"Thank god you're here." Éowyn got up from the plastic chair she'd been sitting on in the waiting room.
"I can't believe you've pranged my bike again." Éomer sounded genuinely cross.
"It wasn't my fault – he stepped out right in front of me."
"Why are you still here? Why not just leave him with the paramedics?"
Éowyn heaved a sigh. "It's bleedin' chaos round here." She gestured at the full waiting room, with patients ranging from drunks clutching bloodied cloths to head wounds through to small children with plastic items from Christmas crackers stuck up their noses. There was even a plump middle aged woman crouched in the corner throwing up into a cardboard sick bowl. "The call handler said it would be 3 hours for an ambulance if it wasn't immediately life-threatening, so I got a mini cab and brought him here myself."
"I still don't see why you're still here..."
"I just want to make sure he's okay. I knocked the poor guy out."
Éomer fished in his jacket pocket. "Here's the keys to Uncle Theo's car. If you give me the keys to the bike, I'll get it back to the flat..." He was interrupted by one of the nurses calling out.
"Miss Earle?"
Éowyn turned round. There was the nurse, and next to her, still looking a bit unsteady on his feet, but with a lot more colour in his cheeks, was the mystery man in the green fancy dress costume. Éomer turned to look as well, and took in the slightly odd looking dress, the shoulder length dark hair, the wiry build.
"Ah, now it becomes clear. I see why you're hanging around. You, dear sis, have a type. And he's it," he muttered under his breath.
"Shut up," Éowyn hissed. "I do not have a type. And even if I did, right now I'm not looking. And in any case, I am certainly not so bleedin' desperate that I've taken to picking up random blokes I've just run down."
In the time it took her to say this, the nurse walked the stranger over to them. He made a slightly strange gesture – hand to his chest, a slight bow of the head.
"Faramir, son of Denethor, at your service. I am most heartily sorry for the inconvenience I have put you to."
Behind him, the nurse struggled to keep a professionally straight face, but couldn't quite suppress an eye-roll at this wordy introduction.
"Are you this gentleman's next of kin?" she asked.
"Who, me? No…" Éowyn flushed. "I was… err… it was me who knocked him down. I mean, he just stepped out of nowhere, there was no way I could have stopped. Is he okay?"
"Well, medical confidentiality means I can't actually discuss it with you. But we do have a bit of a problem, in that I'm not getting very far with establishing his next of kin."
"Kin?" the man said, still sounding a little dazed. "I have many kin… my father, my brother, my uncles and aunts, many, many cousins." He gave a smile at this point. "Some of them, especially the cousins, much more trouble than they are worth."
"Do you have a phone number for any of them?" the nurse said, sensing an opening.
"Phone? I know not what this word means."
Éowyn's eyes widened in surprise, and this time the nurse made no attempt to hide the eye-roll. "See what I mean? This is about as far as we've got with him."
Éowyn gestured to one of the plastic chairs, and the man sat down, looking grateful that he didn't have to stay steady on his feet any more. Éowyn sat next to him.
"Okay, so you have a father, and brother, and uncles and aunts. How do we contact them?" she asked.
"You cannot. They are not in this world. They are in the world from whence I came."
Behind his back, Éomer tapped a finger to his forehead. Éowyn fixed him with the sort of death ray stare only siblings can manage, and he looked suitably subdued. She then tried a new tack.
"Would you let the nurse talk to me about what's the matter with you? If you don't mind, that is."
The man nodded to the nurse and said "By all means, mistress healer. Do tell this good lady what you have found, by means of your magical devices and most intricate and clever engines. The strange tube in which you made me lie, which made so much noise, was most discomfitting, but it seemed to reveal much about my condition."
The nurse gave Éowyn another look, this time saying I get many, many weird patients in here, but this guy is off the scale, then managed to compose herself.
"Thank you. Well, this young man – Faramir, he says his name is – has taken quite a blow to the head. We did do an MRI scan – the strange tube." (Here she struggled as the corner of her mouth twitched; Éowyn had a feeling that the next time she was down the pub with her colleagues, the retelling of this story would mean she didn't have to buy a drink all evening.) "So, the MRI scan – no fracture, no subdural haemotoma… That is, there's no bleeding or pressure on the brain. But we think he's got a condition called retrograde amnesia." She turned to Faramir. "That's when you can't remember anything of the moments just before your head injury."
Faramir interjected at this point. "This is true, good lady. I can recall my previous life in detail, but not how I came to be here. It is most disturbing to my equilibrium; I feel there were important events leading up to this state of affairs, and important information which was entrusted to me, which it is vital that I remember, but it floats within my troubled mind, just out of reach."
The nurse shot him another look. "The bang on the head also seems to have left him very confused – but that on its own isn't grounds for keeping him in here - and talking like someone out of a Dickens novel. That's not unheard of – there's a case in the textbooks about a woman from Birmingham who started speaking with an Australian accent after a head injury."
"Could have been worse," said Éomer. "It could have been the other way round." Éowyn dug him in the ribs.
"Anyway, we need to discharge him – the on call doctor will be around to sign off his discharge in a minute. He could do with having somewhere to go. But if necessary, I can give him a referral to the local shelter, see if they've got any places. Not sure they will have this close to Christmas though." The nurse looked expectantly at Éowyn and Éomer.
"Stop it," Éomer said to his sister.
"Stop what?"
"The puppy dog look. We can't take in waifs and strays, Uncle Theo already has a full house for Christmas..."
"But he has nowhere, he's still confused..."
"And he could be a complete nutter. We don't need a mad axe murderer for Christmas."
The dark haired man interrupted at this point. "I can assure you that I am not mad, sir, even though my wits are not as sharp as they customarily are. And I harbour no ill will towards you or..." He paused and there was a note of disappointment in his voice. "Your wife."
"Sister," Éomer corrected.
"And I would not importune on your good will," the man continued, in a noticeably more cheerful voice. Éomer's eyes narrowed. He shot a quick look at his sister. Mercifully oblivious. This more than anything reassured Éomer. His sister had lousy taste in men… either unavailable, or bastards. If she hadn't noticed this one was interested in her, the guy was probably sound as a pound. If a bit odd. Actually, make that a lot odd. But still…
"Okay then – he can kip the floor if I get the bedroom, and you take the sitting room floor. And you have to explain to Jane why we've brought a nutter home with us."