My Only - Alex & Jamie (2 page)

Jamie never understood what all the hype was about. Celebrities were just people. Gorgeous, charismatic, talented people. But still…just people.

--- ~ ---

Alex Sloan slowly opened his heavy eyelids as he tried to lift his head to see where he was and what in the
hell
was going on. As soon as he made even the smallest of movements, searing pain ripped through his chest. He immediately laid his head back down.

He couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe. He tried to scan the area around him but couldn’t see anything clearly. Everything was blurry. What the hell? He couldn’t focus his vision. He heard muffled voices and tried once more to lift his head, but he wasn't able to do more than feebly tilt it a little to the side.

He suddenly felt overwhelming exhaustion spread through his entire body. It seemed as though a powerful wave of debilitating weakness was crashing over him, taking him down. He tried to fight it, to not let it overwhelm him. But, damn, he was so spent. He had no energy, no will. It was pulling him under despite his best efforts to stay afloat. Tired of fighting against the current of severe fatigue that was claiming him, he decided he would just go with it.

He closed his eyes. Sleep…that would be good. He needed to sleep.

“Alex! Alex, open your eyes!”

He heard a harsh voice interrupting his peaceful flight to slumber-land. He ignored it. He just wanted to sleep.

“Alex! Stay with us now!”

The voices sounded too loud. The shrill sounds grated against his already-pounding head. Irritation now replaced the languid sensation of floating. He decided to tune out the voices and push away any frustration they were causing, trying with everything he had to just relax and fall peacefully asleep.

“Alex, open your eyes! Come on man, stay with us!”

Alex desperately tried to shut out the voices. Screw the voices. He didn’t want to stop floating.

“Alex, I need you to open your eyes!”

He felt someone slapping his face.
That
he couldn’t ignore. Now he was pissed! If it was one of his brothers batting at his face like a cat with a toy, he was gonna kill them. He just wanted to sleep. Why, for the love of God, would they not just leave him alone and let him sleep?

He attempted to push away the hand that was currently hitting his cheeks, but he couldn’t seem to move his arms. They were too heavy. He simply wasn’t able to lift them.

That was odd, but he was prevented from thinking too deeply about it by the more pressing issue – the fact that someone was slapping his face like it was going out of style. Yeah, that was definitely the more important problem to solve. Since he couldn't seem to push them away, instead he tried to move his head away from his slap-happy assailant. Frustratingly, he didn’t have much luck with that either. As soon as he turned his head, the pain came back even more severely than the first time.

He heard a loud cry that sounded like an animal dying. God, what
was
that? He moved to see what it was and then heard it again. The second time, he realized it was coming from him.

“We’re getting you something for the pain, stay with us, Alex.”

Holy. Shit.

HOLY SHIT!

What in the name of God was happening?

His mind began to race as he once again tried to pry open his eyes. Where was he? Why couldn’t he breathe? Why couldn’t he lift his head?

What the hell was going on?

Everything was dark. His eyes were closed. Open…he needed to open his eyes and see what was happening. He tried. They didn’t cooperate. He scrunched his face and then lifted his
brow, hoping that it would force his eyes open. He tried to accomplish this several times and failed before, finally, he succeeded.

As soon as the lids of his eyes separated, Alex was overwhelmed by bright lights and what looked like a blur of activity surrounding him. His eyes managed to focus on one single figure that was hovering over him.

“That’s good, Alex. Look at me. Just keep your eyes open and look at me.”

The shadowy figure above him turned and barked an order, “Give him 5 more CCs!” He immediately turned his attention back to Alex.

“You’re going to be OKAY. I just need you to stay with me. Keep those eyes open.”

Confusion swept through his mind and Alex felt the sudden need to find out exactly what was going on. He tried to sit up. The pain came back, more excruciating then either of the previous times it had intruded. Panic flooded through him like a raging river. Was he going to die? He had to get out of here!

“Don’t, Alex! Just lie still. Don’t try to get up.”

The voice of the shadowy figure now sounded familiar. He knew that voice. How did he know that voice?

He looked again and, as his eyes adjusted to the bright lighting, he was able to make out the face. It was Garret. He went to school with Garret. Why was Garret telling him to lie still?

Wait. Garret was a doctor now. He worked in the E.R. He must be in the hospital. But why? This wasn't making sense.

Alex tried to ask Garret if he was, indeed, in a hospital, but he didn’t hear any sound come out when he opened his mouth to speak.

“Don’t try to talk. Just stay calm,” Garret instructed. “You are at the hospital. You were hit by a falling beam at Harper’s Garden Nursing Home.”

What?

Fear rushed through Alex’s body, as acrid as the smoke had been inside of the nursing home. The adrenaline from that jolt of fear, however, must have been what he needed to clear his head, because his memory came back to him in a flash.

They had gotten a call that there was a fire at Harper’s Garden. His rig had been the first on scene. He had pulled out several patients and was going back inside to clear more rooms...

That was it. The next thing he remembered was waking up here. He must have been knocked unconscious.

He was trying to sort everything out while he listened to all of the tests that Garret was ordering. They were all the basics you would need to order for a trauma patient.

Okay, so that’s what he was. A trauma patient. That was a new one. He had never been a patient. He had always been the rescuer, not the rescued.

He didn’t like it. Not one bit. He wanted to know what kind of condition he was in so he could assess what they needed to do. As a firefighter and an ex-Navy SEAL, he was trained in dealing with trauma cases.

He just needed to know what his injuries were. He tried once again to lift his head.

“Alex, lie down. I will restrain you if you don’t stay still,” Garret threatened.

Alex was just about to tell Garret he could kiss his ass when he started to feel the floating sensation again. He quickly realized, even if only in the far recesses of his consciousness, that this time the airy sensations spreading through him had less to do with exhaustion and more to do with the pain medication that they had obviously pumped him full of.

In that moment, he didn't care. Whatever the reason for the weightless feeling, he appreciated it. It definitely took the edge off.

Garret shook his head as he looked down at him. “Nice smile, Sloan. Looks like the good stuff's kickin’ in. You can relax, but do NOT close your eyes.”

“Okie dokie,” Alex heard himself say in a sing-song tone of voice, easily able to get the words out, although to his own ears his voice sounded like he was a hundred miles away.

Garret started asking him questions. Questions about his brothers, his job, his friends. Alex knew exactly what he was doing. Garret was trying to make sure that he stayed responsive. That meant he probably had some sort of trauma to his head, otherwise they would probably prefer that he was asleep.

Alex answered his questions. He had no idea if he was making sense, but he knew it didn't matter. Even in his drug-addled state, he knew that wasn’t the point of the exercise. He just needed to stay awake, no matter the cost.

As Jamie made her way to the nurse’s station, she noticed that it had turned into Grand Central Station on the 4th floor. It was a bit of a shock to see it like that. For the last few days, things had been relatively quiet, especially if she compared the activity level to what she was used to at Grace Memorial, back in Chicago.

Now however, it seemed that she could barely move down the hall. Most of the people, who appeared to be doing little more than simply loitering, were nurses or various other hospital workers.

Jamie noticed one additional common denominator among them - they were
all
female.

She hadn’t really formed any conclusion as to what that little factoid meant, if anything, before she made it to the nurse’s station to speak with Vickey. As soon as she reached the desk, Vickey spotted her and immediately broke off her conversation with a nurse that looked like she had been crying. She pulled Jamie into her office.

As soon as the door shut, Vickey turned to Jamie with a very serious expression on her normally jovial face. She said gravely, “Okay, Sweet Pea. I know that you’ve only been here for a few days and you’re new to town, but that is part of the reason why I chose you for this.”

“Chose me for what?” Jamie asked, having no idea what she was talking about.

“For our VIP patient,” Vickey replied. She paused as if she expected Jamie to have some sort of a response to this information.

Jamie just nodded her head, encouraging Vickey to continue. She was following along, but…just barely.

“So, listen. I know that this is kind of like throwing you into the lion’s den, but I’m gonna need you to be strong. Make sure people,” Vickey lifted her eyebrows and tilted her head meaningfully toward the staff gathered outside her closed door, “stay out of his room. Except family, of course. He has a concussion, so you’ll need to wake him up frequently. Here’s his chart.”

Jamie took the chart and looked down to see if she recognized the name. She didn’t. She opened it and saw that the patient had several cracked ribs, third degree burns on his back, and a shattered wrist on his left side.

Poor guy, she thought.

Vickey continued, “You are not to leave his room unattended under any circumstances. If you need anything, then call me. I’m your back-up. I will relieve you for breaks and Thelma will be in to relieve you after your shift today.”

Jamie wanted to clarify exactly what her new responsibilities would entail. “So, if I understand correctly, you want me to stay in the patient’s room and not leave under any circumstances, unless I have been relieved by either yourself or Thelma. In addition to waking him periodically, monitoring his vitals, and administering medication, I also need to make sure that only family members and necessary staff are allowed access to the patient.”

“You’re bright as a button, I knew you would catch on quick. And I know you will be up for the job. In your letters of reference, there were multiple mentions of how professional you were, no matter what the circumstance,” Vickey lowered her voice to a whisper, “even when dealing with celebrities.”

“So...” Jamie looked down at the chart again to make sure she got the name right, “Alex Sloan is a celebrity?”

Vickey burst out laughing, “Oh, Lordy! He is around here! I just figured you knew all about the Sloan Boys since Hazel is your aunt.”

“Um, she is, on my dad’s side, but we only recently connected,” Jamie said by way of explanation.

She knew she was going to need to decide how much of her personal life she was willing to divulge, and then stick religiously to telling
only
that portion. There was no other way to control the flow of information, because in a small town, everybody asked questions about your life. She really wasn’t prepared for it initially, but decided that if she was going to live here, she had better acclimate herself to it...and fast!

“Well, no time to fill you in now, but suffice it to say he
is
a local celebrity...” Vickey grinned sardonically as she motioned with her head again out toward the corridor, “...especially with the ladies.”

Jamie scanned the chart again. No allergies to medication or food. No prior surgeries. In family history, Jamie saw a few things that caught her attention. It looked like there were heart issues on his father’s side, and his mother was deceased.

“Come on, Sweet Pea, you’ll have plenty of time to memorize that tonight while you're babysitting our boy. We need to get you in there so you can stake your claim.” Vickey started toward the door.

“Stake my claim?” Jamie asked.

“Trust me.” Vickey opened the door before glancing back over her shoulder, “You’ll see.”

--- ~ ---

Holy Toledo! Jamie had never seen so many good-looking people in one place before. It looked like she had just walked into the pages of an Abercrombie and Fitch catalog.

She and Vickey were barely able to squeeze in through the door, and several people had to shuffle around for the door to open wide enough to allow them in.

“Okay, everyone, this is Jamie! She is the best of the best, and she will not leave Alex’s side tonight. You can rest assured that she will make sure he has absolutely everything he needs,” Vickey stated loudly to the room at large. Then she turned to Jamie, “You are never going to remember everyone’s name, but I'll do quick intros, just for the hell of it.”