Thank you for all the comments on the first chapter, warms my heart.
"Do you speak English?" Riley asked the person in a doctor uniform she deemed most likely to be fluent in English. She chose him by looks alone, he was blond… Probably European… Scandinavian maybe?
"Yeah…" he answered, with a thick American accent.
"Good, can you point out an Ortho doctor or surgeon for me?"
"Of course I can, I am one…" he grinned and tapped his finger under his name on the white overcoat.
"Good, great!" Riley smiled, "Are there any other Orthopedic guys here?"
"Yeah, why?"
"One of my colleagues, he could really use a couple of competent hands helping him…" Riley looked up at the blond doctor, dark begging eyes locking with his green ones.
"Alright, how bad is it?"
"His leg broke the fall for a hunk of concrete as far as I know. It's a bloody mess, and he's in pain…"
The doctor nodded, and looked around.
"I'll find a few doctors and nurses…" the blond man agreed.
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"Yikes, that really looks painful…" Dr. Jeffrey Turner grimaced as he looked at Jack's leg.
"I'll tell you what, Doc… It really is…" Jack looked everywhere but towards his leg.
"I could reduce your leg, but without cast or anything, it will likely slip right back…" Jeffrey glanced up at Jack.
"But if you had cast? Or a brace?" Mac shot in.
"It would keep your friend's leg still, and keep the bones from going back out…" the blond doctor answered, "Preferably, I would perform surgery. But since…"
Jeffrey was cut off as a loud boom rang through the basement. The building above them had been hit, again.
"Since there's a war going on outside, that's a little hard to do…" Jeffrey finished.
Mac nodded.
"Look, all I've got down here is some b-grade first aid kits…"
"Just give me a list of what you need, I'll see if I can get it…"
"No, Mac…" Jack gritted his teeth in pain, "It's too dangerous up there, can't have you getting injured too…"
"Jack, you're in pain. And we're going to have to move around later… We need to fixate that leg of yours before that…" Mac looked over from Jack to Jeffrey, who nodded in agreement.
"Can you make me a list?"
Jeffrey nodded, "Got paper?"
Mac handed over his cell, he had opened the app named notes. "Just write it down here, and where I'll likely find it…"
"Alright…" then he turned to Jack, "How much pain can you take?"
"Why… Are you asking that?" Jack swallowed hard.
"Because, I could perform the first surgery you need. It will hurt like pure, unparalleled hell. But the chance of you losing your leg will be significantly reduced…"
Mac saw by the change in Jack's facial expression that the reality and severity of the situation set in. Jack suddenly understood how bad his situation was. Not just the pain…
"I can take it, but I don't want Mac going up there…"
"That's my call to make." Mac squeezed Jack's shoulder. "And you can't change my mind."
"Mac, it's a suicide mission…" Jack protested.
"I've made my mind…"
"Your luck is gonna run out some day…"
"Jack, I know that. But I'm going. I'm just praying that today isn't THAT day…"
"Please don't do this to me Mac… If you die…"
It'll kill me… Mac heard the words, even though they weren't spoken.
"Relax, I'm coming back…" Mac assured Jack, "You'll be stuck with me until you retire of old age…"
The wink did it. It brought Jack out of his grim mindset, at least long enough Mac to get going.
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Mac used the stairs on his way up, the building had been hit a couple of times since he and Jack had taken the elevator down.
As he entered the second floor, he grabbed a clean bed. He would use that as a shopping cart, after it would double as a surgical bed for Jack.
He found room 258 and stacked the bed with iodine, bandages, plaster-cast, scalpels, some other hardware things from the list… Penicillin, some strong kind of painkiller that sure would take the edge off, and syringes. On his way back to the elevator, he grabbed a wheelchair. It could prove useful later.
A loud boom roared through the building once more, the lights flickered and the building trembled. Mac's heart almost doubled its pace, adrenaline filled his veins as fear filled his body.
He ran towards the elevator, and rode it down. He pulled the wheelchair and hospital bed after him as he exited into the crowded basement.
"Here, think I got it all…"
The blond doctor walked over and studied the bed and its contents.
"Looks about right…" he turned and looked towards one of the walls. "We can use one of those tables during the surgery, just wash it down with disinfectant first…"
"I wondered if the bed was for that…" Mac looked at the plastic covered bed.
"No, it'll probably be too messy for that…" Jeffrey mentioned in a low tone.
Mac looked up, seeing a worried expression on the doctor's face.
"You collected some blood too?"
"A positive, three bags."
"Good, let's hope we won't need all of them… Or more…"
Mac nodded.
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"You ready?" Jeffrey asked as he prepared Jack's leg. He had the leg strapped tight to a leg holder Mac had jerry-rigged to the table.
"No," Jack hissed, "but I won't be more ready either…"
"Proceed?"
Jack nodded, biting down on the belt he had worked out from his cargo pants.
As the doctors worked, Jack was writhing in pain. It took five people to hold him down. He was sweating bullets, begging for mercy.
"It's gonna be okay, Jack…" Mac whispered as he tried to calm Jack down.
"It fucking HURTS Mac!" Jack shouted. "Uh-oh…"
"What?"
"Gonna hurl…" Jack swallowed and swallowed and swallowed. His eyes as wide open as they would get.
"Okay, give him some room…" the surgeon in lead called out, as he took his hands away from Jack's leg.
The whole gang stepped away and Jack twisted sideways and threw up into a pan they had set ready for just that.
"Good to go for another round?"
Jack started to nod, but froze, thrashed around and left a second helping into the pan.
"Now?"
"Yeah…" Jack breathed, collapsing back onto the table. "Go ahead…"
The field surgery went on for almost two hours. Jack thankfully lost consciousness after less than half an hour after the start.
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"So? When will he wake up?" Riley asked the doctor and jerked her thumb towards Jack.
"When he's good and ready I guess…" Dr. Jeffrey Turner shrugged. "His pulse was good, strong and steady when I checked it a moment ago. He doesn't have any narcotics in his system strong enough to knock him out. His brain is taking a break…"
"That thing is always on a break…" Riley chuckled, then felt remorse. Jack wasn't so bad, she was actually quite fond of the man.
The doctor smirked, but didn't laugh.
"Not the smartest guy, huh?"
"Not really thinking stuff through, I guess…" Riley redeemed, "He's smart enough, if he only cared to use his brain once in a while…"
"Looks like that's the blond kid's job…"
Riley chuckled, "Yeah, he's the brains… Jack's the muscle…"
"And you're the beauty…?" It was more of a statement than a question, and it made Riley's cheeks blush.
"I'm the techie…" Riley smiled, "But thanks…"
"Just stating the obvious…" the slightly older surgeon grinned back. "Hope I'm not overstepping my bounds…"
Riley shook her head. "No, but I guess you know this could never amount to anything…"
"I know Miss…" the doctor winked, "I know I'm stuck here, and you guys probably skip from country to country all the time. But one lucky man is going to win you over some day, and he better know how beautiful his gal is…"
"Oh, he'll know…" Mac smiled as he stepped over. "Are you pleased with the surgery?"
"As pleased as I can be with a surgery performed in the basement of the hospital, with bombs hitting the building above and the patient awake for 26 minutes of the deal…"
Mac nodded, "But in general?"
"He's gonna be in pain when he wakes up. He's going to need more surgeries when he gets to a safer location. But if he's lucky enough not to get any infections in the wound, he should be able to make a full recovery…"
Mac nodded and looked over to where Jack was resting in the hospital bed he had brought down to the basement for him. Just as it was uncommon to see Mac sit still for more than seconds at the time, the same could be said for Jack. And seeing him unconscious in a hospital bed never made Mac feel good.
Just then another bomb hit somewhere above them. The building shook and the lights flickered. Then suddenly everything went dark.
THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR THE COMMENTS! If you only knew how much it meant to me! I'm so grateful! Thanks!
Hope you enjoyed the second part too.
