Anyways, this was originally intended to be about a romance between Hank and Val, but I'm afraid Jamie took it over. The next story in this series (untitled as of now), will be about Hank and Val.
I don't know if the Reeve Research Facility exists, but I figured it seemed fitting. If it does exist, I don't own it.
Anyway, folks, enjoy!
Prologue
Val Lanier jogged down the street of her new town. Well, new was not entirely accurate. This was not the first time she had lived in Kingsport, but it was the first time she had lived here as an adult.
She was not thinking of the paved road beneath her as she ran, and her shoe caught in a crack. She found herself slammed against the sidewalk with an oof!
"Need a hand?" She heard a male voice ask. Val looked up from the cool pavement to see a man extending a hand. Val smiled and grasped it. There was something unusual about that hand...it seemed, on some level, almost as cool and hard as the pavement she found herself being lifted from.
"Thanks," she said once she was upright. She got a good look at her helper. He was tall and good looking, with raven colored hair and midnight eyes that seemed to gaze right into her soul. He was wearing short sleeves, which caused Val to notice that his right arm was a good deal tanner, as well as more...natural...looking than his left. With a start, Val realized that his left arm was a prosthetic. His right arm was even colored, and his right hand rested softly on a dark wooden cane.
"No problem," he told her. Then he cocked his head and smiled slightly. "Do you live around here? You look very familiar."
She was thinking the same thing about him. "No, I just moved here. But I did grow up in Kingsport."
"So did I," he told her. "I'm Jamie Waite, welcome bac-oof !"
She broke into a grin and embraced him so quickly she felt him tighten his grip on the cane to stay steady.
When Val released Jamie, he chuckled. "Well, that settles it. You certainly aren't one of my ex-girlfriends," he joked.
"Jamie, it's me. Val Lanier."
He smiled. "Val Lanier. I never thought I'd see you again." Then he looked at her knee. "You're bleeding. How about you come inside, and we'll bandage you up? Then, after that, we can catch up on each others' lives."
Val agreed, and they headed inside. Once bandaged, they sat down at a table.
"You're walking," Val began. "That's amazing."
Jamie gave her a smile. "Miracles of modern medicine." He paused. "Or unmiracles, I suppose."
"What do you mean?"
"Let me tell you..."
A few years earlier...
Hank walked a few steps behind Jamie as he made his way up the airport ramp. Though Hank could see Jamie straining to wheel himself one-handed up the incline, Hank didn't ask Jamie if he needed any help. Hank definitely knew better than that. The only time Hank was allowed to give Jamie help was when Jamie asked for it, and even those times were few and far between. Besides, in all of the years that they had roomed together, Jamie had never once asked Hank to push him somewhere. His requests were usually more along the lines of "Could you reach the Tylenol? I've got a wicked headache", or "Can you pick us up some coffee while you're out? I know you like your morning coffee black, but I don't". Jamie was almost entirely self sufficient and Hank respected that, which was probably one of the reasons they got along so well.
Hank chuckled under his breath. If someone had told him in high school that he would end up as best friends with Jamie, he would have thought they were crazy.
Jamie finished his way up the ramp, and paused briefly before continuing through the airport. The crowds seemed to part around him, and Hank followed closely in his wake, holding Jamie's plane ticket, and nothing else. Jamie wouldn't allow Hank to carry his carryon, insisting that he hold it himself.
They got to the ticket counter, and Jamie naturally got to pre-board. The flight lady put up a slight fuss about letting Hank onto the plane without a ticket, but when Jamie assured her that Hank was just there to help him onto the plane, and he would leave it before it took off, she gave in. Of course, that wasn't true. Jamie was surprisingly very adept at getting himself in and out of his wheelchair, but the ticket lady didn't have to know that.
"You were nice," Hank stated as they made their way to the plane.
Jamie shrugged. "Since this is one of the last times I have to deal with that kind of thing, I figured I let her off easy and take advantage of the situation."
Once in the plane, Jamie maneuvered himself onto the seat. When he strapped himself in, wheelchair folded and stowed safely away, Hank clapped Jamie on the shoulder. "Take care of yourself, man. I expect to see you walking down the ramp when I come to pick you up in two months, OK?"
"Got it."
They exchanged good-byes, and Hank left. Jamie leaned his head back to it rested on the wall behind him. He was very excited, but at the same time, very nervous.
A few months before, Hank had learned about a research facility studying spinal cord injuries. They thought that they had discovered a medical breakthrough, a drug that could repair a severed spinal cord. They needed test subjects, and, since both Hank and Jamie were working in the medical field (Hank was a very influential doctor in the Kingsport General ER, and Jamie had taken over Alex's position as director of the Kingsport EMS squads), they had managed to pull some strings to get Jamie a spot as one of the human guinea pigs.
And now that he was on his way to the facility, he didn't know how to feel. He was having such high hopes of this working, but what if it didn't? What would he do if this long awaited opportunity turned out to be false?
Jamie unzipped his carryon so he could get out some music, and to his surprise, perched on top of his items was a card.
He pulled it out. The cover was entirely white, but the inside was a flurry of color. Every available space was crammed with writing, most were short ones in colored marker, but three longer messages were in ink, one from Hank, one from Caitie, and one from Brooke. He read the letters from his close friends, and then moved onto the marketed ones.
The shorter messages were from all of his 'kids'. In college, Jamie had decided he wanted to do something in the medical field, but it was difficult finding a job for someone only in control of one limb. Then, one day, it seemed like he stumbled across a possibility he had overlooked, and that was the day he decided to direct an EMT station. Jamie obtained all of the necessary degrees, and the day Alex retired, Jamie pounced on the job. He was very happy with that aspect of his life. He was making a difference by doing the thing he loved. Not only was he part of helping out people in life-threatening situations, but he also made a difference to the kids as well.
One of the messages read "When you come back, we can see how well you play b-ball not in your 'chair. -Paulo". Paulo was a kid who reminded Jamie so much of him when he was young: a real rebellious tough guy who acted like he hated the squad, but deep down, Jamie knew, he loved what he was doing.
Another note read "I wish you the best! Love, Michelle" Michelle's dad had died a few months ago and Jamie had thought that she would leave the squad. But she stuck with it, to everyone's surprise.
One scribbled at the bottom said "Make sure that your months of staying apart from us wonderful, angelic teenagers is worth it -Andrew" Andrew was someone he knew was destined to end up with a "Dr.", "General", or "Honorable" in front of his name one day, but yet, he had the best sense of humor out of any of his kids.
Jamie smiled, folded up the card, and placed it back in his bag. By that time, the plane had taken off, and Jamie looked at the seat facing him (he was sitting in one of the front, backwards facing seats), to see a young boy staring at his arm, or, more accurately, lack of arm.
When Jamie met the gaze of the boy, he asked, "Why do you only have one arm?"
The woman sitting next to the boy shushed him. "Rick, that isn't polite. Apologize."
Jamie shook his head, slightly annoyed with the woman, and not with the boy Rick. "No, it's quite all right." Jamie found that people were so unwilling to acknowledge his condition, as if by somehow ignoring it, it would go away, something which often ticked Jamie off. "I lost it in a car accident when I was 17."
"I'm so sorry," said the woman.
Jamie lowered his eyebrows. "It's not your fault."
"I know, but-" She sighed, and leaned back into her seat.
Jamie looked at the kid. "I'm Jamie."
"I'm Rick. Do you like dinosaurs?"
"I _love_ dinosaurs, Rick."
"Would you like to play with them with me?"
"Sure."
Jamie really liked kids, because kids never had to make excuses, never felt sorry for him, something so few adults did. So Jamie spent his plane ride playing "Dinosaurs" with the boy.
Once the plane landed, he hopped a taxi to the research facility. It was a tall gray stone building. When he entered, he was greeted by a young assistant. She showed him around the facility, from where he would be living, to physical therapy rooms, and then to a large gathering room. There were four other people there, each in wheelchairs, whom Jamie assumed were the other test subjects.
"Dr. Waite," the assistant began. "Meet Andrea Brittish, Simon Oliver, Renee Cho, and David Gale. Everyone, this is Dr. James Waite." Jamie took a look at the other four. The ones she introduced as Simon and Renee were both older than Jamie, with Simon around 40 and Renee probably about 50. Both, Jamie could tell, were quadriplegics. Andrea looked to be about Jamie's age, and David was in his late teens. David and Andrea were, like Jamie, only unable to use the lower half of their bodies.
Jamie wheeled to the group. "You can call me Jamie."
"You're one of the doctors?" Andrea asked.
Jamie shook his head. "Not here, but I do work in the medical field."
"Wow, I never thought that a hospital would hire someone like me."
The five spent nearly an hour getting aquatinted, until the staff of doctors they would be working with entered the room and began to go over procedures. Though the Jamie and the others would be sleeping in the facility, they were allowed to leave during the day. They wanted to make sure that they tried out the medicine on people that were fairly active, as well as people who weren't.
They received schedules. Breakfast was at 9 AM, and during breakfast was when they would receive their first treatment of the day. They were required to stay at the facility to be observed until 11. After that, they were free to do as they pleased until 3, when they would return to the facility to receive another treatment and have another two hour observation period. At 5, they could leave again, though they had to be back at 9 to receive their last treatment of the day. They had to speak to doctors for a period of time each day, and they were also expected to perform some physical therapy each day.
That was no problem for Jamie, as he stuck to a very strict physical therapy program in which he exercised two hours at day, everyday, regardless of what was happening in his life at that point. He was very diligent about making sure his legs were strong despite lack of use, as well as exercising his upper body.
At nine that night, Jamie received his first treatment. A vial of clear liquid was injected into his hip. "This shouldn't hurt a bit," joked the nurse poking him.
His days went very much to schedule for almost two weeks. He and David became very quick friends when they discovered they had very similar sense of humor. They greatly enjoyed terrorizing the nurses, and flirting with them whenever possible.
David suggested, since they were in L.A., they might as well do the tourist thing, so they managed to find a shop that sold very tourist-y Hawaiian shirts, and then donned them each morning before setting out to conquer the city. Andrea came with them often, and Jamie greatly enjoyed their company.
David, he learned, had lost the use of her legs in a similar way that Jamie had: in a horrible car accident, when she was barely ten. Andrea, on the other hand, was on a football team in college, and a play gone wrong had landed him in a wheelchair as well. During the nights, when everyone would gather together and talk, he also learned more about Simon and Renee. Renee, like Jamie and David, was in a car crash, while Simon, who had grown up on a farm, was thrown from a colt he was trying to train. All 5 people enjoyed being around the others, because in this setting, they were not "freaks" or "cripples", or people to be sorry for. They were normal, they were accepted. And that was priceless.
***
Jamie layed back on his bed, smiling. Around two weeks before, Jamie had begun to feel a tingling in his legs, and ever since, he had been regaining feeling, bit by bit.
And he had been regaining the ability to move, though slowly. First it had been a toe, then he could move his foot, then his knees...
Now he was at a point where he could almost walk, if his legs were strong and coordinated enough to handle it. Andrea, who had been responding to the medicine the best out of all of them, had even managed to lift herself out of her chair earlier in the day and took a slow, shaky, step, before the weakness of her legs caused her to fall to the ground in a heap.
Jamie's legs itched, so he reached down to scratch. It was such a blessed feeling, as less than a month ago, he wasn't able to feel even the slightest tingle. Whatever they were injecting him with, it was working wonders!
An hour later, the itch had not gone away, rather, it had intensified. He itched harder, and when he looked down, he saw that there was blood oozing from his leg.
A scream echoed down the hall. Jamie recognized the voice of the screamer to be Renee. The screaming continued, almost masking the sound of doctors running down the hall. Suddenly the screaming stopped. The entire hall was so silent, a pin drop could be heard.
And then another voice screamed in pain, but this time, the screamer was David. As David was screaming, Jamie's legs began to hurt more and more.
It was almost like the pain Jamie had felt when he was in the accident. Glass shards were being stuck into his legs!
Silence struck the hall again, and the sound of it made Jamie's head ring, his legs hurting more and more by the second. He tried to fight the pain...
Ohhh Lord, the pain! His legs were on fire! He had never hurt so bad in his life! They were buring, the pain was too much to bear! Oh Lord, oh Looooooooooooooooooooooooooord!
Jamie opened his mouth and began to howl, on the off chance that somehow, releasing vocally would reduce the pain. He began to thrash his upper body, thrashing so hard that he fell off his bed.
White clad doctors rushed into his room, and they tried to restrain him, but he thrashed to hard. The pain! The pain! They were having trouble getting him to hold still. Finally, three of the doctors managed to hold him still, while the fourth, who had stood poised during the ordeal, jabbed a needle into Jamie's arm. He felt the prick, so small against his agony, and then-
***
"Hello?"
"May I speak to Dr. Hank Beecham?" Hank heard a voice ask.
"This is he."
"I am a representative of the Reeve Research Facility. I am calling because you were listed as the contact for a Dr. James Waite, should something go wrong with his treatment."
Hanks blood ran cold. "Is something wrong?"
"I'm afraid that he had a bad reaction to the medicine we were giving him, as did the other patients."
"How bad?"
"The medicine was working properly, Dr. Waite and the others were regaining use of their bodies, however, the more improvements he made, the more his body rejected what was happening, almost as if his body considered his legs a foreign invader. He was in extreme pain until he was put out with a sedative, and now his legs are swelling at an alarming rate. I am calling to inform you that should this continue much longer, we will be forced to perform emergency surgery to amputate his legs. The type of procedure we will be performing on him is very dangerous, and he only has a 50% chance of surviving."
Hank suddenly sat down hard on his kitchen floor, stunned. "Dr. Beecham?"
Hank sucked in a deep breath. "Yes, go ahead. I expect to be notified immediately as soon as he is out of surgery."
"Yes, sir. Good day to you."
The doctor on the other line hung up, and Hank promptly dialed Caitie. When he finished telling her what going on, she told Hank, crying softly, "Jamie's a survivor. If he can get through a car crash, he can get through this."
Though Hank was not very religious, when he finished talking to Caitie, he put his head in his hands and prayed for the life of his best friend.
***
Jamie looked out into the cold January night, watching Val and Hank taking off in their cars. He and Tyler were the only ones in the room, and Tyler was just putting on his coat to leave.
"Damn," Jamie said, looking at the clock. "it's 1. I was hoping we wouldn't have to stay so late."
Tyler grinned, groggily. "Afraid of the dark?" He teased.
Jamie shook his head. "Nah. But my bike's in the shop getting a brake repair. Messed up the brakes on the ice last weekend. I'll have to walk home."
"Are you sure you don't want a ride?" Tyler asked. "It's cold out there, and besides, your home isn't that far from mine."
"It's OK," Jamie told him, pulling on his jacket. "I'm not that far away. It's just a couple miles."
Tyler snorted. "Fine, if you say so."
They walked out, and Jamie could see his breath steam. His nose began to get cold, and Tyler's car began to sound real good. "On second thought..."
They both climbed into Albert, and Tyler cranked up the heater. A few seconds later, blessed warmth blew over them.
The snow was falling lightly as they pulled out of the parking lot onto the street. They rode in silence. Tyler began to cross an intersection, when suddenly, the car was filled with headlights.
There was a screech of brakes, and then the night was shattered by the sound of the crash. Jamie's entire body was racked with pain, until he felt what seemed like a bullet pierce his body, and then he could feel nothing from the waist down.
And then it was over. The night was silent. His left arm was in agony, and it hung uselessly. Jamie could feel blood seeping out of every pore of his body.
He looked over at Tyler's broken body. It hung at strange angles, and huge amounts of blood were pumping from countless gashes, but the only thing that Jamie could notice was that Tyler's eye's were closed.
Jamie reached over with his right arm to shake Tyler, ignoring the pain that shot though his other arm as he did so. He shook harder, and yet Tyler's eyes did not open.
"Tyler!" He howled. "TYLER!"
Tyler's eyes did not open, and it was like a thousand pound weight hitting him when he realized that they never would.
And then pain, or loss of blood, overtook him, and he blacked out.
Jamie woke up panting and in a cold sweat. He had had the dream again, the dream about the crash. He moved his arm to brace himself so he could get up, because as much as he wanted to stay in bed, he had to get up, so he could get ready for work.
But he quickly found that he couldn't. Jamie looked down at his chest to find himself restrained to a hospital bed.
In a flash, the past weeks flooded back to him: the facility, the shots, David, Andrea, Renee, and Simon, and, finally, the pain.
The pain was still there, though not as bad. It was a different kind of pain, a sort of throbbing. And it wasn't spread all over his legs, like before, only in the very top part of his legs.
"Dr. Waite," he heard a voice say, and he turned his head to look at the speaker, one of the doctors at the facility...Dr. Haddix, if he remembered correctly. "You're awake."
".....yeah...."
"I have news for you, which may come as somewhat of a shock. You had a bad reaction to the medicine, and, to save your life, we were forced to amputate your legs."
Jamie threw back the covers, to reveal his legs, once whole, now almost entirely gone, the stumps covered in bandages. Jamie banged his head back on the pillow and groaned, partly in pain, partly in remembrance of what he went through when his arm was amputated, and partly because it marked failure.
"I was so fucking close," he growled. "So fucking close to fucking walking again."
Then he remembered something with a start: the cries of pain from his friends. "What happened to the rest of them? If you had to amputate my legs, then what could you do for Simon and Renee? And what about Andrea and David? How are they taking this?"
The doctor bowed his head. "There was nothing we could do for Simon or Renee. We tried to help them, but their bodies were turning on them. Both had heart attacks several days ago. I'm sorry."
"And Andrea and David."
"Neither survived the surgery. They both bled to death."
Jamie suddenly felt very alone as he thought of the lives of his companions who were no longer among the living. He remembered Renee's stubborn determination to live fully, he remembered Simon telling Jamie what it was like to live on the open plains of Montana, he remembered David's hopes of becoming a lawyer, and he remembered how badly Andrea wanted to walk again so people wouldn't give her an unfair advantage in life.
With the lives of his friends flashing before his eyes, Jamie closed his eyes and cried.
***
Jamie wheeled himself outside to get the mail. It had been several months since his ordeal, and he had almost recovered. The memory of what feeling he had had in his legs still throbbed at night, and he was taking heavy dosages of painkillers, all paid for by the Reeve Research Facility.
His homecoming had not been the joyous event everyone had expected it to be. Since the medicine had been a failure, he had not been able to fulfill his dream of walking into the station for the first time in many years.
Jamie had taken a little more time off before going back to work so he could travel around the country to visit the funeral of the four who died when he did not. He had looked at each of their bodies, lying so still in their respective coffins. They reminded him of fragile roses, so fragile they would fall apart, yet the memory of their lives and what they meant to them was so beautiful. Jamie spoke to each of their families, saying the same thing.
"I knew them during their last days. And I know I will never forget them, because their determination will always be an inspiration to me."
And it was true. Simon, David, Renee, and Andrea would be with him every day of his life, smiling at his happiness, crying with his sadness, and laughing with joy for the new morning sun. It gave him a new perspective on life, it made him want to save lives even more.
The only time anyone noticed how Jamie was feeling about himself was the one time, when he commented bitterly to Caitie, "It's very ironic. I used to have two perfectly good legs, but I wasn't able to move them, and now I can move my lower body, but I have no legs."
But he refused to feel sorry for himself. He hired an assistant, none other than Brooke Lanier, who helped him run the station so Jamie could take time off to tutor high school kids in danger of failing their classes because of a disability, mental or physical. He was determined to make the best of his situation, and use it help and inspire others.
Jamie place the mail on the table, and rifled through it. There was a letter from the facility, and Jamie ripped it open.
"To Dr. James Waite-
"The Reeve Research Facility apologizes for any and all side effects you experienced as a result of our medical testing. We wish to extend to you an offer to show how sorry we are.
"Because it was our mistake that caused you to lose your legs, we are willing to use our funds to pay for prosthetics to replace not only your legs, but your left arm as well. We will also pay the cost for any physical therapy that will allow you to use these artificial limbs."
The letter went on, but Jamie didn't bother to read the rest as he wheeled himself into Hank's office. "Check this out," He told him.
Hank scanned the offer, and hooped with laughter. "They're covering their asses!"
"But in my contract, it said I couldn't sue."
"Yes, but if your case became public, they could lose serious funding. But c'mon Jamie, don't look a gift horse in the mouth! This is great, it means you will walk again!"
***
"And that was the end of it," Jamie told Val. "They paid for the prosthetics, the physical therapy," he smiled slightly. "All I had to pay for was the cane. It took me several long months of physical therapy before I could walk again, but it was all worth it the day I was able to walk into the station. When I was confident enough to live alone, Hank and I both moved. I was glad for the independence, and I'm sure Hank was glad he didn't have to care for me anymore."
Then Jamie looked expectedly at Val. "So, I told you about me, now what have you been up to?"
Val opened her mouth to begin, and then Jamie interrupted her. "Wait, I know someone who will want to see you, too." He stood up, grabbed a set of keys from the counter, and motioned towards a door. "Come on, lets go see Hank."