The remainder of the ride was spent with Alexander trying not to imagine Douglas' face when Keye presented him with muffins--did the man even eat muffins? Or did he have something against them, like he had against everything else enjoyable? (Read: smoking)

He was smiling uncharacteristically--as far as Violet would know, and even somewhat as far as Keye would know--when they pulled into the parking lot.

The engine died and Alexander half turned in his seat.

"I'll be back."

And then he was heading inside.

"Oh, shit. I'm really sorry Violet."
He'd just chanced to look at the clock, you see. Eight-forty. When had it gotten so late? Keye hated the idea of leaving Violet and Wick alone with someone they disliked and feared as much as Alexander, but it would be unforgivably rude to stand Jetta up.
"I...I got somewhere to be at nine, and I wanna change clothes. Dr. Barclay won't do anything bad to you, I promise...either of you."
He leaned forward and pecked Violet on the cheek (completely platonic, by the way), then reached down and very carefully ruffled Wick's hair.
"Get better, kid."
He opened the door and was off running.

"...But..." Violet said helplessly, but he was already gone. If she'd known the reason for Keye's sudden disappearance, she wouldn't be all that impressed. Not because of who the reason was (though she wouldn't be all that pleased about that) , but simply because Violet really didn't appreciate being left alone with one of the scariest people she'd ever met.

"Well, bye then," she said into the silence, rather resentfully.

Alexander returned after about fifteen minutes, leading a man in a white coat... who had a curiously blank face. (This was, of course, because Alexander had used the same spell on him as he had used on Andrei before.)

"I'm... Where's Keye?"

Frown, frown. Where had the boy gone, and why hadn't he said anything to Alexander about leaving?

... though that would make it easier for him to get the information he wanted from Violet...

"He said he had to go somewhere, for nine o'clock," Violet said, forcing herself to sound completely untroubled. This time, she pulled it off pretty well. "I don't know where he was headed. He didn't say. It must've been important, he seemed like he was in a hurry..."

She eyed Dr. Barclay's 'friend' curiously. He didn't look too sharp, but then she wasn't aware that a spell had been placed on him.

I'm going to let this guy look after Wick...?

Deeper frown. Keye had said that he was going out with someone named Jetta this evening, but Alexander seemed to remember forbidding it. (Silly man. Doesn't he know that you can't order adults, no matter how child like they are, not to do anything?)

"Mmm. Come along; Doctor... whatever his name is... has set aside an operating room for us."

Yes, that's right. He didn't even bother to remember the man's name; he simply asked for the nearest available surgeon and enchanted the fellow.

It was nice to be able to do this kind of thing, though if he used too much magic, he would be feeling it in the morning.

She nodded, and got out of the car, still holding the faery close. This didn't fit together right - not just the issue of her and Dr Barclay, and why on Earth he was helping them out. Violet was definitely far from being knowledgeable about magic, and faeries, and all that... but it seemed somehow absurd to bring a magical creature into a hospital and expect the doctor to be able to do anything.

Faeries are supposed to have healing powers and all that, maybe human medicine won't work.... or maybe it'll make it worse. Or maybe people have just been wrong about faeries all along and they're just like weird little people, all of them.

There was also the possibility that Wick was just abnormal, but seeing as Violet had only ever met one faery, she didn't know the difference. So,
"Okay," she said. "Let's go."

Faeries are magical creatures, yes, but that doesn't make them any less vulnerable to blood loss and that sort of thing. If any creature loses enough blood, it will die. The point of having a doctor look at the little guy is to do things like put in stitches and all that.

Alexander intends to keep things at a minimum, though, since he doesn't actually know how some things would affect something as small as Wick. He won't let the doctor try too much with things like antibiotics or some such thing.

They don't receive many glances as they walk through the halls, which is probably because Alexander looks very professional and the doctor at his side somehow gives them the right to belong.

An operating room. Cold, clinical, and very, very clean. It's not a very welcoming place, but then, the patients aren't usually awake, and the family--friends, rather--aren't usually allowed in.

The doctor still hadn't said anything; Alexander hadn't asked him to.

She looked around the room once they arrived, feeling strangely relieved to see how normal it looked. It was as normal as an operating room could be. The back of her mind had been stirring up thoughts of Frankenstein's laboratory and governmental alien dissections.

"What now?" Violet asked, holding tight (well, reasonably tight) to the bundle in her arms. The bulk of it was fabric - only a small percentage of it was the patient. She was reluctant to let go of him, though she knew that she would have to soon. Seeing as her hands were occupied and she couldn't reach her thumbnail to chew on it, she bit her lip.

She gestured to the operating table, nodding towards it in a way that made her hair fall in her face. "Where do I put him down? There...?"

Alexander gave a nod to the doctor, who answered in a voice as blank as his face, "Yes."

"Miss Vendredy, while the doctor is busy... I want to ask you something."

Aha. Here's his ulterior motive, and he isn't going to take no for an answer after he asks, either. He wants to know who hurt his boy, and he's going to find out. Even if he has to put her under the same spell as the doctor.

(You know, he could do a whole lot of mischief with that spell if he were a different kind of unscrupulous.)

Violet nodded, frowning slightly as she puzzled over what question he had for her. She delayed her answer for a few moments as she ever-so-gently put the faery down on the table. She did it as if she was setting an example that she insisted be followed.

"What is it?" she said finally, keeping half her gaze on the operating table. It was hard to make herself look away.

"Tell me about the person who attacked the two of you." Blunt, isn't he.

He's taking on an aspect that she's probably never seen from him before. This isn't the uncaring, callous reaction he had when she questioned him about Wick. This isn't even the annoyance he displayed when she first took the faery from his office.

This is anger. Cold, implacable, and deadly. This is the kind of anger that has been waiting thirty years for revenge on Azrael.

Alexander is patient, you see.

She cringed, and forced herself not to ask 'why do you want to know'. If she thought for a moment, she'd figure it out.

"Well," Violet said slowly, trying to gather her words into coherent sentences. "...I don't know his name. He's a psychotic, sadistic little fu-...um,... He's younger, a few years younger than me... kind of, scrawny-looking. He wears a lot of black,.. and black lipstick, I remember. His hair's longish and white with black streaks..."

She hugged herself, frowning as she pulled back his image from memory - and also the memories attached to it.

"He has blue eyes. Cold ones. And a lot of piercings, I think on his ears. There might've been some on his face too... I'm not sure..." she shook her head. This was something like what she'd told the police, though it was a tad more difficult to get the words out this time.

"..."

By all that was holy.

Alexander knew that kid.

"!!!"

He doesn't sound happy; he's cursing fluently in a combination of Old English, Latin, and ancient Greek.

Violet's probably fortunate that she won't understand a word he's saying.

Take a few steps back... pretend that nothing was out of the ordinary.
Nothing besides the usually self-controlled English professor swearing his head off. It didn't matter that she didn't understand the languages - you'd have to be very, very unobservant to not figure out the gist of the words. "...Did I say something wrong?" she asked worriedly, her front teeth clamped down on her thumbnail.

"... I should have fucking killed that fucking kid when I had the fucking chance."

Yes. He is talking about actually killing. Preferably painfully, and slowly. No one hurts his boy and gets away with it. No one.

Of course, he doesn't know Logan's name either, so finding the boy is probably almost out of the question, without a lot of help and some very liberal use of magical energy that he doesn't have.

Okay. Calm down. He can be patient. He can wait until he has the energy to spare to hunt down this boy and give him what he deserves.

And now he'll answer her question.

"No. You didn't say anything wrong."

...I should have fucking killed that fucking kid when I had the fucking chance...

That was probably the last thing she'd ever expect to hear Dr. Barclay say - never mind the repetition of a word she hadn't known was even in his vocabulary. Violet wasn't the bloodthirsty type, but... He should have killed the kid if he'd had the chance. Or at least have subued him and gotten him sent away to some maximum-security institution.

"Okay..." she said slowly. "...Why are you so,... um,... upset?"

Okay. Breathing. In control.

He's amazingly calm when he turns to her to answer her question; it must be a talent of his, to suppress even the strongest of emotions.

Ever the teacher, all he lacks is a podium as he answers, "The same boy who attacked you and the faery hurt Keye. That is all."

There.

Does she still only wonder if he cares about Keye?

"Oh," she said, removing her thumbnail from between her teeth. "I knew that. I just, I wondered if it might be something else. But I guess not."

No. Definitely no wondering about that anymore. She didn't fully trust him, even after that outburst, but it did serve to put her more at ease. If he was really that concerned about Keye that he'd kill someone who hurt him... well... okay, maybe that's overdoing it, but it was oddly reassuring.
Wow. That was freaky, Violet thought, trying not to let surprise show on her face.

Alexander shrugged noncommittally.

"You will not speak to Keye about this."

He knows the boy well enough to suspect that Keye would be upset if he knew that Alexander was capable--and eager, in some cases--of killing someone. He doesn't want Keye's trust in him to fail.

He doesn't want Keye to be afraid of him again.

She just nodded in agreement. It didn't seem to be something she should, or would make a fuss about. Violet did have common sense, which was very useful when applied to touchy topics such as this one.

Violet's fingers tangled in the hem of her shirt, and she glanced worriedly back over her shoulder, at Wick. "...So.. on a different topic now..." she said, trying to put the issue away. She considered it resolved for the moment.

He didn't answer, though his gaze followed hers to the faery. A moment or two of silence.

Then, "The doctor is under a spell, as I'm sure you've probably guessed; I don't know if there are any Innish doctors here, and it's just as well." The only Innish doctor he knows has been stripped of his license. "He'll do anything I tell him to do, until I remove the spell. Even forget everything that happened."

"Oh,... okay," Violet said, realization finally dawning on her. A spell? Well, that explained the man's utter blankness. And he'd forget everything, if ordered to? Even better. She'd been worried about that part of it, especially. If the doctor didn't remember, then he certainly couldn't tell anyone what he'd seen.

"...What is he going to do?" was her next question.

"What he can. I'm the wrong kind of doctor to give him specific orders." If he were a medical doctor, instead of having a doctorate in languages, they wouldn't be dealing with this roundabout method anyway.

Well. This was uncomfortable.

(And, despite the fact that he'd rather not explain himself and/or excuse himself to a former student, he wondered if she was thinking about his almost-lie--technically speaking, it wasn't a lie, since he never specifically said that he had no attachments whatever. He simply listed the ones that he didn't have--of the other day. Not that he was going to apologize or anything. Heavens no. He'd done enough of that lately, thank you.)

" 'Kay..." Violet said, shifting her weight from one side to the other and radiating her anxiety into the surroundings. "I... guess... you should tell him to get started then...?" She didn't want him to, really - she was beginning to feel certain that this would end in disaster. But, like Keye had said, they had to try. Violet didn't like it at all, but they did have to give it a shot. It would hopefully be worth the risk.

A nod to Violet--good heavens, it wasn't as if the doctor was going to squash the little guy--and he tapped the doctor on the shoulder, gesturing to the unconscious faery on the table.

Wordlessly, the man unwrapped Wick from the sweater, and then from his bandages. Normally, at this point, there would be some kind of reaction from the man, at the extent of the injuries, but he was silent as he examined the faery from head to toe.

Like a robot, the man turned to fetch what he required from wherever they were stored in the room. Still silent, still blank faced.

It was a wonder that Alexander wasn't unnerved by it.

Violet leaned against the wall, crossing her arms and closing her eyes. Though she'd had a difficult time taking her eyes off the faery ever since they'd left the dorm, now she found that she couldn't force herself to look. She wasn't generally weak at the sight of blood, but Wick was pretty badly mangled, ... and she didn't want to see what was going to happen next.

And the doctor did doctor things, cleaning and stitching up the bite marks in the faery's torso, bandaging his ribs firmly, so that they would not grate against each other as they healed, and setting the tiny broken arm. A miniature cast. How cute.

And then, because he was told to do what he could for the faery, he picked up Wick and left the room.

There was no way to take a CAT scan in this particular operating room, you see, and the doctor suspected that the unconscious little guy might have a concussion.

Alexander made no move to stop him.

Violet raised her head upon hearing the footsteps leave the room, and cast a frightened glance after the doctor. She didn't attempt to follow him. "Where's he going?" she asked, eyes wide. Her fingers dug into her arms. All her fingernails were quite short from having been bitten so much lately, so she didn't scratch herself.

A shrug.

"How should I know? He's not going to hurt him, Miss Vendredy. Relax."

He's considering putting her to sleep or something for the duration. Her anxiety for Wick is making him uncomfortable...

A frown.

(I wonder, if someone took count of every time Alexander frowned in one conversation, how long would it take before he broke a hundred?)

She gripped her arms tighter, looking at the floor. She forced herself to take a nice, deep breath and then let it out. Very slowly and calmly. Nothing bad is going to happen. Everything is going to go along just fine, and then we get to go home. No problems.

No problems.

Alexander didn't say anything more for a while; he didn't feel it necessary. This was purely a business sort of thing, after all; he didn't need Miss Vendredy to think kindly of him, nor did he care if she thought him cold and unsympathetic...

Hm.

"Miss Vendredy, do you know a Jetta?"

Well, that was out of the blue.

Blink. What?

"...Jetta?... No, I can't say that I do," she shook her head. Violet didn't know her by name. If Jetta was pointed out to her, though, she would probably say something like, "Oh. Her. Yeah, I've seen her around, but I haven't met her. She seems nice."
Operative word being 'seems'.

"Mm."

And silence again. If Violet doesn't know the girl with whom Keye is going out tonight--and Alexander has to wonder exactly what kind of going out it is, because there are several versions--then he doesn't need to ask anything more.

... how long does a CAT scan take, anyway?

Oh.

Here comes the doctor again--he's apparently done something with Wick's head, because there's a small bandage around his head now, too.

(Relieve pressure on the brain, you see. Wick should wake up soon; there hasn't been any anesthesia involved.)

" 'S that it...?" Violet asked, trying not to sound too hopeful. She'd feel a lot better once she and Wick were back at the dorm. She looked at Dr. Barclay for the answer, seeing as the doctor (the other one) was bespelled and, she expected, probably wouldn't talk to her.

I hope he's gonna be okay...

"Well?" To the doctor.

"Yes." The stitches were that nifty organic type of thing that were perfectly safe to leave in, indefinitely. The cast, though, would have to come off in a few weeks, and the bandages on the faery's torso changed every so often. The doctor detailed how that was to be done, and when the faery should come back in to have his cast off, still in that dull, blank voice.

Dead voice, that was it. As if he weren't alive any longer.

"Good." Alexander would give Keye a spell to take off the cast, he decided. No need to go through this charade more than once. "Miss Vendredy, take your friend. You, doctor, will go to a lounge and fall asleep. When you wake, you will only remember sitting down in the lounge to take a break, and drifting off." That solved that problem.

She took in the explanations, nodding every so often - even though she was sure the doctor didn't know the difference, nor care. At any rate, she was glad to have Wick back. She picked up the faery, as she'd been directed. Finally. Time to go home, Wick... she thought, wrapping the sweater back around him. For a moment, she thought she saw his eyelids flicker - but dismissed it as nothing but her imagination.
Violet made sure she had a good grip on the faery, and headed for the door.

And once again, out the door and to Alexander's car.

He actually opened the door--to the front seat, oddly enough--for Violet, and then proceeded around to the other side and slid in, starting the car.

He was as eager to get them home and go home himself as Violet was to go home and be away from him.

He wanted to be there when Keye got home. The boy wouldn't stay out too late, would he?

"Thanks," Violet said. Whether it was a 'thanks for opening the door', or a general 'thanks for everything' was unclear. She sat down and put on her seatbelt, then leaned back and gazed out the side window. Some Most of the anxiety she'd been displaying seemed to have evaporated. Having Wick looked after by a professional - as leery as she'd been of the idea - seemed to have been a good idea after all.

And backing out, and driving out of the parking lot...

Alexander isn't usually one for smalltalk. He considers it a waste of time, and while he isn't as obsessive that no time ever be wasted as Douglas is, he doesn't care to waste time and energy on something so pointless.

So if he asks a question, it's usually because he really does want to know the answer, or if he says something, it's because he really thinks it needs to be said.

"If you ever meet that boy again," and we all know which boy he's talking about. "I want to know."