A/N: I wanted to make this chapter longer, but I didnt want to over-do it. But there will be more updates soon! Thanks so much to everyone who read and/or reviewed the last chapter. Hope you keep reading, and enjoy!
Phoebe sits in the waiting room of the hospital, feeling nervous, and helpless. She'd been there for only 20 minutes or so since the ambulance brought her and Joey there. It felt more like hours. They'd rushed him away, still unconcious, without any word to Phoebe about what was going on. At least she was able to ride with him in the ambulance. Phoebe hated ambulances. They brought back painful memories of her mother, and Snowy, her former roommate. Snowy was the only real friend that Phoebe had since she moved to New York 3 years ago. He took her in, allowed her to share his home, an old run down car, which he paid for by washing windows, and basically taught her the ropes about how to survive under such unfortunate conditions in the big city. She looked up to him a lot, and then he killed himself, just like her mother. Just when Phoebe was beginning to think that she was cursed, from ever allowing anyone to get close to her, she meets Joey. And right now, she didn't even know if he was going to pull through or not. The ambulance that took Snowy away never brought him back. She wasn't going to let that happen again. That's why she insisted on riding with him.
Even though she hadn't known Joey long, she was so worried about him. He was only 16. He had his whole life ahead of him. And beyond that,
he saved her life last week. If it wasn't for him, she'd be dead. Now, she couldn't do anything to save his. She felt terrible. 'If he dies,'
she thought. 'It'll be my fault. Maybe I really am cursed. I wish I had never met him. If I never met him, this wouldn't have happened
to him.'
Phoebe reaches over and picks up a medical brochure from the wall. She needed something, anything to take her mind off of this, or else she
was going to lose it. She leafs through without really reading, and breifly studied a labeled diagram of the human skeleton. Normally she finds
any new information interesting, having dropped out of high school in 10th grade. She holds up her hand in front of the brochure, staring at the
sections of her fingers between the joints. "The phalanges..." she says, intrieged by the new word she's just learned. "Huh..I always wondered what they were called." she says to no one, in particular. 'I wonder how many broken bones Joey has..' she thinks.
She sighs deeply, and gets up, unable to sit any more. She can't bare the anticipation. She walks up to the receptionist desk. "Yeah, hi. Uhm,
I came in here, like, forever ago with a guy who was badly injured and..I need to know where he is."
"Ok," the receptionist begins, as she turns to her file folders. "What is the patient's name?"
"Joey." she tells her, and pauses. What did he say his last name was? Something Italian, for sure. "Joey...uhm...Tribbiani? I think?"
The receptionist puts down the files and eyes Phoebe over the frames of her glasses. "And what is your relationship to this patient?"
"Well, I happen to be his...his sister." She's hesitant to give out her real name, as she always is. She knows that she's been reported a missing
person since she ran away to New York when she was 15. She blurts out the first name that comes to her mind, as it was on the name tag of one of the
paramedics who took her and Joey to the hospital. "Regina. Regina...Phalange."
The receptionist continues to eye her, suspiciously.
"Yes, uhm...you see, I'm...his half-sister. So we have different last names."
"Well, Ms. Phalange," she replies. "I'm afraid I don't have any information on the condition of the patient. And I can't allow any visitors in without
permission from his doctor. If you'll have a seat, I'm sure it won't be much longer."
"Look," Phoebe says, impatiently. "Can't I just go see him? Please. I just want to know how he's doing."
"Well, I'm sorry, but-"
"Excuse me, young lady?" Phoebe turns around, as a doctor appears in the hallway.
"Were you the one who brought in the young man who's been mugged?"
"Yes!" she eagerly answers. "Yes.. I'm his sister. Half-sister. Is...is he ok?"
The doctor looks to consult the clipboard in his hands, pressumably Joey's medical charts. He has no blood on his lab coat. That's a good sign.
"Well," he begins. "I'm afraid he's suffered a mild concussion. We've been montitoring him this past hour, and he should be fine. No serious damage."
He flips the chart over, to show Phoebe some X-rays. "As you can see here, we have some minor hare-line fractures to two of his lower ribs. One more
serious fracture to the right wrist. We'll need to put a cast on it. Other than that, just a lot of scrapes and bruises. I'd say he's a very lucky young man. We've seen much worse outcomes in these types of situations."
Phoebe let out a huge sigh, relieved to know that he wasn't as bad off as she thought.
"He should be able to leave here tonight if all goes well. Now, we'll need to contact his legal guardian before we can sign him out. Would that be you?"
"No." Phoebe tells him. "That would be his parents. Uh..my parents, also." She digs into her back jeans pocket for Joey's wallet, where she's been keeping it safe. "Their contact information should be in there. But I'm going to need that back."
"Of course." The doctor says. He hands the wallet to the nurse, who takes out Joey's medical card to copy the information down.
"Doctor," Phoebe says. "Can I see him?"
"Of course." he says. "I'll take you to his room."
Phoebe takes his wallet back and follows the doctor to a room with many beds. Joey is lying on one while a nurse applies a plaster cast to his arm. He's fully conscious. He has a bandage covering the skin near his right eyebrow. His other eye is bruised, and swelling. His lower lip is split. He has another bruise on his cheekbone. Phoebe looks away from his face. She suposes she should be glad that he doesn't look as bad as he did after the beating, but looking at his injuries gives her a pang of guilt in her stomach.
"There you are, all finished." The nurse tells Joey. "You'll need to give that a few minutes to set, ok?" She turns around, noticing Phoebe standing there. "Looks like you have a visitor. I'll go and get your prescription, ok, hon?" she says before she leaves the room. Leaving Phoebe alone with him.
"She was cute." Joey remarks. With some difficulty, he pulls himself to an upright sitting position and turns to face Phoebe. "If my face wasn't so messed up right now, I bet I could get a date with her. What do you think?"
There are so many things Phoebe wants to say to him. So many questions she wants to ask, but her voice seems caught in her throat at the moment. Joey lowers his head to look at her.
"Phoebe, what's wrong?"
Phoebe looks up, for as long as she can stand it, before she stares down at her dirty shoes. "Nothing..."
"Bullshit." Joey says. "What's the matter? Does my face really look that bad?"
"No." she tells him. "It...actually doesn't look that bad."
"Then why won't you look at me?"
Phoebe says nothing. She doesn't know how to answer him.
"Can you sit down, at least?" he asks, motioning to the chair across from his bed.
Phoebe does so, to make him happy. She knows that once she starts talking, she's going to get emotional. Not the good kind of emotional, either.
"Joey.." she finally manages to say. "That was really stupid what you did. I mean really, really stupid! Those guy were huge! And there were two of them! I mean, do you realise how lucky you are that I was there? If I wasn't they probably would have killed you!"
"But they took your guitar! Those guys were assholes!" he points out.
"So what? It's just a guitar. I could get another one. It's not worth getting the crap kicked out of you and almost getting yourself killed!"
Joey gives a shrug. "Sorry.." he mutters. "I was just..trying to help."
Phoebe sighs, feeling more tense, guilty feelings. She looks at him, for the first time, with sympathy. "I know you were. But I live on the streets, Joey. I deal with things like this all the time. You don't."
"Well, I wouldn't exactly say I got the crap kicked out of me." He tells her. "I mean, I got a few good hits in, right?"
Phoebe manages a small smile. "Sure. You showed them, alright."
"Besides, they didn't have to call you a whore." he mutters.
Phoebe pauses for a few seconds. "How do you know I'm not?"
She fights the urge to laugh when his eyes suddenly widen, and he stares at her.
"...what!?"
Unable to control herself, Phoebe bursts out laughing. Joey still appears very confused.
"Wait...are you..are you seriously a.."
"No!" she says, still laughing. "God, I can't believe you actually fell for that!"
His look of bewilderment drops and he shakes his head, with a smile. He lightly hits her on the arm, with his uninjured hand, as she continues laughing. Feeling in a much lighter mood now, Phoebe's eyes fall down to his cast. "How's your arm?"
Joey sighs. "Hurts like hell. It's my throwing arm, too. I guess that's it for football season.."
Phoebe's smile disappears. "Awh..Joey, I'm sorry."
"For what? Hey, at least I got this cool cast. Oh, and I got some wicked stitches, too. Six of 'em. Wanna see?" he asks, touching the bandage on his forhead.
"No.." she tells him. "That's ok. Look...Joey, I..I really am sorry."
He gives her a half smile, and reaches out to touch her shoulder. "Don't be sorry. It's not your fault, ok?"
She nods, though she doesn't believe him. It IS her fault.
"And like you said. If it wasn't for you, I'd probably be dead right now." he tells her.
She gives a shrug. "I could say the same for you. I guess we're even now, in a way."
"Yeah, but I'd still help you out if you ever needed me to."
She frowns in confusions. "You would?"
"Sure. What are friends for?" he says with a wink.
Phoebe smiles feeling a momentary sense of warmth, but it's gone in an instant. "Look, Joey...I appreciate you being so nice to me. But you don't want to get close to me. Bad things happen to people who get close to me."
He gives her a confused look. "What do you mean?"
"Well, they just do. I can't explain it. I mean look at what happened to you tonight. Sometimes I think I'm cursed or something..."
"Or maybe," Joey says. "The things that happen have nothing to do with you and they just happen. That doesn't mean you should be afraid to get close to people."
Phoebe takes a moment to reflect on this, silently. Maybe he's right. She's never thought of it that way before.
Joey sits back in his bed and gives an impatient sigh. "I wish they'd tell me when I can bust out of this place."
"Oh! Uhm, they said probably tonight. They were just going to call your parents."
He turns his head. "They called my parents? Awh, Crap, my mom is gonna yell my ear off for getting into a fight."
"She won't know. When we came in, I told them we were mugged. Or almost mugged. I didn't tell them that I broke a bottle over that guy's head, though. Ooh! That reminds me." Phoebe pulls his wallet from her pocket and hands it to Joey. "Here, I got this back."
"Thanks." Joey tells her, putting it away in his pocket.
"Yeah, I didn't take anything from it, don't worry."
He gives her a funny look. "I didn't think you would. By the way, Phoebe...when you hit that guy, and then scared them both off? That was...that was pretty cool. Maybe the coolest thing I've seen."
A modest smile spreads across her face. "Awh. Really? That's just..what I do. I mean, you have to, if you wanna live on the streets. Snowy taught me that.."
"Who?" Joey asks.
"Snowy. The albino guy I use to live with."
"Oh. They called him Snowy because of his skin?"
"No, because he used to deal cocaine. You know, snow?"
Joey nods. "Gotcha."
In the middle of their conversation, the nurse returns with a bottle of Joey's pain killer prescription, and some water. She gives him two of the pills to take. "Here you are, dear. Oh, and your family is here to see you. They should be in shortly."
Joey gives a groan as the nurse leaves. He puts the two pills in his mouth. "I'm gonna need these.." he mutters, before washing them down with the water. At the mention of "family", Phoebe has already risen from her seat. Being around families..normal families, like she imagined Joey's to be, still made her uncomfortable. "I'd better.." she starts to say when she's cut off by noisy chatter from the hall.
"There he is, Ma!" a girl says, and a small crowd of people brush past Phoebe, without noticing her. Most of them young girls, who she pressumes are Joey's sisters, as they all share a family resembulance. She just didn't know that he had so many of them. A woman in a mink coat immediatly throws her arms around Joey. Phoebe can tell she's his mother by the way she hugs him tightly.
"Ohh, my Joey! Are you alright!? My God, how could anyone do this to my sweet little boy!?"
"Ow! Ma...not so tight." comes his muffled response.
"Oh! Sorry..sweetheart, are you ok?" She puts her hands on his cheeks. Joey glances at Phoebe, and rolls his eyes in embarassment.
"Yes, Ma, I'm fine."
One of the older girls stands nearby, hands on her hips as she smacks her gum and glares at her brother. "Didn't I tell you you were going to get mugged? If you would have just got in the car instead of acting like a jerk!"
"That's enough, Gina!" Joey's mother scolds.
"Well, son, she's right." Joey's father tells him. "There will be no more walking home from school for you, from now on!"
"But Dad-"
"But nothing! You could have gotten yourself killed, Junior! You know better than to go walking around the slums all by yourself! It's not safe!"
"I wasn't by myself, though. I was with my friend Phoebe."
Hearing her name, Phoebe quickly leaves the room before Joey can notice. She doesn't want to draw attention to herself. She stands near the door, however. Still able to hear what's being said. Joey's family is not exactly quiet, after all.
"Who's Phoebe?" one of his sisters asks.
"She..was standing right there. Where'd she go?"
"Oh. Sweety, you must have hit your head pretty hard." his mother remarked.
"That or he's on drugs." one of his other sisters says.
"No, I'm not. She's real! I swear! She was right there! You guy probably scared her off!
"Yeah, I'm sure." his sister says. Phoebe walks away while they're distracted, arguing with each other. What would his family think if they knew he was hanging around someone like her, anyways? Not good things, she would imagine. She decides she'd be better off to leave the hospital, now that she knew that Joey was safe, with his family. He'd understand, next time she saw him. At least she hoped he would...
