Knockout

Chapter 1: Faint

Silence was thick. Even the rustle of activity from the busy hospital's hallways seemed dull and distant to the nurse.

Angie stared intently at her lap, her hair inciting a mild tickle from her cheeks in the room's gentle draft. On her lap rested both of her hands, which carefully fumbled with a pair of glasses. For several minutes she had been tilting, turning and unfolding them, listening to the small creaks from the hinges. She let out a sigh. The owner of these glasses should be wearing them right now, but they would do him little good. Glasses are useless to a person when he or she is unconscious.

But . . . he should not have been unconscious either. Yet, he was.

Angie let out another sigh as her index finger tenderly jiggled one of the nose pads. She should not be here. She should be checking on the patient she and the doctor she had been paired with had just treated. They both should be doing their rounds and preparing for the next surgery. But they were not . . . she was sitting solemnly in that chair and he was . . .

She stopped fiddling with the glasses, instead folding them up gently and holding them in the palms of her hands. The events that had led her to this place were as muffled as the consistent rustle from the hallway, but the nurse was able to retrace her memory. Slowly, she was able to piece together what had brought her here . . .

. . . from the moment Dr. Stiles had collapsed.

--

"Let's close him up."

Tension in the operating room was not an uncommon thing by any means. Skilled surgeons and nurses moved around it with relative ease, but it was there all the same, yanking at their nerves and pushing them to the limit at times. The same was true for the unexpected circumstances surrounding Mario Kovac's surgery. Aneurysms were relatively common as was treating them, though the abundance in which the patient's final bout of weakened blood vessels appeared did take the surgical team by surprise for a moment.

And only for a moment.

Their professional judgment had stepped in and allowed them to analyze the situation. Not as though they needed to think about it - five aneurysms at once, with little time to treat them. What they needed was time. Time that only one thing could give them –

"Doctor! Your Healing Touch . . .!"

Even though she had been the one to spout that suggestion, Angie could not help but flinch upon watching it again. She thought nothing of it the first time she had witnessed it, chalking up the stress of the deadly situation to her thinking she had just seen Dr. Stiles suture a severe wound in a fraction of a second. The second time left her dazed, wondering for the remainder of that day if she had blacked out. Though now that she knew what she was seeing she could not help but feel intimidated and awed by it.

The Healing Touch . . . a surgical technique that only a select few wielded. And Dr. Stiles was one of them.

She had attempted to observe it as best she could, but it was only in the second that she realized how impossible that would be that it was over. The treatment was completed and the patient was stabilized, leaving Derek only with the task of closing the incision and placing the bandage.

Greg had been collected as ever. He could not help but smirk as he watched his mentee handle both the Healing Touch's power and the surgery with relative ease. The young man had certainly come along way. He never would have guessed that the tardy and forgetful surgeon would have made such a drastic improvement in skill and in taking his job seriously. Yet, here he was witnessing just that, and he could not have been prouder.

Neither nurse nor head surgeon had noticed the paled expression on Derek's face or the shake in his hands as he applied the bandage.

"I see you learned to control the Healing Touch." Greg commented. "Make sure you don't rely on it too much. You still need to hone your natural skills."

Derek took a step back and removed his surgical mask with a nod. This time Greg had noticed the hint of exhaustion on the younger man's face, giving a sympathetic smile before continuing. "I know it won't be easy, but you didn't take this job because . . ."

Greg trailed of upon noticing the young surgeon's distant stare. "Derek, are you even listening?" he sighed inwardly. He was no stranger to Derek's tendency to daydream, but the knowing smirk on his face fell as the younger man began to sway. "Derek? What's wrong?!"

Derek's response was immediate and to the point. A shuddered breath left him as his eyes rolled up, followed by his legs giving out underneath him and sending him crashing to the floor. The sound of his limp hand taking out the surgical tray produced a cringe inducing wince in the small room, but the sickening thud of his body against the tiles was potent enough to draw a gasp from the pair that watched him fall.

"Derek!"

"Dr. Stiles!"

Greg was at his side in a flash, kneeling beside him and pressing his fingers to his neck to check his pulse. After a quick inspection of his circulation and airways, he carefully removed the glasses from the unconscious doctor's face, folding them up and placing them in his chest coat pocket. "Angie." he said as he carefully turned Derek's head to the side. "I need you to get back up from the lounge. Tell them to bring a gurney." Withdrawing a penlight, he peeled back Derek's eyelid but paused in his examination. He glanced up upon hearing no reaction from the nurse, his brows rising as she simply stood there. "Angie?"

She snapped out of it at once, the fingers that had lightly been pressed to her lips jerking from her face and curling into a fist. "Yes, Dr. Kasal. Right away."

--

The sharp click of her flats carried her from the OR and out into the hall, her mind racing as quickly as the heart pounding in her ribcage. Several first aid procedures had come flooding to her mind the moment she watched Derek collapse, all of them she had performed successfully in emergency situations. However, as she had watched Greg step up and begin checking the fainted doctor's vitals, she found her body unable to follow through the motions she knew so well. Instead she could only stand, her mind screaming orders at her but her body unwilling to listen.

Even now as she rushed to the doctors' lounge for assistance, she could feel the shallow breath rapidly rushing through her lips. 'Why? What am I doing? Why can't I calm down?'

She drank in a relieved gasp at the sight of Dr. Kevin Lu, whose focus was brought up from the chart he had been carrying upon Angie's flailing hands. She vaguely heard herself explain the situation, two other nurses overhearing her and swiftly retrieving a stretcher. From there, she quickly lead them back to the surgical ward, gurney wheels squeaking on the heels of several footsteps, all of which overpowering the murmur of voices in the nurse's head.

They pushed open the swinging doors, Angie taking place at Derek's side as the others collapsed the stretcher and prepared to load him onto it. With the surgeon securely loaded on, they wheeled him off under the direction of Dr. Kasal. They quickly found an available room, Angie glancing at the surgeon with uncertainty as she lowered the bed's guard railing and assisted them in transferring him.

What followed was a blur of murmurs and movement as Derek was situated on the bed. Clicks of shoes against the tiles and the squeaking stretcher wheels poured from the room, taking the additional doctor and nurses with them. Silence more than made up for their absence as it swallowed the room and left just enough space for her uneven breathing. Staring at Derek's motionless form, Angie found that the quiet was short lived and a dull roar rose up from her mind. The few coherent thoughts that swam through her head were quickly swallowed and lost among the senseless mumbles.

A hand landed on her shoulder, pulling her from her muddled thoughts as she let out a surprised gasp. She looked up to find that the hand belonged to Greg, who stood beside her with a concerned gaze. "Are you okay?"

"Uh . . yes . . I . ." Angie's fluttered blinked matched her stammer and she quickly put and end to them both. Closing her eyes and pursing her lips, she gave her head a slow shake, reopening them as the confusion brimming in her head eased off. Her gaze quickly returned to the unconscious doctor and a small sinking pulled at her stomach. "What happened to him, Dr. Kasal?"

The resident surgeon sighed as he cupped his chin. "Fatigue, most likely. He pushed himself too far."

"The Healing Touch . . .?" she murmured, seeing Greg nod in confirmation from the corner of her eye. "Is he going to be okay?"

"He should be fine, nothing a few days of bed rest won't cure."

"I . . ." Angie's eyes shot open wide. "Mr. Kovac! We need to get him back to his room and . . ." she trailed off as Greg gave her a perplexed look.

"Angie, the other nurses and Dr. Lu are taking care of that now. You instructed them to see to Mr. Kovac yourself."

She blinked. "I . . . did?"

Greg frowned. "You should have a seat. You look a little flushed yourself."

"Right." Angie all but plopped onto the chair at the bed side, running a hand through her bangs.

"I'm going to check on Mr. Kovac and update his charts. Keep an eye on Dr. Stiles, okay?" He reached inside his coat, withdrawing the glasses he had recovered earlier and placing them on the night stand.

"Of course."

With that, Greg excused himself, leaving her in silence with the doctor turned patient. She blinked at the folded glasses, slowly turning her gaze over to their motionless owner. She sighed. It had seemed so sudden. One moment he was fine and the next . . .

Angie looked back at the glasses on the table. She took them into her hands, her grip on them delicate as though they would shatter. She sighed again as she leaned back and absently stared at them. "You know, Dr. Stiles, when I told you to work harder I didn't mean for you to push yourself to the point of passing out."

Though she expected no response from him, she glanced over and frowned as he slumbered on. Her eyelids drooped lazily as she looked back at his glasses. "You're going to get a stern talking to when you wake up." she mumbled as her frown tightened. Though her body had been forced to settle from exhaustion, her heart was still pounding in the wake of Derek's abrupt spill. "Why am I so nervous? Why couldn't I move back there?"

Angie knew she was worried, and she admitted it to herself too. It was never a good thing when people fainted, though it was one of the more frequent and less urgent things she had to deal with as a nurse. She had seen it all the time and dealt with more intense situations flawlessly. Yet, her heart leapt into her throat and threatened to choke her the moment she watched the surgeon crumple to the floor. She sighed again, her eyes growing narrow in frustration with herself.

And as Angie tried to contemplate what would have caused her to lose it, she looked at Derek's sleeping face and suddenly realized why.

--

A/N: If you need to be told at what point in the game this takes place in, you fail. F-A-I-L.

There will be more chapters, so rest easy. I basically decided to kick my ass in gear and start writing more regularly. Now that I don't have classes until June 2nd I don't have any excuses.

So yes, here's an idea that's been floating in my head a while and I decided to use this down time to actually write it. I hope you all enjoyed it and look forward to the next part.

But if you'll excuse me, I'm going to watch Iron Man again because –

One: It was just that bad ass

Two: Apparently there's a part after the credits that I missed so I have to watch it again. As you can see, I'm very disappointed about having to watch Iron Man again . . . very . .

See you next chapter!