"Neal Caffrey?" A bored sounding voice called, causing Neal to wake from his dreams that he was already forgetting.
He opened his eyes and looked around and was surprised to see that he was sitting in what appeared to be a waiting room of some sort. And judging by the little kid with a runny nose across from him and the middle-aged man holding his hand in a bloody towel sitting a few chairs to his left, he was at a hospital.
He turned to his right and was even more surprised to see Peter sitting next to him, an amused look on his face. Why was Peter here? Why was he here? The last thing he remembered was sitting in Peter's car, feeling really tired, but that didn't explain why he was at a hospital. Things just weren't making any sense.
"Why are we at the hospital?" He asked because he really needed to know why he was somewhere he didn't remember getting to.
Peter looked at him with concern. "We're here to get you checked out. You don't remember?"
"Of course I remember," Neal said, probably a little too quickly. "I was making sure you remembered." Neal looked over to the middle-aged nurse holding a clipboard who was waiting impatiently a few feet away. "Let's go," he said, and got up before Peter could say anything and was forced to follow.
Neal and Peter followed the nurse to an exam room and Neal sat down on the exam table as Peter took a seat in a chair against the wall.
The nurse took Neal's vitals and temperature and maybe some other things, but Neal wasn't paying very much attention. It just seemed like it would take too much effort. "The doctor will see you soon, Mr. Caffrey," she said and left.
Caffrey? Oh no, not good. Neal Caffrey was never supposed to be a name uttered within hospital walls. He always used an alias if he had to go to the hospital, which was not very often, being as the FBI had names and known aliases of criminals flagged. With that lovely fact, if you ever did go to the hospital, the first thing they would do is call the police.
But there was that one time...
Neal waited until the door shut before he turned to Peter. "You used my real name?" Neal asked, appalled by the idea.
"I think we both know that's not your real name," Peter said offhandedly, like it wasn't important.
Touché, but it's more real than any other name he'd ever had, and the FBI knew about it. "You used my current name?" Neal countered.
"Yes. If you filled out your own paperwork, you could have put down Nick Halden or Steve Tabernacle, but since you were sleeping on my shoulder the whole time, Neal Caffrey is the patient's name today," Peter explained. "Wait, why is it so bad that your name is in the system?"
"Uh," Neal said with a bit of a confused look on his face. That was a good question. It didn't matter anymore now that Peter was there to make sure people didn't take him away. "I don't really have a reason," he finally said. "Not anymore, anyway. Mozzie usually just fixes me up and he would have this time too if he wasn't on some sort of mission to find where 'The Man' has had Elvis for the last forty years."
"Elvis died in '77," Peter said without much thought. Apparently he knew off the top of his head when 'The King' died.
"Mozzie thinks he was switched out by someone else in 1973 and taken to an underground bunker owned by the government that holds people they don't want anyone else to know about."
Peter looked like he was going say something, but stopped himself and just nodded instead. Some conspiracy theories just shouldn't be questioned, not if you want to keep your sanity. "Are you going to tell me what happened?" He asked after a while.
"Well, Mozzie said that 'The Man' took him for-"
"I'm not talking about Elvis, I'm talking about how you got hurt."
He got hurt? No wonder he was so sore. Now that he thought about it, his head was pounding, and his chest hurt even worse. What happened?
"I was kinda hoping you'd just drop it," Neal said, because he didn't know what else to say, and shrugged but stopped when pain shot through his upper body and caused him to wince.
"Someone attacked you, Neal. They came at you with a bat and a knife. They could have killed you. I'm not going to just let it go."
Someone attacked him? With a bat and knife? Hmm, this is getting more and more complicated by the minute.
Neal was trying to come up with something to say when the door opened and a young man in scrubs walked in and saved him from having to think. "Neal Caffery?" He asked and Neal nodded. "My name is Dr. Hayes." He held out his hand and Neal shook it. He then turned and sat down on one of those stools with wheels that doctors always have that Neal thought always looked fun. "It says here you got into a fight?"
Well, that's what Peter said so... "Yes."
"When did this happen?" The doctor asked.
Neal looked over to Peter for help, but he wasn't giving out any more information about what happened. Wait, didn't he say he didn't know? This was getting really confusing, and thinking was really starting to make his head hurt.
"What day is today?" Neal asked and both men gave him a concerned look, but Peter's was much more intense.
"What day do you think it is?" Peter asked before the doctor could tell him.
That was a hard one, but he should be able to figure it out. Well, both he and Peter were wearing suits, so it was probably a workday. The doctor seemed to be in pretty high spirits, so it's probably not the middle of the week. It could be the end and he was happy for the weekend, or it could be the beginning and he was still happy from the last weekend. And the last he remembered, it was Saturday, maybe, but that can't be right if it was a workday. Maybe there was an important case that couldn't wait until Monday.
"Neal?" Peter asked and Neal snapped out of his thoughts and looked at Peter. "What day do you think this is?"
He was going to have to take a stab in the dark. "Monday," he said with confidence he didn't feel. If it was Monday, that meant he had lost two days.
Peter nodded but didn't look too convinced. Maybe it wasn't Monday.
"What day were you attacked then?" The doctor asked again.
"Saturday." It seemed plausible being as he couldn't remember part of that day, and Peter didn't go against it either.
"Can you tell me where it hurts?"
That one he knew the answer to. "Head, chest, back and leg," Neal said.
"Can you take off your jacket and shirt, please?" Dr. Hayes said. Dr. Hayes? Was that his name? He had a name tag but it was really blurry for some reason. He should really fix that if he wanted people to know his name.
Neal focused back on the present to see that both men were looking at him. It was kinda creepy and Neal wished they would stop.
"Stop what?" The doctor asked. Wait, did he say that out loud? Oops.
"Nothing," Neal said and started taking off his jacket. Were his words slurring? The jacket was easy enough even though it really hurt to move, but the buttons on his shirt just weren't holding still and were blurring like the doctor's name tag. The buttons must have learned that from the name tag because they never did that before Neal came here.
"Neal!" Neal looked up to see that Peter was right in front of him and looked really concerned again.
"What's wrong?" Neal asked because he was starting to get concerned about Peter. Maybe that's why Peter was concerned - he was concerned for himself.
"You weren't answering me," Peter said.
Not answering? Were there more questions Neal had to answer? He hoped not because his thoughts were starting to get a little jumbled. Wait, where did the doctor go?
"He stepped out to get some help," Peter said. Did he say something out loud again? "We're going to get you patched up. Just stay awake, ok?"
Stay awake? That was a silly request. He wasn't going to fall asleep at a hospital. Wait, why was he at a hospital?
"You got hurt, apparently pretty badly," Peter said. Either Peter could read minds all of a sudden or Neal was saying more things out loud than he thought. The former seemed more likely because Neal never said things he didn't want to say.
"Yeah, you're almighty," Peter said, sounding sarcastic for some reason. Yep, he could definitely read minds.
It was suddenly really hot in there and Peter was all blurry. "You're blurry like the name tag and buttons," Neal said because Peter should know that he was blurry. Neal would want someone to tell him if he was blurry.
"I know, buddy, but the doctor is going to fix that in a minute," Peter said in what he probably thought was a calming voice, but what he said concerned Neal.
"No, the name tag made you and the buttons blurry. If he comes back, he might make it worse!" Neal didn't want Peter to be blurry. He liked un-blurry Peter. He wanted un-blurry Peter back. He needed un-blurry Peter back. It was starting to get harder and harder to breathe.
"Neal, calm down. You're going to hyperventilate," Peter said but it sounded like he was underwater which didn't make sense because they were at a hospital, not the gym. The hospital that made Neal's friend blurry. Neal didn't like this hospital, not at all. He wanted to leave, but everything that wasn't supposed to be moving was moving. This hospital was all wrong.
"Peter, I want to leave," Neal said and tried to grab Peter's shirt but it kept moving.
Peter grabbed Neal's hand and gently squeezed it. "Neal, the doctors are going to help you, so we can't leave until they do. You're going to be fine. Just calm down, ok?"
If Peter said he was going to be ok, then he was probably going to be ok. Neal nodded and tried his best to calm down.
The door opened and Dr. Blurry came in with two other people in scrubs. The room was getting really small and everyone was looking at him again. One of the scrub wearing people was holding a very big needle and started walking towards him.
"No, no, no, no. No needles!" Neal said and put his hands in front of his face to shield himself.
"Neal, the needle is going to help you," Dr. Blurry said.
A hand touched him and he whimpered and tried to move away but something large and warm stopped him. He moved his hands far enough away from his face to see it was Peter. Peter was there. Relief washed over Neal and he relaxed until he saw the scrub-wearing people again. The one with the needle was coming at him again and he grabbed onto Peter and held on hard as he could and pushed into Peter as much as he could. Peter would protect him, he always did.
"Neal, they're trying to help you. You have to let them help you," Peter whispered in Neal's ear as he rubbed soothing circles on his back.
They were trying to help? If Peter said they were then it was probably true. Neal looked up at Peter and could see that he believed his own words.
Neal slowly turned to the scrub people while still holding on to Peter and nodded. They injected him with something and everything went black.
When Neal thought 'but there was that one time...' That was shameless advertisement for my other story 'It wasn't loaded!' It's Mozzie taking care of Neal instead of Peter. Check it out!