"Adam Ruzek."
Platt was on her feet in an instant, rushing towards the nurse who called her name. When she picked him up on Monday Adam just came out when he was finished so this felt unusual and her heart was racing.
"You're here for Adam Ruzek?"
"Yes. Is he okay?"
The nurse placed a hand on her arm and lead her through the glass doors. "We've had to call an Ambulance. He had a bit of an episode and fainted after his treatment. His blood pressure is a little unstable so they are going to take him to Chicago Med for observation."
"Oh dear." Trudy felt like a bit of a fraud being here. "Have you called Kim?"
"His fiancé?"
Platt stopped in her tracks. "What's this now?" This was news to her, nobody had mentioned anything about an engagement, although to be fair they had a lot of other stuff going on right now. "Yes, Kim…have you called her."
"Not yet, Adam doesn't want to worry her."
"Stupid ass mule." She muttered under her breath as she starting following the nurse again. "These two will be the death of me."
Trudy was led through to an observation room where Adam was waiting. He had his eyes closed and was as pale as the sheets he was lying on. Grasped in his hand was an emesis bag and he also had a drip in and was hooked up to a blood pressure monitor. "Always have to be the center of attention don't you?"
Opening his eyes slowly he tried to smile. "I try."
"This wasn't part of the deal I signed up for. I was told I just had to drive you home none of this going to hospital drama or ringing your fiancé." He didn't miss the intonation in her voice at the end. It was more like a question than a statement.
Adam forced himself to laugh. "Yeah, sorry. Don't call her."
"Nope, not happening." Platt shook her head. "I'm not scared often but this would be the one time I would actually fear for my life."
"It's nothing really." Adam mumbled. "We just kinda fell into the fiancé thing, it's not really a thing, but yeah it's a thing." Trudy smiled at his incoherent ramblings.
Trudy took a quick step back when he lifted the emesis bag up and proceeded to start vomiting. Summoning the nurse Adam was rolled onto his side and emptied the contents of his stomach into the bowl she was holding until he had nothing left. His blood pressure dropped again and he was hard to rouse.
She was ushered out while they treated him and then got him into the Ambulance before she rang Kim.
By the time she got to Med, Adam had been taken straight through and she couldn't get much out of the Front desk other than be told where the waiting room was. It went down like a lead balloon, she didn't want to make a scene though so threw the Desk Clerk her best contemptuous look she could summon and stalked off to the waiting room.
The last thing either of them wanted was to go to Med but Adam was in no condition to argue, he didn't even know what was going on and Trudy hadn't been read in on that little fact. There was no way this was staying in house now.
Kim came flying through the door in a flat panic, she'd tried to call Adam and he wasn't answering his phone. ""Where is he? Is he okay? What happened?"
"He dropped his blood pressure apparently and then fainted and the started vomiting." Trudy grabbed her by the shoulders. "He's going to be okay."
"Why here? Why did they bring him here? Adam didn't want this."
Trudy didn't understand. "This is the best place for him."
"No, he didn't want to come to Med. Everyone will know now." Kim was clearly agitated, she was frustrated, angry and terrified. "Why can't I see him?"
"Well I'm sure as his fiancé you will be able to see him soon."
It stopped Kim and made her draw breath momentarily. "Oh that?"
"Yes? Care to explain?" Trudy eyed her suspiciously. "With a little more clarity than I got from Ruzek, which according to him it's apparently a thing?"
"It's just to make it easier with paperwork and next of kin and stuff." She waved it away.
Trudy bought her face closer to Kim's and sniffed. "I smell bullshit." And she caught the faintest of smiles from her. "So it's not a thing?"
"It's maybe a thing or not." It gave Platt no more clarity talking to Kim. Was it a thing or not a thing? And why in the hell were they calling an engagement a 'thing'.
Atwater had decided the best use of his time was too find out what was going on and disappeared out the door so missed the whole fiancé discussion. He managed to track someone down, did a bit of sweet talking, flashed a badge and got someone to come in and talk to Kim.
Adam was going to be moved up to the Oncology ward, he was being admitted for observation. Kim was allowed to go through and sit with him while they waited. "Don't do this to me." She stood beside him and ran her hands through his hair to let him know she was there. It had shocked her how pale and drawn he looked. He looked lifeless.
"Sorry." He felt vulnerable and exposed and once he was here he just wanted Kim with him. He didn't want to worry her initially but when he realised how serious it was and he wasn't going home he needed her. Kim would make sense of this and take in what he was being told. He didn't quite grasp what was happening, all he wanted to do was sleep. If he slept he didn't feel like crap.
He'd never felt so sick in his whole life. Even the worst hangover known to man paled in comparison to this. He didn't even have the energy to vomit at the moment, or lift his arms or open his eyes.
Kim rested her cheek against his and was devastated to feel his tears on their touching cheeks. "It's okay Adam. I'm right here."
"Don't go." With all the strength he had in him he tried to squeeze her hand.
"I'm not going anywhere. Not without you."
They were so close to the end, only two more days of treatment and they could put this nightmare to bed hopefully. Now it was suddenly up in the air and there was a deep fear in Kim that they wouldn't like the reason for Adam's severe reaction.
Doctor Fraser came to see them before he went up, they were just waiting for a bed to become available. She floated the idea that they would postpone the last two sessions but Adam really wanted them to go ahead. "I can handle it." He was feeling a little more alert now that he had some medication and fluids on board.
"After today I am not sure." She shook her head. "I know you want this over and done with."
"It's two more, that's it."
"Okay." She looked at his charts and then took a look at his abdomen as they had reported that he had developed a rash that had spread a little and was quite aggravating. "Tell you what, stay here tonight and we'll see how you are in the morning and make a call then. However the deal is that I want you to have the last two sessions here as an inpatient. I want to keep an eye on you."
"When can I go home?" He didn't want to stay. He hated even visiting people in hospitals and the last time he was here was with Kim when she lost the baby. He hadn't spent a night in hospital since he was a child and this was the last place he wanted to be right now.
"Well if you behave once the Friday dose is done and if you don't do this crazy fainting drama you can go home in the afternoon. I'd like to think you'd be home for the weekend." Dr Fraser seemed completely calm about this while they were freaking out.
"Does this mean it's not working?" Kim asked the question she knew Adam would want to know. His eyes were closed again but she knew he was listening.
"Not at all, people react to radiation in different ways."
"But he was fine last week."
"It can just build up over time. Yes he did well last week but his body was just compounding the side effects and today it couldn't cope anymore. It's not unusual. Try not to worry."
That was easier said than done. All they had done was worry, for four weeks now they had worried about everything and any slight deviation from normal freaked them out. They had no idea what they were doing, this wasn't in their plans. Everything was out of control and it was confronting and terrifying.
Kim didn't move from his side while he slept.
Kevin sighed as his phone buzzed, it had gone off a few times in the past few minutes. "Are you going to get that?" Platt asked.
"Nope." He looked at the number and put it back in his pocket. "It's Halstead."
"I'm sorry, I didn't know what else to do. When they said they were bringing him here I didn't think. I was just worried." It was the rarest of admissions from Platt and hearing her say sorry was shocking enough but seeing her so emotionally affected made this all seem very real. For all her posturing Atwater was well aware that she had a massive soft spot for both of them.
"I'm sure it's okay. We all want the same thing."
"This is so crazy. I can't believe this."
Kevin knew exactly how she felt. He was still coming to terms with it some days. This was his best friend, they were young and things like this weren't supposed to happen to them and it also made him confront his own mortality. "It's screwing with my mind." He admitted.
Kim's head was resting on the side of the bed close to Adam's hand, he'd felt her there and was using his fingers to gently play with her hair but they were silent. Atwater didn't want to interrupt them but he wanted to let them know what was going on and that he had to leave and was taking Trudy with him.
He apologised for the intrusion. "You okay man?"
"Yeah, I will be. Just feeling a bit crappy." He looked down at Kim. "Thanks for bringing her."
Atwater saluted casually. "Call me if you need anything and I'll come back with some things for you and pick Kim up later on."
"It's okay Kev, I'm staying." Kim had just been listening to them talk.
"Not sure that's allowed Darlin'." Adam stroked her cheek. "As nice as it would be."
Atwater looked a little nervous. "Oh, I got a message from Halstead. He's been calling."
Kim's head shot up suddenly. "Why? What did you tell him?"
"Nothing. I haven't spoken to anyone bar Voight. He called a little while ago to check in how you were."
"Why can't people leave us alone." Kim burst into tears and both Adam and Kevin were a little surprised. Kevin at least had the answer he was after, they wanted to be left alone and he backed out of the room while Adam tried to get Kim to stop and talk to him.
The very reason Adam didn't want to come to Med was because he was worried that someone they knew would find out and that's precisely what happened. Shortly after Atwater left Will Halstead came to see him. "Hey man, you okay? I didn't know, sorry."
"That's because we didn't tell anyone." Kim snapped. She was struggling with this a lot more than Adam was. He had kinda accepted that this was evitable as soon as he realised he was at Med. "There's no law against that."
"Hey Kim. It's okay." Adam tried to placate her.
"It's not okay, it's not."
"I'm sorry." Will apologised. "If there is anything I can do, let me know."
"Did you tell Jay?" Adam flat out asked him and Halstead just looked a little sheepish and admitted that he just told him that Adam had been admitted to hospital via Ambulance.
Kim snapped. "Since when weren't we afforded the courtesy of privacy? Just because we work with your brother doesn't give you the right to tell him anything. You aren't even his Doctor."
Adam tried again. "Kim, just stop." He looked at Will. "Perhaps you could leave?" He was more annoyed that Will was upsetting Kim by hanging around than the fact he had spilled the beans. He didn't care that Will insisted that he didn't tell him why he was in hospital, it was bothering Kim and he wanted that to stop.
He turned to attention back to Kim, this was the last thing he wanted. Kim had been amazing and her courage and determination had always been something that he loved about her, she never gave up and she wasn't giving up on him and that made him want to beat this more than anything. "Darlin' don't get upset. Nothing we can do about it now." He wiped her cheek. "I can't worry about that now, I just want to get out of here."
"I want to get out of here too, I want to pack up and take off and just be with you somewhere warm, anywhere but here."
"How good would that be?" They had joked about it a few times, just taking off, seeing a bit of the country and putting this behind them. "Tell you what, let's make a deal. You marry me and I'll take you wherever you want to go."
"You get better and I will do whatever you want."
"Whatever I want?" he tried to wiggle his eyes but failed. "Okay it's a deal."
That's what they talked about, even if it was just a fantasy it at least took them mind off everything else that was going on.
Eventually he was taken upstairs in a wheelchair, it was slightly less embarrassing than being sent up in a bed, although by the time he got up there he was exhausted and pretty much went straight to sleep. He wasn't in a deep sleep and was still aware when people came in and out and that Kim was right beside him.
He did listen to her talking to Voight after telling her to call him. It wasn't a long conversation, conversations with Voight never were. There was never anything fluffy about them, you got straight to the point and gave him the facts. The last thing Voight tolerated was small talk and discussions about feelings.
Adam's nurse stuck her head through the door. "Adam has some visitors." Kim looked at him briefly and he was sleeping and she wasn't waking him. She got the feeling that he knew the nurse was there and was pretending to be asleep though and she didn't mind if he was faking it. To her it made it obvious he wanted to be left alone.
"He's asleep. Sorry, he's not up for visitors." Kim shook her head. She'd just gotten a message from Atwater asking her what things Adam might want so she knew it definitely wasn't Atwater.
Kim just shook her head again and when she asked if Kim had a message for them because they were asking how Adam was Kim insisted that all they needed to know was that he was sleeping and not seeing visitors. She was being irrationally stubborn about it and she knew it as did Adam but he didn't have the energy to deal with it just yet. At this point in time this was the only thing she could control and she was hanging onto that for dear life. It was her anchor point.
One thing Adam did ask her to do was tell his father. He wasn't up to it and it was gutless but it was all starting to become a little too real now. Up until this moment he thought it was a bump in the road, that they'd get through this he'd get a clean bill of health and it could be forgotten. Suddenly it wasn't that easy or certain and it had rattled him.
If Nicole had a distinct dislike of Adam, then Bob Ruzek felt the same about Kim although not quite as intense. As far as he was concerned she broke his heart, not once but several times and he didn't like the new version of Adam that emerged from those ashes. Lately he'd felt like he was getting his son back again and he had sceptical when he told him that Kim was pregnant but could see how happy he was and had been devastated for him when he found out that Kim had lost the baby. Seeing how heartbroken Adam was had been hard to take and part of him blamed Kim for that too. If Adam wouldn't blame her for the situation she put herself in that cost him his first grandchild, Bob wasn't quite so magnanimous.
However, as Adam pointed out. If this was going to be their future his father was in it and perhaps Kim had to take the first steps. Maybe this was it, they could band together to help him get back on his feet. That was his hope anyway.
She agreed to go and when Atwater came in with a bag for him and to take Kim home he offered to go with her. Adam appreciated that, he knew that Kev would put his Dad back in his place if he went too far. He'd also make sure she'd eat something.
Kim was reluctant to leave though. Visiting hours were long gone although Oncology didn't really stick to them, not for family anyway. "I'm going to sleep, Kim I promise. I won't be racing up and down the halls in my wheelchair, I won't be hitting on that scary 80 year old nurse they've sent me." Of course he was exaggerating, she wasn't young and she was definitely sterner than the previous nurse, she had a bit of Platt about her but Adam planned to sleep anyway. "And you'll be calling me in an hour or two telling me how much you miss me and how cold the bed is."
"Well obviously."
He beckoned her close for a kiss. "I love you Darlin' and our thing."