Tick Tock Part Three - Dock

Stan

Waiting was the worst. As a detective and registered contact, Reed had gotten a few more details than usual for someone who wasn't blood related. Stan had been shot three times. Two of them were superficial, but one was potentially life threatening. They couldn't confirm anything, but they'd assumed it to be gang related. That was usually the case with young men from that neighbourhood who came in with gunshot wounds. Reed didn't confirm or deny it, but of course he knew. There had been multiple other fatalities at the scene, and Stan had been the only survivor. He'd been in poor condition on arrival. They couldn't give any guarantees or reassurances.

So far, he was the only guardian there. The hospital had tried multiple times to contact Mrs Lent, but there had been no response. They'd called Reed because he'd been listed as a secondary contact. It was something he'd agreed to years ago for a lot of the kids on his street. If they ended up in the hospital, they'd want someone familiar to be there, so if their mums were unreachable, he'd agreed to being listed second. This was the first time he'd ever been called on. Suddenly, he could relate to Jack, Tina, and Elijah a little more. Sitting in the waiting room, not knowing if Stan was alive or dead, sucked big time. Sitting still was impossible, so he took to pacing. He'd really have to thank Tina the next time he saw her. He couldn't even count the times he'd done this to her over the years.

Nines stood rigid by the wall, watching as he stalked back and forth. There were a few others in the small room. A middle-aged woman and a small child, an older man who seemed to have come directly from a construction site, a middle-aged couple who seemed quite shaken up. Such anxiety was to be expected in the waiting room for emergency cases, but the atmosphere wasn't helping any of them to calm down. Nines watched as nurses came and went over the next five hours, the occupants of the room slowly changing. A young man and his son came in, an old lady and her daughter or carer. Each time the nurse entered, all heads raised hopefully before dropping in disappointment if they weren't the ones called. Conversations were often taken into the hall outside. Cries of grief were heard as bad news was delivered, or sobs of relief if the news was good.

"Detective Reed?" It was the same young nurse calling, after almost six hours of waiting. Six hours in which he'd paced restlessly and tried to contact Mrs Lent on multiple occasions. She was probably working. He didn't know where she worked these days and it wasn't listed in the database, so Nines couldn't find out. Reed paused upon hearing his name and stepped out into the corridor with Nines following at a polite distance. "The surgery was a success. The bullet tore through his intestines in multiple areas, but all the tears have been found and sealed. He was extremely lucky," the young woman recounted through her own fatigue. By Nines' estimation, she was coming towards the end of a twelve-hour shift. She had dark rings beneath her eyes and her mousy hair was coming loose from its low tail. Her green scrubs looked somewhat crumpled from hours of rushing around the ER, though they were mercifully unstained.

"So he's going to be alright?" Reed finally breathed in relief as the nurse nodded her agreement. After a few final words, he was given permission to visit the ward. Nines reflected upon how different it was visiting this young man to the way it had been coming in with Reed not so long ago. It wasn't that the ward was dirty, but it lacked the gleaming, pristine whiteness of the private wards. The lights were a little dimmer, with a darker yellow hue. The room was loud and open, with six beds all spaced out with their own long yellow curtains that could be pulled round. Most of the curtains were open and a few of the occupants were talking loudly between their beds. Three of them were awake, all of them older men approaching their sixties or seventies. Two of them were sleeping and seemed extremely frail. It did not seem promising that someone so young and vulnerable had been placed in such a gloomy setting. The men didn't seem unkind, however, their physical conditions did not seem ideal, or encouraging. There were various tubes and breathing apparatus in use, suggesting they were extremely unwell.