PART IV

He had done the best he could to maintain a professional appearance despite the hospital surroundings. He'd shaved and brushed his hair and gone to the effort of mimicking his usual suit with a well ironed pinstripe pajama top. And he'd had the nurse arrange a sheet over his leg so it wouldn't distract the articling student from the work they had to do. Everything was in perfect readiness for a few hours of reviewing contracts. He smoothed the sheet out and studied his watch with growing irritation.

Half an hour late.

He could not foresee the future, but he had an unsettled feeling about just which articling student Jefferson had sent him.

They were sending him her.

Ruby Lucas, the grand-daughter of Greta Lucas, one of the firm's founding members. He'd tried to veto her application as an articling student for the firm from the beginning, citing her poor grades and scanty references, but everyone was too scared of Greta to turn her grand-daughter down. Personally, he hated nepotism and people surfing through life thanks the strength of family connections. He'd come up from poverty and worked for every perk he'd ever got. Ruby might have been a nice enough person on her own, but to Gold, she was just another spoiled trust fund baby. She tried his patience on the best of days, but being cooped up in his hospital room and still in pain despite the medication did nothing to improve his temper.

"Oh hey Mr. Gold!" Ruby Lucas waved at him completely oblivious to his antipathy. She juggled a large coffee in one hand and a laptop bag and an accordion file in the other. She crossed the room on tottering high heels that made her look even taller than she actually was.

Practical as always. Mr. Gold glowered up at Ruby from where he sat, propped up on the hospital bed. He looked pointedly at the Bulova watch on his unbandaged arm. "You're late. Thirty-six minutes to be precise."

"Oh, sorry," she said and unloaded the computer bag onto the bed on top of the sheet.

She only jostled his leg slightly, but the pain shot through him like a lightning bolt.

"Watch it!" he hissed at her through clenched teeth.

"Oh, Mr. Gold, I'm sorry," she said earnestly hovering over him. "Is there anything I can do? I didn't see…"

As if it was possible to miss. "Yes, yes, fine." He waved her away. "Now let's have the computer."

She produced the device from the bag.

He unzipped the laptop sleeve awkwardly with his left hand and removed the computer as she opened up the accordion file to hunt down the contracts he needed.

Of all the stupid…"This is the wrong laptop, Miss Lucas," Gold pronounced in disgust.

"What?" Ruby asked, eyes wide.

"This is the wrong laptop. Which laptop did Mr. Jefferson tell you to bring?"

"The one on your desk?"

"And which one is my desk?"

"The brown one?"

Gold closed his eyes and counted silently to five. "They're all brown," he said through clenched teeth.

"Uh…"

"Forget it, just forget. Let's see those contracts."

She picked out a contract. The words were small and blurry in front of his eyes.

He pinched the bridge of his nose.

"I need my spectacles."

"Where are they?"

"Just in the drawer of the nightstand there."

She opened the drawer, pulled out the eyeglass case and handed it over to him. He tried to open the catch, but found it difficult with one hand.

"Open this please."

Ruby nervously accepted the eyeglasses case and tried to open the catch. All of a sudden it sprung open and Gold's spectacles sprang out and tumbled under the bed.

"Ooops! Oh, I'm sorry Mr. Gold. Let me get those!"

Before he knew it Ruby was down on her knees crawling under the bed and had somehow knocked over her coffee in the process. He watched incredulously as the brown puddle spread towards the edge of the accordion file containing the contracts, unable to halt the puddle's progression from where he sat.

"Miss Lucas, the file!"

"Oh, got it!" She swept it away before the coffee could fully invade the cardboard shell.

Gold honestly hadn't thought it was possible. How could a single person manage to mess up so profoundly in such a short time?

Eventually Ruby calmed down enough to hand him his glasses and retrieve the files he asked for. He relished the time he spent studying the contracts. It was so pleasant to have something else to think about, to give his mind something to do other than ruminate about all that had happened and what the future might hold. He enjoyed feeling like his old professional self again, though he hated not taking notes, and didn't trust Ruby to be accurate. Luckily, Mary Margaret had found an old mini-casette recorder in the office allowing Gold to dictate necessary changes and they had Jefferson on the cell phone to reference back as needed.

He still missed the laptop. Surfing the net would have provided some distraction from boredom when all work was exhausted. Maybe tomorrow.

After the contracts were done there were still the papers he needed to sign off on. He was beginning to slow down now, grow pained and tired.

He tried to get through the papers with Ruby as quickly as possible so he could rest. He had a stamp with his signature on it so he didn't actually have to physically sign anything. It had seemed a waste of money at the time, but now he was glad the office had invested in those stamps, as his left handed signature looked nothing like his regular one.

Finally, the time came for the last paper and Gold was growing wistful already, not looking forward to an afternoon of cable-less TV talk shows, the long hours stretching by until Jefferson came from the office to bring his proper laptop, assuming he would come by at all and he didn't forget or get too busy.

Gold looked down at the last sheet of paper.

It was addressed to Harvard Law School, with the SGC logo in the corner.

"It is my pleasure to fully endorse Ruby Lucas as an excellent candidate for admission into Harvard Law. It is my experience that she is a personable, articulate and punctual…"

He glanced up at Ruby, sitting on the edge of her chair, hands folded expectantly in her lap.

"What is this?" he asked her.

"Oh, it's my reference letter for school!" Her head bobbed eagerly. "I have to get my references in with my admission packages for early decision. Since you were injured, I reckoned you wouldn't be able to compose it yourself, so I thought I'd save you the hassle, write it up and just leave it to you to sign. Less stress for you that way."

"Less stress for me?" he said softly. "Reeeeeeaaaaaaally?"

"Uh…"

"Because if I didn't know better, I'd say you were trying to take advantage of my situation to weasel your way into a favourable reference, assuming I'd be so whacked out on painkillers I'd be willing to sign off on your ridiculous claims! Or maybe you just misheard and thought I'd taken some of those bullets straight to the head, because otherwise I don't see how you'd ever think I'd sign off on these egregious lies! I mean punctual? And they say I twist words!" He laughed mirthlessly.

Ruby looked down, on the verge of tears. "I'm- I'm sorry Mr. Gold. I'll take it back and revise it."

"Oh, don't bother," he said with a crocodile's smile and gripped the paper between his good hand and his bandaged one. He could still move it well enough to tear her ridiculous paper in half and the sound of ripping paper was so satisfying.

Her eyes went wide as he threw the torn page back at her.

"Consider it revised," said Gold with a smirk.

"Oh please, Mr. Gold, I'm so sorry, I know I shouldn't have done that, I embellished too much. It's just Mr. Jefferson said it'd save you time for me to write it myself and I just wanted to sound good, you know!" she sobbed. "I don't know what I'll do if I don't get into law school, please!"

"Well, that's not my problem. Maybe you should have thought of that before you developed such inefficient work habits."

"Please, please let me try again!"

"I don't think so dearie. No, this time I'm writing your reference myself and it's going to be honest. Let's see what the admissions committee thinks of what I have to say!"

Ruby ran out sobbing, the half closed accordion file banging against her knees.

Gold allowed himself a small, tight smile. It was nice to know that even in such reduced circumstances he could still inspire fear in the underlings. Was it so wrong to have some basic standards?

Ruby went down the hall, eyes blurry with tears, not paying attention to where she was going and nearly collided with a young woman wearing a sling coming at her around the hospital corridor.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," Ruby muttered.

"I'm fine-" began the woman and suddenly, Ruby realized who it was.

"Belle? Belle French?"