Broken Glass
Stanford.
Kel stared in disbelief at the torn and bloody gift the gods dropped into his lap. Orderlies were ripping Stan's clothes off, while nurses assessed the damage. Stan seem to be pricked with a thousand little holes, all of them leaking precious red blood. An intern barked orders, demanding blood for type and match, screaming for antiseptics, hollering for a senior medic.
"What have we got," Kel asked hoarsely. It was just a pretense. He knew what he had - a chance to put right all the wrong he couldn't un-know.
The intern barked some kind of response, but Kel was only half listening. It didn't really matter what they had. What mattered was getting a minute alone with Stanford. Getting him to look Kel in the eye, so he could see the rotten harvest he'd sown.
Kel approached the exam table slowly - he couldn't look too eager, not if he was going to ease everyone out of the room without raising questions. He thought he could manage it. If he phrased everything just the right way, he could order everyone out, one by one, and no one would think anything of it.
Start with the orderlies. He waved a slow hand at the orderlies. "Thanks, boys, we're good here," and breathed a sigh of relief as they left without protest.
Now the doctor. She'd be the hardest. Kel gestured to the vials of blood that one of the nurses was fumbling, and caught the intern's eye. "Get that to the lab yourself - he's bleeding out, fast." Kel held his breath, and waited. This young lady was sharp - if anyone was going to give him a hard time about leaving the room, it would be her. But she just nodded and hustled the nervous nurse along, before practically running out of the room with the blood.
That left him with the shaking, butterfingered nurse, and a rather confident student nurse to assist him. The student was ready and waiting for instructions. She was like a fucking dog, just this side of patient, awaiting her next command. He wanted to just tell her to leave, to see if she'd follow the order with the same bright eyed confidence, or if she'd tell him brightly that she would stick it out with the patient to the bitter end.
But then Stan choked, and a bright fountain of crimson arched from his mouth and splattered himself, Kel, and the confident student nurse. The poor girl screeched, retched, and ran out of the room gasping. Kel couldn't blame her. He half wanted to gag himself. But he still had an audience.
The other nurse, with the slippery hands, was already around at the head of the table, trying to pull Stan towards herself, so they could get a tube down the man's throat. But she was as clumsy and nervous as ever, and being only half Kel's height, she had no hope to get any purchase on Stanford's bloodied torso. Kel waved her off, and began to move Stan himself. "Get me Dixie," he growled. The nurse ran off, all apologies and acknowledgments, and then Kel was alone with Stan.
"Hello, Stanford." Kel leaned over the choking, gurgling man on his table, and was satisfied to see a flicker of recognition in his eyes. Stan lifted a weak hand, but it fell again as he struggled for breath.
Kel smirked a little. "You have no idea how easy it would be, Stan." Those ice blue eyes, so much paler and sharper than Kel's, locked on Kel's mouth, as if to hang onto every word. "No one would know. I could just stand here and watch it happen. I could even help it along, Stan." He put his hand on Stan's chest and smiled grimly. "I could try to stop the bleeding within, and nick an artery. How would they know, Stan?"
But what little satisfaction Kel got from Stan's recognition did not translate into a horrified understanding. Stan saw him, and heard him, but he didn't seem to know what Kel was saying. It was as if he only knew that he was choking and that his lover, the one he'd seen through medical school, was there when he needed a doctor. What else could he possibly be thinking? He certainly didn't seem affected by Kel's words. If anything, the sound of Kel's voice seemed to be a soothing relief. Stan's smile began to fade with Kel's silence, and the choking, which had faded to a labored wheeze, resumed in full.
"Shh, hush now," Kel said, and wiped at Stan's mouth with a cloth. The faint smile returned, and Stanford began to settle. "That's right. Just relax. Don't fight it." Kel pressed the cloth to Stan's mouth. It would be so easy. Who would question it? "It hurts, doesn't it, Stanford? But I can make the pain go away. I can take it all away."
"I think he'd rather you stopped the bleeding first," came Dixie's quiet voice from behind.
Kel whirled around, shaking with rage. Everywhere he turned, there she was! It was like the woman had eyes in the back of her damned head! "What are you doing here?"
She stood quietly by the door, sweet as sugar, the little hellion, and looked at him with those giant baby blue eyes. "You asked for me, Doctor."
"No I-" He stopped. Yes, he had. He'd sent for her, because he needed a good reason to get rid of that clumsy fool, and he knew she wouldn't question his demanding a more experienced nurse. But he hadn't expected such quick results.
"Kel. You should let Dr. Early take this. Come on, I'll call another nurse, and we can get a cup of coffee, and sit this one-"
"Don't interfere Dixie." Kel turned back to the monster on the table. He could end this now. He could grab a scalpel and slit a little deeper, and there would be one less... one less.
"I'm not even going to pretend to understand what's going on in your head right now, Kel. I only know that you took an oath, and you'll never be able to live with yourself if you break it."
"Shut. Up. McCall."
She approached him with a surgical tray. "Sure. But only if you let me help you stitch him back together." She held out a glove. "C'mon, Kel. I don't want to lose you."
The room softened and blurred, and a sob cracked the room's silence. He held a shaking hand out to the glove, but then he dropped it. "Okay. Get Joe," Kel said, and was surprised to hear his voice shake in quick rhythm with his trembling hands. She was already moving before he could finish speaking, but Kel wasn't looking at her.
Stanford was looking at him, but he no longer looked content to hear Kelly's voice. A tear splashed onto Stan's chest, and mixed with the blood that oozed from the punctures all over his chest and belly. Kel sniffed back the rest of his tears, and began hooking the patient up to the EKG. Kel often told grateful families that he was no hero. He was a doctor, with a job to do. Let the law dole out its punishment to the... to the patient on his table. Do no harm.
A moment later, several people burst into the exam room, and the noisy pandemonium of the emergency ward came rushing back to Kel. He found himself dropping back to a corner of the room as Dr. Early assessed the new development with gentle efficiency.
A small hand pressed against his elbow, and broke through his fog. "Kelly... can we talk?" He looked down into Dixie's soft, sad eyes, and tried to steel himself against her arsenal of emotional weapons. She gripped his sleeve slightly, and seemed to sway just the smallest bit. "Please?"
It was no use. He was broken, had been broken from the moment he made his awful discovery last weekend. He'd used up the last of his reserves trying to keep her at bay, only to have the damn jail serve up his weakness on a platter. He nodded and let her guide him out of the room, and out through the ambulance bay, towards her car.
They settled down together in the backseat, and stared at the expanse of parking lot, towards the gate that separated the hospital from the busy sidewalk on Vermont Ave. She didn't say anything. She just waited for him to slide in next to her, then took his hand in both of hers. She cradled it like it was a baby bird, a wretched featherless thing fallen from the nest with no hope of rescue. He wanted to snatch it back from her. But he couldn't make his arm move. It lay outstretched between them, a dead log propped up on his collar bone, lopsided, inert.
Kel was beyond useless. If he were actually dead, he might be useful to science in some way. As it was, he was a human statue entitled 'Failure'.
"I love you, Kel."
What a strange thing for her to say. He'd done nothing but push her away. He still wanted to push her away, to push her down to the ground and grind her there, under his boots, until he was sure she couldn't get up and follow him again. He wanted her to hate him. He needed her to hate him. Because as long as she had even the slightest bit of care left for him, he had to face the possibility of reciprocating - and that meant leaving himself vulnerable to another heartache. Surely Dix could understand that? After all, she always seemed to understand him so well, without his ever having to say a word.
"You're my best friend, Kel. My twin. No matter how mad we get at each other, I will always love you."
God, where in the hell was she getting this? It was like she had a pump directly to the searing core of his festering heart. She could get right to his tenderest places, and drag them out into light, so he would burn all the way through.
"I know I'm not the shoulder you want, Kel, but, well... I'm here."
How could ones knees go weak when one was folded up in the back of an old Chevy?
"The only thing I won't do is go away. I'll let you be, for a little bit, so you can breathe, but I won't go away. Not if I can help it."
Stop, stop.
"You don't have to say anything, ever. Not ever. If you want to talk, I'll listen. If you want to tell me nonsense, I'll listen to that too. And if you never ever want to say another word, that's okay, Kelly, because I'm not asking you to."
The bird in her hands was stirring to life, unfurling, spreading its bare wings, to try to wrap itself around the warmth of her cocooning fingers.
"All I'm asking you to do is believe me. I'm on your side."
The dead log snapped in two. The dam broke, and the pain and humiliation of no longer having anywhere to lay his head washed over him, and swept him to his friend's waiting arms.
He'd promised himself once that he wouldn't break again, that he wouldn't let his emotions get the better of him, especially not at Rampart. But the smell of Dix's hair, the thin, wiry arms that squeezed him tight, the endless understanding was impossible to resist.
But now he couldn't pretend to be overtaken by emotion for a friend. Now his shame was laid before her, and there was no denying the nature of his emergency. All he could do was hope that she would understand that he could never, ever explain.
Eventually Kel ran out of tears. He lay heavily against her chest, and noted uncomfortably that she seemed content to simply hold onto him. That seemed wrong to him. He shouldn't burden her that way. He knew he should pull himself together and go back inside. He should finish his performance evaluations of his latest round of interns. He should sit in at the base station and relieve whatever hapless intern was stuck there while World War III erupted all around them. He should pick his head up and release his head nurse from the bondage of his emotional violence, he should get the hell up and get on with the business of the day.
"You should take the rest of the day sick, Kel. You've been on the verge of collapse all week. No one would deny you some time to yourself this afternoon."
Damn her eyes, her big, blue psychic eyes. "No, Dix."
"Okay."
Kel froze. That was far too simple. "Okay?"
"Uh huh." She trailed her fingers through his hair. "You ready to get up?"
"Yes." He didn't move, and he noted with a mixture of deep relief and incredible irritation that her fingers just kept the same slow, easy crawl through his hair.
"Okay. Whenever you're ready." She grunted. "Relax, Kel. I'm not getting up." He blinked in confusion, and then saw his white knuckled grip on her upper arms. He released her, and she shifted slightly, breathing a puff of warm air over his forehead. But still, she didn't release him.
Fear began to creep over him, and pull him out of the comfort of her embrace. He tried to ignore the sour swirl of angst, but the tension grew too great. "What the hell am I going to say to Joe?"
She snorted. "Nothing."
"Come on Dix."
"You haven't told me anything. Why do you need to tell him something?"
He wanted out of her arms. He wanted to run, to burst out of the car and go shooting across the parking lot, to explode into traffic and let the cars disperse him over the Harbor Freeway.
To his surprise, he found himself pressed against the car door, held there by some invisible force. Dix was still sitting in the middle of the back seat, looking at him the way she sometimes looked at frightened, hurt children they came across. "I'm just wondering what there is you think Joe needs to know that he can't find out from the fire department. It's not his business or mine what happened to Stanford if you don't want it to be, Kel." She shrugged, and tried to look like she wasn't upset, but she turned away, and wouldn't look him in the eye. "Not to say that you don't have the right to tell Joe and not me, but-"
"You asked me this morning where I was staying. Why?"
Her eyebrows drew together, and her face turned deep crimson. "Oh, Kel, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said-"
"It's alright. Why did you ask?"
"I told you. I saw your house."
"So?"
She looked at him curiously. "So... that's it." She shook her head. "I mean, I was worried about the two of you... but I guess he has a place to stay, doesn't he?"
Kel hung his head. "I... you won't tell anyone, will you?"
She cocked her head. "Well, Kel, Joe's going to be able to figure out that Stan's in some kind of hot water since-"
"No, not that. Today. In the exam room." His mouth was getting dry. His whole body was parched. He felt like he was going to shrivel up like a salted prune, like a piece of old leather dropped in the Mojave, abandoned to time. "Don't tell - what I did - don't-"
"Kelly," she said, and her voice was as full of soft hurt as it had been when he'd put her out of his office just a few hours ago. "You don't have to ask that."
He looked at her curiously. "Don't I?"
She shook her head emphatically. "Whatever it is that made you consider something so... outside yourself, it's the same thing that's had you running ragged all week long, Kel." She reached out and cupped his face in her hand, tangling her long fingernails in his sideburns. "I wish you'd take the time to get your head together, Kel, but I won't force you, and I won't tell anyone about today. I know you'll figure out how to get on top of things again." Though her voice was still soft and gentle, there was something about the way she looked at him when she fell silent, that he knew this was his one and only pass. He might not have to ask her to be quiet about Stan, but the price for that silence was the understanding that she might never be quiet again.
He pulled away, patting her hand gently. "I think... I think maybe I'd better take the afternoon after all."
She nodded. "Okay."
"I still don't know what to tell Joe."
"Tell him you'll tell him later."
"What if I don't?"
She shrugged. "He's your friend, Kel, same as me. He won't hold it against you." She patted his thigh. "Go on, get out. I have to get back to work, and you have to figure out how to get on with your life - whatever that means."
She meant well, she'd meant well all week. But her parting words left a sinking pit in his belly, a pit he suddenly needed to fill with something cold and bittersweet. He forced a parting smile and returned to his office to collect his things.
He half expected to see everyone staring at him when he re-entered the hospital, but no one paid him any attention. It was almost as if nothing had happened - which, he supposed, nothing had to their way of thinking. Still, he wanted to poke his head into the exam room, to see if Stan was still in there, or if he even still existed. But Kel forced himself to deal with the minutiae of leaving early, and to resist the temptation to defend a murder charge that no one would know to lodge.