Chapter Forty: Deterioration
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Sanar jumped backwards as her brother went into convulsions. He remained on the narrow hospital bed only a moment before tumbling to the ground, where he shook and twitched without pattern or rhythm.
Wracking her brain for what to do about seizures, Sanar found nothing but that she needed to move things out of Devnos' way. Pushing the bed and chair to the side, Sanar grabbed Devnos' pillow, and placed it under his head.
"Be right back," she promised, then sprinted out of the room, searching for a medic.
Catching the arm of a doctor, Sanar tried to pull him back to Devnos' room. "My brother is having a seizure, please, you have to – "
"He can wait," the man said testily, pulling away and back to his original direction.
"No, he needs your help – "
"Make sure he isn't near anything upon which he can hurt himself," the doctor snapped. "The seizure will just have to run its course."
"But he just came out of brain surgery!" Sanar protested desperately. "And – "
The doctor stopped. "Is this patient Devnos Klis, the Dark Jedi?"
"Yeah – "
The doctor looked angry. "We are fighting a war, Madame; I'm not in the habit of saving the enemy."
"I don't give a damn about your war; he's my brother, and he's already dying without you—you— And I'm not a Madame! Can't a woman be in her late twenties and still be unmarried?"
"Your brother will just have to deal." With that irritable decision, the doctor began to stomp away.
At the boiling point, Sanar reached to the Force – finding much more power than she expected – and used it to shake desks, empty beds and important-looking tools. "That's unacceptable!" she bellowed.
The doctor jumped, then moved to try to catch the tools before they fell. "Stop that! Blasted Force-users," he added in a mutter.
If he'd called her a Jedi, she would have punched him square in the face. Instead, she levitated him into the air, then turned him upside down. In her inattention, the objects she had previously been shaking fell.
"Alright, alright!" the man cried, struggling ineffectually as he tried to get upright. "I'll look at him; just…just let me down."
Disgruntled but relieved, Sanar managed to reverse the doctor's position and drop him. "He's over here," she fretted, gesturing for the disoriented medic to follow her into Devnos' room. Seeing her brother's new state, however, she froze.
Devnos wasn't moving.
She'd been too late.
The doctor pushed past her. "Let me through, woman," he snapped. Seeing Devnos' still form, his step hitched briefly before he continued. "Push the call button beside the bed," he ordered.
Sanar blinked, coming out of her trance slowly. Call button?
"For the nurse, girl."
"Oh." I'm such an idiot. Someone would have come without all that trouble. And Devnos might not be…
No. You would have felt it if he – died. You would.
The voice reassured her, and she pressed the button firmly, turning back to Devnos and the medic. "What's wrong now?" she demanded. "Is he okay?"
His irritation with her gone into concern, the medic gestured her over. "Help me get him back onto the bed."
Grunting with strain, she complied, then stepped back, desperate to give the medic enough room to work. "The specialist said he still has a few days, if he relaxes." When the man didn't reply, she added pleadingly, "We were just talking, I swear."
"Do you want me to find out what's wrong or not?" he demanded, but his eyes were sympathetic.
Chastised, Sanar sat down and shut up, watching anxiously.
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A commotion – of both the audio and Force variety – sounded in the hallway, and Jaina left Kip's side to discover the cause. Peering out of the door, she spotted Sanar (who else?) and a doctor who was…upside down in the air?
Just as she was about to investigate further, she felt Kip's presence dip dramatically close to nothingness. Immediately forgetting everything but her friend's continued existence, Jaina ran back to the clone's side and created a new dimension in their bond. Transferring some of her energy to him without a thought, she blindly reached for her com-link, which was clipped to her belt, and punched in a code.
"Zekk?" she said into the speakerphone.
"Yeah?" He always answered so quickly.
"Room 8267 in the Med-ward. Please?"
"Coming." He clicked out.
Unseen, in the corner of his clone's room, Kyp watched with an expression that mixed confusion and the beginning of understanding.
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"I can't do anything for him," the medic told Sanar, more apologetic than his earlier anger had suggested he would be.
"He…?"
"Not yet." The man shook his head and stood. "If these were normal circumstances, he would stabilize in a matter of hours, but with the damage he sustained in surgery… The seizure appears to have caused his brain to work too quickly. I'm afraid his mind is frantic trying to settle back into its normal pattern."
Sanar focused on not trembling; she refused to reveal her weakness. "How long does he have now?"
The medic – she still didn't know his name – looked distinctly uncomfortable. "I'm no expert in this area of medicine, but…I would estimate the rest of the day."
"A day?" she gasped, tears springing to his eyes.
"If he's lucky," the man finished apologetically.
"But…I just got him back," she whispered, and her voice shook like a piece of flimsi in the wind.
"I am sorry, for your sake." He paused, considering Sanar and his patient. "If he wakes up, he should avoid stress; even thinking too hard could tip the scales."
The doctor packed up his bag and stood awkwardly for a moment, as if searching for words. "I'm sorry," he said again, then scurried out.
Sanar could only stare – first at the door, and then back to Devnos.
"Don't go," she begged, her voice barely even the shadow of a whisper.
Her brother didn't respond.
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Please R&R :)
.Tjz