SW: I had no idea where this chapter was going to go when I started it…I hope it turns out well.
Yugi: I'm sure it will! Everything's going to be fine now!
Malik: Yugi, you do realize that SoWhatever is sadistic when it comes to storylines, right? It's completely possible that it won't work out for us.
Thank you to samaurai (I was cheering for him too, but it seems my muse doesn't enjoy Ryou getting the easy way out.), White Weasel (I know, that gunshot wound's gonna be tough. Yep…Ryou's father… for reviewing!), Ocena Strex (Oh, I hope it wasn't too confusing! And sorry, the explanation of what Keith and Satsujin were talking about won't come until next chapter…), Ern Estine 13624 (Yeah, but I'm sure he will be ;) ), lemerly (Yep! And I think I'm going to have a happy ending so don't worry!), PhoenixDiamond (I squealed when I saw you reviewed again -.-" Thank you! I'm glad it doesn't feel too slow or too fast [which is something I worry about all the time]. There're still some things to deal with before you see if Ryou comes out better or worse from his ordeal, but I hope you like this chapter!), and BobbieJoEgo (Haha, don't worry, it should start to wind down now, but who knows I write as I go so that might change!) for reviewing!
Enjoy!
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"Temp. 101 and rising! Blood pressure stabilizing at 95 over 70!"
Nurses were swarming as the paramedics rolled in the gurney carrying Ryou. Off to the side, people in the waiting room stared as the albino was rolled past them and through a pair of revolving doors leading to the operation room. A doctor dressed in scrubs stepped into the room, lifting his surgical mask up over his nose and flexing his fingers as he pulled on latex gloves with a snap.
"A single gunshot wound from a low-velocity bullet to the lower calf. Muscle weakness due to starvation. Potential damage to the gastrocnemius and tibialis anterior." A nurse informed the surgeon as she hooked Ryou up to a heart monitor and placed a breathing mask over his face.
The man nodded, grabbing a scalpel from one of the waiting trays as the room cleared until only two nurses remained. He cut away the cloth hiding the wound, careful not to nick any skin. The doctor sighed, staring at the sight of shredded skin and dried blood. Looking over at one of the nurses, he shook his head but prepared to make the first incision.
"This is going to be a long one."
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Yugi gripped Yami's hand, glad to have some source of comfort. It had been over three hours since he had watched the ambulance pull away with one of his best friends. Isis had gone to the station with his father after making sure that Keith was successfully transported to the morgue.
He shivered at that thought, looking out of the corner of his eye towards where Bakura was leaning against the wall. From what Yami had told him, Yugi knew that it had Bakura who had fired the gunshot he had heard from the car he had been waiting in. Even though it had been to protect Ryou, knowing that the man had just killed someone and didn't seem fazed in the least made him feel sort of wary.
The door to the waiting room opened and Yugi turned to look as Malik came back in after leaving half an hour ago with Marik. He raised an eyebrow at the slightly disheveled look the blonde had, but Malik was pointedly avoiding any eye contact. A moment later and Marik returned as well, with the same ruffled appearance, taking a seat next to Malik and staring at the wall across from him with his arm wrapped around the back of Malik's chair.
The final person of their group had hardly stopped fidgeting for the entire time that they had been here. After checking his phone for the hundredth time, Mr. Bakura sighed and stood up, seeming resigned as he lifted the phone to his face. "I have to make a call."
"Are you the family of Ryou Bakura?" Everyone's heads swiveled to stare at the female doctor that was addressing the group. She smiled and held out the clipboard that she was holding. "Dr. Kiseki, the surgeon who worked on Ryou, is cleaning himself up. Would the closest relative to the patient please take this and follow me?"
Mr. Bakura put his phone away and reached out. "I'm his father, is he okay?"
The woman's smile took a slightly pitiful turn. "He's alive and stable. He was unconscious for the surgery, but his fever broke minutes ago so we expect him to wake any minute. I can take you to him right now and you can fill out those forms in his room." She looked over at the rest of the group. "I'm sorry, but we only allow one visitor in the room at a time so soon after a surgery. Give us a few hours to make sure his health doesn't change, and then he can have as many visitors as he likes."
The woman turned and walked back the way she came, giving off the impression that she expected someone to follow her. Mr. Bakura looked at everyone, before jogging forward to catch up with the doctor.
The two walked down the white hall in silence, the smell of disinfectant making Ryou's father occasionally frown and wrinkle his nose. It brought back memories of the last time he had been in a hospital and the devastation he had felt then.
He coughed. "You said Ryou is alright, yes?"
"He'll live," the woman stopped in front a door leading to a private room, opening it and motioning for Mr. Bakura to enter in front of her, "but Doctor Kiseki will need to talk to you about a few things concerning Ryou's leg."
When the two entered, a pair of chocolate brown eyes focused on them immediately, moving from where they had been staring out the window. The owner of the eyes was sitting in a reclined position, two pillows underneath him to make sure that he could do so without having to move his leg. The leg in question was resting on top of the blankets, a green cast covering it from mid-thigh down to his toes. There was also a square bandage applied to the front of his neck where the knife had given him a small cut and a small, reddened rash from the cloth Satsujin had used to gag him with a Band-Aid over it. The white of the room seemed to bring out the bags under Ryou's eyes and made him appear even thinner than he already was.
"Ah, it's good to see you awake, Ryou!" The woman started sweetly, moving in to start checking the patient's vital signs. "My name is Doctor Kaigo. How are you feeling?"
"Hungry." The boy's voice was gritty, and he swallowed roughly as if it hurt to talk.
"Well, I can imagine so!" She leaned over the bed and waved a light in front of Ryou's eyes. "We're going to get you some food right away!" Kaigo straightened after finishing her check-up and walked over to the door, turning back to the room with a smile. "Why don't you get started on that paperwork, Mr. Bakura, while I go and fetch something for your son to eat?"
The man nodded, moving to sit in the chair placed next to the bed. He looked down at the clipboard and grabbed the pen on top of it as the door closed behind the doctor. Silence followed the woman's departure and Ryou bit his lip before moving his hands to rest on his lap, lacing his fingers together. Ryou's father remained focused solely on the paperwork in front of him, flipping a page occasionally. Even though he was itching to say something to break the noticeable awkward silence, and often opened his mouth to do just that, Ryou could think of nothing. The quiet continued for another fifteen minutes, both of them not knowing how to talk to the other.
They got their relief as the door opened and a different doctor entered the room, closing in on Mr. Bakura and reaching out a hand for him to shake. "Hello, I'm Doctor Kiseki, pleased to meet you. But I'm afraid we're going to have to have a little bit of a conversation about your son's leg." He gave a small smile to the occupant of the room's only bed after finishing introducing himself to the father. "I'm glad you've woken up, Ryou, you're going to need to hear this too."
"Hear what? Is everything okay?" Ryou hid a grimace at the roughness of his voice, hoping that Kaigo would come back with something he could drink.
"I hate to say it, but we're not entirely sure." Kiseki walked to the corner of the room, grabbing the second chair that sat there before pulling it over next to the one Ryou's father had and sitting down in it. "Luckily, the bullet went clean through your body. However, it tore through some of your gastrocnemius muscle, your calf muscle," the doctor clarified, "and nicked your fibula."
"What does that mean?"
The surgeon turned towards Mr. Bakura. "Well, the bone will heal normally, the break isn't too bad. But the muscle…" he sighed, "we did our best to patch it up as best we could, and there is still hope that Ryou might eventually be able to walk on it-"
"You mean I might never walk again?!" Ryou's eyes widened as he stared at the doctor, his throat protesting harshly from the yell he just gave.
Doctor Kiseki nodded once, his lips set in a straight line as he looked to Ryou's cast. "Even in the best of circumstances, a wound like this could mean that you wouldn't be able to flex your calf muscle without feeling extreme pain, which would result in you being unable to even stand on that leg. And the fact that you were forced to walk on it before you were brought here may have caused even more damage." Seeing the horrified expression on Ryou's face, the surgeon quickly rushed to a brighter side. "But that's a worst case scenario! With the right physical therapy and enough rest and healing time, your body could finish the work we started in patching together your muscle and you'll be able to function normally again."
"Will it be safe for him to fly? I have work I need to attend to in America immediately, you see, and I don't intend to leave my son behind." Mr. Bakura asked, looking over at his son with measuring eyes, as if he was already deciding for himself whether or not Ryou would be able to take a plane.
Kiseki blinked at the sudden question. "I wouldn't recommend it, but I suppose…if he had the right accommodations. We don't want him moving the leg unless it's under the supervision of a trainer who can tell if he's moving it in the wrong way. Even in his cast there is the chance of further damage. He'll be confined to a wheelchair for at least a month."
Before anyone could say another word, the door to the room opened and Doctor Kaigo entered with a tray full of food. "Hey, guys. Sorry if I'm interrupting anything, but I've got some food for Ryou here." She walked over and placed it in front of the albino. "Dig in!"
Ryou didn't even take the time to thank her before he began eating. He grabbed the spoon on the tray and started in on the chicken noodle soup that was in a bowl on the tray, almost sighing at the soothing feeling the warm liquid had on his throat.
His father shifted uncomfortably and cleared his throat. "I apologize, my son isn't normally so rude."
Kaigo gave a small giggle and shook her head, waving the comment aside with her hand. "The reports showed that Satsujin hadn't given him any food at all while he had been trapped, so it's perfectly understandable. In fact, I'd be worried if he didn't start eating the moment food was placed in front of him."
"Yes, well," Kiseki stood with a small groan, "that was all I needed to tell you." He looked over at Mr. Bakura with pursed lips. "If you'd like, you can come with me and we can file that paperwork and discuss when Ryou will be able to be dispatched."
The man nodded and stood, exiting with the surgeon and leaving Ryou alone with Kaigo, who had watched the two men leave with a disappointed expression. The albino paused for a moment after he finished his soup, in the middle of reaching for the Jell-O that was on the corner of the tray. "So you like Doctor Kiseki?"
"What?" A deep pink blush filled the woman's cheeks and she covered them with her hands. "Whatever gave you that idea?"
Ryou shrugged, eating half of the Jell-O before pausing again. "You kept looking over at him and you put lipstick on before you came in the room again. I just thought it was because you knew Doctor Kiseki would be in here when you entered." A small, slightly smug smile flitted across Ryou's lips as he watched Kaigo sit down harshly in one of the chairs with a shocked look on her face. "Am I wrong?"
There was a minute of silence, Kaigo just sitting in the chair, dumbfounded that such a young man could've noticed so much, and Ryou finishing the rest of the Jell-O and downing the cup of milk he had been given. The woman gave a small sigh. "No, no. You're right. I do like Doctor Kiseki, but he always seems to leave the room whenever I enter, so it's pretty obvious that he hates me."
Ryou wiped away the residue milk from the top of his lip, nodding his head as he stared down into his empty cup. "I think I know the feeling."
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SW: I don't know if this turned out how I wanted it to…
Ryou: Then go back and change it! I don't want to leave!
SW: Eh, I think it'll work for now.
Review please?