The Coma snippets, a sentinel fanfic

Coma

Three stories for the price of one.

The Voice

Jim was laying in the hospital the bed slowly climbing through the layers between him and consciousness.

He could hear the voice talking to him as he floated between the layers, not quit getting up high enough to respond, "It's safe to wake up....You won't believe what happened to me.....Jim you have to wake up.....Just follow my voice back....You have got to hear this....Simon is not happy about the three week long nap of yours, he keeps calling me yelling, Sandburg when is Jim going to wake up?"

Jim settled into listening to the voice. He couldn't seem to break the surface and respond.

Then the voice made a simple command..."squeeze me hand."

Jim could do that. He moved his fingers, and then he heard cheering. Other voices came and were jumbled, yelling orders, he ignored them.

The voice returned, yelling at the others, "quiet!...now he did respond to me but this is too much!" It wasn't the voice that he had to respond to so he ignored it too.

The voice changed, back to the voice he had to respond to, "Jim, lift your right arm."

He tried, it was hard. His arm was heavy, it only moved half an inch. The load buzz of voices were back. The voice was back, ordering people out of the room.

It was quiet again but he tried to follow the voice but it was too much, he gave up and went to sleep. The voice would be back later.

The end

Story 2

Waking up

By Jan Monroe

Blair's voice was wrong again. He was yelling.

Jim still couldn't seem to break the surface.

"I don't care that it's standard treatment! I want him off that drug!" Blair roared.

"Sir, you don't have the right to make those decisions." The pompous resident announced. She couldn't believe this guy. The patient was a veggie but Sandburg just keep pushing.

"I have the right. I have his power of attorney. If you don't take him off that drug right now I will sue you!" Blair roared even louder.

"I can't do that. This drug requires tapering off or it will cause seizures," she stated calmly. What she said was true this particular medication could cause problems if removed cold turkey. She was also trying to buy time for the supervising doctor to talk some sense into Sandburg. A half dose wouldn't effect the therapeutic level in Ellisons' blood too much.

Blair considered his options. If he could only get it tapered then he would take it. Jim was just too sensitive to drugs. When Jim was hurt, the ER doctors had induced the coma to help prevent brain damage from swelling. It was long past time for Jim to wake.

Blair watched her squirt half of the dose into the near by sink and then inject the remaining half into the IV port.

"I want to see those orders in his chart with in the hour." Blair stated calmly. "How long until he is completely off it?"

The resident knew she had to answer his direct question, "Six days."

"How long until it is out of his system?" Blair pressed on.

"A week or two after that. You do realize that he could have seizures when the drug falls below the therapeutic level." Her statement had started out as a question but changed. Her attitude was condescending. She did not like being told how to treat her patient. He wasn't even a blood relative.

"Have you reviewed his allergies?" Blair asked, deciding to put her in her place.

"What does that have to do with his medications?" She evaded.

"If you had bothered to read the chart you would know that he is allergic to no less than 27 different individual drugs and two entire families of drugs. Your not reading his chart could kill him!" Blair stated as calmly as he could.

"Sir you don't have to overly dramatic about it," she rebuffed to critism, " You are getting your own way."

She turned and left before Blair could respond.

Blair turned his attention back to Jim. "You wouldn't believe the day I've had...."

Blair keep up his monolog for about an hour. "I'll be back I want to make sure that she did what I told her to do."

Blair's voice became distant and he was in his version of "professor from hell." Jim could only hear parts but it sounded like Blair was winning. He returned.

"You won't believe this, she wrote that I was endangering you in the chart but she hadn't read your allergies."

* * * *

Jim could feel himself getting closer to the surface. He had blinked twice noticing that he was alone and that the light hurt his eyes. He went to sleep. His shift from coma to deep natural sleep went unnoticed by the hospital staff.

Three days of tapering had shown great results according to Blair. Jim was more responsive and had more voluntary movement.

Blair started his daily visit with greetings from others, "Brown called, he claims that you have to get better. He's tired of working with Simon in his current "Grizzly Bear" mood. He also wanted us back so we could start taking the weird cases again," Blair took a deep breath. "I have no idea why he thinks we do weird cases."

Jim could hear him and slowly climbed towards the surface. Blair didn't seem to need any answers.

"I got a call from the hospital's legal department. They received a copy of the note about me being a danger to you. They called your dad, stirring up trouble. I let them have it about that lazy resident who wanted to write you off as undeserving of her time and energy. She wanted fast and easy. Your Dad is going to stop by this afternoon." Blair finally seemed to wind down.

Jim shifted in the bed drawing Blair's attention away from the papers he had just pulled out to grade.

Blair had to ask, "Are you going to talk to me today?"

He didn't expect a responce. Jim had been in the coma so long that even the most optamistic prognoses is a long recovery with some perminate nerological damage.

He barely heard the soft voice, "why? You don't seem to need any answers."

Blair was shocked. From nothing to talking in three short days. Blair stared at him, almost in disbeleif.

Jim spoke again, "What happened?"

Blair recovered and wondered where to start. As he started talking he reached over and hit the call button. "What do you remember?"

Jim considered, "I was chasing a perp on foot. We went into a deserted warehouse."

Blair interrupted, "A not so deserted warehouse."

Jim shot him a dirty. "If you know, than you tell me. I'm getting tired."

"A second guy was waiting for you in the warehouse. He pushed you out a second story window. You landed on concrete and broke several ribs, you leg and your skull. They put you in a medical coma to try and protect your brain function and they did surgery to put all the bits and pieces back together."

"You have been out of it a long time." Blair finished, noticing that they had an audience. The lazy resident and William Ellison were standing in the doorway, amazed by what they saw. Jim alive, awake, communicative.

"How long?" Jim demanded.

"Long enought that The perp that you were chasing has pleaded guilty and is currently in prison. I'm teaching at the academy, Simon arranged it."

Jim's eyes were had only be partically open when Blair had started talking and they slid shut. Blair smiled and patted Jim's hand, "Go to sleep Your Dad and I will be here when you wake up."

Blair turned his attention to the resident, "Am I still a danger to him?"

The resident promptly bust into tears.

The end.