Work Text:
Chores
by Little Wing
The loud scream tore through the Vast Explorer like nothing Judson had ever heard before. His heart racing, Judson moved as fast as he could for the upper deck. Gabe had been up there touching up the rails with fresh paint while he did some overdo straightening below decks. Taking the steps two at a time Judson reached the main deck, the bright rays of the sun stinging his eyes for a moment.
"Gabe?" he yelled heading for the ladder leading to the upper deck. A soft moan hit his ears just as he reached the ladder. It had come from the other side of the deck. Hang I'm coming, he thought as he jogged around the deck to find Gabe sprawled out on the deck, his right leg tucked oddly beside his body. He couldn't let panic take over, he had to stay calm. Dropping to his knees beside Gabe he could see that his young friend was coming around. "Take it easy." He moved away from Gabe's head to examine the leg that had been tucked next to slightly under his body.
"Judson," he started to sit up, almost wishing that he hadn't as the world around him began to sway and spin, "it hurts." He hated that, he sounded like a small child and he hated that. But the truth was that his leg did hurt. Maybe hurt was too weak a word to describe the throbbing pain that was pulsing through his body. He needed it straighten it out; needed to know that the bones weren't broken.
"I know, Gabe." He gently felt along Gabe's leg from just above the knee to below the knee and into the calf, watching for any reaction of pain from the young man. "What happened?" He had to take his mind away from what was going on.
"I fell." He sat up more on the deck pulling his legs along the decking. Sickened slightly by the sight of his calf sitting perfectly along side his thigh Gabe reached down and grabbed the lower half of his leg and slowly pulled it back so that it was back were it was supposed tp be. Better, he thought as the pulsing pain slowed some creating new pain; duller pain.
"I think that we had better get you to a hospital."
"Yeah," he agreed feeling his knee swelling from the blood rushing in. In his time while Adventure Inc. he'd been held at gun point, punched, kicked and sealed in an ancient vault but nothing like this. This was more pain than he knew existed.
Wishing that Mac hadn't left the night before for her week long vacation, Judson bent to help the young man to his feet or foot as the case was. In one loud grunt Gabe was up off the deck and leaning against Judson.
"Do we have any crutches?" Gabe asked as he tried to hop alongside Judson.
"I don't think so." He stopped walking, realizing just how difficult it was for Gabe to keep up with him. "Maybe I should call an ambulance?"
"No, I can make to the car," he said quickly and firmly.
***************
Almost two hours later Gabe lay on the emergency room bed waiting for the doctor to sign the release forms. They'd done the x-rays and couldn't find anything wrong, but they also said that any damage to the soft tissue wouldn't show up in the x-ray and they'd have to do an MRI to know for sure. Just wanting to go home, he declined having the MRI.
Staring hard at the blue brace they'd put on his leg, he cursed himself for having leaned out too far to paint the other side of the rail. For the next two days he was stuck in the brace that they'd called a stiffener. His orders were no pressure on that leg for at least a day before he was to report to therapy.
"So, the doctor says that a sprained knee is luckier than a broken leg," Judson said taking a seat next to Gabe's bed.
"No, lucky would be not being here," he retorted, hating the pain that he was in, but not really wanting the pain killers they'd given him to take home. Vicadin was too much for the amount of pain that he was really in. He'd take some Motrin when they got back to the ship, that is if they got back to the ship. "And if they don't hurry up with the paper work, I'm leaving."
"That may not be a good idea, Gabe." He really wanted to laugh at his friend's frustration of being laid up and being stuck in the emergency room of a busy hospital.
"I don't care!" he let his anger and frustration out. "I've been here long enough and it's time to go. If they're not in here to let me go in the next ten minutes, I'm walking out of here." He grabbed for the crutches from their spot against the wall to his left.
"I think that the doctor's reviewing your chart now," a nurse with an annoyed look upon her face said as she walked past Gabe and Judson. "I'll let him know that you're wishing to go."
Ten minutes later a tall thin man wearing a white lab coat walked into the small area that was separated from the larger room by curtains. Looking at Gabe he shook his head a little and then wrote something on the chart he held in his thin fingers.
"I want you to take those pain killers one every four to six hours as needed." He continued to stare at the young man before him. "Now, I want to know that you know how to properly secure the stiffener to your leg. Could you please take it off and put it back on?"
With a grunt of anger Gabe complied with the doctor's wishes and took off the stiffener and put back on. There was nothing to it, just a series of straps and velcro.
"All right. In forty-eight hours I want you to report to this facility for therapy," he said handing Gabe a yellow sheet of paper with an address and map on the back. "Keep off that leg until you begin therapy." He signed a piece of paper and handed it to the nurse who'd entered the small curtained off area with a wheel chair.
"In ya go," she said grabbing hold of him and pulling him from the bed and setting him in the chair.