Chapter 25
River's hand flew to her mouth to cover her gasp. Her eyes were huge as she stared at her father. He was so pale he almost looked dead. River held her breath until she finally saw his chest rise. The relief was short lived though, because after a few rhythmic breaths, she realized he was not breathing on his own. There was a tube down his throat and another in his arm and still another leading off the far side of his bed. He was surrounded by medical machinery and the only comforting thing at all was the steady beeping tone coming from one of the machines.
The tears that had been trickling down her face picked up speed. To say she was shocked was an understatement. Riley led her to believe that her father was doing well. He said that they had trained together on a daily basis. How was that possible when her father looked like he was knocking on death's door?
Finally the strength returned to her body and she jerked out of Rylie's arms. She spun on her heels and slammed her palms into his chest with all her might. She surprised herself almost as much as she surprised him, but she couldn't help herself. She had never felt such anger. All she wanted to do was hit him for getting her hopes up. She watched Rylie take a step back but before he could ask her what the hell she was doing, she was right back in his face, screaming at him.
"You lied to me," she snarled as she gave him another shove. Rylie held his hands out in front of him to try and calm her down, but also to protect himself. "You lead me to believe my father was doing better," she insisted. Before he could utter a reply to her accusations River slapped his hands out of her way. She wanted to reach his face.
That was the last straw for Rylie. He had had enough. He grabbed hold of her swinging arms and held them firmly at her sides, refusing to let her continue to hit him. "Calm down River," he growled at her. "Dammit! Just give me a chance to explain." His grip tightened around her forearms as she continued to squirm. When he realized she still wasn't calming down, he shook her. He shook her so hard that it shocked her and she finally stopped struggling. "Shit River calm down!" he repeated in a lower voice once he realized she was starting to calm down. He registered her huge questioning eyes as he whispered his request once more. "Please just give me a chance to explain."
She was breathing hard and her mouth formed a hard line as she glared at him, but she let him speak.
"Your father had been doing well," he began as he carefully released her arms. "I didn't lie to you," he promised and seeing her puzzled look he held up his hand to stop her questions as he continued to explain. "He unexpectedly took a turn for the worse while I was away."
Hearing his words, River's shoulders slumped. She lifted her head to search his face for the truth and when she saw what she was looking for in his eyes, her head turned back towards her father.
Seeing that all the fight had finally left her, Rylie took advantage and in a soft low voice he told River the whole story of what exactly had happened to her father, including the most recent medical information, which he had only just found out himself. "Your dad had originally taken a gunshot wound to his left shoulder. When we realized how important he could be to our cause, we immediately flew him back to our base camp as quickly as we could and though there was a trained medical person on board the helicopter with your father, unfortunately he was not a surgeon."
River squeezed her eyes tightly together as she listened to Rylie describe in detail all that her father had endured.
Seeing her reaction Rylie nervously scrubbed one hand through the top of his hair before he continued with his story. "By the time we got your father to our makeshift hospital, they found out that the bullet which had originally entered through his left shoulder, had actually travelled inside his body and ended up puncturing one of his lungs." River's head snapped back towards Rylie. Both her fists clenched with this latest news.
"They were able to remove the bullet," Rylie added quickly, however River could tell from the look on his face that he was about to add a 'but.'
"But," he said, proving her thoughts correct, "then his lung collapsed." Once more her head dropped as she heard all that her father had gone through. This time though, Rylie refused to let her look away. He gently lifted her chin so he could look directly into her eyes. "He recovered from all of that River," he told her with a small smile.
"He was doing well and I was visiting him everyday so that he could teach me everything he knew about operating his Arcane Fighter. There was even talk that he might be well enough to go on the mission with us to Special Ops, but then just a day before we were scheduled to fly out, he developed a fever. The doctor here refused to let him go because he didn't want to take any chances." Rylie released his hold on River's chin and then shrugged his shoulders as he told her, "Even with the fever he still looked good when I left him River. I thought he was going to be fine."
His bottom lip slipped between his teeth as he looked quietly down at her. I just got the information myself as we were on our way back here, that your dad has developed pneumonia." He watched as River absorbed the latest news. She took a few shaky steps towards her father's bed. When she was close she reached out and placed her hand over his. She noticed his hand was cool, not warm the way she remembered. She studied her father's sleeping face as Rylie continued, "Apparently his breathing got so bad from the fluid build up in his lungs that they had to intubate him to give his lungs a chance to rest. They are hoping that he can still fight off the..."
Before Rylie could finish, a man who River assumed must be the doctor stepped into the room. He was wearing a typical white lab coat and he gave Rylie a pat on the back as he greeted him by name.
"Hey doc," Rylie replied turning to give the man a quick handshake. Rylie then introduced him to River. "Ah.. doc this is River Reynolds," he said pointing towards River, "Sergeant Reynolds daughter. River, this is Doctor McClelland. He's been the one looking after your father since he got here."
River held out her hand for the doctor to shake and gave him a quick smile. She had a ton of questions, but before she could ask any, Doctor McClelland held up his hand to stop her. He told River that before she asked him any questions, he would explain everything first and then she could ask him whatever she wanted.
He basically repeated everything that Rylie had just told her, but he used more complicated medical terminology. He did say though, that her father was doing better and that he was only being extra cautious by doing the endotracheal intubation and ventilation because her father had so recently suffered the gun shot wound. He added that they were trying to bring up her father's oxygen levels and that he believed there was less fluid in his lungs. "All good signs," he said encouragingly. He told her that they were keeping him sedated while he was on the ventilator to give his body a chance to heal and finished off by saying that he was planning on taking her father off the ventilator in the morning as long as everything continued to progress.
Doctor McClelland cocked one eyebrow high and asked, "So, what would you like to ask me?"
River couldn't think of a single question. He had answered everything she was going to ask him. She shook her head and let him know that he had pretty much answered everything she would have asked.
"I'm good. Aren't I," he joked? He gave River a quick smile and told her it was a pleasure to meet her. He then gave Rylie another pat on the back and asked him to step out into the hall with him so they could talk privately about some of the other patients that had been brought in after the mission.
River quickly jumped up and called the doctor back into the room. She asked him if he knew anything about Scotty.
Doctor McClelland didn't recognize the name, but when Rylie added that he had come in by helicopter and was Shane Adam's little brother, the doctor's head nodded in understanding. He said that he had just come from there and that he and the only other doctor on duty had managed to remove the bullet. He added that he didn't think there would be any permanent injury to Scotty's spine, but they would have to wait for the swelling to go down to be sure. "The good news," he said, "was that Scotty was alive and so far was doing well." The doctor returned River's smile and gave her a parting head nod as he and Rylie left the room.
River turned to study her father, just as Rylie poked his head back into the room. He told her he would give her some privacy with her father as he had some things he had to take care of. He added that he would check in on Scotty to see how he was doing before he made his way back. River gave him an appreciate smile and a little wave with her hand and then Rylie was gone from the doorway.
River took a big breath and then spun back around and settled into a chair next to her father's bed. She felt the exhaustion hit her almost immediately as she studied her father's face. She could not hold back a yawn as she remembered that she hadn't gotten any sleep the night before and so had almost been up for forty-eight hours straight.
River's eyelids were just starting to grow heavy when she was startled by a commotion out in the hall. She dragged her weary body up from the chair and made her way to the doorway. She took one step out into the hallway and found she had to jump back into her father's room so she wouldn't get run over by a group of nurses and doctors running towards her. They were all desperately working on some guy they were pushing along on a gurney.
As the group passed her doorway it was as if everything suddenly turned into slow motion. River could see one person pushing the gurney and one pulling. There was another one sitting on top of the man applying chest compressions. Still another person was on the far side of the gurney holding up a bag of liquid which ran from a tube into the man's arm and the final person in the group was squeezing oxygen into the man through a face mask.
It was at that split second, while River noted the oxygen mask that she realized who it was lying on the gurney whizzing by her.
It was Dayden.