Part Five
*~*~*
A sliver of light filtered through the bleakness, a stream of sunshine suddenly lit a field of lush green grass, the chirping of birds and the light clean scent of lilies infused his new existence and little by little his body reformed.
First he felt his bare feet and the crisp blades of grass under them. Looking down he could see his toes, taking pleasure in curling them into the mossy sod.
A cool breeze blew across him, making him shiver, picking up his loose hair and whipping it around his face.
He lifted his newfound hand and shaded his eyes, the sun overhead bright and beautiful.
In the distance a corps of tall leafy trees lined the horizon, shading the grass.
And he saw her there, reclining on a blanket…the voice that called to him.
As he drew near he could smell juniper berries, a scent unique to only her and his mind went back to when they had first met.
She wasn't a botanist, but loved the study of organics and often made her own lotions and shampoos, giving them as gifts or selling them to make a little extra spending money.
Her pure love for nature and his love for her had taken them on many adventures.
He sat down with her, feeling his legs curl under him, realizing he now had a whole body, taking her offered hand in his.
The sun played off her beautiful dark skin, chocolate brown eyes sparkled with life, but…they shouldn't.
He'd seen those same eyes in the past, glassy and staring, dull in death.
Seen Jim close them because she no longer could and he wondered now as he stared into the depths of them…what was the last thing she saw?
*~*~*
The Cosmo reading aid finally offered to take Jim back to recovery. He almost felt bad as he walked around her and hurried into the room as she opened the recovery door.
"Wait here."
He expecting Blair to be there, but couldn't find his heartbeat among the curtained cubicles within the sterile room.
He'd been listening in on and off over the last few hours, worry and dread churning in his stomach, but he didn't know why…couldn't explain the undeniable feeling that something was wrong. So intent on listening he would be caught unaware, jumping back from a near zone out, pulling his hearing back to normal range time and again as sounds spiked, giving him one hell of a headache.
And Ethel had gotten tired of him after awhile. He had asked three more times for her to check in on his friend and each time she would consider his request, neatly fold her glasses and place them on top of her magazine and walk back to the authorized personnel doors.
And each time Jim could hear her requesting an update and getting the same answer.
Unable to shake the feeling he had begun pacing the waiting room, and with each new circuit he would get more anxious, wanting, needing for the surgery to just be over so he could see with his own eyes that Blair was fine.
Squeaking wheels pulled him from his mussing. Two men rolled a gurney holding Blair toward the cubicle, pushing it forward until the head end bumped the wall.
Jim resisted the urge to jump up, stayed seated in his chair until the breaks were set and the men moved away. A nurse holding a metal clip board followed the men into the crowded space, allowing them to pass her on their way out before looking at the plastic band around Blair's arm.
She smiled at Jim, reaching across Blair to shake his hand. "I'm Elaine. I'll be staying with Mr. Sandburg until he's moved up to the ward."
"Is he okay?" Jim asked, still shaking her hand. She looked over the machines around Blair, setting aside the folder and pressing some buttons here and there, adjusting the flow of Blair's IV and then injecting something into the port.
"Everything looks okay." Elaine pulled over a rolling stool, picked up the chart again and plucked a pen from her scrub pocket. "He should be coming around soon. You can stay until 12:45 and then if he's still here you can come back at 1:30." Pocketing her pen, she pushed back and stood. "I'll be back in a few minutes to see how he's doing."
Jim nodded, eyes never leaving Blair's pale face.
He's eyes were partly open, revealing a small slither of blue, but there was no awareness there, a sticky residue clung to the eye lids.
And a breathing tube jutted out of Blair's mouth, white tape holding it to parted lips.
Jim's moved closer, taking a slack hand in his. "You're all done, buddy. You can wake up now." As he spoke he glanced down Blair's sheet covered body, taking in the leads and wires, the tubs snaking from under the sheets, carting away waste and other bodily fluids.
Blair's chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm, and Blair's hand was warm in his.
Finally every sense snapped into sharp alignment and Jim took it all in.
He smelt pungent antiseptic and traces of drying blood…heard Blair's heart pump, the muscle squeezing blood through each chamber then into his lungs and veins…felt the heat rising from Blair's body in waves, hotter near his lower stomach and groin, were under the sterile dressing he knew sutures marred Blair's skin…could see tiny beads of sweat gathered at Blair's hair line, but now his body temperature seemed normal.
Jim had to believe what his senses were telling him and as the nurse came in to tell him his time was up he leaned forward and whispered into Blair's ear, "Wake up soon and tell me to stop worrying here, would ya…I'll be back in a little bit, Chief."
*~*~*
Jim was getting that sinking feeling again.
During his first visit to the recovery room, Blair had slept on and at the end of Jim's allotted time he was shown the waiting room. While he waited for a second visit he had calmed down, telling himself it was just his imagination, Blair's own anxiety rubbing off on him.
During his second visit he had questioned the nurse about Blair not coming around and was assured it wasn't uncommon. He's vitals were good and he seemed to be only sleeping off the effects of the anesthetic.
Now he was back for a third visit, surprised when Ethel directed him back to the recovery room instead of Blair's assigned room on the ward.
He ignored the background noises, the machines that whirled and hissed, the other patients in their cubicles, the nursing staff chatting at the desk. Jim only concentrated on his friend, who lay in the same position, unnaturally still.
And that same feeling of dread that had besieged Jim earlier in the day reared its head again.
Near the end of his time, the nurse came in again to check vitals, replacing an IV drip and then raised the blankets and looked at the dressing low on Blair's belly before readjusted the blankets and leaving on soft soled shoes.
She didn't seem too concerned, but still not completely satisfied, with only a few minutes left, Jim leaned forward, not caring who might see, not really understanding his own need.
He pressed his lips to Blair's forehead, tasting the salty skin and in that instant he knew…Blair was gone.
Pure panic gripped him as he screamed, "Nurse…Nurse!" Jim desperately grabbed up Blair's hand, feeling the steady pulse beating beneath his sensitive fingertips, his head spinning with conflicting input. Blair was here, right here, lying pale and still on the bed, but still with him, breathing, alive and yet Jim knew that the man's essence was missing.
Elaine ran from another room, another patient, her breath coming in short pants, her rubber sole shoes squeaking on the linoleum floor. Jim could smell a slight change in her basic scent, his brain automatically cataloging her response to his call for help. She rushed into the room, her face registering alarm, but quickly changing to a look of confusion upon looking at her patient. "What's the matter, Mr. Ellison?" Her eyes continued to scan the various monitors, her hand went to push back her auburn bangs, tucking a few straight strains behind her ear.
"There's something wrong…with Blair. Something's not right."
She looked toward the heart monitor again, the blood pressure readings, her eyes narrowing and her pupils shrinking, her nose wrinkling in confusion.
"Look," Jim urged. "He's not waking up. Something's really wrong here." She looked at him like she was considering calling the men in white to cart him away to a nice room with padded walls.
"It's not uncommon, Mr. Ellison." The nurse walked around to his side of the bed, gently laying her hand on his arm, guiding him over to the waiting chair like he was already a guest of the psych ward and maybe he should be. He sat heavily, resting his achy head in both hands. "You'll see." She soothed, "He'll come out of the anesthesia soon."
Jim nodded his head, agreeing just to agree, to get her away from him. He needed time, time to think, to come up with a game plan.
Who the hell am I kidding?
Blair was there, yet gone and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.
Soon Elaine came to tell him his time was up and that he could come back in an half an hour for ten minutes if Blair hadn't already been moved to his room.
He rose slowly and walked to the waiting room, lost. He sat in the same chair he had waited in while Blair was in surgery and time ticked by. In a daze he waited, mind unable to wrap around what was happening and more importantly, what he could do to help Blair.
"Mr. Ellison?" Thirty minutes later the nurse came to get him and soon he was back in the cubicle, holding Blair's warm hand. The breathing tube was gone, Blair chest rose and fell on its own and each time that Jim came back to the recovery room, Blair had looked better physically, but he wasn't coming around, wasn't waking on his own.
The doctor that preformed the surgery had come and gone, saying that sometimes the anesthetic lasts a little longer; she wasn't concerned...not yet.
They finally moved Blair to a room on the ward, deeming him stable even thought he hadn't fully awakened yet.
The high afternoon sun shone through the slated blinds covering the large window that overlooked the parking garage.
Blair's room was small and private, the last on the left, just down from the elevators and nurse's station.
All afternoon people had come to look and poke and prod, but Blair laid impassive, not noticing the intrusions, still and quiet, not answering the repeated questions or responding to the less then gentle touches.
The nurse assigned to Blair came in again, smiling pleasantly, sticking a thermometer into Blair's ear, holding it in place until she got a reading.
Jim watched dust lazily float across the room, the rays of sun dancing off the fine particles making them sparkle.
The nurse adjusted the bed, rolling Blair to his side, tucking the sheets around him, making sure that none of the protruding tubes were crimped.
"Jim?" Missy stood in the open doorway, hands shoved deep into her lab coat pockets. The sun played off the stethoscope hanging around her neck, drilling right into Jim's eyes, notching up the slight pressure headache that had been building up all morning. "How's he doing?"
"They say he's okay." Jim ran his hand up and over his shoulder, squeezing tight muscles as he went. His neck ached and his back burned, his brain hurt from thinking and rethinking solutions on how to help Blair.
Not that he had come up with much.
He had spent the early afternoon talking, urging, yelling at Blair to snap out of whatever the hell was wrong with him, but nothing had happened.
Even now Blair lay in front of him, eyes closed seemingly in sleep, but if it were sleep it was so deep and profound Blair might not ever wake again and the thought of that scared the hell out of Jim.
Missy came into the room, looking over the handwritten notes and printouts stuffed into a folder that lay on the rolling table near the bed. "But you're not so sure?"
God, he couldn't explain it again. "It's just…"
"I'm a little worried too."
Surprised, Jim stood, moving closer to the bed, watching as Missy pulled back the sheets, popping the snaps of the gown along Blair's shoulder, exposing Blair's chest. He was still attached to leads that monitored a steady heartbeat, but Missy ignored them, resting her fist on Blair's chest and used her knuckles to rub hard, leaving a red streak down the center.
"Is he in a coma?" Jim wondered, not liking that Blair didn't even finch with the vigorous rubbing.
She covered Blair's chest, shaking her head. "I don't think so, but I'm gonna get a scan of his head to be sure."
Within minutes, they took Blair away for an MRI, Missy following along with a promise that once the test was done she would have a better answer.
Jim sank to the worn vinyl chair, feeling for the first time that there was hope, that whatever was happening would come to an end.
He followed the sound of the squeaky wheels of the gurney down the hall and into the elevator, could hear the gears and pulleys carry the car up a floor and the doors parting. Lost in the sounds of movement, watching the dust dance around the room he listened as Blair was lifted to the table of the MRI machine and the sheets tucked around his body.
The tech spoke to Blair as if everything was awake. The machine whirled to life and a tapping, humming racket filled Jim's ears. Just before he pulled away from the noise of the test he thought he heard Blair's voice.
Rough and low, mumbled and slow, but definitely spoken, Jim heard Blair say, "Jaannnet."
*~*~*
'Janet…What is this place?' Blair turned around, taking in the wildflowers and trees, breathing in the clean fresh sent of the forest.
Janet stepped closer, her hand rising to rest on his shoulder, her brown eyes suddenly sad. 'It's you, Blair.'
But he didn't understand.
Moving away from her, looking around the clearing he spotted her red mustang parked along a dirt road, the top down and black leather seats shinning in the sun light. This was the car that took them on their many journeys.
He turned to ask where they were again, but she was gone.
The forest melted around him, the green trees morphed into brick buildings and the lush grass to asphalt.
Glass crunched under his feet and he looked up to see a large picture window smashed out, TV's and stereo equipment sat in a display beyond the broken pane.
'Come on, dude…let's go.' A familiar voice rang out behind him.
This can't be happening…it's not real.
Turning slowly, he came face to face with a ghost from the past. 'Roy? Sweet Roy…'
'Gotta move, man…let's get outta here.'
'No wait…' But Roy jogged off down the street, leaving him alone, the landscape changing again as Roy's body wavered and then disappeared.
He was alone again.
Roy had left him, just like Janet, just like his grandparents. They were all gone…they were all dead.
Oh, god…I'm dead!
Blair slammed his eyes closed, biting his bottom lip hard, feeling the sting of pain.
He was dead. Something horrible had happened to him and now he was stuck here, wherever here was.
'You can open your eyes, Hairy Blairy.'
Blair's heart jumped as he whipped around, eyes straining to see anything in the utter darkness.
No…no, no, no.
'I can be you…' the disembodied voice taunted him; whispered hideous and terrible things in his ear, feather soft touches grazed Blair's shoulder and then his hair. He stumbled forward a few steps on wobbly knees, hands raised and outstretched, searching in the dark, protecting himself from the invisible threat, but David Lash never materialized.
Instead a spark of flame ignited in the pitch black, its cool blue blaze not casting any illumination. Blair watched in utter horror as the wave of fire moved closer, its form folding in on it's self, gliding gracefully across the space between them.
Closer and closer it came, a horrible screeching filled the dark space Blair was in and he covered his ears, his heart beating so hard it hurt his chest.
This isn't real…it can't be.
The fire people were caused by a bad trip, the product of being poisoned by Golden.
They weren't real.
'This isn't real…it isn't real.'
Closing his eyes tight, he wrapped his arms around himself, crouching down and tucking his head under his arm, waiting to be consumed, but the hot lick of flame never touch his skin.
After a time he cautiously opened his eyes a saw an unfamiliar room, his body twisted on a bed, his arms wrapped around himself and his head turned at an odd angle. The TV was on, but from his prospective, it was upside down.
The room was dim, a small light shone somewhere off to the right, but he couldn't turn his head to look.
His arms didn't work, nor his legs. His eyes tracked slowly across the tangled sheets, but he couldn't even blink.
"Oh god, Blair!"
He could hear feet pounding toward him and hands on his hips and back as his body was shifted.
"The meds are starting to work, Jim…"
Missy?
Their words flowed over him as he was positioned on a hospital bed, pain radiated from his groin and stomach and he remembered. He was having corrective surgery, but something had gone terribly wrong.
He could feel it, feel it all.
The memory of horrible pain was still fresh in his head and he wanted to tell them that he had felt each and every cut of his skin, the burn of the cauterizing tools, the pull of the instruments that held his skin and muscles apart, but his mouth wasn't working.
This new existence was more real then the last.
He was trapped inside his body….like he was on the inside, looking out, but not able to respond to the world around him.
*~*~*
TBC
