Chasing Dreams

by Final Draft

Chapter Seven-Doctor's Orders

Dream Chaser had taken a sleeping pill before going to bed the night before and woke up late the next morning. He blinked rapidly, trying to get his eyes to adjust to the light shining in from the window. It felt like only moments prior to waking up, he’d closed his eyes to go to sleep, yet twelve hours had passed. Sleep had done nothing for him and left him more tired than before. He let his head sink back into the pillow and tried to recall any dreams he’d had over the night.

“Morning babe,” a voice next to him said. He rolled over to see Dream Catcher lying in bed with him. He could smell her lilac scent and feel her warmth as she cuddled up close to him. Instinctively, he put his arm around her and kissed her forehead, causing her to release a little sigh of pleasure.

“How’d you sleep last night?” she asked, nuzzling his chest slowly. He waited for her to stop and look up at him. Her eyes were sparkling, green pools of comfort and he stared into them before answering.

“I won’t know until I wake up,” he replied. She smiled and put her head back into his chest, breathing softly.

“You’re going to have to let go eventually,” she whispered. He squeezed her tightly and kissed the top of her head.

“I know,” he said, breathing in the smell of her mane, “I know.”

Dream Chaser opened his eyes, wanting to stay in his euphoric state. Realizing his face was wet, probably from drool, he looked down at the pillow that had replaced Dream Catcher in his arms. The white pillow case was covered in something more than just saliva! It was soaked through and cover with blood! He immediately released the pillow from his loving embrace and tried to stand up. For once, his legs were ready to support him, but he felt dizzy and disoriented. The room began spinning and he fell to the floor. His ears were ringing and his heart pounded painfully against his chest. A metallic taste he recognized as blood filled his mouth as a stream of it ran down his nasal cavity.

He pinched his nose with his hooves and closed his eyes tightly, waiting for the room to stop spinning. His stomach upturned and he felt the dozen apples he ate the night before traveling back up his esophagus. His mouth filled with saliva and he swallowed rapidly, trying to keep from throwing up.

Through the ringing in his ears, he distantly heard his apartment door open and some pony walk right in. The floor creaked as whoever it was slowly made their way towards his bedroom.

“Mr. Chaser? Are you alright?” a tender, female voice called out. “I thought I heard something fall.” There was silence as she listened for a reply; a reply he was incapable of giving. He opened his mouth to say he was fine, but a stream of rose colored vomit came out instead. As he laid coughing and gagging, the pony ran into the room and he saw it was his landlord, Mrs. Prism.

She looked in horror at Dream Chaser, who was quivering in a puddle of blood and vomit, and she put her hoof over her mouth. He didn’t want her to see him like this, and he tried to assure her he was okay. Instead of words, another burst of sick came out of his mouth, this time more crimson than rose. He curled up into the fetal position and began crying, not knowing why he was in so much pain.

Mrs. Prism ran from the room and out into the street to get some help. Dream Chaser couldn’t help, but be impressed at how fast she ran for such an old mare. An off-duty EMT Pony happened to be waiting at the coach stop outside the apartment, and he ran inside with her. He gave her directions to keep Dream Chaser on his side, and then ran off to call for an ambulance.

He felt his head being lifted and opened his eyes. Mrs. Prism was gently rolling him onto his side and he could see his reflection in her big glasses. Blood was still trailing down his nose; his eyes were puffy and red. The new position he was in made his head throb and he closed his eyes. He tried to think of something, anything, to get his mind off the pain.

Two paramedic ponies burst into the locker room and Dream Chaser felt himself being lifted up onto a stretcher. Wait, he wasn’t in a locker room, he was at home. They rushed him as fast as they could to the waiting ambulance and departed for the nearest medical center. Everything hurt, especially his legs. No, no his legs were just fine. It was his head that hurt. The mare that had accompanied him looked down as the paramedics did everything in their power to keep him alive. Actually these paramedics had just loaded him into the back of the ambulance, and then saddled up to pull it.

“What happened to you?” Dream Catcher asked. Hold on. Dream Catcher was white with a white mane. This mare was turquoise with a gray mane. And she was much older.

Dream Chaser struggled back and forth between memory and reality until he finally passed out. When he awoke, he was in a hospital bed, an IV running from his arm to a bag of liquid. He heard the rattling of pills in a container and looked over to see his doctor, Dr. Pulse, sitting cross-legged on his wheelie chair. In his hoof was one of Dream Chaser’s prescription bottles.

“How are you feeling, my boy?” the doctor asked. He continued rolling the pills around in their container. Dream Chaser mulled over the question and debated how to answer. His legs hurt, but that was normal pain, associated with his painkillers wearing off. His stomach had settled, but growled to remind him that it was empty again. Although his nose had stopped bleeding, he still had the aftertaste of blood in his mouth. His tongue dragged through his mouth like sandpaper as he struggled to swallow.

“Thirsty,” Dream Chaser croaked. The wheelie chair let out a creak of relief as the large pony stood up.

“You’re really quite lucky your landlord found you when she did,” the doctor said as he poured a cup of water from the sink. “I shudder to think what could have happened had she not.” He held out the cup with his teeth and Dream Chaser took it in his hooves. His pores expanded in shock as he drank, causing him to cough, dribbling most of the water down the front of his hospital gown. Dr. Pulse sat back down on his wheelie chair and it groaned in agony.

He waited for Dream Chaser to recover before addressing the issue they had talked about numerous times. “You haven’t been taking them, have you?” the doctor asked, fiddling with the pill container again.

Dream Chaser shook his head guiltily and tried to coax a few more water droplets out of the cup. He was able to choke out, “Took them last night though.” He held out the empty cup and the doctor reluctantly stood up to get him a refill. While the doctor made his way to the sink, Dream Chaser looked at the IV sticking out of his arm. It was an all too familiar sight.

Dr. Pulse handed him the full cup and returned to his seat. He picked up a pen in his teeth and began scribbling notes on a clipboard. As Dream Chaser drank, he listened to the rapid scratches of the pen against the paper.

When he’d finished writing, he spun in the chair to look at Dream Chaser. “I’m lowering the dosage on all your prescriptions,” he said, looking through glasses that were too small for his head. “With the exception of the Altrivin because it seems to be the only one you take regularly.”

A knock came at the door and a pretty, young nurse walked in. She was an orange earth pony with a pink mane that flowed out from beneath a nurse’s cap. Dream Chaser recognized her as the same nurse that always tended to him on his visits.

The doctor tore off the paper he’d scribbled on and gave it to her. “Drop that off at the pharmacy desk and get Mr. Chaser one of those weekly pill organizers,” Dr. Pulse said. The nurse nodded and walked back out of the room with the paper in her mouth. He then turned to address Dream Chaser once more.

“Still thirsty,” Dream Chaser said, holding out the empty cup.

The doctor looked at it without interest and walked right up to his face. His multiple chins quivered as he spoke, and the smell of pastries wafted from his mouth. “This isn’t a game, Mr. Chaser. These medications should be taken as directed. You can’t just pop them all down your throat at once after not taking them for several months. You could have died!

“You lied to me our last visit. You had me under the impression you were obeying my orders so I upped your dosage. Not just the Altrivin, oh no, every one of them. See what happens when you lie to your doctor?” He put his face right up to Dream Chaser’s, and spoke in a quiet tone: “You’re lucky. Don’t forget that.”

He grabbed the cup from Dream Chaser and tossed it into the trash without a word. Sweat was beading on his forehead as he looked at Dream Chaser for a response. The crippled stallion had nothing to say and looked away from the doctor’s glare. Had it not been for better judgment, the doctor likely would have brought up Dream Catcher. Instead, he cleared his throat and left the room quietly.

Tick. Tick. Drip. Tick. Drip. Tick. Drip. Tick. Tick. Drip. Dream Chaser lay in silence listening to the clock and his IV drip fall out of synchronization. “I’m lucky,” Dream Chaser said to himself. He laughed. “Plenty of luck. Too bad it’s all bad.”

Through the noise of the IV and the clock, he could hear whispering coming from just beyond his door. Probably those gossiping nurses…or reporters looking for an easy scoop. The whispering ceased; there came a knock at the door. Just come in. It’s not like I can stop you. After a pause, the door opened and his nurse slipped in looking rather flustered.

She immediately grabbed a cup and walked to the sink. “The doctor apologizes,” she said as the cup filled. “He’s just concerned for you is all.” Dream Chaser took the cup and drank slowly, unsure if he’d be able to get another refill. The nurse had looked away as he drank, staring out the window at something he couldn’t see or perhaps nothing at all. She had always seemed to have as much on her mind as he did.

“Thank you,” Dream Chaser said, holding out the empty cup. She took it from him and absentmindedly tossed it in the trash.

“You should be all set to leave once your prescriptions are filled. Would you like me to arrange a coach ride home?” she asked as she pulled the IV out of his arm. She quickly taped a cotton ball over the vein before any blood could squirt out.

“How’s the weather outside?” Dream Chaser asked, unable to look out the window from his position in the bed.

“Oh, it’s beautiful out,” she replied without hesitation. She helped Dream Chaser out of the bed and he stretched his legs.

“I think I’ll walk,” he replied. She nodded and left the room so she could get his prescriptions, and he could get out of the hospital gown. He slid out of the gown and waited for her to return, walking slow laps around the room.

She returned minutes later with a prescription bag in her mouth. Inside the bag were several orange bottles, a pill organizer, and a detailed list of instructions of when to take which pills. His nurse went over the list with him and highlighted medication names and times in hopes he would keep to a routine. She even filled the organizer with his first week of pills. He took the two capsules out of the “noon” slot and popped them into his mouth. His nurse had already filled him a cup of water and he swallowed the pills down. Once again, the nurse looked away as he drank, this time staring at the clock and letting out a small sigh.

“Long day?” he asked. It was one of very few questions either of them had asked that wasn’t written on a clipboard. She looked away from the clock and gave him a small smile.

“Long week,” she replied. He returned her smile and took another sip of his water. Her blue eyes wandered back to the clock and an expression Dream Chaser recognized all too well covered her face. It was worry – with a slight mix of pain and sorrow. He’d seen that look on Dream Catcher when she wasn’t wearing a smile to cover it up.

“Something wrong?” he asked. Her predetermined answer didn’t surprise him in the least. In fact, it made him wonder why he’d bothered to ask in the first place.

“No, everything’s fine,” she said, quickly looking away from the clock. “Do you need another refill?”
Before he could answer, she had grabbed the cup away from him and gone to the sink. In her haste, she nearly sent a glass jar of cotton balls tumbling to the floor, only barely managing to catch it in time. Dream Chaser looked away, pretending he’d seen nothing. She glanced over at him to make sure he hadn’t witnessed her near-blunder and set the cotton balls back on the sink. She shakily filled the cup and returned to him.

Over the years, Dream Chaser had been through a lot of nurses. He had been a little difficult to deal with; some couldn’t handle him. Then there were the ones he couldn’t handle. She asks too many questions, she’s an incompetent dolt, her hooves are always cold: it was always something. It got to be a joke between the hospital staff and they would place bets on the tenure of each new nurse.

They’d only given his current nurse one week. Dream Chaser had almost broken her on the first day. But here she was, years later, the only nurse that was allowed near him. She had been the only one to legitimately care about his well being. He wasn’t “The Great Tragedy of the Equestria Games” to her; he was just a hurt pony whose privacy should be respected. Something else drove her as well, but Dream Chaser hadn’t figured it out.

He bit the lip of the cup to take it from her and his nose bumped hers (passing drinks is such an awkward task for earth ponies). She pretended not to notice and released her grip when she was sure he had it. He emptied the cup in three large gulps and as the last drop hit his tongue, he was thirsty again. The nurse watched as he continued tilting his head upward trying to get just one more drop out.

“Still thirsty?”

“I think I’ll manage.” He let the cup fall into the trash and looked around the room. “Did my landlord by chance bring my coat?”

The nurse thought for a moment, then shook her head. “You shouldn’t need it– it isn’t going to rain till much later.”
“It’s not that,” Dream Chaser began, quickly making up an excuse, “It’s that my keys are in that coat. How am I going to get inside my apartment?” He was actually more worried about walking several miles with his scars exposed for all to see, and he’d already turned down the offer for a coach ride home.

“Oh, your landlord said she’d leave you a spare key in the flower pot outside.” She smiled and turned to open the door for him, but had never shut it fully when she entered. Through the crack, she could see the prying eyes of several of her colleagues. They dispersed as she approached and were nowhere to be seen when she opened the door.

Dream Chaser limped through the hallways escorted by his nurse. Once or twice, his knees buckled, and he had to stop. His nurse knew better than to help him. She stayed back and allowed the stallion to get himself up. Watching him struggle was painful for her, but she could only imagine how he felt.

“Sunny,” a green Pegasus nurse said mockingly, “I think your patient needs help.”

“You’re not going to get employee of the month that way,” another nurse commented. Dream Chaser was really struggling to get back up and the orange mare didn’t know what to do. She cautiously walked to his side and put her hoof on his shoulder.

“Just ignore them,” Dream Chaser whispered. “I’m fine.” With extreme effort, he hoisted himself up and continued following her. He hoped one of the two pills he’d taken had been an Altrivin, or he didn’t know how he was going to get home.

At long last, they reached the main lobby of the hospital. It was where he and his nurse usually parted ways, but this time, she continued to lead him on past the automatic doors. He followed her out to the street until she stopped and turned to him.

“Are you sure you don’t want me get you a coach? I’ll pay the fare. It’s no problem,” she insisted. Dream Chaser just shook his head, the pills rattling inside the bag he held in his mouth. “Okay then. Be careful.”

And with that, she disappeared back into the hospital. Dream Chaser looked around at the street signs and calculated his route home.

Author's Note:

This chapter was supposed to be substantially longer but I must split it into two. So now Chapter 8 will be the real turning point. So look forward to that. Favorite, subscribe, refer, comment or just let me know how I'm doing.