She rolled over with a groan, burying her head deeper into the covers. Still the tinny sound of the ringing telephone echoed sharply in her ears. Dragging her face up from the pillow, Stevie rubbed her eyes and blindly reached across the bed. Dragging the telephone from its base to her ear, she sunk back into the mattress.
"Mmm–hello?" She answered, squinting against the sunlight shining through the curtain sheers.
"Thank god you picked up–"
"Richard?" She cut him off, sitting up against the bed frame as his panicked tone quickly put her on edge.
"Yeah?" His voice was harried. This tense exhaustion was strange to her, coming from a man she'd always known to be optimistic and easy-going.
"What is it?"
"It's just-shit, they gave me all these important forms to fill out and I don't even know half what's it's asking-"
"What are- will you slow down, I can't really–" Stevie pleaded, unable to make out his anxious ramblings and still half-convinced this was some bizarre dream. She cringed, finally stealing a glance at the time. She'd really slept the day away-
"Yeah, I guess the main thing is- do you know Lindsey's blood type? Cause I feel like that's just something you're not supposed to guess-"
O-positive, her addled mind instinctually responded before the implications of his question could register.
"It's O-positive, but why-"
"Thanks, Stevie. I was pretty sure you'd know, and you know I really didn't want to worry his mom until at least some of the tests are done."
"Richard," she demanded, her voice now tense with the horrible scenarios flitting through her thoughts, "where's Lindsey? What's happened? Is he-"
Before she could continue, he began to speak, his incredulity clear.
"What? We're at the hospital."
"Why?" Her voice broke on the single word, desperate and adamant.
"I thought Mick told you - I- I didn't think-"
He cut himself off, voice suddenly gentle and the sound of it had her gripping the phone with white knuckles.
"Honey, Lindsey—he collapsed..."
.
.
.
"I don't know how much longer we should-" Christine attempted to reason, only to be quickly rebuffed.
"We should what?" Mick cried, head swinging towards her, "I don't have time to drag her bloody ass out of bed right now. I've got fucking Warner breathing down my neck—yes, hello? Dave?"
Christine huffed, glancing out the window of Mick's suite. While the fallout of his ill-advised affair with Stevie had been causing issues for everyone, Christine resented Mick's childish behavior even within a serious situation like this. Maybe if he hadn't bloody well slept with her-
The door swung open, banging against the wall as Stevie stormed through the doorway.
"How could you? Lindsey gets sent off in an ambulance and I don't even get a goddamn phone call-"
Closing his hand over the speaker, Mick's deathly stare stunned her into silence as she stops just before the small cluster of chairs.
"Sorry Dave, if you could hold on, just for a moment-"
"Where is he?" She demands, regaining her momentum. "I went down to the lobby to call a car before I realized there's more than one hospital in Philadelphia—so which is it?"
"Stevie," Mick instructed harshly, as though berating a child, "I'll answer your questions but in case you've forgotten, we have a show to play in about five hours and no guitarist to play in it so if you don't mind-"
Stevie shoved her aviators up over her snarled curls, eyes hard as she glanced at Christine, "Hi Chris—it's nice to know that everybody was told about this except for me—"
"I didn't have to tell Chris anything," Mick shouted, "because she was awake—because she wasn't playing dress up in front of her polaroid all fucking night!"
Christine remains silent, a smirk playing over her lips and Stevie breathes deeply, trying to regain her bearings.
"I am the only one that knows his medical information," Stevie spoke again, attempting to be calm. "They won't have it on file here, and you sent him off in an ambulance with Richard, for god's sake-"
"I'm sure Lindsey would've cracked his head open sooner if he knew you'd pay this much attention to him," Christine muttered under her breath and Stevie shoots her such a deadly watery look, about to cry but also wanting to run across the room and rake her nails down the woman's face.
"He hurt his head?" She said, suddenly very afraid.
"Did it ever cross your mind that maybe, just maybe, he doesn't want to see you?" Mick asked in pure condescension and annoyance. "Carol was there, she'll take care of him."
The thought of Carol Ann crying over him, her grubby little fingers holding Lindsey's prone body infuriated Stevie to an irrational degree. It should've been her, and now she might not even, not ever, get to-
"Stevie, you're not helping anyone here." Christine reasoned with a dismissive tone. "Why don't you go and ask your angels-"
Stevie turned sharply, storming over to where Mick had begun speaking into the telephone before snatching the base of the receiver and hurling it against the opposite wall.
"Stevie-" Mick shouted, his long limbs springing towards the deposed device.
"Give it to me!" She finally screamed, stunning both of them into silence. "I'll sit in the lobby if I have to but I swear to god, if you don't give me the name of his fucking hospital-"
"Penn Presbyterian, the university hospital-"
Stevie turned towards the door as the last shocked syllable left his lips, exiting the room just as quickly as she'd entered it.
