It feels like Matt’s barely dropped his head onto his pillow and closed his eyes before the rattling buzz of his mobile rouses him. He blinks, tiredness making him sluggish, and for a moment wonders what woke him.
Unknown Number. Unknown Number. Unknown Number. His phone chimes at him. He groans.
Matt pats around on the bedside table before his fingers find the outline of his cell.
He answers with a sleep-thick “H’llo?”.
“Mr Murdock?” The voice is female, unfamiliar.
“Yes.” Matt clears his throat, making a gesture towards sitting up. His body hates him for it, and he hisses in a disgruntled breath. He wonders what time it is. It was gone twelve when he finished reading through the Collini witness statements. “Speaking?”
“Mr Murdock, I’m calling from the Perelman Emergency Centre. I’m sorry for calling so early, but Franklin Nelson has been just admitted, and we’d like you come in. You are registered as his next-of-kin, along with his parents. We’re still trying to get a hold of them.”
“Next of kin – what?” Matt’s working through the blur of panic that’s clutched around his chest, kicking off his covers and pushing himself upright. He tries to process what’s just been said through the terror rising like bile in his throat. “What is it? What’s happened?”
“It would be beneficial if you were here in person, rather than discussing it over the phone. We can further inform you about Franklin’s condition then.”
His condition…? Foggy had said he was having an early night, maybe stopping round Rico’s for a catch-up.
“I-I’ll be there. T-Thank you.” he stammers, and hangs up hurriedly.
He can’t get out of the door fast enough.
When he arrives at the Centre, flinging money at the taxi driver, hoping he’s given the right amount, wearing yesterday’s rumpled clothes, no socks on his feet and his shoelaces haphazardly tied, he can barely get anyone to give him a straight answer. It’s not that anyone’s lying, it’s just that they don’t know, or, even worse, they don’t want to tell him.
They say phrases like an altercation, and acute traumatic injuries. They say that the cops are taking a witness statement now, that they’ll let him know when they know more about what happened. All Matt can understand from this is that Foggy was attacked, and that he was outnumbered, and that he was alone.
Matt wasn’t there. Why hadn’t he been there?
He sits down heavy on a waiting room chair, and nods absently, barely present, dredging up replies from the numbing shock in his brain when the conversation calls for it. No, he hadn’t seen Franklin since they said goodbye at the office yesterday. No, he doesn’t have another contact number for Franklin’s parents. No, he doesn’t think Franklin was involved in any sort of criminal activity.
It’s Foggy, he would have snapped, if fear hadn’t drained him hollow, no-one calls him Franklin.
He barely notices when they stop asking him questions, and one of the nurses presses a Styrofoam cup of water into his hands. He doesn’t notice they’re shaking until he wonders why the cup isn’t steady in his grip.
He checks his phone while he waits, and it reads out one missed text from Foggy, sent hours ago.
From the sound of it, he was happy, and tipsy, and having a good night. He was safe.
So what happened?
Matt doesn’t know how long he sits there in the waiting room, clenching his hands into fists around his cane as the world drowns him. He can’t lose control, not now, not when Foggy might need him, but his senses continue to narrow down to an echoing too-loud room two corridors down, barely even muffled by the distance.
…Compounded tibia fracture… BP seventy-nine over forty-four and dropping…
Jesus, how we meant to get that off his head…?
One thing at a time… Signs of building intracranial pressure… twenty percent mannitol, nurse.
Penetration of the lower abdominal wall. Bring the light over here, will you?
Matt hones in on Foggy’s heartbeat. It sounds like a moth trapped under glass. Thready, frantic.
He feels sick.
He’s going into shock… Nurse, prepare for cardiac arrest…
Foggy, Matt thinks desperately. He tightens his grip so hard he nearly snaps his cane. Foggy. God no please.
By the time someone puts a tentative hand on his shoulder, Matt’s listened to Foggy die three times on the table. Has stopped breathing, hasn’t dared to, in the time it takes the doctors to drag him back, the whine and thump of the defibrillator sparking through him, the vicious smack of the force punching more bruises into his skin. Matt hears a rib fracture under the pressure. Things keep floundering, flailing inside of his friend’s body as his heart struggles to maintain a normal rhythm.
Each time, it takes longer for them to get Foggy back.
Each time, Matt thinks he’s lost him.
“Matthew?” A shaky voice pulls him out of the overwhelming sound of ruined muscles struggling to beat time. His head jerks as he turns around, startled.
He smells an undercurrent of sturdy cooking woven into cotton, of stale coffee and talc and washing powder.
“Mrs Nelson?”
Matt’s voice sounds wrecked.
“I got here as quick as I could,” Foggy’s mother says, dropping down gracelessly in the chair next to him. He can sense the space she takes up, and it’s familiar enough to be almost calming. Her handbag lands with a dull thump next to her. Her car keys are still gripped in her hand, clacking against the other keyrings on the chain. “They said… Is he…?”
“He’s in surgery now,” he says, half-dazed. “They – they haven’t told me anything else.”
I’ve just listened to your only son die, Mrs Nelson, he thinks, his mind deadened with the sound of shattered things. You should hear how hard his body’s trying to keep him alive.
“Thomas is still on shift,” she says. Foggy’s dad must be doing a security shift at the haulage yard tonight. “I wasn’t sure whether to call him, just in case…”
She trails off.
Where’s the ophthalmologist? He hears from that far-off room where his best friend’s body is struggling not to give out. We need to get this done now before he loses that eye.
Matt fumbles around, puts an awkward hand on her knee. The fabric of her skirt is worn with too many washes, collecting snapped fibers and bobbles on the surface. Foggy’s shirts have the same sort of long-lived character to them.
“He’ll be ok, Mrs Nelson,” he reassures her, and he doesn’t know who he’s trying to convince. There is a machine breathing for Foggy, and the stench of blood and anaesthetic clogs in Matt’s throat. There is the sound of old ships creaking. Foggy has to be ok. “He’s too stubborn to be anything less.”
Mrs Nelson puts her hand over his, pats it gently. She has callouses on her palms softened by hand cream that carries the lingering hint of camomile.
“You’re a good boy, Matthew,” she says thickly. “Our Foggy always said so.”
Matt doesn’t know how to reply to that.
Mr Nelson hurries in around half-six, still wearing his work boots, the synthetic rustle of his waterproof jacket flapping as he rushes towards them. His footfalls are heavy, frantic. Matt is listening to the quiet popping sound of a needle pushing through Foggy’s flesh, the regular drag of thread aligning split edges of skin. He had sobbed aloud once, a ruined hitch of air, and Mrs Nelson had shushed him, wrapping him in a hug, and he couldn’t tell her that he could hear them drilling metal rods through marrow, forcing the snapped bone back under Foggy’s skin and pushing it into position.
There doesn’t seem to be an end to what they need to fix.
“How is he?” Mr Nelson says desperately. “Kath, love, tell me, he’s not…?”
He must see something on Mrs Nelson’s face because his voice breaks painfully, and he chokes out. “Thank God, thank God”. There is the sound of two bodies holding each other far too tightly and not close enough.
When Mr Nelson regains his composure, he claps a thick hand over Matt’s shoulders.
“Thanks for being here, Matthew,” he says. He sounds embarrassed at his outburst.
Matt turns his head to where he thinks Mr Nelson may be.
“Wouldn’t be anywhere else,” he replies quietly, and the vague shape that is Foggy’s father nods. His hand clenches in solidarity into Matt’s shoulder.
They sit in the waiting room for hours more. A long night drifts into a long morning. Foggy’s heartbeat carries on.
Fill: a silhouette and nothing more 3/?
It feels like Matt’s barely dropped his head onto his pillow and closed his eyes before the rattling buzz of his mobile rouses him. He blinks, tiredness making him sluggish, and for a moment wonders what woke him.
Unknown Number. Unknown Number. Unknown Number. His phone chimes at him. He groans.
Matt pats around on the bedside table before his fingers find the outline of his cell.
He answers with a sleep-thick “H’llo?”.
“Mr Murdock?” The voice is female, unfamiliar.
“Yes.” Matt clears his throat, making a gesture towards sitting up. His body hates him for it, and he hisses in a disgruntled breath. He wonders what time it is. It was gone twelve when he finished reading through the Collini witness statements. “Speaking?”
“Mr Murdock, I’m calling from the Perelman Emergency Centre. I’m sorry for calling so early, but Franklin Nelson has been just admitted, and we’d like you come in. You are registered as his next-of-kin, along with his parents. We’re still trying to get a hold of them.”
“Next of kin – what?” Matt’s working through the blur of panic that’s clutched around his chest, kicking off his covers and pushing himself upright. He tries to process what’s just been said through the terror rising like bile in his throat. “What is it? What’s happened?”
“It would be beneficial if you were here in person, rather than discussing it over the phone. We can further inform you about Franklin’s condition then.”
His condition…? Foggy had said he was having an early night, maybe stopping round Rico’s for a catch-up.
“I-I’ll be there. T-Thank you.” he stammers, and hangs up hurriedly.
He can’t get out of the door fast enough.
When he arrives at the Centre, flinging money at the taxi driver, hoping he’s given the right amount, wearing yesterday’s rumpled clothes, no socks on his feet and his shoelaces haphazardly tied, he can barely get anyone to give him a straight answer. It’s not that anyone’s lying, it’s just that they don’t know, or, even worse, they don’t want to tell him.
They say phrases like an altercation, and acute traumatic injuries. They say that the cops are taking a witness statement now, that they’ll let him know when they know more about what happened. All Matt can understand from this is that Foggy was attacked, and that he was outnumbered, and that he was alone.
Matt wasn’t there. Why hadn’t he been there?
He sits down heavy on a waiting room chair, and nods absently, barely present, dredging up replies from the numbing shock in his brain when the conversation calls for it. No, he hadn’t seen Franklin since they said goodbye at the office yesterday. No, he doesn’t have another contact number for Franklin’s parents. No, he doesn’t think Franklin was involved in any sort of criminal activity.
It’s Foggy, he would have snapped, if fear hadn’t drained him hollow, no-one calls him Franklin.
He barely notices when they stop asking him questions, and one of the nurses presses a Styrofoam cup of water into his hands. He doesn’t notice they’re shaking until he wonders why the cup isn’t steady in his grip.
He checks his phone while he waits, and it reads out one missed text from Foggy, sent hours ago.
From the sound of it, he was happy, and tipsy, and having a good night. He was safe.
So what happened?
Matt doesn’t know how long he sits there in the waiting room, clenching his hands into fists around his cane as the world drowns him. He can’t lose control, not now, not when Foggy might need him, but his senses continue to narrow down to an echoing too-loud room two corridors down, barely even muffled by the distance.
…Compounded tibia fracture… BP seventy-nine over forty-four and dropping…
Jesus, how we meant to get that off his head…?
One thing at a time… Signs of building intracranial pressure… twenty percent mannitol, nurse.
Penetration of the lower abdominal wall. Bring the light over here, will you?
Matt hones in on Foggy’s heartbeat. It sounds like a moth trapped under glass. Thready, frantic.
He feels sick.
He’s going into shock… Nurse, prepare for cardiac arrest…
Foggy, Matt thinks desperately. He tightens his grip so hard he nearly snaps his cane. Foggy. God no please.
By the time someone puts a tentative hand on his shoulder, Matt’s listened to Foggy die three times on the table. Has stopped breathing, hasn’t dared to, in the time it takes the doctors to drag him back, the whine and thump of the defibrillator sparking through him, the vicious smack of the force punching more bruises into his skin. Matt hears a rib fracture under the pressure. Things keep floundering, flailing inside of his friend’s body as his heart struggles to maintain a normal rhythm.
Each time, it takes longer for them to get Foggy back.
Each time, Matt thinks he’s lost him.
“Matthew?” A shaky voice pulls him out of the overwhelming sound of ruined muscles struggling to beat time. His head jerks as he turns around, startled.
He smells an undercurrent of sturdy cooking woven into cotton, of stale coffee and talc and washing powder.
“Mrs Nelson?”
Matt’s voice sounds wrecked.
“I got here as quick as I could,” Foggy’s mother says, dropping down gracelessly in the chair next to him. He can sense the space she takes up, and it’s familiar enough to be almost calming. Her handbag lands with a dull thump next to her. Her car keys are still gripped in her hand, clacking against the other keyrings on the chain. “They said… Is he…?”
“He’s in surgery now,” he says, half-dazed. “They – they haven’t told me anything else.”
I’ve just listened to your only son die, Mrs Nelson, he thinks, his mind deadened with the sound of shattered things. You should hear how hard his body’s trying to keep him alive.
“Thomas is still on shift,” she says. Foggy’s dad must be doing a security shift at the haulage yard tonight. “I wasn’t sure whether to call him, just in case…”
She trails off.
Where’s the ophthalmologist? He hears from that far-off room where his best friend’s body is struggling not to give out. We need to get this done now before he loses that eye.
Matt fumbles around, puts an awkward hand on her knee. The fabric of her skirt is worn with too many washes, collecting snapped fibers and bobbles on the surface. Foggy’s shirts have the same sort of long-lived character to them.
“He’ll be ok, Mrs Nelson,” he reassures her, and he doesn’t know who he’s trying to convince. There is a machine breathing for Foggy, and the stench of blood and anaesthetic clogs in Matt’s throat. There is the sound of old ships creaking. Foggy has to be ok. “He’s too stubborn to be anything less.”
Mrs Nelson puts her hand over his, pats it gently. She has callouses on her palms softened by hand cream that carries the lingering hint of camomile.
“You’re a good boy, Matthew,” she says thickly. “Our Foggy always said so.”
Matt doesn’t know how to reply to that.
Mr Nelson hurries in around half-six, still wearing his work boots, the synthetic rustle of his waterproof jacket flapping as he rushes towards them. His footfalls are heavy, frantic. Matt is listening to the quiet popping sound of a needle pushing through Foggy’s flesh, the regular drag of thread aligning split edges of skin. He had sobbed aloud once, a ruined hitch of air, and Mrs Nelson had shushed him, wrapping him in a hug, and he couldn’t tell her that he could hear them drilling metal rods through marrow, forcing the snapped bone back under Foggy’s skin and pushing it into position.
There doesn’t seem to be an end to what they need to fix.
“How is he?” Mr Nelson says desperately. “Kath, love, tell me, he’s not…?”
He must see something on Mrs Nelson’s face because his voice breaks painfully, and he chokes out. “Thank God, thank God”. There is the sound of two bodies holding each other far too tightly and not close enough.
When Mr Nelson regains his composure, he claps a thick hand over Matt’s shoulders.
“Thanks for being here, Matthew,” he says. He sounds embarrassed at his outburst.
Matt turns his head to where he thinks Mr Nelson may be.
“Wouldn’t be anywhere else,” he replies quietly, and the vague shape that is Foggy’s father nods. His hand clenches in solidarity into Matt’s shoulder.
They sit in the waiting room for hours more. A long night drifts into a long morning. Foggy’s heartbeat carries on.
**