A/N – JD's internal monologue is in italics, like this.
JD's thoughts on/internal responses to what he hears other people saying are in bold italics, like this.
Chapter Three
Carla's first day back at work had officially been a wash out as she and Turk had spent most of their time sitting with JD. One good thing did come out of it though, she had managed to persuade Elliot to go home and get some rest and a shower before her next shift began and today she was back in the hospital looking rested, which made Carla's internal 'mother hen' happy.
Well, as happy as she could be under the circumstances. Going back to their empty apartment last night had been harder than either she or Turk imagined it would be. They hadn't really given it much thought until they walked through the door and the stale smell of a place that's been shut up for over a week hit them.
That wasn't what really upset her though, it was the stuff that was lying around, waiting to be picked up at a moments' notice but instead left, abandoned. It wasn't even anything significant, just weird random stuff that you'd usually walk by or automatically tidy up. There was a bowl on the kitchen counter that held a gruesome mixture of an unidentifiable soggy cereal and thick, curdled milk, a half cup of week old coffee, yellowy-white on the top where the creamer had separated out and on the couch one of JD's T-shirts, balled up, obviously thrown there in haste, probably as he rushed to get ready for his shift.
All these little signs of a life that had been left hanging tugged at Carla's throat as she swallowed down a sob that threatened to burst into life.
And then there was Turk. She'd never seen him this way before. The way he was reacting was just so ...surprising...to her. She'd held her breath when Perry told them what had happened as they sat down in the cafeteria, waiting for him to break down and cry but it never came. He was just angry, angry and hard. Even when they hugged in JD's room he hadn't really broken and that worried her, worried and scared her more than she wanted to admit. JD was his best friend and although Turk wasn't the type to gush like JD was she knew that he loved him and to see him like that, hear about what had happened, must be tearing him up inside.
All she could do was wait for it to come and hope that while it was coming he wouldn't actually punch Dr Cox or let his anger manifest itself into anything that he'd regret later.
"Hey, Carla." Elliot's arrival at the nurses' station brought her out of her thoughts.
"You look better for a decent nights' sleep." She replied as Elliot gave a small smile and picked up one of the charts in front of her. "So, why the guilty face?" Carla asked absently as she searched for a pen so she could start her patient updates.
Elliot screwed her face into something Carla had grown to recognise as Elliot's 'I'm about to lie to you face.'
"I don't look guilty...why would I?" She trailed off.
"I have no idea sweetie but you sure as hell look it. Tell Aunty Carla." She wheedled, leaning forward and abandoning her pen search.
"I just feel so awful going home and leaving him here." Elliot confessed her voice small.
"So what's your plan, huh, you live here until you die of exhaustion the very minute he wakes up? Devoted, yes but a little too Romeo and Juliette for my liking." She smiled, placing her hand on Elliot's arm, making Elliot shift back a little, her discomfort obvious.
"No I..." She shook her head and leaned heavily against the nurses' station. "No, yes, I don't know, but I do know I feel crappy about going home and taking a shower and going to bed, just doing normal stuff when things aren't normal. Carla, I just want him to wake up and be OK and..."
"We all do Elliot but life never works like that, you know that. Look, all we can do is be there and support him but we have to be realistic. From what Laverne tells me, you and Dr Cox have been switching shifts so that one of you is always around to sit with him while the other is working. How long do you think you can keep that up, huh, even with me and Turk back to help? We just have to wait, be patient and see what time brings."
"How can you be so calm?"
"I'm not calm Elliot, believe me, on the inside I want to rampage through this place and smash everything that's breakable and then some things that aren't, but it won't help me and won't help anyone else, especially JD."
"You sound like Dr Cox. I was kinda hoping that when you got back I could have someone to be angry with." She sniffed and swiped a tear away from her cheek.
"You can have Turk. He's Mr Angry personified, but I told him the exact same thing I just told you."
"Did it help him?" Elliot sounded hopeful.
Carla laughed, "Nah, he ignored me just like you're going to."
Elliot smiled and pushed away from the counter taking a couple of charts with her. "I better get going." She said.
Carla watched her as she walked away when suddenly something Elliot had just said registered within her mind.
"What do you mean I'm like Dr Cox? He has to be angry, he IS ALWAYS ANGRY..." She called after Elliot who simply turned back to her and shrugged.
"I know," She called back, "Go figure."
Perry stood in his patients' room, feet planted wide apart and his hands clasped behind his head. He tutted and snorted sharply from his nostrils making him look like a bull about to gore a particularly annoying matador.
Or a particularly annoying patient.
It wasn't that he was annoyed with JD it was just that he was frustrated even though training and experience told him that frustration was fruitless and patience was the only thing that was any use right now.
Ah, screw experience he thought. He just wanted the kid to wake up, because he knew that for all the patience in the world the longer it took the worse it would be. Suddenly a cool voice from just outside the room disturbed his train of thought.
"Are you trying to stare him awake, 'cause it might work with Jack but as far as I am aware he isn't drugged up to the eyeballs like DJ here. Unless of course that is how you get him to sleep through when I'm away." Jordan teased.
Perry smiled. "And why, sweetness, are you here today?"
"Board meeting." She replied "And by that I of course mean bored meeting." She mimed a yawn that made him smirk.
"Wanna get a coffee?" She asked.
"I feel too unnerved by you speaking to me without shrieking so I'm gonna pass, honey."
"Perry, when you've stopped being a complete ass do try to see how hard it is for me to actually be genuinely supportive of you without using it against you at the same time. It's like asking me not to breathe but, this annoyingly time consuming situation that Sally Sensitive has stupidly gotten himself and all of you who care into, compels me to be nice to you."
Perry looked at her and laughed. "I'm sorry." He apologised.
"Ooh, that was painful wasn't it?"
"Damn right," He smiled as she turned to leave. "Hey, did you just say that I cared about someone other than myself?" He scowled at her as she smirked and nodded. "Well that was just low, Cruella, low."
I'm back again.
I took some time to try to work stuff out and I'm pretty sure I'm at Sacred Heart. I'm in a bed and I can't move, I can't hear anything and I can't feel anything. Based on this I decided that something bad must have happened to me. I also decided that it probably isn't the best time for kidding around anymore so now my little internal monologue has a kinda bummed out vibe to it.
Oh well.
In addition to this I've decided to entertain myself by making a list. Now I know what you're thinking, that my last foray into list making was kinda dumb with the whole thinking I was kidnapped stuff, but really there's not much else to do so here goes;
Things I Can Do
I can think.
I can breathe.
It's pretty short but thinking and breathing are usually key to being alive so I suppose if you had to pick anything they aren't too shabby a choice.
I wish I could hear something.
As Jordan left, Perry took up the chart from the end of JD's bed and read through the list of vitals that had been taken over night.
Nothing had changed, absolutely nothing. "Aagh, dammit!" He wanted to hurl the chart across the room he felt so frustrated.
"And Elliot said you weren't angry anymore." Carla said from the doorway.
"Whatever gave her that idea?" Perry answered as he wrote something on the chart.
"She says you're not angry about what happened. I find that a little hard to believe." She said simply.
Perry shook his head and started to search around for a pressure cuff. "What's angry gonna do? Never solved anything else in my life did it?"
"Isn't that a bit of a departure from everything you stand for?" She looked incredulous.
"You're right, you're absolutely right but when I talked to the cops I realised that this is just another sucky moment in the suck fest that is called life. Like they said, it was motiveless so how do you find motiveless Carla, how do you find it and indict it and lock it away? They'll never get who did this and there's no one and nothing to rail against because it was stupidly motiveless!"
"That's incredibly Zen of you Dr Cox." Carla said, her tone a little bitter.
"I know and it scares the shit out of me. I think my anger got replaced by acceptance and that's not something I ever wanted to happen. I liked my anger and my anger liked me." He pulled at the pressure cuff until the Velcro gave, allowing him to wrap it around JD's arm.
"That's a nurses' job, give it to me." Carla pushed her way in front of him and took JD's limp arm. "He feels cold."
"He's fine Carla, don't start trying to mother him to death, he's got enough problems."
"He should be in a gown. I'm gonna go get one when I finish this."
"Carla, he's got too much stuff attached to him and if he crashes the gown'll only get in the way. Just leave it, he isn't cold."
His voice softened as he saw Carla's face flush.
"How about you get him another blanket?" He asked kindly.
"Right." As she came back with the blanket she watched as Dr Cox took JD's pulse and noted it on the chart.
"So why are you doing all our nurse stuff?"
"Just wanna make sure everything's right."
Carla scoffed, "Oh, now I know you didn't just mean that to sound how it did!"
"I just wanna be in control here Carla, is that too much to ask?"
"Don't flash me those hurt eyes Perry Cox. The nurses can do this stuff. Laverne and I have them checking his stats every half hour." She settled the extra blanket over JD and pulled it as far up his chest as the machine wires would allow, her hands gently smoothing it on top of the bandages wrapping his ribs. "My break's just started. If you've finished playing nurse I'll buy you a muffin." She smiled.
You know that saying, 'If wishes were horses ...we'd be living in Ponyville ...well I think that's how it goes, anyway I wished I could hear and now I can!
I was laying here (of course) and thinking (naturally) when that awful car crash of a noise came back only this time it didn't make my head feel like it was going to split in two! This time is kind of started to thin out and separate into three different noises, and what's more I know what they are! Yay me!
If I could move I'd do a happy dance
I can hear the steady (thank god for that) beep of a heart monitor and the intermittent lower beep of a Pulse-Ox.
You know those Pulse-Ox things are so funny. Patients usually think they're something that should beep all the time and it can be fun to see the looks on their faces when it stops for like a minute and then starts up again. Well, funny unless you're the patient.
The other noise isn't so good. I can hear a regular whooshing noise, like one of those foot pumps your dad would use to blow the paddling pool up with when you were a kid, and a little part of my brain, which I am trying really hard to ignore, tells me it's a ventilator.
I don't want to be on a vent. I don't want to lay on my back for so long that I get fluid on my lungs; I don't want my body to forget the natural mechanism of taking a breath; I don't want to get sores in my mouth from a plastic tube
I just want to breathe.
As Carla and Dr Cox entered the cafeteria they saw Elliot sitting with Todd.
"We really should rescue her, you know." Carla suggested.
"Do we have to?" Perry whined.
"Yes." She frowned. "Hey Elliot, Todd."
Carla and Dr Cox sat down with their coffee and silence descended.
"What's up?" Carla asked.
"I'm cheering Todd up." Elliot replied, looking miserable.
"And how is that working out for you beefcake?" Dr Cox asked Todd.
Todd just took a deep sigh and shook his head.
"His double entendre's broken." Elliot explained.
"Wow." Carla muttered, her voice low. "Can he even speak without it?"
"Shocking! And just how did this loss to the English language happen?" Perry quipped.
Todd stayed quiet.
"JD did it." Elliott patted Todd's back. "Look, I can even touch him and nothing...Hey Todd, breasts! Not a thing." She shook her head.
"I can't. I just feel empty. It seems there is an end to my innuendo and it's all his fault."
"JD's? How?" Carla felt confused and judging by the irritated look on Dr Cox's face, so did he.
"I can't fool around when everyone's down. Turk won't even high five me and he's always ready for a high five from The Todd. It just doesn't feel right for me to be on a roll when another brother is out for the count."
"I never knew you felt the bonds of male comradeship so deeply there Dr All-Talk." Perry goaded as he fought with a sugar packet, finally pulling at it so hard it burst all over the table.
"It's not just comradeship Dr Cox, you have to understand that JD is on my 'alternative list' and it puts a curve in my game to think I may have to cross him off it."
"I know I will live to regret this but, your 'alternative list'?" Dr Cox asked tentatively.
Todd smiled. "I don't believe in limiting myself. If I see awesome hotness, I see awesome hotness. You can't always control where you see it." He pointed his finger at Dr Cox. "I know you know what I mean Big Dog." Todd nodded his head sagely and pushed himself away from the table. "I think I'm gonna go to the chapel."
Once Todd had left, Dr Cox turned his attention back to Carla and Elliot.
"Did everyone hear that or have I just drunk a cup of crazy?"
"I heard it." Elliot whispered. "It was beautiful."
Dr Cox gave her an incredulous look before Carla cut in. "Her favourite film is Brokeback Mountain."
Perry raised his eyebrows. "Alrighty, I think Carla that you should take Barbie here to the on call room and make her lay down."
"Yeah," She nodded absently, "And I think we should get JD that gown."
I think I can feel it, the vent.
I've been asleep for a while and since I woke up I'm pretty sure I can feel things, including the ventilator tube. I can't move my tongue but I realised my mouth feels full and for a moment I think about reaching up with my hands so I can feel my face, to see if the tube is really there. I think about it, but I don't do it.
I tried to kid myself earlier that I was in a room with another patient and it was their ventilator I could hear, but deep down I know that's not true because I can feel the forced regularity of my breathing now, the perfectly timed rise and fall of my own chest and the dull ache awakening within it.
I don't feel any instinct to cough though, to force the wretched thing up and that's what I need to do, but it's just not there
I can feel something under my fingers on my right hand. Material, cheap and a little rough. Must be a hospital blanket. I can feel it on my stomach and legs too.
I think I'm naked. Why does that make me want to laugh?
I can feel the Pulse-Ox on one of my fingers on my left hand. It pinches.
I can feel something across the top of my right thigh too. I think it's a tube; it's warm where it presses against my skin... I wonder...Wait, I can feel this stuff but I can't move.
I can feel the blanket but I can't rub it. I can feel the Pulse-Ox but I can't push it off my finger. I can feel the ventilator tube but I can't cough it out!
What the hell is wrong with me? I'm scared and for a moment I want to cry, so I think 'cry' and I expect to feel the trail of hot tears on my face but there are none. There's nothing.
I want to cry but I can't even do that.
Dr Kelso was mad and he was going to let them know it. It wasn't that he expected Interns to know much, but thinking they would at least be able to answer one question during rounds wasn't asking too much was it, really? No, it wasn't and it made his blood boil to think of the money being invested in this latest bunch of half wits.
He turned on them with a smile. "I didn't realise it was Fall already!" He suddenly glared at their confused faces "but as you are all a special kind of stupid I'll have to explain my little joke for you. You see fall is when the farmers harvest their crops so I say again I didn't realise it was Fall already or has an especially benevolent farmer just delivered you turnips early?"
Seeing their still blank looks Bob sighed and curled his lip.
"I know, I'll illustrate my point with our last patient, shall I?" With that he stalked into the next room with the Interns at his heel.
"OK, what can anyone tell me about this patient? You, ginger girl or should I be charitable and call it strawberry blond?"
"Um, he has a ...um... he had surgery to relieve Inter-Cranial pressure, the operation was successful but he's been on assisted breathing since and hasn't yet shown any signs of waking however his pupils are responsive and ..."
Kelso frowned. "You could speed it up Annie and just say he's a vegetable."
"But, sir he's not a ..."
"Anyway we're here to answer a more simple question. When I do rounds tomorrow what would I find more rewarding, to take you bunch of simpletons with me or to simply wheel Dr Dorian around and ask him the questions?"
I can hear voices. I can't make out the words, they sound distorted like I'm underwater or maybe at a David Lynch movie.
Is that Dr Kelso? What's he saying?
As soon as he saw Kelso leading his sorry band of dejected Interns down the corridor Perry jumped down from the nurses' station where he'd perched and strode over to JD's room.
"Stop right there!" Carla yelled "Don't you dare take those vitals, I will do it."
She pushed past him and scooted over to the bed.
"It's not a competition over who can take care of him the most Carla."
"No it's not, it's a case of me doing my job and you doing yours and then when Elliot is out of her lecture she can start to put her two cents in too and then Turk can pitch in when he's out of surgery! Honestly you're all in here so much none of the nurses can get anything done!"
Hey, is that Carla? She sounds pissed. I wonder what she's saying? I wish I could make sense of the words.
"We're just helping Carla." Dr Cox argued, swiping at his nose.
"Hindering! You're hindering, Dr Cox. That's what you're doing. Now go away while I check all the monitors."
Did she just mention Dr Cox? Hey, did I just understand what she said? I think I did.
"I'll help." Perry muttered stubbornly.
"You don't have other patients?" Carla asked, knowing full well he had a full service.
That was Dr Cox, I heard him and I understood him! Oh thank God!
"None that can't wait... Carla did this catheter get checked last time you were in here?"
"I didn't take the last set of vitals but it should have been checked then, why?"
I think I'm wet somewhere. Wet and warm. Never a good combination, it's oddly nice though, reminds me of being in my Moms bed. Oh. It reminds me of being in trouble...
"For cryin' out loud Carla, it's infiltrating!" Perry gritted his teeth, trying to keep his annoyance hidden and failing.
"Dr Cox, I don't know how this happened, maybe it wasn't placed right ... I .."
Oh, don't shout at her!
"Dammit, Carla it's backing up and leaking because it wasn't emptied! A goddamn candy striper could see that!"
Please don't.
Carla snapped on a pair of gloves, moved over to the side of the bed, stripping the covers back. "You can stand and yell or you can help me and get me some water and paper towels." She snapped as she worked to remove the catheter.
Ow! Jesus that stings.
"What's done is done, it just needs cleaning up OK. I won't let it happen again!"
"Oh, I'm sure Newbie's just psyched to hear that, aren't you kid?" He put the bowl of warm water onto the over bed table and snatched up a fist full of paper towels. "Watch your step there, the floors covered in it!"
Who's touching me? Is it Carla, Dr Cox? They've got their hands on me. Someone's lifting my right leg to the side, drying me off. They're wiping across my stomach down my ... Oh God I think I might actually die of shame right now!
"I'll get some dry sheets and see about the floor..." Carla trailed off as she turned away from the bed, struggling not to cry at Dr Cox's tone.
"Yeah, you do that." He grunted. "Oh and Carla, way to give our boy his dignity." Dr Cox said his voice low.
Is he talking about me? Dignity ...what ... Christ, did I just wet myself? I want to cry and this time, opening my eyes wide, I do.