The Ends of Worlds - 2:1

Demyx wasn't sure how long he'd been unconscious, if he had been. All things considered, it seemed awfully likely. But that was only a minor detail; what counted for more was that he was still alive, still in pain, and still aboard the TARDIS. And, he was reasonably sure, he could distantly hear that grinding noise that meant the TARDIS was either taking off or landing. Since the Doctor had promised a hospital, and he didn't remember a hospital yet, it damn well better have been landing. Though if the Doctor had decided to screw him over, and was just going off wherever he pleased...well, there wasn't a blessed, damned, or morally neutral thing Demyx could do about it except portal home, get Vexen's help, and try to put together a real rescue mission, but...Gods above, it was bad enough that Axel was trapped on that dying world without even more of the Organization being in danger, and if a rescue mission had to be carried out in real time, it might already be too late. Besides, the Doctor's previous outburst notwithstanding, Demyx just couldn't make himself believe that he even might betray him...even if he was a Nobody or a Meanwhile or whatever the Doctor chose to think of him as...right?...

There was a bump, which Demyx had sort of been expecting and sort of braced himself for. A minute later, the Doctor came back in, looking cheerful-with-a-strong-undertone-of-worried. "Welcome to the year 5,000,000,070, New Earth, New New York; the view will be much more impressive once we get outside," he announced, as though this was a regularly scheduled airline flight newly arrived at its destination. "At least, that should be where and when we are. And, if I got the coordinates right, we should be right outside the finest hospital on the planet. Now that it's been cleaned up and all and..." He trailed off, while Demyx was still nodding intently and pretending to make sense of anything he said, and seemed to reconsider his explanation. "I'll tell you all about that while you recover. I'll go get you...something that's not torn up and bloody."

"'Preciate it," Demyx grunted as the Doctor disappeared again, gingerly peering under the sheets to see the extent of the damage. Blessed Gods, that was...he didn't want to think how bad; he'd rather just be grateful for the fact that the Doctor had just happened to be right there right then, and was getting something to cover up the fact that he was wearing nothing except a bloody pair of uniform pants. All right, could he stand on his own? Demyx tended to pride himself on being able to function in spite of injury, but even sitting up made him incredibly dizzy. Shoes - he'd probably need his boots back, at least, but trying to get off the bed seemed to hold a serious risk of ending up on the floor, and the last thing he needed was more damage. Fortunately, it seemed, the Doctor had kept that in mind - he was coming back with a pair of drawstring pants, an oversized hoodie, and a pair of flip-flops. "Oh, good...somethin' easy to put on," he mumbled as the Doctor left again to let him change.

It took him longer than Demyx expected to come back, and when he did, he didn't look any too pleased. "I could have sworn I had a wheelchair in here somewhere, but I can't seem to find it," he said, before Demyx had a chance to ask. "I'm sure I'll stumble over it while I'm looking for a hydraulic spanner or something, but I can't waste more time on that right now. Come on; up you get. We'll do the best we can here..." With that, the Doctor sat down next to him, slinging Demyx's arm over his shoulder, and hoisted him off the bed. Demyx came that close to passing out from the strain, and was rather proud of himself that he didn't. "How are you feeling?"

"...'Ugh' seems to cover it," Demyx mumbled, leaning heavily on the Doctor's shoulder because he would most likely fall over if he didn't. "I just need...somebody...to lean on...oh, Gods, my poor singing voice...I swear...not usually that bad..."

"...You know, Demyx, maybe it'd be better if you just didn't talk right now."

"A'kay. If you say so." Demyx fell silent after that, focusing his dwindling energy on staying upright while the Doctor hauled him out of the TARDIS. It seemed to take ages - even assuming the medical wing or whatever was in the back, the TARDIS must have been even bigger than he'd thought - and he was feeling awfully close to dead by the time they finally got to the main control room, and the Doctor opened the door to reveal - "Ooh, shiny," Demyx couldn't help but say, forgetting that he wasn't supposed to talk. "So...tha' mus' be New New York. Prettier'n th'old one."

The Doctor said nothing, for a very long time, while Demyx wondered which of the many buildings around them was the hospital and why the Doctor wasn't doing anything. "No...this isn't New New York," he finally said. "I don't know where we are, and I don't know where the nearest hospital is."

"...What?...Fun. Jus' my luck," Demyx mumbled, trying not to simply fall over and take the Doctor with him. "What now?"

"Look for a building with a green crescent. That's how they mark hospitals in this day and age - do you see any buildings with green crescents?" The Doctor was already looking around, his calm facade already giving way to anxiety. Demyx, for his part, was cool enough with the situation to surprise himself, though he did take the time to glance around and make sure there weren't any green crescents to be seen. "All right...we're going to need an ambulance, then. Have to call one...you can stay conscious while I do that, right?"

"Eas'r said th'n done, Doc..." Oh, wow, the world was actually starting to do some funny things now. Getting all fuzzy and crap. No question about it; the Doctor's shoulder was the only thing keeping Demyx vertical anymore. "Iunno...maybe 'f I lie down, I c'n stay 'wake...ironic, innit..."

"No, no, you are not going to be lying down on the job right now if I have to slap you to keep you awake."

"...On th' job? Iunno, Doc...nah sure wheth'r 'm still onna clock righ' now 'r not. This...inn't e'zacly parta th'mission 'signment..." Fuck, it was starting to get dark already. How much blood had he lost? Maybe he should go back to doing what the Doctor said earlier and not talking...oh, man, couldn't he at least sit down for a second? Shit, he needed to keep what blood he still had circulating as normally as possible, and do its level best to keep conscious with it, but...eh, fuck it. Concentrating was just too difficult right now. Maybe if he lay down for a while, he'd be able to focus...

"What about your friend, Demyx? What about Axel? You can't just leave him there, can you?...Hey! Hey, taxi! Over here! It's an emergency!"

"'mergency...? S'fine, Doc. Gonna be fine. Jus'...lemme lie down...jus' a sec...'n then we cn' go get Ax..."

"Demyx, I already told you, you will not be lying down - taxi! Not be lying down right now! There's a taxi coming over, I'll get you to a hospital, and then you can lie down all you like, but not now."

"C'mon, Doc...so damn tired..."

"Look, Demyx, the taxi's here. We'll be on our way in a minute; you just have to stay awake. All right?" Demyx couldn't do much more than nod as the Doctor half-shoved, half-lifted him into...some...roughly car-sized vehicle; he was entirely too dizzy to even attempt to care what exactly it was, as long as the Doctor climbed in after him. "Take us to the hospital, quickly," he heard the Doctor telling the driver, as if he was a mile away. "It's an emergency - Demyx, I told you to stay awake!"

"C'mon, Doc," Demyx mumbled, barely able to make out his own voice and not caring why. "'m gonna be fine. Jus'...so tired..." Screw it, keeping his eyes open was just not worth the effort anymore. He was vaguely aware of a stinging slap against his cheek, but he was just too tired to care.

"...Ai, Ganesha. Cat nuns. Now that's...everything."

Demyx blinked, and was surprised to realize that had been his own voice babbling about cat nuns a second ago. He was at least as surprised to discover that the cat nuns in question were actually there, as opposed to being hallucinations of some kind. One of them, that might have looked like a Siamese if he could see her entire pattern, was hanging a bag of something white from an IV stand; the other, a calico, was pressing something against his bare arm, and giving him a funny look. "...Sorry," Demyx mumbled, aware that he probably sounded extremely stupid. "Been out of it for...crap. I don't even know how long."

The calico paused to enter something into a tablet that had been in her pocket, then seemed to do some math on her fingers. "It's been roughly six hours since you came in here," she said, her voice nothing less than professional. "How are you feeling?"

"Ergh...surprisingly not dead," Demyx answered, trying to sit up a little. They didn't try to stop him, so he presumed it was okay. "...Where's the Doctor?"

The calico seemed to think about that for a moment. "Sister Lith is the attending physician in your case," she finally answered. "Once you were stabilized, she was called back downstairs for an emergency overdose case. She will most likely be back up once the over-"

"I meant the guy who brought me here." It seemed so obvious now, that in a hospital, he should have specified who he meant by the Doctor. Oh, well, as long as someone actually found the man. "I...wanna see him. Let him know I'm not dead yet."

"Certainly," the calico said, though she was still fiddling with her tablet. Demyx had to wonder what she was doing, and what she thought about taking the vital signs of a dubiously-live patient that didn't have a pulse, since she hadn't mentioned it yet. "By the way, do you have any dietary restrictions or preferences we should know about?"

"Oh, good, that must mean I'll be allowed to eat," Demyx said before he could stop himself, and also took a moment to be grateful that despite the incredibly futuristic setting - based on the view of the outside, futuristic enough to make the Galaxy Far, Far Away look like a steampunk enclave - there was apparently still such a thing as real food. Unless it was actually some kind of processed edible material that would be flavored and dyed to mimic real food, but...well, if that was the case, thank the Gods he lived when he did and didn't have to stay here forever. "Anyway, I'm a vegetarian. Not super-strict - I still eat eggs and dairy and such. But - yeah."

"All right," the calico said, punching more things into her tablet. "Can I have your full name and date of birth, so we don't still have you in here as a John Doe? I suppose I should have asked that first, but oh well," she added as the Siamese finished what she was doing with the white IV bag and turned to her own tablet.

"My full name is Demyx Kumar Ghatori," Demyx said, for possibly the first time in his life to a stranger, because the Doctor already knew him as Demyx, it would be too confusing to have the Doctor calling him Demyx and everyone else calling him Edmy, and it just might be a common name in this day and age anyway. "Need me to spell that for you?" Crap, did they even use the same alphabet in this day and age?

"Ah, yes, if you could. The first and...well, how many names was that?"

...Well, crap. "Three all totaled. First name, D-E-M-Y-X, middle name, K-U-M-A-R, last name, G-H-A-T-O-R-I." The calico nurse tapped at her tablet for a few moments, then turned it towards him, to reveal his name spelled properly in a script he could comprehend. In Devanagari, rather to his own surprise. "Yeah, that's right."

"Excellent." The calico grinned, rather an odd effect, and took the tablet back. "Date of birth?"

"June first..." Demyx started, and then hesitated - if he gave his actual date of birth, he'd come across as being a hair older than five billion, which was just ridiculous. That, and did they even calculate the date the same way now? Stuck for an answer, he glanced over to the side, and saw a window - presumably to a hallway - mostly covered by a curtain, and a piece of paper in the one corner he could see out of that read "5.5/Apple/81". That made no sense at all to him, but he repeated it aloud anyway, in case it made sense to other people.

It apparently made sense to the calico nurse; she just nodded and entered it into her tablet. She seemed about to say something else, but then she paused and tapped at her tablet again, frowning a little, and turned to the Siamese. "Yin, there's just been a dozen more rage overdose cases in just the past hour," she said, partly talking to the Siamese - presumably Yin - and partly to the tablet. "Sister Lith is asking me to go down and help her." She tapped a few more things into her tablet, then wiped her frown away and turned to Demyx with a smile. "Anyway. My name is Novice Cait; this is Novice Yin -" the Siamese nodded on cue - "and if you need anything, just use the screen next to you."

She let herself out, and Novice Yin followed shortly after; the Doctor let himself in as she passed, carrying a folded bundle of clothing and a pair of shoes. He smiled when he saw Demyx awake and oriented, but it looked more forced than anything. "I brought you a spare set of clothes - something you could hopefully stand to wear when you get out," he said, setting the bundle down on a table. "How are you feeling?"

"Better than I had been, though I guess that wouldn't take much..." Demyx looked over at the pile of fresh clothes; he couldn't see too much detail with it all folded up, but there was denim, some dark grey sweatshirty-looking material, something black, and the shoes were a pair of black Converse, which nearly made him laugh. "How about you? You look sour about something."

The Doctor didn't answer immediately, just sat down in a convenient chair and stared off in some other direction. "I don't know if you've noticed, but your skin looks...awfully pale now," he said instead of anything relevant. "Must be from all that artificial blood."

"...Artificial...?" Demyx couldn't finish that statement before looking down at his own arms, and realizing that they were - hell, "pale" was an understatement; they were nearly ghost-white. Stunned, he looked up at the bag Novice Yin had hung from the IV stand, and did his best to read the upside-down text; it was tricky, but he could make out "Blood Substitute - Antigen And IgA Free - Safe For All Blood Types - For Use In The Following Species". And yes, the contents were whiter than snow. And Gods alone knew how many bags of that he had circulating in his veins instead of normal red human blood... "Shit, man, I look dead," he exclaimed, staring down at his ice-pale hands. "I look worse than I felt before I came in here. Couldn't they, like, dye the stuff red? So it doesn't make people look so much like freakshows?"

"I think they tried that, but they couldn't find a dye that wouldn't cause fatal allergic reactions, so they elected to keep it white," the Doctor explained, seeming not the least bit fazed by how freaked-out Demyx was by his new skin tone. "It does wear off eventually, when the artificial blood breaks down and gets replaced with real blood. In eight weeks, you should be looking perfectly normal. Well, eight subjective weeks."

"Shit, man, that's almost two months. Axel's gonna think I actually died and came back when we finally catch up to him. He's gonna think I'm a ghost." Demyx shook his head, still staring at his ghost-white arms, and tried to forcefully remind himself that it was a temporary effect, and then that he'd already asked the Doctor a question that he wasn't answering. "So anyway. What were you looking so sour about?"

"...Oh. That." Clearly, the Doctor was in no great hurry to answer him, but Demyx was in no great hurry to not get an answer. "...It just bothers me that the Sisters of Plenitude are back, and still in the hospital business."

"...What, the cat nuns?" Of all the things the Doctor could have been worried about, like the fact that Demyx had had his stomach ripped open and had been transfused with enough white fake blood to turn him into something that looked like death-not-even-warmed-over-yet, or the fact that they weren't where and when the Doctor was trying to go and Demyx still wasn't sure when and where they actually were and wasn't sure the Doctor knew either, or the fact that they still had to turn around and rescue Axel at some point without any of them getting killed...he was worried about the fact that the hospital was run by a particular order of cat nuns? "Doc, seriously, if it's that big a problem to you, you could get me released and take me to a different hospital or something, but you are gonna have to tell me what makes this a problem to begin with."

The Doctor just stared at him for a second, as if not comprehending why Demyx wouldn't know this already, then shook his head slightly. "As far as I knew, they were all arrested after word got out about the Flesh in New New York," he said, seemingly as much to himself as to Demyx. "That was over fifty years ago now. They'd been finding cures for diseases whose cures shouldn't have been found for a thousand years yet, but the methods they used to develop those cures..."

"Wait, wasn't the New New York hospital where you wanted to take me in the first place? Speaking of which, Doc, where are we?"

"Oh. New Boston. Which is actually about two thousand miles from New New York. And...well, even in spite of what went on there, the New New York hospital is still the best in this part of the galaxy, and it at least had the benefit of being familiar territory. But the New Boston Hospital is perfectly reputable."

"Shit, Doc, even a county medical center back in my own home time could deal with one bleeding gash, and I could have been transfused with real blood and not look like a freak. Then again...seems like here, they don't think twice about a patient with no pulse."

"Ah, yes. I told them that you were...some unusual species. Something that looked human but had different internal anatomy. You'd be surprised how many species out there are like that. I did use the term 'Meanwhile', but I daresay that's exactly what they think Meanwhiles are - some pulseless humanoid race they've never heard of before." The Doctor leaned over Demyx's bed, to tap at a touchscreen mounted into what, on a less highly-advanced hospital bed, would no doubt have been a simple tray. "Yes, that's exactly it. Species, 'Meanwhile', planet of origin, 'unknown'."

"For the record, Doc, we call ourselves 'Nobodies'. Since we're something, to be sure, but there's not really enough left to us to call somebody even by our own standards." Demyx wasn't sure why the Doctor might want to know that, but who knew, he might find it interesting. "And...if your explanation for where Meanwhiles come from is correct, then we might not really be the same thing. Just something very similar, in that we had hearts once and now don't, and are still alive anyway."

The Doctor gave him a questioning look at that, as if he'd seriously never considered the possibility. "...Where did those two nurses go?"

"Dunno, but one of them - Cait - mentioned being called downstairs to help with something. She said there were, like, a dozen new rage overdose cases that Sister something-that-starts-with-L wanted help with."

The Doctor seemed about to reply in a perfectly casual manner, but then he stopped, as if Demyx had hit him with a brick five seconds ago and he'd just now caught on. "...Did you say 'rage overdose cases'?"

"...Yeah...it sounded weird enough to be memorable...why? Does that mean something to you?"

"...I hope it doesn't. I hope I'm wrong. But damn those pharmacists if I'm not..."

"Novice Cait!"

Cait hated working in the emergency department, she really did. She preferred the relative calm of the upstairs wards, where even if the patients were in pain and unhappy, she felt like she could do more to make them feel better on more levels - talk to them, listen to them, help with the little psychological discomforts like loneliness or homesickness or even boredom. In the emergency department, the patients weren't homesick and lonely - no, they were in pain and miserable and that was all they cared about, and even if you weren't too busy attending to the physical-care side of things to talk, they'd mostly rather scream at you than carry on a conversation. And these were rage overdose cases, worse yet, just as likely to lash out and attack physically instead of verbally. But duty was duty, and these poor addicts were no doubt going to need someone to comfort them once they stabilized and came back down. Focusing her thoughts on that part, and not the part about trying to insert IV lines into the arms of patients who'd rather beat her to death if they could stand up without help, she scurried over to where Sister Lith was standing and beckoning her over. "I'm here, Sister," she said, quickly running over everything she should report while she was still speaking. "The John Doe with the abdominal injury is stabilized and conscious. I got his name and date of birth, and Novice Yin started the last unit transfusing."

"Excellent; at least one thing is going right today," Sister Lith growled, scanning over her tablet; Cait quickly brought her tablet into contact with it for a data transfer. "We just got another three in, including one who died in the ambulance. Sixteen overdose cases in...bah. We've lost three, including the DOA...ah, good. Sister Ran and Sister Vela just came in. The first OD to come in is stabilized and should be coming around soon. Get her...mentally stabilized and prepped for moving upstairs if need be, or to be released, but...you know what addicts are like. She's in E81. By herself."

"All right, Sister," Cait said with a quick bow, scanning over the data Sister Lith had just transferred to her tablet. The patient's name was listed as "Dallis Wanamaker (presumed)", meaning she must have had some ID on her, but was either unconscious or too far gone on entry to officially give her name; well, that meant the first thing Cait would have to do was ask her her name. She was a rage addict, after all (or so Cait assumed, but you had to use it to overdose on it, and new users almost never took that much); it wasn't unreasonable to think she might have wound up with someone else's ID in her pocket. Besides, asking a person's name was always a good way to start a conversation, and in Cait's experience, there were few kinds of patients who needed real psychological comfort more than a rage overdose case who'd just come down and was only now becoming aware of what they'd done under the influence. The hospital did have more than one psychologist on staff, but Cait prided herself on doing as good an unofficial job as any novice without specialized training could. And the better the unofficial job she did of it now, the more likely it was that she would one day be picked for specialized training...

But in the meantime, she had her job to do now. Pushing open the door carefully, she glanced in to see how the patient was doing - good, she was conscious - and get a real-time update on her vital stats - her pulse and brain activity had evened out to normal levels, and her temperature was only half a degree above normal. Good; that should mean the dangerous part was over for both of them. "Hello," she said as she made her way into the room, to get the conversation started in as calm and friendly a way as possible. "My name is Novice Cait, and you are...?"

"Dallis," the woman grunted, sitting up a little and brushing her lank dark hair out of her face. "Dallis Wanamaker. Fuck. Did I lose my ID?"

"No, but we are required to ask, not just take whatever the ID says...after all, there's a chance it might not have been your ID."

The woman - Dallis - grunted a few more words under her breath, that Cait was just as glad she couldn't hear. "Where's Clev?" she demanded, in a louder voice.

Well, that was hardly a question Cait could answer, but it did lead to more questions that could lead to a more in-depth, calmer conversation. "Who's Clev?" was the first question she asked, taking a cautious step closer to Dallis's bed - not too close; the woman still sounded a bit grouchy and snarly, which might mean the effects of the rage patches hadn't completely worn off yet.

"My boyfriend. He'd been doing rage with me. He was supposed to be here. He was supposed to be right the fuck here." Dallis started grabbing at her hair, her face contorting. "Where the fuck is he?"

...Oh, dear. Cait still had no idea what might have happened to him, only guesses, but none of her guesses were pleasant - he might have been another of their overdose cases, Dallis might have injured or even killed him under the influence of the drug, or he might have simply abandoned her to her fate when the overdose took effect. In short, he was most likely in medical trouble, dead, or a cad. "I'm sorry, but I don't know where he is," she said, taking a few cautious steps closer. "Maybe if you could tell me more about him, I -"

"Goddamnit!" Cait flinched back instinctively at that outburst, until Dallis buried her face in her hands and started to cry. "I - I - fuck, I don't remember - if that bastard just - left me to die, I -"

Well...there it was. She was no doubt most of the way down now, far enough that she was no longer a danger to anyone but herself. "I'm sorry," Cait said, in as soft and comforting a voice as she could manage. No doubt, even if this Clev had abandoned her in her moment of need, Dallis would no doubt go looking for him again as soon as she was out and craving, but there was nothing Cait could do about that sad cycle today. All she could do was try to comfort this woman right now. "Maybe in a little while, when you're all the way down, I can help y-"

She didn't see the telltale flash in the woman's eyes until it was too late. She tried to scream, but Dallis's hands were already around her throat, and suddenly she had no breath left.