All the Time in the World (English)

Chapter 2 - A World I don't Know Anymore

Guy opened his eyes for a moment, and closed them immediately, hoping that sleep would come back to him.
The healer who had encouraged him had not lied: when he woke up, the pain of the wounds was barely perceptible and he was laying on a comfortable bed.
He felt tremendously weak, but no longer confused, and he looked around to understand in what room of the castle they had brought him. He stared at the room for a while, then he lowered his eyelids to see nothing else.
He was sure that he wasn't in the castle, now, but that was the only thing he could be sure of.
That place was completely strange and unknown, and Guy couldn't understand it. Everything was so weird and incomprehensible to scare him to death.
He wondered if that place could be the otherworld, but everything was so concrete and solid that it had to be real.
The only thing that made sense was the bed: there was a mattress, a pillow, and sheets, and, if Guy kept his eyes closed, he could pretend that he was at Locksley or in one of the castle's rooms.
Of course, his bed had never been so comfortable and even the sheets were made of a material different than the linen he was used to, but the concept didn't change and, when he slept, he could think that everything was almost normal. But he couldn't sleep forever.
He heard the door of the room opening, and he remained motionless, petrified by terror, while his heart accelerated its beats. The steps approached the bed, and Guy winced when he felt somebody touching him.
"Oh, you're awake," a female voice said, and Gisborne ventured to open his eyes. The person who had just talked was a middle-aged woman, not very tall, with a chubby body and a round face. The woman looked at him with a gentle expression and her tone was reassuring, but Guy found her appearance disconcerting: the woman's hair was cut short, with dark curls barely reaching her neck and she wore pants and a shirt of an identical light green color and, over them, a long white coat that reached her knees.
No Nottingham lady would voluntarily wear anything like that, and Guy wondered if that dress and haircut had been imposed to her as a penance for some sin, but the woman did not seem to be embarrassed or humiliated by her appearance.
She stopped at the foot of the bed and she took a sort of rectangular tablet, pausing to read something on it, then she came nearer and smiled at him.
"Guy... This is your name, right? Can you tell me your full name?"
That was a question he could answer, so he did, though he feared that revealing his identity could attract people's hatred on him.
"Guy of Gisborne?" The woman repeated, pausing to write a note on the folder. "It's an unusual name... My name is Alicia Little and I'm one of the doctors who treated your wounds. Is there anyone we can contact? A wife? Your family?"
A healer...
Guy thought that maybe that was the reason for her strange clothing: even that sort of witch who lived in the forest, Matilda if he remembered well her name, went around dressed in a bizarre way.
If that woman had really been able to cure his wounds, she must be skillful in her work: the sheriff's sword had run him through, and Isabella's stabbing had contaminated him with poison, it was almost impossible to survive to such wounds .
With a shudder he thought that perhaps that woman was actually a witch and that she had used magic to save him, but then what was the price to pay?
"Guy?" The woman called him again. "Is there any relative we can call?"
"I have no one," he said, then he realized that it wasn't entirely true. "Apart from Robin and Archer, if they survived."
"Survived what?"
"The siege of the castle. Have they succeeded? Were they able to defend it?"
The doctor gave him a perplexed look and she took another note on the folder.
"Robyn? Is she your wife?"
Guy looked at her as if she was completely crazy and Alicia smiled at his disgusted expression.
"No, not you wife, then." She laughed. "Can you give me his or her full name?"
"Robin of Locksley," Guy said, wondering if he had met the only person in Nottingham who didn't know the outlaw. "Robin Hood," he added for clarity.
The woman was quick to hide her surprise for that answer and she kept talking to him as if everything was normal.
"And Archer? Archer's full name?"
"Just Archer."
The doctor took another note and dropped that subject.
"Well, Guy, do you know where you are?"
"No."
"You are in a hospital, in the intensive care unit, they brought you here in a helicopter three days ago, and you had surgery to stop the bleeding and to treat the wounds. Until this morning you have been sedated to allow you to recover more easily from the surgery and from the effects of the aconite poisoning, but by now your conditions have clearly improved a lot."
Alicia noticed Guy's confused expression, and she thought that he ought to be still stunned by sedatives and upset by the accident.
"You've been very ill, but you'll get better soon," she said, hoping that this was a simple enough concept for him to understand. Guy nodded weakly, and the doctor decided to go to the next question.
"Do you remember how you were hurt?"
Guy nodded again, more sure.
"It was the Sheriff."
"The Sheriff?"
"Yes, the Sheriff of Nottingham. He treacherously hit me, and he pierced me with his sword..." Guy's face darkened. "Then Isabella stabbed me in the back. It was her blade to be poisoned... She hurt Robin too... But if you saved me, did you manage to treat him too? Will he survive?"
The doctor touched his hand, kindly.
"You were alone when they found you, there was nobody else."
Guy closed his eyes.
"So Robin Hood died for my fault... I destroyed him too..."
Alicia stared at him for a moment and she decided to pretend she didn't hear his words. Probably that man was still traumatized by the accident and confused because of the drugs, maybe in time he would be able to think more lucidly.
"Don't think about it now, Guy. Now you just have to think about getting better."
"But it's not fair that I survived and Robin didn't!"
"You can't know if your friend is really dead. We will seek informations about him, I promise you. Now tell me how do you feel."
"Weak. I have an headache."
"It's normal: you have lost a lot of blood and have undergone surgery, but you'll feel better soon. I'll tell the nurses to give you something for the pain. Now I have to check the wounds, relax and tell me if I hurt you."
The doctor moved the sheet aside, and Guy looked at her, horrified.
"What are you doing?!"
"I have to examine the wounds to be sure they are healing well and that there are no signs of infection. You will not feel pain, I assure you. I just need to lift the hospital gown that you are wearing and remove the dressing on your wounds."
"No... you can't do it."
"Why not?"
"Because you're a woman! It's not decent!"
Alicia looked at him and realized that he was really embarrassed and shocked at the idea that she could see him without clothes.
"I'm a doctor, I'm used to see the body of my patients. I have already taken care of you while you were sedated, but if you prefer, I can call one of my male colleagues."
Guy nodded, red in the face, and the doctor smiled, reassuringly, as she replaced the sheet.
"Okay then, but maybe you'll have to wait for a while, until they do their other visits. If you feel tired, you can sleep, you need to rest to recover your strength."
Alicia was about to move away from the bed, but Guy stared at her, and the woman realized that her patient was terrified.
"What's up?"
"Is this hell? I can't understand it... It seems that I am alive, but maybe I'm not and this is the punishment I deserve..."
"You're alive, I can guarantee. I can understand that it's not pleasant to stay in the hospital, but isn't it a bit exaggerated to compare it to hell?"
Guy looked around, anxious.
"What are all these things?"
"What?"
"Everything. These things near the bed that make strange noises... I don't see candles, yet there is light in the room... Where does it come from? And what did you do to me? Why do I have this thing on my arm? It hurts and I can't understand what it is: it looks like a small glass tube, but it's soft and there's some fluid inside... I can't understand anything I see and less than half of what I hear... What's this sound? This sort of roar?"
The doctor looked at him, bewildered, and she listened to understand what he was talking about.
"I can just hear a passing airplane..."
Guy stared at her, getting more and more terrified.
"See? You are talking again about things I don't understand. What is this... airplane?"
Alicia put a hand on his forehead and moved it to caress his hair.
"Calm down, Guy. Take a deep breath and calm down. If you don't understand something or if you feel frightened for any reason, tell me or one of my colleagues, and we will try to explain everything to you. But remember that here you are safe, and the only thing we want is to make you feel better. If it's the first time you get hospitalized, it's normal that many things may seem scary, but they all have a reason."
She took his hand with caution and she pointed to the patch that held in place the needle of the drip.
"Is that what you're scared of? It brings all the medicines and the liquids that you need into your body. They are contained in those bags and they slowly enter your body. We also gave you some bags of blood, since you've bled so much."
Guy looked at her.
"Are you saying that you put new blood inside me? But it's impossible!"
"No, I assure you, it's a safe and reliable technique. There isn't any danger, and we can say that it saved your life."
Gisborne shuddered.
"But where did you take the blood? Did you kill someone to save me?"
Alicia shook her head, once again overwhelmed by those questions, but she tried to reassure him, explaining blood donations to him in a simple way, using more or less the same words that she used when she talked to the younger patients in the pediatric ward.
In the end, Guy calmed down, more because he was weary than for Alicia's words, and he closed his eyes, slipping into a exhausted sleep.
The doctor took a few notes on the clinical record, then she went out of the room, thoughtful.
She had just closed the door behind her, when she came across Dr. Track, the doctor who came from London.
"Are you coming from surgery, Dr. Track?"
"Yeah, accident between a car and a truck. Three seriously injured, but they should make it. Did you visit the mysterious knight? Did he wake up?"
"He's awake, but I'm afraid he may have suffered brain damage. He looks to be conscious and coherent, but he makes meaningless talk, he is very upset and he seems to have trouble understanding simple concepts."
"We'll have to go through further examinations. Did he name some family member who we can contact?"
Alicia shook her head with a sad smile.
"He said he was a relative of Robin Hood."
Alec looked at her, a little surprised.
"Appropriate for Nottingham, though," he said, with an ironic smile.