Intake, part 2

When Ashley and Helen returned to the waiting room, Henry stood up and went to meet them. "Hey Boss, one of the other docs came out and wanted to talk to you about Joshua. He said you can go on back; he's in the third cubicle on the left."

As Magnus strode through the doors, Henry wrapped an arm around Ashley's shoulders. "Hey, no worries, right Ash? Mom said he'd be okay."

The nurse chose that moment to interrupt. "Excuse me. You seem to know what's going on here. Perhaps you could help us with filling in the intake records for the young man that she came in with," she stated, thrusting the clipboard at Henry.

"Uh..." Henry was going to protest, but the nurse quelled that with a look. Instead, he sat down and dutifully began filling in the form. Name: Henr Will Zimmerman. DOB: mid 1980's? Address: c/o The Sanctuary... However, after filling in the basic name and address information, the form started getting more difficult to fill in. Next of kin he decided could be Ashley, but when it came to questions about how Will's parents and grandparents died and when, if there was family history of heart disease or glaucoma or asthma or seizures or cancer, and what symptoms he'd come in with... Henry was pretty well lost. He hadn't even seen Will after he'd been hurt. He began muttering before deciding that maybe if he could get Ashley to help him with the form, she'd stop staring into space and tapping her fingers on the arm of the chair. Unless Henry was mistaken, what she been tapping for the past five minutes or so was the them from Lemmings. Or maybe something from the Nutcracker Suite.

Giving her a gentle punch on the shoulder, Henry got Ashley to look at him. Passing the buck by shoving the form at her in much the same way that it had been shoved at him, he said, "Come on, Ash-leeey. I'm lost here."

Looking at what he had written, Ashley had to agree that was obvious. She scratched out mid 1980's and put in May 19, 1982 for Will's date of birth. When she got to the blank medical sections below it, she raised an eyebrow at Henry. "What, you couldn't access his medical files at the Sanctuary and fill this in? This is totally a standard form."

"Uh, I didn't think of that." Grabbing his smartphone, Henry tapped away for a few minutes before holding it out for Ashley to see. "Okay, here you go."

"Noooo." Ashley shook her head. "Here you go." She handed him the clipboard back.

Ten minutes of fidgeting later, Ashley went over to the desk. "Excuse me, I was told that after they moved Will to a room I would be able to see him. Can you tell me which room they put him in?"

After ten more minutes of speaking- and even a bit of arguing- with the administrator, Ashley came over and flopped back down into the seat next to Henry. Crossing her arms across her chest, she grunted, "Hurry up."

"Huh?"

"Hurry up, scruffy!" Ashley gave Henry a light slap on the arm. "Apparently, none of Will's records can be entered until they get that form from you, which means that curmudgeon at the desk can't- or won't- tell me where he is!"

"Okay, okay, I'm going!" Henry's chickenscratch deteriorated further as he tried to write faster. Personally, he was beginning to wonder if he shouldn't just take his phone to the desk and let them copy from that. But then, surely these people are used to illegible handwriting from working with doctors so much?

Henry finished the form exactly eight minutes later. Ashley timed him, complaining about how long it was taking him. Fourteen minutes after that, Ashley threw a hissy fit at the desk because they still wouldn't let her see Will. After they got her calmed down, one of the nurses explained that the reason they couldn't take her to his room is that he hadn't been assigned one yet; X-rays had shown a spiral fracture of the ulna, which had needed reduction and casting. An hour and thirty-seven minutes later, Henry was sure he was going to go mad if Ashley didn't stop pacing. And rearranging the out-of-date magazines on the rack. And pacing. And sitting in a chair tapping her fingers. And pacing. And flipping through a magazine faster than any speed-reader possibly could. And walking halfway to the desk, glaring at the nurses and administrator, clenching her fists, and then stomping back to her seat. And tapping her foot. And singing under her breath something that sounded suspiciously like: "They're gonna die, die, die, die hard. They're gonna die, die, die, die hard when I snap. Yippie-ki-yay-".

When Ashley jumped up and headed for the desk again, Henry jumped up after her and grabbed a shoulder. "Hey, why don't I take her on this time?"

Ashley glared at the administrator behind the desk, then looked back at Henry. Snorting her breath through her nose, she crossed her arms over her chest and flopped back down in the chair again. "Okay, but I'm running out of patience. It's tomorrow already, Henry. I want to see him, even if he's still out cold and looking like crap. And where the hell is Mom?"

...

It ended up being another thirteen grueling minutes for Ashley before a candy-striper took her and Henry up two levels and through a veritable rabbit-warren of corridors and to a door marked "IL-338" before hurrying off. Entering the lab, they saw Magnus bent over a microscope.

"Mom? What are you doing?"

"Ashley! What's wrong? Has something happened to Will?"

Ashley's hands flew to her hips. "I wouldn't know! They haven't let us see him!"

"Well, we'll just have to remedy that." Magnus snapped the pencil she was using down on the desk with excessive force. She rolled over to the computer on another desk and started typing, rapidly bringing up a Will's records.

Ashley, however, upset over her apparent unconcern and was in no mood to be forgiving. "Mom! Just what the hell have you been doing?"

Magnus sighed. "Trying to figure out what the various compounds they injected Joshua with are, and what their purpose could possibly be. Also, since Joshua mentioned having them take his blood, trying to determine if there are naturally occurring abnormalities in his blood." Turning back to her daughter, she added, "I know you're probably thinking that I should be taking care of Will myself, but under the circumstances, I thought that it would be better to work up here in the immunology lab on Joshua's tests. Will is stable now, and while a Monteggia fracture is painful and will take a while to heal, it's not life-threatening. And the staff here is competent. I'm sure that they can handle setting a bone, casting an arm, and monitoring his condition. In addition, they've given me a pager and I'm to be notified immediately if either Will or Joshua develops any complications."

Standing, Helen wrapped an arm around Ashley's waist. "Come on. According to his records, they've assigned him a semi-private room on the fourth floor."

AN:

I apologize for the delay in posting; I have bits and pieces of 4 more chapters down, but they're not yet complete. Please continue to be patient with me.

On a wholly unrelated note, has anyone else noticed how many Stargate characters show up on Sanctuary? There's Amanda Tapping, Michael Shanks, Paul McGillion, Christopher Heyerdahl, Jonathan Young, Peter Wingfield, Gary Jones, and then Tom McBeath showed up as a Colonel in tonight's episode. I was almost sad that he was military and yet not Maybourne.

I can't wait to see who's next. Anybody want to have a bet on who shows up first? I'm hoping for Joe Flanigan, Richard Dean Anderson, Christopher Judge, Rainbow Sun Francks, Robert Picardo, Torri Higginson, Rachel Luttrell, Teryl Rothery, Gary Jones, David Hewlett, Dan Shea, Brent Stait, Carmen Argenziano, Colin Cunningham, Craig Veroni, David Nykl, or Colm Meaney. If we're looking for an actor for a character we'd all love to hate, I vote for Ronny Cox, Ben Cotton, or John de Lancie.

And is it my imagination, or is Ryan Robbins (Henry) one of the Genii in a couple of eps?