Daysleeper Chap. 4
Rating: PG-13 / T
Disclaimer: These characters are not mine they belong to Tanya Huff and Lifetime.
Word Count: 1,402
Summary: Vicki has fallen ill Henry takes the opportunity to get closer, realistic to the show. Intended to be novel length starts after the episode Norman. Please review thank you!
Chapter 4
That night Coreen dreamt of Emmanuel, as she did so often, and every time just as she was going to ask him to stay during the day…Vicki would walk into her dream. And Emmanuel went to her… She woke up with a sigh of longing. This morning Coreen woke up incredibly early to gather her things and headed to the office, she wanted to get there as soon after daybreak to watch after Vicki. It was so early that she didn’t even bother with makeup. When she was back at the office she set up the machine to reroute all calls to her cell. She took the date book and files of all the current clients with her to study them.
It was only a half hour after daybreak when she arrived at the hospital. Vicki was sleeping still, but beside her bed was a sketchbook. Henry couldn’t blame me for checking that its his could he? She opened it and went through the drawings. She recognized the pages that were meant as rough storylines, there weren’t too many of those. The rest were filled with sketches of random people. At least they seemed random. Quite a few of them looked like Vicki. Despite the lack of color on most of them she could find Vicki. There was one of her ready to strike with her baton, another of her questioning someone, Vicki laughing, one was even of Vicki in her hospital gown, Coreen marveled at the fact that Henry had managed to show much of her body through the gown.. And there were many, many of Vicki sleeping.
The phone rang and startled Coreen out of her ruminations, she fumbled for the cells’. “Coreen how’s Vick? She isn’t in the office, and um neither are you.” It was Mike.
“Yeah about that…” Coreen proceeded to tell him all about the last night including how it had been Henry who’d finally forced Vicki to go to the hospital. He wasn’t happy about Henry but he was relieved to hear that Vicki had gone at all. And she told him about the extent of the damage. He swore.
“I don’t get it how in the hell does the doctor know that it was too much cough syrup? what does that have to do with anything? ”
“Um I don’t know I got that from the message that Henry left me, he spoke to the doctor.” There was a silence on the other end of the line.
“Look I’m going to have to let you go Vicki just woke up.” Vicki’s coughing had woken her up.
“What are you doing here?” She checked the time, “at eight?!” She squinted at Coreen, and exclaimed somewhat surprised, “and you’re not wearing makeup?!”
Later when Coreen spoke to Dr. Woods she found some clarification.
“Coreen does Vicki work nights?”
“She does actually, how did you know that?”
“Um, just a guess actually. She would have to take a lot of cough syrup to resist coughing all night in the cold. The reason I bring it up is I had this theory with the excessive use of cough syrup. You both reported that she wasn’t coughing too much and she wasn’t that sensitive in the abdomen and chest, that’s because she isn’t coughing enough. You see sometimes when a patient is using too much cough syrup they don’t actually allow themselves to get rid of the sputum. That leads to build up of the sputum and like with Vicki right now she’s got a lot of fluid in the lungs that she hasn’t gotten rid of, and she wasn’t convinced she was sick because of all the cough syrup. I don’t know if you’ve spoken with her boyfriend but after she wakes up we’re sending her to do a chest CT and if that doesn’t look good she may need a thoracentesis.”
“What is that?”
“We stick a needle in her lungs to draw some fluid out for testing, if the fluid is bad or there is too much of it a chest tube is then introduced to the patient.”
“A chest tube! Vicki won’t like that.” Coreen’s eyes were wide in horror at the prospect. “Does that mean more time in the hospital?”
“I’m not saying that she’ll need a chest tube but the truth is it is a possibility. Right now that I’ve told you I think it’s safe to say that its best if you kept that information to yourself. She only knows about the chest CT. It means at the very least a stay tonight as well.”
Coreen went with Vicki for the chest CT and sat with her during the thoracentesis. Vicki was pretty doped up but still managed to be on task.
“Coreen I appreciate you staying with me but I know you’ve been ignoring at least some calls from the office.”
“But Vicki!”
“No, Coreen I’m paying you to help me with my business not to babysit me so I need you to go back to the office and meet with the clients that are supposed to come in. Tell them the results of the investigations and call me up here we’ll do a conference call so that they can see I haven’t abandoned their cases.”
“Vicki…”
“I know Coreen you don’t handle the clients like that but I’ve seen you study the cases, hell you type up most of the reports. You’ve seen me and heard me talking to them. You’ll do fine. I think I had an appointment at one its already fifteen minutes after twelve. You’ve got to get going.” She was tired but very forceful.
“I won’t let you down Vick, I promise.” Coreen’s nervousness showed but so did a hint of excitement. Vicki watched her go and couldn’t help a little laugh of anxiety and partly giggle at the idea of Coreen’s excitement, but that led to more coughing.
Late that day right before the sun sank Vicki was up and about wandering through the corridors, when she’d roamed for a full hour an orderly asked her if she was Vicki Nelson and she realized she was being paged. Even in her dazed weakened state she managed to say, “Why do you want to know?” with such ferocity that the frightened look on the orderly’s face almost made her laugh.
Back at her room (the other bed was empty, had been since she got there) she saw Mike’s tall figure pacing talking on his cell. “No I can’t come in right now I’m on my lunch and besides I have some facts that need checking out so I‘ll be back around seven.” He shook his head. “Tell it to Crowley.” He snorted, “What’s a matter Dave she giving you a curfew?” she was right behind him when she said this and startling him she practically caused him to fall over when he turned around. Vicki side stepped him just in time as he reached out to hug her and sat down on the nearest chair.
“What did I scare you? Do I look that bad?” She struggled to get herself calmed down restraining the urge to laugh it was so strong but right now it hurt too much to laugh and she was avoiding it all costs. Just then as she was settling into the bed a nurse walked in.
“Well Mrs. Nelson, we’ve been looking for you, the doctor on duty needs to talk to you he’s really very nice and Dr. Woods likes him a lot. His name is Dr. Payne.”
“You’re kidding”
“No he’ll be here any minute now.” As the nurse checked Vicki’s vitals, Vicki couldn’t hold it in anymore and half-laughed half-coughed which turned into a full-blown coughing fit. Mike offered her some water but she waved it away, and the nurse had to wait until she was calm to ask her if she wanted some tea.
“Vicki is there anything I can do for you?” Mike’s baby blue eyes were full of concern as he asked her. He hated seeing her so looking so tiny and curled up in the hospital bed. Her hair pulled back in a messy ponytail, her eyes looked really tired and she was still beautiful to him.
“I’d really love to get out of here…” She half-smiled at him.
“Vicki!”
“Fine, I’m fine.”
“You know Vicki you were never very good at taking care of yourself.”
Disclaimer: These characters are not mine they belong to Tanya Huff and Lifetime.
Word Count: 1,402
Summary: Vicki has fallen ill Henry takes the opportunity to get closer, realistic to the show. Intended to be novel length starts after the episode Norman. Please review thank you!
Chapter 4
That night Coreen dreamt of Emmanuel, as she did so often, and every time just as she was going to ask him to stay during the day…Vicki would walk into her dream. And Emmanuel went to her… She woke up with a sigh of longing. This morning Coreen woke up incredibly early to gather her things and headed to the office, she wanted to get there as soon after daybreak to watch after Vicki. It was so early that she didn’t even bother with makeup. When she was back at the office she set up the machine to reroute all calls to her cell. She took the date book and files of all the current clients with her to study them.
It was only a half hour after daybreak when she arrived at the hospital. Vicki was sleeping still, but beside her bed was a sketchbook. Henry couldn’t blame me for checking that its his could he? She opened it and went through the drawings. She recognized the pages that were meant as rough storylines, there weren’t too many of those. The rest were filled with sketches of random people. At least they seemed random. Quite a few of them looked like Vicki. Despite the lack of color on most of them she could find Vicki. There was one of her ready to strike with her baton, another of her questioning someone, Vicki laughing, one was even of Vicki in her hospital gown, Coreen marveled at the fact that Henry had managed to show much of her body through the gown.. And there were many, many of Vicki sleeping.
The phone rang and startled Coreen out of her ruminations, she fumbled for the cells’. “Coreen how’s Vick? She isn’t in the office, and um neither are you.” It was Mike.
“Yeah about that…” Coreen proceeded to tell him all about the last night including how it had been Henry who’d finally forced Vicki to go to the hospital. He wasn’t happy about Henry but he was relieved to hear that Vicki had gone at all. And she told him about the extent of the damage. He swore.
“I don’t get it how in the hell does the doctor know that it was too much cough syrup? what does that have to do with anything? ”
“Um I don’t know I got that from the message that Henry left me, he spoke to the doctor.” There was a silence on the other end of the line.
“Look I’m going to have to let you go Vicki just woke up.” Vicki’s coughing had woken her up.
“What are you doing here?” She checked the time, “at eight?!” She squinted at Coreen, and exclaimed somewhat surprised, “and you’re not wearing makeup?!”
Later when Coreen spoke to Dr. Woods she found some clarification.
“Coreen does Vicki work nights?”
“She does actually, how did you know that?”
“Um, just a guess actually. She would have to take a lot of cough syrup to resist coughing all night in the cold. The reason I bring it up is I had this theory with the excessive use of cough syrup. You both reported that she wasn’t coughing too much and she wasn’t that sensitive in the abdomen and chest, that’s because she isn’t coughing enough. You see sometimes when a patient is using too much cough syrup they don’t actually allow themselves to get rid of the sputum. That leads to build up of the sputum and like with Vicki right now she’s got a lot of fluid in the lungs that she hasn’t gotten rid of, and she wasn’t convinced she was sick because of all the cough syrup. I don’t know if you’ve spoken with her boyfriend but after she wakes up we’re sending her to do a chest CT and if that doesn’t look good she may need a thoracentesis.”
“What is that?”
“We stick a needle in her lungs to draw some fluid out for testing, if the fluid is bad or there is too much of it a chest tube is then introduced to the patient.”
“A chest tube! Vicki won’t like that.” Coreen’s eyes were wide in horror at the prospect. “Does that mean more time in the hospital?”
“I’m not saying that she’ll need a chest tube but the truth is it is a possibility. Right now that I’ve told you I think it’s safe to say that its best if you kept that information to yourself. She only knows about the chest CT. It means at the very least a stay tonight as well.”
Coreen went with Vicki for the chest CT and sat with her during the thoracentesis. Vicki was pretty doped up but still managed to be on task.
“Coreen I appreciate you staying with me but I know you’ve been ignoring at least some calls from the office.”
“But Vicki!”
“No, Coreen I’m paying you to help me with my business not to babysit me so I need you to go back to the office and meet with the clients that are supposed to come in. Tell them the results of the investigations and call me up here we’ll do a conference call so that they can see I haven’t abandoned their cases.”
“Vicki…”
“I know Coreen you don’t handle the clients like that but I’ve seen you study the cases, hell you type up most of the reports. You’ve seen me and heard me talking to them. You’ll do fine. I think I had an appointment at one its already fifteen minutes after twelve. You’ve got to get going.” She was tired but very forceful.
“I won’t let you down Vick, I promise.” Coreen’s nervousness showed but so did a hint of excitement. Vicki watched her go and couldn’t help a little laugh of anxiety and partly giggle at the idea of Coreen’s excitement, but that led to more coughing.
Late that day right before the sun sank Vicki was up and about wandering through the corridors, when she’d roamed for a full hour an orderly asked her if she was Vicki Nelson and she realized she was being paged. Even in her dazed weakened state she managed to say, “Why do you want to know?” with such ferocity that the frightened look on the orderly’s face almost made her laugh.
Back at her room (the other bed was empty, had been since she got there) she saw Mike’s tall figure pacing talking on his cell. “No I can’t come in right now I’m on my lunch and besides I have some facts that need checking out so I‘ll be back around seven.” He shook his head. “Tell it to Crowley.” He snorted, “What’s a matter Dave she giving you a curfew?” she was right behind him when she said this and startling him she practically caused him to fall over when he turned around. Vicki side stepped him just in time as he reached out to hug her and sat down on the nearest chair.
“What did I scare you? Do I look that bad?” She struggled to get herself calmed down restraining the urge to laugh it was so strong but right now it hurt too much to laugh and she was avoiding it all costs. Just then as she was settling into the bed a nurse walked in.
“Well Mrs. Nelson, we’ve been looking for you, the doctor on duty needs to talk to you he’s really very nice and Dr. Woods likes him a lot. His name is Dr. Payne.”
“You’re kidding”
“No he’ll be here any minute now.” As the nurse checked Vicki’s vitals, Vicki couldn’t hold it in anymore and half-laughed half-coughed which turned into a full-blown coughing fit. Mike offered her some water but she waved it away, and the nurse had to wait until she was calm to ask her if she wanted some tea.
“Vicki is there anything I can do for you?” Mike’s baby blue eyes were full of concern as he asked her. He hated seeing her so looking so tiny and curled up in the hospital bed. Her hair pulled back in a messy ponytail, her eyes looked really tired and she was still beautiful to him.
“I’d really love to get out of here…” She half-smiled at him.
“Vicki!”
“Fine, I’m fine.”
“You know Vicki you were never very good at taking care of yourself.”