CHAPTER SIX: LOSING MY PATIENTS

Arthur and Mercy had now left that makeshift clinic, leaving the skeleton in the corner to gawk at nothing in particular.

The room they had entered was clearly furnished with comfort in mind- down to the big recliner in the middle of it, a brown, fluffy looking thing, and the dark green wallpaper, a welcome relief from the miserable beige that had dominated both the clinic. and the shed he had slept in.

In short, it was perfectly normal, and Arthur loved it for that.

Mercy had plonked himself down on a beanbag chair next to that recliner, peeling off his blood-stained disposable gloves, throwing them into a corner.

Arthur eat himself down on the recliner, slowly, almost tentatively, the same way one might lower themselves onto a particularly cold toilet seat.

"So... Doc, why don't you tell me a bit about yourself?" Speaking still felt almost foreign to Arthur, those pine and needles dancing on his tongue. Each word came out uncertain, almost quivering as it was strung up with the next.

"I thought you'd never ask, actually. Bet you were wondering what some nobody like me's doing, cutting open faces and all that?"

"Wondering? No, I would say, err, concerned as to why you're doing such a thing." "Same difference," Mercy smiled, with that gap-toothed grin of his. "Just remember who fixed your sorry face."

"Just remember who hasn't tried attacking you for mutilating my face." Arthur said, with perhaps a little too much conviction.

"It wasn't mutilation if you weren't harmed, right?" Mercy asked; almost hopefully. "I can't feel my face, Doc."

"That's just the chloroform wearing off. You'll feel it all you want within the next couple of hours," Mercy said, taking that clunky stab-proof vest off, resting it on his lap and fishing through its various pouches and pockets.

"I... fair enough. You wouldn't haves some painkillers ready for when that happens?" "I actually do, would you believe it. You'd better hope that paracetamol will cover the pain, though." Mercy said, producing a tattered, sad looking cardboard blister

pack with some tablets left in it.

"I hope so, otherwise things are gonna get ugly, very fast." Arthur gave the vent a once-over, noticing a strange little thing clipped on the bottom. "Is that a knife? What happened to Do No Harm?'"

At this, Mercy faltered, that Cheshire grin shrinking substantially. "Blighters are technically still human. Sometimes you have to do harm for a reason, y'know?" Arthur nodded, struck by the sudden if subtle change in the other man's demeanour. "You wanna know why they call me Doc Mercy?"

Another nod, was Arthur kicked back on the recliner.

"It was the local bandits who gave me that name. 'Pparently it was cause most of then couldn't pronounce euthanasia."

"Oh, now that I think about it... Mercy has a better ring to it. Makes you sound less likely to put a dog or something down. Or a person." "You'd be surprised how many people I've had to put out of their misery. Some people wanna go out with dignity on their own terms, after they've been bitten by a blighter or been hit with something nasty. I know a guy who got paralysed from a 5.56 round 'cause it snapped his back." Mercy said, tossing the blister pack to Arthur, who was fishing through his suit pockets.

"So you murdered him." He said, rather bluntly, taking out a pair of cracked wire-rim glasses and seating them on the edge of his nose, one of the places spared from Mercy's horrendous stitching.

"Only because he literally asked me for it. The poor man was all depressed, like," Mercy said, simply looking down at his feet as he spoke. "First patient I lost, as well."

Arthur paused, letting the silence linger a little, almost to speak on his behalf. "I'm sorry to hear that... you made it quick for him, didn't you?"

"Not for the sicko who shot him, though. But yeah."

"What did you do to the shooter?" Arthur asked, almost despite knowing that he was definitely prying. Mercy didn't though, so he knew he could probably poke and prod a bit more.

"Tore every muscle in his leg and let him bleed out. So he wouldn't feel his legs, like the poor guy he paralysed."

"Do no harm really went out of the window, didn't it. Did you just take it upon yourself to be judge, jury, and executioner?" 

Mercy looked up at Arthur, confusedly. "You say it like it's a bad thing."

"You killed a man, Doc. Doesn't matter why, or how, that's still loss of human life. "Okay then, enlighten me," Arthur's comment clearly having struck a nerve. "What would you have done then?"

The question gave Arthur pause. As much as he was inclined to agree with Mercy, he couldn't. He wasn't some vigilante marauder. He was better than that, if only by the smallest bit.

"Negotiation. You have to remember that guy was as human as you, so would have a reason for what he did."

"Aren't you, the most innocent little thing," Mercy smiled, shaking his head. "No one needed a reason to do anything since the outbreak. This ain't one of your company AI program things, with their strict internal logic. It's anarchy man, plain and simple."

"That isn't an excuse. You must've had a reason to start practising medicine on. people, right?"

"Yeah it's called helping people, doing what others won't. We all got a role to play. Y'know, like a theatre production. If you want, the world's a stage. I've just found my part, in all."

For a moment, Arthur stayed quiet. Despite how ludicrous it sounded, there was something so profound in Mercy's words, a sort of wisdom that took blood sweat and tea and likely other bodily fluids to discover.

"For a midwife, you're very good with rhetoric." Arthur said, quietly.

"What's that mean?"

"...never you mind. Just means you have away with words."

"Ah. right."

For a moment, silence hung in the air between the two. Not a word was said, but there was still something palpable- a sort of mutual respect between them, unspoken camaraderie.

The silence- it all of its relaxed yet strangely tense glory- was quickly shattered by a knock at the door. Arthur froze, reaching for the pistol still resting in his pocket. Mercy only smiled, reaching up to pat him on the shoulder. "Cmon man- don't get so stressed out. It's just a, blighter, he'll be gone soon alright?" He said, not able to help but find Arthur's sudden tension funny. "Hey- just a blighter? Doc, I didn't know that was all I am to you." Said an unusually cheery voice from the door, with an equally odd sing-song cadence to boot. Mercy's grin returned, at full wattage, as he stood up stretching a little. "Oh, you know what I meant. Now, quit your theatrics 'fore I lock the door on ya."