Northern Exposure

I talked to a calzone for fifteen minutes last night before I realized it was just an introverted pizza. I wish all my acquaintances were so tasty."
― Jarod Kintz, This Book Has No Title

Two Weeks Later

After the whole incident over Halloween, Audrey had found herself back at work, Thranduil completely absent from her mind. She carried on, having heard neither word nor mention of the Elven-King. Johnny had even taken him off of his patient lists at hospitals, entrusting Thranduil's care to the psyche physicians. It seemed that everything had gone back to the way it had been before that blistery night; for once Audrey was thankful to be at work. She hadn't lied to Thranduil when she told him she worked at a hospital. Her particular position encompassed sitting at a desk and entering ER patients into the system. The political correct term was Patient Access Representative, yet Audrey liked to think of it as 'everyone's secretary'. From punching in insurance information, to running white emission bands to numerous RNs, Audrey and her coworkers did it all. Like the little cogs that turn a machine, intertwining between the gossip and the workload, they knew all. Nothing slipped past their ears and eyes—especially when it came to doctors and patients.

It was a Thursday afternoon; Audrey had just gotten back from lunch. The small little office, accessible only through badges, was littered with RNs, LPNs, Med Techs, and of course, Patient Reps. Half of their noses stuck to a screen, the other half honed in on a sheet of paper. Completely lost, not to mention utterly confused, Audrey dared to ask what it was they were all staring at. At their response, she nearly fainted.

"They just brought some guy in from St. Ignace. You missed it! He was the craziest ball of nuts I've ever seen. Long blonde hair, super tall—he looked like he just came from Narnia." One of them was laughing uncontrollably.

Oh God, Audrey thought. "What's the name?"

"Thran…duil…Thranduil?" The tech giggled.

"Mirkwood the last name?" She didn't need to ask, so Audrey didn't know exactly why she had. An old habit perhaps or maybe it was simple verification that what had happened two weeks ago wasn't just in her head.

All the eyes looked to her then as she stood in the doorway, her hand over her badge.

"How did you know that?"

She looked to Pam, the girl who had been talking since the moment she walked through the door. Audrey had worked with her for almost five years now; they shared everything. "That's the guy I found outside my barn. Why was he transferred here?"

That had done it. Every woman in that small office was buzzing with the new juicy gossip on their hands, each one with the craziest questions imaginable. Burnett was hit with everything from how long she had spent with him, to if she had gotten a glimpse at his goods. At the last question, she was utterly repulsed. What she wanted to say was 'Yes, I ask to see the penis of every guy that stumbles into my barn'. However she held her tongue. The last thing she needed was rumors being spread by the nurses of the E.R., especially now that she had a good thing going with Mitchell—another tech. "I didn't even go with him to St. Ignace," Audrey defended herself. "I didn't even know he was still north of Mac."

Pam saw the desperation in her friend's eyes and closed the window with his information. "Alright ladies, enough poking into people's personal files. Let's get back to work. We have five people in the waiting room ready for triage."

Thankfully no fight was put up and the montage of estrogen filed out and into their workplaces, while the RN on duty took the next patient back. Once the last drifter had left, Pam waited until Audrey was at her computer to talk. Even then, she spoke in monotone and her eyes never left the screen. "He was brought here to be discharged. They are sending him to the shelter I think. Amnesia is what he was diagnosed with. Doctors are ordering follow-ups, but he was brought here to the ER for vaccinations. Corporate Health wouldn't administer them without a valid I.D…which he doesn't have. The Feds were in here earlier talking with him, trying to figure that shit out…"

Audrey threw her head into her hands and took a deep breath. "Jesus H Roosevelt Christ…all of this happened in an hour?"

"The hour you left for lunch, doll." Pam was clicking away at the mouse and pointed to the sign-in time. "I'm guessing he will be back there for awhile yet. They have him in room twenty…do you want me to take it?"

By 'taking it' Pam meant going in to verify the information they had—or in this case the lack of information they had—on file. It was the Reps' job once the patient was sent out of triage and into a proper room in the back of the ER.

Audrey sighed again, pulling out a clipboard and throwing together the papers. "No…I got it. You're stacked to the max with edits. Besides, I saw a squad pull up…I'll need to get that information while I'm back there as well."

"All right girlie," Pam shrugged. "What's for lunch in the cafeteria?"

"Calzones."

After grabbing the information from the ambulance in room five, Audrey mentally prepared herself for the short walk to room twenty. Part of her honestly hoped there would still be doctors in the room; that she would have to come back later to verify Thranduil's information. However this was not her luck. Out of every soul in the hospital that was anxious to get a glimpse at the man of mystery behind door number twenty, Audrey would be the one to show up at just the right moment. The RN had just walked passed the curtain; her blood samples in hand. A rather pudgy doctor from floor three exited shortly after, nodding politely to Audrey. Taking a deep breath, she entered the room. What she saw was just as shocking as the day she met him.

Thranduil's face was drawn; tired looking. His suffering was not lost on her, for Audrey could see the devastation written all over him. Yet for all of this, he still appeared flawless…ageless. Albeit swallow in complexion, completely aloof to his surroundings, Thranduil was still the same mystifying being she had met not two weeks ago. And still…changed somehow. At first, she didn't know what to say. Seeing Thranduil sit in that chair void of any emotion was pitiful. Truthfully this wasn't what she expected. What had happened to the snippy, sarcastic asshole? Audrey couldn't help but feel that all of this was somehow her fault.

"I just need to verify information," She whispered, still in disbelief. There truly was no point in asking. "Are you Thranduil?"

Cerulean eyes shot up at her. They were cold, pleading, and so full of fear. He was pale; his body length slouched against the back of the hospital chair. Thranduil opened his mouth to speak. "I never thought to see this face again."

His voice…so weak.

Audrey blinked back the tears that seemed to surface every time he spoke to her. She rolled her eyes at the pointlessness of asking him for any information on that stupid clipboard. Throwing it on the table next to her, Audrey stepped forward yet stopped when he held his hand out.

"Go away, Audrey." Thranduil sighed. "Leave me in peace. I have not the time for more lies."

That was a sharp pain to her heart. As if someone had taken a needle and pierced it repeatedly. "Thranduil, I'm so sorry…let me help you."

The Elven-King scoffed then, his own eyes seemingly on the verge of tears. Or so Audrey thought they were. "Help, from you? I think not. Where was your help when I was left to the suffering of those physicians and their barbaric tests? They placed me in a madhouse! They took my clothing and threw me in straps to a hard mattress, cold and alone. I saw neither the light of day nor the stars at night. And now you pathetic girl…now you wish to aid me? Get out."

Audrey stood there in her blue scrubs, her eyes burning. She never meant for him to suffer, yet she could find no words to voice it. Both had stared at each other for a time, one crying apologetically while the other stared cold and unfeeling. Sniffling, Audrey nodded her head in compliance. "Alright," she whispered, "But I'm going to make it right, Thranduil. You're being released today…"

He sneered. "Forgive me if I don't bound up and down with joy."

Standing in awkward silence was daunting. Looking back at one another, neither saying a damned word, Audrey could see the pain behind those orbs. It was a pain like none she had witnessed before; there was anger. A deep seated hatred that poured out from him, one that made the girl in front of him all the more miserable. This wasn't what she wanted. Audrey may have been hella freaked out, but she never expected the situation to be handled quite like this. It was exactly how Thranduil described it: barbaric. And that wasn't for the lack of care from the doctors or nurses…it was something else. Something else that even though she couldn't explain it, it made the man that sat before her appear as a wounded animal in confinement. Thranduil was a being that didn't belong in that whitewashed room. Could that be explained with science and medicine? No…by those standards he was ill. Yet, take away the voices of modern reason and you had something supernatural; you had an ethereal being suffering at the hands of twenty-first century cruelty. Now, that wasn't to say that Audrey believed that Thranduil was anything but a mortal man, confused and bewildered. But there was something different about him, something that made her well aware that staying in the city would be the end of him. She couldn't let him go to the shelter. Thranduil would slowly wither away in a place such as that.

"Ill just need some signatures from you…" Audrey's eyes never left his as she handed over the clipboard which she picked up with the papers to sign.

It wasn't to her surprise that he didn't sign them. In fact, he smacked the board across the room; it hit the wall and fell into a spray of loose documents. His eyes burned a vicious hole into her head. "I said: Get. Out."

Tears filled her eyes as she gathered the paperwork, clipping it back in place. She dipped her head to hide her embarrassment, the tears falling onto the ink filled pages. Audrey cursed numerous times under her breath until she regained her composure, and scribbled down on a number on a piece of paper. Then, standing up straight and blinking hard she outstretched her hand to Thranduil. Of course, he didn't take the page from her, but instead stared viciously. Sighing, she took a careful step closer; vividly terrified that he might throw her just as easily as he sent the clipboard flying across the room. Even in this state, he was stronger than Audrey expected him to be. Finally with enough courage, she placed the small ripped page on the table next to the Elven-King and held the clipboard to her chest. "You're being released today, Thranduil. They will transport you to a shelter here in the city. If you hated being in the hospital you'll hate the shelter even more." Audrey tried to explain what was going to happen, but every time he met her eyes she choked up. God damn it, she hated that. Clearing her throat she continued, "On that paper is my phone number. All you have to do is call me and I'll come get you. Just one call…"

For a moment she prayed to hope that the soft face Thranduil held just then was a step towards reconciliation. However when he spoke, her heart sank.

"Áva quete! Don't you ever listen? Leave me be, Audrey… Heca!" This time the anger was gone and there was only pleading. Thranduil only desired to be left to his own devices; untrusting of the woman whom he crossed paths with little over a fortnight ago.

Now her curiosity was peaked; the embarrassment along with the sadness slowly was replaced. Audrey took a step closer and sat down on the bed that wasn't occupied. "What is that language you're speaking?"

"Excuse me?"

"That's the second time I've heard you speak in a different language," Audrey was determined now. How many days had his previous words been played over and over in her mind? His voice was sensual and deep like honey, sweet and thick. "What language is it?"

Thranduil smirked then, mischievously. "It's the language of my people, Audrey…a people that doesn't exist…a people I've conjured from my sick mind."

A moment passed between them. It consisted neither of words nor body language, but all the same it occurred. Audrey felt her face burn red and her body shivered despite the heat that coursed through her. "I don't think you're sick, Thranduil." Shifting her weight, she got ready to stand back up. "I don't know what to believe anymore…but I know you weren't lying…I know…" She fought with herself and the need to say the words she uttered next. "I know you're not from around here." It was the best she could muster.

Finally standing, she moved the curtain from in front of the door but not before turning back to the tall blonde sitting crossed legged in his chair. His hand was propped under his chin and his eyes held a silent thankfulness.

"Just…call that number if you want to leave the shelter." Audrey left the room, running straight for the restroom. There she cried. She cried until her eyes burned and her stomach twisted into a heap of nerves. What in the hell was going on?