Chapter 11

It was a week later. Chloe was still away, so Harley, Jess and Jodie were staying at the flat. It was more convenient.

"Joey!" Tom shouted as he knocked on Joey's door. He heard a mumble and took it as his brother had finally woken up. "Get up. Now!"

Joey smacked his hand on his forehead. He had a killer headache and his body was getting warmer. He felt some sweat on his face. He decided to just get up and hope his brother didn't notice.

Five minutes later, Joey came into the kitchen. He had some joggers and an unzipped hoodie on.

"Why aren't you dressed?" Tom asked.

"Why? Do I need to be?" Joey said, still half asleep.

"Why not?"

"Why don't you just go back to work? I don't need 'looking after' anymore," Joey said, raising his arms and using his hands to make quotation marks.

"You sure?" Tom asked. Joey nodded. "Fine, I'll go call Zoe," he said, rather reluctantly.

Joey let out a sigh of relief - he didn't have to have his brother on his back, all the time, now.

A few minutes later and Tom came back into the room.

"So...?" Joey asked.

"I'm going in. But, you have to call me if you want anything. Harley and Jess are at school, Jodie is at nursery and Sam will be back in about an hour or two," Tom explained.

"Ok ok!" Joey held his hands up in surrender.

"Call me if you need anything."

"Cross my heart."

"Right, I'm off."

"Later."

When Tom had walked out the door, Joey went to go have a shower. He turned the dial down, so it was cold yet still bearable.

He stepped out about twenty minutes later. He didn't even feel cold, but he didn't think anymore of it. Joey got dressed into the same clothes. His thoughts were that he hadn't worn them for even an hour, so the clothes were still clean.

He went to go get himself some breakfast, although when he walked into the kitchen, he didn't feel like eating anything. He had a sudden surge of pain through his head and went to the cupboard - to get some paracetamol.

As he was opening the packet, he mumbled to himself, "as if these are going to do anything." He put the two tablets in his mouth, took a sip of water and threw his head back. He waited. He waited for the medicine to kick in. Thirty minutes passed and he felt no relief. Instead, he started to feel weaker. His legs were going numb and he felt like he had something or someone pushing down on his shoulders. He got a glass of water and went to lie down in bed, again.

After a few minutes, he started to feel hotter, so he took his jacket off. Then he threw the duvet off. His body was aching. He tried to get up, but his legs were too weak. He just laid there for what seemed like hours, but in reality it was about thirty minutes. His head was still banging, and the slamming of the front door didn't help.

Sam entered the flat. She took her coat off, then hung it up and walked through to the lounge. She thought Joey would be watching TV or something. He wasn't there. She turned round and didn't see him in the kitchen, either.

"Joey!" She shouted. No reply. Sam walked down the corridor and opened Joey's door. "Hey, what's wrong?" She asked, softly, after noticing that he looked extremely uncomfortable.

"Don't feel too great," he replied, weakly and quietly.

"Explain," Sam continued.

"Headache, pains, fever. Just flu symptoms. Nothing to worry about. Rest is all I need," he mumbled.

"Let me check you over," she moved forward and felt his head. He was sweating, a lot, and he was slightly red in the face. "How long have you had these symptoms?"

"Woke in the night with them."

"Right. I think you may be suffering from an infection. I'm going to call an ambulance," she said, worry etched on her face.

"Can't you drive me to the ED, if it's something to worry about?"

"No. One: Tom took the car. Two: it'll be safer," Sam grabbed her phone and called for an ambulance.

A few minutes passes by, then they heard the sirens. Sam waited until the paramedics knocked on the door, before she moved. She opened the door to Jeff and Dixie.

"Hey, Sam. What have we got?" Dixie asked, as Sam lead them to Joey.

"It's Joey. I think he's suffering from an infection. He's not good. He needs to be taken in ASAP," Sam informed them.

"Where's Tom?" Jeff asked.

"He went back to work early." Jeff just nodded.

Less than two minutes later, they were closing the doors to the ambulance and turning the sirens on. They arrived at the ED a few minutes afterwards. En route, Joey became less and less responsive. All three of them were worrying, now.

They wheeled Joey in on the stretcher. He was sent straight into resus. They got him onto a bed and Jeff and Dixie left - saying they hope he gets better, soon.

Sam was giving orders to the team around her. That was until Zoe walked in.

"Sam! Step aside. He's not your patient and you're off duty," Zoe said to her.

"But-"

"But nothing. Step aside. Let me look after him."

Sam felt as she'd lost this small argument. She held her hands up in surrender and stepped backwards. "I'm staying in the room"

Zoe turned her attention to Joey. "Right. Joey can you hear me? Squeeze my hand," she felt light pressure on her hand. "Good. What about opening your eyes?"

"Can't," he gasped. He was finding it harder to breathe.

Zoe grabbed a oxygen mask and quickly slipped it over Joey's head. "Lloyd, can you find Tom?" Zoe asked.

Lloyd nodded and ran out to reception. "Noel, have you seen Tom?"

"Yes. He's in cubicles," Noel replied.

"Thanks," Lloyd ran off.

He noticed Tom was at the desk, looking at something on a computer. "Tom, can you come into resus please?"

"Why?"

"Zoe needs you."

"I'm sure she can managed," he chuckled, as if he was telling a joke. But, he noticed that Lloyd wasn't laughing with him. "Who is it?"

"It's Joey," Tom didn't need anything more spoken. He ran to resus, with Lloyd right behind him.

"What's happened to him?" Tom shouted, as he threw open the doors.

"We think he's suffering from an infection," Zoe told him.

"Impossible. He was fine this morning," Tom spat.

"He's been deteriorating rapidly. It probably wasn't noticeable when you saw him earlier," Zoe explained, picking up Joey's notes. "It says here he was sent to physiotherapy after the accident. Has he been going?" She asked, pointing down at the notes.

"Yeah."

"When?" Sam asked.

"He hasn't been going with me. He said that he went with Nick," Tom said, staring at his brother - looking lifeless.

"Who's Nick?" Zoe and Sam asked, confused.

"Oh, he's Joey's godfather."

"Can you call him?" Zoe asked.

"Yeah. Of course. I think he's in London at the moment."

"Or someone else can call him?"

"No. It's fine. I will," Tom said - before he turned on his heels - and walked outside. He grabbed for his phone and called Nick.