"Are you okay?" is the first thing he asks.

The Attwells are cautious of the unexpected random practitioner, but that's probably just them being professional. Johannes introduces himself as a friend of Sam's and both sides seamlessly assume the other might not know her real name.

"No, I'm not really," she says. She doesn't gesture at the place where her shirt has a horizontal cut, drenched in blood, and whatever lies dormant there keeping her from resuming the whole "death of blood loss" thing she'd been doing.

"You know, if you'd rather save on recovery time I bet you could turn glamour into usable blood after you're patched up. And then forget about it so it turns normal." And the rest he can do, in case Sadde's objection was as trivial as geography.

"Hey Dad, would that work?" Malcolm asks.

"Probably. It's also ridiculous and irresponsible."

"But that's not the main thing anyway. I'm so sorry about the- about what happened." The dog offers Sadde some chocolates, and candy and a Labrador were woefully inadequate this is insanely cringe-inducing what was he thinking.

"I have—more blood than one would expect," she explains to the Attwells. "I got it with money. From money. Which I have lots of. It's how I kept it up, even though Conquest kept poking holes at it." She's babbling. She's not sure how to react to the Labrador—she kneels, that seems like a good reaction, and accepts the chocolate.

She might start crying again.

Johannes bends down and hugs her. (The dog is less awkward about it.) Either or both Attwells might have done the same, but are busy with helping the guy who just got shot get into the hospital and/or having just been shot.

“You don’t have to talk. Or hold together at all. Being in one piece can come later.”

Yeah okay more crying now, definitely. She hugs him and buries her face in his shoulder and sobs, clinging to him like he's her lifeline, not making sounds but still rocking her body with her heavy breathing and trembling.

Clinging is probably okay. He honestly would have bet on Sadde blaming him over this, but there’s a pretty wide range of okay here.

(The others head in to the hospital ER and suggest Sadde could too, since no one knows how long Jeremy’s temporary fix is good for. Johannes tries to politely shoo them off while agreeing that sounds like a good second priority, and probably fails.)

Clinging continues.

She'll... eventually notice this is not the best place or time for. Pretty much anything. She pulls away, then, and says, "Your shirt," inanely. She's cried all over it.

“Is the least important thing here.

If you’re up to...things in general...we should get you patched up one way or another. Everything else can wait.”

She nods and moves to disentangle from him and... they're at a hospital, that's probably relevant.

He helps her in and stays with her while the doctors look her over. Medical personnel are duly surprised at how much blood she isn't losing, but no one asks too many questions because it turns out "it is medically unexplainable why you are still alive" isn't doctors' favorite message. When Jeremy's one weird trick wears off everyone's prepared and there's a general air of "I told you so" despite no one having, in fact, said so. This time the recovery instructions are worse than just having stitches out in a week and a half.

Johannes is subdued the entire time. Wishes the "outsource empathy to the nearest canine" plan worked inside hospitals. Tries to keep Sadde focused on the boring mundane hospital stuff instead of the important thing. And to distract himself from how there is no way it works.

Sadde is a little bit too self-centered at the moment to notice much. She does feel so, so much appreciation for Johannes, but other than that she's filled with grief and a life-threatening injury and isn't focusing on much else.

No one's complaining.

(Well, Conquest will if his practitioner stays distracted for too long, Johannes doesn't say. But he's not here and also screw him.)

Sadde will at least not be alone with the grief-and-injury until the end of visiting hours.

If Conquest wants to talk he's welcome to arrange for this to happen, he knows where to find her.

He will eventually. Right after visiting hours end, in fact, so at least she isn't alone with her thoughts. Instead she gets to be alone with Conquest.

(How the hospital staff don't notice the giant wolfhound is anyone's guess.)

"Hello, Conquest," she says tiredly when she spots him.

"I have been preserving our interests among the would-be Lords," he says. "While we cannot easily retake the throne, I believe we can be second in any of several coalitions. How soon can you appear capable of fighting?"

"Appear capable? Probably tomorrow. Must we? Can't we just leave this forsaken city and—" She doesn't really have an and. She hasn't thought that far ahead.

"Is there somewhere a single conflict could gain us more than here?"

She can't keep the scepticism off her voice when she asks, "A single conflict?"

"It has a single well-defined endpoint, yes."

"And then what?"

"We stay to push an agenda. Become the new Lord's problem-solvers. Or we promise our candidate to leave peacefully as soon as they win in exchange for concessions. An official status for our Seal, perhaps. I think nearly all would agree to that."

She looks at him for a few seconds, then says, "No. We can't be someone else's problem-solvers. Concessions, sure, that we can do, but I want—need—out of this city. We can go to Montreal, I haven't seen the Lord in six decades."

"Montreal is stable. Fewer things in need of opposing and harder to change things in. Why not Ottawa, or Jacob's Bell?"