Chapter Seven
Kelly woke up with a start. Sitting up on the couch, the next moment he was on his feet. Listening for the call over the PA system. Truck 81. Squad 3. Ambo 61. – but there wasn't a call.
It took a moment for him to realize he wasn't at the House. He was at the Hospital. In the waiting room. In near dark with the hospital silent around him.
He let out a breath and waiting for his heart to slow.
The alarm in his dream was still blaring in his head. Rescue, Ambo… the alarm had been so real his heart was still pumping like crazy at the sound.
"No rest for the wicked, I guess."
Already up on his feet, Kelly turned to look at the clock on the wall. It was still way too f*cking early for visiting hours. He took out his phone and dropped a message to Dawson & Casy:
Still here. No news. Wondering if that's good news.
He sent the message and dropped his phone back in his pocket.
Coffee. He needed coffee.
"Excuse me," he stopped a passing nurse, "what time does the cafeteria open up?"
"Not for about an hour. Sorry." She looked at his clothes and smiled. "You're the one here waiting for Stella?"
He nodded. "I didn't want to leave, not until…"
She waved off his excuse. "Go into the break room down the hall. We have a pot going. You're welcome to have some, we all think it's really sweet. That you're waiting here with her."
He smiled. "Thanks, I could use a cup."
She rolled her eyes. "Nurses understand the habit. Trust me." She pointed down the hall. "Go ahead, by the time you get your cup you should be just in time peek in on morning rounds and see how she's doing."
"Thanks," he let out a long breath, "that would be-"
An alarm sounded down the hall. Kelly and the nurse froze for a moment listening to the words in the call. Kelly only understood one things about the call. The room number.
Stella.
"Shit."
He took off running with the nurse at his heels.
Kelly didn't make it into the room at all. Just as he reached the door, two doctors shoved past him and bookended the bed, calling out instructions and observations to the nurses that swarmed around them. There were a few things that Kelly could get out of the rapid fire shorthand at the medical personnel were saying.
Stella had a fever, but there was something else. Edema.
A quick text to Dawson got back an answer.
Swelling.
The air pushed out of his lungs and he leaned against the outside wall of the room. "No. Not now. Not like this."
His instinct was to wade into the room and do… something. If it was a fire. A building collapse. He'd fix it. Find a way to get her out. Car accident? Handled.
But not this.
He had no control over this.
And damn if that did hit him like a sledgehammer.
It was likely only a few minutes, but it felt like forever until the doctor came out of the room and narrowed a look at him. "You Severide?"
Kelly nodded.
The doctor shook his head and let out a loud huff of a sigh. "Look…"
"Just say it." Kelly couldn't handle the wait. "Did something go wrong with the surgery?"
"The surgery was successful, but that's just a part of the whole picture. Stella spiked a fever. That's what set off the alarm."
"But you can just give her meds for that."
"Sure, sure…" the doctor nodded, 'but we're also seeing signs of swelling in her brain. That's the tricky part." He set a hand on Kelly's shoulder. "It could be the fever, but there are other things that could cause it. We're going to figure this out, Severide, but it might get worse before it gets better."
The doctor looked away for a moment and then straight back into Kelly's eyes.
"Look, it's not like we're going to need to know right now, but there may be a time you'll have to make some decisions for her. So I want you to put that in the back of your head and let it sit for a bit.
"Right now I have the nurses giving her meds in her IV for the fever. If it and the swelling go down we'll be done with the whole thing."
"But if it doesn't?"
The doctor nodded. "Then you and I have some decisions to make on treatment options."
Kelly managed to nod, just like he'd managed to swallow down brussels sprouts as a kid, with a whole lot of effort. "Can I see her?"
The doctor held up his hands in surrender. "I'm not going to stand in your way."
Shouldering past the doctor, Kelly entered the room.
The same nurse he'd been talking to in the waiting room was standing at Stella's bedside.
"You okay?"
Kelly turned to see that she was talking to him. "Me? Sure. Just a little… shaken."
She smiled and removed the syringe from the IV collar. "Well, you can be shaken later," she smiled at him. "Right now, you need to be solid… for her." She turned and nodded at Stella. "All that noise we just had in here, can't be all that easy for her. So maybe you can sit here for a while and calm her down."
Kelly couldn't help the smile that tugged at his lips. "I don't think there's much that scares Stella. She's a rock."
The nurse studied his face for a minute and then she backed up a step. "Even mountains fall down."
She was gone a moment later, leaving Kelly to keep company with Stella and the bank of monitors that made their own version of heavy metal elevator muzak. What he needed was a drink. A whole f*cking six pack of something.
But what he ended up doing was pulling up a chair and having a seat. He looked around the room and sighed before reached out and setting his hand on the bed beside hers. "Hey, Stella," he waited, just in case she wanted to say something back, "I was thinking I'd find one of those crossword puzzles, but I don't see any. So, just wondering if you have anything you wanted to talk about."
He watched her carefully for a moment just to make sure she was still there, with him.
"No? Well," he sighed, and wrapped his hand around hers and gave it a squeeze, "then you're just going to have deal with me talking until I can find us a game to watch on the tv."
Silence answered him.
"Then you're stuck with me."
