Sang's reserve (COMPLETE)

Toooooooo cute :)

Please comment, I hope you love it, :)

Jess POV:

It's hard.

Hard to see them.

Hard to see how much Sang is struggling to keep it together, even though she currently has the defence of being Violet to hid behind. We can't comfort her, it would break her being Violet, which is her only defence against the world outside.

Hard to see how much Luke needs her right now, this is almost as hard for him as Sang, he loves animals as much as her, but he doesn't have an 'alter ego' to hide behind. I think he might soon, he mentioned something about it a few weeks ago. North looks slightly better, yet still pale, slightly ill. I know I look like hell.

Hard to think that there are real people out there that feel this is acceptable behaviour toward anyone or anything, let alone sweet, innocent animals, puppies.

But right now, it's the work that's hard. Extremely hard. Washing, then disinfecting over two hundred dogs, is earth shatteringly tiring, plus extremely hot work, encased in protective clothing as we are, including the full-face masks we had to wear to break them out. Even with eight of us there, it's so hard.

We have to transfer the clearly terrified puppies from the vans and trailers to the first three rooms in the quarantine ward we cleaned earlier. For the moment that's Raven's and Marc's job. Then in each of the three bays are me, North and Violet (she still hasn't washed the dye out, I think she knows she'll shatter). We are washing then completely disinfecting all the puppies we are brought, by the first two. It would be me, Luke and Violet (as we are the ones who work best with animals), but Luke needs some kind of closeness to Sang, even if she is, technically, Violet right now.

However, it means that Luke, Gabe and Corey are the ones taking the bowls of dirty washing water out and refreshing them for each puppy, as we disinfect them. Then they are taking the puppies to one of the prepared bays, well-spaced, unlike being shoved in those tiny stables, the images are still making me feel ill. I kind of wish they had step counters on right now, just to see how far they are walking...

This continues for almost half an hour, at about one puppy per each pair, just over every two minutes for most of us, faster for Violet and Luke. It means that by my count around forty – two puppies have been done when Raven brings the first one that needs proper medical attention. It takes Violet and Luke of the cleaning rotation, into the fourth bay. Corey gets dragged into the station she was using, while Marc is pulled in to do the job Corey just was, Him and Gabriel now working almost twice as hard, the two of them working for the three of us washing. Raven has absolutely no problem carrying three puppies in his enormous arms, his touch surprisingly gentle despite his size, it's cute to see him carrying them, even if they are filthy.

I feel like a robot. Dunk in the water, scoop cleanish puppy out, dunk puppy up to neck in the disinfectant, after checking it has no open wounds.

If it does then it's disinfected with a sponge, around the cuts, before being sent to Violet and Luke, with either Raven, Gabe or Marc. By the time Raven brings the last puppy in I'm so tired I can barely stand. No one else is much better. The one good thing is that Sang is back, purple dye out of her hair, blonde again to be fair it does come out with just a dunk of water, Gabe is great at inventing hair stuff.

The top of her 'outfit' is stained with the purple dye, it looks at though Luke just upended a bucket on her head at some point, needing her back. She is obviously just as tired as the rest of us, but she still offers me a half smile as she wraps an arm around my back, I miss her physical contact when she's Violet. She mostly carries me towards one of the bays, the one that I slept in that first night, lying me in the straw, telling me to sleep. I want to protest, knowing there is still so much more to do, but Sang can be extremely stubborn at times.