He shouldn't have survived. But he did.
Underneath his skin there was a silent battle raging. Mind over body, body over mind. Inner strength and willpower versus tremendous blood loss, a ruptured kidney, liver, and small intestine, not to mention a bullet wound in his shoulder and countless gashes, cuts, and bruises covering almost every square inch of skin.
The continuous outgoing river of his life source had depleted his levels enough to cause his central nervous system to flicker between life and death, and make him lose consciousness, at first glance, permanently. If Shin hadn't begged with his final breath for the ISSP agents, slightly too late like always, to try everything they could to save Spike, they wouldn't have bothered checking his still-faintly-beating pulse after he collapsed, and the last light burning in his body would have gone out for good.
They airlifted him from the rubble and proceeded with blood transfusions immediately, attempting to counter the one-way flow and steady the desultory pounding in his chest. The Emergency Medical Technicians, calm yet rushed, prepared mountains of gauze to be used temporarily until he could be directly operated on once they arrived at the Tharsis General Hospital.
A young EMT gulped nervously when he opened the sliced and bloodstained off-white work shirt to reveal a deep gash stretching horizontally across his abdomen, the skin surrounding it swollen and deep red. His face paled considerably, and he used a clean cloth dipped in antiseptic to clean the wound gently before applying the gauze. It wasn't his job to assess what was wrong internally, just to stop the germs and bacteria from getting inside and hopefully stop the bleeding.
He gulped again and sat back in the helicopter, removing a thin rubber glove and shaking his head slightly but keeping his eyes locked on Spike's chalk-white face covered in a thin layer of sweat, his body having gone into shock and now slowly regrouping thanks to the transfusions. "God, what happened back there?" he whispered and ruffled his short auburn hair absently with his clean hand.
There was a sudden halt in his movement and a gasp emitted from his lips as his eyes widened in realization. "Spike...the Spike Spiegel?" He vaguely remembered the young teenager with the green hair, eager eyes, and absurdly self-assured smirk. But wasn't he already dead? He dropped his hand, lowered his head and moved his eyes, staring at different spots on the ground. He couldn't be the same Spike he had idolized as a kid, could he? He looked at his face again, blank as a board, concealing the all-out war on the inside.
"Hey Rocky, you alright? We're almost there."
Rocky Raines looked up at his fellow MedTech and gave an empty nod, his eyes still clouded over with confusion and shock. The copter landed in one of the designated circles on the roof of the lower sector of the building and they wheeled the stretcher off of the extended ramp and into the open doors on the side of the taller part of the building.
On that floor and several more below them were the emergency rooms, convenient for the patients wheeled in from the helicopter pad. On the first few floors of the same building were more emergency rooms, placed for their accessibility from the ambulances. Above these ten floors of emergency rooms were six floors of operating rooms, and then a cafeteria on the floor above them. In the smaller building underneath the landing pad were the offices, rooms of files, main lobby, and waiting rooms. There were also three floors with hotel-like rooms, for friends and family members of patients who desired to stay near their loved ones overnight. There were two express elevators for visitors located at the seam of the two buildings that only made stops at the hotel floors, lobby, and cafeteria, and went directly to the floors above the cafeteria, near the top, which held the short-term recovery rooms and delivery rooms, and the ones at the very peak of the hospital which held the long-term recovery rooms.
Rocky knew too well that there was nothing more depressing than being in an elevator with someone going to visit the patients in the long-term recovery unit, unless you were the one going yourself. Tragic facades devoid of everything but proof of their suffering, now only returning to remind themselves; to desperately cling to a pathetic flicker of hope left buried deep in their hearts. Most of the long-term patients were in comas, some already brain-dead. All that's left of them anymore are their still-beating hearts echoing pointlessly in their abandoned shells of bodies. No one ever had the heart to pull the plug, and as long as the rhythmic tones of the beeping heart monitor continued, their tiny flame of hope kept burning, and they never would. Just a short elevator ride with one of them is enough to break the most stoic and jaded of hearts.
Spike was operated on almost instantaneously as he was rolled into room 1012, his situation being so fragile that they needed to use one of the rooms on the same floor they walked in on. One of the nurses pulled Rocky aside as soon as he got there, and he watched as the rest of his EMT team walked back to their helicopter to prepare for response to another case.
"Rocky, honey! How have you been?"
"Mary-Ann! It's been a while. I guess I've been alright. You?"
"Peachy as ever," the rosy-cheeked, plump woman lowered her head slightly, eyes filling with pity, a few locks of curly strawberry-blonde hair spilling from under her hygienically disinfected emergency room shower cap, and she started speaking in a sympathetic tone, "and how's your father doin', hon?"
Rocky shifted slightly and looked at the floor momentarily before answering, "He uh-he's still..." he struggled with finding the right words, and Mary-Ann only nodded slowly, head cocked to one side, and patted his arm encouragingly. He hoped she would just change the subject.
"Ok hon so, this man here do you know his name?" He paused for a second, remembering the request the ISSP agent relayed to him from Shin moments before he died.
"They're still going to chase him...you can't use his name at the hospital. Tell them that."
Rocky pursed his lips together and came to a decision. "Mary-Ann, can you do me a favor please?"
"Anything for you, sweetie."
"Can you just take care of him without asking questions, and make sure that the bill gets sent to me?"
She looked like she was thinking it over for a minute, but gave him a quizzical look, eyes narrowed slightly, as if she were trying to find out the reason for his strange request by merely studying his facial expression. "Of course, sweetheart. I'll do what I can. But what name should I put here on his charts? We have to call him something."
"Just call him...Tsunami."