The Disclaimer Continues. Ad Infinitum.

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Chapter 3

Don allowed a doctor to prod him for a while, and send him to x-ray. When the technician returned him to his treatment room, he sat there alone for a few minutes, waiting impatiently for the doctor to return. He didn't care about his stupid wrist, that could wait. But he wouldn't learn anything about Charlie, in here.

He had just stood to go back to triage and check with Larry, when the door opened and a nurse allowed his father to enter. Alan stopped just inside the door. She smiled at Don. "Just a few more minutes. The doctor is looking at your x-rays now." She backed out, and left them alone.

Don stared silently at Alan, who stared silently back. He looked gray, frightened, 20 years older than when Don had last seen him. Don finally closed the gap between them, and, holding his left arm awkwardly out to one side, gathered Alan to him in a hug. The Eppes men were not physically affectionate with each other on a regular basis – not like this. A punch in the arm, a shove with a hip, a hand ruffling hair; those things had to suffice. Alan had always hugged them as children, but as his sons grew, they began to pull away more and more. Now that they were all adults, Alan respected their preference for physical space, most of the time. In fact, as he stood in the treatment room occasionally patting Alan's back as if he was burping him, Don couldn't remember the last time they had shared a full-on hug. Was it as long ago as Mom's memorial service?

Alan finally pulled back and wrenched Don from his musings. "You should sit down, son." He was looking at Don's broken wrist.

Don followed his gaze. "It's nothing."

Alan found a hard plastic chair in the corner and dragged it near the examination table. "Still. I'll sit right here with you."

Don acquiesced and wandered back to the table. His father's hand hovered protectively over his back as he climbed on one-handed. Settling, Don carefully lowered his left arm to his lap and raised his eyes to meet his father's. He swallowed. "Have you heard anything about Charlie?"

Alan's eyes filled, but the tears did not spill. "He's having a CT scan, and x-rays of his arm and ankle. He regained consciousness during the examination."

Don's own eyes sparked a little. "Really?"

Alan didn't look happy about it. "He was very upset, confused. Apparently they had to sedate him again, for the CT scan. The doctor said they don't like to do that until they know the severity of the head injury, but he had no choice."

Don ran his good hand through his hair. "Have you seen him?"

Alan shook his head silently, then turned slightly as the door of the treatment room opened and a doctor entered, carrying an x-ray, followed closely by a nurse. "Mr. Eppes," the trauma physician boomed. "I see your father found you."

Don nodded impatiently. "Can we just do this? We need to get back to my brother."

The doctor hesitated. "The new confidentiality laws require that I have signed documentation before I can discuss your case in front of anyone else. Even your father."

Don stared at the doctor. "Fine. Give me the paper. He's staying." He looked at his father, suddenly uncertain. "Unless you don't want to?"

Alan smiled at his son fondly. "Of course I want to." He looked at the doctor and echoed Don. "And I'm staying."

All-business, the man nodded. "Right. We'll put the documentation with your release forms – just sign it then. For right now, the presence of a witness to your consent will suffice." He came closer to Don and held up the x-ray to the light with one hand. "There it is." He pointed with a finger of his other hand. "Simple fracture." He lowered the x-ray and looked at Don. "Are you right- or left-handed?"

"Right," mumbled Don.

The doctor nodded again. "Good. I should be able to set this with external traction. We'll cast it for about a month, throw in a little physical therapy and you'll be as good as new. Nurse?"

Don held up his good hand to stop her as soon as he saw the needle. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. What is that?"

The doctor had tossed the x-ray onto a chair and was snapping gloves on his hands. He glanced at Don. "Morphine. Setting a bone is usually…unpleasant."

Don shook his head. "No. I need to have my wits about me when we talk to Charlie's doctor. I won't take that."

The physician appeared to think for a moment. "Demoral? It won't be as effective, but it should take the edge off."

Don considered. Taking the edge off was exactly what he was worried about. He had been Demoraled-up enough times before to know that the first couple of hours, he was pretty much useless. He shook his head again. "No. I need to be clear. Just do it."

Alan blanched. "Donnie…" Don silenced him with a glare.

The doctor sighed. "Tell you what. You scream in here, it's going to upset everybody in the trauma bay. How about if I find out if your brother's doctor can come in and talk to the both of you now? I'll come back and set it a lttle later." He crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. "With Morphine."

Don knew he wasn't getting a better offer than that. "Perfect," he agreed.

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They sat quietly, well-behaved children through the recitation of injuries and solutions. Another simple fracture; this one a little higher up on his left arm than Don's. They would have matching casts for a month. A clear CT scan; no bleeding around the brain, no skull fractures. Just 15 stitches about an inch over his right eye and a nice Grade 3 concussion to go along with the gash, which was probably incurred during the bounce off the edge of the trampoline. His ankle posed the most severe physical injury, broken in at least three places, bone fragments floating around. It would require immediate surgery, plates, pins, a rod or two. They would have to be careful to clean out all the bone fragments, so that nothing got caught up in the blood stream and shot around his body cutting things up or causing clots. The description made Don's stomach twist a little, but the next thing Charlie's trauma physician said left him temporarily unable to speak.

Not so, Alan. "You can't do that." He looked desperately at Don. "They can't do that, can they?" Alan turned back to the doctor, tense. "How can you do that without talking to us, first?"

Dr. Anderson spoke gently. "Actually, I didn't. Our psychiatric resident did. And yes, we do have the right, when we've assessed that a patient is an immediate danger to himself or others, to place a 72-hour psychiatric hold on that patient. The first 24 hours are the most critical time for diagnosis, and that is why no visitors will be allowed."

"My son would not harm anyone," Alan protested hotly.

The doctor kept his tone friendly, soft. "When a patient presents with multiple injuries incurred because he jumped off a roof, it isn't necessarily other people we're concerned about."

Don found his voice. "He didn't jump. He was delusional. He thought he could fly. You need to do a tox screen."

"We are," the doctor assured him. "As I'm sure you know, it can take several days for extensive results to come back. Right now, I can tell you that his blood alcohol level was 0, and he's testing negative on all the usual suspects: PCP, LSD, Heroin, Cocaine…"

Don interrupted. "He consults for a lot of different agencies, on a high level. The FBI, NSA, CDC, Coast Guard…probably some I don't even know about. It could be related to a case he's worked, something hard to detect." He could tell that he was not making any headway with the doctor. Time for a dose of reality. "Listen, you can't do that. One thing he said on the roof was that no-one would help him." He could feel Alan looking at him, but Don concentrated on the doctor. "If he wakes up after surgery and neither my Dad or I are there, I don't know what he'll do."

The doctor looked interested. "I thought you said he didn't jump."

Don reddened in furious anger and slapped his good hand on the examination table beside him. "He didn't! He never said he wanted to! He kept talking about flying, I'm telling you!"

The doctor stood, the briefing obviously at an end. He glanced from Don to Alan. "I understand that this is very difficult for you. We have little solid information to go on, here. When he was conscious, your son was so distraught he had to be sedated, even with a head injury. Whether he jumped or flew, the fact is he came off the roof. We could be dealing with a psychotic break of some sort here." He looked back at Don, threw him a bone. "And you could be right. We might find out that it's related to some obscure drug, or a drug interaction. Until we are faced with that information, we have to act on the information we have. You're an investigator. I know you understand that."

Don fell mute, again. Alan had stood when the doctor had, and was standing with one hand over his mouth, his arm propped on the other one, which was crossed over his ribs. Now he dropped them both. The hand closest to Don gravitated toward him on automatic pilot, and began to idly stroke his son's face. "Can we at least see him before he goes to surgery?" His voice broke, a little. "I need to see my son."

The doctor glanced at his watch. "He'll be going up in just a few minutes. He's still sedated and won't respond to you, but if you want, you can ride up in the elevator with him. As I said, he'll go from recovery to our psychiatric unit, and no visitors will be allowed for the first 24 hours, but that does not mean that his surgeon will not come to the waiting area and talk to you. The psychiatric staff will want to talk to you in the morning, as well."

Don still sat silently, unwilling to accept what the doctor said, but forced to play by the hospital's rules. A fracture, even a lot of fractures, that they could deal with. Don sat, stoic, and refused to even consider the possibility that something inside of Charlie could be broken, too.