Medical termini will be explained at the end of chapter.
LIFELINES
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
'Fuckshit' didn't describe the situation. It didn't even come close. In fact, no word in Jason's vocabulary was adequate to paint the picture, and that was a scary thought since Jason's vocabulary was very extensive.
So Jason tried to look at the situation at hand from a different angle, find irony or maybe an educational approach into the psychology of idiots. Everything positive the situation might have had collapsed, sadly, under the knowledge that they were 40,000 feet above the freaking Atlantic Ocean while Damian and Tim were throwing hygiene products at each other.
And they would remain 40,000 feet above the water for at least six hours, then fly over parts of Europe for another couple of hours. Without any doors to slam or private rooms to retreat into, because this new Batwing was much smaller than the last Batplane he had been in. He highly suspected that Tim hid that information beforehand, because Jason would have never said yes to travelling to Europe if he had known. As it was, only a few seats offered protection from flying shaving foam cans and toothpaste.
Toothpaste tubes hurt when it hit you right on the ear. Oww.
Alfred had disappeared into the small cockpit, the clever bastard. Too small for two; Jason had already tried that, and Alfred's sympathetic faҫade when he found out hadn't even come close to looking real.
"You are a sorry excuse for a living being and your whole family should be castrated to prevent any more of your like!"
– BAMM!- The Amazing Flying Hairbrush hit the wall behind Drake.
"Then why don't you start with it, brother!?"
Jason ducked just in time to avoid a throwing star – what the fuck?! At this point, he didn't even know who had thrown it. After forty minutes of screaming and throwing anything in range, both factions had the same amount and sort of ammunition. Jason wasn't too surprised by the Devil Spawn's behaviour – he was a spoiled 10-years-old with assassin training and anger management issues – but the replacement's reaction was unprecedented. He had seen both of them yell at each other, sure. The entire population of Gotham had. But he had never witnessed the origins of those arguments (or was it one never-ending argument?), and he had been shocked to see how easily Damian wound him up, how fast Tim consented to violence and slander. Not even an hour ago, the replacement had given them a quick, sober introduction into genetics and relevant medical stuff, and now...?
They reminded him a little bit of himself and Dick, back when they used to cross each others' paths on Gotham's roof tops and one of them was edgy enough to start a fight. Which happened, like, every time. One mean comment for a witty comeback, followed by a threat, a mock, and then the great explosion and a fight. Sometimes exclusively verbal but mostly physical. They knew exactly what to do or say to push the other over the edge, just like Damian and Tim right in front of him.
Still, Dick and Jay had never thrown blow dryers at each other, at least not that he remembered. Dick did throw a raccoon at him once, much to his and the raccoon's vexation. Hmm...
"YOU ARE NOT MY BROTHER!"
"Yes I am, shitface! Bruce adopted me! I guess he wanted to have least one kid he liked to carry his name!"
Jason understood now why 'reconcile Damian and Tim' had been top priority on Dick's to-do-before-I-die list. Because it would never, ever, happen on its own with those two.
Then a big shard of a broken shampoo bottle embedded itself into the fabric of the seat Jason was leaning against only two inches away from his face, and he snapped.
"That's fucking it!" he screamed, diving over the seat straight into the two squabblers who were trying to stab each other with toothbrushes. "You will shut up and sit down for Christ's sake or I swear I'll throw you out of that plane! No wonder Dick didn't want to go back to the manor, jeez!"
He said the last part more to himself than to Tim and Damian, but while they weren't fazed by the threats he spewed out earlier, that made them freeze up and widen their eyes...Oh fuck, Jason just realized what he had said.
"Did … did he really say that?" Tim asked and was doing the Disney-face on him: big eyes, quivering lip. Fuck fuck fuck.
"No, he didn't. It's the Golden Boy we're talking about, he's not even capable of thinking something like that."
"Of course he wouldn't want to return to a loud buffoon like you, Drake." Though there was spite in Damian's voice, he had averted his gaze and his hands had sunk limply to his sides.
"We were kind of loud when he was with us, weren't we...?"
"How should I know?!" Jason snapped, scolding himself at the same time and wondering how he had ended up in this situation. There was a reason why people usually didn't come to him with their problems, goddammit! "Listen, everything is fine. He's fine, we're fine, so suck it up, okay?"
His efforts to be reassuring sounded ridiculous, even to his own ears. Apparently, another item on Dick's to-do-before-I-die list wouldn't be happening in anyone's lifetime – Jason was so not cut out for the big brother role. And true, Tim and Damian were both staring at the ground now, lost in their own trains of thought.
"He wouldn't have been exposed to the benzene for that long if he came home earlier..." Tim murmured, and before Jason could think of something to say, the Devil Spawn had pivoted in his heels and stormed off, right into the cockpit to Alfred. Shit.
"Crap," Jason cursed, turning around to the replacement. " And since when do you take everything I say to heart? I thought you of all people knew how my speech centre works."
"Yeah: insult, curse, frustrated 'I'll kill you all', then repeat," Tim answered with a small smile, and Jason decided to let that pass for once. "And I don't take it to heart."
"Awesome. Now do the same with what the Devil Spawn is saying."
"I can't." Exasperated, Tim ran a hand through his hair. "I'm trying to ignore him, but he just keeps pushing me."
"You never reacted like that when I pushed you."
"Yeah, well, while Damian is just his usual evil snotty self, you actually have a reason to hate me."
Surprised, Jason turned his head to stare at the teen in front of him; he had not expected that.
But Tim nodded when he saw Jason's expression and shrugged with his shoulders. "Dick's been trying to make me see it for a while now. I get it, really, though it has become kinda obsolete and ridiculous over the times."
"Careful, shithead," Jason growled. "And here you were doing so nicely except for the last part."
"But it's true. I have been replaced as well now. If anything, we should share a mutual hate against Damian."
Jason barked out a laugh to hide that he was very much shocked at the Replacement's.. the former Replacement's... insights. Dick had been doing a good job, damn. "I'm sure Dick didn't tell you that, apart from the fact that you obviously don't hate the little shit."
"Oh, don't get me started, Todd," Tim sneered, and Jason rolled his eyes.
"Come on, we both know you would accept him as family if only he accepted you. He's a pain in the ass, but he is Bruce's son and you are loyal enough to deal with that."
"...so he kept telling you about us, too, right?" Tim asked suddenly, after staring at Jason for a while. "Dick, I mean. Did he talk a lot about us?"
"Shit, he wouldn't shut up about the two of you. Why?"
"Did he tell you stuff you didn't know about before? Stuff that makes you look at conversations in a different light?"
"Yeah," Jason replied, unsure. Given their little talk right now, that was pretty obvious. He didn't like where this was going, though.
Tim laughed silently, shaking his head. "Oh man, that was his plan all along. He just kept telling us stuff we would have never told each other, so we can't ignore it in the next confrontation... and it works."
"Shit."
"He's good."
"Shit."
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Bruce was staring at the document in his hands, trying to ignore the guilty twinge in his chest as he read the lines. One single piece of paper that could change so much, save yet destroy his whole world. He didn't have to use it, he tried to keep in mind, but he knew he would. And then Dick couldn't learn about its existence, ever. He'd never forgive him.
As it was, Bruce wasn't sure if Dick would forgive him for 'just' ignoring his living will. The document in his hands went a step further, it legalized his illegal actions, and Bruce wondered if he himself would be able to deal with it.
But then he looked up and met the confused gaze of dazed blue eyes, and dropped the sheet immediately on the small table he had carried into the secluded room.
"Bruce...?" Dick asked slowly, voice thick.
Swallowing hard, Bruce first looked at the not even half-emptied bottle of chemo medicine before he walked across the room to his son's bedside. Just an hour ago he would have been elated to see Dick awake – the boy hadn't woken up since his fever had broken a few days ago. He had been drugged out of his mind then, but the doctors insisted on discontinuing the medication after the late-night surgery. The chemo therapy that had started maybe fifty minutes ago would put a great burden on Dick's already damaged kidneys, and the nephrologist worried that additional medication would be too much, scheduled dialysis or not. It was the right decision, Bruce knew, but it also meant that there wouldn't be any sedatives or analgetics to ease the chemo effects.
"How are you?" Bruce asked when he sat down on the bed, trying to smile reassuringly. Dick looked at him through half-closed lids, pale and tired. Careful not to disturb any of the various tubes Dick mercifully hadn't noticed yet, Bruce leaned over the bed to turn down the volume of the EKG.
Dick's wavering gaze followed him, not responding to his question for a while. His blood pressure was low, and he was very likely nauseated from the chemo. Then, finally, a shaking hand came up and brushed over his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I don't... feel so good..."
Bruce nodded solemnly, watching the shaking arm closely. He was waiting for Dick to catch up with what was happening; no doubt he would recognize the side-effects. Sure enough, when Dick's hand came to rest on the pillow again, his eyes started to dart through the room, lingering briefly at the medical machinery and the strange furniture of the room.
"What's going on?" he asked in a hushed voice, big fearful eyes wandering up to Bruce's face to find reassurance. But Bruce was failing miserably; he could feel his smile fade. Scared, Dick averted his gaze and eventually noticed the bottle hanging above his head, the one with the well-known biohazardous warning on it.
He jerked upwards onto his elbows and realized for the first time that there weren't only EKG electrodes attached to his chest. With wide eyes, Dick took in the sight of new tubes that came out of the hem of the flimsy hospital shirt, one of which was indeed connected to the chemo medicine. The EKG jags in the background started to go faster, and worried, Bruce wanted to calm him down, but couldn't find the words to.
When he tried to rest a hand on Dick's shoulder, the boy shifted into a sitting position in a fluid movement that reminded Bruce painfully of his past grace, and lifted the blankets that covered his mid-section. Dick blanched immediately when he saw the catheter protruding beneath his belly button – another tube that hadn't been there before. He was just about to open his mouth to say something when the numbers on the EKG screen that indicated his blood pressure suddenly dropped and he slumped forward, hands pressing against his stomach.
Immediately Bruce reached out to steady him, to help him shift into a position that would enable him to vomit, but the dry heaves and coughs soon reminded him that Dick was connected to artificial nutrition and there wasn't anything to throw up in his son's stomach.
Dick's chokes had somewhat calmed down to short gasps when Andrea, the nurse on duty, burst into the room, alarmed by the accelerated heartbeats and low blood pressure her monitor had shown her. She stood rooted to the spot when she saw her patient up and supported by an awkward embrace, lifting one eyebrow in Bruce's direction as if saying 'told you so'. Dick didn't notice her, but got his breathing under control enough to jerk his arms away from Bruce and hiss "What did you do?!"
"Listen... there is still time left," Bruce began, but he knew how futile arguments were right now. Dick knew what was going on already. Instead of reasoning, he therefore tried to gently push Dick back into the pillows before he could hurt himself by yanking at one of the tubes and needles. Dick wouldn't comply of course, but kept slapping his hands away weakly and tried to get out of the bed.
"Do you want to use the restraints?" Andrea asked calmly from the threshold, making Bruce flinch and Dick freeze in shock.
The older man shook his head fiercely at her, while he still held Dick's wrists in a firm grasp. The boy stared at him in disbelief and then dropped his gaze to the limb restraints that were fastened to the bed rails.
"Dick," Bruce tried again, feeling how the fight left the other's body and letting go of his wrists.
"You..." Dick whispered, eyes wide, "you'd really go there, would you?"
Bruce would, they both knew. When he had ordered the hospital bed it had arrived with the bed restraints already attached, and on first impulse he had tried to get them off the rails. Halfway through, though, the nurse who helped him reminded him that Dick could easily hurt himself should he ever wake up and disagree with what was happening to him. He could try to rip out the tubes, stopping the treatment and endangering himself thus. Bruce hated the thought of chaining his son down, but had to agree as a last resort. Dick was stubborn, after all.
Right now, though, Dick simply slumped back against the pillows and turned his head away from Bruce, closing his eyes.
"Dick." Bruce reached out a hand, but Dick interrupted the action before he could touch his shoulder.
"Don't," he said simply, voice faint now the adrenaline had left his body as quickly as it came.
Bruce drew back his hand and fell into silence, trying to respect at least this one wish of his son for distance.
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Jason had slept for a few hours, after Tim and Damian's mutual sulk had enabled silence, blissful silence, to fill the plane. It had been a while since he slept well, the last days having been really upsetting, so Jason wasn't thrilled when he opened his eyes to see the Babybird towering above him.
"Todd," he sneered, "wake up. We'll arrive in Great Britain in an hour and Drake wants to go through the material."
Sighing, Jason got up and joined the brat and the older brat in front of Tim's laptop. Alfred would be joining them in a few minutes, after he had decided on a good landing place near Norwich where no one would find them.
"Alright, former Boy Wonder, what do you have?"
Tim clicked a few times and a picture of Amelia Brooke appeared on the screen.
"This is Amelia. She's 34, of Romanian decent. Married an Englishmen who died of pulmonary cancer five years ago, now remarried. No children. She's an organ donor, so she will likely donate."
"What makes you think that?"
"Most people decide to donate their organs and sign some documents. You need to register separately for donations that happen while you are still alive. People tend to forget that."
"Or they don't want to be cut open."
"Todd is right," Damian interrupted. "How should we convince her to undergo the procedure?"
"That's the awesome thing," Tim beamed at them. "She doesn't have to! There are different ways to donate bone marrow. There's another method apart from the harvesting; peripheral blood cell stem donation!"
Tim was growing all excited now, and Jason furrowed his brow. "Never heard of it."
"It's pretty new. The donor will have to swallow a drug for five days that increases the hematopoietic stem cell level in the blood, and then they just have to do something like dialysis! Their blood is drawn out through their arms, the stem cells are separated via a machine, and the rest of the blood returns into the body."
"Five days?" Damian asked, troubled, and Tim's excitement toned down somewhat.
Five days was a long time. Even though the procedure sounded awesome, much easier to convince someone about, Dick was in critical condition. They might not have five days, especially since they couldn't expect Amelia's consent at once, and then had to get to that other patient in Romania. Jason had hoped they would be back in Gotham in five days already, but apparently they'd need longer, at least twice as long.
"It sucks, yeah," Tim agreed. "But we will have to travel to Romania and talk to Traian, so we'll spend some time in Europe anyway. I thought we could collect the donated marrow on our way back."
"What's your plan?"
"That's why I wanted Alfred to come along. He'll stay with Amelia while we go to Romania. After we convince her, we set things up – the hospital, the drug, the donation. It's an easy procedure if you have the machinery, and Alfred is more than capable."
"You want him to play the doc?" Jason asked for clarification, lips twitching. Alfred would love that.
"Exactly. He's perfect for the role. Old enough to fake trustfulness and experience, with the perfect accent to fake familiarity. I already talked to Barbara, she's working his doctor-persona into Norwich's main hospital computer system right now. The machinery and drugs are stored there... and I trust Alfred completely to get access to them."
All three batboys broke into wide grins at the thought of good ol' Alfred arguing with some janitor about access to a certain room. Alfred on the quest to save his grandson... nothing could go wrong, nobody said no to Alfred. Ever.
"That's awesome, replacement," Jason said without conscious thought. "So how do we get her into the hospital?"
"I don't know..."Tim answered, and the other two flinched in surprise.
"What?!" Damian exploded, jumping to his feet and balling his fists, "You drag us away from Grayson and then admit you don't have a plan?! You are the most idiotic, incompetent-"
Jason grabbed the laptop and zoned out the yelling after Tim rose to the bait and fired back at Damian. He scrolled through Amelia's file, trying to think of something.
Her first husband died of cancer, yes, but of the wrong kind. Also, if they wanted to convince her, they'd need to do so only with their personalities; they didn't have time to draw up something big, like a general donation appeal... but maybe they could fake it. Hmm.
Jason looked up to watch the two in front of him. A 10-year-old kid, a teen, and a young man. He and Tim were too young to seriously flirt with her, and Amelia didn't have any children...
Jay scrolled upwards, to her own childhood, and... a genuine smile appeared at his face.
"Damian," he called out, and the two of them broke apart immediately. "Can you cry?"
"What?!" A blush crept across the kid's face. "What kind of question is that, you moron?"
"Can you cry? On command?"
"-tt-, of course, Todd. I have been trained by the be-"
"Then she won't stand a chance."
Jason turned the screen around and highlighted a sentence in Amelia's file – her mother died of bacterial meningitis when her daughter was only twelve years old. In a perverse logic, this was perfect; just what they needed. Meningitis was curable, and the family had moved to England after the doctors in Romania had failed to act quickly enough. Amelia wouldn't turn them down after seeing a kid crying for his mother, not if she could actually do something to help.
"We don't have to tell her the truth, right?" Jason asked rhetorically. "We'll tell her that we are looking for marrow for my wife and your mother."
Damian, who the last part was directed to, looked wary, but Tim was already grinning broadly. This could work. Jason looked older than his 21 years; he could pass for 26, maybe 27. Damian could pass for 8 if he acted accordingly – they would confront Amelia with a dying spouse and mother, nothing could go wrong.
"See, I told you we would think of something on the way!" Tim was practically dancing, and yes, right now this sounded too good to be true.
"What will we do with the other guy in Romania? We don't have time to wait for another five days, and we won't convince him in the same way."
"We'll improvise," Damian spoke up, surprising his two older brothers with a huge grin on his face and more enthusiasm than they had ever seen in him. "First we have to get that slut."
"Yeah, we're gonna get that slut!" Much to Jason's amusement, the Babybirds high-fived at 'slut', probably for the first time in their acquaintance, a little bit drunk with excitement.
"Master Timothy!" – A harsh, incredulous voice echoed through the plane and made Tim wince. He turned around to a very unpleasant looking Alfred Pennyworth, who had crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes.
"What did I just have to hear? Is that how I taught you to talk about women?"
Tim cringed and murmured several "I'm sorry"s, while Jason and Damian barely contained their laughter.
...maybe Jason could get used to all that brother-shit.
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Dick refused to talk with Bruce again, wouldn't even look at him.
During the whole procedure of his first chemo administration Dick had ignored him, until Bruce didn't know what else to do. It had always been Dick who had kept their conversations alive, had coaxed out answers and laughter, and without him Bruce was at a loss.
He didn't want to tell his son about the whereabouts of the others, because he didn't want to bring up false hope. It was kind of ironic now that Dick knew Bruce would keep him alive for as long as possible, but Bruce feared that Dick would feel left alone if he told him about the trip to Europe. And he didn't dare to tell him about Freeze. Not like this, not as long as Dick wasn't healthy, recovered, and hopefully wrapped up in cotton wool.
So no one talked, and Bruce had been left with listening to Dick taking deep, shuddering breaths, watching how his fingers sometimes curled around the fabric of his blanket or how his body tensed up when another wave of pain or nausea washed over him.
He refused to talk to the medical staff, too. The oncologist had been excited to see him awake after the chemo, but Dick barely acknowledged his presence, only nodded a few times when asked specific questions. It was wrong to see him so sullen, so apathetic. Only once did he actually turn his head to look at the nurse and ask how much Bruce paid them. Mrs Monaghan had flinched as if she had been bitten by a snake, and Dick averted his gaze again when he saw that he wouldn't get an answer.
As soon as he wasn't connected to the chemo tube anymore and had more leeway in movement, Dick turned away from Bruce and curled into a tight ball, facing the wall. Bruce was left looking at his back or staring at the EKG screen, which told him more than his son would. He stayed awake, listening and watching it all. The numbers that indicated Dick's blood pressure told him about nausea, the heart rate about pain. When Dick's irregular breathing slowed down, Bruce knew he was either dozing off or lost to short periods of unconsciousness.
Bruce didn't go to sleep, even though another hospital bed had been pushed into the room for exactly that purpose. Instead he kept watching the rise and fall of his son's chest, the irregular jags of the screen, not allowing himself to miss anything. He couldn't be mad at Dick; on the contrary, he understood him perfectly. But he still pulled him through hell, and this situation now was his punishment. Every time Dick fell asleep or passed out, the bile in Bruce's throat rose at the thought that that could have been the very last time he had been awake. Maybe Dick would never talk to him again.
They stayed like that throughout the night, Bruce watching and Dick suffering through the chemo's side effects. The nephrologist had consented to antinauseants, to spare Dick the pain of constant retching in vain, at least.
The harsh schedule Bruce had set up ordered dialysis on the very next day. Dick didn't protest when the nephrologist attached one of the tubes that came out of his chest, but his posture changed only minutes into the dialysis.
His heart rate went up, his blood pressure sank. Dick was lying on his back again, and was staring up at the ceiling. His eyelids fluttered shut again and again, he was slipping in and out of consciousness, while Bruce just hoped he would pass out soon. The dialysis was affecting him strongly, obviously, and halfway through Dick gave up his stance and shifted to the side facing Bruce, not able to pull the IV-pole close enough to turn into the other direction.
Worriedly, Bruce leaned in closer, afraid that something new had come up. Dick barely took notice of him, just stared ahead and regularly closed his eyes again, as if in pain.
"Dick," Bruce asked softly, trying to speak to him for the first time today, "do you need any more medication?"
Dick's glance flickered up to him, only half-conscious and confused, but Bruce finally realized the dilated, drifting pupils. His son was looking at him, but his gaze kept shifting slightly. Like the room was spinning.
He was dizzy. Dick hated dizziness, vertigo, more than anything else. It meant losing your balance, and losing your balance meant falling.
Carefully, Bruce reached out and grabbed one of Dick's hands. Ignoring the first weak attempt to pull away, he grasped the hand firmly in a catcher's grip like Dick had taught him all those years ago.
The effect was immediate; Dick's eyelids fluttered shut, finally staying closed for more than a few seconds, and he relaxed visibly, while Bruce was just glad he didn't pull away. After a few minutes, Dick's breathing evened out and he fell asleep.
Bruce sighed, relieved, but didn't let go.
-tbc-
medical termini:
-harvesting: is the common term used for drawing bone marrow directly out of the donor's body with a needle. It's basically the same procedure as the bone marrow biopsy, just that a larger amount of material is needed.
-hematopoietic stem cell: or promyleoid cell, is the multipotent stem cell of the bone marrow (=myeloid). It's the progenitor of all the blood cells (erythroytes, leukocytes and thromboctyes) and their respective conspecies (leukocytes have many of those). In leukemia, something goes wrong with these promyeloid cells, either in their own development or its further development into the blood cells, and the undeveloped or mutates cells spread.
-dialysis: If the kidneys won't work properly anymore thanks to renal failure, a patient has to undergo patient is hooked up to a dialysis machine, and the 'dirty' blood is carried into it, gets cleaned, and carried back into the patient body. The process involves diffusion of solutes across a semipermeable membrane (totally copied and pasted that from wikipedia). The process takes about 4 hours and is very (!) strenuous for the patient.
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You know, every time I sit down to write a chapter, I tell myself "This is a story that deals with serious issues, so deal with them accordingly" – and then I start to troll Jason (or Timmy, this time). I just can't resist all those wonderful slapstick situations, and the result is an absolute whiplash chapter! Though I have to admit, I love the emotional rollercoaster :D
The ending of this story is set in stone, by the way. All that begging, threatening and arguing in your reviews basically only serves to my own vicious enjoyment (very much so. And I love it^^). Some of you showed concern or anger about specific reviews that seemed rude or over the top. I appreciate that, but really, I don't mind it. You can state your opinion in every way you want to, that's what reviews are for (I think I proposed in a review, once ;))! But please don't start flaming your fellow reviewers!
Also, any guesses what the mysterious document in Bruce's possession might be?