Author's Note: I would like to apologize to the readers for my absence in the past month; but I have returned finally, bringing with me the final chapter for Gemini. I would also like to thank all the readers for their feedback. Hope you enjoy.
Connor reached the hospital first and a few minutes later, Duncan and Tessa caught up with him. The paramedics had wheeled Richie and Richelle out of the ambulances and in the front doors, with their guardians following close by.
"Richie's unconscious but nothing's broken," Connor told them, "But he's been bruised plenty and he'll probably have trouble getting around for the next few days."
"What about Richelle?" Tessa asked.
"Her?" Connor shook his head grimly, "They didn't find any trauma to her back but she doesn't seem to have much use of her upper body, she can't sit up and she can't use her arms much right now. They'll know more once the doctors have a chance to look at both of them. In the meantime we have to supply the local sawbones with their entire history, blood type, any medication they're on, any allergies they have…"
Connor was drowned out when they heard Richelle screaming. They ran out of the lobby and into the room Richelle had been taken to. She might not have had much use of her upper body but she was working the hell out of her lower body as she swung her legs and kicked at everybody who came near her. Connor got past the doctors and pinned her down and demanded to know what was the matter.
"They're trying to cut me open!" Richelle told him as she looked up at him, "You see? They're going to hack me apart and sell my organs all over town."
Connor turned his head and saw the scissors one doctor was holding, and he rolled his eyes. "Don't be stupid," he told Richelle, "They're just trying to cut your clothes off."
"And why?" she asked.
"Do you have any idea where you are?" Connor asked her.
"No I don't have any idea where I am, what's happened? Where's Richie? What happened to him?" she demanded to know.
"Richelle," Connor forced himself to calm down as he tried talking to her, "You two wiped out, you're at the hospital now. The doctors have to take your clothes off and examine you."
"Well they're not cutting them off," she insisted, "Why do they want to cut them off?"
"Because otherwise it's going to hurt!" Connor yelled at her.
Richelle tried to reach for the zipper on her jeans but found her arms wouldn't move that far down. "For $15, let it hurt," she told him.
Connor let out an exasperated sigh and turned to the doctors and said, "Give us a minute, will you?" and started to help Richelle out of her jeans.
Tessa and Duncan stood at the doorway and were horrified at what they saw when the jeans came off. Richelle's legs, which were ordinarily as pale as Richie's were, were now decorated in streaks of black and purple where they had been bruised in the fall. She groaned and squirmed as the denim rubbed over her skin as the jeans came off, and it was then that they could see a few bloody scrapes on her stomach as well. As bad as she looked, they hated to think how bad of shape Richie had to really be in considering that he had the bike on top of him in the fall.
One hour passed, then the doctors came out to give them the news. Richie and Richelle were both banged up and bruised up and would be sore and stiff for a good long while and might have a few scars at the end of it all, but nothing was broken or dislocated, and their saving grace seemed to be that they were both wearing their helmets at the time of the wreck. Richie had been moved to one room and Richelle was put in another; Connor stayed with her and Duncan and Tessa stayed at Richie's side, waiting for him to wake up.
"I can't believe that this happened," Tessa said after a while.
"I can't believe the two of them took off like that," Duncan replied, "What were they thinking?"
"You know what they were thinking, Duncan," Tessa told him, "They heard you and Connor fighting and decided they weren't going to be taken away from each other. Are you convinced now that they are related?"
Duncan looked down at the floor and answered, "I suppose they must be."
"You know they have to be or else they wouldn't have done this," Tessa said.
Time dragged its feet as they waited for Richie to wake up. An hour passed, then two hours, and as it neared the third hour, Tessa needed to get up and stretch her legs and get a cup of coffee, so she volunteered to go down to the cafeteria and see what she could get.
Duncan sat back in the chair and looked at Richie, who hadn't woken up, didn't move and hardly even breathed. He was thinking to himself how many painkillers Richie would need to be on when he woke up, when he felt a quickening approaching.
"How is he?" Connor asked as he came into the room.
"He hasn't woken up," Duncan answered, "How's Richelle?"
"She just went to sleep," Connor told him, "She bit two doctors, an orderly, and she tried to stab a nurse with her own pen…" he gave a weak smile and said, "It's a safe bet we won't be invited back to this place anytime in the near future."
"I'd guess not," Duncan dryly remarked.
"How are you holding up?" Connor asked him.
"Fine," Duncan answered.
"Liar," Connor said.
"Is he awake yet?" they heard from behind them.
Both men turned around and looked with wide eyes as they saw Richelle, dressed in one of the hospital gowns, looking like the living dead under her mess of bruises and her half dead eyes, as she staggered into the room. "Richie, is he awake?"
"Not yet," Duncan finally found his voice.
"What are you doing up?" Connor asked.
They noticed that Richelle now walked with a slight limp in one leg, and as she walked over to Richie's hospital bed, she seemed to bear resemblance to the Frankenstein monster.
Connor grabbed Richelle by the back of her gown to get her attention, and he repeated his question, "What are you doing up?"
"What am I doing up?" she seemed surprised by his question, "Did you not see what happened to me? Do you have any idea how much in hell this is going to hurt in the morning, after a night of lying down in bed?"
"Richelle, go back to your room," Connor said.
"No," she insisted.
"Richelle," Connor's voice was getting lower now, more menacing, but she just stood against the wall and shook her head.
"I'll have the nurses put you on painkillers," he told her, "Go back to your room."
"Forget it, Connor," Richelle responded, "This time I'm not going to do what you say. I'm staying right here with my brother." And to emphasize her words, she flopped down on the side of Richie's hospital bed, but the sudden addition in the weight to the mattress didn't stir him any.
"If this is about what happened earlier," Duncan started to say, but she cut him off.
"That certainly has much to do with the situation we're in now," Richelle addressed both Highlanders now, "But this isn't about that…when Richie wakes up, if I'm not here he's going to be worried, so I'm staying. And since we're all here, I say we quit acting like a bunch of 2 year olds and get straight to the point. Put together you two have about 900 years on you, so you should be worldly and mature enough to reach the decision to this ultimatum."
Duncan didn't like where this was going. "What ultimatum?" he asked.
"The way I see it, you guys have two choices…you can stop squabbling like kids over who's who and what's what, and figure out a way to make both sides of this work."
"Or what?" Duncan asked.
Richelle looked him dead in the eyes and answered simply, "Or else you'll never see either one of us ever again. We're both 18," she looked at both of the men, "By law we can go anywhere and do anything we want…I have enough money, we can walk away from all this and start a new life together, and that new life doesn't have to include either one of you. It's your choice."
"I hate to admit it but she's right," Connor said as he and Duncan paced around the waiting room, "And you know she is."
"Yeah well I'm sure you'll understand that I'm not used to being threatened by 18 year old girls," Duncan replied.
"And I'm sure you'll understand that if you open your big fat mouth to her again, she'll make good on her word and we won't see them again, do you want that to happen?" Connor asked.
"No," Duncan answered after a brief hesitance.
"We can't force those kids to keep us in their lives, do you want to continue being involved with them?" Connor asked.
"Yes," Duncan said.
"So do I," Connor replied, "So we have to figure something out."
"Alright…what?" Duncan asked.
"I think I've got it," Connor said, "We were going about this all wrong earlier…I think what we ought to do is two weeks out of the month, I'll fly Richelle down here to stay with Richie, and then two weeks of the next month, you fly him out to New York to stay with us. That way they get to stay together, and everybody's happy."
Duncan grumbled something and looked the other way.
"Well almost everybody," Connor added, "And maybe Richelle will cut you a break when she finds out that she and Richie can stay together and it won't always involve being around you. Come on, let's go give them the good news."
The two men headed back to Richie's hospital room and were surprised when they returned, to see Richie turned on his side and Richelle spooned up against him, her arms around his waist and both of them asleep.
"Looks like we're going to have to get these two a room together," Connor told his cousin.
Richie finally woke up about an hour later, and it was then that he realized that he was in the hospital.
"What happened?" he asked, his voice low and tired.
"You wiped out," Richelle told him from where she lay on the other side of the bed, "And took me down with you."
"Oh man," he grumbled as he ran a hand over his face and felt some of the bruises already forming, "Where's Mac?"
"Hell if I know," she replied, "They disappeared out of here a while ago."
Richie tried turning onto his back so he could look over and see her but he was too sore to move all the way around. "How bad is it?"
"Well the doctors said nothing's broken, so that's good," Richelle told him, "I reckon we'll be able to go home in a few days."
Richie tried to lift his legs but found that about impossible. "If I can even walk," he said, groaning under the pain, "Are they sure nothing's broken?"
"Shouldn't be, I'll have a look," Richelle said.
She pulled the sheet down and got on her stomach to get a better look at his feet. They were purple with bruising but otherwise didn't seem to be in too bad of shape. "They'll be fine," she said, then grabbed at the bottom of the paper gown they put him in, "You like wearing this thing?"
"They didn't give me a choice," he said.
"I hate these things myself," she said as climbed back up to the other side of the bed and she started to take hers off, "Would it kill them to get something comfortable in?"
Richie managed to crane his neck around enough to see her slip out of her gown, dressed now only in her white bra and underwear.
"Well that's certainly attractive," Connor said as he and Duncan stepped into the room, "But you probably won't appreciate knowing your doctor is a woman."
"Oh look, Richie," she said as she turned back to her brother, "It's the Hunch Bunch again. Come again, no doubt, to try and send me back to my room down the hall."
"Not exactly," Connor told her as he walked over to the bed, "We had a little discussion with the staff and got you cleared as a resident in this room, but in the other bed."
Richelle grumbled in protest as she got off of Richie's bed and headed over to the one on the other side of the room.
"I know what you're doing," she said, apparently not to either man in particular.
"What?" the two MacLeods asked.
"Don't think I'm stupid," she said to Connor, "You and your blockhead cousin are just trying to lull us into a false sense of security, then once we're out of here, boom, it's going to be World War III all over again."
"How many painkillers do they have you on already?" Duncan asked her.
"Actually, Richelle," Connor told her, gesturing over towards Duncan, "Oberon over there," he couldn't help smirking at the look on Duncan's face when he said that, "And I discussed what we're going to do with the two of you." He could tell by the look on her face that she was anticipating the worst case scenario.
"And?" she asked.
"And, you were right."
"What?" Richelle started hitting her ear, "I must be going deaf."
"Cut it out," Connor told her, "You made a point, it's pretty bad when two grown men…well past grown," he said as he looked over to Duncan again, "Are acting worse than the children. So we decided since what we have here is more or less a joint custody issue, we're going to treat it like one."
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"We decided that…once we go home," he quickly added, "Every month, one of you is going to get to stay with the other one for a couple of weeks."
Richelle looked from him and over to Duncan and then looked back at Connor again and replied, "With you monkeys tailing along?"
"No," Connor answered, "You're right, you're both 18, you don't need us following you…after we go home, Duncan and Tessa will fly Richie out to New York to stay with us, and then the next month, I'll ship you back here to stay with them."
Richelle looked over to Richie's bed and he managed to roll over onto his side far enough to glance across the room to her as they seemed to, without a word, consider the option.
"I guess that'll work," she said as she turned back to look at Connor again.
Connor could see the reaction on Duncan's face, which was priceless to say the least. He just smiled and said, "Now that we have that settled, we're going to go home and get a change of clothes for the two of you, since," he pulled back the sheet a bit, "You seem to have your mind made up about the attire in this place…is there anything else you want me to bring you?"
"Yeah," Richelle said, "Get my Walkman."
"Of course," Connor replied.
"Oh, and bring down that book I'm reading," she said, "I'm halfway through First Blood and I just have to know how Rambo dies at the end."
Richie sat up in bed and looked over at her, "He dies?"
She looked back at her brother and said, "Why of course…they killed him in the book, but they changed the ending in the first movie so it could coincide with the events of the second book. Oh!" she looked up at Connor again, "And Connor, can you bring us something from the house to eat?"
"What's wrong with the food here?" he asked.
"Are you crazy?" she asked, "Do you have any idea where they put the kitchen in this place? It's right next to the morgue," she spoke quietly as though it were an important secret, "Why would I want to eat something that's been prepared right next to the corpses? Huh?"
Connor said nothing and just chuckled and ruffled her hair in response. "Alright," he finally said, "You got it."
"Thank you," she grumbled as she rolled over onto her side and went to sleep.
Connor went back over to the door and Duncan stopped him and said quietly, "I searched through all of Richelle's belongings, that money you gave her wasn't there, and it wasn't on her when the paramedics picked her up."
Connor looked at Duncan, obviously vexed by this little discovery, and he went back over to Richelle's bed and nudged her.
"Hmm?'" she grumbled as she rolled over.
"Richelle, what happened to the money I gave you?" he asked her.
Richelle hardly even got her eyes open as she answered, "I spent it all today."
"Not that money," Connor told her, "The $5,000 I gave you, where is it?"
Richelle rubbed one eye and managed to open it as she answered, "It's back at the shop, in Richie's top drawer, why?"
"What?" Duncan asked.
"Why'd you leave it there?" Connor asked her.
"Because if something would happen and I'd die out here, I want Richie to have it," Richelle answered, "He'd need it more than I do, he can't get anywhere on his own resources or else he would've been out of this sorry town long ago. Why? What did you think I did with it?"
Richie and Richelle spent the next few days in the hospital, and despite being issued separate beds, they seldom remained separated. Connor, Tessa and Duncan agreed that the two teenagers weren't in serious enough condition to require someone watching them at all times but they did look in on them on several occasions, and every time the two were practically joined at the hip. One time Richelle was explaining to Richie the bigger picture of Rambo, other times both were vegged out on Richie's bed, each wearing an ear bud from Richelle's Walkman in one ear.
One day Tessa came in to see how they were doing and saw that both were darker shades of purple and black all over their bodies, and while Richie was more inclined to lay in bed and leave his injuries undisturbed, Richelle couldn't be forced to stay in her bed for anything.
"Did the doctor say you should be up and around already?" she asked.
"What do doctors know?" Richelle asked, "They go to medical school four years and still can't perform a breast exam without cold hands. Besides, I'm going stir crazy in this place, there's nothing to do."
"Connor mentioned that you might be getting bored," Tessa said, "I brought you some books to read."
"Sure, he's probably the one who ordered we get the only room in the hospital where the TV doesn't work," Richelle replied as she took the paperbacks from Tessa, "The man's a sadist of some sort…" she looked up at Tessa and added, "But I hear that's a turn-on for some people, I don't know, what about you?"
Tessa just laughed and told them that she'd see them both later and disappeared from the room.
"Well let's see what smut she brought down," Richelle said as she dumped the books on the nightstand by her bed.
Richie propped himself up on one elbow and glanced at the titles on the spines, "Looks like Shakespeare."
Richelle gave a throaty laugh and remarked, "Smuttier than I thought." She picked up the top book and flipped through it, "Romeo and Juliet, you ever read this crap?"
Richie shook his head, "No."
"I never read it either," Richelle sent the book flying across the room, "Now Connor was telling me something interesting about it though."
"What's that?" Richie asked.
"Connor told me that several years ago he saw this play about the Elephant Man, Joe Merrick, and he and this high class dame are discussing Romeo and Juliet. And Merrick says that Romeo is not reliable because he doesn't care about Juliet."
"What?" Richie asked, "How's that possible? He killed himself because he thought she was dead."
"Yes, he thought she was dead, that's what Merrick points out. 'Does he check her pulse? Does he get a doctor?' He holds up the mirror for her breath and sees nothing. 'The illusion befalls him because he sees nothing', or something of that sort."
"Yeah but that doesn't make sense, why would he kill himself if he didn't care about her?" Richie asked.
"I don't get it either," Richelle replied, "The best I can think of is up to that point he must've thought he did, and then upon seeing her dead or as he thought dead, realized it had all been for nothing and decided he couldn't live with that knowledge. Like when Oedipus found out he killed his father and married his mother and had children with her, and it became too much for him and he stabbed his eyes out because he knew too much and couldn't live with it. That's my interpretation."
"Hmm," Richie said, "You do pretty well with it considering you only heard it second hand."
"Well I'll confess," she told him, "I read the play, Connor has it, it and hundreds of others, you should see this guy's home library. Library of Congress doesn't have any many books, I don't think. Now, what I've always found confusing is when there's a novel and a play of the same story, you have to read both to find out what's what, what belongs where, for the most part they're the same but they're going to be different somewhere. And that reminds me of something else."
"What?" Richie asked with a yawn.
"Did you ever read Peter Pan?" she asked him.
"No, I don't think so," he replied as he turned on his side and closed his eyes.
"There was a book and a play of that as well," she told him, "And after reading both I've concluded that that writer must've been a pretty screwy guy to come up with all that, mermaids and pirates and a man in a dog cage and fairies in negligees. But what I want to know is why does Captain Hook so despise Peter Pan? Did you ever think of that, Richie? Why does Captain Hook hate Peter Pan so much? What did Peter ever do to him?"
Richie turned back over to see her and said, "Are you kidding me? He threw the guy's hand to a crocodile."
"No, not at first," Richelle said, "Something had to happen first to bring them to that fight when it happened…why does Hook hate children so much, but most of all their leader?"
"Because he's the villain of the story and it's his job," Richie said, "Every story has to have a villain."
Richelle shook her head, "No, it's not that, it's because Captain James Hook used to be a schoolteacher, and it's a known rule that all schoolteachers hate children."
"I'll believe that," Richie told her.
"Uh huh, that was certainly true for me, all my teachers hated me, every school I went to, all 12 of them," Richelle said.
"You went to 12 schools?"
"Oh sure, I got thrown out of one for biting a girl, then another for setting a fire in the principal's office, then another because I bit the teacher, and then I tried to stab a guidance counselor in the neck with his own pen, and…"
Richie laughed and threw his sore head back against the pillows, "I can't believe we're related."
"Well we must be," she told him, "We've been over all of that before, we simply have to be."
What neither teenager knew was that Tessa hadn't gone away; she had only left the room and was standing by the door listening in to their conversation. She smiled as she heard them talking; it seemed that Richie finally had a friend, and one, she noted, who it seemed wouldn't be so quick to disappear on him like the others had.
The twins came home a few days later, still bruised and sore, but above all they were relived to be out of the hospital.
"So how's this whole thing going to work?" Richie asked as they unpacked their bags back in Richie's room.
"Well, Connor was thinking of extending our stay here for a couple more weeks," Richelle said, "Then when we go back to New York, you can come back with us for a couple weeks, then we'll send you back, and next month I'll come back out here, and then the month after that, you can come and stay with us again. I know, it's confusing."
"Dizzying too," Richie said, "Sounds like a boomerang."
"Well that's how it'll be, sort of," Richelle said, "But you're going to love New York, Richie, there's so much great stuff over there, and the best part is it's 3000 miles away from Duncan. Of course there's also a downside to that."
Richie looked at her, "What's that?"
"It's only 3000 miles away from Duncan," she answered.
Richie laughed and in a moment of either great love for his sister, or giddiness from the painkillers he was still on, reached over and hugged her and said, "I'm glad Connor brought you out here to meet us."
"Yeah," Richelle agreed, "Who said crime doesn't pay?"
While they talked amongst themselves in the bedroom, the three adults were gathered in the kitchen discussing something else as they made lunch.
"So when Richelle comes to stay with us in a couple of months," Tessa said, "Is there anything we'll need to know?"
"Nothing I don't think that you haven't found out already," Connor said, "She's not allergic to anything, she doesn't sleepwalk, you know she's anemic, she has a tendency to grab up small things, and she has a couple of fillings so if you find a couple small pieces of silver lying around someday…"
"We get it," Tessa said.
"She's not a particularly picky eater but she will let you know if she hates what you cook," Connor added.
"That's nothing new," Duncan replied.
"As I said, anything there is to know about you, you already know," Connor told them, "When she comes out again and I'm not here to watch her, you'll see she's not as much trouble as you think."
"Be quiet, Duncan," Tessa said just as Duncan opened his mouth.
"I didn't say anything," he replied.
"Well see to it that you don't," Connor told him.
"I'm just relieved that Richie finally has someone new in his life who it looks like, is going to stay in it," Tessa said, "It seems his other friends have scattered to the wind in the past few months."
"Well believe me, you won't be able to get rid of Richelle that easily," Connor said, "She's like the 500 pound gorilla, she not only sleeps wherever she wants but also goes and stays wherever she wants."
They heard Richie and his sister talking and saw them coming into the kitchen, they were both absorbed in their conversation.
"And when you come out to New York I'll introduce you to my friends back there," Richelle told him.
"You actually have friends?" Richie asked.
"Oh sure, they'll like you, of course you have to be initiated first," she said.
"Sounds painful," Richie said as they sat down at the table with the others.
"Not at all, first there's the big celebratory dinner, and afterwards they all pick up their knives and forks and start chanting 'gooble gobble, gooble gobble, we accept him, we accept him, gooble gobble, we will make you one of us'."
This drew responsive fits of laughter from Connor, Tessa, and even Duncan, who all picked up their utensils and joined in.