A GALS! Fan Fiction

“Emergency”

By Bloody Priestess

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Summary: Find out what made the resident Mr. Cold and Heartless chose this rather NOBLE profession that's so UNlike him. Rei Otohata made a vow — he was to become a doctor and save lives. He did just that... when he saved the one most important to him...

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Chapter Three: My Savior

"It's really not your fault, when no one cares to talk about it. Talk about it...
I see love die way too many times when it deserves to be alive...
I see you cry way too many times when you deserve to be alive... ALIVE."

. ~Emergency by PARAMORE

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I push my fingers into my eyes...
It's the only thing that slowly stops the ache...

Rei put his fingers to his face and rubbed his tired eyes. He was rubbing the disbelief away, he thought. For this. This has to be a trick played by fatigue. A trick!

This is not happening. It can NOT be happening!!!

But it's made of all the things I have to take...

But… this was supposed to be it! His disbelieving mind protested. This was supposed to my chance at redemption…

This was all that he ever hoped and dreamed for. With her, Rei knew he could be happy. In their short reunion, it became crystal clear to him. And now…

Fate was taking it all away, again.

It never ends, it works its way inside...
If the pain goes on...
Aaaaaaaah!

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It was her most important day. The day she would show them all: Today was her high school graduation rites.

But instead of gracing the stage with her presence as she took that diploma— signaling her accomplishment, she tore though the crowd like a woman on a mission. Heedless— and careless, really— that she was ruining her high-heeled Mary Jane suedes... just to get to him in time.

She screamed his name. “Rei!”

God, oh god, that was the most wonderful sound in the world. Never permitting himself to openly admit so. This was his last chance...to at least, hear a siren's song... That is why... He halted, dropped his heavy suitcases next to his feet. Rei searched and saw her precariously leaning on the second floor railing, shouting at him from his location in the ground floor.

“Stand where you are, you! REI!” Ah yes, spoken with ringing authority like a true chief of police’s daughter.

Rei thought she looked stunning even in that drab white graduation toga that she wore over her (no question) fashionable graduation dress of jade-green with lime lace-trimmings. She looked stunning even if her long, fire-red locks escaped that what-was an elegant coiffure and her strappy lime-green suede Mary Janes screamed that it has been worn from being ruthlessly ran-in.

He watched her dash through the crowded airport hallways in those killer high-heels, God, he could just see her running though the streets of Shibuya to get here before he boarded his plane to the States. His heart expanded like that small-hearted Dr. Seuss character.

I've waited as my time's elapsed
Now, All I do is live with so much fate

Rei’s original plan to remain cool and aloof to the end whenever he was handling vanished with the thought that he may never get to see her again. Where he going… was the biggest-ocean-in-the-world away. He may have the rest of his life to be cool and aloof— “This here,” he though as his eyes swept over her approaching figure and missed nothing, “is my last chance.”

“I’m glad you could make it, Ran!” Rei said roguishly, “I was beginning to think what I was to do with this extra ticket to Los Angeles. I’m taking you with me, don’t you know?”

“You sure picked the oddest time to grow a sense of humor, Otohata.”

“Partially true.” He allowed. “I’ve always had a sense of humor.” Rei replied casually as you please. “Unfortunately, nobody seemed to be entertained with it—and so, they took that for heartless apathy. Moreover, haven’t we moved on from the last name-addressing just now? What’s all this regression for… hm, Ran?”

All of the sudden, she would not look at him. Her gaze shifted to every where else but on his face.

“You are doing this to rile me, I know it, Otohata.” She finally said in a quiet, flat tone that contradicted whatever she ‘stood’ for—the ardor, straightforwardness and honesty… in a word, Passion .

Rile. Instead of the average word: anger. He folded his arms over his black turtleneck clad torso. The smile he gave her was slow and devastatingly intimate. “Rile you, Kotobuki? Heaven forbid. That’s the last thing I would want you to remember me by.”

“Don’t mock me— I am not an idiot.”

“I never said that. I —” He made a half step forward to her but caught himself just in time. In time for what, exactly?

At that moment, Rei realized… In time for what he has been long dreaded—to have the whole in his chest magically grow a heart and his mouth would spill forth with absurd poetry? Stop that. That’s enough of your idiocy, Otohata.

“But you treat me like one.” Ran said, her eyes brilliant with something that suspiciously looked reminiscent of unshed tears.

“Interpret things your way, Ran… ‘People can LOOK at the same thing but SEE differently’. But, my conscience is clean—I never treated you like an idiot.” And he added silently and almost hesitantly, “I have a high regard for you more than you know.”

“Clean?” Ran started to laugh bitterly. “I think not!”

She had heard him clearly. He knew it from the way her lovely eyes reflected her shock at his carefully-worded ‘declaration’. But she was clearly and purposely ignored his words. And for that, Rei said in a low, dangerous tone. “Now, you are doing this to rile me, Ran.”

Stunning light-brown sepia eyes flashed intensely. “Stop twisting my own words against me, Otohata.”

“That’s more like it.” Rei grinned like a little boy who had his fill of forbidden sweets and got away with it. “That’s more like you.” And not like that sniffle-nosed crybaby. He picked up his suitcase and started to turn away, undoubtedly satisfied with that lovely memory of her angry, flashing eyes to last him for the rest of his days if he never gets to see her again.

She dashed on ahead of him, blocked his path with her outstretched arms. “Stop!”

Rei noticed that those arms were deliberately distanced, quite impossible for them to touch him. And that diminutive notice irked the hell out of him. Am I some plague that must be avoided at all costs?!? “Why should I?” He began brusquely, masking the disappointment that ran deep into his soul. “Who’s going to stop me? You, my dear Ran?”

His use of endearment caused her mouth to drop for a just a fraction. “I think not.” Still reeling with the victory of rendering her in a loss for words, he added as he brushed past her, “You cannot wait to get rid of me.”

“Do not ever put words in my mouth. I can speak for myself.” She declared proudly.

I've gotta say what I've gotta say
And then I swear I'll go away

“No... you can’t.” Rei accused miserably. Dropping his bags as turned and almost violently seized her upper arms, “Not when you contain yourself—specifically, your feelings.”

“What do you know of feelings, Otohata?” Ran challenged, ignoring the unconscious tightening of his fingers on her upper arms, “when you failed to be even bothered of others’.”

“If you’re talking about that damn Aya’s...”

Ran head came down hard on his forehead. She would have punched him all the way to Mars to whence he came with that derogatory statement of Aya but he caged her arms. And so, the red-head had to make to do with that head-butt. “Don’t you dare ‘damn’ her, you fool! She has done nothing wrong to you, Otohata! If anything else, she loves you so…”

But I can't promise you'll enjoy the noise
I guess I'll save the best for last

Rei ignored the pain on his left temple where her head collided. “How about you, Ran? What about your feelings? What about the feelings you have for me?”

She was silent for a heartbeat or two and then she spoke. An uncharacteristic glacé in her eyes. “Do those things even exist, Rei?” She smiled bitterly. “How many times do I have to tell you to never put words in my mouth?”

“A million times more, I’m afraid. Until you admit it, the worth and importance of what’s in your heart and never mind the rest of the world...”

“I don’t believe that this is love, Rei. Love is not supposed to be this selfish. This selfishness I—no, I am right the first time around… This cannot be love.”

“But—”

“No, this is not love.” She said stubbornly, “Love is nothing like this selfishness... it just can’t.”

Rei shrugged, knowing her stubbornness was unwavering. “Partially true.” He allowed. “Our definition of things always varies . But you know what, Ran?” He incensed gave her a savage shake when her eyes strayed from his. “Won’t you admit the fact that there is something in you that is… just for me?”

“I don’t believe that this is love, Rei.” She repeated in raw whisper, “This can not be love.”

“It must be an unconscious slip of the tongue, then.” Rei concluded. Inwardly, very unsure if he was to be pleased or weary of this abstracted conversation but persisted anyway. The look in her eye told him that she was familiar with the Freudian concept. “You said Love. I did not ask if you love me or anything like that, Ran. I merely asked if you would just come out of your shell… ”

The fleeting look on her face told him that he “Oh,” she said, “so, you were just fishing for information. You may think it’s harmless to do so… After all, the disclosure of such information will not hurt you.”

“You’re wrong, it will hurt me—if it is NOT the one I longed to hear. But it’s a chance I am willing to take. Besides, I will only get listen to whatever you care to share with me.”

“Oh,” she mumbled in silent mockery, “and now, you shove the spotlight back to me.”

“The spotlight has always been on you, Ran.”

“Don’t patronize me, Rei.” She stomped her foot in frustration like a little child. Yes, she did look like small child at the moment. Bewildered and quite overwhelmed with the whole new turn of this ‘warped farewell’. But the Gods forgive him, Rei found her ‘loss’ as something to be happy about—what he mean is, that he was happy that he was leaving her with a resounding impression to remember him by. She continued, “You know that is not what I mean—”

“Then, tell me. Tell me what I am missing here.”

Ran seemed to him was finding it difficult to speak what she chased after him to say. Her sealed lips trembled.

“Kotobuki,” Rei sighed, releasing his manacle-like grip on her. “You disappoint me.” She lifted her broken gaze at him and felt his resolve diminish slightly. Rei shook his head, as if to clear his mind. “All of the sudden, that what I admired for the most has gone and left you too.”

“Too?” Ran suddenly had the urge to hurt him. Just as his understanding of her character and her thoughts scared her witless that every damning truthful word hurt and wrecked her self-esteem in her capability to control herself.

Rei was awfully surprised that she had ‘control’ issues as he did… but her reasons were selfless unlike his.

She loved him too. He realized... but decided to give her the benifit of the doubt. It was the least he could do.

He was suddenly ashamed of himself. Judging himself to be unworthy of her for that trait of selfishness in him. He found the strength of will to lean over to pick up his luggage and head off to his boarding plane without telling her what he desperately wanted to tell her before he lost the nerve to seize the opportunity.

Rei shook his head. He had lost the nerve. It was too late to tell her the contents of his heart...

“I love you, Ran Kotobuki.”

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My future seems like one big past
You're left with me 'cause you left me no choice

In reality, it he who was screaming her name…

Rei could not believe what was going on before his eyes. It was as if disbelief has detached his soul from his body. He was seeing all that is unfolding before him like an indifferent stranger safely behind the television set, behind the computer screen, behind some mystical veil where nothing could stir him.

There was a vivid sense of urgency in the room. People brushed past him as they entered the room, but none of their turbulent shouting of instruction and rapid movements held his awareness or attention. Rei was gently guided to a corner of the room by a sympathetic orderly.

Rei Otohata was numb! No, I don't want to be numb. Dear God. I want to feel. Don't take this away too... HAVEN'T YOU TAKEN ENOUGH??!

“Check her airway, breathing, and circulation—” Dr. Naoshiro Itoh, head of cardiology was taking charge. “Status!” he barked and the staff around him bolted efficiently to their tasks.

“—give her 2cc of—”

“She’s going into shock!” Shock has been known as a life-threatening condition that occurs when the body is not getting enough blood flow.

Rei’s eyes remained on Ran’s body as it was ranked violent shaking… and then, abrupt stillness. The monitor started to screech warning beeping that indicated her vital signs were rapidly dropping… and then, ominously whining down to a flat note.

“Where’s that blasted nurs—??!”

Don’t do this to me, Kotobuki… Rei fell to his knees beside her bed, clutching her hand as if it was his only life line. Little did he know, she was clinging on to him too.

Fight it, Kotobuki... Fight it. You fought the overwhelming odds all you life in the past, did you not? Just like when you fought your own feelings for me. Fight this too. Do not teach me to be better then leave before I get the real chance to be better... with you by my side...

I know now how to be better! He pleaded desperately.

He did not realize he was screaming his words into her unhearing ears.

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It was like waking up to a dream—where all those things you wished to hold was within reach. It is too late now. And so, Rei reserved his arms at his sides, and his hands fisted to keep himself from reaching back to out to her. While a third of him screamed to be heard—by saying, treating her as such was all an act to keep her from affecting him more than she already has—the two third silenced the former—by saying: Whatever you say or do will never make her see what you are really about.

It’s too late now.

“Sir, you cannot go in there. S—”

A handsome man with light brown hair and familiar light sepia brown eyes burst through the doors with an air of authority apparent not only in manner his dark trench coat swirled around his body but in his pace and the set of his shoulders and jaw. He signaled to a young man in a police uniform to hold off the nurse as he continued down the hallway to Rei.

And yet, there was something else—to the man. Something akin to alarm and fear, that slowly became apparent on his normally forbearing face as he approached a slouched figure dressed in a doctor’s white lab gown who sat on the floor with his against wall.

“What the hell are you doing here??! Where is my sister??!” Yamato Kotobuki demanded, violently seizing the lapels of Rei’s white lab coat, forcing the young doctor from his defeated posture against the wall to his feet.

Rei could not get the word through his lips and tell Yamato that... Damn.

Put me back together. Part of Rei despondent mind pleaded to any sympathizing soul who would pity him.
Or separate the skin from bone. The other part taunted. After all, Dr. Itoh and his team kicked Rei out of her room soon after that scene he created.

The dazed expression left Rei’s face as he met Yamato’s incensed ones. The same eyes... she had.

“What happened, Otohata?!!” Normally, Ran’s older brother was more cordial to him. But given the reality that his sister was… his sister was… damn. He could not even acknowledge it himself.

His doctor’s impassive tone returned. It was dispassionate, aloof and self-possessed. There was a degree of comfort by using that tone, it was familiar territory. Rei had given a ‘talk’ like this before—somehow the doctor was thinking this was similar to those past times, where the situation did not involve people he cared so much for.

“I’m sorry Detective Kotobuki but it was beyond any further treatment with medicine. You see, the immune system responds to protect the body from harmful substances. Foreign substances called antigens cause many immune responses. They trigger the production of proteins, called antibodies, which attach to antigens and destroy these antigens. They also trigger a type of white blood cell called lymphocytes, which recognize a certain antigen and destroy it.”

“Cut the medical bullshit. What are you leading up to, dammit?”

“A problem had occurred, sir,” Rei began, impassive and detached unlike ever before in his career as a medical practitioner. “when the donor’s blood was inferred as an antigen by the patient’s immune system.”

Ran’s light brown haired brother slowly comprehended where this was all leading to. “Are you trying to say that—” Yamato pitilessly shoved Rei away.

“Yes, detective.” The doctor ignored shooting of pain on his shoulder, when Yamato’s violent behavior caused hit to hit the wall he was leaning against earlier. “The patient’s body rejected and tried to attack and destroy parts of the new blood. She fought the new blood that she was given.”

Yamato’s jaw clenched and unclenched dangerously.

Now, all Rei wanted to do was shift the dilemma to someone else—he wanted to say that the small amount of donor blood should have been mixed with a small amount of patient blood. Careful blood screening can lower the risk of these types of problems. The mixture is checked under a microscope for signs of antibody reaction. But that apparently did NOT happen!

Of course, it was not possible to do that! Ran was already on her way and the units donated blood was already on their way from the store room to the OR.

Rei thought about the drugs called corticosteroids such as prednisone or dexamethasone that reduce the immune response. Such fluids were given to the patient through a vein and there were other medications may be used to treat or prevent shock. Given what was happening before him, what obviously was not given to the patient!

Of course, some doctor forgot to do that… Apparently, it became his task to check. Dammit… THIS ENTIRE EVENT MOST PROBABLY HAVE BEEN MY FAULT!

Rei sank back down to a ball on the floor, his hand viciously, miserably clutching handful of his dark hair.

"Leave me all the pieces,
Then you can leave me alone."

Yamato watched the young doctor with great concern. Here was a man who loved his sister dearly... His clenched jaw relaxed a tad bit.

Of course, even receiving the correct blood type can result in a mild transfusion reaction. Rei recalled his long-ago lesson. Mild transfusion reaction causes fever, hives, and shortness of breath, pain, rapid heart rate, chills, and low blood pressure. While a mild transfusion reaction is frightening, it is rarely life-threatening when treated quickly.

Rei recalled the little changes in her heart rate as he blabbed on about his life and how much he cared—no, love her. All that time… DAMN! Moisture glisten the corners of his ice blue eyes. An onlooker would say that the ice in his eyes were melting and held on the corners...

What kind of doctor am I?! I should have been more vigilant. He was so caught up with his happy realizations that, he being so hard on himself that he slackened!

My fault. A clear, resolute voice in his head whispered. My… Mine, all mine!

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Tell me the reality is better than the dream

"Don’t do this to me, Kotobuki…"

He had said.

God in heaven, he would cut out his worthless right arm to take whose words back.

"Fight it, Kotobuki... Fight it."

He had told her on his knees.

And she listened. She did fight. She fought the "help" that was given to her. She fought all the way.

But I found out the hard way

What I learned? GOD! WHAT A WAY TO TEACH ME!

And he had the "selfless" Ran Kotobuki to truly thank for that lesson.

Rei dropped the bouquet of flowers on the marked stone sticking out of the grassy ground and left for the hospital. Ironic, for I thought I was beyond any redemption... But you changed that, ... Dr. Rei Otohata bore in mind... The person he is and the girl who made it possible. My savior.

Nothing is what it seems!

Rei made a vow—he was to become a doctor and save lives.

He did just that... when he saved the one he cares for the most…

Himself.

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A teardrop…

…a mere drop of water cascading down your cheeks.

…an infinitesimal particle composed mainly of water.

And yet, it concludes an entire story.

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Fin

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Now Playing: Duality by Slipknot

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Author’s Note: This is the part where I woke up. All things must come to an end, I guess.

You know what? I don't want it to just yet. But until the plot bunnies bite... c'est fin.

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Update: January 20, 2009

AN: There will be a chapter four for this fan fic! I am currently writing it. Please bear with me. I cannot say when it will be finished, it all depends on time I can squeeze in for fic-writting! Thank you.

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