Author's Notes: Hi Readers! I'm terribly sorry this is so late, but I hope you still like it! Next chapter will feature some new visitors for Kurt. Could be Blaine, Brittany, Santana… just to be a tease
Anyway, happy reading!
Burt spent an entire night watching Kurt, helpless to protect or comfort his son's restless writhing and pained groans. He was still unconscious and the nurses showing up periodically agreed it was best to keep him in mild sedation until they could better understand what was wrong. No amount of persuasion or brute force could get Burt Hummel to abandon his vigil, even as he could do nothing to ease Kurt's suffering.
At first the insistent beeps and whirrs of equipment Burt only vaguely understood drove him to pace, irritated, around the room. He passed the time alternating between concerned glances at his son and dark scowls out the windows, both outside Sacred Heart's walls and into the hallway at various passersby. A tall, blonde doctor happened on the receiving end of one such stormy look. She spilled coffee down the front of her lab coat, having run into another staff member in her hurry to escape Burt's glower. He instantly regretted startling the pretty, but crazy-eyed woman.
As the early morning hours crept by, Burt became oddly comforted by the constant sounds engulfing the hospital room. Those heart beeps, and even the sterile scent of medicine and alcohol, reaffirmed in Burt the comfort that his son was getting help, as best it could be given. However, by eight am the next morning when J.D. appeared to run more tests, the worried irritation had returned in the mechanic. Trying to avoid too much eye contact with his patient's father, J.D. scurried around the room checking charts and read outs. But Burt was desperate.
"Tell me when you know anything," he commanded, resisting the urge to grab J.D.'s arm and muscle the answers out of him.
"We're doing everything we can," the doctor assured, his tone soft and subdued. He was genuinely sorry to see Kurt's father look such a wreck, but truth be told he was also a bit terrified of the fierceness Burt radiated. Kurt would be proud, were he awake.
Dr. Cox still had not returned, but through text messages to Kurt's phone Mercedes informed Burt that Sue was back in school, and locked in her office after cancelling Cheerios practice. The Cheerios never cancelled. Several girls had shown up to stand in formation, too terrified to risk not waiting several hours in case their coach emerged from her lair.
"Those two hotheads are in a power struggle, and their egos can block out the sun let alone this entire hospital. Looks like we have to handle this ourselves," Carla stated, her voice so full of authority it stopped J.D. as he walked up shortly after reassuring Burt that Sacred Heart would do everything medically possible for his son. He nodded along with Turk and Elliot on Carla's other side, all focused on the Latina nurse.
"Whatever you need me to do Carla, just say the word and I will do it," Elliot said emphatically, leaning in and placing her fingers over her friend's. Carla eyed her stained scrubs critically and raised her eyebrow as if to ask, "What have you done now?"
"Oh, I spilled coffee on myself after this guy gave me a…really scary look," she explained, gazing at a nearby filing cabinet as her lip quivered. Carla hugged her friend reassuringly as Elliot release a breathy squeak, before looking expectantly at the men. They both shuffled around and mumbled excuses while avoiding her gaze.
"Come on, guys," Carla pleaded, bouncing a little and fisting her hands.
"We've both got patients besides him to worry about. Elliot's private practice now, so of course she has free time," Turk said. J.D. nodded along with each word, leaning into his best friend's shoulder and quietly commenting on how alike he was to Taye Diggs.
"The fact that you are accusing me of being lazy and less important because I've made something of my career is not funny," Elliot exclaimed, her voice growing faster and higher pitched with every word. J.D. and Turk shared a synchronized mock gasp.
"If you don't help that poor, happy boy, no sex for a month," Carla said, snapping her fingers sassily.
"Oh man," Turk whined, flailing his arms immaturely. J.D. made a "suck it" gesture.
"You too," Elliot said, smiling at J.D. This time he genuinely gasped, slack jawed in horror while one hand fluttered against his chest.
Five minutes later, having convincing the men to help, all four of them huddled around the doctor's lounge table with textbooks strewn everywhere. They poured over hundreds of pages, trying to find a match to Kurt's symptoms. Nothing seemed to explain his illness, and nothing about his condition accurately pointed to a simple post-operation infection.
Turk snapped his fingers, and a silly smile spread across his face. "I got it."
"Please share," Carla said, gesturing with a twist of her palm.
"We use live human flesh to give him a full body transplant. I saw it on this new movie," he explained, fist pumping dramatically like a player who'd just scored the winning point.
"Oh, my God. Why did I marry you?" Carla groaned. J.D. cocked his head, daydreaming about what the treatment process would be like. Most likely it would involve switching faces and limbs with a Frankenstein-esque monster. Elliot smacked his cheek to say, "Focus."
J.D. pouted as Turk said, "Sorry, baby. You're stuck with me."
Dr. Kelso chose this moment to stroll into the room, causing four heads to simultaneously whip around guiltily. He surveyed the assembled doctors and huffed, "I'm not paying you people to sit around having study sessions!"
"Sir, we're trying to help a patient," Carla said. He asked whom. "Kurt Hummel."
"Oh, that boy reminds me of my son, Harrison," he commented absently. "In that case, I'm going to find a muffin." He walked off with a jaunty whistle. After the chief of medicine's impromptu entrance and exit, the four of them decided it would be a better use of time to split up and talk to other hospital staff for suggestions. Considering they were getting nowhere with printed words, maybe they could indulge in spoken ones.
J.D. went to the morgue, and staggered a bit at the overwhelming presence of toe tags and death. Standing over an examination table, he found the always-helpful Doug. The young, mousse haired doctor gave his old rounds-mate a cheesy smile and explained Kurt's condition, hopeful for some new knowledge.
"He's not dead yet, J.D., how would I know?" Doug said, exasperated that the medical doctor would ask him about rare diseases. J.D. scoffed and said, "You spend all day learning about strange ways people die. You're telling me none of them have stories to share?"
Doug stuck a cherry red sucker in his mouth and told J.D. to not be an idiot as he walked over to another body-laden drawer. The latter left, but couldn't resist one last glance back at Doug's peculiar habit to poke at those cold, stiff toes with his lollipop stick.
Turk went to his boss, Dr. Wen. The surgeon raised an eyebrow and told him to go ask one of the internal medicine doctors since his specialty was not diagnosing those ailments, especially when the patient was not his. When Turk tried asking every other medical person he could think of, they told him one after another to go back to Wen.
Before leaving the Operating Room, once again turned away by his senior surgeon, Turk mumbled, "You'd help Bonnie." The Asian man frowned, but Turk was gone before he could comment further.
Carla went to Nurse Roberts. Lounging in her desk chair before the television, Laverne said, "I'd love to help you, Sugar, but my soap stories are on." Her stern face concentrated a little too hard on the colorful screen images, hoping her friend and colleague would leave.
Carla knew better than to provoke the older nurse. However, she secretly wished that Laverne had told her no because she really was too busy, and not because she didn't have the extensive knowledge to help. As much as it irked her, Carla wished Dr. Cox's brain, at least, were around to dig through for some way to help young Mr. Hummel.
Elliot went to Franklin, but the lab specialist was less than helpful when he met her at the door. "I've run all the tests already. We're done talking now." He promptly walked to the other side of the room and sat down to eat his lunch. The blonde doctor flipped her tuft of bangs out of her face, since she had no other effective way to show her anger, and walked out of the lab, only to bump into the Janitor halfway down the hall.
"Janitor, can you help me figure out Mr. Hummel's condition?" Elliot asked with her head tilted genially to one side.
"You mean the kid I almost stole a new set of fingers from? Sure," he shrugged his shoulders. "Sure!" They walked together down the hall and back toward Kurt's room.
Kurt opened his eyes slowly, each lid feeling as though a ten-pound weight was attached. When his blurred vision cleared he saw a very peculiar scene; one he'd never have predicted.
Dr. Cox and Sue Sylvester stood face-to-face, mere inches apart, and staring each other down as if about to kiss. After a strained few seconds of the pair pulling faces at each other, an orchestral introduction began to play, one he knew well, until the light swell of music filled his room.
They began to sing.
"What is this feeling,
So sudden and new?" Dr. Cox (Glinda) sang in his deep baritone.
"I felt the moment,
I laid eyes on you," Sue (Elphaba) droned, slightly out of tune.
The hospital room, like a stage set, rolled dramatically away to be replaced by a dark, curtain-lined platform with two spotlights centered on his doctor and cheerleading coach.
"My pulse is rushing." Waving his arms in front of him to simulate a rush of water falling, Dr. Cox sang.
"My head is reeling," Sue spun her hands around her head as she sang, or rather screamed, back at the doctor.
"My face is flushing."
"What is this feeling?" They belted together. "Fervid as a flame, does it have a name? Yeeessss! Loathing, unadulterated loathing!"
"For your face," Dr. Cox growled.
"Your voice." Sue seethed.
"Your clothing!"
"Let's just say: I loathe it all!" Both said while the orchestra playfully accented their rhythm. "And I will be loathing, loathing you my whooole liiife long!"
Suddenly other doctors leaped around them, and a set designed to replicate Sacred Heart's waiting room was illuminated with Kurt's bed as the front row audience. Hospital staff members dressed as munchkins ran up to Dr. Cox and sang,
"Dr. Perry Cox, you're just that good.
How do you stand her, I don't think I could.
She's a terror, she's a tarter,
We don't mean to show a bias,
But Percival, you're a martyr."
"Well, these things are sent to trrrryyyy us," Dr. Cox warbled. At the moment a group of Cheerios pounced onto the stage, twirling and flipping behind Sue. Pyrotechnics ensued from cheerleaders at the back of the stage as everyone advanced on Kurt, now displaying show grins and jazz hands galore.
"There's a strange exhilaration in such total detestation!" coach and doctor sang together, looping arms around each other's shoulders.
Next the entire hospital had joined the production, singing boisterously and executing grand choreography with flips, dips, and synchronized chorus lines. Kurt's head swam, trying to rationalize the scene before him. They grew closer, the song fading into the background, and colors swirled into a miasma between Kurt's eyes. He slipped back into blackness.