Chapter 35

Both Jay and Kadie breathed a sigh of, well maybe not relief, but at least reprieve, as the figures in the doorway turned out to be Jon and Richie, not a doctor. In Kadie’s mind anyway the longer it took for Doctor Riviello to arrive the better, because that meant Billie was still being worked on.

“What’s happened?!” Jon blurted, seeing them clinging to each other for support, feeling Richie nudge him sharply, and apparently accidentally, as he turned to close the door.

“There’s no news yet.” Kadie spoke, giving Jay a chance to compose himself before he spoke to his boss.

“Well, no news is good news, right?” Richie said, looking hard at Kadie. “I mean, longer it takes for them to come tell us something……”

“Yeah.” Kadie agreed, seeing in his eyes that he knew the whole story, and suspecting he knew more than she did right now. “That’s what I think, too.”

“You didn’t need to come all this way, boss.” Jay extricated himself from Kadie’s embrace, getting to his feet and extending a hand.

“Your mom’s a…..friend.” Jon said, ignoring the outstretched hand and hugging Jay instead, fighting to keep his composure as he felt his son briefly hug him back. “I wanted to come.”

They parted, Jon wishing he could keep his son in his arms until they knew what was happening, Jay puzzled by his boss’s emotional greeting. Maybe it was just his Italian blood.

The four of them sat down, Jay and Kadie on the couch, Jon and Richie taking a pair of armchairs close by. Jon was still sickened by what Richie had told him, and he abruptly stood as nausea hit him, looking around as he tried to control it.

“I’ll be back.” He mumbled, heading for the door, and Richie watched him go with concern, hoping like hell Jon wasn’t about to do something stupid like go busting into the ER. When he saw Jon’s shoulders hunch slightly, though, he realised his buddy was on the point of throwing up from the news he’d been given, and he relaxed slightly, sitting back in his chair as Jon quickly left the room. God knew, he’d felt sick enough when Billie had told him.

By the time Jon reached the bathroom, though, the initial wave of nausea had thankfully passed, and he just leaned heavily on one of the sinks, staring blindly at the mirror. He couldn’t comprehend how - why - Billie would allow that to happen. Not for him, his mind screamed. Please, God, not for me. He wasn’t sure he could handle knowing this was partly his fault. Please, please let her survive this. Please let me have the chance to apologise for being the cause of her pain. God, please give me the chance to make this right. Please.

His rushing thoughts were broken by the opening of the bathroom door, and he swung around to see a male nurse walk in. The guy barely made eye contact - clearly experienced enough to know that it was best to just let visitors deal with things themselves - but just took care of what he needed to and left the bathroom again without a word.

The interruption, though, had been enough to jolt Jon out of the spiralling thoughts, and when he looked into the mirror again his eyes were clearer, focusing on what they saw, not on what was in his head.

He ran cold water into the sink and splashed it over his face, grabbing paper towels to dry his face again. With his control more or less back in place, he straightened his back and left the bathroom, returning to the waiting room to, well, to wait.

Back in the waiting room, he found the other three sitting in silence, each in their own thoughts. They acknowledged his return with weak smiles, then when he dropped into a chair they pretty much ignored each other, lost in a mixture of fear and hope. Hope that the old adage would hold true this time, and that no news really was good news.

In the emergency room, Doctor Riviello was snapping terse orders at the other medical staff. When he’d arrived, the other doctor had kept on with his attempts to bring Billie back while he got gloved up, and just as he stepped toward the gurney that weak pulse came back.

“She’s back.” Said the nurse watching the monitors. “Pulse is weak but steady. Pressure very low.” He looked at the doctors. “We’re barely holding even with the blood loss.”

“We need to find out where she’s bleeding.” Riviello said, turning to a nurse. “Call upstairs, tell them to get me an OR ready. I’ll do what I can here, but this lady needs help, people.”

Billie had already been stripped of the robe, and the nurses gently rolled her onto her side at his instructions, Riviello probing carefully at the source of the bleeding, silently cursing whatever bastard had done this. No matter how many times he dealt with the results of sexual assault, it never got any easier. Which was why he was the best, because he still cared. Still saw the bloodied, battered body on his table as a person, not just the next number to be stitched and taped and sent on their way. He’d gotten past the point of wanting to personally castrate - without anaesthetic - every attacker whose victim he helped, but sometimes, like now, that urge came back. Because he could tell that this attack had been deliberately brutal, intended to cause maximum pain and humiliation. Hoping that the police found whoever did it, because there was an even chance of it turning to a homicide charge.

The heart monitor flat-lined again, and he cursed bitterly, letting the nurses roll Billie onto her back again, re-starting CPR until they yet again pulled her back.

“Dammit, girl.” He whispered to her. “Fight, goddammit!”

The nurses looked at each other, but they were used to him, and to how quickly he got mentally involved with a patient, so they just redoubled their efforts as he began to snap orders for gauze and dressings. All he could do here was try to stem the bleeding until they could get ahead of it. Any actual treatment was going to have to wait for the operating room, where he could see exactly what was going on.

They were pushing whole blood into her now, fighting to replace what she was losing, and as her blood pressure crept fractionally higher Riviello felt a surge of hope. Maybe……

“Okay, that’s all we can do here.” He said finally, looking at the nurse he’d told to call. “Is that OR ready?”

“Yes, Doctor. Ready and waiting.”

“Right. Let’s get her up there.”

The waiting relatives were all but forgotten as he walked swiftly with the gurney as it was pushed to an elevator, taking Billie upstairs where he could hopefully save her life. Hopefully.

In the waiting room, the mood had shifted from patience to gnawing fear, and the longer they waited without news the worse it became. Jon was pacing back and forth, chewing on a thumbnail as he tried to keep his mind on anything but what had happened. Jay was hunched forward on the couch, a bottle of water in his hands, the label in the process of being slowly shredded as he peeled it off the plastic in tiny strips. Richie was hating every second of this. The last time he’d sat in a hospital waiting room had been when his father was dying, and the memories were still painfully raw. Kadie’s eyes shifted from Jay to Jon to Richie, but always returned to Jay, seeing the muscle working in his clenched jaw as he held himself together with iron control.

After an hour, she’d had enough, and Kadie got abruptly to her feet, surprising the three men.

“I’m going to go see if there’s any news.”

“I’ll come……” Jay said quickly, but Kadie shook her head.

“No, baby. Stay here. Trust me, I’ll tell you whatever I find out, but please just stay here.”

He subsided onto the couch with a sigh, dropping his head back into his hands. Watching the momentary interplay between the two, Richie had to hide an unexpected smile. It looked like just maybe Jay had found his own Dorothea, because he knew very well how Dot could tame Jon with just a few words, could make him do her bidding when no-one else could.

Kadie went down toward the ER, shocked to find it empty, but lucking out as a nurse walked toward her.

“Excuse me?”

“Yes? Can I help you?”

“I hope so. The woman who was in the ER - Billie - where……..?”

“I think Doctor Riviello took her up to surgery.” The woman frowned. “Didn’t you used to work here?”

“Uh-huh. I moved to University, but I’m……dating Billie’s son. Can you tell me anything?” Not above begging, for Jay’s sake, Kadie looked beseechingly at the nurse. “Please?”

The nurse sighed, but professional courtesy went a long way. “You know I can’t give you details, but I believe the tears were so bad Doctor needed to get her upstairs stat. She’d lost a lot of blood already, and……….” She shrugged. “Well, you know hard it is to repair rectal tears. I don’t need to tell you….”

“Rectal?” Kadie whispered. Holy shit. That, she hadn’t expected. Hadn’t even imagined.

“Oh, dammit. You didn’t know?”

“I knew she’d been raped - Doctor R kinda gives that away - but……we didn’t know she’d been…… Oh, shit. How can I tell him this? I’ve already had to tell him she may not make it. How can I hit him with this now?”

“My advice? Don’t.” The nurse said sagely. “You’ve told him what he needs to know - that she’s very sick and that’s all he needs to know right now. Just be with him.”

“I can’t lie to him. I won’t. Shit. I can’t tell him in front of……..” Kadie paused, realising. “Richie knows. He knows what’s happened to her.”