Sam Madley wants your opinion on peanut butter. (justsam) wrote in blurred_lines, @ 2009-06-07 07:42:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! [1980-06] june, beth frobisher, sam madley |
Who: Beth Frobisher & Sam Madley
When: 7 June 1980; Morningish
Where: Aloysius' cottage thing.
What: Beth checks out Sam. (His wounds!)
Rating: PGish
Status: COMPLETE.
Between all of the battles she had sat out as a healer, Beth was beginning to feel as if she could take the Healer examinations and ace them. She knew that it wasn't quite true, of course. She knew how much Hestia hd studied for them and knew that she would probably have had to have studied equally hard, but she was certainly gaining quite a bit of on the job experience. If the world ever righted itself and she could return to her training, there were aspects of it that she would feel much more comfortable with because of all of the injuries she had taken care of throughout the war. Which was not to say that she enjoyed taking care of injuries particularly. There were still so many things she didn't feel capable to take care of, and she and Hestia were constantly making do with few supplies and poor situations. She wasn't certain if Elsie's death could have been prevented, but part of her thought it might have been under better conditions - but perhaps it was simply her wishing to put off the fact that she couldn't have done anything. "Hi there," as she reached the man whom she recognised slightly from the time they'd spent at Hogwarts after the battle, she gave him a kind smile and crouched down beside him, her best bedside manner turned on. "I'm Beth Frobisher and I thought I'd take a look at things and see how you're feeling, if that's all right." She couldn't quite say she was a Healer yet, but right now, they needed everything they could get. Even Sam recognised that he was not in one of the best conditions of his life. He was alive, which was saying something. He didn't know of loads of people that got into a fight - a muggle fight at that, with fists and teeth and things - with Rodolphus Lestrange and lived to tell about it. So that was something. He wished he could say you should see the other guy. But no. He had definitely been the one to come out worse of this one and he most definitely felt it. He hurt, Jesus Christ. Of course, it had been a couple days now and he'd done his best with some rudimentary healing. He was rather insisting that there were a lot of people off a lot worse than him. In fact, the only thing he was really worried about was these burns that he'd only managed to numb for the moment. They didn't quite respond to regular burning salve like regular burns. Which he supposed was fitting. He was sitting in a corner of the cottage when a semi-familiar face came into view. She'd done a bit of work on him at the Hogwarts battle, he remembered. Funny - not in a haha way, though - that he'd actually done all right there and come up so much worse here. "Hi," he greeted, a little hoarsely. His throat still hurt from screaming so much. A fact he didn't much want to talk about. "Samuel Madley," he said automatically, despite the fact that they'd already met. "Er, you're welcome to look. Done about all I could myself. Um, although I don't know how other people are... I mean someone might be a bit worse off. I'm all right." "Hi Samuel, let me just take a look," she pulled open the small bag that she'd brought with her. He didn't look as if he were all right, but she had pain potions and some blood replenishing, and bruise paste and any number of other healing things that she hoped would help him be as good as new very quickly. It was a little odd that she'd started out as a sometimes healer for the Order, and now seemed to be sometimes healing other people as well. She pulled out the pain potions as she thought it likely that he would need those outside of anything else that he might need. "So tell me where it hurts the most?" She said. The most was probably a relative term. It might hurt multiple places, but it would give her some place to begin at least, and that was better than what she currently had to go on. "It looks like you've had some burns here maybe?" "Oh, um. Just Sam. Is all right," he said quickly, a little taken off guard by hearing his full first name, despite having been the one he'd given her. "Should have said that." Sam considered the question. It was a rather difficult one, because his face hurt quite a lot, but he logically knew that wasn't the worst spot on him. "Uh, yeah these," he motioned slightly toward his chest and abdomen. "They aren't quite.. healing I don't think. It was like... I dunno, I think it was black. The fire I mean. And I don't remember there being any smoke and regular burn salve isn't really doing anything." Sam frowned slightly. "Think he broke a couple of ribs too, actually. Might just be fractured though. Hard to tell." Beth nodded, giving him a kind smile, and she kneeled down next to him. "I'm going to open up your shirt here, if that's all right and take a look at them. It's possible it was some sort of dark magic if it wasn't something like regular fire." She had seen more dark magic in the past six months than she had seen for her entire training in the spell damage ward at St Mungo's. And it wasn't that she liked that this was the case, but it certainly seemed to be so. "I'll check your bones at the same time then," she added and reached for her wand. The spell to check for broken bones she knew how to cast quite easily, it having been one of the first things she'd learned to do at St Mungo's. "And it looks like you have one broken rib, one fractured. I'll give you some potion for those and they should heal up in a day or so, Sam. In the meantime I've got some pain potion which might help you be more comfortable while they're healing." "Sounds good," he responded, mentally making a note to have someone go run and get another shirt for him from camp. This one was pretty well ruined anyway. Which was sort of sad, because he liked it. Sam was relatively still - not only because moving hurt, but because he figured Healers generally needed you to not move about too much when they were doing their job. He remembered doctors visits like that anyway. He liked that she didn't have to poke and prod him to tell if something was broken. This would have been an ultimately more painful healing process without magic. It could be really handy like that, he decided. Of course, now there was this odd sort of silence settling between them and Sam didn't know if he ought to say something or just shut up and be a good patient. Small talk seemed so inane after being in a big fight. She'd probably seen some rough stuff in the last couple of days. So he absently bit his lower lip and let her work, deciding silence was better than saying something stupid. Beth took a look at his face then, and realised that he was pretty bruised. She bit her lip and looked at him for a moment. "It looks like you must have banged up your face pretty badly," she said. "I've got some bruise paste here that I'm going to put on it that should help with healing that up," she reached into the bag and pulled out the small metal container of paste, putting some on her fingers and then moving over to rub it gently into his face and his jawbone, trying to smile while she did it. She knew that it would probably hurt, particularly as, when she started putting it on his face, she realized that things didn't quite feel as they should - something had to be broken there as well and she'd check in a moment. In reality, there were bruises up and down his body, and Beth thought it rather looked as if he'd been used as a human punching bag. She rather remembered him looking much more handsome when he wasn't a giant bruise as he was now. He'd faired much better at Hogwarts if she remembered correctly. She'd not done much more than give him a quick once over because she'd been so concerned with others who had desperately needed her attention. "Did you at least bang up the other person equally badly?" She said with a small smile, trying to joke, although she wasn't certain it was really good form for a healer to be laughing about this sort of thing. On the other hand, considering the person he had been fighting was more than likely a Death Eater, she wasn't certain normal rules applied. Sam tried not to wince too much as her fingers strayed over the more painful parts of his face. He'd managed to clean himself up pretty well and he remembered from general training and first aid not to move broken anything much. So as bruised as he was, at least he wasn't nearly as bloody as he'd been. "Um, well. He didn't get away unharmed at least," Sam said with the smallest of smiles. Just because it felt natural. He hadn't done a whole lot of it in the last few days and it felt better on his face, bruised as it was. It was nice to joke a bit. Or at least try for it. He distinctly remembered getting him with a gouging hex. Not that it had done anything. The blood on his clothes wasn't all his, but it hadn't stopped Lestrange from pummelling him for several more minutes. "He was huge though, and I'm not just saying that to make myself feel better," he went on after a beat. "I feel like I probably get away lucky." Which was true. Beth nodded with a short smile, and paste applied to his face everywhere she could think of she noted the cheekbone being broken, but the potions would help with that, and with the nose. "You're going to look a little funny here for the next couple of days," she said, but not unkindly. It was a statement of fact more than anything. That taken care of she moved to his chest, frowning a little as she examined the burns. They were unlike anything she'd ever seen before and she didn't know what to do with them. If they weren't responding to the Burn paste she wondered what they would respond to. Probably they were Dark Magic, which meant there might be a few potions that she could probably find for him and it might help, but she wondered if there would be scarring. She glanced up at him, wondering if he'd take that news well or not. It was so hard when one didn't know someone, but she supposed that was part of being a Healer, really. "I'm going to send you some potions," she said, touching the skin on his chest with almost feather light fingers as she glanced over each of the burn scars that covered it. "I don't know that they'll fix this, because I'm fairly confident it's dark magic of some sort, but they will help with the pain, and I think they may help undo some of it. Still," she hesitated, and looked up at him, not smiling, and trying just for factual and brief. "I think it's likely you may have some scarring. What type of spell did it? Do you remember anything about it or about the incantation?" Sam wasn't sure he much liked the look at Beth's face as she examined the burns. He knew they weren't normal after all, otherwise the regular burn salve would have been at least doing something. He'd more or less numbed the area so that he would be able to function until he saw a healer, but he wouldn't have been overly surprised if there was some horrible dark magic involved that meant they were still burning, or going deeper or something. So when her big news was that there would likely be scarring, Sam couldn't help but be a little relieved. He wasn't a vain person, not really. And it wasn't like loads of people were seeing him shirtless or anything. Just Gairloch. And they all had their fair share of scars. "Well that's all right," he said, glancing down at himself. It was. There were worse things than scars, and this was war. He'd never expected to come out of it unscathed. "Um...it was black. And there wasn't like loads of smoke or anything..." he trailed off, trying to remember. The more he thought about it, the harder it was to remember. The mind was awfully good at scabbing over traumatic experiences and after being put under a Cruciatus curse for so long, it was no wonder he was having trouble remembering. Finally he shook his head. "I don't remember the incantation. Or if he even said the incantation. It's all just sort of. Blurry." Sam frowned, wishing he could remember. It would probably help. "It's all right," Beth said soothingly, although she did wish that he could remember a bit more about it. In truth she supposed it wouldn't make much difference. While it might have for a trained Healer in the Spell Damage ward at St Mungo's she wasn't certain it would for her. While she'd wanted to be a Healer who did research dark magic and ways to heal it, she certainly wasn't one right now and at this point in her life she wondered if she would ever have the chance to be. "I don't think I'd worry too much about the scarring," she added with a smile. "Supposedly they make women find you more interesting, and they'll be all covered up, so you can always tell them you have interesting scars and intrigue them that way." That statement was made while she reached into the bag looking for the strongest burn paste that she had. If it didn't work and didn't help, well, she was pretty certain that nothing would. She opened it and spread the paste out across his chest being as gentle as possible as she spread it out across the burns. It would be cool and soothing at least, even if it didn't stop the scarring. As she finished she realised that there was something on his hand as well and she reached for that now - "What on earth happened to your hand?" It looked as if... but no, it really couldn't have been bitten could it have? Sam smirked a little and glanced down at the burns again. "D'you think so?" he asked mildly, vaguely amused at the prospect. "Dunno, I think all the girls I've dated would think it was gross looking or something." He said it with a degree of good humour. He didn't date much, and certainly not recently. War was bad for everyone's romantic life and Sam had never had much of one to speak of anyway. It had always seemed sort of inane and superfluous in light of fighting for his own rights. Not to mention he wasn't all that smooth. As she reached for his hand though, Sam quirked an eyebrow, not sure if he was amused by the fact that he'd been bitten or not. "Um..." he flexed slightly, wincing. "He bit me. And then I choked him," he admitted a little sheepishly, turning his hand over for the matching lower teeth marks on his palm. "Dunno, you'd think purists would have better fighting tactics or something," he half-joked. "That's what they always tell me," Beth said with a smile, and she stopped to consider. Would she think it was gross? Well, she'd never particularly been faced with the prospect having pretty much only ever dated boys at Hogwarts, and not very many at that. She'd always been too busy worrying about her studies to really spend much time with boys. "I think any woman would probably consider scars gotten while fighting for freedom to be a bit of a turn-on," she said honestly. "At least, I think any woman worth her salt probably would." She shook her head at his hand. "He bit you. Merlin. That's just - I would never have thought that they would have bit - that's almost insane. I suppose there you have it, proof that the Purists actually are insane." She took his hand and turned it over in hers, giving it a bit of a serious look. "I don't want this to become infected so I think I'm going to actually put some paste on it, and some antibodies and I want you to watch it particularly carefully over the next week. If you notice any extra redness or anything that looks different from what it should be, you should let me know. I've got a journal so you could ward something to me, or send me an owl, or really either of those things. I'll clean it up a bit more, and it looks as if it's already pretty clean, but just to be safe." "When you say you choked him," she gave him a curious look. "Like, with magic, or with your hands?" "Clearly, I've been dating the wrong sort of women, then," Sam said with a snicker, teasing. A little. He hadn't been very interested in what women would think anyway. Scarring was a part of being a hitwizard, as just about all of his co-workers had found out. He had a few, but he supposed if anything, it was just his turn to get something more visible. He wasn't bothered. He let her take his hand, unmindful as she turned it over. "D'you think purism is contagious?" he asked, trying to sound serious. "Like, if I start hating myself or something for being muggleborn, should I write you and see if there's some sort of cure? Although I suppose if there was, we'd have used it already." He looked momentarily thoughtful and then laughed a little as she spread some paste over it. Great comedy it would be, really. "Yeah, I'll let you know if it looks funny," he agreed, turning his hand over again, but not pulling away from her touch. "Erm," Sam looked slightly sheepish. "With.. these fingers. Actually." He wiggled them slightly, grimacing just a little. "I think at that point, I was just sort of.. on automated.. something." He shook his head, not sure if he was embarrassed of the fact or not. He supposed it didn't matter a whole lot. That was what had happened. "Clearly," Beth said with a laugh. She would keep this as light-hearted as possible considering that he very much had scars and would probably continue to be in pain for at least a few more days even with the pain potions to help take the edge off. At his question she laughed again. She couldn't help it. The idea of Purism being contagious like lycanthropy or something equally dark made her laugh. It possibly shouldn't, because there were certainly times when she wondered if the entire world had gone mad. Usually when she was trying to shop in Diagon Alley and couldn't go into half of her favourite stores because they wouldn't serve her with her current ID. "Oh, Merlin, let's hope not," she managed to say without laughing too hard. "If you start hating yourself for being a muggleborn, that's going to be - well, I don't know if I'll be able to help you at all seeing as how I'm only a muggleborn myself, and clearly not as intelligent as a pureblood healer would be." She released his hand, dimples dotting each cheek as she was still smiling. "I'm guessing that one would kick into survival mode at that point," she said, in regards to the choking. "I don't envy any of you that have to actually try to survive battles. Not that it's easy to heal people after, but it seems as if it would be so much more challenging to try to live through one." And so very many people didn't. Sam chuckled (a little painfully) and rolled his eyes. "Only a muggleborn," he repeated sarcastically. "Doing just as well as Hestia, I think," he said with a slight nod. Who was a half-blood, but really, it didn't much matter. Blood politics was all bollocks anyway. He'd had a few problems with the muggleborn-ban that some shops were sticking to at first. But eventually, it just hadn't mattered, because when you were living out in the middle of nowhere, shopping trips suddenly became few and far-between. Besides. He didn't have an identification card. "It isn't so bad," he went on, frowning a little bit. "I mean. It isn't great or anything, but I guess your body does just start to take over a bit. I think I'd feel worse trying to be a Healer. Not only would I be really bad at it, but it seems like it wouldn't be so great for your own moral, always just seeing the people that had been hurt." He frowned slightly. "Although I suppose being able to help does maybe not make it so bad or something. Dunno. I guess at some point you just try to figure that you're still breathing, so you must have had a good day." Sam shrugged and turned his hand over again, silent for a moment. "This wrist, by the way. Fractured or.. I dunno. He tried to make me stop using my wand, I think." He held his wand hand up for her to look at. "I try," she said quietly. "At least Hestia was actually able to finish her training," she sighed and then realised that it probably wasn't a great thing to say. After all, she was sitting here healing him and it wouldn't be particularly great if he thought she was incapable of healing him. She quickly moved on, not wanting him to feel as if she didn't have any training at all. "But Hestia's been quite helpful, and I suppose when one has hands on experience that quite counts for something." "It is hard when you see people and you can't help them," she admitted and then almost wondered at herself for doing so. "But it's good when you are able to help someone it is worth so much, and I like knowing that I've been able to make their lives a little better - improve something that was broken, mend something. In some ways I wish it were so simple to heal the world, but it's not - and in reality, I suppose it's not really easy to mend people either. Some things just can't be mended." Like the scars that would no doubt cover his chest. It was perhaps an apt comparison to the Wizarding World right now. She reached for his wrist, gently feeling it with her fingers. And she nodded. "I think he did a bit of a number on it," she sighed. "I'm going to need to set it, I think, and that's probably going to hurt, actually." Sam nodded. He wasn't all that bothered with the fact that she hadn't finished her training. Things had sort of come to an abrupt end all over the country. "Think you're doing a good enough job," he encouraged slightly, at least to make the fact clear. "Dunno, theory can't beat experience. In my experience," he stated. He didn't like the sound of having to reset the bone and he sighed, shifting slightly. He had rather thought it was an awkward angle and he hadn't dared to move it much beyond what he had to do for very basic healing. He'd only had a bone reset once in his life and he definitely remembered it being unpleasant. Still though, she was probably more than qualified to do it and he made a weak attempt at humour to hide his nerves. "Well, in my defence, the man was a bloody giant," he said a little too softly, not really remotely defensive. He absently bit his lower lip, straightened his posture. "...Okay, just... get it over with then." Sam covered his mouth with his mostly uninjured hand and looked away, deciding he didn't really want to see her do it. Beth bit her lip. She'd done this before of course, but not too many times and it always made her a little nervous. "Right then," she said, trying to make certain that her nervousness was not betrayed in her voice. Best to get it done with as quickly as possible then, she thought. She placed her hands on his wrist and with a quick jerk that was more calculated than it might have appeared, she moved the bone. She also knew that it would hurt like bloody hell, but she'd give him a pain potion before she left - and the bone would set properly with the mending potions she was going to give him. "There," she said, reaching for her wand and speaking the incantation to mend bones. It would take it a day of not being moved too much, but the spell would have already mended things enough that he would be fine. "Now, I'm going to give you some pain potions, cause I'm certain that hurt like hell, and I don't think," she looked him over. "I don't think really there's anything else I can do to make this better right now. I can check back in a couple of days if you'd like?" A strangled yelp was mostly muffled by his hand as Beth put the bone back in place and for a moment he wasn't certain that it had actually helped. It hurt more now. But upon a quick glance at it, it at least looked like it was in a more natural position than it'd been a few seconds ago. He took a deep breath and nodded, deciding that was better. And anyway, it was only a spike in the pain that he felt generally through his body anyway. He doubted there was much that could be done beyond a general pain potion for a cruciatus curse anyway, so he didn't say anything about it. It was more than he wanted to admit to anyway. "Yeah, I'll be here. Or I think we will anyway. Dunno. Let you know over the journals if we move though. Or I can come to you if that's better. We'll figure it out," he answered, giving her a small smile. "I take it up I'm supposed to try not to move or disturb anything, right?" he asked, trying to inject some more humour into his voice. It was a little forced, but only because he was trying to keep from sounding like he was in loads of pain. "That would definitely be preferred," she said. "Obviously if you must move, you must, but try to minimize it as much as possible - particularly for the next twenty-four hours. After that you can move a bit more, but you know, still carefully." She sat back on her heels and considered him. Paste for the burns, the bruises, bones were set and spells had been cast to heal the broken bones. She'd done all she thought that she could do. She reached over and touched his shoulder gently. "I'll be back in a couple of days, and we can figure out at that time what works best in terms of where we can meet. In the meantime," she reached into the bag and pulled out the pain potion. "Take a couple of teaspoons of this now, and you can do it about every four hours as you need to. You're going to be just fine with a little rest, Sam." Sam nodded, feeling vaguely self-conscious as she looked at him. He really didn't look great, he knew. Probably, he was one big bruise, with patches of skin here and there. And burns. And a bite. But he was going to try not to hurt himself more, at least as much as a hitwizard could. And the pain potion would help. He carefully took it from her (with his bitten hand, rather than his broken one) and carefully uncorked it to take a half swallow of it before putting it back on and depositing it in slightly damp jeans. Merlin, he wanted a shower and a change of clean clothes. "Thanks, Beth," he said gratefully and with a smile. "Oh, it's certainly my pleasure," Beth smiled at him. "You take care of yourself and I will check back with you in a few days." She stood and gathered up her supplies, giving him a smile before she turned to go. She would check in with a few others here before she headed back to the Order safe house. |