| [Jan. 29th, 2012|12:30 am] |
“He’s gonna be okay, right?” It was a child’s question, Ginta knew, and what he wanted was a child’s reassurance. Something to plaster over his grim appraisal based on too many battlefields from too early an age: hypothermia, skull fracture, brain bleed, clotting failure from too many soldier pills too soon... He couldn’t bring himself to trust the medic’s terse report.
Asuma lifted his head to look at the medic with raised eyebrows. Ginta followed his gaze as best he could, trying to see without moving.
The medic shrugged — Ginta could hear the fabric of her coat rustle more than see the motion, but the gesture was unmistakable. "Depends on him,” she said. “I’ve done everything I can.”
"Anyone ever told you you're about the least reassuring medic ever?” said Asuma. “Give us some odds, lady."
The medic didn’t flinch. She looked steadily at Asuma for a moment, then moved so she was fully in Ginta’s line of sight, focusing directly on him. "Fifty-fifty.” No mollycoddling or comforting, just the facts. Facts a jounin should be prepared to hear. “If he survives the night, he'll probably make it.”
Ginta took a breath, closed his eye and opened it again. Nodded once, a minimal twitch of his head that was still more than enough movement to hurt. “What does he need to survive the night?”
“The same things you do: warmth, pain management, fluids and electrolytes — you’re both dehydrated.” Her assessment continued, splinter-sharp. “He’s holding his own for the moment, and there isn’t excessive swelling or any sign of a subdural bleed.”
It wasn’t the simple blanket reassurance Ginta craved, but it was one he could believe. One that held the ring of truth.
“You’re not out of the woods yet, either,” the woman said. She shifted subtly, turning her shoulders more squarely towards Ginta. “You could do with plasma replacement, if not whole blood.”
“I took blood pills. So did he,” Ginta said, feeling like he had to defend himself.
everyone and their mother is gonna yell at you both for being total morons
“And that’s why you’re here talking to us, and he’s still breathing, I’m sure,” she said. “But a blood pill is about as good a replacement as a ration bar is for a full meal. Feel how fast your heart is beating? You’re volume-depleted.”
Until she’d called his attention to it, Ginta hadn’t been thinking about his own heartbeat at all. He wasn’t sure he cared all that much even now that he was aware of it. He looked up at Asuma again, seeing subtle tension — well-masked worry. “She’s wrong. I’m... I’ll be fine.” |
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