Guilt’s Cost: Part XVI

Emergency Room

Tifa sat on a bed in the infirmary, talking with the female doctor that had performed her evaluation. It was getting to be late in the evening, and Dr. Arlin had spent most of the day radiographing and ultrasounding Tifa, so that she could see exactly where the implant had been placed.

"Well Tifa", Dr. Arlin said, pushing her glasses higher up her nose, "I think what we have learned today is some good news."

Tifa smiled and clasped her hands together. "That’s what I was hoping to hear."

The doctor pulled over a stool and sat before her patient. "It would appear that the implant they placed within you was some old technology. It is lodged against your spine as we suspected, but it is relatively simple in its design. I don’t think they expected anyone to find it, so they weren't too worried about it being removed."

"So, you can get it out, right?" Tifa didn’t want to get her hopes up prematurely.

"Well, I still would like some of the other doctors to review the films and pictures, but I think that there is a good possibility that we will be able to remove it in the next week or so." The doctor smiled.

Tifa was speechless in her excitement. This was what she had hoped to hear all day, but was afraid wouldn’t be. "Great…" was all she could manage.

Suddenly, a loud alarm went off. Tifa squealed in her fright, and the doctor dropped her chart.

"What’s that?" Tifa asked as the alarm continued to blare.

The doctor rose from her seat. "We’ve got incoming."

Tifa was confused. "Incoming?"

Dr. Arlin was quickly becoming preoccupied. "Yes, you know, wounded coming in."

Tifa covered her mouth with her hands, the reality of what the doctor had just said sinking in. "It isn’t the mission team, is it?"

Unintentionally, the doctor snapped back at her. "I don’t know, Ms. Lockhart. Just stay here, I’ll be back in a while."

Tifa’s heart raced as she watched the doctor move to the other side of the infirmary and push an intercom button. "How many we got?"

A voice crackled back through the speaker. "Two. One stable, and one critical. GSW to the chest."

The doctor ran over to an emergency cart, stocked with the instruments she would need for the emergency. Tifa watched, frozen to her place. Although she was only versed in the most basic of medicine, she knew that by the items the doctor was getting ready that things were bad for whoever was on their way.

Tifa was again startled as the doors to the small infirmary burst open, and several men surrounding a gurney rushed by. As the doctor and her assistants flurried around their patient, Tifa struggled to see who it was.

Tifa’s heart hit the floor. Between all the people she spotted Vincent’s cybernetic arm hanging lifelessly from the side of the stretcher.

"Oh God, no!" Tifa got to her feet and tried to reach Vincent, but one of the assistants grabbed her.

"Miss, please let the doctor work." He said kindly.

"No!" Tifa was in an abject panic. "It’s Vincent! Please, let me see him! Let me help him!"

"Tifa, what’s your blood type?" The doctor asked from across the room.

"O negative." Tifa stammered in her fear.

Dr. Arlin looked up from Vincent. "If you want to help, then go sit down and let one of these guys start taking your blood, Tifa."

Her knees felt weak, and she allowed the male nurse already holding her by the arm to lead her back to the bed she had been sitting on before. She sat staring at the activity taking place around Vincent, barely taking notice of the nurse prepping her arm and inserting the large blood-collecting needle.

With tears in her eyes, she dared to ask, "Is he alive?"

The man looked back over his shoulder as he secured the needle into her arm with a piece of tape. "He is, but it is very serious. He’s lost a huge amount of blood from the wound to his chest, and he already had an emergency tube placed in him to help re-inflate one of his lungs."

In Tifa’s highly stressed state, her blood pressure was terribly elevated, and the half-liter bag that she was hooked up to was soon filled.

The nurse pulled the needle from her arm, and ran the blood over to the group around Vincent.

Tifa’s attention was momentarily diverted as the doors to the room opened again. She looked over to see Tseng being rolled in sitting in a wheel chair, pushed by Angel. They came over to where Tifa was, knowing that Tseng would have to wait a while for the doctor’s attention.

Angel sat next to Tifa on the bed, and placed her arm around her. "Tifa, are you doing okay?"

She gazed at Angel through her tears. "What happened? Is he going to be all right? They won’t tell me anything!"

Angel held Tifa tighter. "He was shot twice, Tifa. Once in the shoulder, and once in the chest. He’s lost a lot of blood, but if they can stop his bleeding and curb his hypovolemia, he might be okay."

Tifa was lost in her feeling of helplessness. "They took my blood to give to him."

Angel smiled at her. "Then you may have already saved his life, Tifa."

With Angel’s comfort, Tifa started to feel less panicked. "But he might be all right?"

Tseng reached over and put his hand on Tifa’s knee. "Vincent wouldn’t let something like this stop him. Even after being shot, he carried me back to the helicopter." He decidedly left out the part where Vincent had been taken over by Chaos.

Tifa noticed for the first time that Tseng looked like Hell warmed over. "What happened to you? Were you shot, too?"

Tseng laughed weakly. "No, nothing that heroic I’m afraid."

Angel looked slightly annoyed. "Tseng has a terrible heart, and he suffered a pretty good attack. That’s why Vincent had to bring him all the way back to the helicopter."

Tifa smiled faintly in pride at hearing of Vincent’s heroism. "Really?"

A scream brought Tifa’s attention back to the activity around Vincent. She wasn’t certain, but she could have sworn that the cry had come from Vincent.

"Stop it!" Vincent yelled out again, protesting at the nurses and doctor working on him.

Tifa couldn’t hold herself back anymore. After all the torture that Vincent had survived from Hojo, she knew he was going mad having so many strange people around him, hurting him in their attempt to help.

Despite the attempts of the nurses to push her away again, Tifa fought her way through, making her way to his left side. Seeing the wild fear and agony on his face tore her apart inside. "Vincent?"

He looked up at her, panting madly, struggling to recognize her. His mind was clouded by the drugs they had started administering to him, and he reached up toward her pathetically with his mechanical arm.

She grabbed the cold metal limb and held it close to her. As soon as she had a hold of him, the look of confusion melted away from his face. "Tifa?"

"Yes Vincent." She cried, elated in his recognition of her.

"Please make them stop." He begged her.

She reached out and stroked his hair. "I can’t, Vincent. You’re hurt badly, they need to help you."

"Make them stop, please!" He asked again as another intravenous line was pushed into his right arm.

Tifa’s heart ached knowing that she couldn’t grant his wish. She hoped that the drugs he now had in his system would help him forget this. "Vincent, it will stop, I promise, but they need to help you right now."

"You won’t hurt me…Why don’t you do it?" Vincent asked, unaware of what he was saying.

She smiled at him through sad eyes, but noticed that he was now so focused on her that he didn’t feel the doctor manipulate his chest tube, something that would have sent him through the roof otherwise.

The doctor noticed the effect Tifa was having on Vincent. "Keep talking to him, so he won’t fight us anymore. Let him know we’re almost done. We just need to take care of his shoulder."

Tifa nodded and looked back down at Vincent, locking him into her gaze. "Vincent, listen to me, they are almost done, okay?"

"I don’t care…" Vincent’s ingrained fear of having no control over what others were doing to him was making it hard for him to stay focused on reality. "Don’t let them take my other arm, Tifa…please don’t let them cut my other arm off."

She placed a hand on his cheek. "No one is going to take your arm off, Vincent. They just have to fix the damage that was done to it by the bullet."

"Tifa…" Vincent was becoming more incoherent as more painkillers were pushed through his I.V. lines.

She continued to hold his arm as he was finally put under by the drugs. Tifa was filled with an inner peace as the activity surrounding Vincent began to slow down.

Dr. Arlin looked at Tifa approvingly. "Thanks for calming him down."

Tifa gave her a shy smile. "I was so worried for him."

"He isn’t out of the woods yet, Tifa." The doctor said to her. "I’m going to have to take him into surgery to fix his shoulder, and see how much damage the bullet in his chest did. Say goodbye to him for now. We’ll have to take him right away."

Tifa furrowed her brow as the doctor and the nurses stepped back for a moment. She them bent down and whispered to Vincent, "I love you".

His eyes reopened for just a second, and he replied. "I love you too, Tifa. Be there when I wake up."

She straightened back up and let go of his arm as the nurses came and pulled the gurney away toward the surgery suite.