"A Work In Progress"
Chapter Fourteen
Chet Kelly felt his upper arm being squeezed—uncomfortably hard. He raised his heavy eyelids and blinked. His brain seemed to be stuffed with cotton balls and his 'striking' view of the hospital room's ceiling was all blurry. He blinked a few more times and the fuzzy world around him gradually became clearer.
Ms. Banner was in the process of taking her patient's blood pressure. When the nurse saw Mr. Kelly open his eyes, she stopped what she was doing and snatched up the loaded hypo that was resting on the tray beside her.
A familiar face reappeared within Chet's exceedingly limited field of vision—along with a hand and a hypodermic syringe.
The nurse's eyes narrowed into menacing slits and she pointed the long-needled tip of her fully loaded hypo right in the fireman's mustached face. "Make one wrong move," she warned, "and I will be forced to shoot you!"
The corners of Kelly's mouth turned up. He couldn't help but smile.
The woman grinned and lowered her weapon. "So-o…Marcie tells me you know your 'restrained' roommate over there."
Now, there was an understatement! "We've only been working together for the past seven years!" Chet suddenly recalled that there were two other firefighters in the room. "Who else is in here?"
"The other two firemen work with him—er, you, too. Besides Mr. Gage, we have a Mr. Stoker…and a Mr. Lopez." Noting the steady increase in Mr. Kelly's anxiety level, Gwen raised and re-aimed her loaded weapon.
Kelly recalled the pretty nurse's warning—er, promise and remained incredibly calm—well, at least on the outside. Chet also seemed to remember something about his friends being 'exposed to a toxic substance'. The firefighter fought desperately to maintain a calm demeanor. "They gonna be okay?" he inquired, his voice betraying him with a slight quiver.
Ms. Banner clasped the concerned young man's hand in hers and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "We'll know soon…"
Mike Morton stepped into the room. The young man glanced around and frowned. "Whose idea was this?" he suddenly demanded, sounding every bit as displeased as he looked.
Ms. Banner winced and turned in the unhappy young doctor's direction. "Their Captain wanted us to keep them all together," the nurse nervously explained. "He said that it would be good for their morale."
"Oh he did, did he," Morton came back, sounding completely unimpressed.
"Yes…He did," Gwen parroted. "Dr. Brackett agreed. And this was the only four-bed ward available."
The young man heard his boss' name mentioned and suddenly seemed impressed.
Speaking of his boss…
Dr. Brackett, Dr. Hendelson, Miss McCall and two more nurses entered the ward.
Kel spotted Morton. "Mike, you wanna give us a hand. It's been over five hours since they've been symptomatic. We're going to discontinue the heat treatments and see what happens." He stepped up to Marco Lopez's bed, examined its occupant's medical chart for a few moments, and then began un-piling the thermal blankets from the patient's peacefully sleeping form.
A nurse started removing the restraints from his wrists.
The sweat-drenched fireman was soon freed—of both the blankets and the straps.
Morton had liberated Mike Stoker from his thermal coverings, and Hendelson had done the same for John Gage.
Dixie, and her team of nurses, began swapping sweat-soaked hospital gowns and bed linens for clean, fresh, DRY ones.
The doctors had been shoo'ed out of their way. The three men stood in the center of the ward and watched while the three women worked.
"What if the toxin wasn't entirely destroyed by the heat treatments?" Morton speculated. "What if the symptoms recur whenever their body temperatures decrease?"
"You mean, something along the lines of an LSD flashback?" Hendelson wondered.
Mike nodded.
The three physicians exchanged somber glances.
"That's a risk we're just gonna hafta take," Brackett determined. "And I think they would agree. After all, they can't go around wrapped in thermal blankets for the rest of their li—"
"—Mike?" a woman's distraught voice suddenly interrupted. Karen Stoker had barged into the hospital room and up to her husband's bed, which was the first one on the right, just as you came through doorway. She latched onto the motionless man's limp left hand and called out to him again. "Mike!" When her spouse failed to respond, she aimed her alarmed gaze at the three doctors. "What's going on? Why isn't he awake yet?"
Hendelson took it upon himself to answer the concerned young lady's questions. "For the past twelve hours, these men have been run—repeatedly—through the ringer. The toxin put a tremendous amount of strain on their cardiovascular systems. The workload their hearts had to handle was nothing short of phenomenal! These guys gotta feel like they've just run back-to-back Boston Marathons. The three of them are suffering from complete physical exhaustion. They'll wake up...when their bodies are ready to."
Karen's attention returned to her husband. She now felt 'somewhat' reassured.
Apparently, one of the bodies had deemed itself ready…already.
John Gage's eyes suddenly fluttered open. He aimed them up at the person who was taking his vital signs. "Shee-eesh!" the shivering man croaked—er, complained, in a voice just above a whisper. "The price the hospital charges…for these beds…you'd think THEY could…at least…give a guy…a blanket!" Gage shivered again and shut his eyes. He wanted to draw his arms up tightly to his chest and roll himself up into a nice, warm ball, but those four big—invisible—guys were back. They weren't sitting on his chest anymore. No. Now, they appeared—or, didn't appear—to be holding his arms and legs down. He could hear a lot a' commotion going on around him and reopened his eyes, to investigate what was causing it. Judging by the group of doctor's and nurses that had gathered around his bed—it was he, himself!
Dr. Brackett smiled down at him. "Johnny, how do you feel?"
"C-C-Co-old," Johnny told him, truthfully. He was so cold, he had to clench his teeth, to keep them from chattering.
Dixie covered the complaining patient with a nice, warm blanket. "How's that?" she wondered, once she got him all tucked in.
"B-B-Better…Thanks, D-D-Dix'." The fireman suddenly forgot all about being cold. "How are Mike and Marco?" he anxiously inquired, and attempted to rise. He couldn't seem to move. Either he was as weak as a baby, or those four big invisible guys were awfully powerful.
Being a firm believer in the adage 'A picture is worth a thousand words', Miss McCall pressed the UP button on the side rail and proceeded to raise the head of the worried young fireman's hospital bed. "See for yourself," she invited with a wry smile and a wave of her arm.
The people standing around him all stepped to one side and two other hospital beds came into view. In them were two peacefully sleeping bodies.
John saw Stoker's wife standing beside one of the beds and knew which one each friend occupied. "Hi, Karen."
Mike's young bride greeted him back. "Hi, Johnny."
Gage's slight smile suddenly vanished. "What about Chet?"
The group of people that were standing at the right side of his hospital bed parted and Chet Kelly's mustached face appeared.
John saw that his friend's eyes were open and aimed in his direction. "You okay?"
"Yeah. Sure. I'm just dandy," Kelly sarcastically came back. "In fact, I was gonna check out a' here this morning. But then I decided I'd stick around…just to keep you guys company."
His paramedic friend suppressed a slightly crooked smile and rolled his tired eyes. "Hey…What's goin' on?" he suddenly wondered, as his blood pressure was taken for the third time in as many minutes. He glanced across the room and saw that Mike and Marco's vital signs were being continuously monitored, too.
The three doctors ended the huddled conference they'd been holding in the middle of the ward and stepped back up to his bedside.
"How do you feel?" Kel inquired once more. "Do you have a headache? Or any other complaints?"
"No-o. I'm not hurting...anywhere," the patient wearily replied. "I'm just really really tired. I don't seem to have any energy. What's goin' on, Doc?"
'So far, so good…' "We are going to leave now," the physician informed him. "You are going to sleep. We will be more than happy to answer any, and all, of your questions—when you wake up!"
Two of the three physicians in the room began to file out.
Dixie injected something into their really really tired patient's IV port.
John suddenly felt even more tired. His drooping eyes roved around the ward, moving from one of his roommates…to another. "This should be…interesting."
Mike Morton caught the paramedic's quiet comment. "If it gets TOO 'interesting' around here," he warned, "we're going to have to split you guys up! Understood?"
Gage and Kelly glanced innocently at one another. Then they turned back to the young doctor and nodded.
The physician wasn't fooled by their 'apparent' innocence. He gave them each an icy no-nonsense glare and then left the room.
John stared after him, looking both sleepy and thoughtful. "I wonder what he considers TOO 'interesting'…"
Miss McCall saw Chet Kelly nodding thoughtfully, as well. "I have no-o idea," she nervously replied. "But I have a feeling we're going to be finding out. Are-en't we…"
The two firemen glanced at each other again, this time looking somewhat mischievous.
The sedated one suddenly exhaled a couple of weary sighs and closed his eyes. He fell asleep with a sly smile on his face.
Dixie exhaled a weary sigh of her own. "Yup!"
Roy DeSoto entered the ward and exchanged smiles and nods with the three nurses who were continuously monitoring his shift-mates' vital signs.
He stepped up to his best buddy's bedside and then just stood there, staring silently down at him.
Suddenly, Roy smiled. He couldn't help but smile. After all that gasping, it was truly joyous to finally see his friend breathing so easily. The paramedic glanced up at the heart monitor and his smile broadened into a grin. Sinus rhythm had never looked so beautiful before!
"Thanks…for waitin' around," Roy told his peacefully sleeping partner. He gave Johnny's unrestrained wrist a reassuring squeeze…and then left.
Less than a minute later, Hank Stanley poked his head into the room.
The Captain had just had a long talk with the doctors. He was tremendously relieved to hear that his men were doing fine. He was equally relieved to find the four of them resting comfortably. He could leave the hospital now. Now, he wouldn't have to worry…quite so much.
The four of them were together. They'd watch out for each other.
TBC
Author's note: I just want to say 'Thanks!' to all the readers who have stuck with this fic…so far.
I say that because, if you intend to see it through to the end—you still have quite a few more words to read. :P
Believe it, or not, there are still a few more introductory chapters, before the real story—and all the fun—begins! :D
When I first started writing this, I had no intentions of having the introduction drag on for so looooooooooooooong.
But the E! characters obviously had their own agenda. :D
*snicker...snicker* *snort*
;) Ross7