"Law," Shachi says, pointing to the monitor screen above the patient's bed. "He's flatlining."
Law sets his coffee down. A crescendo begins to hitchhike the beeping of the machine as he scans the waveforms on display, now accompanied by various obnoxious warnings flashing all around the numbers. The intern, who was standing closest to the monitor and had literally been caught red-handed in the middle of a procedure (her wrinkled gloves were stained with a mosaic of fresh blood) had frozen stiff, hands hovering protectively over the patient's head.
"What are you thinking?" she asks, eyeing Law cautiously.
The blood pressure and oxygen were dropping at an alarming rate. But the ECG tracing was normal.
Pulseless electrical activity?
The beeping of the monitor is searing into Law's eardrums. He had managed to get the patient stable since admission – well, breathing on mechanical ventilation and completely unconscious — so what now?
"Koala," he says definitively, leaping to the other side of the bed, "keep inserting the line – we need to track his haemodynamics."
Koala grimaces. She had been struggling with it and had clearly lost confidence in her manual dexterity. "I can't – don't you want to take over for me?!"
"You already have it half-inserted, you can't stop now!"
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Law dives his hand into the syringe box, draws up the adrenaline, and immediately plunges the needle into the patient. His heart is pounding louder than the noise from all the commotion: nurses rushing to bring equipment, Shachi reading numbers aloud and taking down clinical notes, curious hospital visitors daring to walk past to get a sneak peek of the scene. He draws the needle back, reaches over to the oxygen dial with the free hand and swiftly restores it to maximum flow.
"Has his haemoglobin changed?"
"Not really," Shachi replies, "even though we transfused a lot of blood already."
Law sighs, and is suddenly conscious of the warm, exhaled air against his face mask.
"I think he has an internal bleed."
The patient rouses as the sedatives wear off, jet black hair damp in sweat, a young face scrunched in pain. Koala rushes to administer an extra dose of sedative. Law watches as the patient's face relaxes again and his limbs flop back down on the bed.
"I can feel his femoral pulse," Law mutters, two fingers resting on the patient's upper thigh. "That's weird."
What are you gonna do?
Law nearly pulls a drip from the patient in fright. He looks around the room to identify the voice. And there he is: Corazon, leaning against the wall between the sterile blue hospital curtains, arms crossed, observing Law with his usual indiscernible expression. The entire room becomes a silent moving picture for a second as Law locks Corazon into eye contact.
Find the bleed, Law wants to say, but just as he opens his mouth to actually say it, Corazon is gone.
"Law? Law –"
Beep. Beep. Beep.
The sound of panicking hospital staff ebbs back into his consciousness. Shachi is shaking him roughly by the shoulders, shouldering his weight just before his knees give in.
"Hey, man, you all right?!"
Law grabs onto the railing of the patient bed to steady himself.
"We need to take him into theatre," he mutters. "And fix the lines. I think there's a detection error."
Koala fumbles with the central line, unnecessarily puncturing the patient's neck multiple times along the way, but she finally inserts it in the right position (to Law's relief). She throws her bloodied hands up in the air: That's it. I'm done.
Law ignores her eye roll.
"Everyone," he says, over the hysteria flooding the room. He wipes the sweat from his temple. "I'll take him into theatre to look for a bleed and seal it. We'll need to do another transfusion, so prepare three more packs of red blood cells and more fluids!"
A round of "Yes, doctor!" reverberates throughout the resuscitation bay.
xxxx
It's four in the morning now, and Law is on the phone in the doctors' office, slumping into the chair with one leg resting lazily on his other knee. He normally tolerates night shifts well. But right now, despite another a successful resuscitation, he was unsettled and much more exhausted than on any other night he's worked.
"Yes, hi," he says, his hand holding the telephone loosely, "this is Dr. Trafalgar Law, from ICU. I've got a 17-year-old male admitted for blunt chest trauma that led to haemorrhagic shock, and during surgery we found a subcapsular haematoma probably secondary to a delayed splenic rupture—"
Law doesn't actually speak English when he's talking to another doctor.
"— no significant medical background otherwise. Yes. Yeah, I've drained it. He's got a few left rib fractures but nothing affecting the heart. Orthopaedics is coming to review tomorrow. Mm… he's stable. Any recommendations?"
He fiddles with the stethoscope hanging around his neck as he listens to the senior's advice.
"Yeah, I'll do that. I don't know about the rest of his family, but his older brother died at the scene, so."
The senior doctor sighs and mumbles something about the situation being terribly sad. On the desk, Law's personal phone lights up with a new message. It's Sanji.
Holy shit, this guy I knew back in high school got killed after getting into a huge brawl. He was a delinquent, but still.
"Don't worry, I can take it from here," Law manages through a yawn, ignoring his phone. "He's on low flow oxygen right now. Sleeping. Thank you," he adds with a smirk, "I only learn from the best – namely, you."
Law hangs up with a soft chuckle.
He should probably reply to Sanji. Sanji can be an emotional wreck, especially since romantic prospects with Viola (the psychiatrist from ward 64) had terminated abruptly after she rejected a third date from him. He was probably up reading some sappy poetry for temporary consolation.
I know, I've got his younger brother in ICU.
Law has no idea why he reminds Sanji that he still exists.
His phone buzzes again.
WHAT? Luffy is in ICU?!
The phone rings immediately before Law can even start to punch out a reply.
"Yes, Luffy—" he begins, but Sanji cuts him off.
"I'm heading there now," Sanji says hurriedly. Law hears drawers being opened and slammed shut again on the other end of the line.
"I didn't know you were close to him," says Law, pretending to sound hurtful. "Your keys are by the kitchen bench," he adds. "You always leave them there."
"I was going to visit him anyway, since his brother..." Sanji drifts off, with the familiar sound of house keys tinkering into the speaker. "What the fuck happened over there?"
"You mean the fight? No idea."
"You've fixed him up?"
"Yeah."
Sanji breathes out a genuine statement of gratitude to Law. That doesn't actually happen very often.
"Why are you even awake at this time?"
"Moping," Sanji replies, "about life."
Law laughs out loud.
"Sanji, if you keep this up, I will personally make a trip to ward 64 just to tell Viola what she's done to you."
"You're the most insensitive bastard. Ever."
"Law?" A head has poked through the office door: it's Shachi. Law swivels around, phone still at his ear, and nods for Shachi to continue talking. Shachi mouths his message: Bed 14 is awake.
Law nods again, waving a hand. He tunes back into the call.
"Sanji, I gotta go. See you when you get here. The patient's in bed –" Law stops, turning back around to Shachi, who fills in helpfully: "– bed 14."
When his phone has been put into his pocket and he's stood up to exit the office, Shachi is still staring at him, eyebrows furrowed with something in between suspicion and concern.
"What now?" says Law, with 4am irritability.
"Dude, you nearly K.O.'d before," Shachi replies. "We could've lost the patient if you didn't recover quickly. What happened?"
Great. This was the last thing Law wanted to talk about right now. Shachi wasn't exactly the kind of person Law would go to when it came to topics that ran any deeper than money, alcohol and sex – and even if he was, Law wasn't about to speak about it within the hospital premises, anyway.
"We don't have to talk. It's just – if you're not well..."
Shachi is more than capable of reading Law's face and eventually lets the topic go with a shrug. Sometimes, Law thinks he should stop being an open book and exploit the charms of his inborn enigma instead.
"Sure," Law says finally, with a tone that marked the end of the conversation.
A few moments later, an ear-piercing wail rings emphatically across the hallway. Law turns his head in the direction from where it came. He has seen and heard many forms of grief throughout his time in the hospital, but he doesn't think he's heard one quite as devastatingly loud as this.
"WHEEEERREEEE IS AAACCCCEEEE?"
"Bed 14," Shachi answers, before Law can think to ask.
The patients in other beds are grumbling bitterly behind their curtains in response. It's the loudest the ward has been for a long time.
"Are you serious? It's like he's awoken the dead."
"Yeah, he's tearing at his lines and the sedatives don't work on him. I wonder if he thinks he's well enough to get out of ICU."
xxxx
Law decides that the patient is not getting out of ICU.
"Koala has a bit of a soft spot for him, so we thought we'd better call you to make sure..." Shachi explains.
Law cross checks the patient's name with the charts for bed 14. Monkey D. Luffy. Then he looks up at the mess in front of him: a small-built young man, no longer connected to oxygen, external wounds reopened, drips completely detached from his body, and in psychological distress. He writes all of this down in the notes.
Law knows 'psychological distress' is actually a horrific understatement.
"Luffy," he starts carefully. Luffy is sobbing loudly, hyperventilating, and all the drips that were detached from his body were made up for by the voluminous dripping from his nose. Law waits for the bawling patient to acknowledge his presence before continuing.
"Luffy," he says again, firmly, once he has made eye contact. "My name is Law. I'm the doctor looking after you."
Luffy stops sobbing for a moment as he tries to steady his breath.
"I — I couldn't..."
"I'm sorry," Law says. He means it.
Luffy reaches out and tugs lightly onto Law's coat. A stunned silence falls over the room. Law is about to place his hand around Luffy's to calm him down, but Luffy twists his fist upward, catching Law completely off guard.
"You," says Luffy, more threateningly than Law would have liked. "You're responsible for this, right?" He raises his other hand and points at his feet, all tied to the railings with bed restraints. His limbs are heavily bruised from what Law figured was rigorous struggling against the restraints. "What - what do you think you're doing to me?"
Law doesn't answer.
"This is torture," Luffy continues, his voice cracking. "You think I want this? You think this could make me happy? To live?! Fuck you and your stupid life-saving procedures! You know nothing about what I want! You're just some stupid doctor who thinks he's doing good in this fucked up world-"
Shachi is at the left side of the bed, trying to push Luffy back into the sheets.
"—but some of us don't even have anything to live for!"
Law is actually thinking about how Luffy is the kind of patient he hates having to look after.
"Would you like to talk about it?" he asks, quietly.
He's not completely heartless.
Luffy's wide eyes stare straight into Law's, and he slowly lets go of Law's coat with a strained shove.
"You didn't save Ace."
"I couldn't—"
"WHY DIDN'T YOU SAVE ACE?"
"I'm sorry," Law says again, "your brother —"
"DON'T SAY IT!"
A painstaking silence stretches out, and Law doesn't dare cut it short. It goes for as long as it takes for Luffy to catch his breath in between gasps.
"You saved me, but not Ace," Luffy says again, face stricken with despair. Tears begin to well up at the corners of his sunken eyes. "I hate it here, I hate that you think you're saving me, I hate the world outside. And even if you do let me out of here, fuck, I don't know what to do - I wouldn't know where to go."
"Do you... have other family members?" Law asks.
"No. Well – yeah. But he's not someone who cares about me, anyway."
"Your dad?"
"Sabo. Another brother. Never comes back to visit because he's too fucking busy working as a fancy-ass diplomat —"
Law knows a little bit about Sabo, but not that he was related to this patient. According to Koala, he's been travelling around the world for the past few years and hasn't had the chance to come back home for a while. The two lovebirds only see each other when Koala goes overseas to visit him during her breaks.
Speaking of the devil.
"Shachi, where's Koala?"
"Yeah — about that," says Shachi, "she's going to the airport to pick up Sabo. He's flying in tonight."
Law looks back at Luffy, whose eyes are swollen and red. But Luffy doesn't return the gaze. He seems more intent on amputating his own feet with his sullen glare than he is on any conversation with Law.
"Well," says Law, tucking his clipboard under an arm. "Sanji's coming to see you. He's on his way."
Luffy's face suddenly becomes a mixture of panic and fury, and Law realises that he's screwed up when Luffy bursts out: "Fuck! Are you fucking kidding me?"
"Nope," Law replies automatically. He shouldn't have said that. He'd slam his own head against a wall right now, if he could.
"Just because we've got a couple of mutual friends, you think it's okay to just tell them where I am?"
"Oh, so you've heard of me."
"You need to fucking leave me alone," Luffy says, pulling the hospital doona over his body.
Shachi is shaking his head, and Law resists the urge to flip the finger at him.
Law really needs a break.
xxxx
It takes a while for Law and Shachi to replace Luffy's wound dressings again and reattach all the lines back in their place. Luffy, although unwilling to comply with Law's requests, had at least stopped sobbing loudly - even if that meant resorting to angry glares and sniffles in between tears that disappear into his pillow. Shachi is the one who places a sympathetic hand every now and then on Luffy's shoulder. Law, for the most part, doesn't say anything.
Some time halfway through the procedure, a young man carrying a brown shoulder bag appears outside the room, brushing through his thick afro nervously as he peers inside.
"Sorry," he stammers. Law looks up, holding a pair of sharp scissors in the middle of slicing away at a wound dressing. "You look busy — um, I'll just wait."
Luffy, who figured before that the best way to avoid conversation was to pretend to be asleep, stirs underneath the bright blue sheets and equipment placed on top of him. Law presses a palm onto his abdomen to keep him still.
"Usopp," Luffy breathes, with evident relief. He turns around to face Law. "Hey, why did you tell—"
"I didn't," Law replies. He's not going for a second round of being the patient punching bag. But despite this, Luffy is tearing up again.
"USOPP!"
"Luffy! Oh thank God," Usopp says, stepping gingerly into the room.
Law can feel Usopp's eyes rest on him as he applies a gauze swab to a laceration on Luffy's skin.
"I don't mind an audience."
Usopp immediately takes up on Law's offer and comes around to the side of the bed, next to Shachi.
Shachi chuckles and adds: "Hell, I'm getting performance anxiety, Law."
They were almost finished, anyway. Law tries his best to zone out of the incoherent conversation between Luffy and Usopp, and they make it easy for him because Usopp is crying a mini river and Luffy isn't even talking in sentences. There is some blabbering about "Sanji letting the others know", which makes Law regret that he's set off a very chaotic chain reaction. Shachi stifles a snigger across from the bed as though Law had said that aloud.
"We're done here," Law finally says, as he wraps up the equipment. Shachi is already rushing off to the next patient (apparently agitated and delirious). "I'll leave you two alone. If you need me, just let one of the nurses know."
Usopp nods: he's the only one listening. Luffy is furiously wiping his own tears, struggling to maintain steady breaths. As Law walks out of the room he catches the only audible thing Luffy has said since Usopp arrived: "This must look really bad, I didn't want you to — to worry."
"Oi, Law — watch it."
Law staggers back in surprise.
"Sanji," he says, genuinely relieved to see the blonde man. "What took you so long?"
They were just outside bed 14, and Sanji leans against the window of the room, hands tucked away in his pockets. Law doesn't remember the last time he's seen Sanji so worn out.
"Contacting all of Luffy's friends," Sanji replies quietly.
"I know. I took the hit for it," Law says flatly, taking off his bloody gown and mask and dumping it into a bin. He removes his hair net and turns to the nearest reflective surface to run a hand briefly through his messy, black hair.
"Your hair is fine, Law," Sanji remarks, a corner of his mouth raised in a smirk. "How's the night shift?"
Law knows Sanji is actually only interested in Luffy's condition and not how his night shift has been.
"Not bad. He's been resisting treatment but we've got it under control."
There's a silence between the two of them, underscored by the voices of Luffy and Usopp inside, who are exchanging grief and sympathy and everything in between.
"Hey," Law says suddenly, "Before, when we were resuscitating him — Luffy, I mean."
Sanji raises an eyebrow.
"I saw Corazon. I was scared as fuck, I didn't think I'd see him again."
Law doesn't know how to explain the situation succinctly, so he decides to stop there. Sanji knows about the hallucinations of Corazon that started when Law was halfway through med school, several years ago.
"I want you to listen to me," Sanji says, after a long pause. "You're not crazy. No matter what you see, you're still the sane, rational Law that I know."
The great thing about Sanji is that he knows exactly what to say when Law is freaking out. Law manages a wry smile, and suddenly he feels like a vulnerable child.
"I'm going back to the office," Law says, in a feeble attempt to change the topic. "My shift ends at 8am, and I've got a few things to do before that."
"Take care, man. I worry about you sometimes." Sanji is grinning now, because he knows Law hates it when people worry about him.
But Law doesn't mind. Not tonight.