After months of delay, here is the fourth installment of my non-romance D/G fic. For all of you who would like to find ways to make this a romance, I'm sorry, it's just not going to happen, but give me a chance, and you just might like the story despite that one fatal flaw!
Chapter 4: Thinking for Two
She stood in the drenching downpour, trying to absorb exactly what was happening in her world. The body of her rescuer was lying, splayed out, in a puddle. The rain was washing some of the blood from his face, and she could see ribbons of the rusty-crimson color spreading out across the ground in the rivers the crack in the pavement created. The water was stinging her eyes, and she could scarcely breath. Her shaking hands, stretched out and holding her wand, seemed to be the only part of her body that could function, and came to life, forcing her entire body into action.
She dashed forward, and checked his pulse and his breathing. Relief, although why, she was not sure, swept over her to find his heartbeat strong and that he was breathing regularly. After a few moments surveillance of his wounds, she noted the one on his leg the most serious. Ripping a strip of cloth from his black cloak, she applied pressure, hoping to stop the bleeding. After calling out to him, hoping that he would wake up, she looked around. There should have been someone coming to help – half the street had been blown apart! Yet, no one in the neighborhood seemed to have heard it! This was frightening to her, given that there were wizards involved. Whatever magic they'd used to find her, it could very well be disguising everything from the Muggles in the neighborhood.
Remembering his words before he'd collapsed, of the possibility of there being more people coming for them, she picked up her wand from where she'd dropped it next to his body, and after hesitating a few seconds, she Apparated them both away from the destroyed alley way.
Slow nights were a constant factor in such a small town. There would be long lulls in the workload in the ER during the night, allowing for a kind of peaceful silence to fall over the ward, which is one of the reasons most of the doctors and nurses stayed at the small hospital, instead of moving to a larger town where there was a lot more action to be seen. But any semblance of silence and peace was shattered that night when the popular young doctor burst in through the doors, dragging an unconscious, bleeding man with her.
"Carla, I need a stretcher!" Jenny Peters called out, and there was a collective gasp as everyone in the ER took in the sight, before they jumped into action, and began to assist her. An orderly appeared with the needed stretcher, and the attending physician took charge, calling out orders as they lifted the injured man onto the stretcher and began to wheel them away. Carla prevented her from following behind them; holding back the younger woman to see if she was hurt.
"No, I'm fine, Carla. He's the one to worry about," she waved away her concern, but one look from the older woman had her following docilely as the nurse led her to an exam room.
"Jenny, you're drenched and covered in blood! And there's a scrape on your head. At least let me get one of the interns to clean it up, so that you can hit the showers and change into some drier clothes," the veteran nurse insisted. Feeling overwhelmed by the events of the past hour, she just nodded weakly.
"What on earth has happened, Jen?" Monica Calhoun demanded as she burst through the curtain. "Someone just told me you dragged in some half dead man, and that you're hurt!"
"I don't know what happened," she answered numbly, as the other doctor examined the scrape on her forehead. She wasn't even aware that she'd been hurt during the battle. The look in her friend's eyes showed that she obviously was not going to let that be the end of it. "I came across him in the alley on my way home…there were other men…they're dead."
"Have you called the police?" Carla asked.
"I didn't have a chance. He was still alive, there was no phone around…I needed to get him some help. He saved my life," she said, grimacing slightly as an antiseptic-soaked gauze was swept over her wound. A silence fell over the room as a bandage was unwrapped and applied to her forehead.
"Jen, you're soaked. Go shower and change. Carla, call the police, they'll undoubtedly want to question her," Monica said authoritatively. Ginny sighed gratefully, as she was granted a few moments reprieve from the questions, and the opportunity to gather her thoughts.
Find your husband before they find you, his words echoed in her mind. He was still alive. She had known it all along, but it was almost too much to hope. He was still alive.
And now there was something she could do, other than just sit at home and wait for her man to come back. She was going to find him.
"Monica, I thought you were off hours ago! I should have taken that ride you offered me," Ginny said, with a sigh and a half-smile. She was dry and wearing a clean pair of hospital scrubs, and it felt as though her mind had been washed clean along with the rest of her. Monica had been leaving the hospital the same time she had this afternoon; she had offered her a ride home.
"Jim came down the flue a few hours into his shift, and I got suckered into covering in return for a full weekend off," she said with a laugh. "Your heroic John Doe is going to survive. Some stitches in his knee, a few cracked ribs, and a good case of extreme exhaustion, but nothing life threatening."
"Is he awake?"
"No, we gave him a sedative for the pain, and because he just plain needs it. Do you have any idea who he is?"
"No. I didn't get a good look at his face. If he's from around here, one of us should know him, the town isn't that big after all," she said, hoping to appear baffled. The town wasn't that big, but whoever that man was, he wasn't the type of person who would be found in a Muggle village too often.
"It's no wonder you couldn't make him out, his face is rather black and blue. Probably wouldn't recognize him if you did know him," Carla said, as she came out of the exam room holding a chart.
"Let me know if you recognize him," Monica said, as Ginny entered the room. She walked forward, towards the bed. She was inexplicably nervous as she approached. Her eyes scanned over the body lying there, trying to place the image with an identity from her memory. His skin was pale, but it looked weather worn and unnaturally aged. She had a feeling, given his performance during her rescue that he was still young, but had experienced a lot of that had made him older than he really was. His face was swollen and bruised, and there was a bandage on his forehead. His hair was a pale pale blond, and it struck a chord in her memory, as she tried to recall where she had seen it before.
His eyes opened, staring up at her as she looked down on him. They were red-rimmed with exhaustion, and she wondered why he was awake when Monica had given him a sedative. The eyes blinked, once, twice, as if he were trying to clear his vision.
"Where are we?" he groaned, his voice rough and shaky,
"You're in a hospital. You were hurt in the battle," she said quietly, as she looked behind her, to make sure that there was no one in the room with them. "Do you know who those men were?"
"Yes. We need to get out of here," he said, as he struggled to sit up. Ginny pushed him back down.
"That's not an option for you. You're far too hurt to just get up and walk out of here," she said, insistently.
"Then heal me," he said. She frowned.
"You told me not to use my wand, that they could find me that way," she said. He nodded.
"No matter what, they're coming. It's better that I'm ready for them," he said, his gray eyes glittering darkly. Ginny took a step away from him, something about the intensity of his gaze sending a cold shiver of fear down her spine. She recognized that look. It was one that she'd seen during one of the most frightening episodes of her life, when she'd been captured by Death Eaters as a lure to bring Harry into their grasp.
"Draco Malfoy," she whispered in horror. He flinched slightly as she spoke his name, and started to sit up again.
"There's time to deal with all that later, right now we have to make sure that they don't find us, here, surrounded by all these innocent Muggles. We need to get away," he said. Ginny reached down, pulling her wand out of her sock, pointing it straight at him.
"You're one of them," she said, spitting her words out in a cold fury. His eyes snapped up, and he was staring at her with a blazing intensity.
"Whatever else I may be, I am not that," he said, with such a force of cold fury behind them, that she took another step away from him.
"But you were," she said, accusingly. He nodded solemnly.
"There isn't time for this. They're going to be here soon," he said, his voice raspy.
"Why are you here?" she whispered, blinking under the intensity of his gaze. Any answer he would have given was interrupted as Monica came through the door. Quick as a flash, Ginny had her wand tucked back into her sock and hidden from sight.
"You should be sleeping!" Monica exclaimed, clearly surprised to see him awake and struggling to sit up. "Jenny, I think we should leave your hero here to get some sleep."
"Just a few minutes, Monica, and I'll be on my way out," she said, with a smile to her friend. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Malfoy's eyes widened in surprise before darkening dangerously as he eyed Monica. Ginny frowned, worrying about what was going through his mind.
"Sure, Jen. I'll send Carla in with a stronger sedative for our hero in a few minutes. The first one wasn't strong enough, it would seem," Monica said, with a smile in Malfoy's direction before she exited the room. Ginny watched her walk out and down the hall, watching until she disappeared. She turned back around, and nearly screamed when he was standing right in front of her.
"We need to leave. Now," he said, his voice low and insistent.
"I am not going anywhere with you, Malfoy," Ginny shot back, ducking out of the space he'd backed her into. He caught her arm, holding her in place.
"That doctor…her name is Monica Calhoun. She started here about a week after you did, transferred in from another hospital," he said, and she felt a bolt of fear spike through her stomach.
"How did you know that?" she demanded fiercely.
"She's not a Muggle doctor. She's been watching you the whole time, waiting for some kind of information to let them know where your husband is. We have to go, now!" he said, with a sudden intensity that added to her fright.
"You can't just stand there, and make these terrible accusations about the only friend that I trust in this sodding town, when you are who you are! I have no idea that this whole 'saving my life' thing isn't just some big production so that I'll trust you! Why should I trust you over here?" she demanded, jabbing her wand forward threateningly.
"As far as I can see it, you have two choices. You can either trust me and live, or you don't, and you'll die. I leave it to you, but considering you're not just thinking for one at the moment, I would think rather quickly and thoroughly, but I am leaving this hospital in a minute – with or without you," he said, his eyebrows drawn fiercely together.
Instinctually, her free hand moved to rest against her abdomen as she gazed into the cold and guarded pair of eyes staring at her. If he had wanted her dead…and he was hardly in any condition to harm her, given that he was injured and wandless…
"If you betray me in any way, so help me Malfoy, I will kill you with my bare hands if I have to," she hissed as viciously as she could manage, with her lower lip trembling and a slight burning sensation behind her eyes.
He nodded his head once, as if in solemn agreement to her terms, and then moved, painfully, to get dressed.
Carla entered the hospital room, carrying the medication that Dr. Calhoun had ordered for the mysterious patient that Jenny Peters had dragged in that night. The rumors were flying around the hospital, about how she'd been attacked and this mysterious stranger had saved her life, and that there were a number of dead bodies still lying in the street.
She stopped dead in her tracks, startled to find the room completely empty, and looking as if there had been no one there. She looked around, in shocked bafflement, before turning on her heel to run back to the nurses' station and find out if anyone had seen him leave.
Carla nearly ran into Dr. Calhoun, who has surrounded by a pack of intimidating men, all dressed in black, who were storming down the corridor.
"Carla, have you administered that sedative yet?" she asked briskly. The elderly nurse wondered over the sudden change in the young doctor, whose tone was never brisk or curt, nor was there ever a look of such…sinister expectation in her eyes before.
"Monica, have you released the John Doe?" she asked, trying not to sound as panic as she felt.
"Of course not. Why, Carla?" she asked, her eyes narrowing, making her usually kind face twist into something…frightening.
"Is there a problem with the suspect?" one of the men demanded.
"There's no one in the room," Carla explained. A flash of absolute rage swept over Monica's face, before she replaced it with an obviously fake smile.
"Did you give him the injection, Carla?" she demanded. The nurse shook her head, holding out the needle. The young doctor, in a fit of anger, dashed it out of her hands, and it crashed to the ground, sending shards of glass everywhere.
"What about Potter?" another of the men demanded, his tone soft and deadly dangerous. "The girl who came in with him, is she still around?"
"You mean Jenny Peters? I haven't seen her either," Carla said, concerned gripping her as she thought of the vibrant young doctor who had been such an addition to their ward. She watched as the men glanced at each other significantly, before one of them raised what looked to be a polished and rounded length of wood in her direction.
She took a step away from them, shooting Monica a pleading and frightened look, before the man said something she didn't understand, and a flash of light blinded her vision before darkness swept over her.
So, it's really different from The Visible Invisible. Let me know what you think!