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The screen door squeaked open and closed with a bang. Thranduil looked up from the stack of bills he was reviewing at the dining table. He had a cup of wine next to him. Two in the afternoon was perhaps a bit early for a drink, but it was his monthly reward for paying bills and balancing the checkbook.
“Hey, Legs,” he said and signed as his son tromped in from playing out in the garden and greenspace behind the house, shorts spattered in mud.
“Hi, Dad,” six-year-old Legolas signed back.
“Shoes off.”
He gave a big sigh and kicked off his tennis shoes on the linoleum. Clad now in wet socks instead of muddy shoes, he tiptoed into the kitchen, as though he could sneak up on a snack unawares and grab it without anyone seeing.
Thranduil looked at the wet footprints. Where had his son gotten to? He’d been keeping an eye on him through the windows. Somehow Legolas always found muck and puddles when he went outside, especially now with spring melting the last of the snow piles.
“Hungry?” He asked as Legolas reached for a box of crackers.
His little hand froze inches from the flimsy cardboard box. One fist nodded a quick ‘yes’ while his other hand crept closer to the prize.
Thranduil stood up and walked into the kitchen. “Peanut butter and crackers with blueberries?” He suggested and opened the fridge to find the berries.
Legolas’s head slowly peeked back out of the pantry, ringed by a pale halo of flyaways from his braids. He squinted at the dish of little purple berries in his father’s hand.
“They’re good,” Thranduil said, popping a berry in his mouth. “I’ll make them for you.”
Another almighty sigh. Legolas came out of the pantry with the crackers and handed them over.
“Will you get the peanut butter, too?”
Once he had all the ingredients sitting on the counter, Thranduil took a plate from the cupboard and a butter knife from the drawer and began. He made six little open-face sandwiches of cracker and peanut butter with one blue berry on top of each. He was just about to hand the plate to Legolas when he noticed a strange bulge in one of his son’s pockets.
“Legs, what’s in your pocket?” He asked.
Legolas grinned, showing the gap where a tooth fell out last week. “A mouse!”
Thranduil was duly impressed that he managed to catch one of the quick field mice. “You can’t bring animals inside, Legs.”
“She’s my friend,” Legolas protested, putting a hand over the pocket in his shorts that hid the offending little critter.
“She has a little burrow somewhere outside. Maybe she has babies to raise. She can’t do that if you bring her inside,” he explained. “You don’t want to keep her from her babies, do you?”
Legolas’s face scrunched up as he gave the question serious consideration.
Thranduil shook his head. It wasn’t supposed to be that hard to answer. “What if someone came and took me or Mommy away to a wonderful new home and you never saw us again? That would be sad, wouldn’t it?”
An unhappy nod.
“How about this, we take her out in the garden, and you give her a cracker for being your friend?”
Legolas signed a putout ‘O-K’, and they walked back outside.
“How about we let her go right here.” Thranduil knelt and patted the ground next to a flourishing fern. He set down a cracker. “She might run away to go check on her babies, but she’ll know there’s food here for her.”
“Will I see her later?”
“Maybe. You’ll have to keep your eyes open.”
“Ok.” Legolas reached into the pocket and pulled out his newest animal friend.
It wasn’t a mouse.
The first thing Thranduil thought was that the little brown bat’s ears looked surprisingly like an elf’s from this angle. The second thing he thought was BAT! The third thing he thought wasn’t so much a thought as a very basic instinct that wanted the bad thing far away.
He slapped the hand away. The bat went tumbling through the air, wings little more than delicate decorations, and bounced twice across the lawn before landing in a heap. She clicked angrily, struggling to right herself. Legolas stumbled back, hands tucked up protectively over his chest, startled and scared, looking at his father with wide eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Thranduil said, reaching for him. “Are you hurt? Did it bite you?”
Legolas shook his head but Thranduil was already moving past that, realizing how foolish the question was. There were a series of bat infestations in the community his family lived in when he was fifteen. He vividly recalled a neighbor telling his mother about how bats had such tiny, sharp teeth, one could bite you while you were asleep and you wouldn’t even wake. Legolas probably wouldn’t notice getting bitten. And it’d been in his pocket for who knows how long. It could have bitten his leg while he was walking around.
“Fuck,” he said. Then, “come here, Legs.” He scooped the little boy up in his arms and stood. “We need to go to the hospital.”
He had Legolas in the car and buckled into his carseat in record time. He felt those big, confused eyes on him as he slid into the driver seat and put the key in the ignition. He started the car and pulled out of the driveway, typing the name of the hospital into the GPS as they went. A spinning blue bar popped up on the display screen as the device tried to find the right place.
He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, gaze flicking between the road and screen. It chirped as he drove out of the neighborhood. He tapped the ‘start navigation’ button and turned onto a main road, trusting that it had the best route.
“You okay back there?” He asked, looking at Legolas through the rearview mirror.
Legolas dragged his attention back from the window, already distracted from what had happened. He nodded.
“Sorry I scared you, buddy.”
He nodded again. Even if he didn’t look upset anymore, this kind of stillness wasn’t usual. He normally could hardly sit still during a car ride without something to entertain him.
“We’re just going to the hospital so a doctor can make sure that bat won’t make you sick.”
Legolas didn’t ask why, he just nodded again and went back to staring out the window.
Thranduil set his eyes back on the road. He’d only been to the hospital emergency department once before, after that unfortunate accident with one of Hithundil’s shoes, and he—
Hithundil!
He slid his phone out of his pants pocket and flicked it open. A moment later, he held it to his ear, listening to the ringtone impatiently.
Ring ring, it said four times before connecting.
He opened his mouth before realizing he’d gone to voicemail.
Hello, the recording said, you’ve missed me. I’m a busy woman, so if you want to hear back, leave a short message--beep!
He took a breath. “Thun. Hi. I’m taking Legs to the hospital. He’s fine, but I think he got bitten by a bat, so we need to see a doctor. Not sure how long we’ll be there.” He dropped the phone in the cupholder.
The rest of the drive passed in silence, beside occasional alerts from the GPS. Thranduil spent the time wondering why they ever moved out of the city in the first place and so far away from a hospital.
The parking lot by the emergency department was nearly full when they pulled in, the LED sign at the entrance announcing only three open spots. He had to drive slowly up several lanes to find an unoccupied parking stall between two oversized trucks. Stuffing his phone back into a pocket of his jeans, he got out of the car and opened the door for Legolas. The normally curious and antsy boy kept his hands to himself as his father undid the seat buckles.
“Come on, little guy,” Thranduil said, using one of his favorite signs. “We’re going to see a doctor.”
Legolas stuck out his lip and pressed back into the carseat, signing a cross ‘don’t want.’
“You have to, bud. Do you want to walk or should I carry you?”
He just crossed his arms.
“Okay, I’ll carry you.”
He scooped him out of the car and they walked across the parking lot and across the ambulance driveway to the hospital.
The sliding doors squeaked open. Inside, the waiting room smelled of an unpleasant mix of disinfectant, vomit, and air freshener. He wrinkled his nose, and Legolas buried his face against his shoulder, latching his arms around his neck more securely. They passed rows of seated people in varying states of distress—humans, elves, a handful of uruk, and one hobbit looking lost in an oversized chair—to check in at the front desk.
Thranduil awkwardly worked his wallet out of his pocket with one hand. Legolas refused to be put down. He handed the laminated insurance card to the triage nurse behind the counter, explaining what happened.
The nurse, a graying woman with long fake eyelashes, typed the information into a computer that looked like it was from the last decade. She invited him to “have a seat” on one of the worn chairs. “I’ll call when there’s a room for you. Expect to wait.”
He took the seat between a rail-thin human teen holding a plastic bag of ice to the side of her head and an elderly uruk talking casually with someone on the phone, a bloody bandage wrapped around one of his hands. Legolas stayed tucked up on his lap, staunchly refusing all attempts at conversation. Thranduil checked his phone a few times while waiting, but Hithundil didn’t call or text. She was likely in meetings for the rest of the afternoon. A long, uncomfortable hour passed.
One of the double doors going back to the exam area swung open for the nth time and a nurse stepped out. She held a metal clipboard in one hand. “Greenleaf?” She called.
Thranduil, no longer flanked by the uruk or human, raised his hand, indicating he was coming. Legolas squirmed when he stood. He fisted his hands in the collar of Thranduil’s shirt.
“I’m not going to put you down,” Thranduil whispered in his ear, hiking him up higher so he was easier to hold.
The nurse’s smile didn’t reach her tired eyes as she took them back
She pointed to an old scale tucked into an alcove just past the doors. “We’ll get Legolas’s weight before going into a room. If you’d just put him down on the scale, Mr. Greenleaf.”
He took one look and shook his head. Legolas tensed in his arms. “Can we do that later? He’s not going to let me put him down right now.”
She tapped the clipboard with a pin. “Do you have an idea of how much he weighs?”
“About forty pounds.”
She looked at the boy plastered to his polo, assessing his estimate. “Okay, we’ll come back if the doctor wants an exact measure.”
Legolas relaxed as they continued deeper into the hospital. Finally, the nurse gestured them into a little room. Thranduil sat on one of the two plastic chairs across from the paper-covered exam table.
The nurse sat on the rolling stool in front of a small computer console. “I see you came in because Legolas picked up a bat?”
Legolas, who had started looking around the room at the various pictures and jars and cabinets, hid his face again.
“He put it in his pocket,” Thranduil explained.
The nurse typed away at the keyboard. “Hmm, yes bat bites can be a concern. Has Legolas ever had a reaction to any drugs or vaccines?”
“No.”
“Is he up-to-date on his tetanus shots?”
“Yes, everything our pediatrician recommends.”
“Any known food allergies?”
“No—Does this matter?”
She gave him a trite smile. “We need to know about these things for treatment. He’s six years old?”
“Yes.” He bit back a sharp request that she go get the actual doctor.
“Mm, and where did the bat bite him?” She looked at the screen as she typed.
“I don’t know. He caught it and put it in his pocket.”
“Did he say it bit him?”
“No, but they’re easy to miss.” She was the nurse, shouldn’t she know that? He wouldn’t expect any kid to notice a bite from those little, razor-sharp teeth, especially not his kid.
“When did this happen?”
“A couple hours ago? We came here straight away.”
“Which hand did he use to touch the bat?”
“Probably both. I didn’t see him catch it.”
“And which pocket did he put it in?”
Did she really expect him to remember all of these details? “Right? I’m not sure.”
“Right pocket of his shorts?”
“Yes,” obviously.
The old wheels squeaked as the nurse pushed the stool back and stood. “I’ll go let the doctor know you’re ready to be seen.”
At last. He had the good manners to say ‘thank you’ as she left.
The minutes stretched on again. The longer they waited, the more Legolas shifted around to look at the room. Thranduil let him slide down to the floor once he started to squirm in earnest.
He checked his phone again. Nothing from Hithundil.
A light knock sounded against the door while Legolas poked around the pedals that moved the exam table. Thranduil gestured for him to come back as the door swung open and the physician walked in.
The doctor was an elf around middle-age, with smile lines around his mouth and stress lines around his eyes. The name tag on the white lap coat identified him as ‘Dr. Yuldir’. “Hello,” he said, taking a seat on the rolling chair while Legolas settled on Thranuil’s lap again. “I heard someone put a bat in his pocket and got bitten.”
Legolas shook his head.
“Yes,” Thranduil said. “I think so.”
The doctor leaned forward, setting his elbow on his knees to be on eye level with Legolas. “Now, your dad already told the nurse what happened, but can you tell me what happened?”
Thranduil winced as his son leaned back against him, bony back and elbows jabbing into his stomach. The boy stuffed his hands under his legs and looked into the corner of the room opposite the doctor. He was definitely suspicious about getting a shot now. Thranduil rubbed his back reassuringly.
“I don’t think so,” Thranduil told the doctor as Legolas remained resolutely disengaged, even when he tried signing the question to him.
The doctor straightened up and nodded. “Well, then. You didn’t happen to catch the bat, did you?”
“No.” He had no desire to be bitten, too.
“Aright. If you had the bat I’d have you send it to the health department so the lab could test it for rabies so you could avoid treatment as rabies really is quite rare in bats around here. Since that’s not an option and your child can’t say whether or not he was bitten, I do think we should start post-exposure rabies prophylaxis today. I’ll administer some rabies antibodies and one vaccine. You’ll need to follow up for three more vaccines over the next fourteen days. I recommend going to a pharmacy or the vaccine clinic at the health department, you’ll have less wait time than here. Expect a call from a public health official in the next few days to check in about this.” The doctor ran through the information like he’d said it a dozen times.
Thranduil put up a hand to stop him. “When do we need to get these other vaccines? I presume the schedule is very strict.”
“Quite,” the doctor agreed. “Today will be day zero of treatment. You’ll need to get another vaccine on days three, seven, and fourteen. I’ll give you a handout with the treatment schedule when I come back with the antibodies and vaccine. Please call the health department if you miss a day and they’ll determine the best course of action. Your insurance should cover the cost but if you’re underinsured the health department might be able to help with that as well. Do you have any other questions?"
“Should I be concerned about him having a reaction to the shots?” Legolas burrowed harder into his father every time shots or vaccines were mentioned.
The doctor shook his head. “Under no circumstance should you stop treatment because of a reaction. He probably will be tired and sore where he gets a poke: shoulder for the vaccine and I think we’ll do the antibody in his leg since the bat was in his pocket and we can’t give it in his hand. More severe reactions than pain, inflammation, and itching are uncommon but if you think he’s having a severe reaction bring him back and we’ll fix that and give you medication for him to take before the other shots. Again, that’s really unlikely to happen and it’s essential that he gets the full rabies treatment.
“If that’s all your concerns, I’ll go put an order in for those shots and be back in a few minutes.” The stethoscope draped over the doctor’s neck swung as he stood up.
“Thank you,” Thanduil said as the doctor left, feeling both relieved and overwhelmed with the information and realizing he hadn’t asked anything about what the doctor said about the health department calling him.
He managed to get Legolas to uncurl a bit on his lap while the room was quiet. “You need to get a couple shots so you don’t get sick,” he explained, signing as he spoke.
N-O. Legolas fingerspelled his answer, emphasizing how completely he disagreed.
“You held a bat so you need shots,” Thranduil explained. “Do you want to sit on the big chair,” he pointed at the padded exam seat with a strip of clean white paper running down the middle, “or in my lap?”
N-O, was his predictable reply.
“The shots are nonnegotiable, but you can decide where you want to be. Chair or lap?”
When they went to the pediatrician, Legolas sometimes wanted to sit on the chair designed to look like a big purple hippo and he usually tried getting an extra lollipop from the nurse for being good when he did. Thranduil was not surprised that this time he decided to stay put. The ER exam room was not designed with child comfort in mind.
The doctor returned, tapping lightly on the door before entering. “Here we go,” he said, placing two syringes on the counter. He studied the way Legolas was glued to Thranduil’s lap. “How is he with shots? I can call a nurse in to assist.”
What kid would like shots, Thanduil wondered skeptically. “He’ll be fine with me.”
“Okay.” The doctor picked up one of the syringes. “I’ll do the antibodies first. If you’d just roll up the right short leg, please.”
Legolas was a very sullen passenger on the drive home, rubbing sadly at his sore arm and leg. The front passenger seat contained a small pile of different colored papers that Thranduil got before leaving, all about the treatment schedule, signs of vaccine reactions, rabies education (he didn’t think he needed that one. Wild animal bite = bad. What else was there to know?), and hours and locations for the public health clinics in the city and county. He’d look through them properly once Legolas was settled at home.
Evening crept into night by the time Thranduil parked the car in the driveway. Legolas climbed out of the carseat on his own, complaining with little whimpers every time he had to use his sore arm, and limped dramatically to the door. Thranduil was beginning to suspect Legolas was playing it up, a suspicion which proved true when they got inside and his son started insisting that the only thing that would make him feel better was if he could lay on the couch with a bowl of ice cream and watch cartoons for the rest of the night. Once he was settled with his treat and cozied under a quilt, he appeared to be miraculously healed.
Thranduil left him alone with the show. He went through the papers the doctor gave him and considered the list of vaccine clinics. Circling the one that would work best with a marker, he tidied all of them away. After that, he went out into the backyard with a flashlight, checking for the bat without much hope. She was, of course, gone. He went back inside, wondering what Legolas would like for dinner.
Hidden within one of the garden bushes, the little brown bat watched him go. She was snugly nestled in a mound of old leaves that were caught between several tangled branches and quite full from feasting on the slow garden bugs. She’d fly back to her tree in the nearby park by morning.