She didn’t cry out when he lifted her, only barely. She clenched her teeth against the dull throbbing ache that shot out from the wound. She could feel the necrotic bile of the creatures moving from the bite though her body. Necrotic, what a perfectly apt, perfectly horrible word. She could feel the fever setting in even as they moved across the deck and the wind and rain lashed at her. She felt the lessening in the still powerful storm that battered the ship. The lightning flashed and still she heard the laughter within the thunder and the words she just couldn’t quite make out. 

She knew it was time to do something about her wound, past it really. She would have flayed anyone else on her crew for coming to her in the state she was in. She would demand to know what they were thinking, to wonder if they liked to make her life harder. To wonder if they liked to suffer rot in their veins. But she was doctor and patient both and with that came some privileges, including ignoring one’s own medical advice. 

“Yes.” She said as she forced herself to relax in his arms, despite the pain. “Boots and shoulder.” 

She let him carry her into the cabin, her head spinning and wanting nothing so much as to shrug out of her wet clothes and sink into the oblivion of sleep. But after the door closed and the bulk of the roar of the storm and its accompanying laughter were cut off she realized they were not alone. The boy.

[i]That’s right, they were on nursery duty weren’t they?[/i] Or rather Jax was. That would make her treatment just a little harder. She would not shuck her shirt in front of the boy, the boy brought on board without anyone seeing fit to inform the first mate. The boy who watched her a little too intently. 

She slipped out of Jax’s arms and walked to her bed and pulled the warm blanket off of it and tossed it to the boy who was wet through and did not have enough meat on him to be risking a soak. 

“Dry off, stay warm.” She said to him and then made her way slowly to where she’d kept the boots. She bent down to reach for them but stumbled a little, her hand on the corner of her desk the only thing that kept her upright. She cursed and watched her hand which had seemed on track to get the boots miss greatly. She tried again, her fever-bright eyes narrowed it irritation. She got them and then stood, pausing to let her balance catch up with the rest of her before turning and offering the boots with a flourish meant to give homage to Jax’s usual antics but which fell flat in her jerky delivery.

“Your boots. Can you get the boy somewhere safe and dry?” she said and did not say, or rather she wasn’t certain if she said or thought [i]somewhere not here.[/i] 

“He has seen enough of people’s insides tonight, he need not see mine. I will need your help with this shoulder.” She said, even if she thought the words would choke her. She needed help, it galled. 

“Will you come back to me?” And there was softness, strange vulnerability in the slurred honey that she tossed his way.