I (gaelige) apologise for the shortness of this chapter. I tested positive for tuberculosis infection yesterday (oh, the irony!), so I'm nattering around in a bit of a furor until I find out if I actually have active TB (what Doc has).

Elizabeth rapped softly at Doc's door. "Dr Holliday?" She smiled cheerfully, but there was abject silence from within. Elizabeth shrugged and knocked again. "Dr Holliday? It's time for vitals again." She sidled through the door, cursing softly when her bile-green scrub gown caught momentarily on the casters of an IV pole.

Wait. An IV pole? Elizabeth gaped foolishly at it. "What are you doing over here?" she muttered. It ought to be at the head of the bed: at the head of the bed, with Dr Holliday attached. Dr Holliday! She whirled in place. Said person was indeed, safely abed, casting vituperative glares that would have made Genghis Khan scream for his teddy bear. Elizabeth was, however, a nurse, not a Mongolian dictator, and she stalked right over to Doc.

"Glad to see you haven't escaped, Dr Holliday." She skewered Doc with a sort of "Be nice, and I may use anaesthetic" look. He stared back wildly.

"Why, Kate. Whatever do you mean?" His eyes swam glassily, pupils enormously dilated in an expanse of bloodshot sclera.

"Kate?" Elizabeth crossed closer to Doc and studied him intently. "Who's Kate, Dr Holliday?"

"Why, you are. Hungarian she-devil. This is purely the worst boarding-house you have found for us yet." Doc sighed. "Damn all, Kate, the proprietors tethered me to the bed with needles and noodles!" His forehead rumpled; Elizabeth noted that he was flushed red as brick dust and greasy with perspiration. "Some foul rascal absconded with my clothing, but I have got it back. The bastards took the money and my guns." He threw back the covers viciously and emerged, fully dressed in boots, grey woollen trousers, and grey coat, with the ruined shirt and collar drooping mournfully open beneath.

Elizabeth sucked in a violently ennervated breath. Act casual, stupid. "So, Doc," she asked, "when did you get yourself loose?" Inwardly, she was squawking obscenities. The glucose solution and vitamins that drained into Doc's vascular system continuously were keeping the mild symptoms of his ethanol alcohol withdrawal from progressing to something worse. Without that safeguard, he could progress to full-on delirium tremens.

Doc smirked lewdly and coughed softly. "This morning, my sweet woman. Toward eleven, I would say. I have nothing to pack, so shall we repossess my money and pistols and depart?"

Five hours! Five hours. How the hell did the day shift not notice? Elizabeth clenched her suddenly very clammy hands. "Ah, Doc... how about you take a rest first? You look... peaky. Yes, peaky." She nodded persuasively. "Sit down, let me look at you, darling." I haven't had to act this badly since high school drama. Oy vey.

"Well, Kate, if you insist. Cheeky creature." Doc stretched out comfortably on the bed, jerking lightly through his arms and fingers. "Proceed, if you must."

"Of course, Doc." Elizabeth carefully inserted a digital thermometre into Doc's mouth. "Just don't talk for a minute." She pulled her sleeve up and rested two fingers gently over his carotid artery. "One.. ten.. eighteen.. twenty-two... thirty-six. Times four.. One-forty-four." Buggery. The thermometre cheeped efficiently. "One hundred three point six... " she swore under her breath. "Don't move, Dr Holliday. Do. Not. Move." Elizabeth reached the door in two steps and stuck her head out toward the nurses' station. "Elena."

Elena Cardenas glanced up from an intimidating slew of paperwork. "Elizabeth." She raised a graceful black eyebrow curiously. "You look like you've seen a ghost. Is something the matter?"

"It's Holliday. He's disconnected his IVs and exhibits delusions, irritability, tachycardia, hyperthermia, dilated pupils, and tremor. I haven't checked his BPs but I think he's going into DTs." Elizabeth clutched the doorpost. "Page whatever doctor's on duty, please."

Elena's eyes showed white all around the irises. "I'm on it." She snatched up the telephone and calmly pressed three buttons. "Dr Nehrvati? This is Elena Cardenas in Med-Surg. I'm wonderful, thank you. We have a patient going into delirium tremens. Name? John Holliday. Yes, the isolation case. Splendid." She slammed down the receiver. "Elizabeth, Dr Nehrvati will be up here in two minutes." She scuttled around the counter, grabbing a mask from a drawer and her stethoscope to prevent it falling off. "We should restart the IVs."

"Well, yes. When Nehrvati gets up here. Come on." Elizabeth stalked back into the room, Elena following at a close clip and tying off her mask. Yanking gloves from a wall-mounted container, Elena asked, "Do you have any idea when he did it?"

"Disconnected? He said about eleven o'clock. How the hell day shift didn't notice, I don't know."

Holliday had sprawled sideways across the bed, still fully clothed and sweating streams. Every few seconds, his arms and legs jerked convulsively, as though he had had a sudden chill. Elizabeth dragged the IV pole over. "Dr Holliday?" She knelt and patted his cheek firmly. "Dr Holliday! Can you hear me?" Elena tightened the cuff of a sphygmomanometre around Doc's left biceps and held her stethoscope to his elbow. She inflated it quickly as Elizabeth continued her attempts to get Holliday's attention. "Dr Holliday!"

He mumbled faintly, raising one hand to cover his eyes. Elizabeth nodded. "I think he's in there..." She swatted him again. "John Holliday! Can you hear me?" Elizabeth searched her pockets for a penlight and shined it into Doc's eyes. "Pupils are still fully dilated. His pulse was 144 earlier, fever 103.6." She slammed a drawer open, riffled around, and extracted a sterile paper packet, stripping the wrapping away as she jammed the needle into Doc's radial vein. "Shit, I think he's seizing. This is like trying to stab an angry porcupine." Elizabeth re-connected the half-empty bag of glucose solution to the cannula.

Elena nodded gravely. "He's having myoclonic seizures. Dr Nehrvati!" She turned to an elegantly tall, slender East Indian man who had just entered the room. "The patient's having myoclonic seizures. Miss Dooley reported a pulse of 144 and fever of 103.6. I've just taken his blood pressure, it's 160 over 100. Patient was delusional, irritable, tachy, hyperthermic, and had dilated pupils and a tremor. He's semi-conscious." She let the pressure out of the cuff.

Nehrvati stooped over Holliday. "Did he disconnect the IVs?"

"Ah. Yes. Apparently it was around eleven o'clock this morning. We've been reconnecting them."

"Good. Delirium tremens for sure, from what you've both described. Let's get some more D-50 through, K plus, thiamine, diazepam 10mg every fifteen minutes until he's sedated." Nehrvati popped his knuckles, exiting the room in two strides.

To be continued - sorry to disappoint.

EmiliosLoofah: Yes, I do feel special :P Thanks for the reviews.

SassyMorg: Thank you :) Update, as requested.