City of Angels, Chapter 14
A little background on this before I post. This entire chapter comes from an experience I had with my ex-husband. So, the facts are as good as I remember them. :) Also, I do have a medical background, so sorry if some of this is cut and dry. :)
~adorable~
Title: Smoke & Lightning : City Of Angels (14/?)
Authors: eviltwin and bloody_adorable
Fandoms: Supernatural RPS AU
Pairing: Jensen Ackles / Jared Padalecki.
Wordcount: 4,868
Rating: Adult.
Summary: Jensen’s entire world could come crashing down and all he can do is wait.
Disclaimer: None of the following is true in any way, and no profit is made from this work of fiction.
MASTER POST
CHAPTER 14
Jensen swore his heart fell into his stomach, churning up bile into the back of his throat. His eyes went glassy as he stared at Chris, his breathing becoming erratic. He didn't feel the paper cup of coffee slip from his fingers, didn't hear it hit the tile floor, nor feel the splash of java upon his uniform pants. "What--" He paused, trying to think of which question he wanted to ask first. They were rushing through his mind so quickly, it felt like he needed to brush them aside, search for the one he wanted. He reached out and took a hold of Chris's shirt, trying to ground himself. "Is he alright?"
There were tears in Chris's eyes. He shook his head. "I just got here. I was looking for you when he came in. I heard them saying there was an accident. Then they started saying his name, trying to get him to talk back. I looked up, and I--I only got a glimpse, but he didn't look good."
Jensen felt like he'd been punched in the gut. Instinct made him want to bend over and throw up, but his training quickly sobered him. "I have to go see him."
Chris pointed in the general direction which they had taken Jared. "They won't let me in."
With fear and determination, Jensen let go of Chris and walked around the corner to the ER nurse’s station. The nurse on duty looked a little frazzled, but she managed a smile at him. "What can I do for you, doctor?"
"The man that just came in," he said. "What was his name?"
She looked down at some papers in front of her. "Driver's license read--"
Instantly, time slowed. Jensen closed his eyes and said a prayer. Please, don't let it be Jared. Please let Chris be wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong.. When he opened his eyes, his gaze landed directly on the nurse. He watched her mouth, listened for the name he prayed she wouldn't say.
"--Jared Pada...Pada...l-lecki?"
He must have started to faint, because the next thing he remembered, Chris's arms were around him, hefting him back onto his feet. He could hear his name being called, but the voice sounded muffled, canned, miles and miles away. "What," he mumbled. "What?"
"Are you alright?"
Shaking his head, Jensen blinked hard. He leaned both hands against the nurse's station and bent slightly at the waist, taking a couple deep breaths, willing away the dizzy spell that wanted to knock him to the floor.
"Doctor, are you okay?"
He nodded, and then shook his head. He pushed away from the desk. "What room did they take him into?"
"OR four," she told him. Realizing what Jensen's intentions were, she rushed out from behind the desk. "You can't go back there!"
Even though he didn't need to, Jensen flashed his badge at her, as it hung around his neck on a lanyard. "I'm a doctor," he said. "I can go back there if I want to."
"No, you can't," she said. "It's not an open house."
"Jen, come on," Chris said, trying to be the peacemaker. "Let's just let them do their job."
Jensen turned on him, angry. "It's my job, too."
"What's going on here?"
Jensen's argument halted for the time being. He looked up, seeing another scrubs-clad doctor, his red hair looking almost fake under the harsh fluorescent lights. His nametag read DR. HARRIS SUTTON with some letters afterwards that Jensen didn't take the time to read. He remembered the doctor’s name from when he did his own time in the ER. He was the surgeon that would no doubt be working on whatever problems Jared had. "Doctor Sutton," he said, "my...my partner was just admitted. He was in an accident."
"Then let us do our job, Doctor," he said, nodding reassuringly. "He's in good hands here."
"I'm requesting permission to be in the OR with you." Only, it wasn't a request.
Sutton shook his head and held up his hands when Jensen raised his ID card, insisting.
"I'm a doctor," Jensen argued loudly. "I could help. Please."
"I know who you are, son," the man answered. He set his hands on Jensen's shoulders. "Let us do our job. I don't want you back there if something goes wrong."
They were wasting time. Jared was in the back, he could be dying and they were arguing over something so trivial. Jensen knew there was another doctor in the room; down the corridor, he could just barely see the staff whisking to and fro in the room, no doubt around the doctor. Hell, there were still a hundred little things that needed to be done before Sutton got in there. That didn't stop Jensen's throat from closing in on itself out of fear and desperation.
"Jen, come on," Chris said again. He tugged on Jensen's arm, trying to get him to listen.
"No," Jensen snapped. He ripped his arm away from Chris's hold and pushed past the doors that led to the operating rooms. Chris and Doctor Sutton went after him, pulling him back out into the ER.
When the tale was later recounted, Jensen had no memory of shouting, screaming Jared's name as he was dragged back out into the emergency room. He couldn't recall wrestling with Chris, the man's strong, muscled arms embracing him in a bear hug. He could remember the vague feeling of not being able to move, of floating backwards away from the doors. It became clearer then. He knew he had hugged Chris at that point, his arms shaking, aching with the effort. His face was wet with tears, his voice hoarse from yelling.
Conduct unbecoming a doctor, he was sure. But he didn't care.
Chris stayed with him. Jensen occasionally got up and watched from the corridor doors, from the small square window there. He could see people milling about the room. At one point, the crash cart was brought into the OR corridor, but Jensen didn't know if it was for Jared or not. There were several other emergency surgeries going on at the same time, after all.
Even though he should have returned to work, Jensen made arrangements for another doctor to be called in, to take over his cases for a while. He mentally reminded himself to see Matty sometime. Don't let the kid think you dumped him, his head said. But his heart was breaking. He felt like he had a hole in his chest and it hurt. He kept pressing a hand to his heart, as if to assure himself that the hole wasn't really there. Or, maybe it was to try and lessen the pain.
"I called him," Jensen whispered at one point.
Chris turned and looked at him. Jensen had his elbows on his knees, his hands folded in front of him. His eyes still had that glassy look, and it worried Chris. "What?"
"I called him," he repeated. "I was annoyed with him because I got voicemail. I was afraid he'd forgotten about you. I nagged him about it this morning when he..."
Chris didn't say anything, letting Jensen work through it.
"I turned him down this morning," he continued. "He just wanted some of my attention. I told him to go away."
"Jen, you couldn't have known," he returned.
"I should've done what he asked," he said. He moved to cradle his head in his hands. "I should've given him the attention he wanted."
"It's not your fault."
Jensen almost smiled. "I told him he was a--a dead man if he forgot about you," he remembered. He raised his head to glance at Chris, and nodded. "On the phone. On his voicemail. I called him a dead man." He looked away, shaking his head.
"Jen, you can't sit here and beat yourself up about this," Chris told him. "It's not your fault. This is life. No, it's not fair, and it sucks a lot of the time. But you don't know when your time is."
Concerned, Jensen looked over at him. "Do you think it's his time?"
Chris didn't want to say that he really did think maybe it was. Jared had looked like nothing but a raw, broken and bloody body when he saw him. Looking into Jensen's watery, fearful and sad eyes, he couldn't be honest with his best friend. "I don't know," he said with a shake of his head.
* * *
Doctor Sutton didn't come out of the operating room until well into the night. Old cups of vending machine coffee sat on the table in front of Jensen and Chris. A Styrofoam take-out container from the cafeteria stood open with a turkey sandwich inside that Jensen hadn't touched. The air in the small conference room smelled stale, of the hospital cleaner, punctuated with a tinge of vomit. Jensen had gotten sick in the small side bathroom.
They had called Jeff and Stevie. Jensen had cried then, and couldn't put two words together. Luckily, Chris took the phone from him and explained what he knew to Jeff. Jeff's voice was monotonous and scared at the same time. Jeff explained that they were leaving that very minute, and Chris knew that the man would drive like a bat out of hell to get there for his boy.
When the nurse showed Doctor Sutton where Jensen and Chris were, the man thanked her and headed towards the room. Jensen stood when he saw the doctor nearing them. He felt cold, but it wasn't because he had taken off his lab coat. He swallowed and steeled himself as best he could.
"Doctor Ackles?"
Jensen tried to speak, but resorted to nodding when his voice failed.
"Please," Sutton said, motioning to the chairs in the room. "Have a seat."
"Tell me," Jensen said.
The doctor looked at him sadly. "Please," he said again. "Sit."
Even though he didn't want to, Jensen sat down again. Chris was next to him, the doctor adjacent to Jensen. They all rested their elbows upon their knees, a serious stance. Jensen could see sprays of blood on the doctor's mask and cap, the latter held in his hands. He had been wearing a gown, so even though his scrubs were clean, something must have happened. Jared's blood had sprayed him.
Doctor Sutton cleared his throat. "Jensen, Jared's been through a lot."
Chris listened with him. There was a lot of jargon spoken that he didn't understand, but Sutton knew he was speaking to another doctor. The anagrams and medical terms made complete sense to Jensen. And they all seemed to make Jensen's shoulders pinch together with tension.
"Is he alive?" Jensen didn't care if Jared was scarred. Didn't care if he lost a limb, an eye, or even half his fucking face. He would love him no matter what. He wanted to know if he still had someone to love.
Doctor Sutton didn't answer right away. He took a second to breathe deep and then nodded. "He's alive," he agreed.
He knew that tone. "But?" Jensen continued for him.
"But," the doctor repeated, "he had a lot of damage, Jensen. A lot of internal bleeding. We lost him a couple of times."
The thought of Jared dying, his body convulsing under the paddles was enough to make the bile rise to Jensen's throat again. He swallowed it back, willing his stomach to not revolt against him.
"He can't breathe on his own," the doctor continued. "To be quite honest, I'm not a hundred percent sure he'll make it through the night."
An agonized sound escaped Jensen. He stood from his seat and moved over to the wall. He rested his hands against it, leaning against his arms, trying to stop the world from spinning. He took a couple deep breaths, knowing it was a futile attempt to calm himself.
"What happened?" Chris asked, knowing very well that it was a question Jensen wanted answered too.
"Well, it was a hit and run,” the doctor said. “But from what we understand, the young man that had fled the scene was found. He admitted to texting on his cell phone while he was at the wheel. No more than eighteen or nineteen years old. He looked up, saw that he was about to hit the car in front of him. He swerved and lost control, going over the median and hitting Jared."
Suddenly shoving away from the wall, Jensen turned to face the doctor. "Who texts while they're driving?" he shouted. He was sure he had found the glitch in the nightmare he was having. Now that he had found it out -- ha, ha! -- he could wake up. He could wake up next to Jared and see that it all really was just a ridiculous, albeit scary, dream.
Sutton shook his head. "Plenty of people, Jensen, you know that," he reminded him. "The paramedics said they found Jared without his helmet, and there's nothing left of the motorcycle."
Jensen crashed back down to reality, his hopes of a mere nightmare ripped away from him.
"Jesus," Chris breathed. "Is the kid okay?"
The doctor nodded. "He's banged up, but he got out of it a lot easier than Jared did, that's for sure."
That's usually the way, Jensen thought to himself. The ones at fault tend to get hurt less. He'd seen it before plenty of times when he worked in the ER.
"It looks like, from the wounds we've seen, that Jared was able to get his hands up over his head for at least some protection as he skidded down the pavement. That was some help, at least," Sutton continued. "And the leather gear he wore saved him a lot of road rash. He took the most damage on his left side, where the driver hit him. But...well, I'm very sorry. The bottom line is, it's all up to Jared now."
Jensen wanted to believe that was a good sign. Jared was tough. He was smart. He had been able to cover himself somewhat. He thought of the helmet. Jared had commented that the chin strap was shot, that he would soon have to replace it. He had jerry-rigged it for the meantime, but clearly that hadn't worked. Why hadn't Jensen insisted that he go replace it right then? Because he knew that Jared knew what he was doing. There hadn't been any reason to worry.
Now, he wish he had worried. Had nagged until the helmet got replaced.
"Can I see him?" Jensen asked.
Sutton stood from his chair. "He's in recovery, resting comfortably," he said. "He'll be moved to the ICU very soon." Only medical personnel were allowed in Recovery, but not only was Jensen a doctor, he was also the partner of a possibly-dying man. Sutton finally nodded. "He's heavily sedated. And you, of all people, know about the tubes, hoses and IVs."
Jensen nodded.
"One at a time," Sutton agreed. "I'll let the nurses know you're coming."
"His parents are on their way too," Chris added.
Sutton smiled apologetically. "I'll see that they're allowed in as well."
* * *
Chris went in first. Jensen wanted to stay with him for the night, so he let Chris go before him. When he came back out, Jensen gave Chris the keys to the apartment. Told him to take a cab there, get some sleep and asked him to let Maya out. Chris started to argue against it, but Jensen held up a hand.
"If he's really going to..." He paused long enough to choke back the tears and clear his throat, but that didn't help him say what he had started to utter. He nodded and looked back over at his best friend. "I'm going to be with him."
Nodding back, Chris put his arms around Jensen and held him tightly. He whispered words of love and encouragement, and then left.
Jensen watched him go. When Chris was gone, he picked up his lab coat and draped it over his arm. His hand resting atop the lab coat, he saw the ring that Jared had gotten him. His mind wasn't even capable of putting thoughts together anymore. He just stared.
After a little while, Jensen raised his head and walked out of the conference room, heading straight for the recovery ward. Jared's room was straight ahead. He could see the curtain partially drawn, only the lower half of the bed visible. He wanted to stop, wanted to turn back. No matter the amount of preparing himself, no matter the amount of training he had, no matter the hours he had consoled someone -- this was different. This was his someone in that bed, hooked up to all kinds of machines.
He gently nudged aside the brightly patterned curtain, colored in small, calming, cool blue triangles. A nurse was in the curtained partition with Jared. She had a gold bracelet that Jensen noticed, glinting off the low light in the room. He watched her for a moment, following her arms as she adjusted the tubes to the ventilator. When his eyes fell to Jared, Jensen felt his heart constrict painfully. His chest rose and fell, but it did so because of the machine breathing for him. It hissed in and out, mechanical and harsh. Clipped to one of Jared's index fingers was a Pulse Oximeter, which was probably the smallest concern. Still, Jensen only stared at that for a few moments while the nurse finished her work.
She looked over her shoulder as she raised the rail on Jared's bed.
Jensen's nametag was still around his neck on the lanyard. Chris had put it back on him, after Jensen had ripped it off in an attack of claustrophobia. Chris knew Jensen wasn't in the mindset to keep reiterating his relationship to Jared. He was a doctor, and that was all the staff needed to know.
"Good evening, Doctor," the nurse greeted, a little too cheerily.
"Hi," Jensen nodded. "Could you get me his file?"
She clicked her pen in her hand, smiled as she wrote down a few things in a folder resting on the over-bed table, and then handed him the papers. "There you go," she said, her voice soft and gentle. "Let me know if you need anything."
He still hadn't really looked at Jared. He wanted the cold, hard facts before he let his emotions take over. He draped his lab coat over the foot of the hospital bed. Sat down in the lone chair in the partition and looked down at the file. He would have sworn time had stopped, had it not been for the constant hiss of oxygen, and the in-and-out breathing of the life support system.
Closing his eyes for a moment, Jensen took a deep, slow breath. When he felt calm enough, he opened the file and read about Jared's injuries. There was a laundry list there. As Doctor Sutton had said, the left side of Jared's body took the brunt of the crash. His shoulder had been dislocated; his wrist, collarbone and left cheekbone were fractured. His nose had snapped, and five of his ribs on his left side were broken. His left lung had collapsed. His left femur was broken too, now held together with a titanium rod that was permanent for the rest of his life, should there be any more of it after this one very long night. Considering the severity of the accident, it was a surprise that Jared had only slight brain edema, which was being treated through intravenous fluids, drugs and oxygen therapy. Jensen remembered Sutton telling him how he believed Jared had covered his head with his arms when the helmet was thrown off. With any luck, he would only have bad headaches for the rest of his life, maybe a little trouble sleeping.
When Jensen reached the summary of internal bleeding, all of which had been successfully stopped, he reached up and rubbed at his eyes. He suddenly thought, did it matter if he knew all of this? Jared could still die and knowing everything in the whole fucking universe wouldn't matter. Wouldn't help him heal.
Closing the folder, Jensen set the papers on the over-bed table. He reached out and expertly lowered the side rail of the bed, something he'd done countless times for his patients. It should be kept up. If Jared seized, he could fall out of bed. But Jensen needed to be nearer to him.
Jared was intubated, which meant a tube snaked down his throat, into his lungs, to help him breathe. The tube was fastened around his head, padded against his cheek so that it didn't break down the skin, but remained in place. The ventilator breathed for him, making sure that all of his healing organs got the oxygen they needed. An IV was in Jared's right arm, on the inside of his elbow. Two bags of fluids hung from the IV pole. One was an anti-inflammatory to help the edema, the other to make sure Jared didn't get dehydrated. He would get antibiotics intravenously as well. Jensen wasn't sure what kind. He hadn't looked at that section in the file. A soft, steady beep accompanied the regular, even sound of the ventilator. The heart monitor was a reassuring sound. However, Jensen feared for the moment that it went silent. On Jared's legs, including the broken one, were deep vein pulsator leggings. They inflated, and deflated regularly, keeping blood flow constant to his legs, to prevent a condition known as deep vein thrombosis, or a blood clot.
After taking all of this in, Jensen finally let his gaze move higher. Jared's face was marked with raw, bloody spots, where he had skidded across the pavement. His nose had a profound bump in the center, where before it had been straight and narrow. It was covered by a piece of wide tape, but the break had caused bruising all around Jared's eyes. One eye, his left one, was swollen shut from a cut over his brow. His cheekbone was purple, and heavy red scabs were forming under his nose, and over his cut lips. He wore a gown, but Jensen could see his arms clear enough. The left one was purple and black, his elbow, knuckles and wrist scraped down to the muscle and bone. The driver of the car had to have been going well over the speed limit. And Jensen knew that Jared wasn't a fan of limits either. The tattoos were rubbed away in patches. The leather gear Jared spent so much money on had done its job well. But, if Jensen knew Jared, and the man survived, he was sure Jared would have all new ink done over top of the scars, just like he had after he got burned.
Standing from his chair, Jensen leaned over and brushed Jared's hair back from his forehead. His hair was wet with sweat, and his skin was hot to the touch. Jensen leaned down and pressed a careful kiss to his forehead. Curious, he turned back to the file he had set aside. He flipped through a few papers until he found what he wanted to know. Putting everything away, he turned back to Jared and leaned over him, looking down at his bruised and battered face. "Jay?" He brushed the man's sweat-soaked hair back from his forehead. "Jared."
He thought, maybe, Jared was trying to wake up when he saw the man's eyes flutter.
Leaning down closer, Jensen spoke into Jared's ear. "You can hear me," he said. "I need you to do something for me."
Ever so slightly, Jared's eyes fluttered open. Jensen knew that the odds of Jared comprehending anything at that time were nil to nothing. His eyes might be open, but he was still asleep, not to mention drugged with morphine.
"Your temperature is way too high, Jay," he told him. "I need you to bring it down, do you hear me?"
The fever was probably just from Jared's body trying to heal itself, trying to get rid of the blood clots that had formed from the mass injuries. But he only had two more degrees to go before a coma, and eventually death, took over. Jensen knew, regardless of how he believed in medicine, that the brain was a very capable tool in such a situation.
Jared's eyes drifted closed again. Jensen pressed one more kiss to the man's forehead and whispered to him that he would be right back. He went to the nurse's station and asked for cool water and a washcloth. They brought it to him right away. Jensen spent a good amount of time soaking the cloth, wringing it out, and dabbing Jared's hot skin with it.
Sutton was right. The rest was up to Jared.
Sitting down in the chair again, Jensen didn't do anything but hold Jared's hand. His ring and middle fingers were taped together, but no splint was on either finger. Probably just a sprain, or maybe a fracture. It was the least of his injuries, at any rate. The band on Jared's left hand had been cut off so that any swelling would not cut off circulation to that finger. His hand looked strange without the ring he'd worn for so long.
He didn't know how long he stayed like that, looking Jared over, before he talked. It could have been minutes, it could have been hours. The skin on Jared's right forearm was free of any mars from this accident. Scars were still visible from when Mickey's had burned down and falling debris burned the skin there. The scars had softened though, and had been re-tattooed with some new pictures. Jensen stroked the soft inked skin, smiling gently. "So," he finally spoke. When he did, his voice felt dry, thick, like he hadn't said a word for years. "I called you today. I got your voicemail, so it was probably when..."
He couldn't finish his sentence. He swallowed against his dry throat before trying to clear away the lump that was there.
"I was telling you that I had something really important to talk to you about," he continued. "It’s about Matty. You remember him, right?" He smiled and nodded, as if Jared were talking back to him. "Right, him. He asked me something today that I wanted to talk to you about. He wants to come and live with us. Like, now."
He paused, trying to imagine Jared's reaction. "Fucking serious?" the man would have asked. "We can barely manage with the dog, Jen. How are we going to manage a kid right now?"
"Yeah," Jensen said in the silence. "How could we manage a kid right now?"
But then, he thought of Jared's caring, loving nature with Holly and Corey, with Jeff and Stevie, and even Chris, Phin and Kenzie. He smiled, imagining Jared's eyes glittering as he said, "I'm not bein' the chick. I'm not stayin' at home and makin' bag lunches and vacuuming shit."
Chuckling softly, Jensen nodded his head, not noticing the tears in his eyes. He continued stroking the skin of Jared's forearm, his fingers intertwined with the man's. "So, you gotta get better," he said. "Stop being a pussy and get your fever down."
Jared would have laughed at that, Jensen trying to use such tough language.
He was suddenly aware of the fact that he had tears running down his face. Jensen reached up with his free hand and wiped them away, sniffling through his nose. He listened to the ventilator breathe in and out for Jared, taking a deep breath of his own and sighing. "Know how, when I'd get scared -- which was a lot when we first met -- remember how you always used to tell me that you were there for me? That nothing bad could happen as long as you were there?" He looked up at Jared, brushing the palm of his free hand over Jared's inked forearm. "Well, I need you here," he continued. "I need you to get better. Because I'm scared as hell."
He decided that words were no longer his strong suit, despair sinking it's claws into him even more than before. His throat closed up and tears fell down his face again. Do people survive something like this? Was this going to be one of those moments you read about in Reader's Digest? Or was this all going to go horribly wrong? He carefully brought Jared's hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss to the back of it. Setting it back down, he settled his grip more comfortably, taking a deep breath and sighing, hoping to calm his tears.
It was just a little movement, but it was recognition that Jensen hadn't expected. He looked down when he felt Jared's thumb stir. It was a simple back and forth motion that Jared always did when they held hands. Just a little added extra touch that Jensen had always taken for granted. Now, however, holding Jared's hand there in the hospital, that little extra touch -- slower than it usually was -- was enough acknowledgment to give Jensen a glimmer of hope.
NEXT
~adorable~
Title: Smoke & Lightning : City Of Angels (14/?)
Authors: eviltwin and bloody_adorable
Fandoms: Supernatural RPS AU
Pairing: Jensen Ackles / Jared Padalecki.
Wordcount: 4,868
Rating: Adult.
Summary: Jensen’s entire world could come crashing down and all he can do is wait.
Disclaimer: None of the following is true in any way, and no profit is made from this work of fiction.
MASTER POST
CHAPTER 14
Jensen swore his heart fell into his stomach, churning up bile into the back of his throat. His eyes went glassy as he stared at Chris, his breathing becoming erratic. He didn't feel the paper cup of coffee slip from his fingers, didn't hear it hit the tile floor, nor feel the splash of java upon his uniform pants. "What--" He paused, trying to think of which question he wanted to ask first. They were rushing through his mind so quickly, it felt like he needed to brush them aside, search for the one he wanted. He reached out and took a hold of Chris's shirt, trying to ground himself. "Is he alright?"
There were tears in Chris's eyes. He shook his head. "I just got here. I was looking for you when he came in. I heard them saying there was an accident. Then they started saying his name, trying to get him to talk back. I looked up, and I--I only got a glimpse, but he didn't look good."
Jensen felt like he'd been punched in the gut. Instinct made him want to bend over and throw up, but his training quickly sobered him. "I have to go see him."
Chris pointed in the general direction which they had taken Jared. "They won't let me in."
With fear and determination, Jensen let go of Chris and walked around the corner to the ER nurse’s station. The nurse on duty looked a little frazzled, but she managed a smile at him. "What can I do for you, doctor?"
"The man that just came in," he said. "What was his name?"
She looked down at some papers in front of her. "Driver's license read--"
Instantly, time slowed. Jensen closed his eyes and said a prayer. Please, don't let it be Jared. Please let Chris be wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong.. When he opened his eyes, his gaze landed directly on the nurse. He watched her mouth, listened for the name he prayed she wouldn't say.
"--Jared Pada...Pada...l-lecki?"
He must have started to faint, because the next thing he remembered, Chris's arms were around him, hefting him back onto his feet. He could hear his name being called, but the voice sounded muffled, canned, miles and miles away. "What," he mumbled. "What?"
"Are you alright?"
Shaking his head, Jensen blinked hard. He leaned both hands against the nurse's station and bent slightly at the waist, taking a couple deep breaths, willing away the dizzy spell that wanted to knock him to the floor.
"Doctor, are you okay?"
He nodded, and then shook his head. He pushed away from the desk. "What room did they take him into?"
"OR four," she told him. Realizing what Jensen's intentions were, she rushed out from behind the desk. "You can't go back there!"
Even though he didn't need to, Jensen flashed his badge at her, as it hung around his neck on a lanyard. "I'm a doctor," he said. "I can go back there if I want to."
"No, you can't," she said. "It's not an open house."
"Jen, come on," Chris said, trying to be the peacemaker. "Let's just let them do their job."
Jensen turned on him, angry. "It's my job, too."
"What's going on here?"
Jensen's argument halted for the time being. He looked up, seeing another scrubs-clad doctor, his red hair looking almost fake under the harsh fluorescent lights. His nametag read DR. HARRIS SUTTON with some letters afterwards that Jensen didn't take the time to read. He remembered the doctor’s name from when he did his own time in the ER. He was the surgeon that would no doubt be working on whatever problems Jared had. "Doctor Sutton," he said, "my...my partner was just admitted. He was in an accident."
"Then let us do our job, Doctor," he said, nodding reassuringly. "He's in good hands here."
"I'm requesting permission to be in the OR with you." Only, it wasn't a request.
Sutton shook his head and held up his hands when Jensen raised his ID card, insisting.
"I'm a doctor," Jensen argued loudly. "I could help. Please."
"I know who you are, son," the man answered. He set his hands on Jensen's shoulders. "Let us do our job. I don't want you back there if something goes wrong."
They were wasting time. Jared was in the back, he could be dying and they were arguing over something so trivial. Jensen knew there was another doctor in the room; down the corridor, he could just barely see the staff whisking to and fro in the room, no doubt around the doctor. Hell, there were still a hundred little things that needed to be done before Sutton got in there. That didn't stop Jensen's throat from closing in on itself out of fear and desperation.
"Jen, come on," Chris said again. He tugged on Jensen's arm, trying to get him to listen.
"No," Jensen snapped. He ripped his arm away from Chris's hold and pushed past the doors that led to the operating rooms. Chris and Doctor Sutton went after him, pulling him back out into the ER.
When the tale was later recounted, Jensen had no memory of shouting, screaming Jared's name as he was dragged back out into the emergency room. He couldn't recall wrestling with Chris, the man's strong, muscled arms embracing him in a bear hug. He could remember the vague feeling of not being able to move, of floating backwards away from the doors. It became clearer then. He knew he had hugged Chris at that point, his arms shaking, aching with the effort. His face was wet with tears, his voice hoarse from yelling.
Conduct unbecoming a doctor, he was sure. But he didn't care.
Chris stayed with him. Jensen occasionally got up and watched from the corridor doors, from the small square window there. He could see people milling about the room. At one point, the crash cart was brought into the OR corridor, but Jensen didn't know if it was for Jared or not. There were several other emergency surgeries going on at the same time, after all.
Even though he should have returned to work, Jensen made arrangements for another doctor to be called in, to take over his cases for a while. He mentally reminded himself to see Matty sometime. Don't let the kid think you dumped him, his head said. But his heart was breaking. He felt like he had a hole in his chest and it hurt. He kept pressing a hand to his heart, as if to assure himself that the hole wasn't really there. Or, maybe it was to try and lessen the pain.
"I called him," Jensen whispered at one point.
Chris turned and looked at him. Jensen had his elbows on his knees, his hands folded in front of him. His eyes still had that glassy look, and it worried Chris. "What?"
"I called him," he repeated. "I was annoyed with him because I got voicemail. I was afraid he'd forgotten about you. I nagged him about it this morning when he..."
Chris didn't say anything, letting Jensen work through it.
"I turned him down this morning," he continued. "He just wanted some of my attention. I told him to go away."
"Jen, you couldn't have known," he returned.
"I should've done what he asked," he said. He moved to cradle his head in his hands. "I should've given him the attention he wanted."
"It's not your fault."
Jensen almost smiled. "I told him he was a--a dead man if he forgot about you," he remembered. He raised his head to glance at Chris, and nodded. "On the phone. On his voicemail. I called him a dead man." He looked away, shaking his head.
"Jen, you can't sit here and beat yourself up about this," Chris told him. "It's not your fault. This is life. No, it's not fair, and it sucks a lot of the time. But you don't know when your time is."
Concerned, Jensen looked over at him. "Do you think it's his time?"
Chris didn't want to say that he really did think maybe it was. Jared had looked like nothing but a raw, broken and bloody body when he saw him. Looking into Jensen's watery, fearful and sad eyes, he couldn't be honest with his best friend. "I don't know," he said with a shake of his head.
* * *
Doctor Sutton didn't come out of the operating room until well into the night. Old cups of vending machine coffee sat on the table in front of Jensen and Chris. A Styrofoam take-out container from the cafeteria stood open with a turkey sandwich inside that Jensen hadn't touched. The air in the small conference room smelled stale, of the hospital cleaner, punctuated with a tinge of vomit. Jensen had gotten sick in the small side bathroom.
They had called Jeff and Stevie. Jensen had cried then, and couldn't put two words together. Luckily, Chris took the phone from him and explained what he knew to Jeff. Jeff's voice was monotonous and scared at the same time. Jeff explained that they were leaving that very minute, and Chris knew that the man would drive like a bat out of hell to get there for his boy.
When the nurse showed Doctor Sutton where Jensen and Chris were, the man thanked her and headed towards the room. Jensen stood when he saw the doctor nearing them. He felt cold, but it wasn't because he had taken off his lab coat. He swallowed and steeled himself as best he could.
"Doctor Ackles?"
Jensen tried to speak, but resorted to nodding when his voice failed.
"Please," Sutton said, motioning to the chairs in the room. "Have a seat."
"Tell me," Jensen said.
The doctor looked at him sadly. "Please," he said again. "Sit."
Even though he didn't want to, Jensen sat down again. Chris was next to him, the doctor adjacent to Jensen. They all rested their elbows upon their knees, a serious stance. Jensen could see sprays of blood on the doctor's mask and cap, the latter held in his hands. He had been wearing a gown, so even though his scrubs were clean, something must have happened. Jared's blood had sprayed him.
Doctor Sutton cleared his throat. "Jensen, Jared's been through a lot."
Chris listened with him. There was a lot of jargon spoken that he didn't understand, but Sutton knew he was speaking to another doctor. The anagrams and medical terms made complete sense to Jensen. And they all seemed to make Jensen's shoulders pinch together with tension.
"Is he alive?" Jensen didn't care if Jared was scarred. Didn't care if he lost a limb, an eye, or even half his fucking face. He would love him no matter what. He wanted to know if he still had someone to love.
Doctor Sutton didn't answer right away. He took a second to breathe deep and then nodded. "He's alive," he agreed.
He knew that tone. "But?" Jensen continued for him.
"But," the doctor repeated, "he had a lot of damage, Jensen. A lot of internal bleeding. We lost him a couple of times."
The thought of Jared dying, his body convulsing under the paddles was enough to make the bile rise to Jensen's throat again. He swallowed it back, willing his stomach to not revolt against him.
"He can't breathe on his own," the doctor continued. "To be quite honest, I'm not a hundred percent sure he'll make it through the night."
An agonized sound escaped Jensen. He stood from his seat and moved over to the wall. He rested his hands against it, leaning against his arms, trying to stop the world from spinning. He took a couple deep breaths, knowing it was a futile attempt to calm himself.
"What happened?" Chris asked, knowing very well that it was a question Jensen wanted answered too.
"Well, it was a hit and run,” the doctor said. “But from what we understand, the young man that had fled the scene was found. He admitted to texting on his cell phone while he was at the wheel. No more than eighteen or nineteen years old. He looked up, saw that he was about to hit the car in front of him. He swerved and lost control, going over the median and hitting Jared."
Suddenly shoving away from the wall, Jensen turned to face the doctor. "Who texts while they're driving?" he shouted. He was sure he had found the glitch in the nightmare he was having. Now that he had found it out -- ha, ha! -- he could wake up. He could wake up next to Jared and see that it all really was just a ridiculous, albeit scary, dream.
Sutton shook his head. "Plenty of people, Jensen, you know that," he reminded him. "The paramedics said they found Jared without his helmet, and there's nothing left of the motorcycle."
Jensen crashed back down to reality, his hopes of a mere nightmare ripped away from him.
"Jesus," Chris breathed. "Is the kid okay?"
The doctor nodded. "He's banged up, but he got out of it a lot easier than Jared did, that's for sure."
That's usually the way, Jensen thought to himself. The ones at fault tend to get hurt less. He'd seen it before plenty of times when he worked in the ER.
"It looks like, from the wounds we've seen, that Jared was able to get his hands up over his head for at least some protection as he skidded down the pavement. That was some help, at least," Sutton continued. "And the leather gear he wore saved him a lot of road rash. He took the most damage on his left side, where the driver hit him. But...well, I'm very sorry. The bottom line is, it's all up to Jared now."
Jensen wanted to believe that was a good sign. Jared was tough. He was smart. He had been able to cover himself somewhat. He thought of the helmet. Jared had commented that the chin strap was shot, that he would soon have to replace it. He had jerry-rigged it for the meantime, but clearly that hadn't worked. Why hadn't Jensen insisted that he go replace it right then? Because he knew that Jared knew what he was doing. There hadn't been any reason to worry.
Now, he wish he had worried. Had nagged until the helmet got replaced.
"Can I see him?" Jensen asked.
Sutton stood from his chair. "He's in recovery, resting comfortably," he said. "He'll be moved to the ICU very soon." Only medical personnel were allowed in Recovery, but not only was Jensen a doctor, he was also the partner of a possibly-dying man. Sutton finally nodded. "He's heavily sedated. And you, of all people, know about the tubes, hoses and IVs."
Jensen nodded.
"One at a time," Sutton agreed. "I'll let the nurses know you're coming."
"His parents are on their way too," Chris added.
Sutton smiled apologetically. "I'll see that they're allowed in as well."
* * *
Chris went in first. Jensen wanted to stay with him for the night, so he let Chris go before him. When he came back out, Jensen gave Chris the keys to the apartment. Told him to take a cab there, get some sleep and asked him to let Maya out. Chris started to argue against it, but Jensen held up a hand.
"If he's really going to..." He paused long enough to choke back the tears and clear his throat, but that didn't help him say what he had started to utter. He nodded and looked back over at his best friend. "I'm going to be with him."
Nodding back, Chris put his arms around Jensen and held him tightly. He whispered words of love and encouragement, and then left.
Jensen watched him go. When Chris was gone, he picked up his lab coat and draped it over his arm. His hand resting atop the lab coat, he saw the ring that Jared had gotten him. His mind wasn't even capable of putting thoughts together anymore. He just stared.
After a little while, Jensen raised his head and walked out of the conference room, heading straight for the recovery ward. Jared's room was straight ahead. He could see the curtain partially drawn, only the lower half of the bed visible. He wanted to stop, wanted to turn back. No matter the amount of preparing himself, no matter the amount of training he had, no matter the hours he had consoled someone -- this was different. This was his someone in that bed, hooked up to all kinds of machines.
He gently nudged aside the brightly patterned curtain, colored in small, calming, cool blue triangles. A nurse was in the curtained partition with Jared. She had a gold bracelet that Jensen noticed, glinting off the low light in the room. He watched her for a moment, following her arms as she adjusted the tubes to the ventilator. When his eyes fell to Jared, Jensen felt his heart constrict painfully. His chest rose and fell, but it did so because of the machine breathing for him. It hissed in and out, mechanical and harsh. Clipped to one of Jared's index fingers was a Pulse Oximeter, which was probably the smallest concern. Still, Jensen only stared at that for a few moments while the nurse finished her work.
She looked over her shoulder as she raised the rail on Jared's bed.
Jensen's nametag was still around his neck on the lanyard. Chris had put it back on him, after Jensen had ripped it off in an attack of claustrophobia. Chris knew Jensen wasn't in the mindset to keep reiterating his relationship to Jared. He was a doctor, and that was all the staff needed to know.
"Good evening, Doctor," the nurse greeted, a little too cheerily.
"Hi," Jensen nodded. "Could you get me his file?"
She clicked her pen in her hand, smiled as she wrote down a few things in a folder resting on the over-bed table, and then handed him the papers. "There you go," she said, her voice soft and gentle. "Let me know if you need anything."
He still hadn't really looked at Jared. He wanted the cold, hard facts before he let his emotions take over. He draped his lab coat over the foot of the hospital bed. Sat down in the lone chair in the partition and looked down at the file. He would have sworn time had stopped, had it not been for the constant hiss of oxygen, and the in-and-out breathing of the life support system.
Closing his eyes for a moment, Jensen took a deep, slow breath. When he felt calm enough, he opened the file and read about Jared's injuries. There was a laundry list there. As Doctor Sutton had said, the left side of Jared's body took the brunt of the crash. His shoulder had been dislocated; his wrist, collarbone and left cheekbone were fractured. His nose had snapped, and five of his ribs on his left side were broken. His left lung had collapsed. His left femur was broken too, now held together with a titanium rod that was permanent for the rest of his life, should there be any more of it after this one very long night. Considering the severity of the accident, it was a surprise that Jared had only slight brain edema, which was being treated through intravenous fluids, drugs and oxygen therapy. Jensen remembered Sutton telling him how he believed Jared had covered his head with his arms when the helmet was thrown off. With any luck, he would only have bad headaches for the rest of his life, maybe a little trouble sleeping.
When Jensen reached the summary of internal bleeding, all of which had been successfully stopped, he reached up and rubbed at his eyes. He suddenly thought, did it matter if he knew all of this? Jared could still die and knowing everything in the whole fucking universe wouldn't matter. Wouldn't help him heal.
Closing the folder, Jensen set the papers on the over-bed table. He reached out and expertly lowered the side rail of the bed, something he'd done countless times for his patients. It should be kept up. If Jared seized, he could fall out of bed. But Jensen needed to be nearer to him.
Jared was intubated, which meant a tube snaked down his throat, into his lungs, to help him breathe. The tube was fastened around his head, padded against his cheek so that it didn't break down the skin, but remained in place. The ventilator breathed for him, making sure that all of his healing organs got the oxygen they needed. An IV was in Jared's right arm, on the inside of his elbow. Two bags of fluids hung from the IV pole. One was an anti-inflammatory to help the edema, the other to make sure Jared didn't get dehydrated. He would get antibiotics intravenously as well. Jensen wasn't sure what kind. He hadn't looked at that section in the file. A soft, steady beep accompanied the regular, even sound of the ventilator. The heart monitor was a reassuring sound. However, Jensen feared for the moment that it went silent. On Jared's legs, including the broken one, were deep vein pulsator leggings. They inflated, and deflated regularly, keeping blood flow constant to his legs, to prevent a condition known as deep vein thrombosis, or a blood clot.
After taking all of this in, Jensen finally let his gaze move higher. Jared's face was marked with raw, bloody spots, where he had skidded across the pavement. His nose had a profound bump in the center, where before it had been straight and narrow. It was covered by a piece of wide tape, but the break had caused bruising all around Jared's eyes. One eye, his left one, was swollen shut from a cut over his brow. His cheekbone was purple, and heavy red scabs were forming under his nose, and over his cut lips. He wore a gown, but Jensen could see his arms clear enough. The left one was purple and black, his elbow, knuckles and wrist scraped down to the muscle and bone. The driver of the car had to have been going well over the speed limit. And Jensen knew that Jared wasn't a fan of limits either. The tattoos were rubbed away in patches. The leather gear Jared spent so much money on had done its job well. But, if Jensen knew Jared, and the man survived, he was sure Jared would have all new ink done over top of the scars, just like he had after he got burned.
Standing from his chair, Jensen leaned over and brushed Jared's hair back from his forehead. His hair was wet with sweat, and his skin was hot to the touch. Jensen leaned down and pressed a careful kiss to his forehead. Curious, he turned back to the file he had set aside. He flipped through a few papers until he found what he wanted to know. Putting everything away, he turned back to Jared and leaned over him, looking down at his bruised and battered face. "Jay?" He brushed the man's sweat-soaked hair back from his forehead. "Jared."
He thought, maybe, Jared was trying to wake up when he saw the man's eyes flutter.
Leaning down closer, Jensen spoke into Jared's ear. "You can hear me," he said. "I need you to do something for me."
Ever so slightly, Jared's eyes fluttered open. Jensen knew that the odds of Jared comprehending anything at that time were nil to nothing. His eyes might be open, but he was still asleep, not to mention drugged with morphine.
"Your temperature is way too high, Jay," he told him. "I need you to bring it down, do you hear me?"
The fever was probably just from Jared's body trying to heal itself, trying to get rid of the blood clots that had formed from the mass injuries. But he only had two more degrees to go before a coma, and eventually death, took over. Jensen knew, regardless of how he believed in medicine, that the brain was a very capable tool in such a situation.
Jared's eyes drifted closed again. Jensen pressed one more kiss to the man's forehead and whispered to him that he would be right back. He went to the nurse's station and asked for cool water and a washcloth. They brought it to him right away. Jensen spent a good amount of time soaking the cloth, wringing it out, and dabbing Jared's hot skin with it.
Sutton was right. The rest was up to Jared.
Sitting down in the chair again, Jensen didn't do anything but hold Jared's hand. His ring and middle fingers were taped together, but no splint was on either finger. Probably just a sprain, or maybe a fracture. It was the least of his injuries, at any rate. The band on Jared's left hand had been cut off so that any swelling would not cut off circulation to that finger. His hand looked strange without the ring he'd worn for so long.
He didn't know how long he stayed like that, looking Jared over, before he talked. It could have been minutes, it could have been hours. The skin on Jared's right forearm was free of any mars from this accident. Scars were still visible from when Mickey's had burned down and falling debris burned the skin there. The scars had softened though, and had been re-tattooed with some new pictures. Jensen stroked the soft inked skin, smiling gently. "So," he finally spoke. When he did, his voice felt dry, thick, like he hadn't said a word for years. "I called you today. I got your voicemail, so it was probably when..."
He couldn't finish his sentence. He swallowed against his dry throat before trying to clear away the lump that was there.
"I was telling you that I had something really important to talk to you about," he continued. "It’s about Matty. You remember him, right?" He smiled and nodded, as if Jared were talking back to him. "Right, him. He asked me something today that I wanted to talk to you about. He wants to come and live with us. Like, now."
He paused, trying to imagine Jared's reaction. "Fucking serious?" the man would have asked. "We can barely manage with the dog, Jen. How are we going to manage a kid right now?"
"Yeah," Jensen said in the silence. "How could we manage a kid right now?"
But then, he thought of Jared's caring, loving nature with Holly and Corey, with Jeff and Stevie, and even Chris, Phin and Kenzie. He smiled, imagining Jared's eyes glittering as he said, "I'm not bein' the chick. I'm not stayin' at home and makin' bag lunches and vacuuming shit."
Chuckling softly, Jensen nodded his head, not noticing the tears in his eyes. He continued stroking the skin of Jared's forearm, his fingers intertwined with the man's. "So, you gotta get better," he said. "Stop being a pussy and get your fever down."
Jared would have laughed at that, Jensen trying to use such tough language.
He was suddenly aware of the fact that he had tears running down his face. Jensen reached up with his free hand and wiped them away, sniffling through his nose. He listened to the ventilator breathe in and out for Jared, taking a deep breath of his own and sighing. "Know how, when I'd get scared -- which was a lot when we first met -- remember how you always used to tell me that you were there for me? That nothing bad could happen as long as you were there?" He looked up at Jared, brushing the palm of his free hand over Jared's inked forearm. "Well, I need you here," he continued. "I need you to get better. Because I'm scared as hell."
He decided that words were no longer his strong suit, despair sinking it's claws into him even more than before. His throat closed up and tears fell down his face again. Do people survive something like this? Was this going to be one of those moments you read about in Reader's Digest? Or was this all going to go horribly wrong? He carefully brought Jared's hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss to the back of it. Setting it back down, he settled his grip more comfortably, taking a deep breath and sighing, hoping to calm his tears.
It was just a little movement, but it was recognition that Jensen hadn't expected. He looked down when he felt Jared's thumb stir. It was a simple back and forth motion that Jared always did when they held hands. Just a little added extra touch that Jensen had always taken for granted. Now, however, holding Jared's hand there in the hospital, that little extra touch -- slower than it usually was -- was enough acknowledgment to give Jensen a glimmer of hope.
NEXT