Elizabeth's triage was incredibly awkward, mostly because she could not be truthful with the questioning nurse.
The nurse asked her to describe what had happened back at The Lost Treasure and instead of telling her that she might have travelled back in time, into some alternate dimension, or something else that might get her put in a soft padded room, Elizabeth simply informed her that she was in the bar when she blacked out.
"And when you came to?"
"I found myself outside, by the road."
"Goodness. That's scary. Thank God your friend was there to help you."
"Yes," Elizabeth said. "I'm very lucky."
"Well, that's all grand." The nurse assessed the information on her desktop monitor. "If you'd like to return to the waiting room, we'll get this sent on. After that, one of our doctors will call you through."
As Elizabeth sat next to Robert in the waiting room of The Holy Cross, they became absorbed by the bad Spanish soap opera playing on TV. The most frustrating thing about it was that the subtitles were much too tiny to read from this distance, so she had to make up her own plot in her head.
Robert, however, was able to hum along to the theme song which played at each ad break, as if he knew it.
This man would never fail to surprise her.
At the end of the episode, Elizabeth had finally mustered up the courage to say, "Listen, Robert, I'm so sorry that I ruined your set."
Robert favoured her with a pearly white smile. "Would you stop saying that? We literally only had a few songs left to play and they were the filler ones. Besides, Chris, our backing vocalist, is better than I am for certain songs, especially ones that require that killer falsetto."
"I don't believe you."
"No, I'm telling you, the man can really hit a high-"
"I meant that I don't believe you only had your filler songs left. Seemed to me like you were all building up to a grand finale. But you're very sweet to lie."
Robert shrugged. "Believe what you will."
While they waited for the next episode of the soap, Elizabeth analysed the folk within the Accident and Emergency waiting room. There were people with all manner of ailments, which included split heads, broken bones, and things that were a deal less visible.
On one side sat a man with dry blood caked to the left half of his face and bruised knuckles on the hand belonging to the same side. To the other side sat a woman who had her mouth and nose buried into a scarf, but whether she was protecting herself from others or others from herself would remain a mystery.
Directly across from them sat a teenager, with her hair dyed as black as night. She had piercings on her ears, lips, and eyebrows, and those were just the visible ones. She had a tattoo of a snake, coiling about her neck and a sleeve with a large, slanted cross on her left forearm.
She seemed terribly young for all of that, but she did sport the punk rocker aesthetic rather well. It was the sort of rebellious look that someone like Marie might admire.
Marie.
Hannah.
"Oh no," Elizabeth said, slapping her forehead.
"What is it?" Robert asked, jolting up as if he had been so immersed in the soap opera that he had forgotten where they were.
"I just remembered that I was supposed to collect Hannah and Marie from the concert around this time. I thought I would've been able to order a taxi and been able to get them picked up, but..."
"Why don't you give them a call?" Robert suggested.
Elizabeth checked her phone, frowned, and then said, "I can't. It's completely dead."
"Why don't you use that phone over there?" He pointed to the public, corded phone that sat just next to the reception desk.
Elizabeth offered him a guilty look.
"Oh, don't tell me that you don't know either of your daughter's numbers?"
"I'm not good with memorising that sort of stuff. I don't even know my own."
He raised an eyebrow so high that it was a marvel that it didn't conjoin with the hair atop his head.
"Yes, judge me. I'm completely over-reliant on technology. I'm one of those people. I'll freely admit it."
"Well, I wasn't going to say anything." He leaned forward and grasped both of his knees for support. "Listen, I'll go and collect them for you if you let me know where you dropped them off."
"Oh, Robert, but you've already done so much for me. I couldn't ask you to-"
"It's no trouble. If it makes you feel any better, you can owe me sometime. Perhaps one morning I'll find myself without a cup of sugar."
She promised that she would supply him with all the sugar in Willow Town if she had to.
Content, he left his number with her. It was printed on a small business card that informed her that his name was Robert Campbell and that he was owner of The Lost Treasure and lead singer of the Manic Hares.
After receiving directions, he swiftly rushed off.
Elizabeth only had to finish one more episode of the soap opera before she was called into a private, partitioned area by Doctor Williams.
Doctor Williams was tall and had the most lush, beautiful silky hair, which shone in the light, catching it from every angle, the way that hair normally only did in professional shampoo adverts. Either she was blessed with incredible genetics or had used her profound health knowledge for good, by cracking the ideal conditioner and shampoo ratio and frequency.
Elizabeth was invited to lay down, so she did.
Doctor Williams smiled and regarded a chart that was attached to a brown clipboard. "I have your account of things here, but I'm wondering if I could trouble you for a bit more detail about the incident?"
Elizabeth informed her of events and attempted to make the lie as convincing as possible, while ensuring it was consistent to the version she told the nurse.
"So you just faded out?" Doctor Williams asked.
"Yeah. I think I must've been out for a few minutes at least to get from the middle of the bar to the side of the pavement, but I can't really recall anything between the two points."
"Has anything like that ever happened before?" Doctor Williams asked.
Elizabeth shook her head. Although she'd lived a very strange life, full of stories that no one would ever believe unless they'd witnessed it with their own eyes, on this occasion, she was telling the truth. Amid all the strangeness, there had never been anything like that.
"Are you currently experiencing any stress?"
"Stress?"
"Specifically new stressors. Have there been any dramatic changes to your life?"
"Well, actually, I'm new to Willow Town. Moved here for a new job. New house. Everything's new."
Now Doctor Williams grinned, as if they were just a couple of gals meeting up in the pub. "Oh, and how are you finding it?"
"It can be a bit much, at times, but so far so good." Apart from tonight, of course, she thought.
"I moved here for work too. Yeah, it's unlike any place I've ever been to."
"I'll say."
"And what of the night of the incident itself? Was there any stress that exacerbated the situation or any intense stimulation?"
"Well, I was in a loud bar, with lots of music and bright lights."
Nodding, Doctor Williams now requested Elizabeth remove or lift up her shirt.
She did the latter. Once that was raised, Doctor Williams attached little sticky nodes all over her chest and shoulder region, then monitored her.
After a period of silence and assessing, she started to make small talk about Elizabeth's profession, absent love life, and whether she had any children.
"Two girls?" Doctor Williams asked. "That must be hard work. I just have the one and she sends me up the wall."
"What age is she?" Elizabeth said.
"Seven."
"Enjoy these days. Wait until she's a teenager, like my two. Then the fun really begins."
Doctor Williams paused, perhaps doing the maths required to calculate how on earth someone of Elizabeth's age could have two teenagers.
After she took bloods, she requested that Elizabeth go to the toilet with a bottle, to provide them with a urine sample.
"Excellent," Doctor Williams said when she returned with a full bottle. "If you go back to the waiting room, we will call you when we have the results back from the lab."
"It's that fast?"
"For something simple like this, it shouldn't be too long."
Elizabeth returned to the waiting room and slumped back into her original chair. Where the punk rocker had been before, now sat a man with long, shaggy hair, like a bird's nest. He also wore an eye patch. With his good eye, he regarded her with a curious, analytical gaze, so fierce that she was forced to glance away.
From the other side, she was being stared at by a bald man who sort of looked like The Rock, if The Rock was taller, spindlier, and 150lbs lighter.
Her attention returned to the Spanish soap opera.
When she was called back in by Doctor Williams, this time to a different curtained section, the doctor said, "The results are back from the lab and I am pleased to say that we've ruled out a couple of big things. Your heart, blood, and urine all came back perfectly normal."
"Well, that's good to know."
"Yes. It's just unfortunately inconclusive as to what exactly brought about this state."
"So I'm a medical mystery?"
Doctor Williams smiled. "Sadly, human bodies are often weird, wonderful, and random, even to those of us who've attended medical school. You'd be surprised how often we simply have no idea, but are just trying to eliminate this and that."
"Makes sense."
"So, to continue the process, we're going to refer you onto Doctor Andrews."
"Doctor Andrews?"
"She's a neurologist. We've progressed your case onto her queue, but the typical wait time could be anything from a couple of weeks, right up to a couple of months."
"God, I knew things were tight, but I didn't realise I might have to wait that long."
"Hopefully, it'll be the former rather than the latter, but we can't promise anything."
"All you can do is use the resources you have. I'm sure you're all doing everything you can." Elizabeth swallowed and said, "Is she going to put me into one of those big metal tubes?"
"That'll be at her discretion, based on your results. She could go with an MRI machine or she might scan your brain with an EEG. Again, we're just trying to rule out anything serious."
Elizabeth knew what she was getting at, but would not say. She knew what they'd be checking for next. Growing up, she had a classmate with epilepsy. Mia would regularly go into fits, at least a couple times a year and then have no memory of them. Sometimes it wouldn't even be the typical shaking, but she'd just blank out for a few minutes.
Could that be what happened to her?
Did people ever hallucinate or have vivid dreams when they went into fits?
"And if those results come back inconclusive?" she asked.
"Then I would say that the simplest answer is the most likely, that moving to a new town and starting a new job, being a mother of two teenage girls, has all taken its toll. This probably could just be a complete freak, isolated incident."
"I'll have to get back on the yoga and meditation."
"Absolutely nothing wrong with that, but until Doctor Andrews is available to see you, I must strongly advise against swimming and absolutely no driving."
Elizabeth nodded, believing that until they found out exactly what was wrong with her, or at least had a good idea, that was probably for the best. "Got it. Thank you."