Deliverance (7/?)
Title: Deliverance Author: coexist_love Rating: MA Fandom: Battlestar Galactica 2003 Character: General with Roslin/Adama emphasis Summary: A normal day on among the fleet is disturbed when an unidentified assailant attempts to assassinate President Roslin. Disclaimer: Not written for money and if I owned Galactica this would have already happened. Spoilers: Flight of the Pheonix through Epiphanies Author’s Note: I thought about this while watching Colonial Day and though my setting is very different to begin with it was given further substance by whyoffry and major_zoidberg at LiveJournal and a special thanks to my lovely betas (I had so many ) but in particular whyoffrycampmotha and tina_cat
Cottle looked at Laura’s sleeping form in the LifeStation bed in front of him. Her petite body was swallowed by the ventilator and the surrounding machines. The blood smeared clothes she was clothed with when she came in had been replaced by one of the yellow-colored LifeStation dressing gowns. His eyes began scanning the machines around her bed, looking for any signs of change. When he deemed that there was none he took one of Laura’s hands and clutched it in his own.
He forgot about the young aide that was sitting next at his boss’ bedside and spoke to her. “Don’t scare me like that again young lady,” Cottle scolded her before turning to Billy. “I wish I could have done more.”
“When will she wake up?” Billy asked.
“I can’t predict that,” Cottle said.
After hours in surgery the medics had finally finished after they had repaired the damage done to her right ventricle. When they’d completed the operation, Cottle ordered that the anesthetic be discontinued and that she remain on the ventilator. He ordered the nurses to continue her blood transfusions through an IV line until her vitals stabilized.
“Dr. Cottle?” he heard someone call him.
Cottle turned to see that one of his nurses was standing in the doorway. “Yes.”
“The Vice President and the Commander are here to see you.”
“Okay…thank you,” Cottle said as he let go of Laura’s hand and moved into the center of LifeStation. The Vice President and the Commander stood there waiting for them.
“Dr. Cottle, how’s the President?” asked Adama.
“She’s alive,” Cottle said. “There was damage done to one of her lungs and her heart but we’ve repaired it in time. She’s…um…” He took a deep breath before continuing. “This is hard for me to say, but President Roslin is in a coma. Billy’s with her now.”
“Have you told him?” Bill asked.
“Yes, right after I finished the surgery,” said Cottle. “He refuses to leave. I told him to go get something to eat and he just dismissed me.”
“Can we see her?” Gaius asked politely.
“Yeah, but only for a short time,” Cottle answered. “She’s right behind here.” He gestured to the privacy curtain and the two men walked towards it, pulling back the fabric to find a broken woman lying on the hospital bed. Billy was sitting next to her bed as Cottle had said. Adama could see the concern clearly written on the young man’s face. He remembered the way that Laura would talk about him. How she believed that given the right encouragement this boy would go far.
Adama’s attention then turned to Laura. Her face was obscured but the color was beginning to return to her cheeks. Bill approached the bed and reached his arm out to find Laura’s hand. Her skin was cold and for a moment Bill thought that the monitors where lying to him and that Laura was dead.
“She’s cold,” Bill stated.
“She lost a lot of blood from during the surgery. It’s perfectly normal. Her body’s redirecting her blood from non essential organs, like the skin; in order to up the oxygen supply to the parts of her body that truly need’s it. The blood transfusion should take care of it in a matter of hours. She’s on a blood bag so it should be okay in a few hours. But there’s another matter that we need to discuss.”
“What’s that?” Baltar asked the doctor.
“Lets talk outside,” Cottle said as he led the Vice President and the Commander out of the President’s makeshift room and into the center of LifeStation. He moved over to his desk and gestured to the two men to sit down. “Please…have a seat.” Gaius and Bill obeyed the doctor and sat opposite of Cottle’s desk. Cottle retrieved a folder from his desk and opened it. “Billy bought this from Colonial One. It appears that the President drafted a living will shortly after the attack and entrusted it to Billy. She has another formal will to be implemented upon her death.”
He handed the two documents to the men across from him. Bill tried to take in the print on the living will. The sheet of paper lying before him stated that in the event that Laura was incapacitated and there was nothing more that could be done for her she wanted to be pulled from the machines. He thumbed the squared corners of the octagonal paper as he studied the three signatures that belonged to her, Billy, and the deceased Elosha. He wondered how Laura had gotten them to witness the will, if they felt awkward when she had asked them to sign it.
“What does this mean?” he asked handing the paper back to the doctor. “You said the surgery was a success. You’ve repaired all the internal damage.”
“I wouldn’t be concerned about this if the gunshot wounds were the only aspect to weigh but the President’s cancer is not going to rest while she’s in a coma. Her tumor has already metastasized into her lymphatic system and has begun to spread to her lungs. My fear is that cancer’s going to spread to her brain.”
“If that happens?” Baltar asked.
“I can’t be sure. Despite all the research done on the brain it still remains a mystery in many aspects. Depending on where it spread some motor and cognitive functions will be affected. There’s no guarantee that she’ll be able to communicate with us if she wakes up again. Not to mention the tumors will make it very hard for me to keep her pain at an acceptable level. Commander, I don’t think she told you but you have medical power of attorney in this case.”
Bill took a deep breath. Damn you Laura. Why had she left such an important decision to him? He didn’t want her to suffer but he at least wanted her to be able to say goodbye. “Euthanizing her seems a little premature.”
“On the contrary,” Gaius said. “If she won’t be able to function I think the least you can do is let her die peacefully.”
“Who’s to say she’s at peace now?” Bill asked.
“I am just offering a suggestion. I don’t mean to be rude but if the cancer takes over her brain you aren’t giving her much of an existence are you? You’d seriously let her live on as a vegetable just so she could experience the pain of her cancer?”
The Commander opened his mouth to speak but before he could get any words out Dr. Cottle interjected. “You don’t have to decide now,” Cottle said. “Think about it for a while before you decide to implement it.”
“Thank you Dr. Cottle,” Bill said.
“Good…now if the two of you are going to continue this argument, get out of my sickbay. You’ll disturb the patients.”
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coexist_love) wrote,
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