The sound of this man's voice, this stranger --he was no stranger-- It stirred at memories that had been buried under everything that had happened in the past ten years. Chris had been so young when her uncle had died, when her cousin had disappeared. She hadn't expected to recognise him, his voice, the stern set of his brows, the strength of his shoulders. She stepped forward and stumbled before catching herself against something broken, crumbled, something that had once been a piece of this great and beautiful past. For a moment the past seemed to be right there, present, the recognition that struck her as unshakeable as the man she remembered.
"...cousin." He was really here.
"-- you're hurt," she exclaimed, louder and more forceful. The hesitation melted away, the whys and hows didn't matter right now. She rushed towards him, crouching by where he sat to try to get a better look at his injuries.
The amount of blood on the bandages made her uneasy, and triggered a wave of false pain up her back.
Chris reached out gingerly to unwind the bandages that were still clinging to the wound. He was still bleeding. She couldn't tell how deep it was and they were losing light, the sun sinking lower and lower. "We...we need to stop the bleeding. And-- and clean it..." She took a breath, trying to remember how she'd been attended to when she'd been injured. "Do you... do you think you'll need s-stitches?"
She couldn't be scared, she had to help -- but she couldn't help but to glance up at him uncertainly, as if for guidance. Don't be useless.
Chris clasped her hands to still the shaking, clenched her jaw to brace herself. There were clean bandages nearby already, so she took one of the large pieces of gauze and held it against the wound. If only it were something as simple as a scraped knee, she could probably handle that.
“Hold it there, I’ll go get something for light and...and everything else.”
