Hospital Visits
Ian yawned as he blurrily backed his car into the employee parking lot on yet another sunny day in Los Angeles.
“Whoa! What a sweet looking ride!” An appreciative voice exclaimed.
Ian leaned out the driver’s side window to find Sikes making googly eyes at the powder blue vehicle.
Ian stumbled out of his car, idly kicking the roll of toilet paper back inside. Matt raised an eyebrow as he keenly noticed the neatly made back seat bed, the empty packages of crackers, and the small mountain of books stacked on the floor of the car.
Ian mumbled something about coffee and stumbled inside. Matt, bored with nothing to do since George was currently out with Ian’s partner and he didn’t currently have a case hot and ready, was curious about the obvious evidence that a certain brown nosing rookie had a motel room in his back seat, so he trailed after the younger man who glared death at Dobbs when the man had the poor taste to stand in Ian’s line of sight instead of the coffee machine.
“Hey there Sikes! Ready to lose today?” Dobbs chortled as he hastily moved out of Freely’s direct path.
Sikes snorted, “More like you should be ready, George and I are going to wipe the floor with you and Zepeda.”
“Oh please,” Dobbs rolled his dark brown eyes, “Zepeda is a sports goddess, and George...is George.”
“I’ll have you know that George is a great athlete!” Sikes defended.
Dobbs snorted, “Mr. Roboto? Please! Just be prepared to cough up your usual 50$ deposit Sikes! Hey Freely!” Dobbs turned to the youngest officer, “Want to come and watch the massacre?’
Then both men groaned when they saw that Freely, somehow defying logic, had fallen asleep standing up mid-sip.
Sikes poked Freeley, who began to snore into his "I Heart Salty Nuts...the legumes people! Sheesh" mug.
“I don’t know whether to be impressed or disturbed,” Dobbs said blandly as Matt carefully guided the younger male to the ratty couch, quickly retracting his hand when he attempted to take the coffee and received a growl for his trouble.
Ooo ooo ooo
Ian was being punished with desk duty again.
Alright, maybe not an intentional punishment. Half the precinct was down with the flu, so more experienced officers were being relegated to beat duty, while the less experienced, or those months from retirement veterans, were tasked with manning the fort.
This was how Ian, who was manning dispatch while the regular did a quick rush for the toilet, heard over the wire that Officer James had been shot.
Ian barely managed to wait long enough to shove the ear phones into the surprised dispatcher’s hands when he ran out of the precinct, heart in his throat.
Ooo ooo ooo
Matt pouted as George walked away from his joke. Couldn't George not be so sensitive all the time?
'Maybe because that joke might be construed as a wee-bit bigot-ty?' his mental voice, which suspiciously sounded like Rookie Freely for some reason pointed out. Matt told it to shut up and pouted.
He was soon distracted however when He spotted his old childhood friend, Trenner, who was now a world renowned doctor and supporter of Newcomer medicine. The two were just reminiscing about stink bombs in the teachers lounge with George, who was both rather disproving and jealous of the easy repertoire between the two humans, when the doors to the waiting room of the hospital they were currently in slammed open dramatically and a pale faced Ian Freely rushed inside.
Upon spotting his partner sitting in a wheelchair nearby as a patient nurse explained what to expect for surgery, the green-eyed man let out a sigh of relief and rushed over, bowling Matt out of the way in the process, who tossed the younger officer the one fingered salute, grumbling.
"Don't be mad Matt," George tsked, "If it were you I just heard had been shot I would not let any obstacle lie in my path to get to your side."
Matt pushed George's helping hand aside and grumbled grouchily, but rubbed the back of his head, hiding a slight blush of embarrassment at that easily said proclamation.
Ian meanwhile was busy pulling his much larger friend into a hug.
Henry yelped as his shot arm got caught up in the exuberant relief. Freely let go when the attending nurse shot daggers at Ian and shooed him away with the officer's medical file. Ian rubbed the back of his messy hair and apologized, much to the exasperated amusement of his partner and Henry's wife.
“Whoa, didn’t know Babyface was a hugger, remind me not to get shot,” Matt joked, hastily deflecting the mushy moment George had yet again instilled.
“You needn’t worry Matt, Officer Freely is of course not your partner, should you become shot, it will be my duty to be the one to hug you," George declared primly, and perhaps with the barest hint of territoriality.
Matt groaned while Trenner snickered at his old friend's long suffering look.
“So your sure your alright?” Ian asked again, ignoring the peanut gallery byplay in the background, gripping the other man’s shoulders.
Henry patted his agitated partner on the hand, “there is no need to worry, right Vera?”
His wife nodded, “it’s just a simple surgery the doctor said,” she soothed, patting Ian’s other hand.
Ian relaxed in relief, “you have no idea the things that went through my mind when I overheard that you had gotten shot on the dispatch.”
“Ian!” Henry squawked, “Did you just run out on work!?”
“There’s nothing much going on down there anyway, and give me some credit, I did at least wait until the other dispatcher returned before coming.”
Henry huffed, annoyed, but didn't pull away when Ian wrapped himself around his partner again while Dr. Trenner outlined the basic surgery to repair Henry's arm. Both Vera and Ian wanted to stay, but Henry just rolled his eyes in fond exasperation and shooed them home.
ooo ooo ooo
The Next Day...
Ian slapped the alarm resting against the back window, and sat up abruptly when memory returned that Henry was supposed to go into surgery today.
He cursed when he realized that he had forgot to set the time on his alarm for earlier so he could be at the hospital with Vera and the kids. The whole thing had likely already started by now! Harry cursed again when in his haste to get up and dressed he clocked his head against the roof of the car, again. He really hoped that the building manager for that apartment got back to him, this was getting old.
He nearly broke the speed limit driving to the hospital.
When he arrived though, dressed partly in his uniform and partly in his pajama bottoms, a live rabbit he had bought from a near by pet store as a get well present (Tenctonese considered it extremely unlucky to give others cut flowers as a get well present, preferring living beings instead) he found a nearly empty waiting room, and in the chair was Henry's kids. They looked scared and confused.
Ian made his way over to them and sat beside the eldest, Mallory.
"Hey Val, where's your mom? is your dad still in surgery?"
Mallory bit her lip, the 13 year old sniffed, "I don't know uncle Ian, Mom was called out by the doctor just before you got here."
Ian frowned in concern, "Well how about I check for you okay?"
Val nodded in agreement.
Ian stuck his head through the connecting swinging doors that lead to the hospital treatment area and it wasn't long before he spotted Vera.
Vera...Vera's shoulders were shaking, her head shaking back and forward in disbelief, and as Ian approached, he saw that Trenner bloke that was friends with Sikes rest a comforting hand on her shoulder.
"Its not possible!" Vera suddenly yelled, and with blazing eyes she grabbed the sandy haired man and smashed him up against a wall, "You said it was just a simple surgery! Simple! How can he..."
Vera shuttered when she felt firm gentle hands on her shoulders.
She turned with a snarl, only to find Ian looking at her with wide fearful eyes.
"Vera?" Ian whispered, "What's...whats going on?"
Vera, the strongest person that Ian knew, head of the James family, weathering them through not only the slavery on the ship but the harshness of quarantine, and eventually the ghettos of Little Tencton without even a whimper, who had welcomed Ian into her family as readily as Henry had without blinking, had just...just crumpled before Ian's eyes.
A Newcomer nurse who was standing nearby and was helping a ruffled Trenner to his feet, uncomfortably told him, since Vera was currently in no state to.
"Mr. James...there was a complication during his surgery, I'm afraid...I'm sorry," the nurse looked away, "He...he didn't make it."