Chapter Text
Ace’s knee bounced on the spot where he sat, nerves starting to show in earnest as the seconds wore on. The chair was a hard, unfriendly plastic, providing him with no semblance of comfort at a time where even the smallest of gestures would have been welcomed. But, he figured as he ran his fingers through his hair with a low, tremulous sigh, comfort wasn’t really the priority here. Not for the relatives, in any case.
The small consultation room that the ward clerk had herded him into on his presentation to the reception desk, flushed and sweaty, had a miserable, cold feeling to it, as if it were deliberately designed as such to prepare families and loved ones for the upcoming bad news that surely followed being summoned to the ward via a phone call of you should probably come straight away. A tiny room where only three chairs and a shoe rack, of all things, furnished the white walls and vinyl flooring, along with six beaten up-looking lockers that bore stickers with names scribbled on. Maybe they belonged to some of the nurses, Ace mused absently in a bid to keep his mind dwelling on listening for the approach of footsteps carrying bad news toward him, or perhaps they were the junior doctors’. He somehow doubted that the surgeons would ever accept such tired-looking lockers to house their lavish, expensive belongings.
A gentle knock at the door caused Ace to startle violently and stand, hand jumping back up to nervously slide fingers through his hair once again. The door swung open with a creak to admit three clinicians, led by a man who had to be one of the surgeons. Tall, broad and blond, the man exuded confidence and command of the type that made Ace feel immediately that he could trust him, that this man was someone who could promise to save a life and deliver. That this surgeon - there was no way he was anything but - in his crisp pale blue shirt and satin navy tie, flanked on either side by his colleagues, was the man who had undoubtedly operated on Ace’s father.
“Ace Gold?” The surgeon asked with a kind smile; one so genuine that Ace almost didn’t sneer at the mistake in his name. His name was Portgas, he wanted to say, his late mother’s maiden name. Not Gold. However, he nodded and took the hand proffered to him, returning the surgeon’s firm, steady shake. “I believe you were informed over the phone about your father?” Again, Ace nodded. “My name is Marco Newgate. I was the surgeon on call overnight and performed your father’s surgery this morning. Thank you for coming in at such short notice.”
It seemed absurd, in a way, for this surgeon – Mr. Newgate – to be thanking him for rushing to the hospital after a brief, stuttered call to his boss that he had a family emergency and wouldn’t be in today.
(Not to worry! Edward Thatch, the head chef at The Moby Dick, had assured once he had yawned away the fog of sleep under Ace’s frantic explanation, I’ll manage without you for a few days, somehow. Go to your dad, and don’t worry about coming in for the rest of the week. Family’s important, lad!)
What else was Ace supposed to have done? Refused to come in and talk about Roger’s sudden decline and call of the paramedics? No – maybe this was the surgeon’s way of simply breaking the ice.
“This is my registrar, Dr. Robin Nico,” the surgeon continued, gesturing to the woman on his right. Exceptionally beautiful, Ace noted as he took her hand too, wearing a smart plum-colored dress with black heels that clicked when she moved. “Dr. Nico began the surgery and assisted throughout. And this,” Mr. Newgate now introduced the third of their party, a young man in mint green surgical scrubs, “is Deuce, one of the first-year junior doctors. He and Dr. Nico will be primarily responsible for your father’s care during his stay on the ward, along with the nurses.”
The grip offered by the junior doctor was not as strong as that of the surgeon or registrar, and upon glancing at his face, Ace almost felt sorry for the young man. This doctor looked exhausted, his eyes bearing dark, heavy circles beneath them that spoke of very little sleep for an extended period of time, yet he still offered Ace a reassuring smile. He had to be around the same age as Ace, perhaps a year or two older, and was, Ace couldn’t help but notice through the haze of worry that clouded his mind, rather good-looking. He pushed his thick-framed glasses further up his nose when the surgeon indicated that they sit, dropping Ace’s gaze the instant it was no longer required to be held.
“Thank you for meeting with me,” Ace said, blinking back to Mr. Newgate where he remained standing, hands on his hips in a perfect image of a man relaxed and in control, “I know none of you have much free time, so I appreciate it.”
He had no idea what else he was supposed to say under these circumstances.
Ace’s thanks were met with a kind smile. “Your father was brought in by ambulance in the early hours of the morning with severe abdominal pain and vomiting,” Mr. Newgate recapped what Ace had been told on the phone, “and was admitted for emergency surgery after imaging showed that he had a blockage in his large intestine caused by it becoming twisted. The surgery went without complications, but your father is going to need to stay here for a couple of weeks to recover.” Mr. Newgate frowned, suddenly looking serious, and Ace couldn’t help but wonder if he was perhaps recalling the surgery itself. “I must stress that if he hadn’t called when he did, then your father would have been in serious trouble. I am… amazed that he didn’t call sooner, in fact.”
That made sense – Ace couldn’t help but huff a small laugh, despite how his hands had started to shake and he felt keenly sick all of a sudden. “He never tells anyone when he isn’t well,” Ace said, voice coming as tremulous as he suddenly felt all over, “I didn’t even know that anything was going on. The first I heard of this was when some doctor called me and told me to get here ASAP.”
“That was me,” Deuce, the junior doctor, piped up, and now that he spoke, Ace recognised his voice as that belonging to the doctor on the phone, “it would have normally been Mr. Newgate’s secretary who called you – she has a much better phone manner than I do – but it was 4am, so…”
Left unsaid, yet communicated in the slight curve of Deuce’s lips into a smile fought back with effort, was how Ace had initially answered the call with a loud fuck off before hanging up. Ace was now, admittedly, infinitely grateful to this tired-looking doctor for persevering through his half-asleep snarl of what time do you call this? I’m not buying your shit before he was able to get a word in edgeways and explain that actually, his father was being prepped for emergency surgery, so maybe he should listen to what he had to say.
It shouldn’t have come as a surprise, yet Ace felt acutely humbled as he looked from junior to registrar to consultant surgeon. They had all been here throughout the night, all working tirelessly to help save his idiot of a father from something that he should have acted upon sooner. Chest swelling with gratitude as he looked up to hold the surgeon’s cool, cobalt gaze once again, Ace felt a little overcome by what they had done.
“This is serious, isn’t it?” Ace asked quietly. “You don’t call family in so early in the morning for most things, right? Even if they are emergencies?”
“It was,” Dr. Nico said at once, her voice ringing strong and cutting across Mr. Newgate when he opened his mouth to respond, “and it could have been far worse. We wanted his next of kin informed immediately, should the worst have happened. It was touch-and-go for a while, but there were no complications as far as the surgery is concerned, so from here on out it will depend on your father’s ability to recover.”
“There’s no sense in trying to dress this up as anything other than what it is,” Mr Newgate started, nodding. “A twisted intestine of the degree that your father had – and the extent of the blockage – would have been fatal had he waited much longer,” he reiterated, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, hip jutting out, “if he had called in later today instead, then the extent of the damage would have been far more severe. This is a fast-paced problem that evolves over a matter of days rather than weeks, by the way. If you’re thinking that he knew something was critically wrong for a while before making the call, then you need to know that this wouldn’t have been the case. Your father would have felt unwell, yes, but not to the degree that would have caused panic straight away. So please, when you see him, don’t go too hard on him.”
How could the surgeon tell? Was he that easy to read? Or was this the response that this man had seen time and again where loved ones of patients with Roger’s condition made themselves feel guilty for not recognising something was amiss until it proved near fatal for them?
“Can I see him?” Ace asked tentatively, directing his question to Mr. Newgate. “The surgery’s over, right? Seeing as you’re here, it must be. So he’s— I can—” the feverish nerves that gripped and twisted at Ace’s stomach seemed to increase all of a sudden under the prospect of seeing Roger so vulnerable – a man so powerful and sure as he, reduced to a hospital gown and IV drips snaking their way into his veins, felt intrusively wrong.
“He’s recovering from the anaesthetic at the moment,” Mr. Newgate said gently, more than likely picking up on Ace’s nerves, “but he will be brought to this ward shortly. You can see him then. In the meantime, you’re more than welcome to stay here, or go get a coffee from downstairs; Deuce can give you a call when your father arrives.”
Deuce, Ace noticed, did not succeed in hiding his displeasure in being given a task that would be better suited to the ward clerk.
The surgical team rose to leave when Ace assured them that he had no further questions left to ask, the two seniors shaking his hand in turn before Mr. Newgate and Dr. Nico left, leaving their junior alone with Ace briefly.
“Thank you for contacting me earlier. You should get some sleep,” Ace said to Deuce without thinking as he shook his hand too, this time noting how pink the whites of his eyes looked, “you look like shit.”
Maybe it was the fact that they seemed to be around the same age, or possibly because he didn’t exude that crisp air of a surgeon, or perhaps it was due to the manner in which only Deuce hadn’t been introduced by surname, but Ace felt markedly more relaxed around him in comparison to the other two. Relatable, almost, and certainly that miniscule source of comfort that Ace had been longing for since entering the tiny room, offering (without knowing, certainly) a small hint of warmth among the dreary gray and white.
Or perhaps Ace was just seeing whatever he wanted to see in these circumstances, reaching for warmth where this unknown doctor was designated for providing only clinically detached formalities.
Deuce’s smile looked markedly more like a grimace, eyes narrowing behind his glasses. “We’re really short staffed at the moment,” he said in a pained voice that managed to tug at Ace’s heart, even amid the worry for Roger, “so I won’t be done here until its dark out, probably. There’s no one to cover my shift today, even if I ask.”
“Is that legal?” Ace asked with a frown, opening the door to the noise of the busy general surgery ward beyond, “can they make you do a night shift and a day shift back to back?”
“I wasn’t on the night shift, technically,” Deuce’s lip curled in disgust at the system that abused the good will of all junior staff, “I was on call in the sleep room. I got bleeped to come help assess your father in the ED before he was admitted under Dr. Nico. Who is now going to go home and sleep,” he added with an almost wistful sigh. “Oh, but it’s okay!” Deuce hastened to soothe the moment Ace’s face dropped into a look of guilt, “this is part of the job – it happens every week! I’m not blaming your father at all; I’m really glad he came in when he did. His health is far more important than my sleep!”
But as he watched Deuce head down to the end of the ward to begin the ward round with the rest of the surgical team, taking off his glasses to rub furiously at his eyes and slap his cheeks to wake himself up, Ace felt a great, leaping stab of remorse for the young doctor… and all doctors just like him.
Roger, it transpired when Ace entered the side room that contained him the next morning, was a terrible patient. Horrific, in fact. The worst kind that anyone working in a ward could ask for, outside of those who spontaneously vomited or otherwise voided themselves of bodily secretions.
Because Roger refused to admit that he was in need of care. Following major abdominal surgery. For a problem that would have killed him, had he delayed in calling for help.
“You had a laparotomy yesterday,” Deuce explained yet again, clearly under the impression that if he repeated himself continuously then the words might sink in and Roger would behave himself, “so you can’t be moving around yet, you’re not ready for it.”
“Yeah?” Roger grumbled, practically wrestling with the junior doctor and the two nurses that accompanied him in trying to keep their most challenging patient in his damn bed, “well, I don’t fully understand what that means, baby doc, so if you’ll excuse my lack of concern—”
“Your entire abdomen was opened up and you had approximately five people stick their hands in you over the course of four hours,” Deuce sounded tired as he explained, keeping a hand on Roger's shoulder as he tried to sit up yet again, “they untwisted your bowel and clamped it, removed a section, and then sewed you up nice and tight again.”
This, Ace could tell with ease, was a conversation, or part of a conversation, that they had had at least once. Probably more, if he knew his father well, which he unfortunately did. His stubbornness was legendary within the family and outside too, often getting him into trouble where a simple apology would suffice. And here, now, in the hospital with a gown drawn taut across his broad chest, his bare feet kicking out from under the thick blanket before the nurses could stop him, Roger was doing his absolute best to show himself at his absolute worst, it seemed.
“Don't restrain me, boy,” Roger snarled, eyeing Deuce's hand at his shoulder, “is that even allowed? Is it? Are you permitted to hold down your patients whenever you see fit?”
“I can if it stops them from popping their stitches and bleeding to death,” Deuce growled right back, not letting up under Roger's fierce glare, “which is exactly what is going to happen if you don't calm down and let me take care of you.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning you’ll bleed internally into your intestines and abdominal cavity, and you’ll have to go back to theater, and I will have to fill in a lot of paperwork and call a lot of very angry people to explain why you’re back after barely 24 hours.”
Roger considered this for a moment, allowing the nurses on either side of him to tuck his legs back under the covers. He was sweating profusely, Ace noticed from his spot in the doorway, leaning against it with his arms folded and an amused grin spread across his lips. An effect of the surgery, most likely, and something that Mr. Newgate had warned about when he had caught up with Ace in the afternoon ward round yesterday. Patients tired extremely easily following major surgery, and Roger was not going to be an exception to this case. Honestly, though, it made Ace feel a little better, watching his father calm down from floundering helplessly against the combined effort of the three who were just trying to take care of him. he needn't have worried after all – he could see that Deuce was staying true to the word he had given when Ace had gone back to see Roger the day before.
It had been Deuce who had met Ace at the locked ward doors the previous day on his return, releasing them with a swipe of his badge to the monitor from the inside to admit Ace clutching two coffees – one for himself, and one for the junior doctor who looked like he was about to collapse from sleep deprivation. It had been exceptionally sweet – a stark contrast to the bitter coffee that he had taken from Ace – how Deuce's tired expression had lit up upon being offered such a simple, mundane gesture. With a newfound spring in his step and a smile that materialised from nowhere, Deuce had chattered incessantly to Ace on their way down to Roger's room about how his father was doing, how amazing it was that he had so much energy already just mere hours following surgery, how long his incision into his abdomen was...
And Deuce had made sure to stress to Ace just how much care he was going to give to Roger, and how, as an emergency admission, Roger was his top priority for the next week.
Patients who go through such major surgery are at risk of post-op complications, Deuce had explained in a whisper just outside of Roger's room, leaning in close and causing Ace’s heart rate to spike, more so than routine procedures, in any case. It's absolutely vital that he doesn't move much for as long as he can stand it. We’re really concerned that he’s going to severely injure himself – he doesn’t seem to want to stay still. So Roger had already made himself known to be a nuisance, apparently.
Ace had given permission, of course, both written and verbal, to allow the ward staff to encourage Roger to stay in bed. Anything at all was fine by him, provided that they managed to stop Roger from incurring unnecessary injury through his own brute pig-headedness.
“And why, dear child,” Roger continued, his voice booming within the confines of the small room, “was my entire abdomen opened for all of your lot to goggle at? Why wasn't it done with keyhole surgery? You mind explaining that to me?”
“The twist was too severe for it,” Deuce said with the air of a man trying his damn best not to snap at being addressed as child, “Dr. Nico began the procedure as such, but when it became evident that it wouldn't be possible, she arranged for it to be converted to a—”
“You mean,” Roger interrupted loudly, causing Ace, still avoiding detection in plain sight, to roll his eyes, “that she gave up and brought in that blond surgeon! Why isn't he looking after me, hm? Why do I have you?”
And that was enough for Ace. Finally stepping in and slapping a palm to Deuce's back, he leaned in over his father menacingly and said, “he's just trying to help you, old man. No need to take your boredom out on the doctors.”
Roger's eyes went wide at the sight of his son, and he mouthed wildly at him for a moment before finding his voice again.
“Ace!” Roger exclaimed, going perfectly still and docile under Deuce's hold, pinned firm to the mattress by Ace's stern look. “Didn't see you arrive! How long have you been here?”
“Long enough to see you're insisting on making these guys' lives miserable,” Ace scolded. Before Roger could defend himself, Ace turned to the nurses and, with a small bow, apologised for his father's behavior. The apology was also offered to Deuce, who waved it away airily.
“Don't worry about it,” he said casually, reaching for the blood pressure monitor on the side beside Roger's bed, “what’s bothering me is the amount of energy he has. It’s not normal at all. People usually take days to even think about sitting up in bed.”
“You hear that, Dad?” Ace shot at Roger, who was now the very picture of a model post-op patient laying quietly in his bed, a sombre, dignified expression masked firmly in place, “you’re being a pain in the ass. You’re going to get yourself hurt and then you’ll be an even bigger pain in the ass. Just calm down for once in your life and let people take care of you.”
It wasn’t hard to guess why Roger was being such a difficult patient, though. Some things were harder to get over than others, manifesting as troublesome attitudes or unusual moods in those who experienced them. And for Roger, Ace knew, the mere prospect of being admitted to a hospital was one that he found neither enticing or pleasant in the slightest.
But this was different, Ace wanted to snap at his father. He had survived his surgery. He wasn’t going to die from blood loss on a theater table while his son was safely delivered. And he would go home with his son, and would get to speak to his son, and get to watch his son grow older.
However, knowing this did not make the job of keeping Roger calm any easier.
Yet somehow, Ace found himself to be successful. With a dramatic sigh and a deep, heavy frown, Roger agreed to have his blood pressure taken by the nurse while Deuce filled in his obs chart, narrating each little section of the sheet to Ace as he watched with keen interest.
“This here’s the section where we record the patient’s oxygen saturation levels,” Deuce explained in what was perhaps the cutest, most enthusiastic manner Ace had ever seen, the doctor clearly being thrilled to have found himself an unlikely student, “and the rest is pretty self-explanatory, really. Oh, and since he’s conscious, we can ask how he’d currently score his pain levels—”
“How’re you feelin’, Dad?” Ace asked, reluctantly tearing his eyes away from Deuce’s eager expression.
“Fuckin’ awful,” Roger snapped at once, keeping still for long enough to have an IV drip hooked up to him. “What’s this for, anyway?”
“You’re dehydrated,” Deuce answered, “so you need some fluids in you pretty quickly.”
Roger seemed like he was going to argue that he was wrong, but one look from Ace silenced him into grumbling submission once again. “Score me at a 6 outta 10,” Roger shot at Deuce, wincing yet trying his damn hardest to pretend that he hadn’t, of course, because Roger was strong and he was powerful and he wasn’t going to succumb to something as trivial as open abdominal surgery, “don’t want you lot thinking I’m dramatic or something. I can cope with pain.”
The look that Deuce gave Ace almost had him laughing out loud at the sheer levels of is he fucking serious? to it.
This doctor was fun.