What Gratitude Looks Like

"The worst wounds people inflict are never on their enemies—they're on the ones who show up to save them."

Gathering the water had proven to be a more time-consuming task than I had initially thought. The river was farther than my memory had suggested, the path more treacherous than my burned foot appreciated, and the act of filling a bucket without proper equipment required a patience I was rapidly running short of. By the time I made my way back to the tent, sweat had soaked through my shirt and my arms ached from carrying the sloshing weight, Luke was already on his way out, his movements quick, driven by a purpose that immediately set off alarms in my mind.

He was half-running, half-walking, that particular gait of someone who needed to move faster than walking allowed but couldn't quite commit to a full sprint. His face carried an expression I was learning to recognise — the look of a man who had just received bad news and was already calculating how to address it.

"Everything okay?" I asked, the concern evident in my voice.

Luke's rush could only mean that Jamie's condition was fluctuating, and not necessarily for the better. We'd just extracted a charcoal splinter from the man's chest. We'd just heard him scream in ways that would haunt my dreams for months. The idea that there might be more complications felt almost cruel in its inevitability.

"For now," Luke responded, his words offering a temporary relief but also hinting at underlying issues.

The phrase hung in the air between us — for now. Not yes. Not he's fine. Just a conditional, time-limited reassurance that promised nothing about the next hour, the next day, the next week.

"But I need to go back to Hobart for some medical supplies."

His statement was a sobering reminder of our precarious situation, reliant on resources from a world away. Medical supplies. Antibiotics, probably. Bandages. Antiseptic. All the things a proper medical intervention would have had from the start, if we'd been anywhere other than an alien dimension with a t-shirt for surgical draping.

I let out a soft sigh, a mix of frustration and helplessness swirling within me. The bucket of water suddenly felt absurdly inadequate — this small contribution I'd spent precious minutes acquiring when what we actually needed was a hospital, a pharmacy, a world where help didn't require crossing dimensions.

"I wish I could come and help you," I said, the sentiment genuine.

"If you could come with me, I wouldn't be needing any help to start with," Luke shot back, a hint of bitterness perhaps, or maybe just a raw acknowledgment of our reality.

His words stung, not because they were meant to wound, but because they laid bare the truth of our situation. If Paul could leave, Paul wouldn't be here. If Jamie could leave, Jamie wouldn't be here. Luke was running errands across dimensions because the people he was running them for couldn't run their own.

I remained silent, at a loss for words.

What am I supposed to say to that?

Luke was right. If Jamie and I could simply leave Clivilius, none of us would be facing these dangers, these constant threats to our well-being. We'd be in a hospital. We'd be surrounded by professionals with proper equipment and sterilised environments and all the infrastructure that human civilisation had built over centuries specifically to address moments like this. Instead, we were here. Trapped. Dependent on my brother's ability to sprint between worlds while we waited and worried and hoped that whatever he brought back would be enough.

"Got to go," Luke said, urgency propelling him forward as he took off in a sprint towards the Portal.

I watched him go, a mix of admiration and envy for his ability to move between worlds, a freedom that Jamie and I sorely lacked. His figure grew smaller as he crested the hill, and then he was gone — swallowed by distance or dimension, I couldn't tell which from here.

The bucket grew heavier in my grip. The water inside had already warmed in the heat, probably contaminated with whatever microscopic life forms this alien river harboured. But it was what we had. It was what I could contribute. And Glenda needed it, so Glenda would have it.

I turned back toward the tent, each step a small rebellion against the helplessness that threatened to overwhelm me.

Ducking to enter the tent, I was acutely aware of the water I carried, cautious not to spill a drop. After all that effort to collect it, losing even a splash to carelessness felt unacceptable. I adjusted my grip, lowered my head, and pushed through the canvas flap.

The scene inside was not what I had expected.

"Are you okay, Glenda?" I blurted out, noticing her position on the tent floor, extending a dog treat towards Duke with a wariness that seemed out of place.

She was sitting awkwardly, her body angled away from the small dog, the treat held at arm's length like an offering to an unpredictable deity. My gaze then fell to her arm, wrapped in one of my fresh t-shirts. There was no blood visible, but enough tension in the tent to announce that something had gone wrong.

"What happened?" I hurriedly asked, my concern for her immediate well-being momentarily overriding my curiosity about the broader situation.

"I'm fine," she assured me, her voice steady despite the circumstances. The professional calm was still there, that unflappable demeanour that had carried her through the extraction. But I could see the strain beneath it now — the slight tremor in her hand as she held the treat, the way her eyes kept flickering toward Duke with something that wasn't quite fear but wasn't quite not-fear either.

"It's just a surface wound. This shirt is just a precaution until Luke gets back with some antiseptic."

Her calmness in the face of injury was reassuring, yet it did little to quell the storm of questions brewing in my mind. A surface wound. From what? Duke was small — a Shih Tzu, not exactly a formidable beast — but those teeth were sharp enough, and the infection risk in this environment was something I didn't want to contemplate.

"But, what…" I faltered, struggling to articulate the confusion and concern swirling within me.

"Duke doesn't like her," Jamie interjected from his position in the tent, his voice carrying a chill that matched the coldness of his gaze.

He was lying on his back as instructed, but his eyes were fixed on Glenda with an intensity that felt dangerous. The fever-flush had faded from his cheeks, replaced by something harder. Something hostile.

"And neither do I," he concluded, his words sharp and unforgiving.

The statement landed like a slap. This was the man who, less than thirty minutes ago, had been unconscious and infected and probably dying. This was the man whose chest had just been relieved of a two-centimetre splinter and a reservoir of pus. And he was glaring at his rescuer as if she'd committed some unforgivable offence.

"Jamie!" I couldn't help but scold him, taken aback by his harshness towards Glenda, whose only intention had been to help. The word came out sharper than I intended, a parent's tone deployed against an ungrateful child. But the ingratitude of it — the sheer, breathtaking ingratitude — demanded some response.

"She shouldn't be here," he insisted stubbornly, his refusal to see reason frustrating me further. His jaw was set, his eyes narrow, his entire posture radiating rejection despite his horizontal position. The man who had been screaming in agony was now perfectly capable of dispensing judgments about who belonged in Clivilius and who didn't.

Glenda's glance in my direction held a clear warning — a plea for me to leave the matter alone. Her eyes said what her mouth wouldn't: Don't escalate this. Don't make it worse. I've dealt with difficult patients before. The professional restraint was admirable, but the injustice of Jamie's words propelled me forward anyway.

"If she wasn't here, you'd be bloody dead within a few days!" I retorted, my frustration boiling over.

Jamie averted his gaze, a quiet moan escaping him as he attempted to shift positions. The movement was small — just an adjustment of his shoulders, a repositioning of his weight — but it was enough to remind us all that his body was still recovering from significant trauma.

"You'd best stay on your back for now," Glenda advised, her attention returning to her patient with a professionalism that underscored her commitment to his care. Even now, even after being attacked by his dog and rejected by his words, she was still focused on his well-being. Still offering guidance. Still trying to help someone who had made it abundantly clear he didn't want her help.

I watched the interaction with a mixture of admiration for Glenda and exasperation with Jamie. The dynamic reminded me of something I couldn't quite place — a memory from childhood, perhaps, or a pattern I'd seen play out in business negotiations. The wounded party lashing out at whoever was closest. The helper absorbing the blow without retaliation. The observer standing uselessly by, holding a bucket of water that suddenly seemed irrelevant to everything.

Closing the distance between us, I approached Glenda, my movements deliberate.

"I've brought you some clean water," I announced, nudging Duke aside with my foot to place the small bucket before her.

The dog moved reluctantly, his eyes still fixed on Glenda with that unsettling intensity that small dogs sometimes possess — as if his size made him compensate with extra suspicion. The gesture was simple, yet it felt like a silent acknowledgment of the tension that permeated the tent. An offering. An apology on behalf of people who should have been apologising for themselves.

Glenda nodded, a brief acknowledgment that managed to convey both gratitude and exhaustion in a single motion. Her eyes met mine for a moment, and I saw something there — not complaint, not resentment, just a weary acceptance of circumstances she hadn't chosen and couldn't control.

Without waiting for a response, I turned and exited the tent, the weight of the confrontation lingering heavily on my shoulders as I stepped back into the uncertainty of Clivilius. The canvas flap fell closed behind me, sealing Jamie and Glenda and Duke into their uncomfortable triangle while I escaped into the relative peace of the empty landscape.

The heat outside hit me immediately, but I welcomed it. Anything was better than the atmosphere inside that tent — the hostility, the tension, the absurd spectacle of a rescued man rejecting his rescuer.

I walked a few metres from the tent and stopped, staring out at the barren horizon. Somewhere beyond that hill, Luke was sprinting toward a Portal that would take him to Hobart, to pharmacies and medical supplies and a world where gratitude followed rescue in the proper order. Somewhere inside that tent, Glenda was tending to a patient who had made it clear he'd rather die than accept her help.

And I was standing between them, holding nothing, able to fix nothing, watching the cracks spread through our fragile community before it had even properly formed.

This is what survival looks like, I thought. Not the heroic kind from films. The messy kind. The kind where people bite the hands that heal them and brothers sprint away without goodbyes and you stand in alien dust wondering if any of this can possibly hold together.

The sun beat down on my shoulders. I didn't move. I didn't know where to go.