Fandom: Torchwood

Characters: Rex Matheson, Esther Drummond, OCs

Author: m_findlow

Rating: M (language)

Length: 2,006 words

Content notes: none

Author notes: Written for Challenge 290 - Crush

Summary: Rex has picked a hell of a day to nearly end up dead.

All Rex can think about is how much of a bitch karma is. Maybe he shouldn't have gotten so excited about Steve's wife being on the terminal cancer list. The timing between asking Esther to find out just how sick Steve's wife is and just how likely it is that the posting in Venezuela is likely to go begging when Steve kicks it in is almost seamlessly choreographed with the truck in front of him hitting its brakes and sending its load crashing through his windscreen. Karma one, Rex nil.

The guy who belongs to the truck in front of him is running around in the rain like a headless chicken. 'Call me a goddamn ambulance,' Rex wheezes. He catches the man from the corner of his eye, still pacing around in a panic, unable to look at the guy in the car, whose load of steel pipes has just gone straight through his windscreen and is currently crushing his chest.

Rex punches a fist at the driver's window, trying to get his attention. 'Hey man, I need some help here. Moving anything on his left hand side hurts like hell and he drops his arm again, watching as the rain continues to slick down the window, obscuring him from view. Some of it is also starting to come through the broken windscreen, saturating his lap and running down his legs.

'Do I have to do everything around here?' Rex complains, gritting his teeth against another wave of pain. 'Phone... phone...' he mutters, knowing he had it in his hand a split second before everything went to shit on him. Where the hell is it? He tries to move but he's stuck fast in the driver's seat, spotting his phone having tumbled across into the passenger seat. He stretches for it as much as he can and cries out because it hurts like a son-of-a-bitch. 'Goddammit,' he curses as the pole holds him in place, straining to reach out his right arm and feeling the muscles in his chest trying to go with it. 'Motherfu-' he mutters as he finally gets a finger to it.

A lance of pain shoots up and down his arm as he unlocks the phone keypad. It's almost enough to make him see stars and have his world go momentarily blurry. The muscles in his hand spasm and he can no longer keep his hand gripped around the phone, letting it drop back onto the seat. Fortunately it lands face up and he can still manage to tap his fingers on the screen.

'Three numbers, Rex. It's just three numbers. Nine one one. Booyah,' he cries as a happy dial tone emanates from the phone speaker.

'Emergency services. Do you require police, fire or ambulance?'

'All of the above,' Rex says, grimacing as the pain doubles, then triples. 'Everything you've got.'

'Can you please explain your situation, sir?'

'Impaled by a bunch of pipes that slammed through my windscreen off the back of a truck.'

'Were you driving at the time?'

'What do you think?' Jesus Christ.

'And are you still in your vehicle now?'

'Yes! Goddammit, yes!' What part of impaled did this chick not understand?

'Okay, just checking your location now. We've had a couple of reports of minor vehicle collisions in the area.'

'Well, this isn't minor, so divert them and get them here! The guy who's got whiplash can take a hike.'

'Ambulance will be in attendance as soon as they can, sir.'

'I've got a pole sticking out of my chest. Tell your people to move. Now, can you transfer me through to another number? It's a secure line so you're going to need pass code. It's-'

'I'm not able to do that, sir. I need you to just stay on the line with me whilst we do a further assessment.'

'No, no, no,' Rex says. 'Just send the ambulance and put me through. Her name's Esther Drummond.'

'We need to monitor your condition and report it to the paramedics en route,' she says, cutting him off.

Rex balls up a fist to try and distract him from the agony in his chest. 'Listen, I'm agent Rex Matheson. CIA. I've got important CIA shit to do and people who need to contact me. Just get your ambulance asses down here.' He hangs up on the woman before she can argue with him and lets the phone slip away as he tries to ease back in the seat. He could barely dial three numbers. He knows he's got no chance of dialing fifteen of them. Not without getting them wrong in any case. He lets his eyes close because just looking at that hunk of piping sticking into his chest makes him want to vomit.

'Fucking Venezuela,' he groans. There's no way he's getting that assignment now. Not with the state he's in and how long this is going to take him to recover. More chance of Steve's wife finding out chemo actually works and he can go back to work. Some other chump was going to be next in line for it now. It had better not be that goddamn Aidan Forrester. The guy was only fluent in two languages - Spanish and kiss-ass.

'Godammit,' Rex curses again, feeling the agony building in his shoulder. He can barely look down at it, seeing that huge length of metal pipe sticking straight into his chest. It could have gone anywhere but it had to go straight for him, didn't it? At least he was still alive. That was something. 'Fuck you, Steve,' he says to no one in particular. 'That posting is mine now.' Or it would be, if he ever got out of here.

He can't even see the driver of the truck anymore as the rain continues to pelt down harder. What he does catch is the red blur of brake lights in front as the glow brightly for a moment then fade. 'What the...' Rex realises what's happening. ' Are you seriously driving off? You leave me with your goddamn pole in my chest and you're driving off? My dash cam's got your number plate, pal, and- Argh! Jesus!'

His phone begins to ring and he can just barely make out the caller ID. 'Oh, baby, timing is everything,' he says, straining to swipe the screen to answer it.

'Rex? Rex?'

'Esther.' The one word is all he can manage until he can get his breathing back under control and try to ignore the wrenching agony for long enough to have a sensible conversation.

'Are you okay? Your phone went dead and then we just had a flag go up in our systems for a 911 call. I don't imagine there's a lot of Rex Mathesons in the wider DC area.'

'Load came off the back of a truck and through my windscreen.'

'Oh my God.' She pauses. 'Oh my...'

'What?' He almost doesn't want to know. Almost.

'Sorry,' she apologises. 'I just pulled up a nearby traffic cam. Putting through a code yellow to emergency services now. I'll let Friedkin know what's happened. Just hold on, okay?'

Rex scoffs. 'Where am I gonna go?' Our of the corner of his eye he can already make out the red, blue and white lights flashing towards him, their sirens growing slowly louder as they approach. 'Cavalry's here.' He says it with such disdain that he can't remember when he became so cynical. Probably somewhere between Steve's wife's diagnosis and now.

'Okay, I'll let you go, but you hang in there okay?' Esther pleads with him. 'I'll make some calls and we'll meet you at the hospital.'

'No. You sit down your arse in that chair and figure out how to get me that Venezuela posting.'

'Okay,' she replies, humoring him. She's a good gopher, if a little green. He knows if she could get him that posting she probably would, but that's way above her pay grade.

Someone opens up the driver side door and Rex might have jumped out of his skin at the intrusion had he been able to move. The bag of kit in the guy's hand gives him away immediately. Paramedics. Thank God. Bring on the morphine.

'Can you tell me your name, sir?'

'Rex.'

'Okay Rex, so we're going to get you out of there up but it's going to take a little while until emergency services can get here to cut free these pipes. You'll be taking a piece of them with you to the hospital, I'm afraid. In the meantime we're going to check your injuries and see what we can do to make you more comfortable.'

A little while? He wants out of here now. He doesn't care if they rip the pipe out of him. Anything has to be better than this. 'I'm CI... CI...' He can't manage to get the last letter out before finally losing consciousness.

'Hand me that portable ultrasound,' the paramedic orders back to his partner. 'See if you can get a line in him whilst I check how bad the internal injuries are. No chance we're letting the firies near this unless we can stabilise him, and I don't like his chances.' He takes the pack from the man, pulling out the scanner and prepping Rex for the scan, attempting to cut away a section of his shirt to get close to where the pipe is lodged in his chest. If he survives this, it'll be a bloody miracle, he thinks, having seen lesser accidents prove fatal. In all honesty, this guy should be dead already.

'Line's in,' the paramedic replies, holding a bag of solution aloft and giving it a gentle squeeze.

'Okay, I'm starting the scan. Tell me what you see,' he responds, leaving the display in the lap of his partner whilst he reaches across to begin running the tip of the ultrasound from left to right, starting at the lower abdominal and working his way up towards the area of impact until he's right underneath the thick pipe, pressing gently against Rex's chest. 'How's the heart look?'

'Pericardium is totally shredded,' the second paramedic reports back, studying the ultrasound. 'Amazing he hung in this long. Okay,' he says, pulling back his sleeve to check his watch, 'time of death-'

'Wait. I've still got a radial pulse.'

'Rubbish.' No pericardium, no way to pump blood around the body.

'No, seriously. And look. Shallow breath spunds bilaterally. He's still alive.'

'Can't be. He presses two gloved fingers hard up against the carotid artery, feeling the pulsing motion underneath. This was messed up. No way should this guy be alive. He's lost three litres at least and that pipe is crushing everything bar actually coming back out through other side and skewering him into his the seat. He's seen some batshitcrazy stuff in his career but no one back at the depot was going to believe this. Even after that crazy story has been floating around all day that no one has had a single fatality on shift. Just a lucky day. Sometimes you got them. Then, just as suddenly, the pulse stops. The sensation underneath his fingertips flutters and is gone. 'No pulse.' He heaves a sigh of relief. Poor guy had been through enough. 'Okay, now he's gone.'

'Max, you wanna see this.' His partner has an unnaturally worried expression on his face.

'What?'

'Ultrasound. Heart's definitely stopped beating but, look, blood is still moving around through the undamaged chamber.

He grasps the nail bed of the closest finger and squeezes it hard. Without circulation it should stay white, but it pinks right back up the moment he releases pressure. He does it again just to be sure. Max turns to his partner and frowns as the rainwater sluices off his high vision jacket, adding to the anxious look.

'How's he got no heartbeat but effective circulation?' his partner asks.

Max looks down at the man who should be dead but wasn't. 'Fuck me,' he breathes.