C H A P T E R - T H R E E 

The wind whipped at his form, the chill seeping through his leather jacket as his gloved hands revved the throttle. The bike let out a ferocious roar before soaring down the stretch of road. Zigzagging between the cars with the sunlight reflecting off the black windshield, his heart thundering. Sweat beaded his forehead beneath the helmet, a grin spreading across his lips to go even faster than before. The motorbike lifting onto the back tire and going in a straight line before bouncing down on the asphalt, resuming her journey.

Pulling into the parking lot, he locked the bike in a spot and fixed the backpack over his shoulder before grabbing the two bags hanging from the handle.

Working on autopilot, he allowed his feet to drag him into the looming structure in front of him while he dealt with some pending emails on his phone.

“Hey,” Cooper’s voice redirected his gaze and forced him to look up at the black tinted interior. His head tilting to see Lucy shuffle back on the bed and into an upright position. Moving forward, Cooper pulled off the black helmet and held it under his arms as Ryan fixed the tuft of blue on top of his head. “Punctual as always,”

Ryan chuckled at the words and handed the two bags to him, the older man’s eyes widening as he took them and put them on the table. Lucy a silent spectator to the exchange as one man looked into the contents of the bag, while the other pulled a khaki folder out of his backpack.

“Here are the print outs you asked for,” Ryan handed the folder to Cooper, who licked the sauce off his fingers once he placed the meal before Lucy; the girl perking at the sight of the Thai cuisine she had been craving.

“Thanks,”

“How are you doing?” The blue haired boy redirected his attention to Lucy who looked up from the dumpling she had been eating, chewing slowly before nodding.

“Better,” She swallowed. “Still feels surreal to be told everything I’ve forgotten,”

“On the bright side, it’s temporary,”

“I guess so,” She shrugged as the man nodded, giving Cooper’s shoulder a light punch before heading towards the door. “Say, Ryan?” Lucy stopped him in the doorway, the man turning back to her with a questioning hum.

“You own a bike?”

“I do,” He smirked, looking down at the helmet in his hands. “A Ducati Scrambler,”

“Could you…I don’t know…sometimes take me for a ride?”

“Remind me when you’re discharged,” He nodded in confirmation, chuckling to see the grin light up her face while Cooper shook his head at their antics, waving when Ryan left the room.

Heading towards the doctor’s lounge, he took off his pedestrian clothes and exchanged them for the medical scrubs in his locker.

Being in the last year of his medical school, he would soon be anointed Dr. Forbes before finding a house job and then specializing in pediatrics.

Despite his traumatized past, he loved kids. Couldn’t help from admiring their enthusiasm and optimistic outlook on life, and keeping their strength up in the face of adversity. Those qualities, to him, made children superheroes. Those qualities, having been something he had needed when he was their age.

Ryan spent his day working with the kids, smiling and laughing and forging up fairy tales centered around them, adding in a little humor just to make them laugh and smile. He knew that being a pediatrician would be hard. Not because of the workload, but because of the fact that if he ever were to lose a patient, he wouldn't be losing a grown-up, but rather a child who had his whole life before him.

That would be the hardest part of the job.

Losing any one of his patients.

He knew that no job was perfect. Every single one had its perks and it its flaws. And he went for the one where he would have to live with the death of a child. Ryan knew it was going to be hard. Even now as he looked around him at the laughing children, he wondered how many of them would get the chance to grow up.

Little Becky with her golden curls had been diagnosed with early-stage Leukemia. His knight, Sir Arthur of the realm, wasn't expected to last the year because of his biscup valve. Then there was Jessie who was recovering from pneumonia. Fred had been diagnosed with brain cancer and they were attacking it with Chemo, the poor boy was going through radiation sickness and often needed someone to cheer him up. Then there was baby Ellie...she had RSV, Respiratory Syncytial Virus, which was inflammation of her lungs...she is only two and a half and currently seated on Ryan's lap.

He had such a reputation in the pediatric ward that the entire hospital staff knew who he was, everyone knows how good he was with the most difficult of children and always convinced them to take their medicine or not give the nurses such a hard time. The parents had his personal number and were allowed to call him in case their child felt low. In those cases, Ryan would either make the trip to the hospital and sit with the kid, no matter the time, or talk to them on the phone before asking what they wanted and getting that for them.

Ryan hadn’t known this batch of patients for more than three month and already he had grown so attached to these children, and he knew if something were to happen to them, there was a very minute chance he'd ever get over it and remain the way that he is with them.

He loved these children, and these children loved him.

Spending hours just sitting and listening to them talk, he catered to every single one of their needs, and never ignored any of the children.

And in turn, they trusted him and held him in very high regard. He was their 'Boy with the Blue hair', and he couldn't have thought for anything more.

A tap on his shoulder had Ryan look up to see one of the nurses smiling at him, reaching out for Ellie as he handed her over, knowing that it was time for her dosage of antibiotics of the day. Glancing at the time, he sighed to know that he could take a break now. He needed a smoke after having let those depressing thoughts into his head.

Pushing himself up from the floor, he told the kids he'd be back in a little bit before leaving the pediatric ward and made his way to the elevator. Pulling open his locker and pulled out his packet of cigarettes and lighter before stuffing them into his pocket and making his way toward the hospital yard. 

Standing at the railing overlooking the yard, he took out a cigarette from his case and lit the end of it, inhaling deeply before exhaling a cloud of smoke into the air above him as his eyes wandered over the expanse of land before him. Gaze zeroing on the back of dirty blonde tress with a white gauze around the crown, Ryan instantly recognizing who it was.

Making his way down the stairs, his sneakers crunched the fallen leaves underneath before he stopped beside the bench where Lucy sat with a shawl draped over her shoulder and her attention on the people around her.

“Pretty cold out, huh,” His words redirected her attention as Lucy jumped at the suddenness of his voice, watching him with sunlit hazel eyes as he took a seat on the other end of the bench. “Where is Cooper?”

“There,” Lucy pointed to a corner of the yard where her elder brother had been pacing the ground, talking on the phone for the past ten minutes.

Nodding in confirmation he blew out a puff of smoke and proceeded to join Lucy in her spectating of the yard.

“When you came,” Lucy’s voice redirected his attention to her. “You were dressed different, why are you wearing the hospital scrubs? Do you work here?”

“Not work, per se,” Ryan inhaled. “I’m a medical intern gathering experience hours before my house job,”

“You’re a medical student,”

“Yup,”

“Oh, which year?”

“Fourth year. The last stretch now,”

“You’re going to become a surgeon?” Lucy tilted her body to look at his side profile, her eyebrows raising at the grimace he made at the words. “Not a surgeon then”

“Okay, so basically,” Ryan extinguished his cigarette before turning to be facing her. “To become a doctor, you need to do bachelors first, right?”

“Right,”

“After that, you join a medical school and that is about four years. After that, you’re basically a general practitioner and get the title Doctor since you’ve completed your MBBS. Then you do a house job of three to four years, and then you can specialize, as I will in pediatrics, and the years for specialization vary. Like it would take me three more years to be considered a practicing pediatrician, while it takes a surgeon three to seven years of experience from residency and internship.”

“It’s almost like what you’ll be going through since you want to be a psychiatrist. Four years of bachelors, four years to complete your M.D, and then four years of residency. So that’s twelve years for you,”

“And fourteen years for you,”

“Yes,”

“You’ll be how old by then?”

“I’m twenty-seven now, so by the time I’m a practicing pediatrician, around…” Ryan calculated under his breath. “Thirty-three,”

“Wow,”

“Yeah,”

Both of them straightened and stared out before them, Ryan looking down at his watch, reminding himself that he should be heading back inside now. Standing up from the bench, he turned to inform Lucy that he was leaving but took a step back to find her standing centimeters away from him.

“You’re…” Lucy trailed with her eyes squinted as she looked up at his features. “You’re hiding something.”

“Hiding something?”

“Either you’re hiding something from me, or from Cooper as well, maybe you’re hiding something from yourself, but there is definitely something that you’re repressing,”

The sudden shift in demeanor had Lucy take a step back. His eyes narrowed, fingers clenched and jaw tightened, towering over her before taking a step forward.

“You suffered amnesia, so I will forgive you this one time,” Ryan lowered his voice, invading her personal space as she found herself rooted in place, holding her breath to find him close enough to smell his fading cologne. “But the next time you try and psychoanalyse, Dixon, is the last time you will make that mistake,”