Chapter Text
Hyrule University Hospital – Central Campus
Highland Regional Trauma Center
It was nearing the end of the workday. Tired-appearing hospital employees, most dressed in scrubs of various colors, walked with purpose through the artificially lit halls. The walls were lined with inspirational quotes or stock photos likely intended to have a calming effect on passer-bys, although they seemed to do little for the harried workers who barely spared them a second glance. Occasionally a patient rolled by, being pushed in a stretcher, though their eyes were usually aimed straight up at the ceiling – which was an uninspiring blank pattern of square tiles. From time to time a family member would pause to stare at one of the motifs, but their gazes often seemed distant, as though staring at something far-off beyond the wall.
In the middle of one such hallway stood a set of dark double doors, unmarked, guarded by an ID card reader. Without warning they swung open, the mechanism triggered from the inside, revealing two young men dressed in light blue scrubs. Both wore fabric scrub caps and sported green-colored ID badges, marking them as physicians. If the rust-colored stains scattered on their scrubs were any reliable indication, they were surgeons. The taller and broader of the two paused briefly to grab his jacket, hanging from a hook on the wall amidst a row of jackets, before walking into the hallway. His companion pulled the scrub cap off his head and, in what looked like an ingrained habit, ran his fingers through his pink-streaked hair twice before jamming the cap back on.
“Not too bad,” Twilight commented, glancing at his watch as the operating room door swung closed behind them. “Crazy day, but we managed to finish before six.” He zipped his black softshell jacket over his scrub top (it somehow always managed to be cold in the hospital) and tucked a few stray strands of dark blond hair back into his scrub cap. The faded leather boots he wore tapped softly against the laminate floor.
Beside him, Legend snorted and grumbled, “we would have been finished sooner if Anesthesia hadn’t taken forever to get ready.” There was no real heat behind the words – the trauma operating rooms in their busy hospital were usually running behind for one reason or another, and surgeons have been blaming delays on anesthesiologists since the dawn of their specialty.
He received no sympathy from Twilight, who pointed out with a deadpan drawl, “aren’t you on call tonight anyway? You wouldn’t have gotten to leave early even if we started on time.”
“Yes, but I still have to finish floor rounds!” Legend snapped, clearly annoyed. They had gotten called to multiple traumas throughout the day, no doubt impeding his work flow. “You know I hate rounding late, it’s impossible to get anything done. And don’t even get me started on the interns these days...!” He kept ranting, but Twilight now tuned him out with practiced ease. The surgery chief resident was known to be salty, and the fact that medicine wasn’t his first career – and indeed, that general surgery wasn’t his first residency – did nothing to increase his patience with the younger residents or the general nonsense of the hospital. They had been friends long enough for Twilight to know that Legend’s bark was usually worse than his bite, but most of the junior residents were terrified of having him as their senior.
He pulled out his phone as his friend continued to monologue. There were almost always unread text messages to respond to after he scrubbed out of a case, usually from residents or attendings. Being trauma fellow meant that while overall he got less inquiries than he did as a resident (the silly questions usually got directed to the senior residents, much to Legend’s chagrin), the acuity of the inquiries he did get were generally higher. He had missed a text from Time not too long ago – call me when you get out of the OR, I’m going to see a few patients in the ICU – which likely meant the attending needed his help with something. (Some days it still blew his mind that Dr. Time Forrester, the same trauma surgeon who had inspired him to pursue a career in surgery when he was just a medical student nearly a decade ago, now trusted him enough to ask for his help. And when he thought about the job contract he had just signed, and how in just a few short months he will have finally finished his training and become one of Time’s partners, it was enough to make his heart skip a few beats).
The other missed chain of texts was much more lighthearted. Wild had texted him a picture of two different bottles of wine at the grocery store. Which one do you want? And then ten minutes later, ok I have no choice but to get both. Also got your beers. Fifteen minutes later he had sent another text: I assume you’re scrubbed in. You better not be late for dinner tonight! I’m making Risotto and you know it’s best when it’s warm. The last text was sent nearly an hour ago, so Wild must have left the store by now.
Twilight smiled fondly; his younger brother was all too familiar with his unpredictable work schedule. It hadn’t gotten a whole lot better after he became a fellow, but at least he took a little less call than he did in residency. Sometimes, he even made it home for dinner. Wild would never have expected Resident-Twilight to be home in time for Risotto. Quickly, he texted back: I’m out of the OR, I should be back on time, will text you when I’m on my way home .
“Go finish rounding,” he told Legend, elbowing the shorter man in the arm and cutting him off in the middle of a sentence. “I gotta call Time back.”
Legend opened his mouth to respond but was cut off as their pagers started beeping shrilly in almost-unison (just out of sync enough for the dissonance to be grating). Both groaned, instinctively pressing the button to stop the dreaded noise before pulling the pagers out of their holsters. “Level 1 trauma in 10 minutes,” Legend read with a sigh, again habitually running an agitated hand through his hair before jamming his scrub cap back on his head. “I’m never going to finish rounding.”
“Let’s hope it’s nothing,” Twilight said as he texted Time back, going to the Level 1. Time immediately replied ok, get it started, I will be there in a bit in acknowledgement.
They made their way quickly to the trauma bay, where the trauma team was convening in preparation for the incoming patient. Level 1 was the highest category of trauma activation, and therefore involved the most amount of people. Sky, the attending anesthesiologist, was already at the head of the bed, making sure he had all the equipment prepared to provide oxygen and intubate if necessary. He flashed Twilight and Legend a smile as they came in. “Almost made it to six,” he said wistfully. “Hopefully this will be quick. Are you two on tonight?”
“He is,” Twilight gestured at Legend, “I’m on this Saturday.”
“Oh good, I’m on Saturday too.” That was Four, the orthopedic resident who had walked in behind them, pulling on a pair of exam gloves and nodding a greeting. “So don’t give me any stupid consults,” he finished drily, looking pointedly at Twilight, who only grinned in reply.
Nurses, junior residents and a pharmacist arrived and took their places. In a busy trauma center, level 1 activations were a familiar occurrence. Twilight’s senses had long become attuned to the sights, sounds and smells of the trauma bay. In a strange way, he felt at home here. He knew the quirks their equipment had, knew where to find specific supplies (as well as the nurses’ hidden stashes of candy), even knew people by the scrub caps they wore (a seagull patterned one for Legend, multicolored hammers for Four, and a plain red-colored one for Sky). There was a special kind of comradery among the people who regularly worked here; Twilight supposed it must be similar to the bonds that were forged among those who went to war together.
Before long, he heard the doors to the ambulance bay open, and then the sound of faintly squeaking wheels as the EMT team pushed their gurney into the trauma room.
“We’ll take report.” Legend’s voice was clipped and curt, with the undertone of make it brief being unspoken but obvious. It was a practiced dance, and the lead EMT began to speak even as her team parked their gurney and started to remove blankets and undo various straps in preparation for transferring the patient to the prepared stretcher.
“We've got an approximately twenty year old male, driver of a motorcycle that was t-boned by a truck going full speed on the freeway, thrown about 30 feet, was initially confused but responsive at the scene, stopped responding to questions a few minutes before we pulled in. Obvious deformity to the left arm and leg…”
The report kept going but it was at this point that the burly EMT who had been blocking Twilight’s view of the patient finally stepped aside after the successful bed transfer. All at once he caught sight of a very familiar shade of blue, the well-loved garment instantly recognizable even now, stained with fresh blood and having been crudely sheared down the middle to expose the chest for EKG leads.
That’s Wild’s favorite shirt.
It felt like the ground had fallen out from under him. A deafening roar filled his head, drowning out the noise of the trauma bay. He saw nothing except the limp body with the scars he knew by heart, the mess of blond hair free of its usual ponytail at the head of the bed, and the gray jacket his brother habitually borrowed from him – now irreparably torn and shredded.
His body was moving on its own, pushing forcefully past the EMTs, nurses and residents, fighting to get to the head of the bed where Sky was slipping an oxygen mask onto a pale, slack face. As though from a long distance, he heard someone say intubate and tachycardic and hypotensive; alarm bells sounded shrilly off in his mind, recognizing the telltale signs of an unstable patient. And then a muffled voice was desperately calling out ‘Wild! Wild? Open your eyes, please, talk to me…!’ Some part of him recognized the cracking, trembling voice as his own.
The person on the stretcher before him didn’t react at all to his pleas. Blank, half-lidded cerulean eyes that had none of their usual spark stared straight up at the ceiling, head held in place by the cervical collar that had been securely on the neck by the EMTs. Blood pooled from a large forehead laceration, matting blond hair as it congealed. The hand he found himself holding was cold and unreactive, while the arm it was attached to lay at an awkward angle, obviously fractured.
People pressed in, intervening from all sides. Large trauma shears cut off every remaining scrape of fabric from the body, exposing scattered road rash abrasions which stood out angry red and raw against otherwise pale skin, as well as an unnaturally angulated left thigh where the femur was undoubtedly broken. Sky pressed a stethoscope to both sides of the chest, frowning as he declared that breath sounds were decreased on the left. Quick hands started to insert large IVs in the non-injured arm. Wires and monitors were attached, and started alarming - heart rate high, blood pressure low, oxygen low, body temperature low.
In the midst of the organized chaos swirling around him, Twilight stood unable to move, rooted by the hauntingly familiar-yet-strange face on the bed. Maybe it’s not him, his muddled brain blabbered, he’s never this still, he’s supposed to be at home, he was cooking dinner for us, he’s not even responding to me, he’s so cold…
He was faintly aware that someone was shaking him, trying to get his attention, prying his hands away from his Cub!
“Twilight !” Legend’s face filled his vision, voice harsh in his ear. “You need to snap out of it, you can’t help him like this!”
Twilight jerked as though Legend had hit him. He let go of Wild’s hand, trembling violently, and stumbled backwards. Four steadied him from behind with a hand on his back. The cacophony of noises in the trauma bay became full volume all at once, crashing violently onto his eardrums. Legend had taken charge, calling out directions with decisiveness and urgency. Sky had already pushed the paralytic medication into the IV now secured to Wild’s arm and was getting ready to intubate. One of the nurses had hooked a bag of fluids up to a second IV and was putting it into a pressure bag to increase the rate of flow. Someone else was drawing blood for labwork. The blood pressure cuff cycled again, and the pressure was no better – still much too low – and the heart rate was increasing.
“Tube is in!” Sky called out, securing the endotracheal tube to Wild’s face to prevent it from becoming dislodged. Next to him, the respiratory therapist was setting up a ventilator. Sky listened again to the chest. “Left side is still diminished,” he reported, “and oxygen level is still low.”
“We need to put in a left chest tube,” Legend said, looking at Twilight. Legend had run more than enough traumas and knew what he was doing. Normally, he and Twilight would be working in synchrony, taking turns directing and performing necessary procedures. But at this moment in time, Twilight’s mind simply could not process what was happening with any significant speed. All he could see was Wild – his little brother, with a tube down his throat ( he would hate that!); his Cub, lying completely exposed except for a blanket someone had placed over his groin ( he’s going to be so mad his shirt is ruined!); his closest friend, surrounded by people with needles and wires (he gets claustrophobic, give him space!).
“Twi!” Legend said urgently, “I can put the chest tube in, but someone needs to be running this trauma!”
Twilight blinked, turning sluggishly to look at him. “I-” he trailed off, feeling desperately lost. “I-!”
“I’ll run the trauma,” a strong voice spoke up behind him calmly. “Put in the chest tube, Legend.”
Then there was a large warm hand on his shoulder and a steady presence at his side. Twilight looked up to see Time standing next to him, surveying the room with a collected gaze, like a war general reading a battlefield. The taller man’s eyes lingered a brief moment longer than necessary on Wild’s face but that was the only sign he knew the young man on the stretcher, even though Twilight knew his mentor must have recognized his brother. Time spoke a few orders and then, as Legend was placing the tube into Wild’s left chest with the help of a younger resident, the attending’s gaze turned to Twilight.
As he met Time’s eyes, Twilight was suddenly a medical student again, witnessing his first trauma activation, feeling extremely out of place and unable to keep up with the fast pace. But Dr. Forrester was there, the unwavering tower of strength who made decisions and gave orders without hesitation, with the confidence of someone who had seen the same scenarios play out hundreds of times. This was the man who he’d seen singlehandedly pull dying patients back from the grave, and unwaveringly lead his team through multiple traumas occurring simultaneously. In Time’s presence, Twilight’s racing heart was able to slow down enough to actually deliver oxygen to his brain, and a wave of calm washed over his frenzied mind, finally allowing coherent thoughts to emerge.
“We need to get blood ready,” he managed to rasp out. The chest tube was in – Legend had worked fast – and while Wild’s oxygen saturation improved, his blood pressure and heart rate had not. Time nodded in acknowledgement, calling a nurse’s name and sending him to the blood bank to bring blood for an emergency transfusion. He then moved to Wild’s side, pulling an ultrasound machine with him and placing the probe on the abdomen in practiced motions. It only took seconds, and the moment Time found the view he was looking for, everyone looking at the screen – Twilight and Legend included – knew that they were heading straight to the operating room. There was a large amount of blood in the abdomen, which was more than likely the reason Wild was so unstable.
“Start the transfusion when the blood arrives,” Time ordered, his voice even and commanding. If he ever got nervous, he didn’t show it. He turned to look at the people standing ready just outside the trauma bay. “X-ray come in, I want a quick a chest and pelvis x-ray. Ravio -” that was directed to the trauma OR charge nurse “- get a room ready for an ex-lap, we’re coming as soon as the films are done. And make sure you have a cooler of blood products available.” The young man being addressed nodded sharply before turning on his heels and racing down the hallway towards the operating rooms.
The x-ray technician rolled their portable machine in as the nurse placed the first two units of blood into rapid-transfusers to maximize the speed of delivery. Legend came to stand beside Time, Twilight and Four, looking at the trauma fellow with an unreadable expression. “Do you want me to do this case?” he asked softly so that only their small group could hear. Twilight stiffened. He had thought about this very scenario occurring, of course, every one of them had – he had wondered what it would be like if a loved one rolled in those doors, if he would be able to operate on them – he had never imagined that he would freeze up as badly as he did just moments ago. But his mind was clearer now, and he was torn between can I do this? and I can’t leave him.
The x-ray machine beeped and they turned to look at the image of the chest x-ray on the screen. Time nodded in satisfaction – the endotracheal tube Sky had placed was in perfect position, as was the chest tube Legend had placed. There was no residual pneumothorax visible, although the left lung was obviously contused and multiple ribs were clearly fractured. The x-ray technician shifted the machine down toward the pelvis. The blood pressure machine cycled again, and relief washed over Twilight when he saw that the pressure had improved with the blood transfusion starting – still low, but not as frightening as it had been. The machine beeped again, and when the image flashed onto the screen, Four let out an expletive. The pelvis was shattered on the left, and there was the unmistakable sign of an open book pelvis injury – a huge gap in the middle where the two halves of the pelvis should have been nearly touching.
“Get a pelvic binder on,” Time said tersely, and Four was already in motion before the words left his mouth. An open pelvis meant internal bleeding from the pelvic veins, and placing a pelvic binder was the best way to temporize the injury. “Get an x-ray of the left femur.” At Time’s instruction, the x-ray tech repositioned the machine and took another shot. The femur was broken cleanly in half at the mid-section. “I’ll put that on traction right after you’re out of the OR,” Four said after glancing at the screen from where he was strapping the pelvic binder on, making sure it was tightly secured in the correct position. “I’ll get films of the arm later. He’s got pulses, so it’s not urgent.” Palpable pulses at each extremity offered reassurance that the arteries supplying the limbs had not been injured.
“Twi?” Legend’s questioning voice reminded Twilight that he hadn’t answered the earlier question. Did he want to do this operation? Could he? Would his mind be able to focus? Would his hands stop trembling once he stepped up to the operating table?
“Twilight.” Time’s voice cut cleanly through his internal monologue, reaching through his mental turmoil to find him in the middle of the hurricane. “You can do this.” It was a statement, not a question, and Time spoke with such conviction that Twilight immediately believed him. Time knew – he didn’t know how his mentor knew, but he did – Time knew that if Twilight didn’t do this, he would regret it for the rest of his life. He had poured so much into his years of training to be prepared to give his best for patients in need, and this, this was the one person in the world he’d sworn to protect with everything he had.
“I’m here, Pup,” the familiar nickname was only for Twilight’s ears, a balm to his anxious heart. “ We can do this.”
Twilight nodded with a deep breath, a steely strength flashing into his eyes as resolve won the battle over fear. “I’ll do this case,” he told Legend. The other man nodded, grasping Twilight’s arm firmly. “You can do this,” Legend echoed Time’s words without a trace of doubt.
“Legend, there are a few people in the ICU I need you to look at,” Time said briskly. “Bed three is pretty sick. Start pressors if you need to.” Legend nodded in acknowledgement, standing aside as Sky started to push the stretcher out of the trauma bay and towards the operating room with a nurse accompanying alongside, pushing an IV pole with the blood still transfusing.
Time and Twilight followed the stretcher down the hall, through the main operating room doors, paused briefly to put on eye protection, and then stepped together into operating room 1. From there, the sequence of events was just like it always was: park the stretcher next to the table, transfer the patient on the count of three, hook up wires to all the right machines, make sure the defibrillator pads were available...
Twilight went through the motions on autopilot, trying his best to avert his eyes from the head of the bed where Sky was busying himself with the ventilator, monitors and IV lines. (As the anesthesiologist, it would be Sky’s job to keep a close eye on the vitals signs and administer all medications and blood products.) If he looked too long at his brother’s face, so still and pale and unresponsive, he was afraid he would freeze again, caught up in wanting to run his hand through those thick blond locks and begging the boy to open his eyes, please, Cub, talk to me...
Not now, his inner voice rang out strong, shaking him from his spiraling thoughts, sounding suspiciously like Time. You need to save him. Scrub, now!
With a jerk he realized that his attending was already cleaning Wild’s exposed abdomen with sterilizing solution. The young man was lying on the narrow table, arms stretched out on attached armboards, his top half completely exposed, with a blanket covering him from the groin down and a safety strap securing his legs to the table. A urinary catheter had been placed by a nurse, and Sky was in the process of placing a nasogastric tube to decompress the stomach and minimize risk of aspiration. It was time for Twilight to scrub in.
Scrubbing, too, could be done on autopilot. He placed his hands under the automatic dispenser for the sterilizing solution and rubbed the alcohol-based gel over his hands and forearms (gone were the days of scrubbing every case at the scrub-sink). The scrub tech helped him put on his sterile gown and gloves. As Time scrubbed in, Twilight started to drape sterile towels over Wild’s body, marking out their operative field. Once Time was scrubbed, gowned and gloved, they placed down the long sterile drape together, pulling it first over Wild’s legs, then up over his chest and head, leaving only his abdomen visible. Twilight caught one last glimpse of his brother’s face (but for the endotracheal tube and the blood in his hair, Twilight could believe he was just sleeping), and then it was all masked by a sea of blue as Sky secured the drape to IV poles on either side of the bed, creating a wall between their operative field and the anesthesia equipment.
“Time-out,” Time intoned from his position on the opposite side of the table from Twilight. The OR nurse swiftly complied: “Time-out. This is Unknown Trauma 201, medical record number is 470389, preoperative antibiotics have been given, this is an emergency consent, we are here to perform an exploratory laparotomy. All agree?”
“Agree,” both surgeons said in unison. Time met his protege’s gaze over Wild’s body – except now, it wasn’t Wild anymore. Surrounded by blue, with his mentor across the table, the familiar surgical time-out fresh on his mind, the operative field lit by surgical lights, this was just another case – another patient fate had brought for them to help to the best of their ability, another life they would use every skill they had to rescue. We can do this, Time’s gaze said. And as he had done so many times before, Twilight believed him.
“Knife,” Twilight called, holding out his hand to receive the scalpel the scrub tech gave him. “Incision” he said, and made the cut.
They got into the abdomen with practiced ease. The body before them was young and healthy, making the tissue easy to work with. The moment they entered the abdominal cavity bright red blood immediately poured out, but this was not unexpected. They knew the steps to take; together they were efficient and methodical: evacuate the blood (there was easily a liter and a half), temporize the bleeding by packing with laparotomy sponges, and once they had controlled the bleeding, place a self-retaining retractor...
They worked in silence save for calling out the instruments they needed, and even then their scrub tech usually knew what they wanted before they asked. Before long they had identified a liver laceration (bleeding, but salvageable) and a shattered spleen (it would definitely need to come out), a small bowel mesenteric injury (meaning the blood supply to that particular segment of the small bowel was completely destroyed), and a large pelvic hematoma (not surprising given the bad pelvic injury they had seen on x-ray). They took the spleen out first, which didn’t take long as the blunt impact had all but avulsed it from its normal position anyway. Once the spleen came out, the bleeding slowed down considerably. Next, they looked at the liver. The blood coming from the large laceration looked thin, and very little clotting had occurred while they had been working on the spleen. Both surgeons recognized the signs that coagulopathy was setting in. Patients who had lost a large amount of bleeding often became coagulopathic and had difficulty forming clot, even after transfusions.
“Sky,” Time called, and Sky’s eyes appeared over the top of the blue drapes. “How are you doing up there?”
“He’s gotten 12 units of red cells, 8 each of plasma and platelets, 2 of cryo, as well as 3 liters of fluids,” Sky replied, knowing exactly what Time wanted to hear. “Blood pressure is hanging in there, systolic in the low 90’s. I’ve been giving him a bit of pressors here and there. Heart rate in the one-twenties to one-, thirties. Urine output isn’t great, slightly less than 30 milliliters in the 45 minutes we’ve been here. I checked an arterial blood gas and he’s acidotic, pH is 7.15. Body temperature is 35 degrees centigrade. All of that is better than when we started, but still not great.”
“Alright. We got the spleen out so that should help. We need to get him to the ICU so we can better resuscitate him,” Time was looking at Twilight with a pointed gaze, and Twilight knew what his mentor was saying – this was now a damage-control operation, they needed to take care of the worst of the injuries and get Wild to an ICU bed so his body could recover a bit before they come back to finish the operation. They would need to leave his abdomen open for now. “Let’s pack the liver and pelvis and take out that segment of small bowel, then put a temporary cover on and we’ll be done for now.”
Twilight nodded in agreement and they got back to work. As quickly as they could, they replaced a few fresh laparotomy sponges around the liver and in the pelvis to hold pressure and stem the bleeding. They isolated, stapled off and removed the segment of bowel that had lost its blood supply, leaving the two ends in discontinuity for now. Finally, they placed a clear cover over the open abdominal cavity, and at last, pulled down the blue drapes.
Sky had somehow found the time to clean and place gauze over the cut on Wild’s forehead. There was still dried blood in his hair, but a small amount of color had returned to his cheeks. A central line (essentially a large IV) was hanging from the right side of his neck, peeking out from underneath the cervical collar, also courtesy of Sky. Twilight glanced at the monitors, letting himself take comfort from the EKG tracing that proved his brother’s heart was still beating. Wild was still alive.
Together, they transferred the young man to an ICU bed, taking care not to dislodge any of the many tubes and wires attached to him. With Sky at the head and Twilight at the foot of the bed, they wheeled him out of the operating room towards the trauma ICU.
When they arrived at the assigned ICU room, a welcomed face greeted them at the door.
“Legend called me,” Hyrule explained, eyes filled with concern as he caught sight of them. “I asked to take an extra shift tonight.”
Relief washed over Twilight, and from the small smile on Time’s face, his mentor felt it as well. Not only was Hyrule one of the best ICU nurses they had, he also counted Wild as one of his closest friends. There was no one else Twilight would have wanted to be here at this moment.
Twilight watched a myriad of emotions flash through Hyrule’s eyes as the younger man took in the state of Wild’s broken body. Grief, anger, shock, but above all – determination. Hyrule would do whatever it took to stand between his friend and death. Wild wasn’t out of the woods, not by a long shot, but Hyrule was prepared to fight for him with everything he had.
They settled Wild into his ICU room, Hyrule buzzing around to make sure every wire and every tube was properly hooked up. Time gave a few verbal orders, while Twilight pulled a computer on wheels over to start placing orders into the computer system. It felt incredibly strange to see his brother listed as “Unknown Trauma 201” on the medical record. Meanwhile, Four arrived to place the broken femur on traction. He and Hyrule got in a brief squabble (“Let me give him some pain medicine first!” “What for, he’s out cold!” “That doesn’t mean his body can’t feel it!”) which Four lost, and grumpily waited for Hyrule to find and push some morphine into Wild’s IV before pulling the broken femur straight.
A smooth voice alerted Twilight that Warriors had arrived and was talking to Time in hushed tones. Wars was the trauma attending in-house tonight. He was a few years younger than Time, but excellent at his job and Twilight trusted him fully. Between Warriors and Hyrule, he knew that Wild had the best team taking care of him. Which was good, because all at once the adrenaline left his system and he felt like the breath had been knocked out of him. He slumped ungracefully into a nearby chair, bracing his head in his hands and elbows on his knees. In this position, looking down at his legs, he realized that his scrub pants and shoes were splattered with blood – Wild's blood.
Tears sprung to his eyes without warning, and he wiped them away angrily. He was not going to cry in the middle of the ICU, that was the last thing he needed right now...
For the second time that day, Time’s hand on his shoulder pulled him out of a downward spiral and back to reality. Looking up, he saw Warriors had also come over, peering at him from over Time’s shoulder with brows furrowed in concern and sympathy.
“You need rest,” Time’s voice left no room for arguments. “Malon has the guest room ready for you. Ride with me. I promise to get you back here early tomorrow, and Hyrule will call us if anything changes. He and Wars can handle this, and Legend is here tonight too.”
Twilight had long ago stopped questioning how Time seemed to know all his needs. How did he know that Twilight would not have been able to return to the apartment he and Wild shared, would not have been able to see straight to drive, and definitely would not have been able to keep from rushing to Wild’s bedside the moment he woke up in the morning?
He nodded silently in agreement, filled with gratitude that he was not alone, and that there was a full team of people here he could trust with the most important person in his life. He stood up shakily, and again anticipating his unspoken need, Time’s hand shifted to his back and gently guided him to his brother’s side.
Twilight knew that Wild had plenty of sedation and pain medicine in his veins keeping him asleep. He was thankful to see no signs of pain on the young man's still face. Gently, he brushed a lock of blond hair away from Wild’s closed eyes, and let his hand trail down one scarred cheek.
“Be good for Hyrule, Cub,” he whispered. “Ill be back soon, okay?” He slipped his hand into Wild’s and gave it a squeeze.
His mind’s eye suddenly saw a much younger Wild, driven to exhaustion by recurrent nightmares, curled up on the bed next to him after he had finally tiptoed into Twilight’s room in the wee hours of the morning and shyly asked for his big brother’s company. He would stroke the young boy’s hair until the sweet cerulean blue eyes finally drifted close, the crinkles of anxiety on his forehead finally relaxed, and the little fist balled around his raggedy stuffed wolf finally uncurled. When the boy’s breathing had evened out to the slow deep rhythm of sleep, Twilight would hold his hand gently in his own much bigger one. Even in sleep, Wild’s little hand would instinctively grasp his fingers.
The hand he held now did not respond at all to his touch.
Being a doctor meant he knew too much. He knew all the bad and scary things that could cause Wild to be so unresponsive. The simplest and most obvious reason, of course, was the medicine dripping into his veins. But what if Wild never woke up again? What would he do if he could never again talk to his brother, never see his sweet smile or hear his voice calling out a greeting when he walked through the door? (No matter how late he worked, Wild always stayed up for him.)
The thoughts were heavy and suffocating. He could barely swallow past the lump in his throat, and the tears that he had fought back before now sprang up again. This time he couldn’t find the strength to fight them, and down they fell, splish splosh onto the laminated floors. Time’s hand stayed on his back, emanating strength. Hyrule slipped a gentle arm around his waist and held him close, tears threatening to spill from his own eyes. Warriors drew the curtain across the glass doors behind them, offering them privacy from the curious eyes of other nurses and hospital staff outside.
They let the somber silence stretch on for a few moments, broken only by the rhythmic beeping of the cardiac monitor and the mechanical inhale-exhale of the ventilated breaths.
Then a sharp knock sounded at the door, and someone called, “X-ray!” through the glass.
“I ordered some films of his arm,” Four said, soft and apologetic. “I want to splint it sooner rather than later.”
Twilight nodded, wiping his eyes with the back of one hand, setting Wild’s hand back on the bed with the other. Warriors gave him a moment to draw in a few deep, wobbly breaths and attempt to collect himself before opening the curtain and door for the portable x-ray machine to come through. Time’s hand never wavering from his back, Twilight let himself be conducted out the door, every step he took heavy-laden with grief. From the deepest dredges of his inner strength he scavenged up the willpower to keep putting one foot ahead of the other; his reservoir was all but bone dry.
“Courage,” Time murmured into his ear, “is not the absence of fear.”
It is standing in the presence of fear and continuing to fight. With whatever weapon you are given, whatever skills you possess, whatever your body is able to handle.
Take courage. It is enough.
At this moment, courage was following his mentor out of the hospital and trusting that he had done all that he could for Wild, and that all he had given was enough .