Tiredest nurse around

Victoria's exhaustion reached a new level. There was little sleep to be had. She'd never formally apprenticed, and so her nursing was based on what she'd picked up from the Shermans, but it was still much more than the soldiers around her had. Her apron was soon far from the pristine uniform color it had started as, and the work never seemed to end.

She found it easy working alongside David. They had become friends two or three years before when he was still an apprentice and she had flitted around on the edges of life, missing Gabriel in his year away and looking for a new close friend.

David had reluctantly complied, often having time at their home while Dr. Sherman worked on the patient privately. He said that sometimes, the talks would go better without the audience.

The young apprentice had plenty of interesting tales to entertain a teenage girl hungry for a friend, and she looked back on that time fondly.

He'd become a very competent physician, businesslike and stern during treatment, but with a gentleness the patients appreciated. Their working relationship was efficient, and that carried over into her work with Gabriel as well.

She still resented his presence, but it was easier to pretend that everything was normal as the flood of patients overwhelmed their attention. She had neither the time, nor the energy, to be terribly awkward around him.

Gabriel, however, had still not mastered the art of being sensitive to the patients' feelings. He treated them and little else, moving on to the next patient without an extra word to spare.

Victoria moved in his wake, reassuring them that they were receiving the best of care and there was reason for hope, or comfort them as they prepared to face their likely death.

And there was much death.

Yet, there were no empty beds. Every time a body was removed, a new person of the town fell ill. Victoria at first thought there must be an end in sight; surely everyone had already caught it and either died or survived, but the disease raged on, tearing through the town and visiting new waves of contagion on the citizens.

It was harrowing, and depressing, and hurt her soul to watch so much agony. Especially these days, in midsummer, when the heat grew strong and she was reminded of one of her earliest memories.

The hot, hot day when her parents died.

She'd been playing in the garden, and remembered hiding in the shade from the sun beating down. She remembered being sweaty from exertion, and wanting a cool drink of water.

A neighbor had been in charge of her while her parents were out fishing on the lake, but as the day stretched on, they didn't return home. The evening remained sweltering, and the neighbor seemed anxious, but put on a calm facade for the little girl.

It was the first time Victoria remembered having someone try to lie with their facial expression, and it had scared her.

Her parents never returned home. An accident. The boat had hit a hidden rock and capsized. Her father drowned trying to save her mother, who was pulled under by a hidden current.

The Peacekeeping officer charged with investigation had delivered the news to her neighbor with a stilted expression, with Victoria hiding behind the woman's skirts. The neighbor had watched her on days like that for a little extra money, but had not the means to care for the little girl.

With tears and angst, Victoria had been taken to the orphanage for some wealthier family to adopt. Her doll was the only memento of home she brought with her.

She lost track of the time she spent there before Finn came to visit, the turning point when a new and better life would begin for Victoria.

A patient moaned, and she was brought back to the present. The man's fever raged, and Victoria mopped his brow with a damp cloth.

There was little to do. She offered him a drink of tepid water as the temperature inside the tent rose with the sun climbing higher in the sky.

Outside, it beat down. She had the doors of the tent opened wide to catch what little breeze she could, but the feverish patients inside suffered.

As did she.

Pushing aside her grief, she tended to the ill. There was not much comfort she could give to the dying. And most of them were dying.

Half of the soldiers of the company were helping move the sick, clean the tent, and bury the dead. Three had fallen ill. The rest had been sent by Captain Napier to harvest the summer corn which was ripe in the fields and liable to rot without the dead and dying farmers to work.

"At least we'll have food to take back to Klain," Mason had said, uncharacteristically optimistic, or perhaps just overtired. "They won't need all this food here."

Gabriel had glared at him, and Dr. David shook his head firmly.

"I cannot allow that," He said, "We still have not figured out the source of the contagion. If you brought back and fed contaminated food to Klain, the disease would spread beyond containment."

Gabriel nodded in agreement. "Until we get this disease under control and find a cure, there can be no coming or going, of people or food."

"The sick soldiers did not eat local rations," Victoria said softly. "I think, even if the disease came originally from food, it spreads on its own now."

The three medically trained personnel took shifts, and only occasionally did all three overlap. Victoria tried to do more than her share, only resting when she absolutely had to, and often demanding that Gabriel or David go and rest.

David more often, since he'd lost far more sleep leading up to the days of the troops' arrival.

She gave him a thoughtful look now, and he gave her an exhausted half-smile.

"I can't go just yet, Victoria," He said. "I need to make my rounds through town to check for those who have no one."

She closed her eyes, knowing it was a gruesome task. Many people now were too sick, or too scared, to check on their neighbors. When the disease tore through a family, often there was no one left well enough to go for help.

Entire households had perished before anyone knew they were ill.

The soldiers tasked with following him and removing the dead covered their faces, both for the smell and as an attempt to keep from breathing in the disease. David looked broken over it.

"I can go," Victoria volunteered. "It doesn't take talent to spot the sick, and you can rest a bit longer."

There was not much she could do in the tent right now that the soldier-assistants couldn't.

"You shouldn't have to see that," David's eyes tightened.

"I see death here," Victoria said gently. "And you've done enough for today."

He sighed heavily, and she could see the exhaustion in his face war against what he considered his better judgment. Gabriel frowned.

"I'll go. Victoria, you stay here." He said firmly.

She shot him a glare for his interference, but he was undeterred.

"Thank you, Gabriel," David nodded with some relief. "I would be grateful. I'll head home for a few hours' rest."

Victoria offered him a smile and went back to what she was doing, mopping brows and directing soldiers to empty chamber pots. She didn't mind the task, but her skills were better used to identify those about to die and speaking softly to them as they passed.

It was a draining thing. Sometimes they wanted her to write notes to their loved ones. In their delirium, many did not realize that their spouse or child was already gone. It broke Victoria's heart.

Had her own parents suffered, in the end? Was this disease worse than drowning? At least there was some warning, however little, that death was coming.

The beds emptied as quickly as they filled. A handful had recovered, but not many. Some showed improvement, but that was no guarantee of survival. Victoria pushed away despair and continued her labors, making careful notes on the messages she was to deliver… if there was anyone left alive to deliver to.

Swallowing that thought, she squeezed the hand of a dying woman just as she breathed her last. A single tear fell down Victoria's cheek. This woman was around the age her own mother had been.

The sweltering heat caused the tear to mix with sweat rolling down her forehead, and she raised her arm to signal a soldier that another had perished, then gently pulled the blanket up over the woman's face.

She breathed heavily, trying to control her turmoil, but it was difficult. Everything was difficult. Walking, speaking, breathing. Even caring for patients. The heat made it harder to detect how high a fever was. Everyone was sweating. Many were vomiting.

If there was a world out there worse than this small corner of hers, she never wanted to find it.