heavy cross (4/8)
Reid can distinctly remember when he lost his first patient. He was stuck doing rounds in the ER as an intern -something he loathed.
An elderly man had come in by ambulance, complaining of abdominal pain. The resident on duty gave the patient to Reid and told him to order the standard tests. Reid begrudgingly did so, even though he wanted to scrub in on the guy who had a brain aneurysm. Davids got to scrub in instead. Even though Reid was the most talented and brilliant of all of the surgical interns, his resident insisted they each take turns going into the OR. Of course his biggest competition, Matt Davids, got the most interesting case. He had pleaded with his resident, telling him that since he was the most gifted of the interns, he should get to scrub in on this instead. The resident, Dr. Channing, was not amused and sent Reid to check in on the old guy.
So he watched, bitterly, as Davids and the rest of the team rushed the patient into the elevator up to the fifth floor. He’ll never forget the look Davids gave Reid as the elevator doors closed. Jackass, he remembers thinking. With a huge sigh and a heavy heart, Reid walked into the old man’s room. The man was sitting up, breathing into an oxygen mask and his wife was standing next to him, clutching his hand, her eyes full of tears.
Reid, ignoring the patient, grabbed his chart and looked over his vitals. Mr. Hebert was complaining of abdominal pain, constipation, shortness of breath, and blurred vision. He needed to get the patient’s medical history. He hated this part.
“Mr. Hebert, do you have any previous medical conditions we should be aware of?” He sighed loudly, clearly annoyed.
The man gingerly shook his head while his wife, still clutching her husband’s hand said, “My Georgie has never been sick a day in his life.”
Reid nodded once, making a note on the chart. “Can you describe the pain? Is it on your right side? Your left? Stomach?”
Mr. Hebert took off the oxygen mask and weakly pointed to his left side. “I thought it was just constipation at first but the pain spread to my left.”
As he was speaking, Reid noticed his speech started to slur a bit and his eyelids became droopy. He scribbled this on the chart
“Have you been out of the country recently?” The man shook his head. “Have you eaten anything unusual?”
At this question, the man’s wife perked up. “Well, we did stop by a farmer’s market and bought a couple cans of peaches. I didn’t eat any but Georgie started to complain of a stomach ache after he ate some.”
“And how long ago was this?” he asked, growing impatient.
The patient’s wife looked at him for a moment, thinking. Reid started to tap his pen on the chart and he thought of Davids, cutting into a man’s skull. Bastard.
“I don’t have all day,” he snapped at her.
The wife, clearly startled, said hastily, “I think it was on Sunday. Yes, yes, I think that’s right. So three days ago.”
Reid stared at her. “And you’re just coming in now? No wonder your husband is having trouble breathing,” he muttered, ignoring the gasp from the wife.
Reid deduced the patient had a bad case of food poisoning so he plastered on a fake smile and told the Heberts he was going to order blood tests and they will know more in a couple of hours. He handed off the chart to the nurse and bowed out of the room quickly, his mind on Davids and that aneurysm. He found himself making his way up to the surgical floor where he learned they would be in surgery for at least another four hours or so. He decided to linger around, hoping to get a glimpse of something or even a last minute call into the operating room.
Reid was paged back down to the ER a couple of hours later. When he exited the elevator, he noticed the code blue alarm had gone off. He chased after the nurses and his heart dropped when he realized where they were going. He completely forgot about the Heberts.
He stumbled into the hospital room and froze at the sight in front of him. Mr. Hebert was on his back, his hospital gown pulled down to his waist, a nurse giving him CPR. He watched as Drs. Eisenman and Lawton took over and started doing chest compressions on his patient. Dr. Eisenman grabbed the defibrillator and attempted to shock Mr. Hebert’s heart back into life. Reid couldn’t stop staring at the old man. He was complaining of abdominal pain, of constipation. How did this happen? Did he overlook something? Did he not ask the right questions? What did he miss?
Reid numbly looked to the side and saw the man’s wife crying in the corner, pleading for the doctors to save her husband’s life. He knew he should help but he was rooted, frozen in this spot. Minutes passed but the old man’s heart showed no sign of life.
“Time of death, 16:48.”
Mrs. Hebert screamed loudly as Dr. Lawton went to her, softly explaining what had happened. The rest of the staff, after cleaning up, filed past Reid, who still hadn’t moved. He watched as Mrs. Hebert walked gingerly over to her husband, grabbed his hand and held it up to her cheek, murmuring softly about how she loves him. When she gently placed a kiss on his forehead, Reid felt physically ill. He rushed out of the room and raced into the restroom, barely making it before he threw up his lunch. He collapsed against the toilet, his body shaking. His mind was racing with questions. What did he miss?
He found out later he had done nothing wrong. The patient had botulism, a rare but serious illness that lived in improperly canned or preserved foods. The symptoms happen almost immediately after digesting the food and if left untreated, could result in full renal failure. Dr. Channing, after emerging from a successful surgery, pulled Reid aside and told him there was no way Reid would know to test for botulism. But he felt like a failure anyways. He came into medicine because he wanted to be the best. Failure was never an option for him, Uncle Angus made sure of that. Losing this patient only motivated Reid to work ten times harder and be ten times better.
From that moment on, every time Reid lost a patient, he pushed himself to make sure it would never happen again. He kept reminders of those he couldn’t save and used their deaths as a motivation to be better, to be perfect.
But being here, in this particular room, looking at the one person he loves more than anything else in the world crushed him. His body went cold as he stared at Luke’s sleeping face. His face was bruised and he had a long line of stitches down his right cheek. His left leg was wrapped in a huge cast and his chest was bandaged to protect his back. Despite all of this, Reid couldn’t help but think how beautiful Luke looked.
He was afraid to touch him, afraid his touch would break him even more. It was Reid’s fault Luke was laying here. He should have been more insistent on stopping Luke from coming with him. He shouldn’t have been distracting Luke with his declaration of love. He shouldn’t have told Luke to try and beat the train. He felt hot tears welling in his eyes but he blinked them away, refusing to give into them. He couldn’t do this now. He had to be strong for Luke. Luke needed him and Reid needed to make him better.
He hesitantly touched Luke’s hand and bent down to kiss it, his lips gently grazing his knuckles. Luke slowly opened his eyes at the touch and his big brown eyes found Reid.
“Reid...” he groaned quietly. “You hurt?” He tried to shift his body so he could see Reid better but the pain and restraints limited him. Reid felt helpless as he watched the pain sweep over Luke’s face.
He shook his head swiftly. “Just a couple cuts and bruises, that’s all.”
Luke studied him, his eyes going from bruise to bruise, cut to cut. He noticed Reid was in a wheelchair.
“Liar,” he whispered. “Tell me.”
Reid shook his head again. “Luke, I’m fine. I had some internal bleeding and they removed my spleen. Nothing major, I promise.”
Luke’s eyes widened. “Nothing major?” His voice panicked. “Oh god, Reid. You had surgery? No! Oh god, no! Why did you stay? You should have left me. You should have left!”
Reid pulled himself closer and clutched Luke’s hand even tighter. He had to calm Luke down. He had to make him see this was not his fault. “Don’t be an idiot, Luke. I wasn’t going to leave you. And I can see it in your eyes now, you’re blaming yourself. Stop. It was my decision, my choice to stay. Please Luke, please don’t...” his voice trailed off.
Luke nodded once, acquiescing to Reid. He had no energy to fight him. Luke again tried to shift his body but the pain was unbearable.
“Do you need something? Do you need more medication?” Reid asked hurriedly. He made to turn to Lily and Holden, to ask them to grab a doctor, when he felt Luke squeezing his hand.
“You,” he heard. “Just you.”
The hot tears were threatening Reid again. He raised his eyes up to stop them from falling before turning back to Luke. He tried to smile at Luke but it felt unnatural for him.
“I’m here, Luke. I’m here and I’m never leaving you.”
Luke smiled softly in response. Even in massive amounts of pain and with 60 stitches trailing down his cheek, it was the most real and most beautiful smile Reid has ever seen.
“Reid?” he heard behind him. He turned and saw Lily had taken a few steps closer to the bed. “Reid? Can we talk to you? I mean, if you don’t mind?”
Reid hesitated. He didn’t want to leave Luke but he had to talk to Lily, had to talk to Luke’s doctors. He had to start making Luke better. He couldn’t see him in pain anymore. He nodded to Lily and turned back to Luke. He brought his right hand up to his good cheek and gently grazed his fingers over the smooth skin.
“Hey, look at me for a minute,” he whispered.
Luke opened his eyes again and turned to Reid. Even in pain, he still took Reid’s breath away with those beautiful, beautiful eyes.
Still gently grazing Luke’s cheek with his fingers, he murmured softly, “I’m going to go outside for a few minutes. I want to talk to your parents and your doctors. But I won’t be far and I won’t be long. I promise.”
Luke softly nodded before closing his eyes again. Reid lingered for a minute before giving Luke’s hand another gentle kiss. Holden came around the bed and slowly wheeled Reid out of the room, conscious of Reid’s own pain. The minute he was out in the hallway, the cold and numbness folded over him again. Being away from Luke mentally and physically pained him.
The collection of people outside Luke’s room had grown. Casey, Henry, Barbara, and Noah had joined the Snyders keeping vigil. He couldn’t look at any of them. He didn’t have the energy.
Lily, with the support of Holden, turned her attention to Reid. “Please, please tell us what happened!” she begged, her voice laced with tears.
But Reid couldn’t. He couldn’t look Lily in the eyes and tell her it was his fault her son was dying. That it should have been him in that hospital bed, not Luke. He didn’t give a rats ass about what Lily needed; only Luke. Always Luke.
Holden took a step closer to Reid and gently placed a hand on his shoulder. “Dr. Oliver, I know how difficult this is for you and I know you’re in a lot of pain. But you are the only one who can tell us what happened. Please tell us.”
Reid winced as he adjusted himself in his wheelchair. Lily was one thing but Holden was another. He barely knew Holden but the way Luke talked about him made Reid respect the man a whole lot more than he did with Luke’s mother. At least Holden respected their relationship, unlike Lily who was still on Team Noah. He sighed loudly, rubbing his forehead, trying to wrap his head around everything that was happening.
“I made the decision to go to Bay City to pick up the heart for Chris,” he started. “Luke insisted on coming with me. He was driving while I was on the phone with the hospital, haggling for the heart.” He shivered.
He looked around the hallway. Everyone’s eyes were on him.
“We were coming to some railroad tracks when the lights started flashing. Since we were in a hurry, I told Luke to race over the tracks, that he could beat the train. But the car stalled as we were going over the tracks and his seatbelt was stuck.” His eyes were threatening to leak again. He shook his head to stop them. No, he told himself. No tears.
His voice, which had started out strong, was beginning to crack as he kept going with the story. Looking past the Snyder clan, he replayed the horrifying moments in his mind before the train hit.
“Luke and I tried to get his seatbelt loose but it was stuck. I tried everything but I couldn’t… Luke tried to get me to leave him, but I refused… I refused…. So I just grabbed him and held him in my arms and we waited until the train… until the train…” his voice failed him.
The hall was quiet, save for a few people crying. “You made him race over the tracks? You made him try to beat the train? This is your fault? My son is in the hospital because of you?!" Lily exclaimed, breaking the silence. Her reaction seemed to surprise everyone but him.
Reid was expecting Lily to blame him, but what she didn’t know, what she possibly could not know, was the wrath she was unleashing on him was nothing compared to the anger and disappointment he was unleashing onto himself. He said nothing to refute what Lily was saying but nearly every single Snyder jumped in to stop her, which did surprise him.
“Lily, let’s not blame Reid for this,” Holden started.
“Reid is hurting just as much as Luke is,” Carly murmured.
“It was an awful, awful accident,” Lucinda said.
Katie stepped in front of Reid, as if to protect him from Lily’s words. Reid has never respected nor loved her more. “Lily, he could have left Luke but he didn’t. He stayed with him. Doesn’t that tell you anything?”
Lily started sobbing and sank to her knees. “Why did this happen? Why him?” she cried to Reid. But he couldn't reply. He was asking those very same questions. “Why did you stay with him?” she asked in between sobs.
Reid couldn’t help but roll his eyes at the woman in front of him. What a stupid, stupid question to ask. Anger swelled through his body.
“Why? Why?” He found his voice again and he knew he shouldn’t be angry with Lily, that she was hurting just as much as he was, but he couldn’t deal with her dramatics. Reid never really cared about the lack of respect she showed for him or his relationship with Luke, but my god, she was going to respect him now.
“Are you an idiot? Why do you think? I love him. I love him. And he loves me. I’m sorry to ruin your little ‘Luke and Noah forever’ fantasy but that’s the truth. I want to spend the rest of my life with your son, you insipid woman.” He felt exhausted all of a sudden and wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed with Luke. But he knew he had to wait. He still had to help him.
Lily said nothing and allowed Holden to help her off the floor. “Thank you for staying with my son,” he softly, tears streaming down his face. Reid looked away. He couldn’t stand seeing Holden cry.
“I need to see John Dixon. I need to see Luke’s doctors.” But no one moved or said anything. “Hello? Are you all stupid or something? Did you all magically become deaf? I said, I need to see Luke’s doctor, goddammit!”
As if on cue, John Dixon and Bob rounded the corner and Reid sighed with relief. Finally. “Dr. Oliver, there’s no need to get snippy. I’m right here.” John said as he maneuvered through the Snyders. “What do you need?”
The site of Dr. Dixon seemed to rejuvenate him, gave him hope. “What do I need? First, I need everyone except Luke’s parents to go to the waiting room. That’s why such a place exists. Second, I want to see Luke’s chart and his CAT scans -Bob don’t even start with your ‘procedure and protocol’ bullshit. And third, I need you all to stop feeling sorry for me. That’s what I need.”
Bob and John exchanged looks before both men wordlessly nodded to Reid. Bob gently asked everyone to go to the waiting room and promised them he would keep them updated on Luke’s prognosis. Holden, after pleading with her for what seemed like hours, took Lily outside for some air. Once the hallway had cleared, John gently pushed Reid back into Luke’s room. Reid felt the wave of cold and numbness sweep over him again when he saw Luke, still laying there, still broken. John brought him back to the spot he had vacated earlier --at Luke’s side, where he wanted to be, where he had to be.
“Dr. Oliver, I understand your need to help Luke but you also need to take care of yourself,” John said carefully. “Your body went through an intense trauma. You need to give yourself some time to heal.”
Reid held up his hand. “Stop. Don’t even start on this, ok? Just give me Luke’s chart." He shivered again as he glanced over at Luke.
John hesitated a moment before handing over the chart. Reid flipped it open and scrutinized every test result, every word, looking for something that John might have missed. John didn’t say anything, allowing Reid the opportunity to see the hard truth for himself: Luke Snyder was dying.
Reid was about to question something on the chart when he saw something, written clearly on top of the form, that made his heart stop. Do not resuscitate. He felt like someone had punched him in the gut. “Oh Luke,” Reid breathed out. “No no no no no.”
“There’s something else,” John said, quietly. “Before you came, Luke made an explicit request.” He stopped, as if the words escaped him. “He asked for Tom Hughes and granted his father power of attorney.”
Reid closed his eyes. He was tempted to put his hands over his ears and shout, “la la lalala I can’t hear you!” but it wouldn’t change anything. He knew he had to hear this. Luke.
John continued slowly. “He told his father that when his brain and body goes, he wants his body harvested.”
Reid almost vomited. “John-”
“Dr. Oliver, he wants Chris Hughes to have his heart.”
An elderly man had come in by ambulance, complaining of abdominal pain. The resident on duty gave the patient to Reid and told him to order the standard tests. Reid begrudgingly did so, even though he wanted to scrub in on the guy who had a brain aneurysm. Davids got to scrub in instead. Even though Reid was the most talented and brilliant of all of the surgical interns, his resident insisted they each take turns going into the OR. Of course his biggest competition, Matt Davids, got the most interesting case. He had pleaded with his resident, telling him that since he was the most gifted of the interns, he should get to scrub in on this instead. The resident, Dr. Channing, was not amused and sent Reid to check in on the old guy.
So he watched, bitterly, as Davids and the rest of the team rushed the patient into the elevator up to the fifth floor. He’ll never forget the look Davids gave Reid as the elevator doors closed. Jackass, he remembers thinking. With a huge sigh and a heavy heart, Reid walked into the old man’s room. The man was sitting up, breathing into an oxygen mask and his wife was standing next to him, clutching his hand, her eyes full of tears.
Reid, ignoring the patient, grabbed his chart and looked over his vitals. Mr. Hebert was complaining of abdominal pain, constipation, shortness of breath, and blurred vision. He needed to get the patient’s medical history. He hated this part.
“Mr. Hebert, do you have any previous medical conditions we should be aware of?” He sighed loudly, clearly annoyed.
The man gingerly shook his head while his wife, still clutching her husband’s hand said, “My Georgie has never been sick a day in his life.”
Reid nodded once, making a note on the chart. “Can you describe the pain? Is it on your right side? Your left? Stomach?”
Mr. Hebert took off the oxygen mask and weakly pointed to his left side. “I thought it was just constipation at first but the pain spread to my left.”
As he was speaking, Reid noticed his speech started to slur a bit and his eyelids became droopy. He scribbled this on the chart
“Have you been out of the country recently?” The man shook his head. “Have you eaten anything unusual?”
At this question, the man’s wife perked up. “Well, we did stop by a farmer’s market and bought a couple cans of peaches. I didn’t eat any but Georgie started to complain of a stomach ache after he ate some.”
“And how long ago was this?” he asked, growing impatient.
The patient’s wife looked at him for a moment, thinking. Reid started to tap his pen on the chart and he thought of Davids, cutting into a man’s skull. Bastard.
“I don’t have all day,” he snapped at her.
The wife, clearly startled, said hastily, “I think it was on Sunday. Yes, yes, I think that’s right. So three days ago.”
Reid stared at her. “And you’re just coming in now? No wonder your husband is having trouble breathing,” he muttered, ignoring the gasp from the wife.
Reid deduced the patient had a bad case of food poisoning so he plastered on a fake smile and told the Heberts he was going to order blood tests and they will know more in a couple of hours. He handed off the chart to the nurse and bowed out of the room quickly, his mind on Davids and that aneurysm. He found himself making his way up to the surgical floor where he learned they would be in surgery for at least another four hours or so. He decided to linger around, hoping to get a glimpse of something or even a last minute call into the operating room.
Reid was paged back down to the ER a couple of hours later. When he exited the elevator, he noticed the code blue alarm had gone off. He chased after the nurses and his heart dropped when he realized where they were going. He completely forgot about the Heberts.
He stumbled into the hospital room and froze at the sight in front of him. Mr. Hebert was on his back, his hospital gown pulled down to his waist, a nurse giving him CPR. He watched as Drs. Eisenman and Lawton took over and started doing chest compressions on his patient. Dr. Eisenman grabbed the defibrillator and attempted to shock Mr. Hebert’s heart back into life. Reid couldn’t stop staring at the old man. He was complaining of abdominal pain, of constipation. How did this happen? Did he overlook something? Did he not ask the right questions? What did he miss?
Reid numbly looked to the side and saw the man’s wife crying in the corner, pleading for the doctors to save her husband’s life. He knew he should help but he was rooted, frozen in this spot. Minutes passed but the old man’s heart showed no sign of life.
“Time of death, 16:48.”
Mrs. Hebert screamed loudly as Dr. Lawton went to her, softly explaining what had happened. The rest of the staff, after cleaning up, filed past Reid, who still hadn’t moved. He watched as Mrs. Hebert walked gingerly over to her husband, grabbed his hand and held it up to her cheek, murmuring softly about how she loves him. When she gently placed a kiss on his forehead, Reid felt physically ill. He rushed out of the room and raced into the restroom, barely making it before he threw up his lunch. He collapsed against the toilet, his body shaking. His mind was racing with questions. What did he miss?
He found out later he had done nothing wrong. The patient had botulism, a rare but serious illness that lived in improperly canned or preserved foods. The symptoms happen almost immediately after digesting the food and if left untreated, could result in full renal failure. Dr. Channing, after emerging from a successful surgery, pulled Reid aside and told him there was no way Reid would know to test for botulism. But he felt like a failure anyways. He came into medicine because he wanted to be the best. Failure was never an option for him, Uncle Angus made sure of that. Losing this patient only motivated Reid to work ten times harder and be ten times better.
From that moment on, every time Reid lost a patient, he pushed himself to make sure it would never happen again. He kept reminders of those he couldn’t save and used their deaths as a motivation to be better, to be perfect.
But being here, in this particular room, looking at the one person he loves more than anything else in the world crushed him. His body went cold as he stared at Luke’s sleeping face. His face was bruised and he had a long line of stitches down his right cheek. His left leg was wrapped in a huge cast and his chest was bandaged to protect his back. Despite all of this, Reid couldn’t help but think how beautiful Luke looked.
He was afraid to touch him, afraid his touch would break him even more. It was Reid’s fault Luke was laying here. He should have been more insistent on stopping Luke from coming with him. He shouldn’t have been distracting Luke with his declaration of love. He shouldn’t have told Luke to try and beat the train. He felt hot tears welling in his eyes but he blinked them away, refusing to give into them. He couldn’t do this now. He had to be strong for Luke. Luke needed him and Reid needed to make him better.
He hesitantly touched Luke’s hand and bent down to kiss it, his lips gently grazing his knuckles. Luke slowly opened his eyes at the touch and his big brown eyes found Reid.
“Reid...” he groaned quietly. “You hurt?” He tried to shift his body so he could see Reid better but the pain and restraints limited him. Reid felt helpless as he watched the pain sweep over Luke’s face.
He shook his head swiftly. “Just a couple cuts and bruises, that’s all.”
Luke studied him, his eyes going from bruise to bruise, cut to cut. He noticed Reid was in a wheelchair.
“Liar,” he whispered. “Tell me.”
Reid shook his head again. “Luke, I’m fine. I had some internal bleeding and they removed my spleen. Nothing major, I promise.”
Luke’s eyes widened. “Nothing major?” His voice panicked. “Oh god, Reid. You had surgery? No! Oh god, no! Why did you stay? You should have left me. You should have left!”
Reid pulled himself closer and clutched Luke’s hand even tighter. He had to calm Luke down. He had to make him see this was not his fault. “Don’t be an idiot, Luke. I wasn’t going to leave you. And I can see it in your eyes now, you’re blaming yourself. Stop. It was my decision, my choice to stay. Please Luke, please don’t...” his voice trailed off.
Luke nodded once, acquiescing to Reid. He had no energy to fight him. Luke again tried to shift his body but the pain was unbearable.
“Do you need something? Do you need more medication?” Reid asked hurriedly. He made to turn to Lily and Holden, to ask them to grab a doctor, when he felt Luke squeezing his hand.
“You,” he heard. “Just you.”
The hot tears were threatening Reid again. He raised his eyes up to stop them from falling before turning back to Luke. He tried to smile at Luke but it felt unnatural for him.
“I’m here, Luke. I’m here and I’m never leaving you.”
Luke smiled softly in response. Even in massive amounts of pain and with 60 stitches trailing down his cheek, it was the most real and most beautiful smile Reid has ever seen.
“Reid?” he heard behind him. He turned and saw Lily had taken a few steps closer to the bed. “Reid? Can we talk to you? I mean, if you don’t mind?”
Reid hesitated. He didn’t want to leave Luke but he had to talk to Lily, had to talk to Luke’s doctors. He had to start making Luke better. He couldn’t see him in pain anymore. He nodded to Lily and turned back to Luke. He brought his right hand up to his good cheek and gently grazed his fingers over the smooth skin.
“Hey, look at me for a minute,” he whispered.
Luke opened his eyes again and turned to Reid. Even in pain, he still took Reid’s breath away with those beautiful, beautiful eyes.
Still gently grazing Luke’s cheek with his fingers, he murmured softly, “I’m going to go outside for a few minutes. I want to talk to your parents and your doctors. But I won’t be far and I won’t be long. I promise.”
Luke softly nodded before closing his eyes again. Reid lingered for a minute before giving Luke’s hand another gentle kiss. Holden came around the bed and slowly wheeled Reid out of the room, conscious of Reid’s own pain. The minute he was out in the hallway, the cold and numbness folded over him again. Being away from Luke mentally and physically pained him.
The collection of people outside Luke’s room had grown. Casey, Henry, Barbara, and Noah had joined the Snyders keeping vigil. He couldn’t look at any of them. He didn’t have the energy.
Lily, with the support of Holden, turned her attention to Reid. “Please, please tell us what happened!” she begged, her voice laced with tears.
But Reid couldn’t. He couldn’t look Lily in the eyes and tell her it was his fault her son was dying. That it should have been him in that hospital bed, not Luke. He didn’t give a rats ass about what Lily needed; only Luke. Always Luke.
Holden took a step closer to Reid and gently placed a hand on his shoulder. “Dr. Oliver, I know how difficult this is for you and I know you’re in a lot of pain. But you are the only one who can tell us what happened. Please tell us.”
Reid winced as he adjusted himself in his wheelchair. Lily was one thing but Holden was another. He barely knew Holden but the way Luke talked about him made Reid respect the man a whole lot more than he did with Luke’s mother. At least Holden respected their relationship, unlike Lily who was still on Team Noah. He sighed loudly, rubbing his forehead, trying to wrap his head around everything that was happening.
“I made the decision to go to Bay City to pick up the heart for Chris,” he started. “Luke insisted on coming with me. He was driving while I was on the phone with the hospital, haggling for the heart.” He shivered.
He looked around the hallway. Everyone’s eyes were on him.
“We were coming to some railroad tracks when the lights started flashing. Since we were in a hurry, I told Luke to race over the tracks, that he could beat the train. But the car stalled as we were going over the tracks and his seatbelt was stuck.” His eyes were threatening to leak again. He shook his head to stop them. No, he told himself. No tears.
His voice, which had started out strong, was beginning to crack as he kept going with the story. Looking past the Snyder clan, he replayed the horrifying moments in his mind before the train hit.
“Luke and I tried to get his seatbelt loose but it was stuck. I tried everything but I couldn’t… Luke tried to get me to leave him, but I refused… I refused…. So I just grabbed him and held him in my arms and we waited until the train… until the train…” his voice failed him.
The hall was quiet, save for a few people crying. “You made him race over the tracks? You made him try to beat the train? This is your fault? My son is in the hospital because of you?!" Lily exclaimed, breaking the silence. Her reaction seemed to surprise everyone but him.
Reid was expecting Lily to blame him, but what she didn’t know, what she possibly could not know, was the wrath she was unleashing on him was nothing compared to the anger and disappointment he was unleashing onto himself. He said nothing to refute what Lily was saying but nearly every single Snyder jumped in to stop her, which did surprise him.
“Lily, let’s not blame Reid for this,” Holden started.
“Reid is hurting just as much as Luke is,” Carly murmured.
“It was an awful, awful accident,” Lucinda said.
Katie stepped in front of Reid, as if to protect him from Lily’s words. Reid has never respected nor loved her more. “Lily, he could have left Luke but he didn’t. He stayed with him. Doesn’t that tell you anything?”
Lily started sobbing and sank to her knees. “Why did this happen? Why him?” she cried to Reid. But he couldn't reply. He was asking those very same questions. “Why did you stay with him?” she asked in between sobs.
Reid couldn’t help but roll his eyes at the woman in front of him. What a stupid, stupid question to ask. Anger swelled through his body.
“Why? Why?” He found his voice again and he knew he shouldn’t be angry with Lily, that she was hurting just as much as he was, but he couldn’t deal with her dramatics. Reid never really cared about the lack of respect she showed for him or his relationship with Luke, but my god, she was going to respect him now.
“Are you an idiot? Why do you think? I love him. I love him. And he loves me. I’m sorry to ruin your little ‘Luke and Noah forever’ fantasy but that’s the truth. I want to spend the rest of my life with your son, you insipid woman.” He felt exhausted all of a sudden and wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed with Luke. But he knew he had to wait. He still had to help him.
Lily said nothing and allowed Holden to help her off the floor. “Thank you for staying with my son,” he softly, tears streaming down his face. Reid looked away. He couldn’t stand seeing Holden cry.
“I need to see John Dixon. I need to see Luke’s doctors.” But no one moved or said anything. “Hello? Are you all stupid or something? Did you all magically become deaf? I said, I need to see Luke’s doctor, goddammit!”
As if on cue, John Dixon and Bob rounded the corner and Reid sighed with relief. Finally. “Dr. Oliver, there’s no need to get snippy. I’m right here.” John said as he maneuvered through the Snyders. “What do you need?”
The site of Dr. Dixon seemed to rejuvenate him, gave him hope. “What do I need? First, I need everyone except Luke’s parents to go to the waiting room. That’s why such a place exists. Second, I want to see Luke’s chart and his CAT scans -Bob don’t even start with your ‘procedure and protocol’ bullshit. And third, I need you all to stop feeling sorry for me. That’s what I need.”
Bob and John exchanged looks before both men wordlessly nodded to Reid. Bob gently asked everyone to go to the waiting room and promised them he would keep them updated on Luke’s prognosis. Holden, after pleading with her for what seemed like hours, took Lily outside for some air. Once the hallway had cleared, John gently pushed Reid back into Luke’s room. Reid felt the wave of cold and numbness sweep over him again when he saw Luke, still laying there, still broken. John brought him back to the spot he had vacated earlier --at Luke’s side, where he wanted to be, where he had to be.
“Dr. Oliver, I understand your need to help Luke but you also need to take care of yourself,” John said carefully. “Your body went through an intense trauma. You need to give yourself some time to heal.”
Reid held up his hand. “Stop. Don’t even start on this, ok? Just give me Luke’s chart." He shivered again as he glanced over at Luke.
John hesitated a moment before handing over the chart. Reid flipped it open and scrutinized every test result, every word, looking for something that John might have missed. John didn’t say anything, allowing Reid the opportunity to see the hard truth for himself: Luke Snyder was dying.
Reid was about to question something on the chart when he saw something, written clearly on top of the form, that made his heart stop. Do not resuscitate. He felt like someone had punched him in the gut. “Oh Luke,” Reid breathed out. “No no no no no.”
“There’s something else,” John said, quietly. “Before you came, Luke made an explicit request.” He stopped, as if the words escaped him. “He asked for Tom Hughes and granted his father power of attorney.”
Reid closed his eyes. He was tempted to put his hands over his ears and shout, “la la lalala I can’t hear you!” but it wouldn’t change anything. He knew he had to hear this. Luke.
John continued slowly. “He told his father that when his brain and body goes, he wants his body harvested.”
Reid almost vomited. “John-”
“Dr. Oliver, he wants Chris Hughes to have his heart.”