Chapter 13 - Discovery
Arnie was brought into the operating room next to the still-unconscious Barbara. He was sedated, and was also rendered unconscious, for the vet was about to fix Arnie's wrist.
"Clear!"
Barbara's body jumped as the doctor shocked her, trying to restart her heart. The wires on her chest showed nothing changed on the heart monitor, making the doctor and nurses continue CPR. Briana and Vinny stood in the doorway and watched in worry. They each had to go through heartbreaking deaths, and they didn't want the same thing happen to either Barbara or Arnie.
"Can the both of you go in the waiting room?" the doctor asked. "We'll let you know how they're doing."
"But-"
Vinny sighed and looked at Barbara, then at the doctor.
"I have to stay with Barbara," he said. "I need to make sure she's going to be all right."
Briana also sighed and looked at Arnie, then at the doctor.
"And I have to stay with Arnie," she said. "I need to make sure he's going to be all right, too."
Vinny turned and watched the doctor press down on Barbara's chest, trying to get her heart to beat. A nurse put a mask over Barbara's face pumping air into her. Another nurse was injecting drugs into Barbara to help kick-start her heart, but nothing seemed to be working.
"Come on, Barbs", Vinny whispered, "Fight it. A lousy heart attack can't kill you, can it? You're stronger than that."
Briana turned and watched a nurse about to make an incision on Arnie's wrist, as she was going to reconnect his wrist bones.
"Please be okay, Arnie," Briana whispered. "I know it isn't much, but it's the least you could do for my bringing you here."
Just as the nurses brought a machine to pump all the excess fat out of Barbara, while she was still comatose, she had a vision...
She wandered around in a field after reading a road sign, that she was in Austin, Texas.
"What's going on?" she thought to herself. "One minute, Briana runs away from me after I explained my past to Vinny and the puppies, and the next, I feel pain and wind up in Austin. But why?"
The silence was broken when she heard two young boys' voices giggling. She followed the sound and saw two young puppies playing with each other. They looked exactly like how Brian and Vinny would look like if they were puppies.
"Boy, Vinny," the puppy resembling Brian addressed in a voice that sounded like Mokuba Kaiba. "It sure is nice getting to know you, and to play with you."
"You said it, Brian," Puppy Vinny addressed in a voice that sounded like Young Sanji (or how Ash Ketchum sounded if he were born in Brooklyn). "I wasn't sure about straying away from the mill so much, but I gotta tell ya', this is pretty fun."
"I don't believe it," Barbara thought, surprised. "Brian knew Vinny when they were just puppies?"
"So," Puppy Vinny continued, "anything else you wanna play, big brother?"
"Big brother?!" Barbara repeated in thought, shocked. It was when she realized in horror. "Oh, my God. The one dog who replaced Brian...is my brother-in-law? Oh, no. If I ever get out of here, what the hell am I going to tell the puppies, and the rest of the Griffins?"
Then, just as both puppies began to frolic in the field, jumping to catch butterflies, the vision faded. Soon after that, Barbara shielded her eyes from a blinding white light when...
"Clear!"
Barbara awoke when her body jumped as the doctor shocked her. Her heart has just been restarted. She saw wires on her chest, hooked to the heart monitor. She had just been saved through CPR.
She gasped in relief. "I've been given another chance at life," she whispered.
"You're lucky to be alive, ma'am," the doctor said. "We were able to pump out the junk food inside of you that caused you to go into a heart attack."
"H... Heart attack?" she repeated.
"Yes," the doctor replied. "Both your daughter and a friend wanted to stay close to you and Arnie, who came in here with a broken wrist."
Barbara looked in that direction and saw that Vinny was indeed in the operating room, smiling in relief that Barbara had pulled through. However, she was shocked at the sight of Arnie, who had his arm in a sling, and that Briana was hugging him, happy to know that he recovered, too.
"Briana!" Barbara shouted in horror. "Get away from that dog!"
"No, Mom, it's okay," Briana assured. "I'm the one who brought him here. And I already figured out that he was the dog who beat you in the organization. He looks big, but he doesn't look ferocious."
"That's right, Barbara," Arnie nodded. "While the doctors were able to fix my wrist, they advised me not to attend anymore dog fights, since I sustained my injuries from fighting a wolf."
"A wolf?" Barbara repeated. "But... you're the best fighter in the organization."
"Not anymore," Arnie shook his head in disagreement. "Your owners told me that James was arrested after your husband Brian, whom Vinny told me was your savior, testified against him. Therefore, the organization was shut down, and I had nothing to fight for anymore. I managed to fight Vinny in Providence one month after the organization's shut down. Time had passed, and I was the toughest dog in all of Rhode Island, until today when that wolf attacked me. Your daughter Briana was kind enough to bring me here. And," Arnie then hung his head in sadness, "I'm so sorry about Brian."
Barbara understood Arnie's sadness.
"I may never fight again after today," Arnie continued. "Oh, Barbara, can you ever find it in your heart to forgive me, and to accept my humble apology?"
Barbara couldn't help but smile sadly at Arnie.
"There's no reason for me not to," she replied. Turning to Vinny, she continued, "And Vinny, I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me. After all, I found out, while I was in my coma, that you and Brian were brothers."
Vinny's eyes widened. He had just found out from Barbara that Brian was his older brother. And since he married Barbara, that made her his sister-in-law, and her litter with Brian his nieces and nephews.
Briana was also wide-eyed. Barbara's discovery made her find out that Vinny was her uncle, and by extension, the uncle of Ollie, Jenny, Marcus, and the unborn second litter.
However, despite all that has happened, both Briana and Vinny smiled at Barbara.
"I forgive you, Barbara," Vinny responded.
"Me, too, Mom," Briana added.
Barbara smiled, as she had finally made peace with Vinny, and that Briana made up with her.
"Well," the doctor said, watching the whole thing, "I guess that explains everything. Shall I tell everyone in the waiting room?"
Barbara happily shook her head.
"No," she replied. "Let me tell them myself. You can let everyone know that I made it through, though."