NOTE: Well, I think it's been a year since I've written anything for this or Santos Slide and I'm sorry. I didn't mean for it to happen, but you know how life goes. Met a guy, moved in, and now I'm getting married. Go figure. Hope to have more chapters of both stories up soon. Don't give up on me;)
SPOILERS: None here, but watch out anyway.
RATING: Nothing offensive here, I don't think. Don't be too disappointed.
.:TWO:.
[Set between chapters six & seven of Santos Slide]
Mallory hated hospitals. She could remember hating hospitals for the entirety of her life, and doctors tended to not be her favorite people. They tended to think of themselves as gods, at least the ER types she was most familiar with.
The antiseptic smell of the halls assaulted her nostrils and the flickering florescent lights reflecting off the bright, vinyl tile that laminated the floor and the institutional white of the walls glared mercilessly into her sensitive eyes. A headache was throbbing just behind her brows and she was seriously disappointed that she'd left her shades in her truck. Nothing for it now.
Little David Benton was being tended to by a pair of doting, motherly nurses and a doctor in the room just to the left of Mallory's moderately padded waiting chair. She'd originally been told she could await news down the hall in the appropriately named waiting room, but something in her stance and the set of her jaw had let the nurse know she wasn't stepping out of hearing of the boy and no one was going to make her. Now she was staring at the toes of her boots and wondering what she was really doing there. She didn't know the kid, had only heard about him because she was tracking his father, and now she was cooling her heals in a hospital hallway, waiting to find out what would happen to the kid now.
Should get up and leave, she thought and placed her hands on the arms of her chair like she was going to lever herself to her feet, but she couldn't do it. She knew she had to make sure that wherever David went, he'd be safe.
Two hours had passed since Mallory had stepped out of the ambulance, following David's gurney and holding his small hand in her own. His eyes had stayed locked on her, his focus obviously making her his anchor. She'd smiled down at him reassuringly, stroking his fingers with the pad of her thumb in gentle circles.
"Everything is going to be okay, David," she told him and had hoped it was true.
Standing to stretch, but not to leave, Mallory turned at the sound of footsteps coming down the corridor to her right and saw Morelli making his way toward her. He looked tired around the eyes and tense around the mouth and she guessed that the circus that was a murder scene had taken its toll.
Mallory nodded to him as he stepped up to her. "I'm guessing you're looking for a statement." It wasn't a question. She knew the drill.
Morelli heaved a sigh and ran a hand through his unruly hair. "I figured coming to get it myself would give me a reason to make myself scarce for a while." He smirked humorlessly. "This is a way better gig."
Mallory's reply was cut off as a harried looking blonde woman came careening down the hallway from the direction of the nurses' station, sneakers squeaking on the linoleum. Her hair was bundled back into a ponytail and she wore the jeans and t-shirt uniform of a mom. Her eyes locked on Mallory as she came toward them and suddenly she was taking Mallory's hand in her own and shaking it vehemently.
"You must be Ms. Mallory. I'm Jennifer Allen, David's aunt." Her voice cracked slightly at the end and Mallory could see that the woman had been crying, her eyes red rimmed and bloodshot, her face pale and strained.
"I can't begin to thank you enough for saving David. I tried to get Karen out of there, tried to get her to leave the house…" She shook her head as if clearing it of the memory, her eyes focusing once more on Mallory. "But David's okay? They called and said he was going to be okay."
The obvious fear and hope in the woman's face and voice calmed the worry that had been gnawing at Mallory since she'd wrapped her arms around David, the worry that he would go to some nameless foster home, lost to the system, maybe back into an abusive environment.
"He's fine. They just brought him back from x-ray and the doc is talking to him now. I'm sure you can go in."
Jennifer Allen smiled and nodded, shaking Mallory's hand once more before releasing it. "Thank you. Thank you so much," she repeated and dashed around them to David's room.
"That went well," Morelli commented finally.
"I hope it stays that way," Mallory replied and then turned her attention back to the cop. "So."
"How about you just tell me what happened so I can be sure it matches up with Santos' story." He pulled a small notepad out of his back pocket and flipped forward a few pages, glancing up at her expectantly.
Mallory wasn't sure if Santos' had mentioned her overzealous reaction, but she decided to error on the side of caution and cut out the part where she tried to kill Benton executioner style. Morelli didn't blink an eye at the omission and Mallory silently blessed Lester for his forethought. Her anger had been out of control in a way she hadn't experienced in years. Seeing the little child battered, wounded, terrified, after knowing from Benton's file what he'd already done to the boy and his mother, had sent her careening wildly off the edge. She'd wanted desperately to put that bullet in his head and watch his brains paint the wall, but she knew Santos had done the right thing when he'd knocked her gun aside.
"Everything seems to match up. I'll call you if I've got any questions, but this all seems pretty cut-and-dry."
"And that's bad enough," Mallory commented quietly, her eyes flicking to David's room.
Morelli didn't respond but when she looked at his face she could see that he knew what she meant and that he agreed with her.
"You need a ride?" he asked as he tucked his notepad back into his pocket. "I could drop you at your truck."
"That'd be great, but I want to hang around a minute and make sure all's well." She gestured towards David's room and Morelli nodded.
"Like I said, this is the better gig. I'm going to go grab some coffee and donuts and zone out in the waiting room. You can find me there when you're done here."
"Deal. I shouldn't be too long."
"Don't worry about it. I'm in no hurry." He gave her a little wave and turned on his heel to head back down the corridor he'd come from originally.
Mallory turned back towards David's room just as the doctor, nurses, and Jennifer Allen came out. Jennifer smiled at her, looking better for having seen David herself, and followed the nurses back toward their station down the hall. The doctor approached her.
"Mrs. Allen is going to be taking David home with her, but he wants to see you and she said that would be fine. He's drowsy from the pain meds and everything else, but I think it would be good for him."
"Thanks, Doc," Mallory replied and shook the doctor's hand before stepping into David's room.
The curtains were drawn over the window, filtering the bright sunlight. The television was turned off and a glass of water rested on the bedside table, a swizzle straw sticking out at a jaunty angle.
"Hey, kiddo," Mallory said as she came into the room and drew close to the side of the boy's bed. He looked tiny and frail, his arm wrapped in a neon blue cast striped with glow-in-the-dark fiberglass, a deep bruise discoloring the skin around his left eye. There were more bruises, she knew. She'd seen them when the doctors had been checking the boy over, looking for more broken bones or signs of worse injuries. Thankfully, besides a few bruised ribs and the arm, he was intact.
"Hi, Mallory," David answered. He smiled at her, flinching slightly as the split in his lip pulled with the effort, but she saw that he didn't stop smiling.
She dropped onto the edge of his bed, eschewing the use of the chair at his bedside. She wanted to be closer than that.
"How you feelin', baby?" she asked him and reached out to thread her fingers through his sandy blond hair, brushing it away from his forehead.
"Better, I guess." He frowned and turned his eyes to the window and a tear ran down his face to tremble on the tip of his chin. "Sad." His eyes lowered to the blanked pulled over his legs. "Lonely. Mommy's never comin' back."
A piece of Mallory's heart broke at the lost sound of his voice. She shifted around and pulled the boy into her lap, careful of his injuries, and cradled him to her chest, holding him close. He snuggled into her and she was once again aware of how small a six-year-old really was. How anyone could hurt a child she didn't know.
"Auntie Jen says I can come live with her and my cousins. That I can have my own room and they'll take care of me." He took a deep breath. "Auntie Jen and Uncle Bill are real nice to me. They were real nice to Mommy too."
"How 'bout your cousins? Are they nice?" Mallory knew how kids could be. Jennifer and her husband probably really wanted to give David a safe home, but maybe their kids had another agenda.
"Yeah, they're real nice. I like them a lot."
"That's good. I want to be sure you're going to be safe and happy before I go."
"Do you have to go?" David asked, leaning back now to look up at her, his blue eyes impossibly large.
There goes another piece of my heart, she thought wryly as she sifted her fingers through his silky hair. "Yeah, I do, but that doesn't mean you and I can't be friends still. In fact," and here she pulled a card out of her back pocket, one she'd already written her numbers on, "I want you to have this." She pointed to the name and number on the front. "That's my work number. I don't always answer that one. But this," she flipped the card over to show two other numbers, "is my special number. And my brother's special number. If you ever need me for anything, you call that number. I always answer it unless I absolutely can't, and then I always call back. Only special people have this number. Very special people."
"I'm special?"
"Super special. And you and I are friends now, so we're going to have to talk sometimes the way friends do. As soon as you get settled at your Auntie Jen's I want you to call me. And then I'll call your Auntie and see if she'll let me take you out sometimes, okay? Would you like that?"
David nodded emphatically and she hugged him close. "I'd like that too, honey. I'd like it very, very much. So don't forget to call me okay?"
"I won't, I promise," David replied and wrapped his good arm around her as far as he could reach, pressing his face into her neck.
Mallory held the boy a while longer until she felt him fall asleep against her. She disentangled him from her gently and tucked him into the bed, once more brushing the hair back from his face. "Don't worry, kiddo," she whispered. "I've got your back."
She wrote a little note on a pad of paper she found in a drawer, reminding David to call her as soon as he could and to be a good boy.
When she got to the waiting room it was to see Morelli chatting with Jennifer Allen in a couple of chairs in the corner of the room, both of them holding cups of coffee steaming in their hands.
Jennifer stood as she approached. "Officer Morelli was just telling me that you're a bounty hunter," she started. "That must be exciting."
"It has its adventures," Mallory agreed. "I gave David my phone number and asked him to call me when he's settled. I hope that's alright with you. I'd really like to stay in contact with him, if I could. Maybe take him to the park sometimes?"
Jennifer smiled. "I think he'd love that. Of course. Going from being an only child to one of six is going to be quite a change for him, I think. Having someone of his own will be good."
"He's a special boy. I'd like to help him out as much as I can."
"Thank you, Ms. Mallory. I don't even want to think about what would have happened if you hadn't shown up when you did. I think I'd be planning two funerals and one is going to be terrible enough."
Mallory laid a hand on Jennifer's shoulder and squeezed lightly. "I am so sorry for your loss. I can't imagine losing your sister." The thought of losing Ice was enough to give her nightmares, nightmares that came after particularly bad captures. "And please, just call me Mallory. I've never really been a 'Ms.' type."
Jennifer smiled again. "I'm going to go sit with David for a while. Is he awake?"
"No, I left him sleeping. Kid's gotta be beyond exhaustion."
"Yes," Jennifer agreed absently, eyes already turning in the boy's direction. "We're going to have a time ahead of us, but I think we're all going to be okay."
She excused herself then and headed back toward David's room with reassurances that she'd have the boy call Mallory as soon as he was settled in.
Morelli stood then and gestured toward the elevator bank across the corridor. "Shall we?"
Mallory pushed memories of another time and another little boy from her mind and couldn't manage to produce a smile of any kind for Morelli. The day weighed heavily on her and her past threatened to drown her, but she turned to him, blank mask in place. "Let's go."
#
YO: Well, there ya go. I hope to have the next chapter of Santos Slide up by next week. I still plan on finishing these, and hopefully it won't be another year before I update. I'd love to hear from you. Your feedback is much loved.