Growing Up Chase
By Rebel Yell
Part Twenty-Two (Age 24)
It was 1:35 am, and despite having got off his own shift two and a half hours earlier, Robert Chase was back at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. He managed polite but rushed greetings for the staff members he passed, hurrying to get to the ICU waiting area.
" Rob? I didn't page you." Brian, the new intensive-care intern, announced when Rob walked past the nurses' station.
" I know. You just got two patients up from surgery, sisters, last name Hughes."
" Yeah, that's why I paged Dr. King…"
" Which rooms are they in?"
" Why?"
" Molly, love, would you hand me the files for patient Katherine Hughes and patient Sarah Hughes?" Rob asked, reaching a hand out to the nurse at the station, who was eyeing him carefully.
" Rob, I can't give you files for patients that aren't yours." She replied with a fact they all knew.
" Call it a consult. I need those files."
" Why? Dr. King will be here in ten minutes, they don't appear in danger of crashing, so there's no reason for me to get a consult from you." Brian asked, and Rob had a hard time remembering that the new doctor was actually older than him when he kept asking foolish questions.
" I didn't say it was a consult, I said call it a consult. Personal favor, Molly. Please? I'm not likely to go broadcasting their medical information from the rooftops, now am I?"
" This is a possible breach of ethics, and definitely a breach of hospital protocol-" Brian picked up the files before Molly could. Rob sighed, and held his hand out to the intern.
" Dr. King won't care if I 'consult'. You talked to the family yet?"
" No, the surgeon was in to do that, and Dr. King said he wanted to handle the update."
" Good. Give me the files, I'll take care of it."
" I can't do that."
" Brian, I'd like to remind you of a certain on-call night that you-"
" That's blackmail."
" No, that's calling in the favor you owe me." Rob corrected, as he pulled the files from Brian's hand and flipped them open before quickly picking out the pertinent and most critical information. "Molly, I'll be in the waiting room when Dr. King gets here. Tell him I've already talked to the family--"
" He'll be angry. He said to wait--" Brian broke in, sounding a little panicked.
" He told you to wait. I'm not new at this anymore." And more importantly, Pete liked him, and so far showed no signs of even much tolerating Brian. Rob handed the file back to the intern, and headed for the waiting room at the slowest pace he could force himself to take. He had to be calm, he had to be collected, because he knew that the family wouldn't be.
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" ROBBIE!" He barely had time to register Liz's voice before she was wrapping her arms around his waist, tucking her head into his shoulder tightly and sobbing. He didn't look up, paid no attention to the other people in the room, just pulled Liz over to the sofa and rocked her a little, hand brushing through her hair gently. It took several minutes before she calmed, and as she pulled away, just a little, Rob finally looked up. He didn't recognize the two younger men in the room, but he of course recognized Liz's parents easily.
" Hello." He hadn't a clue what to say…he'd never met half of them and the other half didn't like him very much.
" What're you doing here?" Mr. Hughes asked tightly, and Rob knew that he was upset about the twins, not really about Rob's presence, but it still hurt to hear a man he'd once greatly admired (oh how he'd envied Lizzie her dad) sound so…spiteful at the sight of him.
" I called him, Dad." Liz sniffed, and Rob handed her a couple tissues from the box on the small table beside the sofa. "I need him here, okay?"
" Tom, please don't make a scene. It's not like we didn't know they were still friends."
" We don't have to condone it, however."
" Dad! He's a doctor now -- he works here, as a matter of fact."
" Here? He's a doctor in this hospital?"
" In this very ICU." Rob acknowledged, and seeing Mr. Hughes face, continued, "Don't worry, I'm recusing myself from immediate care. I won't be responsible for their treatment."
" Do you know…the surgeon said the intensivists would have more information later, do you know anything?" Liz asked, laying her head against his shoulder and cuddling into him comfortably. She was obviously still worried, but had stopped crying, and it felt good to know that she was feeling even a bit better just being around him. He hugged her, and kissed her forehead before responding.
" I'm not supposed to know, but I looked at the files before I came in here. The surgeon told you about their injuries, right?" If he ignored the other people in the room, just talked to Liz, he'd be all right. He had trouble feeling the least bit calm or professional with Mr. Hughes glaring at him like that and Mrs. Hughes looking ready to fall apart.
" Yes."
" Sarah's doing well. If she continues to have vitals this strong and there's no complications, I expect she'll be moved to a standard room in about 24 to 48 hours. Her stats look as good as we could possibly expect after a car crash like that. Tentatively, without any unforeseen complications, I'd say she should be all right."
" Oh thank God." Liz breathed, and Rob just caught out the corner of his eye, the older of the two men he didn't know -- probably in his early thirties -- relax and sink into a chair. That must be Sarah's lad then. "What about Katie?"
" Kate's condition is more serious, as I'm sure the surgeon told you. Her stats are well within acceptable boundaries, but she's probably going to be in the ICU longer than Sarah. Our big concern with her is blood-loss and complications. They've already given her one transfusion, but we'll probably need to give her one more. If you don't mind, Lizzie, we might ask you to donate -- I know you're the same type as your sisters."
" I'd love to do anything to help."
" I'll talk to Dr. King about it when he gets here."
" Thank you for coming in, Robbie. I know you just got off--" Liz began, but he cut her off sharply.
" I meant it when I said you could call me about anything, for anything, at any time."
" Dr. Chase, a moment of your time please?" Pete appeared in the doorway, voice sounding tired but not particularly angry and Liz let go of him so he could stand.
" Of course, Dr. King."
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" Brian's having a fucking baby over this." Pete scoffed, once they were well out of possible hearing range of the waiting room. "Who are they and how do you know them?"
" Katherine Hughes and Sarah Hughes, the patients in 9 and 7, they're the twin sisters of the girl I was sitting with--"
" Yes, I noticed the cozy scene. New girlfriend?"
" Old just friend." Rob corrected, smiling a little. "That's Liz."
" The Liz? The one sends the care packages? The one who's an actress on that soap my wife watches?"
" Yes, but I'd appreciate it if that bit wasn't mentioned."
" Have her bribe me with enough of those cookies to keep me happy for however long her sisters are with us, and I'll have every nurse and staff member in this ICU terrified to even think it. Promise."
" I'll pass the price of silence along to her."
" So, that's Liz? My wife will want an autograph. You'd think a surgeon would have better taste in entertainment than a soap." Pete shrugged, and looked at Rob carefully as if searching his face for something. "You're not working in my unit until both the patients in question are upgraded and moved to a standard room."
" Dr. Jessup should make that call, as head of the department--"
" Should something happen and they code, can you run it?"
" Yeah. Codes are pure adrenaline, I could run one on Liz. Like my brain shuts everything else out but what I need to do. I could do it."
" Confident little fuck, aren't you? How about telling the family? You work in Dr. Jessup's ICU, no one's going to do the dirty work for you. You know the rule. You run the code, you inform the family. Could you go back in that room and tell Liz that her sister was dead? And do it professionally, just like it was anyone else?"
" No." Rob admitted after a moment's consideration. "I might be able to tell her, but not as a doctor. I'd be me…and that's not right."
" Knew you were smart enough to come around to my way of thinking."
" I can't…Kate could be here awhile. I don't have the PTO to cover it."
" I've already got an idea to keep you busy for awhile, Rob. Dr. Jessup and I were meaning to arrange it anyway. Go on back to your friend. You're off tomorrow, I'll get Julia to cover your shift."
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"Liz? Wake up, love. I brought breakfast." He leaned over, and gently shook her shoulder. He was whispering, hoping not to wake everyone else in the room just yet. He'd been relieved when Liz's parents drifted off on the cots he'd procured from storage, and Mr. Hughes had therefore stopped glaring at him. Kate's boyfriend, Charlie, was on the third cot while Sarah's fiancee Keith was asleep on the floor under the window. He'd tried to convince them all to go home, but…maybe he'd have better luck tonight. Well, hospital policy said he had to have better luck tonight -- they weren't supposed to have visitors (even in the ICU) overnight when no patients were close to death. Luckily, neither Kate nor Sarah seemed to fit in that category.
"Liz, come on. It's morning."
" Robbie? What's…oh, did something happen?" Liz sat up quickly, and Rob would have laughed at her hair if he hadn't been trying to calm her fears as quick as possible.
" No, no. Everything's fine, I just brought you some breakfast. Special delivery, so don't wake everyone else because there's not enough to share all round."
" What'd you bring me?" Liz asked, offering him a tentative smile which he returned brightly as he turned so she could see the plate on the little table in the room.
" Ta-da. How much do you love me?"
" Robbie!" She half-shouted, then brought her voice back to a whisper. "Where'd you find American pancakes in hospital?"
" I, uh, talked Maggie downstairs into making them special. Which is why you're getting breakfast at 6 in the morning -- she had to start helping the rest of the staff get the patient breakfasts ready a few minutes ago. Come on, I'll sneak you into the doctor's lounge to eat, so we can talk."
" Just give me the food and I'll follow you anywhere at this point." It didn't take very long to get to the doctor's lounge, which was empty since Brian and Pete were both checking on the patients before shift change in about an hour. Rob set the plate on the table near the "window" (Dr. Jessup had arranged to have part of a wall painted to look like Sydney Harbor) and retrieved a knife and fork from the small kitchen area.
" Thank you, Robbie. I can't believe you went to that much trouble."
" It wasn't much trouble." He blushed, and looked at his feet. In fact, he'd had to promise Maggie a 'private' lunch in the cafeteria and flirt with her a bit before she'd agreed to help him out -- luckily she was forty and more happy to mother him than date him, so neither one of them thought he was serious in the least. No doubt Maggie would make her co-workers think it might be, though.
" It's very sweet of you. Thank, Maggie was it? Thank her for me too. This is wonderful. Horribly sweet breakfast though."
" I'm glad you like it."
" Was there any change? Do you have to go home? When does your shift start?"
" I was scheduled to start in about an hour--"
" Robbie, you can't have had but a couple hours sleep! You spent most of the night curled up with me on the couch."
" I got through med school and my training on about that a lot of nights. I'm not working the ICU while your sisters are here, though. Dr. King pulled me."
" Oh, Robbie, I'm sorry. I didn't know you'd get in trouble."
" I'm not in trouble. We're not allowed to work on family is all, and if something happened on my shift…so I'm not working up here until Sarah and Kate are both upgraded and moved."
" But, Robbie, we aren't your family."
" You are. Which makes your sisters…sort of family."
" I love you." Rob smiled, and leaned over to kiss her cheek softly.
" I know. I love you too. That's why I can't work here right now -- I couldn't…if something happened, I couldn't treat them like other patients. Besides, Dr. King woke Dr. Jessup up at about four-thirty, and Dr. Brant about an hour ago, and it looks like I'm cleared to start my training in the NICU early. I was supposed to start next month, anyway."
" At least something good came out of this mess. You'll be wonderful with kids."
" NICU patients are too little to care if I'm good with kids, Liz. My PICU training is next year." He corrected easily, reaching out to snag the fork so he could steal a bite of one of the pancakes.
" Thank you, for coming in and staying the night with me. I know you must've been uncomfortable with my Dad acting so angry. He's really not angry at you anymore, it's just…stress."
" I know. It's all right, Liz. So long as you still love me, your Dad can hate me all he likes. You're the one that matters to me. And you don't need to thank me for coming in, love. I owe you a lot more than one sleepless night. I owe you, and Dan and probably Colin, a lot more than I can ever repay."
" You don't owe me a thing, Robert Chase. I love you. Love doesn't keep track of things like that."
"Love is patient, is kind. Love envieth not, dealeth not perversely, is not puffed up, is not ambitious, seeketh not her own, is not provoked to anger, thinketh no evil: Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth with the truth: Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things." Rob recited from memory, having learned the passage long before seminary school, when he needed something to remind him of why he (at fifteen) was spending all his time taking care of his drunk, sick mother and not out with his friends. He was smiling genuinely at her, but he wasn't surprised when Liz started crying again. He gently pulled her over to the beds lining one wall, and wrapped his arms around her tightly. Until Sarah and Kate were well out of any possible danger, he knew Liz would need him to be strong and steady for her. For once, he was going to be her rock, rather than the other way round.
