A/N: Hey, guys. Sorry it's taken me so long to update - I recently became really obsessed with Hannibal and with so many feels, plus finals week in school, I couldn't find time to write. I ended up writing most of the chapter in these past few days, and I was kind of rushing to finish. So I'm not sure if this chapter is the best it can be, but I'm posting it anyway. Be warned: I may or may not have manipulated actual hospital procedures in order to suit my needs. ;) Hope you like the chapter - please let me know what you think/if you catch any major errors. :)
They walk in slowly, hesitant at first. Once they pass through the doorway, they're suddenly greeted by off-white walls on all sides. They're greeted by a constant, monotone beeping of a heart monitor. They're greeted by computer monitors all over the room. They're greeted by the scent of cleaners and latex gloves. They are not greeted, though, by Sweets. Sweets, who would normally be greeting them the second they enter the room, is fast asleep in a hospital bed, hooked up to various machines.
Not asleep, Brennan reminds herself. Medically sedated. There's a big difference.
There are two needles sticking out of Sweets' left arm. One is leading to an IV labeled with the name of the sedative used to keep him asleep, and the other is leading to an IV of medication. Brennan, after giving these IV bags a quick, cursory inspection, sits down in one of the two chairs against the wall on the right side of the bed.
Booth remains at the doorway for a few long moments. He looks at her, looks at Sweets, looks at her watching Sweets. Her face is calm, caught between happiness and concern because her friend is alright, but he's not completely alright. She is leaning forward in her chair, resting her elbows on her knees and her face on her knuckles. After staring at Sweets for a few more seconds, she looks up at Booth and gestures with her head for him to come into the room.
Booth obeys, stepping into the room with a few long strides. He moves so he's standing just next to Brennan's chair, leaning against the wall. He doesn't really want to sit just yet, and he takes a few more moments to just look at Sweets, just as Brennan did.
He's not disappointed with what he sees, that's certain. He's not thrilled, either, but he keeps reminding himself that Sweets is alive and not dead, and that somehow makes it easier to take in.
For instance, Booth notices right away that Sweets is pale. However, he also realizes that he's not as pale as he was when Booth and that kind stranger were carrying him to the ambulance. There's a huge difference, one that he's pleased with.
He glances up at the monitors and decides that everything seems normal enough. Somewhat satisfied, he sits down next to Brennan and leans back in his chair. He puts his arm around Brennan's shoulder and gives her a light smile.
"It'll be fine. You'll see."
"I know it'll be fine," she answers with a small nod. "I just… I keep thinking about everything that happened today. And I wonder; if we were a little faster, if we realized Sweets was the target sooner, could we have stopped it? And I don't know the answer. But then I realize that it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because it happened and now we have to make the best of it."
"You're right," Booth agrees, leaning back in his chair. "But you're always right, so… not much is new."
Brennan chuckles quietly, but doesn't answer.
Before any of them can say anything more, a young looking girl walks into the room, followed by the doctor that came out to speak with them earlier. The young girl, perhaps in her late teens, has her brown hair pulled back in a tight bun, in a similar fashion to the older doctor. She is carrying a transfusion bag and is looking nervously from the doctor, to the patient, to Booth and Brennan, and back again.
The doctor looks up at Booth and Brennan and smiles brightly.
"Hello again!" she says. "As I said earlier, we just need to hook up a transfusion to replace some blood that wasn't replaced during surgery."
She gestured to the girl.
"This is Rachel. She's doing her senior internship with us, and if it's alright with you, I was going to have her set up the transfusion."
Booth nods his head. "I don't see a problem with it. Bones?"
"Go right ahead," Brennan says with a smile. "I remember my first internship. It was very exciting. It wasn't in a hospital, though, and I just watched forensic scientists study remains. I didn't actually get to do anything. If you're being allowed to perform some basic duties, it must mean you're very promising."
The girl looked at Brennan gratefully, her face slightly flushed with embarrassment.
"Thank you very much, ma'am," she says, looking down at the floor after she speaks. "Your internship sounds very interesting."
"As does yours. Good luck with it," Brennan answers.
"Thanks."
She steps over to the left side of Sweets' bed and hangs the transfusion bag on the metal pole that the other bags are hanging on. The doctor watches as she reaches for a clean tube, attaches one end to the bag and one to a clean needle, and reaches for Sweets' left arm. She stops, slightly uncertain.
Suddenly, she looks embarrassed. "Um… Dr. Curran? There are already two other IV needles in, and I'm not sure…. Is three too many in one arm?"
The doctor walks over to her and looks. "No, three is fine. You just have to make sure you're leaving enough space in between them. About two, two and a half inches. Like, you can just follow the vein. Insert it… right about here."
She carefully inserts the needle and breathes a sigh once she's finished.
Dr. Curran claps her hands twice. "Great! That was perfect." She turns to Booth and Brennan, who have been watching with interest. "Thank you both. Have a good evening, if I don't see you."
Both ladies exit the room, leaving Booth and Brennan alone again. Well, alone with Sweets. Still, that's mainly alone.
The room is nearly silent, with the exception of the monitors beeping around the room.
Booth sighs and leans back in his chair again. "I'm going to catch a few minutes."
"Okay," Brennan answers, her eyes falling and remaining on Sweets, her face blank and calm.
Booth closes his eyes and falls asleep again after a few minutes.
He hasn't been asleep for half an hour when he's suddenly woken up.
"Booth! Booth, get up!" he hears Brennan say. He feels her shaking him awake, and then he doesn't anymore. He opens his eyes to find her no longer sitting next to him, but standing by the right side of Sweets' bed, staring up at the monitors.
"Bones? What's going on?" he says, standing up and walking up to her.
"His vitals just started crashing. No alarms went off, nothing, but look," she points up at the monitors, which don't seem to realize that there's a problem. Or, if they do, they don't show it. Brennan continues, "His breathing is repressed far below normal, he's developed a fever…"
She catches a glimpse of Sweets' left arm, which is now bright red, a rash obvious on his skin.
"It's the blood," she says, looking up at the transfusion bag, which is only a quarter empty. "Call a nurse!"
Brennan reaches for the call button, which is attached to the side of the bed, while Booth rushes to the doorway to flag someone down. Brennan, without exactly realizing it, places her hand on Sweets' shoulder and squeezes. It's a comforting gesture.
Booth reenters the room, followed by Dr. Curran. They both rush back to Sweets, and the doctor begins a frantic examination.
Brennan fills her in as she goes.
"No alarms went off," she repeats to the doctor. "It just looked like he was having trouble breathing, so I looked at the monitors. Breathing is too suppressed, he has developed a fever, and there's a rash on his left arm, starting by the transfusion needle. It has to be the blood."
Curran looks down at Sweets' arm and notices how red his skin is. She studies the monitors for one more second before reaching for the needle.
"That doesn't make sense," she mutters, pulling the IV out of Sweets' arm anyway. She turns her head toward the doorway. "Rachel!"
The young intern does not appear immediately, and, frustrated, Curran yells out, "Someone, find Rachel!"
A male doctor in the hallway hears this and rushes past the door with a quick, "Got it." About thirty seconds later, the girl is rushing through the doorway, profusely apologizing for her absence. As she enters, Curran is reaching for different pieces of equipment and moving things around as fast as she can, trying to make room by the left side of the bed.
"Rachel," she says, tossing the intern a set of keys. "I want you to run as fast as you can to the supply room on the second floor. Grab an oxygen machine and bring it back here, okay?"
There's a quick "Yes, ma'am," and she's gone again.
The doctor takes thirty seconds and stares back up at the monitors. "His heart rate and blood pressure dropped dramatically," she mumbles, almost to herself. "If it was the blood, then they should pick up again now that the transfusion stopped. If it was the blood. …Maybe it was AHTR, but so big an error is extremely unlikely…"
Brennan and Booth are staring at her, then looking back and forth between her, Sweets, and the monitors. Everything going on right now is confusing, but they're trying their best to follow it all. Brennan keeps her hand on Sweets' shoulder the entire time, not paying it any attention. It's automatic.
Rachel comes back into the room, rolling a square grey oxygen machine behind her. She helps Curran plug it in and the doctor is eventually able to get it running and place a cannula by Sweets' nose. Another glance at the monitors tells her that Sweets' breathing is not exactly returning to normal just yet, but it is improving. She'll take that.
She sighs, relieved. "Okay, Rachel. Pay attention now."
She looks at her intern and then at Booth and Brennan, indicating that she'd like for them to pay attention as well. She addresses all three of them when she speaks.
"I believe this was an acute hemolytic transfusion reaction, or AHTR. This means that the blood transfusion we set up was rejected."
"But blood's not normally rejected, unless -"
"Unless we hooked up the wrong blood type," Dr. Curran finishes Rachel's sentence with a grave expression on her face.
Booth tenses from where he's standing next to Brennan. He can't help becoming slightly angry at the idea that someone could have made such a huge error. Sweets was already in bad shape when he was brought into the hospital, and if the staff is making errors that could damage him further, then Booth is going to have to yell at someone. In retrospect, he thinks, maybe letting the intern help set up the transfusion was a bad idea.
"But Dr. Curran," Rachel says, shocked. "I'm sure that that's the right blood type."
Curran eyes her carefully. "You're sure?"
Rachel nods and walks over to the transfusion bag, which is still hanging on the pole. She reads the label out loud.
"B-negative, Rh-negative. That's what it said in his file in the database."
Dr. Curran rubs the back of her neck for a moment, her face thoughtful. "Okay," she says. "Just let me check, just to make sure."
She walks over to the other side of the bed, to where another monitor is located. This one has not been used since before Booth and Brennan came into the room and has gone unnoticed until now. Curran turns it on and gives it her whole attention as she touches the screen and navigates through the information.
"What is that?" Booth asks, having stepped back to make room for her. He doesn't want to get in the doctor's way, but he's curious. It's Rachel who answers him, though, so he doesn't have to worry about interrupting the doctor.
"The hospital recently modernized its data system. Hard patient files, in addition to being physical copies, are also stored in a database that can be accessed from anywhere in the hospital. It's very useful, actually. Patients can change rooms, treatments can be changed, anything can change, and there's no confusion."
"Right…" Booth replies with a nod. Something about that sounds sketchy to him, though, and he doesn't realize why until Curran looks up from the monitor.
"Rachel, you were right. It says in his file, B-negative, Rh-negative. I don't understand why the reaction happened, though, if the blood type was correct…"
Brennan nudges Booth in the side. "Booth," she says, eyes wide. "Computer database."
That's all she needs to say for Booth to get the idea.
"Check the hard copy of his file," he says. He sees Curran gesturing to the screen in front of her, but he cuts her off before she can say anything. "I know you've got the digital copy in front of you, doctor, but I really think you should check the hard copy."
Booth looks suddenly resolute, certain.
"I can tell you right now, there's a mistake in that database."
Rather than argue, Curran nods and turns to her intern.
"Hard files are on the first floor. Talk to the receptionist and she'll get it for you."
In less than a minute, Rachel is gone and back again, clutching a thick manila folder to her chest. She hands it to the old doctor, who takes it and quickly leafs through the files.
She looks almost sheepish, embarrassed when she reads it out loud.
"A-positive, Rh-positive. You were right, Agent Booth. The information on the database couldn't be more wrong. I'm so sorry, I had no idea-"
"No, it's not your fault," Booth says. He's very angry now, but no longer angry at the hospital staff.
He leaves the room, mumbling under his breath as he passes through the doorway.
"But I know whose fault it is."
A/N: My poor attempt at a cliffhanger? I don't know, I think we all know what's going on now, so not much of a cliffhanger. Reviews would be lovely. Thanks for reading!