Fic: Give Your Heart a Break
Author: truthaboutglee
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Medical jargon. A lot of it. Description of a code blue. OC character death. Swearing.
Word Count: 4200
Summary: Set in the same ‘verse as my ficlet, Night Shift. Blaine Anderson, cardiology nurse and Dr. Kurt Hummel, cardio-thoracic surgeon have become fast friends. A tragedy at work makes them realize that life is too short to just wait around for something to happen.
Author’s Note: Title taken from Demi Lovato’s song, “Give Your Heart a Break”. I highly highly suggest reading Night Shift before reading this, because it really sets up the ‘verse. If you don’t understand some of the medical jargon, please come ask me and I’ll help you with it :) Also please note that any medication dosages/lab work levels are Canadian. Thank you to my lovely friend Sam, who inspired me and encouraged me to finish this fic (and for reading it over for me).
"Blaine, there you are!"
Blaine poked his head out from the nurse server he was standing in front of to see his co-worker Natalie standing right in front of him.
"Hey, Nats! Can you double check this insulin for me?" He held up the tiny insulin syringe for his co-worker to look at. "Mrs. Jones' blood sugar was at 8.4, so I'm giving four units according to the sliding scale". Natalie shifted her eyes to the medication order sitting in front of Blaine and then squinted at the tiny syringe.
"Four units, you're good."
"Thanks," said Blaine, smiling at her. He was just about to close the door of the nurse server and walk into his patient's room when Natalie stopped him.
"Colleen wants to see you about your new admission."
"Right now?" asked Blaine. The lunch trays had just been served to the patients and Blaine wanted to make sure he gave Mrs. Jones her insulin before it was too late.
"Well, give your insulin first, Blaine. If it was completely urgent I would have dragged you away by now," said Natalie, poking him in the arm playfully.
Blaine stuck out his tongue at her and went to give his insulin quickly before heading to the nurses' station to talk to the charge nurse. Blaine plops into the chair that's sitting next to the one Colleen is sitting in. She's talking on the phone and looking a little frazzled (which is really nothing new), but she gives him a brief smile before jotting something down on the chart in front of her.
After a couple of minutes she hangs up the phone and turns towards him. "Sorry Blaine, I was just talking to Dr. Hummel about your new admission."
"That's fine," said Blaine, trying not to blush. Ever since Dr. Hummel…no…Kurt, had invited him over to his parents' house for Christmas dinner, they had become fast friends. Blaine had a bit of a crush on him and he had been trying valiantly for the past couple of months to push down his feelings for Kurt. It's not like their hospital had any strict rules for coworkers dating each other, but Blaine was a little too nervous to ever approach Kurt about taking their relationship to the next level. He was content with being friends with him, for now.
"You'll recognize this patient, Blaine. I know you've taken care of her before. Your new admission is Nora Thompson. She received a heart transplant three days ago. Her condition is stable. So far there are no signs of rejection. She has orders for daily blood work and she does have some pain post-op, they've been giving her Tylenol every four hours. She's not having any shortness of breath, but she's on one litre of oxygen via nasal prongs as per order. She has a catheter in and she's voiding about 30cc an hour. She has normal saline infusing at 50ml per hour. Dr. Hummel wants her vitals done every 2 hours once she gets here and he wants her in full isolation for the next week. He said he'll be up to see her once she's been settled for a few hours. Otherwise…that's it for now. A porter will be bringing her up soon and she'll be put in room 204. Sounds good?"
Blaine nodded and smiled. Ever since Nora turned 18 (and subsequently hit the age limit for the pediatric unit) she had been a frequent flyer to the cardiology floor. Nora had been experiencing trouble with her heart ever since she was a baby. She went into manageable heart failure when she was 16 years old, but as the years went on her condition got worse and she was placed on the transplant list. Kurt had called Blaine on the floor when he had found out that Nora was getting a new heart. Kurt knew that Nora was one of Blaine's most favourite patients. Blaine had almost cried when he found out, he was so happy.
There was a five year age gap between the two of them, but they always had something in common to talk about. Despite the amount of care that she required when her heart failure was at its worst, Nora was an easy patient to care for. She was always smiling and optimistic and she never got angry whenever Blaine woke her in the middle of the night to give her medication, or to get her vital signs. Her parents were lovely to talk to. Sometimes, Nora would convince her mother to bring Blaine a coffee and biscotti when she head down to the Starbucks in the cafeteria.
Yeah, she was one of his favourites.
Blaine jotted down a few things on his organizational sheet before finding Natalie and asking her if she could cover for him while he was busy settling Nora in. She agreed quickly and Blaine was just about to head back to the nurses' station when he saw a porter and one of the nurses from the ICU rolling a stretcher out of the service elevator and bringing it down the hall towards room 204.
He walked quickly down the hall to meet them, but he stopped before going in the room. Nora was supposed to be in full isolation, so that meant that anyone who went into Nora's room needed to wear a disposable isolation gown, gloves and a mask. He donned his protective equipment quickly and walked into the room to help the porter and the nurse transfer Nora from the stretcher to the bed. As soon as he helped settle Nora comfortably in bed and hooked up her oxygen, he turned around to speak with the nurse who had come with her.
"Are you her nurse?" the ICU nurse asked.
"I am," said Blaine, looking over at Nora and winking at her. Although she had a mask covering her nose and mouth, Blaine knew she was smiling from the way her eyes were crinkled at the corners.
"I'm assuming you've gotten report for your charge nurse? Nothing's changed since then. I'll bring the chart over to the front desk for you."
"Thanks."
Once the nurse and the porter left, Blaine walked over to the bed and gripped one of Nora's hands between his own.
"Hi, sweetie! How are you feeling?"
"Like a million bucks, compared to before. But, I'd feel better if I could take all this stuff off," she said, gesturing to the gown and mask she was wearing. "Am I allowed, Blaine?"
"You definitely are," said Blaine. "I know this stuff is a pain in the ass, but we really don't want you to catch an infection while you're recovering."
Blaine helped her take off the offending material before tugging up the blankets at the end of the bed and tucking them around her.
"You look a lot better, compared to the last time I saw you. I'm glad."
"You know, I did just get a haircut. Thanks for noticing, Blaine," she teased.
Blaine laughed and shook his head. "Come on, I want a hug before I have to get to all the official stuff."
Blaine leaned over the bed to wrap his arms around Nora in a comforting hug. The squeezed each other for a moment before Blaine pulled away.
"I'm glad you're my nurse today, Blaine," said Nora, quietly.
"Me too."
Blaine pulled over a blood pressure cart from the other side of the room and starting wrapping a blood pressure cuff around one of Nora's biceps. "Where's your parents?" he asked.
"I told them to go home for a little bit. It's seems like they've been here all day and all night since the surgery."
"Plus, I bet they've been driving you crazy," said Blaine.
Nora laughed loudly and rolled her eyes. "Just a little bit."
Blaine worked quietly for a few moments. He jotted down Nora's vitals and listened to her lungs and the strong beat of the new heart in her chest. He found the strong pulses in her wrists on her feet and checked for any swelling. He checked the thick white dressing that was sitting dry and intact in the center of her chest. Everything looked good.
Natalie popped her head in the room to hand Blaine the telemetry monitor that Nora would be hooked up to for the rest of her stay. The monitor was a tiny little device that had six wires, or leads, that would each be attached to a special sticker on a specific spot on Nora's chest. As long as the stickers were in the right spots and all of the wires were properly connected, Nora's heart rate would be constantly visible to the staff on a monitor at the nurse's station.
"Blaine, have you every stuck one of those stickers to your chest and left it on there for a few days before?" asked Nora.
"I can't say I have….why?"
"Then you can't possible know why everyone hates them. I wish I didn't have to wear them," she pouted.
"Oh, I know why everyone hates them," said Blaine. "It's because the glue is super sticky and it hurts more than a band-aid when you take it off and the glue stays on your skin forever unless you have the special alcohol swabs like we do that can take the glue off."
"Exactly."
"Just be happy you aren't a man, Nora. It's probably about ten times worse when you have a hairy chest, even if we do shave where the stickers go."
"Yeah, you're probably right," she agreed.
"I'm going to start putting these on now, okay?" said Blaine, holding up the stickers.
He worked quickly to apply the stickers on her chest and hooking up the wires. After doing it for a few years, he was a pro, but he knew he made some of his female patients feel a little uncomfortable, so he tried to make it as quick as possible.
After re-buttoning her gown and tucking her back in, Blaine placed the call bell with Nora's reach and told her he would be back to check on her soon, but to call if she needed anything.
Since it was the middle of the afternoon, Blaine was granted his lunch break and some time to catch up on all of his charting after he had checked on all of his patients. He had even had some time to chat with Nora's parents for a few minutes before he got called away to help another nurse. Nora's mom had brought him a coffee from Starbucks and he didn't refrain from giving her a hug. Nora and her parents were in good spirits, which in turn made Blaine very happy.
It was 3pm and Blaine was just signing off on the last bit of charting he was doing when Colleen called him over to the wall of telemetry monitors. Colleen had a phone in her hand and was looking a little panicked. One of the screens was flashing red, which meant…..
Oh shit. No no no no no.
The screen that was flashing red was the screen that had Nora's name up in the corner.
"Blaine, Nora's coding."
All of the sudden, the blaring noise of the emergency call bell filled the room. Blaine didn't have to look at the call bell monitor to know what room was calling.
"Did you page…"
"Dr. Hummel is on his way."
"Should we call…?"
"I'm calling the code right now. Go to the room. We'll follow with the cart."
The next ten minutes happened in a blur.
Blaine remembers running into Nora's room to see her parents' terrified faces and Nora lying unconscious in bed. Blaine remembers almost yelling at her parents to please wait outside. He remembers laying the bed down flat, all while checking Nora's pulse and hoping to feel something, anything, please. He remembers the code team rushing in and helping to turn Nora's unconscious body so they could slip a hard plastic board under her to help facilitate CPR. Blaine remembers taking off her gown and starting to pump on her chest.
Around him, people were methodically working to save Nora's life. A tube was placed down her throat and someone was using an Ambu-bag to manually pump oxygen in her lungs. Someone else was hanging bags of normal saline and pushing medications into Nora's IV. Someone was setting up the defibrillator and someone was taking blood from Nora to send to the lab. Someone was recording everything that was happening. Dr. Hummel was studying the cardiac monitor and telling whoever was in charge of the defibrillator to get ready.
Blaine remembers someone stopping his compressions and tugging him off the bed so they could get ready to use the defibrillator. He remembers the sounds of the shocks reverberating throughout the room. Three, four times, Nora was shocked and nothing was happening. No medications were working. No amount of voltage was strong enough. Blaine remembers Kurt calling out that she was going into ventricular fibrillation in a defeated voice and Blaine knew it was over. No one could come back from ventricular fibrillation. It was something that couldn't be fixed.
Within 30 seconds of being in v-fib, Nora's heart stopped beating.
It was over.
"Time of death, 15:43. I'll go talk to the parents," said Kurt in a cold voice. He walked briskly out of the room without as much as glancing at anyone.
As soon as he walked out, most of the staff that was in the room started cleaning up and putting things away. Blaine knew he should be helping but it felt like he could barely breathe, he was trying so hard not to cry.
Nora was gone. She was awake and smiling and relatively healthy twenty minutes ago. And now she was dead.
"Blaine, sweetie, maybe you should go take a break. We've got this," said Natalie. She rubbed his arm gently and guided him towards the door. "If you want to go home, I'll talk to Colleen about it for you, okay? I know you and Nora were really close. Just take some time for yourself and come back when you're ready."
Blaine nodded and walked out of the room without saying a word. He walked straight into the tiny room where they held report in the morning, closed the door, sat down and immediately started sobbing.
So many things were running through his mind. Nora's parents had lost their only child three days after getting a second chance at life. Nora wouldn't graduate from high school at the end of the year; she wouldn't get to go to her prom. She would never go to college and fall in love and get married and have kids. She would have had so much living to do and now….she had nothing. In the back of his mind, Blaine hoped that she was happy and comfortable wherever she was right now. He wasn't a huge believer in heaven but in cases like this…he couldn't help but hope there was some sort of happy after-life.
He was crying so hard that he was practically gasping for breath. Tears and snot were dripping down his face but he didn't care. Never in his career had he ever developed a relationship like the one he had with Nora and he had never cried like this over anyone's death except for hers. Blaine had worked quite a few codes over his time on the cardiology floor and they had barely fazed him once he had done one or two. But this code; it made him question the point of the whole procedure if it wasn't going to work.
His heart hurt, he felted absolutely crushed. He didn't even want to think about Kurt breaking the news to Nora's parents. And…oh, god. Kurt.
Kurt had been Nora's primary cardiologist for months. He worked for more than 8 hours to remove Nora's sick heart and replace it with a new and healthy one. He watched her recover and improve over the last couple of days. He, along with Nora's parents and Nora herself had hope that she would recover and lead a relatively normal life.
But it was all over. Blaine couldn't even begin to comprehend what his friend might be going through right now. And, unlike Blaine, Kurt couldn't go hide in a room and cry. He had to break the news to the Thompsons that their daughter had died. He had to complete a bunch of paperwork and sign the death certificate.
Blaine continued to cry messily and wallow in the grief he was experiencing. He didn't know how long he had been sitting in the tiny room when someone knocked on the door. Blaine sniffed loudly and wiped his hands under his eyes to clear the lingering tears away.
"Come in," he said in a thick voice.
Kurt walked into the room and shut the door behind him. Despite running a stressful code and having to tell Nora's parents that she died, Kurt's white coat, striped dress shirt and tie still looked pristine. However his face expressed a myriad of emotions. His eyes were red, but not puffy and swollen like Blaine knew his were. Even if he hadn't cried much, Blaine knew his friend must feel as heartbroken as he did at the moment. Just the thought of what Kurt was must be feeling made Blaine let out another sob.
"Oh, sweetheart. Come here." Kurt rushed over to Blaine, opening his arms. Blaine stood and let Kurt envelop him in a tight hug. Kurt started to rub his back gently and Blaine just squeezed him harder.
"Are you okay?" Blaine mumbled into Kurt's shoulder.
"I've been better," said Kurt sadly. "Are you okay?"
"Not at all," said Blaine. Kurt pressed a light kiss to the top his Blaine curls in comfort.
"I'm so sorry, Blaine. I know you and Nora had a strong connection. She talked about you all the time, you know? She loved how you always treated her like a person and not just another patient."
"She told you that?" said Blaine, voice muffled.
"Mhmm, she did. She asked about you every time I saw her. This was even before me and you had even become friends."
Blaine pulled away from where he was snuggled into Kurt's shoulder and smiled the biggest smile he could manage (which was barely a smile at all).
"I never should have gotten so attached, to her," he said. "I've never felt this upset about a patient. I just…why? Why did this have to happen to her? She had such an amazing life ahead. This surgery was supposed to save her life and it didn't. Why?"
"I don't know," said Kurt in a raspy voice. He sniffed and wiped his eyes. "I did everything right. I had three other surgeons assisting me and no one pointed out any mistakes. She recovered quickly. She was stable. She was bright and lively and lovely as every this morning during rounds. I don't know, Blaine. I don't know. It could have been something I did…maybe I missed something….maybe…"
"Kurt, listen to me," said Blaine forcefully. "This isn't your fault. There was a complication after the surgery. It happens. Nora and her parents knew about the complications that could occur. You did everything you could."
Kurt lets out a choked laugh and sniffles a bit. "You sound exactly like me when I tell family members that their loved one has died. Oh god, I'm making this even worse, aren't it?" He laughed a little and shook his head. "You have to forgive me, usually I'm immune to these kinds of situations but…this one has hit me pretty hard."
"Well at least you could keep yourself composed enough through the whole ordeal, unlike me."
"Only because I've had to do it so many times. This is the first time I had such a young patient die on me though. It really fucking sucks."
Blaine snorted. "Yeah, it really fucking sucks."
They both took a seat at the table, still not ready to leave the little room and face whatever had to come next. They sat together silently, grieving.
"She had such a big life ahead of her, I could feel it. As soon as that new heart started beating in her chest, I just got this amazing rush of accomplishment. I just…I can't believe this. She was going to graduate high school this summer. She was going to go to college. It's so goddamn unfair. She had the perfect chance to lead a normal life and it was taken away."
"I know," said Blaine quietly. He tried to suppress the oncoming tears that were prickling at the back of his eyes, but he couldn't. He wiped his eyes quickly, trying to hide his tears from Kurt, but it didn't work.
Kurt rested his hand on Blaine's shoulder and squeezed, as if to reassure him that Kurt didn't judge him for his nonstop tears.
"Did she tell you that she was planning on going to nursing school?" Kurt asked.
Blaine's eyes went wide in shock. "No. Seriously? Why?!"
"I never asked her, but it was implied that the nurses who cared for her influenced her decision to become a nurse. I think you played a big part in her life, Blaine. Even if you didn't know."
"Kurt, if you keep saying things like that I'll never stop crying," said Blaine, wiping away more tears.
Kurt tugged him into another hug and whispered apologies into Blaine's ear. As they pulled away, they both had blush colouring their cheeks. They both looked away shyly.
"And…there's something else she said to me a few days ago that stuck with me," said Kurt.
"Kurt, I don't think my heart can handle much more of this, honestly…"
"No, I promised, it's happy! At least, I think it is…" Kurt reassured.
"Well, what is it then?"
"She um…"Kurt hesitated. He was fidgeting in his chair a bit, visibly nervous. "She told me that I should ask you out on a real date because I really like you, Blaine and I've kind of had a huge crush on you forever and I don't want to ruin our friendship or anything but I figured, what the hell, because you only live once and I didn't want to spend the rest of my career having some sort of unrequited loved for the cute, amazing cardiology nurse and yeah I'm going to shut up now."
Kurt's clapped a hand over his mouth, seemingly shocked at his own openness.
"Sorry, Kurt. I barely caught any of that because you were talking so fast, but did you just say you wanted to ask me out on a date?" asked Blaine, eyes wide in shock and amusement.
"Um…"Kurt blushed. "Yes. Yes, I did."
"You called me cute and amazing."
"Well you are!" said Kurt indignantly. "It's not fair!"
Blaine laughed and smiled wide, something he thought he wouldn't be able to do after today's tragedy.
"I'd love to go on a date with you Kurt."
"Really?"
"Absolutely. I'm free tomorrow night."
"Pick you up at 7 o'clock?"
"Sure."
They just looked at each other, smiling wide and blushing like nothing else mattered.
"She would have wanted this to happen," said Blaine, looking up to the ceiling and smiling sadly.
"I know she would have," said Kurt comfortingly.
A loud knock on the door interrupted the moment. Natalie poked her head in the room. Her eyes widened when she realized Blaine was sitting with Dr. Hummel, but she didn't say anything about it.
"Sorry to interrupt, but Colleen wants to talk to you Blaine. I think she's letting you go early if you want to."
"Thanks, Nats. I'll be there in a minute."
She nodded and left, closing the door behind her.
Kurt and Blaine both stood up from their seats at the table and got read to leave the little room and go back to work. Kurt started walking towards the door and Blaine followed.
I should kiss him. I want to kiss him.
He took a leap of faith.
"Wait, Kurt."
Kurt turned around, looking at Blaine curiously.
Blaine approached him, leaning in closely so their faces were inches apart.
Blaine cupped the side of Kurt's jaw and leaned in to place a soft kiss on Kurt's lips. Kurt responded in seconds, pressing back firmly with his plush lips.
They broke apart after a few seconds, eyes shining with wide smiles.
"You only live one, right?" said Blaine.
Kurt laughed and took his hand, giving it a squeeze.
"Right."
Author's Note (Part 2):
Hi everyone! It's been so long since I posted something and I apologize. I've really missed writing! Can you believe this thing has been sitting in my WIP folder since October? Jeez. I hope you enjoyed this fic :) There is definitely more to come from this 'verse, so keep your eyes peels. Also, feel free to come visit me at my tumblr, which is here. Thanks for reading!