Entering the shared ICU room, Sarah glanced across at her sleeping patient, relieved that the lieutenant had finally relented and had taken his pain medication. Walking across to the bed, she reached for the thermometer, giving a quick flick of her wrist to ensure the mercury was in the bulb before she carefully and deftly slipped it under his armpit. Gently placing her fingertips on the inside of his wrist, she silently counted the soft beats as she watched the second hand on her watch, memorizing how many beats she had counted before she began to count the gentle rise and fall of his chest. Releasing his wrist, she removed the thermometer from under his arm, holding it up to get a correct reading before placing it back into the kidney dish on the table beside the bed.
Satisfied her patient was stable, she walked to the end of the bed and picked up the chart, glancing at the other nurse who entered the room and headed towards the inspector's bed before returning her attention back to the chart and jotting down the results of her observations.
"Janey was just telling me about what happened here last night." The other nurse said softly as she glanced up at the heart monitor before gently folding back the sheet, exposing the thick white bandage that encircled Steve's chest and carefully examined the blood filled tube that emerged from beneath the bandage and disappeared down the side of the bed to drain into the glass bottle sitting on the ground. Covering her patient back up, she looked across at Sarah as she continued, "Poor Debbie, she must have been terrified. I mean, one minute she is sitting at the nurses station writing her reports and the next, she is being dragged down the corridor by an intoxicated man with a gun who wanted to kill Lieutenant Stone and who was yelling something about Inspector Keller being his son, not Stone's. And that Stone had no right keeping him away from him."
Sarah nodded as she glanced back at her patient, reassuring herself that Mike was still asleep and was unaware of their conversation before she looked back at the other nurse and whispered. "She was just lucky that the other lieutenant was here and that he was a good shot. But he still didn't manage to nail the gunman before the gunman got a shot off, missed Lieutenant Stone by less than an inch. The lieutenant was lucky that he was a poor shot."
The nurse nodded her agreement as she changed the empty drip bottles, replacing them with new ones before hanging them back up on the IV pole. "I heard the gunman was Inspector Keller's own father. Janey told me that he died on the operating table." Glancing up at the heart monitor as the beeps began to race before she looked back down at Steve who still appeared to be in asleep. Even though he was still lightly sedated, the night nurse's report did warn her that he had appeared to have had several nightmares during the night. Satisfied a nightmare was responsible for the sudden spike in his heart rate, she gently squeezed Steve's uninjured hand and whispered a few words of reassurance before straightening back up and collecting the empty IV bottles.
"I also heard that after he was shot, they found with a heap of diamonds in his pocket. Rumour is, he stole them from a guy who carried out some sort of a diamond hoist and that the inspector was somehow involved." Sarah whispered, enjoying having a good gossip whenever possible, despite having already being warned by the charge nurse that the next time she was heard gossiping in front of a patient, whether they were conscious or not, she would be moved to another floor, as Steve's nurse joined her and they turned and headed towards the door, "And that's the real reason why the inspector and the lieutenant were grabbed…"
Steve waited until the two voices faded away before he slowly opened his eyes and stared up at the fuzzy white ceiling above him. He swallowed hard and ran a shaky hand over the top of his head as the nurses' softly whispered conversation replayed in his head. Even in his half-drugged state a single thought formed in his mind, 'The nurse was right. He was responsible for everything that had happened. He was responsible for all the torment and pain his mother had endured trying to protect him when he was a child, and he was responsible for her death. Just as he was the reason why Mike was grabbed and was now lying beside him in a hospital bed and his father's attempt to murder Mike last night. If he hadn't been born, then none of this would have happened, he wouldn't have ruined his father's life. And as long as he was around, he would continue to ruin the lives of the people around him, even Mike's. It was because of him that Mike had almost been killed not once but twice. He needed to get out of here. He needed to get as far away as he could from all his friends before he ruined anymore lives.'
Gritting his teeth, he weakly pushed himself with his one good arm up into a semi-sitting the bed, ignoring the agony that tore through his chest and the sudden dizziness that threatened to topple him as he slowly slipped his legs over the bed's edge. Seemingly unaware of the shrilling alarm of the heart monitor beside the bed and the numerous tubes and wires that were connected to him, he pushed himself off the bed.
"Steve!"
He looked up at the blurry shape in the doorway, just as his legs gave out from beneath him.
Dropping the handful of cards that he held in his hands, Rudy rushed across the room, managing to catch Steve just as the younger man's legs gave out from beneath him. Although he wasn't able to stop Steve from collapsing, he was able to soften the fall as he caught Steve's now limp body and slowly lowered him down onto the ground before he turned his head towards the doorway and yelled that he needed help.