A/N: Thanks for reading chapter 25, and we're on to 26!
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Chapter 26
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Nigel's room, right after 25!
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~~Garret~~ I sat there rubbing Jordan's back for a good hour or so, until she fell asleep, curled in the chair. She looked so much like a child, with her dark brown hair falling in front of her face. She reminded me of Abby, and how she'd fallen asleep in my office several times while waiting for me to get off work. Curled up, trying to fend off the outside world...
I was so absorbed in thought I had to be shook back into conciousness by the hosptial nurse who'd come to check Nigel's vitals. After making sure that I wasn't the one in need of medical attention, she moved to the bedside and began writing his vitals down on his chart.
"How bad is it?" I softly spoke up, not wanting to wake Jordan.
"Excuse me sir?" She turned, drawing her gaze from Nigel to me.
"How bad is it?"
After a moment of reading over the charts, she shook her head. "I can't say for sure, but if a shard of bullet even grazed his spinal cord, he'll never walk again. That's our main concern now."
I nodded slowly. I thought to myself: "At least he's alive..." In that method of thinking, it was positive. Planning to keep that thought in my head, I glanced up at Nigel lying on the bed. It was going to be tough.
The nurse gave me a smile, then exited the room with chart in hand. I moved my chair closer to Nigel's side and I gently took his free hand in mine. Holding it gently, not quite sure what to do, I sat there and stared at his face. Battered and bruised, I could see the weaknesses and imperfections scattered across it's surface. Closing my eyes and bowing my head, I decided that the next best thing to do would be to pray.
~~Nigel~~ I felt myself drifting back into a state of conciousness, but there was no will to awaken. My eyes would not open. I could feel someone holding my hand, and I could hear the softly muttered words of that person. Lying helpless on the bed, I fought with myself to try and wake up. It was like I was trapped in my own body. I felt the tubes running into my lungs, the throbbing pain behind my eyes, and I had the faint taste of blood in my mouth.
Opening my eyes, the world around me became a blurr of light. My eyes reeled in pain, and had I been able to speak, I would have been yelling. I stirred slightly, to attempt to get Garret (I could now tell it was him) to look up at my face.
He did. He blinked slowly, clearing tears from his eyes as he raised his head. Upon seeing my eyes staring at him, he choked out my name, unable to believe that I was awake. I painfully squeezed his hand, then relaxed my grip, shutting my eyes again. It was bright in the room, and the fact that I was locked into staring at the ceiling hurt my eyes to look at him.
The nurse was back in my room within minutes, and Jordan was awake now, attempting to not attack the woman and throw her out of the way to get to me.
I was now the subject of a series of yes or no questions. I nodded simply at them, unable to speak due to the very uncomfortable tube down my throat. I felt a tickle in my lungs and I sporadically coughed. Big mistake. It felt as if someone were gagging me and cutting off my air supply. Panicking, I tried to throw my head to the side to dislodge the tube. Garret quickly grabbed my head and held it still, while the nurse paged the doctor on call. I felt my throat muscles contract again, and that brought on a coughing fit. It felt as if my chest was being set on fire. Tears stung my eyes as I struggled against Garret's grip. Locking eyes with him, I begged to be let go.
He didn't. The doctor came walking into the room at an apparently fast rate. Upon seeing my cardiac monitor readings shooting through the roof, and my respirations becoming more frantic, I heard him telling the nurse to take over where Garret was standing. The man stared into my eyes in an attempt to calm me down.
"Listen. I'm going to take the tube out. But you need to stay completely still. And you're still going to need an oxygen mask for a while because you're used to pure oxygen and this air will send your system into a shock. Stay still, don't fight it."
I nodded as best I could, and then the doctor carefully prepared to remove the annoying tube. With a command to exhale, and a swift jerk, I was suddenly forced to breathe on my own. Which was an event which I was not prepared for. This was made apparent by my frantic gasping and the raspy sound of my voice which filled the room. I'm sure I was throwing Jordan into histerics with my actions, but hell, I was scared.
An oxygen mask was strapped on me, and after a few chest-heaving moments, I had calmed down significantly. Now able to breathe, I felt alot better. After another round of blood tests and vitals checks, the doctor and nurse left the room. Jordan was the first at my side.
~~Jordan~~ I just wanted to make sure he was still alive after that episode with the breathing tube. Gently touching his face, I smiled at him. "You alright?"
He smiled back. "Never better." His voice cracked as he spoke, and be honest, he sounded like crap. He gasped after he spoke, taking in air from the plastic mask which was covering his mouth and nose.
"Don't talk if it hurts you." I bit my lower lip. I didn't want him hurting himself just to talk to me.
"I'm fine, Love. Just tired."
"Then sleep. You should be unconcious after that fight you put up." I grabbed his hand and held it tightly. "You're still strong as ever."
"Obviously not that intelligent because I'm lying in this bed." He dropped his gaze down to his stomach. "Those...should be some nice...scars."
I noticed the laboring pauses in between words and frowned. It was obvious that he was having difficulty breathing still.
"I'm fine Jordan." He squeezed my hand, obviously reading the worry on my face. Looking up at Garret, he smiled. "Hey."
Garret nodded. "Hey. Good to see that you've joined us."
"I wanted to come back to the light sometime...it just took you to do it for me."
Laughing, Garret smiled. "I'm glad to know that I could be of help."
We sat and laughed, all three of us. Even with severe chest trauma, Nigel found the ability to laugh somewhere inside of him. I'm sure it wasn't without pain, but he needed it.
He'd been awake for nearly an hour when Renee walked in the door, a nervous smile on her face. Garret quickly relinquished his seat to her, but she bypassed him to give Nigel a kiss on the forehead and one of her traditonal quirky smiles.
"So how is our vigilante?"
~~Garret~~ I shook my head. So much for her not being blunt. I had half a mind to nudge her to try to make her shut up, but I realized it would probably just get me in some form of trouble. So I decided to do the next best thing and try to talk her off of the subject.
"He woke up about an hour ago, and we had a lovely incident with his breathing tube, right Nige?" I shot a glance at Renee to attempt to get my point across.
"Good. So your head's clear. Do you know who did this to you?"
Missed. I shook my head, rolling my eyes at Jordan. She smiled back, then mouthed the words 'she's your lover' at me with a disappointed smirk on her face.
I saw Nigel's face go blank. He was obviously unwilling to talk about what had happened to him. It was all too soon, he was too freaked out about it. Any doctor would have been able to see that.
But again, we witness that Renee is not a doctor but an attorney.
"Was it Cahill or any of his creeps?"
I glanced down at him again, and I could see this look of fear in his eyes. He had no wish to revisit what had happened to him, especially not while lying strapped to a hospital bed. He'd just woken up, and he was now the first witness on the stand in the court of Renee. He shut his eyes and sighed. Jordan noticed that his hand was shaking in hers while she was holding it.
Jordan stared at his face, attempting to read what he was thinking. I'm pretty sure it was along the lines of 'make her stop please...'
I gently took Renee by the arm and softly requested that she come and talk to me out in the hallway. I smiled at the nurse who was walking in, carrying a syringe of medication for him. I walked down the hall, out of the earshot of Jordan and Nigel, and then I shook my head.
"What? What are you doing dragging me out into the hallway for?"
"Can't you see it?" I was a little annoyed at her at the moment. Nigel was one of my people, not one of her witnesses. Not yet at least.
"See what? The fact that he got the crap kicked out of him?"
"No...the fact that he's scared out of his mind! He doesn't want to talk about what happened yet. It's one of the symptoms of PTSD."
"PTSD?" She glared at me.
"Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. In other words, after a trauma, people often go through several stages before they can talk about what happened to them."
"Well, they're in jail on a unrelated charges, for firing at the people in the streets, but since they didn't hurt anyone, they're going to get out and disappear into the woodwork. He needs to talk."
"Renee. He doesn't know how bad he's hurt."
"So? He can still talk and ID the men."
I was about to throw something back at her when the sound of several alarms came shrieking from the doorway to his room. The blue light above his doorway began flashing, and I heard Jordan frantically yelling for help. I ran back into the room, completely ignoring Renee.
The nurse was clearing Jordan away from Nigel's bedside, and I could see him shaking. Even from the doorway, the fact that he was having a seizure was obvious. Jordan had this look in her eyes that was a mixture of fear and pain. I was quickly at her side as the doctors rushed in and surrounded his bed. Renee soon joined us, and I nudged them towards each other as I moved towards Nigel's bedside.
A Grand-Mal seizure. The worst. A team of doctors and nurses were holding him still, as he'd broken several of the velcro bonds that had been stabilizing his back. Someone started pumping air into his lungs, but I was shoved out of the way as I heard the sound that no one in a hospital wants to hear. The toneless beep and alarm of a lost heartrate. I was ignored as the team of doctors pulled a crashcart up to the bedside, and I felt the blood drain out of my body as I heard the electric charge of the defilabrator paddles being warmed up. They pulled bandages off his chest frantically, then they cleared his body. With a jolt of electricity, his body jumped on the table. But still no heartrate. The head doctor yelled out several commands, and they started a round of CPR.
I turned to see Jordan crumpled on the floor, with Renee kneeling at her side. The frantic noise all faded as I walked to her side, and I collapsed to my knees and took her in a hug. The sound of another electrical charge shocked me back into thinking, and I listened for the sound of a heartbeat. None.
Nigel was crashing fast. And all we could do was pray.
******
TBC...
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Chapter 26
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Nigel's room, right after 25!
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~~Garret~~ I sat there rubbing Jordan's back for a good hour or so, until she fell asleep, curled in the chair. She looked so much like a child, with her dark brown hair falling in front of her face. She reminded me of Abby, and how she'd fallen asleep in my office several times while waiting for me to get off work. Curled up, trying to fend off the outside world...
I was so absorbed in thought I had to be shook back into conciousness by the hosptial nurse who'd come to check Nigel's vitals. After making sure that I wasn't the one in need of medical attention, she moved to the bedside and began writing his vitals down on his chart.
"How bad is it?" I softly spoke up, not wanting to wake Jordan.
"Excuse me sir?" She turned, drawing her gaze from Nigel to me.
"How bad is it?"
After a moment of reading over the charts, she shook her head. "I can't say for sure, but if a shard of bullet even grazed his spinal cord, he'll never walk again. That's our main concern now."
I nodded slowly. I thought to myself: "At least he's alive..." In that method of thinking, it was positive. Planning to keep that thought in my head, I glanced up at Nigel lying on the bed. It was going to be tough.
The nurse gave me a smile, then exited the room with chart in hand. I moved my chair closer to Nigel's side and I gently took his free hand in mine. Holding it gently, not quite sure what to do, I sat there and stared at his face. Battered and bruised, I could see the weaknesses and imperfections scattered across it's surface. Closing my eyes and bowing my head, I decided that the next best thing to do would be to pray.
~~Nigel~~ I felt myself drifting back into a state of conciousness, but there was no will to awaken. My eyes would not open. I could feel someone holding my hand, and I could hear the softly muttered words of that person. Lying helpless on the bed, I fought with myself to try and wake up. It was like I was trapped in my own body. I felt the tubes running into my lungs, the throbbing pain behind my eyes, and I had the faint taste of blood in my mouth.
Opening my eyes, the world around me became a blurr of light. My eyes reeled in pain, and had I been able to speak, I would have been yelling. I stirred slightly, to attempt to get Garret (I could now tell it was him) to look up at my face.
He did. He blinked slowly, clearing tears from his eyes as he raised his head. Upon seeing my eyes staring at him, he choked out my name, unable to believe that I was awake. I painfully squeezed his hand, then relaxed my grip, shutting my eyes again. It was bright in the room, and the fact that I was locked into staring at the ceiling hurt my eyes to look at him.
The nurse was back in my room within minutes, and Jordan was awake now, attempting to not attack the woman and throw her out of the way to get to me.
I was now the subject of a series of yes or no questions. I nodded simply at them, unable to speak due to the very uncomfortable tube down my throat. I felt a tickle in my lungs and I sporadically coughed. Big mistake. It felt as if someone were gagging me and cutting off my air supply. Panicking, I tried to throw my head to the side to dislodge the tube. Garret quickly grabbed my head and held it still, while the nurse paged the doctor on call. I felt my throat muscles contract again, and that brought on a coughing fit. It felt as if my chest was being set on fire. Tears stung my eyes as I struggled against Garret's grip. Locking eyes with him, I begged to be let go.
He didn't. The doctor came walking into the room at an apparently fast rate. Upon seeing my cardiac monitor readings shooting through the roof, and my respirations becoming more frantic, I heard him telling the nurse to take over where Garret was standing. The man stared into my eyes in an attempt to calm me down.
"Listen. I'm going to take the tube out. But you need to stay completely still. And you're still going to need an oxygen mask for a while because you're used to pure oxygen and this air will send your system into a shock. Stay still, don't fight it."
I nodded as best I could, and then the doctor carefully prepared to remove the annoying tube. With a command to exhale, and a swift jerk, I was suddenly forced to breathe on my own. Which was an event which I was not prepared for. This was made apparent by my frantic gasping and the raspy sound of my voice which filled the room. I'm sure I was throwing Jordan into histerics with my actions, but hell, I was scared.
An oxygen mask was strapped on me, and after a few chest-heaving moments, I had calmed down significantly. Now able to breathe, I felt alot better. After another round of blood tests and vitals checks, the doctor and nurse left the room. Jordan was the first at my side.
~~Jordan~~ I just wanted to make sure he was still alive after that episode with the breathing tube. Gently touching his face, I smiled at him. "You alright?"
He smiled back. "Never better." His voice cracked as he spoke, and be honest, he sounded like crap. He gasped after he spoke, taking in air from the plastic mask which was covering his mouth and nose.
"Don't talk if it hurts you." I bit my lower lip. I didn't want him hurting himself just to talk to me.
"I'm fine, Love. Just tired."
"Then sleep. You should be unconcious after that fight you put up." I grabbed his hand and held it tightly. "You're still strong as ever."
"Obviously not that intelligent because I'm lying in this bed." He dropped his gaze down to his stomach. "Those...should be some nice...scars."
I noticed the laboring pauses in between words and frowned. It was obvious that he was having difficulty breathing still.
"I'm fine Jordan." He squeezed my hand, obviously reading the worry on my face. Looking up at Garret, he smiled. "Hey."
Garret nodded. "Hey. Good to see that you've joined us."
"I wanted to come back to the light sometime...it just took you to do it for me."
Laughing, Garret smiled. "I'm glad to know that I could be of help."
We sat and laughed, all three of us. Even with severe chest trauma, Nigel found the ability to laugh somewhere inside of him. I'm sure it wasn't without pain, but he needed it.
He'd been awake for nearly an hour when Renee walked in the door, a nervous smile on her face. Garret quickly relinquished his seat to her, but she bypassed him to give Nigel a kiss on the forehead and one of her traditonal quirky smiles.
"So how is our vigilante?"
~~Garret~~ I shook my head. So much for her not being blunt. I had half a mind to nudge her to try to make her shut up, but I realized it would probably just get me in some form of trouble. So I decided to do the next best thing and try to talk her off of the subject.
"He woke up about an hour ago, and we had a lovely incident with his breathing tube, right Nige?" I shot a glance at Renee to attempt to get my point across.
"Good. So your head's clear. Do you know who did this to you?"
Missed. I shook my head, rolling my eyes at Jordan. She smiled back, then mouthed the words 'she's your lover' at me with a disappointed smirk on her face.
I saw Nigel's face go blank. He was obviously unwilling to talk about what had happened to him. It was all too soon, he was too freaked out about it. Any doctor would have been able to see that.
But again, we witness that Renee is not a doctor but an attorney.
"Was it Cahill or any of his creeps?"
I glanced down at him again, and I could see this look of fear in his eyes. He had no wish to revisit what had happened to him, especially not while lying strapped to a hospital bed. He'd just woken up, and he was now the first witness on the stand in the court of Renee. He shut his eyes and sighed. Jordan noticed that his hand was shaking in hers while she was holding it.
Jordan stared at his face, attempting to read what he was thinking. I'm pretty sure it was along the lines of 'make her stop please...'
I gently took Renee by the arm and softly requested that she come and talk to me out in the hallway. I smiled at the nurse who was walking in, carrying a syringe of medication for him. I walked down the hall, out of the earshot of Jordan and Nigel, and then I shook my head.
"What? What are you doing dragging me out into the hallway for?"
"Can't you see it?" I was a little annoyed at her at the moment. Nigel was one of my people, not one of her witnesses. Not yet at least.
"See what? The fact that he got the crap kicked out of him?"
"No...the fact that he's scared out of his mind! He doesn't want to talk about what happened yet. It's one of the symptoms of PTSD."
"PTSD?" She glared at me.
"Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. In other words, after a trauma, people often go through several stages before they can talk about what happened to them."
"Well, they're in jail on a unrelated charges, for firing at the people in the streets, but since they didn't hurt anyone, they're going to get out and disappear into the woodwork. He needs to talk."
"Renee. He doesn't know how bad he's hurt."
"So? He can still talk and ID the men."
I was about to throw something back at her when the sound of several alarms came shrieking from the doorway to his room. The blue light above his doorway began flashing, and I heard Jordan frantically yelling for help. I ran back into the room, completely ignoring Renee.
The nurse was clearing Jordan away from Nigel's bedside, and I could see him shaking. Even from the doorway, the fact that he was having a seizure was obvious. Jordan had this look in her eyes that was a mixture of fear and pain. I was quickly at her side as the doctors rushed in and surrounded his bed. Renee soon joined us, and I nudged them towards each other as I moved towards Nigel's bedside.
A Grand-Mal seizure. The worst. A team of doctors and nurses were holding him still, as he'd broken several of the velcro bonds that had been stabilizing his back. Someone started pumping air into his lungs, but I was shoved out of the way as I heard the sound that no one in a hospital wants to hear. The toneless beep and alarm of a lost heartrate. I was ignored as the team of doctors pulled a crashcart up to the bedside, and I felt the blood drain out of my body as I heard the electric charge of the defilabrator paddles being warmed up. They pulled bandages off his chest frantically, then they cleared his body. With a jolt of electricity, his body jumped on the table. But still no heartrate. The head doctor yelled out several commands, and they started a round of CPR.
I turned to see Jordan crumpled on the floor, with Renee kneeling at her side. The frantic noise all faded as I walked to her side, and I collapsed to my knees and took her in a hug. The sound of another electrical charge shocked me back into thinking, and I listened for the sound of a heartbeat. None.
Nigel was crashing fast. And all we could do was pray.
******
TBC...
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