The Bodies Watch 2/10
disclaimers, etc. in part 1
--
The doors to the ER bay slam open, and I'm ready. We got back to the hospital
just as the storm hit; now, fiercely blowing wind and snow pelt us before the
doors swing shut behind the stretcher. The one stretcher. The only one to go
to the hospital and not the morgue.
The woman's vitals are screamed to us, and I begin treatment hurriedly, two
other doctors at my side. She's pretty, I notice, or she would be were it not
for the long gash across her scalp. Blood streams from the wound and soaks
into her long, tangled blond hair.
We wheel her into a trauma room and hook her up to every machine imaginable.
She's bleeding internally from an unidentified source, she's got a fractured
right arm and leg, and a pretty severe head wound. It's amazing she's
breathing, let alone alive.
But breathing she is. And as if that alone weren't enough to stun the socks
off of us, she opens her eyes and grimaces in pain.
"Ma'am?" I shout, shining a penlight into her blue eyes. "Can you hear
me?"
She nods. "Where...what..."
"You're in the hospital. You were in a very serious accident. Your plane
crashed. Do you remember?"
The examining table is jostled, and she cries out. A tear escapes her eye and
runs down into her hair, making a small clear path through the blood.
"The plane..." she whispers. "Donna...Donna Moss..." My heart
clenches.
She falls unconscious, and the various machines around us begin beeping out
of control.
"We are not going to lose her," I say to everyone working around me.
"She's
the only one who came back out of that plane crash- *someone* has to survive."
--
"We're going to need to stop for gas soon."
The very idea is abhorrent, but I know that we can't get to Arkansas without
fuel. I click off my cellphone and nod at Sam.
"I can't get her cell. It says there's no service."
Sam grimaces almost imperceptibly, then relaxes. "That doesn't mean anything.
We're at the edge of a storm that's covering half the Midwest, remember? I
doubt you could get any cellphone in Arkansas right now."
I rub my face in my hands and check my watch. It's one in the morning; Sam
and I have been driving for nearly six hours. Of course, the fact that every
road but one is closed and we're driving straight into hell on earth has
slowed us down so much that we're barely west of the Appalachians. At this
rate, it'll be days before we get to Arkansas, if we get there at all.
Sam takes the next exit off of the highway and pulls into a small rest stop.
"You need anything?" he asks briefly, then steps out of the car into the
lightly falling snow, leaving me alone with my thoughts.
Dear God. Things like this just don't happen- or at least they're not
supposed to happen to people I care about. Rosslyn would have been like that
if I hadn't rationalized it. You work with the President, you're taking a
chance with your life; you very well could get shot at. So, getting hit with
a bullet didn't really strike me as one of those things that just doesn't
occur in your own life.
But a plane crash? Come on. I've never met anyone who was in a plane crash.
Why now? Why her?
It's eerily ironic that Donna has woken up every morning to the possibility
that someone will shoot her or blow her up or take her hostage- only to fall
from the sky in an entirely non-work-related incident.
God, you can really make things difficult.
--
End 2/10
Part 3
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