A/N I still don't own any of these characters. I hope you guys enjoy the chapter and leave a review.
Chapter Seventeen
Nancy's POV
I opened my eyes gradually and immediately closed them again because of the brightness of the light. I wasn't sure where I was. All I really knew was that I was aching all over. I decided to try opening my eyes again and hope that I could figure out where I was.
I blinked my eyes opened again a few times trying to adjust to the lighting.
"Nancy?" I heard a familiar voice ask from next to me.
I turned my head slowly in the direction of the sound as my vision continued to adjust to my surroundings. Instead of a bright blur, it was now becoming a dimmer blur with a few objects coming in focus around me. I could hear a constant beeping in the background and groaned because I knew that was going to become annoying soon.
"Nancy, how are you feeling? Do you hurt anywhere? Should I call a nurse?" the voice to my side asked. It seemed like non-stop questions.
"Ugh, stop with the inquisition," I croaked out.
I finally managed to focus in on the person next to me. I smiled when I saw Frank sitting on the edge of the seat next to the bed holding onto my hand. His expression was so full of love and concern that I felt my heart melt.
"You scared the hell out of me, Nan," Frank said softly. "For a moment I really thought I had lost you."
I smiled even though it was even painful to do that. "You should go back to school for evasive driving tactics," I joked.
I was glad when my silly joke made Frank smile. I didn't want him to worry over me.
"Seriously, how are you feeling?" he asked.
"I've been better," I replied. "I ache all over and that beeping machine is going to drive me insane."
"I'll see about getting a nurse in here to handle it," Frank said starting to stand up.
I gripped his hand a little more firmly to hold him in place. "You don't need to go anywhere right now," I told him. "I would much rather you sit here with me for a little while and relax. You don't look so hot yourself."
It was true, though. Frank's good looks were distorted at the moment by several cuts on his face. I could tell that most of them seemed to be superficial, but I bet it was still annoying to have so many cuts. He also looked like he had been punched in both eyes. I'm guessing that it might have been from the airbag deploying in the car.
"You know," I began, "after seeing how you look and the fact that you're actually up and walking around, I'm not so sure I want to look in a mirror any time soon."
"You still look beautiful," Frank told me smiling.
"So, what are my injuries and when can I get out of here?"
Frank's smile dimmed a little. "Well, to start with, your entire body is covered in bruises."
"And?" I prodded. I knew that I was experiencing more pain and fatigue than was warranted by just bruises.
"Some of your ribs were broken. A couple of them punctured into organs and they had to take you in for emergency surgery."
I exhaled heavily. "But everything is going to be okay, right?" I asked concerned. I was hooked up to so many machines and still had too much pain medication in my system to really know what my state currently was.
Frank gave a slight smile and nodded. "The doctor said that you have passed all the major roadblocks that they look for, so you are expected to make a full recovery. However, don't get your hopes up too soon because you're probably going to be in the hospital for a couple of weeks.
"A couple of weeks!" I exclaimed.
"They want to make sure that your body has healed itself as much as possible before releasing you after the trauma you suffered," Frank continued.
"What am I going to do stuck here in a hospital?" I asked. "You know me better than anyone. I know you realize that this is going to be Hell on Earth for me."
Frank nodded his head with a slight smile on his face. "I know, Nan, but these things can't be helped. I'm going to do everything I can to make sure you get better."
I nodded my head resignedly. I knew there really was no point in me trying to fight anyone over the whole healing process my body needed. Even without Frank telling me how long I was going to be in here, I knew that it would be a while based on how I felt.
I looked at the clock and noticed that it was just past lunch, which made me turn to look at Frank again. "Why aren't you at work?" I asked him.
"I wasn't going to go to work while you were still unconscious. I wanted to make sure that somebody was with you at all times to get updates on your progress," he stated. "Besides, Joe went in today, so he still might be able to get some snooping taken care of in my absence."
"Are you sure this won't be a problem?" I prodded.
I wasn't sure what answer I wanted to hear from Frank. Part of me wanted him to stay with me like he planned because I liked having him around. It wasn't just freedom from this boring stay; it was also the fact that his presence soothed me like no other could. I really could just forget about the mystery taking place around us. Well, I could for the most part anyway.
Although, the part of me that couldn't quite put down the mystery for good wanted him to go to work. It seemed like Frank and Joe were gathering new information every day. Granted, not all of it related to the case we were working on, but it still was information that could be useful to us in some respect, even if it was only to eliminate suspects. I hated depriving Frank from the prospect of finding a new lead just because he felt obligated to stuck around while I was here.
"Even if it was a problem not going to work today, I would still stay here with you," Frank told me gently. "You mean everything to me and I will not leave you alone."
We sat in a comfortable silence before I heard Frank's stomach growl. The nurse had already brought a tray of food for me to eat, but I haven't seen him eat anything since I woke up this morning.
"You should go pick something up to eat," I told him as I spooned some mashed potatoes in my mouth.
"I'm fine," Frank replied folding his arms across his chest in a look that reminded me of how stubborn he could be at times.
"Look, you sound like there's a grizzly bear inside your stomach trying to claw its way out," I pointed out. "Go get something to eat. I'll be fine for the fifteen minutes or so that you're actually gone."
I could tell he was hesitating now. I tried to keep the smile from breaking out on my face.
"Okay, I'll go grab something quick," Frank finally relented. "Just please keep the call button nearby in case you need anything at all, and I'll try to be back as soon as I can."
"Okay, I'll be fine," I told him.
Frank stood up and gave me another quick glance before officially walking out of the hospital room and allowing the door to close.
I was surprised that the silence left in the room was almost repressive. I wasn't sure what to do with myself without having something to work on or a person to talk to in here with me. I watched the clock on the wall tick slowly. It seemed to take forever for five minutes to go by and even after that, I knew that it would still be another ten minutes before Frank would be back.
I huffed hating how dependent I had become. I was practically tied to this stupid bed and now I needed Frank to give me the companionship that I craved.
A couple more minutes passed before I heard a knock on the door. I knew it couldn't be Frank so I figured it was just a courtesy knock the nurse was giving me before coming in and poking me.
The door opened and I saw my dad standing on the other side.
"Dad!" I called out happily.
"Nancy, I was so worried," Carson spoke as he quickly crossed the room to sit beside the bed.
"I'm fine, really," I told him calmly.
"You were almost killed," he told me seriously. "Maybe you shouldn't be working on this case."
"I've never given up a case before and I'm not going to start now," I replied angrily.
"You've also never been this close to dying on me," Carson stated firmly.
"Dad, I promise to be careful," I told him resolutely. "I'm not giving up on this case. We must be getting close to something big if someone's already going after us."
"I still don't like it," Carson said frowning.
"It's my life and I'm going to live it the way I want to," I told him firmly. I didn't like arguing with my father, but occasionally it became necessary.
"Am I interrupting something?" Frank's voice came from the doorway.
"Just me trying to convince my daughter that she should give up this case," Carson replied.
"How's that going for you, sir?" Frank asked with a smirk.
"Exactly how you would think," Carson said with a shrug. "I hope you're not nearly as stubborn as Nancy is."
"He's worse," I claimed.
"Doubtful," Frank replied.
"Nancy, I'll be staying in town this weekend, so I'll be by to visit you everyday," Carson told me.
"No doubt you'll try to persuade me everyday as well," I grumbled.
"You know me too well," my dad replied.
He gave me a kiss to my forehead before heading out.
"Oh, before I forget," Carson said turning back to us, "I want to thank you for saving my daughter."
Frank looked up surprised. "But, I didn't..."
Carson shook his head slightly. "You did everything in your power to keep her from being injured. Just because she did end up with some injuries doesn't mean that it couldn't have been worse if you had not been driving that car. Thank you."
With that, my father walked out of the room allowing the door to close behind him.
Frank and I looked at each a moment in silence. I was contemplating my father's words as he left. I knew he was pushing for me to stop working on this case, but I think he knew beforehand that I would never put the case down. He was just hoping to persuade me otherwise.
Frank and I sat back and watched some daytime programming on the television. There really wasn't much to watch, but we would occasionally find some decent shows on throughout the day.
It wasn't long before dinner was brought in for me. I looked over at Frank and wondered when he would leave to grab something to eat. He was watching the local news on the television as I ate my dinner.
Before the news was over, there was a knock on the door. I saw Joe's head peak through before he walked into the room with a broad grin on his face. Right behind him was Carlisle, who was carrying a briefcase that he must use at work.
Carlisle shut the door carefully behind him before coming over and taking the empty chair on the other side of my bed while Joe stood near Frank.
"How are you feeling today?" Carlisle asked.
"I'm really sore but otherwise I feel fine," I told him.
"That's good to hear," Carlisle replied.
"You put us through quite the scare, Nan," Joe told me.
"Anyway, to get down to business, I brought you something to look over," Carlisle stated.
I watched as he pulled several sheets of paper out of his briefcase and handed them over to me. It was a large spreadsheet that contained several of the products made in the company.
"Now, first of all, I don't have access to any of the documents in the Tablets facility, so you guys will only have this for the Liquids building," Carlisle began. "What you are looking at it a table we make for our production. There is actually two different tables in the stack of papers you have. One is for the raw materials that come into the warehouse for testing in the lab and the other one is the actual batches of product we make."
"So what are we looking for exactly?" I asked him.
"Well, I'm not sure what you guys might be looking for in those tables, but I'll explain what everything means to you," Carlisle admitted. "Maybe after knowing what you're looking at, you can decide if that theory of yours about the bad batches is a possibility or not."
"Okay, tell us everything you can about these spreadsheets," Frank said.
"Well, the product is self-explanatory. I know you guys won't know which products are controlled or not, so you can just ask me or anyone else that works in the company that you would consider trustworthy. Next to the product are various dates. The top columns will tell you what they apply to within the manufacturing process. I would suggest you ignore those dates for the most part. The only thing they might be good for with your intentions would be to give you a time frame as to when each batch was started. There are also batch sizes listed that will tell you how much material was produced. Finally, the part you would be most interested in is the comments section. That will tell you whether or not the batch was released. If it wasn't released, it will give you an explanation as to what the problem was," Carlisle explained. "Any questions?"
"Not right now," I said with a shake of my head, "but we'll definitely let you know if something comes up. I think right now we just need a little while to get the hang of reading this."
"That's fine," Carlisle said. "One other thing though, I don't want this to get out to anyone, so please don't have it out for nurses or anyone to see."
"That won't be a problem," Joe said.
"Thank you for getting this for us," Frank told Carlisle.
"Anything to help you guys solve the mystery," Carlisle replied. "I just hope it helps you out."
Carlisle excused himself from the room soon afterwards in order to get home for dinner. Joe decided to stay with me in the room while Frank went out to grab both of them something to eat.
I looked over to Joe and handed him half of the stack of papers I had. "Well, why don't we get started?"
"You read my mind, Nan," Joe replied smiling.