Chapter Text
Time crawls, slower than Leslie’s ever seen it move. She’s spent a thousand sleepless nights, watching the clock, waiting to be able to go into work, to get things done. She thought the clock moved slowly then, but it has nothing on this.
She pulls April tight to her and takes a deep breath, smiling a little at the way April mumbles a little, sound lost under the hiss of the oxygen. She can’t quite hear what April’s saying, but she appreciates that the tone is slightly sarcastic. If Leslie’s heart is racing, it has nothing on April’s. Her thought seem to beat in time to the loud ticking on the monitor.
Ann and the nice nurse, April’s nurse, flit in and out. Their faces are serious, tense, but they turn to Leslie for a moment and give her a smile.
“How’s she doing?”
“She’s about the same,” Ann says, her voice tense, professionally polite. “Which is good…the same is good.”
Andy’s half-asleep, slumped over in the chair, but he straightens up. “Is she going to be okay?”
“We’re doing everything we can, Andy.” Ann puts her hand on his shoulder, just for a minute. It’s a friendly gesture, one she’d do with Leslie all the time. But Leslie is tangled in April’s tubes, so Ann puts her hand on Andy. He doesn’t really appear to notice.
The other nurse speaks. “Just in case, we’d like to have April moved to the ICU. It’ll be easier to get her more oxygen if she needs it there.”
Leslie feels a little foggy, tries to keep up. “…the other hospital?”
“No,” Not-Ann the nurse says patiently. “The ICU here. We’ve been on the phone with the other hospital. The storm’s picking up out there, and we should be able to deal with things here. There’s an ambulance coming from Eagletown, it’s going to bring us some supplies before the roads become impassable, just in case.”
Ann makes a slight face. Leslie wants to ask her why, but now feels like the wrong time.
“April,” the nurse now bends down to speak to April. “April, we’re going to move you to the intensive care unit. This is a precaution in case you need more help with your breathing.”
April’s strangely calm, though her voice trembles a bit. “Am I okay?”
“We’re doing everything we can to help you feel better as soon as possible. Your blood pressure….” Ann looks to the screen for a second, “is a little better, actually, so you’re doing really, really good April.”
Andy wraps his hand around April’s arm, shaking a little. “You hear that, April? You’re doing really good! You’re doing so good!”
“Okay,” April whispers, and then coughs. Leslie tightens her arms around her, and April tucks her head back against Leslie’s shoulder. She feels cold, still, but maybe a little warmer. Leslie can’t tell anymore. She can’t tell anything.
“Hey, April!” Andy’s perked up a little, and they’re all relieved by the bright, distracting warmth in his voice. “I have something I want to show you…” he digs through the pockets of his jackets, rifling through an assortment of knick-knacks before pulling something out. “It’s….some old photos that my family sent me! Wanna see?” He begins placing the photos on the edge of the bed. “Here’s me, as a little boy…look at the size of that dog! That’s my first dog…”
The nurse tells them she needs to go arrange for the transfer, and Leslie stops Ann on her way out. “Can you let Ben and Ron know? They’re in the waiting room, I need to make sure they know what’s going on…”
Ann ducks low and near, right by Leslie’s head, whispering. “Of course Leslie, yeah. I’ll let them know. Um, you’re all going to have to leave the room for the transfer, just by the way. It’s important that the room is empty when we get the patient set up.”
“But I-“
“We’ll let you back in to join April as soon as possible, I promise.” Ann takes a look at Andy, making sure he’s not paying attention and is still telling April about his photos, and then looks at April’s stats again. “She’s doing a little better, but this is the right move.”
“You didn’t seem to think-“
It’s not like Ann to keep cutting her off, interrupting is something that she doesn’t do that often, and Leslie knows that it means she has to listen. “I worry that we should try to transfer April preventatively. However the other nurses have assured me that we can devote our full attention to April in the ICU, and that she will be just as comfortable here.”
“If you think….then maybe we should go?” Leslie always takes Ann’s side. Ann took care of her when she had the flu, Ann took care of half of Pawnee and Leslie would trust her with her life.
“No, Leslie… I’m just worried because it’s April. They’re all wonderful nurses, if they think we can take care of April here, then we can take care of her here.” Ann waits for a second, hearing a lull in Andy’s story. “Hey April, can I talk to you for a second?”
“Okay.” April’s voice is quiet, free of all hostility. She nods against Leslie’s shoulder.
Ann smiles and kneels down, so that she’s eye-level with Leslie and April. “Thanks April. April, you’re doing really, really well okay? I just want to talk to you about some things.” She takes April’s hand gently, and Leslie’s surprised when April makes no move to pull away. But Ann still puts April’s hand back down and smiles larger. “Ah! You made a face! There’s the April I know. Okay. We’re going to move you up to the ICU. When we do that, Andy and Leslie are going to have to leave for a little bit.”
April shakes her head. “No, I don’t want them to.”
Andy stops, and looks between Leslie and Ann, eyebrows lowered. Once upon a time, Leslie saw a police dog chase down a running suspect, saw the way it’s eyes focused and it went from being a nice dog to something else entirely.
“Andy, it’s okay, Ann’s just explaining everything to April.”
Ann has her patient voice on. “April, sweetie, I know you don’t Leslie and Andy to leave. I promise it will just be for a little bit and they’ll be nearby the whole time, okay? I promise.”
April shakes her head again. “No, I don’t know anybody…”
“Ann, she shouldn’t have to be alone if she doesn’t want to be alone!” Andy’s tone has changed and Leslie tries to shush him, but he doesn’t listen..
“Andy, it’s okay, we’ll just be out in the hallway like earlier. It’s okay. April, I promise I’ll be back as soon as I can. I’ll call your Mom again, okay?”
“Mom…” April’s eyes have watered up, like she’s going to cry. “I want my Mom.”
“I know you do April, I know…” Leslie feels her own eyes watering up, she wants to cry, she wants to do something, she wants to make a thousand phone calls and fix everything. “And I know she wants to be here too, it’s just that she’s with Natalie and no one knew this was going to happen. I promise I’ll call her again, so she can get here as soon as possible.”
“I don’t want to be alone.”
“You won’t be. Andy and Leslie and Ben and Ron came all this way to be here with you, they just have to step out for a minute. So we can get you changed and get all your wires dealt with, yeah? And I’ll be right there the whole time.”
“Okay.” April nods.
“Okay…good. Andy, is that okay with you too?”
Andy has all his photos in his hands, his fingers so tense that he’s in danger of ripping them. Leslie untangled one arm from April and reaches out to him. “Andy? Andy, don’t rip your photos, I want to see them too. I’ll help you make a scrapbook for them---”
Andy lets out a great, shuddering sigh, his shoulders drooping. “Okay.”
“Okay. Thank you, April. Thank you Leslie, and Andy. I’m going to talk to Ron and Ben and we’ll all be right back.” Ann takes a look at April’s stats again, and gives a sharp, confident nod. “See, even better than a minute ago. We’re doing great!”
Leslie doesn’t feel like she’d doing greater. She rests her chin back down on the top of April’s head and takes a deep, shaky breath.
“Leslie? Do you want to see my photo of the lake?”
She smiles at him. “Yeah, Andy…I’d like that…”