Chapter Five

Steve paced anxiously back and forth in front of the operating room door. A voice came toward him from down the hall. "How's she doing, Pal? Any word yet?"

Steve turned toward the gruff, weary-sounding voice. "Oscar." The two men started to shake hands but quickly turned to the comfort of a hug, instead. "Nothing yet; they're still in surgery. I thought you weren't getting in 'til morning."

"It is morning," Oscar told him quietly.

Steve looked at his watch. "Oh...then they've been in there...way too long." Oscar led him to a chair, still in view of the door he'd been watching so closely, and Steve sank into it, exhausted. Oscar sat down next to him.

"How are you holding up?"

Steve stared vacantly at nothing. "I feel so helpless, Oscar." He held his right arm in front of him and made a fist, then let it fall. He turned to his boss. "What good is it to have all this...this strength, when the only woman I've ever loved is in there, fighting for her life, and there's not a damn thing I can do to help her?"

Oscar placed a sympathetic hand on Steve's shoulder as the door to the operating room finally swung open. Doctor Rudy Wells emerged, looking tired and wilted from the nearly half-day-long surgery. Oscar had tracked him down at a retreat in Italy before Jaime had even arrived at the hospital and he was able to fly in and be at Jaime's side within an hour of her admission.

"How is she?" Steve asked nervously.

Rudy shook his head sadly. "She's in bad shape, Steve. We've very lucky you were with her and knew what to do. If you'd tried to keep driving instead of clamping down on that bleeder and calling for help, she'd never even have made it here. But...the bullet totally lacerated Jaime's left lung, and she's lost a massive amount of blood. Enough to be fatal in someone who isn't bionic. Her body's total blood volume is much lower with three bionic limbs, so for her to lose that much blood is...catastrophic. I'm sorry, Steve, but her chances are very, very slim. It'll take a miracle."

"Would she do better if we flew her back to the States?" Oscar asked.

"She's not stable enough to make the trip. At least you got her out of that hell hole and into neutral territory." Rudy paused, trying to assess the men's ability to handle the rest of the news. He went on. "A different facility wouldn't make a difference at this point, anyway. We've done everything we can do, medically. We'll keep pumping blood into her, make sure she's comfortable, and...wait."

Steve, fighting tears, didn't have to ask what they were waiting for.

I wish someone had told me what was going on when I was 10, that my mother was battling just to stay alive. Not that I could've done anything or even gone to see her, but maybe it would've made a difference...

Steve sat quietly at his wife's bedside, his eyes glued to her pale, still body. IV tubes dripped antibiotics and painkillers into her arm. They'd finishing replacing the blood she'd lost over a week earlier, but Jaime still hadn't shown even the slightest improvement. Oscar stood just outside the tiny glass intensive care cubicle, just watching and occasionally uttering a silent prayer. Rudy was at the desk in the tiny room he'd been given to use as an office when he was startled by the ringing of the telephone.

"Yes?" It was Leslie, Oscar's secretary, trying to patch a third-person call through to Oscar. "You've got who on the other line?" He listened closely. "Ok - I'll go get him."

The elderly doctor walked down the hall to the ICU and placed a hand on Oscar's shoulder, then leaned over to close the glass cubicle door. Steve had enough on his plate; he didn't need to hear this. "You have a phone call in my office," he said very quietly.

Oscar bristled. "I told Leslie I wasn't taking any calls. None!"

"You want to take this one," Rudy said, already leading him down the hall. "It's Jenna Austin, and she wants to know what you've done with her parents."