Disclaimer: The usual.

Authors Notes: Ok, I've discovered I love writing medical stuff. I have researched and this is pretty accurate. I hope I've written so any body who hasn't watched ER or Scrubs can understand.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Logan could sense the fast moving something behind him but before he could react, an SUV sideswiped him and his Harley. The impact drove him and the bike into a concrete highway barrier. The bike stopped and he hurtled forward, helmet-less, headfirst onto the cement freeway and his last thought before blackness overcame him was This is gonna hurt. Sometime later he became vaguely aware of a paramedic securing him to a backboard. Snippets of conversation sounded muffled and distorted.

I can't believe this guy's still alive. Did ya see the bike? It's trashed.

This guy's brains are probably scrambled; got blood coming from the right ear and nose. Why in God's name don't these morons wear helmets?

Yeah, it's sad. Wha-da-ya you got for vitals? There lookin' ok, though I don't know why. He's not as torn up as he should be. What do ya make of that?

Freakin' miracle, I guess. I give up questioning why some of 'em come out ok and some up 'em end up in a body bag.

Logan opened his eyes; nothing but a blur. A face came closer to his line of sight-make that two of the same face.

Hey fella, don't move around. You've been in an accident. Can you understand me?

"Yeah."

What hurts?

"My...head, neck; everything."

Do you have any numbness or tingling?

It took him a moment "Can't tell."

What's your name?

Logan.

That's it, just Logan?

He tried to nod, but the neck restraint prevented it. "James Logan" he finally answered, not used to his full name and having problems pulling thoughts together.

Do you know where you are?

He had to think about it. "Yeah."

How old are you?

"Fifty four."

The paramedics looked concerned because Logan didn't look a day over thirty five; definitely some scrambled gray matter upstairs.

We're gonna take you to a hospital. Do you have preference?

"Westchester Memorial; my fiancé's there."

Ok. She one the nurses?

"Nah, she's Dr. Harris."

OK. We'll have you there in no time. Just try to relax. They hoisted the backboard onto a stretcher and then into the waiting ambulance. The sirens wailed as they struggled to get through the backed- up, morning rush hour traffic. On the ride to the hospital, Logan kept trying to drift out. His head was killing him and he was dizzy. He needed to go into a healing sleep, but the attending paramedic kept rousing him. "I think I'm gonna get sick" he warned!

Got it covered, sir. The paramedic expertly shifted the entire backboard to the side and placed a basin right where it need to be just as Logan threw up several times.

About ten minutes out from the hospital, the paramedic couldn't rouse Logan. Grabbing his pen light, the paramedic checked his pupils. We're going dilated and unequal with the pupils here, Jack the paramedic spoke loudly to the driver. BP's dropping and respirations are getting mighty slow. I think we've got a little deteriorating going on. Of course the paramedic could not know that this was his normal healing mechanism kicking in, except for the unequal pupils; that was definitely the scrambled brains. I'm, moving this rig as fast as I can. Damned traffic can't move. As they got closer to the hospital, the paramedic communicated with the ER about Logan's condition. We've got a white male, approximately thirty five years old, closed head trauma probable neck or back trauma. Patient denies any loss of sensation or movement. Patient exhibited mild confusion. Blood pressure eighty over forty, respirations twelve per minute and shallow. Pupils reactive, but unequal. Possible cerebrospinal fluid draining from ears and nose. Patient vomited four times and become unresponsive for the past eight minutes. We're still three to five minutes out.

Susan was on duty. What do we have?" she asked Todd, the triage attendant.

"Some idiot on a motorcycle, no helmet; head trauma. Getting shaky on the way in."

He handed over the notes he took from the ambulance crew.

She rolled her eyes. Here we go again. Patching up another stupid fool who thought he was indestructible. She made her way to the ambulance entrance, grabbing another doctor along the way. "We've got a deteriorating motorcycle wreck coming in. Care to play God with me?"

"Sure." Dr. Amar Satvik answered whose specialty happened to be neurology.

She briefed him as they waited in the ambulance bay. "The paramedics tell me our patient's gone unresponsive for the past eight minutes."

"Not promising."

The ambulance pulled in and they ran to it. Even though Logan's mouth and nose was covered with a respirator mask, it took Susan about fifteen seconds to figure out who the patient was. She gasped "Oh my God!"

"What's wrong?" Amar asked.

"It's Logan, my fiancé".

The ambulance crew briefed them on Logan's condition: basically unchanged from the last report.

"Take him into Exam four."

Things got very busy in exam four; nurses and doctors all doing their jobs. IV, monitoring equipment, orders for an MRI. "No MRI." Susan shouted about the din.

Amar was shocked, "What are you talking about?"

"Amar, Logan's just a little different." She feared this possibility; having to expose Logan's mutant status and his skeleton. "Stabilize the patient" she ordered and pulled Amar out of the room. Whispering, she clued him in. "Logan's got some...um, some metal replacements."

"What the hell are you talking about, Sue?"

Exasperated, she whispered, "Look he's mutant, ok? It's a very long story and I'm not going into the details, but he has rapid healing powers. The only thing we can do is stabilize, support and wait."

Amar looked at her like she'd lost her mind. Finally, not wanting to deal with legal and ethical issues that surrounded mutants, he said "Ok, whatever you say. You're the expert on mutant medicine, tell me what to do."

"Bless you, Amar."

They went back to exam four where Logan regained consciousness and was struggling.

Don't you dare eject those claws, Susan thought. Taking a chance, she bent close and stroked his forehead. "Hey. I'm right here" she said gently

He could make out her blurred image. Her voice was soothing and he quit struggling. "Sue, I can't handle the restraints."

"You've got to be good for me." She was going to try to minimize exposing him as much as possible and she hoped he understood. "You've got head and neck trauma so you must be immobilized. This is the normal protocol. Please don't fight it." That's not what he wanted to hear and he growled and fought the restraints anew. She got right down in his face and quietly but very firmly gave an ultimatum. "Don't make me sedate you."

He looked at her with hard, angry eyes. She stayed close and smoothed his hair and her touch calmed him some. "I'll make a deal with you," she continued. "Keep it together while I pick the gravel and glass out you and don't flake out on me in the next two hours and I'll get you out of the restraints."

"Ok" he answered. "How bad do I look?"

"Not too bad, all things considered. You're missing part on your right eyebrow and I can see flecks of glass and gravel embedded..."

"I get the idea."

"You're not healing as fast as I'd expect. It might have something to do with a cerebral contusion"

He looked puzzled so she explained "I think you bruised your brain, but with your metal skull, there's no way to confirm it. I think if I cleaned out some of the abrasions and cuts they'll heal faster."

Logan's healing ability was amazingly rapid for one injury at a time but a more complex injury or multiple injuries added to the healing rate exponentially. So if his body was trying to compensate for massive head trauma, less serious wounds became a lower priority.

"That's going to hurt, eh?"

"Relative to what?"

A nurse brought over a tray-table laden with everything needed to clean his wounds. In his peripheral vision, he spotted syringes. "What's that for?"

"Lidocaine to numb you and saline to clean you up" the nurse answered pertly.

"I'll handle this, Renee" she told the nurse. "Logan, I'm going to numb you in a couple of places and I think that'll do it. If you feel like you need more, just say so." He closed his eyes and winced as she injected the Lidocaine near his eyebrow, then near his ear and finally his jaw. "I'm going to have to shave off some of your sideburns. Do you want me to even both sides?"

She wished she had a camera to capture the look on his face. "You gotta do what?"

"Sorry babe, I need to be able to see what I'm doing. It grows back."

"Geez! Whatever. Yeah, even it up. Shit!"

Finishing up, she commented, "You look like a cover boy for GQ! I like it." She left sideburns at earlobe level; right in style, actually!

Completely unimpressed by her opinion, he just grunted.

As soon as Susan began to pick out the glass and gravel from his right forehead, cheeks and jaw, the wounds began to heal right before her eyes. She kept talking to him as she worked to distract him and to assess how he was holding up. He winced and gasped as she plucked out some larger pieces of gravel. "More Lidocaine" she asked?

Voice a strained whisper; he answered "It's ok."

One final piece of glass, lodged deep in muscle in his neck, hurt enough to bring tears to his eyes as Susan tried to finesse it out. "I'm sorry, baby." She sounded pained as she worked.

"Just hurry up."

"I've got to be careful with this one it's close to your jugular. Don't talk." In another moment, she had the shard firmly in forceps and held up the nearly inch long spike of glass so he could see it. "Do you know how lucky you are? Had this thing been just a few millimeters to the left, you could have bled to death."

"Probably wouldn't have" He appeared sanguine but then suddenly went pale and his field of vision reduced to a narrow tunnel.

"You ok?"

Her voice sounded distant and he could only mumble weakly "Head hurts again" and he closed his eyes Susan grabbed her penlight and checked his pupils. They reacted sluggishly to the light. The room spun and he felt sick again "I'm gonna puke."

"I need some help in here" she shouted knowing she lacked the physical strength to maneuver him strapped to the backboard onto his side by herself. Renee, the nurse, was there in an instant but with not enough time to grab for a basin, both expertly stepped aside as he vomited onto the floor.

He managed a very weak "Sorry"

"It's ok; kind of goes with the job description" Susan quipped. She almost said 'wet clean up in aisle four', but thought better; too unprofessional. "Renee, I've got things balanced here for a moment; how about some Promethazine for my patient?" Renee nodded and pushed a pre-measured amount of the anti-emetic into his IV. It didn't take but a few minutes for him to feel the nausea abate.

Before long, his natural healing was trying to kick in and he needed to sleep, even though that was contrary to normal head injury protocols. As he drifted into a healing coma-like state, Susan wiped the remaining dried blood from his face and neck. The lacerations and road rash had all but disappeared and only a little redness remained.

She studied his cleanly shaven face. He was extraordinarily handsome. His features were nearly symmetrical and without the mutton chop sideburns to cover his features, high cheekbones and charming dimples became obvious. She meant it when she said he appeared worthy of the cover of GQ magazine. He'd be so pissed if he thought anyone thought of him that way. That tough-scruffy- dangerous-mean look he maintained was a key part of his shield against all the pain and ugliness he'd faced in his life.

Later, Dr. Satvik got Logan a private room up in neurology and she tried to communicate that but he wasn't conscious enough to understand. After she was sure he was safely settled, Susan called Charles to let him know what had happened. Then she asked to be transferred to Electra and asked her to fax the medical notes from Logan's injuries he'd suffered at Liberty Island. She wanted some guidelines based on past medical history how to handle him and records confirmed that leaving him be, coupled with basic support measures (fluids, oxygen) would be the best and quickest route to his recovery.

Next came the paperwork; a police report because it was an apparent hit-and-run motor vehicle accident; special hospital report because of the police report; another special hospital report because she treated a mutant, just on and on and on. Wait 'til billing realizes he's uninsured, she thought though she knew once all the connections were made, that is; they're about to be married, professional courtesy would save the day. Those bills would simply be dumped from billing data bases.

Two hours later when through with her shift she headed up to neurology. She pulled up a chair at his bedside. "I'm here." She squeezed his hand and thought she felt a slight response. In the twelve hours that he was comatose, Dr Satvik came by a few times. Charles and Scott came by and she had Scott help her loosen Logan's restraints. She wasn't going to ask Dr. Satvik to break anymore protocols than he already had and knew he just didn't want to know why Logan couldn't break his neck or back.

Around eleven p.m. she was nearly drowsing in the chair at his bedside when she noticed his respiration and blood pressure normalizing on the monitoring equipment and less than five minutes later, he opened his eyes. "Hey, glad your here." His voice seemed strong but more gravely than normal.

She smiled with relief. "I'm glad your back. How do you feel?"

"Pretty good... a little stiff."

"How's your head feel?"

"Ok. How about getting me out of here" he asked as he began to sit up?

She tried to push him back, but he would have none of it. "Logan, you've just survived a serious head injury. You may feel fine, but..."

"Sue, I'm not staying here. I'll go back to the infirmary at School but I'm not staying."

"Ok, as long as you don't mind walking out of here in that little hospital gown." She had the trump card.

Logan looked down at himself. "Where are my clothes?"

"What wasn't shredded had to be cut off."

He looked highly irritated. "Fine then, I'll just walk outta here with my ass hangin' out."

"Will you stop acting like an ass! Just chill until seven tomorrow, please."

"No way! I'm gettin outta here. Go steal me some scrubs."

"Steal them yourself."

"Dammit Susan, help me out here."

Susan thought about it for a minute. She knew fully well that he was going to sneak or sign out of the hospital at the first opportunity. "Ok, I'll get you out of here but I'm telling you, it's against your doctors' medical advice."

Logan tried to stand and was promptly slammed with waves of vertigo and started to lose balance and pitch forward. She grabbed for him to keep from falling flat on his face and he had the sense to let himself sink to his knees.

"Oh, yes, I'm going to sign you out A.M.A; when hell freezes over! Listen to me, James Logan; I saw the police and ambulance reports. Do you know your head left a dent in the cement barrier? Without that metal skull of yours, they would have just hosed your brains down the sewer or worse, I might be wiping the drool off your chin for the rest of your life. How can I make this any clearer; you've had a severe head injury and it's gonna take time to completely heal. Please just stay until tomorrow morning. Give yourself a few more hours."

With the vertigo turning his stomach over and over, and his head starting to pound again, he had no choice but to agree with her- at least for a while. Come to think of it, he couldn't remember having a serious head injury. Maybe these things did take longer to get over. He let her lead him back to bed. Suddenly very serious concern crossed his mind. "Susan, what happens if I have a nightmare? Nobody around here can deal with that."

Worry and fatigue etched her face. "You've got a point. I don't know..." she thought for a while. "Lay back down and promise me you won't move; I'm going to get those scrubs." He barely nodded, fearful that movement would set off more head pain or make him sick again. She returned a few minutes later with the promised scrubs but he dozed off. Deciding to bide time and knowing she needed sleep; she curled up in the empty bed. They slept through until eight the next morning when Dr. Satvik, beginning his rounds woke them and signed Logan's discharge papers.

Logan tried to get back to work the next day but Susan wouldn't allow it. He tried intimidating her and she laughed. Then he tried the grouch-act but he told him to quit being so snarky. He tried reasoning but she informed him his reasoning was unsound. He tried pouting, but she completely ignored it.

"I fuckin give up!" he yelled.

"That's the point Logan. Give it up for a little longer and heal completely……and quit using that word!"

"What word?" He didn't appreciate her trying to change the subject. "I'm ok."

"Probably so, but since I can't do an MRI to prove it, you're stuck."

"God dammit, I'm fine!"

"Logan, just get over it. What's one day to chill?"

He growled and flipped on the TV muttering more choice words under his breath. "I'm bored." he said

"Oh waahhh! Recuperating men are all alike" she exclaimed.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Figure it out. I've got to do my last shift at the hospital" her tone was sharp. "Logan, behave yourself."

"Or what?"

"I'll keep you med-down for the first half of next week."

"Yeah right."

"Try me."

He was about to respond with something obnoxious but thought better because he knew she meant business and it turned out her instincts were right.

And things will get interesting...