Second Chances Chapter Eight
John Finally Sees Harold
Reese woke up in pain, covered in a cold sweat, trying to shake the remnants of the dream from his consciousness. He just couldn’t shake the feeling something was horribly wrong.
Reese looked around and seeing that he was alone in the room tried to get out of bed. He just couldn’t dispel the apprehension troubling him. John needed to get to Harold but his body wouldn’t allow him to even to move. Reese hurt terribly; he was so weak it took everything he had in him to just sit up.
As Reese tried once again to move, a nurse hurried into the room. “Please don’t try to get up!” she scolded and made her patient lie back down. John pleaded to go see his friend but she was adamant Mr. Richards should stay in the bed, “You can see Mr. Bunting tomorrow!” she promised.
When she asked if he was in pain, Reese couldn’t deny it. The nurse left the room and came back shortly with a vial of medication. She drew a syringe of whatever was in the vial and injected it into the IV. Soon the John’s pain lessoned and though he tried to stay awake he soon drifted back to sleep.
John woke up to the morning, sun shining through the open shutters of his room. The first thing he felt was the pain, although it was noticeable, it was back to the dull throbbing he had experienced after the first time he regained consciousness.
Reese’s mind was now clear although he was still weak in body. The sense of foreboding his nightmares brought him faded only a fraction. However, the feeling he was in a dream even while being fully awake was gone. The delirium that made those dreams seem so real was gone too.
Heather came into the room even before John had the decided to use the call button. After the nurse asked him how he was feeling and checked his vitals she entered everything into the laptop that was on a stand next to the bed. She informed Mr. Richards that once the doctor came into do his examination she was sure John would be ready to be taken off the IV fluids and have his catheter removed.
She explained to him if he needed to use the restroom to call her and she would come in to help him. They did not want him to fall because of his weakened state.
The nurse also told Mr. Richards someone from physical therapy would be in once the doctor gave the okay, to help John get up and move around; it was one of the things that would help get him out of the hospital sooner.
All John cared about now was being able to move around. Reese needed to see Harold, it was the only thing John could think about, the dreams he had had were still haunting him.
When Heather was ready to leave the room she told John she was ordering him some breakfast, she was sure Mr. Richards was hungry. John realized he was famished. He knew he had to eat something, get some of his strength back. Reese wouldn’t be any help to Harold if he could barely lift himself up out of bed.
It wasn’t but a few minutes later that Dr. Pradipta came into the room to check John over. Reese waited patiently while the surgeon gave him a thorough examination. Even though the doctor frowned at a few things it seemed he was pleased with John’s over all progress.
As Reese was being checked out, he noticed a whiteboard on the wall across from his bed. John saw the date; it was now the 21st, and the accident was on the 16th. He had been in the hospital for five days.
The doctor heard John’s astonished, “Five days?” At John’s negative nod to his question, “You didn’t know?”, he told John that he had developed a minor infection with a low grade fever. "Mr. Reese you have been in and out of consciousness for the past four days."
“Harold? What about Harold?” was all John could manage to say, shocked that he had been out of it for so long.
Dr. Pradipta tried to calm John down as best he could. The surgeon could tell there was something more between the two men besides employer-employee, friend for friend. The things he had to tell Reese would be upsetting.
John listened sadly as the doctor informed him, “I’m sorry, we were able to bring your friend out of the coma and he regained consciousness earlier this morning, but there were complications like we had feared. It seems Mr. Wren has no memory of who he is or anything that has happened to him. We don’t know at this time if it is temporary or permanent.”
“I need to see Harold.” Reese told Dr. Pradipta, almost pleading with him.
“Once we take you off the fluids and the catheter is out, after you eat something, then I send in the PT, he will take you to see your friend.
Pradipta warned John that Harold was now sedated; the shock of waking up half blind and with no memory put Mr. Wren into a state of shock.
An hour later Reese was waiting for the physical therapist who helped him walk about for a few minutes and then at Reese’s insistence helped John into a wheelchair to take him to Mr. Bunting.
John thought he had prepared himself for the worst, but nothing could stop the sob that wrenched from his throat when he saw Harold.
Reese wouldn’t have recognized the man if not for the tuft of brown hair that hadn’t been shaved from the man’s head. Half of his face and head was covered in bandage; the rest was crisscrossed with stitched cuts and green to blackish colored bruises.
John asked the PT to leave them alone for a few minutes, and rolled himself over to his friend’s bed.
John spoke quietly to its sleeping occupant. “I love you Harold, no matter what.” Reached out and held Finch’s hand.
“Grace? Grace?” Harold mumbled in his drug induced sleep.
Reese started, pulling back on Harold’s hand, rousing him from his sleep.
Harold head turned towards John, his non-bandaged eye trying to focus.
“Who are you?”
John couldn’t speak, he just let go of the hand he had been holding.
It only lasted a few minutes, Harold trying to wake, to concentrate on John’s face, then he drifted back to sleep, the sedatives again pulling him under.
Reese could only sob out quietly, “I’m John.”
John sat in the wheelchair next to Finch’s bed, just watching him sleep. Anyone looking at him would think Reese was being stoic, quietly watching his friend. But the hardened man, veteran of many covert operations, who could kill with his bare hands, was breaking down on the inside. The ex-op felt like his heart had been shredded into pieces.
The disfigured man in the bed was no longer the Harold that only a scant week ago had professed his love for John. To him Reese was a stranger. Harold hadn’t called for John in his sleep, but his former fiance. It shocked Reese at first, then the words pierced his heart like a dagger.
Eventually the PT came back into Finch’s room. All Reese could do was sob out, “Get me out of here.”
~*~
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen