Hang in there… one more chapter with a bunch of medical talk. Don't worry Twilight characters will appear later. Which by the way, the twilight characters belong to stephenie Meyer. We can't ever forget that on this site.

This one is a little long… I just got carried away.

Chapter 2

Pass down

-Tuesday 7pm-

"Mr. and Mrs. Whipple? Lindy called softly into the waiting room.

"Yes? We're here!" a small woman exclaimed shuffling up to Lindy. She was followed by a stout man in swimming trunks. His ample belly hung over the front of his swimming suit, and was covered by course gray and brown hair. A towel was draped over his pudgy shoulders, and Lindy had to bite her lip not to giggle at the site of him getting up from the waiting room chair. He left a splotch of mud plastered on the seat.

"Please…. is Joshua alive?" whispered the distressed man, his voice cracking with grief.

Lindy pulled her most reassuring smile into place. "He's alive, and-"

"Thank god!" the small woman buried her face in her husband's hairy chest.

"Let her finish, Lynette!" the man sighed patting her shoulder; his voice was filled with acute relief. "…and? What were you about to say Dr… umm…? Dr?"

"Oh. Oh! I'm a Dr. Daws; I staff the emergency room in the evenings?" Lindy extended her hand realizing these people didn't' know her from eve. She shunned the typical Dr.'s lab coat and wore plain blue scrubs. Except for at meetings, where she was expected to look 'professional'.

Her hand was seized by the half naked man and pumped vigorously. It's a pleasure Dr Daws Now… about my son? "

"Oh, yes, of course, his heart beat is strong, and his oxygen saturation is up. But…" she paused distracted. Did I ask Duncan to draw blood gas levels? He will probably remember even with out me writing out an order.

"But what! What does that mean?" the boy's mother was shaking with distress.

"But," Lindy continued. "He can't breathe for himself yet. He's stable!" she reassured them. "He was very cold so even though his brain was without oxygen for a while, the cold water may have preserved him. We are going to slowly warm him up from the inside out, and regulate his heart, and his breathing."

Lindy desperately wanted to tell them that everything would be fine, that he would be a happy healthy thirteen year-old after this. But she did not know if that would happen. I can't lie; I must be honest with my patients.

"We need more time to see how things will work out. But for now we're doing all we can. And he is alive. Dr. Clark is coming into look at him, and then he will transfer to the ICU for observation. He may come out of this just fine, but there is the possibility that there is some damage." There she had said it as kindly as she could.

"And as for you Mr. Whipple, I'm sure your cold," she tried to distract the couple from their worry for their son. "I'm sure I can get Marge to bring you some warm blankets, and maybe some clean scrubs to wear until you have a chance to get more clothes."

Lynette, Joshua's mother, smiled gratefully at Lindy as she rubbed her husbands arms which where pimpled with gooseflesh. "Can we see him?" she rasped.

"As soon as Dr. Clark has assessed him we'll bring you back. I promise I'll let you know as soon as there are any changes." Lindy was not sure if seeing their son in this condition would be comforting right now.

She returned to the ER to review the chest x-rays the tech should have shot. She sighed with relief the tubes were all in the appropriate positions "How's his blood pressure?" she called to Teresa.

"Ninety over seventy," Teresa replied.

"Let's start Dop-aa-mine," Lindy stuttered as the chest film was tugged, unexpectedly, from her grasp. "Dr. Clark, it's nice to see you."

"Wish I could say the same," Dr. Clark muttered into his gray mustache. "This better be good Daws. I was at dinner with my wife, it's the anniversary of our….. What! Why is he intubated?"

"Well, Dr. Clark when a patient stops breathing we need provide a way to keep oxygen flowing through their blood." Liberty said in slow syllables. Honestly, what did he think she was she supposed to do? She was sure her tone insulted his intelligence, but she was annoyed by his attitude.

"Don't get cute with me Daws!" Clark snapped. "I was only supposed to be on call tonight, and you hand me an intubated, half drowned, thirteen year old boy. Look at this he probably has contaminated water spreading bacteria all over in his lungs." Dr. Clark pointed to the cloudy haze that represented Joshua's lungs on the chest x-ray.

"Well, Sir, I can't follow up with him in the ICU and man the ER. If you would prefer to watch the ER… I'll be happy to settle him the ICU. But otherwise, if you really like, could follow up on him, on Thursday when my ER shift is over, but someone needs to admit him to ICU now." Lindy's voice was sickenly sweet she never spoke to a supervising physician this way, but who cared if it was the anniversary of the day Dr. Clark's cat died… or whatever he was celebrating. A boy's life was what really mattered now. She felt a twinge of guilt for turning poor Joshua over to this man, but his need intensive care.

Clark snorted, "I'm just impressed you managed to get the job done right this time." He turned to the phone and dialed the head nurse to arrange for a room.

Lindy knew what the jibe had been directed at, but she refused to be bated into reacting anymore than she already had. She could not make Clark a personable doctor, but she could control herself.

"What crawled up his butt and died?" murmured Marge, as Dr. Clark marched away from the front desk.

"Lindy… the kid with the ear infection- his mom has really had it, and she want's to go home. Don't you think they've waited long enough?" Mitch was exasperated.

Lindy turned her attention back to her other patients and began wading through the hours of the night.

- Wednesday -5am-

"Doug, got my phone number," Teresa announced.

"That's great," Lindy replied absently as she wrote down her charting. "Who's Doug?"

"The EMT of course, the young one. You remember." Teresa plopped into an empty chair. "So, will you be changing your name when you get married next month?" Teresa quizzed the night had calmed down. "Will you be Mrs. Clayton, Lindy, and McKinley?" she giggled.

"I don't know," admitted Lindy. "I've been Dr. Daws for so long it would be pretty hard to change to Dr. McKinley, but I think it might hurt Clayton's feelings a little if I don't change my name."

"Does he ever get like… an inferiority complex about you being a doctor and him being a Respiratory Therapist?" Teresa was digging for the deep questions tonight.

"I don't think so. But there was that one time when he started to change a patient's medications without getting a written order from me… well without even talking to me about actually. Things were a little sticky then. He said he felt I should have backed him up when the nurse reported it. But I can't just let him do just about anything without talking to me about… I mean their patients and I'm ultimately responsible for what happens to them. "Lindy sighed. "At least he hasn't tried it since."

The phone rang interrupting the brief respite.

"Breaks over, now everyone is waking up and feeling crappy. They'll be rushing to the ER pretty soon." Teresa joked. She was funny when she went for long hours without sleep.

The rest of Wednesday passed in a flash.

-Thursday 8am-

Lindy peeked through the curtains of ICU room 206. The preteen she saw laying on the bed looked sleepy, but his eyes were open and focused on MTV which was blaring with an old Bon Jovi video. He still had the breathing tube in his mouth, the ventilator still breathed for him, and he still had multiple IVs.

Joshua's father caught sight of her, and rose to cross the room. He now had on an Oregon state University sports jacket on, a pair of kaki shorts, accompanied by flip-flops. It was a big improvement over the swimming trunk. "Dr. Daws? I've been keep my eyes open for you."

"Sorry, I meant to come visit sooner, but I've been trapped in the 'PIT'… Erg… aaa... I mean… the ER. Wow… he looks good! And… I wanted to tell you how great I think it is that you went into the water to save your son" she choked out. Lindy did not really know exactly what she wanted to say, so it came out a little awkward.

"Joshua, this is the doctor who took care of you in the emergency room. She also saved me from freezing to death in my swimming trunks" Mr. Whipple giggled taking Lindy's hand and drawing her into the room.

Joshua managed to smile around the tube in his mouth. His eyes watered, and he swallowed. Lindy could tell that the tube was gagging him, but that could not be helped. In order to wean from the ventilator he had to be awake.

"Hey, Joshua," She sat in a chair near the head of the bed and took his hand in hers and gave it a tiny squeeze. He probably felt he was too old to be treated this way, but even adults like to have their hands held when they are in the hospital. "I talked to Dr. Martens, she took over for Dr. Clark this morning, and she said that they might be able to take the tube out this afternoon. If you can stay awake and take deep breaths while on the ventilator."

Hope flashed in Joshua's eyes.

"Oh... and I wouldn't make any jokes about her name being the same as the shoe brand. She hears about it all the time and doesn't think it's funny anymore. But between you and me… I think her feet are so big, that she should start her own shoe company anyway." It was a dumb joke and she knew it, but it was the best she could do.

Joshua gave half a grin, and picked up a pencil and scribbled on a clip board, that lay next to his bed... He couldn't speak and this was his best means of communication.

He wrote: You really think it will come out?

"Hopefully soon, you have been doing really well. We just want to make sure we cleared most of the lake water from your lungs," she answered truthfully. She spent the next two hours answering questions, and reassuring Joshua and his worried father.

Lindy crawled into bed that afternoon feeling good. She had not felt good about a patient outcome in a long time, it was nice. It reminded her of why she had wanted to be a doctor. Of course there were always sick people, coughs to cure, crying babies, drunks found unconscious in the street. But to really see someone on deaths door step and see them make it back was amazing. The feeling had sustained her through the last few days of work. Now, however, she was exhausted, her head pounded and all she wanted to do was sleep.

-Friday 7am-

The alarm clock blared, and white hot light flashed in the back of Lindy's head. She groaned and rolled over. Seven a.m. Why was she waking up at seven? She was a born night-shifter! Why in the name of heaven would she be trying to get up at seven in the morning!

"Am I supposed to be at work?" She mused out loud. Lindy caught her breath,"Clayton!" She was supposed to pick up Clayton and Jeff at the trailhead at Ten o'clock this morning.

She jumped out of bed, stepping on Smeagol's tail. Smeagol had been named by Clayton. "When he's bad we can call him Gollum" He had reasoned referring to The Lord of the Rings. The black and white cat mewed in protest and zipped under the bed.

He had lurked around the hospital parking lot for weeks before Lindy had coaxed him into taking food from her hand. His tail was crooked from some sort of accident in his past, but he was loved nonetheless.

Twenty minuets later Lindy was in Clayton's Nissan Frontier driving up highway Twenty-six. It would not be such a long drive if the highway did not have pass through Portland, which was almost always congested.

Pulling into the timberline trail head, Lindy sighed in relief she had was only thirty minuets late. That was pretty good timing, given her tendency to sleep in. She probably would have been on time, but she stopped at a drive thru for something to eat, she'd been famished.

The Trailhead was quiet with only two other cars in the parking lot. Lindy opened the door of the truck and walked around the trailhead stretching her legs. There were no sign of Clayton of Jeff, but it would probably take them longer than they had planed to descend the mountain. They could not have left earlier; they had no way of getting home. She had driven them to the trailhead on Tuesday before work. Clayton did not want to worry about anyone breaking into his truck while he was up the trail and he was also too cheap to buy a parking permit. Too bad he's not too cheap to by the nine-hundred dollar road bike, Lindy contemplated. Clayton had insisted that he could have spent a lot more money on an even more expensive bike, but he was trying to be 'careful' with his money.

-Friday 12:30 p.m.-

"Excuse me, but have you seen two men on the trail one with dark hair and a blue backpack the other blonde with a bright green backpack?" This is the second couple to come down the trail, and Lindy was starting to get a little nervous. Not really nervous, it was a long time before dark, and Clayton was very capable in the outdoors.

The backpacker who walked to his truck replied, "We saw those guys on… let me think… I think Wednesday morning? Do you remember Gale?"

Gale his companion did not look like she could remember her name let alone two other men on the trail. She leaned against the tailgate, pulling off her muddy hiking boots. She was covered with bruises, and bug bites. "Robert, if you want me to stay married to you; you will never put me through anything like that again!" She snapped. Her voice was course like she had done a lot of yelling already.

"Um thanks," Lindy retreated from the contentious couple. At least they had seen Clayton and Jeff, but that had been on Wednesday. How much longer would they be?

Lindy dialed Clayton's cell phone a second time hoping that they had somehow traveled into an area where there was reception." We're sorry but the customer you are trying to reach has traveled out of the coverage area," the monotone voice, blared through the phone.

-Friday 5pm-

Lindy ground her teeth in frustration. I have better things to do than worry myself sick. How dare he do this to me? He knows I worry about everything. If only I'd been here earlier. He promised to be careful. He thoughts were strained, and she was now VERY worried.

She fished in the glove box for a piece of paper. She wrote a quick note, and wrote C-L-A-Y-T-O-N in big letters across the top. She put rocks on all four corners of the paper as she laid it next to the trail marker. The note explained that she had gone for help, and that he should call her cell phone if she got this message.

With a sigh, Lindy climbed back into the truck and drove down the road back to the tiny town, Government Camp. She would stop at the ranger's station and ask some questions, maybe there were rangers up the trail and they could get in contact with them by radio.