This was where my plan stopped and luck needed to kick in. Often the best defense against magic is no magic, and there's nothing the least bit magical about a seafward cyclops with the munchies. I clung to the fact that Lox had mentioned this one had a terrible hankering for iron, and that I had opposable thumbs and limbs, and the bedpan did not. It got swallowed like a boolie bean and I did not. At least I hoped not, as I hung onto a cavity the size of a pot hole for dear life.
But of course luck is the most undependable friend ever. Never on time, and constantly rescheduling. Mine apparently had better things to do, as my lifesaving cyclops chose that moment to get upset about the girl in his tooth. Big stringy vines of rotting vegetation didn't bother him at all, but me? He poked at me with his tongue, wiggling me loose which sent me tumbling down his tongue like I was being rolled up in the worlds soggiest, smelliest rug. I had one last thought that the bedpan probably would have been a less traumatic way to go... oddly enough I also regretted the lack of pancakes in my short lived stint away from mother. It's funny the things you think of when you don't have time to think at all.
I was expecting the digestive system of a cyclops to be quite dark, so the shaft of light was a surprise. I couldn't breath, I was so smothered and drowning in saliva, and then suddenly I wasn't. I hit something with surprising force and it took a second for me to realize it was the hospital room wall.
"What the..!" A voice that was very angry and triggered a small bell of horror in my head.
"Is she dead?" Cristina wailed, and I felt a momentary sense of affection that she didn't sound excited about the prospect.
"What is she doing up here?" The other voice said through rather clenched sounding teeth. I struggled to sit up and open my eyes.
"Don't move" it ordered.
"Call a stretcher, and have a bed made up in Tinkers."
"Yes sir." Lox and Cristina sounded scared.
"Come on, don’t let me lose you.” The voice said, I could feel hands touch me and a spell wrap around me. The spell burned, but the touch...the touch was worse. It snapped me back to reality with a jolt. It was him. Uppity wizard boy. Flynn.
I jumped up which is easier said than done when you’re slimier than a newborn swamp ogre..
“Bed pan duty accomplished sir, what else can I do?” I said. I did make an attempt at sounding normal even if it was sheer bravado. I wasn’t sure what the punishment was for breaking what I had to assume was at least a hundred protocols not to mention potentially harming a direly ill patient, but maybe I could convince them I was at least wasn’t ready to give up?
He stared at me.
At least I’d been right about the bedpan. It may have impossible for even the attending to break the spell on it, but as a boringly almost nutritious snack it had no chance.
“What just happened.” He said, he seemed strained, like he was going to great lengths to be civil. Probably because I had just seemingly attacked his patient for no reason whatsoever.
Speaking of, I looked at the Cyclops and if anything his eye looked a little less red and oozy, and his breathing sounded more normal. Whew, the patient was fine. My legs which were already barely holding me up, started to betray me again.
“Whoah.” Flynn said as he caught me.
Which was bad. Very bad. I don’t know if he always caught swooning interns, but I had to imagine I wasn’t the first one whose legs had gone to jelly (although for entirely different reasons!).. I wondered if all of them felt that jolt of magic buzz through them. He probably did it on purpose.
Then he dropped me.
Probably because I was a slimy, nasty mess. Besides, I didn’t ask him to catch me anyway. But wait… was he angry?
If eyes were windows to the soul, then his window had nothing but lightening and thunder going on the other side. And a furious wizard is nothing to joke around with.
“How dare you.” He said and walked away. Not flurred away in a huff, just deadpan dismissal. Shut the blinds to the window and leave.
At this point Cristina, Lox and a whole host of orderlies and assistants came hurrying in with a flying carpet stretcher between them.
“You’re standing.” Cristina said. She sounded about as animated as Flynn just had. Maybe I’d imagined her concern earlier. At least this was the Cristina I was familiar with.”
“I’m fine.” I said to everyon trying to get me to lay down on the flying carpet, even though one of my top ten wishes was to someday ride on one. This wasn’t exactly the method I’d had in mind.
“How are you standing.” Lox asked. “That Mr. Glopulapede has a a flesh eating fungas. Remember? That’s why we were in the library.”
“Maybe Dr. Cargill got her out fast enough.” Cristina said, although it sounded like she would have doubted her own vampireness if you’d asked her just then. Why was everyone staring at me like this?
“I’m really fine.” I said. “Disgusting and probably in huge trouble, but fine.”
As if to self fulfill my own words, Dr. Groats chose that moment to walk in the room.
“If I wanted more patients, I could have easily gone down to the wharf and bagged myself a hundred attention whores that are less work than you.” She said. “What about ‘emergency gemheart surgery’ don’t you understand?”
“Yes ma’am. Sorry ma’am.” I said. This is where I got kicked out. I’d be the first statistic. I braced myself for it.
“If I didn’t have Dr. Hagler singing your praises down in Acquisitions and a mortally ill Cyclops on the mend, I’d be tempted to put you over my knee like a sprout and give you a good whooping.”
“You’ve even got Flynn nervous you’re going to oust him off his young prodigical throne.” Dr. Groat said, smiling a little. It was a very very confusing smile.
“Now wash up and get back down to Acquisitions. I hear there’s a whole passel full of bedpans that need emptying.”
I started to ask something, but gulped it down just in time. “Yes, ma’am.” I said, not quite believing my luck (who had apparently looped back around for a lazy hello).
“But how is she not dead, and why are you not kicking her out.” Cristina asked for everyone else in the room including myself. Bless her.
“Yes indeed. The question of the hour. When you figure it out, I’ll let you scrub in on the next gemheart surgery.” Dr. Groats said. “I”m watching you Wilkes.”
Huh. Ok. I stood there, still stuck in a sort of crisis mode where every inch of my body was screaming and I didn’t have any answers.
More importantly though. Now I had to figure out a way to navigate back to my room to shower and clean up. Left nubs were floor numbers? Right nubs were...what?”
Oy.
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