Six members of the team looked up expectantly as Elise entered the ER's waiting room. She guessed that after Brodi's accident the rest of the day's events had been cancelled. The officials would be checking the tracks for safety and reviewing the tapes of the race that had nearly ended Brodi Ford's life. She wondered briefly what spectators had been told, then pushed that thought out of her mind. They could have been told that aliens had attacked the mountain for all that she cared. She needed to keep her mind here, now.
Taking a deep breath, she walked over to where the group was sitting. There was a lot of tension in the room, not all of it due to worry about Brodi's condition. Allegra and Psymon sat as far away from each other as physically possible in the small room. Considering that they had both adopted the "I'm too cool (or in Psymon's case, too crazy) to care what's going on." slouch, Elise thought it funny that the two couldn't stand each other. Mac and Kaori sat huddled near, but not too near, Allegra. Kaori's eyes were red and puffy, and Mac was turning on the sensitivity as he draped an arm over Kaori in an attempt to comfort her. He showed no emotion on his face, but Elise noticed that his eyes seemed a little red too. She pretended not to notice...the egos of teenage boys were delicate, and a crisis was no time to be deflating it.
Then there was Moby and Zoe. Moby, still in his racing gear minus the helmut, had leaned back casually in his chair, only a slight twitch of his foot giving away any hint of sentiment from him. He had one hand rested around Zoe's elbow, while Zoe leaned forward on the edge of her chair, hands clasped in front of her and one knee twitching wildly.
"Is he..." Zoe began, but Moby stopped her with a squeeze of her arm.
"Let her start where she needs to, luv."
Elise took a deep breath.
"He, ah...he came through the surgery just fine." Damn, her voice was shaking anyway. "He broke a couple of ribs, and one of them punctured a lung. That's why he was having such a hard time breathing."
Elise heard Kaori gasp, but knowing that Mac was there to talk her down, she kept going. "The nurses let me sit with him while he was in the recovery unit. He woke up once, but he was in so much pain they had to put him right back out again."
This time it was Psymon she heard as he let out a stream of curses. Elise imagined it was his own ghosts of hospitals past haunting him, but she still turned to him angrily. "He's in excruciating pain, Psymon. They need to keep him as still as possible for a couple of days to make sure he doesn't inadvertently hurt himself." She could have stopped there. She should have stopped there. But she was so worked up from the day's events that she had to continued. "Besides, I thought you enjoyed a little pain and suffering when it came to your teammates."
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she knew she shouldn't have said it. Psymon didn't connect with people often, but she knew that he liked Brodi and had developed a tentative friendship with him. Even Zoe threw her head back and groaned, knowing what it was going to trigger in Psymon. Then, everyone froze as Psymon stood abruptly and stalked towards Elise. Nervously she swallowed hard, but was determined to stand her ground with him. From the corner of her eye she saw Moby and Zoe start to move in case interference was needed, but Elise knew that if she had seen them, Psymon did too. Allegra and Mac looked ready to pounce as well, but they were kids...she couldn't risk them. Kaori looked like she was about to have a nervous fit. No, she had to face him down.
He stopped a mere two inches from her face and sneered at her.
"Look, Amazon. I know I'm crazy. Hell, I can be mean and downright nasty when I want to be. But I never, never, NEVER enjoy watching someone have a dance with the Grim Reaper. Are we clear?"
"Crystal. Now get out of my face, Sketchy, or Brodi is going to have a roommate."
There was a collective sigh of relief in the room as Psymon grinned at her and clapped her on the shoulder. "That's my girl." he said, then returned to his seat. She bristled a little, but that was a close enough call that she decided to let it go. She had to admit that she'd been a little concerned. She'd taken martial arts classes for years, but Psymon was crazy. Crazy people don't hold back when they're fighting. Elise wasn't sure if even she, Moby, and Zoe could take him if he truly snapped.
"Now, I'm going back to Brodi. The nurses should have him settled into his room by now, and someone should be with him when he wakes up again. I'll put the word out when he's conscious and able to have visitors."
She turned to leave, then turned back before she had taken even two steps towards the door. "Uhm, out of curiosity, what could be so important as to keep both Rahzel AND Atomika away when one of their boarders has had an injury serious enough to require surgery? Shouldn't at least ONE of them be here?"
There was a tense silence, and everyone seemed to be looking at anything but her. Finally, Allegra ventured an answer.
"I think they were seeing about getting Brodi's parents up here. Elise, the man didn't look good at ALL when he was being loaded into that medevac chopper. I mean, they were BAG-BREATHING him, for the love of..."
Elise paled at Allegra's words as she simultaneously realized what Zoe's unfinished "Is he...?" had meant. Suddenly the adrenaline she had been pumping all day, from the second she learned the "boarder down" call had been in reference to Brodi, to the showdown with Psymon just moments before, went from overload to zip. At the same time all of the emotions she'd been keeping at bay for hours now came flooding back and hit her so hard she thought her head was going to explode. Brodi could have died. Her best friend...the man she loved, thought she loved, wasn't sure she loved but loved anyway, he could have died. The floor started moving, and she heard Moby yelling, "Oh, bloody hell, there she goes!" Psymon was rushing towards her again, and she felt one arm grapple her back as he lifted her before she could hit the floor. She was about to demand that he put her down, but all she could manage was to let her head flop over onto his shoulder. She thought she was going to be sick from the movement of the room, and then...nothing.