"Shirt off, Goode. You know the drill."
"Shouldn't you buy me dinner first?"
"Hilarious. Now come on. I've got three more appointments after this."
"You're seeing other women? Doctor Jasons, I must say, I am truly heartbroken."
He rolled his eyes and it was impossible not to notice that he was leaving my jokes in the dust. "I'm not a doctor, I'm a medic. Shirt off."
"Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed today," I muttered, stripping myself of my official Gallagher uniform. My shoulder groaned with the movement still tight from the other night. When Scout saw it, he cut me a look, but then he helped pull.
I had gotten used to watching Scout work. I could usually see him through the mirrors on the other side of the room, watching as his brows crinkled and his tongue poked his cheek. He was so determined—so focused. Like the entire world had fallen apart in those few minutes and he was going to glue it back together again.
Sometimes I could convince myself that he was working on another girl, separate and safer than myself, but when I felt a sting, the girl in the mirror flinched, reminding me that she and I were one in the same. "Did that hurt?" he asked, snapping his eyes up at me. "That shouldn't have hurt."
"It's nothing," I said, which wasn't the truth, but it felt like the right answer.
It wasn't. "Don't say that," he said, his voice taking on the sort of impatience that came with repeating himself a hundred times. "Nothing is nothing, okay? If you have so much as a mildly uncomfortable hangnail, I want to know about it."
"Well, for the record, I'm hangnail free."
"This is serious, Maggie," he snapped, and I saw something crackling beneath his surface. The pops of a fire, just starting to spark. "What have you been doing to yourself? I told you to stay away from upper body activity. Push-ups, pull-ups, handstands, Yoakum maneuvers—"
"Then it's a good thing I didn't do any of that, isn't it?" I said, and it was the truth. I hadn't done a single one of those things.
"The only other thing that could have caused this was some sort of high-impact hit," he told me. My heart skipped a beat. "Something way stronger than what a person could have done. Something like guns, Maggie, and that's obviously not it, so tell me what you're doing and I can help you."
"I didn't do anything, Scout."
"You're lying to me," he said, bitter. "Which sucks, because I was under the impression that we didn't pull that crap with each other. Guess I was wrong."
Guilt. It had been an overused tactic from everyone lately, and so it slid right off me. "It didn't even hurt that bad," I grumbled.
"You know, Maggie," he said. "Back when I was in spy school they told me that you have to tell a few truths if you want anyone to believe your lies. It's a lesson that would serve you well. I don't know what you did to yourself, but it's earned you another week on the bench."
"So you're punishing me now? That's what this is?"
His words were louder than I'd ever heard before, the flame finally roaring. "When are you going to get that some people just want to help? That the people who care about you aren't out to destroy you after all? When are you going to get that through your thick skull, Goode?" The words stung, harsher than any old cut in my back, especially coming from him. "What if you had reopened the wound? Or worse, what if you only reopened one layer, and then I'd have to cut through the other perfectly healthy ones just to fix you up. Did you think about that?"
My words didn't come. There was nothing to say.
"No. You didn't," he bit. "You just went off and did whatever you wanted, because that's what you do."
I consider myself to be something of an expert on misdirected anger. It's an art I'm well practiced in. I know what it feels like to have the world wind you up and I know the release that comes when you finally have an excuse—any excuse—to let it all go. Scout wasn't mad at me. He was just mad.
I think that maybe he realized this at the same time I did, because I watched him hang his head, leaning up against that sticky blue table for support. His voice was softer this time. "You just... need to be more careful, okay?" he said, sounding truly, wholly exhausted. "I wouldn't be able to handle myself if anything happened to you."
"Nothing's going to happen to me—"
"Something already did happen to you, Mags," he reminded me. "Something bad—something that it's going to take you years to recover from. Years, Maggie. We don't know how it happened and we don't know why it happened, but it did, and I need you to take care of yourself before you end up on the other end of my first surgical knife, okay?"
I watched him through that massive mirror, looking like he was the one who needed a doctor, and I wondered where my Scout had gone. Where were the jokes? Where was the flirting? Where was that boy who had spotted me from a Roseville bench and smiled?
Gone, I realized. That personality fit him like a pair of old socks, nowadays. Worn out and too small. He was so much more to me than that boy from the bench.
I almost told him. Almost fessed up to my crimes then and there, but then Scout let out a long sigh. "God, you Goodes," he said. "You're going to be the death of me."
That was when it clicked. That was when I knew what was really eating at him. Scout hadn't woken up on the wrong side of the bed, but rather, in the wrong bed entirely. A bed without Matt. A bed without the person he loved at his side.
Scout came from a normal family. His parents didn't cross the Atlantic every other weekend. They didn't know how to get information from Langley. For most of his life, they had been sleeping in the bedroom next to him, so he didn't know how to miss a spy. He didn't know what to do when someone he loved was actively risking their life on the other side of the world.
It wasn't really fair. I knew the spy life and I knew that it took a lot of adjustment. I knew that it took a lot of practice to bury that specific sort of fear and I knew that people like Scout Jasons didn't deserve to be thrown into battle without any training.
So we needed to train him.
"One time, when I was really small," I started, letting him in on a secret. "Mom and Dad went on a mission—a long one. It's probably the first time I really remember them being away for so long."
The zip of the plastic echoed throughout the room as he pulled himself back, forcing himself upright once more. It was Scout-talk for "I'm listening."
"Matt and I were staying with Grandma and Grandpa Joe. We used to do that a lot, especially when we were that small."
Scout didn't interrupt and I realized that this was what it really felt like. This was what it meant to have someone take in my words. Value them. Listen. I continued, knowing that each and every thing I said was being heard. "I had been crying all night because, you know, I was little. I wanted Mom and Dad to come home. Grandma had made my favorite dinner and Grandpa Joe even let me play with his knives for a while, but it didn't matter. Nothing can fill that emptiness in your gut and after a while, it starts to hurt."
He nodded absently, and I knew that he was he was feeling his own emptiness, right where I could feel mine. It wasn't much. Just a hole in your stomach you couldn't quite forget about. As the years had gone on, mine had started to harden, the edges pulling themselves together, one bit at a time. But Scout's hole was fresh. Raw. Painful. "I was up in my room, trying to get some sleep, but you probably know that's the worst time. Your mind wanders. You start to freak out—I don't know about you, but sometimes it feels like the walls are falling in on me."
I remembered the silhouette of the boy, no older than eight, peaking in through a crack in my door, asking me what was wrong in a voice that seemed too high to have ever belonged to my big brother. "Matt could hear me through the walls—our rooms at the safe house have always been right next to each other. I couldn't stop crying, so he came over and he sat with me. I told him I was scared and he"—I couldn't bite back a laugh—"he told me he'd examine my room for monsters if it made me feel better."
This time Scout smiled too, and I couldn't help feeling like I had dragged out the old baby pictures of Matt smiling away in the bathtub. "Did he?" he asked.
I shook my head. "I told him that the monsters weren't in my room. That they were probably with Mom and Dad." I paused, needing to take a breath in. I thought of my mother, wondering what sorts of monsters she had faced since I'd last seen her. "He told me that I was probably right and that he couldn't do anything about it—which, needless to say, was not what I wanted to hear. But do you know what else he said?"
Scout didn't respond, too busy listening. I went on. "He said I'd know," I told him. "He said if the monsters got to someone I loved, I'd know it. That humans are built to know if something was wrong. Now, I don't know if he was right. He was eight. But Matt's not an idiot, Scout. I think he might be on to something."
"That's completely—"
"All I know is that it helps to tell yourself that you'd know better. That if something bad happens you have a way of knowing." I looked up at him. "Does it feel like Matt's in trouble to you?"
I held my breath, knowing what my answer was, but begging that his would be the same. He pondered the idea for a moment, as if connecting some sort of telepathic link across the world. Finally, carefully, he said, "No."
I let my breath fall. "Me neither," I admitted.
"But that doesn't mean anything," he was quick to say. "Nothing I think can possible change his physical state."
"No," I allowed. "But both of us think he's okay, and that can't be nothing."
Maybe the whole thing was just too beyond reasoning for the logical doctor in him. Maybe he just couldn't force himself to believe that he had any sort of control over destiny. I hoped that was it. I hoped that he wasn't this quiet because he felt the same thing I did. I hoped that he didn't feel that twinge in his gut—that little something that made me fell just a little bit off.
"I hope he's okay," Scout said, mostly to himself. "If he's not okay, I'll kill him."
"He's fine."
"Do you know what my biggest fear is?" he asked, suddenly so much more intense. "Do you know what might actually have the potential to kill me on the spot?"
"Cobras?" I tried to tease. "A rogue agent poisoning your food—wait. Is it black shoes with brown socks? Because honestly, Scout, I wouldn't blame you. That's just horrifying."
He looked like he wanted to laugh, but the power of his worst nightmare clutched him by the throat and stole him of his breath. Of his words. It took some work before he could get them out. "The day someone wheels the pieces of Matthew Goode into my operating room is the day I curl up and die." I knew a good secret when I heard one and I knew that Scout had never said these words out loud before. "I mean it, Maggie," he said. "I won't be able to do it—no way I'll be able to stitch him back together."
"Scout..."
"How's your head doing?" he asked abruptly. "Any panic attacks since you arrived at the Gallagher Academy?"
It was a clear subject change and I had to respect it, knowing that Scout would do the same if the roles were reversed. "No," I answered, surprising myself. Had it really been that long since I'd lost control of my body?
Scout smiled and I had to join in. "Nice," he said, holding out his hand. I high-fived him. "Did your dad talk to you about a therapist yet?" he asked.
I shook my head. "Dad's still looking. Says he wants to make sure we get the right one—I don't know. He's weird about that stuff."
Scout nodded, taking in every word I had to say. "Okay," he said. "Well your mental health is your number one priority at this point. We still haven't gotten a diagnosis for you, so we're still treating you for PTSD."
He pulled a clipboard off of the table and I couldn't hold back a smile. "Look at you, Mr. Medic. Diagnosis, PTSD, clipboards. You're the whole package, aren't you?"
He finished writing down whatever he needed to record before he said, "Buttering me up will not lessen your probation. A week, Maggie." He scratched through the board, probably signing off on something, before he set it back down. "Zero physical activity."
Figuring our appointment had come to a close, I stood, a layer of the skin from the back of my thighs left behind on that table as I did. "Now, when you say zero, you really just mean a little bit, right?"
He started walking me towards the door, handing my shirt back to me. "Actually, I meant zero."
"That's not fair!"
Scout blinked, confusion present in his expression for just a flash before his training took over. "You know how much I hate it when you speak Latin at me."
I crossed my arms, refusing to let him in on the fact that I'd had no idea I had switched languages. "I'm just saying that I think legs should be fair game."
It must've been in English this time, because he grabbed my arm and pulled me in front of the big wall of mirrors. There, underneath the strap of my bra, I could see a big red scar, clear as day. Scout was right. It had gotten worse, purple splotches lining the edges and the scar itself now a deep, spotted red. All at once, I understood why I had felt so sore for the past few days.
Scout leaned in close, his voice low and dangerous as he said, "Until you can tell me what did that to you, you're not even going to see the inside of the P&E barn. Is that clear?"
I kept my mouth shut, knowing it was the better option. Now I'd have to find a way to work around Finn and Scout. This list of antagonists was getting a little long for my taste.
I pulled my shirt back over my head, which Scout took as I had intended him to. As a sign of my stubbornness. He groaned and let me go. "I'm setting up an appointment for blood tests and an ultrasound."
This made me stop cold. I knew that Scout was one to tease me for my less-than-impressive, less-than-simplistic love life, but he hadn't sounded like he was joking. "You know I'm not..."
"I'm checking for internal bleeding," he said flatly. "I know you're not pregnant—which reminds me. Are you sexually active?"
"So what if I am? You going to do something about that?"
"Maybe someday," he teased. Then, more serious, "But I need to know. My team thinks we should get an updated CT scan. We want to check and see that there aren't any surprises in you brain, but we want to make sure that there's nothing getting radiation that shouldn't be."
"Again I say—not pregnant."
He rolled his eyes. "Yes, I know that and you know that, but I need you to say the words out loud so that I can officially mark you down as inactive. This is serious stuff, Mags. Internal bleeding is the sort of thing that could kill you."
"Fine!" I said, probably far too loudly. Scout's eyes widened, like maybe he was about to get hit square in the nose. "Scout Jasons, I am a virgin. Is that what you wanted to hear?"
His jaw dropped and that was when I realized that Scout wasn't looking at me. He was looking over my shoulder. I heard a third party clear their throat and, wouldn't you know it, I turned to see my father, standing right behind me.
Half of my shirt was still waiting to be pulled over my torso. Scout was probably closer to me than was entirely necessary. "So..." said Dad, his eyes not meeting mine, and I felt my cheeks turn a bright, horrified crimson. "I came down here to ask if you wanted to have dinner together tonight."