2019-08-07 - Lazy Duty

The police arrived on scene first, following Isolde's frantic call to 911. Paramedics a short time after; and by then, some of de la Vega's buddies at the station have already realised what's going on, and that there's an officer down. The mood is sombre and tense amongst the cops charged with cordoning off the area, keeping bystanders away, and generally trying to make sense of what the fuck's happened to one of their own. Not to mention innocent civilians.

Everyone's loaded up onto gurneys and whisked away in ambulances, and it likely doesn't take much convincing at all on Sutton's part to let her ride with the captain. He's completely out, and the paramedic in the back of the rig is working to staunch the flow of blood and start an IV. Probably, she even avails herself of the help of her off duty colleague on occasion.

Sutton has been through this before. She, of course, has at least his heart rate by the time they arrive, and a rundown of his visible injuries, which she shares as she's getting into the rig with him. The hardest part is staying out of the way of the paramedic in back who's rendering aid. Sutton finally jumps in about halfway through, pulling on some gloves and nobody says shit about it to her. He has a lot of wounds to check and attempt to slow the bleeding.

She's thoroughly bloody by the time they reach the hospital, smears of his blood on her arms, her dress, her shoulder. She doesn't notice. It's all business on the ride to the hospital, her gaze shifting to the monitors quite often. Unfortunately, she has to answer, "I don't know," to pretty much every medical question, such as Ruiz's allergies, medications, potential interactions, blood type. It's the chest wound that has her concerned, and the ride to the hospital feels like it takes an eternity.

The paramedic riding in the back with Sutton and the cop just focuses on her job, and stops asking questions after a point. She mutters something about having a hard time finding a vein, and jabs him a few times before the IV sticks. And she'd probably have plenty to say about his smoking, and what it's doing to his health, if she didn't have more pressing matters to attend to right now. Like keeping that chest wound from getting any worse.

The rig swerves into the hospital's emergency bay, lights washing over a couple of other parked ambulances as they pull to a halt. The attending paramedic asks for Sutton's help with the gurney, and just before it's offloaded, the cop's eyes flicker open a fraction and he looks right at the doe-eyed brunette covered in his blood.

From there, it's a brisk trip through the hospital's maze-like corridors, and into the emergency ward where they can get him handed off to a medical team for stabilization - and a fast-track to surgery. Which is probably going to be the worst part, where Sutton's concerned, as she's forced to wait until someone has a minute to give her an update.

Sutton hops out and takes the heavy end of the gurney to pop it out and down to the pavement, a slight bump, then the wheels extend and they're off, pushing through as the on duty paramedic rattles off his injuries, vitals, and a list of medicines on board, given in the field.

She follows the gurney after transfer to the hospital's equipment. She makes her way in as far as she can, annoying the shit out of a few nurses who know her well. She spends most of her time in the ER, after all, of all the places in the hospital. It takes a tall nurse with half a bag of mini peanut butter cups physically restraining her to keep her on the side of the line she's supposed to be on. "Let me go." The nurse doesn't. "Henry, let me go."

Henry seems to think it'd be in her best interest not to do so. "Sutton, you can't, you know you can't, so settle down and let me help you clean up." He crinkles his bag of candies and his grip on her upper arms tightens, which hurts, particularly with that graze.

Sutton hisses something profoundly rude.

"Took me a second to recognize you with the shorter hair. Looks good. You hurt? The mouth on you, girl." He says.

"Fine... fucking fine, I said."

And some time later, she actually does let Henry the nurse check out her arm, clean it, and loan her some scrubs to change into. Her dress is a goner, unfortunately. RIP hot grey dress.

That dress really was hot. The worst part about it? He didn't even tell her so. He'd been thinking about pointing it out all evening, but with the previous night's margaritas and stilted conversation still fresh in both of their memory, Javier seemed to think it best to stick to shop talk. How was work today? was the question that started that tirade about the guy with whatever the fuck it was shoved up where the sun don't shine. And boy howdy is the cop glad he asked.

By the time Henry's gotten her into scrubs, and shared a few of his peanut butter cups, and a some hospital humour about the lippy old lady who rolled through about half an hour ago with sass for days, there's a doctor sticking his head out of the operating theatre with an update for Sutton. He looks young; far too young to be performing surgery. "Sutton, right? Are you next of kin?" His expression reveals almost nothing. He's probably had to get pretty good at the poker face, around here.

After a while, Sutton comes down off the adrenaline rush. Then it's just her and Henry taking more than his break to hang with her, the occasional nurse dropping by on their way through the ER. They keep offering her snacks. And snacks. And more snacks. Someone sneaks her an airline size bottle of booze, and she shoots it. No one's ever going to say who. Or where it came from. Or why they have it.

And then she retells the story about the sun not shining, and is regaled with the rest of the tale. Apparently they found more in the ol' storage bin than the guy first admitted to, and he almost had a rupture.

When the doctor finally pops out to ask a silly question, there's not even a hesitation when she says, "Yep. How's it looking, doc?" The doctor can eat the lie and like it. Sutton's spent enough time in the hospital that this isn't even a trial for her, lying to a surgeon. There's a thready edge in her voice, but she keeps it together.

The doctor hesitates a moment. He's seen her around here, sure, but he doesn't know her as well as some of the nurses do. He looks for a moment like he's going to call her on it, but maybe he's got some sense of the sort of day she's having. Or maybe the guy under his knife is just in such bad shape that, "He did really well. He should be out in.." The guy checks his watch. "I'm gonna guess a little less than an hour." He's about to push the door open and head back in, but pauses long enough to add, "He's in pretty rough shape. But I think he's gonna pull through." There's something else bothering him, but he doesn't look inclined to mention it to her. Not here, not now. He gives her a brisk nod and disappears.

Eventually, Henry has to get back to work. A couple of the other nurses stop by to offer solidarity, and if Sutton makes it through the next few hours with her sanity intact, she's eventually allowed to sit with the partially-sedated man while his broken and patched up body lies sprawled in an ICU bed. "He should wake up on his own any time now," murmurs the nurse who stops in to check his vitals for the fiftieth time.

Sutton nods when he speaks, and it seems the words don't upset her too much, though she does glance down briefly. The last time she was in a similar situation, there wasn't even hope for a good word. It was over before they reached the hospital's doors. She swallows, and then tips her gaze up. "Thanks, Doc." That rolls off her tongue easily enough.

Her eyes narrow slightly when the doctor hesitates, but she doesn't quite move to stop him.

She hangs in, she does, but it's a hard wait. It's a horrible wait, really. Sutton hates waiting around. She hates doing nothing. She maintains small talk as long as she has to, never fully distracted.

Finally, finally she finds her way to a room to sit with Ruiz while he sleeps off surgery, and waits for the opportunity to talk with the surgeon again. This is creating quite a paper trail, and thank god no one's asked her a question about it yet. She doesn't even have the words to begin. She looks at the nurse for a time, as she checks his vitals. "Is there anything else I should know? I haven't seen the surgeon since he finished." The look on his face bothered her, that surgeon.

She sits beside the bed, and the fact that she doesn't let go of Javier's hand has at least a few of the nursing staff talking. Sutton and an older man. Sutton and a cop. Sutton and anyone would stir up a little gossip, with the attitude she has on duty. Finally, "Thank you," she says to the nurse, because their jobs are hard enough. She has a lot of time to peruse his tattoos, at least.

It isn't until the nurse leaves that she says to Ruiz, "Javi. Bebe. You're going to need to wake up." She leans against the bed, holding his hand in both of hers. It's strange to feel it so still, to see him unconscious against crisp white sheets, to see him so still. It's selfish, to want him to wake, because he's surely going to be in pain when he does.

The nurse leans in close on her way by, and whispers two words in Sutton's ear: "Toxicology report." He's a cop. His blood tests should have come back clear. She pauses by the door on her way out, noting the way the paramedic's sitting with him. Holding his hand, asking questions like he means something more to her than that captain at the precinct who's kind of nice in an odd way, when he's not flaying his men alive for fucking up. Then she slips out, surely to impart some of what she's seen and heard to her friends trying to pass an otherwise dragging graveyard shift.

His ink is a mishmash of themes, and was clearly cobbled together from different times and walks of life. The intricate waves and fishing trawler spanning his forearm, the sugar skull above that with its dark, empty eye sockets and vibrantly blooming roses in black and grey. The strange little symbols and letters on the backs of his knuckles, like code for something.

He's still, until he isn't. There's a flicker of his fingers against hers, then a squeeze. A sliver of dark eyes under darker lashes, and that broken nose seems like child's play now with the state he's in. The arm connected to his other hand is bandaged up and draped across his belly, and a pattern of nasty bruising extends up along his shoulder and neck. His chest, too, is completely wrapped in gauze under that lovely hospital gown. Classy, Javier.

"Hey," comes out scratchy and barely audible.

Sutton's lips part at the mention of the toxicology report. That's all it takes, really, to make a point. Just the two words. She doesn't even have to see it, but she will if she's even close to getting her hands on his chart at any point in the near future. She closes her mouth. It's not really a surprise, is it? The brunette lifts Ruiz's motionless hand, pressing a kiss to the backs of his knuckles. "Man who's going to have surgery on his chest should not tax his heart, love." He probably doesn't hear that. She's going to say it anyway.

She takes a long time looking at the tattoos on his hands. She studies them very closely, they way they lay in the skin, the way more than a few need a touch up. She closes her eyes, lips pressed against his knuckles, and murmurs something inaudible into his slack hand.

She starts when his fingers move, lips press together when he squeezes her hand. She flicks those glassy hazel eyes to the head of the bed, her attention on his face now. "Jesus Christ. Took you long enough." Sutton smiles, but it's definitely edged with sadness.

The hand she's got caught in hers, lips pressed to the knuckles, is the one with the IV needle slid into his forearm. Since the other one - his dominant hand, irritatingly - had to be operated on. He doesn't hear her tell him about taxing his heart, but he does catch that smile that only barely qualifies as such, and the lighthearted words paired with it. He studies her eyes for the longest time, like he's trying to figure out what kind of act she's putting on, or whether she's been crying by the state of her makeup. His mouth twinges slightly at the corners, but it doesn't resolve into anything.

"I'm sorry." For getting shot? For taking so long to wake up? Maybe for all that dirty sex while the tequila was flowing a little too freely. Maybe for fucking other women. His litany of transgressions is a mile long and counting. "Glad you're okay. I was.." He has to stop for a moment; the pain is intense. "Worried. I blacked out, and I couldn't protect you, bebe."

"I'm sorry, I couldn't protect you either." He didn't see the scuffle after he went down, when she fought someone off herself, and then tried to fight them off of him too. The fall of her hair covers a mark on her forehead, which will probably develop into a bruise by tomorrow. Her makeup has been thoroughly cleaned off. All that remains is that all day wear red lipstick that she's so damn fond of. Her mascara is a bit smudged, what's left of it. That faint scattering of freckles across her nose is showing, but she's clean of blood, mostly. There's still some in her hair, but it's dry now. Her clothing is gone, replaced by a pair of plain pale blue scrubs with a v-neck.

"You're tough, bebe. You took a lot of rounds and a couple peripheral shotgun blasts. I'm sure they spent a lot of time picking bits out of you." She almost smiles. "Good thing it was the start of the night and not the finish." He probably would have been into the tequila by then. "I don't even know what to say about what happened, and no one's asked yet." She hasn't managed to gloss over this in her mind yet, to explain away the weird. It makes it a lot more complicated giving a report, or will. Fuck.

"You have have a button to push more pain meds. It'll probably put you out, but use it if you need it. I wanted to see your eyes." She lowers his hand to the bed again, careful not to disturb his IV. He can probably see the fear she isn't admitting to, at least a hint of it. There are surely things she isn't saying. "If anyone asks, I'm your next of kin."

Something she says seems to amuse him. But amusement hurts, so he refrains from chuckling about it. Might've been the allusion to his drinking, or might've been the picking bits out of him. There's a twinge of something, disappointment perhaps, when she goes to lay his hand down. And he continues to gaze at her in silence for some time after. He traces the curve of her red-stained lips with a slight flicker of his eyes, and smiles a little at the freckles she usually covers up.

"You're hurt," he points out after trying to shift a little to sit more upright. To no great success, because he's about as upright as he's going to get in this thing. "And I don't need the pain meds right now. I'm.." He's not fine. "In a minute." He isn't going to talk about the ghost cops and their hardon for wiping him off the face of the earth. He wants to, but he's not going to. "We'll get the paperwork figured out before they discharge me." For the next of kin thing.

Which might sound perfectly reasonable, until one realises what he's implying. About their relationship; about what she means to him. That three days he'd asked for? It was up tonight.

Sutton lays his hand down, but she doesn't let him go, keeping a hand on his elbow, touching his hip, somewhere on his body on her side of the bed. She tries to smile when he takes some to study her face, but it wobbles. She put on the brave face for the entire ER staff for hours, after all. She's tired of faking it. There are so many echoes tonight to November that she's having trouble emotionally separating them completely. "I'm not... some tiny nicks, a few scratches." Most of a small bandage is hidden under her borrowed short sleeve. "I'm not hurt."

"Make it a fast minute, bebe. You want those meds taking the edge off, and they won't quite get it done if the pain gets too bad before you use them. They take that shit away in a day or two, you know." She moves closer, standing so she can bend over the bed. "And don't try to appease me with paperwork. That was my favorite dress." See, nothing's fine, but it's better than it could be. Now she smiles a little , a crooked little lift of the corner of her lips. Her eyes slant green in this color top. Scrubs don't work for everyone.

Sutton presses a soft kiss to his lips. "Press the button, Javi. I'll be here when you wake up again." She brushes her fingers across his cheek, her thumb grazes along his jaw. "Unless I meet a more agreeable doctor." Agreeable, she says.

Seems a good time for someone to hit the pain button, so she reaches over and clicks it for him. Before he's disagreeable. "Don't yell at the nurses. I don't wanna hear it from them later, love."