NEW HORIZON

By Kidders

A/N: Thanks for the reviews! They're much appreciated. Also, I just found out the title of my story is being currently used for NASA's probe that's passing Pluto right now. Didn't realize it, darn it. Of course if I followed the news more…g. Definitely hurt/comfort ahead, going to pick on Coop again.

Chapter Four: Arrival

They always said any landing you could walk away from was a good one. Of course, the people who came up with the saying probably hadn't been considering gravitational anomalies that could trip your fly-by-wire and make you crash, or waves the size of old city skyscrapers coming in and flooding your engines while trying to squash you flatter than a corn pancake, not to mention frozen clouds and black holes and time slippage. But on this occasion, Cooper thought, as he was flaring for a nice, normal touchdown on the surface of Edmund's planet, the point was a valid one. Because about a meter above TD, his vision blurred, causing him to yank back hard on the stick so that instead of a smooth gear transition there was one bone-jarring thud as the wheels hit the hardened red clay of his chosen landing spot. Had there been more altitude Tars could easily have adjusted the angle of attack, but Coop was still in control—just with a slimmer margin than usual. As it was, he was a bit rattled, mainly because the trip through the wormhole and everything in between had been completely uneventful. Even cryo-sleep—which had always left a very unpleasant metallic taste in his mouth along with a twelve hour hangover—was much improved, occurring in the pilot's seat rather than a coffin-shaped box that retracted into the floor. But hard landings, though admittedly the only real thing damaged was his pride, completely unnerved him.

And his nerves weren't the only thing in his body being aggravated. His stomach wasn't cooperating either. So much so, in another instant Cooper was hitting the canopy release and fumbling with the restraint system, scrambling out of the cockpit and down over the wing, hitting on all fours before frantically yanking his helmet off. Just in time, because then he started retching, vomiting up bile mixed with yellow froth, the sickness making him gasp and choke as his lungs tried to fill while his stomach upended itself. God, he'd take hypersleep and its monster headaches any day of the week instead of this misery. When the spasms finally passed, Cooper realized Tars had exited the Ranger behind him, and probably had been talking the whole time, but he'd been so zoned on nausea, the words hadn't really registered. Now he clearly heard the robot say, "Well, any landing you can walk away from is a good one, Cooper."

Slick really needed to get some new material. "Yeah," Coop groaned, dragging a glove over his mouth and swallowing hard. "Heard that one before, Optimist Prime. And I ain't exactly walkin', am I?" He didn't understand what had happened. This was the third new planet he'd been to, and never upon landing had he tossed his cookies. Inner ear had always been rock solid. So whatever it was, he was in uncharted territory. Climbing slowly to his feet, he removed his gloves and reached back into the ship for the travel bag he'd brought along, uncapping a bottle of water and sucking down several greedy swallows before spitting out a mouthful and licking dry lips, relieved to feel almost human again. Thirst and yuck factor diminished, he turned his head as Tars announced, "Got company, Coop."

And there it was. There she was, the reason he'd left Cooper Station and traveled here, because she was the only other person in two galaxies who understood where he'd been and what he'd been through, because she'd been through it, too. Dr. Amelia Brand was wearing blue scrubs, dark hair slightly longer than the last time he'd seen her, tucked behind her ears, each step bringing her a shade closer to the Ranger's landing spot. Stopping about ten feet away, she stared wordlessly, brown eyes wide in a too-pale face, head shaking in denial as she drew her arms in to hug her body, seeming to want to distance herself from what he could see she knew was real. And suddenly, Coop had no idea what to say, though anything would beat the uneasy silence settling between them.

"Um, hey Brand, it's been awhile." He winced, realizing how lame he sounded. "Heard you were out here solo, thought I'd swing by for a visit, keep ya company. Hope you don't mind." He removed his gloves, letting them drop beside his boots, and waited. Amelia was being so quiet, he couldn't ever hear her breathing. And Tars—normally a chatterbox without an off switch—had become a statue behind him. Beginning to feel off balance, and unexpectedly at a loss for words, Coop swung his hand to indicate the ship and offered her a smile. "Even brought my own ride."

Cheeks flushing bright red, Brand whispered his name, and that was all the warning he got before she launched herself at him, shouting in a broken voice, "You died, you bastard! You fell into Gargantua…" Her fists pounded his chest, and she began to sob. "I watched you fall, and you fell forever, over and over like some flimsy child's toy, and there's no way you could've survived, Cooper! No possibility at all!"

"Amelia," he murmured, closing his hands around her fists to halt their momentum. "It's okay. Calm down."

"Don't patronize me, you asshole!" Breaking free, she shoved him, both palms hitting center mass, knocking him back so he rebounded off the leading edge of the wing behind him, winding up facedown on the ground, eating dirt. The situation was oddly familiar, he'd only been here five minutes and was already down for the count for a second time. Brand had kicked his butt, and she was still pretty pissed from the way her voice continued to rise. "You died—just like Rom and Doyle—and I had to watch." He managed to roll over and sit up, and saw tears streaming down her cheeks. "You died, and there was nothing I could do to stop it from happening." Dropping to her knees, she shuffled forward until close enough to lay both hands on the sides of his face. "I had to let you go," she said in a softer tone, gaze sadly pensive. "I couldn't save you, Cooper."

Capturing her hands in his, he shook his head. "But you did save me, Amelia. When it mattered the most, after Mann…out there on the ice, you saved my life. And through me, the people left on Earth got their chance, too."

Her eyes lit up. "The stations…they got them off the ground? Into orbit?"

"Yeah, they did. I got to the one orbiting Saturn just in time to see Murph…well, before the end, anyway. She's who told me you made it. That you were out here alone." Releasing her for a moment, he climbed to his feet, pausing as he gave her a hand up. "I'm sorry about Edmunds. I know he meant a great deal to you."

Tear steaks beginning to dry, she managed a quivering smile. "Yes, he did. But that's in the past, and this is the future, and I'm glad you came." She gestured to the camp just to their north. "As you can see, I've been busy the last month. Hab One is completely set up, and my lab is just about finished. There are a few more things to bring down from Endurance…the last habitat module, extra supplies…" She became more animated as she told him what she'd accomplished while alone, and he was content to just listen, peeling off the sleeves of his suit and tying them around his waist, the white t-shirt he wore underneath more comfortable in the warmer air of what he supposed you could call afternoon. He'd have to remember to ask Brand what a solar day amounted to here. "…Case has been monitoring Endurance's orbital trajectory, but we have a few more weeks before we have to worry about the rate of decay becoming problematic."

"Good. With two of us now, we can probably get everything done in one trip." Cooper trailed behind as Amelia led the way to the campsite, Tars clunking along on his six. "And where were you, Hop-A-Long?" he asked the robot, twisting his head to stare at the monitor, what he liked to think was equal to being eye-to-eye. "You're supposed to be my back-up, buddy."

"I still have a discretion setting, Cooper," rumbled his companion, "and I know when to use it."

He heard Brand emit a snorting sound that was suspiciously like a laugh, and he returned his eyes to the admirable view in front of him. "Likely story. Make more of an effort next time, Slick."

"Roger that."

Brand stopped at the door to the habitat module, turning suddenly and pressing one palm to his chest. "Cooper, I am really glad you're here. It's been lonely, and guilt trips aside, it's nice to know I don't have the future of the human race resting squarely on my shoulders."

He regarded her solemnly for a moment, then—unable to resist-asked in a half-teasing tone, "Really glad to see me again, or really glad you landed that sucker punch and knocked me on my ass?"

Raising both hands in front of her, Brand quickly shook her head. "No, no, that's not what I meant," she began to argue, but he wasn't having it.

"Yes, it is, and you know it," he retorted, daring her to deny it.

Finally giving in, Amelia laughed. "Okay, you're right. I did enjoy seeing that, Coop." Her smile faded, and she looked serious again, cheeks still slightly flushed, eyes dark and unreadable. "How…how did you manage to escape Gargantua?"

Cooper didn't really think hard about what to say, just blurted out the truth. "Tars and I each got sucked sideways into a tesseract after we bailed out of our disintegrating ships. Kind of a damned if ya do, damned if ya don't type of scenario." He'd started out riding sarcasm, but it was his turn to sober as he recalled just how freaked out he'd been at the time it happened, how close he'd come to really dying. It had hurt like a bitch, too. The gravity getting stronger and stronger until he literally felt like his atoms were being crushed into dust. He reached up to rub his chest where Brand's hand had rested a minute ago, feeling sweat begin to pop out across his forehead and upper lip.

"A tesseract? They placed it there, and it took you back to Earth?"

Brand was quick to make the leap and connect the dots, smart as a whip and twice as fast. He'd known from the moment he met her that she was way, way above his pay grade. Remembered how they'd briefly talked about Murph.. Bright kid. Must have a very smart mother. He nodded, smiling at the memory. "It did. I took the data Tars collected while we were inside Gargantua and coded it into Morse, so Murph could find it when she came back to the house to get the watch I gave her right before I left. Of course, for her, it was about thirty years later." Starting to feel really warm, he swiped his other hand over his brow, clearing away some of the sweat before it ran into his eyes. He blinked hard, and seeing Amelia's alarmed expression, he quickly explained, "No, she and I made our peace. I'm okay with it."

Looking unconvinced, Brand studied him in the intense way she seemed to look at everything, and asked, "Cooper, are you all right?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just a bit warm out here is all. Need to get the rest of the way out of this suit." Feeling his fingers curl into a fist around his shirt, he started to wonder if that's all it was. The surrounding campsite was taking on a surreal quality, like it didn't belong in his field of vision, and Amelia's features were beginning to blur, just as the landing site had when he first got here.

"Cooper?" Brand's voice sounded a little on the panicked side, not her usual style at all. "You're breathing awfully fast. And it's not that hot out."

He finally managed to raise his head, and when he met her worried gaze, he realized he'd lost the picture, had no clue what she'd been saying or what was going on, only that he was losing altitude, and totally behind the curve. "Something's not right…gettin' hard to…to breathe…just like in the…the hospital." Shit, the hunger for air was back, and every time he inhaled it got a little worse, the familiar band tightening over his ribs, notching tighter until he had to gasp to draw in oxygen, and then it was all pain, a knife slicing into his lungs, and as he clawed for something to latch onto, he felt his knees give out. Hard, metal casing kept him upright, and Cooper slammed his head back into what had to be Tars' monitor, but when the robot's extendable arm grazed his left side, he cried out in agony, and a begging litany was torn from his throat, "No…n-no, worse…it's worse…chest hurts…oh, God, Br-brand, I can't…can't breathe!"

Amelia had been watching in horrified silence, but when Cooper's head sagged back against Tars, she got a good look at his neck and throat, and saw his trachea had started to pull to the right. Tracheal deviation, a sign of…shit! She grabbed the front of his t-shirt and practically shouted, "Cooper, your left lung is collapsing. I have to get you into the lab now!"

Her lab—where all the medical supplies were stored—was only about thirty feet to the south. Pulling his other arm over her shoulder, she turned them, letting Tars take most of the weight, and told the robot, "Inside my lab. Quick!" Maneuvering through the door, she felt Cooper's head begin to loll, and yelled, "Don't you go out on me, you read me, Coop? Don't you dare give up on me! Keep moving, just a few steps farther, okay?" He was trying to follow her lead, but the gasping, struggling wheezing noises he was making sounded too much like the transmission that had come though her helmet on Mann's world when the pilot had nearly asphyxiated, and his life could be measured in mere minutes… Shit, she thought, holy fucking shit, Cooper was going to suffocate if she didn't get that lung inflated again. Time…time was against them…like always.

Letting Tars hold him up, she swept an arm across the cryo-bed she'd been using as a work table, sending papers, empty cups, and a few water cartons scattering to the floor as she grabbed the blanket and pillow nearby and spread them lengthwise over the flat surface. Yanking the flight suit down past his knees, she barely registered the boxers he wore, ordering, "Tars, get him on the table and hold him there. I'm going to put a needle into the anterior chest wall until I can get a chest tube placed."

Rushing to grab a box of supplies she'd just finished organizing the day before, Brand snapped on a pair of sterile gloves, tore open a couple of Betadine swabs, and instructed Case, who had followed her from the rear of the lab, "Shirt off, please." As soon as the robot has ripped away the fabric and exposed Cooper's chest, she prepped the area where the needle needed to be placed, feeling him jerk a little at her touch. She didn't dare make eye contact, not until she'd got him breathing again. "Okay, Cooper, you're going to feel a stick, don't move…second intercostal space…along the midclavicular line…" With a flick of the wrist, she pressed the 16g needle through the skin and into the pleural cavity, able to hear the hissing sound of air escaping as Cooper abruptly went silent. Sighing in relief, she made sure the needle was anchored before finally glancing at his face.

He was pale and sweaty, and as his eyes rolled to meet hers, he let out a pain-filled gasp, whispering, "Shit, what the hell was that?!"

"Your lung collapsed—chest cavity works on a negative pressure system. When air leaks out of the damaged lung and the diaphragm—"

He weakly flapped his right hand, interrupting, "Got that…part. Why?"

"You said you were in the hospital on the station?"

A faint nod gave answer. "Pulmonary edema. From the ammonia. Kept me about a week, got me back on my feet. Was feelin' good…" He paused for a few, fast breaths, and shivered. "Can I have…upgrade…on the room an' board? Mattress is hard as a rock, and I'm…freezin'"

She gave him what she hoped was an encouraging smile, and said, "Not just yet, I'm afraid. That trick we just did, the needle thoracotomy? It's the easy part in this game plan. The hard part lies in what we do next."

"Ya call this…" Reaching up, one index finger indicated the needle and its flutter valve. "…easy?"

Amelia winced as his expression continued to wilt; at least his lips had lost their bluish tinge, though his face still had the ashen hue of someone who'd nearly stopped breathing. "Yes, comparatively speaking. But I also have to insert a chest tube to allow your lung to heal, start IV antibiotics—infection is the most plausible explanation for the tension pnuemothorax—and get some lab work done. We've got out work cut out for us." She spared a glance at Case. "Unlock the boots and finish getting the suit off. It'll be easier for the both of us that way."

As the robot complied with her request, Amelia toed a small canister closer to the makeshift bed, starting the oxygen flow and hooking it up to the nasal cannula she gently fitted into his nose. He blinked, taking a few breaths, and commented, "You really…did train a lot…for this mission. Beyond your…specialty…I mean."

She wondered why he insisted on talking in the span of resolving hypoxia, was it to make her feel more comfortable? Granted, she did feel a miniscule thread of regret at shoving him—the fall he'd taken had probably hastened the forming of the pnuemo, and if she was really honest with herself, she was a tad nervous. Putting in a chest tube and performing critical care was something she hadn't done in quite some time. In answer to his question, she said, "Quick to criticize, Coop, but you wear a number of hats yourself." She raised her eyebrows, peeling off one set of gloves to allow her to don a sterile pair. "Yes, I trained as the mission medic, as well as nursing and some more intensive training physicians go through. My father thought with my background in biology, I was the logical choice."

She carefully opened the chest tube kit and began scrubbing the left side of his chest with a Betadine prep sponge, circumventing the needle and its temporary lifeline. He hissed, and yelped, "Cold!" to which she replied, "I know, I'll make it fast." Draping the site, she paused, gripping the scalpel.

"Actually, takin' our time might be…the better approach." Cooper, recognizing her hesitation, closed his eyes. "Now's not the place for caution, Amelia. Just get on with it. If I black out…be all the better for you."

Begging to differ on this point, she countered, "If being centrifuged at sixty-eight RPM's didn't make you lose consciousness, I'm not sure what would. Okay, here we go...I'm making an incision through the skin, dissecting the subcutaneous tissue over the fifth superior rib edge…" Cooper made a distressed sound, but didn't move. Positioning the Kelly clamp, Amelia punctured the pleura with the tip, advancing the distal end of the tube well past any resistance, and firmly pushed it into the thoracic cavity.

Coop's respirations sped up, a telling fact of his wakeful status. "Almost done," she reassured him, notching the tube inward a few more centimeters, attaching it to the skin with a suture, finally closing the open incision with a few additional stitches. There was a small amount of blood which leeched out and smeared over her gloves, but nothing excessive. Bending to connect the other end to a square, plastic drainage unit, she took off her gloves and placed a stethoscope on his chest, listening to his breath sounds, glad they sounded normal and equal on both sides. Since the portable x-ray machine that had been part of the original cargo for the colony wasn't unpacked yet, she turned to the robot standing at the head of the bed for confirmation. "Placement look good, Tars?"

"Affirmative, Dr. Brand. You have a very nice touch."

She let out a sigh of relief, amused when Cooper groaned in obvious disagreement. "Speak for yourself, Slick." His eyes squinted open, a pool of reflective blue. "We done here?"

Feeling she was being made the villain in all this, Amelia reluctantly shook her head. "Sorry, Coop. I still need to put in the IV, draw labs, and start you on antibiotics."

He gave her a pained look. "More needles?"

Technically, a scalpel wasn't a needle, but deferring to the general description of sharp, pointy objects, she simply nodded.

"Jesus, Brand," he muttered, breaths coming much easier now, "I already feel like…gotta target painted on my ass."

"Be patient. At the end, you'll get a morphine chaser."

"Can't wait." Genuine longing filled his voice, speaking to how much he must be hurting.

Since Cooper wouldn't be moving the left arm much, Amelia chose to put the IV there, taping the catheter to the back of his hand. "So you tolerated the medication okay? No adverse side effects to speak of?"

"Only side effect was so much drowsiness I didn't really care I was slowly drownin'."

Imminent respiratory failure, stated with such matter-of-factness, she wasn't quite sure how to respond. Tars took the burden by offering, "I have Cooper's complete medical file from his inpatient stay at Cooper's Station downloaded, if you'd like to take a look, Dr. Brand."

"Medical files?" Cooper exclaimed, "How the hell did ya come by those…?" Eyes widening in realization, he slowly exhaled, and said in a much quieter tone, "Murph."

"Roger that, Coop. She thought it would be a wise precaution given your proclivity for landing yourself in risky situations."

"Hey, none of those were exactly my fault—" Cooper had to stop talking to catch his breath, and after adjusting the flow rate on the D5W, Amelia felt impelled to add, "Boys, you can debate this later, after someone—who just had his lung collapse—agrees to settle down and rest." She pointedly glared at the pilot, and when his eyes met hers, the corners of his mouth quirked up, but he didn't say anything further. Despite the verbal sparring with Tars, she knew he had to be exhausted, and hurried to finish adding the vancomycin to his array of meds. Scrounging up another blanket—a silver NASA issue designed to hold in body heat—she tucked it around his waist and retrieved an ampoule from the emergency first aid kit, injecting the contents into his IV port. "Okay, Coop, morphine's on board," Amelia told him. "You should begin to feel much better in a few minutes."

"Better," he murmured, a grateful smile curving his mouth before his eyes slid closed. "There already. Worth the trip…an' you have…amazin'…touch."

Amelia watched him for a moment, the muscles in her neck and back growing slack as the tension slowly left her. "Jesus, Cooper," she whispered, reaching one hand to smooth the hair off his forehead. "Please don't die on me."

To be continued…

A/N: Originally was going to put the pnuemo in chapter one, but decided to have it happen after Coop got to Edmunds. Hope you all liked it! Also, I am not a doctor. I do work in health care, what you call a clinical laboratory technologist (four year degree heavy in biology and chemistry, and you have to pass national boards). If you ever saw an episode of House, M.D. where the docs were all in the lab by themselves running tests, that's what I do. We're open 24/7, and though now I work days, I have worked night and evenings too. Keep pretty busy, being it's a level one trauma center. Sorry, long-winded explanation, but most people don't understand if I just say the job title. And all my friends are nurses, so medical is kind of what I know, and that's what I usually write