Antidote for the unknown soldier

[hajimenoippolit.livejournal.com]

It was odd, Polya thought as he opened the infirmary door, armed with the antidote Khostov had provided from the base's medical supplies. These past days he had been preserving life more often than deciphering the messages left in the act of dying. It did little to balance the harm he had done to a man already lost and afraid.

Maybe in the interim he had remembered his name.

The room was cool and white.

"I've brought the antidote," Rakitin said quietly, loath to unbalance the delicate approximation of peace.

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[zabytsya.livejournal.com]

"Do me a favor," David said.

He paused, and glanced at the door for a moment, then lowered his voice.

"After the poison clears and I'm doing a little better, put in a good word with the nurses for me so I can get out of here early."

David smiled, slightly, faintly. He wasn't in the mood to smile at all, but he managed it, a faint press of his lips.

"And I promise I'll take it easy and rest in my quarters. I just don't want to be here."

His look was intent.

"Could you do that for me?" he asked, quietly.

[hajimenoippolit.livejournal.com]

"For that, we would need to know which quarters are yours," Polya pointed out gently.

He could sympathise. He hated the unnatural sterility of hospitals, the endless blank white. It was no place for a living soul.

Unfortunately necessary, like any number of things.

"I don't think asking that favor would get the results you're hoping for."

The businesslike Eurenides that had the run of these hallways had no reason to be kindly disposed toward Polya to begin with.

Rakitin's eyes flicked across the bandage on the soldier's chest concealing the star-shaped wound where the primitive poison had been administered.

"Don't be in any hurry to push yourself."

He wondered if amnesia felt like an itch across the memory, trying to make a connection that you knew was there but that refused to come to light.

"For now, just try to remember what you can."

[zabytsya.livejournal.com]

"Okay," David said.

If even the pathologist - who was qualified to work with the living, but still - didn't think he should leave the infirmary early, he supposed he was stuck.

The antidote must have been starting to work, because he felt warm and dizzy, as if the cure was flushing all the poison from him forcibly.

David nodded, getting drowsy.

"Are you - "

He hesitated.

"Do you need to check to make sure the antidote's working, later?"

[hajimenoippolit.livejournal.com]

The man must have been tired if he was agreeing that easily. Though Rakitin could hardly say he knew him well, he suspected this was not someone accustomed to giving up.

"That's right," he said. "I'll be back as soon as I can. To check on the antidote."

Hopefully no one else gets poisoned or murdered for a while.

[zabytsya.livejournal.com]

David murmured his assent, and closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, Rakitin was gone, and it was not difficult to close them again and succumb to the shadows.