Time crawled across the dull wasteland of Brock's Saturday. In and out of his sedatives, he woke up every time to find Gillian wasn't there.
Cassidy dropped by in the afternoon to check on him and Russell, and finding Brock awake, he lingered at his room. He pulled up a chair and told Brock about the KKK attempt to cause riots and how they'd arrested four of Balken's men in that fight. So with Balken dead, those men arrested and all the people extremely sensitive to hate demonstrations, Cassidy was positive nobody would try to kill Russell or Brock.
"However, I'll be glad to get you guys on that plane tomorrow and take you home."
Brock nodded. He appreciated Cassidy's visit and account, but there was only one thing he wanted to know, and he couldn't ask it—where's Gillian?
Ron and Fred also showed up, on their way to see Russell. They said they were happy he'd made it, and wished him an easy and fast recovery.
Even Tanya came to see him later that afternoon, and she stayed longer than anybody else. With that taste for breaking the rules, she closed the blinds a little, turned on the TV and placed the remote under Brock's hand. Then she fetched herself a huge coffee, helped Brock to feast on three sips of water with a straw, and they watched together the local news and the coverage of last night's events.
She showed him his go-bag in the room's small closet. "Reg packed all your things from the cabin, sir," she said. "We couldn't find your phone, though."
Brook shook his head slightly.
"You lost it when they caught you?"
Now he blinked.
Tanya grabbed her backpack. "That's what we thought," she said, searching it. "So we got you a new one." She produced a small box and opened it for him to see a phone looking exactly like his. "Not the one I would've picked, sir. But Reg insisted this is the one you had, and you don't need anything more complex."
Brock blinked again, helplessly touched by the thought of Gillian and Tanya discussing phones for him. Nothing like being about to die to appreciate little gestures.
He ignored his sarcasm to listen to Tanya. The girl tried to speak slower than usual, but he needed to pay a lot of attention anyway.
"I accessed the... never mind. You have your old line and all your contacts in this phone, sir. No way to recover any text or file you had stored in the lost one, though." She slid it under Brock's pillow with a shy smile. "Here. If you feel it buzz, it'll be Andrea to wish you a good night."
Brock nodded, grateful he wasn't able to speak. Else, his shaky voice would've given away how moved he was.
Tanya smiled again. "She'll be waiting for you at the hospital in DC tomorrow."
He was surprised when the girl rested a hand on his shoulder. "You take care and get well, sir. And please, don't hesitate to contact me if there's anything you need. Already made Andrea promise, but I wanted you to know too. On Monday we're starting to work in order to locate the remains of the militia, wherever they're hiding. And we're so gonna find them, sir. Sooner or later we're gonna find them and make them pay for what they did to you and Russell."
Brock nodded once more. Tanya nodded too. She pressed his shoulder softly, grabbed her backpack and left.
His lips pursed as he watched the girl walk out and away.
Only a while later, a nurse caught him watching TV. She scolded him as she was supposed to, but didn't take the remote away, betting on the news to be more effective than sedatives to make him sleep.
The night closed and Gillian didn't come. Brock knew she stayed around only when she thought he didn't notice her presence. So he tried to sleep, hoping she'd be there when he woke up again. But it didn't work.
As dawn flooded the sky, he wondered for the first time about her unusual choice of words the night before. Whenever she'd left his hospital room, she'd say, "Take care."
Only once before she'd used goodbye: that famous stormy night when she went to his apartment to see him. Back then, he was moving back to DC. Well, pretty much like now. He didn't need a doctor to tell him it would be months before he was cleared for active service again. Yet she didn't come to see him now, when he was about to move back to DC again. She'd killed Balken, waited for the detail to be back out his door and she'd left. Saying goodbye.
Twenty-five years of studying other people's behavior for a living rattled loud enough through the morphine for him to know there was something meaningful there. Something he was missing. Blame it on the meds, he tried to pin it to his mental board—currently muddler than a football field after a game in the rain—and hoped he would remember when he was in any shape to think about it.