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MIDNIGHT, TUESDAY, Jan. 11, 2022, OHSU — “Get in the car, Will,” Ryan ordered, appalled at what he had just heard.
“I don’t want to go to OHSU,” Will said, stubbornly. He was looking down the alley after Blair, but Ryan wasn’t sure he was really tracking.
“I didn’t ask you what you wanted,” Ryan said coldly. “Get in the fucking car.”
Will did. He slammed the door and sat there, looking like he was sulking. Ryan frowned.
“What was that all about?” Ryan asked, as he backed out of the alley so he didn’t have to drive past Blair.
“She thinks she knows everything,” he said. “She’s not my boss.”
“Why not?” Ryan asked — reasonably, he thought. Teresa was his boss after all. It worked out rather well, he thought with a private grin — if he got home before midnight, it might work out tonight.
“Just because you’re henpecked, doesn’t mean I want to be,” Will said. Ryan looked at him incredulously. He was sneering? Will Bristol? Mr. Too Nice for His Own Good?
Well at least he didn’t use the term pussy-whipped, although Ryan happily admitted he was that too.
“Shut up, Will,” Ryan said. “I’m too tired for your shit.”
“Then let me out, and I’ll go home,” he said, and actually tried to open the door. While the car was moving?
The Subaru had childproof door locks, however. With a 4-year-old? Damn right it did. And apparently 23-year-old editors with serious head injuries needed them too. Ryan picked up a bit of speed. Couldn’t take Pill Hill very fast on the best of times, and there was just enough rain to make the roads slick. He glanced at the temperature on the dashboard... 30 degrees. Just fine. Because all they needed was freezing rain. Still it might chase the protesters home. Or make their lives miserable if they stayed. He was fine with either.
“Shit,” Will said, and flung himself backwards into the seat.
“Will, sit quietly and relax,” Ryan advised. “You hurt your head, remember? What happened, anyway?”
Will frowned. “I’m not... it’s hard to remember,” he said. “I was talking to a protester. And then? Something clobbered me? Cage said a protest sign. I guess. But it hurt. A nail? I don’t know, really. But I couldn’t brace myself because I had my notebook and pen in my hands, and so I went down really hard. I hit my head on the curb, I think. I’m not sure. And then someone was kicking me. He had those really heavy boots on. Kicking my head? Who does that? And my ribs. They hurt too. And Cage came.”
Will fell silent, as Ryan parked his car next to the adolescent psychiatric unit. OK, Will probably needed the ER, not here. Technically, he wasn’t even an adolescent anymore — although he sure had been acting like it tonight — but Dr. Erica Clarke was one of the few people in the world Ryan trusted. She’d been there for him, and for all the other EWN staff that had been dragged to her doorstep, including Will, and he trusted she’d do right by him. So, he got out of the car, let Will out of the car, made him put on a mask, and urged him into the clinic.
“Will?” the nurse on duty said. “What happened to you?”
“Protester hit me over the head with a picket sign,” Will mumbled. “Health Clinic says I have a mild concussion, and to go home and sleep it off. They gave me some pain meds. But bossy here — and bossy number two at home — made me come here.”
The nurse frowned. “Sleep it off? A concussion? What did they give you to take?”
Will fished out the strip of pills. Ryan noted with a frown that he’d taken two of them.
“Tylenol with codeine?” The nurse clamped down on whatever else she wanted to say. Ryan nodded at her.
“He’s been acting off,” Ryan said. “He lists when he walks. His grin is off-center, and he’s irritable. Really irritable. I thought he should be checked out. He disagrees. But I’m stronger than he is.”
He smiled at the nurse who smiled back. He’d always liked her.
“Whatever,” Will muttered. “These lights are weird. They’re flickering. They aren’t supposed to do that.”
The nurse frowned again. “Come on, Will,” she said. “Let’s get you into a bed and I’ll find Dr. Clarke. You’ve got to sleep somewhere tonight, right? It might as well be here.”
Will grunted, but he followed her obediently back to one of the patient rooms. He’d been here before. Several times. Ryan went to park his car. Damn it, he was going to be really late getting home. He sent his wife a message and went back to the clinic.
The nurse came out of Will’s room shaking her head. “Doctor wants to keep him overnight,” she said. “She’s worried about some of the vital signs and she’s really not happy about them giving him codeine. What were they thinking? She’s thinking an MRI in the morning. You might as well go home. We’ll call you when he’s ready to go.”
Ryan sighed with relief. He could turn this problem over to competent people and go home. Hallelujah. “Thanks,” he said sincerely.
She laughed and waved him out of the clinic, and he went.
He sat in the car for a moment, and then called Blair. “Got him to Dr. Clarke. She’s concerned and keeping him overnight. They’ll call me in the morning. Are you OK?”
“Fine,” she said tiredly. “Thanks for getting him to go up there.”
“No problem,” Ryan said and hesitated.
“I talked to Dr. Crenshaw after the lecture tonight,” she said with more animation. “And she said I was to tell you I should be on the panel Thursday. And she was going to cause a ruckus if I wasn’t included.”
Ryan could hear the amusement in her voice, but she was serious. He thought about the panel and winced. Damn. “Of course, you should be on it,” he said. “That was stupid. It was your comments that started the whole thing in the first place. For that matter, Corey should be there, and Turk too. Now that would make it more interesting.”
But larger, he thought, would that be a problem?
“Really, Will’s role was to say let’s do it,” he said slowly. “And that’s important, but....” He trailed off wishing he hadn’t started that line of thought.
“I’ll make the change in the morning, Blair,” he said. “And I’m sorry I didn’t think it through better.”
He admired the hell out of the young woman, but he didn’t really know her all that well. They’d had a class together once — an Honors seminar, and the woman was wickedly smart. But he didn’t know anything of her background, other than a few guesses. She hid behind a smile and a perky attitude.
“Blair? He didn’t mean that,” Ryan said awkwardly. “Head injuries make people irritable, and that kind of remark is an indication that something is wrong.”
“I get that,” Blair said. He didn’t like the sound of her voice. She sounded... defeated? He frowned. “He probably wouldn’t have said it if he didn’t have a concussion. But Ryan? It doesn’t change the fact that he thinks that. That he thinks I’m bossy and too smart for my own good. Does it?”
Ryan laughed a bit. “Since I’m married to Teresa, you can tell I like bossy, smart women,” he teased a bit. “And my guess is, Will does too.”
“No one likes a smart girl, Ryan,” she said. Ryan thought she was close to tears, but before he could say anything more, she hung up. He chewed his lip. Meddlesome fool, he chastised himself, and then he sent Bianca a text: Blair needs a friend right now. You?
Bianca: I’m on it, boss.
Satisfied, Ryan went home. Maybe he wasn’t getting home too late after all.