17 Leo

I was tasked with getting more paper from Winston so the Med-jacks can take one final bit of inventory before the day is up. We've been doing inventory for four hours now, if you forget the fact that we did inventory yesterday as well. And I assume every other day to ever happen.

At least, I was supposed to be getting paper for inventory. I did no such thing, not for any particular reason except that I can't manage to bring myself to ask exactly who Winston is, and where I can find him. Nothing I try to do is done right. Why does my own inadequacy swallow me whole?

Besides, Clint and Jeff won't miss me. The two are inseparable, and I feel as if I am causing some underlying tension every time I join them in a room. I get that I am not supposed to be here, but I thought I would at least some-what fit in with the two of them.

I wasn't mistaken, but that doesn't mean I was right.

"Med-jack!" I hear someone scream the words, as I glance around for their origin.

Just a ways east of where I stand on the porch of the Homestead, are the Gardens.

My feet step up off of the porch, as the eyes a boy or two flashes off of what they are building, moving towards me.

"Med-jack!" The same voice cries, and I can see a boy running towards me.

Builders are trickling in, all of them standing behind me, curiously peering towards the sound but not wanting to get involved. The boy who runs to me is coming from the Gardens. He is sprinting for the Homestead as fast as he can, and it takes a few seconds before my feet pick up speed, and I am running his way.

When I meet him in the center of the field, just north of the Box, he pants before stumbling past me. "A girl collapsed in the Gardens."

Shuck.

My feet carry me, thick and heavy boots pounding and tearing apart the dirt, as I get as closer to the Gardens. The young girl has collapsed in the Gardens. Or maybe it was Dawn coming to see her, or Michelle about to start a fight. I hope it was one of the ones I know for some odd reason, rather than the small defenseless girl. The one who can't even speak.

When I get there, a boy with black hair is kneeling in the dirt, holding on to something below him. It becomes apparent the closer I get that between the tomatoes lies the tiny girl, shaking. Her eyes are closed and she jerks up and down. Clenched fingers are at the end of her shaking hands, leading up to her head twisted on an angle.

"Don't touch her."

I know what this is. She is having a seizure. The memory of a seizure before this scratches at my mind, though I know I can't access it, and I don't care to try. It doesn't matter how I know what is happening, all that matters is that I know what to do next.

She thrashes and the vines tangle up around her.

I reach down into the dirt beneath her body, ripping apart the tomatoes. The Keeper doesn't stop me, only stands by and watches. If she is too close to the vines, they will strangle her. Who cares if a few tomato plants get destroyed in the process? If it means she can breathe, then that's a small sacrifice to pay.

"What's happening?" The Keeper asks over my shoulder.

"She's having a seizure." I tell him. "How long has this been happening?"

He shrugs, shaking his head. "I don't know? A minute."

"Time it from now on." I look over my shoulder. "We need to know how long it lasts.

The boy stares me down, a deer caught in headlights.

I look at him directly into his eyes. "Now."

I hear his watch beeping as he sets a timer, and I turn back to the little girl. Quickly ripping open the top few buttons on her purple shirt so she doesn't choke, all the precautions I need to take come back to me.

"Give me your shirt." I turn around to see the Keeper staring at me.

I stick my hand out. He stares at me, before lifting the fabric over his head. When I feel it in my hands, I take it and roll it up into a ball. Carefully, I lift her head up and place the shirt underneath her head.

"Where are the Med-jacks?" I ask.

The Keeper pokes me, and when I turn around, I see him pointing past me. Running from the Homestead come Jeff and Clint. They sprint together, carrying a wicker basket that I only imagine is filled with medical supplies.

It doesn't matter now, because there is nothing left to do except wait for it to pass. Only two minutes in, there's not much reason to worry.

"What's going on?" Clint asks as he approaches me.

"She's seizing," I answer.

He bends over anyway, checking the girl out below me. "Yeah?"

"How did you know to do that?" Jeff demands, crossing his arms and staring me down.

I shrug. It's like how I know that I could ride a bike if I so chose to. There are no memories in my head of bike riding, yet all the same, if a bicycle was presented before me I know I could use it. The same goes for treating seizure it would seem.

"How long has it been happening?" Clint asks, checking out the girl's fading twitches.

"Only three minutes." The Keeper remarks. "Maybe four?"

It should be over soon. I can tell from the way her head teeters to the side instead of shakes, and from how her breath is becoming audible and calmer. The Keeper is leering down over top of her, trying to get close enough to make sure the girl is alright. Jeff holds him back anyway, without a sign of a struggle.

"Leo."

I turn to look at the girl on the ground. She rolls her head through the vines. Her eyes are drowning in a pool of her own sweat, which come from both the convulsions and the summer heat.

"I've, I must-" she can't continue the words that slur and slip on the ocean on her face.

"She's awake," I begin. "Someone should bring her back to the Homestead."

Clint turns to me, a furrowed brow and a shocked look wearing him like a mask. "We're not moving her seconds after she's had a seizure."

"She'll get heat stroke if we don't Clint." Jeff jumps in, letting go of the Keeper next to him and bending over to help the girl.

For a second, I watch Clint make a decision. His fingertips itch as they bend. Eyes darting back and forth, he doesn't know what will help the girl next. I guess that is what being a Med-jack is. A series of guesses with someone's life hanging in the balance.

Maybe this isn't cut out for me.

"Leo." The girl begins. When she speaks words slur out her mouth in a language I have heard but do not comprehend. Perhaps it is just gibberish, but it seems as though the girl is putting in too much effort for this to be nothing but nonsense.

"Sorry?" I tumble towards the girl, my feet tripping in the ripped vines of the tomatoes as I try to bring myself closer to her.

They continue to bring her off as I try to follow without tripping in the plants below. This little girl does not speak. For as long as I've been awake she has said very few words, and certainly never my name. I am surprised she even knows it if I am honest.

She continues to mumble, and this time I actually do not catch the words.

"She speaks to you?" The Keeper asks behind me.

I don't bother to stop and listen to him, as I move towards the girl. What is she talking about?

Tight and callused hands wrap around my arm. I spin on my heels to get a better look at the boy, the Keeper of the Gardens, holding me firmly in place. When I look back the small girl is further away. There is no use to fighting; it will only create a scene.

"She talks to you?" He asks again.

I shake my head. "No. Does she speak to you?"

"She speaks to herself." He tells me. "I mind my own business, keep to myself, never bothered to mention it, but she does it a lot. Never thought much of it, until she was whispering before she fell over."

"You hear what she says?" I ask.

He shakes his head. "It's not words I understand. Not this language. Thought you might have gotten it."

No, I don't. I wonder how she can speak another language, or if perhaps Dawn and Newt do. It would explain the funny accents. However, the small one has no accent, I think. Maybe she doesn't speak any English at all, and that is why I have never heard her talk besides a few words.

"I'll tell you what I find out." It's an empty promise, but he lets go of me when I say it.

I try to convince myself it is not a conscious lie when I head back to the Homestead. If he wants to know about her, it's not business to tell him, however it's not my business to hide it either. As much as it's twisted, he let me go and that was not only all that I wanted, but all that I needed him to do.

My hands reach around the doorknob and I enter into the building. The air is the same temperature in here as it is in the Glade, but there is a breeze that flows in and out the windows. I don't understand how it can be so calm and how I can be so calm when all that I want to do is panic.

"Leo." Newt's feet make the stairs creak as he pounds down them.

His limp is obvious as he pulls himself close to me, grabbing a hold of me by the arms. "You won't believe-"

"I know." I tell him. "I was there."

He cocks an eyebrow, trying to steady his breath as he glances around. "Well, we've got to find Dawn, because it doesn't look good."

The little girl seemed find when I last saw her. I mean, she had just had a seizure and was talking nonsense, but she was more or less okay? What could have happened in the time since she entered the building? It's not another seizure, is it?

I push past Newt, and he actually lets me go. The surprise hits me, and I notice it, but I don't turn around.

"Where are you going?" He asks. "We've got to get Dawn."

"I have to be up there helping." I tell him. "I am a Med-jack after all."

His eyes widen, and he moves up the stairs next to me. "Who's hurt? What is going on?"

"I thought you knew." I follow him up, watching as he darts around a corner and burst through a door into the med room.

The girl lies on the bed, her hair sprawled out about her, and vomit in her hair. Someone has placed a cold cloth on her head, and she shivers and shakes.

"What happened?" I dart past Newt, running and opening the cabinet and searching inside it.

"She just started throwing up," Jeff notes. "I think she has heatstroke. It would explain the vomiting, and the shivering."

"And the seizure." Clint offers, though he doesn't sound entirely convinced.

Right, none of us are trained doctors or know what we are doing. This becomes especially evident when I stand in front of the cupboard and don't know the first thing to grab. There is medicine, and vials, and syringes and gauze, and all sorts of things. None of which seem useful in making the girl on the bed coherent.

"Is she alright?" I ask, spinning around to looking at her.

"Leo." Newt begins. "We have to go?"

"What?" I ask.

When I meet his eyes, he doesn't seem happy about it either. He wears desperation and exhaustion, and it ways down the colour from his face. So much so that he is paler than he was to begin with. He reaches over towards me, but doesn't touch me. He gestures for me to follow him.

"What is going on?" I ask.

"I'll explain it later." He tells me.

That isn't enough. I can't leave the little girl.

"Leo."

The room stills at the girl's words. The only other sound comes from Jeff's vile smashing off the ground. Her voice is different than before. It is still and calm like the ocean on her forehead, and sure of what she is about to say.

"You have to be the leader," she says. "I can't, it didn't-"

She cuts herself off by wincing, and creasing her head. Leaning over the bed, green bile topples out of her mouth and on to the ground, joining the mess that Jeff's vile made on the wood floor.

"Leo," he says. "We have to go. Now."

I don't know what to do, but I am no help here, and Newt is very persistent. Instead of causing any further of a scene, I follow him out the room and down the stairs.

"What is going on?" I demand.

"It's Michelle," he begins. "She is going to be banished."

~~~~~~~~~~

Okay, when I was editing this three things happened. The first, being I remembered how tired I was when I wrote this, and like redid half the chapter. After that, I realised I sort of dicked up the plot a bit, so I have to go forward and change a bunch of things. Curse you Leo.

And finally, I read the last line and got all teary-eyed. Oh how much I love this up-and-coming plot.

Stay safe, until Sunday (yes it's early again, I'm feeling very motivated, sue me).