A Light in the Dark
A/N: A huge thank you to my beta reader Alex Skywalker who continues to give me purpose and strength throughout writing this story.
One of my favorite authors favorites and is following this story I am so happy! In fact a lot of my favorite authors have and I am just so honored. Alex Skywalker is one of my favorite authors and I was so humbled when she agreed to be my beta when I asked her.
I realize this chapter took longer to write and I apologize but this was a detour I took that wasn't planned in the overall storyline. But it was a necessary one. I think some of you know where I am going with this and I needed Tim to truly hit a rock bottom in order for him to rise again. I also knew exactly where I wanted to end this chapter in order to get back to my overall outline of the story thus the chapter ended up being longer than expected. I have knowledge in medical workings and practices as I used to be an EMT, however I am not a doctor and this is called fiction for a reason so suspend a little disbelief here, lol. Other than that enjoy and of course.
PLEASE REVIEW I NEED REVIEWS!
Chapter 15
The small, weak young boy fell forward into the strong arms of one Jason Todd, passed out cold.
"Shit!" Jason exclaimed as he sprang into action. Jason had no doubt in his mind that Tim had passed out due to both not eating and not sleeping. Dehydration and exhaustion do not mix well, especially with one already weakened by stress.
"Tim? Tim!" Jason called to him, tapping his cheeks, but not receiving an answer. "Come on, Tim, don't do this." Jason tried shaking the smaller boy- still no response. Jason saw that Tim was sweaty, pale and cold to the touch. Fearing the worst, he felt for a pulse, finding a weak, thready one and then he put his ear to the boy's chest and a hand to his face and, thankfully, felt the young boy breathe lightly.
Jason reached one arm around Tim's back and the other under his legs and lifted him, noting how light he felt. Jason carried Tim over to the couch and laid him down on it, proceeding to call the younger boy's name and tap his face. What alarmed Jason most, besides Tim not coming to, was that there was no reaction at all to the tapping, something that normally worked. There was not even the flutter of his eyes beneath his closed lids.
Jason stood and paced by Tim's makeshift bedside, biting his nails, trying to figure out what to do. He began talking out loud to himself.
"Okay, Okay, he's only been out for a couple of minutes; there's no need for too much alarm yet."
And that's how things remained for the next thirty minutes: Jason pacing, periodically calling Tim and tapping his face, only to get no response. Throughout the thirty minutes Jason ran through the different possibilities in his head. He could take Tim to a hospital, but that had disaster written all over it. Not only did Jason not trust doctors but the end result would be Tim returned to the manor and the doctors trying to get in touch with Bruce and that just wasn't possible. Moreover, Jason could just picture all the newspaper headlines of 'Bruce Wayne's adopted son anorexic, trying to kill himself.' and whatever other conclusions they decide to draw.
He considered calling Dick or Alfred, but again the end result would be Tim returned to the manor, Tim mad at him, and Dick even more mad at him and no doubt blaming him for what happened. Then the kid would just run away again and probably not go to Jason the second time, considering his trust in the man violated. Then where would Tim end up? So Jason called the only other person that was a genius- and could handle this situation- that he could think of.
"Hello?"
"Harper, I need your help."
Roy Harper was part of the outlaws and had recently been fighting alongside Jason. He used to be friends with Dick, but over the years the two had grown apart. Roy was one of those secret geniuses, one that no one knew about because they chose to focus on his past addictions and flaws.
"Jason! Ya know the problem with giving no one your phone number and blocking it when you do call is that we can't reach you. When we came back from off world I heard about Bruce and couldn't reach you, I even stopped by your apartment a couple of times and you weren't there."
"I was at the manor."
"Wow, really? How did that go?"
"Harper! Focus! Look, I really need your help ok?! I need you to come by my apartment now, right now!"
"Ok, geesh, I'll be there in ten minutes."
"You have five!" and Jason hung up the phone.
In true Roy fashion, he showed up in the ten minutes he'd promised, not the five that Jason demanded, knocking furiously on Jason's door once he arrived. Jason, taking no chances, opened the door an inch, holding it there with his foot and peering out the crack.
"Where's the fire?" Roy asked.
"Let me ask you something first: are you and Dick still friends?"
Roy got a strange look on his face. "I…I don't know, we haven't really talked in a long time; we're just kind of…..doing our own thing I guess. Why?"
"None of this leaves this apartment. You are to tell no one, ESPECIALLY Dick, or so help me-"
"Ya ya you'll kick my ass. Now what's going on?"
Jason opened the door further to reveal to Roy a weak looking Tim Drake laid out on the couch.
"Is that Tim?" Roy walked past Jason, kneeling down beside the younger boy. "What's going on?"
"It's kind of a long story, but he's sick and due to Batman, and not Bruce, being dead, Tim not wanting to go back to the manor, and the possibility of newspapers getting a hold of something like this, I need YOU to make him better."
"Okay, so what happened to make him so sick?"
"The short of it is that he's been really stressed due to some stuff that happened at the manor and has been staying with me the last few weeks – yes Dick knows – and he hasn't been eating despite me trying. He's skinny as can be and, due to nightmares, he never sleeps and I mean never. We were getting in an argument about him needing to eat and he just passed out cold and that was about forty five minutes ago and I can't get him to wake up. Please help me."
Jason said please; it had to be bad.
"Where's your medical stuff?"
"You know where it is; have at it."
Roy disappeared into the bedroom as Jason sat on the arm of the couch closest to Tim's head. Roy returned with an armful of medical equipment, and immediately started to examine Tim.
"Well?" Jason asked impatiently.
"Give me a few, Jason."
Roy took Tim's vitals, looked at his eyes and lifted up Tim's shirt, marveling at the weight the kid lost. Roy started pressing on Tim's abdomen and then took off Tim's shoes and socks and then used metal stick, running it up and down the arch of Tim's foot, watching for a reaction of some sort. He seemed satisfied that he got it. He then tapped on Tim's reflex joints and nerves, receiving a response there as well. Roy then looked at Jason.
"You said never sleeping?"
"Never."
"And never eating?"
"You see how much weight he's lost."
"And he's been stressed?"
"Severely."
"How long?"
"Stressed, for months. No eating and no sleeping…..two weeks, maybe more."
"Jesus, Jason!"
"What did you want me to do, Roy! If I sedate him he would have lost my trust and run off and then where would he be? I couldn't hold him down and shove food down his throat!"
"I'm going to need more medical equipment than you have."
"Like what?"
"Like oxygen, IV materials and stand, heart and O2 monitor, and unless you want piss all over your couch and him, which could lead to infection, I'll need catheter equipment too. And other stuff….."
Jason cringed at the word catheter; that was going to be embarrassing.
"Jason, do you know some place we can get all that?"
"Yah, the Bat-cave. Don't worry, I'll take care of it, just make me a list."
Roy made a list and showed it to Jason. The stressed out man asked a few questions regarding certain pieces he'd never heard of before and Roy drew pictures for Jason. Jason then made phone calls to what he liked to call his 'lackeys'(his low level runners , his eyes and ears out on the streets); Batman and his new Robin were spotted out and about patrolling, meaning the Bat-cave was clear.
"Roy, you'll stay here and watch over him? You're good?"
"Of course, Jason."
"Okay, keys to your car; there's no way this is all fitting on my bike."
Roy tossed Jason his keys and Jason made his exit with some empty duffle bags and one long parting look to Tim. Jason didn't want to leave him, but he knew the younger boy was in good hands.
Jason got to the Bat-cave, finding the pass-codes were the same as the last time he was there and also thankfully finding it empty. Jason went through the list as quick as he could, not only grabbing oxygen tanks, heart monitors, and O2 monitors, but all the wires and tubing that went with them. There was a multitude of other things Roy needed that were a bit difficult to find, but Jason knew they were there; the Bat-cave was stocked like a top notch hospital. Finally, Jason had what he needed and left.
When he got back to the apartment, he found that Roy had stripped Tim of his clothing and covered him up with the comforter. It was a necessary evil in order for Roy to do everything he needed to do. Luckily the couch was already made up so Tim lay on the sheet.
It took Jason almost five trips to get everything from the car to the apartment and even before he was done, Roy got to work on Tim. Jason spread out the materials on the floor and the coffee table, making it easier for Roy to find things, and began to ask questions.
"With everything you are doing to him you obviously expect him to be out for a while. How long are we talking here?"
"Not sure; it could be two days or it could be two weeks, it's kind of all up to Tim."
Jason continued to unpack the supplies.
"Is he like, in a coma?"
"No, not at all. He's breathing on his own; I'm not needing to pump oxygen into him. He is breathing a little shallow, but the oxygen will help with that." Roy then affixed the oxygen nasal canals in Tim's nose, wrapping it back and around his ears. "His heart is beating perfectly normal and his blood oxygen stats are good with oxygen which we will continue to monitor." Roy then put stickers all over Tim's chest with wires that led to a monitoring machine. Roy also wrapped a blood oxygen monitor around Tim's index finger and a blood pressure cuff around his upper arm, all leading to monitoring devices that Jason plugged in. "And his brain function is great. It's kind of like when a clock unwinds or something runs out of batteries. Tim's body, between being stressed, not eating, and not sleeping, ran out of juice and just shut down so it can recharge its batteries, so to speak." Roy now tied a tourniquet around Tim's left arm and the man sat on the floor trying to find a vein to start an IV with. "Sometimes what happens after this is people's organs start to shut down. But, that hasn't happened here," Roy added before Jason freaked. Roy tossed Jason another tourniquet. "Get his other arm and see if you can find a vein; he's so dehydrated I'm having trouble." Roy knew he also needed to give Jason something to do.
Jason climbed across Tim, kneeling on his other side, thankful again that he had a deep couch, tied the tourniquet around Tim's right arm, and began searching for a vein. "Ya know, Roy, I'm not very good at this."
"Don't worry, I think I got something. Can you set up that IV pole with a saline fluid bag?" Roy stabbed at the vein on the inside of Tim's forearm and luckily got a blood return. He grabbed tubes off of the table. "I want to get some blood drawn before I start his fluids. I have a friend at a lab who owes me some favors and will run some tests with a Jon Doe blood sample."
After the blood was drawn, Roy started Tim's fluids and added a bag of vitamin and essential nutrients that also ran through the IV which ran through yet another machine.
"Maybe we should have put him in the bed in the bedroom," Jason said.
"Nah, this is where he's been sleeping and he's here and hooked up to everything so he's good," Roy replied. Roy was genuinely shocked at how caring Jason was being to the younger boy who he'd never even called by his first name, only ever referring to him as 'the replacement' This was a side of Jason, Roy wasn't sure he'd ever seen. Maybe it was the loss of Bruce, maybe it was whatever went down at the manor, but Roy liked seeing that Jason was opening up and letting people in. Roy continued.
"You know, Jason," Roy continued. "When Tim wakes up, he's not going to be up and ready to kick ass."
"What do you mean?"
"He's going to be tired, he's going to need to re-up his energy, and that's going to take time."
"Okay, well, when he does wake up, he's eating a whole pizza, fourteen chilidogs, and a two liter bottle of soda."
"And that's a great way to make him throw it all up. He needs to start small: chicken broth, soup-light stuff - then work his way up."
"How long until he's normal again."
"You guys are normal?" Roy joked. "Anything I say you bats are going to cut in half, so again, it's kind of up to Tim. But, whatever you do, don't rush him." Roy reached for the catheter equipment and Jason visibly cringed. Having had surgery he knew what they were like and they were…..uncomfortable. Roy sensed Jason's uneasiness.
"You can turn around if you like."
And Jason turned his back to Roy inserting the catheter. As Jason's back was turned he heard Roy's cell phone go off. "Your phone?"
"Don't worry, I'm in the middle of something; let it go to voicemail."
A couple of minutes later Roy was happy that Tim was passing urine easily, saying that the kidneys were the first to go, but Tim's were doing their job just fine. Jason then heard Roy take off the rubber gloves and figured it was safe to turn around again. Roy then took out his cell phone to see who called.
"Uh oh."
"What?"
"It's Dick who called." Roy put the voicemail on speakerphone. Dick's angry voice came through the speaker.
"Roy, it's Dick. I noticed an interesting thing on the Bat-cave cameras: your car and Jason getting out of it and stealing a hell of a lot of medical equipment. I want to know why because Jason looked to be just fine. You call me as soon as you get this, you hear me? As SOON as you get this!"
Roy looked at Jason, obviously unhappy that he'd been dragged into this.
"What do I do now?" Roy demanded.
"Call Dick back and tell him I borrowed your car a couple of months ago and you haven't even seen me to get it back yet."
"He's supposed to believe I'm getting around without a car?"
"Tell him you're staying with Starfire if you like; that should shut him up," Jason said, knowing it would be a low blow to Dick's former relationship with the alien.
Roy shook his head and headed to the balcony to make the call. A couple minutes later he returned.
"Well, he's not happy. He says if I hear from you to tell you to call him. He's concerned something happened to Tim since you seemed fine on camera and he hasn't seen or even talked to Tim in weeks. What's that about?"
"Tim doesn't want to see or talk to him - I didn't do that. I'll call him later with an excuse, but it's Dick's fault he's like this."
"What the hell happened, Jason?"
Jason sighed deeply and ran his fingers through his hair. He sat on the floor, his back against the couch by Tim's head, and motioned for Roy to sit down. Jason then told Roy everything that had happened, from him being called to the manor and hearing about Bruce's death and finding Dick in bad shape, to his days in the manor, to his fight with Tim and his leaving (he left out Bruce's goodbye message to him), to Tim coming to his place and Dick not listening to Tim's theory on Bruce being alive and Dick taking Robin away from Tim. Roy just sat there and took it all in.
"He thinks Bruce is alive? What do you think about that?"
"Stranger things have happened," Jason said pointing to himself.
"Wow, he has been stressed," was all Roy could say after that. Then after a moment: "But, he's going to be fine, Jason, he still has a good brother looking after him." Roy smiled. "Do you want me to stay? I can look after him. There are things that are going to need to be done, Jason. I'll need to change his IV bags. He'll need to be turned every so often and bathed every day to avoid bed sores. Let me help you out," Roy pleaded. Jason nodded.
"Ok, take the bedroom; I'll stay out here."
Roy nodded, knowing he wouldn't win with Jason on that one and headed into the bedroom.
The next morning, Roy came out to find Jason where he had left him on the floor, his jacket wrapped around his front, leaning against the couch, his head tilted back so it was barely touching Tim's head. Roy found it too irresistible and took out his phone to take a picture, but before he could get the shot he heard the rumble of Jason's voice.
"Take it and die."
Roy laughed. Jason stood up and got out his own phone. "I'm going to call Dick so be quiet."
The phone call with Dick didn't go well. Jason agreed with Roy's story about the car and told Dick the medical supplies were needed for one of his lackeys that had gotten hurt and he would return the medical supplies when he could and emphasized that he was borrowing them, not stealing them. He also said that Tim still didn't want to talk to him. He even played it up, to Roy's amusement, Jason calling Tim in the open air asking if Tim wanted to talk to Dick. He then made it a point to remind Dick that he was the reason Tim didn't want to talk to or see him and he was the reason Tim ran away and that Jason was the one who he was staying with now and Jason was the one taking care of him now. And then Jason hung up the phone furiously. He was stressed and this was not going to be a pleasant few days.
As the days went on, Jason insisted on helping Roy with everything concerned with Tim's medical care. Jason learned how to change the catheter and IV bags. He turned Tim when it was time and helped Roy give Tim his sponge baths. Luckily Roy noticed that Jason decided not to take a page out of Tim's book and was taking care of himself, eating, sleeping, and even working out. Though he always gave Roy the bedroom, Jason still slept, whether it was in the recliner or on the floor next to Tim. Roy periodically heard Jason having a nightmare in the night. The man liked to act like he didn't care, but it was obvious he did. Jason stopped going on patrol. Roy offered to sit with Tim and look after him if he wanted to go, but Jason always declined.
After a week went by, though, the time had taken its toll on Jason.
He was pacing in the living room, furiously running his hands through his hair. There had been no change in Tim's condition. The blood samples came back telling them what they already knew: that he was malnourished. Roy stood in front of Jason to get him to stop pacing.
"Jason you've got to calm down. Tim's still doing okay." Roy wasn't used to seeing Jason like this either. No matter what, Jason was always cool, calm, and in control; even when they were getting their butts handed to them, Jason always took everything in stride.
"Roy, I should have taken him to a hospital."
"He's doing okay, it's just a waiting game; the hospital will tell you that too."
"What am I supposed to do here, Roy? The kid trusts me. I don't know why- I'm a big fuck- up -but he trusts me to do the right thing."
Roy put his hands on Jason's shoulders. "Jason, you are not a fuck- up. It's your decision what to do, but I do want you to remember the reasons you told me that you didn't want him to go to a hospital."
The two men then heard a groan and Jason saw movement out of his peripheral vision. He turned to see Tim turning from his side to his back.
"Tim?" Jason called as the two rushed to Tim's side. Jason sat on the couch next to Tim and looked into Tim's open blue eyes. Tim was awake.