(The medicine in this chapter isn't gruesome, but it is detailed.)

Aula spends most of her time in the airlock leaning against the inner hatch. The left side of her face throbs with blinding intensity. Sweat seeps into the wound and adds a sharp sting to its already varied palette of pain. She keeps her eyes shut and listens to the chatter over comm. In the Gagarin airlock, Kwan and Kalashnikoff make plans to get a suit back out to Harvey. The rest of ILUB-2's crew prepares for their return outside the Armstrong airlock.

"Major Reed."

She opens her eyes. "Mm?"

"Are you ready?"

"Mm."

Bauer squeezes her shoulder. "We're ready, Commander."

The inner hatch shudders. Aula stands up straight and watches it slide upward to reveal Nakamura, Ward, and Kelly crowding the entrance. All three of them briefly glance at her face. They don't react, which is the most telling reaction of all.

Kelly grasps Aula's glove with both hands. "C'mere to me now."

Climbing out of the airlock is always awkward. Aula pushes her right boot forward until she hits the bottom of the bulkhead and lifts her foot over it. Her toe nicks the edge and she nearly falls forward. Nakamura and Ward both reach out to steady her while Bauer hangs on to her PLSS.

Nakamura bends down to guide each foot over like he would a toddler. It's embarrassing, but the situation is too pressing to give that feeling any weight. When she's clear of the airlock, she sinks to her knees and allows them to gently lay her on her side. Ward activates the Z-1's hatch and a rush of air immediately dilutes the smell of blood and two different brands of sweat. Aula starts pushing herself out of the suit when two pairs of hands hook under her arms and around her waist. She's pulled out as carefully as possible and rolled onto her back. A canopy of faces hang overhead.

"Janey Mac," Kelly says. "The Moon took a bite out of you."

Aula exhales a sharp huff of air.

"Dr. Kelly, can you please move this suit to the equipment lock?"

Nakamura doesn't raise his voice, but Kelly flushes red and scrambles to move the Z-1 out of Bauer's way. Both the commander and Ward help Aula sit up. The prospect of standing feels insurmountable.

Ward looks at her knowingly. "Ready?"

She sets her jaw and nods.

"On three," Nakamura says. "One...two...three."

They both stand up with her arms hooked around their shoulders. Aula grunts, but makes no other sound. It's another awkward waltz. The three of them slowly shuffle towards the base's medical facilities where Ward works. They turn a corner and come face to face with the ILUB-1 memorial. No one says anything as they move past it. Several of NASA's psychologists oppose a memorial precisely for this reason, but Aula would rather eat rocks than prove them right. She keeps her eyes fixed on the floor three feet in front of her.

When they step into Ward's office, it looks as sterile as before. Aula sits down on the lightweight examination table and grasps the edges like her life depends on it. Although her LCVG draws sweat away from her body, her face is slick with it. She bows her head and feels the throbbing in her face grow stronger.

"Now let's see what we can do." Ward sits down in her chair and leans down until they're looking at each other. "Are you ready, Reed?"

"Mmhmm."

"Please lie down."

She does so reluctantly and keeps her eyes on the ceiling. Ward leans back and the sounds of ripped packaging can be heard. When she swivels into Aula's field of vision, her hands smell of antiseptic. She snaps on a pair of latex gloves and flexes her fingers. Nakamura makes short lopes around Ward and the bed and comes to stand behind Aula's head. He clears hair sticking to her forehead and braces her neck.

Ward gently peels the bandage off. Despite her delicacy, the pain is so intense and hot that it turns cold. Aula breathes harshly through her nose. Nakamura puts one hand on her arm to make sure she doesn't flail about. She blinks sweat out of her eyes and watches Ward's expression tighten. The bandage comes off with a loud crinkling. Its underside is nearly black with blood. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to visualize what the gauze underneath must look like.

"Errt'?" Aula looks Ward in the eye, then Nakamura.

"One crisis at a time," he replies.

She concentrates on the ceiling again. It's not enough. Her gaze roves over the office until she catches sight of Ward's single picture: her daughters Ayla and Melisa. Their faces are flushed rosy brown and smiling against the blue Mediterranean. She looks away. One open wound is enough.

The gauze comes off next. Small stained squares are picked off and set aside, sopped in blood and saliva. Ward brings their faces close together and inspects the wound. Her breath still smells of herbal tea.

"I would like to inspect the wound if you can tolerate it."

"Mmhmm."

"Good." Ward gently pulls back the healthy side of Aula's mouth and shines her penlight inside. "Another cleaning, too."

Given the risk of contamination by lunar dust and bacteria inside her mouth, Aula isn't surprised. But the constant pain grinds her patience down to a nub. She bites back several choice words and grunts consent.

Ward brings out another large, evil-looking needle and fills it with saline. Nakamura tucks a small kidney-shaped basin under Aula's chin to catch fluids.

"Okay. Deep breaths."

Aula locks her eyes on the ceiling again and controls her breath like she's pulling a 9 G turn. The saline feels no better the second time around. It scalds her face and trickles down the valley of her open chin into the basin. Nakamura inspects the saline for any traces of lunar dust, but his expression remains focused and unperturbed.

"It's clean," he says.

"Now for the best and the worst part." Ward trades the empty syringe for a 27 gauge filled with a mixture of lidocaine and epinephrine. A clear bead hangs on the needle's point like a dew drop, which she flicks off. "I will go as slowly as I can, but you'll experience pain. If you feel like you have a fat lip, that's completely normal."

"Don need codd'ing."

"Yes yes." Ward palpates a spot beneath her left eye. "Look straight ahead, please."

She finds the infraorbital foramen, which is a small hole in the bone just beneath the eye socket, and presses down on it. This is where the infraorbital nerve peeks through the skull and spreads up to the eye and down towards the mouth.

"Now, for the worst part. I must lift your lip. Ready?"

Aula swallows. "Mmhmm."

Ward carefully dips her thumb into the left corner of her mouth and pulls the lip back. Since it's essentially cut in half, the wound doesn't pull taut. Aula sounds like a steam engine as she exhales sharp, short breaths through her nose. The needle pierces tender skin just beside her second premolar. She clenches her right hand into a fist. Ward slowly rubs the injection site while the feeling of burning fullness increases. The injection itself is slow and careful. Despite her tone, she withdraws the needle with incredible gentleness. She then pierces the delicate skin over the central incisor to insure it's anesthetized. Because of crossover fibres, an infraorbital block doesn't always numb the tooth.

"Turn your head a little towards me. Good."

With one nerve blocked, Ward pulls on Aula's lower lip. The mental nerve branches out of a small foramen in the jaw usually nested between the two lower premolars. She slowly pushes the needle into the lower gum line and into the buccal fold. The pain is sharp, but not overwhelming. She injects the rest of the anesthetic for nearly 20 seconds before withdrawing the needle again and straightening up.

"Very good. That should only take a minute or so."

Aula exhales heavily and relaxes. Pain is relative. Compared to what she experienced in the past three hours, this is a respite. She shuts her eyes and waits for the numbness to kick in. Shuffling, crackling plastic, and banging about can be heard from her left. She doesn't have to wait long. A tingling chill starts creeping along her skin. Her face feels lose, unwieldy, like it's about to fall off. The remnants of her pain are finally iced out.

"Has it set in yet, Major?"

She cracks her eyes open and nods. Nakamura looks down at her while Ward drags a tray over. Now the real work begins.

The doctor starts by prodding her wound. "Can you feel anything at all?"

"Mm mm."

"Best to be sure now, yes?" Ward uses an imperious motherly tone while inspecting the suture needle. "Pride is not an asset in pain management."

Again, Aula keeps her opinions to herself. It's not as easy this time. She focuses on the needle, which looks like a fish hook with no barbs. It brings sutures through the wound's edges and pulls them together much like the spine of a spiral-bound notebook.

"I'll use absorbable stitches where I can, but some will have to be removed." Ward lifts the suture with a needle holder, which is essentially a blunt pair of scissors. "Now you may feel some pulling and pressure. Please remain as still as you can."

While Ward is the only doctor aboard ILUB-2, every crew member has medical training. Aula watches the hook pierce her cheek, tent the skin, then pop out. The pressure's there, but no pain. Ward clamps the needle's midpoint with her scissors, pulls it out, and reveals the fine tan braid of a 5-0 chromic catgut suture. Although it looks like a broken elastic band, it's sterilized connective tissue made mostly of collagen. Small and ideal for stitching wounds in delicate areas such as the face. She lifts the next bit of skin with her forceps and continues.

It's what Aula would do in this situation. The innermost layers of her wound are sown shut with simple interrupted sutures 3-5 millimetres apart. Each suture is individually placed and tied in areas where infection is a concern (like the mouth.) If any part of her laceration becomes infected, only problem sutures need to be taken out. With a continuous closure, everything would have to be removed and redone. She doesn't hold anything against Ward as a person, but the less time she spends in here, the better.

Nakamura passes new sutures without prompting.

"Thank you, Commander."

Ward switches to 6-0 non-braided nylon. They're larger, non-absorbable, and dentist blue. With the deeper stitches done, she goes about repeating the process with the same technique. Aula tracks her progress based on the pressure she feels. It's difficult with lidocaine in full swing, but the tugs and metallic snips all form a rhythm she can anticipate. On Earth, she'd have access to cosmetic surgery. There are no plastic surgeons on the Moon. If she's allowed to stay, she'll be disfigured. Her speech could be impaired.  

The moment finally arrives. Ward ties her last suture and straightens up. "That should do for the time being." She bats Aula's hand away from the laceration. "Absolutely no touching without washing first."

Aula glares at her.

"I think the major would like to see." Nakamura's voice remains perfectly bland.

"It's not pretty," Ward admits as she hands over a small mirror, "but it's an improvement."

The wound is larger than Aula remembers. It starts at her left cheek and angles down over both lips to her chin. The blood caked around is washed away, which leaves her skin red around the stitches and then chalk-white. Her mouth is another story. The vermillion border is finicky. If it's sutured up with even a millimetre out of place, it's disfiguring. A chunk of flesh nearly an inch long and half an inch wide is missing from her top and bottom lips. Her throat closes up unexpectedly and she lays the mirror facedown.

"We've consulted with NASA. There is...a possibility." Ward's voice carries on an unfamiliar edge. "If you're willing to become the first person with a printed skin graft."

Aula quickly files through the pros and cons of such a procedure. But in the end, her answer is the same. She makes a point of looking at them both and nods.