What: Remus's proposed procedure is put into effect. When: Sunday afternoon Where: Hospital, Berlin Rating: Low Status: Complete
Albus had tried to take the news that Gellert was stable - or at least, stable enough - as he'd taken all the rest, as statement of fact, with no implications beyond the moment. The hope he felt he militantly relegated to the prospect of taking the next step in a possible treatment, occupying enough of his mental energy to spare him from too closely examining why he was insulating himself from disappointment. It was precisely for reasons like this that never wished to grow too dependent upon Cassandra's Vision. There would inevitably be a time, an occasion she could not foresee. There would always be a time of uncertainty. And it was far better to be accustomed to it, than to find such circumstances freshly surprising.
No matter how much he ached for her to tell him that Gellert was going to be fine. That he was going to survive.
For this particular procedure, Albus had insisted on being present. He understood the statistical risks. He knew that they were grasping at straws, but straws were all that were left when the end of the rope came. Neither Private Lupin's youth nor his absence were matters of concern for Albus. Remus Lupin had not invented the procedure, he merely knew of it. Although he had suggested this particular course of treatment, he was still recuperating in the next room. His involvement with Gellert's case had merited assignment to the private wing of the hospital. Strictly speaking, there was no need to have Remus present, though Albus couldn't help the slight nag that he would have been a little more at ease if Remus had been able to attend, to observe.
Albus, for his own part, kept well enough out of the way as Healers, Mediwitches, and Mediwizards bustled about. The theory, Albus understood, along with the science of it, but he was no Healer. So he waited. And watched. And since he had no god to whom to pray, he nursed the quiet desire to visit justice on the people responsible for this.
The procedure had been underway for nearly an hour. When the Healers first began their task, Grindelwald's vitals had quite suddenly slipped toward dangerous territory again and the chief Healer had very nearly called the entire thing off. But in a few moments Gellert had been stabilised again, his blood pressure returning to a level within the range that had been determined as minimally safe for this sort of operation. And with Albus Dumbledore in the room, watching their every move even if he truly understood little of it, there was no backing out. If Grindelwald died in this bed, during this procedure, it would be but a day sooner than he would have died without it. Every Healer and Mediwizard and nurse in the room only prayed that Dumbledore understood the same.
Nearby, placed carefully out of the way but not forgotten, was a cart that bore a number of small vials and syringes already filled with the proper amounts of various hormones and potions that could (potentially) avert a crisis, should the Chancellor begin to crash. Thus far, it had not yet been necessary, though no one doubted that it was only a matter of time. A charm from one of the Mediwizards maintained a constant, hovering image above the bed--an image that bore not only a graph of the electrical activity in Gellert's heart and his vital signs, but also an exact two-dimensional image of the contents of his abdomen. The areas that had borne injury from the blade itself were circled in green, even though magic had long since healed those wounds. The Dark Magic that lurked in his veins, however...it showed up in his vascular system as a glowing white--a white that had, by now, blanched almost all of his organs...including his heart. With total organ system failure that extensive, unless this procedure was wildly successful in a way that no one dared dream it might be, the likelihood of Grindelwald surviving more than another twenty to twenty-four hours was precisely zero.
Albus was half-way committed to the idea of forgoing sleep for the next few years in order to acquire a sufficient education in medical magic. In theory, it couldn't be that hard. He'd find some way, invent some potion. Or ask the Flamels to do it. It was possible, even if it was completely impractical. Still, it was a comforting thought. If he were capable of finding any thoughts comforting at the moment. It had been a very, very long time since Albus had needed to expend effort to try finding his center. The habit was one ingrained, seared into his thought process by his mother when he'd been so very young.
Much as he wanted to fight the thought of his mother, Albus yielded. He let the memory of her, her face and her long dark hair and her soft hands, pass through his mind. He let the ache of missing her swell and deflate in his chest. And he let his anger pulse through him. Of all that he felt in those few minutes, his countenance revealed none. Memories of Ariana came next, barbed and the pain of them much fresher. In some roundabout way, Aberforth could be blamed for this, too. His futile Resistance. Aberforth never learned. Still picking fights with Gellert, and still getting other people killed in the crossfire. If Aberforth turned out to have had anything to do with this, the consequences would be beyond dire. Albus knew what he would want to do; if Gellert died, the number of people Albus would send to Death in his wake would be obscene, and Aberforth would be first among them. Because if Gellert died because Aberforth had been permitted to live on account of Albus's foolhardy sentimentality, Albus would never forgive himself.
Slowly, reluctantly, but at long last willingly, Albus turned his thoughts to Kastra. Kastra, who he loved so dearly. The idea of her sympathizing with the Resistance, with Aberforth, with the people who would do this to her father- it howled of treachery. Would it be worth it, when she turned over the keys to the proverbial kingdom? How sated would Albus's conscience feel if he permitted Gellert to be killed because Albus was uncomfortable with demands of necessity? They were no longer far-off speculations with vague, hypothetical outcomes. They were in his home and in front of his eyes and killing the man he loved. And what need could they have for a fickle, inconsistent, reformist heir?
Somewhat unwittingly, Albus's demeanor had dropped a few degrees.
Few of the Healers wanted Albus Dumbledore present for this procedure. While it made the task of obtaining consent much easier, it also added an element of apprehension to the atmosphere. In all probability, Grindelwald would be dying right here, right now, within this hour--while it was their hands and their instruments which worked across his body.
"A little more of the ferrous sulfate solution," the chief Healer murmured as he marked down the most recent 0.3% increase in infection extent as the blood on Gellert's monitor became just a little more white. A nurse tapped his wand to the floating screen next to Gellert's IV pole, increasing the drip rate of one of the eight bags that hung overhead. "He's bleeding somewhere in there," the Healer noted. He lifted his hand and snapped his fingers; one of the Mediwitches devoted her full attention to analysing Gellert's vitals screen, which showed that his blood pressure was rapidly dropping, heart rate increasing to compensate for wherever Gellert was losing blood. She examined the image of Gellert's abdominal cavity, searching for that one spot, however tiny it may be. That one spot, that could turn the tide. A laceration on his liver, perhaps, or a collection of broken veins.
It was several moments before she finally spoke, and though she tried to remain calm, the almost giddily frantic edge to her voice was impossible to ignore. "I cannot find the bleed."
"Let me look." With a gruff, exasperated sigh, one of the other Mediwizards pushed her aside to glare at the monitor himself. But even he could find nothing. There was no offending laceration--the blood was being lost into the potion that was intended to save Gellert's life.
The monitor suddenly flashed and a high-pitched beeping sound split the air. "Pulse is 181," one of the Healers said, lunging for the cart that had thus far been ignored and seizing a large syringe of lidocaine, injecting its contents into Gellert's central line. For a moment, the room was still, every eye fixed on the numbers on the monitor. The image of Gellert's chest showed his heart pounding between his lungs, and even as he lay on the bed one could see his pulse throbbing far too quickly through his carotid artery, his skin growing progressively paler. And then--
"294!" On the screen, Gellert's heart went erratic, pulsing until it looked as if it was simply fluttering uselessly in his chest cavity, quivering too quickly to be pumping any blood. The number that denoted Gellert's heart rate spiked to 400 and then vanished altogether. The monitor blinked red, the EKG rhythm dropping to a fine line broken by a few jutting peaks, as if it had been drawn with a child's unsteady hand.
"We've got v-fib," a Mediwizard said, his tone grim. But no one reached again for the crash cart, no one drew their wand. Gellert's heart may have been moving, but it no longer functioned--no longer worked to pump blood to his organs and his brain. If they did not act soon, it would deteriorate into asystole and cardiac death. But was there even any point in trying to reverse the progressive destruction of the Chancellor's heart, with the way that white continued to spread across his monitor's image of his abdomen? Was there a point in restoring normal sinus rhythm when they would meet with this same circumstance again within a few hours?
The chief Healer let out a sigh, lowering his clipboard. "Shock him once," he said, though his resignation was evident in his tone. "200 Joules."
A Mediwitch stepped forward, watching the monitor as she directed the tip of her wand to press it just below the apex of Gellert's heart. "Ready--and--clear!" Anyone who was touching Gellert's body backed quickly away and the Mediwitch whispered an incantation. Gellert's torso arched up off the bed, his EKG briefly flatlining before returning to the thin squiggle of before.
"Still in v-fib!"
The chief Healer glanced at Albus, his eyes shadowed and wild, and he seemed to make a split-second decision. "Again. Shock him again! 350 Joules!"
The Mediwitch complied, but this time, when Gellert's heart was forced into asystole, it did not resume any sort of rhythm at all. The monitor screeched, a long and ear-splitting sound. Gellert's head lay tilted to the side, his lips slightly parted, his eyes closed and unmoving. The Healers stared at the screen, as if expecting it to resume some sort of rhythm at any second, the flat pulseless line to leap back into activity. It did not. By the bed, one of the nurses reached forward to press her fingers to Gellert's neck. She held them there for a moment, and then shook her head. No pulse.
The chief Healer wet his lips and made a quick notation on his clipboard before detaching himself from the rest of the group, walking on slightly unsteady legs to Albus's side. "My Lord," he said, and his voice was hoarse. He swallowed, and tried again. "My Lord, there's no use. Patients rarely come back from asystole in the best of circumstances, and this..." was not one of those. The Healer knew he had learned, at some point, how to speak to the family when telling them this sort of news. But somehow, standing before the now sole ruler of the world, he found that he had completely forgotten. Dumbledore should not be here. He should not be here, to see their vain efforts and watch as his husband let go of his grip on life. And normally it was the chief Healer himself who would make this call--and were Dumbledore not here, he would have. He would have looked at the clock, and declared a time of death. "Permission to stop resuscitation, my Lord?"
Albus's attempts to remain calm were, outwardly, fairly successful. Stalling panic and pain was made easier by insisting to himself that until he reacted, none of it had really happened. That these were just steps, and phases, and stumbling blocks in the way, but it wasn't the end. He preserved himself from the urgent, high-strung tension in the air. At least at first. But then he could feel it. He was too close to Gellert to ignore the way the traces of Gellert spasmed within him, or the way a phantom heartbeat sputtered beneath his own, or the surge of pain that flushed with the jolt of electricity through Gellert's body.
And then Albus's logic and obsession with objective reasoning caved. This could not be happening. This could not be permitted to happen, not after everything they'd done. Albus needed him above all others and this could not be happening. Something cracked inside his chest to the tune of that steady note. Numbness began creeping a terrifying path through the core of his body- menacing and insufferable and the strain of control showed all too readily on Albus. He couldn't- he just couldn't- His body came close to trembling with the effort of it all, of slamming every thought in his head to pieces lest he think more than a second into the future. He drowned himself in hurt and fear because anything, anything was better than that unfeeling void and what it would mean.
"Denied." The word was rough and stretched tightly over Albus's low voice, the muscles of his neck and jaw feeling impossibly tight. His crossed arms flung themselves to his sides, the side of one first colliding with the wall. And Albus didn't care how it looked, that he'd let slip the smallest hold of his magic. He couldn't care because he hadn't noticed that the contact had produced a crack in the wall that ran straight down to the floor.
The Healer took in a slow, steadying breath, and there was nothing he could do but nod and consent. Even if he thought this was utterly ridiculous--even if he knew that Albus was simply in denial, that this was a fool's attempt at bringing the dead back to life. "Yes, sir," he said, folding into a small bow and trying not to look too shaken by the outburst of magic--though there was no hiding the way he flinched. He had meant to tell Albus that it was useless. Gellert would die anyway; they would be buying no more than a few hours' time. But neither he nor anyone else wanted to press their luck with the Lord Protector, who suddenly seemed every bit as intimidating as his husband.
The Healer turned back to the rest of the team, directing them to continue their efforts to revive the Chancellor. One of the nurses picked out the appropriate syringe from the crash cart and handed it to a Mediwizard, who injected the adrenaline directly into Gellert's heart. A brief pulse, and then nothing.
"He's not going to revive," a Mediwitch hissed to the chief Healer. "We're wasting our time."
The Healer's gaze was ice as it seared into her own. "I said, continue resuscitation. Another syringe of adrenaline."
"But you'll destroy his--"
"You heard me."
She bit her lower lip and shrank away, picking out the medicine in question and passing it to the Mediwizard, who paused for the briefest of seconds before stabbing the needle into Gellert's chest and pressing down on the plunger. There was a pregnant silence as all gathered there watched the monitor, the constant steady flatline. Then...then, against all odds, there was a beep--a little green rise in the EKG rhythm. And then another, and a third, Gellert's blood pressure climbing back up to rest at 80/64. Still too low--still dangerous--but it was present. And there was a pulse.
The Healer could not ignore the way the pit in his stomach only grew. "We have sinus rhythm," he said, making an attempt at a smile, though he and every other medical professional in the room knew exactly how long it could be maintained--not long at all.
After so many years alive days could clip by like minutes, but those few seconds stretched out, years of his life being measured by his own pulse raging in his ears. It was one of the few simple moments of Albus's existence, one of the moments that arose only on the brink of despair, when everything else could fall away and the universe collapsed down to a singular want, a need that could so abruptly and so entirely define everything.
Albus was still snared in the thrall of it when Gellert's heart began to beat again. No instant relief came crashing down to sever the ties that held him back. Just hope. Sickly sweet, torturous hope that he snatched at vehemently, just as compulsively grabbed hold of the frail presence of the violet threads of Gellert's magic that mingled with his own. They didn't bear their usual urge to be reunited with Gellert's body, a sensation that made the floor feel unsteady beneath Albus's feet. It was only made worse by the precious anxiety in the room, the way it was saturated with their doubt.
"He's not dying today," Albus insisted, biting out the words around the tightness in his throat. He was the Lord Protector of the Neuen Assistentenaufrag, and his demands were to be met, even if the Healers in the room thought them impossible.
The Healers just exchanged silent glances and their chief nodded. "We will do our best to keep him stable for as long as we can." It was the truest promise that he could make. Beyond that....
The nurses and their assistants were already beginning to clear away the potion from Gellert's body; if it was going to work, it had already done whatever it would do. In all likelihood, it had been the procedure in itself that had made Gellert crash; it was imperative to get him in as aseptic an environment as possible. The Mediwizard who had been controlling the vitals monitor directed it to float against the wall above Gellert's head, out of the way, and the crash cart was rolled into a corner but not removed.
"Remember to send a Patronus if you need a nurse for something," one of the Mediwitches said as the last of the team filtered out of the room. "Someone will be checking in every ten minutes, and we have an image of his monitor at the nurse's station." It was nothing that Dumbledore did not already know, but the state he was in...it would do no harm to remind him.
Albus barely heard them. He didn't need to pay attention, he knew what they were saying. His eyes were trained on Gellert, who looked less lifeless. Permitting what he feared would threaten to become a compulsion, he touched at the bit of Gellert he could feel within himself. And when Gellert was well again, they would bond by the pint instead of by mouthfuls. Because Gellert had to get better. Eternity was too long to spend alone.
He was, however, already piecing himself back together, letting the comfortable veneer of formality overlay his frustration and his wants- contained, but not completely concealed. "Thank you," Albus said, his voice too careful and too measured to mean only what he said. "I'm certain you'll all continue doing your best."