The Final Endgame.

Chapter 3

We limped into Fisher's flat ten minutes later. Hettie was deposited gently on the sofa, and Dr. Scott helped into a chair. The rest of us stood around, Newham by the fireplace, Isabel on the sofa arm, Fisher next to her, and I stood alone in the corner, arms crossed protectively across my chest. There was a silence, broken only by the occasional whimper from my best friend.

To my surprise, it was Isabel who stirred first.

"Do you have a first aid kit?" she asked Fisher, and when he nodded, she sent him instantly to get it.

"Allie" she then ordered briskly. "Get in the kitchen, boil the kettle. Find a bucket, mix hot and cold water until it's warm. Then, soak some towels-"

"Isabel, we can't stay here for long!" Newham cut in firmly.

"Well we won't be going anywhere unless we patch ourselves up first, Lieutenant!" Isabel snapped, making it perfectly clear that there would be no argument. "Allie" she carried on. "Get some towels, and actually, get a bucket of cold water too. Newham, close the curtains, switch the lights on, and get a fire going before we all freeze! And careful of that shoulder, it looks nasty..."

I had been on my way to the kitchen, and turned back to look in alarm. I had barely noticed the dark stain on Newham's jacket, just below his shoulder blade. I didn't dare to ask how he got it, as Isabel glared at me, so I carried meekly on with my orders.

When I returned, towels in one hand and warm bucket in the other, I saw the fire was blazing bright, and Isabel was fussing over Newham's shoulder. She had made him take his jacket and coat off, so he was perched delicately on a footstool in his shirt alone, the white of which was claret red, but only under the wound on his shoulder and along another, much smaller one along his ribcage. Hettie lay sleeping on the sofa, the doctor was advising as best he could in his weakened state, and Fisher was reluctantly playing nurse to my sister's doctor.

"Thanks, Allie, have you got the second bucket?" Isabel smiled quickly. "Elijah, you can get that jacket of yours off now, you took a nasty hit to the side, don't think I didn't see..." she continued to fuss as I slunk off to get the other bucket. Elijah was, of course, Fisher's first name, a fact I hadn't known since comparatively recently, when Isabel had been talking non stop about him and I'd had to pause her flow to ask who the hell she was on about.

I returned with the bucket, and was dumped with a cloth, having been told uncompromisingly to check over the doctor. Luckily for me, he seemed to have worked out everything that was wrong with him and how to fix it before I had even arrived, so I obediently cleaned and bandaged and strapped up (only a finger, luckily, no major broken bones) as to his will. Isabel had finished with Newham, who had escaped with a bandaged shoulder, ribcage and a plaster on his head, and was now fixing up Fisher while Newham turned his attentions to Hettie. She was sleeping still, but fitfully, and we had no sleeping draughts or anything to help her.

"How are we going to move Hettie?" Newham asked softly, as he cleaned a little cut on her forehead with a warm cloth.

"I don't know" I replied, having left Dr. Scott to snooze in the chair and found I had nothing else to do.

"We'd be better off in my flat" Newham sighed. "I've got all sorts of old Army kit locked away."

"Like guns and stuff?" I said instantly, alarmed.

"Not like." Newham corrected. I shuffled uncomfortably. Somehow the whole Newham-being-an-actual-soldier-with-a-gun thing still set me on edge.

"But hey, nobody's had a look at you yet" he then pointed out, turning towards me and taking my hands in his. I had a cut across my knuckle, I knew that, but somehow Newham found more, cuts and grazes all up my arms that I hadn't even realized were there. After we rolled up the sleeves of my dress, revealing the now fully healed, long white scar that stretched along my forearm, Newham cleaned me up. He didn't bandage anything, the grazes were too small for that, but he got the dirt and the dust out with practiced ease.