I want to give a special thank you to Silverluna. Thank you for inspiring me to write my own Fanfiction and supporting me in this endeavor.

Gut Punch

By The Maned Red Fox

It started gradually. Weight loss and the slight tremor in his hands. Symptoms easily pushed aside, easily attributed to other less serious things. The tremors in his hands could be from too much caffeine pumping through his veins. The weight loss could be from the long hours and subpar foods, consisting mainly of take-out and Ramen. But when the gut-retching pain started deep in the pit of his stomach, he could no longer ignore it.

Carlton Lassiter took a taxi to the free clinic in the heart of downtown Santa Barbara, careful to leave anything that could be used to easy identify him, namely his badge and gun, at home. He gave a fake name to the nurse and paid in cash. On some unconscious level, Carlton must have known, or at least suspected, that what was happening to his body was cause for alarm. That's way he hadn't ask O'Hara to drive him to hospital, that way he avoided any clinics that would require proper documentation and proof of insurance.

He suspected whatever was happening was potentially severe enough to force him into medical leave for God knew how long. He couldn't allow that. Lassiter's heart beat for the job, he bled blue. If whatever he had didn't kill him, being away from his job most certainly would.

Carlton sat in the grimy waiting room, under the fluorescent lights that occasionally flickered. The smell of piss and cigarettes flicked him in the nose. An unkempt women rocked on the edge of her seat at the opposite end of the room. She was sputtering something under her breath, along the lines of "two equals three, three than becomes two, then one, then two again." Carlton felt a vague scene of curiosity mixed with disgust but it was muted in the midst of his own pain. He did notice the ragged clothes she wore and the platinum blonde hair that hung in curtains around her face. Her head snapped up as the clock chimed, signifying the hour, nine o'clock. She had such a delicate face, high cheek bones, full lips, and long lashes. She seemed so out of place in those clothes and in this place. Lassiter didn't have time to speculate further because the nurse at the front desk finally summoned him.

The tired nurse who took his information earlier, passed him to another nurse as equally run down yet seemly determined to maintain some semblance of his bed-side manner; had a smile firmly locked into place. There was no joy behind the smile though, it was just teeth and gums and nothing else. Happy, as Lassiter callously dubbed him, led Lassiter into a separate room. He recorded his height and weight before again leading Lassiter into yet another room to wait for the doctor. This room was marginally cleaner than the waiting room, with a raised lime green table with a sanitary roll of paper to cover it.

Lassiter eased himself onto the raised table and waited in earnest from the doctor; to his great relief, the doctor arrived shortly. He was a stout man, with small watery eyes, and looked every bit as weary as the nurses. He flipped through the chart before glancing up at Lassiter.

"Good evening, Mr. Lawson. I am Doctor Tolbert. It says here that you have come here about stomach pain, is that correct?" the doctor asked, rolling a stool from the opposite side of the room, placing it directly in front of Lassiter before proceeding to sit down.

"Yes," Lassiter said gruffly. He had his arms tightly wrapped over his abdomen.

"Can you describe the symptoms to me?

Lassiter inhaled deeply before beginning, "Nausea and heartburn." Lassiter rubbed his eyes with his knuckles, "Trouble sleeping. The cases I'm working keep rattling around in my head whenever I close my eyes," The word 'cases' was too synchronous with law-enforcement. Lassiter realized his mistake in his poor word choice at once and rushed to fix it, "insurance claims can be so tedious. You know, no rest for the wicked," he self-consciously grinned.

"I see," Doctor Tolbert tapped the tip of his pen on the clipboard. "Have you had any instances of vomiting?"

Lassiter paled a little before nodding. That was another symptom he had attributed to the bad diet of a cop.

Doctor Tolbert rubbed the stubble on his chin. "You haven't been to Mexico lately, have you?"

"No."

"Please pull up your shirt and lie back."

With a grunt of discomfort Lassiter did as the doctor instructed. He began to gingerly prod Lassiter's stomach. Tolbert was obviously making a great effort to be gentle but Lassiter still groaned with pain.

"How has your appetite been?" Dr. Tolbert inquired, picking up his clipboard again to take notes.

"I haven't had much of one," Lassiter replied.

"Weight loss?"

"Maybe ten pounds in the couple of weeks."

"Indigestion?"

"Yes," Lassiter answered again.

"How is your energy level?"

"Dismal, Doc."

"Mr. Lawson, I would like to run a test before you leave. I'd like to perform an ultrasound," Doctor Tolbert clicked his tongue. "Can you wait a moment while I get the equipment I need?"

Lassiter only nodded. His eyes were still watering, a lingering after effect of the pain the prodding had caused.

The doctor left and quickly returned with Happy, the nurse, and an ultrasound machine. Dr. Tolbert instructed the nurse to draw a blood sample as he began hooking up the machine.

As Smiley was helping roll up his sleeve, Carlton threw a worried look in the doctor's direction. "Do you think it's a boy or girl?" he attempted to joke.

Happy chuckled through his permit smile, it came out as a hiss.

"What?" Dr. Tolbert asked, clearly not listening.

"Never mind," Lassiter sighed. "Should I be worried?"

"No," the doctor said none too convincingly.

Carlton jumped when Happy pricked his veins without warning and filled two vials before removing the needle. He wiped the point of injection with gauze and covered it up with a Superman Band-Aid, with that he existed the room with the vials of blood and without uttering a word.

Doctor Tolbert put a cold liquidly substance on Lassiter's stomach before moving the transducer probe in circles, all while looking at a grainy black and white monitor. Lassiter craned his neck to see the screen but couldn't make heads or tails out of what he was seeing. After a while, the doctor clicked his tongue once more and turned to Lassiter with a somber expression upon his face.

"What is it?" Lassiter demanded.

Dr. Tolbert indicated the screen. "The good news is your gall blabber is healthy but-"

"Doctor," Lassiter interrupted, "what is it?"

Dr. Tolbert sighed heavily. "It may be an ulcer. I don't think it's a peritonitis. I don't see any signs of an abscess. "

Lassiter interrupted, "Doc, I have to be honest, I'm not sure what that means."

"Oh, yes. Please excuse me." The Doctor looked slightly embarrassed. "Peritonitis is the inflammation of the peritoneum—a silk-like membrane that lines your inner abdominal wall and covers the organs within your abdomen. An abscess is a pocket of pus located in the abdomen."

"You don't think it's either of those?" Lassiter raised his eyebrows.

"No, because it seems," Dr. Tolbert pointed at the screen, "to be no indication of built up fluid in your abdomen from an infection and I don't see any perforations or holes in your peritoneum."

"So?" Lassiter pressed, sensing that the doctor had more to add. "What do you think it is?"

"I don't want to alarm you,"

'Too late,' Lassiter thought bitterly.

"But there is always the slightest possibility of an adenocarcinoma-"

"What?" Lassiter interrupted again.

"A malignant tumor."

"Or?" Lassiter dreaded asking the question but he had to know. He suddenly felt very nervous. He was unconsciously wringing his hands together.

"Or stomach cancer."

Lassiter felt his heart jump up into his throat. Damn, he had suspected whatever it was, was probably serious, but cancer. . . "I never thought," he whispered.

"Nor should you. I only mention it because the symptoms of cancer and ulcers, in particular, are so similar that one can easily be mistaken for the other."

"But you're not sure, you said 'slightest,' right?" Lassiter asked, hope budding like a flower in his chest.

"I did." The somber expression came over Tolbert again, "But if it is stomach cancer, symptoms usually don't appear until the disease is advanced. By this point it has already spread to other parts of the body."

"Meaning?" Lassiter pressed.

"It means, Mr. Lawson, that the rate of survival is very low."

The flower wilted and died.

"However, without proper tests, it's hard to say for sure, although the symptoms do match the signs of cancer. We will send your blood out for testing. The lab will perform a complete blood count to look for anemia. Cancer can sometimes cause red blood cells to wear out faster than normal and the body cannot replace them as quickly as they are needed. Cancer can slow down your body's ability to make red blood cells or interfere with your body's ability to used stored iron." Dr. Tolbert explained, "And blood chemistry tests to look for signs of cancer spread to the liver. I can't be sure without the use of an endoscopy or a CTs scan, which we simply don't have and a test we frankly aren't equipped to perform." Dr. Tolbert looked Lassiter full in the face. "I don't want to presume to judge, by the looks of it, from your suit and well-kept appearance I would assume that you aren't as desperate for a free clinic as our usual type. Are you here out of town? Just lose your job?"

When Lassiter didn't answer, the doctor continued, "If you have the means, I would suggest you go to a proper hospital and get the whole nine-yards. Though I think it could be cancer doesn't necessarily mean it is. It could just as easily be a virus or an ulcer. I have been wrong before. That's probably why I work here instead of one of those fancy hospitals that only cater to old wealthy heiresses. Its better you get all the facts. It's damn near impossible to fight an enemy in the dark. If you can't go there for whatever reason, the blood results will give us an idea what we're dealing with. Do you have a number we can contact you at in approximately a week?"

"No," Lassiter said too quickly. Doctor Tolbert looked suspicious. "No, I don't. I'm from out of town. Staying with a friend. I wouldn't want to worry them. I'll just swing by and get the results then."

Still looking suspicious, Dr. Tolbert took out two scripts from a nearby cabinet and handed them to Lassiter one at a time. "This prescription will reduce the stomach acid you are producing; hopefully give your stomach wall a chance to rebuild," Tolbert handed Lassiter the second script, "And this is for a specifically painkiller. Don't mix them with alcohol or any other substances. These painkillers are serious meds. I want you to take it easy for the next couple weeks, no strenuous activities, not if at all possible. And don't drive," he added as an afterthought. "Have that friend of yours drive you."

Lassiter gave a noncommittal nod of his head before pushing himself up with another grunt, tucking his shirt in, and making his way out of the free clinic. He would think of the consequences of the doctor's diagnosis later, for now all he wanted was the pain to stop. Once out on the street he began walking to an open pharmacy down the block that he knew never checked identification. He made a mental note to bust the establishment on this later but for now he was damn thankful for their rule breaking.

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I would like to give credit to WebMD, Google, and Wikipedia for the information they provided on Stomach Cancer, Peritonitis, abscesses, and Adenocarcinoma. If for any reason this information is not a 100% accurate I would ask you to please suspend your disbelief. Thank you for reading.