Painful Lullaby

"Where is he?" I asked frantically. I wanted to see Jag. Right now.

"Follow me, dear. Only one at a time, sir. I'll have to ask you to wait in the lobby," she said, addressing Officer Timothy. He nodded and walked back to the lobby and I followed the nurse. She led me up two floors, so that we were on the third floor. His room number was 303, and I laughed inside. Truth was, I was giddy about seeing Jag. The nurse opened the door for me, and smiled as I entered. Jag was laying on a bed, staring up at the ceiling.

"Hey," I said. His head snapped to me, and he grinned at me.

"Hello there," he said. I walked over and grabbed a chair, pulling it over to his bedside. In movies the chair is always positioned conveniently by their bedside. I sat down and grabbed his hand in mine.

"How are you feeling?" I asked him. My jaw was super sore from having it tensed in worry for so long.

"Oh, I'm good. Not considering the hole in my stomach," he said jokingly. His smile was weak, though. My insides were sick with worry.

"Well, aside from said hole, I guess that's good," I said. He laughed a little, then winced and looked back at the ceiling.

"So, how did you get here?" he asked me, but not looking at me.

"Um, a police officer drove me," I replied. He nodded but didn't say anything more for a little while.

"I just can't figure out why she shot me, Roxie. Well, I know she wants you for herself, but why did she shoot me? Why didn't she bring a knife? Why didn't I think to bring something more dangerous than a baseball bat?" Jag muttered to himself. I seen that he was crying, so I wiped the tears away. But he kept asking himself questions, "Why couldn't I protect you?"

"You did protect me, Jag. See, I'm fine. I should've protected you. You're the one who's in the hospital bed," I reminded him, but he waved it away.

"The point is that I'm in the hospital, Roxie! I obviously didn't do a good job of keeping you safe," he said. God, I hate it when people bash themselves.

"You couldn't do anything about the fact that she brought a gun! Who's to say that she wouldn't have shot you, but ran up and shot me? Who's to say that she shot us both?" I questioned. "Who's to-"

"Enough!" Jag snapped, startling me, "I don't want to hear about our demise. We're here right now, and that's all that matters."

"Yeah..." I trailed off. He was obviously trying to hide his feelings about it, which weren't good ones.

"So, have you slept any?" he asked me, trying to change the subject.

"Y-Yeah, a little bit," I answered him. He nodded.

"That's good. Eat anything?" he asked.

"Yeah, I had some chips and some pop. But not much," I said as I realized how hungry I actually was. My stomach gurgled embarrassingly, and I blushed. Jag's eyes drifted to me for a split second, then flicked back to the ceiling. Was there something wrong with me? My hair, my makeup? Why wouldn't he look at me?

"Jag, what's wrong?" I asked him, gently touching his arm. He tensed.

"Nothing," he replied tersely, then threw a small, fake smile in my direction.

"Very convincing, now tell me what it is," I demanded. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

"If I never told you to get out, this wouldn't be happening," Jag whispered.

"Who's to say something worse would've happened while I was there? I could've done something stupid," I told him. His eyes remained closed.

"I don't want to talk about it," he said.

"Alright..." I said. We sat in silence until a nurse came in. She seemed surprised that I was there.

"Excuse me, miss, but I'm going to have to ask you to leave. We need to change some bandages and run some more tests," she said. I nodded and stood up without a goodbye from Jag. I ignored it and hurried out of the room. I don't how much more of this hospital I could take. I didn't know how to get anywhere because when we came up, my mind was too focused on Jag that I hadn't had time to think of anything else. I hopelessly searched for an elevator or a staircase, but found nothing.

"Um, excuse me sir," I asked a doctor. He turned around and looked at me. "How do I get down to the first floor lobby?"

"You just go down this hallway, and there's a staircase to the left. Take that down, and you'll find the first floor," he said, then smiled at me.

"Thanks," I said, and hurried down the hall. I found the stairs easily, and walked down them. I don't know why, but I was scared as hell. Hospitals always freaked me out. Maybe it was because my mom worked at one.

"Shit!" I whispered to myself. She could be at this very hospital. She could've worked on Jag because she was a nurse in the ER. Thank God she didn't know that I was with him. She might try to poison him or something.

I made it to the lobby and found Officer Timothy sitting in one of the chairs.

"How did it go?" he asked me quietly, even though we were the only people in the waiting room.

"He's upset that he didn't protect me, even though he did. And that he kicked me out, because none of this wouldn't have happened. Or so he said," I told him. He nodded as I came to sit down next to him.

"He's probably just upset that he's in the hospital," Officer Timothy established. I nodded, knowing that he was right. "You hungry?" he asked me.

"Hell yeah," I answered. The thought of food made my stomach rumble again.

"Well, going out to get something to eat wouldn't hurt, would it?" he asked me as he stood up. I jumped out of the chair, eager to get some food. I was really liking this police officer.