Some indeterminate time later, a nurse comes in to check on them. She's carrying a tray with a bowl of water and several small bowls of food, which she sets down on the floor near the wall, out of the way of equipment and work. The dog-loving guard follows her in. "That's for Rusty?" he queries when she puts the tray on the floor. "Mhm." She smiles shyly at him; to Erskin's senses, she's clearly interested in the guard, and not nervous or concealing anything. She continues explaining as she checks on Bel. "We don't keep dog food on the premises, but I looked up online what people foods are okay for dogs and sort of put together what we have. I mixed some chicken breast into brown rice pilaf, and there's a little cheese, and peanut butter, and a cut-up hot dog." She turns her smile on Erskin. "I just hope it doesn't make you throw up. I bet you're used to the high quality stuff, huh? Look at you, oh my god, what a gorgeous dog. I didn't see him up close before, he was still at the vet last time I came in here." She offers Erskin a hand to sniff.
WATER. You scramble off the bed, hitting the floor with an undignified whump and claw-scrabble, but recover and nearly shoulder her aside to get at it. By the time you've licked the bowl dry— or at least damp— your pounding headache's already more manageable. You give her a grateful, wet-whiskered series of face licks for it, then turn to the food.
The licking makes her squeak happily. She refills the bowl at the room's little bathroom sink while he eats, and sets it back in place, politely not looming over him.
After most of the food and another bowl of water, you feel great, or at least comparatively. Then you get to the peanut butter and everyone starts laughing at you. You give the associated humans a look of deep reproach, which only provokes more giggling, then pick the peanut butter bowl up and retreat under the bed with it. It's not your fault peanut butter gives you licky tongue. It's like... science. It's a natural phenomenon.
That causes the nurse to emit a loud squeak-laugh before she manages to cover her mouth, and Bel stirs. "Oh my gosh I'm so sorry," she says in a very high and small voice. "W'z... laugh'n...?" Bel mumbles through a thick opioid fog. "I'm so sorry, honey," the nurse says in a more normal voice, going to him. "Your dog was being cute. I didn't mean to wake you. How are you feeling, do you need anything?" "Wa'r." "You bet." She pours water from a plastic pitcher into a little paper cup, and helps Bel drink it. He smiles and falls back asleep, never having really woken all the way; he won't remember this. She refills Erskin's water yet again, and then she and the guard go out so as not to wake the patient again.
After the peanut butter's all done, and your mouth is once more completely under your conscious control, you venture back out. You've got your collar on and have made some friends, so hopefully you can get an escort to somewhere to relieve yourself that doesn't involve shorting out some million-dollar piece of equipment. In an attempt to convey this, you go stand between the guards one of them looks at you, then walk slowly and deliberately out of the room and down the hall while making pointed eyecontact.
"Where's he going?" "Aw crap. Go get him." The dog-loving guard hesitates for a moment over leaving his post, but his partner moves so he's blocking the whole door by himself, and the dog-lover makes up his mind and trots after Erskin. "Hey, Rusty, come on back. How come you're leaving your Captain, man? That's not --" just as he catches up, it visibly dawns on him. "Oh. You gotta piss. Uh. Walkies? Outside?"
You give an impatient bounce— ow, ow, bad idea— and speed up just enough that he can't get hold of your collar. You'll accept some guidance on how to get out of here, but you're damned if anyone's dragging you anywhere right now.
"Okay, aright, I got you. Heel. Can you do that? Rusty, heel." When Erskin consents to walk beside him, he sighs relief and focuses on finding their way to a suitable area. He stops by the floor's nurse station to ask for a plastic bag, then takes Erskin out to a grassy area between the buildings, just a lawn with a couple of big trees. It'll have to do; the hospital's in the middle of the city. "If you run off," the guard says under his breath, "I am in so much trouble."
City air has such a greasy, acrid smell to it, but it's still better than the near-chewable air of pain and cleaning solvent inside the hospital. You water a tree, then pick up a stick and bring it to the man. He throws it, very happily, and you spend a little time on the world's slowest and creakiest game of fetch. You're much too sore for any running, so you just trundle back and forth using the stick as a sort of lap marker, until you've stretched your legs out and feel genuinely tired, then turn to go back inside.
The guard greets his partner with a beaming smile. "Good as gold," he reports pre-emptively. "He just wanted to pee and play with a stick a little. No car-chasing or anything." The partner, holding the door for Erskin, shakes his head indulgently. "Lucky for you, bro. Imagine if you lost Captain Kadros's dog." The dog-lover gives a theatrical shudder, but he's still smiling.
You lean down to grab the teasing man's shoelace as you pass, and pull it loose with a quick flick of your teeth. Snickering to yourself, you go have more water, make the arduous journey back up on to Bel's cot, settle in by his side, and promptly pass out.
At noon, while you're eating a not-nearly-large-enough hospital meal, you get a small flood of visitors: Dad state park ranger two FBI agents small ginger nurse timidly but determinedly snapping at all of them for crowding her patient fat gentle vet who just wants to check on 'Rusty' and has no clue what to do about all this fuss Fortunately, Dad is literally an expert on hammering order out of chaos without regard to the feelings of armed and self-important people, so he takes control and makes everyone behave. He declares that the vet gets to come in first, because there's no way Rusty won't be alert and tense while his human is helpless and being questioned by strangers, and rightly so! Obviously he is a very good PTSD dog, and should get his painkillers and fresh bandage before having to work. While the vet checks Erskin's stitches and feeds him an antibiotic hidden in a piece of bologna, Dad sorts the crowd in the hallway, and has a mostly quiet and polite argument with one of the FBI guys about jurasdiction. Dad is, you overhear, perfectly well aware that the Air Force has no legal jurasdiction here with regards to investigation and criminal proceedings. However, the armed guard is a reasonable and legally allowed precaution based on the fact that both the victim and the victim's father have a high security clearance, as well as a service record that overlaps geographically with that of the apparent perpetrator. Also, he points out, he is Bel's goddamn father, and like hell he's going to let some suit from DC question his boy without being there. The FBI agent grumblingly assents to one -- ONE! -- Air Force guy being in the room with him, "And if that's you, sir, fine, I don't care." The state park cop throws up her hands -- you can see the silhouette of the gesture through the privacy curtains covering the windows at the front of the room -- and asks when she gets to take a statement. After the victim passes out? The nurse starts reminding everyone that the patient is recovering from eight gunshot wounds and a knife wound, and they need to be quiet, for God's sake! You say to the vet, "Can you please tell them all to get in here and sit the hell down? I only want to give my statement once." The vet smiles nervously, finishes taping down Erskin's bandage, and goes out in the hall to clear his throat. He has to clear it four times before anyone lets him speak. You itch to go out there and knock heads together until someone finds some goddamn mission focus, but you guess that's why you're a Captain and Dad's a Colonel; high command needs to know when not to punch cops. Finally, they all come in, looking sheepish and awkward. Dad claims the chair, as is right and good. They're all looking at Erskin, who looks about to rip throats. You rest a hand on his neck and give it a little scruffle so that the purple collar with the heart-shaped name tag flashes, a little reminder that you are not some rando and neither is he. The fiercer of the FBI guys opens his mouth, and you override him: "I'm going to give you the incident report," you say, hoarse but audible, "the way I'm used to. Then you ask me questions if there's anything I left out that you need. Please record it because I don't have the stamina to say it more than once." It goes smoothly and fast after that. Your report is detailed and honest; the only thing you leave out is werewolves. When, at the end, the park ranger asks if you were aware the attacker's knives and bayonet were silver-plated, you say, "No ma'am. They looked normal to me." After they're done asking you things, you ask them one thing: "I'm not the only victim, am I? This was definitely not that guy's first time. Fucker was on a mission. And he's been traveling, that's why the FBI is here." The ranger opens her mouth to answer, and you can see she's about to confirm, but the FBI guy goes "We cannot release that information at this time, sir, sorry." and you let it go. When at last they're all gone but Dad, you're exhausted and hurting, but you cover the morphine button with your hand so Erskin can't press it. "Dad, can we talk privately?" A glance at the door. He gives your arm a gentle squeeze, and nods. He goes out and tells the guards to wait at the end of the hall. They go without question. "Erskin, could you change so I don't have to translate?"
You hesitate, unsure. It's not that you don't want to, it's that you're not sure if you can— between the terrifying onslaught of strangers and whatever medication was in the bologna, your brain is starting to feel like soup. Also what if you tear your stitches? But you nod, and go slowly. It's probably close to the dark of the moon, by now. It's tricky, especially since you've got to be careful not to pull your stitches as the wounds stretch along with your skin, but it doesn't hurt. When you're finished you steal Bel's thin blanket. "Hi," you say roughly, and stick out your hand for Alex to shake.
"Come on, now," Alex says to the handshake, and gently pulls Erskin into a hug instead. Then he goes to the room's little wardrobe-closet-thing and rummages, coming up with a thinnish but adequately large blue bathrobe, which he offers Erskin to replace the blanket. He also offers him the chair, since the bed is a bit small for two grown humans. You could watch Dad fuss over Erskin all day, but you don't think you can stay coherent much longer, so you flap a hand for their attention. "I got shot eight times yesterday," you begin. "Even though it was silver bullets, I'm already awake and sassing cops. I'm gonna end up disappeared, Dad." "The hell you are." "They're going to be trying to isolate my 'healing factor'. At best they'll give me a shield with a star on it." "This isn't a comic book." "At worst, I'll end up a row of jars on a shelf in some black site lab." Dad's got his arms crossed, but his nailbeds go white on his elbows. "I won't let that happen," he growls.
"Er, this isn't my area of. Of expertness. Expertise. But they didn't put you in jars originally. They just. Discharged you." You scratch your weird human nose. "Wouldn't your government have done all the, the, the tests and such, on you, the first time you were in the hospital? Before they said 'have a nice werewolfy life!' and pushed you out the door?"
"Exactly," Dad says. "That was the Army," you point out. "Now it's the FBI, you know they're getting Counterterrorism on board because the perp and I are both Middle East vets, that means the CIA is reading copies of every word they write about me. The Army is dumb, slow, and practical. The CIA is fast, mean, and impulsive, and Homeland has no fucking respect for the rights of the individual. Don't get me wrong, I'm a patriot, if my nation needs me to werewolf for it I will werewolf so good. But I'm not naive. I know there are departments that pull some seriously unAmerican shit on much less interesting citizens than me." "You can't leave the country, Bel," Dad says worriedly. "Not until you're cleared. Even though no one doubts this was self-defense, the legal process still has to happen." "I know. We might miss the ice bridge and have to take a boat, babe, I'm sorry." You give Erskin an apologetic grimace. You know how important the trip is to him, but you're not going to run from a criminal recklessness charge or whatever is sloshing around in that FBI mook's suspicious brain now that the only human who can confirm you offered the attacker a chance to surrender (twice!) before you killed him is... well, dead. Which you know is gonna hit you in a bad place sooner or later, but you're still in mission mode right now, thank god.
"Oh, no, we're not even taking a boat, you're not answering any Calls of the Wild until you have significantly less holes in you," you tell him sternly. "That's a literary reference, even, so you know I'm serious." You slouch back in your chair, cautious of the tugging at your side and thigh. "My dad is part of the... I don't know, the Queen's CIA. Maybe? Or was? MIA?" You concentrate. "M15. None of us got dissected. And there's, there's got to be all sorts of, what, data? information? about us already, collected by militaries, since all sorts of different militaries have all sorts of different ways of dealing with us. I mean even if America and Russia don't get on and share all their science things, America and the United Kingdom certainly do." A thought occurs. "And wouldn't your anti-terrorist divisions have a whole bunch of afghani militant terrorist werewolves to do terrible things to? Anyway? Without having to chop up their own veterans?"
"Listen to your boyfriend, Bel, he's not on morphine." You scoff, but you can't rebut. Dad goes on, "Erskin, do you think your dad would be all right with you giving me his contact information, or could you give him mine? I would love to talk to him again."
"He'd love to hear from any of us," you say promptly, "But I don't know his number, actually. I can't remember numbers like that when I'm on paws. We'd have to look it up— you can call the, the wildlife preserve the family lives at. It's on the southern coast.... I think it's on the internet, the number, I mean, not the preserve. The number of the preserve. I'm sure he'd be happy to help."
