Babysitting?

Chapter 5

A silver haired lady in her mid 60s was sitting behind the reception desk in the lobby of the Academy portion of the hospital. She had a young looking face and was still in fairly good shape, just as a retired-from-missions Academy member should be. She and her husbands had been in the Academy for 50 plus years. Yes Husbands, everyone thought that the Anderson team was the first team to have either one bird or dog on a team of the opposite sex, but it was a closely guarded secret that many older teams had operated that way. The South had never been very tolerant of anything outside their perceived notions of normal and years ago it was far worse. The only exception back then was the Academy. At that time, membership to the Academy was relatively small even though it was widespread throughout the world. The majority of new members were children of or closely affiliated with current members and were accepting of the different lifestyles. Then things started to change; the Academy started to grow bigger and the majority of new members had no prior involvement with the Academy family. This lead to a change in acceptance levels. Outside influences on what lifestyles were acceptable started to infiltrate especially here in SC. Those families who had been able to act openly at Academy wide events started to feel the pressure to hide until even the knowledge of their existence was hidden and guarded. Her family had been one of the last few to follow this path, but after 10 years or so, they, too, had started to feel the pressure to hide who they were. Even here, at the hospital, she treated her husbands as if they were brothers or longtime friends when they dropped her off or picked her up. When talking about them she called them only by name and never referenced their relationship. In fact, Dr. Roberts was probably the only person here at the hospital that knew about her relationship status. Since her and her husbands were mission-retired, outside of Dr. Roberts and the Anderson team, only old-timers like themselves knew.

Despite her youthful appearance, she gave off an a grandmotherly air which worked well in her role as one of the receptionists here. While she wasn't a grandmother in her own right, she often felt like a surrogate grandmother to many of the younger staff here at the hospital. One staff member in particular was extremely close; she had known him for 20 years. She had been on duty the day his mother found him abandoned in the hospital. He was such a cute baby. She knew looking at that baby that if his now- mother wasn't going to adopt him, she would have offered even though she was already in her early 40's. She knew that her husbands' would not have minded even though they had decided that their lifestyle was no longer conducive to raising children.

She watched him grow throughout his elementary years as he would accompany his parents to stay the hospital for hours on end after school. She rejoiced in his successes and tried to comfort him in his failures. When pressures from his tiger mom would become to great, she would sneak him down to the cafeteria for some apple pie. When he hit his teens and started floundering, rebelling against the strict hold his parents, who did love him, had on him, she worried for his safety. She spoke to Dr. Roberts about him and Dr. Roberts introduced him to another wayward teen. Her heart rejoiced when he formed a team with That teen even though they were complete opposites and it grew even happier when he added each one of his brothers.

Then about 10 months ago, she noticed a change in him. It was almost as if he was in love. Even though he was young, she really hoped that he would find a sweet young girl to settle down with. The odds were against him finding that someone even though she knew that he was handsome, fun, and had women of all ages falling at his feet. Most Academy members ended up marrying within the Academy, but then you had to leave your current team. She knew that he would never do that. His only other option would be to find a girl with no ties to the Academy, but then she would have to be extremely understanding about his work. She would also have to get along with all the other girlfriends and wives that the rest of his team would add. He was already a member of one of the largest Academy teams so the likelihood of that happening was slim. It was too bad that the Academy was the way it was now because the best hope he would have for a relationship would be to have one like hers and the Anderson's. She was hopeful that he was in love so she tried asking him about it, but he wouldn't say anything. She then tried apple pie since it had always made him open up in the past, but all she got out of him was that the new mission they were on was bigger and more exciting that they had originally estimated. She decided to let it go. So long as he was happy then she was fine.

Two weeks ago, she noticed another mood change in him. He had often been tired while on their last mission, but now he was tired and down. She thought that maybe he had broken up with the girlfriend that wouldn't admit to having, but it wasn't the right type of down. She had told herself that if he came back from his upcoming days off in the same condition, she would take him out to her home for homemade apple pie. If she couldn't find out what was wrong with him, then maybe her husbands could. She wasn't worried about him finding out about her home life since he seemed to have an intrigued look on his face anytime he saw one of her husbands over the past six months. "Maybe it was time to tell him the truth. It might give him hope," she had thought, after all, she loved him as if he was her own.

She was just starting to put her phones on call forwarding for her lunch break when the object of her earlier thoughts bounded into the lobby. He passed right by her desk without saying a word which was completely out of character for him. It was enough to pique her curiosity causing her to stop what she was doing with the phones and to sit back quietly to watch. Dr. Sean Green continued forward with his pacing across the lobby, his white coat trailing behind him. Thinking about it, she thought that pacing was not an accurate description of what he was doing. He was doing something between a skip, an excited hop, and a bounding step. When he reached the far wall he turned around and started to come back towards her. Looking at his face she was reminded of a much younger Sean. It was the look that he wore whenever he was eagerly anticipating something. She remembered one particular Christmas, he must have been about 13, when he was acting and looking like while that waiting for the Christmas present that her husbands had promised him.

He walked past her desk again without acknowledging her. She was becoming more intrigued by the second. She was so relieved to see this level of animation on his face after what she had been seeing for the past two weeks.

Just after he went past her desk, the front doors opened up revealing a beautiful young woman walking in beside Mr. Blackbourne who was carrying a take-out food bag. They. The two of them were talking as if they were the only two people in the world. She had long chameleon coloured hair and a sweet smile. Mr. Blackbourne seemed to dwarf her, but her short stature didn't seem to stop her from lighting up the lobby the minute she walked in. Thinking back, she remembered seeing this young woman in the hospital before a few times and she was always in the company of one of Sean's brothers. She wondered who she was, but didn't have long to wait before she heard.....,

"Pookie!"