Outer Space

Chapter 23 - Lunch Time

"Since you are a minor in order to sign out of the hospital you need a guardian's signature. The second that your guardian signs the papers you will be free to leave." Dr. Leonard told Jemma when she walked into the room this time. "If a guardian fails to sign the papers within the next 48 hours we will be forced to call social services again to come deal with whatever is going on." This was not good, not in the slightest.

"What!" Charlie exclaimed. "I thought you told us that she could leave once the 72 hour hold was up." Charlie knew that there was no way in hell that Jemma would ever call her father to tell him what she did. However, what Charlie didn't know was what Jemma was willing to let happen in favor of talking to her dad.

"Yes, that is correct. As soon as the 72 hour hold is up Jemma is free to sign the discharge papers, but like I said she is a minor which means that a legal guardian will need to sign the papers." Dr. Leonard looked almost smug as she was talking and it was driving Jemma insane. She hated people like this.

Dr. Leonard walked out of the room after she finished delivering her news to Jemma. The girl that now felt permanently trapped in a bed had no idea how to feel. She really was trapped now. What were her options here? She could call her abusive father, tell him that she tried to kill herself, and unintentionally got social services involved. Or she could not call her father and she would probably end up in foster care or maybe even something worse than she could even think about right now.

"Jemma?" Charlie approached as cautiously as she could. She also had no idea what to do in this situation.

"I don't want to talk about it right now. Please just drop it for a little while, please." Jemma begged and Charlie had no trouble agreeing to drop the topic for now. They could think up some kind of solution later, but right now they both just needed a little break.

..........

Jemma was taking a well deserved nap so Charlie took the opportunity to go down to the cafeteria. She hadn't been to work in who knows how long and she's not sure how much longer her 'I'm sick' excuse is going to hold up. She doesn't have time to worry about herself, however, she has enough of Jemma's drama to deal with.

Charlie went through the cafeteria line and the only thing that she could find that looked even remotely edible was a salad so that's what she grabbed. Once she paid for the insanely overpriced salad, she found herself a seat in the corner of the large room. She did her best to be seated as far away from the large swarms of people as possible.

Once she cracked open the salad container she noticed that there was a doctor that broke away from the crowd and was headed her way. "Hi," he said when he took a seat at the table she was seated at opposite of her. It was Dr. Kent. Charlie was at least slightly pleased that it was one of the nice ones rather than Dr. Leonard or Dr. Morgan.

"Hey," Charlie greeted. Her normal greeting for a person that she didn't want to talk to one bit. The way she said the one word told the man everything but it seemed like he couldn't take a hint. Charlie didn't like guys that couldn't take a hint.

"How's the girl? Jemma, right?" He continued carrying on their conversation, the conversation that Charlie clearly did not want to be having. Charlie was actually a little taken aback that Dr. Kent even thought to ask how Jemma was doing or that he even remembered Jemma's name. With the experiences that she'd been having with the doctors in this hospital she had drawn the conclusion that they were all cold blooded machines with no actual feelings.

"She's alive, but she's going through a lot right now." That was the best answer that Charlie could come up with. And she did want to answer him. The only people that she has had contact with in the last couple of days was Jemma and her annoying doctors, oh and that social worker. But enough said, she needed someone to talk to.

"Anything I can help with?" Charlie knew that there was nothing that he could really do to help, but it was still pretty nice of him to ask. She was starting to wonder why the guy wanted to work in this hell hole of a hospital everyday.

"No. It's a bunch of family drama. We'll see how it plays out I guess." Charlie liked talking to him.

"That sucks." He said. "Hey, I was wondering if that kid, Maddox, ever came back. He seemed like a good guy. I kind of felt bad for him when he left without even going to see your friend."

"He was a good guy, but things change I guess. No, he hasn't come back and I'm kind of glad he left in the first place because there was no telling how Jemma would react to seeing him after everything." Charlie, as usual, didn't have a problem telling an almost complete stranger everything that she knows. It's kind of her super power, spilling her guts to anyone that will listen to her.

"Seriously he did something so bad that you don't even want him to see the girl that he was so torn up over. He punched a wall for gods sake." Dr, Kent responded.

"You were there for our argument, weren't you? You heard why I was so angry at him, didn't you?" Charlie knew for a fact that Dr. Kent was there for her and Maddox 's entire argument so she was kind of confused why he even bothered asking her.

"Yeah but that only gave me pieces of a puzzle. It was kind of hard to put them together when I was trying to make sure that no one outside of that room could hear you guys screaming. And in case you were wondering I don't get a lot of entertainment around here so give me something to feed my starving sole, please." He begged dragging out the please at the end of his sentence.

Charlie laughed at him. "Maddox is probably the reason that Jemma tried to kill herself. That is why I didn't want him seeing her. Does that feed your sole enough?" She questioned him, but as she started to think about it she realized that while Maddox may have been the trigger to the gun that Jemma pulled, he wasn't the reason. After everything that Jemma had been through in the past couple years Maddox was just the beginning. There was so much more and Charlie needed to figure it all out to make sure that Jemma never tried something like this again.