Ch. 16 Prep and Sedatives
A few days later, Eliot was exactly where he thought he'd be: at Van House with Savannah, prepping for finishing treatments. "It's going to be at least three weeks. You'll be okay to visit her just keep in mind, she may not be lucid or conscious a lot of the time. She's going to look pretty rough, during and even after for a while. I don't know about recovery. I'm going to have to monitor her a lot more than the others. No one' ever had a gap this big between treatments."
"But this is safe? She's going to be okay."
"I'll know in the first couple treatments. If she doesn't hold stable, after two or three, we won't be able to continue."
"How much damage will the first few treatments do?"
"She'd be fine in a few days. But I'm confident she'll be able to handle the full course."
"Me too," Eliot agreed in a distant tone.
Dani had said at least three weeks. It was about two months before Savannah finished treatment successfully. Eliot dropped by on a daily basis; Hardison and Parker joined him a couple of times a week. Like Dani said, most of the time, Savannah was out of it or sleeping. The rare times she was awake and present, she was quiet.
The treatments were hard on her. She lost so much weight she was skinnier than when they met. She lost a lot of color as well. It was difficult for Eliot to admit that Savannah going through treatments was hard on him. They'd spent so much time apart even before the decision, then to watch Savannah suffer and deteriorate and try to hide it was brutal. Her face always brightened, just a little, when he walked in the room. That helped. It let him know she was holding on, she was still Savannah, that she liked him around.
"So she's probably ready to go home," Dani said brightly. The were standing in the atrium of the med lab where Savannah was resting.
"She just finished a couple days ago. I thought there was going to be a longer recovery time?" Eliot questioned.
"There is. But I believe her recovery will go faster in a more comfortable home environment." She did the same thing Savannah did, where so often there was mounds of subtext beneath one or two sentences. He sighed, waiting for her to elaborate. However, she elaborated on a completely different subject. "She loves you."
He looked at her, shocked, but he found himself asking, "How do you know?"
"She used to look at me the same way. It's different with you, stronger maybe." He could only stutter in response. "Sasha was always her reason to fight. I haven't seen her even remotely happy since they threatened her sister. And now, even going through treatments, she had this sense of peace, this ray of light."
"Why are you telling me this?"
She put her hand on his shoulder. He resisted the urge to pull away. "You always have this cautious, reserved feel around her. I know she's not ready. But she will be."
After a minute of quiet, she took her hand away. "So, how do I help her with recovery? How do I know if she's doing okay or something's wrong?"
"Right." She ducked into her office nearby and came back with a case that made him think of a pistol case. She flipped it open to reveal several syringes with different colored fluids. The top of the case had a paper char tucked in it and a business card. "The card has my personal number on it. Keep me updated, call me if you have any questions. The syringes are sedatives."
He shook his head. "I don't need the sedatives."
"Yes, you will."
"I can't do that to her."
"They're to help her, if things get really bad."
"Really bad?"
"Recovery is going to be like someone going through withdrawal."
"What kind?" Eliot asked, thoughts of Nate flashing briefly through his mind.
"All of them. She'll have a lot of trouble sleeping. Weakness, fatigue, nausea, vomiting, fainting spells. The night terrors are going to be crippling for a while. There'll even be some hallucinations. She won't want to eat or do much of anything at first. Eventually she'll get really hungry, that's when you know you've gotten past the worst of it. The other side effects will hang around for a little while after that, no more than a month. Of course, the night terrors are pretty unavoidable, but they should reduce within six months."
"I've handled the night terrors. And I've dealt with all kinds of withdrawal in people. I don't need the sedatives. I have my own sedatives if things get that bad. But I've never used them with her. I can handle it."
She closed the case and pressed it into his arms. "These won't be normal night terrors. And these sedatives are specially formulated for Academy girls. The sedatives you have aren't likely to work. If you don't use these, fine, but you're not taking her out of here without them."
He sighed in defeat.