Author's Note: While I obviously don't know the laws for being a coroner and practicing medicine at the same time, I'm assuming it's frowned upon. If it's not and I'm wrong, sorry! (Trust me, you'll understand that note further in this chapter)
Also, while pneumonia may not seem life threatening, trust me when I say that it is. My father died from it and there was a kid in my son's school who lost his uncle to it this past week.
Enjoy and please, do let me know what you think :)
oOo
Two days later found Henry still sitting by Abe's bedside. Well, it would be more accurate to say that he was still in Abe's room. He'd moved from the small cramped area by the bed to a more spacious spot in the corner. The chair there was far more comfortable than the standard chair that resided closer to the bed. However, he did still have on the same clothes and he still stared at his son as though he alone could keep the man breathing. Indeed the only other discernable difference was that he now also wore a bandage wrapped around his right hand and a long brace that was cupped around his right knee. There was also a bit of a bandage supporting his side but that was far less easy to spot.
Jo had waited until the next morning to cajole (via threats of physical harm) Henry into getting himself looked at by a doctor. At first Henry had resisted but by that point his injuries were truly starting to pain him and so, with great reluctance, he'd given in. He'd whispered to an asleep Abe that he would be back and left, making sure to extract a promise from the on-call nurse that should anything change, she would give him a call on Jo's cellular phone.
By the time he'd limped back into the room, Abe was not only awake but appeared to be feeling better. He'd offered a smile upon his entrance at first, but it soon turned into a frown. His son had waited until Henry had sat down before he'd demanded to know what had happened. Fearing that the monitors (which showed Abe's slowly climbing heart rate) would soon bring in the rather stern-looking nurse he'd seen outside the rooms, making her rounds, Henry had, hesitantly, told Abe about his run-in with the taxi cab.
Abe had been furious and had insisted that Henry should have gotten his own injuries taken care of before checking up on him. The idea that Henry had spent all this time in pain simply to keep an eye on him had upset him far more than Henry had thought it would. Then again, if the situations had been reversed, he would have felt the same way. Henry had done what he'd could to calm his son down, even going so far as to promise that he would take care of himself from now on. At least, as far as the rest of Abe's stay in hospital was concerned.
Now he sat here, comfortable, but still concerned. Henry didn't think he would ever not be concerned where Abe was involved. He was Abe's father, after all. It was his parental right to worry over his child. Especially when said child was sick or injured.
The monitor beeped and Henry slowly stood up to check and see what was wrong. Pain flared in his knee, which, as it had turned out, had been sprained pretty badly, and Henry almost fell. He caught himself on the arms of the chair before he could fall, however, and, wincing as he did so, slowly went to the right side of the bed where the monitors were.
His brow furrowed as he read them, not liking what he was seeing. He pivoted gently and laid his hand on Abe's forehead. It was hot, meaning that he had actually spiked a fever. But how? He hadn't been anywhere but this room for almost three days and no one that had come in had been sick either. Yet, in spite of the heat coming off Abe, Henry could easily tell that he was shivering. His breathing, which had been easing, was now strained, even with the tube of fresh oxygen.
In the bed, Abe shifted and groaned, clearly uncomfortable. Henry grabbed an extra blanket and added it to the ones which were already covering his son. Thankfully hospital protocol hadn't changed enough since he was last in one and so it had been pretty easy to find. Not painless, but easy. Abe gave another shiver and snuggled as much as he could under the extra layer. With every inhale, Henry could hear the slight wheeze and his brows furrowed. That was not good.
After making sure that Abe was as settled as he could be in his present predicament, Henry went back to his chair to think over the changes he'd seen come over Abe within the past thirty-six hours or so. He did his best to swallow the groan that wanted to escape but a small bit of it had gotten through. Luckily, Abe was still sleeping and Jo wasn't present to hear it.
Perhaps, he considered, he had been a fool not to accept any form of pain relief. But the plain truth was that he would never be easy with leaving Abe for too long whilst he was still in hospital. So he'd declined the offer and had gotten back to his son as quickly as he'd been able to. Now, however, he was reevaluating his decision and was tempted to ask the nurse for some aspirin the next time she came to check on Abe.
RING. RING. RING.
Henry startled from the silence being broken so abruptly by the hospital phone ringing. Giving a glare at the contraption and a slight growl, he stood back up and painfully walked back to the other side of the bed to answer it.
"Hello."
"Hello Henry."
Henry froze, easily recognizing that voice. After making sure that Abe was still asleep, he turned around, hoping to exude nonchalance when he actually felt like a tightly coiled spring.
"Adam," he greeted, using the name the mystery caller had given him.
"Sorry to make you get up again. It looked just as painful the second time as it did the first."
So this man was literally watching him right now, was he? Fine. Henry moved more in front of the window, making sure to fill it should this maniac get any ideas.
"What can I do for you?" he asked, hoping he sounded merely polite as he wanted to keep his fear and anger in check.
"I just wanted to call and check up on Abe. It must have given you quite a shock to learn that he'd had a heart attack."
Henry bit his tongue to keep himself from snapping a useless threat. Although he would do anything to protect Abe, he knew that there was literally nothing that he could do against a person he'd never seen or met before. During his many hours of solitude the past couple days, Henry had even contemplated leaving him. Almost immediately after the thought had occurred, Henry had dismissed it, knowing that it would only make Abe vulnerable. Something about this stranger told the immortal that he wouldn't hesitate in using Abe to bring Henry back. No, he couldn't leave. And Henry hated himself for it all.
"Calm down, I had nothing to do with that," the caller assured, apparently having seen the tension on Henry's face. "I did, however, have something to do with Abe's current situation. Rest assured, it's nothing too life threatening. Just a little something to keep him down for a while."
"Why?" was all Henry could think to ask. "Abe has never done anything to you."
"But he was getting closer and that I cannot have." There was a silent threat buried in that voice somewhere, Henry was sure of it. But again, what could he do about it? He was, essentially, powerless until he discovered this man's identity. "I know that you're anxious to know who I am, Henry, and eventually we will meet. But let me promise you this. If you have your son, or anyone else, look into me, there will be consequences. And while you may not like the outcome, we both know that you will have to live with them."
The line went dead before Henry could say anything else and in spite of all of Henry's years and training, he wanted nothing more than to throw the stupid telephone at the wall. This man was toying with him. But that wasn't the worst of it. No, the worst of it was that, as Henry had surmised, he was using the people in Henry's life to do it! For God's sake, the man did God only knows what to Abe for simply helping him!
Then it hit him. The fever. Abe's newfound fever. That was Adam's doing.
Henry spun around, nearly collapsing onto the end of the bed when his knee sent a spike of agony through his leg and damn near gave out on him. He took a moment to simply breathe. To let the pain subside and to get his heart rate back down. He couldn't look at Abe's symptoms in a panic. If he did, he could very well make a hasty and wrong diagnosis and that would certainly not benefit Abe.
"Henry?" Jo's voice called through the door. She entered with brows furrowed and concern on her face. "Are you alright? I thought I heard you cry out or something."
Henry gingerly stood, staring down at his son and him alone. By his sides, his hands fidgeted, aching to get to work. Violence wasn't Henry's way. He was a doctor after all. But beneath the urge to fix what was broken, he also had the desire to hurt the man who had hurt someone he loved. Henry did his best to quell the urge since he knew that it wouldn't help him in the least right now. He'd actually spent quite a few years in the early 1850s being angry and it hadn't done him any bit of good. The same was true for now.
Since he figured that Jo wouldn't object too much, he began to examine his son from a medical standpoint. He was limping very heavily but he began to catalogue all of Abe's symptoms, no longer paying attention to his partner by the door. He'd had to resort to some practices that hadn't been used since the use of their more modern counterparts had been invented but as Henry didn't have those tools, he also didn't have that option. Using his hands to support him and ignoring the stinging in his hand and the fire in his side, Henry bent down to listen to Abe's lungs and heart.
"Henry?" he heard Jo call again. He absently noted the concerned tone in her voice as well as the slight bit of scandalization. No doubt she didn't understand why he was examining Abe and not the doctor. Overall, however, Henry wasn't truly paying attention. Her voice came to him distantly, as though he were blocking as much of it out of his mind as possible and solely focusing on what he was currently doing.
Fever. Ragged, wet breathing. Chills. Higher heart rate. These were symptoms to many things. But going along with what Adam had said, he could rule several out as many weren't very life threatening. There were a few, however, that were. He quickly went through each one in his mind, checking what he knew of them against what he could tell of Abe's condition and crossing them out when they didn't coincide. When he finally reached the bottom one, Henry relaxed a little. Pneumonia. It wasn't necessarily life threatening but if you gave it to the right person, let it linger, it could prove disastrous. Unfortunately, Abe was one of those people. Unbeknownst to many, Abe had asthma. It wasn't usually a problem but to have a breathing condition such as that with a sickness like pneumonia? Well, let's just say that things could go very wrong if they weren't handled properly.
A hand clasped onto his shoulder and Henry jumped. Having still been listening to Abe's chest, he quickly stood upright and spun around, coming face to face with Jo as he did so. The fast action hadn't done his injuries any favors and he grimaced before he could stop it. Across from him, Jo winced, looking apologetic but demanding. Without actually thinking what he was doing, Henry grabbed Abe's chart and began to make notations in it.
"What's wrong?" she asked, evidently guessing that he wasn't examining Abe for no reason. Of course, it could also be that Henry had been ignoring her and since he'd had yet to do that before, she believed something to be wrong with him. Ultimately, her reasons for asking didn't matter. He was just grateful that she hadn't bombarded him with a bunch of unimportant questions. She'd asked the correct one.
"I need to call the doctor," was all he said, not necessarily meaning to answer her question but simply stating his current thought.
Jo looked at him confusedly for a moment. Then, possibly after seeing something in his expression, she sighed.
"Why don't you let me do that? You go sit down," she suggested. "You've been limping around here so heavily that I thought you were going to eventually fall over."
The comment was lightheartedly said but that made it no less true. Henry could tell that she believed it and he didn't doubt that, had he continued, she would have been proved right. Remembering his promise to Abe, he reluctantly eased himself down into the closest chair and allowed her to push the call button for the nurse.
It took no more than a minute for the on-call nurse to arrive. She took one look at Henry and her brows furrowed. They rose in surprise when Jo asked to speak with the doctor but she smiled, looking a bit nervous, and left to page her.
Once she'd left, Jo sighed, crossed her arms, and turned to face Henry. Her brows furrowed as she studied him but she didn't say anything. Henry, being mildly aware that he could nothing more for Abe at the moment, looked at her and upon seeing the expression on her face, cocked his head slightly to the side in a silent question. Without saying a word, Jo went to the other side of the bed, removed the uncomfortable chair and replaced it with the softer one.
"Why don't you sit over there?" she said with a nod towards the newly-moved chair. "It'll be more comfortable for you and this way you won't be in the way of the doctors when they come in."
Her logic was sound so Henry didn't argue. But he also didn't do as he was told right away, either. Honestly, Henry wasn't sure that he could have. The two worse of the injuries were currently vying for the prize of most painful and the amount of it was slowly beginning to overwhelm his brain's command to move.
"Henry?" Jo called. When he looked up at her, she asked, "You okay?"
"Yes, sorry," he apologized, forcing his body to move. Much to his delight he didn't immediately fall on his face. But the going was slow and he eventually began to lean on the bed in order to get to the other side of it. He sat down with a sigh, his eyes closing as he did so.
"Better?" she asked with a hint of laughter in her voice.
"Mm," was all he could answer. The chair, a faded olive green, wasn't what one would normally consider cushioning. But compared to the standard hospital chairs, it might as well have been a mattress.
A knock on the door halted all further conversation between the two friends. They both looked towards the doorway and watched as Abe's doctor filed in. Although she doubtlessly had many patients, she didn't look at all bothered to have been called in to check on Abe. She smiled warmly at both Jo and Henry as she entered. She didn't give them a chance to speak before she went over to the man in the bed to check on him, peering at the monitors and chart before stepping back.
"I was told you wanted to speak with me, Henry," she prompted.
"Wait, do you know him?" Jo asked, pointing a finger at Henry. Apparently the use of his given name had tipped her to it.
"Yes," doctor Vogel answered without reserve. She took a quick look at Henry, gave him a smile which lit her honey-brown eyes and then looked back at Jo. "I was the one assigned to oversee Henry's care when he had been shot."
"And now you're assigned to Abe. You must really like this family," Jo joked with a wry laugh.
Henry gave a smile, his heart warming to hear him and Abe described by someone who doesn't know their situation as a family.
He watched as Sarah laughed, blushing a little. "Well, while I do like these two, this was just by chance. When Henry had been brought in, I was on a surgery rotation. Now I'm working in cardiac. In another few months, who knows." She turned to Henry, her brows furrowing a little as she asked, "Now, did you call me in here to talk about you or Abe?"
"Abe," he answered without hesitation. Given enough time he may very well have called her in for some pain relief, but as it was, Abe needed her more than he did.
"I'm assuming it has something to do with the fever he's recently developed," she guessed, looking down at the chart as she did so. Her voice, which had been strong was now quiet. Henry found it quite pleasing to listen to, no matter what volume or strength it was at, and that bothered him.
"Also chills and trouble breathing," she continued to quickly read, her brows furrowing. "Henry, did you write in this?"
"I may have added some notes," he admitted sheepishly, much in the same way he had admitted to Jo about knowing a bit about women's shoes during Gloria Carlisle's case.
"Wait, you what?" Jo asked, surprised. He didn't know why. Had she not watched him do it?
"You know you can't do that," Sarah scolded, now looking angry and ignoring Jo's input. "These are official hospital records. You can't just write on them whenever you feel like it."
"Oh come on, Sarah," Henry retorted as he gingerly got out of the chair. In his peripheral he saw Jo make a slight move as though to help him. But whether it was because the bed was blocking her way or because the doctor was, she didn't do it. "It's not like I was writing on them for my benefit."
"Regardless, you are an ME, not a practicing physician," Sarah snapped back. Unlike others, she didn't make being an ME sound like a demotion, but she did make sure to note that there was a difference. His status as a coroner meant he was no longer allowed to practice medicine on a live person; especially not while on hospital grounds.
"You need to do a chest x-ray," he insisted as he stepped closer, shaking his head and dismissing her anger at him. Right now it wasn't relevant.
Sarah looked ready to argue when Abe fidgeted in the bed and his answering groan followed by a cough cut her off. Both she and Henry looked over at the sick man with twin looks of concern on their faces.
"What is it? What's wrong?" Jo asked, looking between the two doctors and Abe in confusion.
"I'm sure it's nothing," Sarah soothed. She put Abe's chart back on his bed and then listened to his chest with her stethoscope. "I don't like the sound of his lungs, though," she added with a frown. When Henry opened his mouth to give her his diagnosis, she held up her hand to forestall him. "I'm sure you already have the cause and treatment planned out but this is a hospital and we do tests to confirm diagnoses before we begin handing out medicines and treatments."
"Fair enough," he conceded, relenting to her position as Abe's doctor. He gingerly sat back down in the chair and waited for her to do what he knew she was about to do.
"What are you doing?" Jo asked as she attempted to peer over Sarah's shoulder. Since she was considerably taller than the doctor, it wasn't that hard. But when her brows furrowed, Henry supposed she must not have understood what it was that Sarah had written.
"I'm ordering a chest x-ray and prescribing some Tylenol to work in his fever and the aches he obviously feels." She looked up after having finished and she frowned. "Should I have Marcie bring you something too, Henry?"
"No, thank you," he rejected, offering her as bright a smile as he could manage. "I'll be alright for now."
Sarah looked as though she didn't believe him but she didn't argue with him either. She replaced the chart once again and then headed for the door.
"Well," she said as she opened it. "Let me know if you need anything else. I'll be back once I have the results from the x-ray." She left right after that, leaving Jo and Henry alone with nothing but the sounds of machines and Abe's breathing to listen to.
oOo
He was so hot! Hot and cold, all at the same time. Abe was vaguely aware that he was possibly ill but at the moment he didn't have enough presence of mind to fully comprehend that. All that he really knew was that he ached, he was uncomfortable and he wanted his father.
A hand placed itself on his forehead and Abe turned towards it, sighing as he felt the heat briefly leave his head. The cool calmed the headache he knew pounded through his temples and he inhaled deeply. Or he tried to. The minute he did, his lungs rejected the air and Abe coughed violently. The action seemed to tear his throat into shreds and Abe whimpered a little from the added pain of it. The elephant sitting on his chest wasn't helping either.
"Shh, it's alright," a familiar, accented, voice soothed. The hand moved from his forehead and began to brush back his hair, making sure to start from the same point each time.
Henry was here. That alone made Abe feel better. No matter how old Abe would continue to be, he would always want his dad when he was sick or hurting. Sure, he'd never say it out loud but then he never really had to. Henry always seemed to know when he was needed and he was always there without Abe having to do or say anything at all.
Another hand curled around his and Abe clung to it, using it to ground him as he tried to bring himself out of his fevered haze. The hand gave his a gentle squeeze which was then followed up with a kiss on the forehead.
"Just go back to sleep, Abe," Dad bid, his voice gentle and soft. "I'm here."
Abe smiled. At least, he hoped he did. He didn't have the energy to say anything, though he wanted to, but he hoped that his father could tell how glad he was to know that he was there.
oOo
Jo entered the hospital room, a fresh cup of coffee in her hands, and stopped dead. At the bed stood Henry. He had one hand on the mattress, probably to keep himself upright, and one hand holding onto Abe's. He was slowly pulling away from Abe, almost as though he had been giving the older man a kiss on the forehead. But what had her hesitating was the expression on her partner's face. It was so..fatherly. It felt wrong thinking that since Abe was old enough to Henry's father, but that was the only word she could think of to explain it. He looked down at Abe with such love that Jo's heart ached a little at seeing it and knowing that she would never again see that directed at her.
She cleared her throat as she entered, feeling like she'd just barged in on a private moment. Henry barely seemed to hear her. He continued to stare down at his friend for another moment or two and then he gingerly sat down in the chair that Jo had placed beside the bed for him earlier. He sighed as the chair absorbed his weight and then laid his hands in his lap.
"Hello Jo," he said, sounding tired.
Jo wasn't sure how long Abe had been in the hospital but she was sure that it was now going on three and a half days. In that time she wasn't sure how much Henry had slept but she doubted that it was much. Dark circles under his eyes hinted that it may have been longer than she had thought since he'd last slept but since she couldn't prove it, she wasn't going to bring it up.
That didn't stop her from being concerned, though.
"How's he doing?" she asked as she went over to the other side of the bed and sat down in the hard chair. In the time that she'd been gone they had taken Henry for whatever tests Doctor Vogel had ordered. It was the main reason she'd left, actually. With Abe busy, she figured that Henry could use a bit of time to decompress. He'd seemed more strung out than usual and she figure the time alone would do him some good.
As she sat down, Henry sighed, his eyes re-fixing on the man in the bed. This time his gaze wasn't as loving. It was more...mourning. Jo found it odd that he was starting to accept his friend as dead. After all, Abe had been healing well after his attack and with him being in the hospital, his pneumonia wasn't that terrible a situation either.
As ever, Henry remained a contradiction that Jo just couldn't quite figure out.
"Sarah has confirmed pneumonia," he answered. A brief smile quirked the corner of his mouth which Jo took to be him gloating ever so slightly about being right. He looked up, his brown eyes traveling over the form of his friend and landing on the monitors and IV pole. "They've started him on antibiotics and regular breathing treatments."
Jo's brows furrowed. "Are those treatments necessary?" she asked, confused and a bit concerned in one.
"For someone with asthma to have pneumonia, yes," he answered and Jo could tell just from his tone that he was going to lecture a bit, so she got comfortable and listened. "Pneumonia on its own is a relatively harmless illness. It affects people in different ways, of course, most of the time depending on how healthy they were when they got sick to begin with. The more frail the constitution, the worse it can possibly get. Abe is not only still trying to recover from a heart attack but he has asthma - something which makes a disease that attacks the lungs, such as pneumonia, a very deadly illness."
Well, at least she partially understood why Henry looked so sad and grim whenever he looked down at Abe. Still, there was something more going on here. If only she could get him to open up to her more. What little she had been able to glean had felt like pulling teeth; probably for him as well.
They sat in silence a moment longer, Henry watching Abe and Jo watching Henry. She tried to keep quiet but eventually she found that she couldn't.
"You should go home and get some rest," she suggested while trying to sound off-handed. Since she knew that he was going to fight her, she prepared to stand her ground. She would physically haul him out of the hospital and back to the antiques store if she had to. No matter how much pain it would cause him.
"I'm alright," he denied with a weary smile.
Jo rolled her eyes since she knew that he was trying to assure her. Since it was a total lie, it completely failed and she wondered if he knew that. She doubted it. At times he could be cocky. Not that he didn't have a right to be, mind you, since he was usually right. But still.
"If it'll make you feel better," he added before she could give him a sharp retort. "I'll take a nap here." His jaw tightened as his teeth clenched and the look he fixed on her told her that he absolutely would not give in one iota. "But I'll not leave the hospital."
"I'll not leave Abe." Though he hadn't said it outright, he might as well have since Jo heard it loud and clear.
Jo sighed and leaned back in her chair. She knew that she wouldn't be able to get him out of the hospital no matter if she used physicality or not. His willpower alone was fighting for him and that was a hard thing to go against for Jo. Mainly when it came to Henry but she couldn't explain why.
"Fine," she conceded. She leaned forward and tossed her now-empty coffee cup into the trash, landing a three-point basket.
When she got up, Henry looked at her in confusion. "Where are you going?" he asked.
"To ask for a cot," she answered, wondering how that wasn't completely obvious. "You didn't think I'd let you try and sleep in that chair did you?" He turned his gaze downwards and Jo rolled her eyes again. "Just try not to commit any felonies while I'm gone. Okay?"
He gave a small smirk. "I cannot promise that," he says in his Henry way.
Jo smiles in spite of not wanting to and leaves before she can witness him doing something he shouldn't be. The nurses at the desk seemed busy so Jo waited until they noticed her. To her surprise it was Abe's doctor, Doctor Vogel, who came up to her.
"Do you need something, Detective?" she asked as she placed a clipboard onto the counter.
"Yeah, I was wondering if we could get a cot in Abe's room?" she asked, pointing at the doorway behind her. She felt a bit weird about asking the doctor since she knew she was busy but her desire to take care of her partner and friend overrode her discomfort.
"Finally talked Henry into getting some rest?" Vogel teased with a smile that brightened her honey-brown eyes. She brushed her blond hair behind her hear and turned around. "Anne, can you have Larry bring a cot to Abe's room?"
The woman, Anne, nodded and smiled and picked up the phone to do just that. It was a little surprising that they were able to do that but Jo was thankful they could. She supposed it wasn't all too odd since they had to have people wanting to sleep in rooms all the time. But then there was usually a spare bed in the room or a pull-out already established among the furniture in the room.
"It was surprisingly easy," Jo answered once Vogel and turned back to face her. The two women shared a knowing smile. Jo's brows furrowed. "How well do you know Henry?" she asked. She wasn't jealous or anything but she was curious as to how comfortable this woman seemed to be with him.
"Not well, per se," Vogel answered somewhat vaguely "As I said I was his doctor when he came in with the GSW. I got to know him and Abe pretty well then and from there we've talked about various medical topics and shared a dinner." At Jo's confused look she smiled, "Abe invited me, unbeknownst to Henry, I believe." She chuckled a little. "Going by his dumbfounded expression and the glare he gave Abe shortly after finding out."
Jo nodded, smiling a little as she did so. She still had questions but she didn't want it to seem like she was interrogating the doctor so she let the matter drop. She'd just ask Henry instead.
"Well, I'm gonna go back in there," she said, once again pointing behind her. "Thanks for the cot. It wouldn't be good for him to sleep in the chair."
Vogel winced. "No, it would not. His side wouldn't thank him for it."
"Right?" Jo said, almost having forgotten that Henry had injured his side as well as his leg.
Vogel's pager went off and she picked it up and read it. "Gotta go," she said. "Tell Henry I'll look in on him and Abe later."
"Will do," Jo assured.
She watched as the doctor left, wondering what precisely the relationship between Henry and Vogel was. With a sigh she went back into the room, silently adding it to the list of things she planned to talk to Henry again.
TBC