OOOO
Ch 3
In the ICU, sitting next to her Father's bed, Sydney Walden was
shocked by what had just occurred. Her Fathers doctor had just been
in to check on him and all had appeared to be going well. However,
barely a second later, Sydney became aware of a change in the heart
monitor on the young girl in the next bed. She
heard the voice of the man whom she had met the day before,
speak up.
"Catriona? Sweetheart, are you awake?"
Sydney then heard movement and the muffled cry of pain from the young
girl, before the other man at her bedside begin to speak.
"Cathy, Cathy... Sweetie, keep still...I know you're in pain,
but try...Hang on, I'll go and get a doctor..."
Just then, all sound of movement ceased and the low, monotonous
pitch of the heart monitor filled the room.
Up until then, Martin Walden's doctor had been listening to
his patient's chest with a stethoscope, but he pulled it off,
realized what the sound was, then bolted around to the other side of
the curtain. Sydney heard the doctor quickly usher the two men out,
then lean out of the door into the hallway and
bellow to the nurses, "Page Dr. Mark, quickly! His patient has
flat lined!"
OOOO
Bud and AJ stood outside the ICU, still very visibly upset. AJ lay a
comforting hand on Bud's shoulder as he took a long,
calming breath. Bud was wiping the tear marks from his face,
when Harriet, Harm and Mac ran up to them from the direction of the
elevators.
"Bud, AJ, what happened?" Mac implored.
"She coded ma'am. She woke up and was in pain, so she started
struggling against the machines. Then she passed out and the
heart monitor went off. Her heart stopped beating ma'am..."
Bud took a distraught Harriet into his arms as Harm tightened
his hold on Mac as her hand went to her mouth.
"The doctors are in there now, trying to resuscitate her."
Mac took a step towards the door, but Harm pulled her back.
"No Mac.."
"But I have to be in there with her.." Mac protested.
"Just give the doctors a few minutes.." Harm insisted, pulling
her back towards him and rubbing her shoulders as they all
anxiously awaited the doctors.
OOOO
Things were no less tense inside the ICU. Sydney sat in horror as
she heard the goings-on, behind the curtain around the next
bed.
Doctor Mark had already performed four rounds of CPR and still, the
heart monitor was recording no signs of life.
Finally, Dr. Mark decided, "It's not working...break out the
crash kit."
The chief nurse prepared the machine, handing the paddles to Dr. Mark
as she set the voltage. After one shock, there was still no change,
so Dr. Mark tried it again at the same setting.
Still nothing.
"Turn it up a notch," he told the nurse.
After doing so, Nurse Amy gave him the go-ahead, as everyone
stood clear. Sydney heard the sound of the shock, then the
noise of the heart monitor resuming it's normal rhythm.
"Thank you God!" was all Sydney was able to think.
Each of the doctors and nurses in the room breathed a sigh of
relief, as Dr. Mark pronounced, "We've got her back."
There was a pause as the nurse suddenly gasped.
"But doctor, look at the monitor..."
Sydney heard a pause, then Dr. Mark's soft groan.
"No...How do I tell her family this?"
"What is it, Mark?" Another doctor asked.
"The patient is comatose," Dr. Mark surmised, "How do I tell
them this?"
OOOO
Finally, the nurses and the doctors filed out of the ICU and Dr. Mark
walked over to where the JAG group were standing.
"Is she okay, Doctor?" Harm asked him in a fearful voice.
"We got her back, Commander Rabb," the doctor told him, but
quickly added," but I'm afraid that Catriona's condition has
worsened."
Harm, Mac, Harriet, Bud and AJ simply stared at him, afraid to
ask him for more information.
"I'm afraid that Catriona has lapsed into a coma."
The group stood wordless, as Dr Mark explained that the lapse
was probably the result of the huge trauma and shock that
Cathy's body had suffered.
OOOO
Cathy spent much of the next day in the X-Ray department, as
doctors checked to make sure that no damage had been done to her
newly set bones and to the functioning of her internal organs.
Sydney Walden had arrived at the hospital that morning to find
that her Father had been moved to his own room, on another floor of
the hospital.
"Your doctor's really pleased with your progress," she
congratulated him, afterward, while they were chatting. "He
didn't expect you to be out of the ICU until the end of the
week. If all goes well, you'll soon be able to transfer to a
rehabilitation unit, then you'll be able to go home, once you're back
up to full speed again."
"Have you ever known me to be off my feet for long?" her Father joked
and Sydney nodded. It was just like her Father to be
raring to go. He'd always been a fighter. After this, the
conversation inevitably turned to the young girl in the ICU.
"I just hope that girl is able to fight back, like you are,"
she commented.
"Would you go down to the ICU before you go and check on her for me?"
her Father requested, "She seemed like she was having a
really bad time, last night. Her heart stopped again twice,
during the night and her parents were taking it really bad. Her poor
Grandpa, he looked like he was going to break down. I
don't know what I'd have done, if something like that had ever
happened to you or to Danny, when you were growing up..."
"Those aren't her parents," Sydney told him, "They're friends
who are taking care of her."
"How do you know that? They're a bit young, but I'm sure they
might be..."
"No, the older man told me," Sydney replied, telling him how she had
met AJ. Finally, she concluded, "I don't think they're letting her
family see her. I heard a couple of the nurses talking about how she
got here. They said it was domestic abuse."
"Domestic abuse? Holy Mother of...I thought she had been in a
car wreck! Somebody did that to her?" Sydney's Father cried,
incredulously, "How could someone do that to their child?"
"I don't know...I don't understand how a parent could do that to
their own child, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't happen. I saw
it so many times, during my internship. But whoever it
was..."
"They deserve a fate worse than death," Martin Walden growled,
angry and disgusted.
Sydney walked down to the ICU, after leaving her Father and
breathed a sigh of relief upon finding Cathy still in her bed by the
window.
"Poor kid," Sydney thought to herself, eyeing all of the tubes
snaking in and out of the girl, "There's hardly an inch of her
that isn't stuck by a needle or covered by a plaster cast. Even then,
anywhere that isn't, is either bruised black and blue or
cut up.
Just then, Harm walked back down the hallway, on his way back
from the bathroom. He noticed Sydney by the window and moved
to introduce himself.
"Hi, it's Sydney, isn't it?"
Sydney nodded and held her hand out, to shake his.
"My CO, AJ said that he had met you, the day when Cathy was
first brought in. Is your Father alright? I noticed that he had been
moved from the bed next to us, when I arrived this
morning."
"Oh, yeah, he's fine. His doctor's satisfied that he's out of
any danger, so they've moved him into his own room. He's
recovering from a hip-replacement operation, but his doctor
just wanted to put him in the ICU as a precaution, because of his
age. He's getting better now, though."
"Good.." Harm replied, then turned back to look at Cathy,
through the window. The last few days had been hard, but Harm
was still hoping that Cathy might just show some progress,
sometime soon.
"Is your little girl going to be okay? Cathy, is that her
name?"
"We really hope so, but right now, it's all up to Cathy to make it
through this. She's not my daughter, just a close friend of mine.
Daughter figure, though. I only wish that I'll have a
kid as great as her, someday. My partner and I think the world
of her."
At that moment, Sydney and Harm watched Mac rise from the seat
where she had been sleeping and stretch out her cramping
muscles. After doing that, she sat right back down again,
taking Cathy's hand up in her own and starting to speak to her, once
more.
"She really seems to care a lot for her," Sydney noted.
"Yeah, Mac and I would do anything for her. Cathy's like a
little sister, daughter and best friend, all rolled into one.
We feel just sick that all of this has happened to her...If...
When Cathy gets better, Mac and I are going to make sure that nothing
ever happens to her, ever again."
"She wasn't living with you, when..."
"No, Cathy was in foster care, being looked after by a family
member. Both of Cathy's parents are deceased and my partner and I
wanted her to come and live with us, but because she had
a living blood relative in the country, she was placed in their
care. But now... we'll never let this happen again...We're
going to makes sure of that."
"Your partner, she's your partner in work?"
"Yes," Harm replied, "I'm a Lieutenant Commander in the Navy,
Mac's a Lieutenant Colonel in the Marine Corps. We're both
assigned to the Jag corps. in Falls Church. AJ is an Admiral
there and is our Commanding Officer."
"You all look like you very close," Sydney observed.
"Yes," Harm agreed, "We're all very close. I don't think we'd
all be able to function, if not for one-another. The rest of
the staff at JAG are very supportive, as well. They all think
the world of Cathy, too. They're all praying for her."
"My Father and I will be praying for her, as well," Sydney
assured Harm.
"Thank you," Harm thanked her, on behalf of himself, Mac and AJ, "I'm
sure than Cathy would be glad to know that she had a couple more
supporters in her corner. You can never have to much
support."
After Sydney bid Harm goodbye, she went back up to tell her
Father the promising news.
OOOO
Soon after that, Martin Walden was transferred to another unit, to
begin his rehabilitation. He and Sydney never saw Cathy or her JAG
family again in the hospital, but the group was never far
from their thoughts.
OOOO
Three weeks passed and because Harm and Mac had to return to
work, all of the JAG staff took it in turns to watch over Cathy
while the others worked on cases. Mac, blaming herself for not
recognizing the situation that Cathy was in with Jim, would
often sit from the Friday night until late the Sunday night by
Cathy's bed, talking to her about anything and everything.
However, Monday would always come, when she had to return to JAG and
let someone with an empty caseload take over, until she
could empty hers and return. The experience of working
together brought the family at JAG even closer together. However,
between Harm and Mac, the suppressed emotions and feelings were
beginning to build, threatening to erupt, like a volcano.
OOOO
One Friday evening, after the Admiral had just left, Harm and
Mac found themselves together by Cathy's bedside, tension
clearly settling between them as they tried to make civilized
conversation. Realizing that Mac was about to negotiate
another marathon weekend, before a busy week, Harm finally
confronted her.
"Mac, you can't keep doing this," he told her.
Trying to fake a look of surprise, Mac asked him, "Doing what?"
"You know exactly what I mean. Pulling a three day weekend,
before going in to work to pull a five day week. You can't keep doing
this, you'll make yourself sick, Mac."
"How I spend my time is none of your business, Commander," she
snapped back, airily.
"What is this about, Mac?" Harm finally confronted her, "Why do you
feel that you have to be here twenty-four/seven?"
Unable to hold it inside any longer, Mac finally broke down and told
him, "If it hadn't been for me, Cathy wouldn't be here in
the first place."
"Is that what you think? That this is somehow your fault?" Harm asked
her, incredulously.
"Well isn't it?" Mac continued, "I was the one who left her that day,
instead of going to make sure that she was okay. I left
her there, at the mercy of that madman!"
"That madman is the one who put her here, not you," Harm
insisted, "I don't think that Cathy would have been able to make it
this far, without you."
Mac simply looked at the floor, so Harm grabbed her by the
shoulders, lifting up her chin, so she had no choice but to look him
straight in the eyes.
"Listen to me Sarah, hear me when I tell you this. None of
this is your fault. Don't you think that I blame myself for
not being there when you and Cathy needed me?"
Wiping the tears away from her eyes, Mac told him, "You're here now
and that's all that matters."
Through the darkness, Cathy heard every word being said and
tried to break through the emptiness that held her like a
prison, to let the both of them know that she was still there
and was not going anywhere.
From their place next to the window, Harm and Mac looked over to where
Cathy lay, both noting that the beeps emitted by the heart monitor
were getting faster, getting stronger.
"Harm," Mac asked quietly, "will you call for the nurse? I think she
can hear us."
OOOO