Disclaimer: I have no claim whatsoever to these characters.
This is the third in what I've decided is now the (drum roll, plz) "Right Now, In Cascade" series. It follows the events of 'Chiefly' and 'Sunday at the Camp' and contains more OMCs and OFCs than you can shake a stick at. All you really need to know going in is that Blair is now running a mountain camp/school/community for people with highly acute senses and their families and Jim is Cascade's chief of police.
Tumble
by Helen W.
Late Friday afternoon, October, 2007, Near Cascade
From 60 yards away, the fall looked like it could be pretty bad. Jason Wagner had been around six feet up the large apple tree near the entrance to the camp, reaching for a small electric RC airplane that had lodged in a clump of browning leaves, when the low branch Jason's other hand was pushing off from snapped or bent or somehow gave way - Blair really couldn't tell - and the boy tumbled to the ground. Not a very long fall, but he'd flailed, graceless, and landed hard.
Blair hadn't even thought to warn the boys out of the tree, had been happy Jason was taking a physical risk, exploring what he could do with his fast- growing body. And, as was so often the case with Jason Wagner, 'reasonably careful' had turned out to be 'nowhere near careful enough.'
By the time Blair reached him, Jason was swearing and clutching his left ankle; all things considered, this was a welcome sight. Also welcome was Bea Kohl, owner of the plane, making 'ohh, ohh, that looks so painful,' noises, and Lenny Ki, the erstwhile pilot, looking genuinely concerned and maybe a little guilty. Lenny and Jason had a hard time with each other, and something like this stood an even chance of helping them reach some sort of mutual understanding.
Deciding that a back injury was unlikely, Blair helped Jason hobble to the Coleman family's cabin, which was much closer than the boys' dorm and featured Marie Coleman, who had a talent for bump and bruise management. Marie was also very good at dealing with highly sensitive children: her eight-year-old daughter, Jenna, like Jason, had senses acute enough that Blair suspected she was, like Jim Ellison, a true sentinel.
Marie efficiently and gently settled the boy into the family recliner and wrapped a couple of cold packs around his ankle, completing the picture with a light blanket and a nonreactive sports bottle of filtered water.
As soon as he was seated, Angie Lonergan started Jason on pain management. Angie was trained as an EMT and had spent a year at a naturopathic college in Oregon before reading a paper of Blair's and joining his staff. Her specialty was working with the camp's teenage girls, but she also was Blair's main resource when it came to the intersection of mainstream western medicine and the sometimes peculiar physiology of his patients.
The 'dial' imagery that Blair and Jim had come up with a decade before was still the gold standard, but it had never worked particularly well for Jason when he was under any sort of stress, so Angie instead took the boy's hand and started to press into his palm. Jason snatched his hand back quickly: "No!"
"Come on, Jason, work with me," she said. "I need you to concentrate on me. Let's work on some relaxation instead, like we've practiced."
Jason seemingly tried to follow Angie's instructions for about a minute and a half, then rocked forward to grab at his ankle. "It's not working. God damn it, it HURTS! Can't you give me something? Come on, just one dose!"
Blair shook his head. "You know how your body reacts to drugs." Aspirin and ibuprofen were safe and effective for Jim and many of the others, but Jason's stomach couldn't tolerate them. Worse, Jason's liver already showed signs of damage from acetaminophen. Blair suspected that Jason's parents had used this on him excessively, to stifle a never- ending litany of physical complaints that Jason had issued since he was old enough to talk. Complaints tied to real pain, mostly, though some of the things that Jason's body had registered as pain were normal, transient sensations.
Helping Jason deal with this input had been their first goal when he'd come to the camp the year before; and, with a little borrowing from cognitive behavior therapy, it hadn't taken long for Blair's partner, Mark, to teach Jason to ignore purely trivial sensations. It had taken longer to develop strategies for dealing with bumps and bruises. A real, honest-to-God injury was something they hadn't had to deal with yet. One way or another, though, the pain had to lessen, or they were all in for a really long night.
"I'm going to call my son," said Marie. "Jason, do you want to talk to Jonnie?"
Jason, pale and white-lipped, shook his head.
"Jason, I'm going to peek under the ice packs," said Angie. "See what we're dealing with."
Blair looked over her shoulder as she uncovered the boy's ankle. It was red and swollen. Shit, that meant the ER. Blair hadn't even let himself consider what it would take to manage Jason there, especially with Mark, the staff member generally closest to the teenage boys, out of the state for the week.
Damn.
He weighed the risk in transporting Jason himself - and what the hell had he been thinking, having him walk earlier? - vs. the trauma of an ambulance. Jason was about as skittish as a - as something skittish, and, chances were they wouldn't let a staffmember ride with him. Plus, an ambulance would take 20 - 30 minutes to come up from the county seat, even assuming one was available; and they'd be tying it up for the evening. And the EMTs would almost certainly insist on going east to County General, whereas Blair preferred North Cascade Community, over the county line in Cascade to their south.
"Okay," he said, "Jason, I'm going to drive you to a hospital. Angie will ride with us, and one of us will be with you the entire time."
Jason nodded. "Hurts!"
Angie handed him a pillow and he hugged it hard. Damn. Over a year of progress was being stripped away from the kid.
Marie, who'd been talking low into a phone in the corner, came back over. Blair hadn't paid her call much attention; hadn't really registered that her phoning her teenage son at his boarding school had anything to do with what was going on. "They say he's at soccer practice."
"We're heading to North Cascade Community anyway."
"And my husband won't be back from Seattle with our car until... Wait, wait, is Jim coming up this weekend?"
"Uh, yeah "
"Then I'll call him now and he can pick my son up at school and meet you there."
The 40-minute ride to the hospital was awful. Angie sat in the back seat with Jason but he ignored her and alternated whimpering and swearing into Marie Coleman's throw pillow.
Jim was waiting for them as they pulled up. Jim and Marie's son, Jonathan, pushing an empty wheelchair. Man, Marie was efficient. Jim reached into the car and lifted Jason out and into the chair; as soon as he was seated, Jonathan Coleman crouched in front of him, close but not touching. "How bad is it?"
"Bad," he said; but he was obviously trying to pull himself together.
It turned out that having the police chief of your major American city escort you into an ER had its advantages. They were ushered into an exam room almost immediately, and a resident began poking and prodding and generally doing things that looked really painful. Jonathan kept Jason's attention the whole time, echoing the doctor's comments in a way that Blair would have considered totally superfluous if it wasn't clear that the injured boy was barely registering what the doctor said. To Blair's surprise, the doctor didn't seem to think there was anything odd about this.
They were quite a parade, Blair thought, heading to X-Ray, a tech wheeling Jason while Jonathan walked beside him commenting at full voice on the architecture, any artwork they passed, the carpeting... anything that popped into his mind, as far as Blair could tell. Angie followed close behind, looking worried, and he and Jim brought up the rear.
Blair really wanted to discuss some scenarios with Angie about how they might handle sedation if they needed it, and Jonathan's running commentary wasn't helping his concentration any. He rolled his eyes at Jim, who grabbed his arm and brought them both to a stop. "He's building a wall of sound. Trust me, you don't want to know what you hear in a hospital if you don't have good control, and Wagner's is shot."
"My God - Jim, why didn't I think of that?"
"You didn't have to," said Jim.
The x-rays weren't very difficult, it turned out; again, the hospital staff seemed to accept that Jonathan was going to be with Jason pretty much all the time.
At around 8:30 they got official word on what Blair had been coming to expect more and more - they were looking at a cracked fibia, which meant setting the bone this evening, a temporary cast overnight while the swelling subsided, then 6-8 weeks in plaster.
Blair knew from personal experience that having a bone set was excruciating. The orthopedic surgeon wanted to have Jason under for the procedure, but the anesthesiologist, after being briefed on Jason's atypical reactions to drugs, was less than enthusiastic.
Jonathan turned from where he was whispering with the other boy to say, "If you just want him sleepy, go with a third of a Benadryl."
Angie nodded. "I was worried that might shoot his control."
"I agree," said Jim. "Son, you might find this easier if you had more focus."
"Half a Coke," said Jonathan. "Sugar plus caffeine."
"I don't want him drinking anything, just in case," said the anesthesiologist.
"How about a mouthful. Two sips."
The anesthesiologist nodded, as if consulting with an army of hangers- on, including a sixteen- year- old in sweats, was an everyday occurrence.
They went with the Coke.
Jason screamed when the bone was set, but kept still enough to let the orthopedist work. The whole time Jonathan crouched at his elbow talked to him, explaining what was happening, telling him it would be over soon.
And then they were settling Jason in for the night, to keep the movement of the ankle at a minimum. Blair expected there to be protests, but both boys seemed fine with staying overnight. A third of a Benadryl was delivered in a little cup - Blair wasn't quite sure even which doctor had ordered it - and the injured boy was soon asleep.
As lines disappeared from Jason's face, the other boy reached for him and rubbed his arm a little, and Blair realized that, all evening, they really hadn't touched more than was logistically necessary. Jonathan then got up and left the room.
"Follow him," said Jim, so Blair did.
Jonathan was standing in the hallway, hands balled into fists, looking like he wanted to punch a wall, or maybe the supposed world expert on the highly sensitive. But when he saw Blair he sighed and relaxed his stance. "Well, that was kind of awful," he said.
"Yeah," said Blair. "Uh - how did you..."
"I spent most of every day of the past year with him. I paid attention. I..." And he was back to looking like he wanted to hurt something.
"Let's take a walk," said Blair.
They found themselves in the cafeteria sipping unexpectedly good coffee and sharing a bag of chips. "Can I ask you something, Dr. Blair?"
"Sure."
"Is it worth it?"
"What?"
"You and Jim. You hooked up with him because you were into the whole sentinel concept, right, before you even knew there were any living in modern society?"
"Yeah. He was my thesis project, pretty much, though in the end I had to write up some other research."
"So you were after the degree. And now you've got your practice in Cascade, and the camp, and people like my parents thinking you're God because you work miracles with kids like Jenna."
"Well, I..."
Jonathan waved his hand. "Sorry. Long day. And this screws my weekend up completely. I was going to go to an offcampus party tonight, at the house of one of the day students. They have this outdoor pool they heat to, like, 80- something degrees, so you can swim in it still, and the mist rises up... And I have a game tomorrow evening. Or is it tomorrow already? And a ton of calc homework. And I have to finish Wuthering Heights by Tuesday."
"Cascade Academy's a challenge?"
"It's a bitch. It's great. It's everything I wanted; my parents were absolutely right, it's where I should be."
"Well, that's great."
"No, it completely blows! How can I spend the next two years in Cascade when Jase is up at the camp with you all, who let him do damn fool things like fall out of trees without knowing the least thing about - about how he works?"
Blair nodded.
"And then, after high school... Man, I SO do not want to stay in this corner of the state for the rest of my life. The guidance counselor says I have a good shot at Stanford. Or MIT. Or Harvard. UW-Cascade is NOT where I want to go!"
"There's Rainier."
"The school that screwed you over six ways to Sunday."
"It's not so bad."
"That's not the point! I didn't choose this! I like Jase, really, I do, but I didn't choose to be the only person I could trust not to kill him!"
"Tell him there are rewards." That was Jim's voice; Blair turned and gestured toward a free chair.
Jonathan looked down and away for a second, then swallowed and asked, "Would you have died, if Dr. Blair hadn't found you? However that actually happened?"
"Yes," said Jim. "I'm sorry. I know that's not what you want to hear."
Rewards. What had Jim meant?
"It was about the thesis at first," Blair said, feeling around for the right words. "And I loved what I was doing with Jim back then, the police work. But, really, it pretty quickly became... I think the phrase I used was, it was about friendship."
"I have a lot of friends," said Jonathan. "Up in Vancouver, the other guys at the camp, and I've met some great people at school."
"But none like Jase," said Jim.
"Thank God."
"Really, he's doing fine," said Blair. "Most of the time. Even getting along with Lenny Ki."
"Until he fell out of a tree!"
"He's got to... you've got to let kids test their limits. It's hard for us adults to do, but we have to. Today was just an accident. It could have happened to anyone."
Jonathan rubbed his hands over his face, suddenly looking very tired, very sixteen. "Want a ride back to school?" Jim asked. "Really, I think Blair and Angie have things covered."
"Nah... I brought my homework, it's out in your car still. I can pound on it some now, catch sleep when I can tomorrow, then head up to the camp with y'all when they release Jase. My parents can take me to the game - they were talking about coming down for it anyway. It'll be fine."
Jim smiled, trying to look like your friendly neighborhood authority figure. "That's the spirit. I've got paperwork myself. Let's see who finishes first."
Blair nodded, feeling stupid and slow and completely out of his depth. And he realized that, maybe, there was no other way he was supposed to feel just then.
* * * THE END * * *
All feedback is, as usual, appreciated, here or to helenw at murphnet dot org.