Disclaimer: I own nothing, depressingly, absolutely nothing is mine but the plot, now that is ALL mine! ;)
A/N:Wow your reviews were immense, thank you guys! You all rock =) Now we've had the start of the rescue let's have the rest of it shall we?
Again with the medical jargon, no doctor am I!
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Between Two Lungs -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
All Penelope could do was look up as the eyes before her weren't full of ice, now they were brown orbs of love and she finally broke. After all what could she do when she couldn't move any muscle in her body, and couldn't speak?
Her vision blurred with tears but she could only imagine the ability to just wipe them away as they pulled down her cheeks, her eyes started to dart around the room as she heard more and more movement, she was panicking at being so vulnerable.
"Baby Girl," Derek said as he watched her panic, and the heart monitor she was hooked to started to race faster and faster. "We're just getting a doctor down here; he's going to make sure it's safe to get you out of here."
Penelope closed her eyes tightly, she didn't want anyone to touch her, but she knew that rationally no other doctor was going to hurt her, especially if the team were around.
"Open your eyes Princess," Derek coerced her gently and she listened and looked at him, held his gaze, refused to look away. For a brief moment Derek looked up as Hotch came to the other side of Penelope.
Penelope's eyes flicked over to Hotch and she settled a little more before looking back.
"Right, P, I want you blink once for yes, twice for no, do you understand?"
Penelope blinked once, keeping her eyes tight before opening them and looking at Derek. Almost wanting him to talk at her, use nicknames, even hear him call her princess. Give her a sense of hope and familiarity.
"Are you in pain?" He asked and watched her blink once again, "A lot?" He continued, his worrying only manifesting as he watched her blink once again. In the moment a tear escaped and her eyes clouded with concern at seeing his expression. "Can you feel anything?" He watched her hesitate a blink.
"Right, Penelope, help's here, we're going to get you comfortable and then we're going to get you to the hospital." Hotch stepped in, "Do you want us to stay?"
Penelope blinked, she didn't want them to leave her just yet, she wanted to scream at them to not leave her, because at that moment they were the only things stopping her from having a full on panic attack.
As she noticed more and more strangers gather around her she couldn't remain calm any longer. Inside she was screaming but on the outside she was unmoving. If anyone could hear her then they'd hear her uncontrollable pleads, they'd leave her alone if they could hear her screams.
"Do we know what drugs were used?" A stern voice came, Penelope could hear him, but she couldn't see him, or hear him and she was thankful to be left somewhat oblivious.
"There's bottles here of Curare, Rapacuronium, Vecuronium and Pancuronium. We don't know which are used." Rossi's voice punctuated the air, from what felt like far away.
"Right we need to hope that Pancuronium wasn't used." The stern voice spoke up again.
Derek looked up, fear stricken again, "Isn't that used as part of the lethal injection?"
Penelope's mind blurred then, she'd had so many drugs given to her since she'd been there she wasn't sure if these were new ones, or had in fact been used before, but the moment she heard lethal injection she felt her fear ignite again and it must've shown because Derek's attention was back on her.
"Pen," He started but the doctor stepped in.
"Penelope, my name's Joel, I'm going to get you out of here, I just need you to listen to me, to all of us, none of us are going to hurt you, do you understand?"
Penelope listened to him and she had to calm, she was going to be free after all. She had Derek back, had her family back, had her hope restored.
The doctor looked up at Hotch, "She needs a hospital, I don't have the drugs for this sort of thing. We need to reverse whatever neuromuscular-blocking drug he used and get her breathing on her own."
"So she's going to be okay?" Derek hoped he would get the desired answer.
"We'll know more once she's had the antidote." The doctor concluded and continued to look Penelope over.
He took note of the long cut that had been started down the middle of her chest and started to treat it. He realised it was deeper at the bottom, in the attempt to cut through the cartilage to get through to the sternum; he noticed the steady blood flow and set to work stabilising the bleed.
"I can't do much from here at all, all I can do is stabilise her the best possible and then fix this at the hospital. It's too dangerous to attempt anything here." The doctor told them, and he noticed Penelope's heart beat becoming irregular, "I promise you Penelope we'll get you back to normal by the time the morning sun comes up."
Penelope looked up at Derek, trying to get his attention, she had this, the noises, the helplessness, the wild scared feeling that was taking over everything she could feel. She wanted to tell them she was beyond aware of everything, of the tube down her throat, the commotion from the other room where her and the others were held, of the continual beeping of the heart monitor, of the dead girl on the bed on the other side. She wanted to scream at them that she could feel pain, the deep burn of the slice up her chest, the one up her thigh, the pain in her ankle from being cuffed up and thrown about. She needed them to know that her entire body was buzzing but she couldn't, no matter how hard she tried move any part of her body apart from her eyes.
So she focused on the accumulating rapid of emotions in her, the rabid ones and the calmed controlled ones and she let the cap on fear go and watched as she shot down to look at her.
"Baby Girl, we didn't mean to scare you," He said and kissed her cheek, "I love you, you know that right?" He asked her and she blinked, holding it tight before opening them. "And we're going to get you out, and we're going to look after you and I am never leaving you again. The one night I do and I come too close to losing you."
Penelope could hear the dread in his tone, the slick amount of fear at this predicament, she'd seen his face as he'd surveyed the cut down her chest, the mad panic, the shot of anger as it bolted into his face but was quickly absorbed as he returned his attention to keeping her calm.
"I should have never taken you for granted." He finished calmly, and his tone sounded so much more relieved, like the weight on it was gone, that he now knew he had another chance with her and he took it.
"I think it's time we moved her," The doctor said after he'd checked Penelope over entirely, making sure the IV in her hand was in appropriately, as was the one in her neck. The one thing he needed was to find out that the multiple narcotics were being pumped into her muscles and not her bloodstream. "This is distressing enough; I want both of you with her." He advised both Hotch and Derek, "We'll get a full blood work done the moment we're at the hospital and tend to the wound on her chest, there we can access how deep he managed to get before you got here. Then we'll be able to take the best course of action from there."
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Between Two Lungs -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-