Closing was uneventful, but nerve-wracking. Amelia sewed up Sam's stomach, took Dean off stay suture duty so he could pour five liters of saline into his brother, changed gloves a second time, took a quick feel around Sam's abdominal cavity to make sure she hadn't missed anything that might be important -- "Like what?" Sam had demanded, shivering and staring with huge eyes at her arm buried past the wrist in his guts -- whip-stitched his abdominal tendon back together, and, after a quick spray of the last of the lidocaine, the skin. It wasn't one of her worse skin closures, but she was pretty sure human hospitals didn't send people home with green monofilament in their skin. The linoleum was a morass of blood and salt-water, like usual after a laparotomy on a big dog.
Almost as bad as the waking nightmares of suture failure and massive fulminant peritonitis was Sam's and Dean's explanation of the little black penis-tongued ferret-puppy on the floor. They weren't sure what it was, but they did know that it wasn't unique; there was more than just mountain lions and grizzly bears out there eating people, and most of it didn't follow any kind of natural law.
Amelia could see that. The ferret-puppy didn't even have a placenta.
What was worst was the revelation that Sam and Dean were Sam and Dean Winchester, wanted felons and murderers, and that whether or not they were actually guilty, whether or not they were publically dead, they would always, always be running.
"Sam thinking you were dead, that was another one of your 'unnatural' incidents?" she asked as she cut up the radiograph of Sam's cranial -- superior - abdomen with scissors. Sam and Dean shared a weighted look, Sam sitting propped up against one of the cupboards in the treatment area, coccooned in towels and blankets, and Dean leaning against the wall nearby, toying with a mop. She held up one of the slices of film to the ceiling light to look at Sam's ribs; there was a weird geometric pattern that showed up over the bones. She wondered how she'd missed that artifact, and resolved to check the developer fluid for precipitate debris.
"I got sucked into a dimension of eternal combat for a year," Dean explained after a pause, as Sam watched him warily. "It made perfect sense that I was dead."
"But you weren't," Amelia concluded, dropping the scraps of illicit radiograph into a plastic bag.
"Not so much."
Amelia looked at Sam, who was still pale, clutching his stomach, and had a bag of Ringer's, his third liter of the night, running into his left arm. "Sam, you have just adopted a two-hundred-pound mastiff named Tock," she announced, sinking into the computer chair and entering a new patient. "Tock ate a bottle of foaming wood glue and needed an emergency gastrotomy. Tock now needs morphine and tramadol for post-operative pain control." She knelt at the cupboard underneath the pharmacy area and opened the clinic's small safe, pulling out a glass vial, a bottle of tablets, and a log book.
"No, Dean," said Sam wearily from behind her. When she turned around, Dean was gazing at the controlled drug safe like a man in the desert spotting a freshwater spring.
"Are we going to have a problem?" she asked.
Dean grinned, looking shockingly handsome for an instant, now that he wasn't terrified, covered in blood, or endangering her boyfriend. "Nah, I'll just knock over some other vet's office."
Amelia pressed her palms into her eyes. "Okay," she sighed. She counted pills, drew up a syringe of morphine, and handed Dean the sliced-up radiograph and the pill bottles. "Here's your evidence. Here's Tock's pain pills. Here's his antibiotics. Here's his ulcer meds. Sam, don't get sick. Don't rip your stitches. Don't require medical attention. This is legally indefensible, understand? I would lose my license, I would lose my livelihood. Have you ever had a livelihood, Sam?"
"Hey!" Dean interrupted her, stepping in front of his shivering brother and pointing a scraped-up finger at her chest.
"How about you, Dean, have you had a livelihood?"
He glared at her for a moment, then nodded faintly.
"It's what I have, and it's all I have," Amelia admitted. "Take care of each-other."
"Here's Tock's morphine," Amelia changed the subject, holding up a loaded syringe. Dean stepped aside so she could peel some of Sam's blankets off and push the drug slowly into his injection port. Sam watched warily as it flared through his veins, and, too late, Amelia thought to ask, "You don't have a problem with narcotics--"
"No," Sam said. A minute passed, and he sighed and relaxed against the cupboard, eyes rolling shut.
She clamped off his fluid line, pulled the needle, and reinforced the IV catheter's white cloth anchoring tape with most of a dwindling roll. She caught herself reaching for the candy-colored cling wrap before she stopped himself. “Don't let him chew that out,” she told Dean, and handed him the half-run fluid bag and two more liters of Ringer's. Dean strung them all on his left pinkie.
“Ten drops a second, right?” He turned to Sam. "Okay, kiddo, let's get you back on your feet," Dean ordered, tugging at his arm, and Sam tucked his feet up under himself, wincing, and stood slowly. They'd managed to wrestle a fresh pair of boxers and pants from the car onto him before easing him off the operating table, but not his tee-shirt, and his button-down and jacket were only half-on, leaving the forearm with the IV catheter exposed. He seemed steadier now on a fresh dose of morphine and with a fresh celiotomy incision than he had when Dean had dragged him in. They lurched back out toward the car. Amelia watched them go from the front window for a moment, before recalling that she was wearing a sleep shirt under her scrubs and moccasins on her feet and rushing off after them.
“Want a lift?” Dean offered. He and Sam were engaged in some complex gymnastic maneuver to settle Sam in the back seat without straining his sewn-together abs, their arms locked together, moving as one. At the end of it, Sam was on his side on the back bench, legs half-dangling into the footwell.
“It's almost not worth it now, but my purse is at home,” Amelia said dryly. She slid into the passenger seat and leaned back to watch Sam breathe. Dean started the car and pulled out at a senior citizen's pace.
“Don't be such a stranger, Sam,” she said. “Riot misses you.”
“Oh, Riot misses me,” Sam muttered back, slurring a little. That was probably the morphine. “I should come see Riot, then. When I can stand up.”
Amelia looked from Sam, to Dean, and back again, and made a decision. “You should stay at the house. Both of you. Sam, at least until you get back on your feet, don't you want an actual bed? A kitchen? Your coffee press?”
Dean shifted in his seat. Amelia wouldn't have noticed the movement if she hadn't seen Sam's eyes flick to his brother's back. “We've got some travel ahead of us,” Sam said. “But this was fun. Maybe next time you can stick your arm in my chest.”
“How about no,” Amelia replied.
“Quiet, love-birds,” Dean grumbled, easing the car down the still-dark streets.
Amelia sunk low against the collapsed springs and sun-worn vinyl where Sam, according to his drunken ramblings, had spent most of his life - right here, in this seat, with this man. “How about Thanksgiving?” she suggested. “History Channel marathon, bottle of port, Don's mom's jalapeno cranberry sauce? Let me check on my handiwork?”
Sam was silent for a long moment, and Amelia, despite herself, felt a hated stab of disappointment and need well up. She heard Sam open his mouth and take a breath to speak, but it was Dean who said, “Sure, sounds like a party.”
Amelia twisted in her seat and caught the tail end of Sam's adorable slack-jawed gaping, this time directed at his brother's back.
“You make Thanksgiving pie?” Dean continued, with a note of challenge.
“Sure, I can make a pie. Can you keep a date?”
Dean's mouth twitched and he shrugged. “If we can make it, we'll be here. How's that sound?”
“Sounds like that's as good as we're gonna get,” Amelia replied, as they pulled up to the little house that Sam had helped make a home, whose door Dean had busted in. That one would be fun to explain to the neighbors. She stumbled out and stood in the driveway, bone-tired now that the excitement was over, and listened to Riot yelp from where he'd been locked in the bedroom as she watched the old black car slip away into the night.
She was going to lose her license and go to prison. Or she would if Dean reported Sam's death; they seemed more the "bury him under the old oak tree" type. She was going to kill Sam, he was going to get peritonitis and die, because she was going to do an enterotomy solo.
Even with this one paragraph, you made her more likable than cannon. Why can't we have *this* Amelia?
Maybe that could be a new genre: character modification. Does it count as OOC if it's how the character *ought* to be have?
That's the thing, I don't see her as being unlikeable. Maybe a personal and professional liability, with the pride and the self-pity and the drinking, but I largely enjoyed her scenes.
(Probably because OMGOMG SAM'S LOVE INTEREST IS A CROTCHETY VETERINARIAN!!!!!1)
I guess that's what fandom is about, taking something you enjoy and sharing what you enjoy about it.
that was great! Loved it. I really like canon Amelia, and your portrayal of her is lovely. And hee- "Its a girl," Sam said, and snickered. And Dean lamazze breathing, LOL :-)
Ah, this was great! I'm pretty fond of Amelia already so it was appealing to see something from her POV :). It's this interesting mix of an outsider POV (because she doesn't know about the creepycrawlies and exactly who Sam and Dean are at first), and not (because she knows Sam). Awesome emergency surgery scene and the tense drama of the time limit!
It's pretty sad how unusual outsiders who know Sam and Dean personally are in most seasons. But there's tons of mileage to be had with those kinds of interactions.
Glad you liked it (and that the time limit wasn't too cheesy).
Almost as bad as the waking nightmares of suture failure and massive fulminant peritonitis was Sam's and Dean's explanation of the little black penis-tongued ferret-puppy on the floor. They weren't sure what it was, but they did know that it wasn't unique; there was more than just mountain lions and grizzly bears out there eating people, and most of it didn't follow any kind of natural law.
Amelia could see that. The ferret-puppy didn't even have a placenta.
What was worst was the revelation that Sam and Dean were Sam and Dean Winchester, wanted felons and murderers, and that whether or not they were actually guilty, whether or not they were publically dead, they would always, always be running.
"Sam thinking you were dead, that was another one of your 'unnatural' incidents?" she asked as she cut up the radiograph of Sam's cranial -- superior - abdomen with scissors. Sam and Dean shared a weighted look, Sam sitting propped up against one of the cupboards in the treatment area, coccooned in towels and blankets, and Dean leaning against the wall nearby, toying with a mop. She held up one of the slices of film to the ceiling light to look at Sam's ribs; there was a weird geometric pattern that showed up over the bones. She wondered how she'd missed that artifact, and resolved to check the developer fluid for precipitate debris.
"I got sucked into a dimension of eternal combat for a year," Dean explained after a pause, as Sam watched him warily. "It made perfect sense that I was dead."
"But you weren't," Amelia concluded, dropping the scraps of illicit radiograph into a plastic bag.
"Not so much."
Amelia looked at Sam, who was still pale, clutching his stomach, and had a bag of Ringer's, his third liter of the night, running into his left arm. "Sam, you have just adopted a two-hundred-pound mastiff named Tock," she announced, sinking into the computer chair and entering a new patient. "Tock ate a bottle of foaming wood glue and needed an emergency gastrotomy. Tock now needs morphine and tramadol for post-operative pain control." She knelt at the cupboard underneath the pharmacy area and opened the clinic's small safe, pulling out a glass vial, a bottle of tablets, and a log book.
"No, Dean," said Sam wearily from behind her. When she turned around, Dean was gazing at the controlled drug safe like a man in the desert spotting a freshwater spring.
"Are we going to have a problem?" she asked.
Dean grinned, looking shockingly handsome for an instant, now that he wasn't terrified, covered in blood, or endangering her boyfriend. "Nah, I'll just knock over some other vet's office."
Amelia pressed her palms into her eyes. "Okay," she sighed. She counted pills, drew up a syringe of morphine, and handed Dean the sliced-up radiograph and the pill bottles. "Here's your evidence. Here's Tock's pain pills. Here's his antibiotics. Here's his ulcer meds. Sam, don't get sick. Don't rip your stitches. Don't require medical attention. This is legally indefensible, understand? I would lose my license, I would lose my livelihood. Have you ever had a livelihood, Sam?"
"Hey!" Dean interrupted her, stepping in front of his shivering brother and pointing a scraped-up finger at her chest.
"How about you, Dean, have you had a livelihood?"
He glared at her for a moment, then nodded faintly.
"It's what I have, and it's all I have," Amelia admitted. "Take care of each-other."
"Always," Dean replied, like a credo.
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"No," Sam said. A minute passed, and he sighed and relaxed against the cupboard, eyes rolling shut.
She clamped off his fluid line, pulled the needle, and reinforced the IV catheter's white cloth anchoring tape with most of a dwindling roll. She caught herself reaching for the candy-colored cling wrap before she stopped himself. “Don't let him chew that out,” she told Dean, and handed him the half-run fluid bag and two more liters of Ringer's. Dean strung them all on his left pinkie.
“Ten drops a second, right?” He turned to Sam. "Okay, kiddo, let's get you back on your feet," Dean ordered, tugging at his arm, and Sam tucked his feet up under himself, wincing, and stood slowly. They'd managed to wrestle a fresh pair of boxers and pants from the car onto him before easing him off the operating table, but not his tee-shirt, and his button-down and jacket were only half-on, leaving the forearm with the IV catheter exposed. He seemed steadier now on a fresh dose of morphine and with a fresh celiotomy incision than he had when Dean had dragged him in. They lurched back out toward the car. Amelia watched them go from the front window for a moment, before recalling that she was wearing a sleep shirt under her scrubs and moccasins on her feet and rushing off after them.
“Want a lift?” Dean offered. He and Sam were engaged in some complex gymnastic maneuver to settle Sam in the back seat without straining his sewn-together abs, their arms locked together, moving as one. At the end of it, Sam was on his side on the back bench, legs half-dangling into the footwell.
“It's almost not worth it now, but my purse is at home,” Amelia said dryly. She slid into the passenger seat and leaned back to watch Sam breathe. Dean started the car and pulled out at a senior citizen's pace.
“Don't be such a stranger, Sam,” she said. “Riot misses you.”
“Oh, Riot misses me,” Sam muttered back, slurring a little. That was probably the morphine. “I should come see Riot, then. When I can stand up.”
Amelia looked from Sam, to Dean, and back again, and made a decision. “You should stay at the house. Both of you. Sam, at least until you get back on your feet, don't you want an actual bed? A kitchen? Your coffee press?”
Dean shifted in his seat. Amelia wouldn't have noticed the movement if she hadn't seen Sam's eyes flick to his brother's back. “We've got some travel ahead of us,” Sam said. “But this was fun. Maybe next time you can stick your arm in my chest.”
“How about no,” Amelia replied.
“Quiet, love-birds,” Dean grumbled, easing the car down the still-dark streets.
Amelia sunk low against the collapsed springs and sun-worn vinyl where Sam, according to his drunken ramblings, had spent most of his life - right here, in this seat, with this man. “How about Thanksgiving?” she suggested. “History Channel marathon, bottle of port, Don's mom's jalapeno cranberry sauce? Let me check on my handiwork?”
Sam was silent for a long moment, and Amelia, despite herself, felt a hated stab of disappointment and need well up. She heard Sam open his mouth and take a breath to speak, but it was Dean who said, “Sure, sounds like a party.”
Amelia twisted in her seat and caught the tail end of Sam's adorable slack-jawed gaping, this time directed at his brother's back.
“You make Thanksgiving pie?” Dean continued, with a note of challenge.
“Sure, I can make a pie. Can you keep a date?”
Dean's mouth twitched and he shrugged. “If we can make it, we'll be here. How's that sound?”
“Sounds like that's as good as we're gonna get,” Amelia replied, as they pulled up to the little house that Sam had helped make a home, whose door Dean had busted in. That one would be fun to explain to the neighbors. She stumbled out and stood in the driveway, bone-tired now that the excitement was over, and listened to Riot yelp from where he'd been locked in the bedroom as she watched the old black car slip away into the night.
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And laughing at the green monofilament stitches and the bottle of foaming wood glue.
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Thanks so much!
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You did such a great job with this prompt!
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Thanks!
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She was going to lose her license and go to prison. Or she would if Dean reported Sam's death; they seemed more the "bury him under the old oak tree" type. She was going to kill Sam, he was going to get peritonitis and die, because she was going to do an enterotomy solo.
Even with this one paragraph, you made her more likable than cannon. Why can't we have *this* Amelia?
Maybe that could be a new genre: character modification. Does it count as OOC if it's how the character *ought* to be have?
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(Probably because OMGOMG SAM'S LOVE INTEREST IS A CROTCHETY VETERINARIAN!!!!!1)
I guess that's what fandom is about, taking something you enjoy and sharing what you enjoy about it.
I'm glad you liked this interpretation.
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Glad you liked Amelia (canon and fic). Thanks!
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Glad you liked it (and that the time limit wasn't too cheesy).
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