Bulletproof (20/52)
Title: Bulletproof
Author: blasthisass
Rating: PG-13 to NC-17
Summary: AU- when Luke is shot by Colonel Mayer, his condition quickly deteriorates. In order to save his life, Bob calls in a young, hotshot doctor from Texas, brilliant and already making a name for himself.
Disclaimers: All characters and such property of ATWT, CBS and anyone else who can legally take credit for them. If they were mine, I would take infinitely better care of them.
Title from the song by La Roux. There is dialogue from both the time in which the story takes place as well as the LuRe storyline.
A/N: This is unbeta'd, so any mistakes are mine.
Comments much appreciated . . . I love them like Reid loves Luke.
Previous parts: prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19
***
“Luke, honey, are you by any chance going over to the hospital?”
Luke glanced back at Emma just as he was about to wheel himself out of the kitchen to his mom’s waiting car. Ever since even before Thanksgiving, Lily had taken to only coming into the farmhouse if she was ever sure that Holden was inside.
“I am, Grandma. Burt and I have an appointment,” he said cheerfully, glancing out the newly-repaired screen and smiling at the season’s first snowfall. “Why do you ask?”
She shuffled to the fridge, and rifled through it purposefully, her curls the only things visible over the top of the door. “Will you be seeing that doctor of yours? Dr. Reed?”
Luke snorted. “Dr. Oliver,” he corrected, smiling warmly. “And, yeah. Why?”
“Well, I just felt so awful for Katie throughout Thanksgiving and then she and her friend-this Dr. Oliver of yours-left before we could eat. I wanted to get some leftovers to her as an apology and I’m sure she’d prefer that neither Jack nor Brad deliver it,” Emma replied, pulling a hearty amount of Tupperware containers out of the refrigerator, shaking her head in disappointment at her brother-in-law’s sons. “So, I figured, since you’ll be seeing Dr. Oliver anyway, you could give it to him to give to her.”
Luke nodded in agreement, wheeling himself between the appliance and island expertly. “I’m not sure if I’ll be seeing him, but I can try to find him if you like.”
Emma smiled, depositing the containers gently in his lap before cupping his face affectionately in the way only a grandmother could. “You’re such a dear,” she smiled before kissing his temple gently.
“Why, of course,” he joked before carefully maneuvering himself out of the building.
***
“Hey, Gretchen, do you know if Dr. Oliver is around?” Luke inquired, wheeling himself toward reception and smiling at one of the many nurses whose names he just seemed to know. “I wanted to drop something off after I meet with Burt.”
Gretchen wrinkled her nose at him in mock unpleasantness before looking up Reid’s schedule on the computer. “If you want to find him, I’d do it sooner rather than later. He’s going into surgery in a half hour. You should be able to find upstairs in pediatrics.”
Luke nodded, smiling at her and heading toward the elevator. Before he could wheel up to it, his gaze passed over the gift shop and he paused, brow furrowing. He figured that, if Reid was up in pediatrics and about to go into surgery, that must mean that the little girl he’d seen on Halloween, Annie Judd, must be the one he’s operating on. And as much as Luke knew that what he was thinking might not be the most conventional thing for a complete stranger to do, but if he were to be conventional in a case like this, then he certainly wouldn’t be himself.
***
“You know, that’s a pretty good look for you, kiddo,” Reid commented, smirking over the top of Annie’s chart at the person in question. “The shaved head look is in now, I think. You’ll have all the boys in first grade all over you.”
Annie crinkled her nose at him playfully as a nurse adjusted her IV and left to take the list of various allergens to the anesthesiologist. Reid put the chart down and walked over to her, smiling encouragingly. “How are you feeling?”
“A little nervous,” she admitted, her bright smile, that which brought sunshine to Reid’s heart on normal occasions, faltered slightly. Reid’s eyes crinkled sympathetically as he looked down at her, thinking that no child should have to go through the uncertainty of not knowing whether they would live to see the sun rise the next morning.
He ran a hand gently over her freshly smoothed skull, feeling a strange parental instinct to place a gentle kiss on her temple. He shook his head, murmuring that he had to take care of something, but that the nurses would be back shortly to take her into the operating room. He moved to walk away from her bedside, but her small hand wrapped itself around three of his five fingers and tugged him back. He looked at her in concern, only to see the worried look replaced by one of intense bravery.
“You’ll do good, Dr. Oliver,” she informed him sternly, sounding partially like she was concerned that he was worried and partially like she was informing him that the surgery would progress in that manner and daring him to do something otherwise.
“It’s ‘well,’” he corrected automatically, but smiled all the same. He couldn’t believe that she was going into surgery, yet she was worried that he could be anxious about his own performance. “And you bet I will. I am the best, you know,” he informed her, winking and smiling warmly before leaving the room.
She settled back, watching him as he met with her parents and led them around the corner, disappearing beyond the field of vision offered by the open door and the little glass panel in the wall. She sighed, her hand going up to her head to marvel in the fact that her curls were all gone, wondering what she looked like.
Annie’s head dashed back to the door momentarily as she spotted the boy in the wheelchair from Halloween stopping his mode of transportation just barely inside the view of the window, a vaguely disappointed look on his face as he presumably realized that Dr. Oliver was busy. She watched him curiously, wondering if Dr. Oliver had also cut into his skull. His short hair seemed to indicate that may have been the case.
Luke wrinkled his nose as he spotted Reid disappearing around the corner, explaining something carefully to a man and a woman. He glanced to the side and spotted Annie observing him with the utmost intensity. Her eyes widened slightly as she realized she’d been caught in observing him, but that was not enough to sway her childish curiosity and get to her to look away. Luke smiled at this and slowly wheeled himself into the room.
“Hey,” he smiled warmly. “I promise I’m not being some random, creepy kid. I was looking for Dr. Oliver and I thought I’d come by.”
“You’re the boy from Halloween,” she stated simply, looking mildly displeased with the fact, as she had been when Luke had shown up on that very holiday to steal Reid away from her.
“Yeah. Luke,” Luke laughed softly. “Dr. Oliver said you were mad at me. So I came to apologize.”
As though the apology triggered some sort of typical, little girl’s reaction, Annie’s eyes darted down to the things in Luke’s lap. “Are those for me?” she inquired, as though apologies usually came bearing gifts. Perhaps in a child’s world things worked as such.
Luke laughed, glancing down at the Tupperware containers and the newest addition to their party, a gift shot teddy bear wearing dark blue hospital scrubs and sporting a toy stethoscope. “Well, the food is for Dr. Oliver from my grandma,” he grinned. “But this is for you, if you want it.”
She frowned, flashing him an expression of pure Dr. Oliver suspicion. “Why?”
Luke laughed, wheeling a little closer. “No reason. I just . . . I spent a lot of time in the hospital when I was younger,” he explained. “Not quite your age, but a little older. I was very sick, not quite as sick as you, maybe, but enough to have me scared. And, in all that time, I had my family by my side, but sometimes, when I was alone, I wished that someone could maybe, just maybe, give me something so that I wouldn’t feel alone in an empty room. Give me something that wouldn’t make me feel quite as useless as I tended to feel then. A pretend doctor that maybe I could take care of while my real doctor was taking care of me.”
Annie blinked rapidly, almost lost in the flow of words, but her annoyance with the wheelchair boy fading as she listened to the way the words spilled from his mouth, as though he felt every word would become an entity if he just infused enough passion into them. Luke smiled, and held up the bear so that she could reach for it. “Dr. Oliver would say that I bought the bear because I’m just a sappy, nice guy.”
“Too true, I would.” Luke started and his gaze shifted to meet Reid’s, who was leaning tentatively in the doorway, changed out of his usual outfit of black jeans and dress shirt, looking quite ready to go into surgery. Annie watched Luke’s face change from that of narrating passion into a beaming smile, as though he’d run into an old friend that he hadn’t seen in years. Her doctor’s expression softened to one that was almost as gentle as that which he’d often give her, but even more so. She couldn’t help associating it with the looks that her daddy gave her mommy sometimes.
“That’s what I said.”
“What’re you doing here, Snyder?” Reid asked, raising an eyebrow. The shuffle of his feet was almost indiscernible, but it conveyed his sudden nervousness. He couldn't help wondering what he'd been doing that Holden would have thought enough to ask Katie about it. It had to have amounted to something more than the moment of closeness at the farm. “I told you at Thanksgiving at that I’m a neurosurgeon, not a physical therapist.”
“Oh, but I’m sure you’ve made it infinitely clear to Burt that you’re better at his job than he is,” Luke teased. “My grandma actually packed leftovers for Katie and figured that the most painless and efficient way to get them to her was through you.”
Reid raised his eyebrows and accepted the food parcels. “Your grandmother has obviously never seen me eat,” he muttered, almost to himself, before folding them under his arm and glancing at Annie. “It's show time, kiddo. You ready?”
“I guess,” she murmured, glancing down at the teddy bear in her hands. “Luke?”
“Yeah, Annie?”
“Did Dr. Oliver cut into your head, too?”
Luke opened his mouth slightly at the question before replying softly, “Yeah, he did.”
“Were you scared?”
He paused, glancing tentatively at Reid, as though unsure how to answer the question. He’d been unconscious, but did that mean that he hadn’t been scared? He certainly would have been. “A little bit,” he replied. “But . . . I was in good hands.”
Annie smiled at this and Luke took his as his cue. “I should go, I’m already late,” he murmured, glancing up tentatively at Reid, who, to his surprise, didn’t look at all dissatisfied with Luke’s intrusion into his patient’s care. Luke waved at Annie pleasantly, wheeling himself out of the room.
“Hey, Luke?”
He paused in the doorway, surprised at this second time that she’d called out to him. “Yeah?”
“Does he have a name?” Annie inquired curiously, hugging the bear to her chest so that he was facing Luke.
“Only if you give him one,” Luke replied, smiling softly and wheeling himself out of the way as a duo of smiling nurses came into the room. As he wheeled away, he heard Reid inquire as to what she was going to name him and Annie reply, with a certain amount of pride, that ‘Dr. Olibear’ seemed like it would make the best.
Luke chuckled as he wheeled himself out of earshot, only to find himself being followed by Dr. Oliver’s quick footsteps. “Mr. Snyder,” he called, approaching the youth.
Luke gave him a mock grimace, as though Reid had flashed him the same type of angry gaze as when he was completely infuriated with him. “Oh, God. You’re not going to yell at me for interfering with patient care, are you?”
Reid laughed, an action that Luke, to his slight surprise, found was becoming something that was no longer the most extreme of rarities. “No . . . No, I think she needed that.”
“You’re not going to thank me, are you? Because I’m not sure my heart could take it without fair warning,” Luke joked.
“God, no,” Reid shuddered. “I just . . . I wanted to make sure everything was okay with you, after Thanksgiving.”
Luke started, heartbeat increasing rapidly. “I’m . . . fine. Why-”
“Oh, you know . . . making sure you’re not going to pull a one-eighty on me,” Reid shrugged, feigning nonchalance like an expert.
Luke smiled, touched by the fact that Reid seemed to care, even if he might not believe it himself. He felt as though it had been a while, if ever, that someone other than his family simply cared. Somehow, it was like he preferred the eccentricity of his secretly soft-hearted doctor caring than that of anyone else. “I’m good. I think I just overanalyze things. Overreact. It’s all good.”
“Good,” Reid muttered. He glanced at his watch, large and black against his tan skin. “I should go. Got skulls to hack into.”
“Right. Good luck,” Luke smiled, turning around momentarily to press the button on the elevator.
“Don’t need it. I’m brilliant, remember?” Reid replied cheekily, hesitating in place for a moment before turning around and walking toward the OR.
Luke smiled, eyes inexplicably drawn to the fluid movements of Reid’s scrubs. “You don’t ever let anyone forget it,” he chuckled, a thread of inexplicable affection in his voice.
Chapter 21-->
***
Thank you so much, sripley , for letting me metaphorically borrow Dr. Olibear! I would have felt a little bad just taking him. I got the idea of an Annie/Luke scene and I just couldn’t get it out of my head!
Author: blasthisass
Rating: PG-13 to NC-17
Summary: AU- when Luke is shot by Colonel Mayer, his condition quickly deteriorates. In order to save his life, Bob calls in a young, hotshot doctor from Texas, brilliant and already making a name for himself.
Disclaimers: All characters and such property of ATWT, CBS and anyone else who can legally take credit for them. If they were mine, I would take infinitely better care of them.
Title from the song by La Roux. There is dialogue from both the time in which the story takes place as well as the LuRe storyline.
A/N: This is unbeta'd, so any mistakes are mine.
Comments much appreciated . . . I love them like Reid loves Luke.
Previous parts: prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19
***
“Luke, honey, are you by any chance going over to the hospital?”
Luke glanced back at Emma just as he was about to wheel himself out of the kitchen to his mom’s waiting car. Ever since even before Thanksgiving, Lily had taken to only coming into the farmhouse if she was ever sure that Holden was inside.
“I am, Grandma. Burt and I have an appointment,” he said cheerfully, glancing out the newly-repaired screen and smiling at the season’s first snowfall. “Why do you ask?”
She shuffled to the fridge, and rifled through it purposefully, her curls the only things visible over the top of the door. “Will you be seeing that doctor of yours? Dr. Reed?”
Luke snorted. “Dr. Oliver,” he corrected, smiling warmly. “And, yeah. Why?”
“Well, I just felt so awful for Katie throughout Thanksgiving and then she and her friend-this Dr. Oliver of yours-left before we could eat. I wanted to get some leftovers to her as an apology and I’m sure she’d prefer that neither Jack nor Brad deliver it,” Emma replied, pulling a hearty amount of Tupperware containers out of the refrigerator, shaking her head in disappointment at her brother-in-law’s sons. “So, I figured, since you’ll be seeing Dr. Oliver anyway, you could give it to him to give to her.”
Luke nodded in agreement, wheeling himself between the appliance and island expertly. “I’m not sure if I’ll be seeing him, but I can try to find him if you like.”
Emma smiled, depositing the containers gently in his lap before cupping his face affectionately in the way only a grandmother could. “You’re such a dear,” she smiled before kissing his temple gently.
“Why, of course,” he joked before carefully maneuvering himself out of the building.
***
“Hey, Gretchen, do you know if Dr. Oliver is around?” Luke inquired, wheeling himself toward reception and smiling at one of the many nurses whose names he just seemed to know. “I wanted to drop something off after I meet with Burt.”
Gretchen wrinkled her nose at him in mock unpleasantness before looking up Reid’s schedule on the computer. “If you want to find him, I’d do it sooner rather than later. He’s going into surgery in a half hour. You should be able to find upstairs in pediatrics.”
Luke nodded, smiling at her and heading toward the elevator. Before he could wheel up to it, his gaze passed over the gift shop and he paused, brow furrowing. He figured that, if Reid was up in pediatrics and about to go into surgery, that must mean that the little girl he’d seen on Halloween, Annie Judd, must be the one he’s operating on. And as much as Luke knew that what he was thinking might not be the most conventional thing for a complete stranger to do, but if he were to be conventional in a case like this, then he certainly wouldn’t be himself.
***
“You know, that’s a pretty good look for you, kiddo,” Reid commented, smirking over the top of Annie’s chart at the person in question. “The shaved head look is in now, I think. You’ll have all the boys in first grade all over you.”
Annie crinkled her nose at him playfully as a nurse adjusted her IV and left to take the list of various allergens to the anesthesiologist. Reid put the chart down and walked over to her, smiling encouragingly. “How are you feeling?”
“A little nervous,” she admitted, her bright smile, that which brought sunshine to Reid’s heart on normal occasions, faltered slightly. Reid’s eyes crinkled sympathetically as he looked down at her, thinking that no child should have to go through the uncertainty of not knowing whether they would live to see the sun rise the next morning.
He ran a hand gently over her freshly smoothed skull, feeling a strange parental instinct to place a gentle kiss on her temple. He shook his head, murmuring that he had to take care of something, but that the nurses would be back shortly to take her into the operating room. He moved to walk away from her bedside, but her small hand wrapped itself around three of his five fingers and tugged him back. He looked at her in concern, only to see the worried look replaced by one of intense bravery.
“You’ll do good, Dr. Oliver,” she informed him sternly, sounding partially like she was concerned that he was worried and partially like she was informing him that the surgery would progress in that manner and daring him to do something otherwise.
“It’s ‘well,’” he corrected automatically, but smiled all the same. He couldn’t believe that she was going into surgery, yet she was worried that he could be anxious about his own performance. “And you bet I will. I am the best, you know,” he informed her, winking and smiling warmly before leaving the room.
She settled back, watching him as he met with her parents and led them around the corner, disappearing beyond the field of vision offered by the open door and the little glass panel in the wall. She sighed, her hand going up to her head to marvel in the fact that her curls were all gone, wondering what she looked like.
Annie’s head dashed back to the door momentarily as she spotted the boy in the wheelchair from Halloween stopping his mode of transportation just barely inside the view of the window, a vaguely disappointed look on his face as he presumably realized that Dr. Oliver was busy. She watched him curiously, wondering if Dr. Oliver had also cut into his skull. His short hair seemed to indicate that may have been the case.
Luke wrinkled his nose as he spotted Reid disappearing around the corner, explaining something carefully to a man and a woman. He glanced to the side and spotted Annie observing him with the utmost intensity. Her eyes widened slightly as she realized she’d been caught in observing him, but that was not enough to sway her childish curiosity and get to her to look away. Luke smiled at this and slowly wheeled himself into the room.
“Hey,” he smiled warmly. “I promise I’m not being some random, creepy kid. I was looking for Dr. Oliver and I thought I’d come by.”
“You’re the boy from Halloween,” she stated simply, looking mildly displeased with the fact, as she had been when Luke had shown up on that very holiday to steal Reid away from her.
“Yeah. Luke,” Luke laughed softly. “Dr. Oliver said you were mad at me. So I came to apologize.”
As though the apology triggered some sort of typical, little girl’s reaction, Annie’s eyes darted down to the things in Luke’s lap. “Are those for me?” she inquired, as though apologies usually came bearing gifts. Perhaps in a child’s world things worked as such.
Luke laughed, glancing down at the Tupperware containers and the newest addition to their party, a gift shot teddy bear wearing dark blue hospital scrubs and sporting a toy stethoscope. “Well, the food is for Dr. Oliver from my grandma,” he grinned. “But this is for you, if you want it.”
She frowned, flashing him an expression of pure Dr. Oliver suspicion. “Why?”
Luke laughed, wheeling a little closer. “No reason. I just . . . I spent a lot of time in the hospital when I was younger,” he explained. “Not quite your age, but a little older. I was very sick, not quite as sick as you, maybe, but enough to have me scared. And, in all that time, I had my family by my side, but sometimes, when I was alone, I wished that someone could maybe, just maybe, give me something so that I wouldn’t feel alone in an empty room. Give me something that wouldn’t make me feel quite as useless as I tended to feel then. A pretend doctor that maybe I could take care of while my real doctor was taking care of me.”
Annie blinked rapidly, almost lost in the flow of words, but her annoyance with the wheelchair boy fading as she listened to the way the words spilled from his mouth, as though he felt every word would become an entity if he just infused enough passion into them. Luke smiled, and held up the bear so that she could reach for it. “Dr. Oliver would say that I bought the bear because I’m just a sappy, nice guy.”
“Too true, I would.” Luke started and his gaze shifted to meet Reid’s, who was leaning tentatively in the doorway, changed out of his usual outfit of black jeans and dress shirt, looking quite ready to go into surgery. Annie watched Luke’s face change from that of narrating passion into a beaming smile, as though he’d run into an old friend that he hadn’t seen in years. Her doctor’s expression softened to one that was almost as gentle as that which he’d often give her, but even more so. She couldn’t help associating it with the looks that her daddy gave her mommy sometimes.
“That’s what I said.”
“What’re you doing here, Snyder?” Reid asked, raising an eyebrow. The shuffle of his feet was almost indiscernible, but it conveyed his sudden nervousness. He couldn't help wondering what he'd been doing that Holden would have thought enough to ask Katie about it. It had to have amounted to something more than the moment of closeness at the farm. “I told you at Thanksgiving at that I’m a neurosurgeon, not a physical therapist.”
“Oh, but I’m sure you’ve made it infinitely clear to Burt that you’re better at his job than he is,” Luke teased. “My grandma actually packed leftovers for Katie and figured that the most painless and efficient way to get them to her was through you.”
Reid raised his eyebrows and accepted the food parcels. “Your grandmother has obviously never seen me eat,” he muttered, almost to himself, before folding them under his arm and glancing at Annie. “It's show time, kiddo. You ready?”
“I guess,” she murmured, glancing down at the teddy bear in her hands. “Luke?”
“Yeah, Annie?”
“Did Dr. Oliver cut into your head, too?”
Luke opened his mouth slightly at the question before replying softly, “Yeah, he did.”
“Were you scared?”
He paused, glancing tentatively at Reid, as though unsure how to answer the question. He’d been unconscious, but did that mean that he hadn’t been scared? He certainly would have been. “A little bit,” he replied. “But . . . I was in good hands.”
Annie smiled at this and Luke took his as his cue. “I should go, I’m already late,” he murmured, glancing up tentatively at Reid, who, to his surprise, didn’t look at all dissatisfied with Luke’s intrusion into his patient’s care. Luke waved at Annie pleasantly, wheeling himself out of the room.
“Hey, Luke?”
He paused in the doorway, surprised at this second time that she’d called out to him. “Yeah?”
“Does he have a name?” Annie inquired curiously, hugging the bear to her chest so that he was facing Luke.
“Only if you give him one,” Luke replied, smiling softly and wheeling himself out of the way as a duo of smiling nurses came into the room. As he wheeled away, he heard Reid inquire as to what she was going to name him and Annie reply, with a certain amount of pride, that ‘Dr. Olibear’ seemed like it would make the best.
Luke chuckled as he wheeled himself out of earshot, only to find himself being followed by Dr. Oliver’s quick footsteps. “Mr. Snyder,” he called, approaching the youth.
Luke gave him a mock grimace, as though Reid had flashed him the same type of angry gaze as when he was completely infuriated with him. “Oh, God. You’re not going to yell at me for interfering with patient care, are you?”
Reid laughed, an action that Luke, to his slight surprise, found was becoming something that was no longer the most extreme of rarities. “No . . . No, I think she needed that.”
“You’re not going to thank me, are you? Because I’m not sure my heart could take it without fair warning,” Luke joked.
“God, no,” Reid shuddered. “I just . . . I wanted to make sure everything was okay with you, after Thanksgiving.”
Luke started, heartbeat increasing rapidly. “I’m . . . fine. Why-”
“Oh, you know . . . making sure you’re not going to pull a one-eighty on me,” Reid shrugged, feigning nonchalance like an expert.
Luke smiled, touched by the fact that Reid seemed to care, even if he might not believe it himself. He felt as though it had been a while, if ever, that someone other than his family simply cared. Somehow, it was like he preferred the eccentricity of his secretly soft-hearted doctor caring than that of anyone else. “I’m good. I think I just overanalyze things. Overreact. It’s all good.”
“Good,” Reid muttered. He glanced at his watch, large and black against his tan skin. “I should go. Got skulls to hack into.”
“Right. Good luck,” Luke smiled, turning around momentarily to press the button on the elevator.
“Don’t need it. I’m brilliant, remember?” Reid replied cheekily, hesitating in place for a moment before turning around and walking toward the OR.
Luke smiled, eyes inexplicably drawn to the fluid movements of Reid’s scrubs. “You don’t ever let anyone forget it,” he chuckled, a thread of inexplicable affection in his voice.
Chapter 21-->
***
Thank you so much, sripley , for letting me metaphorically borrow Dr. Olibear! I would have felt a little bad just taking him. I got the idea of an Annie/Luke scene and I just couldn’t get it out of my head!