Leftover Baggage from Llanview

15

Dorian:

Blair, Kelly and I accompany Starr and Hope to the hospital that night.

It turns out that Cole's condition is not serious, but he has suffered a concussion, a broken shoulder and various bruises.

He had been planning to return to upstate New York to surprise Starr and Hope as a sort of early Christmas gift.

He had stopped at a drugstore and had seen two people he feared were John and Michael McBain and hid in the freight elevator.

They weren't, but they were shoplifting from the drugstore...plainclothes security came after them and they climbed into the elevator shaft, causing the freight elevator to fall downward.

The shoplifters were caught, but Cole was injured and had to be taken to the hospital.

The five of us wait in the waiting room with Starr holding onto Hope and keeping her calm.

It is a relief when Cole's doctor tells us that Cole's shoulder has been successfully operated on and that the concussion is not serious and that he is slowly coming to.

Blair, Kelly and I are able to stop in and say brief hellos while Starr and Hope come to his bedside.

Cole seems comforted by Starr and Hope's presence and is able to give Hope a one-armed hug, but not so much with Blair, Kelly and me.

He appears rather frightened of the three of us, staring apprehensively at us with wide eyes, so Blair, Kelly and I quietly bow out and allow Starr and Hope, who he seems comfortable with, to visit him longer.

I'm relieved that he remembers Hope as his daughter...I'm not sure he really remembers Starr clearly, but he seems comfortable with her.

Blair, Kelly and I go down the lobby and sit on a long set of blue chairs in the waiting room.

Just then, a door swings open and Marty Saybrooke comes barreling in, her flushed a deep pink and screaming for a doctor.

Blair and Kelly sit back and groan and I can't help rolling my eyes.

Marty practically crashes into the nurses' station in her carrying on.

"I can't beleeeive no one told me about my son being here!" she screams at no one in particular.

A slightly heavyset nurse approaches her. "Miss...Ma'am...you'll have to calm down."

"Just let me see my son and get me a doctor!" Marty demands, her face still flushed and her now-chin-length hair a mess.

"We will," the nurse soothes as she herds Marty into a chair.

Blair, Kelly and I look at each other and roll our eyes. Blair and Kelly can't help smirking.

I'd known that Marty has gone mostly off the rails again lately...when I left Llanview, Marty and Natalie were locked in war with each other.

Marty sits, her face still flushed. She finally sees us and glares.

"If it isn't Senator Dorian and her girls," she sneers, standing back up and coming a bit closer.

Blair and Kelly stand and stare back, arms folded across their chests.

"That's us, dear," I say, already tired. "It's lovely seeing you again."

"How did you know about Cole being here before me, his own mother?" Marty demands. "And how did you know he was still alive after I spent years thinking he was dead?"

"I suppose the hospital knew before any of us," Blair tells her.

"Yeh...they just rang us tonight," Kelly adds. "When did Saint Anne's let you out?"