Chapter Six: Unrealistic Expectations
Jane remained rooted to the spot, the majestic Atlantic Ocean at her back as Bane's face contorted and he coughed hard several times, his face turning red.
Jane narrowed her eyes at the blood that spilled from Bane's lips, filling in the scars like a river's tributaries.
Bane could taste the metallic blood coating his teeth and tongue as he roughly wiped his palm across his face, spitting a wet glob of blood to land wetly in the sand before he directed his words and eyes at Jane.
She hadn't moved a muscle, barely blinked as Bane coughed up blood from somewhere inside his body that was damaged from the blunt force trauma.
"Aren't you obligated to help me, first do no harm?" Bane managed; his voice broken in between blood trickling from a broken place inside his broad body.
Jane scoffed, "do you think I fucking care what happens to you, do you actually think I wanted you to wake up and live?" she spit.
Venom oozed from Jane's every sharply spoken syllable.
Jane's fingers twitched as Bane dropped heavily to one knee, a large hand clutching his side.
"Goddammit," she hissed as her body was already moving in the direction to help him while her mind wished it could all be wrapped up with a neat cardiac collapse bow.
"Gauge my injuries," Bane managed, his tone hollow despite the malicious gleam in his eyes.
Jane closed her eyes and squeezed the bridge of her nose, everything suddenly weighed too much, she felt her consciousness flutter around the edges as she took a few measured deep breaths.
"I don't work with living tissue, and I don't even want to be fucking helping you," Jane snapped even as she was already running through what she could even do medically with the contents of her travel sewing kit.
"There's a name for what you're doing?" Bane asked on a wet choke.
"Assignment under protest," Jane spit.
"Your protest is noted," Bane began to say in a solemn tone but choked on a glob of coagulated blood from deep inside, the fleshy anemone landed on the top of her hand.
Jane shook her head, "it's just not my fucking day," she muttered under breath as she dumped her purse and located her sewing kit in its pastel zippered case.
The aquatic eyes in the tidepools were the only living witnesses as Jane squatted further and hooked one arm around the crook of Bane's elbow, surrounded by resilient connective tissue and dense musculature.
"Get in the van," Jane barked sternly as she tugged him towards the roughly idling Gotham City Coroner van.
Bane struggled to maintain his balance but was eventually able to lift one foot and put it deliberately in front of the other until Jane could yank open one of the rear van doors.
"Get on the gurney," Jane stated, her tone clipped and direct.
Bane fought to raise his foot to the metal step leading into the van.
Jane wrestled with her own thoughts as she tried to help him as much as possible in getting into the van, even in his hobbled capacity, he was stronger, broader, more encompassing.
Once they were both inside the van, Jane scanned the area for any traffic coming from either direction.
"We won't have a lot of time in this public of a spot, I suspect you have a collapsed lung and I need to alleviate the pressure."
Bane watched Jane lay out some items from her sewing kit that were surely better for cotton and polyester fabric than sinew and muscle.
"Take this off," Jane said as she tugged on Bane's form-fitted, cotton scrub top.
Bane struggled to remove the shirt, lifting his arms caused spikes of pain from the predicted collapsed lung that was beginning to fill with blood and viscous fluid.
Jane growled in frustration and pushed Bane's hands out of the way as she used a small gold pair of scissors in the shape of a crane to cut through his cotton top.
The wickedly sharp blades of the scissors masqueraded as the crane's beak.
Bane watched with a mixed expression as Jane cut away his clothes until she could begin pressing her fingers between the fourth and fifth rib, palpating a place for the optimum incision.
"Fuck," Jane spit as she stopped touching him and dug in the side panels of the vans where lazy techs tended to stash candy wrappers and detritus from fast-food meals in paper bags with silver dollar-sized grease stains.
Bane watched her root through the variety of trash treasures in the van door side pockets until her right hand alighted around a dark green straw still in its recycled paper wrapper.
Jane returned to urgently explore the space between Bane's fourth and fifth ribs.
"This would get my medical licensure revoked," Jane chuckled as she wiped the scissors and end of the straw with some hand sanitizer that was standard in each van.
The gel was bright blue and not a pre-surgical scrub in any way, shape, or form but it did contain alcohol and was effective on some topical skin bacteria. It was also all that was available to her.
Jane paused with the end the crane's gold metal beak against his taut, muscular flesh. She spoke as she stared at his face. She never had to think about the condition her patients were in before.
"I've only seen this performed and it will be very painful," Jane stated.
Bane held her eyes for a moment. "Do your work," he murmured heavily as he closed his eyes.
Jane let her eyes briefly fall on Bane's closed eyes before she turned her full attention to the small space between his fourth and fifth ribs.
She licked her dry lips and slid the sharp scissors in between the ribs, her goal was to reach the pleural space, to be able to slide the straw through the small incision and proceed to the area between the lungs and the chest wall.
A series of low groans slipped from between Bane's scarred lips as Jane slid the Kelly-green straw inside of him to drain the blood and fluid from his lung. Immediately, Bane was able to breathe easier.
"Don't move," Jane barked and pushed a hand into the middle of his chest, her thumb resting over the sternum where his chest and ribs met, feeling the pliable xiphoid process.
Jane sutured the straw into place with a lilac-colored thread and covered it with some fabric scraps.
"Ideally you'll heal well, and this can come out in a few days."
Inside the van, the mixture of blood and fluid spilled out of the green straw from the worldwide coffee shop, outside on the gravel dusted ground, Jane's designer purse was all alone.
The matte logo scraped against the rough gravel, turning a five-thousand purse into a damaged pouch not worth the letters on its handsewn tag.
Later, Jane's purse would be found at the edge of a cliff where the coastal wind had picked it up and deposited it.
Before GPD's forensic team examined the purse and later identified it as belonging to Jane Amelia Bell, a fat seagull had searched it first and ate the entire bag of ranch-flavored chips that Jane was saving for later.
Eventually, when all of the known facts were laid out in front of Arlene Bell, she was compelled to declare Jane dead.
The guestbook at Jane's memorial service was a light mauve, the flowers were all in shades of cream, peach, and ivory.
Sunday the 18th at Rolling Pinewood Hills at 11:00 am was when Arlene watched Jane's empty coffin be lowered into the Bell Family Plot.
Arlene Bell buried an empty oblong box.
The Christmas presents she'd wrapped for Jane stayed wrapped until her death as did the presents that were already under the tree from Jane.
Arlene didn't want to spoil the surprise of what was in the brightly wrapped gifts in case Jane had somehow got caught in a current and was swept to the other side of the world and had forgotten who she was.
Arlene kept a small flame of hope in her heart until it stopped beating.
Inside the van, the windows grew foggy from their combined exhalations, hers were rapid, his were wet and ragged.
Bane dropped a large hand to close around her fine-boned wrist. His calloused fingertips pressed against her galloping radial pulse as she tied a knot in the thread around the impromptu chest tube.
"How far to the place the city places those they wish to forget?"
Jane cleared her throat, "about three hours."
"I will rest, you won't be bothered by the sound of my voice."
"That's just fine," Jane snapped.
Bane tightened his grip on her wrist.
Testing her.
Pushing and prodding to see if he could find a weak spot.
"Let go of my wrist," Jane hissed as she tried to tug herself free.
Bane managed a smirk that infuriated Jane.
He froze and released her wrist without a second thought when she tugged gently on the freshly sutured plastic straw. "Let go of my wrist," Jane said evenly, her words bisecting the oxygen molecules in the air.
The light pulling at the straw caused sparks of pain to travel to his heart, his valves spasmed.
Jane managed to refrain from rubbing her wrist in front of him and slid between the two front seats to settle behind the wheel.
She turned up the heater and set the defroster to the maximum setting before adjusting the volume of the radio to the OWL Newsgroup's popular show 'The O'Connell Connection.'