Three Strikes [✓]

Stillness

Chapter Sixty-Three: Stillness

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Selatapura, Usea.
October 31st, 2019.
2200hrs.

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Naomi was used to functioning on a lack of sleep, but with the added emotions from the day piling onto her it left her infinitely more exhausted than she would have been. Every mess they'd been in since the blackout hadn't even exhausted her as much as this operation had.. She was pretty sure she probably looked like a zombie. That being said, she wasn't able to do anything more than sit there at her father's bedside, half asleep but still fully aware of everything going on around her.

The last few hours had been a blur. They'd explained her father's condition to the best of their ability, and she'd nodded along and worked it out in her head and tried not to make it obvious she was on the verge of bursting into tears. Apparently, when a drone had hit the ground and blown up several yards from where her father had been, it sent debris and shrapnel flying and her father was unlucky enough to be caught in range of it. He'd made it out without a spinal injury by some miracle, but he was working with a few crushed bones, a bleed in his brain from the TBI, a punctured lung from rib fractures, and shrapnel lodged in a few places. With the operating rooms and equipment left behind on the carrier and their limited training in surgery, they were able to fix the larger problems, but without any medical officers and surgeons on board they were hesitant to do anything more than stabilize him and work on his lung. But they said the fact he was still alive was a miracle and they were monitoring him around the clock.

They kept him in one of the precious few ICU rooms in the sick bay, and they let Naomi stay by his side when she'd asked. She had pulled up a chair to place by the bedside and leaned over to rest her head, burying her head in one of her arms as a makeshift pillow while she held on to her father's limp hand with her free one. The monitors hooked up displayed his heart rate, respiratory rate, blood pressure, and any other vitals they needed. At first any deviation from the steady rate they wanted him to maintain startled Naomi out of her sleep when an alarm would ring to alert them to it, but once she realized that nothing was spiking or dropping to ridiculous levels she didn't tense when she heard them. Part of her wished her sister was here to reassure her that no one was lying to her or sugarcoating anything, but the other half of her head was grateful none of her family had to be there.

She wondered what was going to happen from there. Once she could get in touch with them, how was she supposed to tell her family that he was going to come back injured? Or worse, in a casket. None of his injuries were going to immediately kill him from her understanding, but what if something happened during the night? Or tomorrow? What if they needed some kind of surgery or other procedure the combat medics or the carrier just couldn't supply? Naomi tried not to think about the worst case scenarios, trying to focus on the fact he was alive, but she couldn't help it. He hadn't even woken up yet. He hadn't moved. He was alive, but he wasn't out of the woods yet. None of them were.

Naomi was only just starting to drift out enough that she was almost resting when there was a light spike on the monitor. One she initially ignored, until she felt her father's fingers tighten around her hand and heard him move, followed by short, muffled coughs. Her head shot up in an instant, and she looked over to find him trying to get himself conscious again, eyes squeezed shut in pain. She gave his hand a squeeze, not sure if he was actually waking up or having some kind of a problem, and asked as best she could without sounding scared or small, "Dad?"