The Longest Walk

I lean into Olivia. I practically press my full body weight on her. I feel bad at first, but I can't walk on my own. Not yet. She asks me every now and then if I want to turn around. My response is always "Not now." Every single person that we pass stares at us with their mouth wide open. It's as if they had never seen a man limping through the corridors in hospital gown. "Shouldn't you be working?" Olivia shouts to our gawkers. "We have fans." I tell her. "We have annoyances." I personally didn't care they were staring. I can understand why Olivia would though. She had to walk with my noodle like body up many flights of stairs while the whole staff murmured amongst themselves. I could hear whispers wondering what happened to us. I could not discern any theories, but I knew by the time we got to the top floor everybody at the Wellness center knew something had happened, including Todd. Normally his office door would be closed. Today it was slightly ajar. We both took it as a sign that he was open for visitation and we proceeded to enter. We opened the door. Todd flirts with a woman in a brown business suit. The creaky door catches his attention. He looks up at us embarrassed. "Hey, this is Veronica. She's my new secretary." We wave to Veronica. Todd directs his attention back to her. "Could you excuse me for a minuet? I have some things to discuss with them" Veronica gives Todd a full smile, but she walks past us shooting daggers. "Come on in, and shut the door." He tells us. We step foot into his office, closing the door behind us. Todd appears uneasy as we take our seats. I pick up on this right away. "Something the matter?" I ask. "Yes there is. You're sitting on my furniture while you're wearing a gown." He says. "Does this offend you?" I ask. "It does because I don't want your naked ass on my chair." "Sorry, I didn't realize the back came undone." Todd grits his teeth. "If you'll excuse us. He was hurt badly." Olivia jumps in. "I know. I know all about that." "Word spreads that fast?" Olivia asks. "No, your friend Peter told me. He told me your story, and insisted that you stay in bed till you were fully healed. But seeing as how you hate following directions, here you are now." "I just thought it would be better to take care of this now." I say. "Why, so I could look at you and feel sorry for you?" Olivia and I look at each other. Todd puts his face in his hands. "Unbelievable." He says. "Can we cut to the chase? Can you tell us what we did?" Olivia asks. "For starters you didn't come when I sent for you." "We had important things to take care of." Olivia replies. "Yeah, I hope it was more important than what you did to the library." "What did we do to the library?" I ask, confused. "I don't know. Malory's desk turned yellow. It scared everyone so bad, we had to have the whole library quarantined." He explains. I half smile. "What is so funny?" "We were trying to figure out what that thing was when you called for us." I say. Todd relaxes slightly. "Any clue what it is?" "It's an extraterrestrial element, but we don't know where exactly it came from." Olivia informs. "Perfect." He says, sarcastically. "What? We'll find out more information." I tell him. "No, you're not going anywhere. You're cleaning up your mess." "But in order to do that we have to find more about it." Olivia pleads. Todd shakes his head. "No, because everywhere you go there is a path of destruction." "What else did we do wrong?" I ask. "The falcons. They won't come back." "How is that our fault? They attacked us." I say. "Only after they were provoked. " "Are you blaming the victim again?" Olivia asks. Todd takes a deep breath. "I don't want to argue. In fact I would really like to fire you. But then the library would still be in ruins. This isn't up for debate. You two will fix it. Now get out of my office."