Waiting For This Cough Syrup to Come Down (this version discontinued)

Chapter 13

"To us, family means putting your arms around each other and being there." - Barbara Bush.

Saniya was in no mood to go home. The hospital rules stated that a patient's visitors had to be in the hospital to receive news and updates about them. But if her psycho-insane-emotionless freak of a boss (who was crazy to actually set up a medical version of the freaking Avengers) wanted her employee to leave the hospital to tell a family what was going on, then screw the rules.

She left the Emergency Room department and retreated to the locker room before digging her phone out of her pocket with shaking hands and dialling Lana's number. Saniya was good at keeping grudges - she only kept this one to screw with Lana and didn't want Lana to be the one she called at this point. But Lana was the only one who'd pick up her phone on the first try.

After three rings, she answered, and Saniya didn't mess around with the usual greetings.

"Get everyone in one room and put me on speaker."

Lana didn't answer, but Saniya heard shouts and footsteps, followed by a retarded scream which she guessed came from Lana because she was retarded too.

"Is everything OK?" she asked

This triggered more questions.

"Where's my car?"

"Where did that grape come from, Louis?"

"Where's my car?"

"How was the operation?"

"Where's my car?"

"Have you seen Zayn?"

"Why do they smell so bad?"

"Where's - my - car?"

"Shut up," Saniya said bluntly. "And who stinks?" she added, breaking out of her serious persona to feed her curiosity.

"Niall and Louis," Liam answered. "Lou, where the hell did that grape come from?"

"Alright!" Saniya called, feeling frustrated already. The guys had the attention span of the idiot from her Year Eight French class (but then the same girl proceeded to Harvard in America, so she couldn't really talk). "I got something to tell you guys, so no interrupting. That means no questions, no sounds that a really dramatic audience would make ... and no pulling out food from random places."

No one said anything.

Saniya took a deep breath and shut her eyes. Momentarily, she wondered how to break the news to the others, entirely unsure of how they would react. She didn't even know how she felt about the situation. She knew that she shouldn't panic as she'd seen worse cases than his, but ... Zayn having possible brain damage? She didn't like that at all.

But she was going to be calm about this - because she knew what she was doing.

"Zayn'sinthehospitalcarcrashbrokenlimbsandheprobablyhasbraindamageandthey'recheckingforitrightnowandIhavetotellhisfamilynowbye."

She hung up without waiting for a reaction and slammed her head on the wall in frustration.

Damn idiot, she cursed herself.

Her phone vibrated several times, but she didn't pick up.

Saniya figured that there was no point in calling her future in-laws just yet - if she screwed up breaking the news to friends, she'd completely mess up talking to his family. She placed the phone in the breast pocket of her white coat and made her way back to the ER.

As she strode through the ER ward, she noticed that the curtains were still drawn around the bed which Zayn had been in. How long were they going to take in there?