Chapter 17

By mid-afternoon, Sue felt as if she was almost back to normal. Accompanied by the interpreter, she had spent few hours after she awoke getting some tests rerun, and then spent the rest of the morning sleeping while Bobby and Jack took turns going outside calling in to the office. Now, she was sitting up on the bed challenging the men to a competitive game of gin rummy, Jack and Bobby sitting at her feet on the hospital bed.

"Ha, I'll take that, mate," Bobby said, snatching up the eight of spades Jack had just lain down on the pile. Sue looked again at the clock on the wall, impatiently fidgeting.

"When did you say Myles was bringing them, Jack?" she asked. Jack placed his hand over hers, covering her cards in the process.

"For the fifth time in twenty minutes, they will be here soon," he said when she looked at him. Moving his closed hand to his mouth, Jack put his thumbnail to his chin and he dragged his hand down with a slight twisting motion.

TRY-ME, Sue signed. HOME-ME-NOW. Often when they started signing to each other, Bobby didn't understand, but he knew the sign for HOME. Even if he didn't, he could tell from the passionate look on her face what she was signing was something she desperately wanted. Since she'd talked of nothing but going home since the doctor had come in and told her she could go an hour and a half ago, it was easy for him to figure out what Sue had just said to Jack.

Since D had taken the car last night, they were stuck waiting. None of the team had wanted to stay behind so they were coming in two cars to pick up Sue. Bobby knew how much he hated hospitals and figured Sue felt the same so he tried to get her mind off the wait.

Touching her arm to get her attention, he joked, "Hey, no fair talking in code, shelia. I know that is how you two keep beating me." Bobby gave her one of his charming Aussie smiles and was rewarded when she returned it with one of hers.

"No, Bobby, we keep beating you because you keep forgetting we're playing gin and not poker," Sue laughed. Seeing his buddy's fake look of hurt, Jack couldn't help but join in. They were all laughing so hard they didn't hear the door open until a booming voice broke their merriment.

"You might want to cut down on the caterwauling in here. There might be some patients who need their rest to recuperate, but obviously not in here."

Sue's laughter slowly died as she followed Bobby and Jack's glances to see Myles, Tara, and D standing in the doorway of her hospital room. While happy to see her friends because she knew she'd be going home, Sue frowned as she realized Bobby said something back that she didn't quite catch.

"Cattle, what?" she asked puzzled. After two years, Sue was getting more comfortable in one-on-one conversations with Bobby but his accent and his use of Australian terms sometimes made it difficult to read what he was saying. Sheepishly, Bobby looked at Jack for help.

C-A-T-E-R-W-A-U-L-I-N-G, Jack fingerspelled. At Sue's raised eyebrows, he explained, "Myles' term for 'making a lot of noise', I think." Jack repeated what Myles said when he came into the room. "Bobby was just defending our having a little fun while we waited for them to take their sweet time to get here," Jack joked.

"I was merely pointing out…" Sue saw Myles start to say before everyone cut him off.

"Shut up, Myles!"