Quatre could hear Danny Dog barking in the distance or at least he sounded far away. He was so disoriented it was impossible to tell anymore. His body ached and his head pounded something terrible. Chills wracked his body in waves. The icey cold shivers were followed by periods of fire that made him wonder if he'd crawled into an oven and shut the door.
He'd lost track of time somewhere along the way. The room, thankfully, was dark. It helped ease the hammer slamming inside his head, but did nothing to help him gauge the passage of time. He'd lost track of how many times he'd fallen asleep or lost consciousness. He really wasn't sure which. He didn't think it mattered much anyway.
Somewhere in the back of his mind he comprehended a cool wetness drag across his hand as it stuck out from beneath his blanket. A whine. Danny Dog. Danny Dog was trying to wake him up.
Slowly and with tremendous effort, he peeled his eyes open. He couldn't see much. Just sandy brown mixed with white and lowlights of darker mahogany. Danny Dog licked his face and let loose another pathetic whine. Quatre closed his eyes reflexively. He vaguely worried about how long he'd been like this. Danny Dog probably needed food and water by now, but there was no way he could possibly bring himself to move.
"I'm sorry, Danny Dog," he mumbled to the collie.
Malcolm Kahn pulled his BMW into an open parking spot and carefully exited the sedan. Standing at 6'8" and built like a wrestler despite being in his early fifties, getting out of vehicles had always been tricky for him growing up. He'd gotten used to being deliberate in removing himself from cars. His BMW was roomy enough, but old habits didn't die.
He grabbed his doctor's bag from the trunk before pressing the lock button on his autolock and taking the elevator to the top floor. Another old habit that he refused to let die. He'd been in too many sudden medical emergency situations to ever leave his bag behind and Quatre's noticeable absence in both work and school concerned him.
He took out his cell phone and tried to reach him on his personal cell. He hadn't picked up when he'd called the home number. Malcolm sent a silent prayer to Mary, Mother of God, that the kid would pick up the phone. After several rings, Quatre's voice came over the phone in an automatic message. Voice mail. Great.
A sinking feeling entered Malcolm's stomach. It was uncharacteristic of the young CEO to not respond to repeated phone calls. His doctoral thesis advisor had noticed he hadn't been at school for a few days and with no word on any Winner Enterprises Incorporated emergencies, the absence had concerned him. He'd made a call to Quatre's assistant who had confirmed that there were no WEI crises, but that Quatre had called a couple days ago to push a few meetings back due to illness.
The advisor had then called Thomas, a fellow student and a mutual friend of both Quatre and Malcolm, but Thomas was out of town at a wedding in New York. So the call had gone out to Malcolm, who was temporarily in possession of a spare key to Quatre's apartment. So it was on Malcolm to check on the lad.
Quatre was notorious for overworking himself. It was quite likely that Quatre had simply burned out again and was potentially fast asleep. As a doctor, Malcolm had warned the kid to try to avoid being a workaholic at such a young age. He'd thought it a shame if such a fit young man allowed his most active years to pass by. Quatre's depression and anxiety from the PTSD didn't help him either, though those were controlled quite well with medication. Still, the possibility that he'd fallen into a major depressive episode couldn't be ruled off the list either.
The elevator bell chimed as the doors opened. Malcolm quickly made his way down the long hallway to Quatre's door. The sound of the kid's collie, Danny Dog, repeatedly barking on the other side sent alarm bells inside his head. There was no way Quatre would ignore that dog.
With a silent curse, he hurriedly jammed the key in the door and turned the handle. "Quatre?" he called as he scanned the room for any sign of the kid. The whole place was dark. No lights were on and the deep gray curtains were drawn closed, regardless of the fact that it was the middle of the afternoon. Danny Dog stood in front of him, barking repeatedly.
Seeing no sign of the collie's owner, Malcolm turned right and headed for the master bedroom. Danny Dog led the way. He could see the same deep gray curtains pulled all around the glass walls there too, blocking his view of the inside.
In the height of his PTSD induced anxiety, Quatre had many of the walls to the different rooms in his apartment built with thick glass. His reasoning had been a mixture of logic and paranoia. In theory, by having so many walls made of glass, if he had a night terror or thought the place was being broken into, the clear walls would offer an almost immediate way to assess a large portion of the place for threats...so long as the curtains weren't drawn closed.
Danny Dog barked again as he loped into Quatre's bedroom, knocking the door open just a little wider than it had been. The collie seemed to have come in and out of the room repeatedly. Malcolm pushed the door back even farther with his hand as he entered. What he saw concerned him greatly.
Quatre was curled up on his side beneath a blanket, one arm was obviously holding his abdomen while the other hung limply along the side of the bed. He was visibly shaking, his face was pale, and even from the door Malcolm could tell his breathing was labored.
He muttered "Feck," under his breath and rushed to Quatre's side. Stress always brought out the Scottish in him.
Danny Dog picked up a weekly medicine container off the floor and attempted to put it in Quatre's hand. The sick twenty five year old didn't respond.
"Quatre," Malcolm called softly as he placed his bag down and felt Quatre's forehead. He pulled his hand away. The kid was burning up. Dangerously so. He wasn't surprised at the presence of a fever, but he was surprised at its severity. A temperature reading showed 104.1. Shit. He needs hospitalized. He checked Quatre's heart rate. It was racing. If he didn't get treatment soon, he was going to go into cardiac arrest.
He picked up the phone that sat on the bedstand and dialed 911. "This is Dr. Malcolm Kahn. I'm a critical care doctor at Mass General. I have a patient that needs an ambulance at One Franklin Street. Yes, that's Millennium Tower. Apartment PH3B. He's going into shock. If you patch me into the paramedics directly I can give them info as I get it."
He put the phone on speaker and set it down next to him. "Quatre?" he again called out. "Quatre, can you hear me?" Thankfully, Quatre started to open his eyes, though it seemed to take a lot of effort and his pupils were dilated. He doubted the kid could discern anything past blurry shapes and shadows.
"Quatre, it's Malcolm. Do you know where you are?" he asked, reaching into his shirt pocket for is light pen.
"Home." Quatre's response was barely audible and his voice trembled, but at least he was responsive. That was a good sign amid a slew of bad ones.
"He speaks," he joked. Holding one of Quatre's eyes open, he shined the light in his eye and took it away. The pupil didn't change. He repeated the motion with the other eye. Same reaction. "Good lad." He put the pen light back into his pocket.
The voice of a paramedic crackled through the phone. "This is P2, you have a person in shock?"
"Correct. I have a 25 year old male going into shock. Rapid heart rate, rapid and labored breathing, with a fever of 104.1. Pupils are dilated and unreactive. Patient is weak, but responsive."
He pulled a CPR bag from his leather case and turned his attention back onto Quatre. "Quatre, how long have you been like this?"
No response. Quatre didn't appear to be even attempting to focus on him. Danny Dog whined beside them. Malcolm placed a hand gently on the side of Quatre's face and looked into his dilated eyes. "I know you're tired, Quatre, but this is important. You need to focus. I need to know how long you've been like this."
Quatre looked at him, or at least in his general direction, and shook his head ever so slightly. Feck. "Alright, we'll try another one. Have you taken any drugs? Anything besides your Zoloft and Xanax?" Another weak shake of the head. "Have you taken your Zoloft or Xanax at all today?" Another shake of the head. Well that last one wasn't surprising. If he'd been like this since this morning, he doubted the kid would have been able to do anything.
"Alright," he said with a sigh. There just wasn't enough information here. Off the top of his head he could name at least twenty causes for Quatre's condition, both common and uncommon.
"I'll be right back," he told Quatre before disappearing into the bathroom. He came back with a cold washcloth and held it on his forehead. He pushed Quatre's damp hair out of his eyes, even as they dropped closed. Even if he couldn't break Quatre's fever before the paramedics arrived, at least he could provide some comfort. "Just stay with me. Help is coming."
The sound of the paramedics calling into the apartment before coming in caused Malcolm to look up quickly. Danny Dog ran to them, barking. "What's up with the dog," one of the paramedics asked with concern.
Malcolm stood up and helped them pull the medical bed into the room. "He's a support animal. Your patient is Quatre Winner. He's got PTSD, depression, and anxiety. The dog is trained and he's coming with us."
The paramedics looked at each other with hesitation, but didn't argue. "Going to Mass Gen, then?" one of them asked as they transferred Quatre onto the stretcher. The move barely elicited a reaction from the critically ill blonde.
"Yes. I'm a critical care doctor at Mass Gen and I'm in charge of him," he said as they wheeled him out. By chance, Malcolm noticed Quatre's cell phone, plugged into the charger on the floor by the bed stand and grabbed it, shoving it into his pocket. He also grabbed the medicine case Danny Dog had dropped in his excitement over the paramedics, grabbed the dog's leash and clipped it on his collar.
One of the paramedics placed a bag over Quatre's mouth and nose and began squeezing it. Quatre was still breathing on his own, but the additional support to his lungs wouldn't hurt. "What happened?"
Malcolm gave them the cliff notes version of what had brought him here in the first place. "So really, we don't know."
"We don't know," he agreed with a frown.
"Kid's damn lucky you found him," the second paramedic said.
"He's not out of the woods yet," the other said.
Malcolm pulled out Quatre's phone and dialed one of the few people he knew he had to call.
It was sunny. Sunny and warm. The birds were calling to each other and the ocean breeze was welcome as it followed the Charles River and ruffled the back of his shirt. It was early March. The days were never this warm and bright in March. It felt more like the beginning of summer rather than the end of winter.
Quatre looked around in confusion. He remembered being at home, sick, and he was wearing his normal clothes, a high quality button up and business trousers. Definitely a change from the pajamas he'd half-consciously crawled into the other day.
But here he was, well dressed and obviously standing at the Esplanade at Lederman Park and Fielder Field. There was no mistaking where he was. It didn't make sense. He could see the walking bridge to his left.
He tucked his hands in his pants pockets as he considered this curious turn of events, turning around and taking stock of where he was once again. Then he heard something he wasn't expecting at all. His father's voice. Speaking with a woman.
He spun back around, looking towards the bridge. Right in the middle, at the top of it's arch, was his father. Just as he remembered him. Tall, statuesque, and strong. His face was turned away from him, but Quatre recognized his father's sandy brown hair, so different from his own platinum blonde. He was wearing the same clothes he'd worn the last day he'd been alive too. The white shirt, red vest, grey Middle Eastern pants, a nod to their heritage.
They laughed. Him and the woman. Quatre couldn't remember seeing his father so happy and untroubled. He couldn't see the woman, not well anyway. His father's tall frame kept her from view. He watched as her bright blonde hair danced as it got caught up in the breeze. He couldn't hear what they were saying, but he heard her voice as she laughed at some joke they shared. It sounded like bell chimes.
Suddenly he felt very much invisible, like a child standing among adults talking about things he couldn't possibly understand. But he wasn't a child anymore. He was 25, a doctoral student in Engineering at MIT, and the CEO of the family business...because his father was dead.
Unhurried, he began walking up the bridge to meet them. If he was here with his dead father and a woman he highly suspected of being his mother, in the beginning of summer, when he should be sick in bed at home at the tail end of winter, then things were not going well for him. Strangely, the idea didn't bother him much.
As he approached the pair, the woman turned and walked away. He paused, stopping several yards from his father, as he watched her go. A deep sadness crept inside his heart as she disappeared like a windswept cloud. He stared at the place she'd been. "Why did she leave?" he asked sadly. His voice didn't waver as he'd feared it would though, so at least there was that.
"Once you start talking with your mother," his father said as he leaned with his forearms on the bridge rail, "That'll be the end of it."
Quatre turned his attention to his father and, a bit reluctantly, closed the distance between them. Instead of staring out across the same swatch of river as his father, Quatre turned and leaned his back against the rail. Their shoulders were still within inches of each other, but the move put up a subconscious barrier between them. Even after ten years, he had to admit that he wasn't quite prepared to fully face his father just yet.
"I'm really sick aren't I?" he asked as he watched a team of rowers in a long boat directing their craft out into the large river.
"Yes, you are," his father told him matter of factly. "Right now, you're being stabilized in the emergency room at Massachusetts General Hospital." Quatre winced. Stabilized. That wasn't a word typically used with non-critical patients. "Why didn't you go to the doctor?" his father asked in frustration, turning his gaze from the water onto him.
Quatre shrugged. "I thought it was the flu. Figured I'd just get over it," he replied defensively, looking over his shoulder to meet his father's angry expression. That look still put the fear of God into him. He'd always had to steel himself against that look when they'd argued in the past, but now he realized his father wasn't as tall as he had always thought. Maybe 6'1 or 6'2". Trowa might even be taller.
"Did you get a flu shot this year?"
"Yes."
"Then it's not the flu."
Quatre whipped his head back to the front in his own agitation. "A flu shot doesn't mean I'm one hundred percent covered."
"It's not the flu, Quatre," his father replied. He heard tiredness in his father's voice. He looked back at him.
"What is it?"
His father seemed to think for a minute, stuck in some internal conflict. "Not the flu."
"You're amazingly helpful. Thanks for that," he shot at his father in irritation, once again turning his eyes back to the river. The rowers had gotten pretty far out already. They were fast. He glanced back over his shoulder. "Does being dead make everyone cryptic or is it just you?" He felt a slight tinge of regret at the cold jab, but he'd been unable to stop himself.
His father pulled himself up to his full height. The man was still taller than he was, but not by much. "You're getting a little full of yourself," his father warned him.
"You're dead, so I don't think you really get to make that distinction," he snapped. He had to admit, the rage he felt both surprised and scared him more than a little. It was like a pin had been pulled out of the earth and let loose a geyser of anger and resentment.
They stared at each other for a long while. Quatre leaning his back against the bridge wall, hands still in his pockets despite the kinetic energy coursing through him, stubbornly matching his father's more calculating expression as he considered his son.
"Son, you're dying. Do you really want to spend your time arguing with me?" he asked quietly.
Quatre felt some of the anger evaporate at that. Not all of it. The deep stuff was still there, probably always would be, but at least some of the pin had been put back. He tipped his head to the side before looking back out across the water. The rowers were out of sight. "It's what we do," he replied quietly.
He felt rather than saw his father return to his relaxed position, leaning against the bridge railing with his forearms, looking out across the small island that made up Fielder Field. "You're so much like your mother," he mused.
Quatre whipped his head back in surprise, looking over his shoulder at his father. "What?"
His father looked over his shoulder at him and smiled, small though it was. He couldn't remember the last time his father had smiled at him. "You are," his father said, continuing as if he hadn't heard his son's question. He looked back across the water as Quatre turned around and leaned against the bridge, not noticing that he was in fact, a mirror image of his father. And like his father, he also stared at the water, but his ears were fixated on the man next to him.
"You're so much like her, Quatre. You have no idea." His father told him. He was sure he heard a bittersweet note in his voice. "She played the violin too, you know. Out of all our children, you were the only one to pick it up. Katie picked up the flute, which was a deviation, but everyone else was perfectly content to learn the piano, except you. You insisted on playing the violin."
Quatre continued to stare at the water in front of him. He remembered. Back then the only violins they'd had in the house had been decorative. Old things that had been restored and mounted on the walls or above the fireplace. Even he wasn't sure what had prompted his insistence on playing the violin. He'd simply felt compelled to. It had taken months of begging and the promise to excel with both the violin and the piano before his father had finally agreed and hired a violinist to teach him.
"You always were rebellious. Even at the age of five. I should have been looking out for it once you hit twelve," he mused regretfully. "But after the incident with Rashid, I'd thought you'd settled down. I should have known better."
"She could sing too. She was always singing. Always optimistic and kind. She saw in others what they might not even see in themselves. Everyone adored her," he mused. Quatre scuffed a shoe against the bridge, unable to look at his father, he was beginning to feel like an interloper into his father's private thoughts. This was a conversation he'd never expected to have.
"She was stubborn too," his father added. "You got a double dose there." Quatre heard something of an apology in there. For the first time, he felt like they were actually meeting in the middle.
He smiled to himself, remembering on more than one occasion where that stubborn refusal to back down had been exactly the correct move to make. He shrugged. "To be fair, it's served me well." His father chuckled beside him. The sound nearly blew his mind. His father had never been this genial around him.
"The need to fix everything?" he asked tentatively.
"Her, but feeling responsible for everything and the workaholism is on me," he replied. His father pinned him with a stern look. "You need to be careful of that." Quatre kept quiet and stared at his hands.
In his defense, he was both going to school and working full time at a Global 500 company. Between the two, he clocked well over a hundred hours a week. Until he finished school, he didn't have much of a choice, but he conceded his father's point. Relationships suffered when all you do is work. His breakup with Trowa was painful evidence of that.
Which brought up another subject he thought he'd never have to go through again, least of all with his dead father. He almost didn't mention it, but with him right here, it seemed cowardly not to tackle the big things. He just wasn't entirely sure how.
He rubbed his hands together nervously. "This is going to sound like a cliche, but do you watch over me?" he asked. He couldn't bring himself to look at his father while he said it. It was something a child would ask and he felt like one too.
"I don't hover over you, protecting you from oncoming traffic or anything," his father replied. He made it sound so mundane. "I don't have that kind of power, but I know the highlights of your life to date."
Awkward. Quatre continued to fiddle with nothing in particular. Right...so, elephant in the room. Quatre opened his mouth to say something. What, he wasn't sure. He hadn't quite gotten that far yet. Not that it mattered because it was his father who spoke first.
"Yes, I know about Trowa...and Thomas."
Quatre quickly shut his mouth and thought about that for a moment. Yeah, if his father had the cliff notes of his life, he'd know his son was gay and the boyfriends he'd had. He looked at his father and then back at the water. He tried to formulate words, but nothing was coming out.
Finally he looked at his father. "You know that's both relieving and incredibly creepy at the same time, right?"
His father chuckled again and put up his hands. It made Quatre's hair stand on end. He wasn't sure he could get used to that sound. "I don't make the rules."
"Who does?" he asked, staring at his father. The words were out before he could stop them. He knew the path they'd turned down and he had no interest in it whatsoever.
His father's expression was steady, but sympathetic. "You should pray," he said.
Quatre huffed and turned back around, placing his back against the bridge once again and putting his hands in his pockets. "Rashid says the same thing."
"Rashid's a smart man," his father countered. "He's also wise. Those two are not often held together."
Quatre looked back at his father who was still watching him. "Between the two, I prefer Thomas," his father offered mildly, changing the subject. Quatre rolled his eyes and looked away. "I have to admit I'm not overly fond of you being in love with another gundam pilot."
"Oh come on!" Quatre said in agitation as he turned back and faced his father. "We accomplished what we set out to do. You have to give us credit for that. We even came out better than we'd hoped."
"Alive?" There was bite in that word, though he had to admit some truth to it. Starting out, all the gundam pilots had thought they were alone and even with stronger mobile suits, going down to Earth to fight had offered only a small chance of survival.
"That too," he'd grant his father that much. "But we didn't just get one person to represent all the colonies at the table, like we had with Heero Yuy. We're all at the table this time and we've had ten years of relative peace since then." He argued his point with conviction. It had been a long time since he'd had to defend his actions to his father. "For what it's worth, Father, that's not nothing."
His father's expression was difficult to read. Whether it was anger, disappointment, sadness, or regret, he couldn't be sure. "You killed a lot of people, Quatre."
Quatre took a deep breath. Yeah, there was that. His soul had a lot of scars because of it. "That's on me and I have a very expensive therapist who keeps me sufficiently medicated," he replied. "Besides, I'm not the one who gave up and got himself killed."
"Quatre," His father sighed. "They were going to use the satellite for weapons..."
"No," he said sternly. The anger was back. All that pain, anger, and resentment from watching his father get himself killed because he'd lost the will to fight came rushing back. "You don't get to play the martyr card." He was close to yelling and he didn't even care. "You gave up and got yourself killed. We kept fighting and got the job done. You don't get to hold anything over my head anymore."
He was too antsy. He had to move. In a quick motion, he pushed himself away from the rail and took several paces away from his father, one hand on his hip while the other ran through his hair in exasperation. He turned back around. "Do you even know what you've missed?" he asked in frustration. "I mean, honestly. I'd really like to know."
"Mine aren't the only graduations you've missed. Cossette just had twins. Sarah, Mariah, Adele, and Adeline, all got married. Katie just got engaged. Did you know that" he asked, walking back toward his father.
"Quatre," his father tried to interject.
"Iria's engaged too." He continued. "No one expected that to happen, but it did."
"Quatre…"
"He's one of the surgeons she works with. Nice guy. I hope he sticks around. Which is exactly what you would have said if you were still around."
"Quatre."
This time he actually heard his father. He stopped in his tracks and kept his mouth shut, despite the retort that immediately came into his head. His anger subsided again, turning into exhaustion. He'd forgotten how much fighting with his father took out of him.
"I know," his father said softly. "But we can't undo the things we've done."
His shoulders slumped as he regarded his father meekly. "I miss you." His father gave him a sad look as he stepped towards him. Then everything went black around them. Gone was the park and the lazy Charles River.
"Okay, that's just cheating," he accused in mild annoyance. "We weren't even arguing anymore." He could still see his father clearly and they looked at each other in confusion. All around them was emptiness. A black void. This felt like one of his PTSD flashbacks. His anxiety kicked in and he felt himself edging close to panicking.
The alarm in his father's eyes didn't help ease the fear building inside him either. He needed to run. "Quatre," his father said said as he cupped his head in his hands. "Son, listen to me very closely. Your body is shutting down." Quatre blinked. He was serious. His dead father was serious. He was dying.
"They're trying to save you," his father continued. Quatre heard "But you have to help them. You need to fight. Whatever you do, don't…"
And then he was alone in the black.
Malcolm was filling out discharge papers for a patient when a nurse came up to him and let him know that Rashid, Iria, and Iria's fiance had arrived and were on their way to Quatre's room. He thanked her, finished his paperwork and handed it off to another nurse.
As he approached the room, he saw both Trowa and Thomas moving away from the door and down the hall. Trowa had Danny Dog on his leash while Thomas, the more outgoing of Quatre's exes, led the way. Both were tall, breaking the six foot mark, but where Trowa had sported a sleek face-hiding shock of caramel colored hair, Thomas' was short, dark, and curly. Both men were long in the leg, with sharp facial features and athletic bodies.
He made a mental note to commend the kid on his taste in men.
Trowa caught sight of him first. He stopped, in the middle of the hallway and stared, hands in his pockets and a strained expression on his face, as Malcolm walked towards him. This isn't his first time seeing him on a ventilator, he thought as he remembered the night he'd met Quatre.
Though they had already ceased to be a couple, Thomas had pulled Quatre to a party that he'd also been attending. After getting separated in a crowd of strangers and Thomas looking for a hot something to go home with, Quatre had been left to his own devices.
A sudden noise had startled him, sending him into a panic attack. Having forgotten his Xanax at home for once in his life, Quatre had been unable to calm himself down. Being a doctor, Malcolm had rushed to help, leading the terrified kid onto the back patio where it was quieter.
After a few minutes of talking him through the attack, Quatre had confided in him that the panic attacks stemmed from his PTSD, as did his anxiety issues and depression. He'd even gone so far as to confess to being a Gundam pilot, which had shocked him. Usually he wouldn't have believed such a claim, but the sincerity with which he'd said it left him without a shred of doubt that Quatre had told him the truth.
It was in that moment that he'd gone on to explain how he'd been shot during the Eurussian incident. How he'd almost died. How Trowa had to watch him be kept alive by life support when only days before they had just begun a romantic relationship.
This incident was so similar and yet so different from the memory Quatre had described to him that night. Trowa looked like hell, all ruffled and out of sorts. A far cry from the way Quatre had always described him.
Malcolm glanced to his right as he closed the distance between himself and Trowa. Thomas, looking a bit more put together than his predecessor though no less tired, had joined up with the a tall man that made Malcolm think of a Middle Eastern version of Wolverine from the X-men, a woman bearing a family resemblance to Quatre, and another man. Tall, thin, sandy haired, glasses. Nerdy looking. Must be the fiance.
"You're Quatre's doctor?" Trowa asked, bringing Malcolm's attention back to the young man in front of him. His voice was softer than he'd expected, but that might be the exhaustion. Both boys had been up all night sitting with their sick friend.
He took Trowa's outstretched hand and gave it a brief shake. "Dr. Kahn. You must be Trowa." The rest of the group joined them and more introductions were made. "Quatre's currently stable," he told them. "But he isn't out of the woods yet."
"What happened?" Rashid asked. "He was perfectly fine a few days ago."
Malcolm shook his head. "Maybe not. He came in exhibiting severe symptoms of shock. Rapid heartbeat, rapid and labored breathing, his pupils were dilated, and he had a fever of 104.1. Now, we've been able to bring his fever down somewhat, though it still remains high. We're monitoring it carefully to make sure it doesn't go back up, but due to the amount of trouble he had breathing, we went ahead and intubated him."
"Do you know what caused it?" Iria asked. Just like a doctor. Straight to the point.
"Not yet. We've ruled out substance or alcohol abuse, anything viral, and his MRI scans showed no bleeding or abnormal pressure in the brain."
"So you're looking at a bacterial infection?"
"That's what I'm thinking. We went ahead and put him on a broad spectrum antibiotic, but his symptoms haven't subsided."
"What did his labs show?"
"It's none of the regular suspects, so we're looking into the more exotic ones. We're waiting for the test results for those now. I'm hoping we'll have them shortly. Right now the best we can do is offer supportive care and keep pushing the antibiotics until we get more information."
The news wasn't as good as they'd hoped. Thomas stood where he was, staring at the floor as if he didn't know what to do while Trowa rubbed the back of his neck and shook his head as he started walking towards a window that looked out over the hospital campus.
"There's another possibility we haven't completely ruled out." Everyone turned their attention back to him. "Quatre lost consciousness soon after he came in. We weren't able to get much information out of him prior to that and our psychiatrist didn't have a chance to interview him."
"You think it's in his head?" Trowa asked defensively.
Malcolm looked at him. "The antibiotics aren't working. I'm saying we can't rule it out."
Iria nodded in agreement, placing an appreciative hand on his arm before turning to her fiance for comfort. Seven years ago she'd been in a similar situation as well.
Malcolm's heart went out to these people.
"You were the one who found him?" Rashid asked. Malcolm turned to face the large man. Considered tall by most, even Malcolm was intimidated by Quatre's former legal guardian.
"Yes, I did. Quatre and I met at a social gathering several months ago. He had a panic attack and I treated him at the time, so I'm aware of his medical history. Thomas was out of town so he gave me his spare key to Quatre's in case an emergency happened."
"There are details…" Rashid began to say before Malcolm interjected.
"I know his medical history," he said softly, but firmly. A look of understanding passed between them and he knew his unspoken message had been received. "I'm a doctor. He's a good kid and my patient. We're going to do everything we can for him."
"Malcolm," a nurse said as she came up.
"Yeah?" he asked, twisting in place so he could see her. She held a file out to him.
"You're not going to believe it."
He looked at her doubtfully before dropping his eyes to the paper. He'd been wrong. These readings had to be wrong. "Are you sure?" he asked, flipping through the rest of it.
"I asked the tech to triple check when she gave it to me. She did. Those tests are accurate."
He looked at her, then back at the page. He checked the conclusions again. Damn. He looked up to five pairs of eyes staring at him. "You're kid has typhoid fever."
A range of surprised expletives and questions filtered through his ears. "Typhoid is from the tropics," Trowa said with skepticism. "We're talking South America. He hasn't even been to Mexico, let alone any farther south than that."
"Maybe Pakistan or Egypt," Iria said. "Those places are still high-risk factors, but he hasn't been anywhere except the U.S. and the colony in the past year."
"He must have caught it from a carrier. Did you call the CDC?" he asked the nurse.
She nodded. "There's an alert to keep an eye out at the other hospitals. If anyone shows up with it, they'll trace it."
"Alright," he said, handing the file back. "Let's put him on 1,000 milligrams of cipro, IV push. See if that starts to make a difference." The nurse nodded and left.
Iria gave him a small smile. "At least we know what it is," she said.
He sighed in relief. "Yeah. At least we know what it is."
Suddenly the machine in Quatre's room began making a ruckus of beeps and alarms. Several nurses ran behind him and into the room. "Stay out here," he told them with an outstretched hand as he rushed to follow the nurses.
What looked like chaos inside the room actually made perfect sense to him. "Talk to me," he called out.
"He's not breathing," someone said. Another nurse checked for a pulse.
"Start compressions," he replied. "Julie, turn up his fluids and push that sipro. I want to start getting the cause of all this under control. Do I have a pulse?"
"No pulse."
Malcolm looked at the monitor. "He's in vfib. Charge 300 joules." The machine let out a high pitched whine as it charged. A loud beeping noise indicated it was ready. "Everyone clear," at Quatre he put the paddles on the kid's chest and pushed the buttons. Quatre jolted slightly.
"Resume compressions," he called out as Julie pushed the medicine into his IV. \
"Think it will help?" she asked.
"Not fast enough," he replied before asking for a pulse again."I just want to start treating it in case we get him through this. He's a stubborn kid. Get an amp of Epi ready for me please." Julie left again and Quatre still didn't have a pulse. Feck.
"Charge 360." The whine returned. Followed by the beeping. "Everyone clear." A quick check had everyone safely away.
Malcolm pressed the buttons again. And again, Quatre jolted on the bed. He looked at the monitor. Still in vfib. "Are you really trying to die on me, kid?" he asked rhetorically as one of the nurses once again began compressions. "Julie, the Epi."
Everyone watched and waited as they waited for the medicine to kick in. Nothing. "Charge 360 again. Get an amp of bicarb and another amp of epi."
Julie pushed the medicine as the defibrillator charged again. The machine beeped. "Clear." Another check and another jolt. Everyone once again watched the monitor.
A regular rhythm rose and fell across the monitor. The tension in the room dissipated as Quatre's vitals stabilized again.
"Look at that," he said with a smile. "We got him back." He put the paddles away. "Good job everybody. Let's get a picture of his heart. We finally know what he has. I don't want to loose him because we missed something else."
He extricated himself from the room as the nurses went about their tasks and walked right into the expectant faces of family. "We got him back," he told them. He heard more than one person let out a sigh of relief.
"We've got him on the cipro, so hopefully treating the underlying cause of all this will start to yield results, but in the meantime, I want to get an echocardiogram. Make sure we're not overlooking anything."
"A what?" Thomas asked.
"It's a picture of his heart," Iria answered. "We don't have any genetic cases of heart problems," she informed him.
"I know," he replied. " Like I said, I just want to be thorough. He was good and stable just a few minutes ago. The code was unexpected. I really want to make sure we aren't missing anything."
Rashid and Iria both nodded their permission. "Someone will be along to take him up to cardiology for the echo, but you are more than welcome to go in and sit with him if you want...Even Danny Dog."
Everyone filed past him into the room. Thomas gave him a grateful expression as he passed. Malcolm gave him a comforting clap on the shoulder and sent up a silent prayer to Mary, Mother of God, that the next most exciting thing to happen was Quatre's recovery.
Quatre woke up to bright lights and a feeling of something large and warm taking up a large portion of his bed between his legs. He blinked repeatedly and noticed by the utilitarian appearance of the ceiling that he was not at home. It was then that he realized he was in a hospital bed.
He looked down, at the space between his legs. Danny Dog was laying there, his front paws and his head draped over his leg. He sat up, carefully, because he didn't know what all he was hooked up to. "Hi, Danny Dog," he whispered as the collie looked up at him.
With a twist and a roll, Danny maneuvered himself against his chest. Quatre wrapped his arms around him and kissed his angular head repeatedly. "I don't know what happened, but I'm sorry," he said to his dog. He got a lick to the face in response.
"You had Typhoid," came the rich baritone voice of Malcolm. Quatre whipped his head to the doorway where the Scot was leaning.
"How bad was it?"
The doctor smiled at him with a hint of sadness. "If we'd gotten to you any later, you'd probably have died. You coded even after we figured it out."
Quatre winced. His father had been right. It hadn't been the flu. "Wait...I had what now?" he asked in confusion. Danny Dog wiggled in his arms, so he let him go and made himself comfortable at his feet once again.
"It took a few days to figure it out, but apparently someone at a mexican restaurant you went to a couple weeks ago had recently come back from Venezuela without getting vaccinated against it." Malcolm shrugged. "He was asymptomatic and your weak immune system didn't have a chance."
"You know you have scar tissue on your heart?" Malcolm asked him, pulling up chair and sitting beside him. "The scar tissue created a complication to your rapid heart rate when we were fighting your shock symptoms. It's what caused your code."
"Really?" he asked in surprise. "No one's told me that before."
"Probably weren't looking," Malcolm replied. "You've never been injured near the heart. Lung yes, heart no."
"So why is it there?"
"My theory? Repeated tissue stress from multiple defibrillations. It's rare. Shocking someone back to life usually doesn't, in itself, cause any damage. But sometimes…" Malcolm opened his palms in a helpless gesture.
"They did work on me a lot that one time," Quatre admitted, looking down at his blanket.
"It probably wasn't the only time either," Malcolm told him. "You are either one of the luckiest fecking bastards I've ever had the honor to meet or the unluckiest."
The corner of his mouth twitched up a little. "You can debate that with everyone else when they wake up. I'm probably on my fifth or sixth life by now."
"I wondered if I'd ever get a cat joke out of you," Malcolm said as he reached over and ruffled his hair.
Quatre ducked his head away. "Shouldn't you be, you know, doing your job?"
"It's a slow shift," Malcolm countered mildly. "You're at a higher risk for symptom relapse, so you'll be stuck here for another couple of weeks."
"Great," he said with sarcasm. "Working from a hospital bed is a great idea for a vacation."
"Nah," Malcolm told him. "You need to rest. Your body needs a break Quatre. Now isn't the time to push your luck."
Quatre frowned at him. "I'll get behind."
"You'll be fine," Malcolm reassured him.
"Where is everyone anyway?" Quatre asked, looking around and noticing that other than Malcolm and Danny Dog, he was totally alone.
"They should be back soon."
A knock on the door caused them both to look over. Right on cue, several people began filing in. Iria's smiling face was the first thing he saw. "You look so much better," she told him.
"Considering the alternative, I would hope so," Malcolm chuckled, to which Quatre threw an reproachful expression.
"Sorry for the trouble, guys" he said meekly. He never liked causing stress to his loved ones. Especially since they'd been here before.
"It wasn't your fault," Rashid told him.
"At least you didn't die," Thomas said mildly.
"You should really stop doing that," Trowa tacked on softly. Quatre's eyes found his and all he wanted in that moment was to rush into his arms. But that wasn't an option and he hoped his thoughts weren't discernable.
"Trowa brought you something from your apartment," Thomas said pleasantly with a wave of his hand. Trowa held up his violin case.
Quatre reached for it as he brought it over. "If I'm stuck in here for a while, I might as well." Danny Dog groaned in protest and got down from the bed. Quatre set the case where the collie just abandoned and started getting it out. He glanced over at Malcolm for permission. "I can play, right?"
Malcolm smiled and motioned for him to continue. "I've heard your playing before. Machines going off sound vastly different. Besides, it would be a welcome distraction."
Quatre tucked the violin under his chin and played a few bars when a thought dawned on him. "How'd you get Danny Dog in here?" he asked curiously as he shook out his neck hand and trilled his fingers.
Malcolm shrugged again. "He came with the paramedics. I just pulled a favor to keep him around. He's been good for morale. The nurses love him."
"He's good at that," Trowa said offhandedly. He'd taken to leaning against the wall near the door with his arms crossed, watching him play.
"Dog's more popular than I am," Quatre added before drawing his bow across the strings once more. The sound was rich and warm. He followed it with something smooth and deep, like liquid amber pouring into a glass. He'd just woken up after almost dying...again. Now was not the time to get flighty with the violin.
The notes continued to come, ranging from the contemplative G string to the bright and carefree E. The entirety of it was wrapped in memories interwoven with hopes and dreams of future things.
Quatre played. And thought about his father and the mother he'd one day meet.