Breaking Silence

The clock in the empty hallway read 3:27 am. Khaat was wide awake and walking the hallways alone It had been a long, ugly night already. She had been avoiding working during a time when others would see that her left arm was immobilized in a sling and had been for the last few days. She had been slipping in, working at night, and slipping out again before anyone could see her. And she was leaving Atticus rather cryptic notes to try to avoid telling anyone what was going on.

But that almost seemed like a powder keg to her. Especially after the chaos at her estate since it had gotten dark. And in the mess of it, she had lost track of her father--for awhile anyway.

And then she'd gotten the owl. He had had to come to seek more advanced help for a wound he'd gotten. He hadn't said what. Clearly, though, he didn't have what he needed at home to heal it, and now he was asking for help in patching it up.

She wasn't sure how steady her magic was. It had been a bit bizerk since her own rather foul wound. She didn't exactly want one of her healing spells going sideways and especially not on her father. So here she was, back at the hospital in the middle of the night, and she knew her father would not go to the emergency room, under the circumstances, no matter how bad the wound was. She was heading right for his office. If he wasn't there, she was going to have to hunt.

How did things always get so busy that he had to stay almost all night just to get little things back in order? Not just him either. A lot of other have had to stay after their shifts, but they usually left after maybe an hour or so of work.

But there were some like him and Sophia who had to stay and work on other things. From patients to paperwork, it was like a never ending cycle. He'd worked a couple of nights with Sophia on refiling paperwork for a few patients.

He'd been carrying papers around from office to office for almost two hours now and he was just going back to his office when he saw Khaat walking down the corridor. He knew that she hadn't been working during the day for some reason, and now he saw why.

Every time he got in to work, he'd noticed notes on his desk from Khaat. They were rather cryptic but he'd kind of gotten the point of them. "Khaat." he called out, walking closer to her.

Oh, cripes! she thought. She hadn't expected her assistant to be on duty at this hour. She'd gone several days without running into anyone close to her. She hadn't honestly counted on it lasting forever, but she hadn't thought of a good lie ahead of time. She decided to try to wing it.

It wasn't that she didn't trust him. She did. It was just such a sensitive matter. She and her father just were not sure if this was a matter of national security or not. And until they knew, they were doing their utmost to guard from a public panic.


"Atticus," she said with a calm smile. "What has you working so late? I'm sorry I've missed you. I'm a bit off schedule lately. Got an owl from my father. He said he was going to be coming here on an emergency case. He must be running late."

"Just a lot of paperwork and things, you know. The usual. I've been helping Sophia with some things as well."

He looked at her, listening to what she was saying about her father and he nodded. She seemed to be headed toward her father's office and Atticus wondered if he'd actually be there or in the emergency room. He cleared his throat and looked down the hall.

"Were you headed to his office?" he asked. "I can accompany you if you like." he offered.

He felt he shouldn't really bother her with following her if she didn't want him to. Asking was always a better thing that jut doing what he wanted, especially with his boss. He adjusted the small stack of papers he was holding on a clipboard.

Okay, so that was a major fail. Why were Gryffindors usually such crappy liars, unless they were brilliant chess players? It dawned on her when she saw Atticus's face that it made absolutely no sense for her to be joining her father on an emergency and then to be going the opposite direction away from the emergency room.

As she saw it, she had two reasonable choices. Find someone to headslap her for stupidity. Or--take him into her confidence, at least in a limited way. If her father was hurt enough that he wasn't going to be able to deal with it at home, she knew she might well need help if her own magic didn't work. How or how badly he was hurt, well, she just didn't know.

"Alright," she said quietly. "Come with me. But not a word to anyone. I don't even have words to tell you how important secrecy is until further notice." She motioned to him and headed up to her father's office.

She found the door was locked. She tried to use her magic, and it simply sputtered.

"Daddy," she knocked and called quietly. "Its me. Open the door." There was a pause, and then the door opened on its own.

The only light on in the room was the desk lamp, making the room look very dim. But she clearly saw her father laying on the floor in front of his floo, sitting up, leaning on the hearth. His left leg was a mass of blood, bleeding profusely. No wonder he'd come here.

She hurried to him.

"Where's Brian?" he asked.

"Home. I didn't know I needed to bring him," she said. "And it wasn't over when I left."

"Damn," he sighed, wincing sharply. "At the rate you're going, you're liable to turn my leg into a lamp. 'Evening, Atticus."

Atticus simply nodded and follwed Khaat to her father's office. He knew that if she said secrecy was very important right now then it was and he had to keep his mouth closed. He followed without a word, closely behind Khaat as they approached Robert's office.

He couldn't help but wonder what was going on though. The fact that keeping quiet was so important meant that there was something very important and maybe bad going on. He wanted to know what was going on, but he knew better than to ask anything. He needed to wait until Khaat or Robert thought it best for him to know whatever was going on.

After the door was opened and they entered, he gulped hard when he saw Robert in the floor with his left leg bleeding as much as it was. He looked at Khaat then back at Robert who had greeted him like nothing. "Uh... Evening Robert." he greeted back almost normally.

"Er... Can I help with anything?" he asked, still looking at Robert's leg.

Khaat tried to reach to tear his shredded pantleg, but the damage to her left shoulder stopped her immediately. She had to take a breath to regain herself from the pain.

"I told you not to try to move that," he said quietly. "I warned you about that." She nodded. She gathered herself and looked at Atticus.

"Can you help me tear open his pantleg, please?" she asked. "I need to see it." She looked at her father. "How badly did he get you?"

"Its alright," he reassured her. "No need to panic. Atticus, it is essential this not get out just yet. She's going to need some supplies. You can find what she needs if you go to the supply room in the operating room wing. You'll need one of the suture kits--the bundles wrapped in blue fabric in the upper cabinets. And then in the lower cabinets, you'll find bundles of sterile linens. Two, I think, would do. Please bring them and try to avoid being seen."

"And the bottle of pain potion in cabinet behind my desk, please," she added. "How are your wand skills? You might need to help me if Soph is not in the building."

Atticus looked at Khaat and nodded when she asked if he could tear Robert's pantleg so she could see the damage clearly. He kneeled down and carefully moved tore the pantleg. Enough so Khaat could see how bad it was but not hurting Robert more than he was.

He nodded again as Robert explained what supplies were going to be needed and he stood up. "Right." he replied, and headed for the door. "I'll be right back and I'll make sure I'm not seen." He reached for the door knob.

Atticus turned but stopped when Khaat asked about his wand skills. "I'm good with my wand, but I think Sophia is still around. I was with her a little while ago. Would you like me to check if she's in her office still?" he asked.

"If you can find her quickly, then, yes," Khaat said. "If you can't, then just come back, and if my magic isn't quite what it should be, I'll help coach you through what we need to do."  She looked at he father's leg. It was bleeding badly from multiple deep wounds.  She couldn't entirely see what she was looking at yet, not without supplies.  

"You'd better be sure about this," she looked at her father.

"I don't remember of it being more.  And at this point, what would it matter? Even if I weren't sure? What would you do differently, my dear?" her father asked calmly.  "Whatever is done, is done.  We can only do what we're capable of. We'll be fine for a few minutes, Atticus."

Khaat looked up at Atticus briefly, hoping he would not underestimate the seriousness. If she did not manage to muster up the skills to stop the bleeding magically, she would have to try to stop the bleeding in old muggle medicine ways that were so much less reliable than their own. And every moment she delayed on getting the bleeding stopped, the chances increased that her father would bleed out and die on the floor of his office in the very hospital where he'd saved so many other lives.

"Alright. I'll be back as soon as I can."

Atticus turned and walked out the door, making sure to check if anyone else was around. Seeing that there was no one in the hall he hurried to the operating room wing to get the supplies that were needed. Once he was there he made sure to get the suture kit and sterile linens that Robert said would be needed.

Atticus made sure to hide them as well as he could within his robes and he left the operating room wing quickly, before anyone saw him. Luckily, it seemed like most of the others who had stayed behind had already left and that gave him a small sense of security. He knew that he couldn't lower his guard though.

"Sophia." he reminded himself softly as he walked down the hallway. The ex-Slytherin walked toward Sophia's office and he knocked on the door. "Sophia?" he called softly. There wasn't any answer and he thought she either left or when to attend someone. He couldn't go looking for her though, he knew that and he headed back to Robert's office.

Then he remembered that Khaat had told him to get a bottle of pain potion and he turned just before reaching Robert's office to head into Khaat's office to retrieve the potion she had asked for. After he did, he returned to the other office and placed everything near Khaat.

"I think that was everything you said would be needed." he said.