Chapter 10 people! its the longest chapter yet. the ideas were flowing today so YAY! :)
Rookie Blue and its original concepts do not belong to me.
Enjoy!
God, I hope this is all just a really really bad nightmare, and that I'd wake up and Andy would be alright. But the sinking feeling in my gut told me that this was no dream, this was really. It was really happening.
I raised my eyes to see Boyko and Dr. Reinfrew walking towards me.
"Officer Swarek," the doctor began. "Would you like to see her?"
"Would you say like to see her?" he repeated.
It took me only a second to answer. "Yes," I said, kind of breathlessly.
"Since only one visitor per patient is allowed in the ICU, I suggest the rest of you wait here until Officer Swarek is back."
The doctor left the room, I didn't know if I was supposed to follow him out so I stayed where I was.
"Go ahead, Sammy," I heard Oliver call.
I forced my feet to move towards the door and through it. Once I was outside the waiting room, I looked up to see a sign pointing in the direction of the ICU.
The sign took me back down the hall and through another corridor. I came to a stop at wide double doors that had 'ICU' in red lettering on the front.
I took a deep breath, mentally preparing myself to see Andy on the other side of those doors.
With another deep breath, I stepped towards the door. And flinched back when the doors slid open. A young lady with bright red hair came running through, covering her face while she sobbed.
She ran headlong into me and almost toppled over. I caught her by the shoulders to steady her. She looked up at me with her red-rimmed eyes.
Behind her, the doors slid shut once again.
I looked down into her face. She had big brown eyes, almost exactly the colour of Andy's. That one similarity made me want to take away whatever made this woman with Andy's eyes cry.
"A-are you okay," I asked.
The lady just shook her head and pulled out of my grip, and ran down the hall.
I stood there watching her go, then turned back to the doors of the ICU.
I stepped up in front of the doors waiting for them to swoosh open again. Once they were, I stepped in.
The ICU was a large room with smaller cubicles created my curtains. There was a lot of beeping and other sounds coming from the various machines in the room.
Nurses and doctors were moving back and forth between patients with clip boards. Other visitors were sitting next to their loved ones.
Some of them were just standing there, not saying anything, either because the patient wasn't awake or there simply wasn't anything to say.
Was that what I was going to do? Was I just going to stand there looking at her face while she looked as though she was sleeping?
I took another deep breath and looked around to see if I could find her familiar face.
I turned to my left and walked all the way down to the end of the room seeing if I could find her bed. Once I realized that she wasn't on this side, I moved to the other.
I was nearing the end of the room once again when I finally saw her.
She was in the cubicle at the very end of the room. She was lying in a hospital bed with white sheets. Her skin was so pale that it almost matched the sheets.
There was an IV in her right arm, and other wires were coming from her body as well. To her left, a heart monitor showed the steady spike of her heartbeat.
My mind flashed back to the moment in the operating room where that line went flat. I suppressed a shiver at the memory.
Her chest under the sheet was rising and falling as if to confirm that she was indeed breathing.
I moved up to the head of the bed, closer to her face. She looked so peaceful so innocent. She wore an expression that rivalled the innocence of a newborn.
She looked so small in that bed. So tiny, so fragile. So beautiful.
I was afraid that if I touched her, I would break her. And still, my hand moved from my side reaching towards her face. But before my hand could make contact, there was a voice behind me.
"So, Officer Swarek I-,"
"Call me Sam," I interrupted.
He nodded. "Sam I understand that you probably want to ask me some questions for yourself. This would be a good time for you to do so."
I swallowed thickly.
"I um," I cleared my throat. "I want to know when she'll wake up."
Dr. Reinfrew nodded. "That's usually the first question they ask. Unfortunately, I always have the same answer; we don't know."
"It's almost impossible to know when or if the patient will wake up. Of course we hope that it will happen so; within a week or so. But sometimes, that's not the case."
"Sometimes, the patients don't wake up for a long time. Sometimes, they don't wake up at all. That of course would be a worst case scenario. We are hoping that Andy will wake up. And soon. The odds are with her."
"She's mending quite well. She really is quite the fighter."
I looked down at her. "Yeah," I murmured. "She is."
I looked back up at him. "So, um, how long is she going to be in here?"
"We have to keep her in here for 24 hours to keep a close eye on her. After that, we'll move her to either a private or semi-private room. Which would you prefer?"
"Private," I answered immediately. "A private room please."
"That can be arranged. So after the 24, we'll move her into her room. Then the visiting hours are the same as any other patient. I'll give you the hours later."
"How about the bullet wounds? How are those healing?"
"Well from what we see, she's mending very well. Since she's in very good physical condition, the healing process is going just as it should. We are expecting a full recovery in that department. All she'll have left from the bullets are scars."
And those scars won't make her any less beautiful, I thought.
"So will she be perfectly fine when she wakes up?"
"We are hoping she will be. The sooner she does wake up, the less impact it will have on her body."
At the confused expression on my face, he explained.
"The longer she's in a coma, the longer she's lying still in that bed. That means that her muscles will become stiff."
"So the longer that she goes without moving or stretching them, the more stiff they become, and she'll need more intense physiotherapy."
"It will be harder for her to do the things she did before, just like she used to. I'm not saying she won't be able to do them, I'm saying that it will take more of an effort."
Well then I hope she wakes up soon.
"So if she wakes up soon, she won't need physio?"
"No, she probably will still need at least a little bit of physio, but for a shorter period. She probably won't be fully ready to resume field work for a month after she wakes up, but we'll have to wait and see."
I sighed with relief. Now I just really needed her to wake up.
"Any more questions?"
I swallowed loudly.
"Can she hear me?"
"Well we believe that she can. Patients feel comforted when they hear familiar voices, and it can actually help them get better sooner.
"Oh."
"So, any more questions?"
I looked down at Andy, focusing on her pale face. "No, not right now."
"Well if you have any later on, you can find me. I'll be happy to answer any questions you have."
I nodded distractedly.
Dr. Reinfrew moved closer and placed a hand on my shoulder. "She's strong," he said softly. "You have to be strong for her too." And with that he patted my shoulder and left, pulling the curtain closed as he went.
I brought my hand up and brushed a stray strand of hair from her face, and let my hand rest lightly on her soft cheek, my thumb stroking back and forth gently.
"Andy," I murmured softly. "Can you hear me?" I got no response.
"Andy, I... I lo—"
Before I could finish my sentence, I was interrupted by someone yanking the curtain open.
Callaghan.
As you can tell with the cliffy, i channeled my frustration with Luke from this weeks epi to my story.
yea i am totally frustrated with the ending of episode 7 -_- hopefully episode 8 will be betterrrr :)
hope you liked it!
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xoxo thedarkangel22