Thank you to Aithusa for your wonderful editing skills
Ellie dropped Alec off at the hospital at nine sharp; just in time for his pre-surgery prep. The surgery should end by noon at the latest, plus another hour for the anesthesia to wear off and for the doctor to make sure everything was in order. That gave Ellie at least three hours to put her plan into action. Alec was the world's biggest fool if he seriously thought she was going to be driving him back to the Trader's tomorrow morning to recover.
On her way home Ellie stopped off at an outdoors store and bought an air mattress. She knew that once Alec caught on to where she was taking him, he would start to put up a fuss. This way she wasn't on the floor but Alec could still have the bed.
Once she got home Ellie got started to disassemble Fred's crib and move it into the room across the hall. He really was old enough to have his own room. Tom had been sleeping on his own when he was twelve months. The only reason she hadn't set up Fred's room when they moved in was because she didn't want to sleep in a room on her own.
With Fred's crib reassembled, Ellie got started on moving her clothes into the guest room. She then found an old bike pump in the garage and set about pumping up the air mattress. Once that was all done Ellie rang Becca at the Trader's to tell her Alec wouldn't be staying there anymore and that she would drop by in an hour to grab his stuff.
At quarter past one Ellie walked up to a nurse's station and asked which room Alec Hardy was in. The nurse typed his name into the computer and frowned. She returned her gaze to Ellie with concern in her eyes.
"It would appear that Mr. Hardy is still in surgery. Are you family?" She asked.
Worry etched itself across Ellie's face, "Yes." She replied.
"All right, why don't you go sit in the chairs over there and I'll try to get someone to come out here to talk to you." The nurse suggested with a calm, practiced tone.
Ellie walked over to the chairs the nurse had indicated and sat down numbly. After everything she had said to reassure Alec, something had gone wrong. This couldn't be happening. Ellie buried her face in her hands. He couldn't die. Alec could not die on her. She would find a way to resurrect him and kill him herself if he stopped fighting.
It was nearly two in the afternoon before a doctor finally came to talk to her but Ellie hadn't moved the entire time she had waited. As the doctor approached she lifted her head. She had managed not to cry but only because she was in too much shock to do anything at all.
"Ms. Miller?" The doctor asked.
"Yes." Ellie replied.
"And you're Mr. Hardy's...?"
"Partner." The doctor frowned and Ellie answered the next question before it was asked. "We've been together for three months. I know it's not long but my boys and I are the only family he has." It really was becoming too easy to tell that lie.
"I see. What exactly do you know of Mr. Hardy's condition?" The doctor asked.
"He has Heart Arrhythmia and his condition is abnormally severe. He had an elevated risk of death due to cardiac arrest going into the surgery." Ellie replied and hesitated for a moment before asking, "Why are asking me all this? What's happened to Alec?"
The doctor took a steadying a breath, that was never a good sign. "I'm sorry, Ms. Miller..." He began.
"Don't you dare say he's dead." Ellie cut him off. Against her will tears began to sting the corners of her eyes.
"Mr. Hardy is not dead." The doctor replied. He placed a comforting hand on Ellie's shoulder but she shook it off and stood up.
"But something's happened, hasn't it?" Ellie asked. "You wouldn't be using that expression if it hadn't."
"You are correct in that. Tell me, what do you know about how the procedure was to be done?" He asked.
Ellie took a deep breath to calm herself down before she began. "You'd make small incision by his heart." Ellie raised her hand and drew a small line just above her breast to show where the cut would be made. "Then you'd insert the pacemaker and attach the leads to his heart."
The doctor nodded his head during her explanation. "That is correct and we tried twice to do the procedure that way. It is preferred because it is less invasive and the patient can return home the next day. However, this was not the case for your partner. Both times we tried to insert the pacemaker and connect the leads Mr. Hardy went into cardiac arrest. It was determined that the safest way to continue was to open him up. We needed direct access to his heart." The doctor paused to allow all the new information to sink in.
"Alec is going to need to stay in the hospital for a lot longer than a night, isn't he?" Ellie asked.
"Correct." The doctor then began to shift on his feet. "According to Mr. Hardy's medical records he's a bit of a flight risk." He commented.
"Oh you have no need to worry about that." Ellie promised. "I'll be taking his clothes home with me tonight and if that man is daft enough to attempt leaving in only one of those open backed gowns I'll be sure to have him arrested for public indecency."
The doctor smiled at that. From his medical records he knew that Alec Hardy was a copper. When told that his patient's partner was in the waiting room he unsure if it was Alec's work partner or relationship partner. He had seen a few work partners in the waiting room over the years, so seeing Ellie hunched over on herself with worry wasn't much of a give away as to which partner relationship she had with his patient. She knew a fair bit about Mr. Hardy's condition and had obviously done some research on the procedure. However, work partners, especially coppers, often created very close friendships. It was only when she talked about bringing his clothes home as though they lived together that he decided the meaning of partner in this case. In his experience, work partners did not live together unless they married.
The doctor observed Ellie as she took her turn to shift on her feet.
"Can I see him now?" She asked. "Or is he still in surgery?"
"We're stitching him up now. I'll send a nurse over to you once he's able to take visitors." He responded.
Ellie released a deep breath and smiled at the doctor. Her relief was clearly written on her face. "Thank you."
The doctor nodded his head before heading back towards the operating theatre.
Ellie returned to her seat and pulled out her mobile. She wrote out a text to Tom and hoped she wasn't about to get her son in trouble with his teacher. The text read:
The were a few complications in Alec's surgery. He's all right, they're
just finishing up now. Probably won't be able to pick you and Fred up.
Ask the McGuire's if they can give you a lift and pick up Fred.
A few minutes later her mobile beeped indicating an incoming message.
Michael says it's fine. See you when you get home. Tell Alec
I say hi.
Ellie rang the day care next and told them that the McGuire's would be picking up Fred. She then replied to Tom.
I'll tell him. The day care knows so there shouldn't be any
Problems. See you when I get home. Love you.
Another forty five minutes passed before a nurse came out for Ellie. Anyone who has ever had to spend any amount of time in a waiting room can attest to the fact that it felt much longer than three quarters of an hour to Ellie. The doctor's assurance that Alec was going to be fine didn't ease her worry. He'd had two heart attacks while on the table. They'd been forced to cut him open. Not only would his hospital stay and subsequent recovery take longer but he now had a heightened risk of infection since it was no longer a two inch cut below his collar bone that needed to heal but a gash that ran down his sternum.
God, they'd had to cut him open. The pain would probably be manageable while he stayed in the hospital and had a steady drip of morphine but what about when they sent him home? Oral pain killers were only so strong. The man was a nightmare when he was feeling fine, Ellie couldn't picture what type of devil he'd turn into when in constant pain. Ellie frowned, maybe she could. He would probably be something like when he'd found out that Olly had released Danny's name to the public over twitter.
"Ms. Miller?" A young nurse called, drawing Ellie from her thoughts.
Ellie's head, which had returned to its previous position of resting in her hands, shot up.
"Yes?" Ellie answered.
"You can see Mr. Hardy now." The nurse waved for Ellie to follow her. She led Ellie down a hall adjacent to the waiting room and through a set of double doors marked "RECOVERY". "Mr. Hardy is still asleep but he should wake up in fifteen to thirty minutes." She explained. "A nurse will be popping in to make sure everything is fine every fifteen minutes or so."
Ellie nodded and walked into the room they had stopped outside of. Alec lay on the bed looking worse than she had ever seen him before, which was quite a feat considering she had witnessed him twice after a heart attack. Ellie hadn't thought it possible to be so pale while one was still alive until she looked at Alec. He was still hooked up to the ventilator and the steady beeping that filled the room indicated that at least some of the wires attached to him were monitoring his heart. Ellie slipped into the chair placed at the bedside and unconsciously took his hand in hers, careful of the IV drip in the back of it. She was thankful for the gauze taped along the length of his sternum that prevented her, or the boys when she undoubtedly brought them to visit, from seeing the long incision the doctor had made.
Ellie took a few minutes more to study her former-boss-turned-only-friend before closing her eyes and lowering her head slightly, bringing Alec's hand in her own to meet her forehead. The doctor and nurse seemed to think that Alec would be just fine. Surely that meant that he would look better once he'd woken up and could be taken off some of the machines. The steady beep of the heart rate monitor and the wheezing of the ventilator gave Ellie some measure of comfort, knowing that, at least for now, Alec was okay.
She didn't move from her bowed position when the nurse came in to check on Alec fifteen minutes later. She didn't move at all. Ellie just kept her eyes closed and matched her breathing to the ventilator. It wasn't until the rhythm of beeps began to change, picking up speed and she heard Alec release a soft groan that she lifted her head. Some colour had returned to his face, though not a lot, but the most important thing to Ellie was that his eyes were fluttering under his eyelids. Ellie all but punched the call button beside the bed in her joy over Alec waking up.
A nursed hurried in. After checking Alec's vitals he agreed that Alec was indeed waking up and removed the breathing tube. Alec groaned again and his eyes fluttered open. Ellie hovered over him.
"How do you feel?" The nurse asked before Ellie could say anything.
"Like bloody hell." Alec mumbled. "What did you people do? Run me over with a bloody lorry?"
The nurse shift on his feet. Obviously he was new and didn't quite know how to deal with people like Alec yet. He probably also didn't know much about what had happened in surgery because he was probably just a ward nurse.
"I think he was asking if you felt any pain." Ellie said.
Alec eyed her. "What do you damn well think? Of course I'm in pain. My entire chest feels like it's on fire. What happened? I know it's not supposed to feel like this."
At Alec's complaint of pain the nurse quickly adjusted the morphine drip. "That should help with the pain. I'll get your doctor; he can explain things better than I can."
"Miller, what happened?" Alec asked her softly after the nurse had left.
Ellie fell back into the chair and reached for his hand again. She slowly rubbed her thumb over his knuckles. "You almost died, twice." She said.
Alec closed his eyes and ran a hand over his face, "Shit."
"They had to cut you open and get direct access to your heart. Your hospital stay is going to be a bit longer than a night I'm afraid." Ellie explained.
The hand over Alec's face dropped to the bed with a thud. "Like hell it will! I'm getting out of here as soon as I can stand."
The heart monitor was really starting to pick up now. Ellie frowned, it would do them no good if he got too agitated. It was time to put an end to this discussion.
"You will be staying for the full amount of time that the doctors wish to keep you. I'm taking your clothes home with me tonight to make sure of it. If you want to leave then you're going to have to leave with nothing but that backless gown on and I'll take great pleasure in arresting you for public indecency."
Ellie's tone left no room for arguments. While she often got railroaded by her former boss she was also a mum who had plenty of experience in dealing in whiny, stubborn children and that was exactly what Alec Hardy was acting like right now. For his part Alec just glared at her, a glare she returned in full force, before he turned his head away and looked at everything in the room but her. Ellie inwardly smiled. It was one of her very few victories over him.
They remained in a charged silence until the doctor came in to explain in full detail exactly what had happened in the operating theatre and how Alec's recovery would proceed. He would have to spend at least a week in the hospital, two at the most but it was most likely that they would keep him in for about week and a half. Once he was sent home he was going to be put on strict bed rest for another fortnight before he was allowed to get up and move around the house. Upon learning that the house had stairs and two children within its walls that doctor also added that there was to be no using the stairs without assistance, just in case of course, and no running around after the kids. After three weeks at home he would able to do some light chores around the house and after a few months some light exercise would be recommended.
From the 'returning home' onward part of the conversation Alec kept sending Ellie death glares. They had agreed that she would drop him off at the Trader's and let him recover there. Just because he'd had a rather major complication during surgery didn't mean that he couldn't still look after himself. And how was he supposed to get any rest with a small family running around the house anyways? No doubt Ellie had planned on giving up the new bed he'd just bought her so he could recover. When the doctor finally left Alec opened his mouth to tell her just what he thought of the arrangement but Ellie beat him to it.
"Shut it. I've already moved Fred's crib to his own room and all my stuff to the spare room. And just so you don't complain about the damn bed, I bought an air mattress today for me to sleep on. I know it's not what you'd prefer but it's better than the floor in any case. It's almost five now, and I'm sure the boys are starting to get hungry. I'll you tomorrow afternoon." Ellie said.
She got up and collected her coat then went to the little closet in the room and grabbed Alec's close as well. She gently folded them over her arm and made her way to the door.
"You aren't seriously about to walk out of here with my clothes are you?" Alec asked.
Ellie just smirked at him and walked out of the room, gently closing the door behind her. She could faintly hear him call after her but ignored it. His voice was starting to slur again like it had been when he'd first woken up. Evidently despite all his arguing he was going to be fast asleep within the hour.
I had this finished and edited a week ago but haven't the time to actually update until today. Updates are going to be farther apart now because I started the new year with a new job. I spend most of my break working on this. I'm trying to aim for twice a month but it's more likely updates will be every 3 weeks.