Managing death

All there.

Someone is stitching up my foot. There's that uncomfortable sensation of skin being pulled tight, without the pain. Not that I want the pain, but my body is all too aware it's going on somewhere, that trauma is being had whether I can feel it or not.

I'm lying on a bed in Brooker's room, which has to be the best fitted-out sick bay in any workplace in Australia.

'I don't remember Mr D ever getting into this sort of trouble,' Dr Brooker says, looking at me over his glasses. Brooker's work as Mortmax Brisbane's physician usually means the occasional bit of stitch work, a few prescriptions and a lot of counselling. He's very rarely in Number Four – which is what saved him during Morrigan's Schism – but he's available most of the time. I've known Dr Brooker since I can remember, before memory, in fact. He was the attending doctor at my birth. Yeah, and I get about as much sympathy from him as anyone in my family would have given me. I suppose I could take that as a compliment. I called him the 'good Doctor Brooker' once and got a cuff under the ear. His mood hasn't exactly improved since.

I grimace. 'Mr D had been doing this a century or two before you were even born. He'd gotten the trouble out of his system.'

'Nevertheless… you really need to concentrate on your job, not this messing about with guns. People always get hurt.' He jabs a gloved finger at my foot. 'You're an RM. You're not about hurting people.'

'He had a gun. I had a chair, and believe me, he ended up much worse than I did. Ouch!'

Brooker harrumphs and pulls a stitch tight. 'Keep still. You were much better when you were unconscious. You'll be all right. Quite frankly, I don't know why anybody even bothered trying to shoot at you. Waste of time – you can't be killed that way.'

'Maybe they just wanted to see if they could hurt me?'

'Well, they can hurt you all right.' He smiles broadly. 'But not as much as me if you don't keep still.'

'Where is everybody?'

'Does this look like a party to you?' Brooker rolls his eyes and finishes his stitching with a neat knot – he's done an awful lot of those over the years. 'They're waiting outside, where I told them to wait.'

Yeah, I might be RM, but in this room Brooker is king.

I clear my throat softly. 'Can I ask you something?'

Brooker looks at me. 'Shoot. No pun intended.'

'Did Mr D ever talk to you about his dreams?'

Brooker shakes his head; I can tell he thinks the question has come out of left field. 'Steven, I hardly ever spoke to him at all. Don't tell me you thought otherwise. He was a peculiar man.' Brooker squints at me. 'To be honest, I like you much more.'

I don't tell him that Mr D is still very much around.

I remember how Mr D died. Bones crunching as the SUV rolled over him. He certainly ended up in a lot of trouble. But then again for the majority of us that's all we can expect. Time and the world are hard and grinding. Bones and flesh are soft.

'Now, these dreams… '

I sigh. 'They're nightmares really. Nasty as hell nightmares.'

'Everyone has bad dreams,' Dr Brooker says. 'Particularly in your job, and mine.'

'That's not the problem,' I tell him. 'It's just that I rather like them.' My face flushes.

'How much?'

My face is burning. 'A lot.'

'Hmm.' He squints at me like I'm some kind of thermometer. I don't know what sort of reading he gets but after a while he turns away. 'Don't get caught up with dreams. Sometimes that's all they are.'

We both know that isn't true. Brooker looks worried. 'See me in a day or two – this really isn't my specialty. Now isn't the best time, you've been through a bit of trauma. And I'm sure that hasn't helped.'

'It'll heal,' I say looking at my foot.

'I wasn't talking about that. The way all this happened – the way you became RM, and the betrayals you faced – none of it was good. Steve, I lost a lot of dear friends that week. You lost more than that. It takes its toll.'

But is that really a good enough excuse for the number of times I've shown up at work drunk? Or just not bothered to show up at all? When you don't sleep there's an awful lot of time you can spend drinking, even if it's not filling up the hole left by all that loss, and the guilt that I'm letting those nearest to me, and equally wounded, down. Which, of course, leads to more drinking. It's how I've dealt with all the major dramas of my adult life.

Home and work, everywhere I look there are gaps. Reminders of friends and family gone, snatched away by the chaos of Morrigan's Schism. And as for the work itself, I don't know how to lead people. Where do you learn that? Where do you pick up all the arcane and complicated tricks required in the running of a business like mine? Despite Tim's notes there's no manual. I have Mr D, but I don't know what questions to ask, and he isn't that great at answering the ones I do. I'd suspect him of being deliberately evasive, except he's always been that way.

And Lissa. Where do you go after what we've shared? Surely happiness of the forever-after sort is deserved. I'd settle for a few years of it, but there's no prospect of that. We've a dark god coming.

Suzanne's offer is looking very attractive. Maybe it's not too late to fix this. To be what I need to be.

Brooker works in silence for a while, cleaning then binding the foot. 'All done,' he says at last. 'You'll need to sit on your chair for a while.'

'My throne?'

'Don't start putting on airs and graces. When I was a kid we called the shitter a throne.' He sighs. 'But that's the one. It'll heal you much faster than you can on your own.'

There's shouting outside. It's an achingly familiar voice, an achingly familiar heartbeat, even if it is racing. My ears prick up. Dr Brooker grins. 'I'll just get her for you.'

The door flings open and nearly bowls him over. Dr Brooker doesn't even bother calling her on it. He knows better than to get between us. She's in her usual black get-up: a Mickey Mouse brooch on one collar of her blouse. I don't get the appeal of Walt Disney characters – give me Bugs Bunny any day – but I'm so happy to see her.

'Are you OK?' Lissa asks. She grabs me tight enough that my ribs creak.

'Yeah, I am.' I groan in her embrace. 'Well, I think I am.'

Brooker nods. 'He's fine.' He's already packing up his bag: good doctors are always in demand. 'As far as I know, nothing can really hurt him, just slow him down a little.'

'Define hurt. My foot's throbbing!'

'Well, the glass was part of Number Four, I'd say that's why it hurts you so much.' He rubs his chin thoughtfully. 'Or it could be that your body is still getting used to what it has become. The pain may just be old habits dying hard.'

I wish they'd die a little more easily.

Lissa pulls back, looks at me, and winces. Oh, I'd forgotten about the ear. It starts to sting, but now no more than a scratch might. The top of the ear is already growing back.

Tim peers through the door. Dr Brooker delivered him as well. 'He OK, Dr Brooker?'

'Nothing a bit of rest won't fix. He's an RM: both wounds will heal quickly, not like the rest of us idiots.' Dr Brooker looks at me. 'Just be careful.'

His phone chirrups, signalling another emergency, or a game of golf. He merely looks at it, grunts, and with a curt nod, leaves the room.

I glance over at Tim. 'OK, we're six hours into the working day and I've already been shot at. I want to know why, and I want to know now.'

'I'm already on it,' Tim says, pulling his phone out. 'I'll call Doug at my old department.' Doug Anderson is a good choice. The man has more fingers in more pies than anyone we know. He took up Tim's role as policy advisor and head of Pomp/government relations. 'The last time this happened… '

Call me a pessimist, but I have a terrible certainty that this is going to be worse.

And why's Morrigan in my dreams again? He's gone, and there's no coming back for him. As Mr D said, after the knife fight of the Negotiation, Morrigan's soul was obliterated.