47 Merge All, Part One
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Even in bed Angharad couldn't get much rest. Every last one of her nerves was tired out, but her body was still wired up with a nervous energy like something new would attack at any moment. She tried to read but her brain wouldn't focus, her eyes skipping over the same passages over and over again.

Eventually she put the bookmark back in, sighed, and gave up on sitting up.

On her back sleep remained elusive, but curled on her side she dozed a little throughout the afternoon, and every time she woke she forced herself not to look at the clock to check if night had fallen.

Eventually she became aware of a presence in the room and slowly rolled over to see Dr Yeoh sitting on a chair. She rolled all the way over to check: at some point Sophie had made her way to the other bed. Sophie looked like she was sleeping but it didn't look like her dreams were any more restful than Angharad's had been lately.

"Good, you're awake," Dr Yeoh said.

"I did try to get some rest," Angharad said.

"I appreciate that," the doctor said. She folded her hands in front of her face – perhaps to avoid the temptation to wave them around. Sometimes Angharad wondered if the reason Dr Yeoh started smoking was just to have something to do with her hands. "At the very least, it's more than I get from most of the idiots here. Your friend Jin should have rested before he started to hallucinate."

"How come you don't call him by his last name?"

"He didn't supply one."

The doctor leaned forward, so Angharad tried to push herself up and even out their heights. She couldn't quite make it.

Angharad blinked sleep out of her eyes and noticed Dr Yeoh had a file folder in her lap, thick with torn off sheets of paper, their rough edges poking out the side.

"Well, I do want to get better," Angharad said.

"You must be bored out of your mind. Being forced to rest makes me want to claw my face off. Lucky for me, an influx of people has made my life busy again. I'll need you to help me when you're well again."

"I-I can't wait! I'm ready. I mean, I'm ready to be ready."

The doctor's smile was sharp. "Indeed. There's another medical professional in the camp, now, but I would like as much information as possible about everyone here for my own records. You will assist in helping me gather this information. You seem to be liked by a lot of people. I have no doubt you can win over the new people as well."

"I mean, meeting new people is usually fun."

"There are some people I can tell you will find interesting." The doctor was one of those people who could layer the word interesting with layers of subtext and meaning, which was kind of amazing given she didn't really have a whole lot of inflection in her voice. "Ibrahim, for example, did not supply any additional names, just that one."

"Like a pop star," Angharad said.

"And yet I get the impression that he has discarded more assumed names than you have. Perhaps you can get more insight into him than I did. I doubt he'll be expecting you to try."

"Okay, that is kind of intriguing."

"I suspect you'll be interested in the friendship that seems to have arisen between Mnemosyne Keating, the person in charge of Jin and his secret girlfriend—"

Angharad gasped. "If he asks, I didn't tell."

"—and Maria O'Connor, who fought on the other side of their war." The doctor cleared her throat. "If Jin is under the impression that he is remotely talented at keeping secrets, then he is sorely mistaken."

The doctor stood, holding the file folder that she then put on Angharad's bedside table.

"Read it at your leisure," Dr Yeoh said.

"Tuck me in?" Angharad asked, voice small.

Dr Yeoh looked at the floor long enough that Angharad started to feel a little awkward.

"Well, alright then," the doctor said, and did just that, then turned off the light before she left.

A few hours later, when Angharad couldn't sleep, she picked at the file folder, trying to focus her eyes enough to see the scribbled writing in the dark. New and interesting name, new and interesting name, and then—

That couldn't be right!

*

Angharad re-circled the scarf around her neck so it was three layers deep of warmth, and walked through the hospital doors.

"Okay, I've decided on a plan of action. I'm checking out the scene here, taking some mental notes, then persuading everyone else to come in for their totally important check-up. Nobody will notice what I'm really doing," she said.

"Talking to yourself now, princess?" Zelko asked.

"Sure. Some days if I want a decent conversation I'm the only person I can turn to."

He didn't look impressed. "Sophie isn't here any more."

"I know, because she's my roommate. I left her with Eleanor and they're talking about stuff I don't care about. I'd rather be here than there."

"On your mission?" he asked, eyebrows raised.

"It's deep secret stuff, Zelko. I don't think you have the clearance to know about it."

"Oh, girl stuff. Get your tampons from the doctor without being such a drama queen about it."

What an idiot. She rolled her eyes at him. "I'll do that."

She tried to look casual and like she knew where she was going as she walked around the hospital. It would probably look less casual if she ended up doing a lap of the whole floor, of course, but lucky for her she heard voices as she got closer to 107, and one of those voices had Dr Yeoh's unimpressed tones.

She knocked on the door frame and then swung half-way into the room, anyway. "Knock, knock! I'm here for my check up. I hope I'm not interrupting anything."

The doctor didn't look but the other two inhabitants of the room did. An objectively handsome man, probably mid-20s, who looked like he was used to getting what he wanted, and a miserable looking woman with a terrible haircut that looked like it had been hacked into that shape blindly in the dark.

"Angharad Silver! I knew I'd find you here," the man said, eyes shining with something she found a little alarming.

"Um, I'm not wearing a name tag, so..."

"Of course I remember who you are. I'm Niall, Niall Turner. We met on my father's plane. It was very meaningful to me."

Angharad could feel the smile slowly dropping off her face. "But you couldn't be Niall Turner because I met him a year ago and he was ten years old."

"You've been gone for longer than you realise," he said.

The miserable looking woman still didn't speak. When Angharad looked at her that woman looked at her knees, then looked away.

So Angharad looked at the doctor instead and said, "You know, maybe I did get brain damage in the crash after all, because there is zero chance this is actually happening. I'm going to go malfunction somewhere else."

The doctor nodded, mouth tight. "You should go see Okada. Or look for Ibrahim because you'll like his eye."

"Okay. Great."

Angharad swivelled around and marched out.

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