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The helicopter ride passed mostly in silence; everyone was too exhausted not to doze, but no one was able to sleep too deeply. At least, that was the case for Alan, and he assumed everyone else. The plane ride was much the same, except without the comforting white noise of the chopper blades to reassure anyone who fell a little too deep. Most of the seats went unused, as no one wanted to be too far away from the others, crowding into one double row.Ellie and Lex facing Hammond and Tim. Ian propped up on the two seats across the aisle from Hammond, his leg strategically leaned up against the window. Alan was just an arms-length away from Lex when she woke with a gasp and reached out for him suddenly. He had promised not to leave her, and he was going to keep that promise to the end.The airport was private, customs were quickly passed, luggage was non-existent, and two ambulances were waiting in the red zone outside. Hammond ushered his grandchildren into the first, heading for the children's hospital. Alan and Ellie escorted Ian to the other, heading to a much closer ER.Ellie tried to insist that she was fine; refusing to use the second wheelchair at first, but Alan gave her the look she usually reserved for when he was being particularly bull-headed. With a sigh, she gave in and sunk into it, letting Alan push her through the airport. Beside them, a steward did the same for Ian.Arriving at the ambulance, Alan was tempted for a moment to insist that he didn't need one, but honestly he didn't want to be that far away from the others. So, after the EMTs helped first Ian and then Ellie into the ambulance, Alan hopped up after them without complaint. Ian was laid out on the stretcher in the middle, as the two EMTs fluttered around him. Checking vitals or something; Alan didn't know. Ellie was the one with the medical background.She reclined on a bench with her own leg elevated, and as Alan entered she sat up slightly. Taking the invitation, Alan slid beneath her head, wedging himself against the cabinet of medical supplies.It was the first time either one of them hadn't had a child in their arms in who-knew-how-many hours, and part of Alan relished the feel of his Ellie again. Of course, she didn't smell like usual - dust and lava soap and just a hint of gardenia hand cream - but she was there, and real, and warm against his side.The ride passed in a blur of machines beeping and medics talking quietly and the faint echo of trumpeting roars that only three sets of ears could hear.Finally, they arrived at the hospital. Ian was taken out first, on his gurney, with Alan helping Ellie to follow. Outside the ambulance, he found two more gurneys waiting with a handful of people in scrubs. Two of them collected Ellie from him and lifted her onto the first gurney.Alan eyed the second one distastefully. He could walk."Alan..." Ellie murmured."Mr. Hammond insisted," one of the people - doctor? nurse? - said. "The best of care for you three. Spare no expense. That means a gurney, sir."That was what Hammond had said on the plane when he called ahead; Alan remembered. But if he wasn't in control... if someone else was pushing him, they could push him away from Ellie. He could end up on his own, nowhere near the other two."One room." He growled. It wasn't meant to be a growl, but that's the way it came out of his tired throat. "We're not going to be separated."Several of the medical people exchanged glances before the one who had spoken before nodded. "Yes sir. We'll keep you together."She might have been lying, of course, but Alan chose to believe her for the moment. He could always get up and find Ellie and Ian later if he had to. Surrendering, he sat on the last gurney. He wouldn't lay down; wouldn't go that far. One of the EMTs - who had surely introduced themselves back at the airport, but who could remember such things - adjusted it so that he could sit just shy of upright.Accepting that concession, Alan swung his legs up and sat properly. It also gave him a better vantage to watch Ian’s and Ellie's gurneys begin their little procession.As they passed through the hospital, it occurred to Alan to wonder when it had become important that he stay with both Ellie and Ian. Ellie, of course, was Ellie. But he'd only known Ian for... could it really have been only two days?He left us! echoed through his mind.No one should be left behind after what they'd been through. That was all. Alan was just making sure that Ian wasn't left behind. Though he'd probably be flirting with their nurses in no time. Dropping water on their hands and looking for the next- what was it? ex Misses Malcolm?But in the meantime, he shouldn't be alone. None of them should be.The gurneys were wheeled into a large room, or maybe a small ward, and placed one two three along the wall. People in scrubs descended around Ellie and Ian, just about blocking them from view.Alan found his attempts to see them through the melee blocked by a set of green scrubs. Looking up, he found the same women from before smiling at him sympathetically. "I'm Nurse Ellen," she said.He should have known; only another Ellie could have commanded him so easily."I know you were walking, but I need to know any injuries you might have. Sometimes your body doesn't register pain correctly at times like this, so you need to walk me through any potential injury incidents so I know where to look. Unless you want me to just strip you down to your tighty-whities and look for bruising myself."Alan wasn't sure if she was bluffing. His Ellie wouldn't be. Still, he wasn't sure he could. And no one even knew about the dinosaurs. How were they supposed to keep that a secret? Were they even supposed to, or would Hammond no longer care? The NDA seemed so long ago, and Alan was fairly certain that it hadn't fully covered what they had just experienced."I know some parts are classified," Nurse Ellen suddenly said. "I'm not asking who or what hurt you, just where on you it hurt."That made sense, he supposed. Hopefully Ellie and Ian had been told the same thing. Though Ian would probably be spilling his guts anyway. The man couldn't seem to ever stop talking. Except, of course, on the helicopter, and plane, and ambulance."I fell." That seemed like a safe enough place to start."Several feet, several yards, what kind of distance?" Nurse Ellen asked."Which time?" it was out before he could sensor himself, but Alan couldn't bring himself to resent the sarcasm. It was true, after all."Let's go in order," Nurse Ellen said calmly.Yes, in order. Organized. Alan was usually quite organized. On the dig he made sure everything was just so. Was the first time when they got out of the tree? Or would coming down the cables with Lex count? Maybe getting knocked over by the jeep as the T-Rex headbutted it."Or, go in reverse," Nurse Ellen interrupted his spiraling thoughts. "Start at the end and work your way back."That actually made even more sense. Working backwards was what he did every day. Start with rocks and work back to bones and then beasts. That's what Hammond did wrong; he worked forwards. Backwards, that was the way to do it."The last..." the last was falling in the atrium, wasn't it? "20 feet or so.""Onto?""Marble." As the skeleton came crashing down onto Tim beside him. Tim. "Tim was electrocuted! They need to know that! I don't know if Lex will- did I tell Hammond?"A hand brushed his arm, and Alan jumped, but Nurse Ellen didn't seem to mind. "The call we got did mention an electrocution. The doctors taking care of Tim will know about it," she assured him. "Now, when you fell that last time, what part of your body did you land on?"Right, Hammond had called ahead. Alan and Lex had told him what happened. Because Ellie had looked sick when they did, but wouldn't tell Alan why in the presence of the children. He remembered now. He needed to ask again, now that it was just the three of them."Alan, what did you land on?" Nurse Ellen repeated. She didn't sound mad that his mind was wandering. Alan's mind never wandered like this before. He was always the focused one. Now he sounded like Ian! Focus! Where did he fall? In the atrium. "On my back." That was right."Good! Butt-first or head-first?""Butt-first.""Okay." Nurse Ellen made a note on her chart. "Good. Now back up and tell me the next thing. It doesn't have to be a fall. Just any time you might have gotten hurt."Had the raptor scratched him, when they were on the bone sculpture? Alan found himself looking at his arms. Yes, there was a long, shallow cut on his left arm. He held it up for Nurse Ellen to see. "Claws."She tutted over the sight and made a note. "Claws, eh? Okay, we'll disinfect the hell out of it. Before that?"Before that. Crawling through the vents. Saving Lex. Shooting through the window. Holding the door. "The door." He started to move his hands, attempting to show her, but stopped, unsure how to even demonstrate. "I was holding the door closed."Thankfully, Nurse Ellen seemed to understand right away. "Okay, so you got a bit pounded then? Back, side, shoulders, that kind of thing?"Alan nodded. "Yes.""Good. Stay with me, now, back it up to the next thing."On and on it went, as she talked Alan back through the entire weekend until he was sitting in a car, listening to Ian say something stupid about chaos as the rain lightly tapped on the glass. Back when he had still been so full of joy at seeing a real live Trike. Back when he was fondly exasperated with the way that Ellie's tenacity chose to appear at odd times, but of course never regretting it, because that tenacity was the only reason she had stuck around long enough to pull his head out of the dirt and get them together.Somehow, he told Nurse Ellen everything backwards to that point, without mentioning dinosaurs, or biting her head off, or letting on that he still could hear the clicking purrs of the raptors when the room got just a little too quiet.Then he was being wheeled away, away from Ellie and Ian, but Nurse Ellen was staying by his side, promising to get him back to them, but they had their own tests to do.
He left us!
But that's not what I'm going to do.
It took everything that Alan had not to double check, to beg Ellen that she promised not to leave him. And once again he wondered how Lex and Tim were doing. Hammond wouldn't leave their side, of course, but would that be enough? Would she think he had broken his promise now?Even though he didn't ask it, Nurse Ellen kept her promise. She stayed by his side as they took several X-Rays, and then an MRI, where the pounding machine blurred into the sound of echoing footsteps but drowned out the clicking and hissing of the raptors.Then he was wheeled back to the original room. Ellie and Ian were both still gone, getting their own X-rays and things, but Ian’s black shirt was tossed aside on the floor of the first bay, so Alan knew it was the same room. Nurse Ellen stayed by his side as they placed a brace around his knee; he'd strained it during one of the falls; probably out of the tree or jumping over the fallen logs to escape the gallimimus. Not that it mattered when. They also cleaned and bandaged the claw wound on his arm, and several cuts on his back, face, and other areas that he hadn't even noticed. Probably also from the tree. Or something.His hands had rope burn from when he and Lex climbed down the Rex moat, and he had an assortment of bruises that Nurse Ellen dutifully rubbed with a topical cream before strapping his chest in thick tan bandages so that his two fractured ribs could set. Those were almost definitely from the final fall in the atrium, Nurse Ellen said, or he wouldn't have been able to do half of the tree-climbing that preceded it had the breaks happened earlier. There was also a mild concussion, from either the tree or the atrium.It was a very impressive assortment of wounds, Nurse Ellen assured him, but nothing on either Ellie or Ian. By the time she and the others finished with him, Ellie was being wheeled back into the room. She had several white bandages on her face and arms, and her leg was in a cast, hanging from a sling attached to the foot of her bed. She too had an IV, like the one pumping something warm and fuzzy-making into his arm.She smiled over at him, though, dozy on painkillers but still clearly grateful to see him again. Alan smiled back, just as relieved, but there was something missing still. "Your third musketeer is still in surgery," Ellie's nurse said, seeming to read both of their minds. "His leg was clawed up pretty bad, and they're having to do some pretty major reconstructive work on his muscles and tendons there.""Fortunately, but for a few scrapes, and the same concussion you've both got, that looks like the only injury for him," the man continued. "You two definitely saw more action than him."Action. That was one way to put it. Again, Allan found himself wondering about the children. Lex and Tim had been through just as much as he and Ellie. Did they have concussions and casts and antiseptic still burning in their scrapes? Did they hear roars every time they closed their eyes?"Lex? Tim?" Ellie asked woozily."Now that you're here to keep my patient company, I was just going to call and check on them," Nurse Ellen told her, teasingly. She shared a quiet word with Ellie's nurse, winked over her shoulder at Alan, and mouthed, "I'll be back," before leaving their room.Ellie's nurse pulled a chair from the window behind Alan over to the long wall where he could sit between the feet of their two beds."You don't have to stay, Will," Ellie murmured."Oh yes I do," her nurse - Will - contradicted her. "Mr. Hammond insisted that you three get the best of care. Spare no expense, he told my boss. And that means that you each get a personal valet for the extent of your stay. Now you two just rest and as soon as we've got word of either Ian or the kids I'll wake you.""Pr'mis?" Ellie slurred, her eyes already closed."I promise," Will replied.Alan found his own eyes closing, hiding Ellie's face from him until they shot open again to the sound of the window cracking.But Will was sitting there, fiddling with something in his lap, completely unconcerned, and Ellie was asleep. The window wasn't here; wasn't now.Alan closed his eyes again, trying to keep the image of Ellie's sleeping face in the darkness, willing the sound of her voice to drown out anything else his ears might hear.In the distance, a trumpeting roar echoed.His eyes shot open again, only to find Will staring back at him. "So, since sleepyhead there has left the party, you get to pick the music," he said. "What's your favorite genre?"Alan couldn't think of a proper answer. Normally he would have said big band, because Ellie liked it, and because even cassette players often took a dislike to him. But right now that didn't seem like a good choice. He didn't need anything that sounded like- "no horns. Or drums." Nothing to remind him of reverberating footsteps or enraged roars."Okay, how about some nice simple piano?" Will asked. He fiddled again with the device in his lap, and suddenly the room was filled with mild piano music.Alan tensed, but it didn't remind him of anything. No roars, no crashing glass, no screaming children, no raptor hiss. Just a piano, like from another world.Alan found his eyes slipping closed again, as the warmth from his IV spread throughout his body. Ellie was there, and Ian would be back, and Nurse Ellen would bring them word about the kids. As light piano chords danced through his mind, Alan drifted off.The roar, when it came, was much fainter, and almost immediately drowned out by a persistent melody. Alan's eyes closed again, and stayed closed.