Limbo
Disclaimer: These boys aren't mine even though they took up residency in my heart and mind a long time ago. I'm just letting them out for some fresh air. I promise I'm not making any money and have no intention to since they are the property of Mark VII and Universal (lucky ducks).
The air rushed from his lungs and then…..nothing. No more air in, no more air out. Nothing. No sound. No light. Nothing. He felt nothing. No flutter of heartbeat under his ribs. No rush of blood through his veins. No light piercing the darkness behind his eyes. One minute everything was as it should be and then, suddenly, nothing.
It was the most bizarre thing he'd ever experienced. He knew something was wrong, but he just couldn't bring himself to be worried about it. He knew there should be more than there was, but he couldn't bring himself to figure out what was missing. He'd never before felt such emptiness and such peace both at the same time.
He thought he should be feeling something, but what that was he couldn't figure out. Pain? Maybe he should be feeling pain. When he tried to feel something he found he couldn't feel anything at all, not even the pressure of the ground under his feet or a mattress under his back, but he didn't feel water either. He couldn't be floating and yet, that's how it felt. It felt like he was floating.
The only thing he was aware of at all was that he was still thinking. He knew who he was and what he was and he thought he knew what he had been doing before there was nothing. There was a vague sense of a victim and a car. As hard as he tried he couldn't figure out what had caused the nothingness.
While he was trying to figure out where he was and what was happening to him a new feeling began, down where he figured his feet must be. It felt like he was being pulled, tugged more like it. He was gently being tugged in a new direction, almost like a current in a river was pulling him downstream. Not being able to think of any reason not to follow the new path he let himself go. There was no fear, no indication that he shouldn't go. He still felt the peace that had been present from the beginning of this odd experience.
Wait. What was that? A flash of light and a tinkle of sound. He thought he heard the siren of an ambulance. He should recognize that sound since he'd heard it enough times. As quickly as they came they were gone, but they'd gained his attention. He ignored the tugging feeling, waiting to see if it would happen again. There it was, a little stronger this time. The flash of light brighter, the sounds stronger, like a thunder storm drawing closer. He thought he recognized one of the voices. Roy?
A third flash of light and rush of sound and then the nothing returned, the river pulling him stronger than ever. This time he fought the tide. He wanted to stay where he was, he wanted to hear Roy's voice again. If Roy was here he would have the answers to his questions. The biggest question being what the hell was going on?
There was no sense of time passing, but the flashes had stopped, the sounds faded and the tide pulling him grew stronger. Still there was no fear. The peace remained. Somehow he knew that if he followed the tide pulling him away it would still be okay. There was a new experience waiting.
Suddenly the peace was replaced by a new feeling, not fear, but something different. What was that? Excitement? Anticipation? Adrenaline. It was the same feeling he got every time the station's tones sounded.
The biggest flash of light yet suddenly hit him right in the center of his chest and flooded outward to the top of his head and downward to the tips of his toes. With the flash came a rush of air and sound. There were voices everywhere talking over, around and through each other. Some sounded like they were speaking directly over him while others were farther away speaking and yelling about something far removed from himself. He was breathing again. While he hadn't missed it while it was gone, now that it was back the air in his lungs felt so good he couldn't imagine why he hadn't been desperate for it while he was in the nothingness.
There was something else. Pain, lots and lots of pain, excruciating pain. He wondered where the pain had come from. There had been no pain before. Why was there so much pain now?
A hand was touching his arm. The hand was large and rough with callouses. Cap. He didn't know how he knew, but he knew the hand belonged to Cap, his voice, not speaking to him, but to someone nearby.
"How's he doing? Did he…?"
"I got him back, Cap. It could be touch and go for a while, but I got him back and I have no intention of letting him leave again."
A deep sigh that said more than words ever could and a gentle squeeze and the hand was gone. Where'd Cap go? That other voice, that was Roy. Did Roy leave with Cap?
A hand on his abdomen was reading his rate of respiration. This would be Roy. "Johnny? Can you hear me partner? If you can I need you to open those eyes now." Yep, Roy.
He tried. He really, really tried, but he was suddenly so tired he just couldn't bring himself to do something as simple as opening his eyes.
A deeper breath than previously and a slight twitch was all Roy needed in order to know that Johnny was paying attention.
"That's okay Partner. You've been through a lot and I'm sure you're exhausted. You just take it easy and build up your energy, when you are good and ready you'll open up those gorgeous brown eyes and flutter them at a cute nurse."
Roy chuckled at his own joke as he efficiently and quickly gathered the gear that would be going in the ambulance with him and his patients. He knew his partner didn't like being teased about how the girls always fawned over his eyes, but couldn't resist getting in a little dig while his partner couldn't do anything about it.
If he weren't in so much pain and so tired Johnny would have scowled at his partner and given him a few choice words. As it was he simply tried to ignore the pain. He felt strong hands, unfamiliar hands, lift him and gently place him on what must be a gurney, because no sooner had he touched the surface than the device began to move.
A hand on his hand. "Hang in there John, Roy's going to take good care of you." That was Mike.
A hand on his leg. "Come back soon, the Phantom needs his Pigeon." If he could have, he would have laughed at Chet's parting words.
A hand on his opposite foot. "Take care and we'll visit soon." Marco's softly spoken farewell.
Surrounded by a more familiar sense of comfort and peace he drifted off to a place of rest.
When awareness returned to him again he knew he was somewhere indoors. The voices here had a slight echo to them that told him the sounds were bouncing off of walls and ceilings. Another hand, this one soft, with long delicate fingers, rested on his shoulder. Dixie. This hand was Dixie's. He was at Rampart. A voice some would call harsh, but he had come to recognize it as the voice of determination. This voice barked orders like a drill sergeant. Dr. Brackett was in the room and that alone brought some comfort. Dr. Brackett only lost when there was absolutely no way to win. Whatever had been happening to him Dr. Brackett and Dixie would find it and fix it.
"I think someone is trying to wake up. Hey, there's those handsome brown eyes we've been waiting for." Dixie had no way of knowing about Roy's teasing earlier and her comment brought a scowl of frustration from the patient lying on the table and an abbreviated chuckle from the paramedic standing at the head of the bed.
"I'm not sure what that was all about, but I'm glad to see you awake. How are you feeling?"
"Hurz, hurz all over."
"Yeah, I bet you do hurt all over with what you've been through."
"Wha happn'd?"
"For now, why don't you just rest while we finish checking you out. Roy will tell you all about it later."
"M'kay."
To tell the truth he was too tired to listen to the whole story now anyway. Just that little bit of conversation had taken every bit of energy he'd stored up. He gratefully drifted back into the restful place he'd been in since coming back from the nothingness.
The next he knew the sun was streaming through the window and he could hear the banging of carts and trays that came with shift change and breakfast delivery. Without opening his eyes he thought he caught a whiff of weak oatmeal and the sweet scent of apple juice, staples of a bland diet. 'Yippee.' Oh, good, he must be feeling better if he could at least think sarcastically, even if he wasn't up to vocalizing it at this point. He heard the door open and a new smell entered the room. Smoke, not overly strong, but the lingering smell that attached itself to anyone standing too close to anything on fire. He knew who it was, there'd only be one person tiptoeing into his room this close to shift change. He really wanted to open his eyes, but he needed just a few more moments to gather the energy to do so. He was still so exhausted he barely felt alive.
He heard him move across the room, his shoes squeaking lightly on the linoleum floor. He heard the scrape of a chair being moved and heard the rustle of cloth as the person settled himself in the chair he had just relocated.
Without opening his eyes he murmured, "G'morning, Roy."
"Good morning. How did you know it was me, you haven't even opened your eyes."
"Who else would it be?"
"Touché. How are you feeling today?"
"Tired. Very, very tired." He finally opened his eyes and squinted slightly until the blurry figure at his bedside came into focus. "Aren't you a little early? Shift just ended and you're already here."
"One of the B shift guys got in a little early so Cap let me go. He wants me to call him when I leave and let him know when you'll be ready for more visitors. You gave everyone quite the scare yesterday."
"About that, what happened anyway? I have absolutely no clue what brought me here."
"Partner, it was the craziest thing. You got caught in a perfect storm of disaster that left you dead."
"Dead?" That's what the nothingness was, it was death. A sigh escaped and his head sank even deeper into his pillows. He was suddenly even more exhausted than he'd previously been.
"Dead. You made me run the entire gamut of treatment options before getting you back. Bicarb, epinephrine, and four shocks."
That must be what the flashes of light were, the shocks. No wonder he was tired. Dying and coming back to life were exhausting activities.
"If just one thing had gone differently you would have been fine, nothing would have happened at all, but there was this crazy chain of events that left you on the ground with no life signs at all. Do you remember the accident we were working on? A two vehicle collision?"
A scowl crossed John's face as he tried to recall the events leading to his hospitalization, "Not really, maybe a little. Two cars, facing each other, driver's side front bumpers touching?"
"That's the one. I'm impressed. You were crouching in the passenger side of the first car treating the driver so you didn't see what happened next, but I was getting the backboard from the squad so I saw everything. Our cars were almost dead center in the intersection so Vince was directing traffic from one street to simply make a right turn and head that direction away from the accident. There was plenty of room in the intersection to allow that. Well, one driver, I don't know if she was in a hurry or not paying attention or just stupid, but instead of waiting in the line of traffic she jumped the curb and promptly slammed into a utility pole. She hit it hard enough to knock it over, wreck her car and give us one more patient to treat. Thankfully, the pole fell away from the accident scene, at least that part went our way or you might have been crushed on top of everything else. The next part didn't go our way. The snapped lines fell and briefly came in contact with the second vehicle before falling to the asphalt where they remained charged but out of the way and relatively harmless until the power was cut."
"But, the cars were touching, so the charge…" His voice faded away as he contemplated the consequences of the two cars being in contact with each other. "Oh, man, the charge carried. If I was inside the car I would have been safe from the charge though."
"Right, but it was that EXACT moment that you started to back out of the car to get some of the supplies you needed to treat the driver. You put your hand on the frame of the car to help leverage yourself back out of the car."
"I took the shock."
"You took the shock. It threw you free of the vehicle. Cap made me wait until we were sure the lines were clear and there was no further danger. It seemed like hours, but really he only held me back less than a minute. When I got to you, you were already clinically dead. Like I said, I had to run every treatment option before we finally got you back. It was the scariest four minutes of my life."
"Roy, it was the strangest thing. I don't know if I can even explain it." Johnny paused to gather his thoughts. "It wasn't like I've heard it's like. There were no bright lights, no angels singing, no voices calling me home, but maybe you just never gave me the chance to get there. I was awake though, well, at least aware. I knew who I was, just not where I was or what was happening. All I felt was peace. I wasn't at all scared or frightened about what was happening. It felt like there was someplace I was supposed to be going, but I was in no rush to get there. Maybe that was a good thing, huh?"
"I'm glad you took your time, it gave me the chance I needed."
"Yeah, I agree. You know, Roy, I always thought death would frighten me. I mean, I still have a lot of living to do, I'm not ready to go by any means. I just thought I'd always go kicking and screaming, that it would not be a pleasant experience. This was much different than anything I ever expected. I don't think I'll ever be afraid of death again." The look on his partner's face made him hastily add, "That doesn't mean I'm going to welcome it with open arms." For the first time since this conversation began he gently chuckled, "No, Roy, I'm not going to go looking for it, but when death comes, I'm not going to be afraid of it and I'm going to spend my days living my life the best I can because I know that it could come in the strangest and quickest of ways."
"Well, Johnny, I'm glad to hear you plan on sticking around awhile, wouldn't want all that hard work to be for nothing. Thanks for telling me though, I think I won't be so scared about what's coming either. The good news is that Dr. Brackett doesn't think he'll have to keep you very long and you'll be back to work in no time."
John was too tired to comment and simply nodded his head and then couldn't help the huge yawn that escaped. He really was exhausted despite the full night's sleep he'd gotten.
"Hey, I can see you need your rest and Joanne and Cap are both waiting for my report. I'm going to head home for a few hours and get some rest myself, we had a busy night. I'll be back later and bring Joanne, she'll want to visit while the kids are at school. I'll check with Dixie and see if we can smuggle in something better for lunch than what they'll be bringing you. You get some rest and I'll tell the guys to visit again this evening and we'll try to bring dinner too. Call if there's anything else you want me to bring with me." Roy stood and crossed the distance to the door, stopping with his hand on the handle and turning back when he heard John call him.
"Roy? Thanks for fighting to get me back. Thanks for not letting me slip away. I appreciate it."
"My pleasure Partner, my pleasure."