-- For Jamie. Inspired by a keychain she brought me back from Toronto when I never made it up there in February. Can't remember when it was posted--whatever year Deb did the play.

What’s Your Name, Honey?
a Forever Knight/Head Injury Challenge story

Mary rubbed her eyes as she leaned against the desk at the nurses station and filled out the inventory sheets. It was one of those rare slow nights, and that demon supervisor from hell had all of them stocking the stations and rooms and catching up on paperwork. Never mind that most of them were coming off of at least 24 hours of duty and there’d been a car accident as well as a police shootout. Restocking and paperwork always needed doing and there was no rest for the wicked, or so it seemed to Mary since she wasn’t due to go off shift until 6am.

She was almost grateful when she saw the two of them come in. Particularly since they were both ambulatory and not covered with blood.

In other words, a piece of cake, one that she could spend the remainder of her shift fussing over if she played her cards right. It was definitely preferable to paperwork.

"Just sit over there," Mary ordered, giving the guy a quick up and down. Dazed, covered with dust, he had a large purple bruise on his forehead. There was some blood on his face and shirt.

"I gotta go," the man with him said, glancing nervously at his watch.

"I need you to fill out paperwork," Mary said, trying hard not to sound severe, but a 30-hour shift in the ER will do that to you sometimes, and this guy, well, she didn’t like the look of him. He reminded her of that loser her sister had married. Both Morris and this guy had had that smarmy, arrogant air about them that caused Mary’s hackles to raise.

The other guy was still standing there, looking very confused. He was holding a set of keys in his hand, studying them intently. Mary noticed that he kept turning the keychain over and over in his hand, frowning at it.

"I don’t know him!" the man in the trenchcoat insisted, drawing her attention away from her patient. "I found him over near the construction site. Look, the demolition team was supposed to be there five minutes ago. This is the last time I try to play good Samaritan." He glanced over at the injured man who was still playing with his keys. "Look, I don’t know who he is, or what he was doing near my site. He certainly didn’t have permission to be there, and if he got hurt on the premises, well, that’s not our problem. " He leaned back with a sigh. "I should call my insurance company, just in case. But this wasn’t our fault." This last was directed at her, punctuated with panic.

He reached into his coat pocket for something, then obviously thought better of it. With a final nervous glance over at the wounded man, he turned on his heel and practically ran out of the ER. "Wait! Just a minute!" Mary yelled and started to run after him. When she saw the guy with the bruise start to move with her out of the corner of her eye, however, she stopped and turned. Damn, now she was going to have to call the cops.

But first things first. "Follow me," she said. He offered no resistance, and silently followed her into one of the examination rooms. This guy didn’t look too bad off, though the bruise on his head worried her. Was it her imagination, or had it gotten smaller? Still, he was mostly alert if a little dazed, and able to move around on his own which was a good sign. "Sit up here," she said, indicating the examining table. He hopped onto it, and sat there with his legs dangling over the edge, blinking innocently at her. Mary had to admit he looked awfully cute with that boyish expression and tousled blond hair, even if he wasn’t exactly her type.

"What’s your name?" she asked as she took his wrist. Boy, but did he have a slow pulse. Mary wondered if he was some kind of marathon runner or something.

"Uh . . ." he began, then frowned. "Toronto," he said, and Mary realized it was said with probably a lot more confidence than he actually felt, given the bewildered look in his blue eyes.

She sighed in exasperation. Just what she needed, an amnesia case. "Not where you’re from, honey! Your name! Your name!" she prodded. Maybe they could nip this in the bud with a few well placed questions and she could get home to her boyfriend a little sooner tonight. After the shift she’d had a little self-delusion never hurt anyone.

His whole face fell at that, and he hesitated, blinking in confusion and disappointment. "Nick," he said after a moment. "My name is Nick." Silently, Mary reached out and took the keys from his fingers. On one side was the word "Toronto" written in a sprawling cursive superimposed over a pink and yellow skyline. Turning it over, she saw "Nick" in gold letters on a black background.

"I’d say it’s Nick, too," she said, handing them back with a small laugh. She’d definitely have to call the cops on this one which meant she wasn’t going anywhere while they took there time about getting there. But at least he was being cute and amusing in a befuddled sort of way. There were worse things in the world.

He nodded slowly. "I kind of liked Toronto better, though," she heard him say under his breath.

"You have any other ID on you?" she asked.

"No," he said. "Only the keys. I checked."

"It’s a miracle you still got the keys. In this neighborhood, someone probably picked your pockets while you were unconscious. Do you know what happened to you?"

Again he shook his head.

"What’s the first thing you remember?"

"Uhm," he frowned in concentration. "A man, the one who brought me here was leaning over me. He was telling someone else that I must have gotten hit by the bricks up on the . . . um . . . the fifth floor?"

Mary frowned at him. "You got hit with a pile of bricks?" she asked incredulously. "You got hit with a pile of bricks and alls you got is that bruise?"

"I guess so," Nick said, rubbing his forehead again. Now she wasn’t imagining it, that bruise was smaller. She reached up and brushed his hand away, gently pulling him forward to examine it more closely.

Hearing him draw in a large breath sharply, as he leaned forward even further, and placed a heavy hand on her shoulder, Mary backed away, instantly suspicious. But she remained close enough to catch him should he pitch forward off the examining table. That’s all she needed right now, a head injury fracturing his skull while she looked on. His breath was coming in ragged gasps, and he was struggling to compose himself.

"Are you all right, honey?" she asked, stepping forward again, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Are you in pain?"

He shook his head, but his breathing had calmed down slightly. He still wouldn’t look up at her, though.

"A little fuzzy? Dizzy?"

"Sort of," he said in a small voice, nodding his head. "I feel really strange."

"All right," Mary said, firmly grasping his upper arm. "You just lie right back here." Nick’s eyes were closed and his lips were pressed together in a tight line. He allowed himself to be pushed back onto the table. Reaching over, Mary lifted his legs and swung them up onto the table so that he was stretched out flat "Let me loosen a few of these buttons," she said.

As she pushed the collar to the side (and decided that there was no way this guy was a marathon runner), she noticed the chain. "What’s this?" she asked, thinking immediately that it might be dog tags. Reaching in, she lifted the chain and saw that a small flat piece of metal was attached to it. It was about the right size. She lifted it over his head and cradled it in her palm, reading the inscription.

It wasn’t a dog tag or a medical alert tag which would have been even better. "Has this sort of thing happened to you before?"

"I don’t know," he said as if it were the most important question in the world. "Maybe. Why?"

"Never mind," Mary said, giving him a small pat before pulling out a blanket from the utility drawer and draping it over him. "You just lie here for a minute. I’ll be right back."

Mary slipped out of the room and waved Bernice over. "Got a head injury in there. He’s OK, but his memory’s a little fuzzy. Watch him for me while I go make a call? Keep him from nodding off."

"Sure," Bernice said, waving her off. "I’ll tell him about my ex. That’ll keep him awake," she added with a laugh.

At the nurses station, Mary picked up the phone and dialed after double checking the name and number on the tag. Someone answered after only half a ring.

"Dr. Lambert? This is Mary Samuels. I’m calling from County Hospital? We have someone named Nick here? About five feet eleven, blond hair, blue eyes?" Mary paused and listened for a few minutes. "Well, he’s got a nasty bruise on his head, and it looks like there’s some memory loss." Mary listened for another moment. "All right then, doctor. I’ll see you in a few minutes." She put the phone back down into its cradle and shook her head. She’d seen her share of weird stuff working here, but this had to take the cake.

But Mary decided that if Doctor Lambert came down and took this mysterious guy off her hands so that she didn’t have to hassle with the police, well she wouldn’t spend too much time wondering about a guy who carried a note to call the county coroner when he got hurt.

Some things, she’d learned, were better left alone.

The End