"Brodi?"
Brodi Ford was not a man prone to panic. Years of Buddhist training on top of his already calm inner nature practically ensured that panic was not a word in his vocabulary. Still, waking up to what felt like a drill cutting through his crown chakra left him feeling pretty panicked, especially when he tried to move and his body responded as though it were weighted with lead.
He heard footsteps hurrying towards him and recognized the sound of his own name, but he seemed momentarily unable to remember how to open his own eyes. It was a hand in his, a soft touch to his cheek, and a light kiss to his forehead that pulled him back from the brink of total blind panic and reminded him to breathe. Breathe, just breathe, he could remember how to breathe, couldn't he? But breathing shouldn't hurt, and right now his lungs felt like they were on fire.
"Brodi." There was that voice again, that angelic voice that was keeping him from losing his mind altogether. "Just try to relax, honey. I know you feel like hell, but you're safe and we're taking care of you, OK?"
That voice…he knew that voice, but he couldn't concentrate enough to bring a name to mind. His eyes still wouldn't open, and there was an uncomfortable pressure on his face. It was all combining to add to the panic that he felt welling up inside him again.
"Just breathe, baby." The disembodied voice urged. "Slow down…you need to slow your breathing down. Slow, deep breaths, as deep as you can manage. I know it hurts. We're going to take care of that."
A silence followed, and he fought off the panic again. Slow, deep breaths, he reminded himself. Well, the mystery voice was right about one thing…deep breathing hurt like hell, to the point of being damned near impossible. But no, don't think about that. Breathe…just breathe…
"That's it. That's it. Keep it up. Your nurse stepped out to get the doctor back in here. You're going to be fine."
Nurse? Doctor? Brodi was struggling to grasp onto words, to identify the voice he was hearing, but the focus just wasn't there. He tried to sit up but found that he couldn't move his body any easier than he could open his eyes at the moment. It took all his effort to move his hand a couple of inches, and even that effort was foiled when someone grasped his hand and pulled it back down by his side.
"No, Brodi. Don't try to move. I'll explain everything, but you need to lie as still as possible. You had a bad wipeout, sweetheart. You've just come out of surgery, and you're going to be OK." There was a pause, then a squeeze of his hand. "I need you to understand that. You're going to be OK."
He grasped onto the 'OK' as if it were a lifeline. He was OK, he was going to be OK. So was he really OK, or was someone just trying to keep him calm?
Suddenly his eyes flew open on their own as a wave of pain hit him, literally knocking the breath from him as if that wasn't difficult enough to keep going anyway. He arched his back against the pain, coming a couple of inches up off the bed as a coughing spasm tore through his already overtaxed body. He gripped the sheets, gripped the hand he was holding, tried to hold on to the voice that was trying to soothe him. It was almost working, then all rational thought left him as another wave of pain overwhelmed him before he'd even fully recovered from the first one. He was coughing violently and gasping for breath, yet over that he could hear his angel's voice yelling for help. He heard more footsteps running towards them, then a new voice saying, "Yeah, give him more." Then there was a burning followed by a chill in his arm, and then blissfully nothing.