Author: Regency

Title: His Saving Grace

Spoilers: Memorial Day

Summary: When there’s a national crisis, Abbey’s medical skills are put to the test.

Author’s Notes: Unlikely? Yes. Fun to write about? Hell, yes. This was inspired by “John Q.” If someone you loved was hurt and you were qualified to help them, wouldn’t you?

This was also inspired by the HBO movie “Something The Lord Made.” It touched me.

~~~~

Jed smiled for the cameras, though his eyes glowed with tears. He took a breath and leaned back. He wound up and launched the ball…

At that moment, somewhere up in the stands a gun was being aimed and readied, fired. Amongst the roar of the crowd, it was nearly impossible to hear. But when the President stopped and looked down, no one had to wonder what had come to pass. They were frozen in time, again. Then, they began to run.

The Secret Service scrambled to secure the President and the shooter, but he had escaped in the malaise. In slow motion, the President fell to the ground and lay still. The shot had gone a little to the left and had missed the vest entirely. The camera was still on his face, showing the world the tragedy from his eyes. The light faded and his eyes closed. Leo fell to his knees as pain exploded in his chest. His best friend…

Everything went black…for both of them.

~~~~

Abbey cursed her less than long legs as she raced through the door of the emergency room at George Washington Memorial Hospital. The two most important men in her life were hurt and she couldn’t get to them.

Jed had been shot in the chest, nicking his aorta, and Leo had suffered a massive heart attack. She hadn’t been able to get much more than that over the phone. It hadn’t taken her long to get to a car.

Her daughters were on their way, the staff was doing some semblance of damage control in their shocked states. The Secret Service had assured her… He was supposed to be safe and now look what had happened. She absconded the first doctor she saw and grilled him for answers she was certain that he didn’t have.

Finally, a doctor stepped out of the ER and came to her.

“Dr. Bartlet.” The use of her title jarred her out of her shock. She nodded, not assured of control of her voice. “Ma’am, I have news on the President and Mr. McGarry. Is there no one here for him?” She looked around her and shook her head.

“I’m here for them both.” The doctor nodded understandingly.

“Okay. The good news are that Mr. McGarry’s heart only sustained minor permanent damage from the attack. Under supervision, he should eventually make a full recovery. Now…” the doctor took a deep breath, “for the President. The prognosis is not as good for him. It’s not good--”

“Doctor, we’re both surgeons here, don’t sugarcoat it. What’s wrong with my husband?” He closed his eyes and prepared to give her the worst.

“That’s just it ma’am. I may be a surgeon, but there is no way that I’m qualified to do the surgery necessary to repair the damage done to your husband’s heart. There’s no one here who is. If he doesn’t have this surgery, he will die.” It was like a slow death by lava while drowning in a tsunami.

“What needs to be done?” The fellow rattled off the things that had to be fixed and Abbey’s own heart dropped into her stomach a little more with every one.

“Right now, we’re just trying to replace the blood he keeps losing and keep his blood pressure up, but there isn’t much more that we can do without the surgery.” She put her hands together in front of her calmly and looked up at the man that she hadn’t really seen until now. Her mind was made up. She was surprised that it had taken her this long.

“I’ll do it.” He did a double-take and looked flabbergasted.

“What?”

“I’ll do the surgery. I’m qualified, I can do this.”

“But you can’t.” She raised an eyebrow at him. She didn’t like being told what to do. “I mean, he’s your husband. You can’t operate on your husband.”

“It just so happens that my husband is also the Leader of the Free World. Someone needs to save his life and it also just so happens that I am the only one here who can.” He tried to object. “And my license is valid. I took the requalification three months ago.” He still looked read to argue. “Look, that’s POTUS in there and if he dies, I’m going to tell everyone you stopped the one person who could save him from doing so. I’m his wife and that means that I have an even bigger stake in making sure that he survives. Let me do this, doctor. You can assist.” She closed her eyes and made a silent concession. “Or you can do the surgery and I can instruct you. Don’t object. Just hear me out. I can be observing and instructing you on how to proceed. What do you say?”

“Ma’am, it isn’t done.”

“It isn’t done, because none of the other First Ladies have been Board-Certified thoracic surgeons when their husbands have been shot in the heart. I am and he has. Let me help you and you will go down in history as the doctor who saved the President.”

“No, ma’am…You will.” She shrugged carelessly. She wasn’t concerned with her legacy, she had three daughters. They would write her story. This was just one task on a long list of things she’s done for love.

“I don’t care. I just want to save his life, help me save it.” She barely kept the pleading out of her voice. The doctor looked at her sternly before nodding hesitantly. No one had a bigger stake in this than her. And he didn’t want to go down in history as the one who’d stopped her.

“All right, I’ll go in and you’ll assist.” She opened her mouth, but he cut her off. “Take it or leave it.”

“I’ll take it.”

“The Prep Room is that way, if all goes well, we go in an hour. Is that enough time?” She nodded. He started to walk away, but turned around to issue one final warning. “If you show any signs impropriety in the OR, I’m sending you out, know that.” She crossed her arms in front of her and didn’t respond. The doctor continued to watch her for another moment before he was assured that his point was made, and he walked away. No one was going to believe the story he had to tell. I’m going to be disbarred for this. Probably.

While he second-guessed himself, Abbey stayed behind doing that and more. She spoke aloud unconsciously. She suddenly wasn’t so confident in her abilities. She reviewed the surgery in her mind.

“Suture the aorta with purse string thread to allow for future growth, like I’m gonna let that happen, otherwise, you risk a rupture. An aortic rupture is a sure death sentence.” She closed her eyes and said a prayer. “Remember Abbey, you get one chance, one. Don’t make your children orphans or make yourself a widow.” She shuddered at that thought. She figured she could still get ten more years out of their marriage before one of them…left. She couldn’t fail now.

She barely held the tears, because she knew that if she failed ten years without him could turn into forever alone.

~~~

Abbey imagined kissing his cheek and telling him how loved he was and that she was counting on his strength to help her do well. She hadn’t dared see him before pre-op. She knew better, her emotions would get the best of her and there would be no surgery, because Dr. Lathe simply didn’t have the know-how. She was in charge of Jed’s life again. She’d forgotten how little she appreciated such a responsibility. It was hard enough to get him to do what he was told; now she had to do the living for him. It tugged at her so.

She entered the operating room with her professional mask firmly in place. Dr. Lathe was already present and scrubbed in. He was ready to begin when she was. She was aware of the many close eyes on here. She was no friend of the staff here. If she screwed up and fell apart, Jed died and the lot of them would be standing before the Medical Review Board with nothing to show for their disregard. Abbey couldn’t have that. As it was, she would probably never wear a stethoscope again. After this, Abbey was sure that retirement was her only option.

She ordered the primary incision and Mrs. Josiah Bartlet disappeared. For an hour, she directed another surgeon’s hands. It was harder than working a string puppet. She actually had to stand on a stool to see over his shoulders. She was concerned at the largeness of his hands, the slight clumsiness around the minute, tight passages of such a vital organ. He was too klutzy and she held her breath at every cut into Jed’s precious heart.

“Sponge. We’ve got some bleeding here.” They managed to soak up the bleeding, but she doesn’t quite recover from the moment. She instructed him where to begin next and he did as he was told, placing his finger just so, dangerously close the blade of his scalpel. One swift, impatient move sliced clean through his glove and his finger. “Damn it!” He pulled back quick to keep from spilling his blood into her husband’s open chest. “Dr. Bartlet. Get over here! Maintain the President until I get this cleaned up.” It wasn’t a request, but an order.

As a general rule, Abbey didn’t get ordered around. Today, she’d make an exception. She immediately took over the reigns like an old hand. She did twice the work it took him twice the time to do. There was a pat on her shoulder and she was forced to hand him back over. They did a quick instrument transition and she retook her post atop the stool. It was finally done; most of it her work. Now they had to close him up.

The instructions had been simple. Close him up, leaving room for a shunt to drain off fluid and excess blood in the thoracic cavity. Simple for her, calculus for him. He didn’t do it correctly and she saw it from the start. Jed went into a cardiac arrhythmia; his heart began to beat irregularly and then stopped beating altogether. The long beeping of the machine struck her terribly and her damned professional detachment was shattered like fine blown glass.

The terrible utterance of his fate and the sizzle as his body rose from the gurney was branded onto her consciousness. It would never truly leave her. She stepped down from her station, her breath coming in short horrific bursts. Tension rose through her neck and dove down her shoulders, freezing her to her very fingertips. She had stepped out of herself.

She could see him, lying there from above. Such a lifelessness that she had never seen in him. She called his name and she could feel him beside her, calling back to her. He was leaving her, leaving her alone to face the rest of her life without him. This was the very thing she’d been desperate to prevent.

“Don’t go,” she implored him deeply.

“I’m sorry.” She reached out to him, but missed by a small distance. He was almost gone.

“Don’t be sorry; don’t go.”

“I can’t…”

“Please. We still need you, everyone still needs you, Jed. I love you so much.” He stared at her through the ocean blue portals to his soul.

“I love you, too.” She reached up and touched his cheek before his attention was stolen by another calling.

“Don’t go.”

“It’s not up to me.” He leaned down and gave her a lingering kiss. Then, it all went to hell…or to heaven as it were.

Unbeknownst to her from where she stood, she’d just passed out on the floor of the OR and the crap had just hit the fan. The staff had no clue how to deal. They swung in another gurney and ran her fast out of the room. The prerequisite diagnosis: shock.

No kidding.

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