Legend

Gray days

The phone call was from a detective. He said that, based on the photograph I'd sent, that a preliminary identification of Margaret had been made. Her body had been taken to the morgue for an autopsy to determine the cause of death. He asked if I would come down to identify the body.  I said that I would, then hung up.

Aslyn and I were still crying when Damian came in, accompanied by Alfred, burdened with shopping bags. When they heard what we needed to do, Alfred went into Super Majordomo mode, efficiently separated our stuff, and stated that he would be pleased to drive us where ever we needed to go. That snapped us out of it, and we shambled off to get dressed.

I huddled next to Damian in the back seat of the Rolls; Aslyn was in the front seat. We identified ourselves at the front desk and shown to a room where the compassionate morgue attendant showed us a photograph of her face. Aslyn and I both identified our roommate and friend. The detective was present and had a couple of follow-up questions. He said that it looked as if she'd succumbed to smoke inhalation, although there were signs that she'd been trampled. I confirmed that the electricity hadn't been working in my room and that the smoke detectors hadn't gone off. I thought about that; the smoke detectors were wired rather than battery operated. "Was the electricity off?" I asked, puzzled. The detective gave us a noncommittal answer and concluded the interview.

"What's going to happen to her now?" Aslyn asked, tears streaking her face. The detective offered the tissue box all around.

"Her family is making arrangements to have her cremated and returned to them."

"We don't have any contact information for them," she persisted. "Is there going to be a memorial service or funeral?"  The detective looked at her with compassion and said he'd pass along the questions. We had to be content with that.

"I bet there won't be, not here," Aslyn said bitterly. I nodded. Her parents hadn't liked that she'd chosen to live in such a big city, but she was an urban planner, and there simply wasn't enough of Montana that needed planning, so going home hadn't been an option. Not that she'd wanted to. She loved living in New York.

"You can have your own memorial service," Damian suggested, initiating a group hug, then guiding us back outside where Alfred waited.

"Cara, Martha, and Bess will want to come," I said wearily. "I suppose we should invite Vanilla."

"He'll probably blame us," Aslyn muttered.

"I keep thinking I should have tried harder to stay with you guys," I admitted. "I was afraid, though. I wanted to get out of there ASAP."

"You couldn't have done anything differently," Aslyn told me. "We were together one moment and then the next, it seemed, I was alone. And I wanted to get out too. Margaret wouldn't have been any different. We all did our best." After that, we were silent as we went back to the hotel. Aslyn went to lie down, and I had some phone calls to return. The first to my uncle, who was getting ready to charge over; I told him that I was ok, but my roommate was dead. Bucky said I didn't sound ok, and got me to agree to come to the tower to have my throat looked at. I knocked on Aslyn's door and asked if she wanted to see a doctor to be checked out, and she called her doctor. They would squeeze her in, so Alfred drove her and Damian took me to the tower. Before going up to the clinic, I checked in at work to tell Doug what happened and that I probably wouldn't be in tomorrow either. Then I stopped by the training room, where Bucky hugged me and asked me to come back down after seeing the doctors. Up in the clinic, they determined that my throat, sinuses, and lungs had been damaged by the smoke and heat and took chest xrays, monitored my heart, and drew blood. They gave me an IV and gave me oxygen since my pulse ox reading was a little low. I sagged against Damian while we waited for the test results. The doctor said that I'd be fine, and administered heparin and pentoxifylline to help with the pulmonary irritants. Then they checked and treated the burns on my arm and turned me loose when I was adequately hydrated and my pulse ox reading was normal. I felt slightly better, and clutched the papers that told me what to look for in terms of infection or other possible problems as we went back down to see Bucky. He'd contacted my parents, and while they were upset, he'd managed to keep them from rushing down to see me. He'd called J too, but he was studying for mid-terms and was content with the knowledge that I was getting care. Emma came down and after a careful hug gave me a big bottle of water and they both wanted to know if there was anything they could do.