Most of the children left at the Hepburn residence were either very young or had particularly bad injuries to their feet.
They had picked up those injuries during their escape.
They hadn't had time to put on shoes. Their soft, tender feet had carried them through the escape tunnels, across the wilderness, and finally over the bridge from Queens to the Turtle Bay neighborhood.
It was no wonder so many of them had cuts from stepping on stones and small branches, or were limping badly.
Fortunately, all of the injuries were minor. There were no fractures or other serious wounds.
So Cathy Webb, a paramedic, was able to treat everyone with nothing more than a single first-aid kit.
As a professional paramedic, Cathy had no reason to refuse Katherine Hepburn's request for private assistance.
She knew better than anyone that these were all injuries she could handle herself.
If they called an ambulance and sent everyone to the hospital for injuries like these, the person receiving the bill might actually cry.
So once she assessed the situation, she decisively stepped in to help.
If anyone had suffered a genuinely serious injury beyond her ability to treat, she would have insisted on sending them to the hospital immediately and worrying about the cost afterward.
Fortunately, none of the children had suffered anything that severe.
That was a blessing.
One of the main reasons Cathy was willing to help was because the injured were children.
If they had been adults, or drunk people, or someone high out of their mind, she would've bundled them straight into the emergency room.
And if the hospital bill wasn't inflated afterward, she'd consider that a miracle.
Henry went inside, brought out a clean pillow, and handed it to Cathy.
The paramedic understood immediately.
She carefully shifted the little girl's head from her thigh onto the pillow, finally freeing herself.
Henry handed her a beer.
She pointed toward the balcony beyond the floor-to-ceiling window, and the two quietly slipped outside.
Once they closed the soundproofed glass door behind them, both finally breathed a sigh of relief.
Cathy opened the bottle and took a long drink.
She had spent the day treating the children, while Henry had been running around outside for hours.
Neither of them had exactly had an easy day.
After settling down a little, Cathy turned toward Henry and spoke first.
"What happened to these kids? A few of the older ones said their school suffered some kind of disaster. But I asked some people I know, and I haven't heard about any school in New York State having an accident."
Henry hadn't expected her to ask so directly.
After thinking for a moment, he simply shook his head.
"I don't know either. Someone I know brought a group of children here asking for help, so I helped them.
"Besides, you probably noticed it yourself."
Cathy nodded.
"They're all mutants, aren't they? Every single one of them. They're trying to restrain their abilities, but a few little details still gave them away."
"Yeah. You know their situation hasn't exactly been great lately.
"So as long as they don't say anything, I don't ask questions.
"If they were adults, I'd be worried about what was happening behind the scenes. But they're just a bunch of children. There's no way they could be involved in a crime, right?"
"That's what I think too."
Looking at the matter objectively, Cathy Webb couldn't believe that a group of children could have been involved in the assassination attempt against the President.
They might have known the people involved, perhaps.
But accomplices?
There was no way.
Henry carefully avoided revealing any information that "Henry Brown" shouldn't have known.
He was just about to continue the conversation when a loud voice came from the entrance inside the house.
"Whoa! What's going on here? Did aliens invade New York? Why has the house turned into a refugee camp?"
The loud, completely unrestrained voice belonged to Sky, who had just returned from school.
Sure enough, her booming voice woke quite a few of the children who had only just fallen asleep.
Some rubbed their eyes and sat up, looking around at the newcomer.
The old woman didn't scold the reckless girl.
Instead, she called Sky over and put her to work helping the younger children she had just awakened.
One had to admit, the old woman who had seen practically everything life had to offer had a real talent for handling children.
She didn't need to hit them or yell at them.
She could simply give them a few instructions and have all the little troublemakers running around doing exactly what she wanted.
Their conversation had been interrupted, and Cathy's beer was already gone.
She idly swung the empty bottle in her hand and looked at Henry.
"All right. I'm not needed here anymore, so I should head home. I'm on duty tonight, after all. Being a paramedic isn't exactly an easy job."
Henry opened the glass door for her as they returned inside.
He took the empty bottle from her.
"Cathy, thanks for coming all the way here to help today. Kate, Cathy's getting ready to leave."
The paramedic naturally didn't forget to say goodbye to the mistress of the house.
"Katherine, I'm heading out. I'm on duty tonight, so I need to go home and get ready."
"Thank you, Cathy. It was wonderful of you to come help today. Are you sure I shouldn't pay you for the day? This wasn't something you were obligated to do."
"No, Katherine. I chose this profession because I want to help people.
"Helping a group of children is exactly what we adults are supposed to do, isn't it?"
"Oh, what a good girl."
Henry interrupted the two women's conversation.
"In that case, Cathy, let me take you to dinner sometime. Once things here have settled down.
"Everything's a mess right now, so these little troublemakers have to come first."
Katherine Hepburn, apparently the sort of person who loved watching a little chaos unfold, took Cathy's hand and delivered a devastating assist.
"Cathy. If you don't want payment for today, how about exchanging it for a date?
"Do you think the handsome-man strategy from my household has a chance of working?"
Uh...
Henry had originally intended to cook dinner for her one day and invite her over for a meal.
Thanks to Katherine Hepburn, it now sounded like he was smoothly setting up the prelude to a hookup.
Cathy glanced at the embarrassed man.
Henry immediately transformed into an exaggeratedly suave gentleman.
He slicked back his already somewhat greasy hair with one hand and gave her a deliberately charming smile.
"Well, madam? Would I be honored?"
Perhaps his expression was simply too ridiculous.
Cathy responded with an equally exasperated and amused smile before waving her hand.
"All right. I'll reluctantly agree to give you a chance.
"But you should know, my family might have a curfew."
"Ha. Cinderella's midnight deadline?"
"Maybe."
After seeing off the paramedic who had volunteered her time to help, Henry began reflecting on why his luck with women seemed to have improved lately.
With his average looks, he certainly didn't expect women to fall in love with him at first sight.
At most, when someone first saw him, he probably wouldn't immediately trigger an urge to run away.
But once you added the size of his wealth and assets into the equation...
It was as though he'd activated a beauty filter.
Suddenly, in a woman's eyes, he could become radiant, handsome, and surprisingly charming.
Henry had plenty of confidence in his appearance—an appearance that had once been ruthlessly criticized by a veteran Hollywood agent.
But he had even more confidence in the number sitting in his bank account.
Cathy Webb might not possess telepathy and therefore couldn't directly see his bank balance.
But anyone capable of moving in the social circles of someone like Katherine Hepburn clearly wasn't the sort of person who was so broke that stray dogs were practically dragging them home.
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