Three: Bleeding Heart

Kaz wished he'd gotten more antacids. Not for his patient, for himself. After three days of living on coffee and convenience food, his stomach was sour, and he was starting to twitch at loud noises. Even during his brief naps, he kept starting awake in the ergonomic chair he was dozing in, thinking he heard the medtable's alarm going off. (About half of the time, he actually did.)

This wasn't working as well as he'd anticipated. The rejuv drugs worked for a while, then something would start failing again. The only reason the guy had lasted this long was because he'd apparantly been programmed with the consititution of a horse...and because Kaz had originally been told to prepare for four patients and he'd gone for mega-redundancy, figuring he could always sell the surplus. Not that Kaz was about to say it to Riddick, who was getting edgier by the hour from lack of sleep, but if he'd had to deal with three more of these cases, simultaneously, they'd all be dead by now. This one patient was sucking down an alarming amount of prodigiously expensive pharmaceuticals, and the meditech dreaded having to tell Riddick they'd need more soon. And other things, but the rejuv drugs were the biggie.

He had a shopping list printed out; how Riddick obtained the items on it he really didn't want to know. Somehow, Kaz knew the felon would come through with the drugs, though. The big man seemed devoted to his patient...it seemed contrary to everything he'd heard about the guy, but he was finding out that as scary as he was, Riddick had human feelings. He wondered what the story was: did this guy have the key to a big score, was he a talent Riddick needed to pull some special job? Whatever it was, the patient was on the receiving end of millions of credits worth of meds and equipment, so it must be a major coup.

During his residency, Kaz had witnessed numerous loved ones of terminal patients who spent huge amounts of time with individuals who had little or no awareness of their surroundings. The survivors showered as much love and affection on the people the residents referred to as DADKI---dead, and don't know it---as if they were awake and sentient. Watching the notorious Richard B. Riddick showing similar behavior was curiously endearing. He was still physically intimidating, but the medico was fascinated by how much more there was to the felon than his notorious public exploits would lead someone to believe.

His residency was the last time he'd been this damned tired. Kaz blinked awake long enough to look toward the table where Riddick was sitting in lonely vigil over the blonde man, then let himself doze off again, wishing he could sleep as comfortably as the replicant was. Seconds might count; Kaz stayed close.

Roy...the guy's name was Roy...he needed to remember that, because it pissed off Riddick to hear Kaz refer to the patient as "him" too much. "He's got a name!" Riddick had snarled at him a couple of nights ago. Riddick had given him hell about the policy toward replicants. Kaz was pretty sure he'd just been venting; it wasn't like there was anything he could do about it.

Kaz had never even seen a replicant until this fiasco. It was illegal for them to be on Earth beyond a certain length of time...he remembered hearing a news 'zine talking about the development of replicants and how they were shipped off-world within a year of inception or terminated. That permitted programming and training for whatever jobs they'd have off-world, but they weren't allowed to work on Earth. The ban was enforced by special units of police...Kaz yawned and clung to his pillow.

The meditech had the impression that Riddick was the kind of guy who made things happen. Watching him covertly as he stroked Batty's white-blonde hair, or carefully wiped the other man's face only to explode at Kaz moments later, showed how much this situation was frustrating him.

Probably no one else in the galaxy would believe Riddick was capable of such tenderness. Kaz marveled at the big man's gentle manner when the replicant was its focus. When he ventured to ask what the attraction was, the felon shrugged. "Never met anybody like him before," he'd said, his hand covering Roy's lax one. "You can't see it with him like this, but he's got this...energy. Like a walking, talking bolt of lightning, only it shines out of his eyes. They're the bluest eyes you ever saw. And he's smart--"

Riddick continued to speak about how intelligent Roy was, but Kaz had gotten caught by what he'd said about the replicant's eyes. "The bluest eyes you ever saw..." That sounded like something from a love-struck teenager, not the galaxy's most-wanted criminal. Disappointment clutched him. He'd pinned his hopes on the replicant as a criminal-type partner, not a lover... Kaz admitted privately that one of his reasons for taking on this assignment, aside from the money, was purely lustful. He had a preference for big, well-built guys...and Riddick was all that.

"I know what you're thinking." Riddick interrupted Kaz's thoughts.

"Who, me?" Kaz started. The big guy couldn't know Kaz had what amounted to a crush on him. Of course, it's not like anything is gonna happen.Hell, I'd probably chicken out even if he did make a pass. And it's not like I'm going to! His heart beat a little faster. Even the idea made him anxious, and he cursed himself for that instinctive reaction.

"Hey, I don't give a rat's ass what you think. Guys, chicks--whatever. Bend 'em over and it doesn't really make a lot of difference."

The response Kaz wanted to make stayed locked behind his teeth. He didn't believe, as he observed Riddick fussing over Batty, that that was just about sex. He must've been a little crazy to begin with, to take on this job in the first place. The tech felt a curious helplessness, combined with a sense of challenge. Originally, the assignment was a way to show off his technical skills and catch Riddick's attention. Now it was looking more like life or death--his.

There were only two standard doses of the rejuv drugs left; Kaz gave Riddick the shopping list and the felon left, a determined expression on his face. When the door closed behind him, Kaz threw the locks and stood thinking. It crossed his mind that he could flee while Riddick was gone; this wasn't going to pan out as he'd hoped--but stubborn pride in his own abilities kept him on duty beside the unconscious man. Besides, dummy, he'd find you. And what would happen then would make your worst nightmares look like happily-ever-after...

There was another crisis; Kaz shot the last of the rejuv chemicals into Batty, aware that if anything happened before Riddick returned with a fresh supply, their heroic efforts would all be for nothing. But, he thought, with desperate optimism, the attacks were growing less severe and were occuring farther and farther apart. Maybe the guy--Roy, Kaz corrected himself--Roy might have a chance...

The gym was windowless; they'd been boarded over long ago, leaving the room a big, dark cavern, illuminated now by the ring of SunRG1250s. Three other Life Support Tables waited in vain outside the brightly-lit circle--they'd been shunted aside when Riddick informed him that he would only have one patient. The other replicants Roy had escaped with had been terminated while Riddick was tracking down the medico in Vegas and rounding up the supplies for their endeavor. From his employer's tone, this was the one he cared most about.

Oh, shit, no, Kaz thought in despair as the warning tone shrilled the numbers going bad, alarmingly bad, and there wasn't a damn thing he could do. Riddick would come back to find a cooling corpse and go apeshit on him. He's gonna die, I'm gonna die--damn, it was looking so good... His breath caught as the readout stopped plummeting. He stared at it, breathing shallowly until he realized he was getting light-headed. "Come on, Roy," he pleaded. "Hang in there. Please, please, pretty please, God, please?"

The digital flickered, blipped up a fraction. "Yeah, that's it...you're beautiful...go, baby, go!" he cheered as it slowly but steadily climbed back toward normal. Batty's system was fighting back on its own. Without the drugs, with nothing but his own natural immune system...okay, boosted a little, but maybe, just maybe...

Long hours passed with no further alarms...days and nights of zero sleep took their toll. When Riddick returned, Kaz's head lolled back and he was snoring, lost in a delightful dream about a mermaid he was treating for chlorine toxicosis. On the nearby table, Roy rested peacefully as his lover swatted the medic on one shoulder.

"Hey, you're sleeping on the job."

Blinking owlishly, Kaz fished his glasses out of the breast pocket of his lab coat and settled them in place. "How'd it go?" Of course he got in without knocking...this is Riddick, remember?

"I found most of the stuff you asked for. He's looking better," Riddick said as he inspected their patient.

"He had two more attacks while you were gone," Kaz told him. "The second time, he came back without intervention."

"That's good, right? So, is he out of the woods? Is he gonna make it?"

"It's a good sign," Kaz said cautiously, "but keep in mind, that these are some serious drugs we've been feeding him. Usually one dose, two at the outside, is all anyone needs. Roy's had sixteen hits of the stuff, and he's stable for now. And the only reason we had that much on hand was because I was shopping for four and I doubled the max dose on all four as a precaution."

"Good job." The felon looked him up and down. "I wasn't sure if you'd still be here when I got back," he commented.

Kaz squirmed, aware he didn't deserve the praise. "I couldn't abandon my patient," he protested. Or my paycheck. This is going to set me up real nice on Oasis...at least I'll have that much to show for all this.

"Y'know, it's been bugging the hell out of me, the way you've called Roy 'he' and 'him' and 'the patient'. But you've worked your ass off keeping him alive; if being impersonal about him helps you save his life, then I don't have any room to beef."

"It's the first thing you learn during residency," Kaz shrugged. "Having a bleeding heart over a patient down't help anybody."

"Look, Kaz, if things go bad...you tried. That doesn't mean you can relax, but...you're doin' a good job."

"Thanks." The compliment was a relief. "If he remains stable for 48 hours, we can go ahead with phase two. That is, if you still want to."

Riddick gazed down at Roy and smiled. "Wouldn't have it any other way."