Timeline | Bucky Barnes x OC | (1)

Chapter 16- Now or Never

On the last day of their third week of training, they had their first influx of injured soldiers. Being a learning hospital, they only treated local patients who had been injured right there in Brooklyn. It was only minor injuries like the elderly lady they had just discharged who came in with a twisted ankle. Their little hospital was too far away from the front lines to be needed to treat injured soldiers. Everyday, Clara, along with the rest of the training nurses, reported to Sister Foster in ward 19 to start the day at 6 o'clock sharp. By that time, the hospital was already bustling. Clara was sure Sister Foster would snap at her for not being there when the soldiers had arrived, whenever that was. Clara wasn't sure why these poor men were here but this was her time do her part to save these poor men from death.

As soon as she entered the building, Sister Foster swooped down upon her.

"Nurse Lewis, I need you to show these men to ward 19." She said in passing, her usually stern voice sounding almost motherly now. Clara looked at the crowd of army men gathered around the double doors to the hospital. Most of them were messily bandaged up and some were leaning on makeshift crutches made out of splintering strips of wood. Not all of them would make it up the stairs.

"Follow me, please." Clara beamed to try and keep these poor men in high spirits but the smile on her face made her feel like a liar.

Ward 19, her training ward, was two stories up and the elevator was packed full of what Clara only hoped were unconscious men lying, unmoving in stretchers. The men with crutches would surely never make it up two flights of stairs. But they needed just as much medical care as the rest of these men. Clara wavered in front of the elevator. A queue of men in stretchers had started to form waiting to be carried into the elevator and off to the wards. The nurses and doctors were carrying them from the army convoy that had pulled up outside, hurried them in and left them on the floor to go and collect the next stretcher. Clara's company of men had stopped behind her as she momentarily paused deciding if she should risk forcing men on crutches to hobble up all those stairs. They were all stumbling into each other, their downcast eyes fixed on the floor and not on what was happening in front of them. The corridor was completely blocked and, right on cue, Sister Foster appeared.

"Nurse Lewis, get these men up to ward 19. They can't mill around in the corridor, doctor Hill needs to get through to the surgery rooms before we lose half a dozen men. Hurry."

It took an agonisingly slow time to get all the men up the stairs and up to ward 19. They had passed countless qualified nurses and doctors on the stairs who gave her sideways glances and muttered complaints to each other as they squeezed past the mob of soldiers. But each one had successfully climbed two sets of stairs and were about to enter ward 19 where they would be thoroughly washed before climbing into the completely sterilised, pristine beds and could finally receive medical care. At the prospect of a clean bed to lie down in, the soldiers ignored all of Clara's plees for them to "please not lie on the beds until you've had a bath or at least taken off your boots!"

"That'll do nurse Lewis, these men need rest more than they need a bath." a ward sister she had never seen before, and who didn't oversee ward 19 said to her, placing a hand on her shoulder.

"The ward across the corridor is understaffed, will you head over there and see how you can help."

Ward 18 was packed with soldiers moaning in agony and medical staff desperately attending their wounds. Every bed was occupied and several stretchers had been crammed in between the beds to accommodate more men still. There were more nurses than the standard team of ten per ward. Clara guessed there were at least thirty of them dashing around the room at a desperate attempt to attend three patients at a time. Clara was standing, overwhelmed, in the doorway, only to be pushed past by a doctor and a ward nurse who rushed to the back of the ward and pulled a curtain around a writhing soldier who was wailing in pain. Then the screams stopped.

"Nurse, stop standing around and make yourself useful!" Matron Mullins snapped as she hurried around carrying an enormous bag labelled "Bunyan bags" that Clara didn't want to think about what they would be used for.

"Nurse! Attend this man please!"

The man Matron Mullins had gestured to with a grandiose wave of her arm was sitting half up on the bed, propped up with his elbows. He had a twisted grimace on his face and kept eying the redness on his legs. His army trousers had been hastily cut away at the knees in jagged slashes to reveal a bullet wound that had gone straight through his leg. Clara was no stranger to bullet wounds, she'd received a particularly nasty one herself and, ever since, had gone out of her way to make sure she would never have to see one again. Yet, here she was. This man's life now depended on her. While the bullet wound itself was quite small, there was an extremely high risk of it becoming infected which would lead to amputation if not properly treated right this second. Clara knelt on the floor beside him and studied his injury.

"That's a nasty wound, how'd you manage that?" Clara asked cheerily, making small talk to distract him from the undoubtedly painful experience he was just about to go through yet it was as much for her benefit as it was for his.

"Same reason as the rest of the men in here, I went to war." He said bitterly and winced as Clara placed a delicate hand on his leg beside his wound in order to study it more closely. She'd half expected it to be a clean, see-through hole in his leg. Instead it was stagnant. There was a small hole on the front and on the back of his calf but the space inbetween was a horrific mix of semi-congealed, almost blackened blood and the vibrant crimson of his torn muscle. If that wasn't enough, the rancid smell ebbing from it was enough to make even Clara, a trained S.H.I.E.L.D agent, retch.

"Nurse, get the bullet out and dress the wound, don't just stand there staring!"

With fumbling hands, Clara began her procedure.