§ § § -- May 7-8, 1983
When a nurse gently shooed them out of Tattoo's room into the waiting room and persisted in getting them something to drink, they found themselves holding cups without quite recalling how it had happened. Roarke barely tasted the coffee he was drinking, and Leslie sipped absently at the glass of juice she had been given, but neither really noticed what they held. And they didn't say anything throughout, both lost in their own thoughts and worries.
Darkness gradually dropped, and through the early evening they found themselves greeting a steady stream of residents and resort staff, all stopping in to wish Tattoo well and many bearing cards for him. The Tokitas, McCormicks and Tomais were among those who came, and Myeko accompanied Michiko's family. Julie came sometime later with Frida and kept them company till about ten, when they departed, saying regretfully that they still had to worry about B&B guests. Leslie read every magazine in the waiting room that held any interest at all for her, and then got very bored; this eventually contributed to her falling asleep on Roarke's shoulder shortly before midnight.
Roarke found sleep unusually elusive, battling worry over Tattoo and the specter of the memories that had been stirred up just before he went into surgery. He wondered, with some bewilderment, what had made Tattoo bring up Helena and their short-lived marriage in the first place; he could only think that all their talk of past fantasies had somehow stirred up a lot of dust in the bottom of Tattoo's memory, and perhaps the pain he might have been feeling from his injury had pushed him to mention it. He just didn't know; all he could say for certain was that his own emotions were too stirred up by the recollections to allow him any sleep, and he found himself envying Leslie.
It was nearing one-thirty in the morning when his position grew too uncomfortable for him and he started to carefully disentangle himself from Leslie. His motions woke her all at once, and before he quite knew it, she had sat up and blurted out, "Any news?"
"Not yet," he said, "but I was just about to ask. Why don't you come with me."
The pretty half-Asian nurse on desk duty smiled at them when they approached, knowing what their question would be. Before either could speak, she said, "They'll be moving him out of recovery any time now, Mr. Roarke."
"Oh, thank you," he said, and at that precise moment the doors to the surgical ward swung outward and a stretcher rolled through, bearing Tattoo. They watched him go by; his entire head was bandaged and he was still mostly under the anesthetic, hooked up to an IV. He appeared to be asleep, but when Roarke inquired, Dr. Phillips informed them that in fact Tattoo was conscious.
"He's very weak," he said, then smiled and added, "but the operation is a success."
Roarke let his head fall back for a second or two, and Leslie sagged against him, blowing out her breath. "Oh, what a relief," he said wholeheartedly.
Dr. Phillips' expression changed. "What I'm concerned with now is his mental state."
Roarke and Leslie looked at each other, their relief and their smiles fading simultaneously. "What do you mean?" Roarke asked.
"Depression," Dr. Phillips said. "Depression is always a possibility after surgery as serious as his was—a very dangerous possibility. If he should begin to believe that he isn't going to make it, the chances are he won't."
Again guardian and ward exchanged looks, these filled with alarm; then Roarke asked with quiet urgency, "When may we see him?"
"The sooner the better," Dr. Phillips said. Roarke thanked him and led Leslie down the hall, both moving just short of a run.
Tattoo's room was dim, with only the hallway illumination and the faint light of a waning moon to show them the way around. Tattoo still seemed to be asleep, but when they stopped beside his bed, he surprised them by murmuring, "Hi, boss, hi, Leslie."
"Well," Roarke said softly, "your powers of perception are growing at a fantastic rate, my friend. You knew who it was without even opening your eyes."
"I knew you were gonna be here," Tattoo replied, finally opening his eyes to gaze up at them. Then he asked, quite out of left field, "I'm gonna die, right, boss?"
"No," Roarke said almost inaudibly, shaking his head.
Leslie snapped to attention beside him. "Where'd you get that idea?" she demanded incredulously. "We won't let you, so don't even think about it."
Tattoo barely glanced at her and responded as if neither of them had spoken at all. "That's why you didn't want to talk about your wedding. Because what happened to your wife is gonna happen to me."
Roarke's smile vanished and he leaned down. "That's not true, Tattoo," he said, his voice carrying a thin edge of urgency. "That's not true."
"I will never forget the day I found out," Tattoo said in a soft, hoarse voice. "Never."
Roarke and Leslie looked at each other, and she swallowed thickly and hung her head for a moment before looking up. "You didn't tell me till the next day," she remembered, "and poor Jamie had to find out from his grandfather when you and Helena came back early from your honeymoon trip. But how did Tattoo find out?"
Roarke frowned slightly and looked at his assistant. "You never told me exactly how you discovered that Helena was dying," he said.
"I overheard her parents talking," Tattoo whispered, closing his eyes again. "At the party, when you were dancing with Helena, after Leslie and Jamie had gone to bed for the night."
"I see," murmured Roarke, his eyes losing focus for a moment; they were all silent, each remembering the moment they had individually learned Helena's fate. Then Roarke looked up at Tattoo, sighing ever so softly. "I'll never forget that day either. And you know, it was then that I realized how much I depend on you, not just as my assistant, but as my friend."
"It was easy to be your friend," said Tattoo in a half-whisper.
"Was?" repeated Roarke ominously. Restless with a sudden surge of outrage at what appeared to be Tattoo's slow process of giving up, he arose and paced toward the window. "Stop talking like that." In the wake of the painful memory they had all just relived, Tattoo's hopelessness seemed palpable, tangible, curling cold fingers around their necks. Leslie actually shivered, staring at Tattoo, unable to think of a thing to say. Helplessly she shifted her gaze to Roarke, who turned just in time to see the scared look on her face; he directed his next words to Tattoo. "You're frightening Leslie, don't you see?" Tattoo's eyes blinked open and he eyed Leslie with an expression of detached curiosity that made her shrink away and fight back tears. Roarke spoke with a little less patience this time, trying to reach his friend. "Tattoo, dying is one thing; being left behind is quite another."
The words broke through Leslie's already-fragile control, and her shoulders shook as she tried desperately to hold back her tears. Roarke pulled her into his embrace, still addressing his assistant. "Do you remember Mr. Tony Chilton?"
"The man who wanted to be a fighter pilot in World War II?" Tattoo asked.
Roarke nodded. "Because he wanted to meet his father, who had died during that war. You see, the pain of being left behind like that was something with which Mr. Chilton had never learned to live." He stroked Leslie's hair. "And why don't you ask Leslie about the pain she went through at the deaths of her entire family? Would you put her through it all over again?"
Tattoo's gaze drifted out of focus, as if he had turned inward; a tiny smile appeared on his face. "Boss, I think I see your point," he said softly. Roarke wondered what memory he had called forth, but he wasn't altogether certain he had convinced Tattoo. Still, he murmured, "Good," hoping to encourage him. The word made Leslie look up uncertainly; Roarke smiled at her, and she glanced at Tattoo, blinking at the sight of the strange little smile on his face. Hope crept into her expression, worrying Roarke all the more.
Just then a young intern and a nurse came in, flooding the room with light, to check up on the heart monitor, calling Roarke's and Leslie's attention to the machine as they did so. For the first time they noticed its erratic beeping and looked at each other, just as Tattoo spoke. "Thank you, boss, Leslie…for everything," he murmured. Then he closed his eyes, and two seconds later, the monitor flatlined.
There was a breath's worth of reaction and realization; then the nurse jammed the call button beside the bed, and the intern rushed to the door, shouting, "Get the crash cart in here!" Over the speakers in the ceiling they heard the calm, almost robotic female voice ubiquitous to hospitals, announcing, "Code Blue, Code Blue, room 114…" Roarke and Leslie both leaned over the bed, cajoling Tattoo to wake up; Roarke was urgent, Leslie increasingly frantic.
The nurse ran around to the other side of the bed as Dr. Phillips and two more interns rolled in a resuscitation machine. Leslie's eyes went huge with realization as she recognized it for what it was, and she tried to see Tattoo around Dr. Phillips for a moment even as Roarke straightened up and pulled her back against the window wall and out of their way. She shot him a look of pure terror, one he'd never before seen on her, that made him pull her close just so they'd both have something to hold onto.
Dr. Phillips managed to get Tattoo's heart going again with an injection, marginally relaxing Roarke and Leslie; everyone breathed a little more easily, even the medicos, when the monitor showed a slow beat. Tattoo was still unconscious, but Dr. Phillips assured them this was normal and it might be some time before he awoke. Everyone remained in the room, none fully at ease, all carefully watching Tattoo or the heart monitor.
Almost ten minutes passed, and just as they thought it might be all right, they noticed the beat gradually slowing down. Someone muttered something, just before the machine flatlined again. The nurse prepared another injection, but the monitor remained undisturbed, emitting a continuous whine.
"Paddles," Dr. Phillips ordered tersely. Leslie turned white, and Roarke's eyes went very wide. Pressed back against the wall beside the windows, they watched in horror as the interns deftly slid a body board beneath Tattoo and the nurse threw the bedcovers back. One of the interns opened Tattoo's hospital johnny and prepared his chest with the conductive gel while the other intern got the machine ready, adjusting the voltage to compensate for Tattoo's smaller size. When Dr. Phillips applied the paddles, Leslie clung to Roarke, her whole body quaking in terror, hands curled tightly around fistfuls of his jacket and her face buried in his shoulder. Roarke understood her feelings perfectly; he held her hard, cradling her head with one hand and resting his cheek against her hair, closing his eyes. When they heard the jolt, Leslie moaned and Roarke winced, but neither moved otherwise.
Faintly, from across the room, the heart monitor beeped irregularly for a moment, then settled into a steady but rapid peeping. Roarke looked up to see the medical team expel deep sighs and visibly relax. "Keep him stable," Dr. Phillips ordered, "but keep the paddles ready just in case." He turned to see Roarke and Leslie huddled together; she had raised her head just enough to peer warily out at the room. "Would you two rather wait in another—"
"No," Roarke and Leslie both said instantly and emphatically. Shivering, she turned her face back against his shoulder, and he patted her back. "No, doctor," he said, carefully moderating his voice, "we would both prefer to wait here, if you don't mind."
"All right, but you really should get some sleep," Dr. Phillips advised, and without waiting for a reply he walked out. They both stared after him as if he were crazy; the nurse noticed and smiled at them.
"We'll be here for Tattoo all night if that's what it takes," she promised them. "Let us know if we can get you anything, coffee or whatever, okay?" They nodded gratefully at her and at last dared let themselves relax. They slowly settled into the wicker chairs, but there would be no sleep for either of them for the rest of that night.
§ § § -- May 8, 1983
"Just rest quietly." Dr. Phillips' voice broke through a hazy black fog in Leslie's mind and she blinked, squinting in the morning sunlight, feeling disoriented. Had she dozed off after all? She couldn't quite remember what time it had been the last time she'd checked with Roarke, and lifted her head, wincing as her arm pulled away from the wicker and she noticed the deep red dents in her skin.
Dr. Phillips turned from Tattoo's bed and sighed deeply, addressing Roarke. "We've done all we can…I just wish that we could do more." His eyes swept over Leslie, paused on her a second or two as if startled to see her awake, and then closed before he departed the room after the nurses and interns with the crash cart. Leslie staggered to her feet and saw that Tattoo lay in the bed, awake but blank-faced, almost as if he were sorry they'd resuscitated him.
"Did I sleep?" she mumbled to Roarke.
He noticed her for the first time and glanced at the clock on the wall. "For not quite an hour," he said. "You really should have gone home and tried to sleep, Leslie."
"I wouldn't have slept any better in my own bed than I did here," she said stubbornly and stared at Tattoo, who didn't seem to notice. "Not that it would have mattered to him, probably."
"What makes you say that?" Roarke wanted to know.
"Well, look at him, lying there like we're not even here. Do you really think he cares, after what he did last night?"
Roarke studied Tattoo for a moment, then turned back to Leslie and asked quietly, "Do you think he deliberately stopped his own heart?"
She nodded, tears filling her eyes. "How else could it have happened just like that, so completely, all at once? It was as if he willed his heart to stop, and it did."
Roarke glanced at Tattoo again, frowned slightly and conceded in a very low tone, "Perhaps you're right, Leslie. But he's with us now, and we must do our best to make sure he stays with us."
"I'd be happy to, if I thought it would work," she muttered.
Roarke shushed her and brushed her hair back. "No more talk like that," he chided gently. "Let's go talk to him." She nodded, and they approached the bed, both of them gratified—and admittedly a little surprised—when Tattoo focused on them.
"Hi, boss, Leslie," he murmured.
"Hi," replied Roarke, smiling. Leslie tried on a smile of her own for size, though she was sure both Roarke and Tattoo would think it was fake.
Tattoo squinted critically at Leslie for a moment, then looked at Roarke and asked, "Tell me, how am I doing? Tell me the truth."
"Very well, my friend," Roarke acceded. "The truth is, you had a very rough night, and they're having some difficulty stabilizing your vital signs, that's all."
"Am I gonna make it?" came the inevitable question.
Behind Roarke, Leslie winced; neither saw her, however, as Roarke leaned on the bed railing and remarked, "They tell me that's very much up to you, my friend."
"Hm," muttered Tattoo. His eyes slid out of focus for a moment; then he peered up at Roarke and said, "Boss, I think you should start looking for a replacement."
"But Tattoo, there are so many things on the island only you can do," Roarke protested, keeping his voice light even though he was well aware that behind him, Leslie was fighting fatigue and thus a whole shipload of emotions that she was almost too exhausted to control. "For instance, who else could have handled the fantasy of a rather strange little man named Ace Smith?" He grinned. "Remember?"
"Oh yeah," Tattoo murmured, grinning back weakly. "He was just another one in a long, long string of Red Baron fantasies, but boy, he sure had a great time. He must have had a better time at it than anybody else who ever got that fantasy."
Roarke chuckled. "I'll never forget his vivid description of the battle he went through. I'm sorry, Leslie, this happened before you came to the island. Ace Smith was the dreamer to end all dreamers, I believe, and I often thought he was the living personification of Walter Mitty…yet the only fantasy he truly wanted was to shoot down the infamous Red Baron. And what a time he had doing it. Poor Tattoo really got a run for his money that time. He wandered in looking much the worse for wear, giving off smoke and toting a wooden propeller from his plane, complaining that perhaps I should stop selling those fantasies."
"Because I was being shot down three or four times a week," Tattoo said, rolling his eyes. "And that Ace Smith really relished what he was doing, too…but I gotta admit, he was a gentleman at heart. He saluted me, and what could I do but salute him back?"
"So did you give him a break, Mr. Roarke?" Leslie asked teasingly.
"Ah, those Red Baron fantasies were bestsellers for years," Roarke said, chuckling. "However, I realized Tattoo was going through quite a bit of stress, and I took him off the hook and hired on an out-of-work pilot. I believe he is still having the time of his life."
"Of course, he gets to fly all the time," Leslie pointed out, and they laughed, even Tattoo.
"And how could any replacement cope as readily as you with the mistakes I make?" Roarke went on.
"Mistakes? Not you, boss," Tattoo said, grinning.
"Wanna bet?" shot back Leslie, grinning back wickedly. "How about when he sent Santa Claus back to the North Pole with a piece of arm candy, and completely forgot that Mrs. Claus was going to be there waiting for him? I'll never forget that one—that was positively colossal, Mr. Roarke. I'm surprised Mrs. Claus didn't come looking for you."
They all laughed again as Dr. Phillips came in to take a look at the monitor and make a couple of adjustments. "Good morning," he said.
"Good morning, doctor," replied Roarke, still smiling. They watched the heart monitor for a moment, reassured by its steady beep, and waited till Dr. Phillips left before Roarke went on, "Fortunately for you, I don't make such mistakes very often."
Tattoo lifted a hand. "But I know one other time when you made a mistake."
"When?" Roarke asked, and Leslie leaned over with interest.
"You remember Jack the Ripper?" Tattoo asked with a grin at Leslie.
Roarke glanced at the ceiling. "You had to bring that up, didn't you," he said, shaking his head in mock disgust. Leslie snickered; they remembered all too well that long, scary weekend, and she felt grateful for once that she had been stuck in bed with the measles at the time.
"That time you almost blew it, boss," Tattoo remarked cheerfully.
"I certainly did," Roarke agreed.
"Or did you do it on purpose?" Tattoo mused thoughtfully, just as Dr. Phillips walked in.
"Well," Roarke pointed out with a grin, "if I replace you, you'll never know for sure, will you? Besides, just think of all the excitement you'd be missing!"
"Celebrities, fantasies, magic, everything," Leslie put in. "Where else in the world are you gonna find all that? Me, I know I'd rather be here than anywhere else."
Tattoo's eyes were bright. "You know…boss, I don't know what's happening, but I want to get well again. I feel better now, a lot better than I have since the accident." Leslie brightened at that, and Roarke met her gaze, smiling broadly.
Dr. Phillips gave Tttoo a careful, thorough once-over while they watched, and checked the heart monitor and IV, making some notes on the chart. He also measured Tattoo's pulse as the threesome gazed on, and at last straightened up, shaking his head as he removed the stethoscope. "What's wrong?" Tattoo wanted to know.
Dr. Phillips looked around and remarked, "You are making the fastest recovery from major surgery this hospital has ever seen." His face bore the look of one impressed beyond belief, and he grinned widely when Roarke and Leslie beamed at each other and then at Tattoo. They thanked him profusely, and he chuckled. "Thank you, Mr. Roarke, and you as well, Miss Leslie. I don't know how you did it, or what you did, but I'll tell you this: your medicine is a whole lot better than mine. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got some sick patients to attend to." He winked at Tattoo, grinned again and left the room.
"Ah, boss," Tattoo said as Roarke took a seat on the edge of the bed, "I think I know what the doctor means."
"What?" Roarke inquired.
"Love is the best medicine in the whole wide world," Tattoo said firmly, his dark eyes twinkling. "Don't you think so?"
Roarke regarded this with a semi-serious frown, then said, "I think that bump on your head made you wiser!"
Tattoo, still half-smiling, gave an exaggerated wince and lifted his hand to the bandage, making Leslie laugh. He grinned at her and said, "I take it back, what I said about you getting a replacement. I think you're gonna be stuck with me for a long—a very, very long—time!" And once more they all laughed, with relief as much as amusement. With Leslie it was clearly more than that; tears sparkled in her eyes again. Roarke pulled her around him so that she stood between him and Tattoo, and Tattoo reached up and took her hand.
"Don't you ever do that to us again," she scolded suddenly. "I hope you finally realize just how indispensable you really are around here. And anyway, who else would I talk to when Mr. Roarke can't be there?"
"You poor kid," Tattoo said with mock sympathy. "Well, you can stop worrying, and for heaven's sake, quit crying. You're getting me all wet." She stuck out her tongue at him, and he and Roarke both roared with laughter.