When you did finally see him the next morning (having woken a good hour before he did), he still seemed strangely evasive when you questioned him about last night. Instead complaining about a sore head that he now had from drinking too much red wine.
"Well at least you're not in as bad a state as you were the last time," you told him, trying to cheer him up. Having not really appeared all that drunk from what you remembered.
"Yeah... Different kind of night though," he said, flopping onto the couch and switching on the TV.
You were still determined to find out more though. The lack of information he was giving you making you all the more curious. The last two big nights out he'd had he'd told you pretty much everything. What he'd done. Who he'd done it with. What guys had been perving on him, and what hot girls he'd been perving on himself. Judging by how fancy a do it supposedly was and how dressed up Randall had been (the image of him in the red dress still very prominent in your mind), you really couldn't believe there wasn't one other super hot babe in a revealing gown he could tell you about...
"So nothing at all happened at this thing? No rich pricks making asses out of themselves or serving girls dressed up like Playboy bunnies?"
His reply, disappointingly enough, was just the same as before. "No. Nothing like that at all. It was just a boring ass party, dude."
"And Cole never tried anything on..."
"Tim, come one. Just drop it," he groaned, clearly having had enough of the questions. Looking visibly frustrated. "I'm not in the mood right now. My head is killing me and the last thing I wanna do right now is talk about that asshole Cole!"
"Sorry..." you replied. It being obvious that you weren't going to get anywhere with this line of questioning. Randall clearly not wanting to discuss it any further.
Instead then, the two of you just sat on the couch watching TV - pretty much in silence - until he eventually pulled himself up at one point and headed off to the bathroom. Must be his period, you decided, It's the only explanation as to why he's acting so weird. Even back at the hospital, when you'd first seen him inside your Aunt's body, he''d been far more talkative and less distracted than he was right now.
Just then, his apartment phone began to ring, and as he was currently in the bathroom, you decided to answer it for him - just in case it was your parents or someone trying to reach you. "Hello?"
"Yes, hello. I'm looking to speak to Ms. Burton, re her message. This is Doctor Saunders..." the voice on the other end of the line said, giving you somewhat of a shock. Dr. Saunders being someone you most definitely hadn't been expecting to hear from again, not for a long while. And as he was after Randall, it immediately set your mind racing.
Dr. Saunders?... Her message?... What is going on? Was there something wrong with Randall? Was that the reason he'd been acting so weird all of a sudden? Was it nothing to do with his period at all?
All these questions ran through your head as you told him, "She's... she's kind of, uh, indisposed at the minute." Informing him then who you were (Saunder's presumably having not yet recognized your voice).
"Oh my, Tim. My goodness. How are you? How has everything been since you returned home?"
As anxious as you were to get to the bottom of why he was calling, you also didn't want to be rude to this doctor who had always been rather friendly towards you, quickly filled him in then on how things had been over the last three months, since you'd seen him last. "As well as can be expected I guess. Ran... I uh, I mean my Auntie seems to have been coping pretty well, and things at home are gradually getting back to normal."
"That's good to hear. And don't worry about all the "Auntie" stuff," he told you, "This is my private line. Nobody's listening in as far as I'm aware." This made things a lot easier, not having to keep up the ruse over the phone - though you had admittedly gotten pretty good at it by now.
"I'm actually at home at the moment," he continued, getting back to the reason he'd called. "Just received Randall's message about wanting to make an appointment at the hospital and I was hoping to try and arrange something. But if it's a bad time..."
"No. No, it's uh... cool," you hastily assured him, not wanting him to hang up yet. Needing to get to the bottom of this fast. "He's just in the toilet. He shouldn't be a minute. But uhm... if you don't mind me asking, why was he wanting to see you? Is everything okay?"
Saunder's unfortunately gave you the standard "Ah. Well, unfortunately it's not really my place to say. Doctor-patient confidentiality you understand."
You'd half been expecting this, but it was still infuriating. If there was something wrong with him, you needed to know.
"Yeah, of course. No worries," you mumbled instead, hearing the bathroom door open in the hallway and Randall appear again moments later. "Oh wait... here he is now."
Spotting you standing there on the phone, Randall mouthed "Who is it?" as you passed him over the receiver.
"It's Doctor Saunders," you said, handing it to him, watching his face drop slightly with the realization.
"Oh... tha-thanks."
Listening in with great interest as Randall then spoke to the doctor, sounding slightly nervous but really giving nothing away at all (very conscious of the fact that you were watching him), you heard him make an appointment for the following day at twelve. Telling the doctor that he really wanted to come see him "as soon as possible." You were really starting to grow worried now, fearing perhaps that something had gone wrong with the transplant - that your Auntie's body was rejecting Randall's brain - or that there was some bizarre side effect neither of the doctors could have possibly foreseen...
As soon as he hung up the phone you jumped on him, asking why he was arranging another appointment without telling you, and what exactly was so wrong with him that he felt he had to do so.
"Nothing's wrong. I'm... I'm fine," he told you, not sounding entirely convincing. "I just thought it was about time for another checkup is all."
"But why now? Your last checkup was months ago and they gave you the all clear!"
"Well sorry for wanting to be 100% sure, dude. I mean, it's not like I underwent experimental surgery and had part of my brain grafted onto someone else's, now is it?" he glibly replied. Taking obvious offense at the accusation that he was lying. "This isn't a fucking cold you know. It's my body now and I wanna know that everything is still working properly, alright?"
This was the first time you'd heard Randall angry like this in a long time (and one of the first in that body), and you suddenly felt really bad for jumping to conclusions. "Yeah... No, of course. Sorry, Randall. I just kinda freaked out a bit I guess, cause you never told me about it. I thought maybe you were hiding something."
"I already told you, I'm not. And I only decided to phone Saunders like an hour ago. I didn't think it would be this big deal. ...Jesus!"
Apologizing once again, Randall then changed the subject and no more was really said of either his weird mood nor his trip to see the doctors. If something was up, you assumed that he'd tell you. Randall wasn't really the kind of guy to keep things bottled up inside - his drunken insistence, several weeks before, that you get all the weirdness over him being female being evidence enough of that. Besides, he was right you supposed. There really was no definitive 'all clear' when it came to a brain transplant. He was the first ever person to have this procedure done as far as you were aware, and while things might seem perfectly normal now, there really was no harm in making sure. Hell, Doctor Saunders probably advised him to make an appointment every so often the last time. He just had to give you that "I'm afraid I can't tell you" bullshit, because its part of his job. At least, this was what you told yourself.
With Randall's mood, nor headache really improving much, you decided to head home after lunch. Giving him the usual "I'll call you sometime to see when you're next free" as you did. His schedule was still pretty hectic though (as he had assumed it would be) and the opportunities to meet up where - as ever - few and far between.
You did end up giving him a call on the Tuesday though, after school, wanting to know how he got on at the hospital with Saunders and Kerry the day before. Still worrying about it slightly, even after what he'd told you.
As it turned out...
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