Ok guys I made it! Busy weekend but here's the next chapter of the story;) Hope you all enjoy it!
Chapter 11
"Oh my god! That's Lisa's car!" Ruth cried out in horror from inside the red pickup truck Bill was driving, a few seconds after they had pulled off to the side of the road to let the ambulance racing down the street behind them get by as it headed towards the accident scene at the four way stop.
In the time it had taken for the words to escape her mouth, Ruth was out of the truck and running towards the mangled Acura, hearing Bill's footsteps echoing quickly behind her just as one of the ambulance drivers started to free Jessica from the car.
"No! I'm not leaving her!" Jessica screamed as the tears ran down her face, fighting with the paramedic as she tried in vain to pull herself away from the man who easily out weighted her by at least a hundred pounds.
"Were going to help your Mom, Jessica…but we can't reach her with you inside the car." The paramedic tried to explain to her in a calm voice as he struggled to keep hold of the small but powerful girl in his arms.
Once he had pulled Jessica far enough away from the car his partner swiftly moved past them and into the passenger seat to start working on the girl's mother.
"Let me go! I can't leave her!" Jessica yelled back at him with a gut wrenching ache to her tone.
"Jessica! I'm here baby!" Ruth yelled out to her granddaughter just a before she reached her, choking back her own tears as the terrified girl practically leap into her arms, burying her face into her shoulder.
"The truck didn't stop! He just ran right into us!" Jessica sobbed with her entire body trembling as her grandmother wrapped her arms around her and pulled her close.
"Shhh Jessie…it's going to be ok. We're here now…..Papa's and I are here and his going to help the paramedics with your Mom." Ruth whispered soothingly to her granddaughter as she kissed her cheek while lookin in at her unconscious daughter inside of the car.
"Nana!" Ryan cried out next, slipping past the same paramedic who had been holding onto Jessica a moment ago jsut as the man had opened up the back door on the passenger side to check on his condition.
Turning with Jessica still clinging to her, Ruth held back her tears once more as the battered little boy stumbled forward towards her with small river of blood trickling down his nose along with a nasty scrape on his chin.
"Come here Ryan." Ruth coaxed, extending one arm out to him with her heart nearly breaking as he too began to sob uncontrollably. His body shaking against her like a leaf caught in a hurricane.
Keeping an arm around each grandchild, Ruth watched as Bill crawled into the back seat of Lisa's car and begin to assist the paramedic who was already inside.
"Is Mommy going to die?" Ryan asked with a mournful voice, raising his tear stained face up to look at his grandmother.
"Shh……Ryan its going to be ok." Ruth assured him while she prayed to god not to turn the words she had just spoken into lies.
"Excuse me….Ma'am, are you related to the family that was in the accident?" The paramedic still stationed outside of the car asked after noticing how the older woman with dark resembled the woman inside of the car.
"Yes, these are my grandchild and that's my daughter inside the car." Ruth answered whiled nodding towards the vechile.
The paramedic nodded back at her."Ok…well there's another ambulance on its way to help us out….but for now I need you to get the kids away from the accident site and over to our ambulance." He told her.
"Ok." Ruth replied, holding onto her grandchildren as she slowly started to guide them towards the open doors of the ambulance a few feet away from them.
"Almost there." Ruth whispered to her grandchildren a few seconds later, taking one last look back at her daughter, still unconscious and trapped inside the mangled car. Needing those words of encourage just as much for herself as they were needed for the traumatized children she was anchoring against herself at that moment.
"So Mister….uh…..Ballbreaker?" House asked while standing before a patient inside one of the clinics rooms on the first floor.
"It's Ballbreeker." The overweight, middle aged man, replied in flat tone. Having corrected the pronunciation of his last name more times than he cared to remember during his lifetime.
"Ooops pardon me." House said with smirk, glancing up from the patients chart.
From their right, the sound of the exam room door suddenly being flung open with such a force that the knob resounded with a solid thud at the contact it had made with the wall behind it caused both House and patient seated at the exam table to jump in surprise.
"Wilson, what the hell's going on? Too much speed this morning?" House asked in an aggravated tone as he tossed the patients chart onto the counter beside him.
"You need to come with me now." Wilson interrupted, grabbing onto House's arm and pulling him out of the room.
House stopped their process momentarily out in the hall. The look on his friend's face one of utter shock and panic. "What's going on?" He asked with his throat suddenly becoming dry as his eyes stayed locked onto the face of his best friend, who at the moment looked as if the world may indeed end during the next collective breath the took together.
"Lisa and the kids were in a car accident." Wilson explained in a voice that dreaded the words he had just spoken.
The statement had barely even gotten out of Wilson's mouth before House took off down the hallway. His cane thumping in the maddening rhythm of a man trying to stop his world from crumbling around him as he headed towards the ER..
"Where are they?" House ordered more then questioned to the head nurse in the Emergency Department as he burst through the double doors.
"Dad!" Jessica yelled out, running towards him with her right shoulder in a sling and the stain of dried tears upon her cheeks.
House felt his breath catch in his throat as she grabbed hold of him, her left arm wrapping around his waist as she pressed her face into his chest.
"A truck ran the stop sign when we were on our way to the dentist." Jessica blurted out, squeezing her eyes shut as she tried to will away the graphic images of the accident still searing through her mind.
From behind them both, Wilson entered into the Emergency room, remaining silent for the moment as he watch House and Jessica together.
"It's going to be ok Jess." House said to her gently as his left hand cupped the back of her head and his thumb stroking her cheek when she looked up at him.
"What's wrong with your arm?" He asked his daughter next, finding it hard to breath at the moment and needing something medical to keep him grounded.
"It's just sprain." Jessica told him.
As Wilson walked up to them, House looked over at his friend. "Where's Ryan?" He asked while feeling the knot begin to twist in the pit of his stomach.
Before Wilson could answer, Ruth appeared from behind the third curtained off area inside the ER.
"Ryan's in here." Ruth informed House, keeping her voice calm, while inside, her mind was reeling from the events that had taken place a few short minutes ago.
House took Jessica's hand in his own and limped towards Ruth, the look on her face telling him all that she couldn't say at the moment.
He would not find Lisa here with them. Her injuries far more serious that warranted her being whisked away from children who under normal circumstances she would refuse to part with after such a traumatic event.
Looking in at his son as ER doctor had finished up applying some adhesive glue to the small cut on Ryan's forehead, House felt a lump gather in his throat. His little boy appearing before him battered and bruised with a lost expression upon his face.
Seeing movement from the corner of his eye, Ryan immediately snapped his head in the direction of the opened curtains.
"Dad." The boy choked out on the verge of tears once more.
Within the next second, House was at Ryan's side, helping the boy off the table and crouching down next to his son as he place his arms around him.
"I'm here Ryan." House whispered into his son's cheek as he held him close.
Ryan wrapped his arms around the neck of his Father and held on tightly to the only person he believed could make everything right for them again.
"You have to find Mom and make her better." The boy whispered before a chill ran through his body.
"I wil." House answered with a whisper before pulling back slightly from his son and looking up at Wilson.
Bright lights and the cold smell of the operating room filled House's nostrils as he limped inside of it. Dressed in green scrubs with Wilson by his side. His eyes telling him without a shadow of a doubt that the woman lying on the operating table was indeed his wife.
Seeing the men entering into the room, Bill took a few steps towards them.
"There were no skull fractures, but Lisa does have severe swelling inside of her brain from the impact of the car accident." Bill told both of them, speaking through his surgical mask as he too was dressed in green scrubs, never leaving Lisa's side from the moment he had drove up upon the accident scene.
House gave his father-in-law a nod of understanding before stepping past him, watching as Chase turned his head upon hearing his approach.
"Her vitals are very good." Chase assured his boss as House reached down and took hold of his wife's hand.
Lisa's eyes shut as the anesthesiologist at the head of the table continued to monitor her breathing. A small patch of her dark hair four inches above her right ear had been shaved, with an "X" placed onto the skin by the black ink of a surgical marker.
"House, we can't wait much longer. I have to start drilling for the drainage hole now." Foreman told him in a calm but still urgent tone.
House nodded silently. Finding no words in the English language that could even begin to express what he was feeling at the moment, letting go of his wife's hand as his heart cried out to him from the loss of contact.
Stay with me, He whispered inside of his mind, over and over again in the matter of seconds that ticked by as his eyes stayed fixated on the rise and fall of Lisa's chest. His heart, beating right along with hers even though at the moment it had been shattered into a million pieces.