“Yeah, I don’t feel hot.”
Oliver scrutinizes my face, looking me over, as if merely staring at me will provide him with a diagnosis. “Well, I guess you’re on the other end of it, then,” he says. “Some fluids aren’t going to hurt, either way.”
I lay back on the gurney, propped up with pillows, the backrest in an upright position, and Oliver goes about hooking me up to the IV beside the bed. He pokes his tongue out at me, then proceeds to ask me the things we’re meant to ask every time we administer any kind of treatment to a patient:
“Are you allergic to anything?”
“No.”
“On any medications right now?”
“No.”
“Had any recent surgeries?”
“No.”
“Any history of heart problems?”
“No.”
“Any chance you might be pregnant?”
“No.”
“When was your last period?”
I’m about to reel off the information, but that isn’t one of the standard questions. I shoot daggers at Oliver. He tries to distract me by sliding the IV needle into my skin, but it doesn’t work. “I’m not pregnant, Oliver. I’m on birth control. Now hurry the hell up. This is already going to take up half my afternoon.”
He shrugs his shoulders, turning down the corners of his mouth. “Just being thorough, Romera. I know you. You’re busy, you forget to take the pill a couple of times in a row, and BAM! Knocked up. I’ve seen that dude you’re living with, you forget. He looks like he has strong swimmers.”
“Stop talking about Zeth’s swimmers. His swimmers are none of your business. And I’m on the injection, so you don’t need to fret. No chance I can forget if I need to go get a needle jabbed into my ass cheek every three months, now, is there?”
“Fair enough.” Oliver holds up his hands in surrender. “Just lookin’ out for you,” he says, laughing.
“Why are you so cheery, anyway?” I grumble. I don’t need to mention the last time I saw him, when he was frustrated to the point of anger in the resident’s locker room.
“I am cheery because Alex is being moved down from the ICU today. He’s finally in the clear,” he says. “Providing no secondary infections have been festering away in the background, it’s just a matter of recuperation and physio now.”
“Damn, Oliver, I’m so relieved to hear that. I’m so happy for you.”
“Yeah, me too. Thanks, Romera. And thanks for being the one to help me stitch him back together in the first place. Now get better already so we can fix some more people, huh?”
I give him a mock salute. “Sir, yes, sir.”
“The guys from Alex’s fire house are coming by later. They haven’t been able to see him properly until now. I think they mentioned something about beer and Philly cheesesteak sandwiches if you think you might be able to stomach it.”
“You underestimate me. I can always stomach a Philly cheesesteak.”
Oliver leaves me to my own devices as I sit there, letting the IV do it’s work. It’s tedious, just letting time pass, and I have nothing to do but let my mind wander.
Zeth’s probably training hard, dreaming of ways to quash the threat Lowell poses once and for all. Hopefully without killing anyone. Michael’s probably…I have no idea what Michael’s probably doing. If he’s not with Zeth, then his actions or his whereabouts are a mystery. He’s such a guarded guy. His personal life is so unknown to me that I don’t even have a clue if he’s single or not. I doubt he has time for a girlfriend, considering how much time he spends running errands or ‘fixing things’ for Zeth, but there is a slim chance he’s got someone tucked away somewhere. I hope he has.
I think about Alex Massey, then. I think about how lucky he is that he’ll be walking out of St. Peter’s in a couple of week’s time. It could so easily have gone another way. The surgery could have killed him. Infection could have spread, bacteria overtaking him from the inside out. He was on any number of seriously strong, seriously dangerous antivirals and painkillers. They could have interacted, as they sometimes do depending on the person, either sending him floating off into the ether or rendering the antivirals ineffective. There were so many things that could have gone wrong. So many things that could have…
Oh god.
I suddenly feel very, very sick again. My stomach rolls, nausea washing over me, as the room tilts uncomfortably. It’s not just the return of the nausea that’s making me feel ill. It’s the horrific, terrifying realization that just hit me like a bowling ball to the head. Alex was on a multitude of conflicting meds. Meds that could have made him even worse than he already was. Meds that could have caused others to fail and not work. I recently took meds that could cause others to fail and not work. I—shit, how could I have been so stupid? How could I have not thought for one second?
The antibiotics I took when I first got sick…antibiotics that occasionally render all forms of birth control utterly, completely, frighteningly ineffective.
******