Gwen comes bursting into the room startling Goliath out of his glowering. As Gwen is turning on a light box on the wall and quickly cramming the x-ray into the clip at the top, Bob follows in at a more sedate pace. Bob turns off the light to the room as the light box starts to glow and the others get their first look at Brooklyn's x-ray. They can clearly see the clean white lines of the uninjured bones that lead to what looks to be an explosion of white with little pieces of white floating around it.
"Ok, the bad news is that the bones have fused as I feared," Gwen states.
"So what's the good news," Brooklyn grumbles.
"I think we can fix it," Gwen grins. "We won't know more until we're in there and the surgery will not be easy and you'll be out of commission for at least a couple nights, but I'm confident that you'll fly again."
"Really?" Brooklyn asks; hope starting to color his voice.
"Really," Gwen assures him, her grin getting bigger.
"What are all those little bits of white?" Goliath asks, finally standing up to get a good look at the film.
"That's what's going to be the pain in the patoot of this surgery," Gwen states as she takes a pen from her breast pocket and starts to point to the little fragments of white. "These are bone fragments that are going to have to be removed piece by piece. After we get in there and see how bad it really is, then we'll know how much of the fused bone we're going to have to remove. Depending on how much we have to remove, depends on how much hardware we're going to need."
"You keep saying 'we'," Goliath points out. "Who else is going to be doing this with you?"
"I will be," Bob says from the back of the room. "The OR is being readied now. By the time we get Brooklyn prepped, we'll be good to go."
"You want to do the surgery now?" Brooklyn questions, panic tinting his voice.
"Yes, Brooklyn, now," Gwen answers. "As Goliath said, we don't have all night. This surgery is going to take some time and the sooner we get started the better."
"So let's get started, shall we?" Bob suggests as he waves towards the door and Brooklyn nods with a sigh.
"If I ever get my talons on Demona, I'm going to break her wings so she knows what it's like," Brooklyn grumbles as he heads for the door.
Fortunately for Gwen, the room is dark and no one sees the color drain from her face. A shiver runs down her spine and she quickly shakes herself out of it. She follows Bob and Brooklyn towards the exit, trying to concentrate on the upcoming surgery and not the name she's just heard.
Goliath, Elisa and Lex stand next to Brooklyn as he lays on a gurney, scared nearly out of his wits. Elisa takes one of his talons into her hand and gives it a squeeze as she smiles down at him.
"You'll be fine," Elisa assures him as Gwen walks up with a syringe in her hand.
"She's right," Gwen seconds as she cleans a spot on his arm. "I'm going to give you an injection now. In a few minutes things are going to start to get fuzzy and you'll get a bit dizzy, that's why we have you lying down already. Don't fight it, just let take you under. When you wake up, your wing will be repaired. Are you ready?"
"No, but you might as well get it over with," Brooklyn replies, a slight tremble to his voice.
Without another word, she slides the needle into his tough hide and gives him the injection. True to her word, a couple minutes later his world starts to get fuzzy and blurry. He's glad he's lying down because he's sure he'd be about falling down now. He can hear people talking, but it sounds like they're talking from a world away. Despite her what she said, he tries to fight it, but in the end the drug wins and he slips into darkness.
As soon as they're sure he's under, the techs surround the table, pushing the concerned friends out of the way. Goliath watches with barely contained anger as he sees the humans manhandle his clan mate. A low, deep growl escapes his throat when he sees them stuff a tube down Brooklyn's throat causing the techs to shift nervously away from him.
"Perhaps we should go wait in the examination room," Elisa suggests as she pulls on Goliath's arm.
"That's a very good idea," agrees a tall strange man with silver white hair and a mustache that's standing behind the trio. "Hi, I'm Kevin Fitzgerald. I'm a doctor here."
"If you're a doctor then you can tell me why they just put that tube down his throat," Goliath snarls, pointing at Brooklyn.
"The shot he was given was just to knock him out and will only last a short time," Kevin explains as he helps Elisa herd Goliath out of the prep area. "The tube is used to administer a knock out gas throughout the operation so that he doesn't wake up in the middle of it. Once he's in the operating room, I'm sure neither Dr. Taylor nor Dr. Knight will mind you watching, but for now, let's leave the techs to do their jobs."
After they're gone, Lex watches from a corner of the room as his best friend is prepped for surgery. He's torn between being fascinated and horrified at what they're doing. He stays until they wheel Brooklyn away and then he follows them until they take Brooklyn to a set of doors where he's handed off to another group of people. Lex tries to follow until Karen stops him.
"You can't go into the OR unless you're part of the operating team," she tells him and then points to a window in the wall. "You can watch them from there. I could get you a chair so you can see better if you like."
"Yes, please," Lex replies as he goes over to the window.
About a minute later, Karen returns with a chair and Lex gladly climbs up to watch them finish preparing Brooklyn. Just as Gwen and Bob go into the room wearing funny green clothing over their regular clothes, Goliath and Elisa join him. The three of them watch as the two doctors scrub up for the operation.
A short eternity later, Gwen makes the first incision. The three of them watch until the bones are exposed and Elisa turns around.
"I can't watch this," she states as she heads down the hall. "I'm going to store and pick those chewable calcium tables the Dr. Fitzgerald suggested I get."
"We'll be here when you get back," Goliath replies, not taking his eyes off of the gruesome scene in front of him.
"I wouldn't expect you to be anywhere else, Big Guy," she quietly replies with a smile.
After removing over twenty bone splinters, cutting out the badly fused bones and stabilizing the area with a lot of internal and external hardware, they're done. It's taken them over three hours to complete the whole procedure, but they walk away confident that Brooklyn will fly again. When they walk out of the OR, Goliath and Lex are waiting there for them with Elisa sound asleep in Goliath's arms.
"Well?" Goliath prompts when the doctor isn't immediately forth coming with the news.
"As long as he doesn't try anything foolish over the next few nights, I believe he'll be good as new," Gwen smiles as she pulls the funny green hair cover off of her head.
"Good," he nods his approval. "How soon before we can take him back to castle?"
"And here comes the hard part," she grimaces. "I don't want him going back to the castle for now. The temptation to fly would be to great way up there."
"Then where do you suggest he stay?" he asks, a dangerous hint to his voice. "Here? Locked in a cage with the other animals?"
"I want him to stay with me," she answers, quickly continuing on before he can protest. "Hear me out! I want him where I can keep an eye on him in case something goes wrong. He'll be safe in my apartment during the day since I live alone. And because I live on the third floor, he's not likely to be tempted to jump out the window."
"How would you be able to keep an eye on him?" he demands, frowning down at the small woman. "You must sleep at night since you work during the day. How could you possibly watch him better than we can?"
"I can't," she replies truthfully. "That's why I would like Lexington to come with us. That way if something does go wrong, he can wake me and I'm right there to take care of it. If he goes home with you and something goes wrong, a lot of problems could arise before I could get there. And please don't ask me to go and stay at the castle. I do have to go to work tomorrow."
"I don't like it," he growls.
"I knew you wouldn't," she sighs. "But please think about it with your head instead of your heart for a little bit. I need to go get cleaned up. I'll be back in a bit."
With that, she turns and walks away, leaving the two gargoyles and the human in the hallway. A moment later, they're carefully wheeling Brooklyn out of the OR with a tech holding his injured wing so that it doesn't get hurt.
"She's right, you know," a soft female voice says causing Goliath to look down at the woman in his arms.
"I thought you were asleep," he states as he starts to follow Brooklyn.
"I was, but you growling at the doctor woke me up," Elisa yawns and stretches.
"You think I should trust this woman with two of my clan during the day?" he questions as he sets her on her feet.
"Why don't you ask Lex?" she counter asks.
"Lex?" he prompts.
"I think she's right, too," Lex quietly replies several seconds later.
"What about during the day?" Goliath inquires.
"Like she said, we'll be locked in her apartment when she's gone and she lives alone, so there's nobody to bother us," Lex reminds him. "Maybe Elisa could come and check up on us if you're that worried about us."
"I wouldn't mind," Elisa adds as they finally step into the recovery area.
They watch as the techs carefully slide Brooklyn off of the gurney and onto several pads on the floor, all the time being mindful of his wing. The room is big, but with his wing stretched out, Brooklyn takes over most of the floor. They remove the last of the items that had been attached to the gargoyle for the surgery and then cover him with a strange blanket that is attached to a blower as Karen sits down on the floor next to his head. Lex crawls up to his friend and sits on the other side of Brooklyn's head from the tech.
"Looks like things are going to be ok," she tells him with a smile. "Dr. Taylor is one of the best surgeons in the country and Dr. Knight specializes in bats, especially their wings. She said that Brooklyn's wing is similar to a bat's only bigger. That made it much easier for her."
"How much longer is his he going to be asleep?" Lex asks.
"He should be coming around soon, but he's going to be pretty groggy for a while," she answers as Brooklyn suddenly gives out a grunt. "See, he's already starting to wake up. He's going to be a bit disoriented as well."
"Not to mention very cranky," Gwen adds as she steps to her patient. "I can take it from here, Karen. Thank you."
"Sure thing," Karen says as she gets to her feet and then leaves.
Gwen takes Karen's spot next to Brooklyn and peels back an eyelid before letting it close on its own again.
"What was that for?" Goliath growls.
"Just checking to see if he's awake enough to start reacting to light," Gwen answers. "He's not quite there yet."
A slightly less strained silence falls as they wait. Goliath takes a good look at the room they're in and sees the walls lined with cages. Some of them have animals in them, but for the most part they're empty. Looking back down, he sees that Gwen's pulled her knees up to her chest with her arms wrapped around her legs and her cheek resting on her knees. It suddenly strikes him how much she looks like a little girl.
"Karen said that you said that his wing is almost like a bat wing only bigger," Lex finally says after several minutes of nothing happening.
"It is," she confirms as she stands up and starts pointing at the outstretched wing. "In fact, it has bones similar to the human arm. You see the joint right here at the back would be like the shoulder to me, here's the upper arm, the elbow and the part that got hurt is like my forearm. Unfortunately, just like the forearm, there are two bones in there and they were both badly smashed. When they healed, they fused into one big lump that we had to cut out."
"So, what's all this stuff you've got on him?" Lex questions, curious about the rods and pins attached to the outside of the wing.
"After we were able to cut away the fused area, we put a couple metal plates in there to guide the bone back together," she answers, touching where the sutures are. "Since we knew it would be impractical to immobilize the joints on either side of the bone, we decided to go with the hardware on the outside to give the bone more stability so when he moves, the bone won't go anywhere."
At that precise moment, Brooklyn lets out a groan and the others stop to look at him for several seconds. When nothing more happens, Gwen goes back to anatomy lesson.
"These claws on his wing are like my fingers," she states as she gently makes it bend around her finger. "The joint below it is like my wrist and the long thin bone that stretches out the membrane is his pinky. He doesn't have a thumb though, which is interesting."
Brooklyn grunts again and this time he twitches causing Gwen to return to her spot next to his head. Goliath glares at her at her brazenness, acting like she's been around gargoyles all of her life. He quickly forgets his displeasure when Brooklyn lets out another groan and moves his head a bit.
"Brooklyn, can you hear me?" Gwen asks.
She peels open an eyelid again causing the gargoyle to growl in response.
"I'll take that as a 'yes'," she chuckles as she lets the eyelid go.
Over then next several minutes, Brooklyn slowly wakes up. At first it's just grunts, groans and the occasional growl. The first time he tries to push himself up, he looses his balance and lands on Gwen. He easily out weighs the woman and she's trapped under the groggy gargoyle until Goliath pulls Brooklyn off.
"Are you ok?" Elisa asks, trying to hide her amusement.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Gwen replies as she picks herself off of the floor and brushes herself off. "That's the most excitement I've had from a male in a long time."
Before anyone can react to that line, the speaker over the door crackles to life.
"We've got a Great Dane coming in with possible bloat," the receptionist's voice says. "ETA, ten minutes."
"And that would be our cue to get out of Dodge," Gwen states as controlled chaos breaks loose with techs running everywhere.
Goliath easily lifts a still disoriented Brooklyn up into his arms as tech rushes up and grabs the pads off of the floor. Gwen starts to lead the others towards the front when Kevin intercepts them.
"You're going to want to go out the back," Kevin states as he hands Gwen her bags.
"Why?" Gwen asks as she takes them.
"Someone called the press and there's about a million cameras out there waiting to get a picture of your patient," Kevin replies. "Bob's out there now trying to get them to go away. With that bloat case coming in, we've got to get them out of the way."
Gwen says something that no one but Kevin can understand.
"And you eat with that mouth?" he laughs. "How did you guys get here?"
"I drove," Elisa replies.
"Give me your keys, I'll bring your car around back," Kevin orders, holding his hand out. "If you go out there, they're going to know what's up."
"Be careful with it," Elisa grumbles as she hands the keys over. "It's my baby."
"I'm a doctor, you couldn't find anyone more careful," Kevin assures her. "Which one is it?"
"It's the red and white Fairlane," Elisa replies
"I think I love you, marry me," Kevin says with a straight face and Goliath scowls at the doctor.
"I would, but I know that you'd only be marrying me for my car," Elisa responds before a growl can escape Goliath's throat, trying not to laugh.
"So true, so true," Kevin sighs as he gives them a shit eating grin and then starts to head for the door. "I'll meet you guys out in the alley behind the hospital."
"Try to hurry," Gwen calls as he disappears through the door.
"Why hurry?" Lex asks.
"For one, it's nearly midnight and I'm dead tired," Gwen replies as she leads them to the back exit. "And for two, I didn't bring a jacket and it's cold out there."
A few minutes later, they're standing beside the alley behind the hospital and Gwen is already shivering, but trying not to show it. When Kevin still hasn't shown up ten minutes later, Goliath takes pity on the small woman and wraps one of his wings around her, pulling her close to his body. By the time Kevin shows up nearly half an hour later, Brooklyn is standing unsteadily on his own feet and Gwen is nearly asleep on hers.
"I was beginning to think you had run away and eloped with my car," Elisa jokes as Kevin gets out of the car.
"I wish," he grumbles as he walks up to them. "There were a about four or five news vans blocking the parking lot. Luckily I got the ones blocking the driveway out before that bloat case came in. Where's Gwen?"
"Here," Goliath answers as he pulls back his wing revealing the nearly unconscious woman.
"It's a good thing that surgery isn't what she does for a living," Kevin chuckles. "It happens every time she goes into the OR. She goes through the operation with flying colors, but as soon as the adrenaline wears off, she's out. Take her home, put her to bed."
"Yes, doctor," Elisa smiles as she opens the passenger door.
Brooklyn unsteadily climbs into the back seat and settles in as Gwen is roused enough to give Elisa her address. After patient and doctor are settled in, Elisa closes the door and turns to Goliath.
"So what now, Big Guy?" she asks. "Do I take the good doctor home and just drop her off or do Brooklyn and Lex get to have their first slumber party?"
"Slumber party?" Goliath returns in confusion.
"I'll explain later," she snickers. "Which will it be?"
"The clan leader wants my clan close to me," Goliath explains after about a minute of silence. "But if it's best for Brooklyn to stay close to the doctor, then he and Lex can have their…slumber party."
"Good choice, Big Guy," she nods as she turns towards the car. "Now, let's get sleeping beauty home."