"Hey Asshole."
Christian was surprised to see Gina standing in the doorway of his room and he was even more surprised when he found himself happy to see her. It had been a day after his surgery and he was handling the situation a little bit better than he initially had. After his breakdown the day before in front of Sean and Liz, he had steeled himself against the notion that he wasn't going to heal completely. He knew he'd be doing himself no favors by deluding himself otherwise or continuing to place the blame on Sean or Liz. They had been right when they'd said Sean had done his best. Now only time would tell how he'd heal. He'd spoken again with both of them that morning before they headed into Escobar's surgery. With nothing else to do and no one else to talk to, he'd decided to take advantage of the security the practice afforded him and take a nap. When he woke, it was late afternoon and he had been alone again, save for the guards outside, that was until Gina showed up.
"It's nice to see you too, Gina," He greeted her as she walked in. She had a tray in her hands and she walked it over and put it on the adjustable bedside table. "You brought me food?" He asked, a little surprised.
"Chicken soup. Thought I was gonna have to smuggle it in. You know they got this place locked down like freakin' Fort Knox because of you," She mentioned as she adjusted the tray table to the right height and rolled it over in front of him and then stood there expectantly. "Well? Aren't you gonna try it?" She asked him.
Christian really shouldn't have expected anything less. It was so quintessentially Gina to just walk in like she owned the place and try to take over. "I'm still laying down and I can't exactly reach the spoon," Christian said to her, showing that his dominant hand was cuffed again at the wrist to the bed.
"Jesus, seriously?" She asked him before turning to the guards stationed outside. "Seriously!?" She called out to them. "How the hell's he supposed to eat like this, huh?"
"Gina," Christian hissed at her. The last thing he wanted was for her to make things worse by pissing off the guards. "It's fine. I'll use my other hand. Just stop," He urged her.
"No. This is bullshit," She told him before turning out to the guards again. "This is bullshit!" She shouted at them. She looked back to him.
"Gina," He snapped again. "Please?"
Gina saw how desperately he was looking at her. "Okay, but this is still bullshit," She finally relented. She went over and adjusted his bed herself, getting him at least sitting upright and then she fluffed his pillow behind him. "You know, I probably got a hairpin in my purse. I could pick the lock," She offered to him as she glanced down at the handcuffs.
"Have you absolutely lost your mind? There are guards out there with guns," He reminded her and she just rolled her eyes.
"Please. They're morons. They got you locked up here like you're some sort of criminal meanwhile the real Carver's still out there making people look like the Joker," She told him.
"You know I'm not the Carver?" Christian had been so sure everyone aside from Kimber had given up on him and thought him guilty that it never even occurred to him that maybe that wasn't the case.
Gina looked at him like he was stupid. "Of course you're not the Carver. You're an asshole, that's for sure, but you wouldn't hurt people... least not like that," She told him, absolutely sure of that.
"Why didn't you ever call or write or visit?" Christian asked her.
"You had Kimber for all that, right? I got the feeling she didn't really want me around," She told him with a little shrug. "Besides, as if you'd really want to hear from me anyway," She said to him.
"It might have been nice, actually," He admitted to her.
"Jesus, you must be really desperate then, huh? Well, I'll keep that in mind," She told him with a little smirk. She handed him the spoon to his non-dominant hand and he was able to take a spoonful of the soup.
"This is really good. Did you make this?" He asked her, impressed.
"Hell yeah, I made it," Gina assured him. "You know I can cook." She made herself comfortable in the chair next to his bed as he ate.
Truth be told, Christian didn't mind Gina's company all that much, especially these days. He was thankful that she hadn't mentioned his injuries and that she hadn't looked at him with disgust or even worse - pity. It was just a normal visit with Gina. As he ate, he listened as she told him about opening De La Mer with Julia and about their deal with Joan Rivers and how exactly that idea for the skin cream had came about. She talked to him about her HIV - how her T-Cell count was high and her viral load was down. He was pretty content to let Gina do all of the talking.
Christian had just finished his soup when the guard outside of his room suddenly left his post and ran down the hall.
"What the hell's that all about?" Gina asked, standing up from her chair to go towards the door. There was a lot of commotion and some screaming echoing down the hall.
Christian tensed and reached out to stop her. "Gina, don't," He urged, seeing that she was going to go to the door to peek out.
"You're not even a little curious?" She asked him.
"I think I already know," Christian admitted. Escobar's surgery was happening down the hall. God only knew what Gallardo and Merrill had cooked up, but he hoped that Sean and Liz were alright.
"Y'know, this would be the perfect time for you to try to escape if you wanted," Gina suggested and Christian wasn't sure if she was joking or not. "The guards are gone. I could jimmy the lock on your handcuffs and we could get you the hell outta here," She offered.
"As truly tempting as that sounds, I don't think we'd get far," Christian told her dubiously. "I'm not exactly inconspicuous with these lacerations," He said, indicating his face.
"So we'll get you a mask or something. Say you're sick until you heal," She suggested with a shrug, as though she had it all figured out.
"And where would we go?" Christian asked her, figuring he'd indulge the fantasy for a few moments. It was better than focusing on the commotion down the hall.
"I don't know. Mexico maybe," Gina mused. "Or maybe Brazil. Don't they have a lot of plastic surgeons in Brazil? You could start your own practice and I could run it," She told him.
Christian smiled a little at that, but he was mindful of his stitches. "Oh yeah?"
"Yeah... and everyday after you were finished stuffing fake tits, we'd end up on some Brazilian beach and-"
Gina paused in the middle of her tale of their fantasy life as the noise from down the hall was growing louder and closer. Christian glanced out and saw Merrill, clad in scrubs, being hauled away by most of the guards who were literally carrying him out, though one stayed behind, taking up his post once more outside of Christian's room.
"Looks like we lost our chance," Gina told him, taking note of the guard.
"Yeah, looks like," Christian agreed, but his mind was elsewhere. What had Merrill done? Had the idiot really done something on Gallardo's command to get himself arrested so soon after being released? Or had he gone rogue and killed the bastard somehow? Christian hated that a part of him desperately hoped it was the latter. He hated that the fantasy of a world where Escobar Gallardo was finally dead sounded far more appealing than the fantasy of living it up in another country. He hated the type of man he was becoming to even think that way. He felt the familiar unease settle in and he knew he wouldn't feel any better until he was able to talk to Sean about what had happened.
"Hey, you okay?" Gina asked him, looking at him with concern.
It took Christian a moment to realize she was talking to him. "Hmm? Yeah. I'm fine," He assured her but it wasn't convincing, not even to himself.
"You don't look fine. You look like shit. Like you seen a ghost or something. You know that guy they were hauling outta here?"
Christian nodded. "Yeah. I knew him," He admitted.
"Do you need me to stay with you till someone else gets here? I was gonna head back to the spa soon, but if you're not okay…" Gina trailed off.
"No, I'm good. Thank you, Gina. For everything," He said to her sincerely. It had been a nice visit while it had lasted and he was glad to see Gina finally getting her act together.
"Yeah, well, I'll see you again before you get outta here," Gina promised him as she gathered her purse and jacket. She went over to him and paused before deciding on placing a kiss on his forehead, not wanting to irritate his injuries anywhere else on his face. "Don't go escaping to Brazil without me, Asshole," She told him softly with a small smile before she left, leaving him alone once again.