A Change of Air

[The Delaney Twins]

She laughed. “Hey, don’t be harsh on yourself. We wouldn’t necessarily be fùcked. The Warriors know first aid things, at least, so you probably have a bit of the work done, there.”
It was weird, walking along here without Terry’s lead. She’d grown so accustomed by now to having him dragging her along on these walks – she’d even grown almost used to the way he pulled at her arms, as if he were trying to dislocate her shoulders. She doubted that that was what he was actually what he was doing, because that would be much too disturbing to even think about, but the fact remained: what with all the jostling that he put her through, Lynn must have had the biceps of a mountain climber to be able to keep hold of his leash.
But then, lots of things were strange. Terry was the least of it. The forest…
Lynn hadn’t found out that the forest had burnt down until the day after the battle. When she had, she hadn’t really reacted to it, in the situation that she’d been in. Now, though, it was horrible. Lynn had loved the forest. She’d never spent a lot of time in it, but she’d loved it being there – loved seeing the green foliage lining the landscape every time she’d looked out her window. And now…
So she wasn’t walking Terry, and the forest was gone. And her hands were burnt, Kennedy was in hospital, and Madeleine…
It was hard to think about Madeleine.
But Russ was still there, and that was what she wanted now. She would focus on that.
“That being said, though, I can’t really imagine you in scrubs, so clearly it wasn’t meant to be.” She shrugged, smiling. “Shame.”

[Madeleine Baudelaire&Russ Ford]

“Yeah, shame indeed - I’m sure you’re devastated you can’t have that image,” Russ laughed, with a roll of his eyes. “But something tells me I’m not cut out for mursing, scrubs or no.”
And speaking of mursing…
The subject hadn’t exactly been broached yet, because Lynn hadn’t mentioned it, but Lynn’s ex, Cass (the murse) was back from Amsterdam – had arrived back at exactly the perfect moment like a knight in shining scrubs, it turned out, just as battle casualties were beginning to trickle back to the school.
Russ hadn’t met him yet – Lynn’s friends had seemed to have a carefully arranged rota that meant she was never left on her own, and incidentally, that rota also prevented Russ from running into Cass, which was probably more comfortable for Lynn, let’s face it. Having your current boyfriend and your ex-boyfriend seated with you at the same time … well, it probably wouldn’t have been the greatest of situations to be in, ‘specially with everything else that had been going on.
Not that Russ minded that Cass was back. Not in the slightest – after all, Cass was the one who’d fixed Kennedy’s shot lung. Russ didn’t mind at all, he was just wondering how Lynn would react to it, was all.
The train of thought was interrupted by Jake, who was running on slightly ahead of them over the gravelled path, turned his dark muzzle back to them and barked sharply, as if to tell them that they were going too slowly for him. He didn’t seem to be a bit put off by the burned down forest and dramatic change in the landscape, and it was if he didn’t notice the ever-present smell of smoke in the air.
Russ was probably just imagining that, though.

[The Delaney Twins]

She was glad to see him laughing again.
She’d been worried, for a second, that it might have been too soon. It might not have been a good idea for her to be making jokes already. Or… well, not not a good idea, per se. It wasn’t that. She just didn’t know if it felt right yet. She had spent the last few days in a limbo of fear and half-grief, so the jokes had still felt strange in her mouth.
But when Russ laughed, the strangeness felt less strange. So that was good, then. Especially if it helped him to get his mind off all this.
Lynn knew that this probably wasn’t the best way to deal with someone in Russ’s situation, by making Carer jokes instead of talking about it, but she didn’t know how to begin to go about addressing it. She’d almost definitely say the wrong thing, if she did. It was just as well for the whole school that she wasn’t a Carer either, and Kennedy too, for that matter. The Delaneys had always been better at distracting than discussing.
But, hey, it wasn’t like it was a bad thing to get out of your head for a bit. It was good for both of them to think about something else. Even if she had sworn less than twenty-four hours ago that she would never make another Carer joke so long as she lived.
Well, realistically, that was never going to be a promise that she’d be very good at keeping. It wasn’t like she was doing any harm, anyway.
She laughed too. “You know, I think you just don’t want to be cut out for mursing, Russ. Come on, you’ll never get anywhere with that attitude. If you believe, then you will find a way.”
Momentary pause. “That being said, though, it’s not like I’m being brought into the Carers anytime soon. Maybe I shouldn’t be encouraging you – don’t want to be left all alone while you’re off having fun with the rest of the scrubby folk, after all.”

[Madeleine Baudelaire&Russ Ford]

The smile on her face was encouraging his smile, because he hadn’t seen it there for a while.
Well, a relative while, anyway. The last five days had stretched out unbelievably; sometimes it felt like a month, but then again, there were times when everything felt like it was all happening at once and barely any time had passed since everything was okay.
“Hey, what d’you mean I don’t want to get into mursing? I was gutted when they put me in the Warriors – the disdain for it all’s clearly ‘cause I’m hiding my pain over it,” he grinned.
No, realistically, despite his respect for the Carers Russ could think of few things he would enjoy less. In any case, they were hardly going to be thrilled about having a Carer who smoked, it wasn’t the best example.
Speaking of which, they were probably far away enough from the windows for Russ to light up now, weren’t they? The staff were usually fair enough about the whole thing as long as they didn’t catch him with a cigarette in hand, and Russ wasn’t about to push his luck at the minute, in case someone really did bust a vein. But they weren’t patrolling the grounds, so he was good to go now.
Slipping Terry’s lead further back to his wrist, he fumbled in his jeans’ pocket for his cigarettes and lighter, pulling them out as he added with an exaggerated sigh, “But it’s never going to happen, now. Like you said, I can’t leave you behind; you’d miss me if I spent all my time wheelchair-racing or whatever it is they do nine times out of ten.”
Well, they probably didn’t really spend their time wheelchair-racing, but you heard things, Russ reflected as he lit the cigarette, making sure that the wind would blow it in the opposite direction from Lynn so that she didn't get smoke in her face.

[The Delaney Twins]

“Dàmn straight you can’t,” Lynn grinned, watching as he lit up his cigarette. “I don’t want to be one of those stereotypical controlling girlfriends – you know, all ‘you can’t get a new car’, ‘you can’t go to Vegas’, ‘you can’t shave your head and tattoo things on it’, or whatever it is that guys secretly want to do – but in this case, I’m going to have to put my foot down. No mursing for you; I’m afraid I have to forbid it.”
And she really did. She was altogether too used to having Russ with her in battle training, now, even if they weren’t always paired together for everything. It was more fun, that way, and it was weird to think, now, of how it had been before That Time, as she had begun to refer to it in her thoughts.
It was strange, when she thought back, that that was what had started her relationship with Russ. She doubted that there were many girls in the world who could claim that they’d met their boyfriend through inadvertently stripping whilst trying to prevent something from blowing up.
Of course, not that Lynn went around telling people about that too often. Kennedy would blow a fuse if he ever found out about it, and she didn’t really want him finding out about it especially now, when he seemed to be just beginning to get on board about the whole Russ thing.
“Oh, and it’s wheelchair football, apparently. According to Cass and Cardo, anyway,” she said. “Although, not sure, that might just be them; I find it best not to question those guys too much about what the Carers get up to behind our backs.”
And there, number one time that she had casually mentioned Cass around Russ since he’d got back. She’d told him, obviously, that he was there, but she hadn’t mentioned it in everyday conversation.
She wasn’t really sure what Russ thought about all of that.

[Madeleine Baudelaire&Russ Ford]

“Well, as long as I can shave my head and tattoo things on it, we’re okay,” Russ grinned. “Cause we all know it’s my secret dream.”
What the disturbing thing there was that Lynn would rather him go to Vegas, shave his head and tattoo things on it than have him join the Carers. At least she knew what her priorities were… but they were a bit out of order.
“I don’t think mursing’s something you need to worry about, though. There’s no way they’d let me in; Gornray hates me.”
Well, to be fair to her, she didn’t just hate him – she hated anyone with a nicotine habit, and she was under a lot of stress as it was without detecting cigarette smoke within a fifty mile radius of ‘her dámn hospital.’ The woman could catch a cigarette better than a smoke alarm, and she was louder about letting you know about it, too.
“And, er, the idea of wheelchair football is kind of putting me off,” he grinned. “Football’s for sissies. Is that honestly what they get up to all day?"
Christ knew they complained too much about their long exhausting shifts for them to be playing wheelchair football for all of it. And in any case, Russ couldn't imagine Nurse Gornray or the new ward sister (who had the same stern demeanour as Gornray in a crisis, if with a more ready sympathy) letting them get away with that.
But now that Sally had mentioned Cass, it showed that under the jokes, they were on the same thought path, even if Russ had just completely bypassed it with his response to her. The point was, she seemed completely comfortable with the whole thing, and Russ was completely comfortable with not bringing it up.

[The Delaney Twins]

Okay, excellent. The Cass-mentioning had been met with regularity, just as she’d wanted it to be. It was no different than if she had mentioned any of her other friends, and that was how it was supposed to be. She and Cass had been broken up for ages, now, after all. And if she had her way, it was going to be exactly the same way with him as it was with the rest of her friends. It'd be fine.
Well, sooner or later, anyway.
“Well, not now, obviously, but – well, apparently there’s not usually all that much to do in the hospital. And so they kill the boredom by letting loose a projectile object and messing with hospital equipment; I know, it’s the best plan in the world. But, well, they’re yet to be caught; and live and let live, they’re not hurting anyone, anyway. Even if wheelchair football is weird – that being said, though: um, oi! Wheelchair football, not the best sport ever made, true, but how is regular football for sissies?” she asked, laughing.
She felt obliged to defend it on the behalf of... well, just about every guy she knew. Cass played it, Cardo played it – hell, even Kennedy played it, and she wasn’t about to go and discourage him on the grounds of the fact that it possibly wasn't the most manly sport that had ever been invented. The fact was that Kennedy was playing a sport at all, and that wasn’t something you saw every day. She owed a fair bit to football if it was capable of getting her brother to venture out into the great outdoors...
Of course, that being said, she wouldn’t be playing it herself all that much, but that was only to be expected. Lynn had never really got into the whole competitive sports thing; there hadn’t seemed much point. She couldn’t really see herself on the hockey team anytime soon.

[Madeleine Baudelaire&Russ Ford]

“Think of one major football player and you’ll answer your own question, Sall,” Russ laughed.
It was something a lot of the younger people around camp used to kill boredom, kicking a ball about some grass until they got bored, which nine times out of ten, was very quickly. Football mania infused the camps, though. Loads of people had the stickers of their preferred team (predominantly major league players, as expected, though you did find a load of really weird, unheard of team stickers around the place) stuck at the bottom corner of a window, and when it came to the World Cup, whatever camp they happened to be at went crazy – especially depending on the number of people from different nationalities about the place.
As a kid, though, Russ had somehow escaped the fascination that most young boys had with football (probably as a result of being raised by a football-hating mother, let’s face it), and hadn’t ever had David Beckham as his hero, thank Christ. He’d probably be a very different person now, had that been how it had gone.
‘Course, not all footballers conformed to that stereotype. But even if you looked at Orchid Hill’s moisturised and gelled players… well, let's just say, they proved that where there's smoke, there's sure as hell fire.
And speaking of smoke and fire, Russ' attention was once again caught by the blackened ruin of the forest near them, keeping up an ever-present reminder of what had just happened. Even at this time of morning, he could see a couple of Carers heading out to try and fix a bit of the damage, trying to get the place green again.
Just ignore it, Russ.

[The Delaney Twins]

“Ahh,” she said, raising one finger in a gesture which she very much hoped had added to her credibility after she realised just how painful it was to perform it, “that doesn’t prove that football is for sissies, though, it just means that some people who happen to be sissies play it. There’s a big difference there.”
A little part of Lynn’s mind was insisting to her that this was a ridiculous conversation to be having right now. If you considered everything – if you considered the battle and the forest and Kennedy and the hospital and Kira and the battle dead and…
And, of course, Madeleine. She was the biggest part, wasn’t she?
Lynn could barely stand to think about Madeleine in this situation. Madeleine was Lynn’s leader, and she was one of the strongest people that Lynn knew, and she hated – she absolutely hated that this had happened to her, that they didn’t know what those people were doing to her –
It made her angry to think about it. It terrified her to think about it.
And yet, despite all that, here they were talking about the masculinity (or lack thereof) of football.
But Lynn was going to keep right on doing it. Russ needed a break. She knew denial wasn’t good, but this couldn’t be called denial – it wasn’t like she was trying to make him think that this had never happened. Like that was possible. It was just a break, it was just… a rest. And anyway, it wasn’t like there was anything to be gained from talking about it; after all, talking about it wouldn’t bring her back, would it?
Something would. Lynn needed to believe that. Something would, in the end.
But there was no way that that something would be talking about it.
So she ignored the part of her mind which said that it shouldn’t be there, and kept the grin on her face. “The sport itself isn’t fundamentally sissy-ish. I mean, it has hooligans and everything! When was the last time you heard of, like, tennis hooligans?”

[Madeleine Baudelaire&Russ Ford]

“Ahh, but tennis has its own stereotypes,” Russ commented, choosing not to voice these – Sally’d get it if she’d ever watched any tennis competition, or read the newspaper commentaries on Wimbledon each year. There wasn’t really any need to elaborate there. “And some tennis players and fans border on hooligans. You ever head of John McEnroe? ‘You can’t see as well as those fúcking flowers, and they’re fúcking plastic?’”
Well, that was a mixture of hooliganism, a bad temper and a fair bit of stupidity. Russ was no scientist, but he was was going to bet that flowers couldn't see anything whether they were plastic or not.
Christ.
“And you're right, not all football players and fans are sissies – just most of them,” he grinned. “Come on, smoke and fire. Half of those football hooligans just became hooligans like that after getting drunk on half a glass of 'poof-juice'. But if you think I’m being stereotypical, you should hear Madeleine’s take on the game.”
Crap, he hadn’t meant to say that. Or think it. Because chances were that Lynn mayn't get to ask her her take on the beautiful game, she might not come back. Jesus, right. The grimace flickered over his face for a split second, before he forced a nonchalant expression back onto it, hoping that Lynn hadn’t noticed it.
Because, really, the last thing Russ needed was to talk about it. He’d deal with it inside his own head, and Lynn had enough to deal with in her head as it was.

[The Delaney Twins]

Oh, God.
That was the problem with distraction, clearly. He wouldn’t have mentioned Madeleine like that if they’d been talking about it properly, it wouldn’t have just slipped out. That must have been what it was, wasn’t it? Otherwise there wouldn’t have been that wince directly after he’d said it, otherwise he wouldn’t have smothered the wince so quickly that Lynn couldn’t even think of bringing attention to it before it was gone.
She wouldn’t have done anyway. If he wanted to talk about it that was fine, but he would have to bring it up; she was his cousin, so it was his call. It wasn’t like Lynn would have been able to make it better, anyway.
So she kept the grin on her face and didn’t say a word about Madeleine, but she couldn’t stop herself from reaching out and taking the hand that wasn’t holding Terry’s lead in hers. It hurt a bit, yeah, and her burnt skin probably felt horrible, but…
Well, whatever; if he didn’t like it he could let go.
“Who, you? Stereotypical? Why, never! What’d make you say that?” she said, laughing to let him know that she didn’t mean it.
…well, much.
“But okay, so football’s a sissy sport, fair enough, I’ll give you that one. I can’t stand up against all that evidence,” she laughed. “But the question has to be asked: if football doesn’t do, and tennis doesn’t do, what qualifies as a manly sport, then, in the book of Russ?”

[Madeleine Baudelaire&Russ Ford]

It must have hurt her to slip her hand into his, but he didn’t let go of it anyway. After all, if it was hurting her that much, she’d let go – or wouldn’t have done it in the first place, anyway. So Russ held on to it, but gently in case he hurt her any more. It felt slightly strange to feel the burned skin under his, but he swallowed the bitter irritation he felt at the fact that she’d had her hands burned at all. He knew she was lucky not to have hurt herself anymore in battle, but for Chrissake, she’d nearly lost her hands, and that fact made him a bit more panicky than he’d like to admit.
But thank God she was laughing. And thank God she’d glossed over what he’d said about Madel.
“I don’t know,” he grinned. “I’ve never really thought about it, I’m not really into organised sports.”
No kidding. His mother always used to laugh at him and a mate, Tómas, back in Spain – when it came to any sports match on TV, you were likely to find Russ and Tómas being the only guys in the room who didn’t have their eyes glued to the screen, they were more likely to be found chatting up the only girls in the room.
He wasn’t about to say that, though.
“I dunno – rugby, I s’pose? I guess it’s not so much better, but it’s the first thing I can think of,” he added, with a laugh.

[The Delaney Twins]

She smiled. “I thought you might say rugby.”
It was probably the obvious choice. Or, at least, it was to people like Lynn, and apparently Russ, who had no great interest in the world of team sports. It was the only thing that she could think of, at any rate.
“And you’re right, probably manlier than football, yeah, even if its scoring is mental. But then it can just be vicious, though. I mean, there’s like those little things – whatyoumacallthems. You know, they kind of look like swimming caps, but they go over the ear and everything, to stop them from getting all shredded up, or whatever horrible thing’s meant to happen to them. My cousin has one; he looks like an utter eejit in it. And he has his mouthguard and all – well, it’s got the manliness down, but I think if I had to choose I’d pick the sport that didn’t have a chance of making my teeth look like piano keys, brave though that mayn’t be,” she laughed.
She meant that last part; strange though it might have been for a Warrior. After all, their second-in-command was captain of the rugby team –
No. No, their acting Head was the captain of the rugby team. It was so hard to remember to say that. Jack was doing really well, but it was still… It had only been five days. And it felt wrong somehow to call Jack the Head, even when preceded and softened by the word ‘acting’, it still felt… It felt like the accidental use of the word ‘was’ to describe someone who was seriously ill; it felt just as wrong.
She was glad for Russ’s sake that she hadn’t been stupid enough to mention Jack aloud.

[Madeleine Baudelaire&Russ Ford]

"I think showing you're not afraid to make your teeth look like piano keys is a sign of manliness," Russ laughed. "I think that's part of the concept of boxing, too."
Well... no, it wasn't. Russ knew bloody well enough that getting teeth knocked out of you or your nose bashed in wasn't a sign of any kind of masculinity at all, but if you were going to compare it to rugby...
He'd been quite lucky with his teeth, actually. In all the fights, spontaneous or organised, he'd never lost a tooth. Broken bones, sure, but his teeth had been alright for the most part. Probably a good thing when you brought in the smoking factor, but if he kept smoking and got back into the ring after school -
Well, his teeth were probably a bit fúcked.
But you know what? It's alright, there's ways to fix it. That's what magic's for, right? Russ didn't exactly relish the thought of having dentures by the time he was forty, but with magic, it wasn't like he needed to.
"Probably doesn't seem like such a good idea when they're sucking food through a straw, though," he amended, with a grin. "But you don't really think about that until afterwards, and hey, that's what your mouthguard's for, right?"

[The Delaney Twins]

“Provided,” continued Lynn, mirroring his grin, “that you’re not the eejit who refuses to wear the mouthguard. I knew a girl once – a fair while ago – objected to the mouthguard on the grounds of it being ugly, so she decided to try and sneak not wearing it past the teacher. Which, y’know: well, fair enough, the thing’s hideous, but… really. Really, that can’t have been thought through much. And I think she realised that after a, um, unfortunate mishap in a hockey match. That wasn’t fun for anyone involved. I think she was pretty thankful for the existence of healers after that.”
That was one of the first PE classes that Lynn had been in, at Orchid. Now that had been a fun introduction to the school’s sporting department. And it was just as well that (a), the PE teacher had had healing, and (b), Lynn wasn’t that bothered by blood, because that could really have gone badly wrong otherwise.
“And actually – there’s another one. Hockey. That’s a scary sport, right there. How many other sports consist of hitting balls of concrete at people with big sticks? That's what I want to know.”
Again, that was the issue with organised sports. Lynn, quite simply, did not understand them. The good of them – well, clearly it was two things: it was the physical exercise, and it was the socialising. And there were many simple answers to that – the most obvious of which probably being going for a run, and then actually talking to someone. Or this, come to think of it: dogwalking. Tada, miracle exercise right there. There was no need for balls and costumes and commentators and improbable hairstyles; those were just frills and fuss, and heaven knew that there was nothing Lynn despised more than frills and fuss where there was no need for them.
And exercise, most definitely, was something that did not need them.