Author's Note: Some of the technical stuff in this chapter is not very certain to me, the physical properties of the needle for example. Although, this is just a fanfic anyway. This chapter is slightly depressing, but you're probably used to that by now.
Chapter 9: The News Sinks In
Knuckles and Rogue were so shocked by what they saw that they didn't even notice that Sonic had left the room. They were off in their own world, trying very hard to comprehend all that's happening to Amy and her health. Rogue watched as the doctor pull off the blindfold from Amy and he started talking to her, most likely trying to comfort her. Rogue wasn't paying much attention because her attention was on Knuckles and she started to feel quite upset at him. She walked up to Knuckles, who was still in a trance, and slapped him upside his head!
"Hey!" Knuckles was badly startled, "what was that for?"
"Knuckles!" Rogue was starting to lose her temper, "what were thinking? How can you possibly try to throw a punch at Amy? Hasn't she been through enough already?"
"For your information," Knuckles replied as calmly as possible, "I didn't even hit her because my fist stopped short of her face. Heck, Amy probably didn't even know about it!"
"I don't care," Rogue said in a slightly calmer voice, "how could you even attempt that? You risked accidentally hitting her and -"
Knuckles cut her off by throwing a punch at her! Rogue quickly put her arms up to block it, but didn't feel any impact. She lowered her guard slightly so she could see and noticed that Knuckles fist is barely three inches from her face!
"Did you really think that I was going to hit you," Knuckles asked, "then why did you react? You're forgetting that I'm an expert martial artist. I think I know how to throw a FAKE PUNCH!"
Rogue was surprised at Knuckles' little "stunt" and was quite speechless.
Knuckles continued, "you should consider yourself lucky, at least you were able to see my fist coming. Amy isn't so lucky though, she blind in her left eye, which means she didn't see my fist at all. That's why she didn't react at all when I threw that faked out punch. I believe that doctor was trying to prove that point. Now leave me alone right now, I'm stressed out enough already!"
The doctor noticed them arguing and quickly intervened. "Hey, hey, hey! Break it up! I don't want you two beating each other up. Like I said before, there's enough injured people in this hospital already."
Rogue knew that Knuckles is being very stubborn right now. So talking to him some more isn't going to get her anywhere. So she decided to vent some of her frustrations on the doctor.
"Doctor," Rogue said in a very frustrated voice, "are you some kind of nutcase or something!? Weren't you concerned about Amy's well being when you did those demonstrations?"
"Excuse Me!?" Dr. Carbana felt very offended at what she said to him, but he quickly calmed down because he understood how Rogue must be feeling. He then spoke in a calmer voice, "I've been a trauma physician for twenty-eight years which included twelve years of special medical training. I know how to exploit a person's physical problems without completely endangering the patient. There's no way that I can be where I am now by being careless. Everything that I just did was a very carefully calculated risk."
"Oh, is that so?" Rogue was very doubtful towards the doctor's words.
"Absolutely," the doctor replied, "for example, you were probably wondering about the needle that I used on her left arm. When I wiggled the needle around, you were probably afraid that it would break off and get stuck in her arm. Well I thought of a way to avoid that."
The doctor walked to the same medicine cabinet and pulled out an identical needle that he used earlier. He unsealed it and gave it to Rogue.
"Try not to poke yourself," the doctor continued, "that's no ordinary needle. Try to snap that needle in half or completely bend it."
Rogue took a good look at the needle. It was about eight inches long and about twice the thickness of a toothpick. Therefore, bending this should be quite simple. She grasped both ends of the needle, being careful not to poke herself and tried to bend it. Surprisingly, it wouldn't bend! She applied much more force on the needle and it still wouldn't give! Finally, feeling somewhat frustrated, she put the needle on the floor and stepped on one end. Then she held the other end with both hands and pulled as hard as she could until her face turned red and it still wouldn't break! She picked it up and looked at the needle and noticed a very slight, almost unnoticeable bend and that was all!
"What's this thing made of?" Rogue was very surprised that her efforts did almost nothing, "it's like I'm trying to bend a lead pipe instead of a needle!"
"That's an epidural needle," the doctor answered, "those are designed to withstand over five hundred pounds of force before breaking or bending. I'm surprised that you bent it even slightly, you must be stronger than you look. These are mostly kept in the maternity ward, but every room in this hospital has at least two of those needles just for emergencies."
"So, why is it so hard to bend," Rogue sounded slightly confused.
The doctor replied, "that needle is designed to help patients who are about to give birth and are having numerous complications. When that needle is injected, there is a strong chance that the patient will move around a lot. Therefore, we cannot risk using an ordinary needle and end up having it break off and get stuck in the patient. Normal needles are made of stainless steel, but that one is made of a special carbon-steel composite. That makes it almost as strong and hard as a diamond."
Rogue was convinced with the needle part, but she was still skeptical about his other methods. "All right then, why did you have Knuckles try to hit her? That seemed rather careless to me."
"I know it seemed that way," the doctor answered, "While Amy was still in her coma, I talked to Knuckles a few times. He didn't seem very social, but assured to him that getting some basic information was very important, since there's little information about all of you. He mentioned that he was a professional martial artist, and so I decided to use him for my demonstration after Amy woke up. I could have tried doing the demonstration instead of Knuckles, but I'm not much of a fighter. I could slip up and accidentally hit her for real, and I can't risk that."
"Okay," Rogue was starting to get somewhat frustrated, "why did you ask her to try to get up? She could have fallen over and hurt herself even further."
"There's no way she could get up if she tried," the doctor quickly replied.
"Huh?" Rogue was confused, "what's that supposed to mean?"
"That was another calculated risk," the doctor answered, "you have to realize that she was in a coma for nearly a year and a half, which means in that entire time, her body has had absolutely no exercise and she hasn't eaten any solid food. Most of her body's systems were in suspended animation. If you take a good look at her, you'll notice that she is very weak and frail. She has almost no energy in her body right now because during her coma, the only thing keeping her alive is that hanging I.V. bag. Because of this, she's too frail to even make facial expressions, which is why she has such a blank look on her face. Therefore, there's no way she could have the energy to pull herself out of the wheelchair. That assistant you saw standing next to her earlier was the one that took her out of the bed and put her in the wheelchair."
The doctor paused for a few seconds, "Although, I do admit that my methods are a bit . . . . . . unethical."
Rogue was now starting to feel very frustrated and she turned back to Knuckles. "Well! Knuckles, don't you have any opinions about this?"
Rogue and Dr. Carbana immediately noticed that Knuckles wasn't feeling very good to say the least. They noticed that Knuckles' face was turning very pale and he started to lose his balance. He then fell flat on his tail into a sitting position and then started breathing very loud and hard.
"Knuckles!" Rogue sounded very concerned. She's never seen him like this before, "are you all right? Can you stand up?"
"Don't worry," the doctor said reassuringly, "I've seen this many times before. He's just having a panic attack. It should subside in a few seconds."
Rogue helped him up and he started to calm down. But almost immediately, Knuckles' face started turning green and he felt very nauseous so quickly that he didn't have time to run to the restroom. Instead, he ran to the window, swung it open, stuck his head out, and threw up outside! The vomit rained down four stories and splattered all over a parked car! (The owner of that car is gonna have an interesting day at the car wash!)
Dr. Carbana and Rogue just stared in disbelief. "Oookaaay," Rogue said, feeling very embarrassed that she just witnessed that.
"Um, Knuckles," the doctor said while opening a door to a small room near the entrance to Amy's room, "there's a little restroom right here. Every hospital room has one. Earlier you said you had to use the restroom and you just walked right by this one. I was going to tell you, but you rushed out suddenly."
Knuckles turned around with some vomit still covering his mouth. He quickly ran into the small restroom and slammed the door shut. More sounds of vomiting were quickly heard. "I can't believe that this is happening to me," Knuckles thought to himself, "my ancestors must be turning in their graves right now."
"You know," the doctor stated, "if he continues this, he could dehydrate himself. I'll go check on Sonic, I guess I'll have to apologize to him for making him feel so depressed. Hopefully, he's at least still in the hospital. Rogue, if you want to, please check on Knuckles while he's in there. Knock on the door or something. And also, please talk to Amy because she needs some companionship right now. It may be hard to communicate with her, but luckily her sense of hearing hasn't been affected."
He then walked to get a nurse or assistant to watch over Amy's room while he's gone to check on Sonic. But before he did any of that, he already saw Sonic and Tails. Tails wasn't crying as badly, but he still looked very sad and worried. Dr. Carbana noticed the clipboard on the floor and realized that Tails must have read through it. The doctor felt like kicking himself for leaving the clipboard on the floor earlier. He then turned and saw Sonic. Sonic wasn't curled up this time, instead he was sitting on the floor against the wall and hugging his knees. He wasn't really crying anymore, but he still had a look of pure anguish and pain on his face. He also kept muttering the same phrase repeatedly: "It's not fair, it's just not fair!"
The doctor gave a loud sigh, "nearly thirty years being a trauma doctor and I still can't get used to this."
Meanwhile, in another part of the trauma center:
A strange patient is quickly wheeled into the trauma center admittance room, something that's very routine here except for the patient itself. One of the trauma doctors (not Dr. Carbana) runs in and checks the patient for vital signs. It's not breathing, but has a weak pulse.
"Tell me everything you know about this," the doctor quickly asked the assistant.
The assistant took a deep breath to calm himself, "a fisherman said that he saw something that resembled a meteorite falling from the sky. It crashed into the water near him and decided to check it out. It was getting dark though, so he had to use his flashlight. He then saw a body floating in the water and quickly fished it out. After this, he called for an ambulance and the victim was rushed to this hospital."
The trauma doctor took a god look at the patient and noticed a strong resemblance to someone else in the hospital. "Call Dr. Carbana, I think he'll find this very surprising."
"What do I tell him," the assistant asked.
"Just tell him this." The doctor gave a quick explanation of what to say. He then continued checking for vital signs and prepared the patient for body scans while the assistant went to an intercom.
Back to the hallway outside Amy's room:
"Sonic," Dr. Carbana said, sounding as sympathetic as possible, "I'm very sorry that you had to see and hear all that. Breaking out the bad news is one thing that I always feel guilty about. This is why I always feel hesitant to tell the families and friend of the patients here. I always have at least one or two people having some kind of emotional breakdown. I also have a more personal reason, but now is not the time to say it."
Sonic didn't seem to hear him at all. He just continued muttering and rocking himself. He was a total emotional mess. A few seconds later, he began to speak somewhat coherently.
"It's just not fair I tell you. All I wanted was for her to leave me alone. I just wanted to get away from her. I didn't want all of this to happen. This is . . . . this is all my fault."
"Don't blame yourself like this," the doctor said, trying to calm him down, "you'll ruin yourself even further."
"You just don't get it do you?" Sonic almost yelled, "I was extremely careless. In fact, it's almost like I wanted this to happen." The doctor was very surprised to hear him say such a thing.
"W-what's that supposed to mean?" Tails finally broke out of his tearful trance and was very concerned.
"Hey, what's happening?" Knuckles walked into the hallway. His face was cleaned up and he seemed to be feeling a little better. He saw Sonic's nearly prone figure against the wall and was feeling almost humiliated. "Sonic, what are you doing on the floor like that? Get up, you're embarrassing yourself."
"Where's Rogue," the doctor asked.
"Oh she's inside, talking to Amy," Knuckles answered.
"I was so stupid," Sonic said, tears starting to form in his eyes again, "how could I possibly do something like that, I was so selfish. I could only think about myself and I ended up putting Amy's life at risk."
He began sobbing almost uncontrollably, "I don't care how much I despise her or find her annoying, nobody deserves all this. (Except maybe Dr. Eggman!) Now because of me and my stupidity, she'll probably be in this hospital for the rest of her life. I'm . . . . I'm practically a murderer!"
Knuckles, Tails, and Dr. Carbana were very shocked to hear Sonic actually mention such a word, and he was addressing it to himself!
Knuckles quickly intervened, "don't say that! You are not a murderer. Don't ever call yourself that!"
"Sonic, please don't call yourself that." Tails was starting to feel very hurt and confused from Sonic's words, "you're a great hero. You've saved this entire planet and all of its people. You're the farthest thing from a murderer than anything else."
"Don't blame yourself like this," the doctor said, trying to calm him down, "you'll ruin yourself even further."
"You just don't understand do you? I was one of the victims of that accident and I saw Amy's crushed body. Her blood was virtually squeezed right out her like a squashed grape, and I saw it happen right before my eyes. I even got a good look at her head as it was turned into a shish kabob!"
Sonic then turned his attention to Knuckles, "you got a good look at Amy didn't you? Can't you see that because of me, more than half of her body is dead? And you're saying that I'm not a murderer? In all of our past dates, I always tell her to leave me alone. A few times I even told her to drop dead! Well it looks like I'm getting what I asked for and now I'm totally regretting it!"
Dr. Carbana, Knuckles, and Tails all realized that Sonic is just too badly depressed right now. Right now, they figured that it's best to leave Sonic alone until he could get some of his grief out of his system. Talking to him right now could depress him even more. Sonic then continued hugging his knees and rocking himself.
Just then, the intercom in Amy's room signaled and the doctor quickly went inside and answered it. "Dr. Carbana," the assistant on the intercom said, sounding slightly frantic, "you've got to come down to the admittance room, we just got a very special patient!"
"You know, there are other trauma doctors besides me," Dr. Carbana stated, "are they also busy?"
"Okay," the assistant replied, "let me put it this way. This may sound like an obvious question but, how many hedgehogs are in this hospital right now?"
"Two of course," Dr. Carbana answered, "there's Sonic and Amy here right now."
"Well that number has just changed to three," the assistant continued, "and you've got to see this in person. This hedgehog seems to be burned completely black, with a little bit of red here and there."
"What!?" Dr. Carbana sounded quite confused and concerned, but decided to check it out anyway. He looked at Rogue who was still talking to Amy, "I'll be right back. There's something I need to check out." He spoke into the intercom again and called for a couple of nurses to keep watch over Amy in case her condition suddenly changes while he's gone. He walked out into the hallway and said the same thing to Tail, Knuckles, and even Sonic (assuming that he was listening) that he said to Rogue. He then ran to an elevator and took it to the ground floor towards the admittance room.
"My goodness," the doctor said to himself, "what are the odds of having three hedgehogs being in the same hospital? I wonder if there's a connection or something. I just hope that Sonic and the others are doing okay. They have each other, so hopefully that should help."
The doors finally opened, and he went to check on the new patient.
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Well, I wonder what the new patient could be. Some of you should be able to know almost right away.
Also, a little history lesson:
Sorry, I was supposed to mention this several chapters ago, but I just now remembered. Do you remember Amy's head injury? You know, the metal shard that impaled her head, thereby turning her head into a shish kabob? (uh, sorry for that choice of words!) Did you know that there's a real life equivalent to that? Does the name Phineas Gage ring a bell? He had a similar head injury and lived!
I have the address for a website that talks about his ordeal. It's not a link, so you'll have to use the copy and paste method. If it doesn't work, then just use your browser and look up the name Phineas Gage. There should be a few more websites about him and they are quite fascinating (and maybe a bit gruesome to some people!) Now you know what Amy's head injury was like, and she survived it!
Here's the address: www.epub.org.br/cm/n02/historia/phineas.htm