offthebeatenpath | for Hex (at St. Bart's A&E)

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for Hex (at St. Bart's A&E)

They'd let Jag ride in the ambulance with her, but once at the hospital they'd been separated when she was taken back for triage. The EMTs had given her basic information during the handoff: Emily Fournier, twenty-three years old, with a single gunshot wound to the left hip. Police were en route and would want to speak with her when they could.

Em focused on not crying, practicing meditation patterns to help, and let the nurses or whoever do what they needed to without paying much attention to it herself. She answered their questions as best she could, and tried not to wish too hard that Jag were with her, or that she could be back in Duninnean where she lived with and knew most of the people working in the hospital. Maybe it was good, though, they weren't acting like every second counted, the frenetic energy of some hospital drama on television. She'd been shot, but it was going to be okay.

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It had been a flurry of activity for quite a while as the surgeon cleaned up the gun shot and patched her up. Nothing vital was hit so it was fairly easy, but it would hurt like a bastard for a bit and the orders said she needed to be admitted upstairs for a stay.

After everything was clean and they'd moved her to a recovery room, Hex came in to attend to her. They'd cut off her clothes but had gotten her into a gown. Hex came in with a recovery bed to get her off of the triage table.

"Hello," he said with a smile. "Seems like you've kept everyone busy for a bit. I'm Hex. I'm going to lift you into the recovery bed and take you to another room until they've got one upstairs for you, yeah? Ready?" he asked, moving to her side. He was a wall of a man, arms strong enough to move her from table to bed. He could probably carry her all the way upstairs if he wanted to.

Em was a little slow to respond, from the pain medication, but she nodded, and then a couple of seconds later, "Uh, yeah. M'ready." The nurse wasn't tall, but he was built - although she'd known too many people who were stronger than they looked to assume based on appearance. And there was something familiar about him, although she couldn't place it at first.

"There we go, Miss," he said as he settled her in the bed. He had a warm blanket that he pulled over her and tucked her in, safe and sound. He took off the brakes and got to the head of the bed where he could look down at her.

"Had a bit of a scare, yeah? But we got you on the mend. Short stay at good old St. Bart's and you'll be right as rain."

Em nodded against the pillow. "I know people who've had worse. I'll be okay." It helped, reminding herself of that. "Just need a bossy red girl." Because of course her thoughts went to Pyro, never mind that the nurse would have no idea why that wasn't the non sequitur it seemed.

He didn't know what that meant but too often people came out of a trauma spouting nonsense so he didn't think too much on it.

"Lot's of people have worse, but you've got it pretty rough, Miss. What happened, if you don't mind me asking? How'd you get shot?"

"I don't know." The cops were going to want to talk to her too, but she didn't have any idea what to tell them either. "I was just out for the day, heard a shot, and then fell and I was bleeding." Thank goodness Jag had been there, and she wondered where he was now, if anyone had told him how she was doing. But she didn't think to ask.

"You have those videos," she said, as she realized why she recognized him. Normally she wouldn't have said anything about it with a stranger, or in what was basically public, but normally she hadn't been shot or be on pain killers. "I could've used those back before."

Hex wasn't embarrassed by it at all. He only smiled.

"Yeah, on YouTube. Could have helped you before, yeah? I hope it's not too little, too late," he replied.

It was either laugh or cry, and Em had cried plenty over what she'd lost by ending up in this reality. She laughed, shaking her head. "It would've made my insistence on safe and sane a lot easier to explain." She'd had books and a tendency to research anything and everything she was interested in, but Pyro wasn't going to read up on BDSM. Videos they could've watched together while they were figuring things out.

"That's the most important part. Too many people get in over their head with arseholes and power players," he said sensibly. "I'm glad it's a bit of help for you now."

"Helps a lot of people," Em said. "And a nurse too. You must care a lot about people."

"I do, Miss. What do you like to be called?" he asked as the lift doors closed and he moved around the bed to push the button and look at her more directly.

"Call me Em. It's easiest." It was too much effort going into the longer explanation of how she got from Marie-Ange to just Em, which was good, since she wasn't thinking about it not being the name on her paperwork, but that was one of the reasons she'd chosen the alias she had for her alternative passport. She didn't have to remember she was going by another name if the diminutive was the same.

"Alright, Em," Hex smiled, looking down at her. "Hex is easiest for me, so I understand. A lot better than Thomas. Too many Thomases in the world," he chuckled.

Em nodded what might have been sagely if she weren't recently shot and on pain meds. "Lucky charm instead of every Tom, Dick, and Harry." She frowned. "Unless it's six, but six wouldn't be bad either, for a good guy like you."

"You believe in luck and charms and such?" he asked as the floors dinged as they passed each one.

"I'm a fortune teller. I'm not sure I can disbelieve in luck and charms and such." And her cousin was a medium, and they knew others with magic or the gift of luck.

"A fortune teller, yeah? That's really cool," he replied. "Like with palms and cards and crystal balls?"

It was clear what he knew of fortune tellers came from telly and cinema.

"Mhmm. But just cards for me. Learned at my grandmother's knee. Then the carnival, now busking." Her usual patter was so engrained, she didn't have to think to fall back on it.

Then she sobered. "That's what I was doing... when..."

"When you got shot," he finished. "Bad luck. Bt from what the police said they don't think you were a target. Just...unlucky," Hex added.

Em nodded again, slowly. She hadn't talked with the police yet, although they'd wanted to. She wasn't sure how much she'd have to tell them when she did. But with the hints the tarot had been giving her, she wasn't likely to bet on it being a random occurrence.

"The Wheel of Fortune goes down as much as up."

"Well it's on an upturn now. You're going to have a stay, be treated well, heal up a bit before we let you go. You're going to be just fine in a few days, Em," he assured her.

"It could've been a lot worse." Which was one way of agreeing with him. She'd lived too long in the castle not to have some idea how recovery could go.

"Nobody's really a fan of hospitals, though, are they?"

"No. No one really is," he chuckled, moving back to the head of her bed to push her out on the floor she'd been assigned to.

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