Chapter 12: Meet Dr. Parent

Aidan cracked his eyes open with a groan and squinted against harsh fluorescent lights above him. His head felt like someone was pounding on it with a large rubber mallet. He was just about to squeeze his eyes shut again when his gaze landed on a face. Pretty face. Kate’s face. Kate was here. Kate was looking at him. “Hey, little girl,” he said hoarsely.

“Hi.” She reached out and took his hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. “How are you feeling?”

“I’ve been better,” he replied, wincing as the rubber mallet gave the back of his head another wallop.

Katie was here, holding his hand. She stroked his arm now to soothe him. Things could be worse - a lot worse. He reluctantly tore his eyes away from her face and looked around the unfamiliar room. “Where are we?”

“You’re in the hospital,” she said. “You fell. Do you remember?”

He shook his head and looked back at her, but he was interrupted before he could speak again by a doctor and nurse entering the room.

“Oh good,” the doctor said, looking up from the chart he was reading and walking over to Aidan’s bed. He looked familiar somehow. Aidan could swear he'd seen that face before. On a movie studio soundstage? At that screen test he'd shot a few weeks back with Catherine Heigl and Robert—oh right, that's what it was. The guy was a dead ringer for Robert De Niro.

“You’re awake," the doctor said to him, holding out a hand to shake. "I’m Dr. Parent, chief of neurology here at Cedars Sinai Medical Center.”

“Chief of neurology?” Aidan asked. “What the hell happened?”

“Of course, you received the very best care possible from our Emergency Department this morning, but I will be personally overseeing your care from this point, given the—uh, visibility.”

“You mean because he’s famous,” Kate said, rolling her eyes.

The doctor ignored her and continued speaking to Aidan. “You’re a lucky man,” he said. “You sustained a grade three concussion and six-inch laceration to the lower occipital region.”

Aidan stared back at him. Was that in English? Was he brain damaged? He shot a sidelong look at Kate and she must have seen the confusion in his face.

“You bumped your head and got a cut,” she explained.

“Oh.” He lifted one hand and felt the thick bandage that was wrapped around his head. “Is it serious?”

“It's good you got here when you did,” the doctor said. “The blood loss was fairly significant.”

“When can he go home?” Kate asked.

“We’d like to keep him under observation for a couple more hours as a precaution. Nurse?”

The nurse had been bustling about the room, setting up some medical equipment, while the doctor was speaking. She stepped forward now and began wrapping a black Velcro cuff around Aidan’s left bicep.

“We’ll be monitoring you for hypotensive episodes,” the doctor explained, as he flipped closed the medical chart and moved to leave the room.

“Shit,” Aidan muttered.

“Not to worry.” The nurse patted his arm to reassure him. “You lost a lot of blood. We just want to make sure your blood pressure doesn’t dip too low.” She smiled at him and then at Kate. “You’ll be staying here with him in the mean time?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Good. The machine will sound an alarm if there’s a problem. You just let us know if he starts to feel dizzy or faint.”

Aidan lay back in the hospital bed, watching as Kate nodded to the nurse and then sat back down at his bedside. She took his hand again.

Things could definitely be worse. “What happened?” he asked her.

“You don’t remember anything?”

He shook his head. “I just remember we were in the shower.”

She smiled and he saw a faint blush rise to her cheeks. Yep. A hell of a lot worse.

“You slipped,” she reminded him. “You banged your head on the ledge and it knocked you out.”

“How did I get here?”

“Ambulance," she said. "I called 911.”

He raised his eyebrows at her. “You called 911?”

“Of course! It looked like a crime scene, the way you were bleeding.”

Could be worse, he reminded himself. Then again, could be better too. “Has Annette been here yet?” he asked.

“Who’s Annette?”

Apparently not, then. Aidan didn’t answer. “How long have I been here?” he asked instead.

“A few hours.” Kate looked at her watch. “It’s a quarter to one right now…”

She let go of his hand and stood, reaching out for the hospital phone extension that was mounted to the wall just above his bed. Aidan watched as she began dialing.

“Who are you calling?”

“Just calling my phone,” she responded over her shoulder. “I never did get a chance to check my messages this morning—“

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP

Kate’s words were cut off as the machine hooked up to Aidan’s arm started beeping wildly, the read-out on the screen turning from green to an alarming red. Kate dropped the phone and looked back at him.  His face had lost all its color again. “Aidan! Aidan! Are you OK?”

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP

The door burst open, and both Dr. Parent and the nurse came hurrying back into the room.

“What is it?” Kate asked. “What’s happening?”

The nurse went over to the machine and looked at the numbers on the screen.  Then she hit a button and the beeping stopped abruptly.

“He’s fine,” the doctor said. He picked up the chart from the foot of Aidan’s bed and started making some notations.

“But the machine went off!” Kate exclaimed. “Shouldn’t you do something?”

“We're monitoring him for low blood pressure,” the doctor explained. “That alarm was for high blood pressure.” The nurse moved to the side of Aidan’s bed and started to readjust the cuff around his arm. “Try to relax,” she told him.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

“Happens all the time,” she said, patting his arm. She turned to address Kate before leaving the room. “He’s fine. Just try not to do anything to stress him out, OK?”

Aidan’s mind was racing. The voicemails. He’d forgotten all about it until she’d said she was checking her messages, but the events of last night and this morning all came rushing back. He had to figure out a way to stop her from calling her phone.

“You don’t look so good,” she was saying to him now. “Do you feel OK?”

Distraction, he thought. He had to come up with a distraction. Quick. He met her eyes and shook his head.

“What’s the matter?” she asked anxiously. “Should I call the nurse again?”

“I’m—I’m really… cold,” he said, wrapping his arms around himself and faking a shiver. “It’s freezing in here!”

The look on her face softened from fear to sympathy. “Let me go ask for another blanket.”

She starting moving toward the door, but Aidan shot out a hand and grabbed her elbow to stop her.

“Don't leave me,” he said. “Just come here.” He pulled her toward the bed and lifted one corner of the sheet that was covering him. “Come under here for a sec.”

She looked at him hesitantly.

“Please?” he said, making his face and voice as pathetic as possible. “I’m cold.”

“Poor baby,” she clucked sympathetically.

He shifted slightly to make more room for her, giving her arm another tug, and she slipped herself under the sheet next to him. “Here,” she said, running her hands up and down one of his arms to warm him up. “Is this better?”

He put his arm around her waist to hold her in place beside him. “A little better,” he nodded.

She kissed him tenderly on the temple. Things could be worse, he thought. Things could be so much worse. She was sliding one hand across his chest now to rub his other arm, pressing her body against his side as she reached—

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP

“Dammit!” Aidan exclaimed, tearing the blood pressure cuff off his arm and dropping it onto the floor.

Kate got up out of the bed again and scowled at him. “You’re cold, huh?”

Goddamn blood pressure monitor. Why did he feel like Ben Stiller in that movie - which one was that again? The one where De Niro straps him to the lie detector? Not quite the kind of distraction Aidan had in mind.

“Piece of shit must be defective,” he said, glaring at the machine.

“I’ll be sure to tell the doctor.”

He looked up at her and grinned, watching as the scowl faded from her face, replaced by a reluctant smile. “I’m glad you’re feeling better,” she said softly.

He reached out to pull her back toward the bed, but they were interrupted by a knock at the door. Kate moved across the room to open it.

“False alarm!” she called as she turned the doorknob, but the woman standing on the threshold wasn’t the nurse.

“Ah, there she is now,” Aidan said from the bed. “Took you long enough.”

Kate looked at him and then back at the woman in the doorway. If she hadn’t known better, she might have thought this was Aidan’s mother. The woman looked to be in her early 60s, with thick white hair pulled back into a bun and a pair of wire-framed reading glasses balanced on the tip of her nose. “Are you a relative?” Kate asked.

The woman chuckled and held out her hand to shake. “Annette Walsh,” she said briskly. “Walsh & Associates Communications.”

“This is my publicist, Kate,” Aidan’s voice said behind her.

Kate took the hand extended to her and gave it a shake. “The infamous Kate,” Annette said, studying her for a moment. “We meet at last.”

“Do you need to do this now?” Kate asked. “He’s not supposed to have any stress.”

Annette moved past her into the room. “Well, my dear,” she said over her shoulder, “you might have thought of that a little earlier.”

“Excuse me?”

“You haven’t turned on a TV yet today, have you?”

Kate shook her head, suddenly remembering the reporters snapping pictures this morning when the paramedics arrived. “Did someone put it on TV?” she asked. “What channel?”

“What channel?” Annette gave another low chuckle. “Every channel,” she responded. “Every newsstand. Every website. Congratulations, Kate. You put on quite a show.”