This Is Called 'Treatment' [Brooks]

[✚ Annabella Brooks]

"Excuse me... miss?"

Annabella turned around quickly, eying the woman in front of her with general boredom. "What?" she asked, sweeping her blond hair from her tired eyes.

"There's someone here with your last name Ma'am. We can't tell if he's in critical condition yet, since he just arrived here about an hour ago. I noticed him when I was doing my rounds. Is he... related... to you?"

Honestly, the nurse wouldn't have wished anyone to be related to Annabella. The woman seemed hard and uncaring, or... caring... but not really in the compassionate sense. For the first time in a long time, Annabella looked absolutely baffled.

"What?" Annabella repeated in disbelief. "Whats his first name?"

"Michael. Michael Brooks."

Annabella swooned, caught herself, and then shook her head. Ah... darn it... She pushed past the other nurse without another word and strode over to where they kept the wounded. One man stood out from the rest, at least to her, and she couldn't believe she hadn't noticed him beforehand. Annabella ran over to his bed and stopped beside it.

"Michael? Can you hear me?"

[Michael Brooks]

Michael was out cold. Almost too cold. He had passed out on the way to the field-hospital. it had now been almost an hour since they left the skirmish that had almost taken his life. The staff at the field-hospital had almost given him up for dead, but because they had a lack of patients at the moment he was given medical attention. The two Privates that had carried him there lingered only a little while before they left. Michael didn't know where to.

Soon Michael was lying, still unconscious, on a cot with surgeons hovering over him like flies. Within an hour he was lying in the tent outside of the surgery tent. This time he was coming in and out of consciousness. A few minutes later he heard two of the surgeons walking past the tent outside. "...be fine." "It looked like he'd used his first-aid kit." "Probably the only thing that kept him ali... Then Michael drifted into unconsciousness.

When he woke-up, two nurses were talking a few yards away from him. Then one of them started walking toward him. At first, he thought she looked familiar, but he passed that notion out as his eyes playing tricks with him. Then she spoke to him. "Ann!" Michael sat-up in bed like a bolt of lightning. Shocked to see his sister here. Ow... ow... ow..." Michael whimpered as he painfully clutched his abdomen while slipping back down into his bed. "How... did you get here?"

[✚ Annabella Brooks]

Annabella let out a humorless laugh. "How did I get here? Oh... you know... stubbornness and a little bad luck, thats all." Truthfully she was really worried about him even if her face didn't portray anything but amusement. He had really done it this time. Probably did something stupid in her opinion, though it could have been interpreted as bravery by someone else.

"'Ow ow ow' nothing. You aren't too bad off. Just a little damage around your abdomen and everything, but nothing drastic. Well... I guess... a little... drastic." She shrugged. "Just stay where you are. I don't know much yet but I do know you aren't going anywhere for a while. I heard you just came off the lines an hour or two ago. They did surgery pretty fast... though around here you would have to."

I'm guessing he doesn't want me to put this in my letter to mom and dad...

Annabella patted his shoulder reassuringly. "Don't worry. Whatever got you into this mess I'm sure it was a-okay. Probably almost killed you too. You're lucky, Michael."

She didn't know why she was talking so much. Maybe Annabella thought that if she didn't he would slip into a coma or something. "Anyway... I signed up for Red Cross a few months after you left. They need nurses... and I'm just as good as any."