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Thanks to a careless trainee she didn't recognize, Mimsy was in the middle of a strained conversation (or a passive aggressive reminder) about lab safety when the first text came through, which she ignored. The second also went unchecked, and it wasn't until the third that she excused herself to look at her phone, assuming that so many messages in such a short span of time denoted some importance.

After reading all three messages, she was still angrily staring at the screen when the fourth and fifth came through. She made it only as far as 'Mark can' before she stuffed her phone back in her pocket with such force that the seam partially split. There was a considerable amount of work going into sustainable solutions to ensure Lucky's existence, as per her promise. Unfortunately, most of it resulted in further thinking instead of initiating action, and it seemed as if the undesired external force had acted before she could find an answer.

"I do not have time for this. Contain your failure of an experiment so those of us who are competent do not have to," she snapped at the trainee, appearing way too passionate about lab safety as she hung up her goggles and briskly stomped into the hall.

Her pace didn't slow until she reached Caelius' office, at which point she came to an abrupt stop, then folded her arms and waited. Even if Lucky was already gone, it was beginning to seem important that someone knew to avoid touching what was hers.

The suspiciously narrowed eyes that were fixated on the office door widened the instant that Mimsy saw Lucky. She moved along with him without any protest, hurriedly attempting to identify the source of the blood as they walked - starting with his left hand, of course.

When he stopped, she waited for an explanation. What she got was both insufficient and unfunny.

"No."

It didn't seem like she intended to react in any other way, until she wrapped one arm around him and held him close, then tried the door to the room next to them. When it opened, she turned on the lights and helped him sit. She was reasonably sure that he couldn't stand long enough for her to get through everything she wanted to.

"Oh, Lucky. What has he done? What is this?" she asked, carefully picking up his hand. Without waiting for an answer or permission, she began to slowly unravel the bandages, completely disregarding the fact that she didn't have any fresh dressings with her.

She paused to press a bit of the blood that transferred to her fingers onto her coat where it counted, where the badges were now one large Clerise award and two smaller Lucky achievements, and went right back to attempting to uncover the injury. It was fortunate that Caelius chose this hand, but until she knew what he'd done, her amount of displeasure was yet to be determined.

The sight of it made Mimsy want to berate him, to complain about how he'd failed to do the one thing that she was supposed to do, to ask him why he so desperately wanted to ruin all of this for them. It made her want to accept the fact that failure was more probable than success.

But she did none of that.

"Infirmary? Oh, no, no, Lucky." If she was going to do this, it would be done right. By her. Sharing with strangers that she couldn't trust would never work, and there was no time to assess the worth of each of them at such short notice. She would just have to find another way, and would have to urge him away from the idea of the infirmary in the meantime. "Think of all of the questions they will ask. This will surely raise suspicion: an injury from one of Caelius' weapons, directly within the mark of our enemy? The trials are still fresh in their mind, after all."

She raised her eyebrows at him and slowly shook her head. He inevitably knew the weight of that implication. It was better to avoid turning the entirety of Deus Ex against him, especially when he had not been successful in the other trials. There was little else available to him; though she was willing to go very far to fulfill her promise, she was uncomfortable with 'death' as such a possible outcome.

"Who knows what they would do. I would never trust you in their hands. I might never see you again."

Her voice softened, brow furrowed with apparent concern, and she shifted her shoulder and extended her arm just slightly, intending to make it easier for him to hold onto her. The tight grip would have probably been somewhat painful, if not for the shield.

"Here, perhaps I could...how does it go? Kiss it better? It's entirely feasible that it might work here, I suppose. If FEAR can heal, it is not at all ridiculous to believe that other emotions can," she teased, smiling over at him. Then she took the joke much too far - she leaned down, gently pulling his hand up to meet her, and kissed it just below the open wound. She stared at it for a moment, as if she might have actually expected it to heal, and absently rubbed her thumb over one of his fingers.

When she looked back up at him and smiled again, half of her mouth was splotched with his blood.

"Well. I suppose that did not work at all." Obviously. She took a deep breath and considered the options with a long 'hmmm', glancing back down at his hand. This was not something that she wanted to share, but if she had to...

"I will request immediate outpatient assistance from a trustworthy source. Will Robert suffice? He has tended to you in the past, correct?"

She finally released his hand to retrieve her phone again, smearing it with blood as she turned it over in her hand and awaited his answer.

Frowning, Mimsy tilted her head to the side, silently attempting to determine why he would say such a thing. There was little to no risk involved with talking to Robert about this, and allowing him to know the contextual information should not have been an issue. Why, then, was he reacting this way? Her eyes wandered towards the only movement coming from him - the nervous fidgeting of his left hand - and she wet her lips without thinking. In the same moment that she lingered on the mu scarred on his hand, she tasted his blood on her tongue, sharp and familiar.

With a little smile, she understood.

"Ah, of course it is okay. I would not have offered it otherwise. I assure you, this is not some sort of ill-timed test. There are more important things to be concerned about," she insisted, gesturing towards his injury. Taking the bandage off was a terrible idea, in hindsight. Oh well. "If your worry is in reference to one of our previous conversations, the terms have changed. I sincerely apologize for neglecting to mention as much, but there are rules now. Did you know that you can set any rule of your choosing when defining a relationship of that sort?"

It was still a bizarre and fascinating idea, and she looked incredibly amused until she remembered the situation at hand. This was the worst time for tangents.

"Er, right. Sorry. The point that I am trying to make is that there will be no harm in a friendship with him, if that is what you would like. I trust you, and..." Midway through the previous sentence, she'd turned half of her attention to her phone to begin writing a message. She stopped to give him a wide smile, and returned to the text when she began speaking again. "Robert knows to avoid breaking his rules."



The message was listed as 'sending...' when she turned the phone towards Lucky to show him, in case he had any doubts of her intentions. She would have, if she were him. After convincing him to avoid the infirmary, there was little to prove that she wasn't just going to let him die in a meeting room somewhere.

"Now, while we wait." She set the phone down on the table beside them and slid her chair until it met the edge of his, then pulled him into some sort of partial hug, leaning him against her so he wouldn't have to expend energy by keeping himself upright. "What answers and information did Caelius get? It is imperative that I know, for your safety."

Lucky was starting to reach the territory of a dangerous game now. The longer he delayed, the longer he put off his inevitable meeting with Shiloh, which was good. But be was also gradually bleeding out from the conspicuous hole in his hand, which was bad. He wasn't sure what he wanted right now; even just the notion that he'd have to repeat this encounter in a week - and probably every week beyond it ad infinitum - horrified him even more than this (hopefully) transient injury.

But he had one less thing to worry about, at least... The hair trigger issue that had set her off before was pretty much gone now. One hand with a hole through it was bad enough; he didn't need two.

"Fascinating," he commented with just the right amount of vagueness to make it sound like he knew what she was talking about. Quite frankly, between the two of them, they had had the same amount of experience with the subject up until recently. But he didn't look fascinated. He looked mildly ill now. It was like he was conserving his energy, even holding off on speaking because he had to clench his teeth so much of the rest of the time.

The text message was quickly read and received a few slow nods of recognition. Now if only Robert would respond. And quickly.

The body leaning against her suddenly tensed. There was a pause of several seconds. "Not here."