A/N: Well, the big 3-0! Yay! Thanks everybody who's reviewed so far, I've
enjoyed knowing you all like my story, and here's chapter 30! Same place,
same time, after chapter 29, so lets go!
********** CHAPTER 30 **********
~~Jordan~~ "Wow...it's dead around here." I mumbled to myself as I wandered the hallways of the morgue. Bug was off taking an early lunch, Peter had the day off...and Lily was in conference with the family of one of the people killed in the drive by we had yesterday. Glancing at Garret's darkened office, I noticed that it was ten-thirty. Funny..." I thought to myself. "...he didn't say he wasn't coming in...and I've already gotten a call from Renee today so he's not with her. Shrugging to myself, I heard the door to the conference room open and I saw Lily escorting the family out into the lobby, probably to make arrangements for pickup of their son's body. As I headed for the lab to see if Garret was running tests or something, I jumped when I heard his voice booming from inside exam one.
"Now SIT STILL!"
I whirled around and nearly stopped in my tracks. Something was ALIVE in exam one with Garret?! I had to see this. Quickly heading in that direction, I opened the doors to the autopsy suite to see one of the most amusing sights I'd seen in a long time.
Garret was covered, from head to toe, in bubbles.
I then discovered the thing that Garret had been trying to make sit still. The loud, deep throated grunting of an English bulldog greeted my ears as I saw the floppy head poke up over the side of the sink.
"Is that...Rudy?" Moving over to Garret's side, I peered into the sink at the very wet and playful dog rolling in the bubbles.
"Yes, it's Rudy, and he does NOT want to take a bath, now do we?" He reached down and scratched the dog behind the back legs. "Yes...we want to get Garret all covered in bubbles...that's fun..."
Garret was baby talking a dog. I grinned and nudged Garret playfully. "Found a new sport, trying to wash a bulldog?"
"Nope, I'm getting him ready so you can help me clip his hair." He wiped the suds off his face with the back of his sleeve. "Which you're going to do in about ten minutes, so you should go get changed into some scrubs. And bring me some towels when you come back."
"Why do I have to clip his hair again? Last time I checked, I was a doctor, not a groomer."
"We're taking him to visit Nigel, and I had to swear my life to the hospital saying that I'd have him clean and freshly trimmed." Garret grabbed the spray-head that attached to the faucet and began squirting the soap off of Rudy. "The clean parts done, and since I would hope you're better with hair than I am, you're leading the clipping."
"Damn straight I'm better with hair than you are." I reached up and rubbed the top of Garret's head. "I still think you should let it grow and spike it."
Shaking his head, he grinned at me. "Just go get some towels, and get changed."
I walked out of the room, and headed for the lockers. After getting into my familiar pair of those oh so comfortable and attractive scrubs, and throwing my hair back in a messy bun, I grabbed a armful of towels out of the clean laundry cart and headed back to the exam room.
"Took you long enough."
I looked up to see Garret smiling at me, with a hyperactive and slippery bulldog skidding across the laminate floor, running into everything thought humanly possible.
"Well, you don't have to let him destroy the place, now do we?" I threw a towel over Garret's head, then knelt on the floor and wrapped Rudy in the one I had in my hand. More excited grunting and snorting ensued, and I soon found myself pinned flat on my back, being used as a personal drying mat for the wiggling mass of fat that was considered an animal.
I squeaked out a feeble cry for help, and only then did I see Garret in the corner, going into hysterics at the sight of me trapped on the floor. "Hey! Stop laughing and help me!"
Shaking his head and wiping his eyes with the towel, Garret slowly walked over and knelt on the floor next to me. "I can't help it, you look so..."
"I look so WHAT?!?" I squealed out a sentence before Rudy proceeded to attack my face with a multitude of bulldog kisses, the big, wet, sloppy kind. "Get it off!!!"
Garret pulled Rudy off of me and grinned. "You were laughing so hard, somebody walking by would have thought we enjoyed cutting open dead people."
"What are you talking about? I do enjoy my job. I get to work with fun people." I pulled myself into a sitting position and shook my head. "HOW are we going to trim his hair? He's so hyper he won't sit still and by the time we're done he'll look like he has a bad case of mange."
"We have a leash, and you're using clippers that have a guard on them...just go over all of his skin unless he wants a mohawk..." Garret smiled. "So, how about we set this guy up on the table and start cutting?"
"You make it sound like we're doing an autopsy on Nigel's dog. I don't think he'd enjoy that."
"But I'm sure he'd enjoy seeing him. And that kid might like it too." He picked the dog up and placed him on the table. "The clippers are over there on the counter." Garret clipped his leash onto the edge of the table. "This should hold him, at least a little bit."
"Yeah." I grabbed the clippers, and after plugging them in and making sure the blades were attached properly, I placed the right size guard on them and fired them up. "Where'd you get these, anyways?"
"Renee. She used to have a dog, so she let me borrow them."
"She used to have a dog? What kind?"
"No clue. All I know is the thing was hairy. Probably why she kept her own clippers around, so she could trim it herself."
I started trimming Rudy's hair, and I was thankful that I didn't have to deal with a wiggling mass on THIS time around. The clippers actually appeared to be calming him down, and I managed to get him all trimmed in a short period of time.
After inspecting all the parts of him, Garret smiled. "Good job. Maybe you have a different calling than forensics...grooming."
"I think...no." I set the clippers down and rubbed all the loose hair off with a towel. "All done." Setting Rudy down on the floor, Garret clipped the leash onto his collar and took him from me.
"I've got a bandana to tie around his neck in my office, and then we can go change and then visit Nigel." Looking down at his clothes, Garret sighed. "Who ever thought bubbles could be so deadly?"
"Awww...you're just damp you big baby. Tough it up." I socked Garret on the shoulder and darted out of the room, intent on changing back into dry and regular clothing.
After changing, and after Garret had changed as well, we quickly tied a bandana emblazoned with the Union Jack around Rudy's neck and headed out. We decided to take Garret's car, so that I could be the dog-sitter on the ride to the hospital, and we were soon on our way.
~~Nigel~~ I wearily opened my eyes and groaned, feeling an immense amount of pain in my right arm as I did so. Looking down, I saw that my IV line had been removed, and even under the bandage I could see a huge bruise forming. I laid my head back on the pillow and groaned. This was NOT what I needed right now.
"They took your IV out last night."
I opened one eye and looked across the room at Ryan, who was sitting up in his bed, reading a comic book. "Why?"
"You rolled over on it in your sleep and it started to bleed, so the doctor ordered it removed immediately." He paused. "I'm surprised you didn't wake up. They said you pushed it in farther...that's probably why it hurts so much."
I nodded. "Yeah, that and the biggest bruise I've ever seen." Pressing the call button for a nurse, I then stretched, extending my left arm over my head and I felt my toes curl as I yawned.
I stopped short in the middle of my yawn and dropped my arm. Staring intensely at the sheet draped over my body, I wiggled my toes again. That huge, cheshire cat grin slowly crept onto my face as I spoke. "Hey, Ryan...are my toes moving or am I hallucinating?"
"Your toes are moving..."
I started to laugh, probably sounding insane, but I was so happy I could have gotten up and danced. The nurse walked into the room and smiled at me, obviously curious as to my comical expression on my face. "Can I help you sir?"
"Get my doctor, and tell him I can move my toes!"
"You can?" She looked down at my feet, and I quickly wiggled them. "Excellent!" She quickly moved to the phone on the side of the room and paged the doctor who had been overseeing my care.
I waited excitedly, and only for a few minutes, until my doctor came into the room carrying an armful of charts. "Hello there...I hear we've got good news?"
"Yes we do." I grinned, and then moved my toes under the sheet. "I can move them."
"Great! Now...lets try the rest of your lower half." He gently pulled the sheet off, and setting the chart on the end of my bed, he took my left foot in his hand and asked if I could feel him touching it.
"Yeah, I can." He did the same thing with the other foot, and it was the same result. I could feel every place he poked at my foot, and all the way up both calves was the same. Feeling...all the way up.
"Can you flex your knee for me? Let's start with the right one."
I carefully lifted my leg, with his help, and bent it slightly. The muscles were weak from being unusable for the last week, but the fact of the matter was that I could still move my knee. The left knee behaved just the same way. Moveable.
"Well, with this amount of progress, we'll need to take you up to CT to get some scans of your back to be positive that the swelling has gone down."
"Do I have to go on the bed?" I didn't want to ride through the halls on my back again--the lights passing overhead made me sick enough. "I want a wheelchair to do it in."
Looking around, and checking my vitals, the doctor nodded. "I suppose we can allow that, just this once, only because I know how long you've been lying down."
"Plus, you need to change my sheets and get rid of the blood I dripped all over the place when I did this." I said, motioning to my arm.
"Very true." The doctor grabbed the wheelchair that had been parked beside my bed for days and pulled it along side my bed, while a nurse adjusted my bed so I was sitting straight up.
I carefully slid off the bed and placed my feet on the floor, never so happy to feel cold linoleum in my life. I sat in the wheelchair and nodded at Ryan, who was smiling at me. "I'll be back in a minute buddy."
The nurse wheeled me out of the room and headed for the rear elevators as I blinked my eyes at the brightness of the outside hallway. We successfully navigated the crowded hall and made it into the elevator, and I headed upstairs to get my back scanned.
((JUST THEN....))
~~Jordan~~ I walked through the sliding doors of the hospital's main lobby, smiling as I was dragged in front of Garret by the now grunting bulldog. Keeping my cool, I managed to stop myself in front of the security desk, where Garret asked for two visitor's passes to Nigel's room. After I was properly emblazoned with a sticker proclaiming my destination, Rudy took no time in dragging me and Garret to the elevator.
Upon getting to Nigel's floor, Garret took the lead and walked down the hall to the doorway to his room. He entered, but stopped in the doorway.
"What's wrong Garret?"
"Um...excuse me...where's Nigel?" Garret walked in and tapped the nurse changing the bedsheet of Nigel's bed on the shoulder.
"Oh, I'm sorry sir. He was just taken up to CT a few minutes ago." She fluffed the fresh pillow and laid in on his bed.
"He can move his legs."
We both turned around and stared at Ryan, who was smiling at us. "What did you just say?" I tilted my head to the side, unsure of what the boy had just said.
"I said, he can move his legs. And his toes, and his knees...and he can stand on two feet with help." He smiled at us, then at the dog. "What's his name?"
"Rudy...he's a bulldog...he can stand up?" Garret crossed the room and stood next to Ryan's bed.
"Yeah, he can. He made a comment about how cold the floor was too. He should be back from CT any minute now, the doctor just wanted to check the swelling or something like that."
"That's great!" I smiled at Garret, and then at the boy. My smile, however, got even larger when I heard that familiar British voice behind me.
"Jordan Cavanaugh...sneaking animals into the hospital...bad girl."
"Nigel!" I turned around and nearly suffocated him in a tight hug, which only led to excite the bulldog attached to my arm.
"Jordan, I do need to breathe Love...hey Rudy!" He bent over and scratched the dog behind the ears, then moving onto his stomach. "How's it going buddy? They been taking good care of ya?"
"Yes, we have." I smiled, and we sat around and laughed for a good ten or fifteen minutes until Nigel asked to go back in bed.
After a quick hop into his bed, we were about to start talking again when an attending nurse came into the room with a piece of paper. "Excuse me, Mr. Townsend?"
"Yes?" Nigel looked up, away from Rudy who'd now fallen asleep on his lap.
"There's somebody here to see you, but they're not on the list of allowed visitors."
"Who is it?"
"A man by the name of Jonathan Townsend." She paused. "He says he's related to you."
Nigel's face froze. I could tell he was amazed to even hear the name being spoken. After a moment of silence, he nodded. "Send him up."
"Alright sir." The nurse walked out of the room, and I immediately glanced at him.
"Who's Jonathan Townsend?"
"My father."
TBC....
A/N: Well, here's chapter 30! Long as I promised!
********** CHAPTER 30 **********
~~Jordan~~ "Wow...it's dead around here." I mumbled to myself as I wandered the hallways of the morgue. Bug was off taking an early lunch, Peter had the day off...and Lily was in conference with the family of one of the people killed in the drive by we had yesterday. Glancing at Garret's darkened office, I noticed that it was ten-thirty. Funny..." I thought to myself. "...he didn't say he wasn't coming in...and I've already gotten a call from Renee today so he's not with her. Shrugging to myself, I heard the door to the conference room open and I saw Lily escorting the family out into the lobby, probably to make arrangements for pickup of their son's body. As I headed for the lab to see if Garret was running tests or something, I jumped when I heard his voice booming from inside exam one.
"Now SIT STILL!"
I whirled around and nearly stopped in my tracks. Something was ALIVE in exam one with Garret?! I had to see this. Quickly heading in that direction, I opened the doors to the autopsy suite to see one of the most amusing sights I'd seen in a long time.
Garret was covered, from head to toe, in bubbles.
I then discovered the thing that Garret had been trying to make sit still. The loud, deep throated grunting of an English bulldog greeted my ears as I saw the floppy head poke up over the side of the sink.
"Is that...Rudy?" Moving over to Garret's side, I peered into the sink at the very wet and playful dog rolling in the bubbles.
"Yes, it's Rudy, and he does NOT want to take a bath, now do we?" He reached down and scratched the dog behind the back legs. "Yes...we want to get Garret all covered in bubbles...that's fun..."
Garret was baby talking a dog. I grinned and nudged Garret playfully. "Found a new sport, trying to wash a bulldog?"
"Nope, I'm getting him ready so you can help me clip his hair." He wiped the suds off his face with the back of his sleeve. "Which you're going to do in about ten minutes, so you should go get changed into some scrubs. And bring me some towels when you come back."
"Why do I have to clip his hair again? Last time I checked, I was a doctor, not a groomer."
"We're taking him to visit Nigel, and I had to swear my life to the hospital saying that I'd have him clean and freshly trimmed." Garret grabbed the spray-head that attached to the faucet and began squirting the soap off of Rudy. "The clean parts done, and since I would hope you're better with hair than I am, you're leading the clipping."
"Damn straight I'm better with hair than you are." I reached up and rubbed the top of Garret's head. "I still think you should let it grow and spike it."
Shaking his head, he grinned at me. "Just go get some towels, and get changed."
I walked out of the room, and headed for the lockers. After getting into my familiar pair of those oh so comfortable and attractive scrubs, and throwing my hair back in a messy bun, I grabbed a armful of towels out of the clean laundry cart and headed back to the exam room.
"Took you long enough."
I looked up to see Garret smiling at me, with a hyperactive and slippery bulldog skidding across the laminate floor, running into everything thought humanly possible.
"Well, you don't have to let him destroy the place, now do we?" I threw a towel over Garret's head, then knelt on the floor and wrapped Rudy in the one I had in my hand. More excited grunting and snorting ensued, and I soon found myself pinned flat on my back, being used as a personal drying mat for the wiggling mass of fat that was considered an animal.
I squeaked out a feeble cry for help, and only then did I see Garret in the corner, going into hysterics at the sight of me trapped on the floor. "Hey! Stop laughing and help me!"
Shaking his head and wiping his eyes with the towel, Garret slowly walked over and knelt on the floor next to me. "I can't help it, you look so..."
"I look so WHAT?!?" I squealed out a sentence before Rudy proceeded to attack my face with a multitude of bulldog kisses, the big, wet, sloppy kind. "Get it off!!!"
Garret pulled Rudy off of me and grinned. "You were laughing so hard, somebody walking by would have thought we enjoyed cutting open dead people."
"What are you talking about? I do enjoy my job. I get to work with fun people." I pulled myself into a sitting position and shook my head. "HOW are we going to trim his hair? He's so hyper he won't sit still and by the time we're done he'll look like he has a bad case of mange."
"We have a leash, and you're using clippers that have a guard on them...just go over all of his skin unless he wants a mohawk..." Garret smiled. "So, how about we set this guy up on the table and start cutting?"
"You make it sound like we're doing an autopsy on Nigel's dog. I don't think he'd enjoy that."
"But I'm sure he'd enjoy seeing him. And that kid might like it too." He picked the dog up and placed him on the table. "The clippers are over there on the counter." Garret clipped his leash onto the edge of the table. "This should hold him, at least a little bit."
"Yeah." I grabbed the clippers, and after plugging them in and making sure the blades were attached properly, I placed the right size guard on them and fired them up. "Where'd you get these, anyways?"
"Renee. She used to have a dog, so she let me borrow them."
"She used to have a dog? What kind?"
"No clue. All I know is the thing was hairy. Probably why she kept her own clippers around, so she could trim it herself."
I started trimming Rudy's hair, and I was thankful that I didn't have to deal with a wiggling mass on THIS time around. The clippers actually appeared to be calming him down, and I managed to get him all trimmed in a short period of time.
After inspecting all the parts of him, Garret smiled. "Good job. Maybe you have a different calling than forensics...grooming."
"I think...no." I set the clippers down and rubbed all the loose hair off with a towel. "All done." Setting Rudy down on the floor, Garret clipped the leash onto his collar and took him from me.
"I've got a bandana to tie around his neck in my office, and then we can go change and then visit Nigel." Looking down at his clothes, Garret sighed. "Who ever thought bubbles could be so deadly?"
"Awww...you're just damp you big baby. Tough it up." I socked Garret on the shoulder and darted out of the room, intent on changing back into dry and regular clothing.
After changing, and after Garret had changed as well, we quickly tied a bandana emblazoned with the Union Jack around Rudy's neck and headed out. We decided to take Garret's car, so that I could be the dog-sitter on the ride to the hospital, and we were soon on our way.
~~Nigel~~ I wearily opened my eyes and groaned, feeling an immense amount of pain in my right arm as I did so. Looking down, I saw that my IV line had been removed, and even under the bandage I could see a huge bruise forming. I laid my head back on the pillow and groaned. This was NOT what I needed right now.
"They took your IV out last night."
I opened one eye and looked across the room at Ryan, who was sitting up in his bed, reading a comic book. "Why?"
"You rolled over on it in your sleep and it started to bleed, so the doctor ordered it removed immediately." He paused. "I'm surprised you didn't wake up. They said you pushed it in farther...that's probably why it hurts so much."
I nodded. "Yeah, that and the biggest bruise I've ever seen." Pressing the call button for a nurse, I then stretched, extending my left arm over my head and I felt my toes curl as I yawned.
I stopped short in the middle of my yawn and dropped my arm. Staring intensely at the sheet draped over my body, I wiggled my toes again. That huge, cheshire cat grin slowly crept onto my face as I spoke. "Hey, Ryan...are my toes moving or am I hallucinating?"
"Your toes are moving..."
I started to laugh, probably sounding insane, but I was so happy I could have gotten up and danced. The nurse walked into the room and smiled at me, obviously curious as to my comical expression on my face. "Can I help you sir?"
"Get my doctor, and tell him I can move my toes!"
"You can?" She looked down at my feet, and I quickly wiggled them. "Excellent!" She quickly moved to the phone on the side of the room and paged the doctor who had been overseeing my care.
I waited excitedly, and only for a few minutes, until my doctor came into the room carrying an armful of charts. "Hello there...I hear we've got good news?"
"Yes we do." I grinned, and then moved my toes under the sheet. "I can move them."
"Great! Now...lets try the rest of your lower half." He gently pulled the sheet off, and setting the chart on the end of my bed, he took my left foot in his hand and asked if I could feel him touching it.
"Yeah, I can." He did the same thing with the other foot, and it was the same result. I could feel every place he poked at my foot, and all the way up both calves was the same. Feeling...all the way up.
"Can you flex your knee for me? Let's start with the right one."
I carefully lifted my leg, with his help, and bent it slightly. The muscles were weak from being unusable for the last week, but the fact of the matter was that I could still move my knee. The left knee behaved just the same way. Moveable.
"Well, with this amount of progress, we'll need to take you up to CT to get some scans of your back to be positive that the swelling has gone down."
"Do I have to go on the bed?" I didn't want to ride through the halls on my back again--the lights passing overhead made me sick enough. "I want a wheelchair to do it in."
Looking around, and checking my vitals, the doctor nodded. "I suppose we can allow that, just this once, only because I know how long you've been lying down."
"Plus, you need to change my sheets and get rid of the blood I dripped all over the place when I did this." I said, motioning to my arm.
"Very true." The doctor grabbed the wheelchair that had been parked beside my bed for days and pulled it along side my bed, while a nurse adjusted my bed so I was sitting straight up.
I carefully slid off the bed and placed my feet on the floor, never so happy to feel cold linoleum in my life. I sat in the wheelchair and nodded at Ryan, who was smiling at me. "I'll be back in a minute buddy."
The nurse wheeled me out of the room and headed for the rear elevators as I blinked my eyes at the brightness of the outside hallway. We successfully navigated the crowded hall and made it into the elevator, and I headed upstairs to get my back scanned.
((JUST THEN....))
~~Jordan~~ I walked through the sliding doors of the hospital's main lobby, smiling as I was dragged in front of Garret by the now grunting bulldog. Keeping my cool, I managed to stop myself in front of the security desk, where Garret asked for two visitor's passes to Nigel's room. After I was properly emblazoned with a sticker proclaiming my destination, Rudy took no time in dragging me and Garret to the elevator.
Upon getting to Nigel's floor, Garret took the lead and walked down the hall to the doorway to his room. He entered, but stopped in the doorway.
"What's wrong Garret?"
"Um...excuse me...where's Nigel?" Garret walked in and tapped the nurse changing the bedsheet of Nigel's bed on the shoulder.
"Oh, I'm sorry sir. He was just taken up to CT a few minutes ago." She fluffed the fresh pillow and laid in on his bed.
"He can move his legs."
We both turned around and stared at Ryan, who was smiling at us. "What did you just say?" I tilted my head to the side, unsure of what the boy had just said.
"I said, he can move his legs. And his toes, and his knees...and he can stand on two feet with help." He smiled at us, then at the dog. "What's his name?"
"Rudy...he's a bulldog...he can stand up?" Garret crossed the room and stood next to Ryan's bed.
"Yeah, he can. He made a comment about how cold the floor was too. He should be back from CT any minute now, the doctor just wanted to check the swelling or something like that."
"That's great!" I smiled at Garret, and then at the boy. My smile, however, got even larger when I heard that familiar British voice behind me.
"Jordan Cavanaugh...sneaking animals into the hospital...bad girl."
"Nigel!" I turned around and nearly suffocated him in a tight hug, which only led to excite the bulldog attached to my arm.
"Jordan, I do need to breathe Love...hey Rudy!" He bent over and scratched the dog behind the ears, then moving onto his stomach. "How's it going buddy? They been taking good care of ya?"
"Yes, we have." I smiled, and we sat around and laughed for a good ten or fifteen minutes until Nigel asked to go back in bed.
After a quick hop into his bed, we were about to start talking again when an attending nurse came into the room with a piece of paper. "Excuse me, Mr. Townsend?"
"Yes?" Nigel looked up, away from Rudy who'd now fallen asleep on his lap.
"There's somebody here to see you, but they're not on the list of allowed visitors."
"Who is it?"
"A man by the name of Jonathan Townsend." She paused. "He says he's related to you."
Nigel's face froze. I could tell he was amazed to even hear the name being spoken. After a moment of silence, he nodded. "Send him up."
"Alright sir." The nurse walked out of the room, and I immediately glanced at him.
"Who's Jonathan Townsend?"
"My father."
TBC....
A/N: Well, here's chapter 30! Long as I promised!