Ficcishness
Title: Fracture
Characters/Pairing: Ray and a couple of people from an OC "Incredibles" universe. No pairings. Sorry.
Word Count: 1,048 and 5,753 respectively
Rating: PG13
Summary: A bit more backstory. A colorful solution is suggested and Ray's parents are gobsmacked.
Disclaimer: Ray is mine. Alex and Charles are borrowed. "The Incredibles" belongs to PIXAR. The Rift owns all.
November 2, 1977
"I think…I think we should just let him go..." Charles stammered, his voice hitching in mid-sentence despite the resolve in his tone.
"Charles..." the word came out half plea, half disbelieving sob.
"Al, he’s a vegetable, what kind of life is that? He’s not even breathing on his own. He came this close to being completely sliced in two. Even if he ever wakes up- which could be decades from now- he’d just be a talking head. He’d be stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of his life, unable to move or do anything for himself ever again. Do you think he’d be happy like that?"
Alex shifted in his seat, making the aluminum and plastic chair creak in protest.
"I dunno, Charles… I mean, what he believed...I don’t think he’d want us to pull the plug on him. You remember how he was about stuff like that."
"And now you’re referring to him in the past-tense too."
A choking silence settled over Dr. Straussen’s office and inside Alex’s throat. He hadn’t realized the verbal slip until Charles pointed it out.
"I just..." Alex swallowed hard, doing his best to force down the lump in his throat. "I just can’t deal with the idea of killing him myself..."
"Alex..." the word was soft, as was the touch on his arm. "We tried to save him. That’s what heroes do. We tried, and we failed. It’s murder on me too, knowing that we let him down, that now he’s just an empty shell, but this would have happened sooner or later. Ray always knew he was going to die young, and while he did everything he could to extend his life, he knew in his heart that we would both outlive him. That’s why he and Misty never took it past just hanging out, that’s why he started a life insurance policy at nineteen. He was hedging his bets because he knew he probably wouldn’t have that long to live no matter what he did. He knew the risks, he knew what could happen, and he was okay with that, Alex. He was okay with dying. Why keep him trapped here? Why not let him go to heaven to be with his grandma; with his god?"
"Because it’s not the same thing..." Alex husked. “If he had died there, in all the wreckage, in our arms, that would have been different. He’s so helpless right now… Shouldn’t we be standing up for him, doing everything we can to at least try to help him recover? What if he does wake up? What if he does want to live, even if it means being a quadriplegic? That’s the kind of guy Ray is, Charles, and you know it. If nothing else, his faith wouldn’t allow him to take another way out. He’d power through it like he does everything else and come out the other side stronger for it. I say we let him go at least a little bit longer. People have come out of comas after years of being dead to the world. I don’t want to risk throwing away the chance of talking to one of my best friends again even if it doesn’t happen until thirty years from now!”
"But there is no hope that will ever happen," Charles insisted, pleading, voice rising in intensity if not in volume. "He’s unconscious and he’ll probably stay that way forever until someone shuts down his life-support. He is for all intents and purposes already dead, Alex, and there is nothing we can do about it."
The silence was heavy as the two men stared at each other, two sets of eyes, one blue; the other green, both determined and streaming with tears. To be so divided about a person they had loved as a little brother only made the pain of the situation worse. True, it was not their decision to make, but the hospital and NSA had asked for their opinion as the only family Ray had left.
"Oh I don’t care what you do with him," Charles choked, turning and leaning his forehead in one hand to disguise his tears; Alex could only hang his head.
"Well," Dr. Karl began in his thick accent, folding his minute hands over the desk blotter, "there is one other option. It is risky, but if you are serious about wanting to do everything you can to help him recover, I’d like to offer it as an alternative."
The remaining members of Trinity Prime looked up, damp eyes trained on the little doctor.
"What is it?" Charles finally dared to ask. Karl nodded to his associate, a much taller man also dressed in a white lab coat.
"A distant cousin of the Cold War radio implant," he stated in a clipped British accent. "It’s still in the experimental stages, but given his current circumstances, Mr. Kalahearn has very little to lose."
Karl shot his fellow PhD an annoyed look. "Julian, please."
"What?" Julian shrugged. "The boy has been lying comatose and in pieces for almost three months. I’d say it would be unlikely his prospects could get much worse. I think we can all agree that one way or the other; either dead or awake, he’d be better off." Nobody could really argue the point, and so the taller man went on. "Janesha and I came up with this little gadget. I’m hoping it should at least get your friend breathing on his own again, along with his other involuntary functions."
Reaching into his breast pocket, Julian withdrew a small arc of plastic. Seven wires, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, deep indigo, and pale violet, arced in a half-circle from one set of encased copper prongs to another.
"It looks like a Barbie comb..." Alex observed.
Charles blinked and picked up the device to better examine it. "You’re going to get him breathing with a little plastic rainbow?"
Julian smiled. "More or less. The lab staff refers to it as that as well. Yes, this little rainbow will allow us to bridge the gap in your friend’s spinal cord. If we can do that, he should regain at least some control of himself."
"And if it doesn’t?"
"Then he’s no worse off than he is now," Julian answered calmly.
November 4, 1977
"Mrs. Kalahearn?"
Rick wasn't exactly sure what to expect. He'd never dealt personally with Ray's family before. What he knew about them he'd learned through returned letters, aborted phone calls, and unflattering stories from Charles and Alex. Ray himself had had little to say about them, perhaps because he felt uncomfortable defaming his own blood, no matter how bigoted. Either way, the petite, dark-haired woman staring blankly back at him did have a certain gravitas to her. Rick reminded himself that he was here not just on business, but on behalf of her youngest child and only son.
"Yes? If you're selling subscriptions or sharing the 'good news', I'm afraid we're not interested. We're staunch Baptists and if you want donations you'll have to speak to my husband's financial manager. Good day."
Clearly, she'd done this a couple of times. Before she could close the door completely, Rick spoke up:
"I'm here on behalf of your son."
"I don't have a son." She was seconds from slamming the varnished cherry wood in his face.
"He's been gravely injured."
The swinging door abruptly skidded to a halt an inch from the jamb.
"What?"
"Mrs. Kalahearn, your son has been severely injured in the line of duty," the words sounded like those of a military officer; then again, they were supposed to.
The door was open again, the blank look staring back at him.
"He was injured?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"What happened to him," she asked at length. "Was he badly hurt?"
"I'm afraid so, ma’am. He sustained a broken neck and a severed spine."
That got her attention.
"He what?!"
"Sustained a broken neck and a severed spine," Rick repeated, "and has been in a coma for close to three months now. We’ve been trying to contact you, but your husband has an excellent security team."
A long and very empty pause. Mrs. Kalahearn's expression remained as vacant as ever and Rick began to wonder if his dry, militaristic delivery had been too harsh?
"...would you like to come inside, Mr. Dicker?"
"Thank you."
Considering the home belonged to a senator, Rick had been expecting something a bit more elaborate. Still, according to Ray, the Kalahearn household had subscribed to a rather simple lifestyle even before the budget cap. The home and furnishings bespoke old world gentility; elegant, yet simple and practical. The decor appeared to be largely ancestral, the living room sofa of dark wood and thickly-stuffed velvet recalling an era when bustles had been in vogue. Rick sat on it gingerly, wondering how Ray and his three sisters had managed not to break the thing into splinters when they were children? He waited, politely balancing a cup of tea in an equally antiquated china teacup while Mrs. Kalahearn made a few phone calls. After fifteen minutes on the phone and another ten of awkward waiting, her husband arrived home and Rick had the unenviable task of explaining what had happened.
"Mr. Dicker," Senator Kalahearn offered the clipped greeting along with an equally brief handshake. "I'm told you're here on official business."
"Yes, sir," Rick replied, only his many years as mediator between the Super community and the rest of the world keeping him calm in the presence of the man who had banished Supers from the East Coast. "It's about your son."
The senator nodded. "Johanna said he'd been injured. Is that true?"
"Yes, sir. Your son was injured in the line of duty back in September. My company as well as the hospital has made numerous attempts to contact you, but did not receive any response. Ray is currently in a coma and the hospital would like to treat him, but can’t without consent from his next-of-kin."
"What kind of treatment?"
If the man was concerned at all about his son, he gave little or no indication. Still, his responses, while curt, lacked the icy disdain that had initially frosted his wife's voice. Perhaps this was what the senator looked like when emotionally distraught? Rick briefly attempted comparing the two Kalahearn men in his head, but soon gave up, the polarization giving him a headache.
"That I'm not entirely sure, you'll have to talk to the hospital yourself. I understand it’s some sort of operation to reconnect his brain to his spinal cord, it involves new technology only recently put on the market."
The senator raised an eyebrow.
"Sir, your son was damn near killed. According to medical definition he is only a few brain waves away from being clinically dead. He is not conscious, nor is he breathing on his own. However, out of respect for his beliefs as well as the legal system, we need your permission before he is treated one way or the other."
The senator’s eyes had grown narrow and cold. "What exactly happened, Mr. Dicker?"
Rick briefly outlined Ray's injuries and how he had gotten them, leaving out a few minor surface details such as the giant robot and mad doctor. While true, such superfluous side-notes tended to lead listeners into the realm of disbelief and Rick didn't want that. He had his work cut out for him as it was. There was an admittedly guilty satisfaction to be had in their expressions of slowly increasing horror as he described the three month coma, the spinal damage, ruptured organs, and broken bones. They listened in silence, Mrs. Kalahearn growing white while her husband's face became stony and grim.
"And the doctors believe he will recover after this treatment?"
"Physically, in time, perhaps," Rick affirmed. "However, this is all based on the assumption that he does, in fact, wake up. Should that happen, even with extensive therapy, it will take a while for his brain and nerves to get talking again, but that’s skipping ahead somewhat. He needs to regain consciousness before we can think about anything else.
"What I need right now Senator, Mrs. Kalahearn, is permission to either treat your son, or to pull the plug. It isn’t fair to leave the poor kid hanging, so to speak. Whatever he did to fall out of your good graces, I’d say it’s time to forgive and forget. This is his life we’re talking about."
"Not to sound callous Mr. Dicker, but what would such treatment cost? I am not a wealthy man."
Not filthy rich, but comfortable, certainly, Rick thought. Still, the Senator probably assumed an agency such as the NSA did not exist- which was just as well- and that any insurance Ray might have would not pay for something so elaborate and risky as the surgery Dr. Straussen had suggested.
"As an employee of my company, Ray has an excellent benefit package. We will continue to provide any treatment he may need. However, as I said, we can’t take any further steps without your consent."
A long moment while the senator thought.
"Just sign here, or here, Senator," said Rick, pointing to various spots on the medical forms spread across the coffee table, "and I’ll see Ray’s wishes are carried out."
"That won't be necessary, Mr. Dicker," the Senator stated, standing. "I'm going to fetch my son and bring him home."
Characters/Pairing: Ray and a couple of people from an OC "Incredibles" universe. No pairings. Sorry.
Word Count: 1,048 and 5,753 respectively
Rating: PG13
Summary: A bit more backstory. A colorful solution is suggested and Ray's parents are gobsmacked.
Disclaimer: Ray is mine. Alex and Charles are borrowed. "The Incredibles" belongs to PIXAR. The Rift owns all.
November 2, 1977
"I think…I think we should just let him go..." Charles stammered, his voice hitching in mid-sentence despite the resolve in his tone.
"Charles..." the word came out half plea, half disbelieving sob.
"Al, he’s a vegetable, what kind of life is that? He’s not even breathing on his own. He came this close to being completely sliced in two. Even if he ever wakes up- which could be decades from now- he’d just be a talking head. He’d be stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of his life, unable to move or do anything for himself ever again. Do you think he’d be happy like that?"
Alex shifted in his seat, making the aluminum and plastic chair creak in protest.
"I dunno, Charles… I mean, what he believed...I don’t think he’d want us to pull the plug on him. You remember how he was about stuff like that."
"And now you’re referring to him in the past-tense too."
A choking silence settled over Dr. Straussen’s office and inside Alex’s throat. He hadn’t realized the verbal slip until Charles pointed it out.
"I just..." Alex swallowed hard, doing his best to force down the lump in his throat. "I just can’t deal with the idea of killing him myself..."
"Alex..." the word was soft, as was the touch on his arm. "We tried to save him. That’s what heroes do. We tried, and we failed. It’s murder on me too, knowing that we let him down, that now he’s just an empty shell, but this would have happened sooner or later. Ray always knew he was going to die young, and while he did everything he could to extend his life, he knew in his heart that we would both outlive him. That’s why he and Misty never took it past just hanging out, that’s why he started a life insurance policy at nineteen. He was hedging his bets because he knew he probably wouldn’t have that long to live no matter what he did. He knew the risks, he knew what could happen, and he was okay with that, Alex. He was okay with dying. Why keep him trapped here? Why not let him go to heaven to be with his grandma; with his god?"
"Because it’s not the same thing..." Alex husked. “If he had died there, in all the wreckage, in our arms, that would have been different. He’s so helpless right now… Shouldn’t we be standing up for him, doing everything we can to at least try to help him recover? What if he does wake up? What if he does want to live, even if it means being a quadriplegic? That’s the kind of guy Ray is, Charles, and you know it. If nothing else, his faith wouldn’t allow him to take another way out. He’d power through it like he does everything else and come out the other side stronger for it. I say we let him go at least a little bit longer. People have come out of comas after years of being dead to the world. I don’t want to risk throwing away the chance of talking to one of my best friends again even if it doesn’t happen until thirty years from now!”
"But there is no hope that will ever happen," Charles insisted, pleading, voice rising in intensity if not in volume. "He’s unconscious and he’ll probably stay that way forever until someone shuts down his life-support. He is for all intents and purposes already dead, Alex, and there is nothing we can do about it."
The silence was heavy as the two men stared at each other, two sets of eyes, one blue; the other green, both determined and streaming with tears. To be so divided about a person they had loved as a little brother only made the pain of the situation worse. True, it was not their decision to make, but the hospital and NSA had asked for their opinion as the only family Ray had left.
"Oh I don’t care what you do with him," Charles choked, turning and leaning his forehead in one hand to disguise his tears; Alex could only hang his head.
"Well," Dr. Karl began in his thick accent, folding his minute hands over the desk blotter, "there is one other option. It is risky, but if you are serious about wanting to do everything you can to help him recover, I’d like to offer it as an alternative."
The remaining members of Trinity Prime looked up, damp eyes trained on the little doctor.
"What is it?" Charles finally dared to ask. Karl nodded to his associate, a much taller man also dressed in a white lab coat.
"A distant cousin of the Cold War radio implant," he stated in a clipped British accent. "It’s still in the experimental stages, but given his current circumstances, Mr. Kalahearn has very little to lose."
Karl shot his fellow PhD an annoyed look. "Julian, please."
"What?" Julian shrugged. "The boy has been lying comatose and in pieces for almost three months. I’d say it would be unlikely his prospects could get much worse. I think we can all agree that one way or the other; either dead or awake, he’d be better off." Nobody could really argue the point, and so the taller man went on. "Janesha and I came up with this little gadget. I’m hoping it should at least get your friend breathing on his own again, along with his other involuntary functions."
Reaching into his breast pocket, Julian withdrew a small arc of plastic. Seven wires, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, deep indigo, and pale violet, arced in a half-circle from one set of encased copper prongs to another.
"It looks like a Barbie comb..." Alex observed.
Charles blinked and picked up the device to better examine it. "You’re going to get him breathing with a little plastic rainbow?"
Julian smiled. "More or less. The lab staff refers to it as that as well. Yes, this little rainbow will allow us to bridge the gap in your friend’s spinal cord. If we can do that, he should regain at least some control of himself."
"And if it doesn’t?"
"Then he’s no worse off than he is now," Julian answered calmly.
November 4, 1977
"Mrs. Kalahearn?"
Rick wasn't exactly sure what to expect. He'd never dealt personally with Ray's family before. What he knew about them he'd learned through returned letters, aborted phone calls, and unflattering stories from Charles and Alex. Ray himself had had little to say about them, perhaps because he felt uncomfortable defaming his own blood, no matter how bigoted. Either way, the petite, dark-haired woman staring blankly back at him did have a certain gravitas to her. Rick reminded himself that he was here not just on business, but on behalf of her youngest child and only son.
"Yes? If you're selling subscriptions or sharing the 'good news', I'm afraid we're not interested. We're staunch Baptists and if you want donations you'll have to speak to my husband's financial manager. Good day."
Clearly, she'd done this a couple of times. Before she could close the door completely, Rick spoke up:
"I'm here on behalf of your son."
"I don't have a son." She was seconds from slamming the varnished cherry wood in his face.
"He's been gravely injured."
The swinging door abruptly skidded to a halt an inch from the jamb.
"What?"
"Mrs. Kalahearn, your son has been severely injured in the line of duty," the words sounded like those of a military officer; then again, they were supposed to.
The door was open again, the blank look staring back at him.
"He was injured?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"What happened to him," she asked at length. "Was he badly hurt?"
"I'm afraid so, ma’am. He sustained a broken neck and a severed spine."
That got her attention.
"He what?!"
"Sustained a broken neck and a severed spine," Rick repeated, "and has been in a coma for close to three months now. We’ve been trying to contact you, but your husband has an excellent security team."
A long and very empty pause. Mrs. Kalahearn's expression remained as vacant as ever and Rick began to wonder if his dry, militaristic delivery had been too harsh?
"...would you like to come inside, Mr. Dicker?"
"Thank you."
Considering the home belonged to a senator, Rick had been expecting something a bit more elaborate. Still, according to Ray, the Kalahearn household had subscribed to a rather simple lifestyle even before the budget cap. The home and furnishings bespoke old world gentility; elegant, yet simple and practical. The decor appeared to be largely ancestral, the living room sofa of dark wood and thickly-stuffed velvet recalling an era when bustles had been in vogue. Rick sat on it gingerly, wondering how Ray and his three sisters had managed not to break the thing into splinters when they were children? He waited, politely balancing a cup of tea in an equally antiquated china teacup while Mrs. Kalahearn made a few phone calls. After fifteen minutes on the phone and another ten of awkward waiting, her husband arrived home and Rick had the unenviable task of explaining what had happened.
"Mr. Dicker," Senator Kalahearn offered the clipped greeting along with an equally brief handshake. "I'm told you're here on official business."
"Yes, sir," Rick replied, only his many years as mediator between the Super community and the rest of the world keeping him calm in the presence of the man who had banished Supers from the East Coast. "It's about your son."
The senator nodded. "Johanna said he'd been injured. Is that true?"
"Yes, sir. Your son was injured in the line of duty back in September. My company as well as the hospital has made numerous attempts to contact you, but did not receive any response. Ray is currently in a coma and the hospital would like to treat him, but can’t without consent from his next-of-kin."
"What kind of treatment?"
If the man was concerned at all about his son, he gave little or no indication. Still, his responses, while curt, lacked the icy disdain that had initially frosted his wife's voice. Perhaps this was what the senator looked like when emotionally distraught? Rick briefly attempted comparing the two Kalahearn men in his head, but soon gave up, the polarization giving him a headache.
"That I'm not entirely sure, you'll have to talk to the hospital yourself. I understand it’s some sort of operation to reconnect his brain to his spinal cord, it involves new technology only recently put on the market."
The senator raised an eyebrow.
"Sir, your son was damn near killed. According to medical definition he is only a few brain waves away from being clinically dead. He is not conscious, nor is he breathing on his own. However, out of respect for his beliefs as well as the legal system, we need your permission before he is treated one way or the other."
The senator’s eyes had grown narrow and cold. "What exactly happened, Mr. Dicker?"
Rick briefly outlined Ray's injuries and how he had gotten them, leaving out a few minor surface details such as the giant robot and mad doctor. While true, such superfluous side-notes tended to lead listeners into the realm of disbelief and Rick didn't want that. He had his work cut out for him as it was. There was an admittedly guilty satisfaction to be had in their expressions of slowly increasing horror as he described the three month coma, the spinal damage, ruptured organs, and broken bones. They listened in silence, Mrs. Kalahearn growing white while her husband's face became stony and grim.
"And the doctors believe he will recover after this treatment?"
"Physically, in time, perhaps," Rick affirmed. "However, this is all based on the assumption that he does, in fact, wake up. Should that happen, even with extensive therapy, it will take a while for his brain and nerves to get talking again, but that’s skipping ahead somewhat. He needs to regain consciousness before we can think about anything else.
"What I need right now Senator, Mrs. Kalahearn, is permission to either treat your son, or to pull the plug. It isn’t fair to leave the poor kid hanging, so to speak. Whatever he did to fall out of your good graces, I’d say it’s time to forgive and forget. This is his life we’re talking about."
"Not to sound callous Mr. Dicker, but what would such treatment cost? I am not a wealthy man."
Not filthy rich, but comfortable, certainly, Rick thought. Still, the Senator probably assumed an agency such as the NSA did not exist- which was just as well- and that any insurance Ray might have would not pay for something so elaborate and risky as the surgery Dr. Straussen had suggested.
"As an employee of my company, Ray has an excellent benefit package. We will continue to provide any treatment he may need. However, as I said, we can’t take any further steps without your consent."
A long moment while the senator thought.
"Just sign here, or here, Senator," said Rick, pointing to various spots on the medical forms spread across the coffee table, "and I’ll see Ray’s wishes are carried out."
"That won't be necessary, Mr. Dicker," the Senator stated, standing. "I'm going to fetch my son and bring him home."