Author:cheekymice.
Rating: This chapter T+
Beta: melanie39. Hugs and snogs Melly, as always
Disclaimer: I don't own The OC, Ryan or Benjamin McKenzie.
Story: As requested Hero! In peril Ryan! Yeay!!! All in the title really. Set post finale.Notes: Once again thanks for being so good at waiting for this. RL is a great white shark biting at my skinny arse at the mo. And a huge snuggle to beachtree for her invaluable help. :)
Heist
Chapter 13
Taylor splashed water on her face with shaking hands. She pulled several paper towels from the dispenser on the wall and wiped her face.
The Cohens would be here soon and she'd have to face them. She wasn't sure she wanted to speak to them; she was still too shaken by what had happened. She supposed that she was hiding in the bathroom but the waiting room of Hoag was too nerve wracking. No one would tell her what was going on, as she wasn't family, and they kept asking for paperwork to be filled in but as she wasn't family she could only fill out the barest of details. Her nerves were shot.
This was not how she'd envisioned the night was going to end. She'd hoped for a good night kiss as she dropped Ryan off at his door, maybe even a vague arrangement for a date, they had had sex after all but this? No.
'Call an ambulance.'
Taylor quickly knelt down next to Ryan.
'Somebody call an ambulance now!' she shouted at the crowd around her again.
She tried to remember back to health class and first aid courses she'd attended; to anything that might help, but her mind was a blank. She just couldn't take her eyes off Ryan and she had never felt as useless in her life. There was no dramatic flailing of limbs like in the movies. Instead, Ryan shook and twitched like his body was hooked up to the mains. He looked so exposed and she wanted to shield him from all the eyes that were just drinking this in.
For once she didn't know what to do. A tall, dark haired guy appeared at her side and gently pushed her away. She stared at him blankly but he ignored her and took over. He moved several beer bottles that lay near Ryan, rolled onto his side and eased his head back slightly. He took his jacket off and placed it under Ryan's head.
'What's his name?' the guy asked. She'd dumbly replied, and he calmly talked to Ryan.
She could hear the bubble of conversations around them. People were excitedly talking about the robbery, elaborating on details that they couldn't have possibly known.
'What do we do now?' Taylor asked, her voice lost in the panic she felt.
'Nothing we can do but let him ride it out,' the guy replied. 'Has he had epilepsy long?'
She'd blinked at him.
'No…I mean… I don't think so.' She'd realized that she knew squat about Ryan really. Was this down to his recent head injuries or had Ryan always suffered from seizures and she'd just never known about it?
Ryan gradually stilled. The whole thing had lasted less than three minutes but to Taylor it could have been three hours. Ryan's eyes fluttered open for a second before they shut again. The guy lightly shook Ryan, calling his name, but all Ryan did was groan once and his eyes stayed shut. Now Taylor was panicking that he seemed to be unconscious.
'Is this normal?' she'd asked. The guy seemed to know what he was dealing with.
He'd given her a smile. 'Yeah…he'll be fine. Sometimes it just takes a while to get a response. The ambulance should be here soon to check him over. It looks scarier than it is. He'll probably not remember any of this. My sister has epilepsy…' he said, by way of an explanation.
Taylor reached out and brushed the sand off Ryan's face. Some of the partygoers were drifting off, bored now by the drama.
'Ew…. rank…he's pissed himself.'
Taylor caught the loudly whispered words of the ex-deputy social chair at Harbour, the salacious glee clear in her voice. Taylor heard a smattering of laughs and giggles. Some were embarrassed, like they didn't know how they should act given the present situation, but most were drunkenly mocking.
She felt mortified for Ryan and angry, angry that these people should see him when he was at his most vulnerable, angry enough to shout.
'Just go away… all of you…just fuck off and go back to your stupid party you bastards.'
Taylor didn't normally swear, her mother always told her that a lady never showed that side but she was so mad. She wondered why she'd ever wanted to belong to this group. She shouted again, scrub that, she screamed at them again and people started to walk away. Either embarrassed at her shouting or their own behavior, she didn't know which. Or maybe they moved simply to talk about how she was out of order or so they could gossip about her. She didn't even know she was crying until she was wiping the tears off her cheeks as the paramedics appeared on the beach. The kind guy spoke rapidly to them but Taylor couldn't really understand what he was saying.
Someone came up beside her. She didn't register who it was but a female voice told her it was going to be okay and an arm wrapped itself around her shoulders. Whoever it was she was grateful for the comfort right now. She watched numbly as the medics checked Ryan out. They fired questions at her. Taylor tried to explain the robbery and his injuries the best she could from what Seth had told her. They suddenly in her eyes seemed more concerned for Ryan and kept calling his name and looking into his eyes with a penlight. She asked if he was going to be okay but they didn't answer her. The guy joined her and held onto her trembling hand.
'Has he been drinking?' one of the medics asked.
Taylor admitted to half a bottle of beer. Was that bad? Should he have been drinking beer so soon after leaving hospital?
'His stats are holding. I'm not too worried about the lack of response, looks like classic tonic-clonic from the description given…but let's get a line in anyway… just in case.'
Taylor focussed on what the medics were saying to each other.
'Just in case of what?' she wanted to scream.
She'd gone in the ambulance with him, hoping and praying that he'd come around.
Halfway to Hoag he'd woken up, dazed and confused, combative and upset.
Taylor wished he'd stayed asleep.
He'd had another seizure as they'd tried to calm him down.
And now she was at the hospital, hiding from the Cohens.
"How could this happen? He was doing well." Kirsten paced around the hospital room.
"Honey, we knew this was a possibility. We were warned about this when he was in the coma. No one knows how long he wasn't breathing for and if this is all he has to contend with then we have to think he was very lucky and not make a big thing of this. I'm not sure how much more Ryan can take and us falling apart is not going to help him." Sandy pulled Kirsten towards him.
"I know, but it's so unfair. Did you see his face? He couldn't remember the seizures but he knew we weren't being honest with him. He knows something is up and what with these tests they're doing, he's not stupid, Sandy."
"But why worry him if it's not epilepsy?" Sandy replied.
"But it is, isn't it? We all hoped the absence seizures he'd been getting were temporary but now he's had two grand mal…" Kirsten shuddered. "Sandy, we have to face this. Ryan has to face this. I knew we shouldn't have let him out on his own tonight."
"Hey, hey, we can't wrap him up forever, we discussed this with the doctors, they said to let him get back to normal as much as possible and that means letting him out of our sight."
"But he's only just come out of hospital." Kirsten sat down on the end of the bed.
"And you know better than anyone that you can't keep Ryan down. He's not like Seth who likes the attention and fuss." Sandy sat next to her.
'It's just…just hard to let go. We almost lost him, Sandy. He actually died for a time and I can't get that out of my head, and now this? I know that a lot of people live with epilepsy everyday but Ryan's had it hard all his life and to have this thrown at him when he still hasn't got over Marissa dying."
Sandy pulled her head onto his shoulder.
"It'll be okay." He wasn't sure what else to say.
The door opened and a cheery looking nurse pushed Ryan through into the room in a wheelchair. They both got up off his bed and stepped back as the nurse fussed around him getting him settled.
As soon as she left Ryan looked up at them both and he didn't look happy.
"I didn't just collapse did I?"
He asked but Sandy knew he wasn't expecting an answer. Ryan's hand went absently to his head and he scratched. He picked at something and pulled. He looked at whatever it was between his fingers.
"Why d..didn't you tell me, did you not think I would find out about this?"
Kirsten gave him a look that said 'I told you so.'
"Ryan, we…"
Ryan held up his hand.
"The EEG was a dead giveaway, they s..s..stuck all these electrodes to my head and kept f..f...flashing strobe lights and shit at me, asking me how I felt. So I guess I didn't just collapse, r..right?"
His hand was back in his hair picking out the medical cement from his scalp.
"So w..w..what…I'm epileptic n..n..n…now? F..f..ucking great."
"We don't know that yet, Ryan." Sandy reached out and placed his hand on Ryan's shoulder. Sandy winced at how the more worked up he got the worse his stuttering became.
"But I guess we will s..soon, that's what the tests were f..for right?"
Sandy nodded.
"I'm sorry kid…you know that this isn't the end of the world, if it is epilepsy you can control it with drugs, it can take a while but most people on the right meds are seizure free for years."
"But in the meantime, I just fit in front of my f..f..friends and strangers and become more of a social outcast than I am already. Great."
"Sweetie…."
"No K..k..k..irsten….I don't want t..to hear about how it'll be o..okay 'cause it's not. You know how cruel and insensitive people are…and in this town it's e..e..e..elevated it to a whole different level. Just when I thought I was fitting in."
Ryan gave a bitter laugh.
"We don't know anything yet, Ryan, lets not jump the gun until we all know what we're dealing with."
"But I have no memory of anything after Taylor and I…" Ryan blushed, he stopped talking and lay down on the bed. "I'm s..s..still tired. You both might as well g..go home."
"Ryan, we're here for you, no matter what the tests show."
"Except it's me who's going to have to live with this, Sandy, not you, and we know what the tests are going to show, don't we?"
Ryan rolled on his side and brought his knees up to his chest. He shut his eyes indicating that all discussions were now closed.
Sandy sighed. That was the most infuriating side to Ryan. Once he'd decided that a conversation was over, it was. He was not like Seth who could be coaxed with bribery. Ryan was stubborn and the more upset he was the more he shut off from everyone. Time was the only thing that helped when he was in this mood.
Sandy nodded to the door and Kirsten looked torn. Sandy raised his eyebrow at her and shook his head when she made to argue with Ryan.
"We'll be back in an hour, Ryan," she eventually said making sure that her meaning as clear. They might be giving him space but they were not going to let him fall back into his post Marissa shut down. Ryan gave no indication that he'd heard. She bent down and kissed his cheek as Sandy opened the door.
As soon as the door closed Ryan sat up.
He leant his head back against the wall.
He'd only just got used to the looks people gave him when he stumbled over his words, now if he had epilepsy then that was just another thing that would yet again set him apart from everyone else.
Great.
Ryan set about picking out the remaining clumps of concrete out of his hair.
Why the hell hadn't they just let him die in that bank vault?
TBC
Thanks for the rewiews…love ya all.