October 20th 14:35

Nearly fourteen days later, Steve’s medical condition was deemed satisfactory enough for Rudy to give the go-ahead for the bionic transplant. Steve had been prepped for surgery and was now resting, awaiting the orderlies to wheel him in to the operating room. The Lidocaine he was administered was beginning to take effect, but fought it off to open his eyes. He turned to his mother, sitting by his bed.

“Mom,” he mumbled.

“Hi, son,” she smiled, hunching forward to kiss him on the cheek. “How are you feeling?”

“Groggy,” he whispered, wetting his lips.

“They gave you some medication to help you relax before surgery.”

“Where’s dad?”

“He’s around. He’ll be back in a minute.”

Steve’s face contorted with pain as he endeavoured to contain his emotions.

“Steve, what is it? Are you in pain?”

“I can’t go through this again,” he lamented.

“What?”

“The transplant. Please, don’t let Rudy perform the surgery, please!” he begged his mother.

“Steve, honey, you’re going to be like you were before, able to walk and touch,” she explained while stroking his cheek.

“You don’t understand...I want...I want to break free.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Those bionic limbs are government property. As long as they are a part of me, I’ll always belong to THEM.” His eyes clouded with tears. “If I try to run, they’ll hunt me down and drag me back. I’m tired. I don’t want to do this anymore.

Helen was in turmoil.

“Please, mom...don’t let Rudy go through with this.” he implored with such desperation that it ripped through Helen like a knife to her heart.

Too weak to continue to fight off the effect of the drug, Steve fell into a deep sleep.

Helen wiped the tears off her cheeks and kissed Steve on the forehead. She whispered to his ear, “Sleep now. Everything will be okay.”

Rudy and Oscar entered the room with two medical orderlies in tow.

“We’re ready to go.”

“Don’t,” Helen said sternly as the two orderlies readied themselves to lift the patient onto the gurney.

“I beg your pardon?” Rudy asked, puzzled.

“Leave him be.”

“Helen, we must go now.”

“Rudy, he doesn’t want the transplant.”

“Helen, Steve had the same reaction the first time.”

“Rudy, you should have seen the look in his eyes.”

“Steve’s not thinking straight with all the medication we gave him.”

“He told me that if you fit him with the bionic limbs, he’ll become a government property with no mean of breaking free of its stranglehold,” she turned to Oscar and glowered at him, “ is that true?”

“Helen, Steve is free to lead his own life.”

“At what price? If tomorrow he should decide he’s had enough of working as a government agent, will they unconditionally accept his resignation? Will they allow him to quit?”

Oscar was tongue-tied. He bowed his head to his chin.

“That confirms what Steve told me.”

She turned to her son and held his hand. “ I only want what’s best for my son.”

“Has he confided in you about his suicide attempt?”

Shocked, she stared at Rudy. “What?”

“When he first learned of his condition, he tried to end his life because he couldn’t bear living as a cripple.”

“My God, Oscar...is that true?”

“Yes.”

“Once fitted with the bionics, he mellowed out as the days went by and gradually became the Steve Austin we all know and love. He slowly came to the realization that he was given a second chance in life and took it.” Rudy walked up to Helen and laid his hand on her shoulder. “Helen, if we don’t go ahead with the transplant now, Steve will...”

Helen interrupted with a gesture of the hand. She closed her eyes as Rudy gave a nod to the orderlies to set Steve onto the gurney.

As they wheeled the sleeping patient out of the room, Oscar edged up to Helen and held her in his arms. “He’s going to be alright. We’ll all help him muddle through.

ACT 4

October 27th, 10:25

A week following the successful bionic transplant, Steve was still kept in an artificial coma. Oscar, Jaime, Helen and Jim were all present in the room as Rudy prepared to bring Steve back. He increased the brain waves to awake the patient.

Slowly, Steve was seen blinking his eyes open. After glancing at all the figures circled around his bed, he focused on Rudy standing beside him.

“Steve, how do you feel?”

Steve’s eyes travelled downwards to his right side and saw the new limb attached. His face shrivelled and he looked away.

“No!” he wailed, shaking his head.

Jaime leaned closer. As she took his hand, he wrenched it free and lowered at her.

“DON’T touch me! Get out of here,” he shouted in a single painful breath.

Helen took Jaime’s place. “Son, listen to me…”

“Listen to you? Did you listen to me? I begged you not to let them go through with the transplant. You let me down, mom. Get out of here! All of you, get out of my sight!”

Rudy beckoned everyone to leave the room to let the seething man alone to simmer down.

Steve was raging, ready to burst. He tried to curb the fury intensifying within him. His growing resentment of his family and friends was poisoning him. Desperation invaded him.

He casually glanced over to the night table and noticed a pair of scissors conveniently placed within his reach. A burning rage clouding his better judgement, he extended his left hand with much difficulty and grabbed it. With his right hand, he severed the blades apart and seized one firmly in the palm of one hand. He held it in front of him, admiring its power to end his pain. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, garnering enough courage to commit the ultimate act that would release him from his nightmare. Then in a single shot, he slashed his wrist.

Blood began to splatter out of the cut artery. He dropped the blade onto the floor and passed out.

In the hallway, Helen was inconsolable.

“He hates me. My son hates me!”

“No he doesn’t Helen, believe me,” Oscar mollified, holding the grieving mother by the shoulder. “He’s just upset right now but it’ll pass.”

“Oscar’s right. Steve’s in a delicate phase. There’s bound to be some resentment and anger. But rest assured it’ll die out. We have to allow him some time to adjust.”

Two nurses entered Steve’s room to replace his bag IV bags and check on his vital signs.

“Oh, my God!” one nurse exclaimed upon seeing the sheets drenched in blood. She quickly grabbed a firm hold of Steve’s wrist and ordered the second nurse to notify the doctor.

“Doctor Wells, come quick!” she shouted from down the corridor.

They all dashed to Steve’s room. Their eyes bulged out and their hearts sank at the horrible sight.

“Oh no, no, no!” Helen screamed, rushing to her son’s bedside.

Steve was cyanotic and deathly lethargic. Rudy pushed Helen aside to get to Steve.

“What happened?” Rudy asked the nurse holding Steve’s wrist.

”Looks like he slashed his wrist. He lost a lot of blood.”

The heart monitor began to flutter shortly followed by a flat line. Steve was crashing. Rudy quickly started CPR.

“Pamela, get the crash cart, STAT!”

She hurried to the cart placed in a corner of the room and wheeled it close to the bed.

“Charge it to two hundred.”

“Dr. Wells, are you going to shock him with me holding him?”

Rudy grabbed the paddles and rubbed then together before applying them to Steve’s chest. “On three, you release the pressure for a second, then grab his wrist back.”

“Okay.”

“One, two, three,”

As the nurse released Steve’s wrist, Rudy shocked him once. Blood splattered everywhere.

“No response, Doctor.”

“Three hundred.”

Rudy shocked Steve a second then a third time. Still no response.

“Come on, Steve. Don’t you quit on us!” Rudy scolded. “Four hundred,” he instructed the nurse.

He shocked Steve for a fourth and last time. The flat line’s deafening sound still resounded. Rudy bowed his head for a moment then faced the others. He needn’t speak, the hopelessness was written on his face.

“No, No!” Jaime screamed, rushing to Steve’s side. She frantically began CPR.

Rudy grabbed her hands. “Jaime, don’t. He’s gone.”

She flung Rudy’s hands aside and continued to pound on Steve’s chest. Jaime ordered the nurse to keep holding Steve’s wrist while she tried to revive him. When all attempts failed, Jaime stopped. She laid her head on Steve’s chest and wept.

In a gush of rage, Helen started pummelling Rudy’s chest. “You lied to me! You said my son was going to be fine! I hate you! I hate you!” she vociferated.

Jim wrestled with his infuriated wife and pried her away from Rudy.

Enraged, Oscar, thrust his fist against his friend’s chest, eliciting a deep gasp out of him. All reacted to Steve’s resuscitation.

“Rudy, he’s breathing again.”

The heart monitor displayed an arrhythmia that gradually stabilized into a sustained heartbeat.

A wave a relief swept over the room as the beep sounds grew increasingly stable.

However, Steve’s other vital signs were extremely weak due to the substantial loss of blood. Rudy raced to stem the haemorrhage from Steve’s wrist while he instructed the nurses to get three units of fresh blood.

ACT 5

November 7th, 14:35

Days went by. Steve withdrew into a catatonic state, refusing to eat, drink, move or speak to anyone. He laid in bed, staring blankly out the window, oblivious of his surroundings. Rudy had toned down his bionic powers and had put him in restraints following his suicide attempt. Steve ignored everyone who came to visit him.

Rudy entered the room with a cup of Jello and walked up to the bed. He stared Steve straight in the eyes. “The nurses tell me you still won’t eat. I brought you some cherry Jello, your favorite flavor.”

Rudy took a spoonful and held it out at Steve’s mouth. “Come on, eat something.”

Steve blinked and turned his head away.

“I can’t keep you on IV forever you know.”

Rudy turned Steve’s head toward him. “Hey, don’t you give up. You have people who love you and care about you. Don’t let them down. You must keep up your strength and start your physical therapy.”

Steve wrung his head free of Rudy’s hands and turned the other way.

“Steve, you’re aware if you don’t exercise your new parts, you’re liable to do a reject. Remember what happened to Jaime the first time. You don’t want to go through that agony.” He gave him a friendly tap on the shoulder. “I’ll be back later.”

A week passed and Steve remained unsociable. Rudy tried repeatedly to force him out of bed but to no avail. Even her mother’s words of encouragement didn’t sink through.

November 21st, 14:25

One afternoon, Steve began experiencing shooting pains in his legs and right arm. Just as Rudy predicted, he was rejecting his bionic limbs.

The pain grew unbearable. Steve was twitching and wriggling in his bed. He pressed the alarm button and in came Rudy who administered him a small dose of morphine to dull the pain.

In the following days, Rudy outlined an anti-rejection drug treatment, which gave satisfying results in the first few days. Then, Steve’s condition took a turn for the worse, deteriorating at a rapid rate until it became glaringly obvious that the man had lost the will to live.

November 25th, 13:15

Rudy summoned Oscar and Jaime to the hospital when he felt the end was drawing near. Steve’s respiration was heavy and laboured, his body occasionally twitching and jerking.

Jaime sat by Steve’s bed, holding his hand, aching for her friend who had decided to leave this earth.

“Did you notify his parents?” Rudy asked Oscar.

“Yes, I did. They’re on their way.” Oscar paused and looked at Steve. “Rudy, isn’t there anything you can do?”

“Doctors are not miracle workers. We do what is humanly possible, but we’re powerless when a patient has lost the strength to fight.”

“It’s a shame. Such a handsome and educated man. All of this on account of a stupid document.” Oscar choked on his words. “ What a waste!”

Jim was speeding along the highway to get to the hospital before it was too late. At an intersection, a mad driver burnt a red light and rammed head on into the Elgins’ car.

At this precise second, at the hospital, Steve reacted. He grunted. His face creased with pain. “Mom!” he cried out.

“Rudy!” Jaime beckoned.

“Mom…dad,” Steve continued to wail, tossing and turning.

“Steve” Steve, wake up!” Rudy urged.

Steve’s eyes shot open and darted around the room, searching for his parents. “Mom…dad? Where are you?” he continued to cry out, coughing and panting.

Rudy tried to calm Steve down but he was in an utter panic. Rudy applied the oxygen mask onto Steve’s face to help his breathing. Jaime attempted to lull him to sleep, but the patient was too frantic.

Rudy had no choice but to give Steve a sedative. Soon, he slipped into a deep slumber.

The Elgins were rushed to the hospital in stable condition. Jim had suffered a few broken ribs and a head concussion while Helen had lacerations over her face and arms. Nothing serious.

November 27th, 8:30

Two days later, Steve awoke from what he felt was a nightmare. Rudy was by his side, checking his vital signs. His cast had been removed but his arm remained lump.

“Hey, sleepy head. How do you feel this morning?”

“Hungry,” Steve rasped.

“That’s a very good sign. Want a sip of water?”

Steve nodded feebly. Rudy poured a glass of water and cupped Steve’s head, raising it gently to help him drink. Steve took two sips and lied back on his pillows.

“My mother and father, are they alright?”

“How do you know what happened?”

“Are they okay?”

“Yes. They’re fine.”

“I want to see them.”

“Of course!”

With much difficulty, Steve began sliding himself out of bed. Rudy assisted him and brought a wheelchair closer to the bed, but Steve pushed it aside.

“I want to walk.”

“You don’t know how happy I am to hear you say that, buddy.”

Steve managed to stand on his own wobbly legs, holding Rudy by the arm as they both slouched out of the room, dragging the IV line behind.

They entered Helen’s room. She was resting in bed, a bandage on her forehead. Steve edged towards her. His shuffling roused her. She held out her arms with joy upon seeing her son standing on his own two legs.

He sat on the rim of the bed and hugged her tight with his right arm, the left still being tender.

“Oh Steve, I was so worried.”

“I know, mom. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t. I’m just relieved you’re okay.” She kissed him hard on the forehead and both held hands. “Promise me to never scare me like that again.”

“It’s still hard.”

“I know. But you’re alive.”

Oscar went to Steve’s room. Seeing it empty, he walked over to Helen’s and was surprised and yet relieved at the mother and son reunion.

“Steve.”

“Oscar.”

“You’re free to go.”

“Beg your pardon?”

“I spoke with the president about your request to resign as an OSI agent, pointing out that you had paid your dues a hundredfold over the last years. He will accept your resignation when you’re ready to tender it.”

Steve tried to contain his emotions. He felt a huge weight was lifted off his shoulders. Still, he felt a certain obligation toward Oscar and Rudy for saving his life, twice. They were his trusted friends and didn’t want to turn his back on them.

“Thank you, Oscar. I’ll think about it.”

“Take your time. Welcome back.”