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It was okay.
No arteries were cut.
As far as I could tell, his organs weren’t either.
It was a lot of blood not because of serious damage, but because of how rough and deep the wounds were.
“What the hell were you stabbed with?” I mumbled to myself as I flushed the wound, needing to see past all the blood. “Oh, there you are,” I said, catching a flash of something metallic.
“Okay, Seeley,” I said, taking a steadying breath as I reached for a tweezer. “Let’s say a silent prayer together, okay, that this comes out without showing us anything new and unexpected.”
With that, I closed the tweezers around it and pulled.
Which was what made Seeley shoot awake, eyes huge, unseeing for a moment, likely just blinded by the pain.
“Hey, you’re okay,” I murmured as I dropped the piece of the knife onto the tray. “It’s me. You’re at the clinic.”
“Ama?” he called, his head tipping down so his gaze could land on me.
“Yeah,” I said, giving him a smile I really didn’t feel right then, not with my nerves jangling together like they were, making me feel shaky and nauseated. “It’s me.”
“You’re taking care of me,” he said, brows furrowing as his blood-covered hands curled into fists.
He was hurting.
Even if he wasn’t showing it.
I knew from patients that being stabbed was either like having a hot poker inside of you, or like being struck in the stomach with a bat repeatedly, depending on which patient you asked.
“Yes,” I said, flushing the wound again.
“But you hate me,” he said, and when I looked up, his eyes were unreadable.
He’d always had a good poker face. Too good. I’d always been envious of that fact. I wore all my feelings right there on my face for everyone else to see.
“Was I supposed to let you bleed to death in my waiting room?” I asked. “Are you hurt anywhere else?”
“This is bad enough,” he said, making a stab of sympathy shoot through me.
“Someone was shot?” Michael asked, voice tight, as he threw open the door.
“Stabbed,” I clarified. “Good timing. Can you run a bag for me?” I asked. “He’s lost a lot of blood.” Not quite a transfusion level. And even if I recommend that, he wasn’t going to do it. Because it would involve going to the hospital. Where some men in uniform would have questions about how he got stabbed in the abdomen several times.
“On it,” Michael said, using some sanitizer, then slipping on gloves to get to work. “Oral antibiotics? Pain meds?”
“Yes. We’re low on the pain meds still,” I said, hating to have to ration, but it was nothing new. You had to be careful with that stuff. But, sometimes, I worried that we were more careful than we should be, refusing to give it to patients who genuinely needed it.
“It’s fine. I don’t need it.”
“You do,” I objected. “You were stabbed,” I reminded him.
“I know. I was there,” he said, trying to shoot me a familiar smirk, but it died and fell away almost immediately.
“Give him one,” I said, going to grab the supplies to stuff in the deeper of the wounds, not wanting to leave it open for an infection to try to form.
“And when’s the last time you had a tetanus shot?” Michael asked as he ran the line for the fluids.
Seeley’s gaze slid to me, which gave me all the information I needed. I’d been the one to force him to get his last tetanus shot.
