When Luna awoke from her much-needed sleep, her first thought was that she was back at the outpost – the dark, enclosed feeling of being underground felt almost familiar, until the glow of a bare light bulb in the main hall tunnel brought her back to the current place and time.
The memories of the past day slowly faded back into her mind, and suddenly Luna felt too alert to go back to sleep – now that she was trying to piece together all that she had learnt in the short time since she had been forced out of her solitary home, her mind was running too fast to turn it off.
One recurring thought, now that she was well and truly awake, was that she had better check on Missy soon.
If she had cleaned the wound well enough, then the poor girl’s fever should have gone down by now – but that also meant that the pain of the burn would be sharper for a time.
The thought worried Luna, for she suspected the pain would keep Missy from sleeping – which was the one thing she really needed now to recover.
Eventually Luna decided that she had to get up and do something about it, despite the fact that it felt like it was not yet dawn, and no one else seemed to be about.
Climbing quietly from the bed, she put her shoes back on and grabbed her bag from where she had dropped it by the bed.
Rifling through its contents – some clothes, medical supplies, and few odds and ends like the key to her ATV – Luna quickly found the pack of painkillers she was looking for, and returned the bag to the floor where she had left her raygun and holster belt.
Once out in the hallway, she found her way quickly towards the entrance to the tunnel system, counting the scattered light bulbs on the walls to remember which break in the smooth tunnel was the doorway to the infirmary.
Five dim lights later, she entered the now-darkened room quietly, trying not to wake the injured girl if she was sleeping.
Despite her care, though, Luna could tell as soon as she neared the bed that Missy wasn’t sleeping; her eyes were shut tightly, but the sound of her breathing was shallow and rapid; the sound of someone trying to pretend something that really hurts isn’t.
“Missy? You okay?” Luna asked quietly when she reached the bedside, concerned.
Missy’s eyes opened suddenly, and she involuntarily tried to turn towards the noise, flinching as the blankets pulled on her injured leg.
“I’m just fine,” she lied with a tight smile when she realised who it was, then her face fell as she moved again.
“Is it okay if I have a look at it?” Luna asked, tugging at the edge of the thin blanket. “If it’s healing alright then I’ll leave it, and I brought some painkillers so you can just sleep it off.”
Missy just nodded, so Luna quickly undid the makeshift bandages and checked the wound; it had blistered, but it was definitely healing, and there was nothing more she could do but try and help Missy wait for it to heal.
“It’s doing well,” was what she said to Missy, re-covering the burn. “It’ll hurt for a little while, but in a day or two you might even be able to get up, okay?”
Missy didn’t answer, busy bracing herself against the pain that spread up her leg as the older girl bandaged the wound.
Luna sighed, hating the fact that she couldn’t help more, and gave Missy a dose of the painkillers she had brought with her.
She was watching the girl as she dozed off to make sure she would be alright, when a quiet noise came from the corridor outside the room.
Instantly alert, Luna watched as a tall, dark form entered the dimly lit room, unwilling to call out to whoever it was for fear of waking Missy up again.
A few steps into the room, the figure stopped as they saw her, freezing for a second, then walking more slowly towards her.
“You’re the girl Shadow brought in earlier, right?” the slightly familiar voice said, and suddenly Luna realised this must be Wolf.
She nodded mutely, watching the man closely as he bent over the now-sleeping Missy.
Without the advantage of darkness to hide behind, she could see now that he was actually not so intimidating; a tall, but gentle-looking figure, he couldn’t have been more than a few years older than herself, and with a worn thinness about him that still couldn’t hide a spark of defiance to the world glimmering in his blue eyes.
Even in the darkness, she could tell that his clothes were in the vein of most killjoys, if not quite so vibrant; a black and red ripped shirt over the standard, practical jeans, as well as odd chains and pins that looked like they had been recycled from machines of some kind.
He wore a leather jacket and biker boots over this, and his long dark brown, almost black hair was held back with a red bandanna cloth tied at an angle around his head.
Luna suddenly realised she was staring as she took all this in, and glanced back up in time to meet the equally curious gaze of the young man before her.
“Missy’s doing alright,” she quickly brought up another subject, playing the part of the doctor so she didn’t have to think about anything else. “If she can sleep some more she’ll be able to get up and walk around in a few days, I think.”
Wolf nodded slowly, looking at Missy who was now sleeping peacefully, then glanced back up to meet Luna’s eye.
“Thank you,” he said simply, earnestly. “We really couldn’t have helped her if you hadn’t turned up…” he paused, looking for a name.
“Luna,” Luna supplied quickly, surprising herself as she said it, and instantly wondered why she hadn’t kept it to herself as she had done when Shadow asked.
“Luna,” Wolf smiled, “a lovely name,” he glanced across at – or rather, into – the darkness of the far wall, and said, as if to himself. “Bella would have liked you…”
Luna was about to ask what he meant, but before she could, the sound of a vehicle approaching aboveground suddenly disturbed the nighttime peace, and in the tunnel Shadow was already heading for the entrance, Wolf close behind.
