Chapter Thirteen

 

The hospital felt lonely at night, especially without Anya there. Kromin kept Toryx sedated for his own comfort, so the man wasn’t much company. For a while, Kromin wandered the halls somewhat aimlessly, trying to sort through the million thoughts about a million different things that were constantly flooding through his head. He couldn’t stop thinking about the things he needed to do to make this hospital better, and he had a hard time not beating himself up not for changing things sooner. He knew in his heart that there was no point in beating himself up like this. He’d made mistakes, and now he was fixing them. There was nothing he could do to change the past. But still, he couldn’t quite keep the regrets from filtering through his mind during the long night.

One thing he definitely did not regret, though, was asking Anya to marry him. He could hardly believe she’d said yes. Obviously he’d thought there was a small chance of it, or he wouldn’t have asked. But he’d thought the odds of a “no” or at least a “not yet” were much higher than a “yes.” He didn’t think he’d ever been as happy or as incredulous in his life as when she told him she would be his wife. Now, there were all sorts of plans to be made. He needed to buy her a ring, but not just any ring. It needed to be the absolute best that the Seven Galaxies offered. And there would be quite a few wedding plans to make, although he figured Anya would probably want the final say in that. Kromin knew that Zocronian woman usually had very specific ideas about what they wanted their wedding days to be like, and something told him that human women would be the same.

And then there were the logistics of her moving in with him. Kromin definitely wanted that to happen sooner rather than later. The idea of Anya waking up in his home—no, their home—every day sent a thrill through him. Life was about to get very, very good.

After hours of wandering, Kromin finally went back to sit in Toryx’s room. He had set up the computers in the room to send an alert to his e-assistant if the system detected any problem with Toryx’s vitals, and nothing had been detected. But Kromin still thought it was a good idea to check. Thankfully, the computers had not misled him. When he arrived at the room, he found Toryx sleeping peacefully and appearing to be in good health, relatively speaking. Toryx was lucky. There would be some scarring from the monkey’s attack, but that would be the only long term damage Toryx would suffer, as far as Kromin could tell. Things could have been much, much worse. In fact, they would have been much worse if Anya hadn’t saved the day.

After checking on Toryx, Kromin decided to see if he could catch a quick nap in one of the oversized guest chairs. Toryx was still in the emergency room where Anya had done the stitches, and that room didn’t have any soft guest chairs in it. Kromin solved the issue by dragging one over from another room, figuring that was much easier than trying to move Toryx himself.

No sooner had Kromin sat down in the chair and closed his eyes than he fell asleep. This was how Anya found him the next morning. When she shook him awake and he opened his eyes, he couldn’t remember at first why he was hanging out in the hospital. He did remember the events at the bar the night before, though, and he remembered asking Anya to marry him.

“Hello, fiancée,” he greeted her.

She smiled, and the sight of it sent waves of pleasure through Kromin’s body. “Hello, fiancé. Enjoy your beauty rest?”

Kromin sat up straighter and looked around then, remembering all of a sudden that he was in Toryx’s room and that Toryx had nearly died the night before. “Oh, shit! How long have I been sleeping? I need to check on Toryx!”

“Shh, relax. Don’t worry, I’ve already checked on him, and administered a fresh dose of pain meds. He’s still sedated, which I think is the best choice for at least a few more hours. But he’s doing well. Improving quite rapidly, I would say.”

Kromin groaned. “I shouldn’t have slept half the night without checking on him!”

Anya shrugged. “He was fine. If anything had been off with his vitals the computer would have sounded an alarm and woken you up. And you needed your rest.”

“So did you. Did you sleep?” But Kromin could tell without even waiting for her answer that she had slept. The dark circles of exhaustion that had appeared under her eyes last night were gone now. She looked fresh and awake, with glowing skin and her crazy red hair pulled back into as neat of a bun as she could with such thick curls. She smelled slightly fruity, a smell Kromin now recognized as the tropical shampoo she used. That meant she had showered too. He was both jealous of her and glad that she had taken time to take care of herself. She deserved a few moments to recuperate after last night.

“I slept,” she confirmed. “So if you want to take a turn to go home and get some real sleep, feel free. Before you do, though, Daxar is here and he wants to talk to you. I think it has something to do with the riots outside the hospital.”

Kromin flopped back in his chair in frustration. “Those are still going on?”

“Yup. Going stronger than ever. People are just as angry about the rations today as they were yesterday, if not more.”

“I should have expected that. I guess my brain just tricked me into thinking that because everything in here worked out so well, that somehow the riots magically went away as well.”

“Nope. No such luck.”

Kromin picked up his e-assistant. “I’ll send an e-memo and tell Daxar to come over here. He’d probably like to see Toryx, too, I’d imagine.”

Anya nodded as she busied herself with adjusting something on Toryx’s IV. Daxar must have been close by, because less than two minutes after Kromin sent him a message, a knock sounded on the door and Daxar let himself in.

“How’s the patient this morning?” Daxar asked as he peered over at the bed. Unlike Anya, Daxar didn’t look like he’d slept at all. He had dark circles under his eyes as well, which were dark enough that they showed up quite well even through Daxar’s dark blue skin. His hair was also a mess, and Kromin thought he probably hadn’t brushed it in the last twenty-four hours. Nova was nowhere around, which Kromin hoped meant that she was sleeping. Daxar would have done well to go do the same, but Kromin knew how stubborn the Chief was. As long as there was an unsolved problem, he would stay awake for days at a time until it was fixed. Now, the Chief’s long tail swished impatiently behind him, a telltale sign for Kromin that the man wasn’t in a great mood.

“Toryx is good. He’ll probably be waking up a little later today. The stitches did the trick, and now his body is working on making a full recovery. I’d like to keep him here a couple days, just to be on the safe side. But I have a feeling once he wakes up he’s going to be raring to go home.”

Daxar chuckled. “Probably. That, or raring to go find the monkey that did this to him.”

“True enough.” Kromin sat up straighter. “And what about you, Chief? How are you doing? You look like you’ve been run over by a rover.”

Daxar gave Kromin an annoyed sidelong glance. “Thanks. It’s great to see you, too.”

Kromin shrugged. “I’m just saying. You don’t look like you’ve slept at all, and Anya here tells me that the riots are still going on outside.”

“Yeah,” Daxar said with a resigned sigh, sitting down hard on the only other chair in the room, a stiff metal chair that looked like it would serve better as a footstool than as a place to sit. “They slowed down for a while during the night, but by morning the protests were going stronger than ever.”

“And they’re still outside the hospital?”

“Yeah. When I left last night I slipped out the back and I don’t think anyone saw me, so as far as they knew I was here all night. I was thinking of making a show of moving over to City Headquarters so that they’d all move over there and leave you alone, but then I had an idea…”

Kromin raised an eyebrow at Daxar. “Something in your tone of voice tells me that I’m probably not going to like this idea very much.”

“No, probably not. But I’m hoping you’ll help me out anyway. I’m hoping you’ll go out there and talk some sense into them.”

Kromin snorted with laughter. “Oh, come on. You want me to go talk sense into them? Why would they listen to me?”

“You’re close enough to me. They know that you have the inside scoop and know what’s going on. But I think they’re also going to trust you more than me to give it to them straight right now. You’re a respected member of the community, and they know you won’t lie to them about whether these rations are necessary or not, or about whether a spaceship can actually fly out of here or not.”

Kromin was surprised. “You think people trust me?” He didn’t feel very trustworthy at the moment. He felt like someone who had screwed up the whole hospital here, and who had very nearly cost his friend Toryx his own life. Anya must have read his mind, because she chose that moment to butt into the conversation.

“Look, Kromin. Everyone in this room sees that you could have made some better choices as far as how the hospital was run. But none of the regular old Zocronians know that. They don’t see whether the hospital was run perfectly or not. They only see that you’ve been taking care of them and their families this whole time. You may have done some things wrong, and Jupiter knows we all have, but you’ve also done a lot of things right.”

“You have,” Daxar agreed. “And this is your chance to do another thing right. This is your chance to get out there and calm the riots down. I’m not just asking you to do this for my sake, although I’m not going to deny that not having half the city rioting at me would be a nice change of pace. I’m asking you to do it for their sake, too. People are scared. I get that. They want reassurances that everything is going to be okay, and unfortunately I’m not the best person to give them those reassurances right now. You can do that for them. You can set their minds at ease.”

Kromin still felt doubtful. “Chief, if you really want me to do this then I will. But I don’t feel like they’re going to listen to me as much as you think they are.”

Daxar smiled. “They will. I know I’ve been a bit hard on you, and demanded a lot of you lately. But it’s only because I knew you were capable of doing better with this hospital than you were doing. It’s not because I don’t think you’re a good man, or a good public figure in this community. And right now, I really need you to step up and be the strongest man you can be. The man I know you can be. Help me lead these people, Kromin.”

Kromin looked over at Anya, who nodded encouragingly. He raised an eyebrow at her. “So you agree with the Chief? You think if I talk to people it will really help?”

Daxar laughed. “Oh, she agrees with me alright. This whole thing was originally her idea.”

Kromin’s eyes widened. “You came up with this?”

Anya blushed, but nodded. “I did. I believe in you, Kromin. I think you know that by now. But the rest of this town believes in you, too.”

Kromin felt his chest swelling with emotion. It wasn’t exactly pride he was feeling. More like a deep satisfaction or a deep happiness. The most wonderful woman in the Seven Galaxies was his, and she believed in him despite all his mistakes and shortcomings. He was pretty sure that he was the luckiest guy alive right now. “Alright,” he said, turning to look at Daxar. “I’ll do it.”

A look of relief crossed over Daxar’s face. “Thanks, Kromin. I really owe you one after this.”

“You don’t owe me anything. I’m just happy to help out my Chief and my city. When do you want me to go talk to them?”

“Well, sooner rather than later. Although I might suggest that you take a shower and change clothes first.”

Kromin looked ruefully down at his wrinkled clothes and couldn’t help but laugh. “Alright. Give me an hour to clean up and compose my thoughts, and then I’ll go give the city a pep talk they’ll never forget.”

“Attaboy,” Daxar said with a grin. But it wasn’t the Chief’s smile that warmed his whole body from the inside out. It was Anya’s. Just knowing that she was proud of him was all the motivation he needed.