And of course I needed to make a chapter regarding some of the general challenges we're going through. And who's the main whumpee in my universe? You guessed, it. Luca.
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"You know, it would've been a lot easier if everyone just followed the quarantine rules." Hondo sighed as Black Betty roared through the streets of downtown LA.
"So true, so true." Deacon nodded as he strapped his helmet on.
"Evil never sleeps." Tan shrugged as he made sure the laces of his boots were tucked in.
"Well, neither do we!" Luca grinned from behind the wheel.
"Ain't that right!" Hondo chuckled as they turned into the block they were headed to, "Alright, you know the deal. Stay liquid!"
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It's a heart-stopping moment when you suddenly know everything's going to go wrong. When you know you're screwed over. When you're looking down the barrel of a loaded gun.
It wasn't the first time in his career, and in a weird way he hoped it wouldn't be the last one either. Last one sounded too, final.
"Please…" he attempted, "Don't shoot, please."
"Put your gun down!" the masked guy yelled.
Luca nodded and the gun tracked his movements.
He could feel his heart beating at his max limit. His mouth was dry as plaster wall, his hands were starting to get shaky.
Everything's going to be alright, Luca… Everything's going to be alright.
And everything was going alright.
-Until a car outside backfired, and the scared shitless masked guy who probably wasn't used to holding weapons to people put a bit too much pressure on the trigger and fired.
At first it felt like someone hit him in the thigh with a baseball bat. And he had a couple of glorious seconds filled with that weird feeling when you know you've been hit hard by something, but it doesn't hurt yet. Where everything is just stupidly numb.
He slammed to the floor, it was like his right leg just disappeared from below him.
"SHIT!" Luca almost barked a laugh when he heard the masked guy freak out, "Shit man! SHIT! I didn't mean to!"
Then his brain started interpreting the signals his leg was sending him correctly, and lord it hurt. The pain was almost paralyzing.
Then his brain started decoding the severity of it all.
"F***!" he muttered to himself before pressing down on the radio button, "Officer down. GSW, right thigh. Making a tourniquet."
Then he loosened his belt, and prepared to wrap that around high up on his thigh.
The masked kid was still freaking out five yards away. He had laid his gun down on the counter.
Luca looked down at the wound after he had tightened the makeshift tourniquet as much as he possibly could. It still bled too much.
He muttered another word of profanity.
"Kid! Hey kid!" it was a last ditch effort, he knew, but the others had gone upstairs because that was the information they had gotten. Fifth floor, two shooters. "Kid, I need help!"
The masked kid froze.
"Kid, can you find anything I can use as either a tourniquet or to press down on this wound?"
The kid looked at him. "What?"
"You know any first aid?"
The kid's mouth fell open under the mask, then he nodded. "A little."
"I need to put pressure on this." Luca winced, "And-or something that works better as a tourniquet than my belt. Can you find that?"
The kid nodded and picked up his gun again, which Luca first took to be a very bad sign, before he saw the kid unhooking the strap from the assault rifle and placing the gun back where he had placed it earlier.
Then he jogged over to somewhere Luca couldn't see, before he came back a few seconds later with a rolled up piece of fabric.
"I'm so sorry! I never meant to!" the kid apologized as he handed Luca the stuff, "I didn't mean to shoot you!"
"Then why were you pointing a freaking gun at me?" Luca growled back, the pain setting him a bit more on edge than he liked.
"I'm sorry, I'm stupid."
"Forget it, just help me with this…" Luca grimaced, pointing at his leg.
Rapid footsteps hurried down the stairs, Luca knew the team well enough to know that it was Hondo and Deacon.
"Luca, how bad is it?" Deacon asked.
Luca killed off a groan, before he called out for his two teammates, "Don't shoot, we're good here!"
Then he looked at the wound on his leg, it was still bleeding steadily. "Harder."
The kid pressed down harder on the wound, causing Luca to collapse backwards with a long growl.
Deacon and Hondo ran over, taking in the scene.
"That's not enough pressure." Hondo noted, kneeling down beside the kid, who now had lifted his mask from his face. "Let me, alright?"
The kid nodded, but held pressure until Hondo was ready to take over.
Deacon secured the kid in handcuffs. Then he attempted finding better suited materials for a proper tourniquet.
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The next couple of days were a blur of pain, low hemoglobin, pain and his mind playing PTSD-like tricks on him. Oh, and pain.
The x-rays had showed that the bullet had broken his femur a bit above his knee, and as a result of his leg collapsing in a weird way, he had managed to break his tibia as well. And along with that, a lot of soft tissue damage followed.
Thanks to the way the world was going to hell in a hurry, this wasn't like any other of his previous hospital stays.
For one, he hadn't had any visitors. They weren't allowed in. Which he took as a good sign, right now visitors would probably mean that he was on the fast track to leaving in a body bag.
The other main thing was that his pain was nowhere near managed. He was getting Tylenol for a gunshot wound.
He had gotten a couple of bags worth of fullblood and some saline or whatever drips to keep the effects of blood loss down.
And the nurses tried their best to keep up with whatever shitshow was going on outside of his room, and avoid infecting other patients. That kind of setup limited the number of different nurses who came in to him during a shift. Usually it was just one per shift, with another one stepping in if the main nurse was called to one of the isolation rooms for something urgent.
He had already been the assistant in one of his own dressing changes. Which had not been his favorite part of the day. Luckily lifting by the metal rod going between the four sets of pins was a practical way to move his leg without too much pain or hassle. It hurt less holding the bar than his actual leg.
That being said, with the minimum amount of pain killers he was on due to the now national shortage, it hurt more than it should anyway.
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Luckily the internet still worked, and for the moment that would have to be his social lifeline to the rest of the world.
He was just about finished with his lunch when his phone started buzzing.
He picked it up and looked at it, seeing an incoming FaceTime call from Tuana.
He accepted the call with a grin.
"Hey there…" Tuana and Kelly grinned in unison.
"Hey girls!" he grinned back, "How's quarantine life going?"
"It's BORING!" Kelly frowned, "I can't hang outside with my friends."
Luca chuckled, "Well, this won't last forever. Everyone just has to do their part until it passes."
Kelly sighed, but nodded. "How are you doing Luca?"
He shrugged, he didn't feel like admitting how bad it actually felt to her. He didn't want this kid to see his weak side. "I'm holding up. It's pretty boring here as well…"
"I wish we could come visit you…" she pouted.
"That would have been nice, but rules are rules…" he sighed, "I can barely wait for my leg to be good enough to get out of here and see you again."
Kelly and Tuana nodded.
"Hey, Kelly… Could you give me and Luca some time alone?"
Kelly shrugged, "Oh, I could probably finish reading my book today!"
"That's a GREAT idea!" Luca grinned, happy that Kelly had started finding joy in reading, "Talk to you later!"
"Yeah, later!" Kelly waved before she vanished from the screen.
Tuana followed her with her eyes, before she looked back at the screen, "Alright, she's in her room."
"Man, I miss you…" he sighed, "Both of you."
"We miss you too…" Tuana replied.
"So, how's self quarantine going?"
"Well, I'm bored as well. But…" she shrugged, "I think that's mostly because I miss you."
His chest felt warmer hearing that.
"So, how's the hospital? How's your leg?"
"Leg… My leg feels like it's been shot." Luca rolled his eyes, "It hurts."
Tuana shot him an empathetic look.
"The hospital feels different. A bit middle-apocalyptic…"
She couldn't help but chuckle.
"But are you good?" she asked, "Except the injured leg?"
"Yeah." Luca nodded, "Except for the leg, I'm all good."
"Can you show it to me?"
"The leg?"
Tuana nodded, "My mind kept providing me with all these worst case images ever since I heard you got shot."
Luca nodded.
"I just need to see it so that my head doesn't play it up worse than it is."
Luca nodded, "I get it."
"So, can you show me?"
"I can." he nodded, "I've got some metal pins poking out of my leg and a bar or two linking them. And of course there's bandage in between."
She nodded.
"Just want you to be prepared, alright? And it's pretty bruised. -And the bandage is partially soaked through."
Tuana nodded.
"Alright, switching camera now."
Tuana nodded, and Luca hit the icon to use the camera behind the phone instead of the front facing one.
"Ouch." was all she said at first.
"Yeah, it… It looks how it looks."
"Does they know if you'll be back to normal?"
Luca shook his head a bit, but remembered that the camera was facing the wrong way. "No, they don't."
"What do they know?"
"That I won't be putting weight on that leg for at least three months, or longer." Luca switched the camera setting back, "And there's no way of telling if I'll be able to get back to work this time around, but they expect that if I make it… It'll be at least a year before that happens."
"And how long before you're out of the hospital?"
"Not until my leg has stopped bleeding." Luca sighed, "Might be anywhere from a few more days to a few more weeks."
"You're coming home to us then?" obvious hope in her eyes.
"Yeah, as long as you'll have me." Luca smirked.
"Always." Tuana nodded.
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It took two and a half weeks before he was released from the hospital, with Tylenol and crutches.
He could barely move, barely manage to stand up with help of his crutches. But seeing Tuana come to pick him up outside the hospital made his will bigger than anything.
Tuana was standing outside the hospital when the nurse who had been looking after him that day rolled him down to the lobby in a wheelchair to make things easier for him.
"Well, look at you, handsome!" Tuana grinned as Luca and the nurse came outside the main entrance.
"Hey!" Luca beamed back, "You won't believe how good it is to finally see you again!"
"I think I have an idea…" Tuana chuckled, "I've missed you too, you know."
Luca grinned. Then he looked at his truck, which Tuana was picking him up in. His expression fell a little.
"Err, I might need some help." He paused, pointing at the truck, "I don't think it'll be easy to get into the passenger seat."
"Well, I figured your truck would be easier than my tiny car…" Tuana shrugged.
"Oh, you're definitely right about that." Luca nodded, "But… My leg…"
Tuana nodded, she knew what he was trying to say. It was painful. Every fractional movement hurt, didn't matter if it was planned or unplanned. She had learned that through their daily FaceTime calls.
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They made it home to the apartment complex Tuana lived in, and up to the right floor. Luca was beading with sweat by the time she was about to unlock the door.
"Are you feeling alright?"
"A little lightheaded." Luca answered honestly, "And that right there is the longest walk I've had in more than two weeks."
"So, sit down?"
"Yeah. I need to sit down." Luca swallowed, concentrating hard on keeping his balance.
"Can you make it inside to the couch?"
"Think so."
"Try not to pass out on me, alright?"
"Yes Ma'am." Luca nodded, keeping a death grip on his crutches.
She unlocked, and he made it in safely.
He hopped directly over to the couch, and started lowering himself onto the couch. He lifted his leg onto the couch with a grimace.
"Pillows? Do you need more pillows?"
"Nah. I'm good." Luca grit out, looking nowhere near the vicinity of okay even.
"I'm finding more pillows." She declared, "And a glass of water."
"Thanks."
As Tuana looked for pillows and a glass of water, the door to Kelly's room clicked open, and she practically ran out to the living room. "Luca!"
He managed a brave smile, "Hey kiddo!"
She skidded to a stop a few feet away from the couch, her mouth agape. "Your leg…"
Luca nodded, "It looks… It doesn't look good, does it?"
Kelly shook her head.
"It's going to be alright." He promised.
"Promise?"
"It's going to take time, but my leg is going to get better." Luca shrugged, "And I'll be more fun again. I'm not very fun right now."
Kelly looked between Luca's face and his leg. "Why don't you have a cast?"
"Because the doctors thought fixing my leg like this would be the best option." Luca shrugged as he contemplated moving his leg a little. Those pillows Tuana was looking for would be very welcomed after all.
Kelly was silent for a few seconds extra, then she took a deep breath. "Can I give you a hug? We're not supposed to hug now, because the virus, but… I want to give you a hug."
Luca smiled, "Sure. A careful hug, alright?"
Kelly nodded and stepped over to hug him.
"Hey, I want to get in on that one…" Tuana chuckled as she came back in the living room.
Luca grinned, "It's been way too long since we had a proper group hug, right?"
"Yeah." Kelly nodded on his shoulder and he held out an arm for Tuana to join.
"I missed the two of you a lot."
"We missed you too." Kelly said, squeezing a bit harder, "Promise you won't get shot again."
"I'll do my very best." Luca nodded, "Alright?"
Kelly shrugged a bit, "I guess."
