you find her?" he demands, instantly. "We're gonna take her inside the second clinic here, but she may need to be moved depending on whether I feel like I could use the nanogenes."
"I found her because she was screaming. Laying pretty much just like that," Jack replied as he put the stretcher into position. "One of those people who just appear from a bad moment. She said it was a car bomb. Is she going to be okay?"
Such a naive question. Like he could tell out here in the jungle with any certainty. Still, it was what Jack was worried about at the moment. He didn't mind carrying her all over the island if it meant she'd be all right.
McCoy nods immediately, but hell, maybe he's being optimistic. Maybe he's just trusting himself to fix anything, at this point. "I've given her a sedative that ought to take an edge off of the pain, so by the time we get her to the clinic, I can assess her. I've got a lot of tools at my disposal, though," he promises Jack, glancing between him and the wounds.
He's quick to hurry with the stretcher, gentle with her spine and protective of any further injury. "Look, you got to her while she still had the ability to speak. That's a good thing. I've got bone-menders, I've got more sedatives, and I've got a laser scalpel and a real yearning to put stitches in something. I think she's gonna be just fine, given some work and time."
"What a way to arrive here," Jack said, shaking his head. Once she was on the stretcher he lifted carefully and kept her level. Lifting and carrying was special talent of his, he thought. He looked down at Juliet and then looked over at the doctor and smiled.
"I'm Jack," he said...and half expected the Doctor to be nearby to tell him to Stop It.
McCoy barely glances up from the patient, giving a brisk nod. "I know," is all he says. "You served on the Council for a while. I'm McCoy. Leonard McCoy." He does most of his work these days in the privacy of his own lab, but he's at the main one enough to keep tabs on who's around, who's in charge, and who he ought to pay attention to. He takes the other end of the stretcher and hefts it up, stretching his shoulders back. "She's gonna be laid up in the main clinic eventually, but let's get her stabilized here, first."
McCoy. He knew that. Didn't he? Maybe. Now wasn't really the time to ponder it.
"You're the doctor," Jack agreed with a nod. "Just tell me where to take her. If you don't mind...I'd like to stay with her. I know how it is to just show up here and not know what's going on. Especially being hurt."
"It'll help if she has a familiar face to wake up to," McCoy assures, already nudging the stretcher in the direction of the clinic. He's formulating a plan in his mind to clean up the wounds while he has her still, treating them and mending whatever broken bones might present themselves with the osteoregenerator. "If I have to go in with the scalpel to clean up, I might need some assistance. You up for that?"
"Dabbing blood and handing you tools, I can do," he said with a nod. "I'm also a universal donor if you need any blood...but she doesn't look like she's bleeding that bad. Whatever you need, just let me know."
"I'm hoping it's not gonna come to that," McCoy says, getting her into the clinic and heading straight for the sink to wash up, yanking gloves on as soon as he's dried down and sanitized. "Did she say, at all, what the hell happened? I know it's not really the first thing a patient screams, but it'd be nice to know," he says offhand as he starts up a scan.
"A bomb in the car. Something about the escort being gone and Harry Pearce and Adam Carter. An explosion. Pretty good one, too. Near her, but she wasn't in it. She's not burned badly enough, for one," Jack replied as he waited his turn and then went to wash his hands. If McCoy needed his help he wanted to be prepared.
"Hell," McCoy says, taking a step back to do a priority analysis of what he needed to deal with first. "Blood, then burns, then pain," he announces aloud, giving Jack a look and a critical nod as he appraises whether or not he's ready to cope with this. "We're gonna make sure the wounds are patched up and cleaned. I'm gonna give you a salve on a cloth to go over any visible wounds to prevent infection," he says, already working on the mixture.
Jack had seen his fair share of injuries and was good enough at triage- in that way that he could stop blood and scream for a medic. But with a doctor there to direct him he was perfectly capable of following orders. In a lot of ways, fixing a body was just like fixing a machine. You just had to know what went where, and how quickly you needed to get it done.
"You want me to take her clothes off?" he asked helpfully.
"Draw the curtain, then, yeah," he confirms, already starting with some of the mending of the abrasions that he'd cleaned up. There was a lot of damage, but he was already working on the internal scans to make sure that he'd stop them before they became life-threatening. "She's in good shape. Seems strong, too."
Jack hadn't actually been expecting the go ahead, but it did make sense. He pulled the curtain. Then he sniffed and was completely professional as he slowly worked her out of the dark jacket, matching pants, white blouse, and stopped at her underwear. Nice suit. Shame it was ruined. Good shape. Oh yes, that she was.
"It looks like she probably hit the pavement pretty hard. Her hands are a mess," Jack noted.
McCoy stopped noticing people's physical attributes a long time ago with the job, glancing up at the abrasions on the hands and giving a nod. "Then start there with the salve," he says, gesturing to the bowl. "I'll start from the feet. There's an internal scan running and if I have to cut her open and patch that up, we'll know in a few minutes." He's got her vitals monitored and while it's not the healthiest, she's still far from crashing.
"Yes, sir," Jack said out of habit. He certainly wasn't being a smart ass about it, he simply took the salve and got to work cleaning Juliet's hands and patching them up. Minor wounds like this? Yeah, he could handle that.
It takes time, but inevitably, McCoy gets to the point that he feels like he wants to bring her out of the medically-induced palliative rest. He's got the equivalent of smelling salts, but it does the trick. He waves them under her nose, giving Jack a grateful smile for sticking with him the whole of the way. "Almost out of the woods."
There's practically no transition at all. She was lying on the grass, full of panic and confusion, and now she's...not. She has no memory of anything in between these two states and it's something of a blessing because the pain is gone. Finally. It's the only thought in her head as she tries to remember how to open her eyes. Just the utter relief of not being in any more pain.
It takes several tries before she can finally manage to accomplish the task, and another long moment before she can focus or make sense of anything she's seeing. She tries to speak, but her throat is painfully dry and her hand reaches out for someone. Anyone. Harry.
McCoy leans forward and into her vision, giving her a cursory check of the pupils and holding up three fingers in the air in front of her. "I'm gonna get you to tell me how many fingers I'm holding up, tell me what three times twenty is, and then the name of the man who brought you in," he asks, trying to slow down his pace so he doesn't overwhelm her.
Swallowing once, then again, she hopes she can actually speak passed her parched and aching throat. Her vision swims a bit before finally settling on his face. Then his hand. "Three. Sixty. I don't..."
She remembers his face, the sound of his voice, the gentleness of his touch. She remembers Adam shouting at her to get out of the car, the force of the blast, herself screaming. Flashbulb memories, one after the next, and her heart is pounding in her chest again. Christ, but she hates feeling this way. "I don't remember," she says finally. "May I...may I have some water, please."
"Okay, that might just be short term, that may be trauma from the accident. Too soon to tell," he assures, giving her a light squeeze at the arm before turning to regard Jack and giving him a single nod, as if to tell him that he's done a good job in difficult circumstances. "My name is Doctor Leonard McCoy. I've patched you up here at a secondary clinic, but when you're stable, I'd like to move you to the main location for observation." As he speaks, he pours a glass of water, offering it to her with as kind a smile as he can manage.
His reference to a 'secondary clinic' gets filed away for later consideration as she reaches for the glass. Her hands only mildly shaking, and she's oddly pleased by that. Taking a sip, regaining a bit of control. She has questions, so many questions, but they can wait. There is only one thing that truly matters to her right now and despite the ice cold fear settling over her, she forces herself to meet the doctor's eyes and ask.
"My legs. Have you been able to...will I walk again? And please, just tell me the truth."
"I did some repairs and they'll heal, but you need time, you hear me?" he insists, his voice practically at a demanding growl already. "I don't wanna see you out there tapdancing on those feet just because you think you need to try 'em out. I went in, I mended the damage, and you're gonna wiggle some toes and fingers for me to make sure I got all those nerve endings in the right place, but when you've wired someone's brain together, god help me, I ought to be able to do the legs."
That gets a short, sharp laugh and she's closing her eyes against the burning threat of tears. She wants to ask him again, to make him swear he isn't just handing her a line of bullshit, but she can't. Doesn't want to. She can't imagine what purpose could be served by giving her hope only to take it away later. She feels positively light-headed with relief.
"No tap-dancing," she replies finally. A mixture of amusement, joy, and overwhelming tiredness in her voice. "I promise. And thank you, doctor. Thank you."
"It's just my job," McCoy assures, reaching down to give her arm a squeeze. He's got to log in the levels of the drugs he's given her, figuring that if she wants to talk with Harkness, now's the time as he scribbles the record of the treatment for the day.
Jack had stayed close by and when McCoy moved off to do his thing, Jack inched in to sit with her so she wasn't alone.
"Juliet, I'm Jack. Do you remember me finding you?" he asked softly.
"Yes," she says. Needing to clear her throat and take another sip of water before she can speak again. She recognizes him instantly. His voice more than anything else, but she's surprised at how glad she is to see him. The closest thing she has to a familiar face at the moment. "Yes, I do. I suppose I have you to thank for saving my life."
She smiles at him then, and it may be a bit weak but it's genuine. "Can you tell me, do you know if the Home Secretary is alright?"
Jack took a deep breath and then reached for her hand. He couldn't help it- he just touched people. Always had.
"I'm not sure if Harry's all right or not. Or Adam. Juliet, I need you to listen to me. This is going to sound completely unbelievable, I know that, but you've got to listen," he said. She was a strong woman in a position of power. Probably very logical. Probably very sensible. Definitely very English.
But he'd told so many people where they were, what this was, how there was no reversing it, and that everything they knew had changed that he might as well have been reading it from a script. And not once did he ever expect her to simply take his word for it. Hell, he wouldn't have.
It’s all happening too fast. Things are spinning out of control and, damn it, she does not have enough information. She’s put her trust in MI-5 and thrown in with Harry Pearce and now...well, the tide is turning and it feels like they are all being pulled out into the deep. This should not be happening. Not with her contacts, not with the bloody Home Secretary by her side. How could they have been so blind? How could Millington and Myers and Collingwood have advanced things so far, so quickly, without anyone having noticed? She’s missing something. She must be.
And Myers, that insufferable bastard, having the gall to sit there and dictate terms while admitting, actually admitting that they have been responsible for the deaths of innocent citizens. To dare to give the Prime Minister an ultimatum. To look the Home Secretary in the eye and denounce democracy. She feels the anger and the outrage welling inside of her but she can’t risk allowing herself to be clouded by emotion. There is simply no time for that luxury. No time to indulge in any fantasies of revenge, at least not until this nightmare is finished, one way or the other.
She follows Nicholas out and into the waiting car, her mind spinning with possibilities. Contingencies. They’ve been given a week’s cessation of hostilities, but that is so little time really. So terrifyingly short a time in which to attempt to stop this repugnant coup d’etat. And she can feel their support eroding from beneath their feet.
It isn’t until they’ve nearly reached Whitehall that she notices something is wrong. The hairs on the back of her neck standing on end as she looks around.
“What happened to our escort?”
They turn the corner and her mobile rings, Adam Carter’s voice tight and urgent. “Juliet, get out of the car. Get away from the vehicle. Just do it!”
And she’s yelling at the driver to stop the car, to stop now. Please. And she’s dropping her mobile as she reaches for the handle of the door. Everything slowing to a crawl and all she can hear is the pounding of her heart, her panicked breath, the seconds ticking away. Too slow, she’s too slow.
The explosion lifts her off her feet, knocking the air from her lungs as she’s struck in the back by flying debris. She feels nothing at first but then there’s pain cracking white hot across all her nerve endings. And she’s falling. It’s as though time has stopped until there is nothing but this one moment of fear, of agony. And she screams.
"Harry! HARRY! Please, someone help me!"
But all she can hear is silence.
Jack heard a woman screaming for Harry in that urgent tone of someone who had just appeared and expected there to actually be someone named Harry nearby to help. He knew from experience that anyone finding themselves here, just like that, was going to be rough. He turned and ran toward the woman.
She smelled like gasoline and smoke. That was never a good sign.
"Hey. Hey, you're okay," he said, reaching out to help her up. Her clothes were nice. Professional. A sharp contrast to his t-shirt and jeans. "I'm Jack. I can help. Are you hurt?"
"Help me," she says again. Not able to quite make out what the stranger is telling her and too panicked to try and slow down enough to sort it out. The ringing in her ears overwhelmingly loud. "Please. The car. There was a bomb in the car and --"
An intense wave of pain hits her and she can't entirely hold back the scream. Her eyes swimming with tears as she reaches for his hand, desperate for some kind of physical contact. "They blew up the car. The Home Secretary. Is he alright? Where is Harry? Please."
Car bomb. Marvelous. Jack held up his hand to quiet her.
"It's okay," he said, carefully enunciating his words. As loud as she was being and a car bomb? He doubted she could hear at all. "I'm Jack. I can help," he added and then began to check her out. Over. Check for injuries. He noted that no matter how much she moved, her legs remained still. That didn't bode well.
She wants to turn over, wants to be able to sit up and see what's happening, but she can't. As hard as she tries, she just can't. And the panic is threatening to overtake all other thoughts.
"I can't feel my legs. Oh god, I can't feel my legs." Gasping, she begins to cry, no strength to spare to hold it in. Far too terrified and in far too much agony to worry about appearances. "You have to --"
Her voice breaks again and she closes her eyes for a second. Trying desperately to hold it together, at least long enough for emergency services to arrive. "Please, this is...national emergency. I need Adam Carter. Or...or Harry Pearce. They may still be in danger."
Adam Carter? He'd been and gone and now there was clearly someone new from his world. Right now that didn't matter as much as her legs. If she was simply hurt he would have scooped her up and taken her to the clinic, but if she was injured like that...he didn't want to move her. And he didn't want to just leave her here in this state.
"It's okay. Calm down," he said loudly, taking her hand and gently pressing her shoulder to try to get her to be still. "They're fine. It's okay. Who are you?" It was a little lie- he had no fucking clue if Harry and Adam were all right, but it didn't matter here and now anyway.
Calm. She has to be calm. She tries to take a deep breath but that just sends another shock of pain through her and she can barely bite back the scream. Panting softly, she opens her eyes again lifts her heads enough that she can see him. Trying to focus on his face. Trying to see if she recognizes him but he isn't at all familiar.
"Juliet Shaw," she says finally. Her voice raw and her throat burning. "National...National Security Coordinator. The Home Secretary was in the car. Is he safe?"
She thinks she may be repeating herself but her thoughts are terribly disjointed. Nothing seems to be making any sense. And she suddenly feels desperately tired.
"Juliet? Good. Okay, Juliet," he replied. He reached to run the back of his fingers against her cheek to try to calm her down and get her to be still. He doubted it would work. Very few people just laid down and took suffering lightly.
"We need to get you a doctor. I need you to be still. Juliet? Okay, don't close your eyes on me," he said, trying to keep her alert.
She tries to do as he says, tries to keep her eyes open and keep herself focused on what's happening, but it's so difficult she can hardly stand it. This is a disaster. An absolute bloody disaster and she wants Harry. She needs him now and she can't understand why he isn't there. Hadn't their car been only a minute or two ahead? It didn't make any sense. None of this makes any sense.
"Yes, ok. Ok." Juliet isn't quite sure whether she's talking to herself or to this man, but either way the result is the same. Just saying the words helps to ease back the panic enough that she can breathe, though everything still seems to be happening in the wrong order. "They said they wouldn't. Our escort. How could they do this? God, it hurts."
Jack was torn. She needed help. Genuine medical attention. That meant leaving her alone to go fetch a doctor. And he wasn't sure he should really do that. There could be shock. There could be other injuries. She could just flat out panic.
"It's okay. It'll be okay," he assured her as he debated with himself over running to the second clinic, staying and watching, moving her himself and risking further injury, or just screaming for help. More often than not, Jack was impulsive. It was a miracle he'd stopped to think this through.
"I don't...I don't understand. Where are they?" Her eyelids flutter and she can feel the darkness right around the edges of her mind but she tries to shake herself out of it. Tries her best to stay conscious, despite the pain and the confusion that's eating away at her.
Her fingers are digging into the grass, her muscles so tensed she's nearly shaking. She's desperate to get up, to get away from there. Desperate for someone familiar. For Harry. God, please let him be alright. Let Nicholas be alright. She's starts to softly cry again and, oddly enough, it helps somehow.
McCoy's always on his way to the main lab these days, feels like. Sure, he still comes to the second clinic, but all his samples are up at the Compound and there's more people lately -- including someone who might know enough to help him with Rogue. It's on his way with medkit by his side that he's interrupted. It's enough to make him drop everything and hurry to the scene, finding a woman he's never seen before, but that's never mattered. "Okay," is all he says to begin with, looking her over and then glancing up to Jack. "You, in the clinic, there's a stretcher. Get that while I scan her. Miss? My name is McCoy, I'm a doctor. I'm here to help you."
He's already got the hypospray out, loading it with a sedative and looking for the best place to localize it, inevitably going with the thigh to get it pushed into the bloodstream as quickly as possible. "I'm gonna take care of you, best that I can."
Another voice and it finally manages to cut through the haze of shock and confusion that they both sound American. Something else that doesn't make any sense, but she can't find the strength to try and work it through. She's just so overwhelmingly grateful that emergency services have arrived. It's like a weight's been lifted and she can finally, finally let go.
"Oh god, thank you." Crying more openly, she tries to reach for his hand but the gesture is cut short by the blackness that starts to swallow her down. The pain receding until her eyes fall shut on a sigh.
Jack didn't need to be told twice. To do something, anything, was better than just sitting here. He nodded once. "Her name is Juliet," he said. "I'll be right back."
He ran to the clinic. No jogging, nothing half-assed. He flat out ran. It only took a moment to locate a stretcher and then he was on his way back, hoping he wasn't taking too long. Jack couldn't run quite as fast with the long thing making it awkward going. By the time he returned, he saw Juliet was out cold.
McCoy's busy fiddling with the osteoregenerator, scanning the woman's lower half carefully. When he's sure that she's out and that it has to do more with the sedative than with the pain, he turns to the man -- Jack, he's pretty damn sure -- and remains glad that he hasn't touched a drop of drink yet, today. "How did you find her?" he demands, instantly. "We're gonna take her inside the second clinic here, but she may need to be moved depending on whether I feel like I could use the nanogenes."
"I found her because she was screaming. Laying pretty much just like that," Jack replied as he put the stretcher into position. "One of those people who just appear from a bad moment. She said it was a car bomb. Is she going to be okay?"
Such a naive question. Like he could tell out here in the jungle with any certainty. Still, it was what Jack was worried about at the moment. He didn't mind carrying her all over the island if it meant she'd be all right.
McCoy nods immediately, but hell, maybe he's being optimistic. Maybe he's just trusting himself to fix anything, at this point. "I've given her a sedative that ought to take an edge off of the pain, so by the time we get her to the clinic, I can assess her. I've got a lot of tools at my disposal, though," he promises Jack, glancing between him and the wounds.
He's quick to hurry with the stretcher, gentle with her spine and protective of any further injury. "Look, you got to her while she still had the ability to speak. That's a good thing. I've got bone-menders, I've got more sedatives, and I've got a laser scalpel and a real yearning to put stitches in something. I think she's gonna be just fine, given some work and time."
"What a way to arrive here," Jack said, shaking his head. Once she was on the stretcher he lifted carefully and kept her level. Lifting and carrying was special talent of his, he thought. He looked down at Juliet and then looked over at the doctor and smiled.
"I'm Jack," he said...and half expected the Doctor to be nearby to tell him to Stop It.
McCoy barely glances up from the patient, giving a brisk nod. "I know," is all he says. "You served on the Council for a while. I'm McCoy. Leonard McCoy." He does most of his work these days in the privacy of his own lab, but he's at the main one enough to keep tabs on who's around, who's in charge, and who he ought to pay attention to. He takes the other end of the stretcher and hefts it up, stretching his shoulders back. "She's gonna be laid up in the main clinic eventually, but let's get her stabilized here, first."
McCoy. He knew that. Didn't he? Maybe. Now wasn't really the time to ponder it.
"You're the doctor," Jack agreed with a nod. "Just tell me where to take her. If you don't mind...I'd like to stay with her. I know how it is to just show up here and not know what's going on. Especially being hurt."
"It'll help if she has a familiar face to wake up to," McCoy assures, already nudging the stretcher in the direction of the clinic. He's formulating a plan in his mind to clean up the wounds while he has her still, treating them and mending whatever broken bones might present themselves with the osteoregenerator. "If I have to go in with the scalpel to clean up, I might need some assistance. You up for that?"
"Dabbing blood and handing you tools, I can do," he said with a nod. "I'm also a universal donor if you need any blood...but she doesn't look like she's bleeding that bad. Whatever you need, just let me know."
"I'm hoping it's not gonna come to that," McCoy says, getting her into the clinic and heading straight for the sink to wash up, yanking gloves on as soon as he's dried down and sanitized. "Did she say, at all, what the hell happened? I know it's not really the first thing a patient screams, but it'd be nice to know," he says offhand as he starts up a scan.
"A bomb in the car. Something about the escort being gone and Harry Pearce and Adam Carter. An explosion. Pretty good one, too. Near her, but she wasn't in it. She's not burned badly enough, for one," Jack replied as he waited his turn and then went to wash his hands. If McCoy needed his help he wanted to be prepared.
"Hell," McCoy says, taking a step back to do a priority analysis of what he needed to deal with first. "Blood, then burns, then pain," he announces aloud, giving Jack a look and a critical nod as he appraises whether or not he's ready to cope with this. "We're gonna make sure the wounds are patched up and cleaned. I'm gonna give you a salve on a cloth to go over any visible wounds to prevent infection," he says, already working on the mixture.
Jack had seen his fair share of injuries and was good enough at triage- in that way that he could stop blood and scream for a medic. But with a doctor there to direct him he was perfectly capable of following orders. In a lot of ways, fixing a body was just like fixing a machine. You just had to know what went where, and how quickly you needed to get it done.
"You want me to take her clothes off?" he asked helpfully.
"Draw the curtain, then, yeah," he confirms, already starting with some of the mending of the abrasions that he'd cleaned up. There was a lot of damage, but he was already working on the internal scans to make sure that he'd stop them before they became life-threatening. "She's in good shape. Seems strong, too."
Jack hadn't actually been expecting the go ahead, but it did make sense. He pulled the curtain. Then he sniffed and was completely professional as he slowly worked her out of the dark jacket, matching pants, white blouse, and stopped at her underwear. Nice suit. Shame it was ruined. Good shape. Oh yes, that she was.
"It looks like she probably hit the pavement pretty hard. Her hands are a mess," Jack noted.
McCoy stopped noticing people's physical attributes a long time ago with the job, glancing up at the abrasions on the hands and giving a nod. "Then start there with the salve," he says, gesturing to the bowl. "I'll start from the feet. There's an internal scan running and if I have to cut her open and patch that up, we'll know in a few minutes." He's got her vitals monitored and while it's not the healthiest, she's still far from crashing.
"Yes, sir," Jack said out of habit. He certainly wasn't being a smart ass about it, he simply took the salve and got to work cleaning Juliet's hands and patching them up. Minor wounds like this? Yeah, he could handle that.
It takes time, but inevitably, McCoy gets to the point that he feels like he wants to bring her out of the medically-induced palliative rest. He's got the equivalent of smelling salts, but it does the trick. He waves them under her nose, giving Jack a grateful smile for sticking with him the whole of the way. "Almost out of the woods."
There's practically no transition at all. She was lying on the grass, full of panic and confusion, and now she's...not. She has no memory of anything in between these two states and it's something of a blessing because the pain is gone. Finally. It's the only thought in her head as she tries to remember how to open her eyes. Just the utter relief of not being in any more pain.
It takes several tries before she can finally manage to accomplish the task, and another long moment before she can focus or make sense of anything she's seeing. She tries to speak, but her throat is painfully dry and her hand reaches out for someone. Anyone. Harry.
McCoy leans forward and into her vision, giving her a cursory check of the pupils and holding up three fingers in the air in front of her. "I'm gonna get you to tell me how many fingers I'm holding up, tell me what three times twenty is, and then the name of the man who brought you in," he asks, trying to slow down his pace so he doesn't overwhelm her.
Swallowing once, then again, she hopes she can actually speak passed her parched and aching throat. Her vision swims a bit before finally settling on his face. Then his hand. "Three. Sixty. I don't..."
She remembers his face, the sound of his voice, the gentleness of his touch. She remembers Adam shouting at her to get out of the car, the force of the blast, herself screaming. Flashbulb memories, one after the next, and her heart is pounding in her chest again. Christ, but she hates feeling this way. "I don't remember," she says finally. "May I...may I have some water, please."
"Okay, that might just be short term, that may be trauma from the accident. Too soon to tell," he assures, giving her a light squeeze at the arm before turning to regard Jack and giving him a single nod, as if to tell him that he's done a good job in difficult circumstances. "My name is Doctor Leonard McCoy. I've patched you up here at a secondary clinic, but when you're stable, I'd like to move you to the main location for observation." As he speaks, he pours a glass of water, offering it to her with as kind a smile as he can manage.
His reference to a 'secondary clinic' gets filed away for later consideration as she reaches for the glass. Her hands only mildly shaking, and she's oddly pleased by that. Taking a sip, regaining a bit of control. She has questions, so many questions, but they can wait. There is only one thing that truly matters to her right now and despite the ice cold fear settling over her, she forces herself to meet the doctor's eyes and ask.
"My legs. Have you been able to...will I walk again? And please, just tell me the truth."
"I did some repairs and they'll heal, but you need time, you hear me?" he insists, his voice practically at a demanding growl already. "I don't wanna see you out there tapdancing on those feet just because you think you need to try 'em out. I went in, I mended the damage, and you're gonna wiggle some toes and fingers for me to make sure I got all those nerve endings in the right place, but when you've wired someone's brain together, god help me, I ought to be able to do the legs."
That gets a short, sharp laugh and she's closing her eyes against the burning threat of tears. She wants to ask him again, to make him swear he isn't just handing her a line of bullshit, but she can't. Doesn't want to. She can't imagine what purpose could be served by giving her hope only to take it away later. She feels positively light-headed with relief.
"No tap-dancing," she replies finally. A mixture of amusement, joy, and overwhelming tiredness in her voice. "I promise. And thank you, doctor. Thank you."
"It's just my job," McCoy assures, reaching down to give her arm a squeeze. He's got to log in the levels of the drugs he's given her, figuring that if she wants to talk with Harkness, now's the time as he scribbles the record of the treatment for the day.
Jack had stayed close by and when McCoy moved off to do his thing, Jack inched in to sit with her so she wasn't alone.
"Juliet, I'm Jack. Do you remember me finding you?" he asked softly.
"Yes," she says. Needing to clear her throat and take another sip of water before she can speak again. She recognizes him instantly. His voice more than anything else, but she's surprised at how glad she is to see him. The closest thing she has to a familiar face at the moment. "Yes, I do. I suppose I have you to thank for saving my life."
She smiles at him then, and it may be a bit weak but it's genuine. "Can you tell me, do you know if the Home Secretary is alright?"
Jack took a deep breath and then reached for her hand. He couldn't help it- he just touched people. Always had.
"I'm not sure if Harry's all right or not. Or Adam. Juliet, I need you to listen to me. This is going to sound completely unbelievable, I know that, but you've got to listen," he said. She was a strong woman in a position of power. Probably very logical. Probably very sensible. Definitely very English.
But he'd told so many people where they were, what this was, how there was no reversing it, and that everything they knew had changed that he might as well have been reading it from a script. And not once did he ever expect her to simply take his word for it. Hell, he wouldn't have.