fic: fight the break of dawn part five.
Title: fight the break of dawn part five.
Author: 3025798/Sara
“The drain we placed in Lucy’s head hasn’t been draining enough fluid, and she’s got some unusual swelling. We’re going to go back in and reposition the shunt so that will hopefully reduce some of the swelling.” Reid explains carefully, glancing occasionally at the bed in the corner of the room where Lucy lays unmoving.
“Will she wake up?”
“It’s too early to say, but we caught this in time. I’m going to scrub in and they’ll take her down shortly. I’ll have one of the nurses let you know the progress of the surgery, I don’t know how long it will take.”
“Dr Oliver?” Mrs Matthews lip quivers as she grabs hold of his arm, and her nails dig in to his skin with fear. “She has to be okay.”
“I know.” He says softly and surprisingly comforting. “I’m going to do my best, Mrs Matthews.”
They let him go, turning instead to one another for support as Reid leaves the room. He doesn’t need to, because Lucy is going to be another half an hour getting into the OR, but he jogs down the hallway. He doesn’t have time for his usual routine, so he has to get motivated somehow. He has to shake the feeling that he’s made a mistake, that he did something wrong that caused this to happen because he knows it’s not true and if push came to shove, everyone else would know it too. Still, he resents feeling like he’s failed and he has to push that feeling away in order to focus on saving Lucy’s life.
Later, when she’s been stitched back up with a second drain inserted and she’s back in recovery holding on like hell, Reid flips open his phone on the way to the car park. He’s not sure what’s expecting, that there’ll be missed calls or messages from Luke saying that he couldn’t stay and that he was sorry. But the screen is blank and he sighs a breath of relief, before slamming the doors shut on his car and tearing out of the car park. He makes sure he keeps the phone where he can see it, as the staff are under strict instruction to call him the second anything changes with Lucy. He’s not taking any chances this time.
When he finally makes it home after nightmarish rush hour traffic, it’s almost eight o’clock. He hasn’t even realized how long he’s been gone, but he’s comforted when he walks through the front door and sees Luke’s bag still neatly packed by the front door. Even more so when he cracks open the door to his bedroom and sees Luke curled up underneath the blankets, a leg sticking out from underneath the quilt and his hair splayed across the pillows.
Reid changes quickly before crawling in next to Luke and pulling their bodies into alignment. It’s only then that he realizes Luke has changed too, into one of Reid’s old Harvard rowing t-shirts and a pair of Reid’s flannel pyjama pants. He runs a hand down Luke’s chest, over his heart and feels it thumping away steadily under his fingers.
“You’re back.” Luke murmurs softly, eyes fluttering open.
“Yeah. Did you sleep well?”
Luke nods sleepily, burrowing further into Reid’s shoulder.
“How’s your patient?” He asks, his eyebrows furrowing in concern as he remembers.
“Okay for now.”
“You must be tired.”
“I’m always tired.” Reid tries to joke but the reality is that he is, always tired. And he’s just been more and more exhausted ever he moved back. “I might take a nap now though. Are you… Will you be here?”
“I’m gonna stay for a few days, if that’s okay.” Luke says conclusively, sitting up slightly as Reid’s eyelids begin to drop in total exhaustion. “And then we can talk?”
“Sure.” Reid answers, though he’s barely conscious. His last thought as he slips into a deep sleep is how for that brief second, when Luke had shown up at his front door and Lucy’s surgery had been a success, he’d almost had it all.
The next few days, Reid works himself into the ground with his full patient load and waiting for Lucy to wake up. Luke potters around Reid’s apartment, cooks for him and rearranges his CD collection to keep himself busy when Reid isn’t there. He’s not sure what’s going to happen by the end of the week, when he needs to be back at Grimaldi and the Foundation, but they’re trying not to think about it right now when there’s so much good between them. So much love to catch up on that they’ve missed in the last few weeks.
The morning of Luke’s fourth day in Dallas, Reid’s phone goes off at ridiculous o’clock in the morning and they both groan at it, having been kept up by one another the night before.
“Dr Oliver.” He answers gruffly, coughing the sleep out of his voice.
“Dr Oliver, Lucy is awake. You asked us to call you when she did.”
“Okay.” He thinks momentarily about what he wants, before instructing the nurse to get updated scans. “Keep an eye on her, I’ll be there in a few hours.”
He hangs up the phone and drops it on his bedside table, trying not to disturb Luke too much.
“You don’t have to go in?” Luke asks quietly, reaching a hand out to lay on Reid’s bare chest.
“Not right now. Nothing I can do at the moment.”
They fall back asleep almost instantly, their fingers still entwined on Reid’s chest as it rises and falls with a steady motion.
Five hours later Reid walks into Lucy’s room to see her with her eyes open, and he notices that at some point during the night she had been extubated and was breathing on her own.
“Lucy, Lucy, Lucy.” He says, moving towards her as she smiles carefully, her body still weak. “What am I going to do with you?”
“Sorry.” She whispers, her throat still tender. “I…”
“Don’t try and talk, Luce. You heard what Dr Jenkins said.” Mrs Matthews tells her daughter, squeezing on her hand gently.
Lucy looked as though she was about to challenge her mother when Reid interrupts.
“Your mom is right, you’ve gotta take it easy. I’m going to go and review some of your scans and see where we’re at, okay?”
Lucy and her parents all nod, and he leaves the room feeling at least somewhat relieved that the swelling doesn’t seem to have done any lasting damage. He’s still feeling optimistic as he wanders into his office and picks up the scans that his assistant had sent up from radiology. Throwing them on the lightbox and studying them carefully, something catches his eye in one of them and it feels like a boulder lodging itself in his gut.
“Shit.”