CHAPTER 43 - SURGERY

Elizabeth had tried to push her way into the infirmary but the doctor had ordered her out. Naturally, she had ignored the man, which resulted in her being physically escorted into the hallway by a medic and a crew member who was himself being treated for a slight burn injury.

The other injured personnel in the infirmary either sprinted into the hallway or were pushed or carried by crew members. Everyone moved quickly, sensing the urgency as the medics wheeled an unconscious Jack on a stretcher into the room.

Within two minutes, the room had been evacuated of everyone but Jack, three medics, and the doctor. The operating table which was normally stowed upright against a wall had been lowered, the anesthesia equipment was in place, the doctor was running the ultrasound machine across Jack's body, and the sterile surgical instruments had been hurriedly pulled from a drawer and ripped from their paper coverings.

Undeterred by the doctor's order or by her physical removal from the room, Elizabeth waited twenty seconds and then scanned her bracelet across the infirmary door sensor. When the door slid open, she walked in with deliberation.

"Get OUT!" the doctor ordered when he saw her out of the corner of his eyes. He hovered over Jack with a sharp metal instrument in one hand.

"No!" Elizabeth responded but her voice trembled and she lost some confidence when she saw a glimpse of Jack's motionless body on the table.

"Ms. Thornton, I understand your concern, but I do not have time for you and any wifely tears. Get out!"

She was about to protest when someone approached her from behind and placed strong hands on her upper arms.

"Come with me, Elizabeth", Seth said gently as he led her away. "Jack won't want you getting upset."

"What happened?!" Abigail asked. She was slightly out of breath from running from the Cafeteria after hearing about Jack.

"He's in surgery," Seth answered for Elizabeth, who stood numbly looking at the infirmary door.

When Elizabeth moved forward towards the door - towards Jack - with determination, Seth reached out and pulled her back.

"Talk to Abigail," Seth told her. "Let them do what they need to do in there."

"He needs me. I need him," Elizabeth responded as her eyes teared up.

"He doesn't need you in there now. Now talk to Abigail", the six-foot three-inch tall muscular Seth ordered with all the authority he could muster. "I'm going to go check on Tessa. She was pretty upset by everything. But I'll be back."

Seth looked at Abigail. His eyes asking a question, and she nodded that she'd stay with Elizabeth.

"It was awful", Elizabeth said as Abigail pulled her into an embrace. "A pallet of rocks fell on him. He was crushed," she added with her voice breaking apart.

Elizabeth pulled back from Abigail's hug and wiped her sleeve against her eyes. She took a deep breath before continuing speaking. "He was in the cargo bay when everything happened. The place is a mess. Boxes and crates of specimens and experiments are broken open everywhere. It's on the outside of the ship so it took a lot of direct hits."

Elizabeth inhaled another deep breath and tried to calm herself.

"One of the cargo specialists found him when she went to check out the damage. He was unconscious and trapped under some rocks. It took three crew members to get one of the rocks off of him." Elizabeth's voice quaked as she re-lived what she had come across.

When Elizabeth had first imagined that Jack may be the injured person in the cargo bay, she had raced through the corridors to get to him, but she could never have imagined how she'd find him. By the time that she had reached the scene, the crew had already moved most, but not all, of the rocks off of Jack. He had been crushed for almost an hour by the time he had been found, causing the medics to be concerned that his blood circulation had been obstructed in parts of his body.

"They were worried that when they removed the rock pressure, it would cause the kidneys to be overwhelmed, and fluid would leak into an injured area and cause him to go into shock," Elizabeth explained weepily.

"Seth said surgery. For what?" Abigail asked.

"Internal bleeding."

Thirty minutes went by and Abigail had all but given up on keeping Elizabeth from entering the infirmary. She was relieved when the Bud, Candy, Becca, and Seth all showed up in rapid succession to check on Jack and distract Elizabeth. There was only so much one well-meaning friend could do against a younger and physically fit woman with pregnancy hormones and the strength of a worried wife.

"I don't understand. Why was he in the cargo bay?" Elizabeth asked in confusion for the third time.

It was Candy who had the answer. "I saw him at lunch. He asked if I had found an earring anywhere in the living quarters. When I said that I hadn't, he said he had already checked the cafeteria and fitness center. Then he said something about going to check the cargo bay."

"The cargo bay?" Bud interjected. "Why would he look for an earring in the cargo bay? I assume it was one of yours," he said as he looked at Elizabeth. "I never knew Jack to wear an earring", he added with a chuckle.

"He said that he and Elizabeth had gone for a walk there," Candy replied with a shrug.

"My earring", Elizabeth said with a soft strangled voice. "He said he would look for it for me. I should have realized I lost it there. Idiot!", she berated herself. "This is my fault. He was only there because of me and my stupid idea."

"Elizabeth, it's not your fault. You're not responsible for a satellite crashing into an old Chinese space lab and causing hundreds of pieces of debris to be torpedoed into our ship," Bud tried to convince Elizabeth.

"If it wasn't for me, he wouldn't have been in the cargo area. If it wasn't for me, he wouldn't be on this transporter. He'd be back on Earth or on Mock Earth. He never would have even gone to Coal Valley," she said, accepting full responsibility for her husband's injuries even if meant going back to a decision from two years earlier.

"It's my fault", Becca offered glumly. "I should have navigated us away from the debris."

"Don't be stupid", Candy told her. "It was a sudden explosion. It happened too quickly. We had no way of knowing it was going to occur."

Seth leaned his head against the wall. "It's my fault."

Elizabeth looked up at Seth and furrowed her brow. "How is it your fault?"

"They were my rock specimens. I'm the damn geologist."

"And the cargo specialist says it's her fault for not ensuring they were strapped to the pallet tight enough and the pallets weren't attached to the wall. There's enough guilt to go around. It's nobody's fault," Bud said. "Elizabeth, do you need anything to eat or drink?"

Elizabeth realized that she hadn't eaten all day. Her boxed lunch was probably still in the corridor where she had dropped it when she had rushed to find Jack.

When Elizabeth, whose head was slumped down in despair, shook her head, the others gave each other worried glances.

"You're pregnant. You need to eat," Abigail told her.

"The baby is the size of the palm of my hand. He or she can handle not having any food for a few more hours," Elizabeth responded dismissively.

Abigail motioned for Bud to go get something from the cafeteria despite Elizabeth's refusal and he took off down the corridor.

"I never even thought he'd be injured," Elizabeth said in a daze. "I was taking care of my students, and then doing a situation report and all the time he was laying under a pile of rocks. All by himself. He was injured and I never even knew it for more than an hour. What kind of horrible wife am I?" she said quietly.

Without waiting for, or expecting, a response, she continued somberly. "It never dawned on me that he'd be harmed because he's Jack. My Jack. He's always strong and protective. He's always been my hero."

"I'm sure he'll be fine, Elizabeth," Abigail said. "The doctor knows what's he's doing."

"The doctor is an imbecile", Elizabeth retorted bitterly. "He can't even figure out if I'm having a boy or a girl. And I'm supposed to trust him to save my husband's life."

The door sliding open caused everyone to whip their head in its direction.

"I found quite a bit of internal bleeding in the abdomen and make an incision in the skin. I sealed the ends of the leaking blood vessels with a heat probe," the doctor reported without bothering to wait for any questions as Elizabeth immediately stood up and faced him.

"He'll be out for at least another twenty minutes due to anesthesia," the man continued. "After that, I'm not sure. He took a hit to the head. Quite likely, he's got a concussion. He's also going to have quite a few bruises. I'm not sure about sprains yet. We'll know more when he wakes up and can describe where he's in pain."

"Can I go in now?" Elizabeth asked but she really didn't care about the answer. She was going to see Jack regardless of what the doctor said.

"Ms. Thornton –"

Elizabeth didn't let him finish. "Unless you're planning on using your anesthesia on me, I'm going to see my husband," she said sternly as she moved past the doctor.

Elizabeth took a bite and set the sandwich back on the plate. The tray of food which Bud had brought to her was largely untouched. She swallowed the food without even recognizing whether it was tuna salad or chicken or even ham. Everything was bland. Tasteless. All she cared about was the man lying less than a foot away from her.

When she had first seen him after his surgery, he had been motionless but in the last fifteen minutes he had become restless. Twitching and moving as if having a bad dream.

She moved her gaze from his face to the monitors. She had been sitting next to him for an hour and he hadn't opened his eyes once.

"I won the lottery the day I met you, Jack", she told him quietly. "I won every damn lottery in the world the day you decided to love me."

His clothes which had been cut from him lay in a pile on a nearby shelf. Standing up, she moved the short distance and picked up his pants. Reaching into the pockets, she felt around. They were empty.

She picked up the shirt which he had put on hours earlier as the day had begun. The object fell from a pocket and made a clinking sound as it hit the floor. Elizabeth bent down and picked up her earring.

Clenching it in her fist, she sat back down and stared at her husband. I'm so sorry, Jack. For every stupid thing I ever did. For trying to be interesting for you when you didn't want me to change. For not kissing you goodbye this morning. For sleeping in late and missing breakfast and lunch with you. If I hadn't slept in, we would have had lunch together. We would have gone to the cargo bay together.

The doctor finished checking the patient who had been placed in a berth across the room and then moved to Elizabeth's side. He checked the monitors on the wall above Jack's head.

"His color looks fine," the doctor said as he lifted up the bedsheet and looked at Jack's abdomen. "I'm just going to do another ultrasound to make sure there's no more bleeding. I'm pretty positive I got everything but I'll recheck anyway."

Elizabeth moved a few feet away so the man could maneuver the small ultrasound machine closer. Jack let out a low moan as if he was in pain even before the man touched him.

Two minutes later, the doctor pulled the sheet up over Jack's torso and put the sonogram machine back into the corner of the room.

"All looks good internally, but his blood pressure is higher than I'd like. Maybe you can see if you can calm him down," the doctor suggested. "I'd prefer not to give him any more medication."

"Is he –"

"He's going to be fine," the doctor cut her off. "I know you don't think I have good bedside manner and I admit that I'm never going to be an OBGYN, but I'm a damn good doctor. Just get him to calm down a bit."

"How?" Elizabeth asked helplessly.

"Talk to him."

"I have been. He just keeps getting more anxious," she said worriedly.

"It could be pain. Vivid dreams from the anesthesia or medication. The head trauma. Just keep trying."

When the doctor walked away, Elizabeth picked up Jack's hand again and gave it a gentle squeeze.

"Do you remember the first time we met? You couldn't stand me. You were so annoyed with my rich high-society ways," she said merrily. "Poor man. You had no idea what you were getting yourself into," she added with a laugh.

Her attempt at humor fell flat as she watched Jack restlessly move on the sheet.

Damn it, Jack. Wake up. Or lower your blood pressure, she thought worriedly. But then took a deep breathe and with renewed confidence decided that there was nothing she couldn't do. She and Jack would be alright. Better than alright. They would be perfect.

I'll sing. That's it. A nice song to calm him down. Hmm. Danny Boy? No. That's depressing. Annie's song? Yes! That was our first song. No. There's that line about 'let me die in your arms'. Definitely no! Most definitely no! . . . . I've tried talking about the baby, about me, about the new home we're going to have when we get to Canada . . . Nothing works.

My computer . . . That's it. I know what to do.

Ten minutes later, when the doctor checked Jack's vital statistics, he was pleasantly surprised to see that Jack's blood pressure had improved tremendously. Especially for a man who had recently been crushed by stone, had internal bleeding and a head injury, and had had surgery.

"Nice job, Ms. Thornton," he said approvingly. "How'd you do it?"

Elizabeth looked at the doctor and smiled. "I read him poetry. I thought I would bore him into having lower blood pressure."

Up Next: Chapter 44

Thank you deda, Joyce, Susie, Davila, Sarann, Eyramsey, and all the other reviewers that I can't private message! I love reading your responses.