Chapter 29 – Damage On The Surface
Randy Orton quickened his pace down hospital corridor as he checked his watch again. Yep, he was still definitely late. Unfortunately his flight from Dallas to Raleigh had been delayed by a couple of hours due to bad weather, which meant that as soon as he had arrived in Raleigh he was already late for the appointment he had with Lita and Heidi's new attending doctor.
Heidi had been taken to Central Carolina Hospital in Sanford, North Carolina, very late on Saturday night. It was now early Tuesday afternoon and Heidi was still stuck at the hospital until further notice. It had killed him to have to leave so soon after finally being reunited with his daughter, but unfortunately due to the lack of notice, Vince McMahon had told him that he had to be there on Monday Night RAW. Depending on how things with Heidi were going, however, next week's Monday Night RAW appearance for Randy was unconfirmed by Vince just in case. Randy turned around another corner in the hospital and started heading down another corridor, amazed that he actually could figure out where to go, considering that every single white hallway looked as identical to the last.
Randy had barely been able to concentrate on anything back at work last night, especially his match with Ryback. Thankfully Cena had a scheduled interference in the match due to his storyline with Ryback so Randy hadn't exactly had to do much. The most draining part about being at work last night, though, was the endless string of questions. He knew that his friends meant well but sometimes he forgot just how many there were that were genuinely concerned about his daughter and everything involved in her disappearance. He was thankful, no doubt, for all the support their friends had given both him and Lita during the time Heidi had been missing, but he had found last night overwhelming, especially when he felt like he had told the same story 80 times in a row.
First there was Cena who had met him in the carpark after hearing the news from Alle. Then Dave and Lillian had caught him on the way from the carpark to his locker room, as did Chris Jericho after he had obviously heard the news from Ash, one of the first people that Lita had called when she had left the hospital in the early hours of Sunday morning. Vikki and Maria were waiting in his locker room for him and bombarded him as soon as he entered the door. Then the twins Penny and Brooke came knocking on his locker room door to catch him moments before RAW started. Then there was Christian who came and found him the guerilla area before his match. Randy had felt like getting into the middle of the ring before his match and announcing it on the mics just so he wouldn't have to repeat himself anymore. Randy loved his friends and the people that he worked with in the WWE, but after everything that had happened in the last 48 hours he had just wanted to do his job as quickly as possible and get back to his daughter.
Randy had had his own thoughts to deal with since Heidi had been brought back to them as well. There were so many questions in his mind that he wanted to ask her. There were so many things he wanted to know about where she had been, details about the men that had taken her, what they had done to her, and how she got out, to name a few. He wanted to know all of it, primarily because he wanted to catch the sick bastards that had done this to his daughter and his family. He wanted to find them and beat the living daylights out of them, watch them suffer and then he wanted to see them rot in jail for the rest of their lives. Unfortunately right now, though, was not the time to ask his daughter any of that.
He had been speechless the moment he had entered his daughter's hospital room in the early hours of Sunday morning primarily because she was barely recognizable to him. She was so sickly pale, she looked so thin and frail and all he could see were the stitches in her skin. The red hair had thrown him too because initially he had thought he was seeing his wife lying there in the hospital bed before him. It was the strangest feeling standing there and seeing your daughter, who you had seen grow up over the last 18 years, and hardly being able to recognize her. All Randy could remember was being frozen there in his spot by the door whilst his wife rushed to his daughter's bedside. He remembered not being able to know exactly what kind of emotion he was meant to show – whether he was meant to be angry at the damage he could see on his daughter, whether he was meant to be sad when he thought about what she had gone through, or whether he was meant to be happy that she was there in front of him alive. It wasn't until she had called him "Daddy" that he knew that he had just wanted to hold her and make himself positively sure that he wasn't dreaming. The moment he'd heard her voice say that to him, he'd felt his heart skip a beat and it had taken every ounce of control he had to let himself cry without breaking down into a sobbing mess like he had wanted to.
19 years ago when Lita had gotten pregnant the last thing he had wanted to do was bring a child into this world and raise it. It wasn't something that he had planned, being so young himself, because it was something he had been scared of. He had been scared of not being able to do it right. He had been scared of not being able to give his child the best life that they deserved. He had been scared that he wouldn't know what to do and that everything he did do would be wrong. However, everything had changed for him the moment he had held Heidi Maree Orton in his arms the day that Lita gave birth to her. The moment he held his daughter in his arms the only thing that was running through his mind was a promise he made to himself that no matter what he was going to keep her safe and make sure that nothing and no one in the world hurt her.
He couldn't shake the feeling he had, when he thought about that promise he had made to himself, that he had failed her. That he had failed his daughter because he hadn't been able to keep her safe. He hadn't been able to stop her being taken and abused to an extent that he didn't fully even know right now. He knew his wife would tell him that he couldn't blame himself for what had happened because neither of them could have prevented it. That it was something out of their control entirely, but Randy couldn't stop himself from feeling that if he had been a better father to Heidi that he could have protected her and kept her safe from all that had happened.
After checking all the doors he passed along the corridor, Randy finally found the one he was after. Dr Stormie Woods was written across the door in black letters. The door was slightly ajar so Randy didn't bother knocking. Instead he slowly opened the door and poked his head in.
Randy saw his wife's head shoot up, her hazel eyes falling immediately upon him, as he entered the room.
"I'm so sorry I'm late," Randy immediately apologized as he headed over to his wife, who was getting to her feet.
"It's all good Rand," Lita replied as she greeted her husband with a quick kiss on the lips and a short embrace "The doctor's been held up in a consultation with another patient so she hasn't even arrived yet."
Randy simply nodded as he took a seat in the armchair next to Lita's. The red head resuming her seat at the same time. Randy then turned to speak again to her when the door to the room swung open again.
A tall brunette woman briskly entered the room, a stack of files pressed against her body in his arms.
"I'm so sorry that took so long," the woman immediately spoke as she dumped the files down on the desk infront of Randy and Lita "The work of a hospital doctor is apparently never done."
Randy and Lita simply nodded as the woman started rummaging through the files she had just put down on her desk before obviously finding the one she was after and placing it in the middle of the desk, right infront of the office chair seated on the side of the table opposite of Randy and Lita. With that the woman finally raised her eyes to meet Randy and Lita as she extended her hand to each in turn.
"I'm Doctor Stormie Woods," the woman spoke as she shook Randy and Lita's hands "I'm one of the general doctors here at the hospital that oversee the condition of short-term overnight patients, such as your daughter, Heidi Maree."
"I'm Randy Orton," Randy spoke as he stood momentarily to reach across the table to shake Dr Woods' hand "And this is my wife Amy."
"Pleasure to meet you both," Dr Woods replied as she then shook Lita's hand before the 3 returned to their seats.
Dr Woods flicked her long, brown fringe out of her face as she opened the file infront of her and then returned her gaze to Randy and Lita in front of her.
"So basically I've called you both here today to update you on your daughter's condition and let you know everything that we know at this stage," Dr Woods started "Considering the circumstances of Heidi being here with us, despite the fact that she is no longer a minor, we thought it most appropriate to discuss the circumstances we have here with you as her parents and legal guardians."
Randy and Lita nodded, urging the Doctor to go on.
"When your daughter arrived here on Saturday night, she was unfortunately in a very fragile and unstable state," Dr Woods began "Apart from the obvious physical abuse that her body was suffering, she had suffered a great deal of blood loss, dehydration and shock which had resulted in her losing consciousness as soon as the ambulance had arrived. The ambulance collected your daughter from a Ms Dena Robert's house following a 911 call that Ms Roberts had made to the hospital."
"As soon as she arrived at the hospital I was informed by medical staff that she was rushed to the emergency operating theatre as she was in a critical state," Dr Woods continued as she looked down at Heidi's file, giving Randy and Lita the exact details as they read on Heidi's medical file "Due to her severe blood loss and dehydration Heidi was administered a blood transfusion and an IV drip which was aiming to restore her body fluids and rehydrate her system. With the amount of blood that your daughter had lost it was amazing that she was able to maintain consciousness until the ambulance arrived."
"It was that bad?" Lita suddenly spoke, not being able to help herself as her hazel eyes met the dark blue ones of Dr Woods.
Dr Woods simply nodded.
"She wouldn't have lasted much longer if she hadn't been given the blood transfusion," Dr Woods simply explained.
Lita tried not to cry as she nodded at the doctor. She felt Randy reached out to her as he took her hand in his. She turned momentarily to look at him as he squeezed her palm gently.
"As far as physical damage goes," Dr Woods continued "Your daughter received multiple stitches to a number of cuts at various locations across her body. There was a gash across her forehead and a long cut on her right forearm that runs nearly the entire length of her arm. There were also a couple of neater cuts that the doctors in surgery were able to find as well."
"What do you mean by neater cuts?" Randy asked, not sure exactly what the doctor was getting at.
"The cuts on your daughter's forehead and forearm were very fresh and they we quite jagged, which suggests to me that they were a cut that was made by accident, such as a cut made by glass if you were to put your arm through a broken window for example," Dr Woods explained "The neater cuts that the doctors found on your daughter's other forearm, on her lower chest and on both of her inner thighs suggest that those were intentionally made with some sort of sharp implement, such as a knife."
Randy could feel his blood boiling and his anger rising as he thought about some sick bastard with a knife intentionally cutting his daughter. Intentionally trying to cause her pain and harm.
"It appeared that a lot of the neater cuts were quite clean, however, which means that none were infected which was definitely a good factor" Dr Woods continued "Unfortunately it appears that one of the cuts to your daughter's inner thigh was in the process of healing but for whatever reason the skin had re-split, so stitches were administered to it to allow for it to heal a little faster."
"What about the cut across her abdomen?" Lita asked, suddenly remembering the large row of stitches across her daughter's upper abdomen that she had seen the day before when she had accompanied Heidi to her series of X-rays.
"That was the cut that was by far the worst," Dr Woods said as her eyes raised to meet Lita's "It wasn't a neat cut and that was the problem. It was quite a severe cut into the skin and was the cause for the majority of your daughter's excess blood loss. It is definitely an uncomfortable place to have stitches but the doctors in surgery the other night didn't have many other options considering how severely your daughter was bleeding from the cut. According to Heidi's file here she has approximately 15 stitches to that particular cut."
Lita felt slightly queezy at the thought of 15 stitches in her daughter's skin. In all her career as a professional wrestler, Lita had never once even had that many stitches. In fact, she didn't think that any wrestler, male or female, had had 15 stitches for any one cut, probably not even close to 15. She could only imagine the pain that her daughter had been put through, and still the pain she must be experiencing now. She understood why the morphine in Heidi's drip was there now. She knew now that it wasn't just for comfort, but she was sure that right now it was something that Heidi desperately needed. Lita bit his bottom lip in order to control her emotions, as she listened on.
"Now apart from the stitches and cuts, your daughter has a number of bruisings on various locations across her body," Dr Woods continued "These include bruisings on her upper chest area an arms as well as what looks to be a ocuple of fresh bruises on the left side of her face,"
"What about broken bones or fractures?" Lita asked, her mind holding onto the question as soon as she had remembered the X-rays Heidi had gone to yesterday.
"Unfortunately Heidi has both," Dr Woods replied, looking down at her file once more as she started to recite the X-ray results "From the X-rays Heidi had yesterday we can confirm that she has 3 to 4 bruised ribs, as well as a sprained right wrist and a fractured jaw."
"Oh my god," Randy sighed, breathing heavily as he tried to control his anger and his emotions as he ran his free hand through his short brown hair.
He had heard enough in regards to the damage that had been done to his daughter, but at the same time he wanted to know more. He wanted to know everything that the doctor's knew. He wanted to know all of it, despite how painful he knew it was going to be to hear it.
"Are you alright Mr Orton?" Dr Woods enquired, looking at the 3rd generation superstar with all the sympathy in the world in her eyes.
"Yeah I'll be fine," Randy immediately replied, shaking himself out of his thoughts and his emotions as he raised his eyes to meet the doctor's.
"I understand how hard this must be for you," Dr Woods spoke, her eyes travelling inbetween the Ortons "It's a lot to take in right now and I expected it to be a little much for you two as Heidi's parents, but I wanted to be able to let you know everything that we know at this stage about Heidi's condition. I have two daughters myself. A 12 year old and a 14 year old and I can't imagine them going through something like this, but if they had I know that I would want to know absolutely everything."
"We do want to know everything," Lita stated "It's just not a lot of this is very easy to hear."
"Oh and I understand that completely," Dr Woods replied.
"But we don't want to have to wait any longer to know everything," Randy continued "Because no matter how long we wait none of this is going to be any easier to hear."
Dr Woods simply replied with a nod.
"Is there anything that can be done about any of the fractures or bruised bones?" Lita enquired, trying to encourage the doctor to continue.
"Unfortunately no," Dr Woods replied as she shook her head "Apart from a wrap on her sprained wrist there's not much that we can actually do about the fractured jaw and the bruised ribs except wait for them to heal themselves."
"She isn't in pain because of them is she though?" Randy enquired.
Never having experienced any kind of rib or jaw trauma himself, Randy didn't really have much knowledge in terms of it all. He'd only heard bad things about rib injuries though, especially in terms of how much they hurt.
"Not at all," Dr Woods replied "For the moment we have a reasonable amount of morphine accompanying the saline solution that is in Heidi's IV drip. For now that is all the pain killers she needs."
Lita and Randy nodded, processing all the information they'd received and making sure there were no questions floating around in their minds about anything they'd heard so far.
"Now unfortunately during your daughter's physical exam yesterday, the attending doctor noticed that your daughter has seemed to have also suffered some vaginal trauma," Dr Woods started, her words slow and tentative as she carefully watched Heidi's parents in front of her as she started to break the news.
Lita felt her eyes almost bulge out of her head as she heard the words leave the doctors mouth.
"What?!" Randy exclaimed, his voice a mixture of shock and anger as the words tumbled straight out of his mouth without so much as a second though.
Dr Woods took a moment before she answered Randy Orton.
"I'm really sorry to have to tell you this Mr and Mrs Orton, but it appears that your daughter has had sexual contact of some kind," Dr Woods spoke, her voice soft but her words clear so as not to be misheard "And under these circumstances we can assume that it falls into the category of sexual assault."
"No," Lita said, her voice barely audible "Please no."
It was almost as if she were speaking to herself her words were so soft.
"I'm so sorry to have to tell you this," Dr Woods replied as she glanced down at the file in front of her, partly to see what was written there and partly to avoid the looks from Heidi's parents so she could continue on without crying herself "Was your daughter a virgin before….well, uh, before this all happened?"
"Yes," Lita immediately replied, her stare still locked on the doctor as if trying to indicate to her to continue.
The red head could feel the tears streaming down her face and she didn't even care to wipe them from her cheeks. There wasn't any point really when she knew her wiped tears would just be replaced with new ones. Wiping her tears was the last thing of importance on her mind right now anyway. She could feel Randy's hand tighten its grip on hers and she couldn't even bear to look at him. She knew, without even looking at him, that the tears would be in his eyes as well. She hated seeing him cry because it rarely happened these days, but when it did it absolutely broke her heart. It broke her heart to see the man she loved with all her heart shed a single tear. No matter what the circumstance or what the cause, each and every single time she'd seen Randy cry it had made her heart sink.
"The conclusion we've drawn is that your daughter has been raped multiple times and due to the obvious roughness of the unknown sexual predator or predators, she's suffered some vaginal trauma including a torn vaginal opening."
"Holy shit," Randy exclaimed as he clenched his fists, not caring that he'd said it much too loud than expected "SHIT!"
"I'm so sorry to have to break this to you," Dr Woods immediately added "But if this is something that you'd like to hear some other time then I can certainly organize something. I realise how much of a shock this is right now for both of you."
"After everything she's been through that SON OF A BITCH HAD THE NERVE TO DO THIS!" Randy exclaimed again, his temper blazing as he released his wife's hand so he could run his hands through his hair as he buried his face in his palms.
He didn't care that Dr Stormie Woods was sitting infront of him and he certainly didn't care to think about the thickness of the hospital walls right now. All he cared about was his daughter. She was the only thing in the world that mattered right now.
"I can't believe this is happening," Lita spoke softly, the words almost under her breath, as if she hadn't even noticed the outburst from her husband moments earlier.
She had, however, noticed it. She was just having a hard time reacting to Randy's outburst because of the shock she was currently experiencing. Shocked at what she was hearing in regards to her daughter's current condition. There were always stories in the news and in the papers of young girls being kidnapped and sexually abused at the hands of some sick bastard. Young girls who were made 'sex slaves' for these men that only wanted them to fuel and feed their own sick sexual fantasies. These were real stories, but in Lita's mind they were just stories that she wasn't supposed to hear about. These weren't stories that you were supposed to prepare yourself for if they happened to someone you knew. You weren't supposed to prepare yourself for the possibility that your daughter could be one of those girls because your daughter wasn't supposed to me one of them. This wasn't supposed to happen to her daughter. No girl deserved this, least of all Heidi.
"Did you want some time alone?" Dr Woods asked, her voice calm and tentative as she clearly did not want to further upset the Ortons.
"No," Lita immediately replied, breaking herself out of her thoughts "I want to know now. I want to know everything, no matter how awful it is."
Lita then turned to face her husband who had taken a deep breath and was currently back to leaning back in his armchair, his hands resting on the top of his head. His breathing was hard and his eyes were focused on an invisible spot on the wall above Dr Woods' head. Lita could see he was trying his very hardest to calm down, but considering the heaviness of each of his breaths he was obviously struggling right now. She reached over and gently touched his thigh causing him to turn his head to look at her. She could see the tears glistening in his eyes as he looked at her. Seeing the tears in his eyes immediately making the tears rush back to her own.
"I want to know Randy," Lita spoke directly to her husband, forgetting for a moment that Dr Woods was even in the room "I need to know everything that's happened to her. I need to."
Randy simply nodded at his wife as he took a deep breath and lowered one of his hands so he could take Lita's hand in his. His fingers intertwined with hers, his blue eyes staring deep into her hazel ones.
"I need to know too," Randy replied, his voice soft and shaky "I don't want to hear anymore but I need to know."
Lita nodded at Randy before she turned back to Dr Woods and nodded at her as an indication for the doctor to continue on.
Dr Woods took a deep breath before she glanced down at the file in front of her.
"Because of the severity of the trauma," Dr Woods began "Your daughter has received 3 stitches to her vaginal opening which will allow the wound to heal a lot faster and there'll be less chance of an infection."
"Oh god," Randy spoke, gritting his teeth as he spoke.
His eyes travelling up to stare at the ceiling so he could concentrate on controlling both his tears and his anger.
"And the morphine means that she isn't in any pain because of it right?" Lita asked, her immediate thoughts with her daughter when she tried to imagine how much pain that kind of tear must be associated with.
"Absolutely," Dr Woods immediately replied "The morphine is pretty much a necessity right now for the amount of stitches and such that Heidi is dealing with. Once things start to heel and Heidi gets stronger then we'll eventually stop the morphine and look at oral pain medication if necessary."
"Please tell me that's all doctor," Randy sighed as his eyes returned to the doctor before him "I'd hate to think that there was anything more or anything worse to hear about the condition of our daughter than what's already been said."
30 minutes later
Heidi's ears pricked up at the sound of the door to her hospital room opening. It was almost 4pm and she was absolutely bored out of her mind again. She was hoping with everything she had that it was someone here to visit her so she could actually talk to someone other than one of the nurses that came in regularly to check in on her. It was driving her crazy that she was spending so much time alone in her room with no one to talk to when her mom wasn't here.
"Hi Mom," Heidi greeted Lita with a smile as she watched her mother enter her hospital room.
"How are you feeling sweetheart?" Lita asked as she forced a small smile at her daughter, trying to shake herself out of the thoughts that were flooding her mind about the conversation she and Randy had just had with Heidi's doctor.
"A lot better," Heidi replied with a nod before she lifted her hand to her forehead and started to finger the stitches there "This doesn't hurt so much today."
"Heids please don't do that," Lita said shaking her head as she winced at her daughter "Watching you touch those stitches is making me whoosy."
Heidi let a small laugh escape her lips as she watched her mother pull up a chair next to her bed.
"I forgot how useless you are when it comes to anything involving blood and stitches," Heidi chuckled.
"That's because both are disgusting," Lita answered matter-of-factly.
"Do you remember that time I sliced my finger open with a knife at home in the kitchen during freshman year?" Heidi asked, a smile creeping its way across her face as she recalled the story in her mind "You made me wait 10 minutes for Dad to come home so he could drive me to the hospital to get it stitched up."
"That was not exactly how it happened," Lita answered, trying to brush off the conversation.
"That was EXACTLY how it happened mom," Heidi answered, another laugh leaving her lips "I remembered trying to show you so you could tell me if it was really bad and you actually ran to the other side of the house and yelled at me to keep my finger away from you."
Heidi burst into a fit of giggles as she recalled the incident. The young Orton sighing as her laughter calmed down and she leant back into the hospital pillow beneath her head.
"Are you OK mom?" Heidi asked, her eyes narrowing in confusion as to why her mom wasn't laughing "I mean that was a pretty funny story and instead of laughing you look like something died."
Lita looked at her daughter and realized she couldn't sit here and pretend everything was OK because it wasn't. Yes it was a funny story, even if it was at her expense, because yes she was absolutely useless when it came to cuts and blood and all that. It was definitely a well-known fact. Unfortunately as it was a well-known fact backstage, every time any of the superstars had stitches they would always come to find Lita just to get a good laugh at her expense and her reaction. She distinctly remembered John Cena chasing her through the stands at an arena in New Orleans before RAW had started about 10 years ago. He had had stitches in his arm from a table match the night before at the TLC pay per view and had wanted to give Lita an up close and personal viewing. He had chased her for 15 minutes whilst she ran away screaming. He had only stopped when he had tripped over a chair in the catering area and fallen on his ass. Of all her years actually working in the WWE she was lucky she never had to get stitches because they would have had to knock her out to get the stitches into her first.
"Mom?" Heidi asked again, the concern evident in her daughter's voice as Lita was broken out of her thoughts.
"Heids, your doctor has given me and your father some news about your condition," Lita began, trying to find the right words to use.
The red head then cleared her throat, trying to rid herself of the lump she could feel quickly rising.
"About the stitches and everything?" Heidi asked, her eyes intently studying her mother for some kind of indication of what was actually going on.
"Yes that," Lita simply nodded "But there is something else that you need to know and Dr Woods offered to tell you herself, but I wanted to be the one to let you know."
"Why?" Heidi asked, still confused as to what her mother was getting at.
"Because it's something important that I think we need to talk about," Lita replied.
"I'm not going to need more surgery on anything am I?" Heidi asked, trying to guess what her mother was talking about "Dena had mentioned that the doctor's were thinking I might need surgery if I have any kind of fracture. I mean Dena said that for some fractures, surgery is the best option to make sure the bones heal prop…."
"No, no surgery honey," Lita said shaking her head, interrupting Heidi mid-ramble.
"Then what is it?" Heidi asked, growing very curious.
"Heidi, I….," Lita started as she took a deep breath.
Her eyes diverted from her daughter to her clasped hands in her lap and then back to her daughter as she tried to find the best words to use.
"It's not something bad is it?" Heidi asked, fear flashing in her blue eyes as she looked with pleading eyes at her mother "Please mom, just tell me cause right now you're really freaking me….."
"Heidi," Lita said, the words tumbling straight out of her mouth, cutting Heidi off mid-sentence "Heidi you're pregnant."
A/N: HEIDI IS PREGNANT! OMG! Congrats to SoniB89 for correctly guessing! Soni please feel free to PM me if you are interested in getting a future character in the story named after you! Was anyone else expecting that to happen? Look out for Chapter 30 – Damage Beneath The Surface, which will hopefully be out very very soon! Please READ AND REVIEW! God Bless, Mrs Bridget Orton xxx