Stardom

Waiting Game

My journey to the hospital was a blur. Barrelling through the front doors, my legs were like jelly and I barely made it to the reception desk without toppling over. The hospital was crowded with casualties presumably from the quake and rapidly bustling staff which I made my way through as quickly as I could following the directions for where they'd taken Ross.

When I finally rounded the last corner of the corridor and came face to face with his dusty and battered colleagues, I almost fell at their feet. Each face was a mask of concern and nerves, doing nothing to calm my already pounding heart, or silence the sea of worrying voices in my head.

"Tuck," I exclaimed as he stepped forward and practically caught me in his arms, holding me steady in a comforting hug. "Is he okay? What happened?"

"We haven't heard anything yet," He said sadly, pulling away, keeping a gentle hold on my arms, "They're still working on him."

"What happened?" I repeated.

He guided me toward the chairs where the others stood, JJ and a couple of the others giving me shaky smiles of welcome, their emotions clearly showing. Tuck took a chair next to me, then launched into his explanation:

"We responded to a shout at a parking garage after the quake hit. The structure was unsteady, beginning to collapse, " He began, "JJ, Ross and myself were tasked with evacuating the east side, it was in a bad way, but we'd almost gotten everyone out when we located a car beneath a heavy pillar."

He took a shaky breath, running his fingers through his hair, light dust particles falling from the path his fingers took. His words were painting a terrible image in my head as I was forced to face my worst fears, feeling tears swim in my eyes, and my hands trembling upon my knee.

"The driver was trapped, but she wasn't the only one in the car. Her young son was in the backseat... and so was her baby."

"Oh my God," I gasped.

"We got her out," He assured me, and her son. But the upper level was falling, it was crushing more and more of the car with each second. We couldn't move the car, or we would have had a complete collapse, but the roof was getting so low that it was almost impossible to reach any further." His voice began to crack as he continued, "I was getting her son clear of the car whilst Ross continued to try and reach the baby. He couldn't reach from a safe distance, so he got in, I don't even know how he managed to, but he did, and somehow, he reached her."

I let out a strangled sob, but couldn't understand, and forced myself to focus as he carried on.

"I was almost back to the car when he came tumbling out of it, cradling her in his arms, I was so relieved to see them both. But there'd been too much movement, and it had taken too long to free her, the car roof caved completely and the whole floor above came crashing down on us. We were all buried in the rubble, a couple of the others are still being treated for their injuries, but nothing major. Ross took the biggest hit, and when we dug him out, his body was shielding the baby's... but we couldn't get him to breathe."

When he'd finally caught me up on the story of what had happened, I couldn't even think what to say. I just sat there staring at the closed doors up ahead, where I knew Ross was fighting for his life.

"Did the baby make it?" I asked when I finally managed to speak.

"Yeah, they're keeping her in overnight, just to be safe, but she's fine," JJ chimed in.

"I'm glad," I whispered.

A lump caught in my throat rendering me unable to comment further, myself and the others all falling silent, our combined attention never wavering from the direction of those doors up ahead.