The sound of footsteps shocked her out of her thinking and her eyes flicked around the room until she saw the source of the steps. A guy, with a gun pointed at her. She yelped and scrambled to grab her gun from where it was laying a few feet away, wincing visibly as she accidentally moved her leg and her fingers closed around the rifle. Delia pointed the rifle towards him as best she could and froze, her eyes not leaving him Incase he decided to move.
Jay took a deep breath. Best thing to do for himself would be to turn and leave. It would guarantee his own survival. But…if he left her here, now, she would die. No way could she do anything with that leg broken like that. He kept his eyes on her rifle, and slowly slipped the pistol back int his pocket, uncocking it as he did so. He took a cautious step closer. "My name's Jay." He said slowly. "Let me help you." He had a hat pulled on over his pale hair.
“Don’t move,” She said, her voice shaking slightly and her breathing noticeably quick, “I don’t need your help, I’m fine.” Delia didn’t move the gun from pointing at him when he put his pistol away, her eyes only moving to her leg for a millisecond before focusing back on the boy who introduced himself as Jay.
He held his hands up. "From the way you're shaking and the way you're breathing, I find that highly unlikely." He replied. "You're going into shock." He looked at her leg, thinking. "I can take care of your leg, but you have to let me."
For a moment she was silent, thinking over what he was saying in her head. “How do I know you’re not just going to kill me and take my supplies?” She asked, still very wary of him though Delia did let the gun drop slightly away from his chest to his legs. Just meeting another person in this day and age was enough to shock her. One that wanted to help her? That was unheard of.
He sighed. "You don't." He replied with a small shrug. "But I won't." He studied her carefully. "For one thing, if I was going to do that, I would have just shot you as I came in, not purposely drawn you into conversation and put my gun away, therefore decreasing my own chances of survival substantially."
She awkwardly shrugged, “Fair.” Again, she went quiet, debating her choices and trying to decide of how much of a threat he was. Even if he did attack, it wasn’t like she could do much to defend herself with her leg in this condition. “Fine, but if you try anything I won’t hesitate to shoot,” She eventually said, setting her gun on the floor next to herself and propping herself up on her elbows.
Jay nodded, and slung off his backpack, searching through it until he found his first aid kit. He came over to her, and hesitated. "I need you to either take the pants off, roll this leg up really high, or let me cut this leg off. The pants leg, I mean. Not your actual leg." He said with a small, awkward smile.
She hesitated as well, looking at her only pair of pants with a sigh, “I know I can’t roll it up, and this is my only pair of pants I have. Guess I’m taking them off.” She pushed herself up to actually sitting and reached for her shoes, trying to untie the laces without bending or moving her broken leg.
Jay gently batted her hands away, untying the laces and pulling the shoes off, setting them to the side. He pulled his hoodie out of his bag, and set it beside her. "That's for once you get the pants off. You can put it over most of your legs while I work, if you want." He said, opening the first aid kit and sorting through it to find the supplies he needed.
Dalia nodded, unbuttoning her jeans and shimmying them down until the broken portion of her leg. She grabbed his hoodie and pulled it over her legs before starting to very slowly and carefully tug the pants leg over her injured leg. “What a first impression,” She said, joking but not cracking a smile, “Especially since you’re the first person I’ve seen in forever.”
He waited until she was done, and set her pants aside. He cracked a tiny smile. "Hey, on the bright side, it's not the worst first impression you could have made." He said. He sighed softly. "This is going to hurt, and the strongest meds I have are Tylenol." He said, pulling the three quarters full bottle from his pack. "I don't want to give you too many, because one, it can be bad for you, and two, this is all I've got." He opened it, and gave her three. "That'll take the edge off, but this is still going to really hurt."
“I don’t doubt this is going to hurt,” She replied, taking the Tylenol and popping them in her mouth without a second thought. Dalia rested herself back on her elbows and pressed her eyes shut, already dreading him having to set the bone back in place, “I might say some very colorful things if this hurts as much as I think it will, just ignore the language.” Reaching over, she grabbed her backpack and pulled it behind her for comfort.
Jay nodded. "Alright." He replied, brushing a lock of hair out of his face. He gently lifted her leg up slightly, one hand on either side of the break. "Get ready." He warned. He set the bone quickly, wincing at the scraping sound of bone against bone as he did so.
Like she said, her language was quite colorful between the yelps of pain as he put the bone back in place and her hands were clenched in tight fists. When he finished she sighed in relief and opened her eyes. “That..hurt, but thank you.” She said, looking at her leg and seeming very relieved that it wasn’t stuck out at an unnatural angle.
Jay nodded. "Not done yet." Was his only reply. He started wrapping bandages around the break area, as tightly as he could. Then he grabbed some wooden planks, and created a splint, working quickly. "I don't have plaster to create a cast with, so this will have to do." He told her as he worked.
Delia nodded, staying as silent as she could as he finished wrapping the break, “As long as I’m not going to die of infection because I don’t have a cast, this is fine.” She pulled her bag next to her as he worked, rummaging through it to try to find something to give him in return for helping her. After a few minutes of searching, she tugged out her last unopened granola bar and glanced at him. He seemed like he needed the food, she decided, even though she needed it as well it was the least she could give Jay for his work.
He finished, and sat back, packing his first aid kit back up. "Done." He said. "You'll need crutches of some sort, as you shouldn't put too much weight on that leg for a while yet." He told her matter of factly. He looked around, and frowned. "I could make you crutches, but they'd probably give you splinters." He shrugged slightly.
“I could wrap them in my other pair of socks,” She suggested, pulling out her warm wool socks from her bag before zipping it back up, “Then I wouldn’t get as many splinters.” Gently, she slid the granola bar she was holding across the floor to him, silently thanking him again.
Jay nodded, he looked at the granola bar, then at her, seemingly understanding. "You sure?" He asked. He reached over, grabbing two taller boards of nearly equal height. "These should work." He said, comparing them to her height.
“I’m sure, it’s the least I can do for your help.” The boards he grabbed were a pretty good length, almost perfect for her 5’ 8” height. She shimmied up into the best sitting position she could again and unfolded the socks so they could be wrapped around the makeshift crutches when he was done.
He nodded, and put the granola bar in his pocket. Sitting cross legged, he pulled a knife out, and started whittling down the boards so they were a bit thinner and less bulky. "This will take a bit." He said, not looking up from his work. "It'll be dark by the time they're done, so I hope you're okay with me staying here for the night. I'm not moving on in the dark." Wood shavings began forming a pile by his feet.
Pushing her pack behind her head again and laying down on it, she nodded, “Alright with me, just don’t try anything.” Her eyes flicked shut for a moment and she just let her body rest, though she was aware of every time he whittled a shaving away from the board with the knife and the sound it made against the wood.
He nodded, a dry smile quirking at one corner of his mouth. "Don't worry." He replied. He kept working, and after a bit started humming under his breath. The tune was steady, and rather melancholy. It was an older melody, from before the aliens had attacked.
She didn’t really notice when he first started humming, her ears only detecting the new noise after a few moments. Staying silent, she listened in for a moment before one of her hands that were behind her head as extra cushion started tapping along to the somewhat familiar beat. “What song is that?” She asked, breaking the silence with the question. The melody was really quite familiar but it was hard to tell the song. There hadn’t been an opportunity for her to listen to music in what seemed like eons.