That’s when I heard crying coming from the room in front of us.
Please don’t let that be Sasha.
I hated that she was in pain and I’d caused it.
Unfortunately, as the door swung open, it revealed a sobbing Sasha with a doctor standing next to her. What made it worse was the fact he looked amused.
What the fuck?
“Ah, poor lamb, are you in pain again?” the nurse asked as she walked in, stopping next to the doctor.
“I’ve just given her the next dose of Oramorph,” he told her, writing something down on her chart.
Seeing me behind the nurse, Sasha raised her hand and pointed at me. “You!”
Crossing my arms over my chest and leaning against the wall behind me, I nodded slowly. “Yup, me.”
Instead of tearing me a new one, she held her good arm out for me and began crying even harder.
Shooting a confused look at the doctor, I pushed away from the wall and moved over to hug her, almost choking when she wrapped her arm tightly around my neck.
I didn’t have a lot of room to do it with how she was holding me, but I managed to say over the top of her head, “Anyone wanna clue me in on what’s going on?”
“Miss Adams-DeWitt is… concerned,” he choked out, “about the casts.”
Tilting her head back, Sasha wailed, “I’m not concerned. I’m fucking dev-ass-tay-tud.”
The way she broke the word down and enunciated the syllables made my head jerk and my eyes widen as I pulled away slightly.
Was that the concussion doing it, or was it the medication?
The doctor and nurse correctly read the question on my face, but it was the nurse who patted my shoulder while she smiled sympathetically down at her patient.
“That’s the medication doing that. It sometimes makes patients talk weirdly, but it’s really nothing to worry about.”
“It’s everything to worry about,” Sasha whimpered, using the blanket to wipe her nose. “You know how in Iron Man when they put him into the machine, and he’s got that tiny little body?”
I blinked. “Uh, that happens to Captain America, honey.”
“Same difference.” The doctor cleared his throat like he was about to argue with this, but she continued. “When I get this cast off”—she raised her good arm instead of the one with a cast on it—“it’s gonna look like he did before he went into the mean machine that made him into a god.”
“That was Thor,” the doctor interrupted, trying to disguise it like he was clearing his throat.
Either she was ignoring him or she hadn’t heard him, because she continued, “And my leg’s the worst.”
Looking down at the area in question, hidden under the snotty blanket, I frowned. “Does it need surgery?”
“It’s going to need a landscaper,” she sobbed. “I was going to shave my legs last night, so there’s already some forestry on it.”
I was so confused, I didn’t know what to say.
“I’ve got this cast on for six weeks. Do you know how much hair grows in six weeks?”
Without meaning to, my hand raised to rub along my chin, trying to imagine it after that length of time. Jesus, her leg was going to be a mess.
“I’ll look like chewin’ tabacca.”
This time, I was so lost that I looked up at the doctor and mouthed, “What the fuck?”
“In Star Trek, he’s got these hairy legs, and I always wondered if he used conditioner and a hairdryer. Now I’ll know. The poor guy’s gonna cut it off with a chainsaw, and he’ll get smothered by my Rapunzel leg hair.”
At least she was managing to talk properly, but there were way too many errors.
Didn’t she know her movies and characters? These were freaking franchises, everyone knew the characters. It’s like we got that information in utero and were born with it in our brains.
“Uh, are you talking about Chewbacca?”
“And I don’t have smelly feet, I was blessed with poo poori ones,”—the nurse leaned away and made a choking noise— “but they’re gonna smell like bad cheese.”
The poor girl was bawling now, and I felt like the world’s biggest asshole because I wanted to laugh as much as I wanted to make it better for her.
Carefully, I moved her over slightly so I could lie down beside her, then gathered her up and put her broken arm on my stomach, so it was cushioned and stabilized.
“Baby, your foot might not smell.”
Her voice when she replied was so soft, I had to strain to hear it. “He said it would.”
“Who did?”
“The mean doctor.”
Raising my eyebrow at who I assumed was the doctor in question, I waited for him to explain himself. Who upset a patient like that?
“It wasn’t me, it was Doctor Hughes who looked after her until he handed the patients over an hour ago. She asked if she could take the cast off to wash and shave her leg, and he said no. When she pointed out the problem with hair and cheese, he said she’d have to accept it like every other patient who broke their leg did.