Freedom, Come Midnight  (2 of 3)
 
 

The medical team had finished up with him hours ago, having won the dicey fight to stablize the 'gunshot wound's' touch and go condition.  The lead surgeon had skillfully performed the seemingly impossible.  Sacrificing the appendix, which had only been knicked when the bullet had whizzed through, for a critical section of the patient's bowel.

Considering that the bullet had gone clean through, damage had been done, but it hadn't been extensive.  Blood loss had been minimal, so Ringer's solution, instead of whole blood, coupled with hemodilution, was what the surgeon had opted for, to minimize risk of post-op complications with a transfusion as its basis.

Langly was still in the ER, with the curtains drawn all around the bed.  It was a little past five a.m.  The medical compound was steeped in the lulling sound of life support equipment humming, and monitors softly beeping, keeping ancillary watch over the sick and injured.

Phones interrupted occasionally, and the triage doctor's norm would be to pick up after one ring.

Gina had been allowed to be with Langly some-time after three-thirty.  She'd ridden along with him in the ambulance, blandishing him with encouragements to 'hang in there.'  He had to so he could tell her why he believed in aliens; that, and every other thing she often found herself wondering about him.

Her eyes welled up with tears yet again.

The frenzied scenes from the MacDonald's played out once again in her mind; the police arriving in the split second of time when it appeared the first gunman was going to follow his partner's suit, and shoot Langly a second time in the chest; a female police officer shooting the second gunman before he shot one of the backup officers; the eight customers, and her co-workers led to safety by the female officer's partner.

Langly's blood staining her uniform.  The seemingly interminable rush to the closest hospital.

A mindful nurse had found a highchairish chair for her to sit on, and she'd been holding his hand ever since.  He looked so ashen, so frail, she thought, observing him.  His breathing was shallow, but the monitor he was hooked up to relayed that his vitals were good enough for him to continue doing that.  His pulse rate was stubborn for reaching normality, and his blood pressure was on the steady rise.

Gina squeezed his hand, a remarkably soft hand she thought for as many times, and this time, much to her amazement, coupled with a release of relief, he weakly squeezed back.

"Hey, there," she whispered close to his wrist, then rubbed it against her cheek, "welcome back."

"H-Hey back at ya," he rustled at her, licking parched lips.

"You're the bravest customer I've ever known..."

"The st-stupidest."

She kissed his stark white knuckles, and kept her mouth on the back of his hand.  The back of his other hand was stuck with the IV insertion.  "The _bravest_," she staunchly upheld.

"I didn't want him hurting you."  He managed a smile which started off wan, but he willed it to spread strongly over the breadth of his face.  "I'm doin' o-okay?"

"You're doing great.  The doctor who operated on you said you're young, and strong with a lower-GI that's textbook.  You're minus one appendix though."

"Wasn't usin' it anyway.  You know those vestigial organs..."

"Yeah," Gina choked, clearing her throat softly.  "Yeah."

Following a pause neither knew how to fill adequately, Langly asked, "Are Byers and Frohike here yet?"

Gina, looking puzzled, replied, "I don't think so.  Friends of yours?"

"My best, and when they do, get ready to hear:  'his ass is mine;' that'll be Frohike sayin' that."

"But how would they know that--"

"You're damn it to hell right that'll be me wantin' a piece of your sorry ass, man."  Frohike's voice had come from behind the curtain.  Byers' hand could be seen pulling it back, and his partners became highly visible.

"These are the friends in question, I take it," Gina said, sounding as though she had just taken off from the 'blocks.'  She turned her face back to Langly.  "How'd they know you were here, unless maybe the police notifi--"

"Yeah, they did, in a manner of speaking," Frohike wedged in, from the other side of the sickbed.  "We have _our_ ways."  He winked at his blond bane of existence, and muttered, "you sure as hell got the gift for scarin' the livin' hell outta us, boy.  What happened to your date?  The waiting room's empty, and," he looked at Gina in passing, "I thought you said she worked in the computer store.  Not actually at Mac--"

"Not now, Frohike," Byers said with a voice that was meant to tweeze, noting the tender manner in which the young lady still tendered Langly's hand.  The full head of steam Frohike enjoyed puffing, he let abate for the time being, as he realized that she was too.  "How's he doing?" Byers rallied quickly.

"I'm gonna live," Langly chirped up, still sounding a shade above at half mast, drinking in the pointed concern in the eyes of his bleary-eyed associates.  "Don't get rid of me that easily."

"You gave us a horrible scare," Byers admonished, glancing his hand against Langly's knee outlined by the cotton sheet.  He wished his chart were in sight so he could check out specifics.

"Well, see--" he began.

"Not now."  It was Frohike this time.  "You need rest.  There'll be time enough for the narrative later."  He focused his attention upon Gina.  "Looks like you could use a breather, Miss.  We'll take over now."

"I want her to stay," Langly insisted, as vigorously as he could muster.  He gripped her by her red-tinged eyes.  "Please s-stay, Gina..."

"Langly," Byers said with a delicate lilt, "let the poor girl get some rest.  I'm sure she'll be back to visit first chance she gets."

Gina was not relinquishing Langly's hand without some resistance.  "I'm not going anywhere."  She gave his friends a determined look, backed up by a resolve it was hard getting around.  "I'm all right. I'd like to see him admitted first.  Then, I'll see."

"Suit yourself," the other two Gunmen acquiesced, taking special note of her quiet, yet militant tone.

About an hour later, he was formally admitted into the hospital, and there was talk of the team of doctors who had worked on him initially, needing to go back in.  Somethings suspicious, hard to determine, without benefit of closer inspection, therefore warranting their having to open him up again, had been detected on Langly's most recent x-rays.

Gina vowed that she wasn't leaving until she knew what action would be taken.  She made all the necessary calls explaining why she wouldn't be where she customarily was at certain hours of the day.

Near lunch time, the three were told by Drs. Guestrel, the head surgeon, and Leznaub, the attending physician, that another surgery had been scheduled for Langly at one o'clock.

The surgery lasted over four hours, during which time, Gina noted the tension and extreme anxiety his two friends exhibited, which led her to the correct conclusion that these men were very close-knit.  When Byers had asked her when was the last time she had eaten, and she had told him she couldn't remember, he and Frohike paid a visit to the cafe to get her, as well as themselves, something to tie them over.

In their absence, at about five minutes after five, Guestrel, his sky blue scrubs greyed by visceral stains, had emerged from the OR to let them know that the surgery had gone moderately well, and what they had at first thought was a clean passage through of the bullet had turned out to be only partially true.

"There was some fragmentation," the surgeon informed Gina whom he helped seat.  "We cleaned out most of what we saw, but we'll have to wait and see."

A few minutes later, Leznaub had shown up, and waited until the surgeon was finished with his explanations so he could supplement.

When Byers and Frohike returned with an assortment of machine-vended eatables, she told them what the doctors had told her moments ago.  The foodstuffs they had purchased had become summarily unappetizing as the disheartened moods sank even lower.  The two Gunmen wondered how long they would keep Langly in recovery.

They did not have long to wait.  Leznaub re-appeared in the waiting room twenty minutes later, telling them that Langly had slipped into a coma, and had been taken to the ICU on the sixth floor.

"Go home, Gina," Frohike advised, managing to sound more patient than he felt.  "Give us your number, and we'll phone you as soon as there's any change."

Gina, tottering on her feet from nerves and exhaustion, shook her head.  She pressed her palm into her forehead, teetering between Byers, Frohike and indecision.  "I want to see him before I go," she said, targeting the doctor.  Byers fitted his arm around her sagging shoulders.

"It's going to be all right," he told her, linking eyes with Frohike who was finding it impossible keeping his mind off imagining going on with the cause, the 'good fight' without the whiney, factious genius at their sides.

"I want to see Langly," she said again, more insistently, with several hiccups.  "Please."  Mournfully then, she pleaded, "Please--he was so brave.  He's here because of me."

"All right.  You may see him.  One at a time," the doctor stipulated, placing his hand lightly on her shoulder.  He looked haggard, as though he could use a day's worth of sleep, which may have been the reason for his shortness with them.  "Make your visits brief.  This way."

Getting off the elevator on six, Leznaub led them to the Intensive Care Unit.  He stopped at the central desk to speak with the physician in charge for the shift, and while the consultation went on, Gina's eyes sifted through the glass-enclosed rooms visible to her, searching for Langly.  The unit was full, business was brisk.

When she had located him, rejoicing, she mumbled an, 'excuse me' and headed where she needed to be.  Frohike and Byers followed after her, ignoring the doctor's 'one at a time.'

Cautiously, Gina crept into the little room with her eyes riveted on the deep sleeper.  She edged nearer to the bed, her eyes brimming with tears each step of the way.

Softly bleating his name, she took her place at his bedside, cradling his hand as she had done in the ER.  Both of his arms were cuffed.  She glanced up at the dual monitors, wishing she knew what the second one, which she was unfamiliar with, was indicating.

"This can't be happening," she squeezed through her quivering lips, biting back the venom she felt towards the stupid, senseless world.  "You're a good man.  You're brave, and strong, and I've wanted to get to know you ever since that very first day I started working at MacDonald's, and you came in saying, ''super sizing' is a state of mind.  Works for me at Mickey Dee's.  Uh, you subscribe?'"

Despite her despair, she had to grin, remembering his words.  "Don't stay where you're at.  Come back to your friends who love you very much, and come back to me, someone who's loved you from afar for too long now, and who would up close, if you give me the chance..."

"Langly," she said louder.  "_Langly_," she repeated, louder still.

Byers and Frohike stepped forward, and each placed their hand upon the either of her shoulders.

The heedless bleepings and beepings of his monitors were the only replies she received. They hung their heads, and Gina turned away, cramming her other hand into her mouth, sobbing openly; her heightened despair enveloped the last vestige of renewed hope she had when she thought she had felt him squeeze her hand back.  He hadn't.

In her own good time, she released it, and made to leave the room which was beginning to darken with the advent of the dreary, chilly evening...

||

Two hours later...
 

"It's experimental, that we know.  Like countless others we haven't had the chance to thoroughly investigate."

"Which is why I don't want these junior Frankensteins experimenting firsthand with the stuff on him."

"But, Frohike, it may be his only chance of coming out of the coma which they say is dramatically dangerous in his present condition."

"Screw that, man.  It could mean his damn funeral if we say it's okay for them to shoot him up with EpiQEN, not knowing its risks."

Byers squeezed his eyes shut.

Then, he and Frohike turned in unison to Gina who had since been home to change from her soiled clothes into a pair of loose-fitting dark olive slacks and matching lighter sweater that buttoned down the front, of which three of the eight fasteners were unbottoned.

"So what do you think?"  Nodding for coaxing purposes, giving Gina every encouragement that they wanted her call, since they judged she had a stake in this, the men waited for her input after Byers had posed the question.

"I like the fact that you're not willing to trust one doctor's word for it."  Her whole manner suggested she'd been giving this some careful thought.  "You know him longer, and better than I do.  Think the way he does.  What would he do if it were either of you in his place?"

Byers, with waking admiration in evidence, for this young woman, brushed his hand over his beard, looking to Frohike, and Frohike's eyebrows knitted, but when he answered, there was no uncertainty; 'of course,' he thought.  They were under too much stress right now.  "He'd want the stats, the data.  The truth about this drug that hasn't been told...yet," he plied, "on this so-called wonder drug via the Amazon."

"According to Leznaub, there isn't much time to delay the decision; time is a critical factor.  The window's closing rapidly."  Byers ran another time check with his watch; it was eleven-twenty, and thirteen seconds.

"Okay, so it's gotta be done quick, but we both know it's gotta be done before we let them inject this stuff into our buddy."  Frohike began distancing himself from them.  "I'll run and do the homework," he submitted, waving goodbye when the elevator arrived.  Before letting the doors close, he said at a clip, "I took the number of that pay phone.  Keep an ear out; I'll get back to you."  He let them close, leaving Byers to await the findings, and Gina to wonder who these men were, really.  FBI?  CIA?  DEA?  LOCC?  Fact finders for special interest groups?

Something covert, judging from the way they handled themselves, and she fell in step with Byers to pace.

Frohike hadn't been gone twenty or so minutes, when Leznaub re-appeared, wanting to speak with them.  He informed them that Langly needed the drug to be administered at that very moment.

Again, Byers questioned the necessity of bringing Langly out of the coma by artificial means, but the doctor became overly defensive, and accused Byers' motives.  EpiQEN was 'one-of-a-kind' in its versatility, capable of inducing rapid withdrawal from coma with minimal trauma; there was ample documentation.

The doctor charged Byers of, among other things, being a 'burier of his head in the sand.'

While their heated discussion escalated, Gina left them so she could station herself by the pay phone Frohike was supposed to call.

The doctor broke off what had turned into a surly argument in a huff, hating having his hands tied, although Byers had assured him that he was merely waiting on a decision.  He wasn't proscribing further action being taken.

There was something about Leznaub he began not trusting.  "Gina, do me a favor?"

"Sure.  What?"

"You heard what just went on."  She nodded, wishing somehow she hadn't.  "Go to Langly.  Stay with him."

"I was just about to.  I hope Frohike calls soon."

"Yeah, me too."  As Byers watched her quicken her steps as she walked away, and he had no sooner intoned words to the effect that more doctors should be like Scully, the phone rang.

"What did you learn, Frohike?"

'Hey, John, my instincts were right on.'

"How so?" Byers said unsettledly.

'I hacked into the drug manufactuer's level four-secured, ordered chronologial databases, and came up with pay dirt.'-

"In the form of?"

'Sequenced, time-sensitive protocols and clinical trials on the drug in question which I can guarantee weren't made available for the public's general consumption.'

"So the findings are highly disturbing."

-'Yeah, if you consider acute lymphoblastic leukemia, testicular carcinoma, brain stem infarct, hypochondriasis, a heightening of histrionic, schizotypal, and paranoic disorders mild side effects.  And get this.  Turns out this Leznaub sits on the board of directors.  He's one of EpiQEN's key developers.  He's hungry for notoriety and the big bucks that go with it, at whatever price...I could go on, but there isn't time for more provens.  Don't let them near him with that shit!  Our bud ain't gonna be their next negative clinical trial finding, dammit.'

"I'm on it, Frohike.  Get back here as fast as you can, and if we have to, we'll take him out of here by force if it comes to that."

Gina entered Langly's room just in time to see Dr. Leznaub primed to stick the injection into Langly's left arm.  "What the hell do you think you're doing?" she shrieked, startling the physician, and raced to stop him.  It was at that precise moment that Langly stirred, causing Gina and the doctor to freeze simultaneously.

"W-Where the hell am I," Langly demanded forcefully for a man who had just roused from deep coma.  With eyes glaring at full strength intensity at the doctor, he saw Gina's hands around his arms, attempting to restrain him.  "What's goin' on?"

Gina interposed her body between the bed and Leznaub, blocking further approach to Langly.  "You don't haveta use that junk on him.  He's conscious, for God's sake.  Leave him alone!"

Staring her down, Leznaub derided, "Get out of my way.  You have no right to interefere."

"That's where you're wrong," Gina vehemently protested.  "I care what happens to him, and you _don't_."

Dipping over into the maniacal, he rambled, "I must have a positive result.  It must work this time with no harmful effects; for the good of mankind."  Trying to throw her off, he went on, "He's _still_ my patient and I'll do what I deem necessary--"

"The hell you will," Gina blustered, still intent on holding the driven physician off.  "He's a _human being_, not a _lab rat_, and I'm not gonna let you hurt him!"

Langly, not knowing what to make of the exchange, began undoing the tight cuffs from around his arms as best he could in his weakened condition.

"I'll have you removed," Leznaub threatened, almost having succeeded in pushing Gina aside, but not before she batted at the hypodermic and knocked it out of his hand. "Woman, you're insane!"  He took a swing at her, just missing.

"What the fuc--"  Langly's eyes hardened, and he balled his hands into fists.

"We're removing Mister Langly from this hospital immediately!"  It was Byers.  He had barrelled into the room with righteous retribution beaming from his stormy eyes, preventing Leznaub from taking another swing at Gina.

She breathed a sigh of relief, then went on with the objective of helping Langly shed his fetters to the monitors, which suddenly had lots of give once her yanking ended.

Byers' voice boomed.  "Mister Langly's personal physician, a Doctor Dana Scully, has already authorized his immediate discharge."  He flinched unnoticeably through the lie.  "She'll be here shortly to see he's transferred to her hospital; the GWUMC."

"B-But, but--"

"Your services are no longer required," Byers pointedly rejoined.  He felt duty-bound to add, "And we're on to you'
Doctor, and your illegal drug testing on unsuspecting, helpless patients.  You, along with a public who has a right to know will be reading all about it very soon."

"Ye-e-yeah," Langly croaked, already with his legs hanging over the side of the bed, holding his bandaged gut, not understanding what Byers was babbling about.  It matched the babbling that was going on in his brain.

This trip took the cake.  He'd never felt so woozy before in his life, even counting the time he got kicked in the noggin by his rural family's best milk-producing cow.

"Easy, easy," Gina cautioned, "you've just come through two surgeries."

Leznaub opened his mouth in sheer surprise, and to object again, when Frohike came tearing into the room.  Initially overjoyed to see that Langly was no longer comatose, the thought that his friend had been given the drug sent him over the edge.

"You bastard," he hurled at Leznaub, "I'm gonna kick your ass, and then I'm takin' you apart."

"Easy, Frohike," Byers tempered, "it's okay."

Lightning on the uptake, Gina tossed in, "Doctor Sinister never got the chance.  I took care of it.  They'll come in here and mop up his garbage later."

After Leznaub fled the room, its occupants breathed a collective, relieved sigh.

"Scully's on her way," Frohike told Byers whose facial expression mimed someone's who had just been told they'd won the lottery.

"My God...Scully?"

"After I lost the cop who chased me for speeding, I phoned her, explained the entire situation..."  Frohike looked at Gina who had had plenty of opportunity to clue them in about the events leading up to Langly's operations during them.  "Since it's Langly, Scully said she'd be down here a-s-a-p."  Then to the grimacing ailer, Frohike directed, "She may say you're deeply strange, and think you're off the hook from
where she sits, but you ask me, I say she's got a real soft spot for ya, man."

"Cool," Langly said from a mouth associated with a face that was a contortion of bona fide hurting.

Frohike looked at his watch again.  It was eleven-fifty-one.  When he looked up, he said, "I give her till midnight, and you're as good as freed; have you sprung in a jif, Blondie."

Gina was sitting beside Langly, supportive, with her arm around him.  He was leaning heavily into her, breathing about the same as he had been before falling into the coma.  In a small voice close to his ear, Gina asked, "Who's Scully?"

"You'll see," was all he could manage to wheeze before his head slumped into her lap.
 

Continued...