Chapter Four
"Hi Sam, I'm Mack and this is Jen. Can you tell us where you hurt?" The paramedic continued to talk to Sam as he began to insert an IV.
"His stomach's swollen," Josh told the paramedics as they worked on Sam.
Their arrival and Toby and Josh's disappearance from his view had only added to Sam's anxiety. Josh stood by the door watching as they worked on stabilizing him before lifting him onto the gurney. Sam didn't answer any of their questions and so Toby told them all that he knew.
"And his stomach's swollen," Josh repeated helplessly.
"How long ago was he punched?" Jen asked Toby and he didn't miss the urgency of the question.
"About two hours."
"Okay, when was he sick?"
"Just before you got here."
She nodded and looked at her partner. "We need to go, Mack."
Sam became increasingly alarmed as he was lifted onto the gurney. Mack tried to calm him but knew that with Sam's injury and the shock that had already taken hold he was well beyond listening to logical reasoning. He explained to Sam clearly what was happening and where they were going while he quickly secured him onto the gurney. He told Toby which hospital they were taking Sam to and then left as quickly and efficiently as they had arrived.
Toby searched for Sam's keys and then threw his cell phone at Josh. "Phone CJ and Leo." He walked into the bathroom and started running cold water into the bath. He returned to find Josh sitting on the bed talking to CJ. Toby motioned for him to stand and then yanked the comforter off the bed. He bundled it up and took it to the bathroom where he threw it into the bath and turned off the taps. Josh had only just hung up on Leo when he felt Toby grab his arm and lead him out of the apartment.
Toby sat with his arms folded staring out of the window at the nurses bustling by. Opposite him Josh sat slumped in his chair, his elbows on the arms and his clasped hands resting on his stomach. The door opened and briefly the sounds from the corridor outside matched the scenes that had been absorbing Toby's attention. Josh and Toby stood as a doctor shut the door behind him and walked into the room. He briefly shook both men's hands before sitting down in front of them.
"Mr Seaborn has been taken up to the OR. He was in quite a deep stage of shock when he arrived and so we performed an exploratory laparoscopy here. We discovered severe internal bleeding and splenic trauma." The doctor paused waiting for them to assimilate the information. "I'm not certain but I would think they are going to remove his spleen."
"I don't understand. I mean was this some sort of illness like appendicitis or something?" Josh looked totally confused by what the doctor had said.
"Josh, this is damage from the punch." He turned back to the doctor. "That's what you're saying isn't it, that this happened because he was hit in the stomach?"
"The spleen can be ruptured or torn and repaired but it also has three main blood vessels and if any damage occurs to them the bleeding can be profuse. Obviously internal bleeding is extremely serious. They may be able to repair or remove part of the spleen but they tend to remove it all in cases like this."
Josh nodded. "Yeah, okay, he was so sick though, it was so quick."
"Like I said the bleeding was severe and so was the shock." The doctor turned back to Toby gauging him as the most likely to be able to think clearly about the events of the night. "When we examined your friend we found a large bruise on his back in exactly the same area as the bruise on his stomach. Have you any idea where it came from?"
Toby thought back to the scene in the bar. He had seen Ben punch Sam and was certain that he only punched him once. He tried to think what was behind Sam and suddenly remembered Sam slumping against him and how he had held onto the rail along the bar to help him take Sam's weight.
"He was standing by the bar with the brass rail behind him."
"That would do it," the doctor agreed. "A well placed punch can do serious damage but if he was pressed against that then that makes even more sense. You should go home. It will be a couple of hours and he won't come round for a few more after that." The doctor sensed that there was no way either man was going anywhere. "The seats are more comfortable in the main waiting area," he added as he stood and left the room.
Toby sat back in his seat and ran his hand over tired eyes. Josh moved back to the seat opposite him but didn't sit down. "He was like Quincy," Josh stated.
"What you think that doctor looked like Jack Klugman?"
"No, the way he was trying to find out what had caused the bruise, he was all…Quincyish."
"Quincy is a coroner," Toby pointed out.
"Yeah, that's not a good…who's that other one who's a doctor but ends up solving murders?
"He was in Mary Poppins." Toby played along, pleased that Josh was beginning to look less like he might pass out.
"Quincy wasn't in Mary Poppins!"
"No, Dick Van-Dyke was the doctor in whatever it was."
"Yeah." Josh's shoulders relaxed and he ran his hand through his hair. "Yeah, that's right."
Toby stood and walked towards the door. "You okay now?"
Josh nodded and blew out a deep breath, "Yeah, TV trivia obviously has a calming effect on me."
"I'm going to phone CJ."
When CJ entered the waiting room she was greeted by the sight of Toby and Josh asleep. Both men were in positions that indicated they had tried in vain to stay awake. Toby held onto a coffee cup balanced precariously on his leg and Josh slept with both hands on the arm rests of his chair as if poised, ready for action. CJ knew it wouldn't take much to wake them and called their names. The coffee cup finally made its escape from Toby's hand and Josh sprung immediately into an upright position.
"What, what's wrong?" Josh mumbled.
"It's alright, he's fine. He woke up an hour ago." CJ went and sat beside Toby and helped him wipe the remnants of the coffee off the seat. "Leo's with him."
"Leo's here?" Josh asked. It had been three hours since the doctor had come again to tell them that the operation had gone well and Josh had wanted to be there when Sam woke up. "Was Leo there when he woke up?"
"No I was," CJ explained. "It could have been the night porter for all Sam knew, he was completely out of it." CJ watched as Josh stood and stretched trying to ease his muscles which were now rebelling against the uncomfortable sleeping position.
"I'm heading in with Leo but before I go I need to know exactly what happened last night."
"First you need to talk to Danny," Toby began. Josh listened as Toby began to recount what had gone on and work out with CJ what she could say when the inevitable questions started. A task made even more complicated by the fact that some of the people who would be asking the questions had witnessed what had happened themselves. Josh leaned against the wall, he knew he should try standing straight against it but he couldn't summon the energy. He closed his eyes and listened to the muffled sounds from the corridor outside and thought about the hours he had lay here listening to the same sounds himself not so long ago; laughter, hushed conversations, squeaky trolley wheels, beeps, footsteps. Shouting. Josh opened his eyes. He couldn't remember hearing much shouting when he was in hospital. He turned to face the door and tried to see what was causing the commotion. A man stood at the nurses' station, he was gesturing down the corridor and the nurse was shaking her head in response.
"What's going on?" Toby asked.
Josh turned back towards him. "Nothing just some guy flipping out at the nu-" Josh suddenly turned and walked quickly out of the room. He had thought that he recognised the voice and it had suddenly dawned on him who the man was. Ben Draper.
CJ started to ask what was wrong but Toby waved her to be quiet, "Hold on, listen."
"I can just hear that man shouting. Oh and that's Josh."
"And that's Leo," Toby said.
"And that's not good," CJ stated.
"No," Toby replied as he stood up and walked out of the room with CJ close behind. As he neared the nurses' station Leo looked at him and rolled his eyes. Toby stood and listened to the end of Josh's rant.
"…you didn't give him a chance to explain. He didn't know, I told you last night. He won't want to see you. You're the last person he'll-"
"Oh please! Don't give me that concerned friend crap, we both know it's a sham, Sam told me you two barely speak anymore."
Josh stood frozen for a moment. He opened his mouth as if to speak but then turned, pushed past Toby and walked back to the waiting room.
Ben stood with his hands on his hips and took a few deep breaths. "The nurses won't let me see him and they won't tell me what's wrong."
Leo gestured to CJ and Toby to follow Josh. "You can't see him because it's family only and until his parents arrive, that's us. They removed his spleen because when you punched him you ruptured the blood vessels which caused internal bleeding. Is there anything else?" Leo could have been at his desk in the White House, he mustered the same authority standing in the now hushed hospital corridor.
"You have no idea how sorry-"
"I'm not starting a witch-hunt here. I know you didn't want to put Sam in the hospital but right now you're not my concern, my staff are, and I think they'd rather you weren't here."
"Yeah," Ben wiped a hand over his face. "God, this is a mess."
"Yeah," Leo answered. "Things tend to get messy when you go around punching your friends."
Ben nodded and started to walk away. Leo watched him go, sighed and then called after him. "You had an accomplice."
"I'm sorry?"
"When you hit him, they think the bar rail did as much damage as your fist."
Ben closed his eyes and let out another deep sigh. "Thank you."
Leo watched him walk towards the elevators and then turned to the nurse. "If you think that was a floorshow you wait until the President comes to visit." She rolled her eyes and Leo smiled tiredly before heading back to the waiting room.
"I hope you told him to get the hell out," a still angry Josh said as soon as Leo entered the room.
"Yeah, listen CJ, we need to head back. You two, staff will be at ten. Sam was asleep when I left. You might want to come back later to see him. I spent ten minutes talking to him only to discover at the end of it that he thought I was his dad."
"Oh man, I haven't phoned them," Josh said.
"Don't worry about it, it's taken care of." Leo held the door open for CJ. "Ten o'clock," he reiterated before closing the door behind him.
As soon as he had left Josh started, "The nerve of that man coming here and demanding to see Sam. He'll be lucky if Sam doesn't press charges, I know I would."
"No, we'll be lucky if Sam doesn't press charges. We'll be lucky if one of the press corps doesn't decide that there's a story in Ben's claim that the senior staff don't communicate with each other, we'll be lucky if this blows over without anyone linking Sam's injury to the fact that we set up and encouraged a caucus for the sole intention of helping us to maximize the exposure of a policy initiative!" Toby slumped onto a seat. "We're lucky that we went back to Sam's when we did because when the doctor said if we'd been an hour later and then didn't finish the sentence, well, I don't think we need to fill in the blanks." Toby watched as not for the first time that night Josh's face paled. "Now are you going to be alright while I find out if we can see Sam or do I need to stay here and talk about TV cops or something?"
Before Josh could reply a nurse entered the room. "Mr Seaborn's awake and he's asking for you," she announced looking at Josh.
"Can Toby come in with me?" Josh asked.
"I'm sorry I thought you were Toby, in that case he's asking for you," she said looking at Toby. "It's only one at a time please for now."
Toby started to follow the nurse out of the room but was stopped by Josh. "You know, I think I'll head back now and come and see Sam later."
The nurse was already heading down the corridor away from Toby so he told Josh he would see him at work and quickly followed her.
Toby opened the door to Sam's room and watched the nurse approach his bed. "Are you awake Sam?"
When Sam mumbled in response Toby felt his stomach flip. He had been told a number of hours ago that Sam was fine but a part of him still needed to see it before he could fully let go of the tension that had gripped him since he had first seen Sam curled up on his bed.
"Your friend's here." She gestured for Toby to come over. "Do you need anything for pain?"
"I don't think so," Sam mumbled and Toby had to strain to hear him. "I think…yes…actually, please."
The nurse nodded and went off to fetch some pain meds for Sam. Toby walked closer to the bed and pulled a chair up. "Sam, it's me."
Sam turned towards the voice and seemed to be trying hard to focus before smiling weakly. "Toby." Sam sounded like he was confirming Toby's presence to himself. He closed his eyes but opened them when he felt Toby's hand cover his own. "Was my dad here?"
"No, that was Leo," Toby explained.
"I thought it was my dad," Sam muttered.
"Yeah, try to sleep Sam."
"Still hurts," Sam complained.
"The nurse has gone to get you something," Toby said and on cue she returned carrying a small tray. "I'm going now Sam but I'll come back later." Sam nodded and Toby stayed for a few moments by the bed before adding, "So I sort of need to take my hand with me."
Sam released the hold he hand on Toby's hand and smiled sheepishly. Toby watched the nurse begin to administer Sam's pain medication and then slipped from the room.
Toby arrived in Leo's office at exactly ten o'clock balancing a cup and a pile of papers.
"How is he?" CJ asked as soon as Toby appeared.
"Groggy but doing well, they think he'll be able to go home in four or five days." Toby placed his cup and papers down. "You should go and see him lunchtime, they said he'd be more lucid then."
Josh changed the subject, "CJ told the press and then answered a few questions, the first was from Danny."
"What did he ask?" Toby knew whatever Danny had asked would set the tone of the press coverage.
"He asked what the fight was about," Josh answered with a smile and Toby joined him. The comments Ben had made in the bar were going to be ignored. "What did you tell him?" Toby asked CJ.
"That it was a disagreement between two old friends fuelled by alcohol and testosterone."
Toby nodded approvingly at CJ and she noticed for the first time how drawn he looked. She could only imagine how horrendous it had been last night and she made a mental note to catch up with him later and find out if there was anything she could do.
Four hours later she was in Sam's bathroom pulling the sodden comforter out of Sam's bath. "Why didn't Josh see Sam this morning?" she shouted to Toby as she dumped the heavy material into the laundry basket.
"It was a disagreement between two friends fuelled by stubbornness and stupidity," Toby shouted back. He was standing in Sam's bedroom placing the book from his bedside table into a bag.
CJ walked into the room. "I thought that they were resolving that, you said when we left that night that they had started to talk again."
Toby didn't answer but sat down on the bed which dipped as CJ sat beside him. "Then again, I suppose Sam being in a state of severe hypovolemic shock made it difficult for them to discuss the nuances of their relationship."
When Toby didn't reply CJ nudged him with her shoulder. "I said hypovolemic. You wanna know what I said in the briefing?"
Toby nodded.
"I said hypovolelemic. That's like a medical condition for voles." She finished her story with another nudge of his shoulder and was rewarded the smile she had been looking for.