The Promise

The worried blue eyes looked up at her anxiously. She quickly tried to blink away the tears beading on her lashes and attempted a reassuring smile.

"The doctor hasn't talked to me yet, sweetheart. Why don't you try to go back to sleep?"

"But I don't want to sleep, Mom, I didn't mean to. I want to be awake for Daddy –"

"It's okay, honey," Helen Stone assured quickly, tightening the grip on her daughter's shoulders. "The doctor hasn't talked to me yet, you didn't miss anything."

"Daddy's been in there a long time," Jeannie said quietly, looking towards the large double doors at one end of the long stark hallway.

Helen glanced from the doors down the hallway in the other direction, noting once more the large group of uniformed and plainclothes police officers milling around, overflowing the waiting room. "That means he's really fighting, right?" She tried to sound optimistic but her ten-year-old daughter turned slowly to look at her once more, her own eyes bright.

"Mommy, is Daddy going to die?"

"No! No, no, sweetheart, he's not going to die. Why would you think that?"

Jeannie shook her head and looked down. "I don't know… I just… I don't know." She closed her eyes and swallowed. "I'm scared, Mom…"

Helen pulled her daughter's head against her chest and dropped her cheek against the dark hair. She knew empty platitudes wouldn't fool the precocious youngster. "So am I, darling, so am I…"

One of the double doors opened and a doctor, his light green scrubs stained with blood, stepped through, pulling off his mask and cap as his eyes settled on the auburn-haired woman comforting a young girl in the chairs that lined the corridor. He crossed to her in several quick strides. "Mrs. Stone?" he asked as he got closer, and as she started to nod, releasing her hold on her daughter and beginning to stand, they were joined by two men who had almost jogged down the corridor from the waiting room upon his entrance.

"Yes?" The woman's worry-lined face softened slightly in anticipation and she gripped her daughter's hand tightly.

"I'm Doctor Hastings," the grey-haired physician said cordially, extending his hand, which she took, "I've been looking after your husband." He glanced quickly at the two men.

"Lieutenant Olsen," a slightly older man introduced himself, "I'm the sergeant's boss, you could say. This is his partner, Sergeant Bill Anderson." Another handshake.

"Gentlemen," Hastings said then turned his attention back to the obviously anxious woman who continued to stare into his face. "Mrs. Stone," he began quietly with a quick look towards Jeannie, raising his eyebrows.

"Oh, ah, Bill, could you take Jeannie down to the cafeteria, get her something to eat, please?"

"Sure –"

"Mommy, I don't want to go anywhere, I want to stay here for Daddy."

Helen leaned over slightly and stared into her daughter's striking blue eyes. "Honey, the doctor needs to talk to me alone, okay? I promise I'll tell you everything he says, all right?"

The blue eyes flashed from her mother's to the doctor's and back again and her expression didn't change. Her mother continued to stare and the tiny girl's posture sagged and she dropped her eyes and nodded. "Okay." Under the pageboy haircut, the irresistible eyes swung towards her father's partner. She took his hand. "Come on, Uncle Bill."

With a worried yet hopeful glance at his partner's wife, he turned and walked down the corridor hand in hand with the incredibly poised ten-year-old, who threw an anxious glance back towards her mother.

The doctor waited until the departing pair were out of earshot then turned his full attention to his patient's wife. "Please, have a seat." He gestured at the chair and as Helen sat, he did the same. Olsen took a step closer.

Before he could say a word, Helen put a hand on the doctor's forearm. "Is he going to make it?" she asked without preamble.

A little taken aback by her forthrightness, he swallowed a smile before answering quickly, "He's got a good chance. Now I'm not going to sugarcoat this for you, he's in very bad shape. The bullet did a lot of damage but he's made it this far…" He glanced up at Olsen before continuing. "The next forty-eight hours are going to be critical… If he makes it through the next two days, then he should be out of the woods."

Helen dropped her head and took a deep breath. She felt Hastings hand settle gently on her forearm.

"Mrs. Stone, I've been doing this for a long time and I've seen quite a few gunshot victims in much worse shape than your husband make a complete recovery. And I'm very hopeful that Sergeant Stone –"

"Mike," she interrupted forcefully, then her features softened and she smiled slightly, "he likes to be called Mike."

Hastings, at first taken aback, smiled warmly and squeezed her arm. "Then Mike it is. I'm very hopeful that Mike is going to be one of the fortunate ones." The squeeze turned into a pat. "He's being moved into Intensive Care. When they get him settled, you can go in and see him. As a matter of fact, you can spend as much time as you want with him. I think it's very important."

For the first time, Helen looked hopeful and she smiled at him gratefully. "Oh, ah, Jeannie..?"

"Your daughter?" he asked with a smile and she nodded. "Well, they usually don't allow kids into Intensive Care, but I'll see they make an exception for a few minutes for her, how does that sound?"

Helen nodded, glancing at Olsen. "She needs to see her Daddy," she said unsteadily, and both men could hear the unspoken phrase "maybe for the last time." They swallowed heavily and Olsen cleared his throat.

She looked deep into the doctor's eyes and inhaled deeply. "Dr. Hastings," she asked with no small amount of trepidation, "just how badly was my husband hurt?"

# # # # #

Jeannie's hand tightened around her mother's as she sat on the chair beside her. Anderson nodded encouragingly as Helen smiled at her daughter. The young girls eyes widened. "Is Daddy going to be all right?" she asked excitedly.

Realizing her smile had conveyed the wrong message, Helen Stone tilted her head and bit her bottom lip. "Honey, Daddy's been hurt very, very badly and he's still…" she paused and took a deep breath, "he's still fighting, honey." She saw the tears fill the blue eyes but the child's determined expression didn't waver.

She stared at her mother for several long silent seconds then asked quietly, "Where was he shot?" When she saw her mother's brow furrow, she said calmly, "Mom, we learned all about anatomy in school."

Despite the gravity of the situation, Helen tried to hide a smile of pride and amusement. After a brief pause, she said quietly, "In the abdomen."

"The stomach?"

"No, honey, remember in anatomy class, the stomach is much higher up than people think, right? The bullet that hit your Daddy went in right near his belly button. Into his intestines, that's why he's having such a hard time."

"Why?"

"Well, Doctor Hastings told me that they got the bleeding stopped and resected… uh, put back together… the damaged pieces of his intestines. But now Daddy has to fight off infection, because –"

"I know," Jeannie cut her off. "There's a lot of bacteria and stuff in our intestines and it can cause an infection if it gets out, right? Like with a burst appendix?"

Once more the smile of affection was impossible to conceal. "That's exactly right. And that's what's happening with Daddy right now. So what we have to do is… we have to go in and tell Daddy to keep fighting, because we need him in our lives, right?"

Jeannie's bottom lip had begun to quiver slightly and Helen grinned at her, knowing this was a trick her father always did when she showed signs of losing control. It almost never failed.

"Right?" Helen repeated and waited until her daughter smiled slightly and nodded, her eyes still bright with unshed tears. "All right then, let's do it. Doctor Hastings said we can go to Intensive Care and see Daddy whenever we're ready."

"I think we're ready," Jeannie said with a giggle and squeezed her mother's hand.

Helen, her heart bursting with parental pride, nodded with a grin and began to get to her feet. She glanced up at Anderson, who was watching them both with tears in his eyes. With a renewed vigor, the trio set off down the corridor.

# # # # #

The small cubicle with its array of machines and monitors was overwhelming to the young girl. Her grip on her mother's hand tightened as she stepped into the room and caught a glimpse of a figure on the tall hospital bed. She took an involuntary step backward, knowing it was her father but terrified by everything going on around him.

Helen tightened her grip as she took another step towards the bed. She only had eyes for her husband, lying so still on the bed, a sheet pulled up to his mid-torso. She could see the heart monitor pads on his chest, the IV in his left forearm, the blood pressure cuff on his right bicep and the oxygen mask covering his nose and mouth. His eyes were closed, his chest rising and falling with mesmerizing and comforting regularity.

Jeannie pulled on her mother's hand and Helen bent down. "Does Daddy know we're here?" she whispered.

"No, honey, Daddy's under sedation. But maybe if we talk to him, he'll know we're with him. What do you think?"

"I think he'll know we're here. He always knows when I'm with him, especially when he's pretending to sleep in the morning." Jeannie let go of her mother's hand and approached the bed. When she realized she couldn't really see her father's face because she was too short, she shot a frustrated look back at her mother.

Helen stepped forward quickly and picked her up. Jeannie stared at her father for several seconds then said quietly, "I can't see his face."

"I know, honey, but he needs the oxygen from the mask. They can't take it off."

"But I want to kiss him."

"I know, baby, but why don't you kiss his eyes. You know how he likes when you do that when he's pretending to sleep and you want to wake him up."

Jeannie thought about it for a couple of seconds then nodded. "Okay." With her mother's help, she leaned forward and gently kissed both her fathers closed eyes. "I love you, Daddy," she whispered quietly. "Please get better and come home." She turned her head to look at her mother, who was trying very hard to hold back the tears. "Do you think he knows we're here?"

With a closed-mouth smile, trying to control her trembling lips, Helen nodded. "I'm positive he knows we're here. Don't you think so?"

Jeannie looked back at her father and studied his eyes for a few seconds, then she nodded. "Yep, he knows we're here." She smiled happily.

Helen lowered her daughter to the floor. "Okay, sweetie, I'm afraid that's as long as they're going to let you stay –"

"Why?" Jeannie whined, elongating the word. "It's not fair."

"You and I both know it's not fair, but it's hospital rules and we can't do anything about it." Jeannie pouted. "I told you before we came in that you were only be able to stay for a minute or so, so don't make that face. Uncle Bill is waiting for you in the corridor. He's going to take you down to the cafeteria again." She didn't want to tell her daughter that she wasn't going to be leaving the hospital in case her father took a turn for the worse.

"I want to stay here."

"I know you do, honey, but you can't. And besides, I need a little mommy-daddy time with your father."

Jeannie's brow furrowed and she looked askance. "Mommy, I know what you mean by mommy-daddy time and I don't think…" She let the end of the sentence hang; Helen recalled vividly the time their then eight-year-old daughter opened the bedroom door at the most embarrassing time.

Unable to suppress a sudden unexpected laugh, Helen bit her lip and tried to look serious. "I don't mean that kind of mommy-daddy time, you little devil…" and was warmed by the gentle giggle that erupted from her wiseacre child, who was every inch her father's daughter and becoming moreso with each passing day.

Leading her daughter to the door, Helen said quietly, "Don't worry, honey, I'll make sure Daddy knows how much we want him to get better and come home. Is that okay?'

As Helen opened the door, her daughter pulled on her hand and she bent over. Jeannie kissed her cheek. "Tell Daddy again how much I love him."

Trying not to cry, Helen nodded. Holding the door open, she looked up and met Anderson's eyes. He tried to smile encouragingly and failed miserably. She did the same.

"Come on, kiddo," he said suddenly, a little too loudly and a little too enthusiastically, as he took Jeannie's hand and started to move away. "There's a bunch of the boys down in the cafeteria that are just itching to meet Mike Stone's daughter."

"Me?" Helen heard Jeannie ask in amazement as the door closed and she turned back to stare at the bed. She listened to the beeps from the heart monitor, wishing the steady even rhythm was more of a comfort than it seemed to be at the moment.

Slowly she crossed the room, approaching the frighteningly still form of her husband of thirteen years. She stood beside the bed in silence for several long seconds, staring at his closed eyes, praying for some sign that he was aware of her presence.

Her eyes travelled down to the pale green sheet pulled up to his mid-chest. She could see the bumps and bulges in his abdominal area and very slowly, almost reluctantly, pulled the sheet down. A large white dressing covered the centre of his abdomen, just below his ribcage. Two tubes snaked out the left side from under the bandage, disappearing over the edge of the bed.

Her breaths uneven, she stared at him, suddenly unable to talk, unable to mouth even the most innocuous of platitudes. She picked up his right hand and brought it to her lips, slowly and gently kissing each of his fingertips. She wrapped his hand in both hers and held it against her heart.

"You made a promise to me, Michael, do you remember? We made a promise to each other. When we got married. You wanted to put it in our vows and I said we didn't need to… but now I wish we had… And I want you to remember that promise now, Mike, more than ever."

She leaned over the bed, releasing his hand. As her daughter had done just seconds before, she kissed both his closed eyes then put a hand lightly and lovingly on the top of his head. With her face close to his, she whispered, "You do remember the promise we made to each other, I know you do."

She stroked his hair, continuing to stare at him, longing for a smallest sign that he knew she was there.

"You can't do this to me, Michael. You can't do this to your daughter. We need you, my love, more than you could ever know. We need you to fight like you've never fought for anything in your life. You're fighting for your life…"

She closed her eyes, knowing she was prattling on, knowing the words were more for her benefit than his. "Michael, I can't do this on my own. I need you. And I need you to remember our promise – that you promised me that we would grow old together."