Chapter 9
It is all hands on deck in CICU room 107 from the moment the sun rises. Sirius has never seen such commotion and constant activity in Remus’ room before. First, it’s the nurses coming in to give meds and change diaper and gown and reposition Remus’ body. They also give him his first feed of the day, raising the head of his bed and hooking up the bag of formula to his PEG tube.
Then it’s time for rounds with Dr. Dearborn and his team of residents, a couple of whom obviously recognize Sirius, as usually happens. Luckily they’re all gracious enough to not bring attention to it, sensing the dire situation in the room. Usually Sirius is kind enough not to get upset when asked for autographs or photos at the hospital but Remus is rarely so close to death even when he’s in the hospital. Right now, Remus is Sirius’ sole focus and he might lose his mind if asked for an autograph.
The nurses later come in and unhook Remus from his empty formula bag and flush his PEG tube, and reposition him slightly again, unwilling to let him lay in the same position very long at all. In his current state, a pressure wound would pretty much mean certain death if it became infected.
After rounds is the respiratory team, consisting of an ENT physician, a respiratory therapist, and two respiratory nurses.
Remus’ respiratory therapy starts with one of the nurses removing his tracheostomy tube, allowing the ENT physician to do a quick scope of his airway while the trach is out in order to get a visual of the condition of his airway to check for granuloma tissue and any other signs of tracheal stenosis, then the respiratory therapist is putting in a new trach tube. It all takes less than one minute much to Sirius’ relief. He doesn’t like when Remus is off the vent, especially not now.
Every time he closes his eyes now he sees the way Remus looked at Sirius last night, eyes desperate and begging for help, for air, as he suffocated on his own secretions, drowning in his own lungs. Sirius swears he can still feel Remus’ hand clutched in the hem of his t-shir even as he holds Remus’ limp hand in his own now.
The RT explains that she’s changed out Remus’ fenestrated-cuffed trach tube for a traditional-cuffed trach tube. The traditional trach has no hole to allow air to pass for speech production but, with Remus being sedated, it’s not necessary for him to have a tube that allows him to talk. Rather, he needs as much breathing support as he can get.
With the new trach in place and the collar secured, the respiratory nurse starts him on a nebulizer treatment. While they allow his nebulizer treatment to run, the respiratory therapist explains to Sirius and Lily the new piece of equipment they’re going to use today to help clear Remus’ airway.
“Technically it's called a ‘mechanical insufflator-exsufflator’ but we typically just call it a cough assist machine because that's what it does, it simulates the mechanics of a cough for him,” the respiratory therapist explains.
When the nebulizer treatment is finished, Sirius watches closely to see how the respiratory therapist attaches the cough assist tubing to Remus’ trach. She allows it to give him five coughs, forceful intakes of breath and forceful exhalations, and then he’s suctioned by the nurse and put back on the vent to catch his breath for about 30 seconds. They repeat the process four times in a row.
By the end, when the respiratory therapist re-listens to Remus’ airway with her stethoscope, she reports much less crackling from loose secretions. Lily also points out to Sirius that Remus’ O2 sats have improved a bit since the nebulizer and cough assist treatment.
When the respiratory team leaves, the nurses are back again, refilling Remus’ antibiotic infusion, changing him, repositioning him, and hooking him up to his second feed of the day.
They get about two hours of reprieve from the chaos until it's time for physical therapy. The PT team comes in and does some range of motion exercises and massage therapy to help keep Remus’ blood flowing properly in all of his limbs while he’s immobile.
Then, after PT, it’s time again for food and the nurses set him up on his third feed of the day, suction his trach, and reposition him.
By the time the respiratory team arrives back at Remus’ bedside around 5:00 pm to give his next nebulizer and cough assist treatment, plus routine trach cares, Sirius is exhausted even though he’s not done much more than sit and talk to Remus and Lily all day long.
When James arrives back at the hospital around 6:00 pm, the nurses have just set up Remus’ fourth and second-to-last feed of the day and Sirius has again assumed one of his usual positions, curled up at Remus’ side, one of his limp hands free of its restraint, held tightly in Sirius’ hand.
Lily is reading aloud from ‘The Hobbit’ and Sirius is snuggling Remus, rubbing soothing circles on the arm Sirius isn’t laying on.
James gives Sirius a recap of that day’s morning skate, practice, and how Harry was when he’d picked him up from Effie and Monty to have an early dinner and ice cream.
James reminds Sirius that they have a travel day the day after next and that reminder makes Sirius’ gut twist with anxiety.
When Sirius arrives at the airport two days later, it’s with James’ arm wrapped around his shoulder and a dose of xanax already on board. The xanax was required to get him to be calm enough for James to be able to peel him away from Remus’ bedside.
Sirius wants to take a leave of absence and he definitely would, but all the way back in September, right before the start of the season, Remus made Sirius swear that he’d not take a leave of absence from the team, even if he was back in the hospital, sedated or not.
He’d even made Sirius swear to get back on the ice as quick as possible if Remus died, he made Sirius promise not to stop playing just because of grief over Remus. Sirius tries not to think about that part of the conversation, though.
Remus loves to watch Sirius play hockey and, even more than that, Remus knows that Sirius needs hockey because it helps him stay grounded and gives him an outlet for the difficult emotions Sirius often deals with.
The only reason Sirius doesn’t go back on his promise to Remus is that he can’t handle the thought of Remus’ disappointed, hurt expression if he ever did break the promise and Remus found out. It was obvious that it was important to Remus that Sirius keep this promise and his sweet husband has lost so much control in life, has suffered so much unfairness that Sirius can’t stand the thought of doing anything other than exactly what Remus wants.
So, now he’s here, at the airport and boarding the plane with the team, James settling noisily into the seat beside him.
Sirius has a quick urge to call Remus to let him know they are about to take off. He almost does but then stops short, realizing that if he called, nobody would answer. He just wants to talk to his husband, even if he can’t respond. An idea comes to him and he pulls his phone out, flicking over to his and Lily’s text message chain.
Best Sis Ever
Sirius
7:07 am: Hey, Lils, can you make sure that Remus’ phone is somewhere by his hand or leg or something?
7:07 am: Just, somewhere where he can feel it vibrate?
7:09 am: I know it’s a weird request but please?
Lily
7:10 am: Sure, Sirius.
7:10 am: I can do that.
A moment later, Sirius’ phone buzzes with an incoming image. Remus’ phone with its sparkly purple case sits under Remus’ swollen, red hand, the blue padding of the restraint just visible at the top of the photo.
Sirius
7:12 am: Thanks, Lils. Love you.
Lily
7:12 am: Love you too, Padfoot.
He clicks out of their text thread and navigates to his and Remus’ text thread. His fingers hover over the keyboard for a moment, he’s not even sure what he wants to say.
💕MY MOON💕
Sirius
7:15 am: Hey darling
7:15am: We’re about to take off
7:17 am: I’ll text you when we land
7:18 am: Get some rest. I love you, Rem.
Sirius sighs and lays his head heavily on James’ shoulder. It was going to be a long 24-hours away from Remus, but luckily Sirius falls asleep quickly thanks to the xanax. He sleeps the entire flight, James careful not to even breathe too heavily so as not to wake him up. Sirius sleeps far too little these days.
The flight is relatively short, only two and a half hours and when they touch down in Tampa, James gently shakes Sirius awake.
“Hey Pads, we’re here,” James says softly. “C’mon, time for lunch and then game night prep.”
Sirius opens his eyes slowly and yawns widely. For a moment, he’s forgotten. He’s forgotten that he should be anxious, forgotten that there’s something very, very wrong in his life right now. For just a moment, he is just excited to be with his best friend living their dream of being NHL players. He starts to get his stuff together to de-board the plane.
But then, Sirius turns his phone on and he immediately receives a few notifications. Texts from Lily, all time-stamped at 10:33 am, the time his phone reconnected to the network. And, all of the sudden, he remembers. He remembers that he should be very anxious and he becomes so. Quickly.
Sirius clicks on the messages as fast as his fingers allow.
Best Sis Ever
Lily:
10:33 am: Snuggle Bugs Emmaandremus.jpg
10:33 am: Double Trouble
harryandremus.jpg
10:33 am: Reg, Barty, and Evan are here. regulusandremus.jpg
10:33 am: Dr. Dearborn came in earlier. Nothing has really changed since he last spoke to you yesterday evening. I’m making sure they’re taking really good care of our boy. Promise. Good luck tonight, Sirius. We’ll all be watching the game from here!
The first photo is a photo of Remus and Emma. Emma is fast asleep, lying on Remus’ chest, held in place by Lily’s hand. In the background Sirius can see Effie smiling at the sweet sight. Remus is still unconscious but he looks comfortable enough propped up with pillows and with a comfy blanket covering the baby’s tiny body.
The second photo is of Remus and Harry. Harry is snuggled up to Remus’ side and Sirius can clearly see that Harry is showing Remus some of his favorite YouTube videos even though Remus’ eyes are firmly closed.
Sirius smiles at the sight. Leave it to Harry to always bring levity to the heaviest of situations.
The last photo shows Regulus at Remus’ bedside. He’s holding Remus’ hand and he’s reading aloud from a book, the title of which Sirius can’t quite make out from the photo. The sight makes him smile. Regulus is a good baby brother and Lily is an amazing sister in law.
After catching up with all of Lily’s messages, Sirius navigates back to his text thread with Remus.
💕MY MOON💕
Sirius:
10:37 am: We landed safely
10:39 am: I’m going to score you a goal tonight, baby. So you better be watching.
10:40 am: I love you, my Moony
…
10:48 am: Miss you
The fasten seatbelt sign turns off just as Sirius finishes his last text to Remus. He locks his phone and gives James a weak smile when he finds his best friend looking at him with concern.
James smiles weakly back. He knows, of course, that James knows that he isn’t okay but Sirius is trying because it’s what he promised Remus all those months ago. He owes him that.
The game started well and Sirius even got that goal for Remus he’d promised earlier. He felt good. Not happy. Not, not anxious. But good, strong, powerful and he felt like he was on his game tonight.
Sirius couldn’t have anticipated what would happen during a reset in the latter half of the second period.
Stars were up 2-1 and the teams were resetting just about to start another face off.
“Surprised to see you here, Black,” somebody chirps at him.
Snape. It’s a recognizable voice, Sirius knows it’s him.
Sirius looks up to see Snape’s with his greasy hair and long, crooked nose sneering at him, “I figured you’d want to stay home with that vegetable you have for a husband. Isn’t he dying? Wouldn’t imagine you’d wanna wander too far away, you wouldn’t want to miss the grande finale.”
Nothing Sirius does next is a conscious decision he’s made. His vision has gone red and he blacks out as he abandons the face-off, his stick and gloves falling to the ice in one swift motion. Then he’s punching Snape in the face, one fist curled into the ugly, black jersey, the other raining blows. He punches over and over and over and over .
He doesn’t talk, he doesn’t scream about the cruelty of the words Snape had just sneered at him. He doesn’t tell him that he was out of line. No, Sirius just continues to rain punches down on the scrawnier, greasy man whom Sirius has never really liked.
Somebody is pulling Sirius back by the jersey and suddenly James’ arm is there, across his chest, preventing him from surging forward to continue beating Snape to a pulp.
Sirius barely registers that Snape is on the ice bleeding, groaning, and not getting up.
Sirius already knows he’s going to get ejected from the game and he’s honestly fine with it. He misses his husband and he’s ready to facetime with Lily so he can see Remus for himself. Know that he’s still breathing.
He’s led away to the team’s locker room by one of the athletic trainers so that he can cool off before the other players show up after the second period ends. There’s only 13.4 seconds left on the clock so he won’t have much time to himself.
He isn’t even aware of the near-line brawl that erupted as a result of Snape’s foul words.
James bursts into the locker room, the first player to do so and he beelines it for Sirius.
“Pads, what the hell was that, man?” James says, coming to a stop in front of Sirius making eye contact with his best friend. “I know you don’t like Snape but to attack him unprovoked. That’s not okay and it’s going to get you in a lot of trouble now.”
Sirius is sitting in his stall, head in his hands. James can’t see his face but suspects that Sirius is crying.
“It wasn’t unprovoked, James,” Benji Fenwick, one of the other players who’d been close enough to hear Snape's foul words, looks back and forth between his captain and Sirius. “Tell him Sirius, tell him what that slimy douchebag said.”
Sirius suddenly feels more hot tears spring to his eyes and he knows he has an audience. He knows that when he repeats the words, he’ll begin really sobbing and he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to stop.
“He called Remus a vegetable,” Sirius says with a bite in his voice, spitting out the words like they were a poison he’d been secretly dosed with. “Asked me what I was doing here while Re was back at home… dying. Told me I should be home, that I wouldn’t want to miss the ‘grand finale’.”
James’ face went from anger at Sirius’ rash behavior and morphed into murderous rage directed toward Snape. James can see on the faces around the room that for everybody who just heard for themselves what had provoked Sirius to lose his cool, that Snape is now enemy #1, he’ll be on everybody’s hit list.
Coach calls for a conduct review from the referees upon hearing what was said for himself.
He argues for Sirius, explains that there is a code of conduct and that, while chirping and trash talking are a part of the game, teasing a man about his dying spouse is cruel and falls far outside of what is acceptable and is unsportsman like behavior.
Coach makes the case that the “attack” wasn’t unprovoked, argues that Snape knew exactly what Sirius’ reaction would be to such words.
After a heated discussion, the refs agree to eject Snape.
On the plane ride home, Sirius reflects on the incident. It’s hard to manage your emotions healthily while your world implodes around you. He knows that he needs to keep a lid on his temper, he can’t let it get the better of him like it always used to.
But now, Sirius remembers just how angry he is. How angry everything makes him feel. How angry he is that there are terrible things happening that are outside of his control.
He attempts to sleep on the plane again, head against James’ shoulder, but sleep doesn’t come. He just wants to see Remus.
When they arrive back in Gryffindor, James drives them both back to the hospital immediately.
When they arrive, it’s the middle of the night so it’s dark and the ward is as quiet as an ICU ever is.
Lily and the kids have already left to go home, but Regulus is still here and Marlene.
Regulus is fast asleep in the chair at Remus’ bedside, his hand still holding Remus’. It makes Sirius’ heart flutter with gratitude. He really does have the best baby brother.
Marlene is awake, sitting in a chair on the opposite side of the bed from Regulus. She’d been waiting on them.
Sirius immediately goes to Remus’ side. He kisses his love’s cheeks over and over, running a hand through his honey curls.
“I missed you, I missed you, I missed you,” Sirius tells him over and over.
Sirius crawls into bed with Remus, freeing one of his wrists so that Sirius can snuggle in close, he keeps a firm grasp on Remus’ hand. James watches as Sirius buries his face in Remus’ shoulder and cries silently, definitely still reeling from the incident with Snape.
Sirius is pretty tired and sore. His hand is throbbing and so painful he can hardly flex his fingers from where he’s repeatedly punched Snape just hours earlier. He allows the rhythmic sound of the ventilator and the rising and falling of Remus’ chest under his arm lull him to sleep.
Marlene sees the moment Sirius falls asleep, his entire body losing its tension at once, his face still buried in Remus’ shoulder, his hand still holding Remus’ hand safely in his. It’s too beautiful of a moment to pass up, and she quickly pulls out her camera and takes several candid shots of the two men sleeping while Regulus continues to snooze with Remus’ other hand in his, James looking on from the chair next to the bedside Marlene has just vacated.
Sirius expects a suspension and a fine for his behavior on the ice, however, the next day he receives something more surprising. He receives a phone call from Tampa Bay Lightning’s General Manager and owner apologizing on behalf of the team for the horrible things that were said to him.
“Sirius, I’m appalled to hear what my player said to you out there,” the manager begins with little preamble. “My wife battled cancer a few years ago and if somebody had said something so horrible to me, I would have probably reacted the same as you.”
The team’s owner chimes in next, “I assure you that we are speaking with the league about the incident and are pushing for the lowest punishment they’re willing to settle for. We hope you will get no fine or suspension.”
In the end, Sirius is fined by the league but receives no suspension. The league’s form of an apology for what Sirius experienced on the ice. And the next thing he hears is that Tampa Bay has sent Snape down to their AHL affiliate.
Meanwhile, Sirius sits with Remus at the hospital any time he doesn’t have to be at the rink, helping the nurses change his husband’s diapers and start his feeds. He shows them how Remus prefers to be washed and how he prefers his oral and trach cares to be done.
He throws himself into caring for his husband, trying to not pay attention to anything else. Because nothing else matters more than the man in this bed and his fight to rid his body of the pneumonia and to live long enough to have the life-saving operation he needs.
Just a bit more time. All they need is just a bit more time for a heart match to become available.
“I love you, Rem,” Sirius whispers in Remus’ ear. They’re alone right now and Sirius is lying next to him, a hand carding through the soft, freshly washed curls. “You’re still the best thing that has ever happened to me. Don’t you forget that. The very best thing.”