And Playing the Role of Herself...

by K E Lane

  Robyn. I let my gaze linger on her. I loved her. This I remembered, too.

  A woman in brightly patterned scrubs hovered next to Sebastian, looking worriedly from one to the other. A nurse, I assumed, but didn't recognize her.

  "Don't think I won't," Sebastian was saying. "I don't care how famous you are or what connections you have…"

  Robyn's eyes wandered in apparent boredom as my jerk of a brother railed at her, eventually coming to rest on me and widening in sudden realization. She was out of her seat and across the room in seconds.

  "Caid? Honey?" Her voice was hopeful and desperate, and she reached out a hand to touch me but drew back and grabbed onto the rail of my bed instead.

  I blinked slowly. "He…" I croaked, my voice weak and raspy. I swallowed, and licked my lips with a tongue that felt three times too big for my mouth, flinching when I passed over a tender area that felt split. I tried again. "Hey…Rob."

  Her face broke into a beautiful smile, and a tear slid slowly down her cheek. "Oh, baby," she whispered, gripping the rails of the bed tightly. "I'm so glad you're awake. God, you scared me…"

  I tried to smile back, but it hurt, and I closed my eyes again.

  "Caid? Baby?"

  I was so tired…her words flowed around me and I let the beckoning darkness washed over me again.

  ##

  "…I don't want visitation changed. I don't care who they are, Perry, they are not her family."

  "But these are her friends! It might help her to hear their voices…"

  "I said no, and that's final! She doesn't need to be around those kind of people right now. She needs her family, and our faith in God…"

  The arguing voices drew me rudely from the safe, pain-free arms of unconsciousness into the distinctly non-pain-free world of consciousness. I groaned involuntarily in disapproval. Jesus. Those two never stop arguing. My eyes fluttered open, and blurry images gradually gained sharpness. Three startled sets of eyes were staring at me - two familiar, one not.

  I tried out my voice - it was weak, but audible. "Will you…two…shut up."

  "Caid! You're awake!" Perry hurried forward to hover uncertainly by my bedside.

  "Hard…to sleep…with you two…ragging…at each other." I croaked out and swallowed, wishing for some water and some more nice, pain-free darkness.

  He smiled tremulously. "How do you feel?"

  I would have laughed if I wasn't sure it would have hurt like hell. Instead I grunted.

  "Jesus Christ, Caid, you scared the shit out of me."

  "Sorry…" I whispered, although I wasn't sure what I was sorry for.

  Sebastian moved up beside Perry, frowning in disapproval. "Perry, you will not take the Lord's name in vain…"

  I winced at the tone. "Jesus Christ…Sebastian…shut up." I told him wearily, and thought I heard a titter of laughter from the other room's occupant who I assumed was a nurse.

  The disapproving eyes turned to me, narrowing in annoyance. My brain might be muddled, but pissing off Sebastian was second nature. "Well hello to you, too, Caidence. Nice to see the attitude survived intact. And you're welcome. I dropped everything to come down here to be with you and this is the thanks I get?"

  I stared at him unremorsefully, blinking tiredly. We hadn't been civil to each other in years - I didn't see any point to starting now. Whatever his reasons for being here, I doubted my welfare was one of them.

  The nurse pushed both men out of the way with practiced ease and moved up beside me. She glanced over at a console of machines to my left and smiled down at me. "Hello there. Glad to have you back with us. How are you feeling?"

  I blinked slowly. "Crappy."

  She smiled sympathetically and patted my hand gently. "Yes, you took quite a beating. You look a lot better than you did two days ago, if that's any consolation."

  Beating? Two days?

  "Wh…what happened? I don't remember…" I frowned, trying to concentrate and the pain in my head intensified. I hissed softly in pain and closed my eyes.

  "Shhh…don't worry. It'll come back to you. Just relax, and I'll be back a little later with the doctor."

  I nodded, sleep already tugging at me again, and heard her move away.

  "Gentlemen, could I speak to you outside please…"

  ##

  "Caidence? Miss Harris?"

  My eyes jerked open quickly and I flinched in pain, blinking up at a blond, athletic looking woman in a maroon scrubs with a stethoscope looped around her neck. She flashed a wide, friendly smile while light brown eyes swept over me in quick, professional perusal.

  "I'm Doctor Reese. How are you feeling?" She looked down at a clipboard in her hands, flipping through pages, and then back up at me.

  I coughed slightly and winced at the resulting twinge in my back. I cleared my throat carefully. "I've had better days."

  She put the chart back with a chuckle. "I bet you have. Would you like some water?"

  "Please."

  She nodded across the bed and I noticed another person in the room, the nurse from before. "Gail, could you grab that?"

  The woman picked up a small pitcher on the table next to me and filled a plastic cup, dropping a straw into it and handing it to me. I drank gratefully, the liquid trickling down my throat in blissful coolness.

  The doctor pulled the stethoscope from around her neck and fitted it into her ears, speaking briskly as she gently pulled aside the neck of my gown and laid the cool metal against my chest.

  "Gail tells me you might be a little confused about what happened. Do you remember anything at all?"

  I shook my head slightly. "No…nothing. My head - everything is so fuzzy."

  She nodded. "I'm sure Gail told you that that's normal. You took quite a knock on the head. What's the last thing you remember?"

  I frowned, trying to gather my stray memories into some kind of order. A paddle in my hands, turning my head and laughing at Robyn behind me…"I…we went kayaking…" Robyn across the table from me, smiling sweetly at a young girl and her mother who asked for an autograph… "We went into town for dinner…"

  A possibility suddenly occurred to me and I straightened, trying to sit up and grimacing at the pain in my back. "Robyn," I ground out. "Is she okay? We were together…"

  "Whoa there," the doctor gently pushed me back on the bed, her hands on my shoulders. "Just relax. Your friend Miss Ward is fine. A little ticked off at your brother right now, and worried sick about you, but she's fine." I relaxed, and after watching for a moment to ensure I wasn't going to try to jump out of bed again, she released my shoulders and straightened. "Let me fill you in a little, okay, and maybe it will help a little with your memory."

  I nodded gratefully.

  "You're at Mid-Key Medical Center in Marathon, Florida. The ambulance brought you in at around eleven on Sunday morning."

  "Sunday?" I forced myself to concentrate. Kayaking had been…Saturday. Sunday…what had we done Sunday? I'd been scheduled to fly out early that afternoon, and Robyn was due back on the set…

  I throb of pain that seemed to engulf my entire head stopped my memory gathering and I shut my eyes for a moment, before opening them again. "How long…"

  She glanced at the watch on her wrist. "It's 9:45 pm, Tuesday."

  Nearly three days. Whoa.

  "What happened?" I asked slowly. "Why…"

  "You were attacked and severely beaten. Miss Ward came with you in the ambulance, but she wasn't hurt - she apparently found you."

  She had found me? Oh, honey. I couldn't even imagine what that must have been like.

  "Beaten?" I said slowly. A flash of memory, and object coming towards my face and a flash of pain along my jaw…

  "Is any of this sounding familiar?"

  "Maybe…" I shook my head in frustration and she nodded sympathetically.

  "I wouldn't worry…I'm confident your memory will right itself in time. Now," She hung the clipboard up and gestured to the nurse. "We'll just do a quick examinat
ion, and then we can talk about your injuries, and you can ask any questions, okay? I'm sorry, but some of this is going to hurt."

  She was right. They poked, prodded, and maneuvered my body, and by the time they were finished, I had long since stopped trying to hide tears of pain and I was exhausted. She finished with a light test to my eyes, and a few simple questions then wrote in the chart for a minute before giving me her attention.

  "Well Miss Harris, it might not feel like it right now, but you're one very lucky woman."

  "I'd hate to know what it would feel like if I'd been unlucky," I mumbled.

  She looked at me seriously. "Quite frankly, you'd be dead."

  Oh.

  "You've got multiple contusions on the head, face, abdomen and back, but it doesn't appear that there will be any lasting physical damage from any of it. You're concussed, which is to be expected, but not severely according to scans. That's what's causing the confusion and memory loss you're experiencing...it should be temporary. You have a very hard head." She smiled slightly. "Despite the amount of trauma to your face, no bones were broken, although you sustained a couple fairly deep cuts…luckily we have a plastic surgeon on staff and he stitched them up nicely. If treated properly, they should heal without much scaring. Your abdomen is heavily bruised, but amazingly no ribs were broken and no internal damage…and we were concerned about spinal bruising from a large contusion on your back, but all of your reflexes and sensation seem to be within normal limits. A pelvic exam showed no signs of vaginal or anal trauma and your clothes were intact when you were brought in…"

  I sucked in a sharp breath. Jesus…

  She glanced at me sympathetically and her tone softened. "You weren't raped, which is good news in an attack like this. The most serious injury, besides the head trauma, was a fracture of the ulna in 2 places above the left wrist…you've got a small plate and a couple of screws in there to keep it together while it heals…all in all, very lucky, and you're in excellent physical shape, which should speed the recovery process."

  I blinked slowly and suddenly felt very lucky indeed.

  "How long…" I gestured at my body with my good hand.

  She crossed her arms and cocked her head to the side. "A few weeks for the bruises to fade, five or six days before we take the facial stitches out, and then several weeks for those to heal completely, six to eight weeks for the wrist, and we'll have to see how the back feels when we get you up and around…Your head injury, it's hard to say - we'd like to keep you here a few more days for observation, and once you're released, you might experience headaches, dizziness, light-headedness for anywhere from weeks after to months after. You'll definitely need to take it easy for a while, and you might need a little help for a bit when you're released."

  "The best thing for you right now is to rest," she continued. "I'm going to restrict visitors for you for a little while…we've had some…issues, and you need the quiet. I've got you hooked up to a morphine drip…now that you're awake, you can manage that yourself. This button here," she pressed a button on one of the machines by the bed, and a moment later I could feel a tingling in my hand and a delicious lethargy flow through my body, "releases the drug into your system…it's set up to allow you a certain amount an hour. Do you have any questions for me? Anything we can do for you?"

  They both looked at me expectantly.

  I put processing the information about what my body had gone through on hold and contemplated her question, fighting fatigue and the slowly encroaching haziness brought on by the morphine.

  There was something I wanted to ask…about Robyn…

  I closed my eyes to concentrate and sleep took me again.

  ##

  I woke briefly on and off over the next several hours; long enough for a nurse to ask me how I felt and for another hit of morphine before drifting off again.

  When I finally woke with my head clear of haziness and my body rested enough that fatigue and pain didn't make me want to go right back to sleep, I was in a different room - a much smaller room - and the array of machines beside me was much less impressive. The sharp odor of antiseptic was overlaid by something sweet and floral; I looked around curiously and found that nearly every available spot of counter space, along with some floor space, was taken up by flower arrangements off all sizes and even a stuffed animal or two.

  I tried to chuckle at that, which ended up as more of a wheeze, and a nurse who was scribbling something on a clipboard at the end of the bed looked up. She smiled. "Oh good, you're awake again. How do you feel?"

  I thought about that for a moment before answering.

  "Not great," I croaked, and cleared my throat. "But…better," I added, surprised that it was true. My head still throbbed but the nausea was gone, my face didn't feel quite as tight and swollen, and mind was much clearer.

  She glanced at the display of one of the machines beside my bed and wrote something down, then looked back at me. "Good." She poured me a glass of water and I nodded gratefully when she handed it to me.

  "What time is it?" I asked, noticing weak gray light coming in the room's one window.

  She looked at her watch. "It's about a quarter after six. Wednesday morning," she added before I could ask. She hung the clipboard on the end of the bed and refilled the water glass I'd set down. "How does some food sound? Maybe some toast…some juice?"

  I nodded slowly, realizing that now that the nausea was gone, I was hungry. "I could eat."

  "Great. I'll go fetch you something, and your brother was just in here…he went to find some coffee, I think. I'll let him know you're awake."

  "Which brother?" I asked bluntly, not wanting to deal with Sebastian quite yet.

  She smiled slightly. "Perry. He's been here most of the night." She motioned to the corner of the room where a messily folded blanket lay across the back of a chair. "I'm Kara, by the way. I'm on until eight. I'll be back in just a bit with your breakfast."

  "Thank you, Kara." She smiled and pushed out of the room.

  A few minutes later Perry poked his head hesitantly through the door, smiling uncertainly. "Hey. Morning, sleepyhead."

  I gave him a wide smile in greeting, happy to see a familiar face, and flinched slightly at the pull on my right cheek. I raised my hand curiously, feeling the swollen tightness of my skin and the evenly stitched welt that followed the line of my cheekbone beneath my right eye. Exploring further I found another welt running along my jaw from below my right ear to the middle of my chin and a small, painful knot on my forehead above my right eye. The left side of my face in comparison felt smooth, with only a few tender areas of scrapped skin.

  "Caid, you okay?" I blinked and glanced over at him. He had entered the room and was looking at me worriedly.

  "Yeah…sorry. Just hadn't…felt the damage before. How does it look?"

  He looked at me uncomfortably, "Uh…well…"

  "That good?" I asked dryly. Perry looked at the floor and bit his lip. "It's okay, Per. I know I probably look like the bride of Frankenstein, but they tell me it'll all heal up fine."

  He shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans, still looking at the floor.

  "It'll be fine, Per, I promise. Didn't the doctor talk to you?"

  "Yeah, she's been really cool." He nodded and was quiet for a moment, then looked up with a tiny grin. "She's a babe, too."

  I raised an eyebrow - my left one. "Is she?"

  "Oh, come on, Caid - I woulda thought you'd notice something like that, after your recent…discovery." His grin widened.

  "My brain was a little scrambled when I met her," I smiled slightly, glad for the change of subject and Perry's brightened demeanor. "I'll try to pay attention next time."

  He grabbed the chair in the corner and dragged it over next to the bed, dropping into it with a chuckle. "She's got some balls on her, too…Sebastian's trying to pull his crap on her, but she won't take any of it. And they say when he had Robyn tossed from your room, the Doc turned around and tossed him, too…o
h, I would have loved to have seen the look on his face."

  I frowned. "Robyn was here?" A vague memory of her worried, tearstained face surfaced, and her voice telling me to stay with her. "And Sebastian tossed her out of my room? Why?" I shifted restlessly. "And why the hell is he here, anyway? He should be in church thanking god that his sinning sister got what was coming to her."

  He frowned. "That's a little harsh, Caid. He seemed genuinely concerned. He's an asshole, but you're still his sister."

  It was nice to think that maybe somewhere, deep down, Sebastian still carried around familial feelings for me, but too much had passed between us and too much had been said for me to lay any bets on it.