Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Carter wakes up coughing. It’s dark, and there’s something on his chest that hurts, and the air is thick with dust.

“Carter!? Answer me. Carter, can you hear me?” a voice is calling his name, muffled, sounding far away. It’s a familiar voice, but Carter’s head is spinning and he can’t quite make the connection.

Panic settling in, he coughs and coughs and coughs, choking on dust, vomiting to the side. When the coughing finally subsides, he lays there, wheezing. He’s still not getting enough air, he recognizes. There’s something heavy on his chest, weighing on his lungs, restricting their capacity.

Again: “Carter! Answer me, man!”

“Doc-Doctor Benton?” Carter chokes out, moving his head around in the darkness, looking for any indication of the surgical resident.

There’s no response, though, and it’s too dark to see anything. Gradually, Carter’s head begins to clear, begins to make sense of things.

He had been stuck doing a paramedic ride-along with Benton – the man whose service he had abandoned for Hicks’s just weeks previously. It had been awkward, Carter remembered – Carter chatting away with the EMT in the back of the ambulance while Benton sat in complete, stony silence.

There had been a gas leak explosion at a small apartment complex in South Shore. A lot of people hurt. A lot of people trapped inside. Carter had followed the voice of a screaming woman inside, traversing debris-riddled hallways with a flashlight and a medical bag in hand. And then… Carter remembers a terrible grating sound – like the whole building was groaning. He remembers the floor giving way beneath his feet, and then… nothing. Waking up here.

“Carter, you better answer this damn radio, man! Right now!”

Radio! Benton’s muffled voice was coming from the radio!

With a groan, Carter strains against whatever rubble has fallen on his chest, lifting his pelvis so that he can grab the radio that is – thankfully – still sitting in his back pocket.

Flicks the switch that sets the radio at continuous receiving.

“Doctor Benton?”

“Carter?? Jesus Christ!” comes Benton’s voice. Maybe John is concussed, but Benton sounds… scared?

“What happened?” Carter rasps, trying to move again, hissing as a stabbing pain fills his chest.

“The building collapsed. You were inside. Christ, man. We- I… everyone thought you were dead.”

“Doctor Benton, were you worried about me?” Carter says, delighted and amused in spite of everything.

Carter hears Benton start to say something but doesn’t get to hear what it is. Something catches in his throat and he erupts into another coughing attack. His chest is on fire, he cannot breathe he cannot breathe.

Distantly, he hears Benton shouting over the radio, but he can’t listen, can’t focus, oh my god he is going to die, he’s going to suffocate-

The edges of Carter’s vision go grey. The world disappears.

When he comes to, his lungs are slightly more clear, but his chest is heaving.

“…are you with me? Carter, I swear to god if you’re aspirating down there and not doing anything about it, I will never let you see the inside of an OR ever again. Damnit, Carter-”

“I’m here, I’m here!” Carter gasps, still coughing a little, but keeping it under control.

For a few moments, there’s no response from Benton. Carter is a little pleased that his teacher – former teacher? – is so worried. When Benton’s voice finally comes back on over the radio, it is tight. Restrained. Controlled. Classic Peter Benton.

“Carter. We need you to focus on taking slow, shallow breaths. It will help minimize the dust inhalation. Now. I need you to concentrate. I need you to tell me where you’re hurt.”

“How do you know I’m hurt?” Carter wheezes.

“Don’t be fucking smart with me, Carter. Give me the full rundown.”

“I, uh, I’m not sure,” Carter says hoarsely. “I think I hit my head, and… something… something’s on my chest. It’s hard to breathe. It’s dark. I can’t move.”

Silence on the other end. Then: “Okay. Carter, I need you to try moving the thing on your chest. I think it’s restricting your breathing. Then we can focus on everything else.”

Carter groans, knowing Benton is right. His chest fucking hurts.

“Okay,” Carter whispers. “Give me a couple minutes.”

“I’ll give you one.”

John rolls his eyes. Begins to feel around the weight on his chest. It appears to be concrete, a support beam of some kind. Fantastic.

With a shuddering breath, John begins to push. It’s fucking heavy, but it’s not immovable. His arms shake, his chest is caving in on itself, he can’t breathe – but still he pushes, with everything he has. There is a little give at first, and then Carter feels something come loose, come unstuck. The corners of his vision are turning grey, but still he pushes, pushes – and then with a massive thunk, Carter is free. He lays there for a least a minute, trying unsuccessfully to catch his breath, to breathe through the pain.

“Talk to me, Carter.”

“I’m good, I, I got it,” John gasps. He doesn’t feel good, though. The support beam might be gone, but the feeling of a weight on his chest is still there. The pain is harsh, stabbing, radiating through his shoulder and back. It’s really hard to breathe. A diagnostic puzzle is piecing itself together in Carter’s mind, and it’s not a good one.

“Good, man. That’s good. The whole of the Chicago Fire Department is out here, they’re working on getting people out as we speak. Now give it to me- where else are you injured.”

Carter just wheezes. His chest feels like it’s being squeezed from the inside.

“Answer me when I talk to you, Carter.”

Benton’s voice is sharp.

“M-my chest really hurts,” Carter gets out. He tries to keep is voice steady and clinical and unafraid – just like Doctor Benton. It’s the opposite of how he is feeling. “Hard to breathe. Doctor Benton, what’s my ETA on getting out of here?” He coughs, then coughs again. God, it hurt.

There is a beat of silence on the other line. Benton’s response is quiet, controlled.

“What’s your diagnosis, Carter?”

John squeezes his eyes shut, trying not to give in to panic or despair. “Tension pneumo, I think. On the left side.”

There is an extended silence on the other side.

“Doctor Benton,” Carter wheezes. “Are you, are you still there.”

“I’m not going anywhere, Carter.” Benton’s tone is flat and serious. “I was just talking to the fire chief. They don’t think they’ll be able to get you out for at least forty five minutes.”

John’s heart pounds. “That’s bad news,” he says as casually as he can. “I’ll probably be dead by then.”

“Not if I can help it. Which is why you’re going to have to take care of this yourself.”

Carter emits a breathy laugh that turns into more coughing. “I’m trapped under a building, Doctor Benton. How exactly do you propose I take care of this?”

On the other line, Benton’s voice is grim. “You have your medical bag with you, right?”

Heart beating fast and utterly confused, Carter looks around. “I, uh, yeah. I had it with me. But it’s dark down here, I can’t see anything. Can’t see it.”

“Where’s your flashlight, Carter?”

“It’s uh, I don’t know.”

“Find it.”

Carter begins to grope around, and miraculously, his hand immediately makes contact with the familiar grip of his flashlight.

“Got it.”

“Good. Find that medical bag.”

Carter flicks the flashlight on. Looks around his surroundings for the first time. Obviously somewhere underground, Carter is surrounded by rubble, collapsed walls and concrete and pipes, insulation and cables and wiring. Nowhere does he see a way out. But – a few yards away, he spots the bright red medical bag he brought into the building.

“I see it.”

“Can you reach it?”

“I-I think so.” Carter isn’t totally sure. Breathing is becoming harder, the pain getting worse.

“Get it done. Quickly, Carter.”

“Doctor Benton, I… I don’t think there’s anything in my medical bag that can help me.”

Carter says it hesitantly, but clearly. As clearly as he can with an invisible elephant sitting on his chest. Tries not to reveal how scared he is. Trying not to think about the fact that his body will soon go into shock, that he will lose consciousness from a lack of oxygen. Who will retrieve his body? Will his parents come home for his funeral?

“You’re not going to die, Carter,” Benton snaps, as if reading John’s mind. “Get that damn medical bag, now.”

Slowly, Carter scoots towards where the bag had fallen. He is coughing again, but he keeps going. A pain in his leg registers – he’s probably injured there, too. That’s a problem for later. Reaching out, stretching, chest bursting, he grapples with the handle, pulling it closer to him.

“Got it,” he gasps.

“Good. Open it up. I need you to grab the scissors, a scalpel, antiseptic. Then I need you to look around for something thin and hollow. A pipe, if you can find one.”

Carter obeys, digging through the bag. “Doctor Benton, I… I don’t know what you want me to do.”

“We’ve got to relieve the pressure in your chest. You are going to perform an improvised chest tube,” Benton says calmly, as if it’s not the craziest fucking thing that’s ever been said out loud.

“On myself??” Carter asks, not sure if he’s hearing Benton correctly.

“Unless you want to die,” Benton snaps.

Carter’s heart is pounding. He genuinely cannot believe what Benton is telling him to do. Benton would hardly allow Carter to insert chest tubes when they were in the trauma room!

“Doctor Benton,” Carter whispers, terror rising. “You want me – you want me to perform a surgical procedure on myself? I can’t do that. That… that’s crazy.”

“Carter, you can and you will. I’m going to talk you through it. And then we’re going to get you out of there, and to the hospital, and then you’re going to be fine. But right now, we do not have a lot of time. So I need you to listen to me very carefully and do everything I say.” 

John shakes his head, heart beating fast, the panic threatening to consume him. “No,” he rasps. “This is crazy. I’m not – I’m not going to put in my own chest tube. There’s no way I can do that, Doctor Benton. I’ll bleed out, I’ll pass out. It’s just going to kill me faster.” Tears run down his cheeks. Carter prays that Benton cannot sense the tears, the vulnerability in his voice.

A pause on the other end. “Carter, you are going to do this. I am your resident, and I am not asking.”

“You’re not my resident,” Carter croaks despite himself. “Doctor Hicks is my resident.” Carter feels his breaths getting shallower, his limbs slightly heavier.

Another pause. Then Benton’s voice comes, sounding slightly strangled. “Look, Carter. If I could get Hicks here to walk you through this procedure, I would. But she’s not here. And I’m your best chance at getting through this. And I am not going to sit out here listening to you die, do you hear me?”

“Okay.” Carter whispers.

“Say it back to me.”

Carter coughs “You’re… you’re not going to let me die.”

“That’s right. Now look around. What can you use for the chest tube?”

Wiping away the tears from his grimy, dust-covered face, Carter looks around. “Broken pipes. I see broken pipes. I think… I think I fell near a utility room or something.”

Benton lets out a strangled laugh. “That’s great. Find the thinnest one you can. Quickly.”

Dragging his body over to a pile of rubble, Carter quickly finds an 8 inch shard of pipe, about 3 centimeters thick.

“Got one.” Carter describes it.

“Alright, Carter. How are you feeling.”

“I- I’m alright. Getting pretty hard to breathe. though. I’m… I’m a little dizzy.”

“Okay. That’s to be expected. But we have work really fast now if this is going to work. Use the scissors to cut off your shirt. Tell me when you’re done.”

Carter obeys mindlessly. “Done.”

“Good. Now. Pour antiseptic over the pipe, over the scalpel, over your side. I need you to get everything as clean as possible, alright?”

“Okay.” Carter does it, the smell of alcohol filling his dusty nostrils. He coughs once. And then again. And then he can’t stop.

“Damnit, Carter!” John hears distantly, but he can’t reply. Every cough is a knife to the chest. He’s being crushed by some invisible force. Tears stream down his face. His lungs feel like they’re barely taking in any air at all now. He’s light-headed, he can’t see straight. And Benton expects him to be able to perform surgery on himself?? He continues to cough, the coughs beginning to sound like sobs.

“I can’t do it, I can’t do it,” Carter gasps out. He hears cursing on the other end.

“Yes you can.”

“No I can’t! I can’t!”

“You can, and you will!” Benton yells.

John doesn’t reply. The scalpel in his hand trembles uncontrollably.

On the other line, John hears Benton take a deep breath. And then another. “Look, Carter. What do you need me to say to get you to do this? That you’re the best medical student I’ve ever had? Because you are. That I messed up letting you switch to Hicks’s service? Because I did. Happy? And if anyone can do this, it’s you. So calm down, put your flashlight between your teeth, pick up that scalpel and make a four centimeter incision to your fifth intercostal space.”

Carter swallows. Head spinning. Heart glowing just a little bit from Benton’s praise, in spite of everything happening. “Okay.” He whispers.

He knows how this works. A four centimeter length incision between his fifth and sixth rib on his left side. Five centimeters deep, sawing through skin, fat, and muscle, right through the pleural space to get to the chest cavity. Conscious. No pain meds.

John takes the deepest breath that he can. Steadies his shaking hands. Positions the scalpel.

“Going in,” he mumbles. Presses down. And then he is screaming.

Chapter Text

Peter Benton is sitting at the back of an open ambulance, clutching his radio like someone is trying to take it from him. Like if he holds on to it tight enough, it can save the life of John Carter.

“Going in,” comes the muffled voice of the intern over the radio.

Peter inhales sharply.

And then there is a yell of pain. Benton shoots to his feet. The radio crackles with staticky sounds between Carter’s strangled gasps and tortured moans. Peter’s hands are shaking as he visualizes what is happening – his student cutting deeply into his own body, through skin and muscle with no pain relief, no medication, no anything. It seems like it goes on forever, the sounds of Carter panting and crying. An unwelcome tear slides down Benton’s face and he furiously wipes it away. 

“You got this, Carter. Keep going. Stay focused. Remember to breathe,” Peter coaches through the radio, aware that Carter probably isn’t listening, probably can’t hear him over the sounds of his own yells. “All the way through the parietal pleura, Carter. All the way through. You’ve got to cut through the membrane. Make sure you cut through the membrane. Listen for the pop, Carter! Listen for it!” Benton chants, shouting, pacing back and forth, ignoring the many firemen and search and rescue crew who are looking at him like he’s crazy.

And then it’s quiet on the other line. “Carter!” Benton shouts. “CARTER!”

“Doctor Benton,” John’s voice crackles over the speaker, a faint whine.

“Stay with me, Carter,” Peter commands. “Keep your fingers inside the cut. Did you get all the way to the pleural space??”

“I-I don’t feel so good,” comes Carter’s weak response.

Peter’s heart pounds. No. No no no no no.

“Do not pass out on me, Carter! Do not pass out! You stay awake! You stay awake!” he hears himself screaming.

An unintellible sound comes from his student. “…tired…”

“No, Carter, don’t you dare fall asleep, don’t you dare!” Peter yells. From a distance, he sees the fire chief approaching him. He waves him away.

“Carter! Carter!” Benton feels sick. He doesn’t know if the incision was successful. Carter could be bleeding out, bleeding out because of Peter, because Peter told him he couldn’t wait, made him cut inches into his body, and now he isn’t responding. He’s going to pass out and asphyxiate, and there’s nothing Peter can do. He killed Gant, and now he’s killed Carter. Couldn’t save them. Couldn’t save either of them. He’s a failure of a teacher, a danger to his students. Not Carter. Please, god, not Carter.

“Carter,” Benton whispers in the radio. “Please answer me, man. Please don’t fall asleep. You’re so close. So close.”

Peter thinks about the last time he and Carter spoke – really spoke. It was up on the roof of the hospital. Carter was telling him he was switching to Hick’s service. You know, a month ago you would’ve ripped my lungs out for going behind your back to another surgeon. Now you just stand there? Carter had said to him – bold, outspoken, confident. Peter had been too in his own head. Reeling from Gant’s death. Couldn’t bring himself to fight with Carter. Couldn’t find the words to say how he was feeling. Since when did I start caring about what you do, Carter was what he’d said instead. Now, his eyes smart with tears. The kid - this goofy, bleeding-heart kid was dying, and that was going to be the last real thing Benton had said to him. That he didn’t care.

What was the last thing he’d said to Gant? Peter wondered, not for the first time. And Peter couldn’t remember. He could never remember. It was certainly something horrible, though. Something callous and unfeeling. That was Peter’s expertise, after all. Callous and unfeeling.

You know, in that surgery today, everything I did, you taught me. Carter’s parting words ring in Peter’s ears. Peter chokes back a genuine sob. Stumbles back to the ambulance, collapsing against the side of it, sliding down, head in his hands. He’d been such a fool. Such a stupid, stubborn fool. And now – now it was going to be too late to fix things.

“D-d-doctor Benton?”

Peter nearly drops the radio.

“Carter!” he cries out, jumping to his feet again, laughing almost hysterically. “Hey, man. Hey. Are you with me?”

There’s a long pause. Then: “‘m with you.”

“How’s your breathing.”

“It-it’s p-pretty… bad, D’ct’r Benton…” Carter stutters.

Peter’s dread rises again like an ocean swell. They had so little time to finish this – so little time. “You’re doing so well, Carter. So well. I need you to tell me if you were able to cut through the parietal pleura. Did you hear a pop or a hiss when you were cutting?”

“Yeah, yeah I got it. I’m pretty sure I got it.”

Peter’s heart pounds. He didn’t love “pretty sure”, but there wasn’t time to work with anything else.

“Okay, Carter. You’ve still got that pipe, right? This is going to be really, really hard. But you need to get that pipe through the incision, get it into your chest cavity and relieve the pressure.”

He hears a sound, like a sob, come from the other line. Peter’s grip on the radio tightens. “I’m sorry man. You’re so close. You can save your life if you do this.” Benton pauses. “Please do this, Carter,” he whispers into the radio. “Please.”

“O-okay,” comes Carter’s hoarse voice. Peter’s heart tightens.

“We’re going to do this quickly, okay? I’m going to walk you through how it’s done, and then you’re going to do it, nice and quick. And then it will be over, I promise. Then we’ll come and get you.”

Peter can’t even begin to think about the logistics of a rescue. He knows the fire department and search and rescue are working on it. With the injuries Carter had sustained, Peter honestly doesn’t know if he will make it to a hospital. But he knows that if the tension pneumo goes untreated, Carter will most certainly die.

“Okay, listen up Carter. You’re going to lie flat on your back. With one hand you’re going to hold the incision open with your fingers. In the other hand, you’re going to hold the pipe at a right angle and push it directly through the wound. Keep it straight as you guide it through the ribs. You’re going to push through the muscle, directly into the chest cavity. You know where your lungs are, Carter. Do not under any circumstance puncture your lung. You know how to do this. You’ve done it before in patients. I’ve watched you do it. When you get there, you’re going to hear a big gush of air. And you’re going to feel some of that pressure lift, okay?”

“Okay.”

“It’s going to hurt, Carter. It’s going to hurt a lot, but if you do it quickly and precisely, you’ll start feeling a lot better, okay?”

No response from Carter this time.

Peter holds his breath, holds the radio. Nearly drops it as an agonized scream breaks through its wavelengths as Carter begins the procedure. It doesn’t go on as long as the last time, however. The screaming subsides, and Peter just hears panting and crying.

“Talk to me, Carter. Tell me what’s happening.” Peter orders.

Carter doesn’t reply, but Peter is soothed by the sounds he hears coming from Carter. Big, gasping breaths. They sound brutal, but… stronger than before, somehow.

Benton is suddenly startled by the form of the fire chief, right in front of him. “Hey doc, we think we figured out where your kid is. We’re going to go in to get him now. It’s going to take a while, though. At least half an hour, or we’ll risk bringing the whole building down.”

Relieved, Peter gives him a thumbs up. Turns back to the radio. “Hey Carter. Hey. Are you hearing me? Did you get it in?”

“I got it,” Carter says, still wheezing a little. Peter hears John give a strangled, incredulous laugh. “That was… fucking… terrible.”

“That was fucking badass, Carter. They’re gonna write journal articles about you. An intern inserts his own chest tube.”

Carter laughs again, then moans. “Fucking hurts.”

Peter sighs. “I know, kid. I know. You did so good. I just talked to the fire chief, they’re coming to get you now. You just have to hold out for another half hour or so, okay. You can do that, right?”

“I… I think so. ‘m pretty tired.” Carter mumbles. Benton’s heart clenches.

“You have to stay awake until we come and get you, alright? You have to stay awake. Now, what are you doing to control the bleeding?”

“…nothing.”

“Do something about it, Carter. Pull out the gauze from your medical bag, start applying pressure around the tube.”

“‘s not a tube, it’s an old pipe.” Carter responds.

Peter rolls his eyes. Grins a little. “Yeah, yeah. Get it done.”

“Done,” comes Carter’s response a few seconds later.

“Good boy,” Peter says. “I need you to work with me, now. I need you to tell me your heart rate. Count from your carotid. I’ll tell you when to stop counting.”

They sit in silence for sixty seconds, Benton hoping that Carter has the mental acuity to keep count of his own pulse.

“Stop.” Peter says. “What’ve you got.”

“One t-t-twenty… five,” Carter mumbles.

Peter’s heart sinks. It’s too high.

“And how are you feeling, Carter?” Benton asks calmly, the opposite of how he feels.

“N-not s-so good,” is Carter’s reply. “I’m p-p-pretty cold, and it h-hurts..”

The kid is fading. He’s starting to go into shock. Peter can tell.

Benton paces frantically. Tries to think of something to say, something to keep him awake and talking. To keep him from succumbing to shock. He comes up with nothing. “I know it does, Carter. I know. I need you to keep talking. Tell me something. Tell me something about you that I don’t know.”

“I’m so tired.” Carter’s voice comes out a sigh.

“No, Carter! No sleeping. Keep talking, Carter! We’re so close, they’re coming for you right now!”

“W-where ‘m I?”

Benton’s heart sinks. “Carter. You’re being rescued. You’re going to be okay, but you need to stay awake.” He practically begs into the radio.

“D-doct’r Ben’n?”

“Yeah, kid, it’s me.” Peter whispers helplessly.

“I-I’m scared.”

“I know you are. I know. You’re going to be okay, I promise. I promise, alright? Just please stay awake.”

“Mmmm.”

“Carter? Hey, Carter?”

No response. Peter begs. He begs into that radio repeatedly, shouts and soothes and begs and begs and begs. But there is no response. He watches as search and rescues guys in heavy gear move in and out of the building. The seconds stretch on into minutes. Two minutes turn in five, five into fifteen. Complete silence over the radio. Peter pictures Carter down in the rubble, trapped and alone and scared. Unconscious. Bleeding sluggishly out of a brutal wound of his own design, a fucking pipe sticking out of his chest cavity. What other injuries had he sustained that they didn’t know about yet? Was he bleeding from his brain? How many broken bones?

“Hey doc, doc!” Peter is shaken from his spiral by the sound of the fire chief again. He looks up at the man wearily. “We got your guy, they’re bringing him out now.”

Benton stares at him. “Is… is he alive?”

The man nods at him. “Yeah, they’ve got a pulse. They say he’s not looking too hot, but he’s alive. Come on, come with me.”

Benton gets up, following the man mechanically to the entrance that the search and rescue team had been using. Distantly, from inside, he hears voices and scuffling getting louder and louder.

And then the team of search and rescue is stepping out of the building, into the night, a stretcher carried between them. Carter.

The kid is coated with dust and grime and blood. A scalp laceration, lacs on the arm and on his legs. His hands are covered in his own blood. A bruise is forming along his jaw. His face- his face is completely ashen, his dry and cracked and blue-tinged lips parted slightly to reveal a sliver of teeth. His breaths a shallow, stuttered wheezes. His pale skin is sweaty and feverish looking.

Peter jogs to move along with the stretcher, hops in the ambulance as the paramedics lift Carter’s boneless form onto a gurney. Moves aside as they start IV lines, strap on an oxygen mask. As the ambulance starts to move, Peter squeezes in next to them. Grabs Carter’s limp, sweaty hand.

He gets a good look at the chest tube for the first time. God, the chest tube. The pipe is a thing of nightmares. It’s dirty and rusty and jagged at the end. It’s the worst-case scenario of medical equipment. Peter wants to rip it out, get it out of him, get all the contaminants and infectious microbes out of Carter’s system. But he can’t. The pipe is keeping Carter alive, staving off the build-up of pressure around Carter’s heart and lungs.

As they speed through the night, back towards County General, Peter can’t help thinking that the very thing keeping Carter alive in the moment might be the thing that’s going to kill him down the line.

Chapter Text

When they arrive at the ER, Peter feels in a daze. Like in a fever dream, he is pulled into the trauma room, then ushered to the side to watch as Greene and Weaver and Ross pour over Carter. They yell for IV lines, for antibiotics, for oxygen, for vitals, for narcotics. He feels eyes looking upon him in horror when the ER staff first get a good look at the makeshift chest tube.

“He… did this himself?” Mark asks with a mix of wonder and disgust, looking over at Benton, aghast.

Peter can only nod stiffly. We had to, he wants to say. He was going to die otherwise. He was going to suffocate without it. He wants to justify what has been done – what he made Carter do. But under the harsh fluorescent lights of the ER, Benton gets a good look at the surgical site for the first time, purple and gurgling and inflamed, and at the disgusting pipe sticking out of it like an impalement. And the words do not come. It’s horrific and unprecedented and dangerous. The doctors aren’t saying it, but Benton knows they’re thinking it, because he is thinking it to. This thing is probably going to kill him.

And so Peter just watches. Watches as they strip Carter down, attaching tubes and wires and monitors to his unconscious, shuddering body. As, in a flurry of activity, they remove the pipe from Carter’s chest cavity, dropping it into a surgical tray and shoving it to the side. Benton flinches at the wet, sloppy gush of air that leeches out of the hole in Carter’s side along with the pipe. Benton watches, as if outside his own body, as Weaver and Ross frantically work to clean the wound, debriding it, scraping out chunks of brutalized skin and muscle tissue. Carter’s skin, Benton thinks, looking at the accumulation of gory mess. Carter’s muscle tissue.

“I can’t believe he did this himself,” one of the nurses whispers emotionally.

There is a pounding in Peter’s ears. The monitors start beeping more frantically. Carter isn’t getting enough oxygen. The pounding gets louder. All my fault, all my fault, all my fault. The doctors prepare to insert a new chest tube. Clean and sterile. All my fault all my fault all my fault.

Mark finds him in the lounge, minutes later, still wearing a blood-splattered gown.

“Peter,” Mark says, gently but urgently. “He’s awake. He’s asking for you. He’s pretty agitated.”

Benton looks up and roughly clambers to his feet. Stumbles down the hallway, following Mark back into the trauma room.

Carter’s been fitted with a gown now. Benton watches as he clumsily and weakly fights against the gentle hands of the nurses. Lydia stands at the end of the table, by Carter’s head, whispering in his ear, stroking his hair.

“We need to get him up for a chest x-ray and head CT,” Mark tells Peter quietly before moving aside.

The daze Peter had been in since arriving at the ER fades away as the room comes into sharp focus. Carter is awake. He is scared. He is asking for Peter.

Benton approaches the side of the table, grabbing a chair to sit right beside Carter. He waves Lydia away. He cups the side of Carter’s dust-covered face, gently turning it towards him. Through glassy, half lidded eyes, Carter’s gaze fixes on Peter’s. He tries to say something, but it is muffled by the oxygen mask.

“Shhh,” Peter says. “Don’t try to talk.”

Carter shakes his head.

Somewhere, he hears Weaver’s voice. “We can’t wait much longer, we’ve got to get him up to radiology.”

“Hey. Carter. You’re at County General. You need a chest x-ray and a head CT.” Peter’s heart breaks at the fear in Carter’s eyes. “We’re going to give you some versed to help you relax, okay? Just for a little while.”

Carter shakes his head again, scared and confused. A tear leaks out his eye, leaving a wet trail through the dust.

“You did good, Carter. You did so good.”

Lydia appears on the other side of the table, quietly pushing the drugs through Carter’s IV port.

Tears continue to run down Carter’s face as the versed takes effect. Carter’s eyes glaze over, his body stills, and eyelids flutter closed.

For the first few hours, everything was good. Carter was transferred to the ICU, where he slept under the influence of an elaborate cocktail of narcotics. Peter sat with him, taking a wet towel and wiping the grime from his face, his arms, his hands. Carefully debriding the small lacerations on his forehead, his scalp, his arms, his legs.

The head CT confirmed Carter’s concussion, but no bleeding in the brain. Small mercies, for someone who had had an apartment building collapse on top of them.

The chest x-ray confirmed the tension pneumothorax and several broken ribs. Carter’s left diaphragm was depressed, and the mediastinum shifted significantly to the right. With the new chest tube in place, however, Carter’s lung had re-expanded, and his oxygen levels were slowly normalizing.

But Peter watches with dread over the next twenty-four hours as Carter’s temperature increases higher and higher. It sets in quickly, and by hour thirty, Carter is completely delirious with fever.

The first seizure occurs shortly after Carter’s temperature reaches 103, about thirty-eight hours after first arriving at the hospital. Peter yells for help as Carter’s back arches off the bed, his muscles locked and his heart rate skyrocketing. He begins to thrash uncontrollably, the pulse ox monitor slipping off his finger, causing the monitors to blare their sirens as nurses rush in, trying to hold Carter down, cradling his head to keep it from bashing against the bed rail. Peter is shoved to the back of the room in the chaos. The nurses are able to administer diazepman and eventually, Carter stills. The seizure lasts for two and half minutes. Benton has to leave the room after that. He strides out of the hospital, refusing eye contact with anyone who tries to intercept him. Circles the block several times before dragging himself back to Carter’s ICU bed, a moth to the flame.

Shortly after that, the drainage from Carter’s chest tube turns cloudy, indicating infection in the pleural cavity. Labs come back showing an abnormally high white blood cell count. Carter develops an altered mental status that no one can break through, moaning and crying and thrashing around in pain and confusion whenever the versed begins to wear off.

Four days into his stay in the ICU, Carter’s fever reaches dangerous levels, with a temperature of 105.2 and a heart rate exceeding 136. Benton is paged to the ICU amid Carter’s second seizure, which lasts over five minutes. This time, Peter is the one to cradle Carter’s head while he shakes and convulses.

The fluids and the antibiotics the doctors are giving Carter seem to have no effect. That night, as Peter works on charts at the table next to Carter’s bed, Carter’s O2 levels begin to decline.

From there, Carter deteriorates quickly. The chills wracking his body subside as his fever reaches 105.5, his body going completely limp. He no longer wakes up in fits of delirium. His colorless, gaunt skin goes clammy and somehow even paler. Even with the oxygen mask, breath sounds grow weaker and weaker. When the pulse ox monitor falls to 86, the doctors announce that they have no choice but to intubate.

Benton watches with Mark in the corner as the ICU team places Carter under deep sedation, watches as a doctor methodically slides a laryngoscope down Carter’s throat, quickly followed by an ET tube.  A piece of tape is placed over the end of the tube, loosely securing it to the side of Carter’s face. Carter’s face is so sweaty that the edges of the tape immediately curl up. The vent is hooked up. The oxygen reading slowly creeps up to 90.

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