A/N: I have gotten quite a few requests to get off my duff and finish this story. Of course no one actually said, Get off your duff, already! but, well... "there it is". (A cookie to anyone who can name that movie reference)

Checks & Balances

Chapter 15

By the end of the second day out of the ICU Johnny had finally beaten the fever and was feeling a lot more like himself. He'd had a steady stream of short visits from his crew mates, but they were due back on shift and Johnny found himself bored and ready to start moving around.

When a nurse came into his room with his breakfast tray, Johnny's crooked grin dropped a little at the thought of eating hospital food. Much to his surprise, however, hidden under that metal lid was a bowl of some kind of corn meal mush, almost like the polenta that Marco had made on occasion at the station but this was sweetened with something delicious.

While the men of A shift came by, John had those visits to keep his mind off being cooped up in the hospital, but now he had no distractions to keep his mind occupied. The young man found, to his own astonishment, that he was inexplicably pleased when Dr. Morton stopped in on his off shift for a visit.

"You look ready to get out of here, Johnny." The young physician said by way of greeting when he stepped in through John's door.

"Truer words were never spoken. No offense to anyone here, but I'd just as soon be relaxing on my couch at home, although I must admit that the food hasn't been bad at all. As a matter of fact that corn meal stuff this morning was great. New menu in the cafeteria?"

"I don't think so, but maybe. I usually bring my own lunch when I'm working." Morton said, as he pulled up a chair to sit with John. "So Kelly tells me that you're gonna get that chest tube taken out tomorrow."

Johnny looked down at the tube snaking out from underneath his hospital robe. "None to soon to suit me. This thing is damned uncomfortable."

Johnny fixed Dr. Morton with a questioning stare. "You're not really the small talk type of guy, so tell me, what brings you up here for a visit on your day off?"

Dr. Morton tried to look offended. "Hey can't a guy come visit a friend who is sick without having a motive?"

Johnny didn't answer, he just raised an eyebrow waiting for an explanation. "Okay, so you got me. I wanted to ask you about your life on the reservation."

The shock that registered on Johnny's face was almost comical. "What? Are you kidding me or something?" Johnny asked, utterly perplexed.

"It's just that no one knew that you were bilingual and Roy said you never really talk about your childhood growing up on the reservation. I was wondering about that, is all. Did you have a difficult childhood?"

Shock turned to astonishment. "Bilingual? What are you talking about? Why do you think I speek another language?"

"Because you did, while you were delirious with fever. One of the ICU nurses thought that you had some strange form of dysphasia. She even recorded a bit of it. It was Dr. Brackett who realized that you were speaking a native language instead of a bunch of nonsense syllables."

"Huh? I don't speak a native language, not well anyway. My grandparents spoke Ojibwe but I never really learned it fluently, much to my mother's dismay. Do you have any idea what I said?"

Dr. Morton pulled out a sheet a paper from his jacket pocket. "Actually I do. I have a friend who is fluent in several native tongues and he translated what you said, here." Dr. Morton handed the sheet to Johnny who looked it over his eyes growing wider as he read.

"Well what do you know about that? I guess some of it sunk in despite not paying attention in school." Johnny handed the page back before he gingerly crossed his arms over his chest. "So why do you think I had a rough childhood?"

Anyone else may have looked uncomfortable, but Dr. Morton understood having cultural differences to the people around him. "Well, you never really talk about your past, so I just thought that maybe you had it rough as a kid."

Johnny cocked his head to the side for a moment in thought, then looked back at his visitor. "You know that really bugs me. You sound just like the anthros who would come out to the rez every summer and try to analyze why we were poor and how that effected our cultural practices. Yeah we were poor, but so are a lot of people. How would you feel if a bunch of anthropologists came to your neighborhood growing up to study you, your family and friends to try and understand why you do the things that you do. It's intrusive and degrading, like we were some kind of lab rats for them to study."

Johnny was working up to a rant of epic proportions.

"Why is it that people think that just because I don't talk about my first bike ride, or my first kiss, or my best friend growing up; that I had some sort of tragic childhood? Seriously? I had a perfectly normal childhood. It's true my folks died when I was young, but I was well cared for by my grandparents until they passed of old age. By then I was seventeen and I eventually came out here to stay with my aunt and to get into the fire academy. Honestly, my childhood was pretty much like anyone else's. I don't talk about it because... well I guess, because I have other things to talk about."

Dr. Morton did look a little uncomfortable by the time Johnny finished. "Hey, I'm sorry, it's really none of my business and I shouldn't have jumped to conclusions. It had to have been tough though, loosing your parents when you were young. I know that if my folks had died I would've a real hard time getting over that."

Johnny just shook his head. "I was seven when my parents died, and it was the hardest thing I'd ever had to deal with. My grandparents and the rest of the tribe closed ranks, so-to-speak, and took me through the rituals. You see, at that age I was taught the normal things anyone has to learn, but we were all taught about the Chippewa's beliefs that all life had a rhythm. Things can change quickly and dramatically, but that is a normal part of life. Loosing my parents was terrible and I still miss them when I think about it, but you gotta remember that the Chippewa views on life and death are not the same as everyone else. My mother was full blood Chippewa and my father was a white man who completely embraced the Chippewa culture and belief system. Heck he was more indian that me in that respect. They believed in life being like a cycle with a beginning and an end and that was all a part of the natural order of things. My grandfather talked a lot about those beliefs and the lessons from when I was a kid helped me come to terms with their deaths.

"So I guess outside of that experience I had a pretty decent childhood. What made you curious about wether or not I had it rough as a kid? Did you have it rough growing up?"

Dr. Morton looked thoughtfully at John for a moment before answering. "It's 1974 and I am a black doctor. That's a long way to come from a kid growing up in the ghetto, but yeah, life and society sure didn't make it easier to get somewhere with my life. I've seen places where even the concept equal rights is still a myth."

Johnny nodded his head knowingly. "I know what you are talking about. I've seen some stuff like that in my life time too. Not so much when I got out here to LA. Don't get me wrong doc, back in Montana most people are pretty decent, but there is still a strong presence of bigotry in the several of the local ranchers, particularly around the reservation lands. When ever my friends and I went into town we would invariably run into some of the kids from the ranches and that's when trouble started. The white kids never got blamed for the fights either, so after awhile we just decided to avoid them when we could."

While they were talking Johnny's lunch tray arrived and nestled under the metal lid were three quesadillas each with a different filling and lightly toasted on the outside.

Dr. Morton looked at the meal also smelling the delicious aroma and smiled appreciatively. "I may stop bringing my own lunch if this is what you can get from the cafeteria. Look Johnny, I have to get going and you need to eat your lunch, but I just wanna say, I'm really glad your doing ok. Good luck tomorrow."

"Thanks, Doc, and sorry I got bent at ya." Johnny aid, as Dr. Morton stood up and moved the chair back from the bedside.

"It's ok, Johnny. I get touchy about things like that too, if I'm being honest. Take it easy, pal."

Johnny spoke with Dr. Brackett late that afternoon asking if the chest tube could come out that day rather than waiting for the following day, but the doctor pointedly refused to allow it. After the trouble they'd stabilizing Johnny and fighting off the infection, there was no way Dr. Brackett would do anything that might set Johnny back at all. He did, however, increase the number of breathing evaluations and breathing exercises that Johnny was required to complete before the tube's removal.

Johnny woke slowly the next morning, seeming unusually tired. He was hesitant to say anything about that for fear that Dr. Brackett would decide not to take the chest tube out. When the physician entered Johnny's room followed by a nurse with a rolling instrument tray Johnny did his best to look wide awake and energetic.

"You seem perky this morning. I figured you might be a bit sleepy after the mild sedative I ordered last night."

Johnny's eyes opened wide. "You gave me a sedative last night? Why?"

A small smirk turned up the corner of the doctor's mouth. "Because I know you well enough by now to know that without it you wouldn't have gotten a wink of sleep last night. I wanted you fresh and rested for today. Assuming everything goes well today and we can get you up and moving around without a re-collapse, we may be able to get you out of the hospital by tomorrow."

"You think my lung could collapse again?" John asked, not without a small note of concern.

"Now don't go getting all worked up again, Johnny. It is rare, but possible. If there is going to be any trouble it should happen in the first 24 hours. That's why we like to do tube removals in the morning so we get a full day to observe you."

"Yeah ok, Doc, but I'm not planning on climbing up any ladders for a few days."

"Of that I am sure, because you are on a mandatory two week sick leave, at which time you will need to come back in to get cleared for duty."

"Then why are you worried about the lung collapsing again?" Johnny wanted to know. He rarely got detailed information on his patients after their initial admittance to the ER and was now in territory he didn't have any real practical experience with.

"Spontaneous collapse can happen after an incident like this especially for young men with your physique."

That earned Dr. Brackett a utterly confused stare from the young paramedic. "What is that supposed to mean 'my physique'?"

Dr. Bracket had just snapped on his sterile gloves as the nurse removed Johnny's gown and began to prep the site of the tube insertion with betadine. "Young tall slender men have a higher incidence of spontaneous lung collapse than other body types, and you fit that bill, my friend."

TBC

A/N: The tube removal isn't very dramatic so I thought I'd skip that bit.