The hospital was at an elevation just low enough to allow for 
the flight of a helicopter, and there was one waiting on the pad on the 
advice of the paramedic who had been struggling to stabilize Jade.  The 
transfer was swiftly made, and Ryan was allowed to accompany her on the 
flight.

He had to steel himself against the sounds of the men working.  He 
managed to get hold of her hand.  The tips of the fingers were 
desperately cold.  

"Jade... Jade... don't you be goin anywhere...."

When the monitors started screaming and the techs flew to attention, he 
squeezed the thin, cool fingers as if he could keep her there with him.  
Tears fell freely down his face.  One of the paramedics stepped in front 
of him, to get closer to her, and the link was broken.  

"She's crashing..."

He stared at the ceiling.  He stared at her face.  He stared at the hand 
he had held.  Life slipping past him and he could do nothing.

One of the techs pressed two flat disks with handles against her 
too-white, bare chest.  Ryan stared at her feet.

"Clear!"

Beautiful feet, rounded toes, knowing that if he touched her skin, it 
would be soft as ever.  The feet convulsed, left the gurney for a 
moment.  It seemed to take forever for them to return to their place.  

"Jade... Jade..."  Quiet.  He drew one large hand across his face.

The screaming continued.

A wicked long syringe was passed from hand to hand, but he didn't raise 
his head. 

"Charging..."

He squeezed his eyes shut. Imagined her face in his mind, and spoke to 
it.  "If you come back to me... I will never... anything you wish... 
anything... I love you... mo chroi..."

"Clear!"

The sound of her body convulsing brought fresh wetness to the corners of 
his closed eyes.  Desperately, he pleaded with every god he could 
remember... bring her back.  

A warmth fell over him.  A comforting, soothing warmth.  

"Christ, it didn't touch her..."

Ryan.  I love you... 

"Then come back to me..."  He opened his eyes and braved a look at her 
face.  It was bloodless.  A paramedic held an oxygen mask to her face, 
another bent over her, performing CPR.  He bit his lip, fought looking 
away.  The feeling of warmth did not leave him, and it gave him 
strength.  

The scream continued, and the paramedic adjusted a dial on the little 
machine, rubbed the paddles together.

"You have to come back to me, we have years left..."  His eyes were 
stinging.

Have no fear, my brave warrior.  

The tech placed the disks against her chest and the mask was whisked 
away.  

"Clear!"  

Her body jumped, the chest rising with the handles as if she'd been born 
with them.  The monitor made a funny noise, and the little straight line 
was replaced by a blip.  It was small, but there.

"Aingeal... aingeal..." He reached out to touch her ankle, to feel her 
skin beneath him, and the warmth left him.  He was left as he was 
before, cold, scared.  

He felt the helicopter touch down, and the medics started shifting 
equipment.  Ryan leaned over slightly, just to glimpse her face.  The 
doors at her feet burst open and she passed in front of him.  He 
followed, barely keeping himself a few inches in front of the tech with 
the oxygen, pumping away frantically. He had to be there, he had to 
watch over her...  

She opened her green eyes to him, several feet from the door.  

"Jade, mo aingeal... I am here..."

He was pushed back by two men in scrubs as the gurney was led through 
the swinging double doors to emergency surgery.  "I'm sorry, you can't 
come back here."

He leaned against the wall, watching their hasty retreat, entranced by 
the doors, swinging slower and slower in front of him.  He ran a shaking 
hand through his hair, slid down the wall until he was sitting, a hand 
on his head, his knees drawn up close to his chin.

Bill and Deb found him in this state.  A nurse had taken him to the 
waiting area, but he was still... quiet.  

Bill:  C'mon, boy.  We'll take a walk.

Ryan complied.  This left Deb to find a doctor.  Instead of having to 
search, not even minutes after the duo left, the surgeon appeared.  
Unbelievably, it was the man who had put Bill's abdomen back together 
after he was nearly killed.

The little man looked somewhat like a ferret, she realized.  All this 
time spent in the same hospital talking to the same little man, and 
she'd only realized this.  Then again, she'd been under a lot more 
strain before...

"Mrs. Strannix?"

She started to say no, then shrugged inwardly.  What the hell?  "Yeah, 
that's me.  What's the verdict?"

"Everything went well, under the circumstances.  Her vitals signs were 
stable, and we were going to keep her here on the surgery floor."

"Everything you've told me so far has been in the past tense, doctor." 
She was getting a bad feeling in her gut, akin to the one that she'd 
felt before, standing in the very same room.  She wondered if he'd have 
even said this much had the boys been in the room.

"Well, there's a problem.  Her temperature shot up, and her blood 
pressure dropped.  We took her back into surgery to try to figure out 
where the problem is.  When the bullet went in... it went in at an 
angle..."  He noted the look on her face and went straight to the point.  
"These kind of wounds, there may be damage that we didn't find 
before..."

"What?  You had that girl in surgery for six hours and missed a hole in 
her gut?"  She raised a hand to her forehead.  Bill must be rubbing off 
on me, she thought.  "How is she right now?"

"She's stable, for the moment.  We believe it might be a tear in the 
small intestine.  The bullet followed a curious path... might have 
nicked it, causing a fair amount of hemmhoraging."  He looked less 
optimistic than he sounded.  He leaned forward, looking to the doors 
apprehensively.  "I wouldn't be so frank with you, Mrs. Strannix, 
but..."

He must have met Ryan beforehand.  Must have scared the hell out of him.  
With good reason.  In the Irishman's current state, he might end up 
killing the messenger.  

The doctor's voice was low, solemn.  "We almost lost her in there.  I'm 
not entirely sure that she'll make it through the night, unless we find 
the problem in time.  We've given her seven pints of blood, and we're 
not sure how much more she'll need.  But we're doing all we can.  She's 
holding her own.  We might have to put her on a respirator... we're 
trying to avoid that."

"Fine... fine just... anything you can do, do it."

At that moment, Bill burst through the door with Ryan behind, holding a 
paper cup of steaming tea.  The doctor turned on his heel and went back 
down the hall, double doors swinging behind him.  HE wanted no part of 
the testosterone brigade.

"What did the little jackoff say?"  

Deb shot Bill a look that said all he needed to know.  Ryan looked up 
from the tea and waited for an answer.  His eyes were tired, his face 
stony.  He looked as if he could wait for an eternity.

He picked up on her expression and his face fell.  Then solidified and 
darkened.  The metamorphosis was rapid, and chilling.  

"Ryan... she'll be fine.  They said her blood pressure fell and they 
took her back to surgery..."  Where had she heard *that* before?  "But 
she'll be fine.  She's strong."

Ryan took a long drink of the tea, the heat didn't seem to register.  He 
strode over to the window, rested the cup on the sill, and stared out 
into the coming dawn.  His eyes had cleared, and she realized then that 
the boy had shifted gears.  It would be a long time until she would see 
him sleep again.  

"William."

"Whatcha need, boy?"

"I would appreciate the use of your workshed, for a night or two." 

"You got it."  He never asked why.  

"Ryan... what in hell are you thinking?"  Deb was losing this battle.  
She'd never seen him in such a state before, even when she'd known him 
in the past, had heard him called the "machine".  The comforting soul 
was gone.  In it's place was someone she did not know, didnt even feel 
as if she could get close to.  His voice came to her in a monotone, a 
calm, electric sound.

"I have been shown the darkness, but I will atone in fire."

--

Deb pounded on the workshop door.  

"Ryan?  Are you still in there?"

There was no answer.  Bill poked his head in the room.

"Leave the boy alone.  He's workin through shit."

"What.  In the Hell.  Could he be working through in that crypt?"

"Baby, we all have our own ways of copin'... you think he could sit idle 
while the fuckups that did that to Jade are still wanderin around?"

"No, Bill, I never said that.  It just seems like there should be some 
other way than blowing the holy hell out of something..."

"For some of us, there isn't anything else."

He enfolded her in his arms and held her there.  His touch was soothing, 
but it was Ryan her mind kept returning to.  He hadn't seen Jade since 
he'd brought her into the hospital, bleeding from head to toe... and Deb 
hadn't seen *him* for a day and a half.  He'd locked himself up in 
Bill's workshop, and hadn't come out since.  

"He hasn't seen her... since she came out of surgery..."

"Maybe he can't."

"He should..."

"She ain't gonna miss him, in her state."

Deb sighed and pulled away.  Sometimes you had to bean Bill over the 
head with things, and other times he was to the heart of the matter 
before she'd even began to search.  

She knocked on the door again.  "Ryan..."

"Baby..."

She shot him a glare as the door opened.  Ryan appeared, his flannel 
shirt and khakis wrinkled, his hair slightly mussed, his hands dirty.  
His face was devoid of emotion.  

He waited.

"Ryan, you've been out there since Thursday night..."

"Aye."

The silence hung like a dark cloud.

"That all?"

Deb, frustrated as hell with the two men, growled, "Jade needs you."

"And I am trying to help her."

"How so, Dr. Frankenstein?  By building the perfect rat trap?"

His composure cracked ever so slightly.  Bill was right... he couldn't.  
Yet his next words suprised the both of them, and gave Deb a renewed 
hope for the situation.

"Let me get cleaned up, I look a sight."

---

The hospital was quiet for a Saturday morning.  The three of them strode 
down the white corridor, a trio to be sure.  Bill in the usual getup of 
leather and denim on one side of Deb, boots hammering away at the 
defenseless tile, and Ryan walking on the other, his khakis and dark 
green shirt in huge contrast.  She felt as if she had an armed escort.  
Perhaps she did.

They must have taken a wrong turn, for they ended up in the pediatric 
ward.  While Bill was making googly faces at a kid who was struggling 
down the hall with a broken leg, Deb asked for directions.  The nurse, 
who was glued to her computer screen, (thank god for the Internet), was 
vaguely helpful, but in the end they found their way.  Ryan was quiet 
for the entire experience.

Deb pushed open the door and waved the two men down the hall to the ICU 
area, which was only a few steps away from Emergency.  If only they'd 
taken that right turn at Albequerque...  She felt as if she were 
sneaking around, for some reason.  They were abnormally quiet, and maybe 
that was why.  Deb was about to ask a nurse where they could find Jade 
when Ryan strayed away, to one of the rooms open to the hall. 

She seemed very small in the narrow bed, wires trailing from various 
places, monitoring vital functions, tubes and cords.  There were scant 
bruises around her collarbone where Riain had come down with a cruel 
boot.  The ventilator in the corner made a surreal hissing sound that 
made Deb's stomach turn.  A nurse brushed by them to adjust one of the 
machines, then departed.

Ryan slowly walked to her side, sat down on the edge of the chair next 
to the bed.  His hand went to her forehead, her cheek.  He spoke in a 
hushed tone, and when Deb finally made out the words, she realized it 
was gaelic.  His finger caressed her cheekbone, "a ghra mo chroi, mo 
aingeal..."

His voice cracked, and she saw the faint wetness on his cheek.  He 
lowered his forehead to the metal rail, Jade's hand swallowed in the two 
of his own.

TO BE CONTINUED....

Jacque Whitworth - 1999

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