[ti]Ep 3[/ti]Bandaids [Patch,Rain,TBD]

[Rain]

Rain didn't for a second blame Cloudcompass for being glitchy, twitchy or even itchy. It was a hurricane of a first day on Earth for any poor spark. First the less than gentle landing in heavy winds, second the Decepticon, and third Optimus fragging the-matrix-bearer Prime. Rain would have been feeling quite glitchy herself. If it wasn't for Patch, she would still be nervous. Patch was right, you did have to look out for the nervous ones, because sometimes it was your own damn fault, and looking out for people was the Autobot way.

She didn't actually get a chance to say any of this to Patch before the medic headed out the door. Rain wondered how the poor neutral was doing. He was getting more out of the Autobot leader than she ever had which was almost laughable. It would have been laughable if it wasn't for the certainty that she was yet to receive her debriefing from most likely Optimus and Prowl. That was not a welcome thought for her future. She was adamant she had done the right thing, but she wasn't at all certain she could convince anyone of the accuracy of her split second judgement. 

She wanted to fly away and never land. She wanted to curl up into a small ball, and she wanted to just flop onto her back. None of these were currently good options however. Even her usual curiosity balked at the morbid idea of poking around the medical room due to reasons. Without even thinking about it as her mind drifted, she brought her legs up to her chest and hugged them close, left hand gripping her right upper arm, and with her long feet overhanging the berth. She brought up her right hand and turned it this way and that, inspecting it further and the mesh pads seemingly holding it together. For a long moment, Rain felt like the little pads were holding all of her together. She could feel herself just starting to go into shock and was trying to stave it off long enough to come back out the other side again.

[Patch]

The moments dragged on, the quiet stillness persistent. A small beep, a small ping here and there. The work alive in the unliving objects. After a minute, a minute and a half, two minutes crawled by-eventually the iron-glass door slipped open once again. Those same small peddes, with those same little objects in her servos- the needle capped, though the vial now full of soft, glowing blue fuel.

“How are you doing, you still good?”

She noticed the other femme had brought her legs up to clutch close. Perhaps an act of self comfort, though a potential sign she was cold. Perhaps feeling a bit exposed.

“You can lie back if you like.” A mild phrase. An offer, as she crossed the room, disposed of the sharp and placed the now full glowing vial in a small rack. “It’d keep more of the fuel in your frame near your spark and your helm. Make it easier to focus.” Her freckled faceplate popped up to look over. “You want a tarp?”

Regardless of what the femme was currently going though, it likely wouldn’t hurt to offer. Though they may not have been a terribly common enjoyment, or luxury amongst their species Patch had taken to using one sometimes. They could seal in ex-vented heat quite effectively, making cold environments more comfortable for those with less plating, or smaller frames.

[Rain]

"Focus yes, I think that is a sound idea. Thank you." Rain initially did not move, she naturally recharged on her back, almost exclusively but with a twisted forewing, such a position would be undoubtedly uncomfortable if not painful. Slowly she released her legs and swung them up to her left. Using her right elbow to prop herself, she lowered herself down to rest on her right side slightly curled up. The only comfortable position was less comfortable with the singular fact that her head was entirely unsupported. "I'll accept the offer of a tarp to use as a pillow if that works." 

Rain closed her optic and focused on the full spectrum of physical sensations - excluding sight - in an effort to shove out her undesired emotional weight. There were the sounds of Patch's voice, her footfalls and her busy hands. Several machines beeped their monotonous output, such simplistic calls indicative of steady function. There were other sounds too, ventilation, and the quite hard to identify activities and voices beyond the door to medical. Yet somehow the overconfident voice of the Decepticon seeker demanding a worth challenge still echoed.

The room was filled with the faint traces of chemicals, but they were hard to detect when hidden under the scent of the mesh pads on her shoulder and hand. Yet somehow the cool frigid air of Alaska still lingered in her vents as did the smell of her own spilt energon.  

Rain turned her thought instead to tactics should they ever meet again. She would go for the glitch's wings next time she decided, keep her on the ground at the very least, and she would call for backup, everyone. Rain let her thoughts cycle through the personal at the base.

Rain was the most recent addition, one week and she was making a mess for herself, so undignified. "Patch, did you come down with Optimus and everyone on the Ark?" 

[Patch]

“Course.” Patch said, as she bent to retrieve the object. “That’s a pretty clever idea.”

The young medic approached rain once more, and checked that the tether between her medical port and the scanner hadn't tangled as she'd moved. She repositioned the device a little so it lay behind the femme now, still on the slab- and gave it another quick check, just to see that Rain’s vitals hadn’t changed drastically. Once the femme was mostly down, Patch gently slipped her palm beneath her small blue helm to support it while she slid the folded plastic beneath.

Once content, the young medic began to cross the room again. Rummaging around for yet more items, those which she’d need, that she hadn’t already extracted. She placed them on yet another tray; namely a collection of bottles, pads and instruments. A few containers.

At the question she perked up some. “Oh. Uhh-I didn’t actually.” She replied mildly. A small smile slinking to her face as she approached once more and set the tray down. “Got to watch it go up from the ground.” She drew a small hand-held object off the wall behind the femme’s helm, twisted a blunt, hooked tube on the end, then placing it back where it was before.

“I had a smaller ship I was supposed to be assigned to, but uh… Once everything was-” A small jerk as she uncaught the wheel of a rolling table from something and pulled the cart further toward her. “-All set to go, we sorta realized there were gonna be too many of us to fit, what with how many wounded there were.”

She opened a bottle and poured a bit of its contents into a container. “A mecha supine takes up as much space as about three people standing up straight in their weight class, so.” She replaced the cap. “We ran out of room on the floor a little faster than we thought we would.” As she continued, she the last-sparked took up a hemostat, took up a mesh pad, dipped it in the fluid, then reached forward some to gently ease the adhesive away from Rain’s shoulder with her digits.

“I ended up staying behind with a small team of medics and patients. Got to know those guys real well, lemme tell ya.”

[Rain]

Rain eagerly listened to Patch and her story. Focusing on the medics voice, instead of her own inner thoughts was helping again. Lying down was increasing her energon flow to her extremities and the cold numbing was starting to wear off though. Rain was actually ok with this for now. She could turn the pain inward for now and keep herself grounded. She adjusted the tarp pillow to be as comfortable as possible, generally looking slightly awkward in the process.Her head wasn't really accessorized with the intent of side support. Odd protrusions were aesthetically shaped rather than boringly functional.

"Back that bumper up Patch! You're telling me you had a spot on a ship leaving Cybertron when it hit critical and then they couldn't fit the last of you in?! By the Triptych Mask Patch! I apologize on behalf of the universe." Rain struggled to imagine what it must have been like to see the ship one was supposed to be on just leave you behind in the dust. It was among the slaggiest scenarios she could envisage. She rolled her singular optic in dismay.

"I mean frag that! I was stuck in the manganese mountains scraping energon from the rocks when everyone on the other side of the planet up and left. I didn't even know at the time." Rain felt pretty slagged when she did find out that she had effectively been abandoned, but she wasn't forced to watch it happen.

"How did you all survive? And how did you manage to get here? Kamal?"

[Patch]

Patch gave Rain an embarrassed smile as she was told to go back. A sheepish huff escaping her at even the loose implication she’d done something heroic.

A sort of melancholy filled her spark at the attempted apology. She appreciated what Rain was trying to do, but… Sometimes life just wasn’t fair. It wasn’t anything to get upset over; of course you had to feel the feelings at the TIME, let them through instead of bottling them away, but… Staying had been Patch’s choice.

She sure as all hell wasn’t leaving behind another hospital…

As the bandage way peeled away -now lightly dappled in glowing azure- Patch peered closely at the damage once more. The previous hemostat still carefully clamped off the severed major line, a new one hovering in Patch servo with a small bit of mesh-pad between it’s tiny jaws.

“Auuh…” A lightened sound, in response to the question. A roll of her helm toward the ceiling, as she physically searched for the proper way to word it.

The short answer was they didn’t.
Thankfully there was another question to respond to.

“Oh! Uh, no.” Lightly, the young femme dipped the soft, fluid covered pad to sweep a bit of energon off the edge of Rain’s wound. “I was scanning for radio frequencies one night, aaand. I picked up a vehicon believe it or not.”

“Cons have got a spacebridge out here evidently, and it was during the truce, so… He brought me through. Dumped me in the middle of the desert.” Once the little object was well covered in capalerial energon, Patch eased the small fluffy thing down into an empty basin, then picked up another; lather, rinse, repeat. Her movements cautious, though swift.

“Guess the guy took pity on me.” And Primus was she glad he had… She really hadn’t much time left by then.

[Rain]

Rain's optic causally followed the movements of the medic. Her shoulder barely hurt at all thanks to Patch but there was still sensation and Rain was thankful for that too. It had been eons since she had had nightmares of her empurata procedure, where she was forced to watch and not feel, but the memories long twisted by time still lingered. No matter how much she trusted Patch, or any other medic, she preferred to watch and make certain they were helping her and not mutilating. 

The flier rolled her optic at Patch's answer to how she had made it to Earth and chuckled just slightly, but not enough that the motion would disturb the medic's deft motions. "I have some pity for those Vehicons." Vehicon, eradicons, troopers, the name was irrelevant, they were the clone troopers and cannon fodder in Megatron's army. Not one of them had been sparked before the war.

"You and your profession may know more than me on this one. I've only heard rumours or seen circumstantial evidence at best, but as far as I heard, the original Vehicon soldiers were all made in Autobot facilities. They were to be our blank slate expendable soldiers. Megatron freed them from their Autobot enslavement, only to turn our weapon against us. They never had a choice and I find it now ironic that one chose to save you. It honestly gives me a little more hope for our species." That someone, especially one of the throttled vehicons, when not given a directive to kill would choose to instead save was a welcome story. 

"I feel sorry for every vehicon ever sparked-to-kill only to die. They have far more good than that black sparked seeker glitch from earlier ever could. She can go straight to hell!" Rain rarely felt much hatred but that one Decepticon, with all her bravado, had earned Rain's ire. Exacting vengeance however would be most tricky. The 'Con Glitch was very capable.

"Sorry if that's a little dark, but I'm finding thoughts of that one hard to shake." Once upon a time, such darkness had been alien to Rain, but she knew exactly when that knot had started growing, and why she could not unravel it.

[Patch]

As Rain spoke, Patch continued to quietly clean. Rubbing the small mesh pads along to soak up fuel, and sweep dirt and dihydrogen monoxide away from any sensitive silver dermal metal exposed by the injury. Occasionally, she reached up to the hooked instrument from before, and lowered it to suck up excess fluids or fuel with a slight crackling hiss.

She… wasn’t really sure what being a medic would have to do with knowledge on the origin of vehicons. Sure, she may have worked with them in a non-lethal capacity slightly more than the average soldier, but that didn’t mean she knew slag about them sides where energon could go in when they wouldn’t take it willingly.

Of course she’d heard rumors. Everyone heard rumors… All the more reason Patch was hesitant to believe any one thing… Especially something that sounded so much like a Con psychologist’s attempt at demoralisation. So many origin stories these days were cooked up in labs. Some almost sounded real, others were completely ridiculous.

Psychological warfare, ‘bullshit bombs’ as they called them on Earth; Try to hurt someone’s feelings enough to make them weak opponents. The pity was, sometimes it worked. Sometimes a well crafted tale did worm it’s way through the ranks, did plant seeds of doubt in the minds of soldiers.

The last sparked was very much desensitized to it at this point. True or not, so many awful things happened in war, to Patch, it was sadly just another chunk of potential rubble in an endless sea. Even still, it was a shame Rain seemed to believe the worst so easily.

“Eh. Hope’s a good thing.” Was all Patch chose to respond with. Not bothered. It wasn’t her place to comment, the young femme decided. After all, maybe it was true! And even if it wasn’t arguing with a soldier losing energon wouldn’t do a damn thing for either of them.

As Rain apologize for being dark, Patch actually let out a huff of a laugh.

“It’s been what, all of ten minutes?” The medic replied jokingly. It was perfectly acceptable for Rain to still be upset at this point in her opinion. “Glitch was tryna’ta kill you for frag’s sake, toss her in the verbal gutter for all I care.” the young femme sounded egregiously adjusted to this sort of reaction. Complete understanding in her tone as she casually worked.

As she moved to set the hemostat down, Patch noticed the condensation on the outside of Rain’s plating was beginning to fade. She picked up the nitrogen gun once again, and moved to administer another dose. “It’s harder to leave it on the battlefield with bridges anyway. One second you’re there, the next you’re not. No time to process on the march. Just… Gone.” She steadied the other femme’s shoulder with her servo. “It’s hard to get used to.”

[Rain]

On her side with her head on a makeshift pillow, Rain was no longer in a position to watch Patch at work. With visual focus nowhere else to go, she simply watched Patch instead as she moved back and forth, imagining the medic with new paint and other minor cosmetic alterations. It was an old habit and one Rain had never bothered to shake off. For all her higher ideals, Rain often fell back to the easy comfort of aesthetics.

“I thought you medics were save-all-life.” Rain teased. “I’m glad you’re a bit more pragmatic than that.” Sometimes sadly, Rain thought, some people are a detriment to the lives of those around them and as such, were not fit for society. Rain had met a few enemy soldiers during the war a little too kill hungry, more than one Autobot too. It was a sad fact of reality, that some sparks were corrupt.

“That was actually my first time escaping combat with a technomagic doorway. It’s odd, part of me feels like that seeker is only a few wing beats away, and yet I know she’s back somewhere around Alaska no doubt aggravated that her toys ran away.” Rain paused for a second. "Just imagine I'm shrugging right now ok." One shoulder underneath her and the medic fixing the other, Rain was incapable of much gesticulation. 

“But I know it’s not over with that one, unsettled scores.” There was a touch of uncertainty in her tone, a shadow of the fear she was denying. Rain was not looking forward to round two, if or when it happened. Rain knew she was outclassed there in sheer combat potential. The Decepticons continued to hold Air superiority. 

“I wonder if Windshield would recognise her description, put a name in my report. Slag! That’s going to be fun. Now doubt Prowl will want to chew me out too.” She chuckled with self depreciation to hide her genuine dread. "Still, I stand by my actions."

[Patch]

With yet another bite of cold, the numbness established by the nitrogen before would wash over Rain’s shoulder once more. A short hiss in one spot, a slightly longer one in another. Two little pulses in a farther corner to see that she was thorough, and the aching would once again cease.

“I thought you medics were save-all-life.”

Ooh hoo hoo! THAT was a can of worms!

“Heh. Yeah.” Spoken with an almost painful attempt to sound comfortable. A soft chuckle that fell out just a little too fast. That… Really tended to depend a lot more on the commander than the medic, which… Led Patch to some unfortunate feelings, one way AND the other. Even if it was meant to be a silly joke, it happened to be a rather sore spot to the young femme.

Thankfully the femme kept going, and Patch gladly went right along with her- still only idly distracted by her primary focus. She leaned a bit farther over her patient, carefully peering into her wound. She picked up the previous hemostat, and the line already clamped, then gave herself a bit more room to work by releasing it, and biting it down once more as far back as she could get it. She then -taking up the suction again in her other servo- ran her digits down the tube to void the excess energon.

A soft crumbling hiss of liquid cut in as she spoke again. “Auugh, you have my sympathy. He can be…” ‘Stern’? ‘Aggressive’? Downright ‘scary’?

“A little intense.”

The young medic was still a little achy from her most recent spar with the officer. Though, she’d gotten to know him better during that time he’d granted her. Seemed like a genuine hard-aft. Closed off. Probly’ some sort of trauma down the line that got him thinking people would only slow him down; BUT! There was still some little inkling of care deep deep down. Some ounce of pride in what he did- maybe even for the people he worked with, given enough time.

“He means well though, most of the time.” She said, as she began fishing for the opposite end of the line and repeated the process.

“Try, uh… Not to take anything he says too personal…” Patch wasn’t sure how recently Rain had served at an ordinary, formal GI base, but given her stories so far, and general demeanor? The last-sparked figured she should give the femme a heads up. “He can be a bit to the point. A little callous. Seems to like formality though, if you’re lookin’ to get on his good side.”

[Rain]

Rain cocked her optic at Patch trying to read between the unspoken lines. There was clearly a lot there behind the medics optics. Maybe a topic for another day when patient and doctor were better acquainted and definitely in a less compromising situation. She was curious though because she could empathize with the desire to save life, and the occasional need to take it.

For a moment Rain closed her optic and just felt the cold of the nitrogen settle into her shoulder. The medic knew best of course. The discomfort dissipated slowly until it was a barely there numbness, more noticeable by a lack of any sensation. She’d rather have had a little pain, but she wasn’t going to reveal her ever so slight masochism to Patch and stir up a dervish. Really she simply wanted to feel, as a medically induced loss of feeling carried a bit of emotional burden.

“I can say I have had a lot of practise in not taking things personally.” She joked. A face and hands to scare the masses needed thick skin to protect the mind behind the facade.

“Good advice, thank you. I’m not sure how good I am with formalities though. I’m very rusty in that department.” The formalities she was good at was social parties 5 million years ago. Military formality just didn’t fly with her very well, but that was entirely on her and nothing to do with the commanders. But she had never been rank and file in any way much at all.

“So what's the remedy doc? A bit of super glue and wishful thinking?” Now she was gently teasing, trying to keep a jovial air about. “Unless you got some spare hands in one of those drawers?” Which would have been entirely morbid, and very improper handling. 

[Patch]

“Eh. Kinda.” The young medic replied with a raise of the brow and sly sort of smile to the comment on the Earth product ‘superglue’. Eluding to the technique to come; Rain had been remarkably close, after-all.

“Oh wouldn’t that be wonderful.” Patch spoke unfazed by the rather macabre idea of keeping dead limbs in drawers to be attached to the living. “Unfortunately decent spares and upgrades are few and far between out here. Ya lose something, with what we got? It’s probably gonna stay lost.”

An unfortunate fact of operating in an outpost, but an important thing to remember nevertheless. Metal and medicine didn’t just appear out of thin air after all. Though Ratchet seemed able to work magic at times, and Patch could do a lot with a little… Their supplies were still desperately limited. Nothing could be wasted here. Even if already worn, and used, so long as Rain’s second-hand servo could be repaired? She would sorely have to make do, as they all did.

“Right now I’m just fishin’ for energon lines. You’ve got a major one severed right now. I’ll get that back together, re-solder a few disconnected points, then seal ya up with a bead.” Welding. Uncomfortable, but necessary for large gashes such as this one. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the process, nitrogen was not an effective anesthetic. Nothing could stay cold with heat like that, though Rain seemed strong beneath her shiny surface. Patch was sure if it got too much, she’d let her know and they could re evaluate.

Once the distal side of Rain’s line had been found, clamped and voided, the young medic reached to her tools, and found a small tube of rubberized, quick solidifying sealant. Specially designed for repairs like this, it would wear away at the same rate the line would re-develop.

“Keep really still for me, okay?” The medic muttered, as she placed a small dab on her metallic digit tip, then rubbed it on one side of the line. Extremely cautious not to squeeze the rubberish tube flat as it re-solidified. Patch pressed the sides to meet, and held them for a count of fifteen. Just long enough it would hold itself together.

“I’m sorry to tell ya, but it’s lookin’ like you might be in a brace for a couple days.” She said, as the last few seconds drew out. Once it seemed the connection would hold, and was no longer tacky, she reached down and took up an empty syringe. “It’ll keep the internals in place while they rest and recover, but it will impede your transformation.”

The last-sparked medic popped the needle between the two clamps, just to the right of the new connection. With a practiced, confident angle she drew up the air inside until the line sat flat between the silver devices. She removed the one stopping downward flow, though left the other to hold the fuel from progressing as she picked up her scanner once more. A small flick of yellow beam over the open portion of her patient’s shoulder.

No air embolism. Good.

Satisfied there were no bubbles trapped within the repaired line, Patch drew out the final clamp and placed it in a metal basin with a few soft clinks; allowing energon flow to return as normal to Rain’s extremity. Without fuss, she picked up a cloth beside the container and wiped the fresh, glowing blue from her own digit tips. She then took suction in one servo, and a few more mesh pads in the other to clean up the internal space a bit more thoroughly.

[Rain]

"Stay lost" Rain thought as her attention strayed back to her missing antler. They were non-living metal. To replace the missing one, she could probably forge something but wasn't even sure she would bother. That could be a project for tomorrow she considered. She also wondered if there would be any trouble for leaving a piece of cyber alloy out in the wild for humans to find. Maybe she could retrieve it, maybe she should. It was a decision best left to those higher up the chain lest she get further into trouble for her poor judgement.

At Patch's request that she stay still, Rain did exactly that, halted her venting and didn't even dare speak until the medic was done. Onyx knew that the position had been reversed often enough when Rain was applying detailing. No one liked a fidgety patient.

"Grounded for a couple of days? I'm sure that will keep Prowl and Red Alert happy" Sure rain loved to get out and fly, she didn't need to do so every day, sometimes, it wasn't even worth facing the weather for.

The thought of welding made Rain firm up her resolve. “Don't worry too much about numbing cold when you do the beading. I um, I prefer to feel what's happening to me. My um, convoluted medical history..” If she could have shrugged she would have. Some days Rain still wanted to actually talk about the empurata, she recognised she still needed the occasional catharsis as true and final acceptance still eluded her. No amount of effort to actually embrace the change had so far worked permanently, her antlers and other aesthetics mods visible evidence of her efforts.

[Patch]

“Not a problem.” An non judgemental answer.

Though Patch didn’t dare compare her experience to that of an empanada survivor… During what time she’d spent lying helpless and in pain, she’d learned to value the privilege of numbness, and resources… That didn’t mean someone stuck with worse, or different experiences would end up wanting the same though.

Whatever it was, it was for the better. Though a patient with history of medical neglect, or mistreatment would be a high priority for anything to ease the discomfort of reliving that... Patch wasn’t sure what more they could spare. Their stock was almost pathetically limited, and though nitrogen was something attainable here… It was still expensive. It still put strain on Agent Fowler to acquire it for them, and cost the human government money.

She picked up a laser scalpel, eased it’s little dial to a low setting, then leaned in to twiddle around a bit with it. Small adjustments. Displaced solder re-melted where it was meant to be. Small pinches of heat. Those with longer durations tapped at with the tip of a digit after to try and relieve whatever of the small discomforts she could.

“Almost done up here. How’s the servo fairing? The wing? What’s your next chief complaint?”

Once satisfied with the state of Rain’s wiring, Patch left her side once more to begin collecting the pieces needed to assemble the brace, and a welder; a large, white and red chunky thing, with a wire between it’s boxy body, and the bit one held to work.