Blood Bourbon

Broken Toys

Daryl

Daryl blinked a couple times at the light being shone into his eyes, wincing as Mary continued stitching up the last of the scratches on his side. "Doc, I'm alright. Just rung my bell a bit."

They went through the series of questions again, and he was certain he was doing fine answering them, though both women just frowned more by the time they were through.

"You rattled your brain good." Mary growled at him, smacking his shoulder before starting to wrap him in bandages.

"You need to go get a scan done, Daryl. You've regressed a fair bit." The doctor wasn't having it apparently, frowning down at the clip board before glancing behind Daryl with a frown.

He finally looked around the room he was in, his brother's kitchen, now scattered with bloody bandages and wet clothes. Once Mary was done, he turned to see the last person on earth he'd ever expected to see watching him.

"Ryker."

"You're lucky Knight Corp was having a corporate team building exercise and was able to send them out to help with the search. Mr. Ryker here hauled you from the river before you got your dumb ass drowned." Mary growled at him tightening the damned gauze a little more than necessary.

That didn't make sense. Something seemed...off about that explanation, but try as he might, he couldn't seem to remember anything between falling into the river with a giant cat and regaining consciousness here in the kitchen. So he stopped trying.

"Listen Doc. I'd love to do your scan thing, but I don't have the time...and I know that my work isn't going to cover the costs for this. All they're going to see is that I'm out for the season. We don't get medical insurance. And we all know what it's going to say. Rest, no activities, avoid alcohol." Daryl turned away from Ryker then, moving to stand and forcing himself to stay steady despite the world spinning wildly. When he was certain he wasn't going to stumble, he glanced around for a shirt.

"Knight Corp has a medical division. We have hospitals in every major city." Ryker said tersely, a lot closer to him now then when Daryl had seen him a second ago. "We have some pretty advanced abilities for treatment as well. We're worldwide. Best minds and all that."

Daryl narrowed his eyes on the man, pausing to accept a shirt from Mary and thank her before shaking his head. He bit back the wave of nausea that the movement caused before finally responding. "I'm not remortgaging my brother's farm to get some playboy investment banker quack healers to look at my head and prescribe me patchouli oil."

"Knight Corp actually employs the best doctors in the world." Doc really wasn't helping him out here, giving him a stern look before continuing, "It's not quack medicine. It's just really well funded and privatized."

"And free. All we ask is donations to our blood banks." Ryker put in, giving him a dark smirk like the bastard had won a competition that Daryl didn't even know he'd been part of. Of course the bastard thought he had won.

Daryl opened his mouth to tell Ryker how wrong he was when Mary betrayed him. "There's no debate, Daryl. Charlie and I will go up with you. We'll make our donations and will continue to do so for all your followup appointments. They've already arranged for a hotel for us to stay at. Sarah will stay here with the kids. We leave in the morning." Mary had finished packing up the medical kit, and without another word, she and the doctor left the room.

Daryl frowned as he watched the two women leave. Since when did they just...keep their noses out of his business? "I'm a grown damned man who can make his own medical decisions."

"You're an idiot, cowboy." Ryker growled at him. He was wearing fancy name brand hunting or camping clothing, though he looked damp still. Obviously not a lot of time had passed, then. Daryl supposed that was good.