Weightless

17) Ugly Truth

25th of May 2017 (Same day)

Time is meant to go by quickly in the face of emergencies. It's meant to rush past - you're meant to be breathless, feel the adrenaline coursing through your veins and the sweat sticking to your back. That's what it's meant to be like.

But nothing is going fast enough for Cal. Nobody is helping. Nobody even breathes.

He's the first to move - the first to react. And he is quick to arrive at Ethan's side. He slides ungracefully to his knees, placing his hands on Ethan as if his trembling fingertips have magical healing abilities. There's silence, only the noise of his beating heart in his ears. He'd heard Ethan's cries as he'd fallen. But there's nothing now. He's silent, and now Cal's heart hurts.

He'd have prefered Ethan panicking, or him crying, or moaning about the pain. Anything. Absolutely anything as opposed to the sound of Ethan's raspy breaths. And everyone else still just gasps, their mouths dropped open and eyes wide as they stare at the bottom of the stairs. Nobody does anything.

Cal snaps his head round to everyone else. He's scared, and his brain translates that to fury. "Trolley, now!"

Mollie is the first to rush off to get one. Others follow suit. The rest just... stare.

Bastards.

Cal's gaze drops from those stairs to Ethan's face. He can't remove his eyes. Ethan's face is pale, which only makes the blood from his nose and lip even more startlingly red against his skin. The - and where they're from is a mystery - pre-existing injuries look far worse now. His eyes are clamped closed, his forehead creased, and his face contorted with pain even in unconsciousness. His blue scrubs are most likely covering more bruises. Little shallow breaths come, his chest heaving unevenly. Cal lifts Ethan's hand, putting his fingers to Ethan's wrist to detect a pulse. There's one. Thank God.

"Dr Knight, is he breathing?"

That's Connie. "Yeah, yeah," Cal says, looking briefly at her. She kneels beside him, her bare knees on the stone cold floor which her black skirt tickles as she presses a stethoscope to Ethan's chest. "What are you thinking?"

"Well, I don't like the sound of his breaths," Connie says, using her hand to clear her loose hair from her face. She sounds strong: unworried; unflappable; confident. "Right. Straight to Resus."

Cal - despite everyone's attempts to remove him from the area - tries to help. He's not energised, because adrenaline seems to only last for a couple seconds. Neither does he own the strength to move mountains. His hands are shaky, his breaths feel snatched and the air is thick.

"Dr Knight, please," Connie says, doing her best to push him away. "You're smothering him. We need to get to Resus - now move."

Cal does. Any guidance is appreciated. He chooses to not hear Charlie calling him away and hurries after them into Resus.

Well, they're really moving quickly now. It's fortunate, but Cal can't keep up. He stands in the middle of Resus, staring at the trolley and his colleagues. They have a certain level of detachment on their faces, pretending to be entirely unaffected, but it's so forced. So, so, so forced.

Mollie rushes in. She reaches Cal's side immediately, and holds him back from running to Ethan. "Hey, hey, don't. You're no use to him like this. Come on, let's get a coffee."

"I don't want a bloody coffee, just-"

"Cal," she places her hands either side of his face, forcing him to look at her. "Listen, okay? They know what they're doing. Ethan will be fine, I promise you. From what you've told me, your brother is... well, stupidly resilient. Let's go sit."