Begin 8

When Roy and Hank were finished on the phone they turned back to their friend, his hands were trembling as he held them to his face. Roy picked up on the rapid ragged breathing as he watched his partner and friend's chest.

"She's all right Johnny, slow your breathing down or you're going to pass out." Roy coached as he returned to his friend's side and rubbed his back.

"I almost lost her," John sobbed with moist eyes, "We haven't been married for a full day yet and I almost lost her. She went into v-fib and I had to shock her, my own wife, I had to shock her." John then turned his eyes toward his captain and the man who had been his best man at his wedding. "Why wouldn't her family let us do this when she first got here when she was more stable?"

"I don't know John, but she's going to be alright now." Hank sat down in the chair set in front of John and placed both hands on John's shoulders, "She's got you to make sure she's going to get the treatment she wants and needs, you two have gotten over a really big hurdle today, I think the best thing to do is to rejoice and build up strength for the next one."

John looked up at his captain from his bent over position and managed to nod his head. Wiping his eyes with his fist John sat up straight and took in then slowly blew out a deep breath before looking back and forth to each of his support crew. "Does anyone know how Dixie came out?"

"She'll live," a female voice was heard from the doorway.

Everyone turned to see Dixie walking on her own power but still assisted by the fine Dr. Early. "What have you heard about Elise?" Dixie asked in return.

John quickly told Dixie all that he knew and they both shared a sigh of relief.

"I'm sure glad you're here to look after John, because Roy and I have just been instructed to return to the station." Hank informed Roy and said good bye to John at the same time. "John you've been relieved of duty for the rest of the shift to take care of your wife. Call us with any updates and don't hesitate to call if you need the slightest thing."

John gave his captain another affirmative nod and shook his hand before Hank gave Roy a slap on the shoulder and the two of them made their leave.

It wasn't long after Hank and Roy had left that the nurse came to lead John to his wife.

00000

At this point everything was going just as they had arranged things to proceed the following day, to Johnny it began to feel like the following day until someone commented on his uniform and asked if he were on duty. That was all it took to remind John that he had been on duty and everything had to be done on an emergency basis instead of waiting for him to get off shift.

John was led to his wife who was in a hospital bed with the head slightly raised. She had on an oxygen mask and a couple of IVs were hung and dripping over head, and ECG lead wires rose from out of her hospital gown that was pulled off of her left arm and down so that is covered her breast but left her shoulder and the implantation sight exposed. The area was still covered with the orange disinfectant and the top of the gown was stained. The incision was currently left uncovered so the recovery nurse could watch it and John was able to count five stitches.

Then John noticed the ECG monitor and all fear was lifted as he released a silent sigh of major relief. She was in sinus rhythm her ECG looked normal. John was then able to turn back to take in Elise's face, It was calm and peaceful and pink. He reached out and took her motionless hand in his and felt the warmth in her finger tips. Yes, there were a couple of heated blankets on top of her but her warm hand was so refreshing to John. He used his other hand to smooth her fingers around his own before lifting her hand to his lips and then bending over to give her a kiss on the forehead.

She smelled of disinfectant but her hair smelled like apple sauce, thanks to the shampoo she used. As he rested his cheek on her hair he found he was feeling some of the disbelief that his crewmates had shown, but he reminded himself, 'She is my wife, my wife, Wow.' John kissed her forehead again before sitting on the raised stool the nurse had placed at the bedside for him.

Because of the seizure issues Elise had, it was decided that they would use a general anesthesia instead of the local more commonly used for this procedure. Because she had been sedated heavily and confined before she managed to escape and make her way to Los Angeles for the treatment of her choice, and because John had adequate medical training to be allowed into recovery. It was decided that the best thing for Elise was if he were there to talk her through the wake up period.

As John lovingly rubbed the back of Elise's hand with his thumb he watched for signs of her waking but his mind also revisited the day they first met.

He had noticed Elise early in the convention. She was very shapely and attractive, real eye candy as his friends would call her. But better yet her left hand was clear of any kind of a ring or even the shadow of one. He had managed to keep his eye out for her and saw her several times as he planed the perfect way to introduce himself. It was after that last lecture of the first day when John saw her wander out of the lecture hall, one of the last people out and with the most lost expression on her face he had ever seen she slumped onto a bench just outside the door looking totally defeated. John couldn't understand why, the last lecture had been a real ego boost for him. Dr. Brackett had been talking about all the miracles and wonders of the Paramedic program, he talked in detail about several rescues where paramedics had made the difference between life and death and estimated how many lives would be saved in the future. John had even recognized several of those rescues himself and knew it was he and his partner Dr. Bracket was talking about.

Confused by her defeated appearance John waved Roy off to go back to their hotel room and change clothes without him and walked over to sit with her and make that introduction he'd been planning all day.

"Hi, I'm John Gage a fireman paramedic out of Los Angeles County." John started out managing to get the girls attention.

"Hi," she turned moist eyes in his direction. "I'm Elise Holbrook, a RN in charge of Emergency in a small town you've probably never hear of in the north eastern section of Montana." Elise shook John's offered hand and found a smile. "I'm afraid I'm totally wasting my time here."

"What makes you say that? I've found the lectures very informative," Johnny responded.

"I'm sure they are for you, this last lecture spoke of all that can be accomplished with your new training that's being approved everywhere but the area I come from doesn't have the old training to build on." Elise looked at John and with a crocked smile she continued. "A couple of months ago one of our firemen tried to cut a family out of an overturned camper with a welding torch, when he set off a gas leak and started a fire that blew a couple of propane tanks there was nothing to save. Three of the firemen are still in the burn unit at Helena three more were DOA." She let out a deep sigh, "they were a well loved family in the area and I managed to convince some of the local people in power to spend some grant money they had received to buy a surplus set of Jaws and a used porter power." Elise gave John a look of pure surrender, "I'm here to learn how to use them so I can go back home and teach what's left of our fire department and rescue people how to use them. And there is no way on earth I learned enough in that 20 minute demonstration this morning to go home and teach my people what to do with what I convinced them to buy."

As Elise was starting to return his gentle squeezing of her hand, John remembered taking Elise to the booth where the company who built the rescue equipment had a few of their toys on display and convincing the salesman to let him help demonstrate how they worked for Elise's benefit.

As Elise was moving her head and showing signs of becoming more alert John remembered how much more confident she looked as he escorted her to the banquet dinner that night, and then to the exercise room in the basement of the hotel to start helping Elise build up the muscle strength she would need to lift the heavy Jaws.

As John brushed Elise's hair at the side of her face he remembered the joy he felt as Elise attended the rest of the lectures at his side and they whispered comments back and forth to each other. Between lectures they compared notes of their different worlds and John was able to introduce her to someone from the fire academy that was also in attendance at the convention and helped to negotiate more training for Elise.

She shared his passion for the work and helping other people and from the very beginning John enjoyed her company. It was a feeling he never shared with anyone else.

A quiet grown from Elise pulled one hundred percent of John's attention to every breath and move she made.

"You're going to be all right Elise," John started a mantra as he continued to caress her hand with his thumb and stroked the side of her face around the oxygen mask. "I'm right here with you and you're going to be just fine."

Several attempts were made before Elise was finally able to open her eyes but when she did all fear left her facial expressions when she saw John at her side. "I, I have another seizure?"

"NO," John smiled at her and gave in to a few tears. "You scared me a whole lot more than that. The car you and Dix were in was hit from behind and pushed into a delivery van ahead of you. The force you were thrown against the shoulder strap with was enough to send you into V-fib. You kept us hopping for a while there."

"Dix, kay?"

"She's going to be a little stiff and sore for a day or two but nothing was broken except her car," John smiled. "She was looking forward to getting another one any way."

Elise managed a weak smile from behind the oxygen mask then was clearly thinking as hard as her medicated mind would allow.

"Move up pacemaker?"

"Yeah they did, now they have you running on all four cylinders."

Elise's eyes started searching the room and John knew what she was looking for. He let go of her hand and reached over her to move the scope where she could see it and watched as she turned her head and studied the squiggly line bouncing across the screen.

"Me?"

"Yep, that's you, a marked improvement isn't it?" John spoke with emotion in his voice.

Elise turned back to John with tears in her eyes, "stand a chance now to be worth something again."

"You've always been worth the world to me," John responded with his own tears and a kiss to Elise's forehead.

Once Elise started talking it wasn't long before she was deemed ready to be moved to CCU and Johnny held her hand the whole way. Once she was settled in John stayed at her side until she was sedated for the evening and the doctors encouraged him to leave and get some rest himself.

As John wandered toward the elevator he noticed that Elise's family had been moved to a waiting area near the CCU. They all looked as tired as he felt, angry at the world and worried. John stepped up to the door doing his part to keep the security guard between them, "She's going to be fine the pacemaker is doing its job and having that sliver of helmet removed is also improving her own hearts ability to maintain its own rhythm," John informed them.

"Can we see her?" one of Elise's sisters asked.

"No," John was quick to respond. "She's asleep for the night now and I don't want her upset. You all best go to where ever you're staying and get some rest yourself."

With that said John simply turned and left, he had no intension in arguing with any of them.