The only difference about Fidget's appearance was that she was cleaner and
constrained to a hospital bed, wires and tubes connected to nearly every
vein in her body. But other than that, she was still thin, pale, and sickly
looking. Yet it was only Chase who was able to look upon her in this state
at the moment.
After the doctors had rolled Fidget away on the gurney two nights ago they had moved in on the rest of the deprived and smelly teenagers.
"What's your name? What's your address? How did this all happen? When was the last time you took a shower? Are you on any kind of medications already? What's your parent's phone numbers? Where'd you all come from?" the line of questions were almost endless and Chase was so tired and hungry that right in the middle of them she fainted and fell to the floor, Armpit trying to catch her but missing her by an inch.
When she woke up she was surrounded by white walls and a huge white ceiling. To her left was some annoying beeping sound and something over her mouth kept making loud sounds of exhaling. When Chase sat up and looked around she realized that she was laying in a hospital bed, a breathing mask strapped over her lips and a tube, that was connected to an intravenous bag of fluids, was taped into her left arm. On her chest there were two metal disks that were wired to a machine in the corner that was monitoring her heart and making continuous beeping interruptions.
When Chase saw all this she nearly screamed. Where was she? What was going on? She tried yanking at the tube pouring the liquids into her veins but it was taped down tightly and her fingers were too clammy to do much. She searched the whole room with her eyes at a frantic pace. Where was Fidget? Zippy? Squid? The last thing Chase could remember was waking up to screams and heavy gasps for breath, coming from nearby.
"Good morning Ms. Moon!"
Chase jumped back in her bed, banging her head against the wall behind her.
"Oops! You gotta watch out for that! Are you okay?" A blonde woman wearing half-moon spectacles that were chained about her neck walked up to examine the back of Chase's head. "Awe," she said, gently pressing the back of Chase's head with her cold fingers. "It'll just leave a small bump. Nothing too bad." She stepped back and smiled at Chase. "So how are you doing today?"
Chase's breathing was so fast and the mask made it so loud that she could hardly speak. "Wh-Where am I?" she finally gasped.
"You're in a hospital," the woman replied slowly before stepping forth and removing Chase's respiration mask. "In Crystal City, Texas."
The dark scenery of the desert, Fidget's eyes rolling back into her head, Chase's sobs, Squid completely ignoring her warnings, the signs, the neon lights, the gurney-
It all came back to Chase like a fist to her forehead and without thinking she fell back and hit her head against the wall again.
"Ouch!" the doctor said, helping Chase move forth in her bed. "I'll have to have them move this bed forward." She smiled down at Chase and then asked again. "How are you doing? Are you feeling any real pain?"
For a second Chase wondered what this woman's definition of 'real pain' was but then decided against asking. "I'm fine," she said. "But what's this thing?" she asked, nodding towards her left arm but not daring to look at the tube surging through her skin.
"Oh, that's an intravenous tube that we needed to use to supply your veins with the lost nutrients. According to one of your friends you all had ran away from a camp and had starved?"
Chase shrugged, she couldn't remember all the details just yet. Then she remembered the others and how they'd all been dying of starvation as well. "How's Squid?" she asked suddenly.
"Who?" the doctor asked, furrowing her brow.
"Uh... Um..." Chase stumbled for words. What was his name again. "Alan! How is he?"
"Ah, yes, he was asking for you earlier as well," she smiled. "He's perfectly fine. His heart rate is normal and the intravenous system we hooked him up to had no difficulties. In fact, he was a lot better off then most of you."
"And the others?" Chase asked. "How's Allie doing?"
"Hmm..." The doctor mused, looking over a clipboard she'd brought along with her. "Allie Robertson?" she asked.
Chase nodded.
"Well she was put into Intensive Care last night due to respiratory failures and an extreme case of malnutrition and they connected her to four intravenous tubes," the doctor skimmed the information on her clipboard. "She hasn't waken up at all since she got here but they're saying she'll be fine later."
Chase didn't feel all that reassured. "Can I visit her?" she asked.
"How about we save that for tomorrow," the doctor said slowly. "We still have to make sure you're getting enough nutrition."
Chase lay back in bed and pulled the covers up to her chin. Somehow, she was now completely clean. Her hair was untangled and her skin was smooth and clean, and yet she still smelt like a hospital. She was dressed in a hospital gown and about her wrists were tied to strips of informational numbers that she didn't understand. She decided she would ask about visiting Fidget again later but just as she was thinking this her eyes closed and she drifted into a soft sleep.
When Chase woke up she heard the same annoying beeping sound at her side only now it was so aggravating that she stood up and pulled the two metal disks from her chest, letting them drop to the floor beside her. Not taking heed of the suddenly pulsating beeping that surged from the heart monitor and erupted about the room. Instead she sat there peeling at the thick adhesive tape that kept the intravenous tube plastered into her vein. Her mind wasn't quite sure what or why she was doing all of this, but her fingers seemed to know exactly what they were doing as they ripped the tube from her arm, exposing a long thin slit in her skin. Blood began to trickle down to her hand but she didn't care. Finally, when she was finished, she moved towards the exit and then wandered down the hall. Everything was completely white. The walls, the ceiling, the icy cold floor beneath her bare feet, the smock she was wearing, and even the blood that dripped from her finger tips had a sort of whitish glimmer to it. But the hall was empty. Chase had no idea where she was going but soon she came to a flight of stairs and, following her instinct, began to climb them. When she found herself upon the landing, she turned right and continued down a new white hall, this one filled with people who were too busy worrying about their own patients to mind Chase. So she continued walking. The next thing she knew she was passing a sign that read, "Intensive Care" and a second later she was standing before room 644. From inside of the room she could hear someone sobbing and screaming out in insanity. She stood there a moment, her breath becoming sharp as she drew it, just as it had when she'd been wearing the mask. But she had to see for herself, make sure everything was okay. She took a deep breath, clenched her fists and then opened the door.
A tube was connected to Fidget's every vein, her skin was peeling away, her ribs were ripping through her chest and her eye sockets were completely hollow, you couldn't even see the whites of her eyes.
Chase would have screamed as she jumped out of her sleep but the mask was tied back onto her face and her breathing was too deep to scream. But the dream had frightened her so much that she felt like a small child again; she felt as if racing into her mother's room and curling up beside her would make all these nightmares go away. But Chase's mother was miles and miles away, completely unaware of her daughter's despair.
Chase was alone in her room again—or at least her half of the room. To her left, behind all the machinery that was keeping her healthy, there was a huge, dividing curtain and Chase had no idea who might be on the other side.
"Hello?" she called, thinking it might be one of her friends.
No one answered.
Chase pushed her head back into the pillows, now feeling completely alone.
"Hi," a small voice replied.
Chase sat up. "Hi," she said softly, not wanting to scare her room mate.
"Hi," the voice echoed.
"What's your name?" Chase asked.
There was a muffled cough and then, "I'm Tober."
"Tober," Chase repeated, thinking that the voice belonged to a little boy. "My name is Emily," she said, smiling to herself. "But you can call me Chase."
"Why's your name Chase?" Tober asked.
"Because my friends think I can run fast," Chase replied.
"I can't," Tober said, sounding sorrowful.
Chase longed to catch a glimpse of him as she loved children and this Tober had the sweetest voice.
"Awe," Chase said. "All you need is practice! Besides, I'm sure there must be something you can do really well."
Tober was silent for a moment, as he thought. Then he said, "I can tie my shoes!"
Chase smiled so big she felt as if her lips were split. "How old are you, Tober?" she asked.
"I'm this many!" Tober said, then he paused and began counting his fingers under his breath. "I'm five and a half!" he said proudly. "How's old are you?"
"I'm fifteen," Chase said softly.
"Wow," Tober said in a hushed voice. "You're OLD!"
Chase laughed. "Yes I am," she agreed. "But not old enough," she said to herself. "Not old enough."
"My mommy said I'm not old enough too," Tober commented. Chase wondered how he'd heard her. "But I didn't listen."
Chase had just been about to ask him what he meant when her doctor walked in to check up on her. "So," she said smiling. "How are you feeling today?"
"What do you mean today?" Chase asked. "You just asked me how I was doing today."
"Don't tell me that bump on your head gave you amnesia!" the doctor said, her eyebrows raised. "I asked you how you were yesterday but not today!"
Chase stared at her in disbelief. Had she really been asleep that long?
The doctor stepped forth and began pulling the small metal disks off Chase's chest before she began to work at the intravenous tube. "There we go," she said, finally pulling the tube free to reveal that there was only a tiny scar rather than a long slit. Relieved, Chase moved her arm up and down to find that there was no pain.
"You can get up and go to the bathroom now if you'd like," the doctor said. "I'll go and get you a drink 'cause you need as much fluids as possible." She began to move towards the door again. "The bathroom's right there," she said, gesturing towards a bathroom that stood at the front of the room, half in Tober's ward and half in Chase's. As the doctor left, Chase got up and shakily moved towards the restroom.
When she was halfway there she turned to glance back as Tober's ward was almost completely exposed from here. In the middle of the ward, on a bed identical to Chase's, there lay a small boy with sandy blonde hair and big green eyes. From his nose there protruded a respiration tube and in each arm and leg there sprouted an intravenous tube that was supplying the small child with blood. The boy was adorable and his small body and round face looked completely out of place tied up in that bed. At a first glance, Chase couldn't tell what was wrong with him, but then as she stared longer she realized that the boy's tiny legs were crushed, one looking bent out of shape and the other looking squashed, as if someone had run over it with their bike—or car. Tober noticed Chase looking at him and he smiled. That's when Chase realized that the boy had no idea what had happened to him, and had no idea that he would never walk again.
Chase hurried into the bathroom as she felt terribly sick. The memories of the boy she'd hit tormenting her head until at last she threw up the meek fluids the doctors had been supplying her with. * * *
The halls were completely white and the white tiled floor wound about the building like a road. The floor was icy beneath her feet, and beneath her white gown she trembled at it's freezing effect.
"This way," the blonde nurse said, turning away from the quiet hall and proceeding up a fleet of stairs. When they reached the landing they turned right and began down a new hall, just as white as the first but much busier. There were nurses everywhere: pushing the injured on their bloodstained carts; tending to lost children, crying and screaming for their missing parents; and even preparing themselves for the heavy burden of informing people that their loved ones had passed. No one showed any notion of noticing the tall blonde girl, walking barefoot down the hall like a solemn ghost.
For that's what Chase felt like.
"Here we are," the nurse said, slowing down as they passed a sign on the wall that read 'Intensive Care'. She stopped before a thick cedar door with the black lettering 'Room 644' plastered to it, and pulled it open before nodding Chase in.
The room was tiny, barely big enough for all the equipment and instruments that occupied it. All around the walls were computers made to measure heart rates, pulses, and breathing, which were strewn with tubes and wires and cords leading up to the bed in the center of it all.
Chase stepped forth, unaware and unmoved by the nurse, still standing at the door.
"Fidget?" she asked, taking the small brittle hand in her own.
Fidget was cold and pale but she still had her eyes and she was looking much better then she had been. Her long sandy hair had been pulled clean from her braids and hung loosely down to her waste, making her look like some medieval princess or something. Around her eyes were dark circles, and her skin looked dry and creased, almost as if Fidget was now on some futuristic treatment to make her age in minutes. The patient's gown she wore clung openly about her shoulders as it was about three sizes too big for her, but on the whole Chase could see some immense improvements about her as her ribs no longer stuck out of her skin.
"Fidget?" Chase whispered again, kneeling down beside the bed and leaning up against it.
"We've got her on some serious medications," the nurse said. "We had to put her on Benzocaine which is a bulk forming substance that increases stomach fullness. We also had to put her on such medications as Methyliphenidate, to calm her hyperactivity."
Chase wondered if they'd had to use the same medication on Twitch, but she knew that if they hadn't used it, they would have used something stronger.
"Is she gonna be okay?" Chase asked, her voice breaking at the very thought of Fidget's state.
The nurse's solemn expression didn't change as she spoke. "Well," she said. "The medications we have her on now are helping her, but with a case this serious we may have to switch her to things such as epinephrine, norepinephrine, and dopamine which can technically result in a starvation- conservation mode; meaning that her condition could in theory get worse." The nurse paused and sighed. "All we can do now is continue giving her the current medications and hope that her body has already developed a high serotonin level."
Chase had absolutely no idea what the nurse was talking about but it didn't sound good.
The nurse smiled meekly, as if to reassure Chase, and then said as she moved towards the door, "I'll leave you two alone and be back later to take you back downstairs." And with that she turned and left the room.
Chase looked back at her feeble friend, barely kept alive by the nutrients that were being plugged into her.
"It's gonna be okay," Chase said, trying to keep calm as she stroked Fidget's forehead. "We'll all get out of this together." She tried to take a deep, shaky breath, but it all resulted in a deep sob and when the nurse returned she found Chase crying on the floor.
* * *
"You know what?"
"What?"
"I have a doggie. Her name is Reggie!"
Chase smiled, happy to be back in her small hospital bed and sharing a conversation with Tober.
"I have a doggie too!" Chase said.
"REALLY?" Tober gasped as if he just could not believe it. "What's her name!?" he asked excitedly.
"Shoobie," Chase replied. "She's a fuzzy black dog that's part Australian cattle dog."
"She's part cow!?" Tober cried. "I wanna see her!"
Chase laughed. "I wanna see her too..." she said to herself.
Suddenly the door opened and a nurse poked her head around the door. "Emily Moon?" she asked. "You have some visitors. Shall I let them in?"
Chase nodded.
"WOW! Do you come from the moon?" Tober asked from the other side of the curtain.
Chase burst out laughing: the little boy's excitement was just too much.
"What's so funny?" Twitch asked, stepping into the room.
"TWITCH!" Chase cried, wrapping her arms around him as he approached her bed. She was so happy to see him well she was hardly expecting the group that followed him through the door. First, Zippy bounded into the room and dived onto Chase's bed in an eruption of excitement. Close to follow her was Zero, Lei, Static, Armpit, and Squid.
Chase had to jump out of bed just to hug them all.
"Oh my god! I'm SO happy you're all okay!" she cried, wiping tears from her eyes as she sat down next to Zippy again. "Where are the others?"
"X-ray's gone visiting Rogue," Lei squealed, grinning uncontrollably. On her neck there was a large patch like a wound bandage that Chase was wondering about, but didn't get the chance to ask about, and her ankles looked rather bloodied and bruised.
"And Zigzag was with us a second ago but I think he got sidetracked by the ER ward for really bad burns," Static said, shrugging her shoulders.
Chase smiled. "Yeah?" she said. "And what about Magnetic and Magnet?"
"Oh who KNOWS what they're up to!" Armpit said, winking.
"So how's life?" Zero asked, grinning widely as he sat down next to Zippy.
Chase looked around at her bruised and sickly looking friends, all standing about in their hospital clothes and looking completely different then Chase had ever seen them. That's when she replied, "Life is pretty good right now."
After the doctors had rolled Fidget away on the gurney two nights ago they had moved in on the rest of the deprived and smelly teenagers.
"What's your name? What's your address? How did this all happen? When was the last time you took a shower? Are you on any kind of medications already? What's your parent's phone numbers? Where'd you all come from?" the line of questions were almost endless and Chase was so tired and hungry that right in the middle of them she fainted and fell to the floor, Armpit trying to catch her but missing her by an inch.
When she woke up she was surrounded by white walls and a huge white ceiling. To her left was some annoying beeping sound and something over her mouth kept making loud sounds of exhaling. When Chase sat up and looked around she realized that she was laying in a hospital bed, a breathing mask strapped over her lips and a tube, that was connected to an intravenous bag of fluids, was taped into her left arm. On her chest there were two metal disks that were wired to a machine in the corner that was monitoring her heart and making continuous beeping interruptions.
When Chase saw all this she nearly screamed. Where was she? What was going on? She tried yanking at the tube pouring the liquids into her veins but it was taped down tightly and her fingers were too clammy to do much. She searched the whole room with her eyes at a frantic pace. Where was Fidget? Zippy? Squid? The last thing Chase could remember was waking up to screams and heavy gasps for breath, coming from nearby.
"Good morning Ms. Moon!"
Chase jumped back in her bed, banging her head against the wall behind her.
"Oops! You gotta watch out for that! Are you okay?" A blonde woman wearing half-moon spectacles that were chained about her neck walked up to examine the back of Chase's head. "Awe," she said, gently pressing the back of Chase's head with her cold fingers. "It'll just leave a small bump. Nothing too bad." She stepped back and smiled at Chase. "So how are you doing today?"
Chase's breathing was so fast and the mask made it so loud that she could hardly speak. "Wh-Where am I?" she finally gasped.
"You're in a hospital," the woman replied slowly before stepping forth and removing Chase's respiration mask. "In Crystal City, Texas."
The dark scenery of the desert, Fidget's eyes rolling back into her head, Chase's sobs, Squid completely ignoring her warnings, the signs, the neon lights, the gurney-
It all came back to Chase like a fist to her forehead and without thinking she fell back and hit her head against the wall again.
"Ouch!" the doctor said, helping Chase move forth in her bed. "I'll have to have them move this bed forward." She smiled down at Chase and then asked again. "How are you doing? Are you feeling any real pain?"
For a second Chase wondered what this woman's definition of 'real pain' was but then decided against asking. "I'm fine," she said. "But what's this thing?" she asked, nodding towards her left arm but not daring to look at the tube surging through her skin.
"Oh, that's an intravenous tube that we needed to use to supply your veins with the lost nutrients. According to one of your friends you all had ran away from a camp and had starved?"
Chase shrugged, she couldn't remember all the details just yet. Then she remembered the others and how they'd all been dying of starvation as well. "How's Squid?" she asked suddenly.
"Who?" the doctor asked, furrowing her brow.
"Uh... Um..." Chase stumbled for words. What was his name again. "Alan! How is he?"
"Ah, yes, he was asking for you earlier as well," she smiled. "He's perfectly fine. His heart rate is normal and the intravenous system we hooked him up to had no difficulties. In fact, he was a lot better off then most of you."
"And the others?" Chase asked. "How's Allie doing?"
"Hmm..." The doctor mused, looking over a clipboard she'd brought along with her. "Allie Robertson?" she asked.
Chase nodded.
"Well she was put into Intensive Care last night due to respiratory failures and an extreme case of malnutrition and they connected her to four intravenous tubes," the doctor skimmed the information on her clipboard. "She hasn't waken up at all since she got here but they're saying she'll be fine later."
Chase didn't feel all that reassured. "Can I visit her?" she asked.
"How about we save that for tomorrow," the doctor said slowly. "We still have to make sure you're getting enough nutrition."
Chase lay back in bed and pulled the covers up to her chin. Somehow, she was now completely clean. Her hair was untangled and her skin was smooth and clean, and yet she still smelt like a hospital. She was dressed in a hospital gown and about her wrists were tied to strips of informational numbers that she didn't understand. She decided she would ask about visiting Fidget again later but just as she was thinking this her eyes closed and she drifted into a soft sleep.
When Chase woke up she heard the same annoying beeping sound at her side only now it was so aggravating that she stood up and pulled the two metal disks from her chest, letting them drop to the floor beside her. Not taking heed of the suddenly pulsating beeping that surged from the heart monitor and erupted about the room. Instead she sat there peeling at the thick adhesive tape that kept the intravenous tube plastered into her vein. Her mind wasn't quite sure what or why she was doing all of this, but her fingers seemed to know exactly what they were doing as they ripped the tube from her arm, exposing a long thin slit in her skin. Blood began to trickle down to her hand but she didn't care. Finally, when she was finished, she moved towards the exit and then wandered down the hall. Everything was completely white. The walls, the ceiling, the icy cold floor beneath her bare feet, the smock she was wearing, and even the blood that dripped from her finger tips had a sort of whitish glimmer to it. But the hall was empty. Chase had no idea where she was going but soon she came to a flight of stairs and, following her instinct, began to climb them. When she found herself upon the landing, she turned right and continued down a new white hall, this one filled with people who were too busy worrying about their own patients to mind Chase. So she continued walking. The next thing she knew she was passing a sign that read, "Intensive Care" and a second later she was standing before room 644. From inside of the room she could hear someone sobbing and screaming out in insanity. She stood there a moment, her breath becoming sharp as she drew it, just as it had when she'd been wearing the mask. But she had to see for herself, make sure everything was okay. She took a deep breath, clenched her fists and then opened the door.
A tube was connected to Fidget's every vein, her skin was peeling away, her ribs were ripping through her chest and her eye sockets were completely hollow, you couldn't even see the whites of her eyes.
Chase would have screamed as she jumped out of her sleep but the mask was tied back onto her face and her breathing was too deep to scream. But the dream had frightened her so much that she felt like a small child again; she felt as if racing into her mother's room and curling up beside her would make all these nightmares go away. But Chase's mother was miles and miles away, completely unaware of her daughter's despair.
Chase was alone in her room again—or at least her half of the room. To her left, behind all the machinery that was keeping her healthy, there was a huge, dividing curtain and Chase had no idea who might be on the other side.
"Hello?" she called, thinking it might be one of her friends.
No one answered.
Chase pushed her head back into the pillows, now feeling completely alone.
"Hi," a small voice replied.
Chase sat up. "Hi," she said softly, not wanting to scare her room mate.
"Hi," the voice echoed.
"What's your name?" Chase asked.
There was a muffled cough and then, "I'm Tober."
"Tober," Chase repeated, thinking that the voice belonged to a little boy. "My name is Emily," she said, smiling to herself. "But you can call me Chase."
"Why's your name Chase?" Tober asked.
"Because my friends think I can run fast," Chase replied.
"I can't," Tober said, sounding sorrowful.
Chase longed to catch a glimpse of him as she loved children and this Tober had the sweetest voice.
"Awe," Chase said. "All you need is practice! Besides, I'm sure there must be something you can do really well."
Tober was silent for a moment, as he thought. Then he said, "I can tie my shoes!"
Chase smiled so big she felt as if her lips were split. "How old are you, Tober?" she asked.
"I'm this many!" Tober said, then he paused and began counting his fingers under his breath. "I'm five and a half!" he said proudly. "How's old are you?"
"I'm fifteen," Chase said softly.
"Wow," Tober said in a hushed voice. "You're OLD!"
Chase laughed. "Yes I am," she agreed. "But not old enough," she said to herself. "Not old enough."
"My mommy said I'm not old enough too," Tober commented. Chase wondered how he'd heard her. "But I didn't listen."
Chase had just been about to ask him what he meant when her doctor walked in to check up on her. "So," she said smiling. "How are you feeling today?"
"What do you mean today?" Chase asked. "You just asked me how I was doing today."
"Don't tell me that bump on your head gave you amnesia!" the doctor said, her eyebrows raised. "I asked you how you were yesterday but not today!"
Chase stared at her in disbelief. Had she really been asleep that long?
The doctor stepped forth and began pulling the small metal disks off Chase's chest before she began to work at the intravenous tube. "There we go," she said, finally pulling the tube free to reveal that there was only a tiny scar rather than a long slit. Relieved, Chase moved her arm up and down to find that there was no pain.
"You can get up and go to the bathroom now if you'd like," the doctor said. "I'll go and get you a drink 'cause you need as much fluids as possible." She began to move towards the door again. "The bathroom's right there," she said, gesturing towards a bathroom that stood at the front of the room, half in Tober's ward and half in Chase's. As the doctor left, Chase got up and shakily moved towards the restroom.
When she was halfway there she turned to glance back as Tober's ward was almost completely exposed from here. In the middle of the ward, on a bed identical to Chase's, there lay a small boy with sandy blonde hair and big green eyes. From his nose there protruded a respiration tube and in each arm and leg there sprouted an intravenous tube that was supplying the small child with blood. The boy was adorable and his small body and round face looked completely out of place tied up in that bed. At a first glance, Chase couldn't tell what was wrong with him, but then as she stared longer she realized that the boy's tiny legs were crushed, one looking bent out of shape and the other looking squashed, as if someone had run over it with their bike—or car. Tober noticed Chase looking at him and he smiled. That's when Chase realized that the boy had no idea what had happened to him, and had no idea that he would never walk again.
Chase hurried into the bathroom as she felt terribly sick. The memories of the boy she'd hit tormenting her head until at last she threw up the meek fluids the doctors had been supplying her with. * * *
The halls were completely white and the white tiled floor wound about the building like a road. The floor was icy beneath her feet, and beneath her white gown she trembled at it's freezing effect.
"This way," the blonde nurse said, turning away from the quiet hall and proceeding up a fleet of stairs. When they reached the landing they turned right and began down a new hall, just as white as the first but much busier. There were nurses everywhere: pushing the injured on their bloodstained carts; tending to lost children, crying and screaming for their missing parents; and even preparing themselves for the heavy burden of informing people that their loved ones had passed. No one showed any notion of noticing the tall blonde girl, walking barefoot down the hall like a solemn ghost.
For that's what Chase felt like.
"Here we are," the nurse said, slowing down as they passed a sign on the wall that read 'Intensive Care'. She stopped before a thick cedar door with the black lettering 'Room 644' plastered to it, and pulled it open before nodding Chase in.
The room was tiny, barely big enough for all the equipment and instruments that occupied it. All around the walls were computers made to measure heart rates, pulses, and breathing, which were strewn with tubes and wires and cords leading up to the bed in the center of it all.
Chase stepped forth, unaware and unmoved by the nurse, still standing at the door.
"Fidget?" she asked, taking the small brittle hand in her own.
Fidget was cold and pale but she still had her eyes and she was looking much better then she had been. Her long sandy hair had been pulled clean from her braids and hung loosely down to her waste, making her look like some medieval princess or something. Around her eyes were dark circles, and her skin looked dry and creased, almost as if Fidget was now on some futuristic treatment to make her age in minutes. The patient's gown she wore clung openly about her shoulders as it was about three sizes too big for her, but on the whole Chase could see some immense improvements about her as her ribs no longer stuck out of her skin.
"Fidget?" Chase whispered again, kneeling down beside the bed and leaning up against it.
"We've got her on some serious medications," the nurse said. "We had to put her on Benzocaine which is a bulk forming substance that increases stomach fullness. We also had to put her on such medications as Methyliphenidate, to calm her hyperactivity."
Chase wondered if they'd had to use the same medication on Twitch, but she knew that if they hadn't used it, they would have used something stronger.
"Is she gonna be okay?" Chase asked, her voice breaking at the very thought of Fidget's state.
The nurse's solemn expression didn't change as she spoke. "Well," she said. "The medications we have her on now are helping her, but with a case this serious we may have to switch her to things such as epinephrine, norepinephrine, and dopamine which can technically result in a starvation- conservation mode; meaning that her condition could in theory get worse." The nurse paused and sighed. "All we can do now is continue giving her the current medications and hope that her body has already developed a high serotonin level."
Chase had absolutely no idea what the nurse was talking about but it didn't sound good.
The nurse smiled meekly, as if to reassure Chase, and then said as she moved towards the door, "I'll leave you two alone and be back later to take you back downstairs." And with that she turned and left the room.
Chase looked back at her feeble friend, barely kept alive by the nutrients that were being plugged into her.
"It's gonna be okay," Chase said, trying to keep calm as she stroked Fidget's forehead. "We'll all get out of this together." She tried to take a deep, shaky breath, but it all resulted in a deep sob and when the nurse returned she found Chase crying on the floor.
* * *
"You know what?"
"What?"
"I have a doggie. Her name is Reggie!"
Chase smiled, happy to be back in her small hospital bed and sharing a conversation with Tober.
"I have a doggie too!" Chase said.
"REALLY?" Tober gasped as if he just could not believe it. "What's her name!?" he asked excitedly.
"Shoobie," Chase replied. "She's a fuzzy black dog that's part Australian cattle dog."
"She's part cow!?" Tober cried. "I wanna see her!"
Chase laughed. "I wanna see her too..." she said to herself.
Suddenly the door opened and a nurse poked her head around the door. "Emily Moon?" she asked. "You have some visitors. Shall I let them in?"
Chase nodded.
"WOW! Do you come from the moon?" Tober asked from the other side of the curtain.
Chase burst out laughing: the little boy's excitement was just too much.
"What's so funny?" Twitch asked, stepping into the room.
"TWITCH!" Chase cried, wrapping her arms around him as he approached her bed. She was so happy to see him well she was hardly expecting the group that followed him through the door. First, Zippy bounded into the room and dived onto Chase's bed in an eruption of excitement. Close to follow her was Zero, Lei, Static, Armpit, and Squid.
Chase had to jump out of bed just to hug them all.
"Oh my god! I'm SO happy you're all okay!" she cried, wiping tears from her eyes as she sat down next to Zippy again. "Where are the others?"
"X-ray's gone visiting Rogue," Lei squealed, grinning uncontrollably. On her neck there was a large patch like a wound bandage that Chase was wondering about, but didn't get the chance to ask about, and her ankles looked rather bloodied and bruised.
"And Zigzag was with us a second ago but I think he got sidetracked by the ER ward for really bad burns," Static said, shrugging her shoulders.
Chase smiled. "Yeah?" she said. "And what about Magnetic and Magnet?"
"Oh who KNOWS what they're up to!" Armpit said, winking.
"So how's life?" Zero asked, grinning widely as he sat down next to Zippy.
Chase looked around at her bruised and sickly looking friends, all standing about in their hospital clothes and looking completely different then Chase had ever seen them. That's when she replied, "Life is pretty good right now."