Chapter 210: Side Quest? [FIXED!][04/11!]

The Uber was a silver Honda Civic with a cracked phone mount and a pine-tree air freshener that had long since given up on smelling like pine.

Liam settled into the back seat and gave the driver a nod. "Hey. How’s it going?"

"Good, good," the man said, a little too quickly. "You heading back downtown?"

"That’s the one."

The driver pulled away from the curb. He was somewhere in his forties, heavyset, with thinning dark hair and a rumpled grey polo. The name on the app said *Ray.*

For the first few minutes, they talked about absolutely nothing.

"Traffic’s not bad today," Liam offered.

"Yeah, midday’s usually alright. Rush hour’s a nightmare."

"Everyone hates rush hour."

"Rush hour hates everyone back." Ray chuckled at his own joke. "You see the Seahawks game?"

"Missed it. Were they good?"

"They were Seahawks," Ray said, which seemed to be a complete answer.

Liam laughed. "Fair enough."

They talked about the weather, about a new taco place that had opened near Pike Place, about how gas prices were "basically a hate crime at this point." Ray was easy to talk to. Friendly, quick with a joke. After the morning Liam had had, a little pointless small talk felt good.

But Liam kept noticing things.

The way Ray’s fingers drummed restlessly against the steering wheel at every red light. The way he kept checking his phone in the cupholder, even when it hadn’t buzzed. The deep lines under his eyes, the kind that didn’t come from one bad night but from weeks of them.

Every time the conversation lulled, Ray’s smile dropped like it was too heavy to hold up on its own.

At the next light, Liam leaned forward slightly.

"Hey, Ray. Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"Are you okay? You seem kind of stressed."

Ray glanced at him in the rearview mirror. For a second, it looked like he was going to brush it off. I’m fine, just tired. The kind of thing everybody says to a stranger.

Instead, his shoulders sagged.

"It’s my daughter," he said quietly. "She’s sick. Kidney problems. She’s been in the hospital for almost two weeks now."

Liam’s chest tightened. "I’m sorry."

"Yeah." Ray rubbed the back of his neck. "Insurance covers some of it. Not enough. So I’ve been picking up extra shifts. Mornings, nights, whatever I can get." He let out a tired breath. "I’m supposed to head over there right after I drop you off. My wife’s been with her since six."

Liam studied him in the mirror.

A small, cynical part of his brain whispered that this could be a story. A sad tale told to soften up a passenger and squeeze a bigger tip out of him. People did that. Liam had seen enough of the world to know it.

But Ray’s eyes didn’t look like a man working an angle.

They looked like a father who hadn’t slept properly in two weeks.

"Ray," Liam said. "Where’s the hospital?"

Ray blinked. "Seattle Children’s. Up in Laurelhurst. Why?"

"Go there."

"What?"

"Skip my drop-off. Go straight to the hospital." Liam leaned back in his seat. "I’ll pay the full fare to my destination. Plus whatever it costs to get there. You don’t need to worry about me."

Ray stared at him in the mirror for a long moment.

"You serious?"

"Completely."

"But you... where are you gonna go?"

"I’ll figure it out. I’m a big boy."

For a second, Ray looked like he wanted to argue. Then the light turned green, and without another word, he flicked on his turn signal and changed lanes, heading north.

He didn’t hesitate. Not even a little.

That told Liam everything. A man running a sob story would have protested, made a show of being reluctant, tried to keep the act going. Ray just went. Like he’d been waiting all morning for someone to give him permission.

"Thank you," Ray said, his voice thick. "Man, I... thank you."

"Don’t mention it."

They drove in comfortable silence for a minute or so. Then Liam asked, "What’s her name?"

Ray’s whole face changed. The exhaustion didn’t disappear, but something warmer pushed through it.

"Lily," he said. "She’s seven."

"Lily. That’s a really great name, Ray."

"She picked it herself, practically. We were gonna name her Grace, but my wife swears she kicked every time we said Lily." He laughed softly. "She’s tough. Tougher than me. She’s been through all these tests and needles, and she still makes the nurses laugh every single day."

"What’s she into?"

"Oh, man. Unicorns. Anything with glitter. And dinosaurs, for some reason. She told me last week a T. rex could beat a unicorn, but only if the unicorn was having a bad day."

Liam laughed out loud. "She’s not wrong."

"Right? She’s got it all figured out." Ray smiled into the windshield, eyes shining. "She’s my whole world, you know?"

"Yeah," Liam said quietly. "I can tell."

He looked out the window for a moment, then back at the mirror.

"Ray. Would it be okay if I met her?"

Ray glanced back at him, surprised.

Liam could see him weighing it. A stranger. A random passenger, asking to meet his sick little girl in a hospital room. On paper, it was the kind of request any sensible parent would turn down without a second thought.

But the man in his back seat was clean-cut, well-dressed, soft-spoken, with an easy, open face that didn’t look like it had ever hidden anything ugly. Fair or not, people always seemed to assume good-looking people were good people too.

Ray hesitated only a moment longer.

"Yeah," he said finally. "Yeah, I think she’d like that. She loves meeting new people."

"Great." Liam smiled. "Any chance there’s a gift shop at the hospital?"

"There’s one on the main floor."

"Do they sell unicorns?"

Ray laughed, a real laugh this time, the first one all ride that didn’t sound forced.

"Buddy," he said, "they sell nothing but unicorns."

-

Seattle Children’s rose up ahead of them, a sprawl of glass and pale brick wrapped in carefully trimmed greenery.

From the outside, it almost looked cheerful. Bright murals of animals and hot-air balloons were painted along one wing. A giant cartoon whale smiled down from above the main entrance. Somebody had clearly worked very hard to make this place feel like anything other than what it was.

Ray pulled into the parking garage and found a spot on the third level. He killed the engine and sat there for a second, both hands still on the wheel, like he was gathering himself before going in.

Then he climbed out and waited by the car while Liam stepped out of the back seat.

Liam caught up to him, and they walked toward the elevator together. Ray gave him a tired smile, clearly glad not to walk in alone.

The moment they stepped through the sliding doors into the main lobby, the mood changed.

It was quiet. Not peaceful quiet, but the careful, heavy kind. Parents sat in clusters on the waiting room chairs, some staring at their phones, some staring at nothing at all. A woman in scrubs walked past with a clipboard and a tired, practiced smile. Somewhere down the hall, a child was crying, and a soft voice was trying to calm them down.

The colorful murals continued inside, dancing giraffes and smiling suns, but they couldn’t quite drown out the smell of antiseptic or the low beeping of machines drifting from somewhere deeper in the building.

It felt far too serious for a place with a cartoon whale on the front.

Then again, Liam thought, what had he expected? It was a hospital. No amount of paint could change that.

Ray stopped at the front desk to check in and get a visitor’s badge. When he turned back, Liam was already pulling out his phone.

"Hey, go ahead," Liam said. "Go see her. I’ll catch up."

Ray hesitated. "You sure?"

"Positive. Your wife’s been waiting since six. Lily’s waiting too." He smiled. "What room?"

"Fourth floor. Room 412."

"412. Got it."

Ray gave him a grateful nod, then hurried toward the elevators, his steps quicker than they’d been all morning.

Liam watched him go. Then he looked down at his phone.

He’d checked while they were driving. The hospital gift shop was right there on the main floor, glass windows full of balloons and teddy bears and, just as Ray had promised, about a hundred stuffed unicorns.

But Liam walked right past it.

A toy store sat about five minutes away, according to the map. A proper one, with real reviews and a whole section dedicated to dinosaurs.

Because Ray had said Lily loved unicorns.

But she’d also said a T. rex could beat a unicorn on a bad day.

And Liam had a feeling a girl who’d spent two weeks in a hospital bed, getting poked with needles and still making the nurses laugh, deserved the T. rex.

He stepped back out through the sliding doors and into the cool afternoon air, already walking.

It struck him somewhere along the sidewalk how strange this was.

He was going out of his way to buy a dinosaur for a little girl.

A stranger’s kid he had never met.