Outer Space

Chapter 16 - Thanks Dr. Kent

    "Excuse me," Doctor guy said trying to get both Charlie and Maddox's attention. Charlie was currently staring down Maddox giving him a death glare. Maddox looked as if he was ready for a fight but was completely aware that this was not the time or place for one. Charlie did not have the same awareness.

   "Dr. Kent, is there anywhere that me and her can talk privately?" Maddox figured that he would at least ask because they were all beginning to get a lot of glares from the people around them. People that were also sitting in a hospital waiting room.

   When Dr. Kent had lead Maddox away after he punched the wall he had told him that he would stay with him until they found anything out. The first thing Maddox did after Dr. Kent wrapped his hand was ask if they had found Jemma's phone on her because in the back of his mind, he knew that he needed to call at least someone and tell them what was going on.

   When Dr. Kent was able to get the phone for him he wasn't surprised there was a password. What did surprise him, however, was that he was able to guess the password on the first try. It was a mistake really. When he went to put in the password he accidentally just put in his password. He quickly realized that they happened to be the same thing.

   It was their anniversary, well kind of. The two of them had been together for like forever... unofficially though. The date that Jemma and Maddox counted as their anniversary was the day that Jemma finally agreed to let Maddox call her his girlfriend. It had been a long time coming, but Jemma was way too stubborn for her own good.

   The fact that Jemma had kept that as her password after everything that had gone down with them. For Maddox, having that password on his phone was a daily reminder of Jemma, so thinking about it he wondered if Jemma thought about him every day too when she typed in her phone password. Having those thoughts in his head somehow made things a thousand times worse, knowing that for two years of nothing between them, Jemma still thought about him. 

   Being the blubbering mess that he had been, he surprised himself when he was able to think to call Charlie. He barely remembered what he said to her on their phone call It was kind of a miracle that she even showed up given that Maddox could barely even tell her where he was.

   Anyway, Maddox's main point was that Dr. Kent had been a big help to him over the past couple of hours. He had sat with him and did his best to distract him. Also, Maddox was pretty sure that he had something better to do but he was glad that the guy was willing to sit next to him and calm him down. Because without him, Maddox would probably have punched multiple holes in the wall by now.

   Yet again, Dr. Kent was a savior and led both Charlie and Maddox to some room. Although, when first walked in the room he was not expecting to see an old man lying in the bed looking pretty much dead.

   Dr. Kent caught both of the curious glances coming his way and his only response to them was, "Don't worry about him. He's been in a coma for years. And this is the only place you guys are going to get to talk."

   Shaking his head and doing his best to ignore the strange old man that was only a few feet away from him Maddox did his best to explain to Charlie why he was here. "I got home a couple of weeks ago, okay." He began. "I wasn't gonna go see her, I swear, I was going to just leave her alone. But knowing that she was so close I couldn't help myself. I talked to her for maybe a minute before she stormed off that first time."

   Before he could continue, Charlie interrupted. "I know this part already. Jemma came to me the night you showed up at her door and she got plastered." Maddox was not thrown off.

   "I went back the next day. I wasn't even going to knock on the door, I was literally about to leave. But her dad walked up behind me and saw me staring at his front door. I made up some excuse about who I was trying to get out of there but he invited me in and he would not take no for an answer, trust me I tried to say no, multiple times."

   Another interruption by Charlie, "You talked to her father?!" Pretty much the reaction he was expecting.

   "I didn't know about what he was doing, Jemma told me later that night. After she showed up at her apartment she looked really uncomfortable and I didn't know what to do so I asked her if she wanted to go talk and she said yes. She brought me to the diner but you weren't there"

   "I know that already too, my coworker told me about the two kids that were screaming at each other." Her coworker, Janie, had said something about how Jemma had shown up but didn't ask for her. Charlie was pretty sure that Janie was a little bit jealous of Jemma for some reason. She seemed absolutely giddy to tell Charlie about Jemma's screaming match with the unknown boy.

   "Okay, then you know everything. Why are we even talking to each other?" Maddox yelled seemingly very frustrated.

   "I don't know everything damn it," Charlie screamed right back. "Because after your conversation that night Jemma disappeared for a week and went god knows where so tell me what the hell you said to her."

   "I told her I was sorry, Charlie. I told her that I shouldn't have ever left. I told her that I thought that she would have been better off without me. I told her that I knew about the pregnancy test and that I got scared okay. I literally said everything I could think to say at the time. We screamed at each other. She told me things that I never knew. Then she took off and didn't look back." Maddox decided that he was going to finish his story without any more Charlie interruptions so he continued before she could get a word in. "Tonight I went to one of our old meeting places to clear my head and I saw her passed out on the ground."

   Silence. Nothing could be heard in the room that still held a total of four people. Then a strange noise came from the corner that Dr. Kent seemed to occupy. He pulled out his phone to look at the interruption. Both Charlie and Maddox 's eyes once again focused on him.

   He looked up awkwardly, by what he said was probably the best news that Maddox had been given in a while. "Your friend is awake. I can take you guys to her, but you're going to have to be quiet. And you can't ask her any questions, okay. In situations like this, it just makes the patient more frustrated. You have to remember that earlier tonight she wanted to die and now she is stuck in a crappy hospital and no offense but it seems like she is stuck in the middle of a lot of fucking drama."