A/N: My favourite patient slipped into a coma today ..
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Considering the extended cold and cloudy weather, it was absolutely no surprise that the number of people checking into the psychiatric ward of Bellevue Hospital Centre had increased exponentially over the last few days. With nasty weather came seasonal affective disorder, Munchausen season affective disorder, spikes in depressive moments for bipolar patients and oh so much more. Nurses who were normally off-duty were brought in with the lure of overtime pay, some working for illegally long as patients just kept coming and coming. Every slightly dark place was being used by someone, whether it be a doctor sleeping on the bench in the locker room with the lights turned off or a nurse snoozing in an empty bed following a particularly hairy emergency case. As licensed practical nurse Augustine Brookstone sat at her terminal in the nurses' station during her eighteenth straight hour on duty, she even had her feet resting on the side of an intern's waist as the woman napped under the desk. Taking a sip from the nearly empty Red Bull she kept stashed behind some notes taped from the counter, she blinked her dry brown eyes and tried to bring the computer screen into focus again.
'Brookstone,' said an authoritative voice in front of her, and she jumped before looking up.
'Hm?' she murmured, trying to keep her attention on the attending in front of her rather than the fact that the area behind him seemed to be dancing.
'You were supposed to leave a few hours ago,' he said, tapping the clipboard in his hand on the edge of the counter. 'Things are starting to slow down, so go home and get some rest.'
'Yes sir,' she said calmly, trying not to seem too excited about finally getting out. As he walked away, she tried to slowly take up time by untying her hair and running her fingers through the now quite tangled length before taking the little brown elastic that matched the shade of her hair so nicely and making a loose loop right over the nape of her neck.
Once the attending was out of sight, she started gathering her things frantically, putting a hoodie over her scrubs and taking her purse from the drawer next to her leg, throwing it across her shoulders. As she snapped the drawer shut, the intern jumped up suddenly, slamming her head on the desk and cursing before crawling out, rubbing her head as she stood. She gave Augustine a blurry look before straightening her scrubs shirt and wandering off, but Augustine didn't watch which direction she went. There was one rule she'd learned since she started at the hospital a month and a half earlier: if you were given a window, escape immediately.
Opening the counter door, she slipped out and stared straight ahead to the exit. She kept her arms straight to the sides, her feet making a quick tap-tapping noise as she made a very slow run for her life. Her heart raced as she reached out to push the button to open the ward door, only to have the almost expected happen.
'Nurse Brookstone!' came a voice from behind her. 'Nurse Brookstone, wait!'
She froze and slumped her shoulders with a theatrical sigh before turning around and rolling her eyes. 'Whaaa-aat?'
A CNA ran up to her, his arms loaded with pre-packaged supplies. 'Dr Masterson said that you were leaving. Can you run these down to the PICU on your way out?'
She blinked slowly, the information turning over in her head. 'We're in the PICU.'
'The other PICU,' he said carefully. 'Paediatric Intensive Care Unit.'
A long silence passed between the two of them before she reached out and took the armful of supplies. He opened the door for her, watching as she ambled away, stopping after a dozen or so feet to take a turn towards the elevators.
'Um... have a nice night!' he said before the door clicked shut.
'Fucking uppity aides,' she grumbled as she jutted out her hip to push the elevator call button. Several seconds passed before a ding echoed in the tiled hallway and the metal doors purred open.
The slow drop of the elevator didn't help her sleepiness too much, and before she'd made it down the eight floors to the other PICU, as the CNA had put it, she had her face pressed against the cool metal of the walls and her eyes half closed. When the doors slipped open again, she groaned as she pushed herself away from the wall and shuffled forward, her white Danskos making squeaking noises on the disinfected floor. As she walked to the paediatric unit, a couple of nurses moved past her without even recognising her existence. Reaching the ward doors, she kicked the door button and watched the doors open in before stumbling over to the nurses' station. Rather than asking what she was doing or even stopping their conversation to look at her, the two nurses behind the counter just kept chatting about some big sale Century 21 was having in the coming weekend. Narrowing her eyes, Augustine leaned forward and just dumped all of the supplies on top of the keyboard of the computer in front of one of the women. When they finally turned to look at her, she wiped her hands against each other before putting them on her hips.
'Deal with these yourself,' she snapped, quickly turning on her heel to go back the same direction with the nurse gaping after her.
'What are these for?' the woman yelled after her.
Augustine turned on her heel, giving an exhausted look to the other woman. 'Listen, one of my CNAs just sent me down here with those. I don't know who put the request in or whatever, but you guys can just work it out for yourselves. I'm going home.'
The woman kept yelling after her, but Augustine just ignored her. Taking the long walk across to the other side of the hospital so she wouldn't have to walk the extra distance outside, Augustine just let herself go into a daze, so it was utterly jarring when she found herself no longer walking peacefully down the hall but rather being shoved into a supply closet with what felt suspiciously like a scalpel being held against the side of her neck.
As the door closed, leaving her in the darkness with her assailant, she found herself quite awake and quite surprised that she didn't just urinate all over herself.
'Please do not move.'
'I didn't plan to,' she muttered back to the person.
She felt the breath of the person teasing her ear and closed her eyes, willing herself to remain as calm as possible. Outside of the door, she couldn't hear a single person walking by or even the sounds of machinery, but she became stunningly aware of the smell of clove cigarettes on the breath of the woman behind her.
'You are going to be asked what you heard discussed in the phone call between Jackson Rippner and Anaïs Vioget,' she said slowly into Augustine's ear. 'You won't say a single thing. Understood?'
Her mouth got very dry. 'Understood.'
'I would recommend you go home right now, pack your things and leave the city as soon as possible,' she said maliciously, pressing the long edge of the scalpel harder into Augustine's throat.
She held her breath, afraid that if her neck moved or expanded, the scalpel would cut into her. 'Leave the city, got it.'
'Now you're going to leave this room as though nothing at all happened,' the woman said, nuzzling her nose into Augustine's hair to get closer to her ear. 'And don't dare interfere in this, do you understand me?'
The scalpel lifted off a bit and Augustine nodded, licking her lips.
'Good girl,' she said before shoving Augustine toward the door.
Augustine felt around in the dark for the door handle, clutching at it with shaking hands before managing to turn it and fall into the hallway. She walked robotically, keeping her arms straight to the sides as she moved as quickly as possible toward the exit—she knew exactly what she had to do in this situation. Her heart nearly stopped as she heard the door open again, and in the reflection of the window, she could see a blur of blonde hair before she picked up speed and ducked into the elevator hallway, pressing the button frantically until a car appeared and she dove in, pressing herself against the cold wall as she pressed the lobby button. She glanced quickly at her watch, willing the elevator to go faster. When the door began to roll open, she immediately squeezed herself through the narrow opening and diving through the packed lobby, nearly knocking down several people.
When she made it outside, she had picked up so much momentum that as she tried to turn to run towards the subway station, her feet slipped on the wet pavement and she slammed down on her hip. A couple of people moved to help her, but she got back on her feet and ran off without a second thought. She dodged through traffic, ignoring the honks of angry drivers and the complaints of slammed into pedestrians. Slightly in the distance, she could see the stainless steel railing surrounding the steps down to the subway station and the glowing blue 'M' atop the pole behind it.
As she entered the station and swiped her MetroCard, she could feel the huff of a train coming in. Breaking into a run once more, she went down the stairs to the platform and shoved her hand into the door of the train just before it closed. It bounced back and she fell in, slumping into a hard, plasticy seat as the train started off. She closed her eyes, breathing heavily as she tried to straighten her thoughts.
'Dammit,' she groaned, feeling an intense failure pressing down on her shoulders.
She didn't look up as the train slowed, apparently coming across an awkward area in the tracks. The car grew quiet until there was the rolling noise of one of the doors between cars opening, but she didn't even bother to open her eyes. There was the tapping of someone walking, then the sound of a bag landing on one of the hard seats.
'Augustine?'
She opened her eyes to look across the train at a gangly girl in a white blouse and pleated sea-foam skirt with a backpack in the seat next to her.
'Are you running late for something?' she asked, curling the ends of her long, black hair in her fingertips.
'Hedi, thank God,' Augustine said, still out of breath, but she felt as though a huge weight had been pulled off of her chest. 'Where is your father?'
'I dunno,' she said with a little shrug. 'Probably at work.'
'Is he all right?'
'I guess,' she muttered.
They sat in silence as the train stopped at 23rd Avenue and the only other person in their car alighted. When the train started again, Hediyeh reached over to zip up her backpack before looking across at Augustine, who was looking beyond her to the blue lights they passed every few seconds.
'Mom left this morning,' Hediyeh admitted, and Augustine focused on her. 'She thinks I don't know, but after she took me to school, I followed her instead of staying there.'
'What do you mean she left?' Augustine asked as the train stopped at 6th Avenue and 14th Street.
Hediyeh stood up and walked to the door, pulling on her backpack as she did. Augustine followed behind her as she got off the train, climbing the stairs up a level before crossing through a group of tourists looking at a map of the system. They walked past a man playing the saxophone to an old recording of Mack the Knife before turning and starting down the stairs to the bottom level of the station. The girl took each step carefully, her Mary Janes avoiding every discolouration and smashed piece of gum on the concrete. The deep platform was nearly empty, the only sound the whooshing of trains coming and going on the levels above them. As they stood waiting for the train to come, Hediyeh took Augustine's hand.
'She went to Penn Station, and she had Dad's address book,' Hediyeh finally replied. 'She took the train up to Albany.'
There was another long silence before the train came up to the platform, the doors slipping open as the speakers announced which direction the train was headed. Hediyeh sat down, pulling Augustine's hand down so that she would sit next to her.
'Do you think Mom's coming back?' she asked in a tiny voice, looking up at Augustine. 'I don't want to live alone with Dad. He scares me.'
'He scares me too,' Augustine admitted, pressing her head back against the window.
'He's been different since he came back from Switzerland. Do you know about that?'
Although she had no intentions of telling her, Augustine knew very well about what had happened in Switzerland. 'No.'
'Liar,' Hediyeh said with a smile. 'You are so bad at lying. I know tu parles français. Dad got that phone call, he freaked out, you freaked out, he freaked out at you, he left, you left, then he came back and I heard him and Mom talking the other night about that woman in the phone call, Anaïs.'
'How do you know that name?'
'I think everyone on the street heard that name when he was on the phone,' replied Hediyeh, looking down at the watch on her wrist. 'Hey, why were you in such a hurry?'
'I needed to catch you,' she said. 'You're always on this train.'
'Why did you need to catch me? Is something wrong?' she asked, scooting forward in the chair, her eyes wide.
She wanted to lie to her so badly, but something inside her told her to just give her the truth straight up. Like she'd always been told, you don't have to sign up for the Society, you're born into it, and Hediyeh had the right to know the truth rather than have it sugar coated for her. 'Something is about to go very wrong.'
'How do you know?' the girl asked, her voice cracking as her face scrunched. 'Am I going to lose my parents again?'
'I don't know, Hedi,' Augustine admitted, putting her hand on the girl's back. 'I need to talk to your mom first. Do you know when she'll be home?'
'She bought a ticket for the two o'clock return from Albany, so the train gets in at four twenty-five,' she said then looked down at her watch again. 'It's three o'clock now.'
'Shit,' she murmured, quickly dropping into thought and staying there until the speakers announced the end of the line.
'Come on,' Hediyeh said, walking away from her.
Augustine stepped out of the train but didn't move any farther, looking around oddly.
'What is it?' asked the younger girl, clutching the straps of her backpack until her knuckles turned white.
The train moved away and the station grew silent except for the shrill ringing of a cell phone playing a Bach piece. She looked around before leaning over the edge and seeing a tiny electronic glint lost in the dirtiness of the tracks. Narrowing her eyes, she set down her bag.
'What are you doing?' Hediyeh asked, making a surprised noise as Augustine jumped into the track pit. 'Oh! Be careful! The tracks are electrified!'
The ringing stopped a moment before Augustine freed the telephone from the grease and refuse it had been trapped under. She turned it over in her hands before tossing it up to Hediyeh, who was looking over the side of the pit at her. Augustine made a running jump at the wall, grabbing onto the tile lightly and slipping before Hediyeh grabbed her shoulders and fell backwards, yanking the nurse up as she went down. Hediyeh grumbled, pulling herself out from under Augustine and brushing herself off before bending down to pick up the phone. Augustine stood, looking down at Hediyeh study the item.
'A cell phone?' Hediyeh said, taken aback. She held it forward in her hand, stretching up on her tiptoes to get it right in Augustine's face. 'You jumped in there for—'
'—your father's cell phone,' Augustine finished softly.
Hediyeh's eyes grew wide. Slowly and almost unwillingly, she flipped open the phone and looked at the screen of the electronic in her hand. Smiling back at her was her adoptive mother standing at the stove making dinner as Jonathan sat on the counter 'helping' and Hediyeh stood next to her looking devious with a spoon. Closing it softly, she sniffled and looked up at Augustine with tears in her eyes.
'Why was Daddy's cell phone down there?'
Augustine just shook her head. 'Come on, we need to get your brother and get to your house—it's safe there. My number one priority right now is you two, then we can worry about everything once all the troops arrive.'
Taking Hediyeh's hand once more, Augustine walked to the turnstiles and through to the cold, tile-covered exit. When they walked close enough to feel the icy air blowing down the stairs, Hediyeh paused and set her bag down on the ground, unzipping it and pulling out a coat and knit hat. She carefully slipped on the hat as Augustine bent down and buttoned the oversized buttons of her pea coat. As Hediyeh adjusted her coat, Augustine put the girl's Hello Kitty bag over one of her shoulders and took her hand, pulling her up the stairs to the road above. Water sloshed all around, splashed by the cars passing them on the street and pouring from the scaffolding that seemed to cover the sidewalks of half of the city. For a few moments, they stood under some scaffolding until the crossing sign came on and they went sprinting across and over to Horatio Street. Hidden a few doors down was Jonathan's private day care centre, a place that Augustine had become quite familiar with during her weeks with the Rippner family.
When they finally made it up to the façade of the building, Augustine pressed Hediyeh against her legs and leaned over her to block some of the cold from the shivering girl. She rang the doorbell for the place, relaxing when a woman appeared to let them in.
'Yes, hi, we're here to pick up Jonathan Rippner,' Augustine said strongly as the door closed behind them.
Although they looked shabby, her scrubs gave her street cred with basically everyone. Whenever she did something stupid, she had the excuse sitting on her body. If she wanted something, she could get it because she was a nurse. She could always—
'I need ID and a note from his parents.'
Dammit.
'Augustine is our nanny, Miss Barnes,' snapped back Hediyeh. 'There's an emergency today. Daddy's been sent up to Boston, Mama had to go to Albany, and Augustine was kind enough to go straight from a full schedule at Bellevue with all the crazies to come pick us up and take us home so that she can help us understand why Mama went away this morning and—'
By this point, Hediyeh was sobbing, her face completely covered by her hands. The woman, uncomfortable, disappeared only to come back with Jonathan, who had decided to wear a mackintosh with big alligator buttons down the from and oversized yellow galoshes. Even though she didn't have much time with them, she knew exactly what to do.
'Here are some gloves, baby,' she said, pulling latex gloves out of her purse and handing them to him. 'Watch your step—it's very slippery.'
'Shoes!' Jonathan said, walking toward the door and jumping up and down. 'Hediyeh, look, rain!'
'Uh-huh, lots of rain,' she said, sniffling as she walked over to stand with her brother at the glass doors.
'Could you please sign this?'
Augustine looked back at the woman, taking the clipboard and looking at the boxes at the top before scanning down and writing in all of the information. As she signed the box, she could hear Jonathan stomping as he looked out at the streets.
'I want go home!' he said, slapping his glove-covered hands on the glass door.
'I want to go home,' Hediyeh muttered to him as Augustine handed the clipboard back to the receptionist. 'This is known as a preposition.'
Augustine laughed uncomfortably at the receptionist before turning around and walking to the kids, pressing a hand to Hediyeh's upper back as she bent sideways and pulled Jonathan's raincoat hood over his head. As she pushed open the door, he ambled out to the sidewalk and tipped his head back, catching raindrops on his face. As Augustine and his sister walked around him on each side, he took their hands and they walked over the next block to Jane Street.
---
'Mo-om!' yelled Hediyeh, stepping out of the elevator.
There was soft conversation coming from the direction of Jackson's office, but almost immediately, it stopped. After a few seconds, there was a light click and the door cracked open. Hediyeh took a couple of steps toward the door, and upon seeing who had stepped out, started sobbing and ran as fast as she could to the end of the hallway.
'Daddy!' she screamed, running into him and putting her arms around his waist. 'Daddy, I was so scared!'
'Why?' he asked flatly, staying still as she grabbed him harder.
'Did you find her?' came a voice from the top of the stairs and Jackson looked up quickly before prying his daughter off of him.
'Jackson!' Lisa said from the office, getting up from the couch but not making it through the door before her husband had woven his hand through the steps and grabbed onto Augustine's shoe.
Feeling the jolt, she stepped out of her shoe and stumbled down the stairs, landing square on her butt. She didn't have much time to recover from the fall however as Jackson descended on her and grabbed her by the front of her scrubs, yanking her from the floor and shoving her against the wall of the living room before she even had time to think.
'I told you not to come back here!' he hissed, shaking her, his pupils dilated.
'Stop it!' Hediyeh said, coming around to yank at Jackson's coat. 'Daddy, she's here to help!'
'I don't need help, especially not from her!' he hissed as he looked down at her angrily, using one hand to pull Hediyeh off once again. She fell to the floor and sat looking up at him with tears in her eyes.
'Daddy…' she said, her voice cracking, but he didn't pay the least bit of attention to her until equally strong hands grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him away from Augustine.
In just a few moments, the woman slapped him across the face twice and dragged him across the room, shoving him into a chair near the window.
'For the love of God, Jacks!' Melissa said, her tone very much on edge. 'Can't you see what we're worried about now? Do you think this is normal?'
He looked across the room at the others. Lisa was helping Augustine up as Hediyeh clung to her arm, her face buried in Lisa's dress. His wife was avoiding eye contact with him as she bent down and picked up Hediyeh with a grunt, trying to put the gangly girl up on her hip comfortably. When it seemed impossible for Hediyeh to put her legs around her mother, Augustine took the girl from her mother's arms and they both started up the stairs silently. Jackson looked back at Melissa, who was seething with her hands on her hips.
'They seemed to take it just fine,' he said in a very measured tone.
She pulled her hand back to slap him again, but before she was able to touch his face, his hand shot out and grabbed hers, quickly bending it back until she heard a sharp snap and pain shot up her arm. Gasping, she tried to take her hand back from Jackson, but he just kept looking at her with a blank-eyed stare.
'There is nothing wrong with me and nothing wrong with my family,' he said very quietly. 'They mean more to me than anything ever has, and I will not let anyone interfere in our lives.'
'Jackson... you have to—'
With a sigh, his face relaxed, only to contort into an angry grimace once more as he twisted her wrist until she screamed. Filled with adrenaline, Melissa kicked him hard enough that he let go, grabbing his stomach as she stumbled backwards.
'There is something wrong with you!' she said, curling her arm to her waist. 'You've had one of the episodes before, Jackson, you can't have another one, not right now.'
He stood up, walking slowly toward her as she backed up. There was something different in the way he walked, the way his face was set, and it terrified her to the core. Swallowing, she started backing up the stairs, but once she reached the third stair, he grabbed out for her and took the front of her sweater, pulling her down to him.
'Jackson,' she murmured, her voice shaky.
He looked her straight in the eyes, his jaw set. She was about to speak again when his hands moved up to her shoulders and in only a second, his forehead cracked against her own. As Melissa went limp and fell against him, her chin slipping down to rest on his shoulder, he pulled her from the stairs and dropped her unceremoniously onto the floor. Her head thumped against the hardwood, and upstairs in Hediyeh's room, Augustine looked out the door before standing up and walking onto the landing. She looked down, seeing Melissa lying prone on the floor and Jackson's face glaring up at her before he disappeared from sight.
Without a second thought, she started down the landing and turned sharply to thump down the stairs, grumbling as the elevator doors slipped shut before she could reach them. Turning once more, she went to the emergency stairs, her feet already sounding far away by the time the door closed. In less than a minute, she burst out of the lobby level emergency exit and sprinted across the entrance, slamming into the door before realising it had to open in. She yanked at it, looking both directions before seeing Jackson walking towards Horatio. Picking up her speed again, she ran after him, feeling a very strong sense of déjà vu as she passed Jonathan's day care. She chased him down Horatio, almost grabbing his suit jacket before slipping and catching her foot in a storm-flooded grate. Grunting, she tried to pull her foot out, but once she saw him disappear around the corner onto 14th, she knew it was too late. Cursing her luck, she laid back on the concrete, letting the rain just splash all over her face as she tried to ignore the burning pain in her ankle.