Rebecca Hillary . net

Abby could not deny that supporting Dan while he was walking was tiring work, but he refused to use crutches on principle, and she couldn’t let him keep falling over, no matter how funny it looked.
It took a total of thirty-two minutes to walk the four-minute distance between the medical centre and the janitor’s bungalow, which was being used as a makeshift detention centre. They had to stop three times for Dan to ask if they were doing the right thing and for Abby to assure him that they were, once for Abby to ask if they were doing the right thing and for Dan to assure her that they were, and once for Dan to go to the toilet. Fair enough, maybe it was going too far for him to ask Abby to help him into the bathroom, because, in reality, how difficult was it going to be for him to walk up against the wall. She had assented however, and she had to confess to herself later that giving him a hand job while they were in there was definitely pushing their luck, seeing as they had left Donna, looking a bit perverted, standing outside of the door to the gents’ toilets. It also sunk home how reckless they were being when somebody went into the toilets just as he was about to come, and he had had to bite into Abby’s shoulder to stop himself from yelling out in his frenzy, which had in turn made Abby scream in shock, and the both descended into hysterical laughter. After that they sent Donna ahead to make sure that they would be able to get in, and they had allowed themselves another quick fumble in a locked stairwell.
Finally they had arrived at the bungalow, and it bemused Abby somewhat to see a squashed tomato outside the door with Donna’s footprint firmly embedded in the middle, but before she had a chance to say anything Dan’s foot connected with the slippery red goop and out from under him. Unprepared as she was, she had no chance to brace herself, and they both crashed to the floor.
Abby knew instantly that something was wrong, and detected the metallic scent of blood just a fraction of a second before she saw a spreading patch of red on the denim of Dan’s jeans. There was no time to get him back to the medical centre, but she couldn’t leave him out here on his own. It seemed there was only one thing left to do. Shaking at the thought, she stood up and hammered at the door.
“Donna, you need to get Bailey out here, right now!” She yelled.
“Abby, wh… what are… you doing?”
“Dan, baby, you have to trust me on this. Remember yesterday, you said that you’d trust me on anything? Well, this is your moment to shine. In just a few minutes you are likely to lose consciousness unless you get immediate medical help. I can’t get Doctor Blake, but I can get Bailey. She’s good at what she does, and she is the only one who can help you.” She undid the button on his jeans and drew down the zip. “I need you to scoot your bum up an inch or two so that I can get your jeans off.”
“Do you… really think this… that this is the… time to be… be thinking about… sex?” Dan tried to smile through his shivering, and Abby knew that she was losing him faster than she thought. She was just turning to hammer at the door again when she heard the key turn in the lock and Donna looked out.
“Oh come on, whatever you were up to in the toilets was one thing, but sex in the snow?” She said, staring down at the scene, seeing Abby on the floor with one arm around Dan’s neck, holding his head to her chest and one on his leg, trying to hold back the flow of blood. Abby was quick to realize what it must have looked like.
“Donna, this isn’t a joke, he’s losing blood. I need Bailey.”
“Jesus, has all that come out of his leg?” Donna was staring at the floor.
“No.” Abby admitted. “Some of it is tomato juice, but he needs help now. Go get Bailey.”
Donna left the door wide open, and Abby struggled to get Dan to his feet. She half dragged him, half carried him over the threshold into the kitchen, and using her free hand she swept everything expertly off the table.
She adjusted him so that his backside was against the table, and he shuffled backwards so that his knees were at the very edge and his knees were hanging down.
“Remind me to… buy Gavin a… a new table.” Dan smiled, the effort clearly etched on his face.
Bailey entered the room and it was clear that she wanted to run back the way she came when she say Dan and Abby at the table, but when Abby shifted slightly to her right and Dan’s wound lay exposed in front of her, she stood gawping, all plans of moving gone.
“Is that what I did?” She gasped.
“Yes, but that’s not important.” Abby spoke slowly and calmly. “Bailey, I need you to listen to me. He’s just fallen, and I think that his stitches have burst open, and I need your help.”
“I can’t.”
“Yes you can. It’s very simple; you just get your act together, and redo the stitches. Have you got that?”
“But what about what I did?”
“Look, forget about that! He. Is. Bleeding. To. Death! Do something!”
“My bag?”
“Med Centre.” Dan muttered, his face growing paler by the second.
“Tell me what I need to do, and then go get it.”
“Just try and keep the blood flow to a minimum. I’ll be back in a minute” Bailey ran out of the door and disappeared.
“You really… trust her?” Dan asked.
“No.” Abby said, pressing a towel on the wound. “But right now I don’t have a choice. I almost lost you once in the last twelve hours, and I have no intention of going through that again.”
Dan rested his head on Abby’s shoulder and started to slip into unconsciousness. Abby held his head up, and forced him to look at her. “No, baby. Don’t go to sleep. You have to stay with me. We’re going to have to keep you awake somehow. Do you want to play a game?” He nodded weakly. “How about we take go through the alphabet and name songs starting with each letter?” He paused, and then gave another nod. “Right, I’ll go first then, uh, Another World by Brian May”
“Bohemian… Rhapsody.”
“Carry Me by Chris de Burgh”
“Dancing Queen.”
“Everybody Hurts, REM.”
“No shit… Fields Of Gold.”
“Girl.”
“Happy Birthday?”
“A Chris de Burgh one again. I Want It And I Want It Now.”
“Ok then… just let me… stop… dying first, huh?”
Abby held him tight to her, listening to his breathing against her neck. She looked up and saw Bailey running toward the bungalow with Doctor Blake and Damon close behind her. Just before they reached the door, Damon dragged her back and Doctor Blake said something to her that Abby couldn’t hear.
“Look, if you don’t believe me go and see him.” Bailey yelled back “He’s dying, Ben. Don’t let my father die just because you’re too high and mighty to believe me.”
“Please.” Abby yelled out through the door. “He’s just lost consciousness again. Help him.”
That seemed to be the incentive they needed, and the three of them ran inside. Donna and Devon appeared from another room, and Abby felt as though she was experiencing the worst case of déjà vu she had ever known, only this time it was real. Donna reached towards her and tried to pull her back, but Abby had noticed Bailey standing on the other side of the room, alone and scared. Without thinking, she walked over and took Bailey’s hand. As she walked her back to where Donna and Devon were standing it felt as though every eye was watching her, and she felt like yelling at everyone. This was not just Abby’s crisis, and everyone else seemed to have forgotten that, right now, Bailey was hurting too.