Medically Speaking

Chapter 8

There's a bitter irony to being woken up by a group of people arguing over whether they should wake you up or not. Made even more bitter by the strongest supporter for allowing you to sleep being the one who is, by far, the loudest.

"Should she be sleeping? Isn't she supposed to be watching Brandon?"

"Those alarms could wake the fucking dead, Marc." That was North's dulcet tones.

"Sean sleeps in our rooms all the time when we're in the hospital. It should be fine." That was Axel.

Marc wasn't convinced. "Maybe we should wake her up, anyway. What went wrong yesterday wasn't something you could see on the monitors. What if we miss something?"

North sounded closer. "She's been up all fucking night, just let her fucking sleep," he growled loudly. If it weren't for the morphine, I'm pretty sure he would have pierced through the post-anesthesia fog and woken up Brandon, too. Somebody needs to work on volume control with this guy.

"She's going to feel weird if she wakes up and we're all just sitting here staring at her," Marc argued from across the room. "Especially since she's holding Brandon's hand." Like his words broke a spell, I became acutely aware of how my skin felt against Brandon's. Fuck. Oh, well, at least he's still calm.

Yep. That's the important thing here.

Axel was riding the fence on whether or not to wake me up. "Give her a few minutes and then wake her up." He dropped into one of the chairs littered around the room, the legs squeaking under the strain of his sudden weight.

"You guys suck at sneaking," I groan into the mattress, which has adjusted around my face thanks to the pressure sensor that's supposed to prevent bed sores. All three of them stop moving as I sit up and glare at the first person that crosses my line of vision and it happens to be Axel purely by chance. "Haven't you guys been doing this for at least a decade?"

North surprises me by being the first to apologize. "I'm sorry we woke you up, Joey."

Rubbing my eyes with my free hand, I reply, "No worries, I've told half your team at this point that sleeping isn't for hospitals." A glance up at the wall to the dry-erase board that says that Mara left about thirty minutes ago, so I probably got just enough of a nap to make me more tired. "I shouldn't have been sleeping, anyway. Brandon woke up pretty agitated about half an hour ago and we had to give him a morphine bolus."

In an epic personality shift, North went from apologetic to stormy in a second flat. "What the fuck happened? Why the fuck didn't you text Doc?!"

Instead of answering him directly, I looked Axel in the eye and explained, "There wasn't any reason to call Dr. Green. Brandon was never in danger and it was something that was easily handled by me and the nurse on duty."

North and Marc started to argue, but Axel waved them down. "Explain to me what happened."

Reluctantly, I untangled my hand from Brandon's so I could sit up even straighter. "Pain following surgery is common. It woke him up and he was still out of it because of the anesthesia. He was confused, concerned about no one being in here, and within normal boundaries for postoperative discomfort. He calmed down once I assured him that Corey was fine and being taken care of by Raven and a single bolus of morphine provided enough comfort for him to fall back asleep."

Marc, while not angry like North, still seemed uncertain. "You should have at least called him when you were done so he could be kept up to speed."

Typically, I'm not dealing with Academy doctors that are still on the case with their patients. I stay in contact with them, but I usually get them once it's determined that the Academy doctors can't provide the specialized care that they need. Regardless, this level of contact is insane by most standards. "I'm only supposed to call Dr. Green when there's an emergency or something out of the ordinary. There was no emergency and it will be in his chart once Dr. Green returns after a much needed rest."