Dr. Williams was looking at me incredulously. "Jesus Christ, Robin," he said, stepping forward and shaking his head. He hadn't expected me to show up in the emergency room, wheeled down by Jackie. Sighing deeply, he shined a light in my eyes one at a time, making me wince. He sighed again, taking a closer look at the bump on my head that was quickly growing, tender to the touch. "I'm going to have to send you to CT," he said.
That wasn't what I wanted to hear. "Come on, I'm sure there's no need for all that," I said, starting to stand up but feeling a little woozy at just the small movement.
"Robin," Dr. Williams put out a hand to stop me. "You've been acting strangely for a while now. I really think you should let us do the CT." Something in his voice made my heart clench. He was worried. Was there really something wrong with me? What did he think was going on? He wasn't a warm and fuzzy kind of doctor. If he was concerned, well, that meant there was something to be concerned about.
Suddenly doubts started creeping in, doubts about everything that had happened in the last few weeks. "Okay," I said. It was impossible to push down the fear that I felt, pinpricks of ice crawling up my neck. I wished Jackie hadn't gone back up to the unit to check in and make sure her patients were okay.
"Hey, it's okay." He could tell I was scared. The kindness in his eyes made it worse. I had never seen that side of him. "Whatever's wrong, we can take care of it."
The scan didn't take long. Dr. Williams bullied the radiologist into reading it right away. There was a mild concussion but nothing else wrong that they could see. We were all relieved. "Is there someone who can take you home?" The doctor asked after telling me the good news.
Somehow always there at the right moment, Jackie appeared. "Charge said things were quiet enough, I could head on home with you," she said, holding her keys. Dr. Williams looked almost disappointed but nodded.
The world was still slightly spinning on the short car ride home. Jackie was uncharacteristically quiet, perhaps giving me a chance to sort things out on my own. I knew her silence wouldn't last long. We climbed the stairs to the apartment; she made me walk in front of her in case I fell. It seemed like overkill to me. Collapsing on the couch, I tried to decide if the world was spinning more or less with my eyes closed. Either way, I felt like barfing again but struggled to keep it down.
Jackie sat down next to me, handing me a hot cup of tea I hadn't even realized she was making. "What's going on, Robin?" she asked quietly, the concern clear in her voice. We were clearly past joking about the situation. She was worried, too.
"I wish I could explain it," I said, at a loss for the words I needed. "I feel a little bit insane right now." How could I tell her? I was beginning to understand how Guy must have been feeling the whole time, how difficult it was for him to tell me the truth. Or what seemed like the truth, however messed up it was.
She still hadn't said anything, waiting patiently for me to gather my thoughts. "It all started when Guy showed up, you know?" I said, stalling. "There was something about him, not just the mystery, something else. I couldn't ignore it. I couldn't stay away."
Jackie nodded slowly. "But that's not everything, is it? You've had relationships before, but not like this. I've never seen you like this." She was trying to be gentle, something completely out of her nature. That almost made it worse, the way she was handling me like I was a fragile item, easily broken.
"You're right. There's so much more. When the other two patients showed up, it was obvious there was a connection between them. You know I couldn't just leave it alone, right? I had to figure it out. I didn't think… well, I almost wish I didn't know, now. It was so much easier not knowing." I was rambling; it was obvious Jackie was getting impatient and more concerned with every word.
A crease had formed between her eyebrows as she leaned forward. "What is it? Is he in a gang? The mob? Is he a spy?" She whispered, trying not to spook me as if I was a wild creature that could bolt at any moment.
"No, nothing like that." I took a deep breath, bracing myself. "He's a time traveler."
Her wide brown eyes blinked slowly at me. "Say what, now?" she asked, raising her eyebrows.
I knew this was a bad idea. "He's from the past. I don't know how, or why, but somehow he traveled from the past and ended up here."
"I see. How do you know this?" She looked like she was five seconds away from calling an ambulance to come to take me to the looney bin. I wouldn't blame her, honestly.
"He told me, of course."
"Of course. And you believed him, why?"
That was the part where it got tricky. Why had I believed him in the first place? Even I didn't have a good answer to that. But after I had been in the forest, whether it was real or not, I was sure. Plus, there were the dreams. "I've been having strange dreams. Perfectly clear, so realistic. I dreamt of the third patient, every detail about him, from his eyes to his voice—"
Jackie interrupted me. "And what is so strange about that? It's normal to have weird dreams after a traumatic experience."
"No," I shook my head. "I had these dreams before he was my patient. I had never seen him before in my life, but he was in my dreams. Then he was in our hospital." I held up my hand, stopping her from interrupting again. I wanted to finish saying what I needed to say. Once the words started tumbling out there was no stopping them. "And he told me things about Guy, really terrible things that I didn't want to believe. But for some reason it made sense, it all fit together. So, when I confronted Guy, and he got so angry… I knew. Then he said he was from another time. After everything else that had happened, I just believed him. And now, well, I believe him even more now."
While I stopped to catch my breath, Jackie jumped on the chance to speak. "What do you mean, even more now? What else has happened?" Her voice still held a note of disbelief, but she was also fascinated.
Of course, she would catch that. "Well. After the guard tackled me, I blacked out. When I woke up, I wasn't in the hospital. There was a forest, so quiet you could almost hear your hair growing. It was actually kind of beautiful. And I wasn't alone. Guy was there, alert and oriented, talking to me. There was another man, too, one I've never seen before, someone who seemed to know Guy very well. God, he was annoying. It was all so real."
She was looking at me like I had lost my mind. Maybe I had, I wasn't sure. "It doesn't make sense, Jackie, but it was real." She kept staring at me, so perfectly still that she looked frozen. That's when the roaring started again, sounding as if it was coming from inside my own head.
"Robin!" The voice was distant. I wanted nothing more than to reach towards it, but I couldn't pinpoint where it was coming from. The air was suddenly so cold, it felt like I had walked into a freezer. The coldness shook my body and took my breath away, a heaviness in my chest like I was underwater.
Then Jackie's mouth was moving, but I couldn't hear her. The jet engine in my head drowned everything else out.
"Robin!" Just like that, the spell was broken. Jackie was shaking me, fear in her eyes. "Oh my god Robin, say something!" She looked around frantically for her phone.
Grabbing her arm, I shook my head. "Stop, I'm okay." But I was still shaking.
Warm hands pulled me into a tight hug. "What was that? It was like you suddenly just… weren't here anymore." Those last words trailed off as she considered the implication of them. "Were you there? Just like that?"
"No, not really. But… I could hear him. Guy, he was calling to me." I grabbed a blanket off the back of the couch in an attempt to stop the shivering. Jackie was up and pacing the floor, thinking. I was suddenly so exhausted it was a struggle to keep my eyes open. "I think I need to lay down," I said, curling up on the couch.
Jackie sighed before reaching down to tuck the blanket around me. "I'll check on you in a bit, okay?" I could barely nod; I was already falling into a dreamless sleep.
The smell of bacon and the sound of Jackie banging around in the kitchen woke me up a few hours later. "Oh good, you're awake. Here, I wanted to make sure you ate something before going back to sleep." She brought over a plate and set it in front of me on the coffee table as I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. After checking my pupils and doing a quick neuro check, she let me eat.
"How're you feeling?" Jackie asked when I finished shoveling the food in my face.
My head hurt, I was dizzy, and I still felt like I could sleep for days. "Not too bad," I said. "Though I think I might go back to sleep for a while."
She nodded. "I've got a few errands to run, so at least you'll have some peace and quiet. Is there anything you need while I'm out?" She handed me the meticulously handwritten list she had made.
Looking it over, I couldn't think of anything that she'd forgotten. "No, looks good to me," I said, taking my dishes into the kitchen. After she was gone, I made my way into my bedroom. The curtains were already closed, and my noise machine was on, just the way I liked it. It didn't take long for me to fall back asleep.
Angry voices cut through the sleepy haze I was in. "You died, in front of my very own eyes. Then somehow you were brought back to life, eight hundred years in the future. You fall in love with your magic healer and everything is all happily ever after until suddenly you're back here, alive. Is that everything?"The voice was slightly familiar though hard to place.
The strong arms that were wrapped around me tightened protectively. It was comforting and reassuring, even though my mind felt sluggish and I wasn't sure where I was anymore.
"You died, in front of my very own eyes."
Suddenly the pieces fell into place and I realized who was speaking. It was that man, Allan, the one who knew Guy. "Guy," I whispered, soaking in the warmth of his arms, worried he would disappear again. He froze, unsure if he had really heard something or if his mind was playing tricks on him.
"Guy," I said again. He finally looked down at me, his face tired and full of worry. I gave him a small smile to reassure him. The relief that came over him seemed to have a physical presence.
"You fall in love with your magic healer and everything is all happily ever after."
What had Guy been saying before I woke up? If only I could have heard what was said just a few moments before.
He was looking at me as if I might vanish at any moment. "Robin," he said, so gently it hurt. I glanced around, taking in the sights. Allan looked like he was ready to barf at the scene before him. Then there was another man, a stranger.
"Who are you?" I asked the man, who was watching us intently.
The stranger smiled warmly. "I'm Friar Tuck. We are glad you are back with us and looking so well."
I doubted that I looked well at all. My hair felt stringy, my mouth felt like cotton, and I could tell there were bruises in the more sore areas of my face and body. Meanwhile, Guy was still holding onto me, afraid to let go. I couldn't help myself; I rested my head against his chest for a moment, relishing in the feel of his heart beating against my cheek. He seemed to stop breathing for a second, not wanting to disrupt that fragile moment.
Friar Tuck cleared his throat, successfully breaking us apart. I disentangled myself from Guy's arms and stood up, my legs stiff and joints creaky. "How long was I out?" I asked, trying to get a feel for how time passed in this other world. It was disconcerting how reasonable that thought seemed, like thinking about time variables in different realms was just an everyday occurrence.
"Just a day or so," Guy said. I nodded; it seemed like things lined up pretty well.
There was no doubt that Allan had something to say. I was curious about how he and Guy knew each other. There were a lot of things I was curious about, actually. It seemed, though, Allan was going to get his questions answered first. "So, Gis says you're from the future or something?"
Straight to the point. I was surprised Guy had told them that outright. "Something like that. Or rather y'all are from the past." My answer didn't sit right with him.
"And what, Gis was in the future too, with you? But now he's back, and you're here too. How did that happen?" He looked angry, though not entirely disbelieving.
I shrugged. It sounded like he knew as much as I did at that point. "I wish I knew. I was just minding my own business one day walking out from work and it was like Guy appeared out of the clear blue sky. The others were the same".
Guy's eyes locked onto mine frantically for just a moment before Allan stepped forward, eyes narrowed. "What do you mean, 'the others'?" He asked carefully, holding up a hand to silence Guy when he tried to interject. "Who else was there?"
The lump forming in my throat was making it hard to speak. "Um…" I stalled, trying to think of an explanation that didn't involve Robin and Marian. Nothing was coming to mind.
"There's more I need to tell you," Guy broke in, saving me from having to drop that particular bombshell. "I wasn't alone in that strange world. Two others followed after me. Robin Hood and—" his voice caught. "And Marian," he finished after clearing his throat.
Allan whirled on him. "Robin was there? Was he okay?" He seemed desperate for an answer. It was confusing, that this weird little man was friends, or at least friendly, with both Guy and Robin, who clearly hated each other. Where I needed answers, more mysteries appeared.
My eyes met Guy's again. This time I could see the pain in them. He didn't want to be the one to say it. "We did everything we could," I said softly, the words I've spoken a thousand times before, trying to bring comfort to grieving families. "Robin didn't make it."
The stunned silence that followed was broken by a low moan from across the camp. It seemed to come from a pile of blankets and clothing that I hadn't noticed before, stuffed under the lean-to in the corner. Friar Tuck moved over towards the sound with a sheepish smile. "Well, actually, about that…"