Title: Shall We Play A Game?
Author: FraidyCat
Disclaimer: per diem
Invitation: Remember, this is the readers' story. Please keep playing. You can suggest plot devices or twists; or, perhaps you have a favorite line you've always wanted to see in fanfic. Tell me what it is, and I will try to work it in.
chortle ... Our Story Continues ...
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Chapter 3: Time's A'Wastin'
The ER was busy -- busier than Don expected for the middle of the afternoon on a weekday. There were only two seats together in the waiting area, and Colby had been forced to loiter behind the brothers Eppes until a woman holding a bloody towel against her forehead was taken into the exam area by her solicitous husband. The couple had unnerved Don even further, at first because his finely-honed law enforcement prejudices led him to suspect the man of causing the damage himself. Then, it turned out that the younger man was friendly, and worried. The combination loosened his tongue and he provided Don with all sorts of unsolicited information, the most disturbing of which was that the wife had been fighting the flu for several days. She had injured her head when she passed out in her kitchen and hit the edge of the table on the way down. Don tried to tell himself that two cases of the flu presenting in the same ER on the same day was probably not all that unusual. Even in May.
Colby finally got the chair on the other side of Charlie, whose total silence -- apart from the congested breathing -- was also starting to alarm Don. Granted, they didn't live together anymore, but the little brother he remembered was a royal pain in the ass when he was sick, always whining about something. The only exceptions were when it was really serious -- like when his appendix had burst when he was 10. Oh, he had fretted and moaned for the first 24 hours, and the entire family had assumed the sushi one of his tutors had talked him into trying was a mistake. Then he had become oddly silent, and 24 hours later Don was standing in-between his parents in a hospital much like this one, watching Charlie being rushed away toward a surgery that might be too late. Or later, when they were both in college. Their schools were on opposite sides of the country, but they had reconvened at the Craftsman during Don's junior year -- Charlie was already about to graduate, a year-and-a-half before he would -- for the winter break. "Break" has turned out to be the operative word. The entire family was working outside. Don and their mother were weeding the flower garden. Charlie had drawn the short straw -- he and their father were both on ladders, cleaning out the gutters. Charlie had leaned too far, there had been a startled yelp, and Don looked up just in time to see his brother plummet 15 feet. He tried to break his fall, as people usually do, and what often happens in such a case happened to Charlie. There was a sickening, unbelieveably loud snap when his hand made contact with the earth, and Charlie had immediately curled into a fetal position around his injured limb. He had not screamed, or cried. In fact, he hardly talked at all for days. The compound fracture had required surgery. Charlie was only in the hospital overnight for that, but he came home pale and silent, his arm in a sling, and lived in his bed for three more days. Every time Don tramped up the stairs to visit, Charlie's face was pinched with pain and his conversation was monosyballic.
Charlie's silence was so not a good thing.
Don and Colby talked over him for a while, then eventually fell into quietness themselves. They sat there so long that Don decided to send Colby back to the office. Or maybe home -- it was already past 5. His own throat was parched, and he longingly thought of the water cooler he had spotted near the registration desk when they had first arrived. He stood stiffly, glancing down at Charlie. His fever was so high now that droplets of sweat were actually rolling off his face. If Don was thirsty, Charlie was the Sahara. He shifted his gaze to Colby. "Stay here with him," Don implored. "I'm going around the corner to that water cooler. I'll bring some back for Charlie." He sighed, raising one hand to rub the back of his neck. "You should probably take off, then. Looks like we'll be here forever."
Colby's eyes wandered to the clock high on the wall. "Nah," he shrugged. "I got nowhere else I need to be."
Don smiled wanly and shook his head. "We'll talk about it when I get back," he warned, and then he couldn't help himself. He reached out and grabbed a fistful of Charlie's damp curls and leaned over slightly to look into his glazed eyes. "Buddy. I'm going to get you some water, okay?"
Charlie blinked slowly, and took way too long to process that information. " 'kay," he finally answered quietly. Don patted his head twice and tried to smile reassuringly, and then headed for the water.
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Sarah smiled grimly as Aaron walked into the apartment. Coalition leadership was debriefing tonight, and he was the last to arrive at the meeting. He was greeted warmly, but it didn't take Cracker long to launch into official business. Despite his nickname, which spoke to the lighter side of his personality, he was in charge for a reason. He had been one of the original five, with Joe. Now, just Cracker and his partner, Dawn, remained of that group. In the ten years since Planet Green's inception, the two other women had faded away, selling out to the society they had claimed to despise. It had been almost two years since Joe was murdered. Two years of escalating Planet Green's activities. Two years of waiting to avenge Joe. Sarah knew that Cracker was almost as desperate as she was to see that moment arrive.
He looked at her now across the circle. "Estimate," he ordered. "Will this be enough?"
Sarah rested her hands in her lap. They were all sitting cross-legged on the floor. "It will," she assured him.
She was surprised when Aaron disagreed. "I say, let's pick another outlet. We still have the bacteria. How effective can a few weeks at a small diner be? It's not like those who ingested the tainted milk will spread it to others; we know brucellosis is not transmitted human-to-human."
Sarah hotly defended her position. "Hundreds of people came through Bernie's doors in the last two weeks -- the diner is not as small as you imply."
"We need thousands," Aaron countered. "Without something big -- huge -- they still will not take us seriously."
Cracker interrupted. "We chose Bernie's in part because of his hand-packed, 'homemade' ice cream sales. If he used the milk to prepare that ice cream, we may get your thousands."
Dawn supported her man. "Exactly." She glanced at Sarah. "Plus, it is a family diner. There were many children there for breakfast, yes?"
"Yes," Sarah confirmed. "There will surely be at least one death. I served the same little girl a tall glass of milk every morning for two weeks. She has ingested a large amount of the bacteria." She grinned. "She was not there, this morning. Her father takes her to breakfast every day before school, but he said the girl's mother would not let her go this morning, claiming the girl was ill. He ranted about custody arrangements for half-an-hour, convinced the woman was lying."
Cracker snorted. "There will be death," he agreed, "and that will bring us attention." He tilted his head, thoughtful. "Still, there is no such thing as too much attention. We have the bacteria. I think Aaron is right; we should use it."
Patty, one of the younger members, joined the conversation. "We should release it," she started, "where it will do the most harm." She turned to the young man seated at her right. "Marcus, you still work part-time at the hospital?"
"Of course," he answered. "I'm going in tonight. I'll be keeping my ear to the ground. I pulled a shift yesterday, and the census was up; there had already been some flu admits."
Cracker followed Patty's logic, and became excited. He bounced a little on the floor. "Tremendous idea, love," he crowed, and Patty blushed happily and hoped he would reward her later with an invitation to join him and Dawn for the night. "As a janitor, you have access to the entire hospital!" He rubbed his hands together gleefully, and leaned forward a little. "Aaron," he summoned. "Help us plan the most effective method of release."
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Don stood over the cooler and drank deeply from the paper cup, his back to the automatic doors that kept the exam area shut off from triage and waiting. One more cup, and then he would take two or three -- as many as he could carry -- back to Charlie. He heard the doors whoosh open, and hoped that someone was coming to get his brother, but didn't turn around, finding himself afraid to look and be disappointed.
He heard a woman speak rapidly, not unkindly, but definitely harried. "Now be sure to follow the doctor's instructions," she said. "Plenty of rest and fluids. Just have a seat around the corner in the waiting area. If I can't reach either of your sons, I'll call a taxi. I'll come and let you know, either way."
"Thank-you, nurse." The voice was scratchy, but Don recognized it right away.
The empty cup slipped from his hands as he turned to gape at the man in the hall. "Oh, my God," he whispered. Hospital personnel and potential patients bustled between and around them, and no-one seemed to hear. He took a step forward and raised his voice. "Dad!"
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A/N: All-right now, you have some decisions to make. How sick is Alan? How sick is Charlie? (Remember, you cannot kill Charlie -- but Alan is negotiable.) Alan is obviously being sent home, but will Charlie be admitted? Will he be in the hospital when the bacteria is released by the janitor tonight? How will he release it? Will he simply leave a box in a corridor and wait for someone to open it, or will he add the bacteria to the spray bottles of disinfectant, so that all the janitors are just spraying it all over everything? Maybe he should find a way to get into the air duct system.
What will you do next?