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Roman wakes up in a hospital room, and his first thought is somehow: something happened to Dad.
Even as he thinks it, he knows it isn’t right. There's fog in his mind and maybe he can blame that, but the background noise of machine beeping and the antiseptic smell just take him back to standing there not knowing if his father was ever going to get up out of that bed again. It’s a gut reaction that he wants to escape, so he makes himself breathe and he focuses on the things he can trust are reality.
The smell - hospital, yes. He’s definitely in a hospital.
The sounds - those are machines, a steady beeping telling him that whatever heart they’re hooked into is still beating.
The sight - he cracks his eyes open and fuck, it hurts. It hurts but it’s good because he can see, and it’s bad because… because he can see.
It’s him. He’s in the bed this time, not his father; the beeps are machines connected to him. The smell is clinging to his own skin, along with too-bright red splattered over his arms and hands, under his fingernails. He sucks in a breath and looks up at the ceiling instead.
Whatever happened, he's alive, and that must mean everything is fine. He closes his eyes again.
-
Gerri's in the room the next time he wakes up.
"You're awake," she says.
He looks at her and she looks... flustered.
He hasn't seen her like that too many times, at least not since she became someone he looks at and actually takes in. Her hair is coming loose from however it was styled originally, and the skirt she's wearing is wrinkled. There's even a little coffee stain along the collar of her blouse.
"Yeah," he tries to say, but his voice is scratched and suddenly he's parched.
She must understand, because she reaches for an ugly salmon colored plastic cup and feeds the straw to his lips. "Just sip," she orders. "Don't want you to get sick."
It’s gentle, if not maternal. He still doesn’t listen to her, though. He does not sip, and when he feels his stomach start to lurch after drinking deeply he chooses not to say anything about it. "Where am I?"
"Hospital," she says. "You were attacked."
"Attacked?" He frowns.
He remembers being sent to management training. He remembers something about not showing up in a video, being pissed about it. But he can't think of anything else.
"A group of protesters," Gerri says. Her voice is dripping with barely contained rage, seething with it. "They orchestrated a showing in front of the management buildings, the New York offices, and multiple theme parks. We're getting reports that some of them were even on one of the cruises. They threw their little temper tantrums with red paint and cute little signs like they're actually worth something."
He looks at his hands again. Paint, he thinks. Not blood. Thank fucking whatever exists for that. "Having morals makes some people real dicks, doesn't it?"
"It does," Gerri says, with a passion he rarely hears from her. "You're the only one that was seriously injured, at least. Ken and Shiv just got... mild public humiliation."
"Shiv probably would have preferred a cracked skull," Roman says. "Pops okay?"
"Your father is having a field day with the positive press from this," Gerri says. "Violent rioters injuring his immediate family. He'll sue every one we can identify for all that they're worth."
Roman winces. "Sucks to be them."
Gerri doesn't respond, but her eyes are keen on him.
"What?" he asks. He doesn't like feeling like a bug under a microscope.
"How do you feel?" she says. "Do you need to see a doctor? A nurse?"
"Nah," he says. "I'm sure I'll see one soon whether I want to or not. They're constantly coming in."
As if summoned, the door creaks open and a bottle-blonde in scrubs pops through.
-
He gets an MRI and another dose of pain meds and then hovers in and out of consciousness for a while. He's pretty sure he talks, but he doesn't know what he's saying. Hopefully Gerri won't hold it against him.
Then he's dreaming. It's fragmented, shards of what must be pure fantasy slotted in alongside things that must be at least a little bit real. There are voices screaming and the ear-splitting sirens and before that, something... a bed, his body stretched out over it, warmth charging through him.
He wakes up wondering how often people have sex dreams and nightmares at the same time,.
-
"Wait," Roman says. A small mountain of lime green Jello is wobbling on the spoon that's only made it halfway to his mouth. "Why the fuck are you here?"
"What?" Gerri looks at him over the top of her laptop.
"Why are you even here?" Roman says.
"Because," she says, then stops. "Because I am."
"That's... not a fucking answer," Roman says.
She snaps her laptop shut and stands up. "I'm going to get some coffee," she says.
"Bring me some."
"You can't have coffee right now," she says, and walks out of the room.
"Bitch!" he shouts after her.
-
Gerri comes back.
Of course she does. Where else is she going to go?
Anyway, she left her laptop in his room, and Roman knows she wouldn't do that if she weren't coming back, so he doesn't worry.
Much.
And then she's back, all piss-off and glaring and sexy.
"What do you remember of the last couple of days?" she asks.
"Ooh." He sits up with only minimal struggle. His head still hurts like a motherfucker, but he has some good juice coursing through his veins. Ken just wishes he could have a hit of what Roman's on. "Not much. Wanna fill me in?"
"I already have," Gerri says.
"Uh huh. Bullshit? But okay."
"Protestors arranged..." She continues on, talking, telling him the same things she said before.
But there's something more. There's something underneath the shiftiness in her eyes and the way her lipstick is faded from the press of her lips together.
He wants to figure it out. But he's also sleepy, and he doesn't want her to leave again, so he shuts his eyes and lets the cadence of her voice wash over him.
-
Someone brings his phone to him.
He's not actually sure who. Probably not Gerri, he thinks, but maybe. Maybe Gerri.
Either way - when he wakes up, she isn't there but his phone is, plugged in and charging beside his bed. He grabs it and a flood of texts messages and missed calls greet him.
He should probably return some calls. At least to his dad, whose number appears only once. Probably had other people calling to check on him after that, Roman tells himself. It's not that his dad just wanted to make sure he wasn't dead. Not that at all.
And Roman definitely doesn't spend the next twenty seconds with a wandering mind, turning the thought over in his head: how sad would his father have been if Roman really was dead?
He doesn't think that because that would be pathetic and Roman might be pathetic in a lot of ways but that one isn't (is not) (is not not) one of them.
He isn't interested in talking to people right now, though. He wants something else. He wants to fill this gap in his memory. The doctor says he'll probably regain the memories soon, that Roman's bits and pieces of recollection bode well. But Roman's impatient. He wants his fucking candy now, thanks very much, Mr. Wonka, sir. And if he can't have it he'll have his daddy buy the whole chocolate factory.
Because memories are candy and everything can be bought. Fuck, Roman thinks, he really is tilting sideways on the mental coherence scale right now.
Text messages. That's what he was doing. Reading his text messages.
He looks at the day of, but there isn't much there. A picture of pigeon shit he sent to Shiv. Three unanswered texts from Connor. A couple from people he doesn't even know, and maybe he can blame that on the concussion, too.
He puts his phone down for a few seconds, then looks at the call log.
There's just one from the night before the accident. A call to Gerri - nine minutes and thirty seven seconds long.
His stomach lurches. There's a feeling that settles in his chest and it isn't unpleasant. It just... tickles, like a word on the tip of his tongue.
-
"Did you hear the good news?" Roman asks.
Gerri's back. It's late at night, he thinks. She's changed clothes and had a shower. He's never seen the dress she's wearing. Shoes, either, actually. Or that scarf.
"No-" She's already started to answer.
He interrupts her. "Did you go shopping?"
She does that sexy-hot-mean thing with her eyes. "Roman. Focus. What's your news?"
"They're setting me free tomorrow," he says. "As soon as the doctor makes his round. Can you pay him off for me? Bump me up to top of his list? Better yet, just like, throw him some cash and get him to sign the forms."
"You are not leaving here without a doctor's release," she says.
He looks at her. Really looks, again, in that way he knows she hates. "What's up, really? You're even more... bitch robot goddess than you normally are."
For just a split second, something cracks and she just looks - tired. "It's been a long few days, Roman."
"Few days?"
"Yes. And maybe it would be best if I just-"
He doesn't get to find out what she thinks would be best, because a nurse comes in. Roman wants to bark at her to get the fuck out but she has food and he actually is kind of hungry and at least Gerri isn't running away this time.
-
She does step out a couple of hours later when Shiv calls.
He tells her she doesn't have to, but she says she has calls to make herself.
He couldn't be more shocked when the first thing Shiv asks isn't how he's doing, but instead: "So what's up with Gerri?"
"I was gonna ask you that," Roman says. "Since when is babysitting me in the hospital her job? Is it a lawsuit thing? Because I don't think suing the company is gonna get me any more than inheritance actually would."
"No one told her she had to go," Shiv says. Her voice has that note of quiet excitement that she always has when she's gossiping or possibly getting someone in trouble. "I checked with dad. She just heard you were hurt and she fucking took off. Roman - get this. She didn't even take a private jet."
"She flew commercial?" Roman asks.
There's a weird kind of bewilderment clawing up his chest.
"She flew commercial," Shiv confirms.
"Shit." His voice is faint.
"So..." Shiv says. "Do you know why?"
Roman doesn't, actually, but he still has the immediate sense that he needs to shield Gerri from Shiv's curiosity so he says, "She's the one that sent me here, so she's probably trying to cover her ass in case I actually did die."
"Oh." Shiv sounds disappointed. "Well, guess it's a good thing for her that you didn't."
"Yes, let's focus on the benefit it has to our company's GC that I didn't die and not like, being glad your only sibling with two brain cells is alive."
"Oh, I wasn't worried about Ken," Shiv says, and the conversation devolves into the verbal equivalent of a slap fight which, it turns out, is something Roman didn't even know he needed.
-
Roman dreams about red paint again.
He can feel it, somewhere between memory and imagination. It splattered on his skin first, and he thinks-remembers shouting in disgust. There were people screaming obscenities about him and his family and everything they stand for, and so much paint it looked like a fucking Stephen King novel.
He dreams about it filling up his mouth and nose and ears and drowning in it. He dream-opens his eyes and there's nothing but red and Gerri's voice faintly from a distance, calling him a piece of shit. Then she's holding his hand and he feels like he's at the top of a roller coaster just waiting for the drop to start.
He wakes up gasping.
-
Roman bides his time. He waits to say anything until the next morning. He doesn't know why, exactly, just that he wants it to feel like the right moment. Gerri's been trying to teach him patience, after all. What better way to convey he understands the lesson than by using it against her?
They're waiting on the doctor to make his way there on rounds. Roman still thinks it's bullshit that he couldn't buy his way to the top of the list, but this podunk hospital in this entirely forgettable state apparently isn't as up on the ways of corporate bribery as most civilized places are.
"The private jet just landed," Gerri says, looking at a text on her phone. "So we'll be able to go straight from the hospital to the plane."
Ka-ching. There's the moment.
"What, not flying commercial this time?" Roman asks.
Her head jerks up. "What?"
"Yeah, didn't you, you know, rush to the ticket counter in some dramatic scene just to get here as fast as you could?"
"I bought my ticket online from the car," Gerri says. She looks cornered, but she's not physically leaving so that's a plus. Though it could be that she just realizes that he's untethered from all the machines now and could actually chase her. Maybe. His head does still hurt like a bitch. Paint can to the skull is firmly on his do not recommend list. "There was no rushing."
He could tease her more, draw this out some. He decides not to. "But like... why?" He asks. "There's something here I'm missing."
She nods her acquiescence.
"Something happened," he says. "That I can't remember."
"And if we're lucky, you'll continue to miss it," she says. She's drawn her arms over her chest again.
He takes a stab in the dark. "Something to do with what we talked about the night before the accident?"
She gives him a shell-shocked look. Even her voice is off, breathy and surprised. "You remember that?"
"Whoa," he says. "Uh, no, but now I get the impression I need to. I just saw the call on my phone."
"Fuck," she says, and presses two fingers to her temple. "I'm sure you'll remember soon enough."
"You gotta tell me."
"I can't," she says. She's pleading with him now. "Rome, I can't."
"But you think I'll remember," he says. "And then I'll, what. Know why you flew here?"
"It'll make more sense," she says.
"Did you propose to me?"
"Roman."
"Did I propose to you?"
"Roman."
"Did you-" He starts, then stops. He doesn't want to be making her look at him like that. And he's not stupid. He gets the direction this is going in. He gets the general concept of what that conversation must have been, based on her reactions. "Okay. Okay, fine. I'll remember if I remember."
She lets out a breath. He really wants to get up and walk over to her, but she's radiating warning squiggles like a cartoon nuclear device about to explode.
"Look," he says, changing tactics. "Whatever it was, I'm fucking glad you're here, okay. If I could have woken up to anyone... I think I'd have picked you."
Everything about her softens suddenly. "You shouldn't say things like that."
He gives her a tired smile. "Yeah, but I'm always saying things I shouldn't say, so that's nothing new."
She actually smiles back. "Yes, you are," she says. "That's the problem."
Then she sits - not on the chair but on the end of his bed. Close enough to be in his space, close enough for him to touch if he reached out.
He doesn't. But he could, and he thinks she'd let him, and that feels like all he needs right now.