Page 8 of Time for You
A car breezed past, and she looked at him just in time to see him startle and jump several feet back. Whatever bit this was, he wasincrediblycommitted to it. And the bit was oddly realistic, although her historical knowledge was mostly limited to a handful of romance novels and the Keira KnightleyPride and Prejudice.
She watched him stumble backward and trip over a small stand that held free local neighborhood flyers. Daphne snorted to herself when he fell on his ass.Serves him right,she thought, and turned away with just the smallest pang of guilt. She’d taken an oath to help, after all, but then again, she couldn’t force someone to seek treatment, and if he wanted to keep pretending he was from a different century, there wasn’t much she could do.
“Miss?”
Daphne kept walking, annoyed, until he called “Miss” again. Reluctantly she stopped. “Yes?”
“What is this?” he asked, holding out the small local free paper that always showed up in their mailbox and went straight into the recycling with the junk mail. He’d gone a little pale, and thatyou took an oathvoice got a little louder.
“A newspaper. Don’t you have newspapers wherever you’re from?”
He shot her a dirty look. “Of course I know it’s a newspaper. I meant—what is the meaning ofthis?”
“The date?” she asked, looking where he pointed. “It tells you the day, date, month, and year. I guess you don’t have that back in 1885, then?”
He ignored her, a little more blood draining from his face. “Does it say—does it say the same thing to you?” Daphne confirmed it did, and then worried he might faint dead away as his complexion went grey. “Is this some sort of joke?”
“Why would it be? That’s yesterday’s date,” Daphne replied.
“You’resure?”
“Of course I am. I know what year it is, and I promise, it isnot1885.”
All the remaining blood left his face. He bent over, hands on his knees.You took an OATH, dammit,her conscience shouted, and she gave in. “Do you feel lightheaded?” she asked. He might be weird and rude, but she was a doctor before anything else. “Take some deep breaths. There you go.”
“I keep hoping I’m dreaming. But I’m not, am I?” he said, half to himself. He looked up at her, clearly freaked out. His shockingly blue eyes pleaded with her to assure him it wasn’t true.
She studied him closely, trying to figure out what thehellwas happening, but until she got him a CT, there wasn’t much she could do. “No, you’re not dreaming,” she said, as kindly as she could manage, given how annoying he was. “But like I said, I’m a doctor. Adoctor, not a nurse, and I think there’s a chance you have a traumatic brain injury from our crash. If you can keep walking, we’re almost to the hospital, where we can treat you.”
“Do I have another choice?”
“I can’t force you. If you’d rather make your way on your own, you can.”
He looked around again. “It’s really the twenty-first century? Not the nineteenth?”
“It is.”
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely.”
He inhaled sharply and straightened. “Then I guess I haven’t any other options. After you, my lady.”
James was at the triage station when she walked in, Mr. Time-Traveler-Traumatic-Brain-Injury lingering a few feet behind her, eyes wide. “You missed us that much, huh, Dr. Griffin?” James called.
“Bike accident,” she explained, and held up her scraped elbow, just barely visible through the now-torn sleeve of her hoodie. “My injuries are superficial, but I think he’s going to need some scans. He’s a little confused.”
James nodded. Honestly, the nurses handled far weirder things than the doctors did, and often bore the brunt of the way the emergency department was used as a substitute for actual mental health treatment. “Name?” he asked.
“Henry Frederick MacDonald,” the man replied.
“Birth date?”
“January 5, 1856.”
James paused. “Can you repeat that?”
“I suspect a TBI,” Daphne interjected. “Like I said, there’s been some confusion.”
