Author's Note: Happy Holidays everyone! I hope they were lovely. I spent most of mine without an Internet connection, but we're back up and running now and I think things are going to get interesting for you. Hope you enjoy!
Chapter Fourteen: Infusion
"Lance! Oh, good. Great. Oh man, it's good to hear your voice. Dude," Hunk went on and on, exhaling his relief in near non-sensical phrases. Lance smiled automatically, familiar with how Hunk sounded when he was worried. He looked to Shiro and Keith the same way he would have looked to Pidge if she'd been present, forgetting that they didn't know Hunk the way he did. They both wore neutral expressions, not sure if Hunk's rambling was supposed to be funny or concerning.
"Everyone's fine, Hunk," Lance told him first thing, knowing that would be the most important piece of information exchanged in this entire call. He knew that's what he would want to know before anything else. The last time Hunk and Pidge had seen Keith, he'd been strapped to an oxygen tank and carried out of the room with Lance sprinting after him. "I've got you on speaker with Keith and Shiro. We wanted to check in."
"Good thing you called," Pidge sighed coolly. "Hunk's out of counter space."
Now Keith definitely looked confused. Shiro more so. Lance decided to ask a question he already knew the answer to for their benefit. "Stress baking, huh, Hunk?"
"What? Me? No. Just trying some new recipes," Hunk denied, almost drowned out by a squawk from Pidge.
"Hunk, there's like fourteen different loaves of bread here. That's what? Seven times your weekly average?"
"It means he was worried about you," Lance whispered to Keith, translating Hunk's behavior into the emotion that had driven it, wanting him to understand. "You're making bread?" He returned to Hunk on the phone. "Not cookies?" It felt peaceful and normal talking to his friends, especially since he didn't have to give them horrible news. Well, not yet. A shiver of dread rippled through him, tarnishing the moment, as he remembered the court date for Keith and what might happen there. He repressed it with a vengeance. That was more than a day away and Shiro had mentioned that he was going to try and postpone it. Also, Keith might still be in the hospital by then. Or back with Shiro. Either way, he'd be out of Lance's apartment. Maybe out of his life. What happened to Keith at court might not be something Lance even had to think about depending on what Keith wanted. And he should really start thinking about whether Keith would want more interaction with Lance outside this particular hospital experience. It could be that Keith would want to forget all of this – Lance included.
"Oh, we got cookies," Pidge drawled. "You don't have a table, but we've got cookies. We've got an entire Chocolate Chip Mountain; it's impressive."
"Ok, so you want to tell them what you've been doing?" Hunk demanded, and Lance could picture him standing there in the kitchen, his silly, pink, lace-fringed apron covering his clothes, oven-mittened hands on his hips, leaning over Pidge with an expression of feigned offence.
"Sure," Pidge agreed, way too quick and casual. "I've been borrowing sugar and flour from every apartment in the building in exchange for dozens of cookies, that's what. I gave hundreds away already and ate what I could to try and excavate your table out from under this thing, Lance, but I'm not making a dent here."
"Amateur," Lance teased her, though he knew perfectly well the sort of production that Hunk was capable of in a stress-induced baking frenzy, and Lance could only eat about two of Hunk's massive, gooey cookies in one sitting. They were sweet, sugary perfection, but more than two and he could actually feel his pancreas begging for mercy.
"Pidge found the Zelda game," Hunk tattled on her, breaking up the conversation about the impromptu bakery he'd set up in the apartment. "She's been playing it nonstop." Lance felt his smile slip a little listening to that, surprised that Pidge had been worried too. After their harsh discussion about Keith, he'd thought she wouldn't really care what happened to him. That she'd gone to the trouble of locating where he'd hidden the game meant that this was bothering her a lot.
"Anyway," Pidge huffed, changing the subject now that her coping strategies were being put on display. She didn't like to be caught in her insecurities. "How are you guys? What's going on over there?"
"Yeah, Keith, buddy, you ok?" Hunk echoed, growing serious again. "Is he ok, Lance?"
Lance looked to Keith, giving him first chance to answer before he did any talking for him. Hunk asked you before me, he thought, nodding at him reassuringly and holding the phone closer to him so he would be heard on the other end. But Keith looked too overwhelmed to speak, clinging to Lance's hem, mouth tight, touched in a way he probably couldn't explain that people he barely knew were so invested in his wellbeing.
"He's doing better," Lance eventually answered, feeling Keith's hand clench on his shirt. He sat down on the edge of the bed again, keeping the phone positioned between them. "The ER staff was able to get his heart rate down and his blood pressure up. I think he's pretty comfortable at the moment?" He said the last as a question, wanting Keith to confirm. He nodded while Shiro rested a companionable hand on his head. "He's definitely getting better pain medication than I've got at the apartment."
"So are they going to let you come home soon? You need a ride?" Hunk offered hopefully.
"Not yet, Hunk, thanks though. They're doing some tests, so Keith's going to stay at least until tomorrow sometime. Probably longer depending on how it goes."
Keith looked up at him as he spoke. Apparently, the idea of an extended hospital stay was news to him. Lance had forgotten that many of these discussions had happened after Keith had fallen asleep, and he could see how worried Keith was about staying the night here, possibly several.
"And you're staying with him?" Pidge asked, and Lance hoped that he was the only one to hear the slight edge in her tone. The sharpness that told Lance that she wasn't all that happy thinking of them alone together for the night.
"I'm staying," Lance confirmed, a matching edge meant only for her. She made a frustrated little huffing noise, moving away from the phone on her side. Yeah, but what else could he do? Triage was no place to spend the night alone. And he'd made a decision. "Until Keith gets tired of me and tells me to get lost."
Keith's eyes widened in disbelief, shaking his head in silent denial that he'd ever do anything like that, and Lance relaxed a little into the comfort of seeing that Keith did want him to stay.
"Tough break," Hunk empathized. "But if that's the case, you need me to bring you anything?"
Lance almost said no without thinking; he didn't want to put his roommate out any more than he already had. He'd pushed the limits of all politeness by bringing Keith home with him without even checking with Hunk first. Then Hunk had helped him manually bring Keith's fever down with snow in the middle of the night, had carried Keith to the couch, made a smoothie for him, and just been so generous and sweet about it that Lance absolutely did not want to ask him for anything else. It would take him forever to return the favors he'd already received, and it actually made it worse that Hunk would not require him to even try.
But then Lance noticed his phone battery, how low it was already. It wouldn't last the entire night at this rate. He wouldn't worry about it, but tomorrow was Sunday. He couldn't be without a phone on Sunday morning, no matter where he was.
"My phone charger?" Lance timidly requested. "But I can come get it."
"That's already in your bag, man," Hunk returned. "Guess you haven't had a chance to look in there yet."
"You packed my phone charger?" Lance asked, surprised and moved at Hunk's never-ending thoughtfulness. "What else is in there?" When had he had the time to put anything in there?
"I can't really remember; I just started grabbing stuff. You can go through it when you get bored tonight. Things were happening pretty fast, but I figured you could be gone a while, so I started packing. It was the only thing I could think of that might actually be useful while you were being a superhero and keeping Keith alive."
"Come on, Hunk," Lance dismissed, feeling awkward about it. He was a far cry from being a hero. He hadn't even been thinking about what he was doing, kneeling next to Keith in his apartment. He'd just reacted to the situation.
"Come on, nothing! I've never seen you be all medical drama serious like that. It was pretty cool."
"You were crying, Hunk," Lance pointed out flatly, wanting to remind him that it had also been extremely scary. Medical dramas were one thing - two-dimensional, well-scripted, not dangerous at all. What had happened earlier with Keith had been all too real and terrifying.
"Well, sure, but things can be cool and awful at the same time, you know. Oh, hey, is your back all right? Ten points for the catch, but the fall looked like it hurt."
"You fell?" Keith murmured, looking to Lance questioningly. This was the first he'd heard about this too. He hadn't been conscious when Lance caught him, had no idea he'd crashed into Lance, that he'd toppled them both to the floor. "What does he mean? Your back?" He started tugging at Lance's shirt, trying to twist him with one hand to see what Hunk was talking about.
"It's bruised a little, no big deal," Lance allowed, resting his free hand over Keith's to let him know there was nothing to worry about there, holding him still. He didn't want him to see his back, didn't want him to blame himself for anything. "You'll never guess who treated us, though."
"Dr. Angelique Delacroix – Our Lady of the Voodoo," Pidge responded without a moment's hesitation, her need to be right trumping whatever frustration she might be trying to hang on to about Lance and his choices. Lance slumped a little. While he was glad she was talking again, she had sort of stolen his thunder there. Why'd she always have to take the fun out of everything with her weird Internet search skills? "Did she remember you?"
"She did, actually," Lance admitted. "Not sure that's a good thing, but she did a great job getting Keith stable again." And me, he added in his head.
"She didn't do anything; you did," Keith interrupted, voice shockingly clear and almost hostile.
"Easy, Keith," Lance calmed, wondering where the energy had come from all of a sudden. "Believe me; she did a lot for both of us."
"No, seriously," Keith continued, unexpectedly passionate. "What'd she do? You're the one who did the IV and figured out that whole Kura . . .Kuramo-whatever synchronization thing. She just stood around and asked a bunch of questions." Lance couldn't disagree with that. Looking at it from Keith's perspective, it probably did look like she hadn't been very involved in the actual treatment. Keith hadn't heard what she'd said in the hall, and no one had been with them in Dr. Delacroix's office. No one knew the full extent of what she'd done to help Lance or Keith.
"What'd he just say?" Pidge broke in, intrigued and vaguely impressed. "Keith, are you talking about the Kuramoto model?" Great. Now Lance was going to have to explain what he'd tried to do and have Pidge laugh at him for the next six months. On the other hand, if he had to choose between getting teased for the synchronization experiment or have to hear her speculations on his love life, he guessed he'd pick the teasing. "Why did that come up? How do you even know about it?"
"I don't; Lance used it," Keith deflected.
"Lance?" Pidge said his name as a demand; she wanted some information.
"We just did a little experiment while we waited for the medication to work," Lance sighed, wondering how to say it that would sound the least stupid. "We tried to synch our heart rates with a Josephson junction and some oscillation."
"Did it work?" Pidge sounded so interested now, the opposite of how he'd expected her to react.
"Yeah, it did," Keith answered for him, apparently unable to talk about himself but more than ready to answer for Lance. He wasn't sure how he felt about that.
"Almost instantly," Shiro added.
"The medication worked," Lance protested, but it seemed no one was listening to him anymore. Apparently, everyone except Lance had forgotten there had even been medication, that he'd risked his EMT status on making sure Keith got it quickly.
"That was really clever, Lance," Pidge complimented, tossing Lance with one casual sentence into his own personal version of the Twilight Zone. "Don't forget what you did; I'm going to want to see if we can duplicate the experiment when you get home."
"No," Lance protested, off balance, never anticipating this sort of response to what he'd tried to do. "We can't duplicate that." That would mean one of their heartbeats would have to be dangerously high. He didn't know how to recreate something like that and he probably would refuse if he did.
"I have some ideas," Pidge rebutted, nonchalant. "I'll see if there's any literature out there already first, though."
"Knock yourself out," Lance relented, giving in. There was no stopping her now anyway.
"Hey Lance," Hunk broke in. "You said Shiro was there with you?"
"You're letting everyone call you Shiro now?" Keith whispered under his breath. Lance hadn't thought about that. Shiro had used his full name when he'd introduced himself earlier, both to Lance and to Dr. Delacroix, and Officer Guist called him Takashi. Keith's question indicated that he might have been the only one to use the nickname until now. But honestly, for Lance, Hunk and Pidge, they couldn't really help it. They'd listened to Keith call that name for hours.
"I'm here," Shiro raised his voice so Hunk could hear it over the phone, but then toned it down again just for Keith. "They're your friends; I don't mind."
"Oh, cool, hi there," Hunk began rambling again, an indication of his discomfort. "Glad you and Keith found each other, but, um, I was wondering." No, oh no, please don't ask Hunk, Lance mentally pleaded, considering hanging up the phone before Hunk could say anything about the strange manner in which Shiro arrived at the apartment. Don't. Don't. Don't. "What was up with the police officer?"
Leave it to Hunk. Damn it. Lance heard Pidge make a weird hissing sound. Keith and Shiro traded heavy glances. Lance wasn't sure which side to defend. Keith's right to privacy, or Hunk's innocent curiosity.
It turned out, he didn't have to choose.
"We'll have to talk about all that later," Lance delayed as he heard Coran's Australian strine outside Keith's door, never more grateful to be interrupted than right this second. Coran sounded as though he were also talking to someone on the phone, his voice growing louder as he came closer. "Dr. Coran is here to go over the lab work with us."
"Keep us updated?" Hunk requested, disappointed. Lance felt bad about that, but not enough. He didn't want to have that discussion with Hunk over the phone. He wanted to be able to sit with him and explain things gently. If anything needed to be explained at all. Maybe Pidge would do it for him. No, unlikely. Hunk had probably speculated about it with her already, and if she hadn't broken out the truth yet then she likely wouldn't ever. She was going to make Lance do it. Because that's what he deserved for bringing home felons, wasn't it?
"I will. Thanks for all your help. We'll talk soon," Lance repeated, knowing that he'd never be able to thank them enough. Never be able to make Pidge understand. Never be the same after all this, really. But he wasn't going to dwell on it now. Coran was here.
"Lie back, Keith," Lance instructed, hanging up and watching Keith once again trying to sit straighter. "It's ok; you don't have to move." He understood that Keith felt the need to not show weakness to people he didn't know well, particularly people with authority, but this was Coran, someone who had a sheaf of papers in his hand documenting all of Keith's current weaknesses already.
Coran walked into the room as if it were empty. He had his eyes on the floor; his mustache twitching as he pursed his lips around what Lance could only assume were twenty arguments that he couldn't find a place to slip in through the tirade coming from the phone in his hand. Lance couldn't hear any words yet, but he recognized Angelique's voice. He wondered who had called who. What sort of argument they were having. It didn't make sense for them to have anything to argue about.
"I'm not encouraging anything," Coran darted in when Angelique paused to take a breath, tucking the papers under his arm so he could hold the phone and close the door behind him at the same time. "He came to me. I don't see any problem with it."
"Well you didn't see him today," Angelique snapped, words extremely clear now that Coran had come inside, her tone exasperated from the receiver, and Lance abruptly realized that they were arguing about him. "He was a shivering, emotional wreck." Perfect. Lance fidgeted on the bed, turning his face away from Keith.
"I'm looking at him right now," Coran retorted, obviously annoyed, standing there staring unambiguously at Lance, clutching his paperwork again in his hand and tucking his fist against his hip. Lance felt Keith's and Shiro's eyes on him suddenly, adding to the count of people staring at him, making it almost unbearable. Of all the things they could be talking about, they'd decided on him? When they should have been discussing treatment plans for Keith. Lance wasn't sure if he felt angry, frightened, or embarrassed.
"You're going to ruin him," Angelique accused mercilessly, her voice sharp and loud in the room. Lance dug his fingers into the fabric of his jeans along his thighs. How long were they going to keep talking about him? Couldn't Coran see this was a conversation he should have kept out in the hallway? "He's going too fast."
"So you've said," Coran replied, coldly, unaware of the awkward atmosphere he was drowning the room in. Lance felt Shiro's robotic hand on his shoulder and unconsciously leaned into it. "Multiple times. If you feel that way, you should take it up with him yourself instead of watching him from the shadows like a vulture. This has nothing to do with my reason for calling. If you want to continue yelling at me, it'll have to be when I'm not standing in a patient room where everyone can hear you, yeah?" Yes, please, continue somewhere else. No one needed to hear any of that.
"Why on earth would you be?" Angelique cut off quickly with a growl of anger. Lance felt his insides squirming as he listened to this. He respected them both; he didn't want them to fight, especially not about him. "You just walked right in, I suppose."
"My mistake, but I thought you'd be wrapping up soon after ten straight minutes of ranting."
It was Lance's turn to grip on to Keith for reassurance as Angelique sputtered, too angry for words, astonished by Coran's audacity. Shiro bent low to monitor him, but Lance just shook his head, not ready to answer anything yet. He felt as though he were responsible for starting a blood feud. Had Coran ever met Angelique in person? Did he know what he could be starting talking to her like that? Keith patted him rather clumsily, whispering a question that Lance couldn't decipher, but it showed him that he was probably being too dramatic. He tried to loosen his body; it was time to put a stop to this conversation.
Though he felt a little numb, he left Keith's bedside and attempted to take the papers from Coran as he continued sparring with Angelique. Coran jerked his fist up and away, harsher in this moment than Lance could ever remember him, but Lance should have known better. They were no longer being casual in his living room. The lab results were confidential until Keith said it was ok for Lance to see them. Coran might have relinquished them anyway, but apparently Angelique had already lit into him about that, so he was being far more strict than normal. But it did accomplish what Lance wanted; it seemed to remind Coran where he was and what he was there for.
"Look; you're in charge here, all right?" Coran said to Dr. Delacroix, slightly deflated. "I've emailed you the results and I'm certain that you're not going to withhold treatment just because of how I got them or who took the samples. Now will you call in the order or not?"
"Of course I will," Angelique huffed, her pride as a doctor being called into question. "Is Lance still there? Will you let me talk to him, please?"
Coran squinted at Lance, suspicious, an expression he'd never shown Lance before. What was going on today? Lance held his hand out, timidly, and Coran dropped his phone into it as if it were a dead cockroach.
"Dr. Delacroix?" Lance began, feeling like the only child of divorced parents.
"I'm sorry, Lance," Angelique said, her tone cooled in an instant. "I had no idea you were listening to that." Lance admired her ability to transition so quickly from one emotion to the next. He was churning with questions, anxiety, and something else he didn't even have a word for but it didn't feel good and it related to how hard and fast everyone's attention had magnetized over to him. He turned off the speaker to the phone, raising it to his ear and closing his eyes, trying to pull the conversation back to just the two of them. He wondered if he should step out into the hall.
"It's ok," he said, though it really wasn't. She shouldn't be sorry for him hearing what she was saying about him behind his back; she should be sorry for talking about him in secret at all. However, he didn't want to continue, so there was no choice but to let it go. At least until later. "What's the order for?"
"We're going to be giving your friend an iron infusion," she told him, confirming that part of Keith's problem was severe anemia. "But I don't want to start until midnight if possible. Do you think I can wait that long? Is he comfortable right now?"
"You're asking me?" Lance wondered aloud. She could be asking Keith, except for how Keith wouldn't tell her if he wasn't comfortable. And she obviously didn't want to have a productive conversation with Coran. Still, Lance felt pressured. Like this could be a trick question somehow.
"Obviously," Angelique answered smoothly. "You've been with him since the start of his symptoms, haven't you? Do you think I can wait until midnight?"
Lance thought about that. Midnight was still several hours away. And though Keith did seem stable and comfortable right now, Lance wasn't certain it was a good idea to push it too far on his heart, rely too much on the medication. The iron would be a more natural remedy and would help a lot more than the amiodarone that Keith was currently receiving through the IV, and the EKG had already been running for over an hour. Most EKG tests took less than fifteen minutes, though in this case, Dr. Delacroix was looking for abnormalities over time. The more data available, the easier it would be to see patterns. However, it would also take time to transition from the drugs and that would be a pattern to watch as well, to see how well Keith would do without the medication and with the mineral.
"You probably could," Lance finally answered her, giving her the truth. "But I don't think there is any benefit in waiting anymore."
"Ok," Angelique gave in easily, making Lance even more suspicious that he'd just taken some sort of test. "I'll put in the order to start as soon as possible then. Please hand me back to Dundee over there so I can finish with him. See you in the morning."
Lance obediently passed the phone to Coran who stood with his arms folded, fuming while trying to make it look like he wasn't. He kept the speaker off, leaving Lance, Shiro, and Keith to look at each other in weird silence, listening to one side of the conversation, waiting for him to hang up.
"Thank you," Coran said, bitingly. "Yes, right now. I know. Of course I do! Probably more than . . . if you say so. I'm still going to let him decide and so should . . . because . . . fine. I will talk to him, ok? Ok!" Coran rammed the phone into his scrubs pocket so hard that Lance thought he might just tear through it.
"Infuriating woman," Coran muttered, shaking his head.
"What was all that about?" Shiro asked. "Is there a problem?"
"Nope, not a word to me or from me," Coran denied, plucking a pen from his breast pocket and shoving it at Keith. "Not until I get these forms properly signed. Sorry, young man," Coran softened, speaking just to Keith now. "I wasn't going to make you when I thought you'd be recovering at Lance's apartment, but now that you're here and I've got test results that require immediate treatment and future prescriptions, there's just nothing for it. It's the law. Understand?"
"What's he signing?" Shiro interjected, protective. He may not be Keith's official social worker anymore, but he was obviously still very much in business of acting on Keith's behalf.
"And who are you?" Coran demanded, still ruffled from talking with Angelique.
"Takashi Shirogane," Shiro answered readily, standing by Keith's side, straight and honestly intimidating. Though Coran didn't seem to be intimidated in the least. "I'm Keith's guardian."
"Lance?" Coran asked for confirmation, staring Shiro in the eye as if he could best him in any fight he may want to start. Maybe he really did used to wrestle crocodiles. Or maybe he lacked the social graces to notice that he kept verbally putting himself in danger. Lance couldn't tell; he'd never seen Coran so agitated before.
"It's ok, Dr. Coran," Lance said peacefully, emphasizing his mentor's title to make sure everyone in the room would give him the respect that he deserved. He didn't want anyone to dismiss his credibility just because Dr. Delacroix had been lecturing him. "Keith wants him to be here."
"I see. Well in that case, what I need signed is a document giving me and Dr. Delacroix clearance to diagnose and treat illness, a waiver holding the hospital not liable for anything unexpected that could potentially happen, a statement indicating that I have given you a copy of HIPAA law and hospital policy, which is right here by the way, and a privacy agreement where I am given permission to share information with other individuals as identified such as a primary care physician." As he spoke to Shiro, Coran handed Keith papers, pointing with amazing efficiency all the specific lines requiring Keith's signature or initials. "And this one is for your insurance," he finished, though Keith didn't seem to know what to do with it.
"I don't think I have insurance," Keith confessed. This statement drew all the remaining hostility out of Coran. Lance watched him gentle, saw compassion soften his jaw as if he'd just now remembered that Keith was barely a legal adult, that he didn't know what was going on or how to handle it.
"You should," Shiro offered helpfully. "I'll have to check with Kasey about it, but you should be covered by Medicaid until you're twenty-five. He would have gone over the paperwork with you in the exit interview; do you remember?"
Keith shook his head, closing up as if ashamed.
"Keith – did you have an exit interview?" Shiro pushed, attempting to be gentle though traces of impatience were creeping into the frown lines on his mouth. Keith shook his head again, the tiniest of movements. Shiro closed his eyes, pushing his palm to his forehead. Lance knew that Keith would take this gesture as anger directed at him, but Lance thought it looked more like Shiro were mad at himself again.
"Well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it then," Coran dismissed, taking back all the signed papers, including the blank one on insurance.
"Can you tell us what's going on?" Shiro requested, also quieter, not as threatening. Lance wanted to know as well now that the legal stuff was out of the way. Hopefully, there was nothing wrong with Keith that time and drugs couldn't resolve. "What are the results?"
"I can't tell you until Keith says it's ok," Coran answered. Dr. Delacroix must have really yelled at him. Not that Coran didn't adhere to policy; Lance followed him around the hospital enough to know that, but the way he said it indicated that he was being more tensely by-the-book than normal. Any other day, the fact that Shiro was in the room would be reason enough to think that Keith would be all right with him hearing the diagnosis. "Keith, would you like these two to step outside while I go over your test results with you?"
"No, they can stay," Keith gave permission, and Coran nodded. Because they had all known that in the first place.
"I thought so," Coran said, shifting the papers around until he found the ones he needed. He cleared his throat. "And your bloodwork confirms some other things that we thought as well. You did test positive for influenza B virus, and the CBC test came back with extremely low hemoglobin levels, a definitive symptom for anemia. It looks as though you're not getting enough iron into your blood, which makes you very tired, makes your heart have to work harder to get oxygen through your body, and it leaves your immune system weakened. The good news is that you tested negative for HIV, so the cause of your anemia is likely an abrupt change in diet and can be corrected easily without requiring you to take pills for the rest of your life. All that tells us how we got here," Coran lifted a hand, rotating his wrist to indicate the hospital room. "Now I'm going to tell you what we can do about getting you better and back home again."
"Ok," Keith accepted, his voice quiet. Lance usually felt a little bit of triumph when the lab work confirmed his hypotheses, but not this time. He usually didn't know the other patients. He didn't spend any time with them outside of the moments he came and went with Coran. They were just case files – little different than homework problems. It made such a difference when he could picture the suffering alongside the numbers on the chart. Now that he knew what 103.9 fevers looked like.
"Most of this will be taken care of by Dr. Delacroix, as she's the doctor who admitted you to the emergency room," Coran explained keeping his voice professional. "She's having an iron infusion brought in very soon that we're going to administer through your IV. It'll take about four hours. That'll kickstart the recovery, but you'll likely need to take an oral iron supplement for a while and change your diet to make sure you don't end up here again. As for the virus, there isn't a lot we can do but let it run its course and handle individual symptoms as they come. Do you have any questions about what I've just told you?"
"How long will I have to stay here?" Keith asked, holding the papers that Coran had passed him. The printouts of the results. A paper on anemia and what foods he should eat that contain high amounts of iron.
Three days, Lance wanted to answer. That was the standard for monitoring a patient like Keith to make sure his heart rate stayed within normal parameters, give him a chance to get over the virus while getting proper IV hydration. He was so certain about it that he almost opened his mouth to answer for Coran.
"That will be for Dr. Delacroix to decide," Coran said instead, surprisingly. "She'll be back in the morning to talk about that with you. Until then, you keep resting. Lance, do you need a ride home? I won't be finished until eleven or a little after, but it's a bad night to walk, so I can take you if you need me to."
"No, thanks, Coran, but I'm staying," Lance said again, wondering why everyone expected him to just leave Keith here.
"I'll see if I can have a cot brought in then," Coran accepted the answer, turning toward Shiro. "Should I tell them we need more than one?"
"No," Shiro answered, understanding quickly what Coran was saying. Keith jerked his head over to him, worried. "Unfortunately, I can't stay."
"You're leaving?" Keith asked, as though he might never see him again if he left his sight now. Shiro bent over Keith, covering his shoulders with his hands, squeezing him in reassurance.
"I wouldn't if I thought you'd be here alone," Shiro assured him. "But I have some calls to make; things to take care of right away. I need to talk to Kasey about the Medicaid thing, and probably talk to your lawyer. Do you have a lawyer?"
Keith side-eyed Lance nervously, but then gave up. There was no point in being secretive anymore. Not since the moment the police had showed up to the apartment looking for him. "Yeah," he answered. "The court appointed one for me, but I don't know her number. It's in my phone. Her name is . . . well, her last name is Krolia."
"That sounds familiar; I think our office has worked with her before. I can find her number," Shiro said thoughtfully. "But is there anything else? Do you have any paperwork? A file or something so I can get caught up on what's been going on?"
"Yeah, it's," Keith paused, his eyes flitting over to Lance again, looking embarrassed. "There's a file in my backpack. It has everything in it. My phone is in there too, but it's probably dead."
"That's ok. It doesn't matter, but where can I find the backpack? The apartment?" Shiro asked, efficiently, no judgment at all in his tone. He really was perfect for Keith. Lance wondered how many times Shiro had been put in this position before, scrambling to get Keith out of trouble. He also wondered why Keith kept making it necessary for Shiro to intervene for him. Then he had one last dark thought on how this could be the last time.
"All Keith's stuff is at my place," Lance answered for him, understanding at last why Keith had been so possessive and weird about Lance searching around in his backpack. He hadn't wanted Lance to see the file about the court case. Didn't want Lance to know he was on trial for murder. "The backpack is in my room. Hunk can find it for you. I'll let him know you're coming to get it."
"Thanks, that's a big help," Shiro expressed, grateful, though he sounded tired now. Probably from the overwhelming knowledge of what he'd walked into, what he was going to have to try and do. He pulled out his wallet from his back pocket, retrieving a business card from the folds and handing it to Lance. "Will you call me if something changes?" Lance scanned the card. Takashi Shirogane. Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. Office address. Phone number. Fax number. Cell number. Email.
"Of course," Lance promised, knowing that he would be calling Shiro for any little reason at all. If Keith were scared. If Keith cried for him in his sleep. Now that he had permission and a phone number, now that he'd met him in person, he would never again hesitate about contacting Shiro.
"It's going to be all right, Keith," Shiro assured. "Lance is here with you, and I'll be back before eight tomorrow; I promise." Keith looked at Shiro, covered in the fragments of all the promises that had been made to him and broken before. Like they were shards of glass that he was going to cut himself holding on to because he was going to try, one more time, to see if they would hold true and together. Shiro must have seen this too; he returned to Keith's bedside, pressing his forehead against Keith's, closing his eyes.
"I won't if you won't," Shiro whispered to Keith, words that must have some secret meaning between them. Keith relaxed as soon as he heard them spoken. "Have Lance call me if you need something."
"I'll see you tomorrow," Keith whispered his hope out loud, looking at the blanket, resigned. Shiro nodded comfortingly, though he didn't seem satisfied. Lance knew he wanted to stay here, but he also knew that there were battles outside this room that only Shiro could tackle. They were a team now, Lance and Shiro. Lance would stay and mediate for Keith medically while Shiro went out to take care of the legal issues. He couldn't believe it was possible, but somehow that made him feel even more responsible for making sure Keith got the treatment he needed. He didn't want to let Shiro down.
Shiro shook Lance's hand, eyes filled with gratitude, then also shook Dr. Coran's as he made his way slowly toward the door. He looked over his shoulder at Keith, as though he wanted to say one last thing, but in the end he forced himself out into the hall, and Lance watched him speed up as he walked purposefully toward the exit. Lance wasn't quite ready for him to leave yet either. There was a lot that he thought they needed to talk about still, even though there were more important things for Shiro to do right now and they were definitely running out of time.
"I need to head upstairs myself," Coran said, bringing himself back to their attention. "Keith – I probably won't see you again. Dr. Delacroix will be taking over from here, so best of luck to you. As for you," Coran settled rather fierce blue eyes onto Lance. "If you need anything, you'll come to me, yeah?"
"I always do," Lance said dismissively, feeling uncomfortable, remembering what Angelique had said to Coran about him, wondering what she might have said before Coran had come into the room.
"Evidently, you don't," Coran countered darkly. "We don't have to get into it here or now, but sometime soon, I'd like to talk to you about what Angelique told me today and why you've been hiding it."
Lance hunched his shoulders, wanting to say something petulant like, "Do we really have to?" He truly didn't understand why everyone wanted to make such a big fuss over him. Why couldn't they just trust that he knew what he was doing and leave it at that? However, he felt that if he wanted to continue under Coran's mentorship, he would have to agree.
"Sure," he yielded, mostly so he could put it out of his head for a while. Maybe Coran would forget all about it. Actually, chances were almost guaranteed that he would. But Angelique wouldn't. Pity.
"Take care then – both of you," Coran said in parting, leaving Lance alone with Keith in the yellowish dark of the negative pressure room. It made Lance remember the previous time he'd been alone with Keith – the few minutes they'd spent together in his room right before Shiro and Officer Guist had tracked him down to Lance's apartment. He wasn't sure if things were improving or not from that point. He decided to pretend that they were.
"So," Lance said, forcing some cheerfulness into his voice as he dragged the chair from next to the door closer to the bed. He'd be here awhile, might as well pull up a seat. "Now we know what's going on with you. That's good."
Keith didn't seem close to convinced about that. He stared at Lance with his mouth open – the way he'd looked when Lance was speaking a foreign language. "That's all you're going to say?" He choked on the confusion in his question. Lance shrugged, as though whatever they'd just heard and learned about each other was no big deal.
There was plenty he wanted to say, though. What'd Shiro mean – the apartment where Lance had found Keith wasn't his? What was an exit interview and why didn't Keith have one? Who was Kasey? Was Krolia doing a good job as Keith's lawyer or was she being as careless as the rest of the DCFS employees responsible for Keith's wellbeing? And the huge, burning question that Lance desperately wanted and also did not want answered simultaneously. Had Keith really killed someone?
"What do you want me to say?" Lance questioned mildly, sitting down, putting himself at eye level with Keith.
"I don't know," Keith said, frustrated, resting his head and staring at the ceiling. The bed remained in a reclined position, but Keith had curled to the side, almost sitting up, facing Lance. He still wore the oxygen mask, but now that things had settled down in the room and the silence between them turned awkward, he started fidgeting with it. No one had turned the flow down yet; it was still maxed out at fifteen.
"You can probably take that off now," Lance invited, knowing how irritating it could be to have that much air blowing in your face when you no longer needed it. "It might freak out your nurse, but I think you can chance it."
Upon receiving permission, Keith practically tore the straps from the mask in his haste to get it off his face. He took a moment after flinging it to the side to examine himself, the hospital gown, the IV, all the electrodes connecting him to the EKG machine. The increasing panic on his face made Lance tense in preparation to hold him down. He looked like he might be at a breaking point, like he couldn't stand one more second strapped to this bed. He looked ready to start desperately and recklessly ripping lines off his body, which actually was a good and bad thing. It meant that he was feeling better, stronger, but Lance knew it was a false sense of wellness. If Keith were to actually start trying to move around much, he'd exhaust himself in a matter of minutes.
"You still need all the other stuff," Lance said preemptively. "I know it feels like you're tied up, but if you touch anything else, it'll set off all the alarms this room has. Take a deep breath and chill out."
Lance partially stood from the chair, watching as Keith didn't respond to his words. He hovered over him, ready to grab his wrists, trying to think of something to distract Keith from thinking too hard about how he couldn't get up. "Keith, look at me. Relax."
As Keith immediately shifted to the command, Lance was amazed anew at how big Keith's eyes were and how even though they were so wide and focused on him, he still couldn't decide on the color. They were dark, or maybe they weren't, and clouded. They were still full of fear and frustration.
"You're going to be all right," Lance calmed, watching as his words flipped the fear, twisting it into disbelief. Keith pulled his knees to his chest, wrapping his arms around them. "You aren't going to be stuck like this forever."
"Just the next four to fifteen years," Keith murmured, ducking his head behind his knees. Lance bit into his lip, realizing that Keith was making a very dark joke about how long he could be sentenced to prison.
"Can I get you anything?" Lance tried to change the subject, not sure if he were ready for Keith to start lowering his guard over the details of the trial. He could no longer pretend to know nothing about it, but he surprisingly didn't want to talk about it yet either. Because once he knew the real truth, there would be no going back after that. He wanted to stall a little longer. "Maybe some ice? Are you hungry?"
Keith lifted his head, his expression quizzical, fierce, and defiant. "Why aren't you asking me what you really want to ask me?" He challenged. He sounded like he was up against a wall with nowhere to go, his voice stronger than it had been since yesterday morning. He sounded as though he thought the only way out was to charge through as quickly as possible and with hopefully minimal damage. Lance thought carefully about how he wanted to answer him, deciding to risk turning off the oxygen flow at the wall before saying anything. There was no point in having it on anymore.
"I'd be lying if I told you I wasn't curious," Lance allowed, returning to where Keith could see him, sitting down again. "But it's none of my business." And I've been telling myself that for two days.
"You saved my life," Keith returned, and Lance began to wonder if Keith actually wanted him to ask, wanted to tell him about it. But he somehow couldn't volunteer the information on his own unless Lance demanded it from him first. "And you got in trouble doing it."
"Keith, you don't have to tell me anything you don't want to," Lance maintained, feeling as though now that it looked as though he could have all the explanations he thought he wanted, he actually did not want them.
"I killed someone," Keith finally blurted out, and Lance sighed, wishing he hadn't said that.
"No, you didn't," he countered, amazingly calm, not truly knowing anything about it but somehow feeling that it just wasn't possible. Or maybe that he didn't want it to be possible.
"I did," Keith confirmed, sounding displeased that Lance wasn't believing or even reacting much to this revelation. "I'm not like you, ok? I'm not a good person."
"Shut up, Keith," Lance surprised himself by saying, but it felt good to rip the velvet gloves off how they talked to each other. So carefully. He knew what was happening now. Keith had been too sick before to put up much protest about anything. He'd been forced to submit to whatever Lance told him to do. But now, with his physical pain dulled to nothing and his heart behaving as it was supposed to, now Keith could act more like himself. The boy who kept his distance from anyone who might try to care about him just as Shiro had said. The boy who hurt people before they could hurt him. The boy who was afraid of what Lance would think of him now that he'd heard some of the truth. "You're not a bad person either."
"How do you know? You don't know anything about me." Keith's tone shifted somewhere between indignant and despondent.
"So tell me," Lance dared more than invited, even though he thought he knew more than Keith suspected. "Who was it? Why did you do it?" Because it just doesn't make sense.
"You should go home, Lance," Keith shifted, pulling back. "Go back to your friends; they're worried about you."
"They're worried about you," Lance pressed, leaning forward. "So is Shiro. So am I. I don't want to leave you alone, Keith, and I don't think you really want me to either."
"How can you be like that?" Keith demanded, perplexed. "Didn't you hear what I said?"
"It wasn't your fault, Keith," Lance insisted, though he knew he'd never be able to fully put into words why not or how he knew it without knowing any of the details. "You don't remember, but you talked about it last night. You said you didn't mean to, that you were sorry. You said that you just wanted him to stop. That doesn't sound like murder to me, Keith. It sounds like defense, and I can't believe they're putting you on trial for it. The whole thing is a joke."
Now Keith looked completely stricken, tamed and quiet. "You already knew?"
"Yes," Lance confessed, feeling guilty. "Pidge looked it up after hearing some of the stuff you said when you were out of it. She told me about the trial, that you'd confessed to a murder."
"And you still?" Keith was suddenly speechless, turning away to look at the IV in his hand. "Why?"
"Because I promised I'd take care of you until you were better," Lance told him, because it really was as simple as that. There are some people in this world who do keep promises, Keith, and I'm one of them. "And I believe that if you really did kill someone, it was because you were forced to. Is that what happened?" There – he'd finally asked out loud. "Did you know him? Was he hurting you?"
"Me? No," Keith said, so quietly, slowly pulling Lance's blanket over himself as if for protection.
"Someone else then? No, wait," Lance stood up, running a hand through his hair. "You don't have to answer that. You don't have to tell me anything." He went to the stock cabinets, nervously turning on the faucet so he could splash some water on his face. What was going on here? Nothing even felt real or true anymore.
"I was in a bookstore," Keith began almost defiantly behind Lance, which made him shut off the water and hang his head over the sink, listening intently. "I used to hang out there a lot because it didn't close until midnight." Lance took a slow inhale. There was so much that Keith had given him in that sentence. He'd run away from Shiro, from the group home. He hung out in a bookstore because it was warm and safe and lessoned the time he had to spend in the night as a homeless teenager on the south side of Chicago.
"It wasn't that late, but it was already dark outside," Keith kept talking when Lance didn't turn or respond. It seemed there would be no going back now. "I heard some arguing in a corner – a girl trying to get some creep to leave her alone."
He wouldn't stop. He wouldn't get off. Lance hid his face in his hands, kept his back toward Keith.
"I got between them, told him to get lost. He backed off and left, the girl thanked me, and I thought we were done. She stayed in the store another thirty minutes, and I sort of watched her. She was shook up, you know? She'd called someone to come pick her up and was waiting for them to get there. I didn't offer to walk her out, but I should have. God, I should have."
Keith paused, overcome with regret. Lance carefully looked over his shoulder to see if Keith needed any help, checked his stats on the monitor to see if talking about this was damaging in any way. He opened his mouth to let Keith know that he could stop if he wanted to. That he didn't have to say any more if it were bothering him. At least, that's what he meant to say.
"Was he waiting for her outside? The guy you told off?" He asked instead, prompting Keith to continue, anticipating the scenario of these strangers. This situation that Keith had stepped into without knowing how horribly it would end for him.
"He grabbed her in the parking lot," Keith confirmed. "Started dragging her off. It was dark and cold – no one noticed. Her friend or sister or whoever her ride was didn't even see him – she was looking for a spot to park or something."
"But you saw him," Lance affirmed, hanging on Keith's every word.
"I ran out there, but he almost had her in his car already. I yelled at him, tried to drag him off her. I guess he used to be her boyfriend – that's why he was fighting so hard. I don't even remember what happened after he tried to punch me. There was screaming. I just kept hitting back until the police came and pulled me off him."
"And he was dead?" Lance asked, not sure why.
"No," Keith responded. "Not then. I put him in the hospital, but he didn't die until later."
"And the girl? Was she ok?"
"Yeah, she was fine – I think. Scared. I remember her sitting with her friend with a blanket over her – both of them staring at me when I was being handcuffed."
"Were you hurt?" Had anyone even checked? The girls – hadn't they explained what really happened? They were witnesses; they knew that Keith had only been trying to save someone. This was all wrong.
"I took a few hits, nothing serious," Keith responded, all the emotion stripped forcefully from his tone.
"And they're putting you on trial for this?" Lance asked, incredulous. This was nothing like what he'd imagined happened, not even close.
"That's what manslaughter is," Keith said, closing his eyes as Lance turned completely to face him. "He's dead because of what I did to him; his parents want me executed."
"God, stop. Just stop."
All Lance's life, he'd thought about what it would be like to live in America. Growing up in Cuba, he'd seen what it was like when a government owned your soul, where you were given barely all you needed to live but nothing more. He had seen executions. And he'd believed that it was different in the US. But after hearing about how this government, this supposedly free and just system, had taken one of its orphans and destroyed him when he'd done nothing wrong – this was too much to hear.
"You don't have to stay," Keith told him, keeping his eyes closed. As if he thought that now that Lance had the truth, he'd want to get away from Keith as quickly as possible and Keith didn't want to watch him leave. "I get it."
"No, you really don't," Lance fumed, furious and vindicated at the same time and not able to keep it out of his voice even though he knew that Keith would take it the wrong way. "This is. . . wrong. You saved her, Keith!"
But he could see very easily how it could have been thrown out of context. The couple had dated once. The girl hadn't been injured. No one could prove that her ex meant to harm her in any way. Lance could hear the arguments now. Why had Keith felt the need to go so far? There are other ways to stop someone without the use of lethal force. And knowing Keith's history . . . yeah, it was easy to see how it'd been twisted to be all Keith's fault even if the girl had told the truth. But it was still so unfair.
I didn't mean to, Keith had cried. Please, listen. You have to believe me.
And Shiro had been missing. Separated from Keith and unable to help him because he hadn't even known until Officer Guist appeared looking for Keith with the summons. He'd been on his own with no one to speak for him.
"Keith," Lance said again, because Keith had curled into a miserable ball under the blanket. Lance closed the distance between them, putting a gentle hand on Keith's shoulder. "Keith, thanks for telling me. It means a lot."
It meant that a piece of Lance's soul could ease about Keith. He wasn't a killer, and everyone who had told Lance he was being an idiot for sticking with Keith despite the evidence that it was a bad idea were wrong.
"It doesn't change anything," Keith lamented, and Lance had to admit to himself that this could also be the truth. Because there was still all that evidence that looked as though Keith were a danger to society, and Lance wasn't certain that anyone would take the time, especially now when the trial was basically over, to consider looking at it another way.
"You're right; it doesn't," Lance told him, which made Keith lift his head. Lance tightened his hold on Keith's shoulder. He looked absolutely wretched, expecting Lance to desert him like everyone else in his life. "Because I still want to be your friend," Lance confirmed, as serious as he could. "And I'm staying with you."
Keith's eyes welled up and he darted behind the blanket again with a frustrated hiss. "You're unbelievable," Lance heard him say, muffled under fabric and tears.
"Yeah, you are," Lance returned before letting it drop. Letting them both process. Lance really wanted to call Pidge and tell her off. He also wanted to call Shiro and beg him to figure a way out of this for Keith. There was no way he should go to prison for this. He'd been trying to help.
But the trial was over. The jury had made a decision. Lance was still reassuringly holding to Keith when Abbie came in with an IV bag full of the rust-colored iron solution. He held a finger to his lips and shook his head at her when she opened her mouth to ask them if they were ok. With professional understanding, she quickly slipped the bag onto the pole and inserted another line into Keith's existing IV. Lance shuddered, watching as the iron bled into the colorless saline solution, a treatment that looked more like something from a horror movie than anything beneficial. Abbie lifted her hand to her ear, mouthing the words "call me" before tip-toeing out the door.
Lance wished there was someone he could call. Wished that he weren't walking into this so late in the game, now when there was nothing he could really do. Keith peered out of the blanket, looking up at the IV pole fearfully, noticing how the color had changed so dramatically on the IV line in his hand. He turned to Lance, who tried to smile, knowing that even though he couldn't do much, he could make sure that whatever happened to Keith – he wouldn't go through it alone.
Author's Note: Such a busy chapter, wasn't it? No one really moved much and yet, there felt like a lot of movement to me. I also feel less stuck now that Keith's FINALLY told us what happened.
At least . . . some of what happened.
As always thanks so much for patiently waiting and sticking with me. I'm still having a blast writing this, and I hope you are liking it too. Let me know what you think – I love hearing from you.
