Yes, it has been forever. My apologies. I hope that everyone is staying safe. I'm still writing it has just been seriously slowed. No beta, so I apologize for my murder of the English language. Thank you to everyone who has stuck with me through all this. Happy weekend! - Troll
Chapter 17: Home Again, Home Again - December 31, 2013
They entered the house together. Cisco, Caitlin, and Harrison all huddled up like it was completely new territory. Little had changed, though Harrison's absence was obvious in the amount of dust present. While Caitlin did a quick inspection to ensure that the home would be acceptable for the still recovering Harrison, the two men headed into the kitchen. Cisco put the groceries they had brought with them away and Harrison put the bag of medications down on the counter along with some folders and his laptop computer. Neither man said anything. They sat in silence until Caitlin returned. They still hadn't talked about what had happened on Christmas day, though their relationship was slowly returning to the easy friendship they'd once had. Now Cisco just needed Caitlin to relax and get into the new groove. Her footsteps echoed down the hall to them.
"I think Doctor Disco will agree that this will be acceptable," Caitlin declared. "It isn't ideal but neither is someone trying to murder you at the hospital."
"Not ideal is not exactly how I would describe that," Cisco grumbled. He fell silent at the look Caitlin shot him. She turned back to Harrison.
"Now, I double checked and made sure that you have all your prescriptions. Do you need me to write down when to take which medication?" She was so intent and serious. Pursing his lips together Harrison shook his head.
"I'm capable of reading the prescription labels," he assured her. He watched her start to putter around in the kitchen, talking as she and Cisco put up groceries.
"I noticed that you had a humidifier in your bedroom closet. I'll get it filled and set-up near your bed. Cisco can help," Caitlin continued, basically ignoring Harrison. Grabbing Cisco's shoulder, she hurried the younger man down the hall to the bedroom. Harrison followed them.
"Caitlin," he called out as he entered the bedroom. She was already in the master bathroom, overseeing the filling of said humidifier.
"Do you have your inhaler? You'll want to keep that close by." Her brown eyes were big with worry and she started back for the kitchen.
"In my pocket already," Harrison assured her as she passed him. Pausing, she looked back at him.
"Your physical therapist will be here on the second. Doctor Disco has assured me he will check in on you tomorrow morning. Getting a therapist to make house calls on New Year's Day was basically impossible. Doctor Disco said he'd work with you." She frowned, thinking hard.
"I forgot to check the nebulizer," Caitlin declared and continued back out to the kitchen. Cisco and Harrison stared at each other.
"Harrison, let her worry and take care of you," Cisco finally said, dropping a hand to the older man's shoulder. Looking grumpy, Harrison seemed to consider his options. Since he'd ended up with pneumonia, bronchitis, and a case of RSV he'd been put on a number of medications and regular breathing treatments. As if that wasn't enough, Caitlin had turned into super doctor when it all happened. The infections had been another reason Doctor Disco had agreed to release Harrison early. The sick man had acquired the infections in the hospital and Harrison had argued that the germs at home were ones his body was familiar with so he'd be less likely to pick up yet another infection of some kind.
"Cisco, I can do this," Harrison argued. I'm a little weak but I can do this."
"It isn't about you," Cisco countered. "This is about Caitlin and I having nothing left to do at the moment."
"I thought the labs had been cleared. At the very least you could be working on your resumes and applying for new jobs." At this comment, Cisco rolled his eyes.
"We aren't abandoning you, Harrison. You are stuck with us." The two men exchanged smiles but didn't get to say more because Caitlin stormed back into the room, brandishing a folder.
"Doctor Wells, what is this?" She thrust the folder at him but yanked it back when he reached out to take it. Glancing at Cisco, who shrugged, Harrison sighed.
"Harrison, please, Caitlin," he corrected her, crossing his arms. "I'm not gonna talk to you if you insist on calling me Doctor Wells." He pressed his lips firmly together.
"Really, Doctor Wells," Caitlin began, stopping when he turned away, lips still firmly shut. "Childish," she grumbled. With a sigh she tried again. "Harrison, why do you have these?"
Turning back, he smiled gently. "Better, isn't it? I'm not your boss any more. Even if we all somehow manage to make S.T.A.R. labs work, you two will be full partners. We'll be a team." He gave them both serious looks. "Agreed?"
"Wait, are you saying we'd all own S.T.A.R. labs together?" Cisco asked, unable to believe his ears.
"Don't get too excited. Right now it isn't worth much. We have a few patents under a neutral name that are bringing in enough money to keep it out of the red. We'll need to figure something out if we want to keep ourselves out of the red. Plus we need to figure out new housing for Grodd." Harrison headed to the kitchen, his team following.
"Uhm, Grodd is gone," Caitlin began, it stopped Harrison in his tracks and he turned to face her.
"He died?" The sadness in Harrison's voice almost broke her heart. The gorilla and older man had shared some sort of deep bond. While Caitlin would talk to and visit Grodd, Harrison was the only person who could hang out in the cage with Grodd.
"No," Cisco was quick to assure him, perhaps hearing the same sadness that had melted Caitlin's heart. "No, he bent the bars of his cage and broke out. We haven't been able to find him."
"He did what?" They'd reached the kitchen and gathered around the table. "How could he do that? Were the bars damaged in the explosion?"
"I don't know," Cisco admitted.
"We need to find him. We can run a program to monitor the emergency response frequencies for any reports that might be consistent with Grodd," Harrison began as he reached for his laptop. It earned him a smacked hand. "Ouch!" Looking surprised and a little hurt, he turned his gaze to Caitlin.
"Cisco and I can work on that in a couple of days. After Doctor Disco has been to check on you and cleared you for home care," the female doctor said firmly. "Now explain the medical files you brought home."
"No," Harrison retorted petulantly. "Not until you promise not to take them." It earned him an arched eyebrow from Caitlin and a snicker of amusement from Cisco.
"Don't encourage him," Caitlin ordered her younger friend. "Fine, Harrison. I promise I won't take the files away."
There was a moment of silence as Harrison tried to decide if he trusted her. Sighing, he took the file and opened it. "This is everything the hospital has on Mr. Allen. His father agreed to let me look over the files, see if I can catch anything the other doctors have missed."
"This is the guy in the room next to yours?" Cisco asked, leaning in to study the files. Realizing that there were several, he slid one to himself and started flipping through the pages.
"Yes. Nearly three weeks ago, when the accelerator exploded Mr. Allen was working in the crime lab at CCPD. Now, from what I can tell circumstances led Mr. Allen to be standing in a puddle under the skylight in his labs when a bolt of lightning struck that skylight, traveled down some chains, and into Mr. Allen," Harrison explained.
"And the impact tossed him across the lab into a shelf full of chemicals," Cisco observed, looking at the photos in the file he had opened. "This is an incident report. Where did you get it?"
Harrison coughed something. "I'm sorry, I didn't hear you," Cisco declared, leaning closer to his once boss.
"Hacked the CCPD internal affairs division," Harrison said rapidly. "I printed them from the nurse's station in the hospital. They were too busy to notice me sneaking out for them." He looked sheepish.
"Doctor Wells, what were you thinking," exclaimed Caitlin incredulously.
"Damn, I didn't know hacking was one of your skills!" Cisco cheered.
"There's a lot you don't know about me," Harrison assured his companions. "I needed to get as much information about Mr. Allen's situation as I could. He's been in an unstable coma since the lightning. His doctors at the hospital are clueless though they won't admit that to his family."
"Didn't his father decide he didn't want your help?" Caitlin asked, suspiciously.
"Yes, but at the time I had just been hit by a number of infections, was running a fever, and fallen screaming out of bed. He was still willing to let me look into it, at least." There was a moment of silence as Caitlin narrowed her eyes at him before looking at the folder in front of her.
"And the other file?" She asked, eyes still on Mr. Allen's file and information.
"Mine. I'm allowed to look at my own medical files, right?" He gave her a look that earned him an eyeroll. When did his former employees get so good at rolling their eyes? "I'm hoping that once I've recovered sufficiently that Detective West will let me transfer Mr. Allen to the labs. I think there's more going on in that young man's body than the hospital realizes. They don't have the equipment or ability to run tests that we can run at the lab. I want to help him. It is the very least I can do after the explosion."
"No, the least you could do would be absolutely nothing. The Commission has found that there was no way we could predict what happened. They filed their findings yesterday," Caitlin said, her finger hovering over a spot in Allen's medical file.
"That was fast," Harrison actually looked surprised.
"I guess they wanted to get it done and over with quickly," Cisco mused. "Why does this guy keep coding?"
"It looks like his electrolytes are out of balance," Caitlin observed. "Why hasn't the hospital addressed that?" It earned her a nod from Harrison.
"You'll notice that the doctors have dismissed that as a possible contributor to Mr. Allen's condition. It isn't a symptom they're worried about treating right now," Harrison explained, pointing out the section in the files where a doctor had dismissed the lab findings as unimportant. "I suspect that it might have more to do with what's going on in Mr. Allen's mind and body than the doctors are aware."
"Do you really think we can help this kid?" Cisco asked, studying the photos of the damaged crime lab.
"Yes, I do," Harrison said firmly.
"Well, then let's see what we can do in half an hour. Then we're taking a break while you do a breathing treatment and Cisco and I make dinner," Caitlin declared.
"Did you buy enough food for all of us?" Harrison asked, thinking he'd not seen enough grocery bags come into the house to have food for all three of them.
"Of course. I had Cisco shop yesterday after Doctor Disco agreed we could send you home. You didn't think we'd let you come home alone, did you?" Caitlin arched an eyebrow at him and Harrison let out an amused sigh. It looked like he'd acquired some semi-permanent house guests.
"Am I going to get any time to myself?" He asked, typing a note into his laptop and not looking at Cisco or Caitlin.
"Yes," Caitlin agreed. "We'll head into the lab on the second and let you have that day home alone if you behave and Doctor Disco says it is okay. We're not leaving you alone at night, though." She gave him a stern look.
"Fine. Hope my bed is big enough," Harrison deadpanned, not looking at either friend. At the choking noise he heard from Caitlin he shot a side-glance at Cisco, who was laughing silently. Maybe they could all recover from the explosion. In some form or another.