Alright, I think a few things should be straightened out...
1, I am not a nurse. I have no friggin clue what to do in ICU after a car accident (which is why you're all glad I'm not your nurse). The only thing about hospitals in this about hospital procedures is the organ transplantation...I just did a paper on that so I actually know how that works...
2, I own nothing from CSI.
3, I own Riley, Kiersten, Nurse Thompson, Jesse Franks...and anyone else not in the show.
4, I will sound smart when I start talking about CSI 'stuff' and medical terms in the case of the 'already passed'... (BTW, That's because I'm a CSI at heart...not a nurse).
5, um...I have a dog...three actually...and they're puppies.
Chapter 32
(Three nights later)
Riley walked to the nurses' station on the ICU floor and picked up her clip board from her 'box' on the side of the desk. She flipped passed the few pages of patients she had already treated from Recovery and Surgery, and sat down at the desk to begin filling out the necessary paperwork while it was still fresh in her mind. One of the worst things about working at the most frequently visited hospitals in Vegas was the loads of paperwork each nurse had to complete.
Nurse Thompson, an older woman with a chipper personality, approached the desk and handed Riley another patient file. "Here Nurse Turner...we've got another one. Car accident, little boy, 3 years old. They're chopper-ing him in so they need you on the roof."
Riley pushed her paperwork aside and followed the nurse while throwing her stethoscope around her neck and walking along side the much older nurse. "Little boy? Who was driving?"
"The father, he died instantly. The mom is being called in from work right now."
"How bad is it?"
The nurse sighed and shook her head. "Bad...the little kid wasn't in a car seat."
Riley let out a soft growl and shook her head while quickening her pace to get to the little boy who needed her help. "Damn parent..." She cursed and rounded up the stairs and onto the roof just as the chopper was landing. The gurney was quickly carried off the helicopter and being pushed frantically towards the ICU a few floors below. "What kind of car accident!" Riley yelled to the EMT over the sound of the chopper.
"Massive pile up, this kid was underneath it all!"
"When did he loose consciousness!"
The pushed open the doors and began running down the hall, the tiny little boy lying perfectly still on the frantic gurney.
"On the way here in the chopper. His heart started crashing but we got him back up." The EMT informed her. They wheeled him into an empty room as Dr. Crobott came in followed by a few more nurses.
"Hook him up to the respirator." The doctor ordered. "Get his lungs working."
"His body isn't responding to the meds..." Riley explained, not looking up from the boy's body. "His brain's sustained severe damage." Riley announced as the machine hooked up to his heart began to beep slowly.
"We're loosing him!" The nurse announced frantically.
"Get him back!" The doctor ordered. "Get the GHS up now!"
--BTW, I totally bullshit'd all that...I have no idea what a GHS is...or if there's even such a thing...--
One heart wrenching hour later, Riley was the last nurse to file out of the ICU room, coming face to face with whom she assumed to be the little boy's mother. The same blue eyes that had peered up at her for a brief moment in time were now found staring hopefully at Riley, silently begging her to admit something she subconsciously knew wasn't true...
"Excuse me...nurse?" The slightly older woman asked. Her bright, baby blue eyes and long cascading, perfectly blonde hair instantly reminded Riley of her sister...
Paige, the kids...oh dear Lord, please let them always remember to be in a car seat...
"Ms, is Jesse in there? I'm his mother..."
Riley sighed and took pity on the mother, but remained professional. "Jesse Meads?" The woman nodded slowly, almost reluctantly. "Yes...yes he is."
"Is he...he's going to be alright...right" She requested and Riley looked to the ground and subconsciously snapped the rubber gloves between her fingers.
"Ma'am...I don't know how to tell you this but, Jesse has sever brain damage." The woman's probably once sparkling blue eyes clouded over with pain and tears as she tore her gaze away from Riley. "He's still alive but...we don't expect him to make it through the night...he's still unconscious. It wouldn't be uncommon for him never to wake up."
Silent, deathly painful tears fell from the broken mother's eyes, staining her pink tinted cheeks. "He...what..." SHe shook her head and looked back at Riley. "Why?"
Riley sighed, wishing the doctor hadn't cowered out and dashed off to wherever he was and left her to do this...
"Jesse wasn't in a car seat...the uh, the impact of the accident snapped his spinal cord...he's in a vegetable state..."
The mother sighed and looked towards the ceiling. She was taking this surprisingly well.
Spoke too soon...
At that moment the woman let out a blood curdling cry and dropped to her knees. Riley's reflexes kicked in as she caught the woman and held her as she cried, looking around nervously whishing herself away.
--CSI Crime Lab—Morgue—10:13 p.m.--
"Hey Doc...who's the latest turkey?" Nick asked, walking into the lab with Greg hot on his heels.
Doc shook his head at the 'nickname' given to the newest dead bodies on his slab... (as new as dead bodies can be...). "Jonathan Meads...car accident victim number five."
"Geez...how many were there?"
"Seven dead, three to the hospital..."
"Make that eight dead." David announced, walking in wheeling in a large body bag. "Mrs. Alyssa Kentler, meet the Doc. Doc, meet Alyssa." David pulled the bag open to reveal a badly damaged brunette that had probably once been beautiful. Nick sighed and shook his head.
"What's with all the car accidents lately?"
"Did you know that 76 percent of automobile accidents happen within a three mile radius of the victim's house or place of work?" David quizzed.
"Otherwise known as the 'safe zone'." Doc replied.
"More like the 'death trap'..." Greg noted, still staring at the bodies.
"Alright, shall we get this over with gentlemen; I have other turkeys to carve...?" The coroner requested.
Nick nodded and crossed his arms low behind his back. "COD?"
"Subdural hematoma to the occipital of the cranium. He died instantaneously."
"Unlike his son, I hear." David noted from across the morgue, making all three men turn to look at the man.
"What're you talkin about Super Dave?" Nick asked.
"His son is still up at Desert Palms in ICU. He's got severe brain damage and is in a vegetable state..."
"And you know this how?" Greg asked.
"I was just there." David said pointedly, as if it was so obvious.
--Desert Palms—ICU—11:16 p.m.--
"I want him to be an organ donor." Mrs. Meads remarked from next to Riley. The red head looked over at the blonde, slightly shocked that she had spoken. The two had been standing at the glass wall for almost an hour, watching Jesse's little body be kept alive merely by respirators and machines...he looked so small and fragile hooked up to the atrocious, nonconformist machines. "I want to help others..." She lifted a French manicured hand to the glass, no doubt thinking about holding her little three year old baby in her arms and reading him a story before he went to sleep. She smiled softly and another tear slipped down her beautiful face. "I always teach him to help others..."
Riley looked down uncomfortably. "I can arrange that, the organ donation." She admitted reluctantly, knowing the woman's motives were pure, but the mechanics of actual organ harvesting was brutal...something no little innocent three year old boy should have to experience...conscious or not...it seemed cruel and unfair.
She nodded. "Hopefully some other mother can have her little baby tonight..."
"Healthy children will not fear life if their elders have integrity enough not to fear death..."
"Erik H. Erikson..." Jamey Meads answered and slowly let her hand slip from the glass. "I want to help other children...no one else should have to fear death."
Riley merely looked at the woman and wondered if she had been informed of her husband's death...
--CSI Crime Lab—Lay Out Room—11:25 p.m.--
"Where's the wife?" Nick questioned, looking up and around the table at the people surrounding him.
"She's still at the hospital with the son...she isn't required to come in ASAP since they already positively identify the body through CODIS." Warrick answered, not looking up from whatever he was writing.
"And we can't do anything until she gets here to confirm our theory..." Greg noted.
The case had been easy enough, Mr. Meads had pulled up to the stop light and slammed on the brakes to resist going over the set boundaries, but the car behind him hadn't been paying attention and rear ended the white Toyota Corolla, forcing it into the center of the four-way stoplight. Most of the cars were already turning into the next lanes by crossing through the center square where the helpless Jon and Jesse Meads set prey to the laws of motion as the four other cars slammed into them.
Gradually, a total of six cars had piled into the mess, each body claiming their treacherous fate of life or death.
"So...what 'till then?" Nick asked shrugging. The two other men shrugged in return and each went back to the boring silence. Nick sighed and picked up the ball point pen and bounced it on the table. he sighed and began rolling it back and froth, then bouncing it again. Warrick looked up annoyed, so Nick gave an apologetic smile and stopped.
He sighed again and began twirling it through his fingers, eventually flicking it onto Greg's forehead. Greg glared and Nick winced and mouthed 'sorry'. He snatched the pen back up and held it close to his face to study intently. He got a 'brilliant' idea and leaned back, tilting his head to try and balance the pen on his nose.
The pen continued to fall, but Nick never gave up. Warrick looked up annoyed and exchanged the glare with Greg. They both sighed in aggravation and tried to ignore the increasingly annoying Texan as he tried effortlessly to amuse himself with a standard black ball point pen.
Nick almost fell out of his chair while trying to balance the pen, and decided that probably wasn't the best idea. He grabbed a rubber band from the corner of the table and created a sling shot, firing the pen straight up into the air. Nick chuckled as it landed in his lap, and continued with the oddly amusing game.
"Nick!" Warrick exclaimed exasperatedly and Nick's eyes widened and he caught the pen as it fell back towards him, an innocent look on his face. "Would you please, stop?" Warrick instructed, his voice high pitched and cracking, trying to maintain his sanity and pronouncing each word slowly with perfect diction.
Nick sighed miserably and put his chin in his palm. "But I'm so bored..."
"So go watch Doc work with the DBs...or go scan Griss' fish board for the ones that 'got away'." Warrick suggested and Nick sighed and left the two to work.
--Desert Palms—ICU Room—12:01 a.m.--
"Thanks Ming, I got it from here." Riley said softly. The tiny Oriental nurse looked up, and nodded as she left Riley alone to administer Jesse his hourly antibiotics to keep the organs healthy. She tried to avert her eyes from the practically lifeless boy on the bed as she went to the IV with the needle and injected the medicine to the IV. She sighed and reluctantly looked over to the little blonde boy, his sandy blonde curls spilling over his forehead and closed eyes.
She imagined him constantly brushing the stubborn curls from his baby blue eyes as he played with his toys or at the park. She wondered how many times his mother had fussed over his hair cuts and how his hair grew at a mile a minute. His cheeks were still pink; oddly enough he looked to blushing and smiling, as if he had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar, although Riley doubted that had ever happened. Little Jesse looked as if God had sent an angle down to Earth to teach the other little boys and girls to play nice and teach everyone a lesson.
Riley knew none of these things for sure, they were simply hunches. A luxury and curse of her job, the ability to dream. Dream too little, you become cold. Dream too much...you burn out. She took in a deep breath and cautiously walked over to the bed, resting two fingers on the cold metal rail. It seemed out of place. A beautiful baby boy shouldn't be surrounded by machines, IVs, sterile cloths, and cold nurses (herself included). He should be at home dreaming peacefully in his bed only to wake up the next day to cause innocent mischief...
Instead, here he was, lying in a hospital bed being kept alive merely by the many machines hooked up to him, making sure that the organs to be harvested were kept fresh. The last organ to have been taken was the liver, needed for some little girl whose was poisoned...Jesse's lungs, most of his blood, corneas, and a bone marrow donation had already been taken. His heart would be the next, and final, peice of the boy to be distributed. Riley sucked her lips into her mouth and closed her eyes, trying to think of all the kids he was benefitting instead of the actual mechanics of the transplants.
"Nurse Turner?" Dr. Summlis asked, standing shyly in the doorway. Riley looked up suddenly and took a step away from the bed. "You have a visitor..." He said, mildly disapproving, yet meekly relieved...she was supposed to administer the drugs and leave...not stand there and silently pray for the little boy.
She nodded and brushed passed him, her head down, and walked to the front desk of the ICU floor. She sighed when she saw Nick standing there, twirling his keys between his fingers, waiting patiently for her. She didn't want him to be here. She didn't want to have to force a smile for him (as selfish as that sounded). All she wanted was to go home, take a nice long bubble bath, drink a glass of wine, and mourn Jesse Meads' shortened life.
He brightened when he saw her and she forced a miniscule of a smile for him and stepped up to him. "Hey you..." He replied softly.
"Hi." She said softly and Nick grinned sheepishly and rocked on his heels.
"Slow night...I uh...I thought I'd come see you." His boyish grin grew into a full blown smile that would have made her (and any other woman) weak at the knees, but not right now...she was too busy playing 'statue'.
She shifted and kept the sham smile on her face as she looked away towards the room the innocent boy was lying in, and then back to Nick. "Yeah..."
"So, can I take you out real quick for coffee? Can you take your break now?"
She shifted her weight and looked down. "Uh...no. I can't I've...gotta give a patient," A little boy who has stolen my heart. "Some medication," Drugs he shouldn't need at this age. "Every hour." Until he dies. "Sorry."
Nick looked slightly saddened but he nodded understandingly. "Yeah, okay...well...can I bring coffee to you?"
She sighed and looked down. "No. No, I'm good."
"Hey," He stepped closer and took her elbow in his hand while slipping the other hand underneath her hair to caress her neck softly. "Are you alright?"
Riley stiffened and pulled herself out of his grasp. "Yeah, I'm fine." She didn't want to be touched right now, a weird pet peeve that she had.
He took her hands and pulled her close to him. "Are you sure?"
She once again pushed away from him and took a step back, hoping he'd get the message. "Yes. Nick, I'm fine." She insisted and Nick eyed her oddly.
"Riley-"
"Nick stop." She said forcefully, her stern tone catching the nosey receptionists' attention. "I am fine."
"Riley what's wr-"
"Nick! When I say I'm fine, it means I'm fine. Quit pushing." She ordered sharply and Nick looked startled and shook his head.
"Whoa, what's goin on with you?" He asked and she shook her head.
"I'm fine Nick. Just go back to work." She replied, turning around and heading back to the little boy's room. Nick took a step to follow her, but thought better of it.
"Riley..." She ignored him. "Riley...!" Nick called, but she ignored him still.
Whoa...what the Hell was that?
Nick thought and turned while sighing to see the nosey receptionist snap her gum and smile sexily at him. Nick tried not to look sickened by her, and turned away without so much as a passing glance.
--Nick's House—8:02 a.m.--
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah..." Nick griped as he stumbled to the front door, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He frowned as he opened the door, seeing a very stressed and tired looking Riley in front of him. She hung her head and shrugged, extending a coffee cup towards him.
"Sorry..." She said softly and took on the appearance of a humbled woman...something she didn't particularly enjoy.
"For what; waking me or the major/minor ridiculous spat earlier...?"
She bit her lip and looked down again. "Both."
Nick nodded gave a tiny smile and took the coffee from her, raising it up slightly. "Thanks." He nodded her in and stepped aside to let her in. She shook her head softly and shrugged.
"I uh...I gotta go home. I'm beat from work. You gotta sleep too."
Nick shrugged. "So, sleep here with me. I sleep better when I'm with you anyway."
She smirked and chuckled. "We never sleep when I stay over..."
Nick smiled and gestured once again to the inside of the house. "So, we'll actually sleep this time." Nick responded and she sighed. "C'mon, you woke me up to give me coffee...you can't just leave."
"Well, technically I woke you up to say sorry...the coffee was for kicks cause I'm sarcastic like that."
Nick smiled and nodded. "Yeah well...stay."
"I still have to take a shower."
"I've got one of those."
"And I need clean clothes."
"I've got T-shirts..." Nick reasoned innocently and she sighed, not seeing any other way out of this. She trusted that he would let her sleep, but she knew Nick, and Nick liked to hold her when she slept. Why, she didn't know. All she knew was that Nick would want to be near her, and all she wanted to do was curl up in a ball and unhealthily mourn Jesse Meads' death. Seeing her make no move to come in, nor protest, Nick gently and loosely took her middle and index finger in his hand and softly pulled her towards the house.
She sighed softly and relented, finally stepping over the threshold. He led her towards the bathroom and handed her a towel and left the room. She kicked off her standard white sneakers and reached for the bottom of her scrubs shirt and pulled it almost completely off of her body when the bathroom door opened again and Nick entered. She brashly pulled the shirt back down over her body in an attempt to hide herself, though Nick had already gotten an eye full. He raised a brow at how peculiar she was acting and nodded slightly.
"Are you alright?" Nick asked cautiously and Riley nodded.
"Yeah uh...I'm fine...just tired." She partially lied, knowing Nick wouldn't by that for a minute. But the argument in the ICU earlier that morning he knew not to push. He nodded (not having much of another option) and set her bath things, which he had stored in the box he was planning on getting rid of, on the sink's counter. She watched him, still holding her shirt firmly in place, waiting for him to exit.
He paused in the doorway, giving her one last look before leaving fully. She waited a few seconds before stripping completely and stepping into the shower.
--Nick's House—Nick's Room—8:53 a.m.--
Riley had stood under the shower's spray until it ran cold, before she reluctantly stepped out of the bathroom, the towel still wrapped tightly around her. Nick had left a large T shirt on the edge of 'her side' of the bed for her to wear. He was facing away from her at the moment, but would be looking at her once she lay down in the bed.
She sighed and shed the towel covering her, and slid the shirt over her head and climbed into the soft, warm bed. Not more than a few seconds after her head hit the pillow she fell asleep, Nick was sure because her breathing had evened out. Knowing it was safe now to open his eyes, he looked at her from behind, her long wet incredibly red hair sprawled out on the pillow behind her, the blue sheets covering up to her shoulders.
Nick extended a hand and gently ran a finger along her spine and settled on her hip. He slowly pulled his hand away and scooted slightly futher from her, eventually turning to face the other side of the room. He knew she wasn't just tired...he'd seen her tired, there was something else bothering her.
He wanted desperately to force her to tell him what was wrong, but knowing that wasn't an option, he'd simply have to wait it out for her to be ready...if she'd even tell him at all...
--End of Chapter...--
Okay, (rolls eyes) I know, not much fluff and happiness before we dive back into the drama. (Shrugs) Y'all know I'm an angst-er! XD Alright...I'm sorry to report that I won't be online (or calling anyone or watching any television) until next Saturday night or Sunday morning... (Cries hysterically)
That means...
1. I won't be able to post any chapters till then. But I promise when I get (my life) back there will be an instant update.
2. I will have absolutely NO connection to the outside world cause I have to unpack my new edifice... (Dane Cook word)...then I have to work... (Cries more) life sucks...
3. (And by far the worst of all)...Quick, everyone get their tissues ready for me...I WILL NOT BE ABLE TO WATCH THE CSI SEASON 7 FRIGGIN PREMIERE! So now EVERYONE will be in the loop but ME! (Cries)...
4. (Special note to certain reviewers) Spacecoastbabe15 and Maestoso...one of you absolutely HAS to record it for me and bring it to me...I'll die if you don't...DON'T BE MEAN AND DEPRIVE ME OF MY HUSBAND!
5. Alright...that's it...
So please stay tuned for my return on Saturday/Sunday... (Thinks) Did I mention I have no coffee too? That means prepare for angst...
Alright...I think that's it...so...BYE! XD ...or is it... X((I haven't decided, but I'm pretty sure this is all a bad thing)
-Confused-tired-and-disconected-Futuremisscsi60