Power, Part 3

I couldn't remember anything about the day that had made sense. The fact that I was now sitting on a hospital bed, in a curtained off section of the ER, with a perfect stranger glancing at me nervously made about as much sense as anything else right now. Autumn had followed the ambulance to the hospital, both things I had argued against. I didn't want to go the hospital, and I didn't want this poor girl to waste any more time on me today. She explained that she had never saved any one's life before, and couldn't seem to leave until she knew I'd be okay. It was perfectly nice, and totally humiliating. I had been checked in and taken in for an MRI immediately. So fast in fact, that I thought I might be able to get in and out and salvage my route. Class was out of the picture, but maybe I could still earn a few bucks and the day wouldn't be a total loss. I had now been sitting for two hours with an ice pack on my head, trying to make my helpful stranger feel less obligated.

"You know, Autumn, I feel fine. I may just walk out of here, myself." I had done little else but thank her profusely for the better part of two hours. Truth be told I felt a bit silly about the whole ordeal now.
"You have a huge bump on your head! What if you have internal bleeding or something like that? I would just like to wait and see what the doctor says before I go." She bit her lip in concern. She was cute.

"Do you have some sort of medical training to back up your knowledge of blunt force traumas?" She saw me smiling as I said it and she blushed. I was quickly finding myself torn between sending her on her way, and enjoying her company.

"Well, not exactly, but I think ten years of watching ER has to count for something, right?"

"You know you'd think it would? But if that really were the case, ten years of watching Law and Order would probably have kept me out of this mess to begin with." Teasing her was fun. She crossed her arms and sat back a little in her chair.
"Well, in the future retelling of how I heroically saved your life, I'd like to be able to tell the whole story."
"I think you may be playing fast and loose with the phrase 'saved your life.' " I said trying to be smug but finding her smile a bit distracting.
"Oh really?" She raised her eyebrows in surprise, "then what should I call it?"
"You called attention to a... rough situation." I said straight faced, trying to continue the playful banter.
"Need I remind you that you needed stitches, and a MRI to rule out a brain bleed?"
"Two, okay? Two stitches. I won't be showing off my scar anytime soon. And I'm about done waiting around for these elusive MRI results. They should just call it 'So we don't get sued results.' " I had been joking, but only sort of. I really was tired of being here, and this whole thing was bordering on ridiculous. I slid off the patient bed and started to gather my things.

"Can I split a taxi with you, um, Autumn?" As quickly as traumatic events can bond previously perfect strangers together, I was ready to move on.

"What about your test results? Are you sure?"

"They have my information. If there's something wrong, they'll call--" I stopped short as I heard a commotion of some sort out in the hallway. Mumbled voices, several people all talking at once. I don't think I would have paid it much mind if I didn't know that combination of voices so well.

"Oh this is great. Just great." I hurriedly put my jacket on, while swinging my bag easily across my body.

"Quick, grab your things." I instructed Autumn. With a bewildered look on her face she obediently picked up her briefcase and purse from the chair.

"What? What is it--" she started, but the curtain separating us from other patients flew back and the Gorginski women descended. It wasn't that I minded that they were here, I just knew they would make a fuss. I was a grown man who hit his head in an alley. You could barely even call it a mugging seeing as I had the majority of my things still in my possession. I couldn't handle being coddled by any more women at the moment. My embarrassment quota for the day was overflowing.

Debbie met my eye instantly with that raised eyebrow look she always gives me when she thinks I'm hiding something from her. "Why did I have to hear from Jared in Receiving, who heard from Sue in customer service, that you had been attacked and were in the hospital?!" Although I could see she had been worried sick, she hadn't blinked yet and it was a tad unsettling.

"Deb, I'm so sorry you worried, but I am totally fine--"

Vanessa made her way to the front of the group and yanked up my shirt collar in her hands. "Is that blood?" she asked incredibly. I put both my hands up in a desperate plea of understanding, "yes, probably, but I--"

"Mom said they had guns!" Heather jumped up excitedly, pulling on my jacket and looking up at me with amazement in her eyes.

"No she didn't! They just beat him up real bad." Megan piped in.

"Well, she said they probably had guns. Did they Scott? Did they try and shoot you? Did you have to fight with them?"

"Heather, Megan, that's enough. Give him space to breathe for Pete's sake." Kim piped up. The girls quieted down, but no one moved an inch.
"How could you not call us Scott?" Kylie was the next to add her two cents and I was surprised to look up and see hurt in her expression.
"I, er..um...I..I didn't want to worry you? It was no big deal. Barely an incident. Two guys tried to take my backpack in an alley and the only thing that gave me any real trouble was a brick wall to the back of the head. It's a bump with a small cut. Coming here was purely a precaution. I promise, I was going to call you when I got home. Scouts honor." I meekly held up three fingers and attempted a smile in the seconds of silence that followed.
"The Scout's Honor salute is two fingers, dork." Megan broke the silence and the room erupted with everyone talking at once. I wasn't catching everything, but if I had to take a stab at the gist of it, I was still in hot water, but slowly being forgiven for want of all the gory details. At about the time Heather and Megan were trying to perform an improv reenactment, I noticed Autumn in the corner. She was holding her purse and briefcase to her chest and watching the spectacle with confusion and amusement.
Disentangling myself from Debbie who had insisted on checking out the back of my head, I walked over to Autumn and pulled her gently by the elbow into the mix.
"This is Autumn you guys. She's the real hero in all of this." She looked up at me incredibly. She saw the ruckus going on around her and clearly felt I was throwing her under the bus.
"What? You did?" Kim asked incredibly.
"Oh, I, um, was just in the right place at the right time is all." The women eyed her, noticing her for the first time in all of this.
"Nonsense," I said, seeing my way out of the fray. "Autumn here saved my life." Autumn's eyes narrowed at me in a glare, while fighting a ghost of a smile.
"I saved him from a rough situation is all." she looked at me, mockingly.
"No, no really. You guys should talk to her. She saw the whole thing."
The girls shifted direction like a cartoon group of bees that can swarm and change direction in a split second. Before she knew it, she was the new focus and I slipped out unnoticed looking for a nurse or doctor to discharge me.
I found myself drumming my fingers at the nurse's station counter, without a nurse in sight. I sighed with impatience, but found myself chuckling softly to myself. As embarrassing as the attention was, I couldn't help but let their concern bring a smile to my face. It felt good to matter so much to people. Riley loved me, I knew that. I even knew my mother loved me. This just felt different somehow. The Gorginski family wasn't obligated by default of genetics. They didn't have to care, but they did. Debbie and Kylie would have been at work; she must have pulled the younger ones from school. As silly as this whole thing felt, they thought I was in trouble, dropped everything and came.
As I looked impatiently down the hallway, I had that queer feeling again. The one I had had on the ferry ride this morning. The one I kept getting the last few weeks now. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up and my skin felt creepy. I shuddered involuntarily and looked around in all directions for whatever was setting off my sixth sense. There was no one. It was oddly deserted all the sudden for a hospital. Finally a janitor turned the corner with a mop and bucket on wheels. Seemed harmless. A nurse came out of a patient room down the hall carrying what looked like vials of blood and hurried in the opposite direction. No one. Nothing.
"Thought you could skip out that easily did you?" Kylie's voice came from behind me and I whirled around, amped up from the anxiety I had felt moments earlier.
"You okay?" Her expression went from teasing to quizzical in a matter of seconds.
"No- yes, I'm good. I'm just trying to figure out who I need to talk to to get the heck out of here." I said, attempting to rub out the goose flesh on the back of my neck with my hand. The uneasy feeling was fading. Or maybe I just always felt comfortable with Kylie around.
"You really gave us a scare Scott." she looked at me earnestly. I put my hand to my face and rubbed my head and cheek in a gesture of fatigue.
"It means a lot that you guys care so much. I promise though. It was nothing. They didn't even rob me. Not really anyway."
"What do you mean by that?"
"I had cash, I had credit cards, ID, my packages. They didn't take any of it. Except for one."
"Just one? What was it?" Kylie joined me in looking baffled.
I suddenly felt awkward. The one thing they had taken, was the one thing I wished I had never had in my possession. I didn't know what was in it or who it had been intended for. Had we been anywhere else, I probably would have spilled the whole ordeal to her. Asked for her advice, recounted the whole crazy set of events of the morning. But right now I just felt tired and anxious to get out of here.
"I don't really know." That was true enough I thought.
"Maybe it was company secrets, and a competing company hired someone to steal them." Kylie's eyes lit up as she speculated. She loved a good conspiracy story. I was about to roll my eyes at her, but stopped short. It actually had some merit to it. A lot actually. Why else would they only take the one envelope? Mr. Liam had said it was sensitive in nature. He seemed to be paranoid about trusting it to anyone from his office. Didn't even want a record that it had been sent.
"Hmmm. Not bad Gorginski." I hit her playfully on the shoulder and started to mull her theory over more in my mind. She seemed to light up with my approval.
"You must have a guardian angel." she said, shifting gears suddenly.
"Huh? Oh, yeah. I know right? Right place right time like she said. Lots of people would have been too scared to get involved though. She's pretty brave." I said thoughtfully. Kylie seemed to shift uncomfortably, and I used the silence to look up and down the hallway for a random nurse or doctor.
"Well, word travels fast. When we came through, I heard someone ask about you at the Admittance desk. Looked like one of your messenger buddies."
"What?!"
Kylie jumped a bit at my surprise.
"Yeah. It was quick, I didn't really get a good look. Just heard someone ask about Scott Daniels. I would have stopped to help him, but at the time, only cared about-- finding you." She finished her sentence with a touch of awkwardness. Like she would have liked to have used different words, but couldn't find any ones more accurate.
"I don't know how that's possible." I said, "I called Dispatch and let them know, but that's it. And you guys are the only ones to come see me."
"Well, word traveled. That's how Mom found out. Maybe they stopped by, saw all of us, and decided against it." She seemed to deem this the answer, and turned to help in my search for hospital personnel. It didn't ring true for me though. Sure I had worked for RealTime for a couple years now. I had made some friends well enough, but for the most part I kept my head down, did my job and went home. Beyond the Gorginski's, my life just wasn't set up to take on the responsibility of extra friendships. Even still. I suppose if I heard someone from work had run into trouble, I'd stop by. Maybe the hospital was near their route?
I didn't have any more time to consider the mysterious well wisher. My visitors had finally noticed my absence and brought their commotion out into the hallway.
In a way that only a mother of five could do, Debbie had managed to procure discharge papers that she was shoving in front of me to sign. I scribbled my name absently, and looked up to find Autumn, only to find her suddenly there, standing in front of me.
"Hi." was all she said, looking from me to Kylie and me again. "You seem to be in more than capable hands so, I think I'm going to go now."
"I'm glad to hear you have more faith that I'll pull through." Kylie had moved over a few feet in a gesture of giving us a moment, but I could have sworn I saw her roll her eyes in my periphial vision.
"I should get to work. I called in, but we're working on this big case--"
"Case? You're a lawyer?" I asked.
"Uh, yeah," she said absently as she dug around in her purse. She resurfaced with her wallet and produced a business card.
"It would be nice to get to know you with no life threatening incidents hanging over us." She smiled and I couldn't help but smile back, while taking her card from her. Her hair was a mix of natural golds and reds, that just reached her shoulders. Her eyes seemed a deep butterscotch and I couldn't help looking directly at them, fascinated with the unique color.
"Um-I'll do that." I managed to get out coherently. "Do lawyers get lunch breaks?" Do lawyers get lunch breaks? How lame. I mentally blamed the six sets of eyes I felt at my back for my lack of finesse. But Autumn just smiled. "They do occasionally let us eat, yes."
"Great." was all I dared to say.
"I'll talk to you soon then I guess. Take care Scott." she shrugged and held her hand out to shake it which I took, but then thought better of. "I think heroes deserve more than a handshake." Without waiting for a response, I pulled her from a handshake stance into a quick embrace. She held on longer than I had anticipated, and for the first time that day, common sense started to kick in. Here was a beautiful educated woman who had stuck around a hospital most of the morning waiting for MRI results for a bump on the head. I was beginning to think she hadn't ever really thought my life was in jeopardy. I went to say something but she was turning and waving over her shoulder. "Bye."
You are awful at this. I told myself. You make grand gestures with the girl who isn't into you, and are oblivious to the ones that are. I looked down at her business card and heard myself audibly gasp.
"What is it?" I heard Debbie say, as her and the girls found their way back over to me. I noticed Kylie was hanging back, leaning against the wall, pretending to study her fingernails.
"Um, er, nothing. I think I'm just hungry."
"Say no more," Debbie gestured her hands wildly in the air as if I had finally given her full access to take charge of the situation. "Let's get you back to our house. We'll feed you good, before you head home." Nothing had sounded better all day. As I tried to let thoughts of Debbie's homemade cooking settle the knot that had formed suddenly in my stomach, Kylie was suddenly at my side, snatching the business card from my hand.
"Wha--Kylie!"
"Liam and Drees and Associates huh?" she said with that raised eyebrow look the Gorginski women had down to a science. Made you think you had something you should confess, even if you didn't.
"I guess." I tried to sound nonchalant as we walked to the lobby and out the front doors. The sunshine and smog filled air, a refreshing change from the antiseptic smell of the hospital. This day had been so bizarre, I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised that my good Samaritan ended up working for the one person I was dreading talking to.
"She likes you, you know." Kylie turned her face up to the sun, eyes closed.
"No. I think she just felt obligated since she helped me. Wanted to make sure I was okay." I shrugged and shoved my hands in my pockets as we walked to the parking lot. I wasn't sure if I wanted to have a conversation about girls with Kylie.
"Don't you remember our deal?" Kylie stopped me, coming around in front of me, a hand placed lightly on my chest.
I struggled for a few seconds with remembering how to form words. "Of course, why?" Despite the havoc that being this near to her was doing to my brain, I was genuinely confused where she was going with this.
"I said I would always save you from yourself."
"Right...?"
"That girl. Autumn? She likes you. Not in a good Samaritan way, not in a just being a concerned citizen type way."
"How do you know? You met her for like five minutes." I said incredulously, even though I had just had my own brief suspicions.
Kylie rolled her eyes. "Men are idiots." was all she said, and fell back into step with me. Oh it was on now! I turned to her ready for one of our who's-more-ridicoulous-arguments when I stopped short. A black Lincoln Town car was pulling slowly through the parking lot. Despite the fact that it seemed horribly out of place, I could already feel my senses prickling. I watched carefully as it slowed, almost matching pace with my walking speed. I swallowed hard and concentrated on following Kylie to the car. Out of the corner of my eye, I looked at it again. The windows were heavily tinted, and squinting hard to see inside was pointless. I shook my head. Maybe I was crazy. It had been a long day, and I was letting it all get to me. Still, I put my hand firmly on the small of Kylie's back and quickend her pace to the Gorginski Mini Van. If something shady was going on, I wanted the Gorginski family no where near it. She looked up at me quizzically, but matched my pace without question. I waited as the girls climbed in and was just about to close the sliding door behind me when the black Town Car pulled up alongside the passenger side.
The back window slid down automatically, and I fought with the urge to get the women away from here and seeing who it was. I felt frozen in my seat, my hand on the open van door. Within seconds I was staring at Mr. Liam himself.
"A moment of your time, Mr. Daniels?" It was a question, but his tone implied otherwise.
Debbie looked at me, her eyes wide with suprise.
"Uh, yes, of course." I said, my voice steady and confident, my mouth completley dry. Kylie grabbed my arm and looked at me with a panicked expression. "Who is that Scott?"
"I deliever to his office. It's okay." I tried to reassure her while I pried her grip off my jacket sleeve.
"Is that who's package was stolen?" She managed to say in a whisper as I got out of the van. I nodded once to her and could tell I had done nothing to ease her concern.
"I promise you ladies, he's in good hands," Mr. Liam said loudly, trying to assure Debbie who resembled a Mama bear who's cub had been threatened.
"I'm fine Deb. This is business. I'll check in with you later tonight. Thanks for coming, really." I felt the words come out mechanically as I smiled at them and opened the Town Car door. Before I could over think it, I climed in and closed the door behind me. Despite the unknown of the moment, I felt relief that the Gorginski's were okay. I turned to look at Mr. Liam, and was met with a cold hard stare. This horrible day was apparently far from over.