The Flames of Medicine

20

Michaels POV: 

 I finished checking over Claires IV as she slept. I gave her a relaxant because her anxiety was getting triggered and she was on her way to an anxiety attack. 

I turned off the light and walked out of the room. 

I stood outside and took a moment and breathed in and out, calming myself down as well. I looked over to the nurses station and looked over to the elevator and considered going to the OR. 

On my way down, I couldn't help but be scared of what I was going to see. 

ding.

I sigh and walk out. I see Ashton contemplating walking into the OR hallway. 

"Ash..."

He turns around and looks up at me and I see his eyes red.

"is -- what?" I ask him not ready for bad news.

"He's not strong enough for the surgery Mike..." I hear him say in the softest voice. 

"oh, ash..." I softly say as I reach out for him. "he's strong. He's proven us wrong so many times. Let's hope he does once again." I finish off by hugging him. We just held on to each other, finally embracing all the emotion that we had hid for the last weeks. We ached. We hurt. We shed tears. We silently prayed. We wished. We held on to whatever hope we could. We relied on each other. All behind the walls of our individual rooms. Not in public. We were afraid that if we showed how we felt to each other, the reality would become more of a hit in the face. So we kept it in. For when we went to bed alone. For when we showered and let the water hit our face blending our tears as to pretend that our sadness wasn't there. That we didn't feel. We held on to the hope that medicine could help us in helping our brother. 

I let my tears fall freely. We both did. 

"Let's sit for a moment. Is Cal still in the OR?" 

He looks at me and nods. 

"yeah, he hasn't come out yet. He's doing a manual heart pump so he'll be there for a while longer." 

I nod and lead us to the bench against the wall next to the big white doors. 

I look at my watch and calculate that Calum should be finishing, if everything goes well, in about an hour. 

We both just sit there and stare at the blank white sterile wall in front of us. 

"Claire?"

"I had to give her a relaxant. She heard Cal get paged and saw Lu get wheeled in. She was panicking. Before she went into a panic attack I gave her a small dosage to get her to sleep and calm down."

he nodded next to me. 

We hear the doors inside the OR ward open and close.

We look at each other and shakily get up and walk to the doors. Ashton swipes his access card and as we walk in we see Calum with tears on his eyes. 

Ashton POV: 

I swipe my access card and let the doors open.

 As Michael and I walk in we see Calum holding his surgery cap in his hands just pacing back and forth. He finally stops and places a hand on the wall as he leans forward and kneels down still holding the wall. 

"Mike --"

"yeah, panic attack? maybe anxiety?" he says to me as we walk faster to the end of the corridor. 

Calum turns around and sits on the floor, his back against the wall and his face in his hands. His body is shaking and he's not taking his hands off his face.