Harry paced back and forth in front of the large observation windows. Sunset was more than five hours ago and there was still no word on Ron's condition. With each step, Harry was growing more and more agitated not to mention worried. Sighing, the boy stopped and leaned his forehead against the cool glass. His eyes gazed, unseeing, out into the inky blackness of the night. The night seemed to reflect his mood. There were no stars lighting up the sky and even the moon was absent. Despair. The night reflected the despair that Harry was feeling. Ron was ill and there wasn't anything he could do about it. Blinking, he slide into the nearest chair. Lucky for him that the waiting room of the ER was almost completely empty at this time of night.
Doctor Roberts checked and rechecked the young, unconscious, man in front of her. She still couldn't figure out what was wrong with him. Ever since he was brought in by ambulance, she had test after test ran on him. And each one came back negative. Everything pointed towards the boy being healthy and perfectly fine. But that was obviously not the case. There was something terribly wrong with Mr., she stopped to glance at the clip board in her hands, Westinghouse. William Westinghouse. She glanced back at the prone form on the bed and sighed. It was now time to face his family with the bad news. Bracing herself for the worst possible reaction, she slid the clip board back into the slot on the door and exited heading for the waiting room.
He rubbed his tired eyes. The contacts were bothering him again and he soon found himself wishing he had his spare pair of glasses with him. Harry leaned back in the chair and let his eyes wonder around the waiting room. There wasn't much to look at. A few tables were scattered around with either a lamp or piles of magazines on them. A TV was suspended from the ceiling and from what he could make out from the low mumbles coming from it, it was tuned into one of the many late night talk shows. A pop and snack machine sat side by side on the wall opposite the TV along with several payphones. It was, literally, an area where you didn't want to spend too much time.
Doctor Charline Roberts observed the lone occupant of the waiting room for several minutes. He looked about the same age as her patient so she was guessing that this was the boy that had rode in on the ambulance with young William. She cleared her throat to get his attention. "I take it that you are here with young Mr. Westinghouse?"
Harry jumped up off the chair and spun around to face the voice. He let out a sigh of relief seeing that it was a Doctor. "Yes, Ma'am." He replied softly and shoved his hands into his pockets. "How is he doing?"
"Before I can release any information about my patient, I must know your relationship to him." The Doctor said.
He nodded. "I'm his..." Harry hesitated a moment. "Ron and I are foster brothers." His relationship with Ron was complicated so he had to think of the easiest reply. He removed one hand from his pocket and held it out. "I'm James Patton. You can call me Jamie or Harry." He tried to smile but failed.
A thin eyebrow raised in question. Doctor Roberts clasped the offered hand for a moment then left it go. "Ron?" She had figured this was a nickname so her question was more out of curiosity than anything else.
Harry blinked. "Will's middle name is Ronald. I've called him Ron for as long as I've known him." It was his turn to clear his throat. "Is he going to be alright?" Both his hands were back in his pockets.
Doctor Roberts let out a small sigh. "I've ran every single test that I can think of and I can't find anything wrong with your brother. Everything checks out and by all standards he's healthy. I can't find any reason why he's in the state that he's in. All we can do for him now is keep him comfortable until he wakes up."
"How can there be nothing wrong with him! This isn't something normal for him. It's not like every couple of months he decides to put himself into a coma, or whatever the bloody hell wrong with him, just for shits and giggles. He was on the shower floor in pain. Are you telling me that's normal behavior of someone healthy? To say that Harry was angry would be an understatement. He was royally and totally pissed off.
"Please Mr. Patton, we have done all that we can do at the present time." Charline was shocked at how fiercely the boy had reacted to the news of his foster brother condition.
"Can I see him?" Harry asked once he got his temper under control.
"I would wait until morning. Go home and get some sleep. Visiting hours begin at seven in the morning. There's nothing more that can be done tonight." Doctor Roberts turned and walked back through the ER doors leaving a silently seething Harry behind.
"Is she crazy?" Harry mumbled to himself. He wasn't going home while his friend, nay, his brother lay unconscious in a hospital bed. So with a resigned sigh, he plopped back into his previously vacated chair and prepared himself for a long, uncomfortable, sleepless night.