Heroic Visions

by Joy Jones
http://trekwriter.livejournal.com/

When I first met Dana Bright I didn't quite know what to make of her. Walt Bannerman said she was a carnivore. Sarah never said anything, but what she thought of her was pretty plain. I could appreciate she had a job to do for the Bangor Daily News. But that didn't mean I was going to tweak my visions for her and turn into the writing partner she wanted, no matter how much bread I could've made. That's just not me. Likewise, I'm not sure when things started to change for her and me. But at some point I started to see who Dana really was under all the hard gloss she'd built over her image around town. I started to get it that she was a survivor of a pretty damned brutal life. And everything she gave off was just a way for her to keep from being hurt again...

I was working out one morning in July when Bruce came over. He asked if I'd seen Reverend Purdy's show an hour or so before. I just smiled.

"No. I'm afraid I don't usually tune in."

"Well, you should've this time, man. There was a lady on there that said Purdy was going to undergo emergency surgery--and they had some other dude giving the sermon..."

I frowned. "Surgery? I wonder why he didn't mention it."

Bruce shrugged as I reached for the phone. "I dunno, man. Maybe he didn't have time--he's not getting any younger, you know."

A few moments later I was connected to Purdy's place and he picked up the phone. "Gene!" I exclaimed. "What's this I'm hearing about surgery today?"

"Johnny," he responded faintly as though surprised by my call. "I'm sorry if you were troubled, "--did I imagine the irony in his voice?--"but it's nothing you need concern yourself with. Everything is secure with your trust fund in the event something would ever happen to me."

I pursed my lips, trying to decide how to respond. "I'm actually more worried about you, Gene," I said. Although privately I could understand why he might feel he wasn't my first concern. It hadn't been easy accepting that my mother had married the local TV preacher in the time I had been in my coma. But since Gene had helped me put my life back together he'd shown himself to be a real friend, and not just my mom's widower.

I did care what happened to him...

"When is your surgery scheduled?" I asked.

"I'm leaving for Cleaves Mills General now."

"We'll meet you there," I replied, and hung up.

Bruce and I had our usual argument about who was going to drive. I won. As we pulled up in front of the hospital, I saw Dana was waiting for us outside.

"Man," Bruce said, "she's become your own personal media circus lately, huh?"

I didn't answer, but got out of the car and reached for my cane. By the time I had it in hand and looked up, Dana was right behind me.

"Hi," I said softly.

She smiled, just a little and breathed, "Hi yourself."

We hadn't seen each other except in passing since the night of her "Date With Johnny Smith", the interview I'd given her in the guise of a date a week or so before. The one where we'd made love. The one where there had been the visions of several other people in the room while we'd made love. I felt my face redden a little just thinking about it, and turned away to lock the car as Bruce came around the other side.

"Hey, Dana," he said.

She pulled her handbag a little higher on her shoulder and closer to her body--a gesture I now would forever know meant she felt vulnerable. "Hi, Bruce," she responded, and started up the walk to the hospital doors with us.

"So," I asked her, "'Reverend Gene Purdy Hospitalized'--that your angle today?"

Momentary hurt flashed in Dana's eyes, and I immediately regretted what I'd said. I hadn't meant it to sound sarcastic, anyway--I was just making very...nervous...conversation.

She sighed then. "No. I'm here as Gene's friend, that's all. I was worried about him."

Bruce shot me a questioning look over the top of Dana's head and I shrugged back. "Oh." When we got to Gene's room, Bruce hung back. "I'll wait here for you guys." I hitched my head toward the room in a way Dana couldn't see and looked at him. He shook his head when her back was turned. I hooked a thumb over my shoulder and mouthed, "You?" He shook his head again, more firmly this time. Dana turned around in the doorway. "Are you coming, John?"

"Yeah," I said, too quickly. "Right behind you."

I shot Bruce a look that promised I'd get him for this and followed her in.

Gene Purdy lay back on his pillows, smiling wanly at us as we entered. "Well, well," he said, with a ghost of his usual twinkle, "Johnny and Dana. To what do I owe this honor?"

Dana looked at me, an invitation to respond first. "We just...were worried about you. That okay?"

He looked at me a long moment, then cast the same searching gaze on Dana as she nodded. "I must be worse off than they told me," he chuckled after a moment.

"What exactly happened?" I asked.

"My appendix ruptured," he supplied. "I told you there was no need for concern."

Dana frowned. "That could've been serious."

"Oh, not in this day and age," Gene sat up a little against the pillows with effort, looking even paler. "I was diagnosed quickly and admitted at once. They're taking me to surgery within the hour."

"There being some privilege associated with being a pillar of the community," Dana suggested, with her usual spark.

Gene winced. "Probably not as much as it appears."

"How do you feel now?" I asked, shifting my cane to place both hands on it and leaning most of my weight forward.

Purdy sighed. "Tired, sore and...irritated that they won't let me go right back to work once it's over."

"Well...," I said, "I guess even in this day and age and with your," I glanced at Dana, "influence, some things just need time to heal."

Gene nodded.

I didn't have to be a psychic to see there wasn't anything else to say right then. "Let me know if you need anything, ok?"

"Will do."

Dana and I started to leave, then Gene added, "Oh...Dana..."

She turned.

"Would you...stay a moment?"

Something warm came over me when Dana glanced at me before replying. "All right." She did that thing with her shoulder bag again, and I wanted to touch her but knew I shouldn't--not because of Gene, but she just wouldn't want me to right then. "I'll wait outside."

Before I could tackle Bruce about not going in with us, he was pulling me by the arm over toward one of the nurse's stations on the floor. "Johnny, c'mon, there's somebody I want you to meet."

A smiling and rosy cheeked woman waited for us behind the counter in all the hustle of the surgical recovery floor with an expectant look on her broad features. I couldn't help but smile back.

"Johnny Smith, this is Elise Mueller--one of the best nurses ever! And I should know; I worked with her at Bangor General a few years back."

Elise stuck out her hand. "Very pleased to meet you, Mr. Smith."

After a moment's hesitation--old habit by now, formed by many months of getting some very strange side effects--I took her hand in mine...and braced myself.

At once a current like an electric shock traveled up my arm to the shoulder. Though I was used to this by now, I'd never quite gotten comfortable with the dip in perceived gravity that followed...the feeling that my feet had just left the ground and all my senses were suddenly losing their connection with reality....

I saw myself holding a lit sparkler in one hand, and a man's hand reaching out for it.

Then the vision was gone, and I was standing again with Elise and Bruce in front of the nurse's station, sounds of the hospital filtering back in all around me. My new friend didn't seem to have noticed the transition...but I could tell Bruce had.

"Hey, Elise, we'll see you later okay? We didn't have a chance to get breakfast, so..."

"Of course, Bruce, dear," she twinkled. "It was so nice to see you again!"

"Don't worry, I'll call and we'll do lunch and catch up, ok?"

"That sounds wonderful."

"It was nice meeting you," I mumbled, as Bruce steered me away down the corridor, whispering in my ear the whole time:

"You saw something? What?"

Again, I saw the lit sparkler, and the man's hand reaching for it out of the darkness. "Nothing."

Bruce looked at me skeptically.

"I dunno," I said lamely. "Nothing that had any meaning, at least."

Then Dana was walking toward us, and I was distracted by the high flush on her cheeks.

"Let's get out of here," she said shortly as she passed us, still walking toward the elevators.

Bruce and I exchanged a glance, and I picked up the pace a little to catch up with her and whisper, "You okay?"

"I hate hospitals," she said, without looking at me. "They give me the creeps."

As it turned out, it was Dana and me that ended up having breakfast together. Whether Bruce really had something he had to take care of or not, that's what he'd said. I picked up my coffee cup as soon as the waitress left and asked, "So what was that all about? You didn't seem creeped out by the hospital when we first got there." Then, after thinking about it for a second, I added, "Something happen with Gene?" Dana tried to hide behind her own cup and a bitter smile. "You reading my mind again, Johnny Smith?"

I held up both hands to show I wasn't touching her. "No, ma'am. Just asking." I hoped she could see the concern in my eyes. She looked down, then up again. "Yeah. Something like that."

Frustrated now, I responded, "Dana, c'mon, it's me--don't you know you can trust me by now? After...all we've been through?"

She had the grace to look a little ashamed at this...not the effect I was trying to get, but if it helped her talk to me... I watched her remember the night we'd last been alone together, when I'd saved her from a speeding car through one of my visions. After a moment she set the cup down again and slipped her opened palm across the table. "All right. Go ahead."

My eyebrows went up.

"Well, it's faster, isn't it?"

Smiling a little, I shrugged and put my hand over hers.

Shock up my arm, a dipping sensation, then...Gene Purdy's face, wincing as he spoke:

"Are you sure this is what you want, Dana? He's...always going to be able to see you--the real you."

I--that is, Dana, I remembered--chuckled mirthlessly. "Still giving sermons, even from your hospital bed? That's rich."

"Not a sermon," Gene said, shifting around against the pillows in discomfort. "Just some advice, from an old friend."

"You," I said distinctly, "were never my friend."

The reverend's gaze sharpened. "Really? Then why are you here?"

I shook my head sadly, "Because I was always yours. You've just never appreciated me."

"I see. And just how would you have preferred I show that appreciation?"

"Oh, I don't know," I responded, strolling over to the window so I wouldn't have to look at him. "Maybe by not trying to get me to sleep with all your `competitors' around town so you could get enough information to discredit them."

I heard him sitting up straighter then, and imagined him looking around to see if anyone outside the room had heard me. "I never asked you to do that." Turning, I felt all the old contempt washing over me. "I knew what you wanted, Gene. Neither of us is stupid...and you're very good at implying what's needed."

Several emotions chased across his features: acknowledgement, resentfulness, pain--but that was probably his appendix again. I hated him more than ever.

"My past is past," he said then. "Yours, on the other hand, will never be--not with Johnny Smith around. Remember that."

I faced him, standing my ground, anger pulsing through every pore now. "Are you threatening me?" I'd almost said `us'...

He chuckled. "Dana..."

"Listen to me," I said, "if you do anything, say anything--about either of us that hurts us--I'll get you. You remember that."

Startled by the hatred pouring through me--er, through her, I reminded myself with difficulty--I pulled my hand away and caught my breath. Meeting Dana's steady gaze across the table, I accused softly, "You threatened him." Her chin lifted. "Yes, Johnny," she said. "I did."

I didn't sleep well that night...I guess the thought of my lover threatening her old lover--the idea of Dana and Purdy together still gave me the shivers--wasn't something I was willing to let go of that easily. So when the phone rang at 3am, I snatched it up.

"John, I'm coming to get you," Bruce rasped in my ear. "Elise called me from the hospital. Reverend Purdy just went into cardiac arrest."

By the time Bruce and I got there, the floor was abustle. Elise Mueller met us as we arrived, this time with tiny worry lines etched deeper around her eyes from lack of sleep. "He's going to be fine," she said, keeping stride with us as we turned the corner to Gene's room. "You can see him, but only for a short time. We had to shock him back with the paddles, you know. "

"Thanks, Elise," Bruce said, "for everything."

The Gene Purdy lying in this bed was a far different man than the one we had left only a few hours ago. His face had a faint, grayish tinge and he hardly had the strength to talk.

"Gene!" I exclaimed. "What happened?"

He moved his head weakly back and forth on the pillow. "The doctor on duty doesn't know. My surgeon's on the way now."

"Shouldn't they have sent for a heart specialist?" Bruce asked sharply.

"They will if he okays it. But he was the last physician to treat me..."

Bruce muttered something about `hospital politics'.

"Could this be related to your surgery?"

Again, Gene shook his head. "I don't think so. Just coincidence, apparently."

I was just thinking about that when an angry voice permeated the hallway outside. Bruce and I rushed to the doorway in time to see Dana on her way to Gene's room while Elise Mueller stood barring her way and glaring--an expression that sat oddly on the face of the cheerful little woman I'd met less than a day before.

"Visiting hours are over. You'll have to come back tomorrow."

"I just told you someone from the hospital called me because Reverend Purdy..." Dana broke off her heated response when she saw me limping toward her. "Oh, Johnny, you're here, good. Would you tell this nurse it's okay for me to..."

Elise Mueller pulled herself straighter, an ugly flush spreading across both cheeks. "I am the head nurse on this floor, Miss Bright. And visiting hours are over, unless you're family." She nodded at me, indicating my relationship to Gene by marriage, I suppose.

At this, Bruce slipped around me and took Dana by the arm. "Hey, you know I really shouldn't be here, either, Dana. Let's go down to the lobby and I'll fill you in."

Dana looked at him, then me.

I nodded. "It's okay. I'll meet you down there in a few minutes."

Throwing one last nasty glance at Elise, Dana moved away with Bruce.

"I'll never understand it," Elise said then, hands on her hips staring after them.

"Understand what?" I asked.

"How Reverend Purdy could consider a woman like that his friend."

I clenched my jaw at this indication that Dana's reputation had once again preceded her. But I kept my voice calm as I asked, "What do you mean?"

Elise turned then and began walking with me back along the corridor. "We see her all the time here, you know. She's as bad as the ambulance chasing lawyers, always looking for a story." She shook her head. "Say, are you all right, Mr. Smith?" And before I could stop her she put an arm around me to steady me...

Shock, dizziness, and then bright lights flashed. A man backed away holding a camera, and a woman pushed a microphone into my face. It was Dana, but I didn't know her...

"What happened tonight, Mrs. Mueller?"

I was crying, and could barely talk. "Th--the fireworks blew up in his face. In his face!" My hands were over my eyes then and I could feel tears slipping around my wedding ring...

"And what happened then?" Dana insisted. "How did he fall down the embankment?"

"He couldn't see it!" I screamed at her, and took a step forward. "He couldn't see it because he was blind! Now leave me alone."

Dana's face was clear and hard in what appeared to be firelight. There was only darkness beyond it, and the lights of a local TV camera crew. "That's all we're gonna get here," she said, and motioned the photographer away with her.

I watched her go, hating what she was--she'd made me face things before I was ready to--and I would never forgive her for that.

Never.

"Mr. Smith?" Elise was whispering and guiding me toward a scuffed, plastic chair nearby. "Here now, you just sit down. I saw you limping earlier." I sat, and angled my head up to look at her. As I did something shiny caught my eye. I reached toward her wrist, but was careful not to touch her again. "I didn't see that before," I said. "What is it?" She smiled down at me and pulled the object free of her sweater cuff. "It's a medical bracelet," she said. "I'm a diabetic, you know. Are you feeling better now?" "Yes, thank you," I said, my head still swirling with all I'd seen in the vision. "Mrs. Mueller, what do you think happened to Reverend Purdy?" She straightened up and turned to glance back down the hallway as if she expected to see Dana creeping down the corridor behind us. When she looked back at me again there was livid bitterness in her eyes. "Between you and me, Mr. Smith...I think it was that Bright woman. I heard them arguing when she was here this afternoon. I think she did it somehow. And if she did, the doctors will know. Good doctors always know."

I spent the next twenty-four hours avoiding nearly everyone, thinking things over. Sarah called and left a message on my machine. I heard her call, but...wasn't ready to talk about it, just yet. Bruce says it's brooding when I do this. I dunno, maybe it is. Bruce called too with an update on Gene's condition: he was stable, but the hospital wanted to keep him an extra day and run some tests. They still didn't know what had happened. Typical.

The worst thing about my visions was that I couldn't help but learn things about people--like Dana and Gene--that I never would've wanted to know. Just when I was starting to get to like Gene Purdy, to think maybe all this religious stuff might mean something, and then I stumbled on his past with Dana. And just when Dana and I were starting to come to grips with how our relationship might work itself out...I saw a side of her I wished I hadn't in a million years. Did I think she was capable of murdering Gene--or, trying to? People had surprised me before. Certainly I myself was a far cry from the person I'd been when my brain's "dead zone" had become active after my accident. Was it too much to hope that both Gene and Dana were really good people at heart who had gotten thrown off course by their own ambition? The Gene Purdy I knew today would never compromise his principles as he had in the past. And the Dana I knew wasn't capable of attempted murder. I had to believe that.

It was the call from Sheriff Bannerman that forced me to pick up the phone.

"Johnny...it's Walt. I need to talk to you about police business."

I guess he knew I wasn't going to answer any other way. I lifted the receiver. "Yeah, Walt. What's up?"

"Johnny...I need your help. We've got a situation at Cleaves Mills General..."

My heart lurched into a rapid trot, as I imagined visiting Dana behind bars. "Why, what's going on?" I hoped my voice sounded level.

"Well, it seems that there have been three incidents of cardiac arrest within the last day there--all patients who never showed any sign of a heart problem before...and all patients of the same surgeon: Gene Purdy's."

Now it was my mind that was racing. Three--then it couldn't be Dana! At least, she'd have had no reason to...

"I'm about to bring the doctor in for questioning, though there haven't been any formal charges yet. I'd like to have you there, John."

"Sure," I agreed at once. "I'll come right down." Then I hung up and called Bruce.

Someday, I thought, as I waited in an empty room for Walt, I'll have a life where going to the local police station on a regular basis will be a thing of the past. Someday... The door opened and I stood up as Walt Bannerman and a smallish, balding man came in.

"Dr. Benjamin Brice, this is Johnny Smith," Walt said as he closed the door behind them. There was a twinkle in his eye I didn't like, but I didn't have time to think about it long.

I nodded. "Dr. Brice."

The other man didn't offer to shake hands with me but surprised me by smiling. "Johnny Smith--I've read so much about you!"

I glanced at Walt, who just shrugged as he walked around to take a seat at the other side of the table. "Apparently, Dr. Brice is quite a fan of yours."

Oh, one of those, I thought and sat down again.

"Yes, I've followed your news stories ever since you saved that high school hockey player's life. I'm certainly hoping you can help me too, Mr. Smith," the doctor said earnestly as he sat down.

"Help...you?" I asked, now thoroughly confused.

"Yes, Dr. Brice is very anxious to help us clear his name," Walt put in.

"Oh, yes. You can't imagine what this is doing to my reputation. My patients are canceling appointments like crazy."

I looked at Walt and he at me.

"I'm sorry, that probably sounded very callous," Dr. Brice added quickly. "It's just that...I know I'm innocent. I care about what's happened to these patients--but I didn't cause it, and that's my primary concern."

Walt cleared his throat. "Well, I suggest we get started then."

Dr. Blair promptly held out his hand to me, and I took it.

Shock, the familiar falling sensation, and then a flurry of images hit me at once:

Eyes of all colors, shapes and sizes stared at me. I felt surrounded by them, they were pressing in on me, I couldn't escape them. I put an arm up to shut them out, and turned away into a tastefully lit visitor waiting room at the hospital. A woman whose face I didn't know clutched several young children to her as I told her her oldest daughter hadn't made it through the surgery...next to them an old man's face lit as I told him his wife would be fine, she just needed a little recovery time...there were scores of others, so many the faces blurred together after awhile. Some begged me to give them a different answer, some hugged me and cried, some walked away numb...I turned then and was in a completely empty operating room. And the eyes came back--watching me, always watching...

I shook myself out of the vision, and felt Walt's gaze on me.

"You okay, John?"

"Yeah. Fine."

"Did you see who it is?" Dr. Brice leaned toward me.

"No...it doesn't work like that. I can only see what you see...unless I touch an object..."

Walt got up and walked over to another table, then came back with an evidence bag in his hands. Inside was a hypodermic needle. "This was found on the floor of the room of one of the victims."

Dr. Brice clucked his tongue. "Nurses," he muttered.

Walt handed me the bag. "Can you try that?"

I took it from him, and reached in to pull out the needle.

At once, a strong shock ran all the way from my fingers up to my right earlobe, and my mind lost its balance. I was walking along a hospital corridor. It was darkened as I'd seen it when we'd gotten there in the middle of the night for Gene... I glanced down at the needle, then back and forth into the rooms on either side. But nothing moved and there was just the quiet swish of medical equipment functioning in the rooms on the ward. I found the room I wanted, and my heart started to pound. Everything hinged on this moment, and on two other times I had entered these rooms. And yet I didn't feel nervous...I felt...vindicated... The young girl that lay in the bed was heavily sedated and oblivious when the needle went in. I delivered the injection, and as I pulled the needle out something started to slide off my wrist. I caught the silver bracelet just as the shimmering red cross on it turned over and caught the light.

I dropped the needle.

Then the girl on the bed gave a great gasp and her cardiac monitor sounded. There was no more time!

I made sure I was well away slipping down a service corridor before anyone saw me...

This time when I came out of it, my eyes were wide with shock. "Walt," I croaked, "we have to get back to the hospital--now!"

As we approached Gene Purdy's room, I could hear a conversation taking place, and motioned to Walt and the others to keep quiet. Walt and I had been working together long enough he just nodded and approached Gene's room from the opposite side soundlessly, gun drawn.

"But I don't understand. What is it you want forgiveness for?" I heard Purdy say.

Then we heard Elise Mueller reply, "Those other people, Reverend. It wasn't their fault, what Dr. Brice did. I used them to get to him. I knew you would understand--you're the kind of man that would die for his flock. But you didn't die. That must mean something."

"I...don't understand," Purdy said. But by the appalled tone in his voice I think he knew what she meant perfectly well...

"Do you think God will forgive me for using them, Reverend? It was for a higher purpose. Doctors are heroes! At least, they should be. They should know the answers. They should know when to make the right decisions."

I closed my eyes. It was her, all along. It had really been her...

I could hear the choked tears in Purdy's voice now. "Why, Elise? Why did you do it?"

"How can you ask me that? After the night Frank had his accident? You know what happened...that firecracker went off in his face! I wanted to do sparklers; we even lit a few together. But, no...he had to have firecrackers, too. "Then when he couldn't see he fell straight down the embankment. And when they brought him here in the ambulance the reporters caught me outside. That awful Bright woman was with them. "While I was out there talking to her, Dr. Brice was the surgeon on duty. And he decided Frank's internal injuries were so severe they'd have to be repaired before his eyes... His eyes!"

I caught and held Walt's questioning gaze across the doorway and shook my head. We had to hear the entire story--and Elise wasn't nearly done yet.

"Do you know what it's like, Reverend? Trying to raise a family on only one income? Trying to pay for medicines for them all--and yourself--with a useless, sightless husband that can't work another day in his life? Do you?"

"But, Elise," Purdy made one last attempt to reason with her, "if Dr. Brice hadn't done things that way, Frank might have died, before..."

"Then he should've let him die!" she shouted. "Doctors are supposed to be heroes! They're supposed to always know!"

I nodded, and Walt and his deputies swept into the room.

The next morning I was at Dana's door first thing. She opened it to my knock and stood there blinking sleepily at me. "Wh--what are you doing here?"

"I dunno," I smiled. "I guess I had a sudden urge to see what you look like when you wake up in the morning."

She squinted at me in the sunlight streaming down through the trees on her street. "You sure your friend Sarah would approve?"

I shrugged, having expected this, at least. "I think we should get to know each other better before letting our friends--either of our friends--decide what's going to happen with us. Don't you?"

Dana stood there another moment thinking that over. Then she said, "Do psychics take their coffee black or with cream?"

"Oh, well," I chuckled a little at that, "we like cream, Ma'am. It gives the whole coffee experience a..." I waved one hand mysteriously, "...murky effect."

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