It was a mad dash from the shores of the Mirage Island to the Fortree ER, during which time Memo held on to Alexei Ivanov's wrists for dear life. Alex had been in and out of consciousness the entire time, and Memo just talked, talked the nerves out, talked to fill the silence, talked to make sure Alex didn’t--

--he was sure Gabe wanted to eat him, but they could deal with that later.

His own nose had stopped bleeding but the blood from Alex’s mouth had maintained a steady trickle the entire way, even though Memo had used part of Alex’s scarf to try and stem it. Without knowing what happened when Alex went into the light (god, that was terrifying) he couldn’t know what was wrong with him. It could be something as innocent as a bit tongue, but with Alex’s haemophilia…

(If Memo thought too much about what happened, in that digital hellscape, he came very close to openly weeping, and throwing up, and maybe just a little bit considering throwing himself off the dragon at a very high altitude. So he did not think about it.)

The Fortree ER, like most emergency rooms in the world, had a landing pad for Flying-types and Memo had called ahead to announce their arrival (though the emergency operator had a hell of a time understanding him with a fucked up nose.) Thankfully, a team was waiting for them to land, and, ever efficient, Alex was off the dragon and on a stretcher in seconds as they hustled him into the hospital proper.

Guillermo tried to follow after, tried to tell them (how could he tell them?!) at the very least that Alex had a condition, but a few nurses blocked his path and told him they had it handled, thanks. Obviously they knew. There was a reason Alex only ever wanted to go to two hospitals in the entire region.

Anyway, a nurse sat Memo down in an adjunct room (just a tiny thing for vitals and screening) and went to work cleaning up his face. They gave him an ice water and told him to have a seat, they’d keep him informed.

So it was more waiting. Memo’s stomach felt like it was processing glass. He didn’t touch the water and it soaked all the way through the styrafoam cup.

On the ride over he’d swiped Alex’s phone (since the guy was more or less leaning on him the entire time) so he texted Kaida Adachi that they’d made it to the ER and he was waiting for news and also, this is Guillermo and, also also, he’s really sorry for being literally a monster, she could punch him again later if that made her feel better.

And so he waited. He waited and waited and waited and tried desperately to not think about what had transpired through the whirlpool. He waited and waited and waited and tried desperately to not think about Alex dying. He waited and waited and waited.

He’d counted to a thousand when a nurse came out, shook his hand, and ushered him down the hall into a room, where Alex, pale as death, lay on a bed; he was hooked up to a blood bag and a regular IV. The doctor came in and introduced himself and said they’d done a CT scan to check for internal bleeding and he’d needed more than one transfusion and the Chansey had been in and he was stable, for now, though his prognosis was guarded.

Memo thanked them, and they left, and he scooted a chair as close to Alex’s bedside as he could possibly get and sat down, terrified, somehow even more terrified now that he could see him. He didn’t want to touch him because he didn’t know what hurt. He didn’t want to touch him because he didn’t feel worthy.