Mike woke up feeling groggy and terribly exhausted. He lifted his heavy eyelids and saw brown eyes staring back at him. He closed back his eyes, ready to cuddle up to Rachel for another five minutes of bliss before getting up for work when reality hit him.
Those were not Rachel's eyes.
Oh God! Those were definitely not Rachel's eyes. They were Harvey's.
Horror and panic swirled through his foggy brain as Mike definitely woke up. Had he fallen asleep on the job? Suddenly, his photographic memory kicked back into gear. The case. The car. The hot dog. The bathroom. Harvey.
Was he still in the men's room? He had to get up now! He started weakly trashing around and was very confused when his eyes finally focussed on his friend's face.
« Easy there, Mike » Harvey said as he carefully put his hands on Mike's shoulders to try and stop him from moving. « It's alright, you're ok, calm down ».
Calming down was not an easy task when you woke up disoriented, feeling too hot and unbearably itchy. But on the other hand, the horrible pain and the queasiness seemed like excellent incentives to stop moving. That and being the proud owner of the mother of all headaches. Mike's body just gave up the struggle.
Harvey pushed the call button, worried that he was witnessing a relapse and that Mike had just fainted again.
« Don't worry, he's just sleeping it off » the doctor reassured him. « He will feel pretty much wiped out for up to a week. His body's chemestry has been messed up and will need time to sort itself out. »
« Is he out of the woods? » Harvey just wanted his talkative, vibrant, cheeky and annoying friend back.
« Patients with severe anaphylactic reactions, especially for those like Mr. Ross whose symptoms come on rapidly, have up to a 20 percent risk of a rebound in symptoms. We will monitor him in the ICU for the next eight hours. We'll also keep him on cardiac monitoring because we had to give him epinephrine intravenously and that sometimes causes arrhythmia. But to answer your question, he is doing good. In fact, we will extubate him in a couple of minutes.»
« Can I stay? » The lawyer didn't want to leave his protégé alone for even a second.
« You are more than welcome to stay. In fact, your presence will be very helpful both in reassuring Mr. Ross and in holding his hands to make sure he doesn't pull at anything or doesn't scratch himself. The hives are slowly clearing up but since we couldn't give him Benadryl, he's going to be itchy. »
« Why couldn't he get Benadryl? » Harvey felt like scratching himself just from looking at Mike's skin.
« Mr. Ross was more than likely having an allergic reaction to dimenhydrinate, the medicine contained in Gravol. Benadryl is in the same medicine category. It's made with dimenhydramine. Both are in the antihistamines family. »
« Wait. Are you saying that Mike is allergic to allergy medicine? »
« That's exactly what I'm saying. »
« Only you, Mike. Only you » Harvey sighed with a sad half smile.
