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Pride, Admiration and Respect

Chapter Sixteen

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God… he hated that smell. Too many times…. too many to count. Antiseptic. He supposed he shouldn't hate it as much as he did because at least that smell meant he'd made it out…. again. But where had he made it out from this time?

He tried to open his eyes but they were stubbornly cemented closed. He thought he heard a voice, but he wasn't sure. The sound was soft, melodic, almost pleading. But it wasn't meant for him. It wasn't near him but close enough for him to sense its presence.

Behind that soft sound were other sounds competing for dominance. Beeps. Steady beeps. Lots of steady beeps, each one painfully pushing a nail into his brain. A brain that was reluctantly trying to come back online and struggling badly. And why didn't his damn eyes open?

It was that thought that caused the beeping to accelerate. "Oh yeah… that would be my heart, wouldn't it? Good to know," he thought as he tried to slow his breathing and heart rate down in an effort to stop his head from exploding.

Slowly, but with tremendous effort, he worked to get his eyes to open. Eventually the smallest of slits pulled apart and his eyes were immediately invaded by a blinding light. He squeezed them shut as quickly as he could. But the voice… the voice was stronger now and he wanted to see where it was coming from. Once again he tried to open his eyes, this time much slower to allow them to acclimate to the light of the room. Little by little he was able to pry them open and blearily scan the room.

Turns out it wasn't nearly as bright as he thought. The light over his bed was off and the blinds and curtains on the windows had been drawn. The only light coming from a table top lamp all the way on the other side of the room. And the voice was still there but now, he could understand what it was saying.

"And then Ma proceeded to show him all Patty's baby pictures, including the one of her naked on the changing table with her little ass in the air. Patty was mortified. I tried to warn her but she wouldn't listen! She shouldn't introduce her new boyfriend to the family until later. Their 10th anniversary, at least".

"You should have been there Danny. It was hysterical. You know, it's been a long while since you've been home. I think we should plan while I'm here. Once you're up and well and out of here, we should plan a trip for you and Grace to come home for a visit. You could bring Steve along, give him a taste of Jersey. The family would love it." At the sound of his name, Steve's heart gave a little jump.

"So you see Danny, you need to wake up now. I can't plan such a trip for the four of us all by myself. You've slept long enough, lazy bones…" her voice was beginning to sound watery "... please…. please open your eyes. Please wake up Danny!" Annie pleaded.

Steve tried to look in the direction of her voice. Big mistake! The moment he turned his head red hot pokers were plunged into both his eye sockets and managed to break through his skull onto the pillow beneath it. The loud involuntary groan it produced was enough to alert Annie that he was awake. The pain also caused the monitor behind his bed to totally lose its mind as his heart rate skyrocketed to such an extent, three nurses burst into the room to make sure he was alright.

Laying there, fists clenched in the bedding and eyes squeezed shut against the pain, he endured their relentless questions, poking and prodding, all the while wishing the sweet angel of death would come and rescue him. "Are you alright?" "Do you know where you are?" "Where does it hurt?" "You need to slow your breathing." "Try not to move your arms." "Do you need something for the pain?" Stupid questions, useless prattling. He thinks… "wait… what's wrong with my arms?" And there goes the heart monitor again.

"Commander please, you must try to stay calm. You're all right." Finally, a calm, soothing voice. "I'll tell you what I can if you promise to calm down."

At the slight nod of his head, the voice continued. "You have a hairline skull fracture and a very severe concussion. I know your head hurts. I'm going to give you something for that in a moment. Just let me check a few things, ok? Only a moment or two, I promise."

"My arms?"

"They're going to be fine. The cuts were deep but no major vessels were hit. They've been cleaned and stitched. You'll probably have a couple of pretty impressive scars once you heal but you will heal. Unfortunately, you developed a pretty nasty infection so we have you on high dose, broad spectrum antibiotics. But they're doing the job. You're going to be fine."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome. Your vitals all look good. I'll be right back with something for that headache."

The nurse turned and walked out the door. When Steve opened his eyes this time, it was to see Annie leaning over his bed, looking relieved.

"Oh thank God. I was so worried. It's good to see you awake, Steve. Chin and Kono only just stepped out for a few minutes to go get coffee. They'll be back any minute."

"How long?"

"Two days."

"Shit!"

"Yeah I know."

"Danny?"

"He's right here, Steve. Chin convinced the docs the only way to keep you in bed so you could heal was to put you both in the same room. Seems your reputation for being a less than ideal patient preceded you. They didn't even question it."

"How bad?"

Annie hesitated. The pain he was in wasn't lost on her, nor the fact he couldn't seem to manage complete sentences. Steve saw the hesitation and closing his eyes to brace himself for the answer as he asked again.

"Annie, please… how bad?"

Just then the nurse returned as promised with a syringe full of blessed relief and Steve's doctor in tow.

"It's good to see you awake, Commander. I'm Dr. Richard Ing. Carol here has something for that headache of yours. Just let me check a few numbers and then you can get some more sleep."

"No… not yet. Danny…. please…. I need to know."

Dr. Ing looked at Annie who nodded for him to go ahead. "He won't rest until you tell him so you might as well."

"We'll second that." Kono said from the open door where she stood with Chin, having just returned from the cafeteria with coffees. "Take our word for it, Doc. Just tell him what he wants to know and save yourself a lot of grief trying to get him to take his medicine like a good boy."

As happy as he was to see them, Steve chose to ignore Kono's remark and focus on Dr. Ing. "Please…."

"Very well. Firstly, you sustained a very powerful blow to the side of your head which resulted in a fracture of the temporal bone. This, along with several previous blows, resulted in an extremely severe concussion. There was also associated brain swelling in the area. Although the swelling was minor, we felt it best to keep you sedated until the swelling subsided, which it did as of late last night. At that point we weaned you off the sedation to allow you to wake up naturally.

Now, going through your medical records, I can see this is not your first concussion, so I won't bore you with signs, symptoms or what you should or should not be doing with regards to it," he said, cocking his head and giving Steve the patented parents "you know the rules, young man" look.

"The fracture itself is not a significant one and will heal on its own in due course. You may experience some ringing in that ear and, unfortunately, combined with the concussion, I can promise you a pretty nasty headache for quite a while. But your EEG this morning was clear so there is no permanent damage to the brain.

Your arms sustained significant trauma from the knife cuts but luckily, while they were deep, they didn't hit any vital blood vessels. You did lose a decent amount of blood, however, so we gave you a transfusion while you were in surgery to debride and close the wounds. Unfortunately, the knife which was used to make the cuts transferred a great deal of bacteria into the wounds and they become quite infected so you are on broad spectrum antibiotics. Although it will take a bit of time, I expect you to make a full recovery."

Steve bit his tongue in impatient annoyance as the doctor listed his various injuries. He couldn't care less. All he wanted to hear this man talk about was Danny.

"Doc… please…"

"Do you understand what I have told you Commander. I understand your concern for your partner but you will be no use to him if you don't take care of yourself as well. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes… yes… I understand" Steve gritted out "now… Danny!"

"Very well. Detective Williams's injuries are quite a bit more severe than your own, I'm afraid. Due to multiple blows to the head and face, he, like you, has sustained a severe concussion. However, in his case, there is no skull fracture although there are multiple cuts and abrasions. His right eye is swollen shut but Ophthalmology reports there is no damage to the eye structure. That swelling should begin to subside very shortly. Orthopedics has checked out his wrists where the handcuffs cut into them. There is significant tissue damage but luckily no fractures.

His attackers did not limit themselves to blows to the head. He also sustained blunt force trauma to his chest and abdomen. Several ribs have been cracked and there is one clear break. There was, however, no lung puncture. This is extremely fortunate since hanging from his wrists put increased pressure on his lungs. Any puncture, even a very small one, would have been quickly fatal. His liver, spleen and kidney are badly bruised. Preliminary tests show functions on the low side but within normal parameters. We will, of course, continue to monitor those numbers.

The most significant injury was the stab wound high in the left lower quadrant of the abdomen. Again Detective Williams was lucky since it missed his kidney but there was considerable internal damage along with major blood loss both internal and external. This caused him to go into shock. EMT's needed to defibrillate his heart in the ambulance in route to the hospital. The blade also nicked his small intestine. He was taken to surgery immediately from the ER. We were able to stop the bleeding and repair the damage to the surrounding areas as well as the small intestine. We did a thorough cleaning of his abdominal cavity to remove intestinal leakage. There is a chance he could develop peritonitis because of the bacteria leaking from the intestine but we have him on an extremely aggressive regimen of both antibiotics and antifungals to try to combat that. We'll be keeping a very close eye on that situation over the next several days."

Chin, Kono and Annie stood by and quietly listened as the doctor filled Steve in on Danny's condition. He'd already given them the full rundown two days ago. Steve had shut his eyes about halfway through the doctor's dissertation and had the sheets in both hands in such a strangle hold his fingers were going numb. Finally, he opened his watery eyes and spoke to the doctor.

"Is he going to make it?" He was almost afraid of the answer.

"Believe it or not, he was very lucky. The extent of his injuries could have very easily been much worse and would have been if your team had gotten to him any later. He is listed as "serious but stable" at the moment. If he remains stable over the next 24 hours, I see no reason why he can't make a full recovery. It won't be easy, but I believe, with time, he will be fine."

Steve let out a shuddering breath, a breath he didn't even realize he'd been holding. He looked over the doctor's shoulders at his friends and saw small, relieved smiles on their faces as well. It was only then that he looked up to Carol and said "so you mentioned something to help with this headache, right?"

Carol gave him a warm smile as she walked over to the IV stand and injected the medication into the line already running into the back of his hand.

"Wow" Chin said "he must be hurting if he's asking for meds and is actually willing to take them!"

"I heard that." came from the bed.

They all warmly chuckled as they watched Carol fuss around Steve as he laid back on the bed, closed his eyes and quickly fell back to sleep.