The Accident

The yellow and blue taxi pulled up along side the sliding doors to the emergency room and paused while the lady in the backseat paid the driver and hastily got out, shutting the door behind her. The heels to her peach shoes clicked and clacked as she hurried through the doors, looking for a familiar face to be waiting for her. She caught sight of the small, hairy man coming out of the waiting room and waving to her. "Logan! Logan what happened? Where's my son?" The questions poured out of her mouth as the two met and hugged each other. "Is he alright? I want to see my baby." Her brown hair had been pulled back into a tight bun at the back of her head and sprayed heavily. Her peach dress suit was slightly wrinkled from sitting in her office all day and then the movement of taking a cab to the hospital due to losing her car keys in all the excitement.

Logan hushed her as best he could but had to raise his voice to silence her completely. "Sharon! He's okay. He's in surgery now and the doctor said he should pull through. Calm down." Holding her arms and forcing her eyes to look into his, they took a deep breath together. "He should be out in a bit." He led her back to the waiting area and stopped at the water fountain for a cup of cool water to calm her down with. "Traffic okay?"

They sat on a small, vinyl sofa for two. The waiting room had only a few other people in it besides them. After a sip and another deep breath, Sharon exhaled and stared at the floor, thinking of terrible dangers her only child might have faced. "I uh- took a cab. Couldn't find my keys." Another sip as the coolness of the water worked slowly to calm her shaking nerves.

"Couldn't find yer keys. Okay, well, let's have a look in yer bag, okay?" Keeping his voice low and calm, he gently placed her shoulderbag between them and unzipped it. The faded denim material relaxed as Logan spread it open and began to look through it. He pulled out her wallet and separate coin purse and a package of folded tissues, setting them on her lap. "Here they are, all the way at the bottom." Logan held them up to show her that she hadn't lost them at the office and smiled reassuringly at her shaken expression. Replacing the other items into her bag, he zipped it and placed a comforting arm around her shoulders as they waited for a doctor.

Sharon had finished the water in the small paper cup and let Logan take it from her as he crumpled it up and tossed it into the small plastic wastebasket, next to the water fountain, a few steps from where they sat.

A tall, thin female doctor in white scrubs stepped out of a set of automatic doors and glanced around the room. "Ms. Abbott?" The paper hat covering her hair was dampened around the forehead from sweat and the face mask had been pulled down prior to coming into the waiting room. Her brown eyes stopped on the couple getting up from the small sofa on the other side of the room and coming towards her. "Ms. Abbott, I'm Doctor Vaughn, the attending surgeon. We've set his injuries and stitched him up. He does have a small concussion and due to the extent of his injuries, we've had to sedate him for now. We would like to keep him here for a few days for observation."

Sharon nodded and thanked the doctor before the physician turned and walked back through the automatic doors. She turned back to Logan, who stood beside her, and opened her mouth to speak and was shocked when the words hadn't formed right away. "I should go sign him in."

Logan nodded and looked down at the keys he still held in his hand. "I tell ya what, I'll have Z drop me off at the office, and then I'll come back here and take you home for some rest. I'll call ya if there's any change, okay?"

"No. I'm not leaving him alone, Logan. I can't."

"Okay. I'll go get the car, stop by the house and pick up some things for you. You can take tonight, and I'll take tomorrow. We'll do it in shifts, alright?" For once, Logan had been glad his EMT training was paying off. It was about the only thing that was keeping both of them sane.

When she agreed with that idea, Logan escorted her to the front desk and then kissed her cheek before radioing Zeke to bring the ambulance around. The next step he had to make was to call Cora and let her know about the schedule change. He only hoped that Cam and Zeke could handle a night or two on their own.

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Logan sat in a chair, on the other side of the darkened hospital room, and dozed while listening to Corey breathe and the incessant noises of the machines that surrounded the headboard. His chin was propped up on his hand as his elbow kept balance on the arm of the chair. It wasn't the most comfortable of positions but it was letting him sleep. His legs outstretched and crossed at the ankles had become stiff from lack of movement and every once in a while, his right hand that rest on his belt buckle would twitches from the cold air being switched on.

The dark figure in a pressed black suit stood in the doorway and looked at the scene before moving into the room. Remy's eyes fell across the sleeping medic in the chair and again on the comatose boy in the bed. A sigh as he was reminded of why he was there and a step into the room caused Logan to stir but not wake. Making his way to the side of the bed closest to the door and reaching out his hand to place it on the young man's arm, he was halted by a throat clearing and a man getting up to come towards the bed.

"Unless yer a doctor as well, I'd back up away from him."

Remy sighed but kept his gaze fixed on the comatose boy. "I am not here to harm him, Logan."

"No?"

"No." Remy now stood beside the bed and looked over at Logan, who stood in the shadows. "The damage has already been done. I am merely here to help him move on." To show Logan he was in good faith, he placed his hands behind his back, holding his wrist.

It wasn't in Logan's nature to believe people outright that they meant no harm to another so Remy should have understood when he stepped forward and placed his hand on the bedrail on his side of the bed. "What do you mean yer 'here to help him move on'? You'd better start tellin me just who you are, bub." He moved to the end of the bed as Remy backed up slowly towards the door.

"I can not."

"Try." Logan took a step closer to him.

Remy had always taken care of maintaining his secret but it was becoming impossible to do with Logan since Logan was another breed of man. "I was someone a long, long time ago." He stood firm in the middle of the floor even when Logan stepped closer and pressed him against the wall by the open door.

"I want to know just who you are now, or I'll make you a 'was' again." Three claws released and pressed three points into black silk dress shirt Remy wore.

Looking neither startled or upset, Remy agreed. "As you wish." He took a breath and released it slowly before telling the man in easiest of fashions, "I am death."

Logan resheathed his claws and took a step back, uncertain of the man in black attire. "Death, huh?"

A calm nod.

"No black robes or scythe? Or don't you carry them anymore?"

Remy sighed and brushed the wrinkles out of his jacket. "Scythe and cloak on a black horse, we like to keep those to particularly wretched souls who do not pass to Heaven. The child is an innocent; therefore, he deserves respect on his journey." He could feel that Logan didn't believe him but it hadn't bothered him. After all, he wasn't in his line of work to be believed in, he was only the deliverer.

Scoffing, Logan glanced at Remy and then to the heart monitor that beeped steadily. "Do me and yourself a favor, step into a padded room and close the door. Reality'll be along in a while."

Remy ignored Logan's comment and listened to the sounds on the intercom. "Come with me, Logan. I wish to show you something." Holding out a hand for Logan to take, he waited patiently as the skeptical medic came to stand beside him. "Relax, Logan. I merely wish to prove to you who I am." Taking Logan by the wrist, they walked a few steps out of Corey's room and disappeared from Intensive Care only to reappear in the Maternity Ward.

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"What're we doin here?" Logan asked, half amused.

Remy pointed to a young mother laboring, nurses holding her hands and telling her to push while the doctor busied himself at the foot of the bed, waiting for the birth. He stood there calmly and watched a small pulsing heart, above the woman's head, fading slowly. No one else had been able to see the tiny icon but the two bystanders, and even Logan was watched disbelievingly.

Logan wanted to say something but Remy had only gripped his wrist and held a pale finger to his lips.

"One more push, Lucy!" An older woman in casual clothes under blue scrubs cheered as she stood behind her daughter's right side. The woman looked tired and weathered, as did her daughter who was tiring rapidly and sweating profusely. "That's it! Keep pushing, sweetie! You're doing great!"

Lucy gave one last push and breathed a relieved sigh as the baby was finally out and being cleaned. Her mother congratulated her and kissed her temple before turning to transfer the baby from a nurse to her daughter's arms. She felt heavy and completely drained of all strength. Staring down into the tiny face, she whispered something and then reclined back, closing her eyes. The tiny icon above her head flickered a pulse and was gone, as was the young mother.

The room filled with screams from the tiny bundle in the grandmother's arms as the doctor and nurses worker feverishly to revive the young woman. The tiny icon above the baby's head had pulsed furiously and Logan thought it would burst. The baby seemed to calm when a frail, translucent hand stroked it's tiny cheek.

Lucy had taken shape, standing on her own and looking healthy, coming towards the two men. She smiled at Remy as he smiled back and nodded to her. As she came within two feet of them, she disappeared.

"Pretty good card trick. Is that all you got as proof?"

Remy turned to face him and smiled. "Of course not. People like you are hard to satisfy." He pointed to a room to the left of Logan.

A darkened room with only a sleeping woman in her 30s and a plastic bassinet beside her. The woman had turned away from the tiny cooing child. The pulsing heart above his head was fading. The boy cooed louder and became more frightened when no one came to it's side. He was hungry and his mother paid no attention to him. His father had gone to eat something and make calls home about the birth but his mother had wanted nothing to do with the baby at all.

Logan stepped forward and Remy grasped his arm against the movement. "It's just a baby. He doesn't deserve a mother who won't love it as she should."

"True. But it is not your decision to make, Logan." Remy's stomach turned at these journeys.

Logan turned around and glared at Remy. "Yer just gonna stand there and let that innocent baby die? It needs love and attention, not death." Shaking the hand off of his arm, Logan snarled.

Remy blinked in the same somber tone he had been in the entire trip. "It is not my job to give someone the care that child needs, Logan."

"You mean, you won't do anything."

"I am not Cupid. Just wait." Remy nodded to the elevator at the end of the hall.

The doors to the elevator had opened and the father held a bag of food in one hand and a cup of cold juice in the other. The child's cries grew louder, loud enough for the father to hear and for him to quicken his pace to the room. Setting the food and drink down, on the small tray, at the end of the bed, he scooped up the child and cradled it as the baby hushed its cries in time for the fading icon above its head to flicker and brighten with love.

Logan stood there, perplexed about what Remy had said and what just happened. "You said you weren't Cupid. Another lie?"

A faint smile spread across Remy's lips as he watched the father coddle the baby. "That was not my doing, Logan. I do not feel love or kindness. I cannot give a mortal what I do not have myself. My job is to guide mortal souls to the afterlife."

Coming to stand toe to toe with Remy, Logan snarled and pointed behind him. "Then what do you call that? ESP?" His temper was quickly evaporating and Remy's calmness was getting on his nerves.

"No." For the first time that evening, Remy was beginning to lose his cool. "When a loved one has a strong bond, no matter how old or new the bond is, that soul calls out to their loved ones in time of dire need. Sometimes it works and sometimes the will to live is not strong enough to survive on love alone. That is what happened."

Scoffing again, Logan wrinkled his nose at the man in black. "Yer full of shit. You expect me to believe that you're Death and that yer here to take Corey to the afterlife?"

Remy nodded.

"Go fuck yerself. You aren't gonna touch a hair on my kid's head."

"You cannot stop what is already written, Logan. This is my job, it is not what I want to do but what I have to do." Remy was starting to become impatient with the short-fused medic.

Logan had had enough. Grabbing hold of Remy's lapels, he whirled the taller man around and pressed him against the wall, releasing both sets of claws, letting the tips rest against the underside of Remy's porcelain jaw. "Stay the fuck away from me and my family, or so help me, I'll send you back to whatever nothingness you slithered out of. Got it?" A loud growl erupted from him as he met Remy's cool ruby on obsidian orbs. Retracting his claws and releasing the other man, Logan thought it best to calm down and walk away before he gave Remy a reason to be in the hospital.

Not answering in words or expression, Remy merely let the medic walk away and go back to Corey's room without him. He sighed and shook his head as he knew the final outcome. Watching Logan's back as the man walked away, Remy couldn't help but remember a man from his own past, resembling the scruffy young medic who just stepped into the elevator.


Continued.