"You can see him now," Elle said as she came in and motioned for Jay and Zed to follow her down the hall and into a room a little bit later. Jay let out a soft gasp as they entered. Kay was attached to a bank of monitors, with an IV dripping blood into his arm as a respirator forced air into his lungs.
"How bad is it?" Zed asked as he pulled Elle aside. From the blonde agent's pale and shaken expression, he doubted there was good news.
"It's not all bad," Elle murmured as she shook her head to clear it a bit. She was just so tired but she couldn't rest. "The preliminary tests show that at least his brainstem, what controls breathing and the heartbeat, is functioning fine. I'm hoping to get him off of the respirator within a day or so if he does well."
"And the bad news?"
"The bad news is that there are some signs of damage to the rest of his brain."
"Brain damage? How bad is it? He's going to be alright, isn't he?" Jay asked as he joined Zed and Elle. He couldn't stand to look at his partner laying there like that, more dead than alive.
"I'm just not sure. The human brain can compensate for a lot with one side taking over for the other when there's an injury," Elle said as she sadly glanced over at Kay for a second before turning away. She couldn't let herself look at him or she would start sobbing and never stop. "And of course, there's a chance that he'll wake up and be fine. We just have to wait and see."
"Any idea of when he'll wake up?" Zed asked.
"Unfortunately, no. The coma is very deep. About as bad as comas get," Elle murmured. "But Kay was extremely healthy before this happened. That's a big point in his favor."
"Yeah, if anyone can pull through something like this, it's Kay. Nothing can keep him down," Jay said. "So, is there anything we can do? Some way to help him?"
"Talk to him. People in comas can still hear things," Elle said. "I would suggest waiting until tommorrow to try though. Give him a chance to recover a bit from the surgery."
"Alright. You just hang in there, alright?" Jay whispered as he went over to Kay's side and briefly touched his shoulder before following Zed out the door. Kay had to come out of this.
As soon as Jay and Zed were gone, Elle went back to Kay's bedside, idlely checking the monitors before sitting down and taking his hand in her own. She thought back on what had happened, what she had done when she found him running the events over and over in her mind as she tried to think of something that she could have done differently. Something that might have prevented him from being injured like this. Finally she couldn't stand it any longer and broke down, tears pouring down her face until her eyes slowly slipped shut as she drifted off to sleep still clinging to Kay's hand.