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After working in the ER for this many years, Ed has gotten pretty used to seeing cops hanging around. He’s resigned himself to the unfortunate reality, but he’s also always ready to step in as a voice of moderate authority if necessary, particularly if it looks like the patient could use a friend.
He normally reserves the least concern for the white guys. In fact, in the usual course of things, he wouldn’t even bat an eye at a rich-looking white man, no matter how much the cop in question was being a dick to him. This guy, though…
This guy, it seems like the cops are being real dicks to. And he really looks like he could use a friend.
Ed had been dealing with a Code Brown at the other end of the ward when the guy and his police escort had arrived, so he hadn’t been privy to whatever conversation had landed this perfectly healthy-looking man in one of the private rooms. Based on the glares being directed at the officer in the doorway by the other staff, Ed’s willing to bet that someone was throwing their weight (and badge) around in a way that didn’t win them any friends. Overhearing the way the cop snaps indiscriminately at staff, other patients who get too close, and his prisoner, Ed suspects that he doesn’t have many friends in general.
In Ed’s experience, these particular kinds of trouble—bored police officers looking to pick a fight—tend to come in pairs, though he’s only spotted one uniform on the floor tonight. Ed wonders if maybe the guy’s partner is waiting elsewhere; after all, the prisoner looks pretty subdued, and Jackie doesn’t like unnecessary people on the floor of her ER, getting in the way of her staff.
(The fact that Jackie broadly also sees police officers as unnecessary people is one of the many reasons Ed is still working here, despite the fact that she rules the place with an iron—or carbon fibre, as the case may be—fist, and he’d almost certainly be able to negotiate more money elsewhere.)
Sure enough, the first time Ed steps out into the waiting room, he thinks he’s seeing double. Then he wonders if maybe all white guys really do look the same. Then finally, he notices the lack of hair and the birthmark, and realizes that these cops must be related somehow. The guy in the waiting room is in a plainclothes outfit that absolutely screams police officer in a way that only the cops seem to be able to achieve, but the sharp, condescending tone of his voice as he snaps at a sniffly toddler to get away from him is almost identical to the guy inside.
Two cops, then. Two brothers, maybe, or other relatives. He doesn’t see that too often, which suggests that a) these two have a lot of sway, and/or b) that maybe something about this case is personal to them.
Ed shakes his head, tries to put the whole thing out of his mind. No point thinking too hard about some random man who gets shuffled through his emergency room. He’s sure the guy has probably done something reprehensible anyway; Ed would only be disappointed if he found out more. Sure, Ed finds him strangely compelling. And sure, he almost seems to glow, all pink and gold and vibrant, even in a hospital gown. But still. Best to just forget about it and focus on his job.
He kind of succeeds at that, for a while at least. Things are actually pretty quiet today, which would normally be a blessing, but in this particular instance it’s giving him far more opportunities to casually drift past the blond’s room and check on the situation. Just out of professional curiosity, of course.
However, that means that he’s actually in earshot to hear the cop say, with all the smug gloating of a villain in an action movie, “...thought you were so clever, didn’t you, Bonnet? Thought you were one step ahead of us. And now here you are, with nowhere to go. Real pain in the ass, isn’t it?”
Only a brief flick of the eyes up and then back to the opposing wall shows that the man is listening at all, but his lack of response seems to only stoke the flames of his tormentor’s ire.
“Just wait until we bring that thing back to your father. Think how disappointed Daddy is going to be. And think how embarrassed he’ll be when we tell him where we found it.”
The prisoner still doesn’t respond, but he’s got a terrible poker face. Ed can see a flush rise on his cheeks, his narrow lips pressing together in a tight line.
And Ed? Listen, maybe he’s a little biased—both on a “fuck cops” level and a “fuck dads” level—but he’s done listening to this dickhead talk like that to someone who can’t fight back.
“Vitals check!” he says cheerfully, stepping into the room. Both men turn sharply to look at him.
“He doesn’t need a vitals check,” snaps the cop. “There’s nothing wrong with this one other than a blatant disregard for the law, and other people’s prop—”
“I’m gonna have to disagree with you there, mate,” Ed responds, letting all the bedside warmth fall out of his voice, and he’s pleased to see the man take a small step back in response. Cowards, all of them. “As long as…” he takes a quick look at the chart. Is Stede really this guy’s name, or did the intake nurse make a typo? “…Mr. Bonnet is a patient in my ER, he’ll get his regular checks just like everyone else.”
The cop scowls, but he takes a step back.
“Fine, but get on with it.”
Ed steps up to the bedside, does his best to make reassuring eye contact with the man in the bed without actually letting any of his facial muscles move. The guy seems to get it, though, and Ed thinks he sees the barest hint of a smile flicker around the corners of his lips.
“Thank you. Now if you’d just step out of the room, this won’t take long at all,” Ed continues.
“Absolutely no—” the cop begins, and Ed is just about fucking done with him, actually.
“Can I get your name, officer?” he asks.
“Badminton,” says Officer-apparently-Badminton. “But I don’t see why—”
“And your badge number, if you don’t mind. Just for my records. The hospital takes patient confidentiality very seriously.”
It works. It works every time. With an inaudible grumble, Badminton goes to the door, standing just far enough outside it to be probably out of earshot, while still keeping a close eye on proceedings inside.
Ed busies himself with looking at the heart monitor, suddenly at a loss for words. The inclination to swoop in and rescue had been so strong, he hadn’t really thought about what would come next. “So, Mr. Bonnet…” he begins, hoping the rest of the sentence will fall into place as he talks.
“Stede, please,” says the man—okay, so apparently that wasn’t a typo—in the bed. “If that’s, er… alright. You’re allowed to call patients by their first names, right? Sorry, I haven’t had much experience with this sort of thing.”
“Of course,” Ed says, smiling as broadly as he can without looking completely deranged in an attempt to put Stede’s obvious anxiety to rest. “Nice to meet you, Stede. I’m Edward. Or Ed, whatever you’d prefer.”
“Edward…” Stede says slowly, as if testing the mouthfeel of the word, and nope, that sure isn’t a train of thought Ed can be fucking boarding right now. “Or Ed?”
Ed nods, hoping he isn’t blushing too much.
“I think I prefer Ed,” Stede says after a moment. “Edward feels a little formal, especially given the circumstances.”
Right, Ed remembers. The circumstances. He glances over at the door to see Badminton watching them suspiciously, and busies himself with pulling the wholly unnecessary manual blood pressure monitor out of its basket.
“I’m grateful, though,” Stede continues. “For the conversation, I mean. I’ve been here for hours, and no one has so much as come to ask how I’m doing. I know you’re just checking my vitals or whatever, but—”
“Oh, I didn’t need to check shit,” Ed says, without thinking. “Just thought it seemed like that guy was being a dick to you and maybe you could use a break.” He freezes as soon as the words are out of his mouth. He knows he’s being unprofessional, and Stede seemed grateful for the interruption, but there’s always a chance that—
“God, you have no idea,” Stede responds, heaving an only slightly exaggerated-looking sigh. “Those two are absolutely thrilled to have nabbed me, and aren’t exactly being subtle about letting me know.”
“Two?” Ed asks, then remembers the plainclothes cop in the waiting room.
“Nigel and Chauncey,” Stede says, with a grimace of distaste. “We had the misfortune of knowing each other growing up; or at least misfortune on my part. Miserable boys grown into miserable men. I can’t imagine they should have been permitted on the case, legally or ethically speaking, but they stayed in contact with my father—closer contact than I did, to be honest—and he has a way of making things happen.”
Ed gives a sympathetic wince as he picks up Stede’s chart and pretends to flip through it. He’s not sure if yeah mate, my dad’s also a dick would be the appropriate response here.
“If I’m being honest, being caught by those two is the most embarrassing part of the entire process,” Stede continues. “Which is really saying something, given, you know… why I’m here.”
Ed realizes that he doesn’t actually know why Stede’s here. Sure, it’s in the chart that he’s still staring at blankly, but that somehow feels like an invasion of privacy to just… read. Which is fucking ridiculous, this man is just another patient. But when Ed’s already in here under false pretenses, it kind of just feels like a step too far. Two wrongs don’t make a right, and all that.
“And why…” he begins, not sure how to explain that entire thought process to Stede, who looks at him in surprise.
“Oh, goodness. I was certain you would all have known. I’m here because…” He pauses for effect. “… Because I committed a theft.”
Ed isn’t sure if he’s supposed to look shocked, or impressed, or what. Mostly, he’s just not sure how the two things are connected. Whatever reaction Stede’s looking for, he apparently doesn’t see it on Ed’s face. His conspiratorial smile fades slightly, but then he seems to rally, trying a new tactic.
“Did you hear about what happened at the Royal Museum over the weekend?” he asks.
Ed did hear about what happened at the Royal Museum over the weekend, as a matter of fact. The news on the TVs in the waiting room had been full of it, not to mention chatter around the proverbial water cooler. He’d even had a few patients comment on it; after all, it’s not every day that you hear about an honest-to-god art heist. It had sounded like something out of some wildly improbable action movie, all glass cutters and disabled security cameras and rappelling down from a skylight. Flashy and overdramatic, for sure, but you always kind of liked seeing some lunatic stick it to the rich guys, right?
Some lunatic who, apparently, was currently beaming up at Ed from a hospital bed, looking like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.
“That was you?” He doesn’t mean to sound so surprised, and briefly worries that Stede might find it insulting. He just doesn’t look like what you’d imagine when someone said “art museum robber.” Though now that Ed thinks about it, he does kind of look like what you’d imagine when someone said “guy who read too many novels about gentlemen thieves as a child,” so maybe it checks out after all.
“It certainly was.” Stede’s response is a low whisper, his eyes flicking over to Officer Tennis Racket (or whatever the fuck) in the doorway, but the pride in his voice is still unmistakable.
“That Fabergé necklace?” Ed asks, because that’s the one piece everyone’s been talking about. Sure, a few other bits and bobs were stolen as well, but it was immediately clear to investigators and the public alike that the necklace had been the prime target.
“The very same, yes.” Stede nods.
Ed is full of questions—ones that he’s not sure he should be asking, come to think of it, in case the answers implicates him or makes him an accessory or something—but then he remembers how this conversation started.
“But… why the fuck are you in the hospital for a museum heist? Did you, I dunno, pull a muscle backflipping over some laser beams or something?”
Stede laughs. “No, nothing like that. They’re just doing their best to retrieve the necklace. While I, in turn, do my best to… hold onto it, so to speak.”
Ed’s eyes turn down towards the chart still in his hands, almost of their own accord, and he catches sight of a key word: Laxative.
“You ate it?”
Stede’s smile grows even wider, cheeks dimpling in a way that’s far too winsome for the bombshell he’s just dropped. Ed is full of questions, even more full, he thinks, than Stede is of prescription-grade lactulose. But his question must’ve been a little too loud, or maybe Officer Squash Court finally got tired of waiting, because suddenly he’s at Ed’s elbow and glaring at both of them with the deepest suspicion.
Ed doesn’t really have a leg to stand on here, and doesn’t want to risk the guy asking any further questions about what Ed’s actually been doing in here, so he beats a hasty retreat to formulate a new plan.
Because there does need to be a new plan, that’s for sure. He’s hardly just going to walk away from this beautiful lunatic with an ass full of Fabergé, is he? He’s only human, after all.
—
He gets his opportunity sooner than he expects. As he passes the room about half an hour later, he hears the cop barking at some poor porter with exactly zero control over patient care that the whole thing is “taking too long.” What he expects the woman to do about it is beyond Ed’s understanding, but he takes the opening to swoop helpfully in.
“We might be able to increase his dose, officer,” he says, with the closest thing he can muster to a disarming smile. “But we’ll have to do a few tests first, just to make sure the medication won’t hurt him.”
Officer Lacrosse Stick glares at him, and Ed is almost daring him to push back; maybe even to suggest that he doesn’t care if it’ll harm Stede, in which case Ed will absolutely have his ass up in front of a review committee… but unfortunately it seems like he’s not quite that stupid.
“Fine,” he snaps, all bark and no bite. “But make it quick.”
Ed nods, slipping past him into the room. Stede is still lying in bed, looking distinctly green around the gills. Taking another look at the doses listed on his chart, Ed can only conclude that he’s keeping that necklace in via sheer force of will.
“You’re here to further hasten the demise of my intestinal tract, I assume?” Stede asks, looking up at Ed with a slightly weaker smile than before. He’s sweating now, with a deep furrow in his brow that Ed has the inexplicable and almost certainly inappropriate desire to smooth away.
“Not just yet,” Ed says, instead of doing something that could very well get him fired (or at least in a lot of hot water with the College). “Honestly, based on your chart, there shouldn’t be any need for it.”
Stede chuckles, somehow managing to still look smug in spite of his obvious discomfort. “Good. Let the assholes wait.”
“Y’know, it makes sense if you’re worried,” Ed says, trying to ease into the question that’s been consuming and horrifying him in equal parts since he found out about Stede’s particular brand of banditry. “That necklace looked… kinda sharp in the photos on the news, and—” and frankly, he’s shocked that Stede didn’t tear open something in his throat or stomach. The idea of having to pass the thing just doesn’t bear thinking about.
“Oh, that’s not a problem,” Stede says, far too airily given the context. “Or rather, it might be a little uncomfortable, but I wrapped it in several condoms first. I’m told that’s generally how these things are done.”
Ed is speechless, not because he doesn’t know what to say, but because he frankly doesn’t even know where to start.
“So while it’s very kind of you to be worried about the state of my… orifices, I promise you I’ll be perfectly fine.”
Ed has, in fact, been doing his best to not think about Stede’s orifices at all (or at least, not in any kind of non-professional manner). But for reasons he can’t entirely explain, every new step of Stede’s plan makes him more attractive. Something for Ed to unpack, certainly, but now isn’t the time.
“But you know that this is the end of the road, right?” he asks, because this is the one piece he still hasn’t been able to figure out. “You’re gonna have to go eventually, they’re not just going to let you leave. So why not just get the worst part over with?”
Stede gives him that infectious grin again, and fuck those dimples are going to be the death of Ed, he’s positive.
“Because Nigel and Chauncey hate having to wait for anything,” he says. “I’m not sure anyone has ever inconvenienced them before in their lives; they certainly don’t seem to be taking it well.”
Ed barely manages to hold back a laugh, equal parts fascinated and charmed by the depths of discomfort to which this man is apparently willing to sink for the sake of getting back at his childhood bullies.
“Besides,” Stede continues, “the longer it takes to get the necklace back, the angrier my father will become. Which was really the main goal of this; upsetting the twins is just an unexpected bonus.”
Right. Ed had heard Officer Baseball Bat say something about Stede’s dad. It had seemed like a bit of a sore spot, but obviously there’s more to it.
“What does your dad have to do with all of this?”
“Oh, didn’t you know? He’s the head of the board and one of the largest annual donors to the Royal Museum,” Stede says airily. “He fully funded the Fabergé exhibit, and the necklace was a particular favourite of his. Or so I’m told, we haven’t actually spoken since I told the family that I’m gay.”
Ed can’t decide whether this answers more questions than it raises, and ultimately decides that it doesn’t.
“So… your estranged father likes this necklace so much that you decided to steal it and shove it up your ass—”
“Swallow it, Ed. Honestly, it’s like you haven’t even been paying attention.”
“Right, swallow it. And you know you’ll shit it out and get arrested for theft, but that all feels worth it for the sake of inconveniencing a few rich, vindictive assholes?”
Stede opens his mouth, pauses, then closes it again. He appears to consider something, and then shrugs. “That’s about it, yes.”
“Fucking mental,” Ed breathes, as much to himself as to Stede.
“Who knows, though,” Stede says with a twinkle in his eye. “Maybe I’ll escape from prison. Go on the lam.”
“Oh yeah? Where would you go?”
Stede hums thoughtfully. “Not sure, honestly. Could buy a boat, flee down the St. Lawrence, start a whole new life. Maybe even become a pirate.”
“Not a lot of pirating on the Great Lakes I don’t think,” Ed says. Then, wanting to make sure Stede knows he’s playing along rather than trying to shoot him down, adds: “I’m sure you could get to an ocean eventually, though. Sail off into the sunset and all that shit. I hear China’s nice this time of year.”
Stede laughs. “The open sea does sound appealing, but China might be a little far for my tastes. Perhaps—”
“Okay, enough.” Officer Hockey Puck is back in the room, clearly at the end of his rope. Ed thinks he can see a vein throbbing in the man’s forehead, and half-hopes, in a very unprofessional way, that it’ll burst. (Hey, they’re in a hospital. He’d be fine. Probably.)
“Are you going to give him more drugs or not? I don’t have all fucking day.”
“Somewhere to be, Nigel?” Stede asks from the bed. “Got a fresh pair of boots to lick, maybe?”
Nigel rounds on Stede, venom in his eyes. “You can’t stall forever, you know. We’ll have the evidence we need sooner or later. And personally, I’m going to enjoy seeing you—”
“We expect all of our patients to be treated with respect in this hospital,” Ed says, maybe a little too sharply, cutting the man off before he can get going.
“And you.” Nigel turns his furious gaze on Ed. “I don’t know exactly what you think you’re playing at, but as soon as we’re out of here I’ll be making a call directly to the head of the hospital board. He plays golf with my father, I think, and I’m sure he’ll be interested to hear about the way standards are slipping around here.”
Ed opens his mouth to respond, but Stede interrupts.
“I think I need to use the washroom,” he says with a solemnity that Ed isn’t sure the situation entirely deserves. “If you gentlemen will excuse me.”
He stands, and walks towards the bathroom on the other side of the room, shutting the door behind him. Croquet Mallet goes to follow, but Ed steps into his path.
“Get out of my way,” he snaps at Ed. “I need to make sure he doesn’t flush it.”
“That room’s got a commode, mate,” Ed says, not budging. He might not be able to do anything to help Stede, but at least he can make sure he has some privacy for this particularly undignified part of the process. “I promise you, nothing in there is going anywhere. You’ll have all the time in the world to go rooting around for it like a—”
He lets the rest of the sentence die on his lips, knowing that even Jackie might not be willing to have his back if he calls the man a pig to his face. He’s pretty sure even this guy is smart enough to see where he was going, and is pleased to see the muscle under his eye twitch a few times. Without another word, Officer Mouthguard turns to look at the bathroom door like a cat at a mousehole, as if Stede could somehow slip out under the crack and escape while he’s not looking.
It’s not long before Stede opens the door again, face flushed but otherwise apparently unharmed.
“Well?” Golf Club asks. “Where is it?”
“Where do you think?” Stede nods back over his shoulder. “Help yourself, Nigel. All the evidence you could possibly want.”
Ed watches with interest as Officer Bowling Pin goes from pink to red to something approaching purple. He can’t force Stede to get it, Ed is sure. And he must be smart enough to know that Ed’s not going to help him. Finally, he pulls out a phone and dials a number.
“Chauncey, you’ll need to get in here. No, I don’t have it. I need to get it. No, not like that. Just…” He pauses. “What do you mean you went for coffee? And you didn’t even offer to bring me one?” Another pause. “Fine, just get back here quickly, I want to get out of here as soon as possible. Real dregs of society in this place.”
He looks directly at Ed as he says it, and Ed clenches his teeth so hard he can feel his molars squeak. He doesn’t need to start a fight now, that’s not going to do anyone any good.
“Are we done here?” Nigel asks him as he ends the call. “I don’t think we need your assistance anymore, nurse.”
Ed senses more than sees Stede step up beside him, practically radiating with righteous indignation. An unexpected wave of fondness sweeps over Ed, quelling his own anger a little. The thought that Stede would go toe to toe with his captor just to defend Ed, a man he’s barely known a few hours, charms Ed back to his senses. It would be useless for either of them to pick a fight. Not here, not now. There’s not much that either of them can do, he doesn’t think.
Unless…
“Sorry officer, of course. I’ll leave you to your work,” Ed says, the feigned pleasantry grating at his very soul.
He ignores Stede’s very quiet “Ed…” as he turns to go. As he leaves the room, he thinks that walking away might be the hardest thing he’s ever had to do.
Ed hurries back to the central desk, mind buzzing. He’s got a vague shape of a plan, but suspects he only has a few minutes to put it into motion. Officer Water Polo the Second will probably be arriving at any moment, so if Ed wants to do anything, he’ll have to make it quick.
(The insanity of the fact that he’s even considering doing anything barely crosses his mind. Of course he’s got to do something. He can’t just let Stede get unceremoniously dragged off to jail.)
Crossing his fingers that a) his coworkers will understand, and b) he’ll be a good enough actor to pull this off, he picks up the internal phone and punches in an extension.
—
The plan, it turns out, goes perfectly. Of course it does, Ed is a genius.
Approximately three minutes later, Officer Football Plainclothes bursts through the doors from the waiting room, face red and jacket askew.
“Where is he?” he snaps, grabbing the nearest nurse by the arm, who looks understandably alarmed at the sudden intrusion.
She barely has time to get out a tentative “Who—” before the cavalry arrives.
“I’m going to have to ask you to let her go, man.” The cop freezes as a heavy hand lands on his shoulder, the calmness of the voice belying the firmness of the speaker’s grip.
“Get your hands off me, don’t you know who I am?” Officer Dickhead (Ed only knows so many sports, so sue him) slaps the hand away, whirling to face his attacker, and that’s all the motivation that Ed’s favourite security guard needs to grab the guy by the collar of his jacket, twisting his arm up behind his back.
“I asked you nicely,” rumbles Kevin. “Now I’m gonna have to ask you not-so-nicely.”
Dickhead tries unsuccessfully to pull away from Kevin with a snarled obscenity that turns into an undignified yelp as his shoulder strains in its socket, and he collides noisily with a metal cart full of equipment, sending all of it—and himself—tumbling to the ground.
Ed, sensing that the moment has arrived, grabs the phone on the desk and calls a Code White over the speaker, knowing that the announcement of a violent situation will bring a stream of additional security guards and infinitely more chaos into the ward. He can’t get to Stede’s room to say anything, and he knows he needs plausible deniability in case anyone asks, so all he can do is add to the chaos by snapping conflicting instructions at staff and patients alike, and hoping that Stede will take the hint.
Sure enough, a minute or two later, he hears an angry, impotent yell of “Chauncey, get him!” from the bathroom in Stede’s room, and turns to see the Him in question scampering for the exit, hospital gown flapping as he runs. Ed only allows himself to be distracted by the hypnotizingly flat ass for a moment as Stede speeds past, then reinforcements arrive to help Kevin pin down the struggling, swearing cop, and Ed loses track of him.
—
The aftermath of the incident is long, tedious, and full of paperwork. Ed deny deny denies any intent or malice in his actions, and either he’s a really good liar, or Jackie hates cops even more than he thought, because he manages to scrape by without even a warning.
It’s a shame, he thinks, that Stede wasn’t able to at least keep the necklace, but Ed hopes that having his freedom is enough. He doubts he’ll ever see the man again, but at least he’s free, even if his plan failed.
Ed is as shocked as anyone—possibly even moreso—when the morning news announces a breaking update in the case.
Less than twelve hours after a highly publicized press conference announcing the recovery of the necklace (and “close pursuit of a suspect of interest,” which particularly amuses Ed), the deeply chagrined chief of police is forced to publicly state that the recovered object in question is in fact a fake.
Ed lets the surprised chatter wash over him all morning, only shrugging non-committally on the rare occasions someone remembers that he was actually here yesterday when it all went down. He tries to focus on work, but his mind is racing.
How did Stede do it? How the fuck did he do it? Was it all some kind of ruse? Maybe he never took the necklace at all, and he was just trying to make his father look like an idiot. Maybe Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber stole the real one and delivered a fake back to their bosses? That didn’t seem likely either, but then…
A little after lunch, the cops show up. Not the fuckers from yesterday, Ed assumes (or at least hopes) that they’re experiencing some kind of consequences for their stupidity, though he’s not holding his breath.
Regardless, it appears that his interactions with Stede didn’t go entirely unnoticed, and the very serious officers who show up unannounced at his workstation have questions. Fortunately, Ed knows his rights. And, more importantly, he knows his patients’ rights, and he’s not going to tell these dicks a single word of his and Stede’s conversation without a warrant.
(To be honest, he’s unlikely to tell them a word even with a warrant. Or at least, not a word that’s true. But for now, he doesn’t even have to pretend.)
Once that becomes blatantly apparent, the officers leave him alone, though every time he goes out to the waiting room he sees them skulking around in the lobby. They’re so obvious it’s almost funny; pretty much one newspaper with eyeholes cut out shy of being a cartoon stakeout, but he figures that’s none of his business.
Still, when the courier shows up, they’re all over him.
The poor delivery guy barely manages to get Ed’s name out at the reception desk before he gets swarmed by plainclothes cops, the mysterious parcel he’s carrying all but ripped from his hands.
When the paper is opened, revealing nothing more than an ostentatiously elaborate bouquet of flowers, they all seem disappointed. Fortunately, the one officer who’s apparently got custody of the brain cell today thinks to look at the note.
Dear Edward, the note reads, recited aloud by the most literate of the cops.
I wish to extend my most sincere apologies for any trouble I may have caused you.
You were kind to me when I was in a most distressing situation, and buoyed my spirits when they were at their lowest. For that, I will be forever grateful.
I only regret the consequences that my actions may have had for you, and for your equally blameless coworkers. The mayhem the officers caused at your place of work was a shocking display of incompetence—the officer pauses for a moment, flushing with embarrassment, then continues—but it was never my intention to inconvenience you, or any of the other patients requiring your absolutely stellar care.
By the time you read this, I will likely already be at the harbour preparing to set sail. Once I reach international waters, there’s nothing more they can do to me. I understand that our fair country does not have an extradition policy with China, so perhaps that is where my life will begin anew.
It was lovely to meet you, Edward, given the circumstances.
Stede Bonnet
The group of police officers burst into action like a flock of particularly disorganized birds, all squawking into phones about getting to the harbour and preparing the police boats, and practically tripping over one another on their way out the door.
The receptionist and waiting patients look after the pack of them bemusedly as they spill out of the hospital, leaving an almost ringing silence in their wake.
Ed feels a little like he’s dreaming, except the inescapable smell of the ER is too strong for this to be a fantasy. The flowers, though? That letter? Who even does that kind of thing?
Stede Bonnet, apparently.
Ed hopes that he manages to escape; hopes that either he was bluffing or the cops are too incompetent to get to him before he sets sail. He’d said that China felt a little far, though, hadn’t he? Maybe he’d just taken Ed’s suggestion to heart.
Something is nudging at the back of Ed’s brain, though. A turn of phrase.
Given the circumstances.
Edward.
He wonders whether there’s something here, some thread to chase that he’s not quite seeing, or if he’s snatching at sunbeams hoping that somehow this insane adventure isn’t quite over yet.
“Excuse me, are you Ed?”
Ed almost jumps out of his skin; he hadn’t even noticed the man approach.
“Got something for you, I was told I’d find you here. He also said to wait until the hubbub died down, but I wasn’t sure what he meant until I arrived. Never a dull day around the hospital I guess, huh?”
“Yeah,” Ed replies absently. “Never a dull one.”
The delivery man hands over a small parcel, gives him a friendly nod, and walks back out the door.
Ed opens it carefully, becoming more convinced with every passing minute that he really is dreaming, because this kind of shit doesn’t actually happen in real life, does it?
Inside, he finds another bouquet of flowers. This one is smaller, less showy, but beautiful all the same. Maybe even moreso, in a tasteful kind of way. There’s a piece of paper stuffed in between two of the stems; at first glance it looks like some kind of junk mail, but when he pulls it out, he notices a few lines of writing on it.
Ed,
If you’re reading this, it means my plan worked. I was worried the constabulary might not be stupid enough to fall for a decoy twice in twenty-four hours, but fortunately it seems I was overestimating them.
Ed blinks at the paper. A decoy? What does he—
In a flash, the wildly improbable pieces fall together in his brain.
Surely Officer Golf Club had fished something out of the toilet. And it sounds undeniable that the real necklace had been stolen. Stede had been given a hefty dose of laxatives, true, but… Ed remembers watching Stede’s escape. It hadn’t really been a run, had it? More of a clenched speed walk, really.
Had Stede somehow set the police up to find a fake necklace? But that could only mean that he’d—
Two necklaces? That’s overkill. But weirdly, Ed is kinda… impressed?
He glances down at the piece of paper in his hand, and realizes there’s one more line.
Regardless, I’d love to thank you for your assistance face-to-face, if you’re interested.
Stede
Oh, Ed is absolutely interested. But… where? How?
He flips the takeout menu over, looking for some kind of clue. Stede must’ve just written it on whatever he had on hand, which feels inconsistent with the apparently meticulous planning that’s gone into this so far.
Then he sees it. Lucky Chinese All-You-Can-Eat Buffet.
Ed can feel the grin spreading across his face. Stede was right. China does sound a little far, doesn’t it?