ICU
"Well, it looks like having you here is a good thing," the current nurse, her name tag said Brenda, watching over both of the Wilkins women said quietly to 47 as she met him and Grace as they came out of Samantha's room. Normally she wouldn't do that, but she wanted to have a word with the new son that had shown up and it wasn't something that her patient needed to hear.
Unlike some people, she always assumed that the patient could hear what was going on around them, even if they couldn't respond. She'd been proven right too many times for her to ignore it. "The bodyguards you brought in aren't being a pain and Mrs. Wilkins seems to be improving. If she keeps this up we'll be weaning her off of the ventilator and moving her to the progressive care unit within the next 12 to 24 hours."
"I'm glad that they're not getting in your way," 47 told her in the same quiet voice that she had used. "I don't want to disrupt any of your work. It's just that the timing of their accident is very suspicious."
"Not at all," Brenda assured him. "We've had enough high profile patients over the years here to be well versed in what is needful in the way of increased security. Your men have been very good at keeping themselves at the entrances to the unit and making sure that only those that are supposed to be here are allowed in."
"What about Kelly?" Grace asked. "How is she doing?"
"She's being moved later today to the progressive care unit," Brenda told her. "She's going to need long term care until her pelvic, ribs and collar bones heal, but she's doing very well. I need to go and check your mother now." With that, she slipped into the patient's room.
47 and Grace moved back to the waiting room, their time with Samantha was over with and their turns to sit with Kelly wouldn't take place until later that afternoon. Grace would go in with Mathew to see her and 47 would go in with Greg. At the moment Mathew and his wife were sitting in with Samantha and Greg and David were in with Kelly. 47 and Grace would look after the children in the meantime.
After they had both sat down, Grace pulled out a small netbook and 47 settled in to wait. There was a lot of waiting in his profession and he was very good at it; at least he was when there was a goal to be achieved. Killing time, (and yes he'd heard every pun Nika could come up with on that one), was never easy for him. April crawled up onto his lap. "Aunt Grace needs to work on her story," she informed him seriously. "Do you know any stories?"
"Like bedtime stories?" 47 asked. "I know several of those."
"Could you tell me one?" April asked. "The boys are watching the stupid cartoons, not the good ones and Alison has her book. I'm bored."
47 could see that Grace was watching them out of the corner of his eye, no doubt waiting to see what he would do. "Well, I could tell you Emily's favorite story. She likes one that has a wizard, a dragon, two very bad kings and two princesses in hiding. Would you like to hear that one?"
April nodded her head vigorously. She'd never heard of that story before. "Very well then. Now, once a very long time ago, there were two kingdoms with very, very bad kings. They were very mean to their subjects, making them work all day long and only giving them a little food to eat. They never got time to play and they had to do everything the kings told them to do, like make a war with the other kingdom even though they didn't want to go to war at all."
By now he had all of the children's attention as well as Grace's. He was pretty sure that his sister would figure out the story behind the story, but he had told the truth. It was Emily's favorite. It wasn't his fault that he'd never even heard of bedtime stories until after he was married.
"Now close to these kingdoms was a tall tower where a wizard lived alone with his pet dragon. Dragons are usually very, very big but this dragon wasn't. That was why he lived with the wizard. Other dragons would pick on him because he was small for a dragon, but the wizard never did. The two friends liked to stay in their tower, the wizard making lots of spells and potions and the dragon dreaming of cows and sheep to eat, but never chickens because they're small, they make terrible noises and they smell very, very bad. They didn't like to be interrupted.
"Soon the two terrible kings were making things so bad for the people that they decided they'd had enough. They knew that the kingdoms had two princesses that were hiding far away from the bad kings. Each kingdom's princess lived with the other kingdom's princess in a little cottage in the deep, dark woods not far from the wizard's tower. The people from each kingdom sent a messenger to their princess asking them what they should do about the terrible king that they had.
"The princesses both got their messages the same day. So they sat together and tried to figure out a plan that would help. First they decided that they had to be good princesses and give the bad kings a chance to be good kings. So the messengers were sent to the kings with a message that asked them to change and be good kings who would take care of their people instead of making wars.
"The terrible kings were very angry that anyone had dared to tell them what to do, and they killed the messengers and hung their bodies outside the castles where everyone could see. The people were very, very frightened by this. So they went back to their princesses and told them what had happened.
"The princesses were very worried. They knew that the bad kings would never stop being bad now. So they decided that there was only one thing that they could do for their people. They went to the wizard's tower to ask him to stop the bad and terrible kings.
"The wizard did not like to be interrupted when he was making his spells and potions. The dragon did not like to be interrupted when he was dreaming of his delicious food. They were both very grumpy and rude to the princesses, but the princesses were very brave and did not let that stop them. They explained all about the terrible kings and asked him to stop them.
"The wizard said 'Fine, but if I do you two have to become the new queens and never come bother me again!' The princesses really did not want to become queens because that meant that they would have to move from their little cottage into the castles far away from each other. They were best friends and did not want to leave each other, but they were princesses and knew that the people needed their help, so they agreed. They left the wizard's tower and went back home, promising each other that they would be friends forever.
"The wizard grumbled to the dragon, who just yawned and went back to sleep. Then he went to his magic mirror and began to spy on the bad kings. He saw what they did to the people that they were supposed to protect and was very unhappy about what he saw. Things were much worse than what the two princesses had told him. These two kings were doing very, very bad things to their people, not just making war with each other and using their people to do it.
"The wizard thought and thought, but could not come up with a way to turn these two kings into good kings. There wasn't even the smallest bit of good in their hearts for him to work with. So he did the only thing he could think of. He woke up his dragon, got on the dragon's back and flew down to one kingdom where that king liked to go hunting. Instead of hunting, the king got hunted as the dragon swooped down from the air above and grabbed him right off of his horse.
"The dragon and wizard brought the terrible king back to their tower and made him drink two potions. The first potion took away his voice, because he squeaked and made the dragon's ears hurt. Then they took the terrible king and flew down into the other kingdom and dropped him, right into the courtyard of the other king's castle. The castle guards were overjoyed, because they were big bullies and loved to make people cry.
"So they took the bad king to their king, kicking him and punching him and laughing every time he cried because they were so mean. Their king was very happy that he had his enemy in his castle, so he took him down to the dungeon where all of his guards could see their enemy king and take turns being mean. When the wizard saw in his magic mirror that all of the bad guards and both bad kings were in the dungeon he made the second potion blow them all up. It made a terrible mess, but all of the bad people were dead so that they couldn't be terrible kings and guards anymore.
"The princesses went to the castles, cleaned up all of the messes that the bad kings had left, and made certain that neither kingdom ever went to war again. They gave all of their people lots of food to eat and made them take holidays and vacations so that they could have lots of play time. The wizard went back to making his potions and spells. The dragon went back to dreaming of cows and sheep but never, ever chickens because they are small, they make terrible noises, and they smell very, very bad."
April started giggling and couldn't stop. 47 was used to that reaction. It happened to Emily every time he told that story. He glanced at the rest of the kids. They were staring bug eyed at him. Grace, he knew, had been staring throughout the entire story, but now her attention was taken up with the man standing at the entrance to the waiting room. 47 wasn't concerned, although it was obvious that the man unnerved her. "Mendoza?" he said, acknowledging the man and asking for his report at the same time.
Mendoza came over, rubbing his hands to warm them. "It was like you thought boss. Slick job, but not up to your standards. Emily's story?" Mendoza asked, nodding at the giggling April. He didn't want to say anything too specific in front of the kids.
47 nodded. "Move them all to the vineyard and make sure that there are no questions asked. I don't want the client or the agents alerted. The daughter needs long term care, so be careful. Make sure that they have everything they need and alert Inspector Whittaker. Tell Mrs. Cooper they're coming so she'll be prepared."
"You got it boss," Mendoza said. He was simply relieved that he wouldn't have to go back out into the weather.
"And Mendoza," 47 said, putting April down. "Thank you. I know that you hate snow."
Mendoza smiled. This was the reason that he liked his boss so much. He actually cared about his people. "No problem boss. I actually got a date out of it." He left the waiting room and headed down to the cafeteria. He could make all of his calls from there and he also knew that was where the rest of the bodyguards would be when they were off duty. He could get an update from them.