I know it's been a while… Hopefully everyone hasn't lost interest!
Listening to What Sarah Said by Death Cab, Fall At Your Feet by Claire Bowditch, Ask me Anything by The Strokes and Never Gonna Fall in Love Again by Snow Patrol. As always, please R&R.
The rest of the afternoon, Sandy clung to Kirsten's hand. She came through alternate bouts of wakefulness and dreaming, the nurse assuring Sandy that was completely normal and probably best for the patient. Sandy hated that; Kirsten being called a patient, lumped into the same category as sick people. She wasn't sick, she'd just been targeted cruelly by a disease with no reasoning. Sandy had managed to keep his anger at bay so far, not wanting to alarm Kirsten with an outburst. She had always been the calmest out of them, the most reasonable. Sandy, however, felt enough anger for them both. She'd been through enough. Now, looking tiny and defenceless on the white sheeted bed, his anger was triggered again.
"Fuck." Sandy stood, unable to sit any longer. He tried pacing but the carpet under his feet was course and caught the bottom of his shoes the faster he walked. He kicked the metal bin that was in the room. It hit the wall with a dull clang and fell on its side. Without thinking Sandy stomped on it, exerting all his energy on reducing the object to half its size. When it was as flat as he could get it, and the bottom of his foot felt bruised, Sandy stopped, stepping back, breathing heavily. He looked over at Kirsten, the beeping of the machines slowly drifting back into his consciousness. She was still asleep, hair fanned on the pillow, one arm brought up to rest near her surgical incision, as if to ward off any other intrusions to her body. Sandy looked at the flattened bin. He shifted it with his foot before deciding to leave it where it was. He didn't have anywhere to put it anyway.
A small growl of protest from his stomach reminded him that he hadn't eaten yet today. Neither had Kirsten, but the slow drip they had running into her arm was hydrating her. Sandy ran a hand down her arm and she barely stirred. Confident she wouldn't wake up in the few minutes it would take him to run to the hospital cafeteria, Sandy gave her a kiss on the forehead and slipped out the door. The hallway seemed like an expanse of miles after the room. They were in a private hospital, and the rooms weren't terribly cramped but they weren't the open space Sandy was used to. He took a breath and started towards the stairs near the nurses station. He needed to stretch his legs, work out some of the nervous energy he still had. She needed chemo. She wasn't out of the woods yet.
"Sandy." His name stopped him at the door to the stairs and he turned to see Neil, scrubs swapped for civilian clothes. Unlike the other doctors, he wasn't wearing a lab coat. He was carrying a briefcase, which prompted Sandy to assume he was done for the day.
"Hi, Neil." Signing a chart hurriedly and shuffling it back onto the nurse's desk, Neil came over quickly.
"I was going to come see you before I left. Are you going down to the caf?" He motioned towards the stairs and Sandy nodded. They entered the stairwell in companionable silence before Sandy started to speak.
"She had a malignant tumour in her breast. They operated this morning." Instead of jumping straight into consoling comments, Dr Roberts let Sandy's statement sit for a moment. They were down a flight of stairs before he spoke.
"I'm sorry, Sandy. From what Julie and Summer have said, and even Seth when I've happened to speak to him, she's a wonderful woman. I'm sure this won't be her end." Neil sounded sincere, but it shook something loose in Sandy, the thoughts he'd been trying to keep at bay since their lovemaking in the kitchen had been brought to such a dramatic stop.
"What is it is?" His voice was desolate, bleak. He'd been running through the odds in his head, coming up with facts and figures that had no basis in real life, in her dying cells, her need for chemo, the stitches that held her together at the moment.
"Fuck fuck fuck." Again, Sandy felt anger brewing. At life, at the unfairness of it. He fought for justice on a daily basis now he was back with the DA, and he knew how hard it was to achieve. He paused and his fists pounded the hard cement walls, sending muffled thumps up and down the stairwell. Neil waited patiently, watching as the knuckles bruised, bloodied. He dealt in plastic surgery almost exclusively these days, but he could still remember when he'd been involved in real surgeries; those that saved lives, made a difference in someone's future rather than just increasing someone's bust or slowing the aging process.
Sandy's punches slowed, stopped, and for the second time in ten minutes he found his breathing quickened, another part of his body injured as he tried to come to turns with how Kirsten, who had never hurt anyone, could have been chosen by this black disease. How his wife, who had just mastered cookery after ordering in for twenty years, who snored even though she denied it, who fell sleep in movies even though she claimed she was just resting her eyes, who had accepted and loved another son after Sandy had brought him home from jail… This woman had been given an effective life sentence. He wasn't stupid. He knew that once you had cancer, even if you went into remission, it wasn't forever. The doctor had virtually told them that with the news of future blood tests.
"There'll be an exam room on this floor that we can look at your hands in." Sandy trailed Neil onto the fourth floor, protesting all the while. Neil ignored his posturing and, after checking with a nurse on the floor, opened the door to an empty room. He motioned for Sandy to sit down and put his briefcase on the chair. The nurse reappeared with swabs, alcohol and dressings before leaving.
"Cancer isn't the end of the road, Sandy."
"It's the beginning of a battle." Sandy finished his sentence just in time to hiss as his wounds were cleaned. Neil paused, the swab poised as their eyes met.
"She's strong. She handled Caleb all those years. I hear that was quite a feat." Sandy managed a small, cursory smile as Neil put patches over his knuckles and secured them.
"If you don't want me to tell Julie, I'll understand. If it's something you want to keep private for now." Neil draped the sterile cloth back over the tray and took off his gloves. Sandy sighed, rubbed his eyes with both hands and thought. They hadn't told the boys yet, but Kirsten might like the support. For some reason, the two women are become something akin to best friends. For everything he didn't like about Julie, she did have a fierce loyalty towards Kirsten.
"You can tell her. It would be best if she didn't let it get any further. We still have to tell the boys, and it would be better if they didn't hear it from anyone else." Neil nodded, picked up his briefcase as they both moved to the door.
"I'll let her know, then. The cafeteria is down the end of the hall at the right." Sandy nodded, paused just before they started walking in opposite directions.
"Thanks Neil." He motioned to his hands. "This, and…" Letting his voice trail off, Sandy received a quick squeeze to his shoulder from Neil.
"It's okay. If there's anything you need…" Leaving his own sentence open, Neil acknowledged Sandy's nod before walking away.
She'd been sat up by a nurse by the time he got back, and Sandy hurried over to her side.
"Your hands…" She said as soon as he was closer. Sandy looked down, having almost forgotten the plain bandages that were wrapped around his knuckles, making him look as if he was about to put a pair of boxing gloves on. Acknowledging the pain every time he flexed his fingers, he almost wished he'd put gloves on before going a round with the cement wall.
"I wanted to be here when you got back… Have you been awake long?" Kirsten shook her head, her eyes still on his hands. He reached one out and she lightly took it, mindful of the bandages.
"I went a round with a wall." Kirsten looked past him, her eyes pointedly moving to the crumpled bin. Sandy sighed, nodded.
"The trash can, too."
"Can't let you go a minute until you're on a rampage, can I?" Her humour made him feel mildly better, although it was delivered in a weak voice, a soft tone he almost strained to hear. He knew she knew why he was so angry. He knew that she'd know there was nothing she could say that could make him feel anything about the injustice of it.
"Were you hungry? Thirsty?" Sandy said. Kirsten shook her head. She was still pale, the hand that held his seemingly thinner and whiter than it had been that morning.
"It was hurting, so the nurse gave me some pain killers. I had some water then." Kirsten's eyes flitted to the window, the twilight that rapidly approached night outside.
"What time is it?" She asked. Sandy looked at his watch, gave her the time. She looked mildly confused.
"Was I sleeping? All that time?" Sandy nodded, shrugged.
"Most of it. My sleeping beauty." He reached out, tucked a few stray strands of hair back behind her ear.
"But the doctor was here. Chemo." Kirsten nodded, and he could tell she was thinking of her mother. Unconsciously, the hand that wasn't wrapped in Sandy's went to her hair before she dropped it back to her lap, looking ashamed.
"I should feel lucky they think they got it all. I shouldn't be worried about hair…" She trailed off and her eyes flitted back to Sandy's.
"Baby, we'll get through it. You might not lose your hair. Besides, you'll have Julie to test every wig in the shop so she can custom pick one. Which reminds me, Neil happened to see you here. I said it was okay to tell Julie, thought you could use the support." Kirsten nodded, let her head drop back against the pillow. Sandy could see the small reserve of energy she had was almost all expelled.
"Sure… Are you going home tonight?" She looked up to see Sandy shaking his head. The longest they had slept apart before was while she was at Suriak, and he'd promised himself that would never happen again.
"Well…" Her lips curved into the ghost of a smile and, with difficulty, she shuffled herself across to the edge of the bed where her drip was.
"There's room in here for two." She invited. Sandy looked worriedly at the gown that was covering her stitches. He didn't want to hurt her, didn't want to move in the night and accidentally bump the stitches.
"I need you here." She prompted softly. That was all it took for him to put down the side of the bed and get in beside her. They took a few minutes to settle; making sure all the various tubes and cords she was hooked up to were still intact and putting her at least risk of Sandy touching her incisions. When they were settled, his arms around her, her head resting lightly on his chest he felt her sigh.
"Sandy… Thank you." She said. He rubbed her back a little as her breathing grew deeper and she slipped back into dreams. Leaning back into the pillows, careful of staying as still as possible, Sandy tried to join his wife in the blissful abyss of sleep.
I know everyone's eager for me to get to the boys' reaction, but I want to savour this story, instead of skipping all the emotional bits like they seem to on the show. So, sorry to those who expected Seth and Ryan this chapter. Soon, I promise. Thanks for reading.