Room with a View - [Jopper] ✓

Clean Slate

"Where the hell am I?" she muttered, rubbing her head as if she was trying to wake up. The lights were blaring in her eyes, she hadn't been here before, had she? Looking around, she didn't recognize much of it.

"You're in limbo. A little place between life and death that you hang out in during surgery." a voice answered from behind her. As she pivoted on her feet, she saw the only face she wanted to see.

"Why are you here, Hop?" Joyce asked with a soft smile as she walked towards him.

"Because I'm on the table in the next room over." he grinned, bringing her into a tight hug.

--

Doctor Owens was flipping through a chart at the nurses' station when Martin Brenner, the chief of surgery, came angrily rushing up to him. Sam barely let his eyes glance away when he saw the surgeon getting closer.

"Good afternoon, Doctor Brenner. How can I help you?" Owens asked nonchalantly. He knew that Brenner was pissed, and he knew he was the epicenter of it all.

"What are you playing at, Owens? You know there are at least six people above Jim Hopper for a heart in this hospital alone. So tell me why his name is on the whiteboard down on the surgical floor?" Brenner fumed, trying to keep his tone as quiet as can be.

"He's receiving the heart, Brenner. He's been on the list for ages and he's been getting worse. He deserves the transplant." Owens sighed as he tucked the chart under his armpit. He knew that Brenner wouldn't have approved Jim for the surgery, but in his days as Hopper's surgeon, he had learned quite a bit from him.

"You don't get to decide who gets a transplant and who doesn't, Owens!" Brenner's face was glowing red with anger in deep contrast with his white hair.

"You listen to me and you listen good," Owens growled as he stepped up to his boss. "You have been playing God for a very long time, ruling over who gets what organ and when. I have had enough of you dictating over my patients just because you don't like them. Jim is rough around the edges, we all know that, but he is going to get that heart. Even if you don't like it." There was a dark glimmer in Sam's eyes as he was nose to nose with Brenner.

Just as Owens began to walk away, Brenner huffed a laugh. "Not if I don't let him. I refuse to let my staff take him to the O.R., Your move, Owens." Martin was standing with a smirk while his arms stayed crossed against his chest.

Sam turned on his heel back to face Brenner. "You're too late, Brenner. They took Hopper in for the transplant about four hours ago." Sam glanced at his watch. "They should be closing him up right now." The smirk on Sam's face made the surgeon's blood boil.

"This is a breach of ethics, Owens. The board will have no choice but to yank your license. Is that what you wanted?" Brenner was clearly livid with the conniving actions the younger doctor took.

"Speaking of that. This is for you." Sam pulled the chart out from under his arm and fished out a piece of paper. Brenner ripped it out of his hand and squinted as he read it.

"Letter of resignation? You've really had this all planned out." Brenner cocked his mouth with an angry grin. He always knew Owens' audacity would get in his way.

"Yeah well, the wife wants to go to Boca. No better time." Sam smiled as he began to walk away. "Oh, and Checkmate," he said with a shit-eating grin.

--

Jenny picked up the nurses' station phone and begun dialing. As the line to the OR rang.

"Hi, it's Jenny. Just wondering how they're doing," she spoke as she anxiously tapped her nails on her desk. It had been three hours since both Joyce and Hopper were in surgery and neither OR's had released an update.

"They're closing up Jim's chest right now and the heart is already off to a good kick without any problems. Joyce's lungs pinked up and she's been pretty stable throughout the surgery. She's pretty lucky she got those lungs right away, both the CF and TB had left pretty nasty scar tissue in her old lungs." the OR nurse replied over the echoing voices of the surgeons.

"Alright, CICU has both of their beds ready. Room 532 and 533, I'll be up there when you finish closing up." Jenny hung up the phone and took a deep breath. It was the oddest feeling in her stomach, a mixture of pride and fear. Nurses' cocktail of emotions. This was it though, she had seen hundreds of thousands of patients in her career but this was different. These two nearly hit the finish line. They weren't just patients anymore, they were like family. 

--

Three days later, Joyce opened her eyes for the first time in over a month. It wasn't much surprise to her that even three days after a heart transplant that Hopper was out of bed and sitting next to her.

"Hop," she whispered, her voice choppy and hoarse, but still her. 

"I promised myself I'd be here when you woke up. I couldn't miss it." Jim smiled as he kissed her palm.

"What the hell happened?" Joyce asked in an almost silent mutter. 

"We kept faith, Joyce. We kept faith and we laughed right through it." he grinned with a tear in his eye.

"What do we do next?" she questioned, staring up at his bright blue eyes.

"We live as normal as possible." Hopper laughed quietly, knowing that nothing would ever be normal about them.

"Together?"

"Together."