Purple Heart – Chapter 12
Washington D.C. – Lieutenant Rollins Office
Catherine looked at Steve and then back to the screen. She could understand his reluctance to watch the scene in front of them.
"Do you remember any of that?" she softly asked and motioned to the screen.
He slowly shook his head. "No. I have absolutely no recollection of what happened. The last I remember is from about a couple of minutes before the bomb went off. I only know what they told me. My next clear memory is of waking up in Washington. I have some flashes of being in different places during my transport here, but nothing concrete," Steve told her while still staring at the scene in front of them.
"Would you rather not watch it?" Catherine could understand if he didn't want to see himself on the flight that probably saved his life. Who knows what they were about to see.
"No, it's okay, it just caught me by surprise. I didn't expect this," Steve said and wheeled back to the desk, ready to continue the footage.
Northern Iraq – March 2006
Petty officer Finn Hutchinson, Hutch to his friends, looked up at the chief who was concentrating totally on squeezing the ambu bag and getting air into his LT's lungs. But he needed him to stop what he was doing. "Chief, stop for a moment," the medic yelled again, and finally Myers seemed to register that he was being addressed by the corpsmen.
"You have to stop, we need to load him into the chopper," Hutch yelled over the loud noise of the rotors. The pilot didn't power down the engine, he was waiting for them to load the injured in so they could get out of there as soon as possible.
Hutch took one handle of the metal stretcher they used to transport the injured soldiers from the battle fields and together with the three others they lifted the unconscious lieutenant into the helicopter.
One of the other corpsmen took over the ventilation and Hutch closed the sliding door after he almost had to push the Chief out of the chopper. He then switched the head phones on and told the pilot that they were ready for take-off. They were airborne before he had even finished speaking.
Next he checked his patient; although he didn't dare take the armor off. He didn't want to move him unnecessarily. Hutch was seriously worried about a spinal injury, the non-existing reflexes all pointed in that direction. He only asked himself how far up the injury was. It was not a good sign that the lieutenant had no spontaneous breathing. But that might actually be because of the head injury rather than the injured back.
Hutch was rather surprised that none of the limbs showed any injuries, no broken bones and no shrapnel wounds. Finally something in the lieutenant's favor. If nothing else they at least didn't have to deal with any gushing wounds. But of course that didn't mean he wasn't bleeding internally. The trauma from the blast could have done a lot of damage. But so far his BP was stable and as far as he could feel, the abdomen was not rigid when he carefully checked beneath the armor.
Petty officer Hutchinson was just about to check the shoulders when he could feel the trembling starting and it turned into shaking in a heartbeat.
"Shit, he's seizing. Secure the tube," he told petty officer Jerry Ringer. He helped him get the bite ring in place that would keep McGarrett from biting down on the breathing tube and cutting off his air.
The shaking was getting a lot worse and turned into a full blown seizure that lasted over two minutes even with the injected medication. Hutch knew that he was looking at a very serious head injury, not only a concussed brain from the trauma, but most likely intracranial bleeding and skull fractures.
His patient didn't look like it, but he knew that his chances were pretty slim.
"You think he's going to make it?" Jerry asked him.
He only looked at him and shook his head. "Doesn't look good."
H50 – H50 – H50
Washington D.C., Lieutenant Rollins office
The room was deadly quiet when the short footage ended.
"You okay?" Catherine softly asked.
Steve could only nod. He had no idea that it had been this bad when he was brought in.
"You wanna take a break, before the next file?"
Steve looked at Catherine and tried to muster a smile, but failed pretty miserably. "Maybe not such a bad idea," he told her.
"Come on, we can go to the cafeteria, their coffee is even drinkable," Cath told him with a smile. "Dana, you wanna come?"
"No, that's okay, you two go. Bring me back a large latte macchiato, please?"
"Yeah. My treat," Steve told her and wheeled out of the office. He was glad to get out of the rather small room for a bit. He felt a bit shaky; seeing those scenes got to him more than he wanted to admit.
"Steve, wait up," Catherine called after him.
Steve hadn't been aware of how fast he had made his way out of the office. He slowed down and turned around. "Sorry," he said when Cath caught up to him.
"You sure you're okay?"
"Yeah, I just… I just needed some air, you know?"
"Yeah, I can imagine. You want to go outside instead for coffee?"
"No, I'd like a coffee." Steve smiled at her and told himself to pull it together. No need to lose it over some footage of the after effects of the bombing. After all it had happened months ago. "I just need to make a pit stop first."
"Oh, I'll wait in the cafeteria, okay?"
"Yeah, that's fine. See you in a couple of minutes," Steve told her and wheeled to the restrooms at the end of the hallway.
He cursed when he encountered the 'Out of order' sign for the second time since he had been in the Pentagon. Why the heck are the stalls for the handicapped always out of order? He could use the one a floor above, but he was not sure he would make it there in time.
Since he was fairly certain that his right leg would cooperate, he wheeled over to the row of urinals. In the hope that vertigo wouldn't hit him at a very inconvenient moment, he painfully stood up from the wheelchair. It took a moment to find his legs but he made the two steps to his target and braced himself with his left arm against the wall. He chose the last one on the left, so the wall was also next to him. Just in case.
It took a little fumbling to open the stubborn zipper one handed, but he was not willing to let go of the wall support. After a moment he managed and was rather happy to finally be able to relieve himself standing up.
Finished with his business he was glad to sit back down though, vertigo was still lurking in the background whenever he was not sitting. It didn't look like that would stop any time soon.
After washing his hands, he wheeled out of the restrooms with a smile on his face. It was not much for anyone else, but he felt like he had accomplished something rather big just now.
H50 – H50 – H50
Steve looked over at Catherine and wondered if she would be interested in going to a game with him. You'll never know if you don't ask her. Right?
"Catherine?"
"Yeah?" Cath absentmindedly stirred her cappuccino and looked in interest at Steve.
"Would you like to come to a basketball game? My team plays on Sunday."
"You play basketball?"
"Oh God, no," Steve exclaimed with a laugh. "No, but I train with them. Amy, my therapist made me go. And besides I wouldn't be allowed to play in the games even if I were any good, which I'm not. I totally suck at it," Steve told her with a chuckle. "But it's good cardio training, and I go whenever I feel well enough to do so."
"Why wouldn't you be allowed to play?" Catherine wanted to know.
"Too dangerous. I couldn't risk falling or getting hit in the head by a ball. But training is very good and fun and I shoot some balls with the guys. Have yet to hit the basket though," Steve admitted sheepishly.
"Ah, come on, I'm sure you're not that bad."
"You haven't seen me play," Steve told her again with a laugh. "Seriously, what those guys can do while in a wheelchair is amazing. It's really difficult to even throw the ball while sitting down. They are really good. So, you wanna come? It will be fun."
"Sure, yeah," Cath agreed and smiled at the happiness she could see on his face.
"What are you laughing at?"
"You. I'm glad you're feeling better now. It must have been a shock to see that footage."
"Yeah, it kinda was. They of course told me how I was treated and all. How they flew me out. But seeing it is very different. I… Somehow that guy we saw… I know it was me… you know, on a deeper level… but it's so strange to see that and not remember any of it."
"You really can't remember anything?"
"No. Colonel Adams said it's perfectly normal not to remember the event that caused the trauma, or an amount of time after or before the event. He said I'm lucky that I can still remember everything up until almost directly before the explosion," Steve explained what his doctor had told him. "He said many are missing many hours or even days before they were hit. I guess I should be happy that I can only remember bits and pieces of the actual explosion. Some things are coming back, but I'm not sure if those are memories or pictures my brain fabricates from what I have learned from my team."
"Have you talked to your team?" Catherine wanted to know.
"Yeah, a couple of times. They were reassigned, but they couldn't tell me what they were doing over a public line."
"Are you going to go back to them, when you're all healed up?"
"I hope so," Steve told her in a rather somber tone.
"Hey, what's the matter?" Of course Catherine caught his change of tone.
"I had a talk with my doctor this morning. It didn't go so well."
"Why? He released you, and allowed you back to work. So, what's the problem?"
Steve looked at Catherine and wondered not for the first time why it was so easy to talk to her, even though he hardly knew her. He still wasn't talking to his therapist who had been trying to get him to open up for the past couple of months. And Catherine was successful in that without even trying. "Adams is concerned that he's not seeing any improvement with the vertigo. And he is right; I still can only stand for a couple of minutes before I get so dizzy that I fall down. I even get vertigo a couple of times every day while sitting. I get severe headaches every day. Sometimes my leg hurts so bad, I… I'm sorry, I didn't mean to…"
"No, it's okay," Cath told him, reaching across the table to squeeze his hand. "I'm glad you're telling me. I know you must be really frustrated, but in the short time since I've met you, you've gotten better. A lot actually. You told me you couldn't move your leg at all. Now you're walking. You told me you couldn't get your body to react to sexual stimuli, and yet we had the most amazing sex," Cath told him in a whisper, making Steve blush. "Remember what Adams told you on Monday. He said you'd be fine. I don't know what he told you this morning, but, Steve, you will be fine. He told you to hang in there. Please just do that. Don't give up."
"That's what he said. He hasn't seen any improvement, but said it could still change," Steve clarified what his doctor had told him. "But it's been so long, you know. And those headaches are really getting to me. But the vertigo is the worst; it keeps me from making real progress. I can only train sitting down, and that isn't getting me closer to my goal of getting out of this fucking chair." Steve was getting very agitated and took a calming breath.
"Hey, Steve, hey it's okay," Cath told him, squeezing his hand again. "Look at me. You will be fine. I've only known you for a few days, but I know you will come out of this on top. Trust me, okay?"
"Okay." For some reason he did trust her on this. He managed a tentative smile and sheepishly said, "Sorry about the tantrum."
"I think you're entitled. Come on, let's get back to work before Dana sends out a search party," Catherine said and stood from the table.
"Okay, but we need to get her that fancy coffee first," Steve said laughing.
"She takes lots of sugar with it," Cath called after him as she took their tray and placed it on one of the trolleys.
A few minutes later they were on their way to look through the rest of the Intel.
H50 – H50 – H50