What with all the chaos in the wake left behind by the explosion at the Leaky Cauldron[1], and having had to deal with patients (and momentarily take charge of the hospital, despite his objections and general dislike for managing people)[2], Arcturus would have had liked his job to be simply seeing to patients and let the events simply rest at that.

But alas, the world wasn't just about ready to let him go. Coming in Monday to be informed that one of the patients on his floor had managed to go on air during a radio programme[3] he'd heard about but never cared to investigate in the hospital had made him realise, with some amount of discomfort, how everything around him was just not safe enough to trust. It was quite enough having his own suspicions about the Ministry, but for communication to be that simple?

Previous events about St Mungo's being infiltrated in various ways by less-than-well-meaning individuals, including his colleague's scrape[4], and now this, was leaving him unnerved by all of it. He'd quietly ordered all wirelesses stored away unless given reason to provide one and a form to fill in for records, and advised the other healers on the floor to keep an eye on the Leaky Cauldron patients. None of the patients needed to know.

Now, if only it could have ended there, but no. It wasn't. He'd gone for a very long time with the impression that Johann Storm had been his worst patient[5], but right now that man had a serious contender in the form of a witch whose persistence about her condition was wearing his patience thin very rapidly. Oh, he'd apologised for binding her, but she would take much longer than just the past few days to forgive him. Fair enough, but he was still standing by it. Some of the other patients who had moved about too much with those blistering burns were having their burns reopening repeatedly and taking much longer to heal.

He reached her bed and retrieved the log from the end of her bed to check if his colleagues had been doing what was needed to make sure the burns were removed. He'd had to prescribe bandages soaked in dittany after having his initial idea of extract of cantharis being prioritised for the more seriously injured, and to make sure that her burns weren't exposed to the air. With some satisfaction, he noted that indeed his colleagues had been changing the bandages every day.

"Good morning, Ms Biladeau-Yukawa," he said distantly, as he checked her notes. "How are you today? Will it be all right with you if I can check your wounds?"

The same spiel, but internally he was bracing for today's barrage of complaints and/or the usual pestering. No wonder all the other healers also liked to leave her to him. Karma, probably.

1.	Treason & Plot, Nov 5th
2.	Burning Man, Nov 5th
3.	The Haunting Hour for Nov 7th
4.	The Desperate Thief, March 24
5.	The Badger's Bad Patient, Jan 15

She had gotten her fair share of visitors over the last few days, and that had been one of few things to lift her spirits. Mostly she had been bored, and boredom led to a sour mood and a tendency to sneak out and visit others who had also been injured. Some in worse conditions than her, some in better. She felt bad for those who had little family and had no visitors. The thing she missed the most--aside from Hogwarts and her job-- was physical activity. She wanted to dance-- needed to, really. But her level of exhaustion combined with common sense prohibited it.

The wireless had been a great source of news and entertainment for her. And that, that had been taken away. Maiko suspected it was because she called in to the radio show. That interview had allowed her to feel at least a little bit of control over her situation-- getting her words out. And now? It was gone. No more music, no more radio shows. Without conversation or music to keep her mind busy, her thoughts wandered to unpleasant places that she did not want to explore, or remember.  She hadn't even criticized the hospital-- just the ministry. Her trust in the hospital was beginning to dwindle.

Some of her friends had brought photo albums for her to look through-- most of them were muggle photographs, but many were wizarding. It was kind of them to try to bring some semblance of home to her, but it still wasn't the same.  The way the hospital smelled, the way that the crisp, suffocating sheets clung to her skin in her hospital bed... Well, in some ways St. Mungos was quite similar to muggle hospitals. She couldn't feel completely at ease here-- especially with a healer who she simply, could not trust fully.

Yes, Maiko trusted that Healer Hollingbury was competent-- that much her friend Flynn had mentioned when he visited. She so wished he could've been her healer, but it would have been a conflict of interest-- and besides he had much to do running a floor anyway.

She was grumpy. She knew she was grumpy, but at the very least she treated the healers that had checked in on her with common courtesy and kindness. She mustered up as much warmth as she could, though specific healers who had crossed her  (a minority, really) were often met with aloofness, clipped responses, and a general cold shoulder. Arcturus Hollingbury was now a part of that minority. With the large amount of patients that had come in after the explosion, there was no room for switching patients around to new healers. It was best to keep her with the one who knew her condition best. Which sucked hardcore.

Keeping her right arm still had proven to be a little more difficult than she had expected, but she had learned how to move her body and use only her dominant hand--her left hand-- to do simple tasks.

When Hollingbury opened her curtain, she closed her photo album and raised her eyebrows at the healer. "I'm improving. You may check my wounds." She stated, "My breathing has improved, I am not coughing as much but when I am stressed out I find that I cough more and breathing is more difficult." Mai fought the urge to shrug. Her body had tensed up in anticipation of him checking the wounds. She hated this part. To be fair, she hated all of it.

"I want to go back to Hogwarts." She said, "Healer Nagde is more than competent." And Maiko trusted her. Arc's poor bedside manner-- the fact that he had immobilized her-- it stuck with her. She couldn't just forget it. Every time she tried to forgive, she remembered just how out of control she felt, how he had treated her like she was incapable of following directions. How he had so swiftly taken a choice away from her. He didn't know her history, he couldn't have expected to know how she would have responded to this. It hadn't been his intention.  But good intentions did not erase a negative impact. Just thinking about it made Mai feel a tight ball in the center of the chest that sank to her gut.

She could have complained to the head healer, but she hadn't. Not yet. Maiko wasn't sure if she was going to.

Even if he didn't necessarily like feeling the way he felt every time he had to see to her, he was willing to give her credit for being precise with whatever she was feeling. Some patients just held things back in attempts to convince the healers they were okay. As much as he knew they hated the hospital and its environment (and sometimes wanted to see their backsides out the door), patient welfare always came first.

"I see." He glanced at her briefly to make eye contact. Most of the time he was trying to be a little warmer than usual with her. He did not feel inclined to make his expression-switching known during this time - that was a way of coping with troublesome patients, and he'd put her down as intelligent from first impressions. Right now was therefore not a good time.

But right now he needed his workplace to feel safe.

You didn't make it feel safe for her, said the little deadpan voice in his head, always stuck to the back of his skull and resigned to its fate. Arcturus shut it up to focus on his work.

The notes specified that she was, indeed, getting better. The potions were working; he allowed himself a small smile out of relief. He'd been worried that the wounds would be almost permanent, perhaps even lingering as dormant until later on. Whatever had caused the Leaky Cauldron explosion had certainly not been a normal firework show gone wrong.

"You'll go back soon," he assured her, glancing back at the notes again to make sure. "I've got it down here that your wounds look to fully close up in the next few days or so and all traces of whatever the explosion left in your system gone by then. I'll just change your bandages for you."

Dittany-soaked bandages had become an item on hand for nearly all the healers in the hospital right now. He pulled the roll from pouch on his belt and set it on the bedside table before adjusting his sleeve length. His hands were warm, at least, but he doubted that anything he would be doing for this patient would appease her in any way so quickly, even if it was for her benefit.

The healer set to work, focusing on the task at hand. The bandages came away cleanly, which was a good sign. The blisters were going down, and the burns looked less angry than they had been the night of the fire. New skin was already starting to creep its way along the edges. "No signs of pus or blood," he said quietly, both for him to remember to write down later and for her to listen. "Good. Still some swelling, but not as much as last night...I'm impressed, that was quick."

He wasn't going to touch them, no, they still looked fragile and tender. Arcturus replaced the bandages, taking his time and breathing deeply, his expression as possibly serene as he could get it to be. The old bandages went into the hazardous waste bin next to him before the lid resolutely shut and sealed itself - he heard the crackle of fire and then the munch as the bin ate the incinerated remains next to him as he disinfected his hands right up to the elbow.

"Can you move your joints without pain?" he asked her curiously. "Are they stiff? I assume you can move--" yeah, after you snuck off with one of the wirelesses so the healer last night wouldn't notice "--but does it hurt in any way? The other patients are having a hard time with that, granted their injuries are more serious than yours, but I want to make sure it's uniform across the board so we all know what to do to deal with it."

He was professional. That, Maiko appreciated. He was trying, she knew that. And he was doing a damn good job of healing her arm. The healers had caught on to whatever technique was the best, and she had been treating her body as well as she could by eating even though her appetite was nonexistant, and sleeping when it wasn't so noisy and her brain was quiet. Mai wasn't sleeping as well as she could have been, but better than some of the others on the floor.

Mai watched as he unbandaged her and examined his facial expressions. Healers-- people-- could give away more than they intended . However, part of her still felt foggy and mushy. Sometimes she felt like she was here, but not really. Her brain fixated on past things, future things, straying away from the present. Books were a welcome escape, and so were other people.

She was thankful that her dominant arm was okay, she was thankful that she was able to communicate with her loved ones so that they could arrange to visit. But still, Mai felt restricted. She felt stuck.

There were no signs of pus or blood. Good. That was good-- she was right! She was improving. Mai could feel it in her arms. Yes, she didn't feel great--but who would in this situation? She felt decidedly less shitty than she did yesterday. But decidedly less shitty was still on the shitty spectrum.

Mai shifted her right arm, and then her left to compare. "My joints are often sore." She admitted, "I don't... I don't know? I can't tell if it is normal joint soreness or if it is due to the..." She closed her eyes and took a breath, determined to keep her voice even. Calm.  "The explosion." The witch shook her head as if it would somehow silence the power of the memory. It wasn't that simple, and it left her head heavy.

"I haven't had any trouble moving around. I don't do well when I need to sit still for too long." She hoped that she would be out soon. If she kept healing at this rate, perhaps he would let her go back to Hogwarts at the very least. Soon, he had assured her. That had warmed her general demeanor, even if it was slight. She was almost out of here.  Maiko doubted that Healer Hollingbury would keep her any longer than necessary.

Mai braved one of the many questions that had popped into her mind over the last.... Merlin, was it three days already?

"The wireless is missing." She quirked an eyebrow at him, "Why?"

Arcturus listened to her, his face ever the same pleasant, blank expression. "Aah, yes, that's characteristic of most of the patients here. Your body has been a little shaken up by the impact, and I think you were close to the blast? In which case very definitely your muscles and joints will ache for a while as they mend."

He picked up the notes at the foot of her bed and was writing down what Maiko had said - and what he'd earlier noted - when she asked him about the wireless. Well, that was a question that he deserved coming his way, if not thrown into his face like a snowball made of pack ice. The healer lowered the clipboard, knowing that if he continued to write it would make him look as if he was being avoidant even if he spoke the truth. But he still had to word it carefully.

"While the hospital already has hitwizards on every floor to keep the hospital secure, we've had enough events in the past that somehow have led to security breaches within the hospital," he said quietly. "When we realised that two-way communication could be conducted through the wirelesses - admittedly with a lack of foresight in that regard - we decided to keep them away first and see if we could charm them to remain one-way[1]. They will be back when we've done that, since whoever set up for the explosion at the Leaky Cauldron could have been targeting someone. That someone could also be in the hospital right now being treated, and we'd rather not have the one behind the explosions breach the hospital just to finish the job." He shrugged. "Well, without enough information regarding the intentions behind the Leaky Cauldron and all that, that's all we can surmise right now."

He finished writing the notes first before he continued talking to his patient. "If you need it, we can try to get one out to you as soon as possible," he said. "I'm sorry about the lack of entertainment in the hospital otherwise. Sometimes I lend some of the hospital's books to patients, but I'm afraid they are very dreary and graphic for those who are not inclined to a healer's job. In the meantime, however, if you're feeling well enough to move you can indeed take walks and visit the tearoom upstairs. It would be nice if we had a garden with sunlight and fresh air, but availability of space does dictate what we have."

1.	Confirmed with Jules off-page