/

PEGGY

Sunday Morning, December 12, 1971

/

Peggy got on the elevator of the McCann office building with three other employees, but she was the only out in her floor. It was Sunday morning, but she still had a lot of catching up to do, both with her own work and Don's. The creative directors had decided to divide his accounts between the team directly under him, but that had not yet been implemented so until their next meeting on Monday afternoon, the burden fell on Peggy.

She made herself coffee in the little hallway kitchenette, and headed back to her office passing by the empty cubicles. McCann was never empty in the weekends, but that day there was no one else in her floor and she liked the silence. It reminded her a little of how it had been at SCDP, which seemed like so long ago now. It had all changed so much, and so many times, and yet she still found herself expecting to run into Pete, or Ken Cosgrove, or Joan. Besides Don, the only person from those early days that she saw on a regular basis was Freddie — all the others were gone.

She reviewed research on two of her accounts, and made notes on them, before moving on to the new ones, but Meredith hadn't given her the files. Still drinking her coffee, she took the inner stairs up two floors and headed for Don's office. When she opened the door, her mug flew from her hand and she screamed.

"Jesus!"

Don, lying on his couch in a wrinkled suit that was too tight around his cast, raised himself up to look at her.

"What are you doing here, Peggy?"

"I didn't know you were — why are you —?"

"I was taking a nap. Thanks for waking me," he said, irony in his voice. Peggy leaned down and started picking bits of ceramic off the carpet. The whole room now smelled of coffee.

"I was picking up your files for Fanta and Oreo... Did you spend the night here?"

"No."

They both knew that was a lie.

"I didn't know you'd be back so soon. I asked Meredith to file for your vacation time."

She wanted to ask why he was there, what had happened, but she was too afraid to do it.

"Don't worry about that," he said, and he stiffly stood up and grabbed one of his crutches. "Just catch me up and I'll take it from there. Could- Just wait for me a moment."

He got out, and Peggy was sure he'd been just about to ask her for some coffee. She smiled thinking of the time when that was normal, and she fought the urge to stand and help him. He made his way back to the office, eventually, balancing a cup while he walked sort of sideways, and Peggy took it from him and set it on the table.

They worked until lunch without so much as chatting about anything other than the accounts, but Peggy carefully counted how many cigarettes were smoked, how he frowned and jumped at the ringing phones. When he folded up the paperwork and she stood to return to her office, she stared for a little too long and he turned away.

"Stop looking at me like that," he said. "I'm fine."

She felt like she was owed a bit more honesty than that, but she didn't push for it.

"Will you come in tomorrow?"

"Yes, I will. You don't have to stay today, Peggy, I can finish up."

Like Hell. There was no way she was leaving without knowing.

"How is Sally doing?" She asked, and noticed his shoulders tightening but his voice remained composed.

"She will be staying at the neurology wing in a hospital in Princeton. They're checking how she responds to medication and I can't visit until next Friday."

"Do they know what—"

"Schizophrenia," he said quickly, and stood up. "I don't want gossip, Peggy, okay? You helped me and I'm thankful, but I'm tired. I don't want to have a conversation about it."

"Okay."

"Go home. I'll stay."

Peggy nodded, and gathered her files and left his office. She still wanted to work on them, but she didn't return to his floor and instead she went for the elevator and took her files with her.

/

"Sally can't have the same thing as Mike," she announced the minute Stan walked through her door with two boxes of Chinese take out.

"Jesus. At least let me sit down," he said, and set the boxes in her counter. "I paid the delivery guy. Don't you think this is a bit much?"

"No. I'm hungry."

"What was that about Sally again?"

Stan set down their food in plates and handed her one.

"Don was at the office today. Says they've committed her after all."

"Oh." He sat down. "Wow."

"But it doesn't make any sense… I mean, the more I think about Mike, the more I'm convinced that he was always like that. He was always a bit… unhinged. He just reached a breaking point one day, but it wasn't out of the blue."

"But Peggy, we saw Ginsberg every day. You've only met Sally a few times."

"The very first day I met Mike, I thought he was crazy. I never thought that about Sally."

"She's young. Maybe it works different then."

"Ugh." She rested back against her seat and started eating. "I guess it could be worse," she said. "She could have cancer or something awful like Mad Cow Disease."

"You can get that from cheap Chinese food, you know."

"No you can't!"

They both chuckled, and Peggy left her empty plate in the coffee table.

"God. I can't believe I'm laughing about this."

"We're human," Stan said. "It's the way we deal."

/

DON

Wednesday Night, December 15, 1971

/

The updates he got from Sally's assigned case worker were brief, and seemed intentionally vague. On Sunday she was restless and had trouble communicating. On Monday she was still struggling with sleeping but seemed calmer and on Tuesday she was pacing again. They would never let him speak to her though, and even to get those meager bits of information he had to basically wrangle them out of the case worker. On Wednesday's update, which came late, he finally lost his patience.

"There have been setbacks with her progress."

"What setbacks?" What progress?

"She has been uncooperative with the staff."

"In what way? I want to know what happened."

"I'm sorry, the details are..."

"What? Do you not know what happened? Do you have a fixed set of lines that you can say, is that it?"

"Sir, please, there's no need to —"

"What happened? Just tell me."

The case worker sighed.

"She has been refusing food and medication."

"So she's not getting the medicine?"

"Oh, uh... No, she is still getting the meds. Just not with her cooperation."

"So, what? You're forcing them down her throat?"

"No, sir, they are intra-muscular injections."

Don crumpled the rolodex card he'd been holding, and thought about slamming down the phone.

"I want to talk to her."

"I'm sorry, that's not possible at the moment."

"Well, tomorrow's day five. I'm going there, and if I can't see her then I'm getting her out."

"You can't—"

He hung up, and pushed his phone off the table. It was late in the day and Meredith wasn't at her desk, so she couldn't barge in and ask what was wrong. He suddenly wished she would, and then scratched that thought. He just wished there was someone there bearing this with him, someone even just to shout at or assign blame or fight with, as he was sure would've happened if Betty had not been sick. She would've fought and blamed him, and he would've fought and blamed her, and they would've hated each other all over again but at least there would be another person there who knew how all this felt. And Sally would have someone else waiting on her and complaining on her behalf...

He straightened up and picked up his phone and dialled again. A sleepy Henry picked up on the other end.

"Don, please, you can't keep calling like this."

"I just need a number, Henry. That boys school, the one close to Sally's, do you know what it's called?"

Henry sighed.

"Is this about that boy, Pat?"

"I just want to talk to him."

"He's not in high school anymore. He's a freshman at Emerson College."

"Is that in New York?"

"Boston."

"Boston? How did they even meet?"

Henry sighed.

"I don't know. She never said. Theater maybe? The boy's in a troupe or something like that."

Don cursed.

"Well, do you know his last name?"

"I... He mentioned it, I don't remember. I'm sure his name is Patrick. Can't you ask Sally...?"

"They don't let me talk to her. I'll try tomorrow. Could you put Bobby through?"

"He's asleep. It's late, I was asleep too."

"But do you have any contact information? Hasn't he called for her?"

"No. Go home, Don."

He stared at the phone a long time, then he got out of the office and started searching through Meredith's desk.

"Are you looking for something, Mr. Draper?" Another late working secretary spoke from a few desks over. Don dropped the wad of papers he was holding.

"Yes, I... I need to find the number for a call I made."

"Did Meredith dial it, or did you did?"

"Uh... I did."

"You'll have to get in touch with one of the girls in accounting. They can probably get you a list of your calls from the bills."

"Are they in right now?"

"I don't think so, no."

He gritted his teeth and got back into his office, he placed his things back into his briefcase, ready to leave, but he paused a moment next to the phone. He opened up the phone book and looked for Emerson College, and he searched through six pages of the letter E before realising it was a New York phone book. He called for operator assistance and asked to be transferred station-to-station, and after several ringing tones he managed to get ahold of someone from the administrative office, who in turn gave him a number for the office in charge of housing. He couldn't get anyone there to pick up, but three more calls later he managed to get an address for the men's dormitory: 134 Beacon Street, Back Bay, Boston. He was already imagining himself on the road again, getting away in the name of a most likely fruitless mission, but then he remembered his car was still in the workshop, and he couldn't drive.

He let go of the phone and didn't look at it this time as he left, but halfway home he asked the cabbie to turn away towards Penn station. He bought a ticket for the first train leaving for Boston, and he laid down on two seats while he waited.

/

Thursday Morning, December 16, 1971

/

It had not snowed for a couple of days and back in New York the streets were already mostly clear, but in Boston cars were buried under white mountains of it in every corner, there was but a narrow and compacted trail in the middle of every sidewalk, and walking around in crutches was a slow and painful process. He was thankful for them, however, when he knocked on the dormitory in Beacon Street and was let right in by a concerned lady.

"You need a better winter coat, sir," she said, and looked down at his single, soaked through leather shoe. "And proper boots…"

"Thanks, I'll see to that," he said.

"Stand over there, that's were the heating comes in."

He smiled and obliged, and remained still for a while under a blast of warm air that melted the frost from the rim of his hat. The woman went to stand over a desk with letter boxes behind it, and beyond he could see a half open door leading to a TV room. She caught him staring, and opened a log book.

"So, for whom are you here for?" she said.

"For Patrick."

"Which Patrick?"

He froze, and thought of making something up, but he couldn't think of any reason why he'd be looking for someone who's last name he didn't know. She seemed to notice his hesitation, and she closed her book.

"Are you a family member?"

"No," he said. "I'm not."

"Then may I ask what exactly is your business at this residence?"

Don sighed.

"I'm looking for a boy called Pat, who's in a theater group. He's a friend of my daughter, and I really need to speak with him."

The woman eyed him curiously for a moment, and she seemed to rest her eyes a bit longer on the glass cuts still visible in his face.

"And do you have confirmation that he lives in this dormitory?"

"I don't. I just know he's a freshman at Emerson."

"Is this some sort of emergency?"

Don looked down, and gripped hard at the handles of his crutches.

"My daughter's hospitalised in New Jersey. I believe he is, or at least was, her boyfriend."

"Oh…" The woman sighed, and Don was sure that she would help him, even if she wasn't supposed to. "What is your daughter's name?"

"Sally Draper."

She nodded, and pointed him towards the TV room beyond the entrance.

"Most of the boys are home for the Christmas break," she said. "But I'll see what I can find out. You can wait there, I'll have someone get you some coffee."

"Thank you."

The room was empty and the TV was off, so he lied down on the corner couch and closed his eyes, and when he opened them again there was a cold cup of coffee in the centre table. Two twenty somethings, sitting in the opposite couch, were staring at him.

"You okay, man?" One of them asked, and they looked at him like those car racing kids who gave him a lift to LA had looked at him. He wondered if he was ever going to feel respected again.

"Yeah, just a long train ride," he said. The boys chuckled.

"You looked dead for a moment."

He sat up and looked back towards the woman's desk, but she still wasn't there, and so he turned towards the boys.

"Are you freshmen?" He asked.

"No," they said at once, as though it were obvious.

"Are any of you into theatre?"

"Dave is. Aren't you, Dave?" One of them teased.

"I'm not anymore," Dave said.

"Yeah, right. He's a film major now."

"Theatre's not good enough for him."

"Well, I'm looking for a freshman called Patrick, who's in a theatre group."

"It's called a troupe."

"Yes, that. Do you know him?"

"Nope, sorry. There's no Patrick in the troupe."

"Well, do you know any freshmen called Patrick?"

"I don't know any freshmen that are not from the troupe. There's a Pat that's a freshman, but his name's not Patrick."

"What's his name then?"

"Patterson. Some call him Pat."

Don's eyes widened.

"Are you his friend?"

"Yeah, kinda. I mean, I'm not in the troupe anymore..."

"Oh, so you were in the troupe..."

"Shut up!" Don said, leaving the other boys stunned, and he turned back towards Dave. "Do you know if he was going out with someone? He ever talk of a girl?"

The kid frowned.

"Why do you want to know that, man? Is he in trouble?"

"Are you from the mob?" Another asked.

"No, I'm not from the mob. Did he talk to you about a girl or not?"

"Well, yeah, he was seeing someone from New York. He's from Greenwich. He bragged that she was from Manhattan..."

Don stood up just in time for the woman from the desk to walk back in.

"I'm sorry, I couldn't–"

"It's Patterson," he said. "Not Patrick." He turned back. "What's his first name?"

"Charles."

"Charles Patterson."

"He doesn't live here, though. He's at 100 Beacon, and he's probably home already," Dave said. Don cursed and followed the woman out, then asked if he could use her phone.

/

Five hours later, a cab was driving him down a snowy suburban street in Greenwich, Connecticut, and it had to leave him a block away so that it would be able to make a u turn. He grabbed both crutches in one hand and jumped on one leg using them as a cane, and made his way up to a drive-in thinking about what he was going to say. Would they invite him in? Would they let their son go with him? Did they know about Sally and would they believe him? And how on earth was he going to go back anyway? He'd have to call another car... He should've paid the man to stay and wait for him.

He knocked, and waited. He'd ask for Charles. If they pressed for a motive, he'd say he was a parent at his school. That he needed to talk about a fellow student, that it was urgent, nothing wrong, jut urgent.

The door was opened without anyone asking first who it was, and a boy of around eighteen with bright red hair stared back at him as if he were a ghost. Don cleared his throat.

"I... I'm sorry, I'm—"

"You're Sally's dad," the boy said, and Don let his shoulders drop in both relief and dread, because the boy seemed horrified to see him.

"You're Pat?"

He nodded quickly and swallowed back.

"She said not to call at Rye because she wasn't going to be there, but she didn't leave a number for your house... I knew something would happen."

"Why do you say that?"

"Charlie! Who is it?"

The boy turned back, holding back a breath.

"It's just Danny!"

"Is he staying for dinner?"

Pat turned towards Don, who shook his head.

"Say you're leaving."

"I…"

"Sally's in the hospital, I need to talk to you."

"What hospital? Are we going there?"

"Do you have a car?"

"I can borrow my mom's but I'll have to tell her…"

"Just say you're leaving with your friend, is that so hard?"

"He lives next door, why would I take the car?"

"Charlie?" the mother called again, and Pat turned towards Don, pleading.

"Just come in. I can tell them to leave us so we can talk, where it's not freezing."

Don hesitated, and one of his hands went to touch the scabs in his face. Did these people know Sally? She wouldn't want him there, he was sure of it.

"I can't stay," he said, but Pat was already pulling him in, and while he shook the frost off his hat and hung his coat, he went forwards towards a living room. Without moving from beside the door he heard him taking back his previous lie. He approached, cautiously, and emerged into a room where two young girls were sitting down in front of the TV, and the one who was clearly their mother was standing talking to Pat in a hushed voice.

"…but why is he here?"

"Sally's sick. He wanted to talk."

"Sick? What's wrong?"

"I don't know, mom, we haven't talked yet."

"Is he staying? Is his car in the driveway? Your father should be home soon…"

Pat turned as he saw him coming, and his mother fidgeted a second before coming forward and shaking his hand.

"I'm Don. I came on the train, there's no car," he said.

"Train? From New York?"

Don looked down.

"From Boston, actually."

"Boston?"

"I went to Emerson, they gave me your address."

"Couldn't Sally…?" Pat asked, but Don shook his head and he turned pale and didn't finish. The three were silent a moment, then Pat's mother rubbed her hands together and stepped back.

"I'll make some coffee…" She turned to the two girls still in the living room. "Turn that off, go upstairs."

"Why?"

"Go. Upstairs."

Don sat down where the girls had been once they both left, and after a moment so did Pat. They could hear his mother moving stuff around in the kitchen and Don guessed she could hear them, but at least she wasn't visible.

"What happened?" Pat asked him with a shaky voice, and Don explained the accident with the car and the record store.

"Can I go see her?"

"She's hospitalised right now, no visits." Don said. "The doctors insist it's a psychiatric disorder, that it's all in her head."

"She's not crazy. She might be the most sane girl I know."

"But something was wrong. You knew that, didn't you?"

"She never did anything like what you said. It doesn't sound like her at all."

"But she did say something was happening. I heard her saying it to you on the phone."

"I…" Pat looked around, unsure. "I don't think she'd want—"

"I've just made a round trip to Boston, I haven't slept in two days. Please."

"Well, it was… Look, I don't see Sally while I'm at Emerson, but this term I have a play I'm rehearsing for with my old group. So sometimes when I'm here I go pick her up from her school. I know it's not exactly allowed… We'd just go to the movies, it wasn't—"

"Pat, I don't care what you did."

"Well, I… It was just this one thing. The last time I came here, about three weeks ago, I picked her up. And she was totally normal at first, then while we were driving back here she just started talking nonsense."

"What nonsense?"

"I don't remember exactly, but there was something about how the lights were all off and no one could see us, and we were going to crash and die? I tried asking her what she was on about, and it was like she couldn't hear me. She kept going until I stopped at a gas station, and she gets out saying she's going to get some snacks and then doesn't come back." He paused, and his eyes avoided Don's. "So I go in to get her, and she was standing in front of a shelf just staring at nothing. I go up to her, she turns to look at me, and she asks me what am I doing there. She couldn't even remember my last call, when I said I'd pick her up."

"Did you tell her about it?"

"Not immediately. I waited until we got to the parking lot. She denied it, then she started crying and said something was happening to her, that she couldn't think and she wasn't in control. She said she felt ill."

"Did it ever happen again?"

"No. I didn't really see her that much after that, but that weekend… I don't know how to explain it but it was like she wasn't her. It wasn't… It wasn't stress, it wasn't sadness. She also wouldn't listen to music anymore, which was weird. She promised she would talk to you about this but then on the phone she said—"

"What?"

"She said she couldn't trust you."

Don looked down. In his mind, he saw Sally slam her hands against his car window, screaming, and then he saw her open the door.

"I have a license. I can drive to the hospital right now," Pat said.

Don nodded, and Pat stood and disappeared into the kitchen. As soon as the door was opened, Don smelled coffee and felt his eyes burning and threatening to droop. He barely heard the exchange that went on inside, and only lifted his head when a warm mug was placed between his hands. Pat's mom smiled at him.

"Would you like an aspirin?" she said. He felt like it was the kindest thing he'd heard all day.

"Yes. Thank you."

She handed him a pill seconds later, and then she held out her car keys towards Pat, keeping her hold on them for a moment.

"Put on the chains."

The way she looked at him, there seemed to be a lot more being said than that simple instruction.

"Sure."

Don finished his coffee while Pat went outside to put on the snow chains, and the two girls returned and sat in the couch beside him, their eyes fixed on the TV but occasionally casting glances his way.

"Ready to go?" Pat opened the door and removed his hat, which had flecks of white stuck to it.

"Don't tell me it's snowing again."

"Just barely. It won't be a problem."

Pat held the door for him while he stepped out and then jumped back towards the car in the unplowed driveway. The car was an Oldsmobile, and it looked like it had only just recently been dug up from under the snow. Music blasted from the stereo as soon as Pat hit the ignition, but he lowered it down to almost nothing and got out of the snow, back into the road.

"The hospital's in Princeton. There's a medical centre, near the university. You know how to get there?"

"I know how to get to Newark."

"Great. Head towards Newark, and then keep on South."

Pat didn't hit the gas hard, and Don raised the collar of his coat and leaned against the passenger seat window. He could still hear the low hum of soft rock playing in the radio, but it proved strangely soothing, and it didn't take long for him to fall asleep.

/

Thursday Night, December 16, 1971

/

"Hey. Hey."

He stirred, then lifted his head, flinching. Opening his eyes, he saw the flashing lights of the ambulances, parked in front of the hospital doors.

"We're here."

Don unglued his face from the window and straightened up.

"This is the ER entrance. We need to go through the other door."

Pat turned the car and parked in the handicapped spot, so the walk to the main entrance was a short one, but still once inside Don refused the wheelchair that was offered to him. They took the lift to the fourth floor and walked down a hallway of closed doors to the nurses station of the hospital's psychiatric ward.

"Wait here," he told Pat, pointing to some chairs just past the door, and he approached the desk and asked for Sally.

"Just a moment, sir."

The nurse walked past a red line marked on the floor, past a door, and for a few seconds, while it closed behind her, Don could see a long line of rooms with charts hanging from them. He let his shoulders drop into the crutches so his weight rested on them and not on his foot, and he rocked slowly from side to side while he waited.

"I'm sorry, she's not up for visits yet," the nurse said when she returned. Don turned towards the closing door again, and swore he caught a glimpse of Sally's head quickly retreating back inside a room.

"They told me five days. Today's day five."

"That's right sir, so you should be allowed in tomorrow."

"That's ridiculous."

"It's hospital policy, sir."

"I am her father. I should be allowed to at least talk to her."

"I'm sorry, but that's not possible."

His hands tightened into fists and he thought about throwing something, anything, against that desk. He pulled his hair back and tried to keep his voice steady.

"Look," he said. "She shouldn't be here. I'm taking her out. Give me whatever I need to sign and I'll sign it, but she's getting out tonight."

The nurse looked unsure, and she turned to look at the other nurse organising the files. They both looked at him with something like fear in their eyes.

"I'm sorry sir, but when she was admitted you signed—

There was a loud crash coming from the hallway behind the red line, and the door Don had been looking through was pushed open with such force the knob cracked a tile in the wall. A scream, followed by shouts by the staff, echoed in the waiting room, and Don felt nausea tingling under his tongue. Pat stood right up from his seat and came to stand beside him.

"Was that…?"

The nurses both left for the hallway and started to close the door, but they weren't fast enough. Sally, wearing flimsy looking scrubs, bursted from beyond the door pushing a metal cart like the kind used to move food around, and used it to push her way past the nurses and orderlies towards the waiting area like a battering ram. Her hair was shorter, like it had been when she was younger, and it stood on end, dirty and matted. She looked thinner, gaunt even, and eerily pale under the white lights.

"Sally!" Don called, but she didn't hear or if she did, she didn't respond. She kept at her mad dash towards the red line, and when she crossed it, she let go of the food cart and it crashed and broke against the desk in the nurses' station. She got behind it and cowered in the corner, using it as a shield.

Don climbed over the desk so that he could look at her but she recoiled at the sight of him. Her face was red, as though she had cried, and there was a raw terror in her eyes he'd never seen before.

"Sally. Sally, it's me, listen to me. "

She turned to look at him.

"I'm not going back," she said, in a hushed voice that rang true to him.

"You're not going back. I'm getting you out. It's okay."

"Stand back!" A doctor, breathing hard from running, came to the desk and approached it from where Don was leaning over it. "Sir, please stand back. She needs to be sedated."

Don turned.

"Is that what you've been doing to her for five days? Keeping her sedated?"

"Sir, she is a danger to herself and to others."

"No, she's not. She's sick."

"She is under the care of this ward, sir, if you don't cooperate, I'll have to—"

"Get away from me!" Sally's shrill screaming made them both turn, and they saw her scrambling away from the nurse that was trying to get past her metal cart barricade. Staggering, she tore the back of her scrubs but managed to slip away past the desk behind a tall shelf.

"Sally, calm down," Don said. "You're coming with me, we're getting you out."

She stopped moving, and peered out from a gap in the shelves, towards Don, the doctor, and the nurses.

"I don't believe you," she said, shaking her head. "You're lying."

"I'm not. I'm not lying. Look, even Pat's here. We came to take you out."

Her eyes darted back towards Pat, who was pale and frozen in place. She shook her head again.

"No. You're lying. You put me here."

Don met her eyes.

"I'm so sorry."

He walked around the desk and started approaching her, leaving behind the crutches and limping slowly around the mess of knocked down files and charts. He rounded the big shelf Sally was cowering behind, and slowly emerged into the small space between the shelves and the wall she had wedged herself into.

"Please come out," he said. She looked up at him and burst out crying, shaking all over and looking as though she might fall. Don closed the distance between them in a second, but when he touched her she pulled away and started screaming again.

"Don't touch me!"

"Sally it's me, it's fine…"

He tried again, but she shoved him hard against the shelf, toppling it over the desk so that now the doctors and nurses couldn't reach them. Don fell with the shelf and then slipped to the ground.

"You're lying to me. You're always lying to me."

Don got up on his hands and knees and looked into her eyes, which saw but didn't see, and he didn't know what to say. She remained where she stood, silent and still for a moment while the nurses struggled to move the shelves and cabinets out of the way, but her right hand, clutching the broken handle of the food cart, was shaking. Soon it got so bad she dropped it, and she brought both her hands to her face and squeezed hard at her cheeks, sobbing.

"None of this is real."

Don felt tears running down his eyes but he didn't move. Sally kept her face covered, but when the sobs subsided she looked back at the crowd of hospital staff that had now formed beyond them. She then lowered her eyes, towards Don, and her muscles seemed to stiffen.

"What have they done to me?"

Her voice sounded uneven, as though it was hard for her to speak, and she seemed to notice this as her hands shifted to cover her mouth. A groan escaped her and then, as though she'd been shocked with electricity, she jerked upright and then dropped to the littered floor besides Don, shaking from some sort of fit.

The nurses rushed in then, dragging back the metal shelves that had been separating them.

"Sir, please, move out of the way."

But he stayed on his knees, on the floor, and didn't move, unable to pull his eyes away from Sally. They held her down, stuck a needle in her and she finally stopped jerking, then they took her away in a stretcher, but even after she was gone beyond the doors where he could no longer see her, he stayed where he was, broken leg stretched out to the side, and didn't even try to stand. He might've stayed there all night if Pat had not forced him back up.

/