There was not a question asked when Elizabeth made the announcement. Maxie threw a worried glance over to her boyfriend, but he was already bolting for the door, the bed vibrating with the shock of his quick dismount. She was expecting him to look at least a little bit scared, but he didn't look like that at all. He was determined. She had seen the way that he looked before, when he had managed to save Zander Smith's life shortly after Zander put that same life on the line for her.
Elizabeth looked at Maxie for a moment, she had done what she was supposed to do, and she was still worried about the man that was having the seizure. "Maxie, he might need your help. Come on!"
Maxie nodded her head and got up, following Elizabeth down the stairs into the restaurant.
Damian's feet made a loud stomping sound as he skipped several at a time in an effort to quicken his descent down into the actual eatery of Kelly's. He could hear the worried screams of the people around, and the wails of someone. A female wail, presumably a wife or a girlfriend. There was a crowd gathered in front of the stairway, Damian had to push his way through in order to get past everyone. He looked at the man who was on the ground, he was still convulsing. At least his face was looking up, not facing the floor, that made his job a little bit easier, but there was still the chance that he could choke on his own saliva or his tongue.
When Damian knelt down next to the man, the woman looked at him, "Get away from my husband!"
"I'm trying to help your husband, ma'am." He said calmly, but firmly. He understood how she was feeling. When someone that was loved was in danger, the last thing that a person wanted was someone who they didn't know, who they didn't trust, to try and help. If Damian had been in the hospital it would have been different, but he wasn't. He wasn't even a doctor yet, but he knew how to help. "Please, hold his head steady for me."
"You're just a kid…" she said in between the wails and heavy breathing.
"I'm the best chance that your husband has at survival until the paramedics arrive. I know what I'm doing, please believe me."
Her eyes filled with tears, her mascara running, the woman, who was barely a few years older than Carly, did as she was instructed. She could sense the truthfulness in the words of the young man who seemed to know what he was doing. He was the only one who had even tried to do something. The others were just screaming and standing around, at least this boy was attempting a rescue. How could she not appreciate that?
"Grandpa!" Damian yelled, "Get me a soup bowl or something for the saliva…"
"On it!" Mike had to yell as well, in an effort to make sure that he was heard over the sounds of the crowd. There weren't that many people in Kelly's, but when they were all bunched together and worried, they made themselves known. He dug through the varied sizes, he wasn't sure how big it was supposed to be, but he figured that the bigger it was the better, so he grabbed a moderately sized bowl and pushed his way through the crowd, looking at Maxie as she came down the stairs. "The paramedics were already called, they said they would be on their way as soon as they could be."
"Good," Damian didn't enjoy the feel of the man's warm saliva on his fingers, but he would have gladly done it if it meant saving someone's life. He would just have to use a lot of antibacterial soap.
"Can I do anything to help?" Maxie asked, kneeling beside him. She was shaking. She was nervous. She wasn't even the one that was doing anything to try and save the man's life and she was more nervous than the man that was. That was why Damian would make a good doctor, he knew how to control himself. She wasn't aware of the nervous twitching that his body had gone through not even an hour before.
"Get me something to suck the saliva out that I can't get with my fingers…"
"Like what?"
"I don't know, Maxie," Damian admitted. "One of those things that people use to baste turkeys, it just needs to have some suction power."
"You're going to stick a turkey basting device in my husband's mouth?" The woman asked, horrified.
"Do you have any better ideas, miss?" Damian snapped back. It was a good thing that, in the operating room, people didn't have to deal with frantic wives. Hence why Damian didn't want to be the type of doctor who delivered babies. He would have to learn how to do that, in fact he had already taken that class, but he didn't see himself spending time in the maternity ward. "Maxie, go get something!"
Mike and Elizabeth also helped the searching. Despite being a restaurant, they rarely used things that would baste. Kelly's just wasn't that type of establishment, but they did make pies, and they used the filling tools, which did have suction in them. Mike grabbed the smallest one that he could this time, since a large one wouldn't fit in the guys mouth. He glanced at Maxie, "Catch!"
She caught the thing in her hands and rushed over to Damian, handing it over. "Do you think it's going to help?"
"It's the best I can do for him, if it doesn't work…" he looked up at the woman, who didn't like the way his sentence was going. "We just won't think about if it doesn't work right now." Damian put the small pie filler in his mouth, where there was some saliva, not much, but more than enough to cause the man to start choking if it got in his mouth. With his mouth being open for so long it only caused more spit to come out, the bowl was marginally filled, and it wasn't pretty. He took the filler in, filled it up as much as he could, and siphoned the mucus out into the bowl. While he was doing that, he felt the shaking lessen and he could only hope that it meant what it did mean, but he did not dare actually say it. He waited for a second, just a second, to see if there was any considerable change, and he saw the man blink his eyes. "He's coming out of it. Get him some water…" Damian let go of the man's tongue, he probably wanted it back.
His eyes still partially glazed, the man looked up at his wife. "Tessa? What happened?"
"You scared me, you big idiot!" Tessa's tears flowed down her eyes, but they were hardly tears of anguish. The tears had evolved to tears of joy and gratitude. "I didn't know what to do…" Tessa wiped her nose as she looked to the young man, "Thank you… so much."
"You should still have him go to the hospital when the paramedics come, miss," Damian felt the fluids on his hands, they weren't exactly the best feeling on his skin, but at least he saved the life of the man. "Seizures could be caused by something more extreme, so it would help to just look." He patted the man on the leg, "You, don't move at all until they get here, and drink just a little bit of water to get rid of the taste in your mouth."
"Here you go," Maxie handed the water to the man directly. He was up, she didn't need to pass it to Damian first. "I'm glad that you're all right."
A few minutes later the paramedics had came and taken Jeremiah, the man's in question, away. Tessa went in the ambulance with him, saying that she would never forget what Damian had done for her and for the man that she loved. The commotion form the incident had died down, but most of the people had just left Kelly's, watching someone have a seizure killed the appetite.
Damian was in the back, using the sink to wash his hands. He'd coated them at least three times with the soap that Mike had provided, but it didn't make it any easier. He could still feel the saliva and spit on his hands. It was so much different from the feeling that he had when he had Zander's blood coating his skin. Blood had a little consistency, it was more fluid.
"If you don't stop scrubbing, you're likely to scrub off your skin and then your bones. I don't think Maxie would like that. She wouldn't be able to hold your hand if you didn't have one." Elizabeth walked in. She had given him a few moments alone, but she felt that she needed to talk to him, to tell him what he did was one of the bravest things she'd ever seen anyone do before in her life.
"I could get one of those claw hands…"
"Yeah, but then she might prick her finger, that wouldn't be fun," Elizabeth held out a Styrofoam cup to him, covered with a spill-proof guard. "Here, Mike made it for you. Tea to clam your nerves."
Damian finally conceded that he had done all that he could do to clean his hands, wiping them dry and taking the offering without a moment's hesitation. The warmth of the tea soothed him instantly. "Grandpa makes the best green tea I've had."
"Come here," Elizabeth begged as she hugged Damian before letting him go.
"What was that for?"
"For doing what you did of course. It was really great the way you handled that."
"Well, if anyone should have been hugging me, it would have been Tessa, don't you think? It was her husband that I saved, not yours."
"Are you saying that you don't appreciate my hug?" Elizabeth giggled.
"No, I loved your hug, I'm just stating a fact is all." Damian's mind flashed to Tessa's face. "She was scared…"
"The man that she loved was doing something that she didn't know how to react to, that's really scary. Believe me, I know how that goes… and Ric wasn't even having a seizure, he was just doing something that was horrible, something that I couldn't grasp." Elizabeth knew that Ric was a different person now, but that didn't change the fact that he was like that at first. "You're a miracle worker."
"Stop praising me, I didn't do anything that you wouldn't have done if you knew how to handle it. I just did what was right." Damian put an arm over her shoulder, "Come on, let's go back out here, I could use a good sit down for a few minutes."
Maxie was sitting on one of the stools, looking at the door. She didn't want to smother her boyfriend, she knew where he was. When she saw him with his arm around Elizabeth she didn't feel any jealously. It was good to know that she didn't have to worry about him having his arms around someone else, because he was just being around one of his good friends. Maxie knew that Damian only loved her in the way that he did love her. It wasn't that he didn't love Elizabeth, but that love didn't compare to what they had. It was so much better than the relationship that she had with Kyle. She would have been so hurt if she saw him with his arms around someone else, because she thought he would leave her.
Damian let go of Elizabeth and sat down next to Maxie, resting his head on the counter for a moment. "Well, that was fun."
"No it wasn't, it was terrifying!" Maxie took a drink of her own cup. Unlike her boyfriend, she loved coffee, and coffee was what she had. She probably didn't need to be hyped up, especially after the display that she had just seen. "But you acted so calm and collected, that was great."
"She's got a point, kiddo," Mike said as he collected the plates from the recently vacated guests. "You did really good right there. I'm very proud of you, and I'm sure your dad would be, too." Mike walked back and put the plates down, "I don't think I'll ever look at a pie filler the same way now, though. You've shattered the innocence of the custard giver. I hope you're happy."
"I'll find a way to atone for that horrendous sin, grandpa. Somehow. I might have to kill a few chickens, maybe a goat… or a sheep, but I'll find a way." Damian thought about how he acted. How strong and collected he was, it was so different from the way he was acting when Sonny gave him the gun. It showed something to him. It showed him that he was still fit to be a doctor. The way that he acted when he was going to save a life was so different compared to how he acted when he thought he could put one in danger. He was more sure of himself in saving a life, that showed that he was still worthy of the position that he was hoping to fulfill. It didn't change what he did, but it made it easier for him to accept.
"Now that we're through with that crisis, do you mind telling me what you were doing up in your old apartment?" Mike really wanted to know, it was something that had been bugging him since his grandson had given him a half cold shoulder.
"I was looking for purpose, for direction. I didn't find it up there, though. I found it right here." The young man tenderly grabbed Maxie's hand and wrapped his fingers around hers. "I'm just glad that I was able to help the guy. Sometimes people who have seizures can choke on their tongue or the fluids that come out of their mouth during the attack, and when that happens it only goes downhill from there."
"I'd offer you a slice of pie, but I think we've all got to take a few days to ourselves before we can even stomach eating one… be it from Kelly's or just in general."
"You gave those people a chance at a wonderful Christmas, Damian," Maxie kissed him on the cheek once more. "You're like Santa. Without the beard and a whole lot younger… and cuter."
"I'm sure Santa doesn't like being thought of as inferior to me, Maxie," Damian smirked. "You might not get anything in your stocking this Christmas, not even a lump of coal."
"As long as you're with me, I don't care what I get for Christmas. But you know what would be really nice?"
"You trying to give me a subtle hint?" Damian cocked an eyebrow.
"No, I'm not good at being subtle, I'll just tell you what I want…"
"No you won't," Damian put a finger on her lips. "Where's the fun in that for me? I want to get you something special, and hopefully you'll love it."
"If it comes from you, I know I will," Maxie touched his cheek and smiled. She didn't really want anything else but him, although she wouldn't complain if she got other things.