The Value of O Negative (part 2 of 2)
I don't understand why this took so long to write. Neither will you when you read it. But for what it's worth, here is the second missing scene from "The Night Moves." (Imagine a commercial break after part 1.)
Disclaimer: Characters on temporary loan from Josh. Unfortunately, the errors and lame ending belong to me.
The Value of O Negative (part 2 of 2)
Relax, the doctor had urged him. Your wife is fine, and I expect that your baby will be too. These tests we’re running are just a precaution.
Just a precaution. Sandy shut his eyes, taking a deep breath. That’s all. Just a precaution. Relax.
He stuck one hand in his pocket to get change for another coffee, and his thumb bumped the cool plastic of his cell phone. Automatically he rubbed its surface, small circles that might summon a genie. Ring, he pleaded, wishing for Seth or Ryan, or better yet, both of them.
But of course they couldn’t call. The service had been dead ever since the aftershock.
It didn’t matter though, he assured himself. The boys were fine. Just like Kirsten. Just like the baby would be. His whole family would come through this evening whole and happy.
“Can we get some help here? Somebody?”
Sandy spun around, startled. He peered down the hallway, trying to periscope around obstructing walls. Something about that voice disturbed him. It sounded faintly familiar, but alien at the same time: shrill, wavering and ragged around the edges.
Like Seth’s, when he first started stumbling through puberty.
That was it. The speaker sounded like a strained, adolescent Seth.
“Now, all right? Now would be good!”
Oh God. It wasn’t like Seth. That was his son.
As though scalded, Sandy dropped the coins he had just palmed. They scattered, unnoticed, onto the tile floor as he sprinted blindly toward the entrance. The sliding doors parted as he rounded a corner into the lobby. For the briefest second, before a crush of medical staff blocked his view, he glimpsed the people who rushed inside.
They kept moving, he knew, yet somehow his mind suspended them in one moment. They froze, outlined by blinding light: a garish, impossible, nightmare tableau.
Sandy’s eyes flashed from one figure to the next:
Seth, grim-faced and ashen, poised in mid-gesture beside the emergency sign.
A waif-like Kaitlin, her eyes wide and uncannily bright, pressed tight against her mother’s side.
Julie, her makeup smeared, one sleeve stained with blood, clutching her daughter with one hand while the other cupped the drooping head of the boy next to her.
It was a gesture of comfort, Sandy sensed abstractly, tender and even maternal. But the boy didn’t respond. He simply lay, motionless, pale, and cradled like a child in Frank Atwood’s arms.
He looked, Sandy thought, the way Seth’s voice had sounded: like someone he might know, yet somehow too drained, too limp, too broken to be real.
To be Ryan.
It couldn’t be, but it was.
Ryan.
With a shock of disbelief, Sandy recognized his son.
In the next instant, he forgot how to breathe.
Then someone raced past him pushing a stretcher and the scene roared back to life, sweeping him along with it.
“Ryan?” Sandy pitched his hoarse voice over a hundred other sounds. “Ryan!”
He elbowed his way through the sudden crowd, trying to untangle a knot of people who impeded him, but relentless hands steered him away. From a distance he heard staccato bursts of words: “Sir, please, you have to move” and “Page Dr. Suntala” and “Cubicle three” and then an anguished near-whisper.
“Dad?”
“Seth!” Sandy engulfed his son in a swift, suffocating embrace. Then he leaned back, searching Seth‘s face with fierce intensity. “What’s wrong with Ryan? What happened to him?”
Seth shook his head helplessly. His mouth opened and closed and opened again.
Behind them, a gruff voice replied, “He has a damn piece of glass stuck in his back.”
Sandy felt his own body spasm around a blaze of pain. “What?”
He started to wheel around, but at that moment, the throng surrounding the stretcher parted, clearing a space for it to move. Without a glance backward or another word, Sandy rushed over to jog alongside. One hand still gripped Seth’s shoulder vice-tight, while the other strained to reach Ryan’s. All he managed, in those few seconds of frantic movement, was a single fleeting touch. One fingertip brushed Ryan’s cheek, while he leaned down to murmur a pleading, “Hang on, okay, kid?”
Ryan’s lashes fluttered in response. His eyes didn’t quite open, but his head turned. It dipped slightly and Sandy caught his breath, believing-praying-that he saw a tiny nod.
Then the stretcher was whisked into an exam room and Ryan disappeared.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Seth stared bleakly at his feet, watching them jitter against each other. His sneakers were stained, the toes scuffed and the canvas spotted with something dark. Dirt maybe or . . .
He grimaced as the word formed in his mind.
Blood.
It probably wasn’t. But it could be.
Somehow he couldn’t look anywhere else: not at the wrinkled curtain that remained closed around Ryan; not at Kaitlin, huddled half-asleep on the couch across the room; not at Julie, whose fingers threaded absently through her daughter’s tangled hair; not at Frank, who perched, tense as a clenched fist, on the edge of the chair next to them.
Seth didn’t even dare to look at his father.
“It’s all right, son,” Sandy had said. “The important thing is that you got Ryan here. You were scared, and yes, you made some mistakes, but you did the best that you could.”
Seth clung to that assurance, but he couldn’t make it feel solid. In the strained silence of the waiting room, he could hear the echo of his confession, a litany of impulsive action, stupidity, and uselessness.
He had taken a shortcut that got him and Ryan lost.
He had blown out a tire because he took his eyes off the road.
He had failed to get the spare on before an aftershock slammed the car off the jack.
He had run so blindly down the street that he didn’t think to flag down a passing car . . .
His ineptitude-his sheer Sethiness--had cost Ryan so much time and pain.
And blood.
Blood too, Seth admitted, viciously drumming his heels. Because he knew thick, vital drops had pulsed out with each step that Ryan took.
Add that to the list: He had let Ryan come with him instead of insisting that he wait, still and at least slightly sheltered, inside the car while Seth went for help. Of course, staying together had been Ryan’s idea, but he was hurt; he had an excuse for not thinking clearly. Seth didn’t. Yet he had made one bad decision after another.
Still: “You did the best that you could,” Sandy had insisted. He had even produced a wan smile, and hugged Seth close on the slick, plastic couch that they shared.
In fact, Seth realized, his dad had never relaxed his hold once, not since their panicked embrace by the hospital door. He had retained constant contact, firm and comforting.
Sighing gratefully, Seth recalled the relief he had felt when he heard his father’s voice and saw him racing through the chaos of the lobby . . .
Through the lobby.
Startled, Seth went completely still. His feet ceased their erratic tattoo and his nails stopped digging crescents into the arm of his chair. Through the lobby, he repeated mutely. That meant . . .
When they arrived, his dad had already been inside the hospital.
As if he expected them.
As if he had been waiting.
But that made no sense. Seth had never called him.
“Dad, what are you doing here?” he asked, peering up with belated surprise. “I mean, how did you know we were coming? I couldn’t reach you . . .”
Distracted, Sandy took a moment to focus. Seth saw him drag his gaze away from the exam room curtain and blink several times before he answered. “I was already here with your mom,” he murmured vaguely.
“What? Mom is here? Why?” Seth’s face lit with alarm. “Is she hurt? Where is she?” He started to rise, clumsy with concern, but Sandy took his elbow and eased him back down.
“Your mom is all right.” His expression was weary yet reassuring. “She fell during the aftershock, but she’s fine, son, I promise. The doctor is just running some tests on the baby.”
“Oh.” Seth hunched forward, rocking back and forth. Without looking at his father, he ventured carefully, “Tests, huh? So does that mean that the baby might--?”
“No!” Sandy’s grip on Seth’s shoulders tightened for a moment. Gradually it relaxed again. “The baby’s heartbeat is strong,” he reported. “It’s just that we need to be sure--” Suddenly he stopped, his face crumpling. “Oh my God! Kirsten! She’s going to be back from those tests soon. But she’s already so worried about the baby. And when I tell her about Ryan--” He faltered, at a loss, and ground the heel of one hand across his forehead.
Almost protectively, Seth rubbed his father’s back. So maybe you shouldn’t tell her, he mused.
The last words, razor-sharp, ricocheted through the room:
“You shouldn’t tell her.”
Stunned, Seth swiveled around.
He hadn’t spoken out loud. He knew he hadn’t. So who . . .?
Frank.
It was Frank.
All this time, he had sat silent, an almost forgotten presence on the fringes of the scene, but now, “You should wait, Sandy,” he advised. As if, Seth thought incredulously, someone had asked him.
He could feel his father stiffen as he sat upright. For the first time, Sandy’s hand slid away from Seth’s shoulders. It clenched as it fell, hitting the armrest with a muffled thud.
“What?” he demanded.
Frank frowned, his brow furrowing with some suppressed emotion that Seth couldn’t name. He didn’t reply right away. Under Sandy’s steady glare, he lifted his palms and then dropped them to his knees. A large bloodstain, drying, but still sticky-moist, plastered his shirt to his skin as he moved.
To Seth it looked some grisly badge, reminding them all who Frank was, what he’d done.
He guessed that his father would see it the same way.
“Just . . . I don’t think there’s any point upsetting Kirsten now,” Frank explained. “You should wait to talk to her. At least until we know how Ryan is doing.”
“Kirsten is my wife. And Ryan . . .” Sandy paused. His tone became deliberate and dangerously quiet.
It scared Seth a little.
“Ryan is our son. Don't you dare give me advice about my family.”
Immediately, defensively, Julie leaned forward to clasp Frank’s closing fist. The movement roused Kaitlin, who blinked dazedly and clutched at her mother’s arm. “Mom?” she whimpered.
“Sandy!” Julie reproved. “That’s not fair. Frank is just trying to help.”
At the same time Frank protested, “I’m not telling you what to do, Sandy. I just mean--”
“You know what, Frank? I don’t give a damn what you mean!”
Seth recoiled, as though caught in unexpected crossfire. Across the room, Kaitlin shrank back. Her startled expression telegraphed consternation. “Seth?” she mouthed. “What’s going on?”
He shrugged helplessly. “Um . . . Dad?” he whispered. “I understand how you feel, because, well, I do. Only . . .” He bit his lip, his voice trailing off as he nodded toward the shuttered exam room.
Sandy followed his gaze and Seth sensed him deflate, almost visibly. “Oh God. Ryan,” he groaned, and his unfettered fear pierced a hole in Seth’s heart. “Why are they taking so long in there?” With an effort, he composed himself. Swallowing hard, he took a shaky breath. “I’m sorry,” he muttered, and then repeated louder, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just--Look, Frank, I thank God you were there for my boys tonight. I’m so grateful for that, for what you did for Ryan, but--”
He stopped and Seth finished the sentence silently.
But that doesn’t make you his father.
Frank kneaded his large knuckles. They cracked, one after the other, quick, painful snaps like tiny bones breaking. “But you remember all the other stuff,” he concluded flatly. “Everything I did when Ry was a kid, right?”
“Yes,” Sandy confirmed. “I do.” Lifting his chin, he stared coolly at Frank. His eyes glinted, sharp as winter sunlight on steel. “Don’t ever expect me to forget that.”
It seemed to Seth that they all froze for an instant. In the taut quiet, they could hear the curtain around the exam cubicle rustle, and terse, muffled voices murmuring inside.
They waited, scarcely allowing themselves to breathe.
“But Sandy,” Julie demurred at last. “That was a long time ago. Frank . . . he loves Ryan. And he’s changed. He's a different person now.”
Frank silenced her with a sideways glance, hooded and eerily familiar. “No, Julie. Sandy’s right,” he conceded. “I understand why he can’t--”
He broke off abruptly.
“Family of Ryan Atwood?” a brusque voice prompted.
“Right here!”
Seth and Sandy sprang instantly to their feet, both of them firing a barrage of questions.
“How is Ryan? Is he okay? Can we see him? Did you remove the spear? Or spike? You know, the glass? ”
Frank started to rise as well, but then, very slowly, he sank down again. Vaguely, Seth noticed Julie reach for his hand and clasp it in both of hers as the doctor approached. At the same time, he felt his father’s arm slip back around his own shoulders.
“Well, first of all," the doctor reported, "Ryan should be fine.”
Fine. Seth sagged, weak with relief, as Sandy hugged him close. Ryan would be fine.
The phrase hummed hypnotically through his mind for a few exhilerating moments.
When Seth managed to focus again, the doctor was in mid-sentence, explaining, “. . . still unconscious. Ryan has lost a lot of blood. We’ll need to admit him for a transfusion. The only problem is that our supply is running low right now, so--”
“I can donate,” Sandy volunteered instantly. “Whatever Ryan needs.”
“I can too,” Frank offered, standing up behind him.
The doctor nodded at them both. “Good. That’s excellent. Ryan blood type is O negative. Do either of you know if you match?”
“Huh.” Frank grimaced, raking a hand through his shaggy hair. “Ry’s O negative? Figures. I’m not.” He stumbled back to his chair as he mumbled bleakly, “Me and him-hell, we never did have very much in common.”
“I’m type O negative.” Before Sandy even finished speaking, he’d already stripped off his jacket and begun to roll up his shirtsleeve. “Where do we do this, doctor? In Ryan’s room?”
The doctor chuckled. "Slow down, Mr. Atwood--"
"Cohen," Sandy corrected, as Frank peered up sharply.
"Mr. Cohen. Just relax. I'll call the Blood Center and make the arrangements."
The doctor stepped over to the counter, trailed by Sandy, who hovered at his elbow as he dialed.
Seth glanced from his father down to his own splattered shoes. The sight conjured a kaleidoscope of sensations. He could feel Ryan’s phantom weight pressed heavily against his side, hear his labored breathing, see the urgent message still stored on his cell phone:
Need yr help.
My help, Seth reminded himself. Mine. Ryan called me.
Slowly, his hand crept up in the air, like a soldier accepting some hazardous mission. “Um . . . Dad?” he called. “I’m O negative too. You know, like father, like son, like other son? I could give Ryan some of my blood.”
Sandy spun around in surprise. “You? But son, I thought that you and needles--”
“Had a hate-hate relationship? Yeah, that’s true pretty much, but I think we could call a temporary truce. After all, you should get back to Mom soon." Seth paused. A flush of warm certainty suffused his entire body. “Besides," he added, "I want to do this for Ryan.”
“You do?”
“Yeah. I do.” Squaring his shoulders, Seth flashed his first genuine grin of the night. It invited them all-his dad, Kaitlin, Julie, even Frank-to share his elation. “Hey, Kid Chino gets red blood from the Ironist. It makes total sense--well, in a poetic justice kind of way, right?”
Sandy smiled, his eyes glistening. “You know what, son?” he agreed. “I think that it does.”
AN: I know there could be more to this. We're still missing scenes where Seth actually gives blood and faints, where Sandy tells Kirsten about Ryan, and where Seth sees Summer and Taylor at the hospital and tells them what happened. (You can't convince me that Taylor didn't spend time at Ryan's bedside before he woke up. I refuse to believe that she didn't see him before he was leaving. Taylor simply wouldn't neglect Ryan for her bitchy mom's broken foot.) But I think I'm played out here, so if anyone wants to write those scenes, please do!
Disclaimer: Characters on temporary loan from Josh. Unfortunately, the errors and lame ending belong to me.
The Value of O Negative (part 2 of 2)
Relax, the doctor had urged him. Your wife is fine, and I expect that your baby will be too. These tests we’re running are just a precaution.
Just a precaution. Sandy shut his eyes, taking a deep breath. That’s all. Just a precaution. Relax.
He stuck one hand in his pocket to get change for another coffee, and his thumb bumped the cool plastic of his cell phone. Automatically he rubbed its surface, small circles that might summon a genie. Ring, he pleaded, wishing for Seth or Ryan, or better yet, both of them.
But of course they couldn’t call. The service had been dead ever since the aftershock.
It didn’t matter though, he assured himself. The boys were fine. Just like Kirsten. Just like the baby would be. His whole family would come through this evening whole and happy.
“Can we get some help here? Somebody?”
Sandy spun around, startled. He peered down the hallway, trying to periscope around obstructing walls. Something about that voice disturbed him. It sounded faintly familiar, but alien at the same time: shrill, wavering and ragged around the edges.
Like Seth’s, when he first started stumbling through puberty.
That was it. The speaker sounded like a strained, adolescent Seth.
“Now, all right? Now would be good!”
Oh God. It wasn’t like Seth. That was his son.
As though scalded, Sandy dropped the coins he had just palmed. They scattered, unnoticed, onto the tile floor as he sprinted blindly toward the entrance. The sliding doors parted as he rounded a corner into the lobby. For the briefest second, before a crush of medical staff blocked his view, he glimpsed the people who rushed inside.
They kept moving, he knew, yet somehow his mind suspended them in one moment. They froze, outlined by blinding light: a garish, impossible, nightmare tableau.
Sandy’s eyes flashed from one figure to the next:
Seth, grim-faced and ashen, poised in mid-gesture beside the emergency sign.
A waif-like Kaitlin, her eyes wide and uncannily bright, pressed tight against her mother’s side.
Julie, her makeup smeared, one sleeve stained with blood, clutching her daughter with one hand while the other cupped the drooping head of the boy next to her.
It was a gesture of comfort, Sandy sensed abstractly, tender and even maternal. But the boy didn’t respond. He simply lay, motionless, pale, and cradled like a child in Frank Atwood’s arms.
He looked, Sandy thought, the way Seth’s voice had sounded: like someone he might know, yet somehow too drained, too limp, too broken to be real.
To be Ryan.
It couldn’t be, but it was.
Ryan.
With a shock of disbelief, Sandy recognized his son.
In the next instant, he forgot how to breathe.
Then someone raced past him pushing a stretcher and the scene roared back to life, sweeping him along with it.
“Ryan?” Sandy pitched his hoarse voice over a hundred other sounds. “Ryan!”
He elbowed his way through the sudden crowd, trying to untangle a knot of people who impeded him, but relentless hands steered him away. From a distance he heard staccato bursts of words: “Sir, please, you have to move” and “Page Dr. Suntala” and “Cubicle three” and then an anguished near-whisper.
“Dad?”
“Seth!” Sandy engulfed his son in a swift, suffocating embrace. Then he leaned back, searching Seth‘s face with fierce intensity. “What’s wrong with Ryan? What happened to him?”
Seth shook his head helplessly. His mouth opened and closed and opened again.
Behind them, a gruff voice replied, “He has a damn piece of glass stuck in his back.”
Sandy felt his own body spasm around a blaze of pain. “What?”
He started to wheel around, but at that moment, the throng surrounding the stretcher parted, clearing a space for it to move. Without a glance backward or another word, Sandy rushed over to jog alongside. One hand still gripped Seth’s shoulder vice-tight, while the other strained to reach Ryan’s. All he managed, in those few seconds of frantic movement, was a single fleeting touch. One fingertip brushed Ryan’s cheek, while he leaned down to murmur a pleading, “Hang on, okay, kid?”
Ryan’s lashes fluttered in response. His eyes didn’t quite open, but his head turned. It dipped slightly and Sandy caught his breath, believing-praying-that he saw a tiny nod.
Then the stretcher was whisked into an exam room and Ryan disappeared.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Seth stared bleakly at his feet, watching them jitter against each other. His sneakers were stained, the toes scuffed and the canvas spotted with something dark. Dirt maybe or . . .
He grimaced as the word formed in his mind.
Blood.
It probably wasn’t. But it could be.
Somehow he couldn’t look anywhere else: not at the wrinkled curtain that remained closed around Ryan; not at Kaitlin, huddled half-asleep on the couch across the room; not at Julie, whose fingers threaded absently through her daughter’s tangled hair; not at Frank, who perched, tense as a clenched fist, on the edge of the chair next to them.
Seth didn’t even dare to look at his father.
“It’s all right, son,” Sandy had said. “The important thing is that you got Ryan here. You were scared, and yes, you made some mistakes, but you did the best that you could.”
Seth clung to that assurance, but he couldn’t make it feel solid. In the strained silence of the waiting room, he could hear the echo of his confession, a litany of impulsive action, stupidity, and uselessness.
He had taken a shortcut that got him and Ryan lost.
He had blown out a tire because he took his eyes off the road.
He had failed to get the spare on before an aftershock slammed the car off the jack.
He had run so blindly down the street that he didn’t think to flag down a passing car . . .
His ineptitude-his sheer Sethiness--had cost Ryan so much time and pain.
And blood.
Blood too, Seth admitted, viciously drumming his heels. Because he knew thick, vital drops had pulsed out with each step that Ryan took.
Add that to the list: He had let Ryan come with him instead of insisting that he wait, still and at least slightly sheltered, inside the car while Seth went for help. Of course, staying together had been Ryan’s idea, but he was hurt; he had an excuse for not thinking clearly. Seth didn’t. Yet he had made one bad decision after another.
Still: “You did the best that you could,” Sandy had insisted. He had even produced a wan smile, and hugged Seth close on the slick, plastic couch that they shared.
In fact, Seth realized, his dad had never relaxed his hold once, not since their panicked embrace by the hospital door. He had retained constant contact, firm and comforting.
Sighing gratefully, Seth recalled the relief he had felt when he heard his father’s voice and saw him racing through the chaos of the lobby . . .
Through the lobby.
Startled, Seth went completely still. His feet ceased their erratic tattoo and his nails stopped digging crescents into the arm of his chair. Through the lobby, he repeated mutely. That meant . . .
When they arrived, his dad had already been inside the hospital.
As if he expected them.
As if he had been waiting.
But that made no sense. Seth had never called him.
“Dad, what are you doing here?” he asked, peering up with belated surprise. “I mean, how did you know we were coming? I couldn’t reach you . . .”
Distracted, Sandy took a moment to focus. Seth saw him drag his gaze away from the exam room curtain and blink several times before he answered. “I was already here with your mom,” he murmured vaguely.
“What? Mom is here? Why?” Seth’s face lit with alarm. “Is she hurt? Where is she?” He started to rise, clumsy with concern, but Sandy took his elbow and eased him back down.
“Your mom is all right.” His expression was weary yet reassuring. “She fell during the aftershock, but she’s fine, son, I promise. The doctor is just running some tests on the baby.”
“Oh.” Seth hunched forward, rocking back and forth. Without looking at his father, he ventured carefully, “Tests, huh? So does that mean that the baby might--?”
“No!” Sandy’s grip on Seth’s shoulders tightened for a moment. Gradually it relaxed again. “The baby’s heartbeat is strong,” he reported. “It’s just that we need to be sure--” Suddenly he stopped, his face crumpling. “Oh my God! Kirsten! She’s going to be back from those tests soon. But she’s already so worried about the baby. And when I tell her about Ryan--” He faltered, at a loss, and ground the heel of one hand across his forehead.
Almost protectively, Seth rubbed his father’s back. So maybe you shouldn’t tell her, he mused.
The last words, razor-sharp, ricocheted through the room:
“You shouldn’t tell her.”
Stunned, Seth swiveled around.
He hadn’t spoken out loud. He knew he hadn’t. So who . . .?
Frank.
It was Frank.
All this time, he had sat silent, an almost forgotten presence on the fringes of the scene, but now, “You should wait, Sandy,” he advised. As if, Seth thought incredulously, someone had asked him.
He could feel his father stiffen as he sat upright. For the first time, Sandy’s hand slid away from Seth’s shoulders. It clenched as it fell, hitting the armrest with a muffled thud.
“What?” he demanded.
Frank frowned, his brow furrowing with some suppressed emotion that Seth couldn’t name. He didn’t reply right away. Under Sandy’s steady glare, he lifted his palms and then dropped them to his knees. A large bloodstain, drying, but still sticky-moist, plastered his shirt to his skin as he moved.
To Seth it looked some grisly badge, reminding them all who Frank was, what he’d done.
He guessed that his father would see it the same way.
“Just . . . I don’t think there’s any point upsetting Kirsten now,” Frank explained. “You should wait to talk to her. At least until we know how Ryan is doing.”
“Kirsten is my wife. And Ryan . . .” Sandy paused. His tone became deliberate and dangerously quiet.
It scared Seth a little.
“Ryan is our son. Don't you dare give me advice about my family.”
Immediately, defensively, Julie leaned forward to clasp Frank’s closing fist. The movement roused Kaitlin, who blinked dazedly and clutched at her mother’s arm. “Mom?” she whimpered.
“Sandy!” Julie reproved. “That’s not fair. Frank is just trying to help.”
At the same time Frank protested, “I’m not telling you what to do, Sandy. I just mean--”
“You know what, Frank? I don’t give a damn what you mean!”
Seth recoiled, as though caught in unexpected crossfire. Across the room, Kaitlin shrank back. Her startled expression telegraphed consternation. “Seth?” she mouthed. “What’s going on?”
He shrugged helplessly. “Um . . . Dad?” he whispered. “I understand how you feel, because, well, I do. Only . . .” He bit his lip, his voice trailing off as he nodded toward the shuttered exam room.
Sandy followed his gaze and Seth sensed him deflate, almost visibly. “Oh God. Ryan,” he groaned, and his unfettered fear pierced a hole in Seth’s heart. “Why are they taking so long in there?” With an effort, he composed himself. Swallowing hard, he took a shaky breath. “I’m sorry,” he muttered, and then repeated louder, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just--Look, Frank, I thank God you were there for my boys tonight. I’m so grateful for that, for what you did for Ryan, but--”
He stopped and Seth finished the sentence silently.
But that doesn’t make you his father.
Frank kneaded his large knuckles. They cracked, one after the other, quick, painful snaps like tiny bones breaking. “But you remember all the other stuff,” he concluded flatly. “Everything I did when Ry was a kid, right?”
“Yes,” Sandy confirmed. “I do.” Lifting his chin, he stared coolly at Frank. His eyes glinted, sharp as winter sunlight on steel. “Don’t ever expect me to forget that.”
It seemed to Seth that they all froze for an instant. In the taut quiet, they could hear the curtain around the exam cubicle rustle, and terse, muffled voices murmuring inside.
They waited, scarcely allowing themselves to breathe.
“But Sandy,” Julie demurred at last. “That was a long time ago. Frank . . . he loves Ryan. And he’s changed. He's a different person now.”
Frank silenced her with a sideways glance, hooded and eerily familiar. “No, Julie. Sandy’s right,” he conceded. “I understand why he can’t--”
He broke off abruptly.
“Family of Ryan Atwood?” a brusque voice prompted.
“Right here!”
Seth and Sandy sprang instantly to their feet, both of them firing a barrage of questions.
“How is Ryan? Is he okay? Can we see him? Did you remove the spear? Or spike? You know, the glass? ”
Frank started to rise as well, but then, very slowly, he sank down again. Vaguely, Seth noticed Julie reach for his hand and clasp it in both of hers as the doctor approached. At the same time, he felt his father’s arm slip back around his own shoulders.
“Well, first of all," the doctor reported, "Ryan should be fine.”
Fine. Seth sagged, weak with relief, as Sandy hugged him close. Ryan would be fine.
The phrase hummed hypnotically through his mind for a few exhilerating moments.
When Seth managed to focus again, the doctor was in mid-sentence, explaining, “. . . still unconscious. Ryan has lost a lot of blood. We’ll need to admit him for a transfusion. The only problem is that our supply is running low right now, so--”
“I can donate,” Sandy volunteered instantly. “Whatever Ryan needs.”
“I can too,” Frank offered, standing up behind him.
The doctor nodded at them both. “Good. That’s excellent. Ryan blood type is O negative. Do either of you know if you match?”
“Huh.” Frank grimaced, raking a hand through his shaggy hair. “Ry’s O negative? Figures. I’m not.” He stumbled back to his chair as he mumbled bleakly, “Me and him-hell, we never did have very much in common.”
“I’m type O negative.” Before Sandy even finished speaking, he’d already stripped off his jacket and begun to roll up his shirtsleeve. “Where do we do this, doctor? In Ryan’s room?”
The doctor chuckled. "Slow down, Mr. Atwood--"
"Cohen," Sandy corrected, as Frank peered up sharply.
"Mr. Cohen. Just relax. I'll call the Blood Center and make the arrangements."
The doctor stepped over to the counter, trailed by Sandy, who hovered at his elbow as he dialed.
Seth glanced from his father down to his own splattered shoes. The sight conjured a kaleidoscope of sensations. He could feel Ryan’s phantom weight pressed heavily against his side, hear his labored breathing, see the urgent message still stored on his cell phone:
Need yr help.
My help, Seth reminded himself. Mine. Ryan called me.
Slowly, his hand crept up in the air, like a soldier accepting some hazardous mission. “Um . . . Dad?” he called. “I’m O negative too. You know, like father, like son, like other son? I could give Ryan some of my blood.”
Sandy spun around in surprise. “You? But son, I thought that you and needles--”
“Had a hate-hate relationship? Yeah, that’s true pretty much, but I think we could call a temporary truce. After all, you should get back to Mom soon." Seth paused. A flush of warm certainty suffused his entire body. “Besides," he added, "I want to do this for Ryan.”
“You do?”
“Yeah. I do.” Squaring his shoulders, Seth flashed his first genuine grin of the night. It invited them all-his dad, Kaitlin, Julie, even Frank-to share his elation. “Hey, Kid Chino gets red blood from the Ironist. It makes total sense--well, in a poetic justice kind of way, right?”
Sandy smiled, his eyes glistening. “You know what, son?” he agreed. “I think that it does.”
AN: I know there could be more to this. We're still missing scenes where Seth actually gives blood and faints, where Sandy tells Kirsten about Ryan, and where Seth sees Summer and Taylor at the hospital and tells them what happened. (You can't convince me that Taylor didn't spend time at Ryan's bedside before he woke up. I refuse to believe that she didn't see him before he was leaving. Taylor simply wouldn't neglect Ryan for her bitchy mom's broken foot.) But I think I'm played out here, so if anyone wants to write those scenes, please do!