'Get this guy on a drip right now and get him in a proper bed. Bring me instruments and I want a hell of a lot of space and time with no disturbances. Get that- no interruptions.' Dr Howard was extremely stressed. In the last hour sixty people had arrived as a continuous flow and just as he thought the worst had passed, they bring in this guy who, as well as having a leg that looks like it had been chewed up by a machine, had lost a huge amount of blood. Their blood stocks were running low- about 2 pints were being fed in the body of the man's wife at that very moment, although no one was aware of this fact. Oh, and just to add to the extent of his suffering, he had been left lying on the ground, in a wet suit, for a good five hours which meant his chances of having or getting hypothermia were immediately pretty high.
'Get some of this blood of him.' Most of the blood covering Sandy's hands and torso was not his own but his wife's, but no one knew this fact either.
'Seth? Are you ok?' Ryan, after wandering the hospital for ten minutes, had found Seth sitting on the floor, talking to his polystyrene coffee cup. By the time Ryan had sat down next to him, the cup had been obliterated and Seth turned to Ryan.
'No Ryan, frankly I am not ok. I am not even near the border of ok-land, I'm stuck in the land of 'My mother is on a ventilator and looks an Egyptian mummy and my father is….'…. Yeah, see that's one of my problems: where the hell is my dad?' he yelled, and attracted the attention of an old woman being wheeled past in a wheelchair: her legs were covered in bandages and parts of her arms were also enclosed by dressings. She was in the process of telling the tired looking nurse who was pushing her about how she was rescued from a burning building by 'the bravest gentleman she had ever encountered'. Then she was wheeled to the side of the corridor to make way for a swiftly moving mass of nurses and doctors. As the group quickly passed by, three astonished people were left in its wake, shocked at the glimpse of the person on the stretcher they had all seen and whom they all thought they recognised.
'Kirsten Cohen? Your husband has just been brought in.' Kirsten awoke from her inert state and immediately she started to cry, tears welling up at the point where her bandages met her face. She made no sound and wasn't able to understand the emotion she felt as the tears continued to fall. The nurse made to comfort her, not sure whether to disobey the instructions she had been given and not tell the emotional and fragile woman about the true state of her husband. As she was pondering this, Seth arrived at his mother's side:
'Hey, mom, it's ok. Shhh.' Seth stroked his mothers hair, trying to block out the panic he felt at this un-natural state of affairs- it shouldn't be me comforting her, he thought, it shouldn't be stroking her hair to calm her down, it shouldn't be me who has tell her what she has to know.
Kirsten turned her blue eyes onto her sons brown ones and she saw in him her husband.
'Seth.' She whispered, and her fingers tightened round her sons, trying to convey to him that he must tell her more.
'Mom. Dad's…pretty bad. But they're going to fix him- there is an actual surgeon with him, and he says dad's going to be fine. But he's…bad.' Seth's voice shook but the desperate look in his mother's eyes compelled him to stay calm.
'Mrs Cohen? We need to give another injection I'm afraid as we need to do some work on your that cut in your stomach.' The nurse unwrapped a bandage covering the wound and Seth grimaced- what he saw there wasn't a cut, it was a hole.
'Mom, don't worry ok? I'll see you later.' Seth continued to hold her hand whilst the nurse injected her in the arm. She whimpered and the pathetic cry tore at Seth's heart and when her eyelids dropped and her grip on his hand loosened, the tears at last began to fall.
Two hours later, Seth and Ryan were driving home. They were both silent, Seth because he didn't want to cry in front of Ryan and Ryan because he knew that is why Seth didn't want to speak. The sound of Ryan's phone ringing cut through the silence and he answered it:
'Hey Marissa. Yeah I'm fine.' There was a silence and Ryan glanced over at Seth. 'Yeah. Ok. That'd probably be good. See you then.' He hung up:
'Marissa and Summer and coming round. They figured it's not good to be alone. And apparently Summer's really into X-men now and wants to watch the next one.' Seth smiled and looking at Ryan he nodded:
'Yeah. I knew it'd be just her kind of film.'
They arrived back at the house at 3.30 in the afternoon and found Marissa and Summer waiting for them.
'Hey.' Summer slipped her hand into Seth's. 'The first X-lady is ready to do battle against the all round X-files geek. Do you accept the challenge?'
'Are you sure you're ready for this? Because I don't want to you to feel dejected or anything when you lose.' Replied Seth.
'Ah, Cohen, don't dismiss the challenge so lightly….' They advanced towards the television whilst Ryan and Marissa held back.
'You ok?' she asked.
'Yeah. Thanks for coming, Seth really needed someone to spill out his feelings to in an X-men kind of format.' Marissa raised her eyebrows at him, smiling.
'And I really needed…you.' They followed the others to the television and settled down to a X-men marathon.
At the hospital, Dr Howard was completing his second hour of tending to Mr Sandy Cohen, whose wife, he had been notified, was recently stabilised from a period of critical condition in a nearby ward. Sandy was still having blood pumped into his body, and the colour was gradually returning to his face. His leg had been a hell of a mess and, although it still resembled something far from a normal human leg, the chances of infection had been greatly reduced and it was now closed up by an uncountable number of stitches. Mr Howard was pleased with his handiwork and ordered the nurse to keep a close eye on him.
'Dr Howard- his wife..' This nurse had been tending to Kirsten and seen the effects the news of her husband had brought.
'I'll go and see her.' Said the doctor and thought to himself: 'If I don't drop dead from tiredness before I get there.'
He approached the bed of Kirsten Cohen not knowing quite what to expect- he wasn't sure if the conversation he was about to have would be completely one-sided with himself talking to an inert, sedated body. Or it could be the opposite, where he would have to talk to an emotional wreck to whom even just the name of her husband had the power to get her back on the ventilator. He sincerely hoped it would not be the latter case. She opened her eyes when she sensed someone approaching and saw yet another doctor standing by her bed. Although she was mostly covered in bandages, her fragile beauty was clear to the doctor. The expression in her eyes, haunted and hopeless, was awful to see and the doctor was thankful that he wasn't bringing the bad news she was obviously expecting.
'Mrs Cohen.' He sat down beside and she turned her head to face him, showing no emotion.
'Your husband..' she let out a small sharp breath, the only clue to the inner agony she was in, and the doctor continued quickly:
'He's going to be fine. Both of you are going to be out of here within a week.' The change in the atmosphere surrounding the woman and in herself could almost be felt. Her face became peaceful and her eyes relaxed. She said nothing to him but she expressed her gratitude in the look she gave him and the new, warmth of feeling that radiated from her. He nodded at her and walked away, now in an extremely good mood and feeling rather heroic.
Ok so I thought ending on a happy note for once would be nice! I'm not going to be able to churn out the chapters at such high speeds any more because I'm back to school tomorrow and they've blocked the site from the school computers…so unless I can find a way to hijack the school filters there's going to be a bit of a pause in the story! May do another chapter tomorrow…thanks for the reviews!