AGOWILT: unnecessary fear
It turns out that the hospital is only about fifteen minutes away from the Bureau's office, which is good, because Alex is not sure that she would have the patience to make a longer drive.
When Nimah finally turns the car into a parking space on the ground floor of the parking garage (between two other FBI-issued vehicles), Alex has to grip the bottom of the seat with both hands to keep herself inside the car. She'd unbuckled as Nimah turned into the garage a few minutes before (Nimah had thrown her a look that said 'You are very eager to go see him, aren't you?', but she'd said nothing aloud, and Alex still doesn't know if she should be grateful for that as she waits for the rest of their FBI detail to check the elevator), so there is nothing stopping her (beyond the grip she has on her seat and the realization she knows that Nimah will put more of the Alex-and-Ryan puzzle together, if she hasn't already, should she make a mad dash for the stairs) from throwing herself out of the parked car and running like she's being chased until she finds her way to the hospital room where they are keeping Ryan.
The whole drive there, both her knees had bounced up and down uncontrollably, and she'd fidgeted with her jacket, with her boots, and basically anything else in her reach. Every time Nimah had even glanced in her direction, she'd snapped her gaze to whatever was out her window - she couldn't bear to see what was in the other woman's eyes. It could've been pity (she didn't want anyone's pity, and Nimah knew her well enough to know that), it could've been anger (after the decision to surveil the others, everyone was angry with her, and they had every right to be - she wouldn't hold it against Nimah if she was angry, not at all, but somehow, Alex doesn't think that Nimah is angry with her at all), but even as they wait in the parking garage, Alex isn't sure what it was.
Someone taps on Nimah's window. "We're ready to go," the man says. It isn't an agent that Alex recognizes, and her sleep-deprived brain pauses to wonder if he believes that she's innocent. "But we've got to be quick."
Nimah is already opening the car door before the man is done talking. Her purse is slung over her shoulder, and it appears that she put on more lipstick while they were waiting (Alex isn't sure how she missed Nimah reapplying her makeup - she still wears scented lip gloss that you can smell from a mile away - the one odd luxury that Nimah allows herself). Eyebrows raised, voice somehow teasing (Nimah may act extremely tough, but her humor is one of few bright spots in an extremely taxing world, and Alex has known this since their friendship bloomed at Quantico), she asks, "Are you coming?"
While her tone is aimed at being light, it leaves no room for argument. Alex nods in response. Without a word, she flips the hood of her jacket over her head (just to be safe), and grabs her own bag. Nimah watches as she does this, her hawk-like eyes missing nothing. After Alex throws the door open and climbs out of the car, the two women slam their doors shut at the same time.
The man sticks his hand out to introduce himself as they make their way towards the elevator. "I'm Greg, Greg Jacobs, but most people call me Jake."
Nimah slips her arm through Alex's. She starts walking faster, so that they are closer to the two agents at the front of their tiny procession than Greg-Jacobs-but-most-people-call-me-Jake. Alex is too wound up to think of a good line to turn him down with, but she knows that Nimah has it covered.
When they join the two agents in front of them on the elevator, and the older-looking woman (she's standing behind Alex, so Alex doesn't quite get a good look at her, but Alex remembers that she has graying hair and tan skin from when she was a guest lecturer at Quantico) that is clearly the leader of the detail advises Greg-Jacobs-but-most-people-call-me-Jake and his partner to take the stairs and meet them in the hospital, Nimah throws her head back and laughs. "This is Agent Parish, and we're taking her to see her boyfriend."
The word 'boyfriend' rips through Alex. (The word 'agent' does, too, because Nimah uses it so casually, but Alex knows that it's the only lending of support that she'll be getting from her - Nimah doesn't do outward expression, but both of them know that Alex is no longer an FBI agent. The fact that Nimah bothers with it at all sends a wave of gratitude through her that nearly sends her to her knees - she knows its significance, knows what Nimah is telling her, and if she wouldn't get her nose broken for the trouble, she would throw her arms around her friend. Her friend, who is still her friend, even after everything that's happened in the last week.)
Jacobs actually has the nerve to keep talking, much to the amusement of the woman standing behind Alex, and the chagrin of Jacobs' partner. "What about you, then?"
"I'm not interested."
The elevator doors glide shut between them and Greg-Jacobs-but-most-people-call-me-Jake and his partner, who wastes no time turning and glaring at Jacobs, and Alex briefly hopes that that's the last she'll see of them for a good, long while.
-/-
The rest of the journey to find Ryan's hospital room (which is in a back section of the floor, secluded from the rest of the hospital staff and patients, and so full of armed FBI agents that, after her time on the run and terrified for her life, has her half-hiding behind Nimah, even though she would never admit to it) is filled with nothing short of a weird silence that isn't quite awkward, but tells Alex that Nimah indeed knows exactly why she needs to see Ryan, weird looks from the FBI agents escorting them, and even stranger looks from the agents inside that back area where Ryan is supposed to be.
The closer they get, it feels like a magnet is drawing her forward. If she were to blow past the detail and try to find him on her own, she knows good and well that she never would be able to find her way around. She realizes that, more than likely, she would only succeed in getting herself lost and confused. And found by someone who still believes her to be guilty, with her luck. But still, she wants to go faster. Her whole body feels like she's being shoved forward by some unseen force, and she only wants the two agents in front of them to go faster. She's terrified that Ryan won't want to see her, but also that she won't know what to do, and yet she only wants to get it over with.
Might as well rip off the band aid, right?
Once they get into the wing where Ryan is (it simply must be an FBI-personnel-only wing, because of the path they have to take to get there), and then go through some sort of weird secret entrance that is only accessible through a janitor's closet (which so badly smells of cleaning chemicals that it makes Alex dizzy, though there's always the possibility that the dizziness is being caused by the reality of the situation sinking in), she is hit by a wave of fear that has every muscle in her body clenching up.
What if he really doesn't want to see her, after everything that has happened? (She wouldn't blame him - she's having trouble dealing with herself, with everything she's done.) What if she can't find the words to tell him how sorry she is? (That would not be the most shocking thing to have happened in the last few days, though that doesn't really say much. Considering the kind of person Alex is, it would probably be the most normal thing to come out of the past few days, really.) What if he doesn't want to hear it? (She wouldn't blame him for that, either. If he didn't want to hear her out, after thinking that she'd shot him, and then getting him shot again... Yeah, no, she would certainly understand if he didn't want to hear it.)
Finally, they turn off the main corridor of the secluded area, and there is a wing full of hospital rooms clearly in use - Alex realizes that most of these people are probably recovering from injuries sustained at Grand Central, not bullet wounds sustained trying to help a former fugitive escape - but thanks to some greater force in the universe, she knows exactly which one of them Ryan is in.
And she stops dead in her tracks.
Her eyes locked on the door (which, conveniently, is on the complete opposite end of the hallway, giving every other person in the open space a perfect view of her figure as she stands there like a dumb-struck idiot), she barely registers the hand that Nimah puts on her shoulder, trying to steer her forward. But Alex's feet seem to have been cemented to the floor, and when Nimah gives her a particularly rough shove (it's really not that hard, honestly, but Alex is so unprepared for it that it seems like it is), she actually loses her balance and is only saved from toppling forward by Nimah's lightning fast reflexes.
The other woman pulls her back upright, and Alex hears her curse at the two FBI agents (both men, not the two from before, one of them with kinder eyes than the other's, which seem to be staring right into Alex's soul from a few feet away, had jumped forward to help at the sight of her nearly faceplanting) extending their hands to keep her from making bodily contact with the tile.
"Give her some space," Nimah snaps, her accent twisting her words up in a way that reveals her frustration. Her accent only ever thickens that way when she is upset or stressed, and Alex hasn't heard it that strong since their Quantico days and a particularly rough fight with her sister. She feels bad, in some still-functioning part of the back of her head, for all of this, for everything that's happened. (Not all of it was her fault - not even most of it, in fact - but she is still in proximity to this girl who is like a sister to her, and she feels terrible that she's obviously been through so much in the last few days. The last few months, even - there's no telling what all she has been through in trying to keep herself alive and her sister safe.)
As soon as she is back on her feet and her eyes are seeing the right way again, she recognizes the two men from the room at the New York headquarters, where she was interrogated for hours and eventually arrested for a heinous crime that she hadn't been guilty of. No wonder Nimah didn't want them in her face.
A wave of sudden emotion rips through her at the show of protectiveness. That is such a Nimah thing to do, to be protective of someone around her like that without any explanation why, and Alex is so grateful that Nimah isn't still angry with her, is trying to help her in that way of hers.
"We need to keep moving, Parish," she hisses in Alex's ear. One of her hands is fisted in the sleeve of Alex's jacket, one of her hands still flung out towards the two agents, a wordless command to keep their distance.
Alex nods. Nimah is right. They're sort of in a hurry, because they still have a criminal to find. They still have a lot of work to do, to finish clearing Alex's name and solve the mystery and finish the case. More than that, if they don't find the truly guilty party, Alex will have signed her life away to pay for something she didn't do.
So the sword is hanging over their heads, and the clock is ticking, and time is running out. And Alex is standing here, in this hospital, trying to pull herself together enough to face this obstacle.
She catches her reflection in one of the mirrors behind the nurses' station in the center of the hall. There's little that's different from her reflection in the car window on the way from the office. She yanks the hood of her jacket down, figuring that wearing it in this part of the hospital makes her look more paranoid than she should be. Her hair isn't really messy, but she runs her fingers through it a few times anyway. She can't remember the last time she felt so... unsure of herself. It's jarring in a way that she really doesn't like.
There are dark circles under her eyes, further proof of the burning-the-candle-at-both-ends that she's been doing for the last week. Her skin is lacking some of her usual color - she actually looks like a ghost of herself, somehow, and she knows that this conversation with Ryan stands a chance of turning that around. (It could also break her completely, she knows, but she's been trying really hard not to think about that.) She's been so, so worried about him. Worried about what he thinks of her, worried about how they're going to go forward with what's between them.
The image of him screaming, writhing in pain, being tortured to get information out of her - being used against her in the cruelest way possible - but still telling her to say nothing, to stay quiet to protect herself, is still fresh in her memory. She doesn't know if she can see him without being back in that room, seeing him hanging from that ceiling like a rag doll - her Ryan (he's not hers, he hasn't been in a long time, and she needs to stop calling him that - Nimah should also stop referring to him as her boyfriend, though, because he hasn't really been her boyfriend in a long time, and both women know that perfectly well), the man that she loves, so giving and loving and protecting... She hates knowing that he was put through so much. Because of her. That she could do nothing to stop it.
"Are you going to keep staring at yourself or are you going to go stare at your boyfriend?"
The words, enveloped in the less-sharp twist of Nimah's accent that means she's calmed down some, are more than a question. They are a challenge, the same kind that Nimah loves to issue to push the people around her over the finish line. She's not so good at pep talks, because she's a very just-do-it-and-get-over-it kind of person, and she doesn't quite grasp how to encourage other people in the same way all the time. So the challenge is her method of choice, and Alex has to admit that it works pretty well.
At least, it works pretty well on her, because she's glaring at Nimah really hard, but her feet are moving all of the sudden. Nimah chuckles, rolls her lips together in a way that says Gotcha! I knew that that would work! Alex just shakes her head and continues onward.
Soon (a little sooner than she was prepared for, if she's perfectly honest with herself), she is close enough to touch the door that stands between Ryan's room and the rest of the wing. Part of her wants to know how exactly she knew which one was his without being told - his name is written, in big, block letters (BOOTH, RYAN L., PATIENT I.D.: 754892-005) just above a number that Alex imagines is linked to his patient records, but the font is still too small for her to have made out from as far away as she'd been - but the want to see him tugs on her, and she's just about to give in and reach for the handle when she hears -
"Are you Alex?"
The voice behind her makes her jump, despite all of her FBI training. She scolds herself, ignoring the snicker she hears from where Nimah is standing a foot and a half away. She whirls to face the speaker. It's a nurse, a few inches shorter than her and confident in a way that says she's in charge of the ward. The firmness of her tone and placement of her hands on her hips leaves Alex with no room for escape or debate.
How she doesn't know if Alex is Alex (her face has been everywhere - every news channel, every newspaper, every social media account and magazine for the last seven days straight; there shouldn't be a person in the country who couldn't recognize her on sight and provide three random facts about her on the spot) is beyond her. She chooses to ignore it.
"Yeah, yeah, I am. Why?" She can't help the suspicious note that runs through her voice, doing weird things to her tone, as she realizes the woman may have an alternative motive for asking. Usually, she wouldn't (her training taught her better than that, and her instincts just know better), but she is too impatient to keep herself from asking, "Is there something I can do for you?"
The nurse shakes her head, sending her tight braid swinging. The hand that gestures to Ryan's room as she speaks is holding a clipboard that appears to be way overloaded with paper. "He's been asking for you non-stop. Every time he's awake, all he wants to know is if you'd come to visit while he was out, or if you were going to." She narrows her eyes at Alex. "It was starting to get difficult to tell him that we didn't know."
"Oh." Alex doesn't actually know what to say to that. The words come to her a second later, and before she can play them over in her head, they're spilling out of her mouth. "He... He really wanted to see me?" The note of uncertainty is in her voice again, and she hates herself for doubting this, for doubting him, for questioning what's between them - would she have wanted to see him, if their places were reversed? She knows the answer on instinct, knows that nothing could ever matter more to her, even with everything that's happened in the last week. The last few months.
The answer is yes. A million times, yes.
"Definitely." The nurse gives her a small smile. "Trust me, there was no one he wanted to see more." The woman's eyes flick to the ceiling as she thinks for a moment, then decides she doesn't like that. With a quirk of her mouth, she rephrases: "There was no one he wanted to see but you. In fact, he kicked a couple of people out of his room because they weren't you."
Alex squeezes her eyes shut. Ryan. That's such a him thing to do. Her heart suddenly aches with the weight of worry, the weight of missing him so much. The weight of what's between them.
When she forces her eyes back open a beat later, the world is still there, all of the people chattering in low voices (many of whom are pretending not to stare at her) still surrounding them, even though she feels so different. The revelation about Ryan is freeing in a lot of ways, and she feels so different after knowing that it might actually be okay between them.
The nurse glances down at a clipboard, frowns. There's a buzz a second later, and she pulls a pager out of her pocket, her frown quickly turning into a glare. When she looks up at Alex once again, though, it's almost a tight-lipped smile. Her eyes flick between Alex and the door she stands in front of, hand extended towards the handle. "Go get your man, girl. God knows he needs you."
The words warm something inside her. The nurse pivots on her heel and walks away. Alex makes eye contact with Nimah (who's face is stoic as ever, even as her eyes are bright and smiling) before carefully twisting the handle on the door, and then silently slipping inside Ryan's room.