Post by Victor Fries - Mr. Freeze on Feb 20, 2015 22:11:50 GMT -5
Tucked away in the lab of one of his hideouts, Victor blinks when he realizes that he's been simply staring at the calculations in front of him for several minutes. Rubbing his face with his hand, he chalks that up to a bout of afternoon sleepiness - something that he always ignores - and refocuses on the page, reminding himself that he's checking it for flaws. Looking again, he frowns slightly when his check turns up nothing - the calculations appear to be flawless.
Many scientists, having reached this point in their research, would now get very excited - the answer that they've been looking for may be right in front of them. Victor, however, does not. Partly because he's simply not prone to that emotion, but also because he's reached this point a number of times since he first began his attempts to find a cure for Nora. But after so many possible treatments that nearly worked, but not quite, he treats new ones with a healthy dose of pessimism - all he has now is a theory, something to carefully test. And when he does, it will probably prove to be flawed, so there's no need to believe that he's found it yet.
Three Weeks Later...
Test after test has proved that this newest treatment works, or at least as far as he can tell without actually using it on Nora. Of course he wouldn't let any treatment get anywhere near her without first being absolutely certain that it would work and be very safe - after all this time, the last thing that he'd do is be too quick to risk her life on something that could be more certain with just a little more time.
But the more tests he ran on this newest treatment, the more confident he found himself becoming. His dreams - both the day and night variety - have become populated with visions of Nora as he most prefers to remember her: before he was forced to freeze her, before she became so ill. He finally reached a point where he realized that he'd be using this new treatment on Nora, as sure as he'll ever be that it's the cure that he's been looking for.
And when he realized that, he knew that he had to tell Nora. She wouldn't be able to hear him, of course, but he had to see her. It had been a difficult decision to not keep her with him at all times, but after a time it had become impractical and dangerous. With so many parties interested in stopping or at least manipulating his research, keeping her in his lab was inviting trouble, and he'd also reached a point where he rarely needed to examine her directly - every fact and factor about her body and the way it was being preserved has not merely been written in his notes somewhere but memorized. So he'd found her a safer and more permanent home than the ones he lives in - he constantly risks discovery so he ends up shifting locations frequently, and sometimes he even gets thrown into the asylum.
So Nora has been housed in the basement of one of the commercial buildings in north Gotham. The space had been abandoned, but he was able to install Nora's chamber and all of the monitoring equipment that ensures that her rest is undisturbed - and if that ever changes for any reason, he'll be immediately alerted. The building's owner is unaware of what that corner of the basement was being used for, but the monthly payments are large enough for such questions to not be asked. And Victor keeps his visits infrequent, as he doesn't want to attract anyone's attention to the location.
But he can't resist seeing Nora now, if only so that he can see her and quietly tell her, "I've done it." Resting a hand on the glass surrounding his wife, the hand itself encased in a glove made of a series of heavy duty acrylic plates, in spite of this announcement she still seems so distant. But she's closer now than she has been for a very, very long time.
It's at that moment that Victor realizes that he's scared. Terrified, even. Everything that he's done for years has led up to this moment, so much work and sacrifice. All of which may be undone if the treatment doesn't work perfectly and there will probably be no second chances. Here she is, pristine and perfect, frozen in her chamber where he has carefully watched over her for years, forever young and beautiful, and as safe as he can possibly make her. But the treatment he has designed will take her out of this place, and though it's as perfect as he can make it there will be risks. And he's an expert on the frozen state she's in now, not the living, breathing world of warmth that he's planning on returning her to - if all goes well then he'll not need to worry, but there may be complications. But he can't keep her as she is now - this is not living. And out of everyone in the universe, no one deserves to truly live as much as she does.
That's not the only thing that he has to worry about, but it's the main one. The other thing that's also on his mind is how much things have changed since he first placed her in this chamber - how much he has changed. She'll not be waking up to the same world, nor the same husband, and he knows better than to delude himself into believing that she may be perfectly happy about those changes. Even when he was first he first met her and began to understand his feelings for her, he'd been amazed when he discovered that his feelings for her had been returned - how could anyone so perfect be won by someone like him? How much less does he deserve her now? But that's something he believes that he should let her decide, though it's more than a little bit difficult for him to imagine how he could live without her if her feelings for him change. He'll simply have to find a way to cope...
But that's not something he can do anything about right now. What he can do something about is doing everything he can to ensure the success of the treatment. And since he's lacking in a few areas of expertise, that means that he'll have to recruit someone who can fill in those gaps - someone he can trust with this most precious responsibility.
One Week Later
It's been a long time since he first called on Doctor Nina Stenet to assist him with Nora - his wife's condition had become unstable and he'd needed some outside expertise to fix it. It's not been unusual for him to get assistance from other scientists over the years, as he'd be the first to admit that he doesn't know everything. But quite often he'd killed them to ensure that the things that they knew would die with them. Doctor Stenet had been an exception because he believed that her desire to help Nora had been genuine - something that fails to either warm his heart or endear him to anyone, but it factored into his decision to allow the woman to live. After all, he knew he might have need of her again, and he suspected that the woman wouldn't attempt to harm either him or Nora. And as he's never found any evidence that she'd done that, and he remembers just how quick and capable the woman had been with her work, she's the one who came to mind when he'd pondered who he should have on hand when he attempted to treat Nora.
Once again the doctor had been quick to agree, so he had brought her to this lab - one that he's specifically designed as the place to do this procedure. There had been one slight complication: in the time since he last saw the doctor, her small assistant had been replaced by a larger woman he already knows and doesn't like at all - Hope Taya, an employee of none other than Lex Luthor, and one of the last people he wants anywhere near Nora. And the woman, in turn, wasn't too keen on the idea of having the woman that she's supposed to be protecting taken anywhere by someone with Victor's background. Fortunately, Doctor Stenet herself sided with him and insisted that she felt perfectly safe to go with him if he promised that she would be returned unharmed. A promise that Victor had no reservations about making - especially since he assumes that his promise is void of the doctor were to do anything harmful.
As he finishes the last minute preparations for the treatment, the doctor is reviewing the tablet he gave her to review. It's a step by step list of the treatment that he's developed - the drugs and chemicals to be used at each stage as well as the physical procedures. Finally the woman simply nods and says, "Remarkable work, Mr. Fries - I have a few small suggestions, but this certainly looks like it will work. When do we begin?"
"Now," he responds simply, turning his attention to the task at hand. Once again he finds himself afraid, but he doesn't let that deter him. He is, after all, doing his absolute best, and if that's not good enough then it was never meant to be from the beginning. Besides, if he allows such emotions to cloud his mind, then he will no longer be doing his best and Nora may suffer for it - he can't allow that to happen. Instead he forces his mind to focus, not allowing his attention to waver even a little bit from the task at hand.
The first step is to allow Nora's chamber to warm just a bit - the normal temperature of it is much colder than freezing, or else even a slight variation would allow parts of Nora to thaw completely and cause damage. Once she's just barely cold enough to remain frozen, a special formula is added to the water. A temperature stabilizer, it will ensure that the rest of the thawing out process proceeds slowly and evenly. Once that's been fully distributed, the temperature is very slowly allowed to increase again.
This is when the formula he'd perfected only four weeks ago comes into play - the last piece of the puzzle is one of the first and most critical elements. A powerful mixture of healing agents, he floods the chamber with it as Nora slowly thaws, and it acts to basically keep her in once piece until her normal biological processes can begin to heal the damage from being frozen, ensures that the elements needed for that process will be immediately on hand for the cells that need them, and even minimizes the damage and begins the process of healing by patching the holes in the cell membranes.
This being the most critical point, Victor keeps a careful eye on Nora for any signs of trouble, as well as Doctor Stenet who may see a problem even before he does. However, aside from the subtle hints of ice around some of her features fading away, there doesn't appear to be any change, which means that everything is working smoothly. When the temperature sensors indicate that most of the ice is out of her system, he can even breathe a sigh of relief, but they're far from done yet.
After that point, they can increase Nora's temperature quite rapidly without worrying about harming her - it's the temperature range around the freezing point that's the most difficult to manage. It's also the point where Victor himself is no longer the absolute expert in the situation. Not that he knows nothing about the normal functioning of the human body at a more normal temperature, but there's certainly those who are better, and he made it a point of having one of those people in this room.
At this point Nora's temperature must be increased quite rapidly or she will die. When her body was frozen, it was literally frozen in time - now that her cells are beginning to function, they need things. Like oxygen, for instance. So it's at this point that the chamber needs to be drained of the fluid that had been keeping her suspended and preserved. First it's tilted so that Nora is laying down, then the liquid is quickly removed. Doctor Stenet supervises those of Victor's men that he chose to have on hand to assist as they pull Nora from the chamber and put her into a bed of gently warming heated blankets. The warming bed will ensure that she gains a proper body temperature quickly in spite of the fact that she's still dripping wet.
Also to assist with the process, Doctor Stenet hooks Nora up to a specially designed cardiopulmonary bypass machine, one meant for those rare surgeries where the patient is cooled so that their circulation stops while the surgeon does whatever needs to be done. What they're doing now is not unlike bringing a patient out of such a state, in fact. The machine, in addition to replacing the function of the heart and lungs, also has the ability to warm the blood. It was also further modified by Victor to have another function: the blood is among the types of cells most sensitive to the process of freezing and thawing, and is critical to life, but it's also something that can be completely replaced without long-term damage, so it also completely replaces the blood that had been in Nora's veins while she was frozen with fresh blood that will help her greatly as she recovers. It also contains both an anesthetic to keep her asleep so that she won't fully wake up until they're ready for that, plus the first dose of the drug that Victor developed to cure her MacGregor's Syndrome. He'd developed the cure for that years ago, but was unable to give it to her while she was frozen - since then all his efforts have been to figure out how to thaw her out without killing her.
Doctor Stenet then takes the lead in attempting to restore the woman's heart and lung function, first turning Nora to the side so that the liquid still in her lungs can drain away. Though the machine can temporarily take the place of those vital organs, they need to be able to function if the woman is to live. When the excess liquid is gone, she quickly intubates Nora, so that her breathing can begin mechanically before the lungs are warm enough to remember to do that themselves. She's about to assign one of the men to the task, but Victor - now feeling useless because his specific skills won't be needed much from here on out - insists on being the one to carefully make sure that Nora is getting enough air. Meanwhile, Doctor Stenet's attention turns to Nora's heart.
Much to the doctor's delight, she finds that the organ is already fluttering weakly - not pumping properly, but attempting to do so. If the rest of Nora fights just as hard to regain her life, then the woman will surely live! Attaching a defibrillator, Nina uses it to help the heart fall into the proper rhythm. Victor watches the process, almost in awe, as the proper signs of life return to his wife's body one by one after so much time of being silent and still. "Her heartbeat is a bit weak, but it's steady," the doctor reports, now beginning the process of removing the bypass machine - it's no longer needed if the heart is functioning well - and replacing it with a simple IV, as well as a heart monitor to alert anyone should the reawakened organ stop working.
It's when that's finished that the doctor shifts to checking one more thing that Victor's been worried about: Nora's brain. He finds himself impatient as the doctor carefully does some basic tests like shining a light in Nora's eyes to check for basic reflexes. Once again, Victor finds himself breathing a sigh of relief when the doctor glances up and says, "Looks like we have signs of hind- and midbrain function. Of course, you won't be able to fully tell how well her brain is functioning without waking her up fully, but all the signs are good." The doctor then quietly proceeds to do other tests, checking for any signs of concern.
Meanwhile, Victor finds himself overwhelmed for a moment by a number of thoughts - perhaps a certain part of him hadn't believed that they'd get this far until it was done. Abruptly here is Nora, in all respects looking as alive and well as he remembers - far more so than she's been in years. Still attending carefully to the tasks of keeping her breathing - he quietly finds himself asking, "How will she feel when she wakes up?"
The question seems to amuse Doctor Stenet slightly. "You'll have to ask her - nobody's been through what she's been through before," comes the answer at first, but the doctor adds, "But my guess is that she'll feel weak - very weak. And tired. Sore and stiff. Lots of cobwebs in the brain. Probably hungry. I strongly suggest letting her sleep for a few days - sleep is less taxing on her system than being awake, and you'll want her to use what energy she has to get stronger."
Victor's expression betrays no sign of emotion, but he listens very carefully, "Pain?"
That question causes the doctor to frown for a moment, but then she says, "Aside from muscle stiffness, probably not. I'm guessing that the main problem will be energy, especially until the treatment for her MacGregor's gets a chance to work."
Nodding slowly to that, he finally asks, "Prognosis?"
Pursing her lips at that since she hates to speculate about this sort of thing, she nevertheless replies, "I'm guessing that it will take her a month before she's out of bed - though that's difficult to know until we can see how well she's recovering. But after that, the sky's the limit if there are no complications." There's a pause as Nina's attention returns to the lungs once again. "Is she able to breathe on her own?" she asks.
The question causes Victor to stop assisting for a moment to see, and Nora's lungs respond with a slow inhale after a moment. Doctor Stenet nods and removes the breathing tube, replacing it with a simple nasal cannula. Then she stands back, noting how, aside from the blankets still finishing the process of warming her, Nora now looks much like any patient resting in a hospital. Well, except that everything around her doesn't look very hospital-like. Especially not the man in the robotic suit looming over the woman, but Victor can't help but spend several more minutes with her. As far as he's concerned, the process is not over until she's really awake, but there were many times over the past many years that he feared that he'd never have even this much.
When he's finally ready to leave her and attend to the many other things that he must do now, he first finds the doctor, who is back to looking at the tablet. "You may keep that, if you wish - in return for your help? I know you don't want money," he ventures. Gratitude is a hard emotion for him to feel, or to hang on to for very long, but a part of him is flirting with it now.
"Thank you," Nina replies, a nod acknowledging that she doesn't want to be paid. She knows where this man gets the money, after all, and she doesn't have any need for it. She hesitates for a moment, before adding, "You've already said that you don't care if I use what I learn working with you in my own research, but if you wish to... compensate me for my help, perhaps you can sign this? It would help me." She pulls a piece of paper from her pocket, carefully unfolding it.
Victor looks it over with a critical eye, not having any idea what to expect. It turns out to be, essentially, a confession of sorts about the agreements he's made with Doctor Stenet - about how he insisted on her help, threatened her if she didn't, but is allowing her to use his research in her own work. This puzzles him for a moment until he realizes, "Ah, you don't wish to be accused of willingly helping a criminal if anyone notices that your research indicates that you've been in contact with me. Very well." He's hardly offended by that, so he gives her the signature that she requests. It's not like he's not done many worse things to many other people, so it hardly harms him. With that bit of business concluded, he turns to the next - planning for when he'll wake up Nora in a few days time.
Three Days Later...
As much as he didn't like moving Nora in her present state, he liked the idea of her waking up in that laboratory even less. Especially since she's been quite stable while she's been resting, and he'd much rather give her more comfortable surroundings when she returns to the world. The place that he's taken her to is a small but luxurious home in north Gotham. He's rented it for the next several months under an assumed name - in the short term he can allow Nora to recover in comfort, but in the long run the location will be discovered so it can only be a temporary place for her.
He's placed her in the master bedroom - a beautiful room with a large floor-to-ceiling window granting a view of the river and allowing plenty of sunlight to flood the space. The room itself is decorated in pale earth tones, with the bed covered in a thick white comforter that's the very definition of the word 'plush'. A few flowers decorate the room, each in a clear vase that easily captures the sunlight in the water inside, reflecting back some of its rays. The only thing marring the pleasantness of the room, at least in Victor's eyes, is the small collection of medical equipment still needed to monitor Nora's vitals, but as their function is important they can stay.
Sitting in a large chair beside the bed is Victor, protected from all the warmth of this room in his Cryo-Suit, Victor has made only one modification to it for her - he's not wearing his red HUD goggles. He wants Nora to be able to recognize him as easily as possible, and they won't help - she'll already have at least a little difficulty with that. Besides even the suit, he's now completely white and hairless. His eyes haven't changed at all, though, and he's her husband - he's sure that he'd have to change much more for her to not know who he is. It will probably be very difficult for her to understand at first, though.
But he tried not to be too worried about her reaction as he waits. He's given her the drug that will allow her to wake up, and now he patiently waits for her to do so. The last person he could ever be impatient with is Nora, after all, and he has all the time in the world to wait.
Many scientists, having reached this point in their research, would now get very excited - the answer that they've been looking for may be right in front of them. Victor, however, does not. Partly because he's simply not prone to that emotion, but also because he's reached this point a number of times since he first began his attempts to find a cure for Nora. But after so many possible treatments that nearly worked, but not quite, he treats new ones with a healthy dose of pessimism - all he has now is a theory, something to carefully test. And when he does, it will probably prove to be flawed, so there's no need to believe that he's found it yet.
Three Weeks Later...
Test after test has proved that this newest treatment works, or at least as far as he can tell without actually using it on Nora. Of course he wouldn't let any treatment get anywhere near her without first being absolutely certain that it would work and be very safe - after all this time, the last thing that he'd do is be too quick to risk her life on something that could be more certain with just a little more time.
But the more tests he ran on this newest treatment, the more confident he found himself becoming. His dreams - both the day and night variety - have become populated with visions of Nora as he most prefers to remember her: before he was forced to freeze her, before she became so ill. He finally reached a point where he realized that he'd be using this new treatment on Nora, as sure as he'll ever be that it's the cure that he's been looking for.
And when he realized that, he knew that he had to tell Nora. She wouldn't be able to hear him, of course, but he had to see her. It had been a difficult decision to not keep her with him at all times, but after a time it had become impractical and dangerous. With so many parties interested in stopping or at least manipulating his research, keeping her in his lab was inviting trouble, and he'd also reached a point where he rarely needed to examine her directly - every fact and factor about her body and the way it was being preserved has not merely been written in his notes somewhere but memorized. So he'd found her a safer and more permanent home than the ones he lives in - he constantly risks discovery so he ends up shifting locations frequently, and sometimes he even gets thrown into the asylum.
So Nora has been housed in the basement of one of the commercial buildings in north Gotham. The space had been abandoned, but he was able to install Nora's chamber and all of the monitoring equipment that ensures that her rest is undisturbed - and if that ever changes for any reason, he'll be immediately alerted. The building's owner is unaware of what that corner of the basement was being used for, but the monthly payments are large enough for such questions to not be asked. And Victor keeps his visits infrequent, as he doesn't want to attract anyone's attention to the location.
But he can't resist seeing Nora now, if only so that he can see her and quietly tell her, "I've done it." Resting a hand on the glass surrounding his wife, the hand itself encased in a glove made of a series of heavy duty acrylic plates, in spite of this announcement she still seems so distant. But she's closer now than she has been for a very, very long time.
It's at that moment that Victor realizes that he's scared. Terrified, even. Everything that he's done for years has led up to this moment, so much work and sacrifice. All of which may be undone if the treatment doesn't work perfectly and there will probably be no second chances. Here she is, pristine and perfect, frozen in her chamber where he has carefully watched over her for years, forever young and beautiful, and as safe as he can possibly make her. But the treatment he has designed will take her out of this place, and though it's as perfect as he can make it there will be risks. And he's an expert on the frozen state she's in now, not the living, breathing world of warmth that he's planning on returning her to - if all goes well then he'll not need to worry, but there may be complications. But he can't keep her as she is now - this is not living. And out of everyone in the universe, no one deserves to truly live as much as she does.
That's not the only thing that he has to worry about, but it's the main one. The other thing that's also on his mind is how much things have changed since he first placed her in this chamber - how much he has changed. She'll not be waking up to the same world, nor the same husband, and he knows better than to delude himself into believing that she may be perfectly happy about those changes. Even when he was first he first met her and began to understand his feelings for her, he'd been amazed when he discovered that his feelings for her had been returned - how could anyone so perfect be won by someone like him? How much less does he deserve her now? But that's something he believes that he should let her decide, though it's more than a little bit difficult for him to imagine how he could live without her if her feelings for him change. He'll simply have to find a way to cope...
But that's not something he can do anything about right now. What he can do something about is doing everything he can to ensure the success of the treatment. And since he's lacking in a few areas of expertise, that means that he'll have to recruit someone who can fill in those gaps - someone he can trust with this most precious responsibility.
One Week Later
It's been a long time since he first called on Doctor Nina Stenet to assist him with Nora - his wife's condition had become unstable and he'd needed some outside expertise to fix it. It's not been unusual for him to get assistance from other scientists over the years, as he'd be the first to admit that he doesn't know everything. But quite often he'd killed them to ensure that the things that they knew would die with them. Doctor Stenet had been an exception because he believed that her desire to help Nora had been genuine - something that fails to either warm his heart or endear him to anyone, but it factored into his decision to allow the woman to live. After all, he knew he might have need of her again, and he suspected that the woman wouldn't attempt to harm either him or Nora. And as he's never found any evidence that she'd done that, and he remembers just how quick and capable the woman had been with her work, she's the one who came to mind when he'd pondered who he should have on hand when he attempted to treat Nora.
Once again the doctor had been quick to agree, so he had brought her to this lab - one that he's specifically designed as the place to do this procedure. There had been one slight complication: in the time since he last saw the doctor, her small assistant had been replaced by a larger woman he already knows and doesn't like at all - Hope Taya, an employee of none other than Lex Luthor, and one of the last people he wants anywhere near Nora. And the woman, in turn, wasn't too keen on the idea of having the woman that she's supposed to be protecting taken anywhere by someone with Victor's background. Fortunately, Doctor Stenet herself sided with him and insisted that she felt perfectly safe to go with him if he promised that she would be returned unharmed. A promise that Victor had no reservations about making - especially since he assumes that his promise is void of the doctor were to do anything harmful.
As he finishes the last minute preparations for the treatment, the doctor is reviewing the tablet he gave her to review. It's a step by step list of the treatment that he's developed - the drugs and chemicals to be used at each stage as well as the physical procedures. Finally the woman simply nods and says, "Remarkable work, Mr. Fries - I have a few small suggestions, but this certainly looks like it will work. When do we begin?"
"Now," he responds simply, turning his attention to the task at hand. Once again he finds himself afraid, but he doesn't let that deter him. He is, after all, doing his absolute best, and if that's not good enough then it was never meant to be from the beginning. Besides, if he allows such emotions to cloud his mind, then he will no longer be doing his best and Nora may suffer for it - he can't allow that to happen. Instead he forces his mind to focus, not allowing his attention to waver even a little bit from the task at hand.
The first step is to allow Nora's chamber to warm just a bit - the normal temperature of it is much colder than freezing, or else even a slight variation would allow parts of Nora to thaw completely and cause damage. Once she's just barely cold enough to remain frozen, a special formula is added to the water. A temperature stabilizer, it will ensure that the rest of the thawing out process proceeds slowly and evenly. Once that's been fully distributed, the temperature is very slowly allowed to increase again.
This is when the formula he'd perfected only four weeks ago comes into play - the last piece of the puzzle is one of the first and most critical elements. A powerful mixture of healing agents, he floods the chamber with it as Nora slowly thaws, and it acts to basically keep her in once piece until her normal biological processes can begin to heal the damage from being frozen, ensures that the elements needed for that process will be immediately on hand for the cells that need them, and even minimizes the damage and begins the process of healing by patching the holes in the cell membranes.
This being the most critical point, Victor keeps a careful eye on Nora for any signs of trouble, as well as Doctor Stenet who may see a problem even before he does. However, aside from the subtle hints of ice around some of her features fading away, there doesn't appear to be any change, which means that everything is working smoothly. When the temperature sensors indicate that most of the ice is out of her system, he can even breathe a sigh of relief, but they're far from done yet.
After that point, they can increase Nora's temperature quite rapidly without worrying about harming her - it's the temperature range around the freezing point that's the most difficult to manage. It's also the point where Victor himself is no longer the absolute expert in the situation. Not that he knows nothing about the normal functioning of the human body at a more normal temperature, but there's certainly those who are better, and he made it a point of having one of those people in this room.
At this point Nora's temperature must be increased quite rapidly or she will die. When her body was frozen, it was literally frozen in time - now that her cells are beginning to function, they need things. Like oxygen, for instance. So it's at this point that the chamber needs to be drained of the fluid that had been keeping her suspended and preserved. First it's tilted so that Nora is laying down, then the liquid is quickly removed. Doctor Stenet supervises those of Victor's men that he chose to have on hand to assist as they pull Nora from the chamber and put her into a bed of gently warming heated blankets. The warming bed will ensure that she gains a proper body temperature quickly in spite of the fact that she's still dripping wet.
Also to assist with the process, Doctor Stenet hooks Nora up to a specially designed cardiopulmonary bypass machine, one meant for those rare surgeries where the patient is cooled so that their circulation stops while the surgeon does whatever needs to be done. What they're doing now is not unlike bringing a patient out of such a state, in fact. The machine, in addition to replacing the function of the heart and lungs, also has the ability to warm the blood. It was also further modified by Victor to have another function: the blood is among the types of cells most sensitive to the process of freezing and thawing, and is critical to life, but it's also something that can be completely replaced without long-term damage, so it also completely replaces the blood that had been in Nora's veins while she was frozen with fresh blood that will help her greatly as she recovers. It also contains both an anesthetic to keep her asleep so that she won't fully wake up until they're ready for that, plus the first dose of the drug that Victor developed to cure her MacGregor's Syndrome. He'd developed the cure for that years ago, but was unable to give it to her while she was frozen - since then all his efforts have been to figure out how to thaw her out without killing her.
Doctor Stenet then takes the lead in attempting to restore the woman's heart and lung function, first turning Nora to the side so that the liquid still in her lungs can drain away. Though the machine can temporarily take the place of those vital organs, they need to be able to function if the woman is to live. When the excess liquid is gone, she quickly intubates Nora, so that her breathing can begin mechanically before the lungs are warm enough to remember to do that themselves. She's about to assign one of the men to the task, but Victor - now feeling useless because his specific skills won't be needed much from here on out - insists on being the one to carefully make sure that Nora is getting enough air. Meanwhile, Doctor Stenet's attention turns to Nora's heart.
Much to the doctor's delight, she finds that the organ is already fluttering weakly - not pumping properly, but attempting to do so. If the rest of Nora fights just as hard to regain her life, then the woman will surely live! Attaching a defibrillator, Nina uses it to help the heart fall into the proper rhythm. Victor watches the process, almost in awe, as the proper signs of life return to his wife's body one by one after so much time of being silent and still. "Her heartbeat is a bit weak, but it's steady," the doctor reports, now beginning the process of removing the bypass machine - it's no longer needed if the heart is functioning well - and replacing it with a simple IV, as well as a heart monitor to alert anyone should the reawakened organ stop working.
It's when that's finished that the doctor shifts to checking one more thing that Victor's been worried about: Nora's brain. He finds himself impatient as the doctor carefully does some basic tests like shining a light in Nora's eyes to check for basic reflexes. Once again, Victor finds himself breathing a sigh of relief when the doctor glances up and says, "Looks like we have signs of hind- and midbrain function. Of course, you won't be able to fully tell how well her brain is functioning without waking her up fully, but all the signs are good." The doctor then quietly proceeds to do other tests, checking for any signs of concern.
Meanwhile, Victor finds himself overwhelmed for a moment by a number of thoughts - perhaps a certain part of him hadn't believed that they'd get this far until it was done. Abruptly here is Nora, in all respects looking as alive and well as he remembers - far more so than she's been in years. Still attending carefully to the tasks of keeping her breathing - he quietly finds himself asking, "How will she feel when she wakes up?"
The question seems to amuse Doctor Stenet slightly. "You'll have to ask her - nobody's been through what she's been through before," comes the answer at first, but the doctor adds, "But my guess is that she'll feel weak - very weak. And tired. Sore and stiff. Lots of cobwebs in the brain. Probably hungry. I strongly suggest letting her sleep for a few days - sleep is less taxing on her system than being awake, and you'll want her to use what energy she has to get stronger."
Victor's expression betrays no sign of emotion, but he listens very carefully, "Pain?"
That question causes the doctor to frown for a moment, but then she says, "Aside from muscle stiffness, probably not. I'm guessing that the main problem will be energy, especially until the treatment for her MacGregor's gets a chance to work."
Nodding slowly to that, he finally asks, "Prognosis?"
Pursing her lips at that since she hates to speculate about this sort of thing, she nevertheless replies, "I'm guessing that it will take her a month before she's out of bed - though that's difficult to know until we can see how well she's recovering. But after that, the sky's the limit if there are no complications." There's a pause as Nina's attention returns to the lungs once again. "Is she able to breathe on her own?" she asks.
The question causes Victor to stop assisting for a moment to see, and Nora's lungs respond with a slow inhale after a moment. Doctor Stenet nods and removes the breathing tube, replacing it with a simple nasal cannula. Then she stands back, noting how, aside from the blankets still finishing the process of warming her, Nora now looks much like any patient resting in a hospital. Well, except that everything around her doesn't look very hospital-like. Especially not the man in the robotic suit looming over the woman, but Victor can't help but spend several more minutes with her. As far as he's concerned, the process is not over until she's really awake, but there were many times over the past many years that he feared that he'd never have even this much.
When he's finally ready to leave her and attend to the many other things that he must do now, he first finds the doctor, who is back to looking at the tablet. "You may keep that, if you wish - in return for your help? I know you don't want money," he ventures. Gratitude is a hard emotion for him to feel, or to hang on to for very long, but a part of him is flirting with it now.
"Thank you," Nina replies, a nod acknowledging that she doesn't want to be paid. She knows where this man gets the money, after all, and she doesn't have any need for it. She hesitates for a moment, before adding, "You've already said that you don't care if I use what I learn working with you in my own research, but if you wish to... compensate me for my help, perhaps you can sign this? It would help me." She pulls a piece of paper from her pocket, carefully unfolding it.
Victor looks it over with a critical eye, not having any idea what to expect. It turns out to be, essentially, a confession of sorts about the agreements he's made with Doctor Stenet - about how he insisted on her help, threatened her if she didn't, but is allowing her to use his research in her own work. This puzzles him for a moment until he realizes, "Ah, you don't wish to be accused of willingly helping a criminal if anyone notices that your research indicates that you've been in contact with me. Very well." He's hardly offended by that, so he gives her the signature that she requests. It's not like he's not done many worse things to many other people, so it hardly harms him. With that bit of business concluded, he turns to the next - planning for when he'll wake up Nora in a few days time.
Three Days Later...
As much as he didn't like moving Nora in her present state, he liked the idea of her waking up in that laboratory even less. Especially since she's been quite stable while she's been resting, and he'd much rather give her more comfortable surroundings when she returns to the world. The place that he's taken her to is a small but luxurious home in north Gotham. He's rented it for the next several months under an assumed name - in the short term he can allow Nora to recover in comfort, but in the long run the location will be discovered so it can only be a temporary place for her.
He's placed her in the master bedroom - a beautiful room with a large floor-to-ceiling window granting a view of the river and allowing plenty of sunlight to flood the space. The room itself is decorated in pale earth tones, with the bed covered in a thick white comforter that's the very definition of the word 'plush'. A few flowers decorate the room, each in a clear vase that easily captures the sunlight in the water inside, reflecting back some of its rays. The only thing marring the pleasantness of the room, at least in Victor's eyes, is the small collection of medical equipment still needed to monitor Nora's vitals, but as their function is important they can stay.
Sitting in a large chair beside the bed is Victor, protected from all the warmth of this room in his Cryo-Suit, Victor has made only one modification to it for her - he's not wearing his red HUD goggles. He wants Nora to be able to recognize him as easily as possible, and they won't help - she'll already have at least a little difficulty with that. Besides even the suit, he's now completely white and hairless. His eyes haven't changed at all, though, and he's her husband - he's sure that he'd have to change much more for her to not know who he is. It will probably be very difficult for her to understand at first, though.
But he tried not to be too worried about her reaction as he waits. He's given her the drug that will allow her to wake up, and now he patiently waits for her to do so. The last person he could ever be impatient with is Nora, after all, and he has all the time in the world to wait.