A/N: And now for something completely different... I've recently become obsessed with Emergency! and have the sudden desire to write a story for it so I figured why not. Hopefully it's in-character and, y'know, worth reading, and ideally I'll update every week or two depending on my class schedule. But, in the meantime, have a cliffhanger! Reviews and suggestions are very much appreciated and will be replied to. :) Not that I'm suggesting anything. ^-^
It was early in the afternoon on a Saturday when the tones sounded through Station 51, jerking A-Shift out of their post-lunch reverie as they waited for their orders.
Squad 51, child down, 1564 East Walker Street. 1-5-6-4 East Walker, cross street Henderson. Time out, 14:27.
Johnny and Roy hurried to the squad while Cap acknowledged the tone and then passed the address through the window. "Good luck, you guys."
None of the men at the station liked calls involving children; not even the confirmed bachelors with no kids of their own. It was just… disconcerting, even at best, and they found themselves hoping the whole way to the scene that it was just a kid who'd fallen off their bike or twisted their ankle. But some feeling in both men's guts said that this wouldn't be the lucky case today.
They pulled up outside 1564 East Walker, a medium sized house in a neighborhood close near Roy's, and Johnny hopped out as soon as the squad had stopped moving. He pulled open the compartment and took out the bio-phone and drug box, leaving Roy to grab the IV kit. There were several cars parked along the street outside the house and a big sign hung over the doorway reading 'Happy Birthday Sarah!' in bright, girly letters.
"Ma'am," Johnny called to the woman closest to him, "could you tell me where we need to go?" The woman, who had been staring off into space, gave a start but recovered quickly.
"This way, she's inside the house, in the living room." Johnny followed the woman quickly, with Roy about fifteen steps behind, and they made their way through the airy house to the living room, where a small cluster of little girls surrounded the couch with several more worried adults hovering over their shoulders.
"Excuse me, could you back up please?" Johnny called out to nobody in particular, trying to work his way through the crowd of people in the not too large living room so he could actually access the victim. "My partner and I need to get through." The adults shuffled the children out of the way, herding most of the children through the glass doors and into the back yard, until finally Johnny could see the victim. His heart came pretty damn close to stopping in his chest.
He wheeled around, catching his partner at the door. He didn't like having to say the words, but he knew Roy would see for himself before too long. "Roy, it's Jenny."
"Oh God," Roy breathed softly, face paling before he slipped his mask of professionalism back on. All the same, he nearly knocked Johnny over sideways in his hurry to get to the couch and see his daughter. She was conscious (for which both he and Johnny thanked their lucky stars), lying on the couch, and smiled when she saw the two men.
"Daddy! Uncle Johnny! I fell and hit my head and passed out but now I'm awake except I think I'm going to be sick." Roy knelt beside his daughter and began pulling out equipment while Johnny set up the bio-phone, casting almost continuous glances of concern towards his friend.
"That's okay, baby, just lie back and let me take a look at you." He slipped the pediatric BP cuff over her arm while Johnny turned to the owner of the house, the only other person still in the room.
"What happened?" The woman wrung her hands.
"They were playing in the backyard while I got lunch ready. Jenny slipped and hit her head on the edge of the trampoline when she was coming down from a jump. When she didn't get up one of the other parents carried her in here while I called 911. She wasn't unconscious for more than six or seven minutes." Johnny thanked her and bolted back to his partner's side.
"What are the vitals?" he asked.
"BP is 116/79, pulse 43, respiration's 10," Roy responded, trying not to let the worry slip through in his voice. Johnny scratched down the vitals.
"Pupils?"
"Left pupil is dilated and fixed, right is normal and reactive." Out of instinctive habit, Roy reached for the bio-phone, but at the last second Johnny stopped him, placing his hand on top of his partner's.
"Let me do it," he said quietly. "You just pay attention to Jenny." He snatched up the phone. "Rampart, this is Squad 51, how do you read?" After a few long seconds, Dixie's voice came over the line.
"Loud and clear, 51; go ahead."
"Rampart, we have a female victim, seven years old, who fell and hit her head on the edge of a trampoline. She was unconscious for six to seven minutes but is now responsive and complaining of nausea. Vital signs are, BP 116/79, pulse 43, and respiration's 10. The right pupil is normal and reactive, but the left is dilated and fixed."
At Rampart, Dixie wrote down the vitals with a frown. They were not good for a seven year old girl; hypertension and bradycardia, plus the unequal pupils had her worried. She flagged down Dr. Brackett as he passed by and showed him the bothersome stats. He frowned heavily and leaned over the radio.
"Okay 51, evidence of a probable concussion. Start an IV with D5W and continue to monitor vitals and report any change. Transport as soon as possible. Is there any evidence of neck or spinal injury?"
"10-4 Rampart, and negative on neck or spinal injury," Johnny's voice came back. Brackett was paged over the intercom and left, telling Dixie to alert him when 51's patient arrived. Dixie nodded and then caught an orderly on his way by, telling him to get Treatment 3 ready and then turned back to the com.
"51, can you locate the parents and get permission to treat?"
"Already done," Johnny replied, and there was something in his voice that Dixie definitely didn't like. "The victim is Jenny DeSoto." Dixie swore under her breath.
"10-4, 51." Back at the scene, Roy had been monitoring his daughter's condition when she spoke again.
"Daddy, I think I'm going to be sick right now." The look on her face was enough to convince Roy that she wasn't fibbing and he looked around for something to use as a surrogate basin when the woman who owned the house gave him a mixing bowl. He nodded to her gratefully before rolling Jenny over onto her side. He was just in time too, as her eyes widened and she heaved what used to be a piece of birthday cake and some snacks into the silver bowl. She coughed afterwards and Roy rubbed her back, not even listening to the conversation Johnny was having behind him.
"It's okay, baby, don't fight it. Just let it come out." His heart ached for his child. He knew that, at the very least, Jenny was suffering from a nasty concussion and like Dixie, the difference in pupil size and reaction was troubling him. He continued to rub her back in small, gentle circles when Johnny skittered over.
"Brackett wants an IV with D5W. Continue to monitor vitals and transport as soon as possible," he answered in response to Roy's unspoken question. Then he turned his attention to Jenny, who was still lying on her side. "Hey there little miss," he told her with his most winning smile. "Your daddy and I are gonna take you to the hospital, okay? But first, the doctor says he wants us to give you some medicine, and to do that I gotta put something in your arm. You okay with that?" Jenny nodded wordlessly.
Johnny prepped the IV needle and slid it quickly into her left arm, attaching the drip just as a mechanical wail announced the arrival of the ambulance. He hefted up the IV bag as the attendants rolled the gurney into the living room and ran it parallel to the couch, carefully transferring Jenny from one to the other. As they were strapping her down, Johnny turned to his partner. "You want to ride in with her or do you think you can take the squad?"
"I'll take the squad in," he responded softly, looking down at his younger child. "I'll follow you as soon as possible." Johnny nodded wordlessly and followed the gurney out, leaving Roy standing in the now-quiet living room; he looked down and realized he was still holding the mixing bowl and its offending contents and turned to the owner of the house.
"I'm sorry about the bowl, ma'am." She just smiled and shook her head, taking it from him like it was empty.
"Oh, it's okay, I have a child too, I've cleaned up my fair share of vomit before. You just get yourself to the hospital and be with her." Roy packed up the equipment as fast as he possibly could and practically ran back to the squad, loading it all in and taking off in a record time that Cap would have been proud of. It was all he could do to park the squad outside of Rampart without getting into a stress-induced fender bender, and once he'd turned off the engine he sat and took a few deep breaths, willing himself- largely unsuccessfully- to relax.
The automatic doors trundled open to greet him just like they'd done a thousand times before, but this time was different from any other. He'd been here to see his partner (Lord knew the man injured himself enough), he'd been here to see his wife, and he'd even been here once to see his son after a soccer game went awry. But he'd never been here to see Jenny. He took another deep breath and went inside.
Once Johnny had finished the conversation, Dixie snapped off the radio with a deep sigh and then finished Jenny's chart just as Brackett got back from his emergency call. "Have we gotten parental consent for 51's girl?" She nodded and then gave him a troubled look.
"It's Roy's daughter, Kel." Brackett clenched his jaw and sighed.
"Is Roy riding in with her?"
"No, Johnny's taking her in and Roy's following in the squad." She leaned over and snapped the radio back on. "51, what's your ETA?" Johnny's worried voice crackled over the connection.
"ETA is ten minutes, Rampart; heart rate and BP have remained constant but nausea has increased. Victim is still conscious and responsive and is complaining of a headache." Both Dixie and Brackett noticed the way Johnny seemed to flinch away from the word 'victim' and both were glad it wasn't Roy in that ambulance with his daughter.
"10-4, 51," Dixie responded quietly. "We'll be waiting." It wasn't protocol to add that last bit in but the ER nurse didn't care right now. She and Brackett stood waiting for the ambulance to arrive; somehow ten minutes had rarely seemed so long.
Once he clambered into the back of the ambulance, Johnny handed the IV bag to the attendant and slipped the blood pressure cuff over Jenny's free arm. "Okay, little miss, I'm gonna keep this on your arm so I can see what your blood pressure's like on the way to the hospital. You just stay calm and we'll be there before you know it." Jenny smiled at her 'uncle' and then her eyes widened for the second time.
"Uncle Johnny, I think I'm gonna be sick again." Johnny wasted no time seizing the emesis basin and rolling Jenny onto the side with no IV. He got the basin placed under her chin just in time for her to dry-heave. He made a mental note to tell the doctor that her nausea was increasing when they got to Rampart. "I have a headache," Jenny piped up thinly. She grabbed her favorite uncle's hand as he gently rolled her onto her back. The HT crackled to life- Rampart asking for their ETA. He answered and then turned back to her.
"Did you hear what I said to the doctor?" Johnny asked her, giving Jenny's hand a small squeeze. "We're gonna get there in about ten minutes and then they'll take a look at you."
"Am I going to be okay?" Jenny asked in a small voice. Johnny's heart nearly broke clean in two but he kept his voice light as he responded,
"Well, you got a good knock on the head, but the doctors at Rampart are gonna do everything they can to make sure you feel great again as soon as possible." He took her blood pressure again and found that it had gone up 2 mmHg. It only concerned him more; her BP shouldn't be that high to begin with and it should have been lowering, not increasing. But he schooled his face into a calming expression and just kept holding Jenny's hand.
He retrieved the IV bag from the ambulance attendant as they rolled up to the emergency entrance, one hand holding it aloft, the other hand holding Jenny's, and they hurried into Rampart. Dixie met them at the hallway. "Treatment 3," she ordered sharply. They swung the gurney into the designated room and Johnny hooked the IV on the pole before helping the attendants carefully lift Jenny onto the exam table. He gently detached his hand and Jenny began to get upset.
"Can't you stay, Uncle Johnny?" Once again, her voice nearly broke the young paramedic's heart but he knew he couldn't stay.
"I'm sorry Jenny, but I gotta wait outside; only the doctor and the nurse can be in here. But I tell you what, as soon as they get you settled in I'll be right back in to see you and I'll bring your daddy along too. How does that sound?" She smiled at him.
"Okay Uncle Johnny. See you then."
"See you then, little miss." Johnny left the treatment room and headed down the hall to wait for his partner. The thought vaguely ran through his mind that he needed to call Cap and tell him to find a replacement for Roy but right now that was floating somewhere far in the back of his brain. Roy pulled up a couple of minutes later, eyes locking on his partner.
"How was the ride?" he asked breathlessly. Now that his job was done and he didn't have to be a paramedic anymore, he was simply a frightened parent waiting for news.
"Her vitals stayed stable all the way there," Johnny told him quickly. "Her BP increased a little bit more and she threw up again and said she had a headache. She's still conscious and responsive, though," he assured the older man. "She's in Treatment 3; Dix and Brackett are in there with her. I promised I'd bring you in for a visit when they got her settled." The senior paramedic smiled for the first time since the run had started.
"Junior, you'd have to hold me back." Then the smile faded and he looked to the closed door of treatment room three. "Now we wait?" It was more resignation than question. Johnny nodded slowly.
"Now we wait."