Rubbing his tired eyes, Steve crossed to where Jeannie was sitting, staring into space. She looked drained and wan, but he knew nothing he could say would get her to lie down once more on the waiting room couch. "Here," he said, handing her a cardboard cup of tea.
He sat in the chair beside her, put his own cup of coffee on the floor and opened the paper bag he had carried back from the cafeteria. "I got us a couple of muffins. You need to eat something."
She took a sip of the hot liquid, looking at him gratefully over the brim of the cup. She was touched by his concern and, as always, in awe of the bond he continued to share with her father, a bond that nothing, it seemed, would ever break.
He glanced at his watch. It had been over four hours since the nurse has woken them with the news that Mike had been taken back into the OR. "Where's Dan?" he asked, looking around the half-filled room that seemed to be quickly becoming home.
"He went to call the office. The fellas want to be kept up-to-date and they're still all tied up with the murders yesterday." She smiled in spite of herself. "They want to be here so badly. Their loyalty…it, ah, it amazes me, it really does."
"Oh," Steve smiled, looking at her with a furrowed brow, "why is that?"
She snorted softly. "I don't know, I guess I've always thought that, you know, the boss is the boss and they have to sort of separate themselves from the staff, you know what I mean?"
"I know what you think you mean," Steve said with a gentle chuckle, "but other than a few part-time jobs, you've never really been in a boss-employee situation long-term, have you?"
"Well, no," she admitted with a brief smile.
"Let me tell you about your father," Steve said with a warm grin as he sat back in the chair, coffee in hand, and crossed his legs. "If anyone has ever led by example, it's your Dad. He puts in the longest hours, he does the worst jobs, he delegates only when he needs to, he won't make his men do anything he wouldn't do himself … and he backs his men up no matter what. In the years I spent with him, I saw him time and again take the flak for things his men screwed up on, and I saw him deflect the compliments for a job well done towards his staff.
"Jeannie, any one of the guys in your father's squad would walk through fire for him, and each and every one of them would have stepped in front of those bullets yesterday in a heartbeat if they could have." He could see the tears building in her eyes. "They love him, Jeannie, plain and simple. And I bet it's tearing them apart right now that they can't be here for him. So, kudos to Dan for keeping them in the loop. And I can guarantee you, the second they're released, they are all going to be here."
She smiled at him, suddenly unable to talk, grateful that she had the cup of tea to hide behind. She had never really heard anyone talk about her father that way before, and it made her proud to know that her Dad generated such respect and devotion.
With a wink and a smile, Steve leaned forward and reached into the paper bag to remove his muffin. As he sat up, he saw a doctor in surgical scrubs enter the room and look around. When the roving eyes settled on himself and Jeannie and the doctor began to cross the room, Steve straightened quickly. "Jeannie," he alerted her, indicating the approaching figure with a nod of his head.
"Miss Stone?" the older man said as he reached the pair.
"Yes," she said nervously as both she and Steve stood, suddenly anxious.
"Please, sit down, both of you," the surgeon said quickly. "I'm Doctor Somerset and I've been looking after your father."
Steve held out his hand. "Steve Keller, ah, I used to be Mike's partner."
Dr. Somerset nodded. "Good to meet you," he said quickly, shaking hands, then turned his attention back to Jeannie. "I want to bring you up to date on your father. Now he's still got a long way to go before we can be assured that he's no longer in danger, but we're slowly working our way towards that goal. What I'm going to tell you may not be easy, but I want to make sure you know everything that we're doing for him."
Jeannie reached out towards Steve and he took her hand and squeezed. She nodded apprehensively. "All right," she said breathlessly.
"Right now your father is being settled back in CCU and he's still on the ventilator. This morning, we went back to work on his right lung. Now I know you were told yesterday about how his lung was very badly damaged by the tiny bits of fragmented bullet and bone. Well, we did everything we could this morning to save the lung and," he paused, dropping his eyes momentarily, "unfortunately, we weren't entirely successful. It became necessary to do what's called a lobectomy – we had to remove the upper lobe of your father's right lung."
Jeannie gasped and sat back slightly, putting her free hand to her mouth. She felt Steve squeeze her other hand even tighter.
Somerset took a deep breath, smiled slightly and put a reassuring hand on Jeannie's knee. "Miss Stone, it sounds a lot worse than it is, believe me. Your father can recover completely from this and though he will have slightly less lung capacity, it is not a life changing complication. He'll have to be careful, of course, but his quality of life shouldn't be compromised at all."
He saw her eyebrows rise and he nodded encouragingly with a smile, his own eyebrows nearing his hairline. Still unsure, she looked at her companion, who, in contrast, seemed to be looking a little more relieved.
"As of right now, your father is still too weak to breathe on his own so we are going to keep him on the ventilator. However he will have one more big operation to get through – we need to remove the two bullets that are still in his left lung. So the plan right now is that we are going to let your dad recover from this mornings surgery for the next eighteen hours or so, and if we feel he's up to it tomorrow morning, we'll go back in and open up his chest on the left side and get those bullets out.
"Now, this is going to take a lot out of him, that goes without saying, and he'll probably need to be on the ventilator for a couple of more days. And that in itself will pose some health problems. He'll be very susceptible to pneumonia and infection, so he'll continue to be kept in Isolation and monitored very closely."
Jeannie was nodding along to everything the doctor was saying, looking stunned and overwhelmed. Steve squeezed her hand again.
"So, Miss Stone, bottom line, your Dad still has a long way to go before he comes out of all this, but he has a fighting chance. And if he has half the will to live that I think he does, and if you and Mr. Keller here are there for him, then I think he has a pretty good chance of walking out of here in a few weeks. But it's not going to be easy, I want to warn you, all right?"
Taking a deep breath and trying hard to smile, Jeannie nodded. "Yes, I understand. Thank you."
"Good." Somerset began to stand. "Well, I have to get back to my patients. As soon as your father is settled back in, I'll have someone come and get you both. You can spend some time with him, if you like."
Jeannie and Steve got to their feet; he was surprised to see Dan standing nearby. He had been so focused on what the doctor was saying that he hadn't noticed the young cop's return.
Steve shook the doctor's hand. "Thank you very much. We appreciate you being so candid, sir, and I know Mike's in good hands."
"It's my pleasure, Mr. Keller. You two take care," he added with a smile as he turned and quickly left the room.
Steve turned to Jeannie and grabbed her in a quick hug. He looked at Dan overtop of her head. "Did you hear all that?"
"Most of it," Dan answered as he joined them. "It sounds a little more encouraging, doesn't it?"
Jeannie sat back down, and the two men joined her. But when Steve leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and sighed loudly, she turned to him in concern. "What's wrong?"
Steve slowly looked up at her. "You know what it means, don't you? Having a portion of his lung removed?" he asked, staring into her eyes.
When she hesitated before answering, his eyes snapped to Dan, who dropped his own gaze as he nodded. "What?" she asked.
"Jeannie, he won't be allowed back on the streets anymore, the Department won't permit it." He paused to let the meaning of his words sink in. "It's over for him, Jeannie. If he decides to go back to work, he'll be confined to a desk."
Jeannie stared at him, the implications starting to register. "That job is his life," she whispered, her face contorting in despair, a hand over her mouth.
Steve leaned against the back of the chair and let his head drop back, rubbing a tired hand over his face, then folding his arms and closing his eyes. 'Let's hope Mike gets the chance to make that decision,' he thought poignantly.
# # # # #
Gowned, capped, gloved and masked once more, Steve and Jeannie stood on either side of Mike's hospital bed, holding his hands. He looked much the same as before, save for the even larger bandage wrapped around the entire upper right side of his chest and the bed now raised to a forty-degree angle.
Jeannie was leaning close her father, talking to him, stroking his hair, praying for the slightest sign that he knew she was there.
Steve had spoken to Mike when he'd first arrived, but now he stood silently, the unresponsive hand in his own, listening to the whoosh-click of the machine that was keeping his best friend alive. His heart was breaking for this critically injured man who now not only had to fight for his own survival but who, if he won that fight, faced the reality that the life that he loved, the life he had carved out for himself through all those years, was gone.