8. The storm has passed, and in its wake is a fragile world.
Joey had imagined this day going in a completely different direction. Maybe helping Mai with some errands, maybe helping Yugi's grandfather in the shop, maybe even playing some games with Tristan at the arcade.
He hadn't imagined that he would spend the day chasing down Rare Hunters and an enemy he didn't even remember having. He hadn't expected to be the one helping save the lives of some of his former enemies.
And he certainly hadn't considered that his day was going to end with him in a police station.
With all three of the bikers now at the hospital, and Ellie with them, it left Mai and Joey at the warehouse. Mai had been determined to make sure Gurimo was properly jailed, as well as Valon's former parents, so she had insisted on going with the police. After all that had happened, Joey didn't want her out of his sight.
It was a mess. They had to verify Gurimo's true identity at the police station, because apparently the police already had Gurimo in custody. Joey had to recount what had taken place at the apartment, and of course they had to explain why the Anglisses had been trapped in their own car trunk. Admonishments were given of course, but nothing else came of it. The officers saw it as self-defense and decided that there was no need to prosecute any further. Even if they had decided to prosecute them, though, Joey wouldn't have changed a thing he'd done that day.
While everything was being sorted out, they had been directed to a waiting room in the police station. Shortly afterwards, Marik and Rishid were ushered into the room. All parties had promptly gone silent as they registered each other's presences. Rishid gently steered his younger brother to one corner of the room, giving a small nod toward Joey.
Ten minutes later and they were no closer to getting out of this delightful situation.
Joey cast a glance at the two Egyptians, who were quietly conversing in a language he didn't know. If he was to be honest, he only trusted Marik because Yugi seemed to. Not everything Marik had done had been while under the influence of an alternate personality. Even now, Joey couldn't tell if what he felt was an exceedingly complicated indifference, or if what he felt was something akin to juggling Molotov cocktails.
If he felt this way just by seeing Marik in the room, he couldn't even begin to imagine what Mai was feeling. Her thin lips, haunted expression, and loss of color in her face were clear indications that it wasn't anything good. She was looking as if she was caught in an internal debate between fighting or fleeing—and fight was looking the likely winner.
Joey wasn't the only one who'd noticed the shift in Mai's mood. Marik could sense the hostility radiating off of Mai in palpable waves, and shrunk in his seat even as he spoke with Rishid. He was practically withering under her gaze.
Perhaps it was just because of the tension surrounding Marik's presence in the room, but Joey couldn't help but take notice of Marik's clothing. It was torn, dirty, and rumpled; Marik's skin showed multiple cuts and bruises forming. His right cheek had a cut that was taped together with butterfly bandages. Clearly, his day had been just as hard as theirs.
All right, let's just get this over with.
Joey cleared his throat, and two pairs of eyes flitted to him. "Why are you here?" he asked, keeping his voice neutral. "Thought you guys were back in Egypt by now."
Marik only briefly met his gaze. "When your neighbor gets attacked by your Rare Hunters, you end up talking to the police," he replied. "I didn't do anything this time."
Rishid made a small noise. Marik glanced at his brother and sighed. "Okay, so I may have accidentally implied that I'd poisoned two Rare Hunters with water, and I might have had to explain why I have a replica of the Millennium Rod. Rishid might have possibly broken into a neighbor's home—"
"I did no such thing."
Marik arched an eyebrow. In any other situation, Joey might have laughed. "You kicked down the front door."
"Exigent circumstances dictated such an action. Valon was adamant on this man's involvement, so I went to check on him," said Rishid mildly when Joey shot him a startled look. "This particular neighbor does have multiple dangerous reptiles in his home. I was worried there might be something wrong when he didn't answer. I was perhaps too zealous and broke the door down in my concern. There were many venomous snakes on the loose in his home, so I stepped inside."
"There were two, Rishid."
"Many snakes," Rishid repeated, his expression neutral. "It warranted me looking through his house to secure them. While doing so I stumbled across something truly troubling, and so I called the police."
Joey could read between the lines. I was searching for clues as to what was happening and found them, and then I alerted the police.
"What of you, Joseph? You are also here tonight," Rishid asked, a question in his voice.
Joey sighed. "You two know Ellie, right? She's our neighbor. A couple of goons went after her. She's fine!" he added hastily, noticing their concern. "When we were helping her, we found Alister was in the trunk of their car and…well, it's been a mess since then."
Marik nodded slowly. "Have you…did you find Valon?" he asked at last, worry in his voice.
"We did," Joey said, his voice clipped.
Beside him, Mai flinched. The rest of his reply died. Joey didn't know what to tell Marik. He had no idea how Valon was faring, and saying a blind reassurance felt wrong. The helplessness on his face must have been answer enough for Marik, though. The other young man didn't ask anything further, but his fists clenched around the fabric of his pants.
Another silence fell, this one thicker and stifling.
"What was it you found?" Joey directed this question to Rishid, when the silence became too much.
Rishid's face darkened. "Notes about the daily habits of young Valon and his friends. A map marking common routes the three of them took. A bulletin board with multiple pictures," he said with grim reserve. "Our family was on this board as well."
He hesitated. "Your younger sister was also on this board, Joseph."
Joey felt the air leave his lungs.
Serenity.
He hadn't thought to call his baby sister. There had not been enough time, and in all the chaos of what had been happening he simply hadn't thought Serenity could be a potential target. She was in a completely different country now, making it all the harder to get to her. But of course she was a target—she was connected to Valon.
He should have reached out to her! He should have warned her, should have done something, what was he going to do if she had—?
"Their pictures had a post it labeled 'out of reach' next to them," Rishid continued, his gaze sympathetic. He had seen the way Joey had paled. "I would assume that he did not have the resources to go after either of them."
Joey barely heard Rishid, pulling his phone out of his pocket. On the screen were multiple text message notifications, and he nearly ignored them before he spotted one from Tristan.
It had Serenity's name in it.
He immediately opened the message, heart pounding. He had to read through Tristan's other texts—all variations of are you okay and what's going on—before he found the message he was looking for.
Hey man. Still got no clue what's happening, but I had Téa call your sister. She just got back to me. Serenity's fine—call her when you can.
Joey had to re-read the message several times before it finally sunk in. Serenity's fine. She's safe.
She's safe.
He slumped in relief, showing Mai the screen; the woman had looked ready to bolt out to find Serenity herself. The woman relaxed, a small portion of the tension bleeding from her shoulders. "We're lucky. Ren's fine," he said, voice trembling.
Mai's hand moved, gently resting on his shoulder. She knew just how scared he had truly been in that moment. Both of them were very much aware that they had dodged a massive bullet.
His gaze moved back up to Marik, frowning as he studied the other young man. "I guess they didn't like you after all," Joey said after a pause, tapping his own face to indicate Marik's cut cheek. "They gave you a souvenir."
"The Rare Hunters were not thrilled with us showing up, no," Marik replied. "They were planning on ambushing Rishid and I at the airport. We caught them first."
Joey was surprised by the news. That explained the lack of Rare Hunters in the warehouse—the goons had all been waiting to ambush Marik. "Not one of them wanted to stick with their new boss?"
"They're pawns, but they aren't stupid. They saw this going south long before your guy did. I trained them well enough to recognize that much. Their new leader didn't inspire much confidence in them, so they used him to get what they wanted—a shot at my family and I."
Joey tiredly shook his head. In the end, these clowns couldn't even figure out how to work together. God, what a mess.
"Anyone want to tell me how these guys ended up together?" he asked, frowning. "We got your text, Marik, but I didn't get to ask."
"Gurimo most likely tracked them down," Mai said in a clipped voice, and all eyes went to her. It was the first time she had spoken since Marik and Rishid had entered the room. There was only barest of civilities in her voice. "He was good at researching. He saw a connection and killed two birds with one stone. Probably wouldn't have happened if Marik had actually disbanded his Rare Hunters."
Marik stiffened. Rishid went perfectly still, his gaze moving between his younger brother and the woman across from him. When Marik spoke, it was with forced calm. "I've been working with law enforcement agencies and Kaiba himself. I'm trying to get the Rare Hunters out of the streets," he replied coolly.
"Great job. The results really speak for themselves," Mai said, acid entering her voice.
"Mai, I'm doing what I can—"
"If Gurimo could still use them as thugs for hire, then you haven't done nearly enough!" she snapped. She shot to her feet. "Oh, and even if the damned Hunters weren't involved, you still let Valon go out there alone! He wasn't in any shape to be out there, and you knew it!"
Marik was on his feet in seconds. "You think I don't know that, Mai? He's my friend too!" he burst out. His eyes flashed with anger and helplessness, a burning lavender in his suddenly ashen face. "My Rare Hunters were used as this man's pawns! I couldn't stop Valon from leaving! I knew he needed to go to the hospital, and I failed to stop him! I know that, Mai! What do you want me to do about it? There is literally nothing I can do that will change this! I-If Valon dies—if he or his friends—!"
But Marik cut himself off, fists clenching as he looked away. The fire left his eyes and voice, and he dropped back into the chair. He buried his face in his hands, and his voice was muffled when he spoke. "I know whose fault it will be if he doesn't come back."
Silence fell.
Mai slowly lowered into the seat, suddenly sobered by the very real possibility of what Marik had said. Rishid moved to quietly comfort Marik, and Joey dropped an arm around Mai's shoulders. After a moment, she leaned against him.
Eventually, Joey cleared his throat to catch their attention. "Look…I know we all don't get along that well," he said quietly, suddenly so very tired. "We aren't all buddies here, and we may never be. But we do have one thing in common—we know Valon and his friends. We know that he's tough and stupid-stubborn, and he doesn't know how to give up. As for Alister and Raphael? They're not going to let some knockoff Dr. Quest kill them. Not one of them are going to roll over and die, not without a fight."
"You didn't see them get wheeled away, Joey," Mai said, her voice soft. "You didn't see Valon panicking because his throat was closing. You didn't see the paramedics cutting away Alister's shirt to prepare him for the defibrillator, in case his heart stopped."
Her voice rose. "He was actively dying as they took him! And Raphael…hell, I know he's already…he was already dead when they…!"
She couldn't finish her last sentence and so she looked away, jaw clenched. Marik and Rishid were frozen, shock and horror playing across their features.
"…We didn't always get along. Raphael and Alister especially. Neither of them really liked me, and I didn't like them…but that doesn't mean I wanted them dead," she finished at last, her voice choked by emotion.
Joey's arm tightened around her shoulders. "Mai—"
From outside the room came the sound of running footsteps and shouts. Four heads snapped to the door, Rishid and Joey both on their feet in seconds. "Now what?"
Joey shot out of the room, nearly getting bowled over by a nearby cop as the officer ran down the hall. Joey looked to Rishid, a silent agreement passing between them before he moved. The other man remained where he was, acting as a guard for those left behind.
He followed the officer down the hall. Normally he might have been stopped, but with the chaos around him Joey suspected no one had noticed him yet. The cop he was jogging after led him to a hallway with doors on either side. At the very end of the hall was an open doorway, where he could see a whole crowd of officers gathered around an open doorway; a plaque above it read 'Interrogation 1'. There were more shouts coming from inside the room, and Joey thought he saw a body on the ground.
Something in his gut clenched.
He saw a policeman look over his shoulder, pointing to one of his fellow officers. The shout that followed confirmed Joey's suspicions.
"Call an ambulance!"
Tick.
Questions to answer.
Tick.
Talking to the police, to the nurses, to the doctors.
Tick.
Voices over the speaker, ambient noises from the hospital. Running water from the nearby water dispenser.
Water…
Tick.
Raphael's frightened eyes finding hers in the murky water, the life fading from them as he drowned.
Tick.
Valon clutching Joey's shirt, panic in his eyes as he fought to breathe.
Tick.
Alister in the trunk of the car, silent and pale and bleeding.
Tick.
The sound of gently falling rain. An arm around her shoulders, the weight warm and comforting.
"I promise."
Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick…
Ellie opened her eyes, massaging them before looking to the clock. In the empty waiting room, the steady tick of the clock on the wall was something she'd call almost too loud. It was her only company, but she could hardly take solace in the sound. There was only one thing that could comfort her now, but there was no telling when that news would come—she refused to even consider the possibility of there being an if.
She had done what she could for them. She had placed Raphael, Valon, and Alister on a private status to protect them from unwanted visitors, giving a list of approved individuals that were still required to provide ID. She had listed all medical allergies she knew of. She had even requested to have the three of them put in the same room, if possible; she knew them well enough to know they would try seeking each other out the moment they woke up.
Now all she could do was wait.
Another glance to the clock, and she let out a shaky sigh. It had only been hours. To her, though, it felt as if years had passed. There was no signal for her cell phone in here, making her feel even more isolated and alone. There was nothing to distract her from her thoughts, nothing to offer her assurances or comfort.
She folded her hands on her lap, trying to figure out if the tremor in them was coming from her being cold or because she was genuinely scared.
The door opened to the waiting room and Ellie looked up, hope and trepidation racing through her. The person who entered was not a visitor—the white coat gave him away. He was balding, with short black hair that bore gray streaks. He wore glasses, and beneath them his eyes were shadowed; the doctor's face was lined with exhaustion, and the smile he gave her was tired.
"Miss Monroe?" he asked. When Ellie gave a tight nod, the man's features softened. "I'm Dr. Drake. I'm the doctor who's been overseeing your friends tonight. I was told that, for now, you're the one I need to speak to for them."
"How are they?" Ellie asked immediately, hurrying to him. "Please, can you—?"
"Let's take a seat," Dr. Drake said, gently steering her back to a chair. "There's a lot we need to discuss. There's no one else in here, so we'll just use this as my office for now."
Ellie reluctantly sat back down, her heart hammering in her chest.
"Let's get your nerves settled first. All three are out of immediate danger," he told her. Some of Ellie's fear eased, but only marginally—he'd said immediate danger, but he hadn't said they were truly stable yet.
He seemed to understand. "Perhaps we should start with the youngest and go from there," he said. "Mr. Harbringer—"
"Valon." Ellie could see Valon's face in her mind, could already see the way his nose wrinkled and his eyebrows knit together at the name. "He would have preferred…well, he's not here, but…"
She trailed off awkwardly, but the doctor gave her an understanding smile. "Valon it is, then."
He sobered. "Valon was shot, and it was a clean through and through. It barely missed vital organs—he's very lucky, because even a centimeter off and there'd be a completely different story.
"I'm more worried about the allergic reaction. When he came to us, he was in the middle of biphasic anaphylaxis. It's a secondary allergic reaction that is just as bad, if not worse, than the initial one. Even after getting an epi-pen involved, it can strike anywhere between minutes to days after the fact. He had a massive amount of bee venom in his system."
He cleared his throat. "Honestly, the reaction should have killed him long before this point. If I didn't know better, I'd say divine intervention was keeping his throat from closing before he got here. That said, we did have to intubate him to be on the safe side. We haven't had to put a hole in his throat yet and we hope not to, but for now he'll be in ICU. I'm anticipating it'll be a day, maybe a little longer, before the swelling goes down. Our protocol is to use four point restraints—keep his hands and feet immobilized and strapped down—and to have a nurse at the bedside, at all times. He should—"
"He's claustrophobic," she interrupted, her voice soft but firm. "He'll panic if he wakes up to find himself in that position."
The doctor frowned. "Since you've said he's claustrophobic, we'll likely end up keeping him heavily sedated, if not asleep until the swelling comes down."
"Am I allowed to visit him?"
The doctor shook his head sadly. "Only family is allowed in ICU," he told her quietly. "The moment we deem him stable enough to take the tube out of his throat, we can shift him to a different ward to recover. Will that be a suitable compromise?"
"Only if Alister and Raphael join him," Ellie said, meeting the man's gaze. "They'll tear the hospital apart looking for each other otherwise."
"I'll see what we can manage," the doctor replied.
Ellie nodded slowly. It seemed that was as best as she could do for now, for Valon's sake. "What about Alister?"
Dr. Drake sighed. "He's lucky to be alive," he said, and his features briefly darkened. "He should have been brought to the hospital long before this. Multiple internal lacerations, including to his lung and other organs. A cracked pelvis, broken arm, broken ribs, a concussion...it's a literal miracle he's not dead right now. He's now on oxygen, partially because of his lung and partially because of how much blood he's lost. We've got him in a critical care unit right now, so you can visit him, but I want him on strict bed rest for at least two weeks."
Ellie's face momentarily crumpled at the severe note in his words. She had been the one to make the decision to take him to the docks, rather than the hospital. I should have made him go, rather than take him with us.
There was no point in berating herself now. What was done was done. She knew Alister wouldn't have willingly come to the hospital on his own.
"I don't know if this bears too much relevance to his current diagnosis," she said then, "but Alister's allergic to anxiety medications. There's an ingredient in them—b-benzo—"
"Benzodiazepines," the doctor finished for her, looking startled. "That wasn't in his chart."
The man made a quick note on his clipboard. "Thank you for telling me," he said, his voice warming. "We'll watch what medications he's getting."
She'd heard about Alister and Valon. Now, there was a figurative elephant in the room, and it was growing larger still. Ellie wanted to ask—she desperately wanted to ask—but….
His lifeless body jerks on the docks—he's not responding—"CLEAR!"—
Ellie sucked in a soft breath. "...Raphael."
Dr. Drake winced, and Ellie's heart sank. The man seemed to be trying to find the words, and it took him a moment before he spoke.
"I was told he had been clinically dead for four minutes, before they got him back," he said. "That's not counting how long he was in the water in that condition. Shortly after he was admitted, we rushed him to the OR. He...he did flatline a second time, while we were working to stabilize him. He wasn't gone long," he added quickly, noticing Ellie's hands shoot to her mouth.
Ellie had to fight back the wave of nausea and white-hot fear at his words. If he had passed away before now, he would have said as much. He's not dead. He's not dead yet. Raphael promised, he promised, he's not…
She wiped at her eyes, gesturing to Dr. Drake to continue. He hesitated, but when Ellie met his gaze dry-eyed he resumed.
"There was...a lot of water in him. Not just his lungs, even his stomach had water. Based on what I've heard, there's no physical way Raphael ingested so much water in the amount of time he was underwater. Do you know anything that could help me understand what happened?"
Ellie shook her head. "I don't," she whispered softly. "We arrived when he was underwater."
The doctor's expression darkened. "I would ask him what happened, but he's in no shape to tell me anything. With all the water, his lungs simply aren't getting enough air. We're working on getting all the excess fluid off of him. He's also had to be sedated and intubated, but..."
He trailed off, trying to find the words. "We aren't sure how long this will need to be the case," he said then. "His lungs are too waterlogged to properly function right now, and we are concerned that this will turn into pneumonia. At this point, we can only monitor and do what we can to help. This is his fight now."
Ellie blinked back tears. There was another question that she needed to ask. Even as she dreaded it, even as she feared the response, she had to know—for his sake, she needed to know what to tell him when he woke.
"What about his leg?" she managed at last, forcing herself to look at him. "I know they mentioned a gunshot, when they were loading him into the ambulance."
Dr. Drake folded his hands, looking down at them. Ellie's heart stuttered.
"I have been a doctor for thirty-five years," he began. "I've seen his type of gunshot wound before. Seen the exact caliber shot, in the exact location, on the exact same leg even. Under normal circumstances, we'd have to take the leg off. There's no saving it when it's shattered to that extreme, and even without the damage to the bone the soft tissue damage alone would cinch it."
Ellie's heart stopped. If the leg had been so badly hurt…if he had lost his leg, she had no idea how to even approach this. But…
"You said 'normal circumstances,'" she said slowly, grasping at the last vestiges of hope. "Does that mean there's something else going on?"
Dr. Drake pulled out a piece of paper and set it on top of his clipboard. On it was drawn what looked to be a femur, only there were tiny dots and pieces instead of an actual bone; the top and bottom of the bone were plainly visible, but almost everything in between was nothing but dots and pieces. "This is what we typically find, based on the caliber of the bullet and the location of the wound."
Then he pulled out another drawing. The bone was intact, save for one area in the middle where it looked as if someone swiped a pencil eraser across the bone. "This is what we found."
Ellie stared at the picture, taking it from him with numb fingers. What she was looking at was physically impossible. She'd never seen a gunshot wound before, only in movies, but even she knew that there was a lot of damage associated with them.
"That's not all." The doctor folded his arms, looking as if he was having just as much trouble as Ellie processing this turn of events. "In addition to what we saw on the X-ray, the soft tissue, muscle, and nerve damage is significantly less than we were expecting. It's still substantial, and there's no telling yet if it will heal properly in the long run. But compared to how bad it could be, he's doing much better than we expected."
"Then...he has a chance?"
"He does. We can't do surgery to stabilize the fracture. Raphael is too medically fragile to be put under—in fact, we tried to and that's when he flatlined earlier. Our hope is to let the fracture heal without surgery. We can't cast the leg because we need to get to the wounds to manage them. He won't be allowed to put any weight on that leg until the fracture heals. It won't be easy, and we won't know the extent of the nerve damage until he wakes up, but..."
He smiled at her tiredly. "His leg has a fair chance of healing on its own, and if we can get the water off him…well, he's young and strong. It'll be rough, but I'm anticipating that he'll make it just fine."
…He'd kept his promise. He was going to come back to her.
Raphael will survive this.
The tension and fear that had been wrapped around her heart, painful and constricting in all this time, began to loosen. Ellie felt the tears beginning to well up in her eyes and she had to blink them away. One of her hands rose up to wipe her face, and she took a steadying breath. She felt almost dizzy with relief. "T-Thank you," she said softly. "Really, truly. Thank you."
The man smiled at her. He set a hand on her shoulder. "You are more than welcome, but I didn't do anything more than give them the tools they needed."
She was assured that all three were still alive and fighting. They were safe, and they were starting to heal. Ellie knew they weren't out of the woods—not by a long shot—but they had been given fighting chances.
She wasn't done here, either. There were still things here she needed to do for them.
"Y-You said Alister was in critical care," she said, meeting his gaze. "I can't see Raphael or Valon, but can you take me to Alister?"
"Of course." The doctor rose to his feet, offering her his hand. "I don't know how alert he will be, but I'm sure he'd be grateful for a familiar face."
The room Alister was in was spacious. It was designed to be shared with at least three others, but he was the only occupant in the room at the moment. Probably for the best, all things considering.
The lights had been dimmed in the room, a comfortable ambience considering the night she'd been having. Outside, a light and gentle rain was falling; Ellie could hear the water against the window, and she had to tune it out. If she dwelled too long on the sound, it would dredge up painful memories.
Her attention went almost immediately to the only occupied hospital bed in the room.
In the bed, Alister looked somehow impossibly young and fragile. He'd always been so fair-skinned compared to his friends, but the combination of his trauma and the light made his skin almost an unhealthy pale. The head of the bed had been raised to prop Alister into a semi-supine position. His broken arm was in a sling, a pillow beneath to offer a comfortable position. The room was quiet save for the soft hiss of oxygen from the nasal cannula for Alister's oxygen. His eyes were closed, his red hair shockingly dark against the too pale skin. His breath was a slow, soft, pained wheeze; despite the pillows and the positioning, he looked uncomfortable and his brows were knit together in an unconscious grimace.
Even as bad as he looked, Ellie couldn't stop the first wave of real relief that rushed through her at the sight. Alister was alive. He was safe. One of the people that both she and Raphael cared for had survived today's events. She couldn't tell if she wanted to collapse to the floor or burst into tears right then and there. The only reason she didn't was because she knew she was still needed.
The doctor had told her that Alister had been given a very strong painkiller among other medications, and that they would likely leave him groggy and very much out of it. In fact, he'd even said that the chances of Alister being awake when Ellie came into the room were slim; he had been in and out of consciousness ever since he had gotten out of the operating room, according to the doctor.
It seemed that Alister was determined to prove that idea wrong. As she approached the side of his bed, his eyes slowly slid open; it was obvious now that he had only been half-dozing, fighting to stay awake. They were a cloudy gray, but she could see the pain, confusion, and the starts of fear as Alister began to register his surroundings. She quickened her pace, moving into view.
"It's all right," she said softly when his eyes shifted to her. "Valon and Raphael aren't here yet, but they will be. They're still alive. Gurimo was arrested, and I think Mai and Joey are making sure he doesn't get away."
There was a moment where Ellie wasn't sure if he registered what he told her. It was his body language that gave her an answer. She could see the way the tension in his face eased as his eyes slid closed again, his breathing evening out as he fell asleep. He must have been trying to hold onto consciousness for the sake of his friends, and the news Ellie had brought him had been enough.
Ellie sank into the chair beside his bed, willing her hands to stop shaking. She adjusted the blankets so they were higher on his body, smoothing out his hair when she noticed his bangs sliding into his eyes. One of them was safe, at the very least.
After a moment, she reached for a piece of paper and pen. She wrote a note, folding it neatly and then placing it in Alister's uninjured palm. She delicately curled his fingers around the paper, giving his hand a comforting squeeze before she rose to her feet. Her face set with determination as she left the room.
There was still work she needed to do.