Thanks to: Steinbock and Beckett Simpleton, as usual, you two are ace.
Special mention to Silver Curse because when I got up this morning there was a grand total of 12 emails in my inbox, and of those emails 11 were from FanFic, one was from my buddy BS and the other 10 were from Silver Curse pretty much faving and alerting all my fics including this one. So thanks :)
Two kinds of dash in this not enormous chappie.
It's great escape time. Enjoy.
CHAPTER 7 - A Dash or Two
Butler hadn't slept. Adrenaline buzzed through his veins instead of the tranquilliser and if anyone else had been in the room he would have driven them insane with his incessant foot tapping.
He glanced at the luminous watch his uncle had left him for the umpteenth time. He'd turned it round twice to stop himself squeezing the light-up button and watching the seconds fade away.
1 : 57 : 36 AM, it read.
That meant he had seventeen minuets and twenty four seconds left to sit and do nothing for the last time in a long time.
Not that he was counting.
Butler had another go at slipping the cuffs to pass the time. No doubt Artemis's plan would work, but just in case...
A shadow passed his door and he closed his eyes, feigning sleep was easy after the past couple of days. Risking a glance, he refrained from waving jovially at the unattractive face that filled the door window and waited.
Fifteen minuets later, he watched as all of a sudden the Matron rushed, in the calm controlled manner that all members of the public service were taught to rush, past his door to what he suspected would be the nurse's toilets.
Butler smirked. Laxatives in her coffee. Clichéd, yes, but reliable.
Serves her right, he thought.
There was a rattling at his door, a much nicer phizog peering in at him. She waved, and less than a minute later and a young boy and girl entered the room.
"Quickly, now. You do that side," hissed Artemis, handing Juliet a key to open the cuffs. "We only have approximately eight more minutes."
The clattering was horribly loud in the machined silence of the hospital ward, but in wasn't long later that Butler was stood up flexing his wrists. His head throbbed at being seven foot up for the first time in a few hours, but his legs thanked him for it.
"That's better, thanks."
"Let's run. Uncle has some spare clothes for you," Juliet said, wasting no time in snatching the watch off the side with one hand and dragging her brother from the room by his with the other. The sore one actually, a fact Butler didn't bother to mention.
Each door they passed was a door closer to escape. At least until harsh footsteps alerted them to someone coming.
"Hide!" Juliet hissed. In the present company, under one of the beds would not have been a feasible option. Butler glanced around. Hopefully the solid door to their left was to somewhere quite big and equally unused.
He opened it... and a broom cupboard beckoned.
Deciding that there wasn't really another choice, Butler grabbed his two charges by the shoulders and pushed them into their makeshift hiding place.
"Come on, in here."
They bundled into the tiny room, Butler's head pressed against the ceiling and the other two pressed against him. A mop clattered into one of the walls and they froze, but the shoes clacked away into the distance.
It was then they realised the cupboard didn't have a handle on the inside.
If he had been with anybody else Butler might have sworn loudly. As it was, he just burst out laughing.
"Could this get any better?" Juliet sniggered.
"Maybe if we simply apply pressure to the lock it would release," Artemis began, trying to find the break in the outline of the door that would indicate where exactly that was. "If not I have your picks here Butler, The Major thought they might come in useful."
Good old prepared-for-anything Uncle, Butler thought.
"Could you step back a bit please?" Artemis asked.
It was very cramped in the cupboard and there was a shuffling as the two Butlers pressed themselves against the back wall. The elder one's shoulder pushed against something and the shelf behind them fell on the little company, disinfectants sloshing in their plastic jugs but thankfully not escaping.
"I'm sorry I spoke," Juliet groaned.
"Hang on," Butler, shrugged past his sister and braced a foot on the door. "Stand back a sec."
The children flattened themselves against either wall to give him enough space. Bracing his back against the wall, taking care to avoid putting more holes in himself with the ex-shelf brackets, he bent his knee into his stomach - ouch - and gave the door a good kick.
The door groaned and the hinges popped but the door stayed put.
"Not sure that worked, bro," Juliet sniggered.
"Patience is a virtue..." he muttered, lining up his bare foot at another pressure point.
"Yeah, yeah. Virtue is a grace, Grace is a little girl who wouldn't wash her face," Juliet recited.
"Grace?" Artemis frowned. "Am I familiar with this person?"
"It's just a saying, Arty," Juliet assured him.
Thankfully, it didn't take more than another two boots to fell the door and the trio tumbled into the corridor, slipping on the tiles and tripping on the debris that followed them from the cupboard in a tsunami of cleaning products that clattered, shattered, and generally made a lot of noise as they fell, to the floor.
"Let's go - someone will definitely have heard that."
They left the ward running, on the way to meet The Major by, as Juliet put it, 'some stairs with the red ward numbers at the bottom'.
It was an uncomfortable experience for Butler. Not the running, the stitches weren't turning out to be too much trouble, but trusting that these two to know where they were going... lets just say he'd rather have had a squint at the blueprints himself. Or at least a simple hospital map.
After only three wrong turns they stumbled down a set of stone steps to the sight they'd been hoping to see at the bottom of the last two flights.
The man's head snapped up at the sound of their arrival, quietly bickering siblings and the click of his charge's son's shoes.
"Put these on," he muttered, glancing up and down the corridor uneasily.
Butler caught the thrown jacket and trousers and shoved them on over the hospital pyjamas. The Major de-laced a pair of boots while he waited and his nephew jammed his feet into them.
"Ready?" Artemis asked.
Had one of his family asked him, he would probably snorted and answered: 'I was born ready' or at least 'I've been ready for days' but as it was he just nodded and the group set off at a swift walk.
They were a good way towards the exit when a porter's trolley trundled past at the far end and two of them shrunk back into the shadows on instinct. The other two froze like rabbits, but luckily the man just carried on his whistling into the distance.
"Let's move," The Major took his hand off his gun and they set off again.
"Where's the car?" Butler asked as they sped walked closer to freedom. Artemis struggled to keep up with their long strides and as a result was subject to being towed by Juliet into an almost-jog.
"Round the corner," The Major glanced around suspiciously again as they came to a T-junction. "Couldn't risk CCTV picking us up before we got in."
Butler nodded. It made sense really.
Automatic doors slid open almost silently and they stepped out into the cold night air, the first breath searing their lungs as though it were super-heated rather than freezing. Butler savoured it, breathing out heavily in a huff and enjoying the cloud of dampness that appeared in front of him. The cold, fresh, natural air was a welcome change from the dry, scented, lukewarm stuff he'd been choking on the past few days. But now wasn't the time to enjoy his freedom, and before he could take a second gulp they were jogging off into the night.
Thankfully, The Major had parked the Fowl's second-best Bentley quite close, or else Artemis might not have made it without help more help than the youngest Butler dragging him behind like a skier on a high-speed button lift over the snow. As it was, they made it to the vehicle, which was concealed behind a skip, without incident.
Butler looked up at the walls of windows. He had no idea which one had been his. Nor did he care. He slid into the seat and ducked to avoid smacking his head as his uncle drove them over the speed-bumps slightly too speedily.
"Mission successful," Juliet raised a palm to Artemis.
After a moment of doing nothing Artemis nodded, confused.
"You're supposed to slap it, genius. Like this," Juliet demonstrated, sighing. Artemis did so tentatively. "You know, for a clever kind of person, Artemis, you really do know nothing."
"That was awful grammar, Juliet," Artemis sniffed aloofly. "My plan for Butler's escape worked, didn't it?"
"Yeah, but it wouldn't have worked without me..."
Butler let the good-natured arguing wash over him. In a way, The Major wasn't driving him home. As long as he was in the present company, he was already home.
Back at the Hospital
It wasn't long before Butler's room was checked and the alarm raised, but by then they were long gone.
The Matron emerged from the ladies room just a few minuets after the doors slid shut behind them.
Must've been that sea-food platter I had last night, she justified.
Then she saw the mess of equipment scattered over the corridor.
Her hand flew to her key-chain.
Storming down the corridor, she found the set of keys hanging in the lock of the door to...
...a completely empty room.
Not possible, she thought striken. It's impossible.
She turned on the lights, checking the whole area, even under the bed in her desperation, before she finally pressed her alarm button, already knowing it was too late.
On the bed, the open cuffs winked mockingly at her in the halogen lights.
So it wasn't impossible. Well, you couldn't say he didn't warn her.
She swore unprofessionally.
This one nearly got called Dashing Through The Snow but all the dashing about wasn't just in snow so you know...
Ha ha the daft old bat got her comeuppance in the end.
Butler almost left a note, but that would just have been cruel.
So, anyway, he's out.
That's the end of it all, right?
Well... maybe not.
(That was my attempt at getting you to stick around by the way)
Wolfy
ooo
O