What's Up, Doc?

Posted on Wed May 20th, 2020 @ 7:13am by Alden Loxley & Karen Dawson MD

Mission: Fortune & Glory
Location: Persephone, Eavesdown Docks
Timeline: Late 2515 (2 years before present day)

Eavesdown Docks, Evening.

He'd never been a damn Browncoat, and asides from the romantic connection born in fire and trauma, he'd never sided with the Alliance either. But Alden couldn't just stand aside and watch someone struggle or suffer without at least trying to help them out. Especially when that someone was a doctor running a clinic - a clinic that didn't discriminate by allegiance, finance or any other pesky label society tended to apply to those people outside the nice neat lines the Alliance liked to draw.

He kinda regreted that decision now, as, with head swimming and hands covered in his own blood, he dropped to his knees on the floor of the nice lady's clinic.

Eyes wide in surprise, Alden looked down at his own torso and the two clear holes in his shirt. Not good. He tried to suck in a breath and coughed up some blood, lifted his gaze upwards and aimed a confused expression at the good doctor. Seemed like everyone else was making themselves scarce, real fast.

"They shot me?" He asked, as if - just maybe - this might be happening to someone else.

"Looks like it," came a grim, female voice from behind. "Jack. Help me get him to a bed."

A young male intern of Asian-European likeness came around in view of Alden, and picked the man off the floor, all the while the female from behind, had placed a bandage on his chest.

"Got ya from the street," the female spoke calmly. "It's nothing though... Merely a small paper cut."

Her intern looked skeptical but realized it was her way of keeping a patient calm.

"Dope him," the woman ordered as soon as they placed Alden in a bed in a private exam room. Then she applied pressure to his wounds. "I'm Doctor Dawson. Can you tell me your name?"

He wasn't proud of the pained cry that left his lips, or the deeply uncomfortable groan that followed as her helper lifted him up. Alden shook his head, and spoke through bubbles of blood as he tried to answer her.

"Alden," he said. "But I gotta go. My brother's waiting..."

"I can send my assistant to your brother," Dawson promised while she cut the back of his shirt off. Then allowed Jack to place a pair of gloves on her hands. "Not the best time to visit after a Fed raid, Mister Alden."

As she kept him talking Dawson assessed the wounds. Deep-entry but no exit wound. So the two bullets were still inside.

"No..." he protested mildly. "Whatcha doin'?" Cutting his shirt? Alden frowned as he tried to follow both what the doc was doing and what she was saying. "You... needed help," he said. "And..." And now he did. Great. Just great.

"Feds are always in here and they never find anything because I follow the law and my Hypacratic Oath," Dawson explained, then once she was satisfied the wounds were packed enough with gauze, she came around so Alden could see her hanging a drip, in her pale-blue scrubs. "I'm going to remove the bullets as soon as I get some good imaging. Else I'd have to do an exploratory - and I don't think it wise to cause any more bleeders on top of what the bullets have done."

"No, no, no!" It hurt, gorramit, and he didn't want her digging around in... well, anywhere. "Two?" He mumured as the meds started to kick in, and pointed at his own chest as what was left of the shirt fell away. "Ain't got time... for..." Alden winced. "Ow!"

Her firm hand forced him back down. "Whoever shot you, may have been trying to hit me... So sit still. That gauze won't clot for long and you'll bleed to death on the way to your brother."

"May need something stronger, Doctor." Jack tried to be subtle. Karen frowned, looking at Alden's face as she gestured to the hand-held 3D imager that her assistant then handed to her.

"Alden... The drugs are starting to kick in. So sit still and let me do my job. Tell me where your brother is, and my assistant will escort him here. Then once the bullets are out and I've got some fluids in you, I'll release you. Deal?" Karen gave him a stern look that meant, either way, he wasn't going anywhere soon.

He sat down, unhappy, a little drowsy, but mostly because of the persistence of her physical and verbal presence. "Ship..." Alden said. "Bay 12... Havoc..." Pained eyes bore into her soul as he looked up from his seated position. "M'okay," he suggested, but his tone was more that of a question than a confident assurance.

"I got it," Jack nodded, handed Karen the bag of saline, and was on his way.

Karen grabbed a needle and started to feel for a vein on his right arm. "Once I get some fluids in you, you'll feel less dizzy. You haven't lost too much blood outwardly, but once I scan your chest, I'll know if we've got some internal bleeding."

She knew there had to be, just by looking at the flush of his face, but she did not want to worry him just yet. Gently she put him back on his back and continued to smile. "You're in good hands, Alden."

He resisted, very slightly, but the meds grabbed him about the same time as she pushed him back and her words blurred in his ears as he found himself prone. With a needle in his arm? A low, disgruntled groan, and his face creased up in a combination of discomfort and unhappiness as the world faded out.

And that was the cue to start working on him. It would have gone smoother with Jack assisting her, but Karen was used to tough conditions. Conscripted, dumped in a battalion aid station, and trained by fire in the Unification Wars.

Using her handheld medical imager, she slowly ran the wand around Alden's abdomen with a frown. No exit wounds, but the bullets ricocheted enough inside the abdomen to cause extensive internal trauma.

Alliance did not use ballistic weapons much these days, so that meant a hired-gun or Alden himself had enemies with the locals. This was all speculation she would have to mull over later.

For now, Karen grabbed a general anesthetic, added it to Alden's drip, and pulled up a surgical tray. Then she hooked up her patient to a monitor where she viewed his stats occasionally as she worked...

---

"Brother is sitting in the waiting room," Jack said as he reentered the room almost a half-hour later. He scrubbed at the sink as he watched her work. "His GI tract ruptured?"

"And then some," Karen nodded. "Upper GI mostly. I'm patching it now."

"Does he know how lucky he is to have you working on him?" Jack asked with a look that suggested he was not impressed with Alden's stupidity.

"Retractor," Karen ordered, received it, and proceeded to answer with, "...If I wanted fame and glory, I'd still be on my homeworld. And my skills would be dulled by the mundane and easy procedures so common to children and adults."

Jack looked at the plasma. "He's gonna need a new bag soon."

"Get it... and let his brother know that Alden will pull through. No arteries were hit, but he does have some major belly wounds and internal trauma. So he'll need to stay here a few days to stabilize and be monitored before he can be up and about."

"I'll let him know," Jack nodded and disappeared.

Meanwhile, Karen went back to her work. There was soo many bleeders. Had Alden ignored her and left on his own, his death would have been slow and painful. Karen cauterized so many busted vessels and GI tissue that her nose seemed like it would smell burnt flesh and tissue for the rest of her life.

Flashes of wounded, bloody bodies in her old aid stations threatened to distract her. But Karen stayed focused on the thought that she was not there. That the war was over, and she was safe. She was a doctor now.

Once the brief wave of panic left her, with another calming breath, Karen went to locating the last bullet. Jack returned not long after and held the suction for her. This helped greatly in her goal.

"Looks like you've gotten most of the bleeders," Jack complimented.

"We'll need to install a temporary drain for the next few days," Karen noted with unease. Internal trauma was tricky. In Post Op, you often didn't see the danger until it was too late.

Fever, infection, hardened stomach. Bruising was the clear sign but often it was hard to spot on patients with operation-related bruising already there.

"Got it!" Karen explained when she carefully removed the bullet from the very edge of Alden's bowel. "Right... looks like all we do now is close him up."

Jack nodded, hung a new bag of plasma, and helped Karen install the drain before they at last, closed him up.

After a two-hour surgery and then another two-hours, Alden would wake up to a sleeping Karen, in the chair beside his bed. Exhausted from likely watching over him through most of his Post Op observation.

---

He opened one eye first, as if no one might notice his concerned perusal of the world around him. Where was he? What happened? Who was he with? Questions that vied for attention in his waking brain, but were swiftly overridden by the overwhelming urge to sit up, closely followed by the absolute insistence by every fibre of his being that being seated was the worst idea ever.

Head muzzy, body heavy and pain signals on high alert, Alden let his body slump back down the two inches of height he'd managed to glean from his bed. Hang on... his bed? When did that... Oh... yeah...

There was a woman with long brunette hair curled up in a chair to his right side, and the definite scent of disinfectant, blood and... Alden made a disgruntled sound in his throat and reached out a long arm to try and prod her own.

Equally groggily, Karen stirred with his touch. Auto-pilot kicked in instantly, as she pulled a warm blanket over him.

"You're a bit anemic from the blood loss, so you're very weak and easily cold until you get a few more bags of plasma. Bullets did more damage inside than out, but you'll live. Bed rest next few days, then you can leave with a long set of medical orders you need to follow," Karen explained in a quiet voice. "Brother is in the next room."

She then poured a glass of cool water and held the cup for Alden, but prodded the straw as if to tell him to drink.

“Sposed to be good to help folks out,” murmured Alden as if the world was confusing him with its inherent injustice. “Not sposed to shoot you for it.” He heard her words, though his ears were a little dulled to inbound sound, and he got the gist. It was bad. She’d fixed him up. He was stuck here.

“Thanks,” he said, and his hand reached out to wrap about her wrist as the doc wandered close again, bringing water. “I guess we’re even, huh?” A flash of a grin. A darker frown. “Few days? Wo Cao.” (I’m fucked) He took the hint then, and sipped some water through the straw, lines furrowing on his brow as motion brought forth signals of pain.

“Thanks, Doc. What time is it?" A sigh. Worried face. Words somewhat slurred. "I need to speak to my brother.”

"One-A-M," Karen answered, still in a quiet tone as if imposing a calm, relaxing atmosphere. "I"ll get him for you... Just don't eat anything solid for a few weeks. I cut almost two foot out of your GI tract and then cauterized the remaining of it back together. It's far too week to handle solid food right now."

She stood up and, deciding to make him feel better for his troubles, kissed him on the forehead. "Thank you for trying to help, all the same."

Reality played tricks with his drug-addled brain and Alden tried to wrap his brain around the bad words she was speaking. Something about removing two foot of something? From him? He closed his eyes and struggled to reconcile that with his memories prior to wandering into the fray. When he opened them again the doc was leaning in close.

A kiss!

"Love you too," Alden told her with a soporific smile and a happy faraway look. "Gonna sleep some now..."

He was not the first to confess an undying love for her while under heavy narcotics. Nor would he be the last. At this point, Karen had no shock over such reactions. A warm, caring smile of that of a merciful physician took hold.

With a parting squeeze of his hand, Karen waved him back to sleep before she left the room in search of his brother.

---