Many thanks to my lovely reviewers, BatOutOfHell-Madness (hehe, don't count on every chapter to be as long as the last one, but I'm doing my best here...And yeah, Sobel is definitely not my favorite, either), beth-rodrigues.77 (yeah, I know, I'm really cruel to Dick, but it's just so much fun to torture him...), ChocAndSnow19 (Yes, that last chapter was tough, but I'll be much nicer to Dick in the future, since he'll soon have some lovely company... The most interesting thing about Doc Roe is that he's normally all quiet and shy, but just don't aggravate him when he wants to help someone or he'll give you a piece of his mind :-)) and indifferentshell (Hey, wonderful of you join this story! :-) Hehe, glad you liked the light-hearted scenes as well, I'll try to keep a bit of a balance between drama and humor, although this story is definitely leaning more towards drama. Also very glad you liked the men's insights on Dick, I wasn't all that sure if it would work the way I wanted!).
Folks, it's really cool to see that this story is actually read and reviewed, you really make my day.
Here's chapter three, hope you enjoy!
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Dick hazily remembered Colonel Sink ordering him to be brought to the military hospital, but everything that happened afterwards was more than just a bit blurry in his recollection. Someone had found a stretcher and they hurried him across the base, the jostling almost making Dick go mad with pain. He tasted blood in his mouth from the force with which he bit on his lips to keep from making a sound. Seeking a way to deal with the pain, he had curled into a tight ball, all the while desperately trying to shield his side from the fiery agony from within. But he was sure he was fighting a losing battle, the pain slowly becoming too much for him.
He was not even fully certain who brought him to the hospital, his vision all but tunneled at this stage. Lipton was there, Roe as well and maybe even Guarnere and Bull. The noise they made, shouting for help just after entering the emergency ward, at least brought a doctor running to his side right away.
The doctor tried to get him to lie on his back for the examination, but the pain spiked to new found peaks as soon as his stomach was stretched out only a tiny little bit, making Dick struggle against the hands that tried to keep him in place, intensifying the agony even more. Deep down, he knew that he needed to keep still and that the doctor was only trying to help him, but with the high fever clouding his mind and the racking pains in his side, he just could not help himself, he tried to throw off the hands. Someone was talking to him soothingly – Lipton? Roe? – and was trying to get him to calm down, while the others had managed to keep him immobilized for the examination.
They had pushed up his clothes, baring his abdomen, then the doctor started palpating his right side, making Dick gasp and whimper with pain. His struggling became even more desperate while trying to get away from the agony that almost made him black out. The examination took only a few moments, the case obviously rather clear for the doctor, but for Dick it seemed to last for ages. The iron grip on his arms and legs suddenly fell away and he immediately curled into a tight ball again, for this was the only position he could halfway tolerate at this point. He felt his stomach turn and before he knew it he was heaving from the sheer pain he was in. Someone was supporting him and someone else was holding a steel basin under his nose, even though Dick brought up nothing but bile and a small trickle of fluid.
In his tiny world of agony, Dick heard the doctor snap only three words, "Emergency surgery, now!" A nurse was suddenly at his side, sticking an IV in his arm, and then the doctor approached him with a syringe in his hand. Of everything that happened before and after that, Dick could remember this moment the best. The needle slipped into his arm and he could feel the cool liquid spread through his body. The fuzzy warmth and the coziness that followed in its wake made him almost sob with relief. He felt the rigid tension go out of his body, his limbs growing heavier with each deep breath he took. The angry pain was slowly ebbing away, the morphine lifting him from the fiery depths of hell to the soaring heights of heaven. He could have sworn he heard angels singing, somewhere.
The relief must have shown on his face, because he was sure he heard the people around him release their pent up breaths. Dick forced open his eyes, and blinked at the men standing around the examination table, trying to get them into focus, but not really succeeding. It did not matter. Everything felt velvety and the world was peacefully spinning around him in lazy circles.
"…thanks, doc…", Dick murmured sluggishly, feeling a deep, heartfelt gratitude towards the doctor, but having trouble to form the words and keep his eyes open. "…thanks… that's… very… very… nice…"
He heard some chuckling, then a hand shook his shoulder gently. Dick struggled to open his eyes, not even realizing they must have fallen close on their own accord, seeing a worried looking Nix leaning over him.
"Hey Dick", his friend greeted him wryly and a bit out of breath. "Heard you got yourself in some trouble."
Dick tried to smile reassuringly at him, the corners of his mouth feeling funnily gummy.
"…'m fine… Nix", he answered, his tongue not really cooperating with him. He tried to speak again, but the pull of the morphine was stronger and he got lost in his own hazy mind, forgetting what he was about to say.
He could not tell how much time had passed until they came to get him. He had dozed in the mean time, waking only when they lifted him on a gurney. A short, sharp pain in his side remembered him why he was there at all, before the morphine evened out every discomfort. They rolled him down a floor and Dick did not even realize when they gave him the anesthesia for surgery.
Some time later – hours, days, centuries, who cared? – Dick slowly became aware of himself again. He was lying on something soft, feeling crisp sheets beneath his hand. He felt oddly weightless, not really sure if he was awake or dreaming. What had happened? Everything was so fuzzy, he had no clue where he was or what he was doing here.
He must have made some kind of sound, because he heard rustling beside himself and then the sound of a chair being dragged closer to where he was lying.
"Dick?", a familiar voice inquired softly. "Are you awake?"
Ask that someone else, Dick thought, he was after all wondering about the very same thing himself. He was halfway back to dreamland again, when the voice asked again, sounding slightly worried, "Dick?"
Now, why would this person be worried? Dick found himself frowning with the effort of trying to put the voice to the person it belonged.
"I know you're awake", he heard again, a smile now overlaying the worry in the voice. "You're scrunching up your face, you know."
Now definitely curious, Dick tried to blink open his eyes, a task that was more difficult than he remembered, with his eyelids suddenly turned to lead. A blurry blotch with dark hair was the first thing that came into view.
"Ah, I knew you weren't going to sleep forever", the blotch commented drily, turning with a few blinks of Dick's eyes into the grinning, but still rather hazy Nix. "Good morning."
"…morning?", Dick croaked out, his voice hardly above a whisper. His throat felt like sandpaper and his tongue seemed to be made out of cotton. What. Had. Happened?
"Are you wishing me a good morning in return or are you asking me if it is morning?", Nix asked, making a mock-thoughtful face.
Dick looked blearily at his friend, trying to make sense of the different sounds coming out of Nix's mouth, but his mind was too jumbled to comprehend any meaning behind them. Looking around sluggishly, he saw an ugly curtain that was drawn around the bed he was lying in, separating it from the rest of the room. In his hand stuck an IV needle and he saw a drip beside his bed.
"…hospital?", he weakly asked, his unresponsive tongue garbling even the one word.
"God, you're really out of it, aren't you?", Nix commented, big grin plastered on his face. "I know the feeling, too. You're waking up in some strange place, no idea how you got there. The only difference is that in my case, there's always an empty bottle of Vat 69 beside me. And if it's a really good morning, a naked girl."
The curtain swished open and a dark-haired nurse stepped up to the bed, giving Nix a disapproving look, obviously having heard the last part.
"Lieutenant Nixon", the nurse said long-sufferingly, "this really isn't the place for bragging about your sexual exploits. If they actually happened."
If Dick had been conscious enough, he would have taken great delight in the suddenly abashed look on his friend's face, because it was an unusual feat to get Nix to shut up. But Dick was still woozily wondering about which way was up and which way down, he certainly was not awake enough to follow the conversation.
"How are you doing, Lieutenant Winters?", the nurse then asked Dick, her demeanor turning much more gentle, while she bent down to him.
She had nice eyes, brown and warm, with long lashes. And soft hands, he thought to himself, when she felt his forehead, then realized that his thoughts were wandering and that she had asked a question.
"..fine…", he muttered weakly, knowing by now that speaking more than one word at a time was out of question.
"Are you in pain?", she asked caringly.
Now that she mentioned it, Dick became aware of the dull ache in his right side and remembered at the same time why he was in hospital. The pain was not the searing agony it had been before, but he had a good guess that the humming of morphine in his veins had something to do with that.
"No…", he answered laboriously. Talking really took too much energy, he already felt his eyelids grow heavy again.
"That's good to hear", the nurse answered warmly, while Dick slowly lost the struggle against his eyelids. "Just get some more rest. And you, Lieutenant Nixon, will let him sleep or I will remove you from this ward before you can even…"
Dick never heard the end of her threat, because he was slowly spiraling down into the blackness of sleep again.
The next time he came awake, he was drawn out of the coziness of a heavy slumber by two voices, lowly talking to each other. At least this time he realized from the beginning where he was and what had happened, although his mind was still more than just a little fuzzy.
"Welcome back, sir", Lipton greeted him with a warm smile, when Dick managed to open his eyes. Beside him sat Nix, obviously not having left his side, giving him a tight smile.
"Carwood", Dick greeted the other man slowly, his voice still sounding weak, but functioning better than last time. He shifted slightly in bed, then stopped immediately, because the movement woke pain in his side. Out of a reflex, his hand tried to sneak to the source of hurt, but Nix was quicker, catching Dick's hand in his own.
"Careful", his friend cautioned, somehow more solemn than the last time Dick had been awake. "You've got tubes sticking out of your belly."
"Tubes?", Dick repeated sluggishly, feeling as if his brain had frozen over.
"Yeah, tubes", Nix answered seriously, frowning. "Your appendix was already ruptured when they brought you in. They got out what was left of it, but had to set a drain. Which would not have happened if you had decided to be reasonable and come here to get that little fucker out the moment the pain started."
Was there a reproach somewhere hidden in that remark? Thinking was so very exhausting with his head swimming. His eyes felt itchy and sandy, it would have been a relief to rub them. But when he tried to lift his arm he found that his coordination was completely off, his muscles only barely reacting to his wishes.
"Dick, did you hear what I said?", Nix tried again to pierce the haze of what was Dick's mind, sounding frustrated. "You're lucky to be alive and lucky to make a full recovery. Had you waited two or three hours longer, this might not have been the case. And Lipton here just told me that you knew what was ailing you for hours before you came to get help. Dick, you almost died because of a fucking appendicitis, you get that?"
Dick blinked slowly at Nix's intent glare, then nodded his head, making the world spin around him.
"You mad?", he asked wearily and with more than just a little confusion, already feeling the pull of sleep again. God, he felt like he could sleep for a week straight.
"Yeah!", Nix acknowledged, definitely pissed off, but trying to hold himself back for his friend's sake. "I don't actually like my best friend doing something stupid and almost getting himself killed in the process. How would you feel about it if our roles were reversed?"
Dick tried to think about it, he really did, but he could not string two thoughts together. His side had started throbbing fiercely, and his head was riding a merry-go-round. On top of it all, he now felt the fever again, a sudden chill making him shiver. Maybe it was just the morphine wearing off, but he did not feel so good right then.
"It's alright", Lipton tried to calm down Nix, probably seeing that Dick had reached the end of his strength. "We'll have a lot of time to discuss what happened, it needn't be right now."
"Thanks, Lip", Dick whispered weakly, just longing to go back to sleep and flee from the soreness that was his body.
"Alright", Nix conceded, but still looking upset. "Get some more rest, I'll come to visit you tomorrow."
Dick nodded gratefully, then closed his eyes, falling asleep before the others even had the chance to say their goodbyes.
It was in the middle of the night when Dick woke up again, believing this was the end, he would die right then and there. He was shaking uncontrollably, at the same time sweating from all pores. The pain was back in his side, stabbing and twisting with the mad rhythm of his trembling body. His equilibrium seemed to be riding an ocean storm, the dizziness so bad he could not tell right from left or up from down, making him sick to the stomach. Panic welled up inside him, he wanted to shout for help, but nothing came out but a shuddering gasp, his lungs all empty. He tried to get up instead, but that was totally out of question, even lifting his head proved to be too great a strain for his abdomen, pain and weakness bringing him back down flat on his back. Breathing was difficult, thinking impossible.
Just when he was about to accept that his short time on earth was drawing to an end, the curtain around his bed swished open and the small lamp on his nightstand was switched on. The dark-haired nurse from earlier on stood there, the light from the lamp illuminating her features, looking for Dick's frantic mind like a guardian angel.
"Oh my", she sighed, totally unfazed by Dick's trembling form and labored breathing, bending over him and taking his vitals with the same demeanor his mother used to display while making coffee on Sunday evening. "Your blood pressure has just about gone on holidays."
Dick stared at her out of wide eyes, gasping for breath, while he was frozen to the bed by pain and dizziness, thinking he might faint or die every second.
"Just breathe, struggling will make it worse", the nurse calmed him in a gentle voice. "This is just an episode, probably a side effect from the anesthesia. It is uncomfortable, I know, but you'll be just fine." Then she turned around to another nurse, that had just arrived at Dick's bed and said to her, "Jean, go and get me something for circulatory troubles and some pain meds. Be quick about it."
As if in a haze, Dick watched both nurses leave his field of view, feeling more alone than he had in a long time, repressing the urge to call out to them. The trembling had not lessened, aggravating the agony in his side. A small moan escaped his lips, the shivering making it sound more like a staccato than an utterance of pain.
"Shhh, it's going to be fine", his guardian angel soothed, coming back to his bed with at least three pillows and an extra blanket. Before Dick knew what happened, he felt his legs being lifted carefully and propped up on the pillows. The movement elicited new pain in his side, since he could feel the tubes in his abdomen being jarred. Next he felt the blanket being draped around him, then the mattress dipped gently, when the nurse sat down on the bed beside him.
"Feeling a bit better now?", she asked, wiping the cold sweat from his face, then feeling his forehead. Despite the pain he was in, Dick noticed that her touch was feathery light and soft, oddly contrasting to her otherwise brisk and no-nonsense manner.
"...m-m-mayb-e-e... a-a... l-little-e...", Dick ground out through chattering teeth, not really feeling all that much better, but hesitant to let her know that her ministrations were more or less futile. And after all, her presence and her reassurance already helped him keep the panic at bay.
He could see her smile a little at that, starting to rub his arms and chest through the blanket to let the blood flow back to where it was needed. Even through the fabric, her touch was soothing, leaving his skin tingling in the wake of her hands. Some warmth flooded back into his body and Dick felt his breathing grow more easy.
"I don't think I introduced myself yet", the nurse said, smiling down at him with brown eyes that twinkled warmly, while continuing to rub his arms. "My name is Lizzie."
Flabbergasted at the turn of events, Dick could for a moment just stare up at her from his awkward position, flat on his back with his legs propped up on who knew how many pillows, then stuttered, "P-pleased to m-meet you. Richard... W-Winters." Then he suddenly felt it improper to introduce himself as a civilian, and added laboriously, "F-first... lieutenant."
A peal of laughter was the first answer he received from her at that.
"I know that", she answered, still chuckling lightly to herself. "I filled out your admission papers. I even know your birthday. But I understand if you can't remember anything of it, you were in a bad shape when they brought you in."
Her voice had taken on a sympathetic tone, but it did not save Dick from feeling like a complete fool.
"Don't worry", she tried to appease him, smiling a bit, as if to apologize for making him feel embarrassed. "After all that you've been through in the last 24 hours you're allowed to feel a bit out of it."
Dick just nodded, holding on to the last shreds of dignity left to him in this position. He did not feel up to replying, with the chills still racking his body and the pain in his side far from abating.
"Where are you from?", Lizzie suddenly asked, looking at him earnestly with her big brown eyes, jolting him a bit from his misery.
Dick pondered a moment if he should ask her back why she wanted to know, she might after all look this up in his admission papers. Then he decided it would need too much strength to get all these words out.
"Pennsylvania", he just answered, a bit breathlessly.
"Country boy, eh?", she inquired again, smiling a little. He just nodded, suddenly feeling his world tilt some more, the dizziness getting worse. Where was that other nurse with his meds?
"Is there a girl waiting for you back home?", Lizzie asked again, her eyes dancing merrily.
Again, Dick was so baffled he had to hold himself back from sputtering, the pain and discomfort all but forgotten.
"Are you... h-hitting on me?", he then forced out, at least getting back some of his wit.
Another peal of laughter answered him.
"No", she responded lively, getting up from the bed, "just trying to distract you from your condition until Jean is back. Does it work?"
Dick stared at her, then numbly nodded his head, even missing the return of the other nurse.
"Ah, here you are", Lizzie stated, turning to the one called Jean and taking two syringes out of her hand. "Took you long enough."
"This will help boost your blood pressure", Lizzie explained, all business again. "Your circulation should be back to normal in no time at all."
The first needle slipped into Dick's arm. It took maybe ten seconds before his surroundings started to settle down, the dizziness slowly disappearing. The shivering stopped soon after that and even breathing became easier.
"And here's something that will help you with a good night's sleep", Lizzie commented, and gave him the second injection. Dick felt the by now familiar warmth of morphine racing through his body and could not restrain himself from sighing with relief. The pain slowly trickled away, becoming unimportant, and just before he drifted off, he heard Lizzie's voice close at his ear, "Okay, maybe I was hitting on you, just a tiny little bit. But you won't remember this part of our conversation anyway, thanks to the morphine... Sweet dreams."
-tbc-