By the time they arrived on the roof the medics had already hefted the basket onto the stretcher. John's shirt had been cut roughly up the middle and pads on his chest led to a portable ECG monitor next to him. His face was obscured by an oxygen mask, and the medic called out vitals to the doctors, who were already examining him as they hurried down the corridor towards the treatment rooms.
Sarah Jane followed them, watching John and listening to everything they were saying.
"Heartbeat is thready, have a crash cart ready in unit 7 and page code blue stat," said a man in blue scrubs.
John was quickly wheeled into room seven. The crash cart was waiting and the room had a cardiac team by the time he got there. They went to work on John immediately, inserting IVs, administering meds, connecting monitors, switching out oxygen masks.
Sarah stood toward the back of the room, unnoticed, watching every move the team made intently.
"Get that blood workup going," said a doctor to a nurse as he handed her several tubes of John's blood. "What's the ECG telling us?"
A young man in scrubs - surely he was too young to be a doctor! - stared at the needles moving across the paper strip. "Definite MI, ST's aren't too bad."
"Good, then let's just wait a few minutes to see if he responds to the thrombo drugs and pain meds before we take any further measures," the doctor said.
The room seemed to buzz with activity as they waited, each person intent on their own part of the puzzle. Sarah stood frozen, afraid to break the spell. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, a nurse spoke up. "He seems to be stabilizing a bit, Doctor."
The doctor walked over to John and looked at his monitors. "Not as good as I'd like to see, but an improvement," He looked at John's face. "His color's still not good either, let's up his doses while we wait for the lab results and see if that helps any."
After a few more minutes of eternity, John started to stabilize.
"Much better," the doctor said with a smile. "We've got orders from up high somewhere to give this man the best care possible and spare no time or expense to do it. Not sure who this fellow is, but we'll keep a close eye on him. Tell them upstairs to get the best room they have in CICU ready for him. If he keeps improving, we'll bring him there soon.
Sarah breathed a sigh of relief. John was going to be alright. She wondered if it was the Brig who'd given the orders for special care. She'd have to apologize to him first chance she got. Right now she just wanted John to wake up and smile at her, and to smother him with kisses.
Suddenly John's body started to shake as if he were coming apart.
"Doctor," called out a nurse with alarm.
The doctor stopped talking to the ECG tech and ran to John's side.
"Damn," he said. "Stokes-Adams attack. We've got to get him to surgery now."
John's gurney was dashed into surgery with Sarah Jane running behind it.
"What's happened," she asked the nurse she was running beside.
"Are you an intern," the nurse scolded. "This man has a blood clot and it could kill him if we don't operate at once.
"No, no, no, he can't be dying, you've got to save him."
They reached the door of the surgery and the nurse turned to her. "You know that you can't come in here," she said as she went in and left Sarah standing outside the door banging to be let in.
"You better open this door or I'll get Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart in here and you'll have to answer to both of us," Sarah said menacingly. "You won't like it if you get on his bad side. He'll take your names down and then he'll kick-"
There was a tap on her shoulder and she turned around to see a massive security guard. "You'll want to step away from that door now and come back into the waiting room." He stepped between her and the door, arms crossed, like a giant stone statue.
Sarah Jane pulled herself up to her full height of five foot four and glared at the man who was towering over her. He was at least a foot or more taller than her, but at the moment it didn't matter if he were ten feet tall. If he put himself between her and John, he had to go. She eyed him for a moment sizing up his position and where he would be the most vulnerable.
"Please move out of my way," Sarah said trying to look as pathetic and helpless as she could. "That's my husband they've got in there and he needs me."
"Ma'am, I can't let you into a sterile environment while a patient is having surgery." He didn't budge.
"If you just let me by, I promise I'll scrub up before I enter the room." She looked up at him sweetly. "Look, I won't cause any trouble, I promise."
"I know you won't cause any trouble, because you're not going in there. Now you have three choices here. You can go to the waiting room, I can escort you to the waiting room, or I can have someone escort you to jail, and you won't be here when your husband comes out of surgery. Which is it to be, ma'am?"
Sarah Jane put one hand on her hip in anger and frustration and shook a finger at the guard with the other. "Right, I tried to be nice about this, but I'm warning you, I have some very important friends in high places and if you don't let me in there, it could just cost you your job."
"It's all right," the Brigadier said, appearing from around the corner, "I'll take it from here," he told the guard. He handed Sarah a cup of cafeteria tea. "I heard banging and yelling and figured it had to be you."
Sarah looked at him with relief. "Thank heavens you're here, they took John into surgery and they won't let me stay with him. Tell them to let me in, please."
"Sarah Jane, don't be absurd, you're not going into the operating room." He sighed. 'Typical,' he thought. 'Absolutely typical.' There was a time when he'd thought that with the Doctor out of the picture and John in her life, she'd settle down and raise her children instead of raising hell. But he knew that whatever else she may be, inside, she was still that feisty young girl who bluffed her way into a top secret conference just to get a story, and she always would be.
He put an arm around her shoulder and started guiding her towards the waiting room. "Besides," he said, pointing to her stolen lab coat, "as I was making some calls it got back to me that 'some daft woman' was threatening the surgical staff with my name. You're lucky I had them call off the dogs."
Sarah let herself be led by the Brig; she was smart enough to realize she had been out numbered, at least for now. She sat down and took a long deep breath. "I'm so sorry I yelled at you, Allistair, I'm just so worried about John and I know he needs me by his side. I just wish I could get the people around here to understand that." She ran her hands through her hair, rubbing her head with distress.
"I know," he said. "The waiting is the hardest part. As soon as we know what he needs we'll have the foremost specialists ready and waiting. The UN is preparing a plane right now to take him wherever he needs to go for the best possible care once he's stabilized."
"That's only IF they can save him," she folded her arms and bit her lip. She just wanted to go in there and tear through everything until all that was left was her and John.