Chicago Med fic: The Longest Day (3/3)
Dec. 7th, 2021 09:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
faye_dartmouthPART ONE
PART TWO
PART THREE
-o-
For Jay, arriving at the hospital provided some relief.
For everyone else, the chaos seemed to just be starting.
Will was unconscious, so he didn’t know better, but the reaction of his colleagues at Med was total shock. They were practically swamped. Doris seemed to be crying. Maggie shooed them away as best she could, but she looked stone faced as she handed the case off to Crockett. And Ethan, just for good measure.
Jay didn’t much care about the rubbernecking. He just wanted his brother in an exam room where he could get the treatment he needed.
Jay half pitied the medics who tried to give the rundown on Will’s condition. No one was listening. They’d all come to the conclusion on their own.
“Elevated temperature, lack of diaphoresis, low blood pressure, poor oxygenation, unresponsiveness,” Ethan listed off the symptoms.
“He worked a terrible shift yesterday,” Maggie added, filling in the history. “And his power was out?”
She looked at Jay for confirmation. He nodded. “Place was stifling. I found him like this.”
Crockett, somehow, managed to act the most like a doctor. “Look, we’ve seen dozens of cases just like this,” he said. “We know it’s heatstroke. We can debate how it happened all day, but first we need to trust it. We need to treat Will.”
That brought their attention back around to Will. They had transferred him to the bed, hooking him up to fresh monitors and getting a new feed on his vitals. He was still packed with ice, his flushed face turned listlessly to the side while he breathed into the mask.
Alive.
But Jay was really hoping for more than that at this point.
“His vitals are stable,” Maggie said, almost sounding reluctant with that bit of good news.
“Medics reported that his temperature has been falling,” Ethan added on.
These sounded like good things. Jay rocked on the balls of his feet, the adrenaline inside his chest spiking hopefully.
“So we keep doing what we’re doing,” Crockett said. He wasn’t the chief of the ED, but he seemed to have the most perspective at the moment. Maggie was too close to the situation, and Ethan was taking the sight of one of his own too personally. “In the meantime, let’s do our due diligence. Let’s run his labs and make sure we’re not missing something.”
He glanced to Jay.
“Is Will on any medication? Are there any conditions we should know about?” he asked.
It seemed like a silly thing to ask, but Jay could appreciate it in the sake of professionality. At least someone in the room was there to act like an adult. “No,” Jay said, shaking his head. “He’s not on anything. He’s just working his ass off, and he lives in a crappy apartment. That’s all.”
Crockett nodded sympathetically. “Well, I’ve definitely seen him stepping up.”
“Stepping up,” Ethan muttered, shaking his head. “He’s been here more than all of us combined.”
Maggie exhaled long and hard, adjusting a few more of the ice packs to block around Will’s core more effectively. “Too much,” she said. “I knew he was pushing himself too hard, and I should have told him to take it easy.”
“This was what he wanted,” Ethan said somberly.
“And we have to focus on what’s relevant,” Crockett said. “We’ve all seen how this heatwave is affecting people. It’s hitting everybody. Maggie, are we going to get the blood going?”
Maggie nodded, and Jay couldn’t tell for sure but it looked like she may have been trying to wipe her eyes. Hastily, she moved around, getting in position to grab a blood kit from one of the trays.
Ethan was double checking Will’s reflexes. Jay didn’t know crap about medicine, but he’d seen them perform the tests several times now. Will flinched visibly, lifting his hands in an uncoordinated effort while his eyes rolled under their lids. He seemed to mumble something before stilling once more.
“Increased response to stimuli,” Ethan reported.
“See?” Crockett said, smiling somewhat to no one in particular. “It looks like we caught it in plenty of time.”
“Are you sure?” Jay asked, edging his way back in. “It was out all night like this. I went to his place, man. He didn’t eat; he didn’t shower. He laid down, fell asleep and didn’t wake up.”
Crockett nodded along. “Well, when dealing with heatstroke, you have to look both at the length and intensity of the exposure,” he said. “Will may have been exposed to the heat for longer than any of us would like, but Will probably had just enough air circulation to keep it from being too dangerous. From what we’re seeing, it certainly seems like he avoided the worst of it. His vitals are really good, and his temperature is still falling. If we keep up the fluids, keep him on the oxygen, get him cooled down -- then I think we’ll see a fast turnaround.”
“And the bloodwork will rule out anything else,” Ethan said, finally seeming to accept Crockett’s optimism as he turned back toward Jay. “Dr. Marcel is right. Will’s condition is scary, but I’d say that prognosis is promising if we can get him cooled off and hydrated.”
“Blood’s ready to go out,” Maggie said. “I’ll run it down myself. Tell them to move their asses.”
She sounded serious, too. Jay wouldn’t want to be in the lab when she came down.
On her way out, she squeezed Jay’s arm. “We’ll take care of him,” she said, and she cast a glance backward. “Better than we have been.”
He looked back at well, almost feeling numb to the sight of his brother on the gurney. Usually, these roles were reversed. Usually, it wasn’t like this. Usually, it wasn’t so hard.
Jay didn’t know when his brother had started trying too hard.
Jay didn’t know when he’d stopped noticing.
Jay didn’t know when he’d started taking it all for granted, that Will would be here.
Jaw tight, he looked to Crockett once more. “So, he’s okay?”
Crockett stopped from his ministrations and looked back. “Well, I don’t want to pretend like he’s fine right now, Jay, but he is stable,” he said. “And he’s clearly responding to treatment. There’s a small chance of lasting damage and complication -- there always is -- but I feel pretty safe in saying that those odds are low. You did get to him in time.”
He looked back to Will.
He wasn’t too late, though.
The notion was comforting.
Even if nothing else was at the moment.
-o-
Jay never understood doctors and nurses and all the things they did, but Ethan, Crockett and Maggie seemed even more attentive than usual. They all seemed reluctant to leave, though Crockett finally parted first, promising Jay he’d check in regularly. Ethan left next, presumably as the chief of the ED, he did have other things to do, but it took a good 30 minutes before Maggie left the room for any actual length of time.
Even then, he could see people loitering just outside the door.
He shook his head, sighing as he sat at his brother’s bedside. “And you think they don’t like you,” he said. “Look at them. They adore you.”
Because it was more than rubbernecking. It wasn’t just curiosity. They were concerned; they were attached. Will wasn’t sure if he belonged here, but it was pretty clear no one else had doubts.
“You’re an idiot, Will,” he said to his brother. He smiled faintly. “The biggest idiot I’ve ever met.”
The insult carried no weight. There was no vitriol left.
Just the reality that being an idiot? Seemed to be a common thing these days.
-o-
Jay wasn’t particularly adept at bedside vigils, but he’d always been ready and willing where family was involved. He’d seen his mother through cancer. He’d been with his father when they’d taken him off the vent. Comparatively, watching Will cool off was a lot easier.
And a lot harder.
He knew he’d have to face Will when he woke up.
That meant telling Will how scared he’d been, how pissed he’d been. He wasn’t sure how to convey to his brother how sorry he was for letting this happen and how angry he was that Will had let it get this far. The strange range of contradictory emotions was hard for Jay to contend with, and the longer he sat there, going over them in his head while Will slept, the less sure he was.
To pass the time, he texted Hailey on and off. She seemed distressed to find out that Will was in the hospital, and Jay didn’t want to write his brother’s ordeal off, but the last thing he needed was a larger audience in Will’s hospital room. Will’s visitors were being kept to a minimum, but the gawking had only gotten worse. Will was already going to be mortified. As much as Will deserved some of that, Jay knew he didn’t deserve all of it.
Ethan checked in frequently, fiddling with things and checking his vitals. Crockett came back periodically as well, usually with a calm, confident smile and assurances that Will was looking good. His fever was dropping; he was nearly into low range territory. His blood work was clear; at this point, it was just a waiting game.
All those years, he’d waited on Will. His brother had left for years, going months without as much as a phone call. In that context, Jay didn’t think a few hours should be so hard.
Especially since Will had waited all night for someone to find him.
Months for someone to see how hard he was trying.
So maybe it should be hard.
He just wished it wasn’t.
-o-
Maggie was the one who couldn’t stay away.
With Natalie recently departed and Connor away for years, Jay knew that Maggie was probably the best friend Will had in the ED. He’d repaired his relationship with Ethan substantially, and he seemed to be making nice with Crockett, too. But he and Maggie had bonded years ago, and that familial bond was still there.
If Jay hadn’t been sure, watching her dote made it pretty clear.
She was hard pressed to leave Will’s side, and she fussed with the equipment and switched out the ice packs with an unnecessary frequency.
Jay felt guilty about this mess.
Somehow, Maggie felt worse.
“You don’t have to do this, Maggie,” Jay assured her finally. Will had been in the hospital for nearly an hour now. His fever was out of the danger zone, and his hydration levels had normalized. It was just a matter of time, according to Crockett. “Seriously. I mean, I’m going to stay with him.”
She stopped her fussing, seeming to hesitate. “I know,” she said. She bit her bottom lip, looking at Will again. “I guess maybe I don’t want to go. I feel a little responsible.”
“You didn’t do this,” Jay said, inclining his head toward his brother. His features had started to go back to their normal shade of pale once more, and despite the equipment, it seemed more like a slumber of repose than recovery. “I mean, Will should have known better.”
He said it, and he meant it. Kind of.
Maggie’s shoulders fell, and she sighed heavily, sitting in the chair opposite of Jay on the other side of the bed. “He should have, sure,” she said. “But the way he’s been working. The way he’s been pushing himself. He was never going to stop. He wasn’t going to be needy. Not until he knew he’d earned his place back. Redeemed himself.”
For all that Jay had known this, it occurred to him that he hadn’t known. That rational knowledge didn’t match the emotional reality. The dissonance, now in the aftermath, was jarring. “Well, I’m his brother, and I didn’t see it either,” he said, a little rueful. “I thought the hard work would be good for him.”
“I know, right?” Maggie said, agreeing with some enthusiasm. She sighed again, her gaze lingering on Will once more. “He’s just all or nothing, this guy. Sometimes, I don’t think he even realizes how out of control he gets because he just feels like it’s all so right. I mean, he cared about that trial, but he just cared about Natalie more.”
“I don’t think he ever really got over her,” Jay mused quietly. He felt a pang of guilt at that. It had been the case he’d pushed Will to work on that had destroyed it all. Will had never come out of it the same. “He tried, you know? But he wasn’t coping -- I knew he wasn’t coping -- and it just went on and on and--”
Maggie nodded in commiseration. “And here we are,” she said. “Truth be told, I’ve been so wrapped up in my own stuff that I haven’t been the friend I should be.”
“Will’s a grown man,” Jay said. “He doesn’t need a babysitter.”
Even as he said it, he couldn’t take his eyes off his brother’s face.
“Not a babysitter,” she said softly. “But maybe a few more friends.”
Jay sighed, long and hard, and he scrubbed a hand over his face. “Was it really so bad here?”
“It probably seemed like it,” Maggie said. “I know he was on a short leash with Goodwin, and he was scared, you know? But no one wanted to see him gone. Even Goodwin. If she did, she never would have taken him back. I think she just wanted him to know it was serious.”
“Well, he took it seriously,” Jay said, shifting in his chair. “Seriously enough to, what? Try killing himself?”
Maggie looked aghast the suggestion. “Jay, you know that’s not how it is. He was just working hard, you know? He was doing his best. He’s just been -- I don’t know--”
Jay raised his eyebrows, because he did know. “An idiot?”
Maggie flushed. She was embarrassed but she didn’t deny it. She smiled. “I was going to say focused.”
Jay understood the impulse to wax nice when people were laid up, and there was a part of him that appreciated it. But the truth was a lot more complicated than the cliches, and Maggie knew Will well enough to understand that fondness and frustration could exist in equal parts when it came to Will. “We can call a spade a spade. I should have answered the damn phone last night, but that doesn’t change the fact that Will is an idiot. He’s come a long way since moving back to Chicago, but I suppose he can’t do it alone.”
Maggie scoffed a little, but it was light and fond. “None of us can. It’s the exact same mistake I’ve made all along. I got cancer and tried to hide it instead of accepting help,” she said, shaking her head as she looked back at Will. “I suppose we like to think that, given what we do, how we save lives, that we are somehow immune to disaster. But none of us are. Our job is to protect the city, but if we don’t start with each other, then what’s the point? None of us survives alone.”
Jay exhaled, long and slow. He knew she was right. Doctors, cops, fighters -- they made huge sacrifices and with good reason. Walking headlong into disaster didn’t make you immune to it. You were just as vulnerable as everyone else. But they all played the tough-guy routine. They all thought they had something to prove.
But disaster was unavoidable.
And no one survived it alone.
That was the difference between a hot, lonely apartment and picking up the damn phone.
That was the difference between griping over a bowl of cereal and dragging your brother’s ass to the ED for heatstroke.
Maggie swallowed hard and sat forward. She pressed a smile on her face, and reached up her hand, fussing with the curls in Will’s hair at the nape of his neck. “He should have just crashed at the hospital last night.”
Jay shook his head with a grunt. “He should have just come over to my place instead of waiting for an invitation.”
She looked back to Jay with a small wince of sympathy. “He’s wanted to give you space, I think. With all that he’s had going on, I think he felt like a burden.”
She didn’t need to tell him, at least, not really. Except, maybe she did. “He’s my brother -- my only family,” he muttered.
“All the more reason he felt embarrassed,” Maggie explained, sitting back once more. “At work, he had to face it. There was no way around it. But with you, I think he felt he still had some semblance of control. I don’t know. I think he wanted to show you he could do it.”
“But we just said it: no one can do it on their own,” Jay snapped, his frustration rising. He ran his hand back over his face with a groan. “He is such an idiot.”
“Yeah,” Maggie mused with a small half smile. “But he’s our idiot.”
He’d known that all along was the thing.
The problem was, of course, that he wasn’t sure Will knew it.
-o-
After a few hours, Crockett was so pleased with Will’s progress that he shifted from optimistic to near-certain.
“It’s just a matter of time,” he assured Jay, after confirming that Will’s temperature was back to normal. The flush had fully receded from his cheeks, and the oxygen mask was nothing but a formality now. “Will’s been working so hard that I think he’s earned the nap.”
Even Ethan seemed to have relaxed with the prognosis, even bringing up the possibility of discharging Will later tonight if he woke up soon enough.
When Maggie finally went back to work, he knew that things were really looking good.
Now, if Will would just get with the program, that would be really convenient. Jay was tempted to feel impatient, but he thought about Will’s call last night. The request via text for Jay to call him back. He’d gone home, hot and tired, to an apartment without electricity. Exhausted, he’d crashed on the bed without remembering basic self-care. He’d been waiting for Jay to get back to him.
The best Jay could figure, as he forced himself to stay calm and settled by Will’s side, was that it was better late than never.
-o-
Will did take his time, however.
You might be able to spin that as Will taking some kind of revenge. But Jay knew his brother better than that. He wasn’t vengeful. He didn’t seek retribution, and he rarely needed to get in the last word.
But he was stubborn and stupid, and he didn’t always understand how he impacted the people around him. In other words, Will probably didn’t realize that everyone was just waiting on him to get his act together. Exhausted and overtaxed, Will slept more.
Then, Will had one more visitor.
When Jay looked up, surprised at the intrusion, it became clear why no one had stopped this visitor. It was Ms. Goodwin.
The hospital administrator.
The person in charge of Will’s fate.
Jay had nothing against her personally, but given the current situation, seeing her was awkward, to say the least.
He was marginally gratified that it seemed uncomfortable for her as well as she came in. Even as she plastered a smile on her face, prim and proper, she gave Will a slow look and seemed to wish she could be somewhere else at the moment.
Everyone was having long days right now, it seemed.
“Detective Halstead, I’m sorry to see you under these conditions,” she began, turning toward Jay. She drew a breath and continued smiling. “I was very upset when I’d heard what happened. Heat stroke?”
Jay glanced toward his brother. If Will had wanted to retain his dignity, then he probably should have avoided this. Jay was way too tired to try crafting a more palatable narrative and besides, Will needed to be coming clean with his superiors. Encouraging more subterfuge would only make this situation worse.
And, for the record, Jay didn’t want to know what worse would look like when heat stroke was already on the table.
“Yeah,” Jay said, shifting uncertainly in his seat. He wasn’t sure if he should get up. Deference was a thing, but Jay was the one holding vigil. She was the one intruding here, so he kept himself seated but still answered her inquiry. “Electricity is out at his place. I guess he went home late last night and fell asleep before he could think it through. I found him unconscious this morning.”
She winced sympathetically, taking another step closer to Will’s bedside. “I’m sure you know he’s not the only one. We were on generator power ourselves most of last night. I had no idea.”
Jay shrugged, not quite open to the display of softness when Will had felt so backed into a corner. “Maggie told me he worked his ass off yesterday.”
She nodded again. “Yes, I was told he spent most of the day out at the highway crash. I knew conditions were serious, but I would have thought precautions were in place.”
Jay didn’t hide his face. “With respect, I know you never meant for this, but you knew exactly how hard Will was working,” he countered. “He was working his ass off for you. The extra shifts. The long days. All of it.”
She stiffened somewhat, but he gave her credit. She didn’t flinch as much as he might have thought. “Most of the EDs are closed in the city. To keep this one open during a disaster of this magnitude has required a team effort from all of us.”
She was defending herself, because Jay’s intention wasn’t hard to see. He was also pretty sure it was an accusation she’d come in here expecting. One she’d already lobbied against herself despite everything.
She wasn’t the bad guy here. She wasn’t wholly innocent, but Jay had unanswered calls from Will on his phone as evidence of his own complicity. “I know,” he said, easing off the sharpness in his tone. He looked at his brother. Restful or not, it was still sobering. “I just wish he didn’t think he had to push himself quite so hard.”
She was watching Jay now, almost intent in her gaze. “Is that really what he thinks? That’s what he’s told you?”
Jay turned his eyes back to her, a little taken aback by the question. “How is that surprising? I mean, all he could talk about was how he was still on probation. It was literally the only thing on his mind. It was half the reason I got so tired of answering his calls.”
With that, she sighed, some of her polish starting to fade. “It was inevitable, I suppose,” she murmured with a shake of her head. “Given all that he did with the trial, there was really no other way to rectify things and move forward. Probation was the only way to keep him employed at all. I could have had his license suspended.”
That was her justification, then, but if she was standing at Will’s bedside reiterating it, then he knew she wasn’t particularly convinced she was right. “With all that, of course he thought had to push himself harder than anyone else here. I mean, wouldn’t you?”
She nodded now, lips somewhat pursed. “It’s a fine line, I suppose. Giving him rules to uphold and still letting him feel like he’s accomplishing something.”
Jay was tired, and Jay was spent, but he wasn’t a complete asshole. He could hold a grudge just as well as anyone -- better, to be honest -- but he also could appreciate a rock and a hard place when he saw it. Sharon Goodwin had the unenviable task of keeping Will on task. After what he’d done, it wasn’t a job Jay had wanted.
Hell, that was why he’d avoided Will’s calls in the first place.
And yet, they had all sort of missed the point. He looked at Will, and forced himself to acknowledge, perhaps out loud for the first time, just how much his brother had changed.
“You know, he’s grown up here at Med,” Jay explained. He lifted one shoulder meagerly. “His first day, he was going to quit -- to run, like he used to. That was his plan, and he never did tell me what changed.”
She got a funny look on her face, thoughtful and somewhat bemused. “I remember that day,” she said. “Hell of a first day. But he made it through -- and he made it through a lot of other things, too. He’s no stranger to causing problems, but I really thought this time would do it. I came down hard -- and I made the job as unappealing as I could -- and I thought he’d leave. I thought there was no way, not in a thousand years, he’d stay. But he accepted every term, every condition, every punishment. And I saw that he really wanted this job. It was the validation I needed to show me that I had made the right choice in keeping him on.”
Jay tipped his head toward his brother’s slumbering form. “But what about Will? I just -- all this work he’s been doing. He went until he nearly died. I know he deserves punishment; I know he needs structure. But this….”
He trailed off, looking at his brother again.
Ms. Goodwin seemed to follow suit. She nodded. “It is a fine line, like I said.”
“I just -- it bothers me, you know?” Jay said, looking at her again. “That he thinks of this place as his home and family -- and we all let him just fall asleep and nearly die. I know he screwed up -- he knows he screwed up. But when is enough enough?”
He was asking himself as much as he was asking her. Goodwin wasn’t the only one who had put hoops in front of Will, expecting him to jump through each one to prove himself. He’d held his brother’s past choices against him for years now. He hadn’t given Will’s apologies much credence. He’d never let Will’s change be good enough.
He likely would have played the bad brother card for years, if left unchecked.
But he had to check himself now.
For both their sakes.
Smiling slightly, Ms. Goodwin inclined her head. “Under heat, some of us wilt. Others burn,” she said. “I’ve always known which way your brother leans. It’s just a matter of helping him control the blaze so he doesn’t burn himself and everything around him to the ground.”
It wasn’t a bad assessment of Will, honestly. It was more concise than Jay had been able to come up with. And yet, he still had to scoff. “That’s easier said than done.”
They both let their gazes linger on Will again. “Yes,” Ms. Goodwin agreed. “Yes, it is.”
Jay sighed, sinking back a little bit. He could still remember finding Will this morning, how it’d looked like he’d lost his brother already. If he’d ignored Maggie’s call. If he had put off checking until lunch.
This could have had a very different ending.
“He’s just trying so hard,” Jay said, feeling the idea of it grate in his gut.
“I know,” Ms. Goodwin said.
“And he’s had to do it alone,” Jay said, shaking his head again. “He went back to an apartment without electricity. After work the day he worked. He went home and just took it. How the hell is anyone supposed to do this alone?”
“They’re not,” Ms. Goodwin said. She let out a small breath and bustled herself up somewhat as she collected the rest of her composure. “And he doesn’t have to, either. At least, not anymore.”
Jay nodded, solemn and sure. Certain and unhesitating. “Not anymore.”
“You know, disasters can breed destructive, Detective,” she said with a knowing look down her nose at Jay. She’d been hesitant to come in here, but she was the one eyeing him now. “They can rip us apart.”
He let himself scoff, deference be damned. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“No,” she said plainly. “But disasters can also bring us together. They can show us who we are, what matters most and just how strong we are.”
The moments that made you. Make or break. Trial by fire. Jay held her gaze, wondering if she had a ready answer to the eternally difficult question. “And how do we make sure it turns out the way we want?”
“It probably starts with conversation, I’m guessing -- for you and me both,” she said with a little tweak of her eyebrows. She nodded toward Will again, but she was smiling now. “I’ll be back when he’s awake.”
She meant it, too, and Jay knew he didn’t have to doubt her word. She’d lived through disaster, just as much as Jay himself had. It didn’t matter if it was different; suffering wasn’t a comparable thing. You didn’t need to equivocate it.
You just had to survive.
You just had to learn.
You just had to grow.
He watched her go, nodding one last time to Jay as she smiled on her way out. Will would need her approval to get himself back in check, but Will needed more than that. And that was where Jay came into it.
He hadn’t even answered the damn phone.
He hadn’t checked his messages.
He knew well enough: not all disasters could be avoided. And first responders had a duty to protect the city, but family -- the family you chose and the family that chose you -- protected its own.
No one made it by themselves.
Jay vowed it to himself, right here, right now, watching his brother sleep away the worst of his heat stroke.
No one should have to do it alone.
-o-
Of course, it’d be easier if Will woke up.
Like, for real.
The initial anxiety had faded. The feeling that they were on the cusp of personal disaster had dulled. The fear had given way to ready acceptance, and he didn’t have to worry about his brother dying anymore.
He just had to worry about what was going to say to Will when he finally woke up.
There would be apologies, of course.
And anger, yes.
And lectures. Lots and lots of lecturing.
When he woke up.
Why the hell wasn’t he waking up?
Everyone kept saying it was a matter of time now, and Will even stirred with increasing frequency. Over the last few hours, Will had been waking slowly, and Jay had taken the first few false alarms too seriously.
In fact, his heat stroke stricken brother had become the boy who cried wolf, and when Will woke up for real, Jay didn’t actually notice right away.
And when he did notice, he didn’t react at first. Instead, he watched as his brother blinked his eyes open, starting at the ceiling in apparent confusion. However, instead of slipping back to sleep, Will brow started to furrow. Then, unexpectedly, he reached up his hand and pulled the mask down off his nose and chin.
Then, he looked at Jay.
Even so, Jay gave him another moment just to be sure.
Brow furrowing more deeply, Will’s eyes flitted around. He took in the room, the equipment and finally Jay once more. “What happened?”
His voice was thin and weak, but decidedly clear. He was weak, but coherent. Jay sat forward with renewed energy. “What do you remember?”
Having some bearings would help target the story. In truth, Jay wasn’t even sure where to start.
Will’s concern seemed to ratchet up a notch. He looked around again, the gears nearly visible as they turned in his head. Sometimes, Will was such a idiot that it was easy to forget how smart he was.
Because he looked back to Jay once more. There was clarity in his confusion now.
“Heat stroke,” Will concluded, and color rose in his cheeks. “In my apartment. The electricity was out.”
He closed his eyes for a moment, clearly mortified before he looked at Jay.
“How bad? How long was I out?” he asked.
Jay felt relieved, but with his relief was a familiar exasperation as was typical with all things Will. “I found you this morning. But you went to bed last night and didn’t wake up.”
Will did not seem surprised. “I knew how hot it was, but I guess I lost track of how dehydrated I was,” he said, as if that explained how foolish his choice had been. He looked around at the equipment again. “How am I doing? I feel better but still a little fuzzy.”
“They tell me you’re stable or whatever,” Jay said. “They got the fluids going, and your temperature is back to normal.”
Will was clearly running the diagnostics in his head. “And what time is it?”
“Pushing noon,” Jay said.
Will’s mortification deepened once more. “And you found me this morning? How hot was I?”
Jay scoffed at his brother’s subpar effort to be surprised by his condition. “They said you were probably exhausted, too. Your vitals have been good for hours, but the body only has so much, man. You can’t push yourself day after day and expect no consequences.”
Somehow, Will managed to be offended and embarrassed at the same time. “Everyone is working hard right now. It is a disaster right now.”
Jay went ahead and rolled his eyes. “Don’t even,” he chided. “Maggie has already told me about your work ethic lately. You don’t have to volunteer for every extra shift.”
“I’m earning my way back,” Will started to protest.
“By skipping meals? Putting off water breaks?” Jay said pointedly. “Your overdrive did this. It’s not just a natural disaster.”
It was a point that not even Will could deny. At least, not when he was sitting in a damn hospital bed. “I guess not all disasters are natural,” he quipped.
“No, they’re not,” Jay agreed, letting a slight edge color his voice again. “But some of them are avoidable.”
Will blushed again, the color deep on his cheeks once more. Jay was pushing this into uncomfortable territory, but in most ways, they were already there. Retreating now would be the easy out. It might have been the way they did things in the past, but there were just two Halsteads left now -- and Jay had found his brother unconscious this morning.
There was nothing easy about any of this.
“This was stupid, man,” Jay told him with a short now. “You screwed this up.”
Will opened his mouth to protest, but Jay shook his head.
“I mean, you work the day you worked? And then go home to a hot apartment?” Jay asked critically. “You must be a bigger idiot than I thought, and it’s not cool. To do this to me -- to the people you work with. And look at you, taking up a bed that belongs to someone else. And all for what?”
Will looked stiff now, the emotion draining from his face as he worked for composure. Will rarely defended himself -- not with a vigor Jay would -- but he was more likely to shut down, obfuscate. “I had no idea how hot I was,” he said. “And heat stroke is very hard to self diagnose--”
Jay didn’t let him finish the half hearted list of excuses. “But you’re a doctor, Will. An actual doctor, and you nearly let yourself die from a very preventable condition.”
“I didn’t know--”
“Because you weren’t thinking,” Jay snapped. “You didn't use a single brain cell last night. You knew how tired you were. You knew how many meals you’d skipped. You knew how hot your place was. And you went inside and laid down anyway. If I hadn’t stopped by, you’d still be there, Will. They would have found you dead.”
Will drew back on himself, lips pressed so flat that they looked white. He breathed heavily through his nose, clearly trying to keep the emotions from overwhelming him. “That’s why I called--”
“And that was your only option?” Jay asked, indignant. “You have a hospital full of people here who would do anything for you.”
“I can’t do that, not now,” Will said. “I’m already on thin ice.”
Jay shook his head, just even more adamant. “They all fawned over you. I saw every person in the ED lurking outside your door to make sure you were okay. Crockett, Ethan, Maggie -- hell, even Goodwin came in here and pontificated.”
At this, Will looked genuinely surprised.
“And why the hell didn’t you just come over?” Jay demanded. “You have a key, man.”
“For emergencies--”
Jay let his eyes goggle. “You mean like heat stroke?”
Will was appropriately sheepish. “I just -- I didn’t want to bother you,” he said. He shrugged meagerly. “Things with you and Hailey, right? It’s new. I don’t want to be a third wheel. Or worse, something that drags your relationship down right when you two are getting it right.”
“But you nearly died!” Jay said. “What do you think I prefer? Do you really think I want the night to myself if it means finding you dead the next morning?”
It was a bit harsher than Jay had intended, and Will drew back even more, as though Jay had physically hit him.
Jay sighed, and it was his turn to pull back the emotion. He wanted Will to think twice, not feel like crap about himself. In fact, if anything, Jay’s intent was the opposite. Ironically, after spending years trying to get his brother to stop thinking he was better than everyone, he needed to convince his brother that he still had worth.
After his screw ups.
After his mistakes.
Will was still important, valuable. Will was still a part of the Chicago Med family.
Mostly, Will was still his brother.
Always.
Exhaling heavily, Jay pursed his lips. “Look, some of this is on me, and I know it,” he said. “I’ve made you think that you’ve been an inconvenience. We both know that I’ve been dodging your calls, and yeah. After all the crap I’ve given you, I’m the one who’s been taking family for granted recently.”
Will shook his head, quick to protest. “You’ve had so much going on,” he said. “And it’s not like I have some history of being a good brother.”
“But that’s the thing,” Jay said. “I keep playing that card, but it’s been, what? Years? I mean, you’ve been back in Chicago for the better part of a decade. You were there every step of the way when Dad died. You were there when Erin left. You’ve been here for my whole relationship with Hailey. Sooner or later, we both have to stop thinking like that.”
On the bed, Will was still clearly at a loss. The color had drained from his cheeks once more, and he looked pale -- almost fragile, somehow.
Jay drew a calm breath and gave a humorless smirk. “And lately, it’s been me,” he said. “So I’m sorry. For not picking up the damn phone. You’re not a perfect brother, but you’re still my brother -- the only one I’m going to get.”
Jay intended this to be uplifting, but Will still somehow looked crestfallen. With the hospital bed and the equipment around him, it made him look even smaller. “But Jay, I know what kind of burden I am. The messes I make -- I don’t want to put up with me, so I can’t blame you or anyone else for that matter.”
“So, the medical ethics thing is a little tedious,” Jay admitted. “But come on. You have to know the difference between being annoying and having actual needs.”
Will smiled feebly. “Not a nuance I’m good with.”
Jay snorted. “Clearly,” he said. “But still. If heat stroke is on the table--”
Will nodded along readily this time. “Then call,” he said knowingly. Then, he looked around. “Have you been here all day? What about work?”
“Work is fine,” Jay told him.
“But your job--”
“Is fine,” Jay assured him again. “We’re talking about you today, okay? Just you.”
Will sat back, brow furrowed as he shifted uncomfortable on the bed. “I’m still sorry,” he said, keeping his voice small. “For everything.”
“Well, stop,” Jay said, just barely keeping himself from rolling his eyes. “I mean, in some ways, this is kind of a good thing.”
Will’s eyebrows went up. “How is a near-death experience a good thing?”
“It’s not,” Jay said shortly. “But me taking you for granted? I mean, that’s not so bad. It means you’ve been here long enough that I’m not scared of you leaving anymore.”
Will perked up at that, sitting up a little more fully on the bed. “So you’re saying that I’ve gotten better? That I’ve actually changed?”
Will sounded too hopeful, and Jay instinctively drew back his praise. “I wouldn’t go that far.”
Will sank back. “Okay--”
And Jay had to quickly correct course once more. “But I’m saying that we’re on the same page, okay? And it’s time we started acting like it, you and me. We need to do this together. Family and whatever. It’s a give and take for both of us, and it’s about time we started owning that.”
Will tweaked his head to the side with a thoughtful grimace. “That seems easier said than done.”
They were more alike than either of them ever cared to admit. Different, sure. But both Halsteads in the end.
Jay had to chortle, shaking his head once more. “I don’t know, man. I never do,” he said. “But if we’re going to get through this -- through anything good or bad -- we’re just going to have to do it together.”
Will didn’t always understand what Jay was talking about, but he got this. Jay could see it in his eyes. Will understood. “Okay,” he said. “But for what it’s worth, I’ll try to stop being so...needy.”
“And for what it’s worth, I’ll still love you anyway, asshole,” Jay said. This time, he did roll his eyes in the most self deprecating way. “And I’ll answer the phone.”
Now, the suggestion seemed to leave Will heartened. “Thanks for finding me, though,” he said. “I know it couldn’t have been easy.”
That was an understatement, but one that was on Jay -- not Will. He hated to think of the number of people in Chicago who he couldn’t save, and how close Will had come to being one of those statistics.
Jay had saved his life, sure.
But it never should have been in jeopardy in the first place.
The fact that his brother had felt that alone.
Well, that was the really scary part.
And so, you couldn’t stop natural disasters. But you could stem the flow of the rest of them. Starting right here, two brothers -- family.
“It could have been worse,” Jay said ruefully. Then, he shrugged, grinning at his brother. “Next time, let’s hope it’s better.”
“Either way,” Will said, moving from sheepish to certain now, smiling with growing confidence. “I guess we’ll do it together.”
Jay huffed, standing up and giving his brother’s hair a tousle. “No guessing, smart ass,” he said. “Now, you stay put. I’m going to tell Crockett you’re finally awake.”
Will made a face. “Do you have to do that? I’m fine--”
“You are fine, but not for any effort on your part,” Jay chided him, turning back at the door. “So yes, I’m going to get him. And I’ll probably get Maggie, Ethan and half the ED in the process.”
Will’s face scrunched up in even more of a whine than before. “Is that really necessary?”
“Hey, you’re the one who had heat stroke, not me,” Jay said. “More motivation not to be the biggest idiot in the world.”
Will sank back, crossing his arms over his chest petulantly. “I guess.”
“There are worse things in life,” Jay reminded him. “Then finding out that people care about you.”
Will’s look softened.
Jay’s grin heightened mischievously. “Besides, if I’m going to have a long day, then you get to have one, too.”
Will’s mouth dropped open. “So much for brotherly love!”
“Fair play, bro,” Jay told him. “Give and take, remember? Give and take.”
With that, he exited into the hall, closing the door behind him before he remembered to breathe. He spared a glance back, where his brother was sulking on the bed. He was alive, though. He was okay.
This disaster averted.
Now, Jay just had to brace himself for the next one that would inevitably come. But not today, he told himself as he made his way to the nurse’s station.
Just not today.
Because this long day wasn’t over yet.
PART TWO
PART THREE
-o-
For Jay, arriving at the hospital provided some relief.
For everyone else, the chaos seemed to just be starting.
Will was unconscious, so he didn’t know better, but the reaction of his colleagues at Med was total shock. They were practically swamped. Doris seemed to be crying. Maggie shooed them away as best she could, but she looked stone faced as she handed the case off to Crockett. And Ethan, just for good measure.
Jay didn’t much care about the rubbernecking. He just wanted his brother in an exam room where he could get the treatment he needed.
Jay half pitied the medics who tried to give the rundown on Will’s condition. No one was listening. They’d all come to the conclusion on their own.
“Elevated temperature, lack of diaphoresis, low blood pressure, poor oxygenation, unresponsiveness,” Ethan listed off the symptoms.
“He worked a terrible shift yesterday,” Maggie added, filling in the history. “And his power was out?”
She looked at Jay for confirmation. He nodded. “Place was stifling. I found him like this.”
Crockett, somehow, managed to act the most like a doctor. “Look, we’ve seen dozens of cases just like this,” he said. “We know it’s heatstroke. We can debate how it happened all day, but first we need to trust it. We need to treat Will.”
That brought their attention back around to Will. They had transferred him to the bed, hooking him up to fresh monitors and getting a new feed on his vitals. He was still packed with ice, his flushed face turned listlessly to the side while he breathed into the mask.
Alive.
But Jay was really hoping for more than that at this point.
“His vitals are stable,” Maggie said, almost sounding reluctant with that bit of good news.
“Medics reported that his temperature has been falling,” Ethan added on.
These sounded like good things. Jay rocked on the balls of his feet, the adrenaline inside his chest spiking hopefully.
“So we keep doing what we’re doing,” Crockett said. He wasn’t the chief of the ED, but he seemed to have the most perspective at the moment. Maggie was too close to the situation, and Ethan was taking the sight of one of his own too personally. “In the meantime, let’s do our due diligence. Let’s run his labs and make sure we’re not missing something.”
He glanced to Jay.
“Is Will on any medication? Are there any conditions we should know about?” he asked.
It seemed like a silly thing to ask, but Jay could appreciate it in the sake of professionality. At least someone in the room was there to act like an adult. “No,” Jay said, shaking his head. “He’s not on anything. He’s just working his ass off, and he lives in a crappy apartment. That’s all.”
Crockett nodded sympathetically. “Well, I’ve definitely seen him stepping up.”
“Stepping up,” Ethan muttered, shaking his head. “He’s been here more than all of us combined.”
Maggie exhaled long and hard, adjusting a few more of the ice packs to block around Will’s core more effectively. “Too much,” she said. “I knew he was pushing himself too hard, and I should have told him to take it easy.”
“This was what he wanted,” Ethan said somberly.
“And we have to focus on what’s relevant,” Crockett said. “We’ve all seen how this heatwave is affecting people. It’s hitting everybody. Maggie, are we going to get the blood going?”
Maggie nodded, and Jay couldn’t tell for sure but it looked like she may have been trying to wipe her eyes. Hastily, she moved around, getting in position to grab a blood kit from one of the trays.
Ethan was double checking Will’s reflexes. Jay didn’t know crap about medicine, but he’d seen them perform the tests several times now. Will flinched visibly, lifting his hands in an uncoordinated effort while his eyes rolled under their lids. He seemed to mumble something before stilling once more.
“Increased response to stimuli,” Ethan reported.
“See?” Crockett said, smiling somewhat to no one in particular. “It looks like we caught it in plenty of time.”
“Are you sure?” Jay asked, edging his way back in. “It was out all night like this. I went to his place, man. He didn’t eat; he didn’t shower. He laid down, fell asleep and didn’t wake up.”
Crockett nodded along. “Well, when dealing with heatstroke, you have to look both at the length and intensity of the exposure,” he said. “Will may have been exposed to the heat for longer than any of us would like, but Will probably had just enough air circulation to keep it from being too dangerous. From what we’re seeing, it certainly seems like he avoided the worst of it. His vitals are really good, and his temperature is still falling. If we keep up the fluids, keep him on the oxygen, get him cooled down -- then I think we’ll see a fast turnaround.”
“And the bloodwork will rule out anything else,” Ethan said, finally seeming to accept Crockett’s optimism as he turned back toward Jay. “Dr. Marcel is right. Will’s condition is scary, but I’d say that prognosis is promising if we can get him cooled off and hydrated.”
“Blood’s ready to go out,” Maggie said. “I’ll run it down myself. Tell them to move their asses.”
She sounded serious, too. Jay wouldn’t want to be in the lab when she came down.
On her way out, she squeezed Jay’s arm. “We’ll take care of him,” she said, and she cast a glance backward. “Better than we have been.”
He looked back at well, almost feeling numb to the sight of his brother on the gurney. Usually, these roles were reversed. Usually, it wasn’t like this. Usually, it wasn’t so hard.
Jay didn’t know when his brother had started trying too hard.
Jay didn’t know when he’d stopped noticing.
Jay didn’t know when he’d started taking it all for granted, that Will would be here.
Jaw tight, he looked to Crockett once more. “So, he’s okay?”
Crockett stopped from his ministrations and looked back. “Well, I don’t want to pretend like he’s fine right now, Jay, but he is stable,” he said. “And he’s clearly responding to treatment. There’s a small chance of lasting damage and complication -- there always is -- but I feel pretty safe in saying that those odds are low. You did get to him in time.”
He looked back to Will.
He wasn’t too late, though.
The notion was comforting.
Even if nothing else was at the moment.
-o-
Jay never understood doctors and nurses and all the things they did, but Ethan, Crockett and Maggie seemed even more attentive than usual. They all seemed reluctant to leave, though Crockett finally parted first, promising Jay he’d check in regularly. Ethan left next, presumably as the chief of the ED, he did have other things to do, but it took a good 30 minutes before Maggie left the room for any actual length of time.
Even then, he could see people loitering just outside the door.
He shook his head, sighing as he sat at his brother’s bedside. “And you think they don’t like you,” he said. “Look at them. They adore you.”
Because it was more than rubbernecking. It wasn’t just curiosity. They were concerned; they were attached. Will wasn’t sure if he belonged here, but it was pretty clear no one else had doubts.
“You’re an idiot, Will,” he said to his brother. He smiled faintly. “The biggest idiot I’ve ever met.”
The insult carried no weight. There was no vitriol left.
Just the reality that being an idiot? Seemed to be a common thing these days.
-o-
Jay wasn’t particularly adept at bedside vigils, but he’d always been ready and willing where family was involved. He’d seen his mother through cancer. He’d been with his father when they’d taken him off the vent. Comparatively, watching Will cool off was a lot easier.
And a lot harder.
He knew he’d have to face Will when he woke up.
That meant telling Will how scared he’d been, how pissed he’d been. He wasn’t sure how to convey to his brother how sorry he was for letting this happen and how angry he was that Will had let it get this far. The strange range of contradictory emotions was hard for Jay to contend with, and the longer he sat there, going over them in his head while Will slept, the less sure he was.
To pass the time, he texted Hailey on and off. She seemed distressed to find out that Will was in the hospital, and Jay didn’t want to write his brother’s ordeal off, but the last thing he needed was a larger audience in Will’s hospital room. Will’s visitors were being kept to a minimum, but the gawking had only gotten worse. Will was already going to be mortified. As much as Will deserved some of that, Jay knew he didn’t deserve all of it.
Ethan checked in frequently, fiddling with things and checking his vitals. Crockett came back periodically as well, usually with a calm, confident smile and assurances that Will was looking good. His fever was dropping; he was nearly into low range territory. His blood work was clear; at this point, it was just a waiting game.
All those years, he’d waited on Will. His brother had left for years, going months without as much as a phone call. In that context, Jay didn’t think a few hours should be so hard.
Especially since Will had waited all night for someone to find him.
Months for someone to see how hard he was trying.
So maybe it should be hard.
He just wished it wasn’t.
-o-
Maggie was the one who couldn’t stay away.
With Natalie recently departed and Connor away for years, Jay knew that Maggie was probably the best friend Will had in the ED. He’d repaired his relationship with Ethan substantially, and he seemed to be making nice with Crockett, too. But he and Maggie had bonded years ago, and that familial bond was still there.
If Jay hadn’t been sure, watching her dote made it pretty clear.
She was hard pressed to leave Will’s side, and she fussed with the equipment and switched out the ice packs with an unnecessary frequency.
Jay felt guilty about this mess.
Somehow, Maggie felt worse.
“You don’t have to do this, Maggie,” Jay assured her finally. Will had been in the hospital for nearly an hour now. His fever was out of the danger zone, and his hydration levels had normalized. It was just a matter of time, according to Crockett. “Seriously. I mean, I’m going to stay with him.”
She stopped her fussing, seeming to hesitate. “I know,” she said. She bit her bottom lip, looking at Will again. “I guess maybe I don’t want to go. I feel a little responsible.”
“You didn’t do this,” Jay said, inclining his head toward his brother. His features had started to go back to their normal shade of pale once more, and despite the equipment, it seemed more like a slumber of repose than recovery. “I mean, Will should have known better.”
He said it, and he meant it. Kind of.
Maggie’s shoulders fell, and she sighed heavily, sitting in the chair opposite of Jay on the other side of the bed. “He should have, sure,” she said. “But the way he’s been working. The way he’s been pushing himself. He was never going to stop. He wasn’t going to be needy. Not until he knew he’d earned his place back. Redeemed himself.”
For all that Jay had known this, it occurred to him that he hadn’t known. That rational knowledge didn’t match the emotional reality. The dissonance, now in the aftermath, was jarring. “Well, I’m his brother, and I didn’t see it either,” he said, a little rueful. “I thought the hard work would be good for him.”
“I know, right?” Maggie said, agreeing with some enthusiasm. She sighed again, her gaze lingering on Will once more. “He’s just all or nothing, this guy. Sometimes, I don’t think he even realizes how out of control he gets because he just feels like it’s all so right. I mean, he cared about that trial, but he just cared about Natalie more.”
“I don’t think he ever really got over her,” Jay mused quietly. He felt a pang of guilt at that. It had been the case he’d pushed Will to work on that had destroyed it all. Will had never come out of it the same. “He tried, you know? But he wasn’t coping -- I knew he wasn’t coping -- and it just went on and on and--”
Maggie nodded in commiseration. “And here we are,” she said. “Truth be told, I’ve been so wrapped up in my own stuff that I haven’t been the friend I should be.”
“Will’s a grown man,” Jay said. “He doesn’t need a babysitter.”
Even as he said it, he couldn’t take his eyes off his brother’s face.
“Not a babysitter,” she said softly. “But maybe a few more friends.”
Jay sighed, long and hard, and he scrubbed a hand over his face. “Was it really so bad here?”
“It probably seemed like it,” Maggie said. “I know he was on a short leash with Goodwin, and he was scared, you know? But no one wanted to see him gone. Even Goodwin. If she did, she never would have taken him back. I think she just wanted him to know it was serious.”
“Well, he took it seriously,” Jay said, shifting in his chair. “Seriously enough to, what? Try killing himself?”
Maggie looked aghast the suggestion. “Jay, you know that’s not how it is. He was just working hard, you know? He was doing his best. He’s just been -- I don’t know--”
Jay raised his eyebrows, because he did know. “An idiot?”
Maggie flushed. She was embarrassed but she didn’t deny it. She smiled. “I was going to say focused.”
Jay understood the impulse to wax nice when people were laid up, and there was a part of him that appreciated it. But the truth was a lot more complicated than the cliches, and Maggie knew Will well enough to understand that fondness and frustration could exist in equal parts when it came to Will. “We can call a spade a spade. I should have answered the damn phone last night, but that doesn’t change the fact that Will is an idiot. He’s come a long way since moving back to Chicago, but I suppose he can’t do it alone.”
Maggie scoffed a little, but it was light and fond. “None of us can. It’s the exact same mistake I’ve made all along. I got cancer and tried to hide it instead of accepting help,” she said, shaking her head as she looked back at Will. “I suppose we like to think that, given what we do, how we save lives, that we are somehow immune to disaster. But none of us are. Our job is to protect the city, but if we don’t start with each other, then what’s the point? None of us survives alone.”
Jay exhaled, long and slow. He knew she was right. Doctors, cops, fighters -- they made huge sacrifices and with good reason. Walking headlong into disaster didn’t make you immune to it. You were just as vulnerable as everyone else. But they all played the tough-guy routine. They all thought they had something to prove.
But disaster was unavoidable.
And no one survived it alone.
That was the difference between a hot, lonely apartment and picking up the damn phone.
That was the difference between griping over a bowl of cereal and dragging your brother’s ass to the ED for heatstroke.
Maggie swallowed hard and sat forward. She pressed a smile on her face, and reached up her hand, fussing with the curls in Will’s hair at the nape of his neck. “He should have just crashed at the hospital last night.”
Jay shook his head with a grunt. “He should have just come over to my place instead of waiting for an invitation.”
She looked back to Jay with a small wince of sympathy. “He’s wanted to give you space, I think. With all that he’s had going on, I think he felt like a burden.”
She didn’t need to tell him, at least, not really. Except, maybe she did. “He’s my brother -- my only family,” he muttered.
“All the more reason he felt embarrassed,” Maggie explained, sitting back once more. “At work, he had to face it. There was no way around it. But with you, I think he felt he still had some semblance of control. I don’t know. I think he wanted to show you he could do it.”
“But we just said it: no one can do it on their own,” Jay snapped, his frustration rising. He ran his hand back over his face with a groan. “He is such an idiot.”
“Yeah,” Maggie mused with a small half smile. “But he’s our idiot.”
He’d known that all along was the thing.
The problem was, of course, that he wasn’t sure Will knew it.
-o-
After a few hours, Crockett was so pleased with Will’s progress that he shifted from optimistic to near-certain.
“It’s just a matter of time,” he assured Jay, after confirming that Will’s temperature was back to normal. The flush had fully receded from his cheeks, and the oxygen mask was nothing but a formality now. “Will’s been working so hard that I think he’s earned the nap.”
Even Ethan seemed to have relaxed with the prognosis, even bringing up the possibility of discharging Will later tonight if he woke up soon enough.
When Maggie finally went back to work, he knew that things were really looking good.
Now, if Will would just get with the program, that would be really convenient. Jay was tempted to feel impatient, but he thought about Will’s call last night. The request via text for Jay to call him back. He’d gone home, hot and tired, to an apartment without electricity. Exhausted, he’d crashed on the bed without remembering basic self-care. He’d been waiting for Jay to get back to him.
The best Jay could figure, as he forced himself to stay calm and settled by Will’s side, was that it was better late than never.
-o-
Will did take his time, however.
You might be able to spin that as Will taking some kind of revenge. But Jay knew his brother better than that. He wasn’t vengeful. He didn’t seek retribution, and he rarely needed to get in the last word.
But he was stubborn and stupid, and he didn’t always understand how he impacted the people around him. In other words, Will probably didn’t realize that everyone was just waiting on him to get his act together. Exhausted and overtaxed, Will slept more.
Then, Will had one more visitor.
When Jay looked up, surprised at the intrusion, it became clear why no one had stopped this visitor. It was Ms. Goodwin.
The hospital administrator.
The person in charge of Will’s fate.
Jay had nothing against her personally, but given the current situation, seeing her was awkward, to say the least.
He was marginally gratified that it seemed uncomfortable for her as well as she came in. Even as she plastered a smile on her face, prim and proper, she gave Will a slow look and seemed to wish she could be somewhere else at the moment.
Everyone was having long days right now, it seemed.
“Detective Halstead, I’m sorry to see you under these conditions,” she began, turning toward Jay. She drew a breath and continued smiling. “I was very upset when I’d heard what happened. Heat stroke?”
Jay glanced toward his brother. If Will had wanted to retain his dignity, then he probably should have avoided this. Jay was way too tired to try crafting a more palatable narrative and besides, Will needed to be coming clean with his superiors. Encouraging more subterfuge would only make this situation worse.
And, for the record, Jay didn’t want to know what worse would look like when heat stroke was already on the table.
“Yeah,” Jay said, shifting uncertainly in his seat. He wasn’t sure if he should get up. Deference was a thing, but Jay was the one holding vigil. She was the one intruding here, so he kept himself seated but still answered her inquiry. “Electricity is out at his place. I guess he went home late last night and fell asleep before he could think it through. I found him unconscious this morning.”
She winced sympathetically, taking another step closer to Will’s bedside. “I’m sure you know he’s not the only one. We were on generator power ourselves most of last night. I had no idea.”
Jay shrugged, not quite open to the display of softness when Will had felt so backed into a corner. “Maggie told me he worked his ass off yesterday.”
She nodded again. “Yes, I was told he spent most of the day out at the highway crash. I knew conditions were serious, but I would have thought precautions were in place.”
Jay didn’t hide his face. “With respect, I know you never meant for this, but you knew exactly how hard Will was working,” he countered. “He was working his ass off for you. The extra shifts. The long days. All of it.”
She stiffened somewhat, but he gave her credit. She didn’t flinch as much as he might have thought. “Most of the EDs are closed in the city. To keep this one open during a disaster of this magnitude has required a team effort from all of us.”
She was defending herself, because Jay’s intention wasn’t hard to see. He was also pretty sure it was an accusation she’d come in here expecting. One she’d already lobbied against herself despite everything.
She wasn’t the bad guy here. She wasn’t wholly innocent, but Jay had unanswered calls from Will on his phone as evidence of his own complicity. “I know,” he said, easing off the sharpness in his tone. He looked at his brother. Restful or not, it was still sobering. “I just wish he didn’t think he had to push himself quite so hard.”
She was watching Jay now, almost intent in her gaze. “Is that really what he thinks? That’s what he’s told you?”
Jay turned his eyes back to her, a little taken aback by the question. “How is that surprising? I mean, all he could talk about was how he was still on probation. It was literally the only thing on his mind. It was half the reason I got so tired of answering his calls.”
With that, she sighed, some of her polish starting to fade. “It was inevitable, I suppose,” she murmured with a shake of her head. “Given all that he did with the trial, there was really no other way to rectify things and move forward. Probation was the only way to keep him employed at all. I could have had his license suspended.”
That was her justification, then, but if she was standing at Will’s bedside reiterating it, then he knew she wasn’t particularly convinced she was right. “With all that, of course he thought had to push himself harder than anyone else here. I mean, wouldn’t you?”
She nodded now, lips somewhat pursed. “It’s a fine line, I suppose. Giving him rules to uphold and still letting him feel like he’s accomplishing something.”
Jay was tired, and Jay was spent, but he wasn’t a complete asshole. He could hold a grudge just as well as anyone -- better, to be honest -- but he also could appreciate a rock and a hard place when he saw it. Sharon Goodwin had the unenviable task of keeping Will on task. After what he’d done, it wasn’t a job Jay had wanted.
Hell, that was why he’d avoided Will’s calls in the first place.
And yet, they had all sort of missed the point. He looked at Will, and forced himself to acknowledge, perhaps out loud for the first time, just how much his brother had changed.
“You know, he’s grown up here at Med,” Jay explained. He lifted one shoulder meagerly. “His first day, he was going to quit -- to run, like he used to. That was his plan, and he never did tell me what changed.”
She got a funny look on her face, thoughtful and somewhat bemused. “I remember that day,” she said. “Hell of a first day. But he made it through -- and he made it through a lot of other things, too. He’s no stranger to causing problems, but I really thought this time would do it. I came down hard -- and I made the job as unappealing as I could -- and I thought he’d leave. I thought there was no way, not in a thousand years, he’d stay. But he accepted every term, every condition, every punishment. And I saw that he really wanted this job. It was the validation I needed to show me that I had made the right choice in keeping him on.”
Jay tipped his head toward his brother’s slumbering form. “But what about Will? I just -- all this work he’s been doing. He went until he nearly died. I know he deserves punishment; I know he needs structure. But this….”
He trailed off, looking at his brother again.
Ms. Goodwin seemed to follow suit. She nodded. “It is a fine line, like I said.”
“I just -- it bothers me, you know?” Jay said, looking at her again. “That he thinks of this place as his home and family -- and we all let him just fall asleep and nearly die. I know he screwed up -- he knows he screwed up. But when is enough enough?”
He was asking himself as much as he was asking her. Goodwin wasn’t the only one who had put hoops in front of Will, expecting him to jump through each one to prove himself. He’d held his brother’s past choices against him for years now. He hadn’t given Will’s apologies much credence. He’d never let Will’s change be good enough.
He likely would have played the bad brother card for years, if left unchecked.
But he had to check himself now.
For both their sakes.
Smiling slightly, Ms. Goodwin inclined her head. “Under heat, some of us wilt. Others burn,” she said. “I’ve always known which way your brother leans. It’s just a matter of helping him control the blaze so he doesn’t burn himself and everything around him to the ground.”
It wasn’t a bad assessment of Will, honestly. It was more concise than Jay had been able to come up with. And yet, he still had to scoff. “That’s easier said than done.”
They both let their gazes linger on Will again. “Yes,” Ms. Goodwin agreed. “Yes, it is.”
Jay sighed, sinking back a little bit. He could still remember finding Will this morning, how it’d looked like he’d lost his brother already. If he’d ignored Maggie’s call. If he had put off checking until lunch.
This could have had a very different ending.
“He’s just trying so hard,” Jay said, feeling the idea of it grate in his gut.
“I know,” Ms. Goodwin said.
“And he’s had to do it alone,” Jay said, shaking his head again. “He went back to an apartment without electricity. After work the day he worked. He went home and just took it. How the hell is anyone supposed to do this alone?”
“They’re not,” Ms. Goodwin said. She let out a small breath and bustled herself up somewhat as she collected the rest of her composure. “And he doesn’t have to, either. At least, not anymore.”
Jay nodded, solemn and sure. Certain and unhesitating. “Not anymore.”
“You know, disasters can breed destructive, Detective,” she said with a knowing look down her nose at Jay. She’d been hesitant to come in here, but she was the one eyeing him now. “They can rip us apart.”
He let himself scoff, deference be damned. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“No,” she said plainly. “But disasters can also bring us together. They can show us who we are, what matters most and just how strong we are.”
The moments that made you. Make or break. Trial by fire. Jay held her gaze, wondering if she had a ready answer to the eternally difficult question. “And how do we make sure it turns out the way we want?”
“It probably starts with conversation, I’m guessing -- for you and me both,” she said with a little tweak of her eyebrows. She nodded toward Will again, but she was smiling now. “I’ll be back when he’s awake.”
She meant it, too, and Jay knew he didn’t have to doubt her word. She’d lived through disaster, just as much as Jay himself had. It didn’t matter if it was different; suffering wasn’t a comparable thing. You didn’t need to equivocate it.
You just had to survive.
You just had to learn.
You just had to grow.
He watched her go, nodding one last time to Jay as she smiled on her way out. Will would need her approval to get himself back in check, but Will needed more than that. And that was where Jay came into it.
He hadn’t even answered the damn phone.
He hadn’t checked his messages.
He knew well enough: not all disasters could be avoided. And first responders had a duty to protect the city, but family -- the family you chose and the family that chose you -- protected its own.
No one made it by themselves.
Jay vowed it to himself, right here, right now, watching his brother sleep away the worst of his heat stroke.
No one should have to do it alone.
-o-
Of course, it’d be easier if Will woke up.
Like, for real.
The initial anxiety had faded. The feeling that they were on the cusp of personal disaster had dulled. The fear had given way to ready acceptance, and he didn’t have to worry about his brother dying anymore.
He just had to worry about what was going to say to Will when he finally woke up.
There would be apologies, of course.
And anger, yes.
And lectures. Lots and lots of lecturing.
When he woke up.
Why the hell wasn’t he waking up?
Everyone kept saying it was a matter of time now, and Will even stirred with increasing frequency. Over the last few hours, Will had been waking slowly, and Jay had taken the first few false alarms too seriously.
In fact, his heat stroke stricken brother had become the boy who cried wolf, and when Will woke up for real, Jay didn’t actually notice right away.
And when he did notice, he didn’t react at first. Instead, he watched as his brother blinked his eyes open, starting at the ceiling in apparent confusion. However, instead of slipping back to sleep, Will brow started to furrow. Then, unexpectedly, he reached up his hand and pulled the mask down off his nose and chin.
Then, he looked at Jay.
Even so, Jay gave him another moment just to be sure.
Brow furrowing more deeply, Will’s eyes flitted around. He took in the room, the equipment and finally Jay once more. “What happened?”
His voice was thin and weak, but decidedly clear. He was weak, but coherent. Jay sat forward with renewed energy. “What do you remember?”
Having some bearings would help target the story. In truth, Jay wasn’t even sure where to start.
Will’s concern seemed to ratchet up a notch. He looked around again, the gears nearly visible as they turned in his head. Sometimes, Will was such a idiot that it was easy to forget how smart he was.
Because he looked back to Jay once more. There was clarity in his confusion now.
“Heat stroke,” Will concluded, and color rose in his cheeks. “In my apartment. The electricity was out.”
He closed his eyes for a moment, clearly mortified before he looked at Jay.
“How bad? How long was I out?” he asked.
Jay felt relieved, but with his relief was a familiar exasperation as was typical with all things Will. “I found you this morning. But you went to bed last night and didn’t wake up.”
Will did not seem surprised. “I knew how hot it was, but I guess I lost track of how dehydrated I was,” he said, as if that explained how foolish his choice had been. He looked around at the equipment again. “How am I doing? I feel better but still a little fuzzy.”
“They tell me you’re stable or whatever,” Jay said. “They got the fluids going, and your temperature is back to normal.”
Will was clearly running the diagnostics in his head. “And what time is it?”
“Pushing noon,” Jay said.
Will’s mortification deepened once more. “And you found me this morning? How hot was I?”
Jay scoffed at his brother’s subpar effort to be surprised by his condition. “They said you were probably exhausted, too. Your vitals have been good for hours, but the body only has so much, man. You can’t push yourself day after day and expect no consequences.”
Somehow, Will managed to be offended and embarrassed at the same time. “Everyone is working hard right now. It is a disaster right now.”
Jay went ahead and rolled his eyes. “Don’t even,” he chided. “Maggie has already told me about your work ethic lately. You don’t have to volunteer for every extra shift.”
“I’m earning my way back,” Will started to protest.
“By skipping meals? Putting off water breaks?” Jay said pointedly. “Your overdrive did this. It’s not just a natural disaster.”
It was a point that not even Will could deny. At least, not when he was sitting in a damn hospital bed. “I guess not all disasters are natural,” he quipped.
“No, they’re not,” Jay agreed, letting a slight edge color his voice again. “But some of them are avoidable.”
Will blushed again, the color deep on his cheeks once more. Jay was pushing this into uncomfortable territory, but in most ways, they were already there. Retreating now would be the easy out. It might have been the way they did things in the past, but there were just two Halsteads left now -- and Jay had found his brother unconscious this morning.
There was nothing easy about any of this.
“This was stupid, man,” Jay told him with a short now. “You screwed this up.”
Will opened his mouth to protest, but Jay shook his head.
“I mean, you work the day you worked? And then go home to a hot apartment?” Jay asked critically. “You must be a bigger idiot than I thought, and it’s not cool. To do this to me -- to the people you work with. And look at you, taking up a bed that belongs to someone else. And all for what?”
Will looked stiff now, the emotion draining from his face as he worked for composure. Will rarely defended himself -- not with a vigor Jay would -- but he was more likely to shut down, obfuscate. “I had no idea how hot I was,” he said. “And heat stroke is very hard to self diagnose--”
Jay didn’t let him finish the half hearted list of excuses. “But you’re a doctor, Will. An actual doctor, and you nearly let yourself die from a very preventable condition.”
“I didn’t know--”
“Because you weren’t thinking,” Jay snapped. “You didn't use a single brain cell last night. You knew how tired you were. You knew how many meals you’d skipped. You knew how hot your place was. And you went inside and laid down anyway. If I hadn’t stopped by, you’d still be there, Will. They would have found you dead.”
Will drew back on himself, lips pressed so flat that they looked white. He breathed heavily through his nose, clearly trying to keep the emotions from overwhelming him. “That’s why I called--”
“And that was your only option?” Jay asked, indignant. “You have a hospital full of people here who would do anything for you.”
“I can’t do that, not now,” Will said. “I’m already on thin ice.”
Jay shook his head, just even more adamant. “They all fawned over you. I saw every person in the ED lurking outside your door to make sure you were okay. Crockett, Ethan, Maggie -- hell, even Goodwin came in here and pontificated.”
At this, Will looked genuinely surprised.
“And why the hell didn’t you just come over?” Jay demanded. “You have a key, man.”
“For emergencies--”
Jay let his eyes goggle. “You mean like heat stroke?”
Will was appropriately sheepish. “I just -- I didn’t want to bother you,” he said. He shrugged meagerly. “Things with you and Hailey, right? It’s new. I don’t want to be a third wheel. Or worse, something that drags your relationship down right when you two are getting it right.”
“But you nearly died!” Jay said. “What do you think I prefer? Do you really think I want the night to myself if it means finding you dead the next morning?”
It was a bit harsher than Jay had intended, and Will drew back even more, as though Jay had physically hit him.
Jay sighed, and it was his turn to pull back the emotion. He wanted Will to think twice, not feel like crap about himself. In fact, if anything, Jay’s intent was the opposite. Ironically, after spending years trying to get his brother to stop thinking he was better than everyone, he needed to convince his brother that he still had worth.
After his screw ups.
After his mistakes.
Will was still important, valuable. Will was still a part of the Chicago Med family.
Mostly, Will was still his brother.
Always.
Exhaling heavily, Jay pursed his lips. “Look, some of this is on me, and I know it,” he said. “I’ve made you think that you’ve been an inconvenience. We both know that I’ve been dodging your calls, and yeah. After all the crap I’ve given you, I’m the one who’s been taking family for granted recently.”
Will shook his head, quick to protest. “You’ve had so much going on,” he said. “And it’s not like I have some history of being a good brother.”
“But that’s the thing,” Jay said. “I keep playing that card, but it’s been, what? Years? I mean, you’ve been back in Chicago for the better part of a decade. You were there every step of the way when Dad died. You were there when Erin left. You’ve been here for my whole relationship with Hailey. Sooner or later, we both have to stop thinking like that.”
On the bed, Will was still clearly at a loss. The color had drained from his cheeks once more, and he looked pale -- almost fragile, somehow.
Jay drew a calm breath and gave a humorless smirk. “And lately, it’s been me,” he said. “So I’m sorry. For not picking up the damn phone. You’re not a perfect brother, but you’re still my brother -- the only one I’m going to get.”
Jay intended this to be uplifting, but Will still somehow looked crestfallen. With the hospital bed and the equipment around him, it made him look even smaller. “But Jay, I know what kind of burden I am. The messes I make -- I don’t want to put up with me, so I can’t blame you or anyone else for that matter.”
“So, the medical ethics thing is a little tedious,” Jay admitted. “But come on. You have to know the difference between being annoying and having actual needs.”
Will smiled feebly. “Not a nuance I’m good with.”
Jay snorted. “Clearly,” he said. “But still. If heat stroke is on the table--”
Will nodded along readily this time. “Then call,” he said knowingly. Then, he looked around. “Have you been here all day? What about work?”
“Work is fine,” Jay told him.
“But your job--”
“Is fine,” Jay assured him again. “We’re talking about you today, okay? Just you.”
Will sat back, brow furrowed as he shifted uncomfortable on the bed. “I’m still sorry,” he said, keeping his voice small. “For everything.”
“Well, stop,” Jay said, just barely keeping himself from rolling his eyes. “I mean, in some ways, this is kind of a good thing.”
Will’s eyebrows went up. “How is a near-death experience a good thing?”
“It’s not,” Jay said shortly. “But me taking you for granted? I mean, that’s not so bad. It means you’ve been here long enough that I’m not scared of you leaving anymore.”
Will perked up at that, sitting up a little more fully on the bed. “So you’re saying that I’ve gotten better? That I’ve actually changed?”
Will sounded too hopeful, and Jay instinctively drew back his praise. “I wouldn’t go that far.”
Will sank back. “Okay--”
And Jay had to quickly correct course once more. “But I’m saying that we’re on the same page, okay? And it’s time we started acting like it, you and me. We need to do this together. Family and whatever. It’s a give and take for both of us, and it’s about time we started owning that.”
Will tweaked his head to the side with a thoughtful grimace. “That seems easier said than done.”
They were more alike than either of them ever cared to admit. Different, sure. But both Halsteads in the end.
Jay had to chortle, shaking his head once more. “I don’t know, man. I never do,” he said. “But if we’re going to get through this -- through anything good or bad -- we’re just going to have to do it together.”
Will didn’t always understand what Jay was talking about, but he got this. Jay could see it in his eyes. Will understood. “Okay,” he said. “But for what it’s worth, I’ll try to stop being so...needy.”
“And for what it’s worth, I’ll still love you anyway, asshole,” Jay said. This time, he did roll his eyes in the most self deprecating way. “And I’ll answer the phone.”
Now, the suggestion seemed to leave Will heartened. “Thanks for finding me, though,” he said. “I know it couldn’t have been easy.”
That was an understatement, but one that was on Jay -- not Will. He hated to think of the number of people in Chicago who he couldn’t save, and how close Will had come to being one of those statistics.
Jay had saved his life, sure.
But it never should have been in jeopardy in the first place.
The fact that his brother had felt that alone.
Well, that was the really scary part.
And so, you couldn’t stop natural disasters. But you could stem the flow of the rest of them. Starting right here, two brothers -- family.
“It could have been worse,” Jay said ruefully. Then, he shrugged, grinning at his brother. “Next time, let’s hope it’s better.”
“Either way,” Will said, moving from sheepish to certain now, smiling with growing confidence. “I guess we’ll do it together.”
Jay huffed, standing up and giving his brother’s hair a tousle. “No guessing, smart ass,” he said. “Now, you stay put. I’m going to tell Crockett you’re finally awake.”
Will made a face. “Do you have to do that? I’m fine--”
“You are fine, but not for any effort on your part,” Jay chided him, turning back at the door. “So yes, I’m going to get him. And I’ll probably get Maggie, Ethan and half the ED in the process.”
Will’s face scrunched up in even more of a whine than before. “Is that really necessary?”
“Hey, you’re the one who had heat stroke, not me,” Jay said. “More motivation not to be the biggest idiot in the world.”
Will sank back, crossing his arms over his chest petulantly. “I guess.”
“There are worse things in life,” Jay reminded him. “Then finding out that people care about you.”
Will’s look softened.
Jay’s grin heightened mischievously. “Besides, if I’m going to have a long day, then you get to have one, too.”
Will’s mouth dropped open. “So much for brotherly love!”
“Fair play, bro,” Jay told him. “Give and take, remember? Give and take.”
With that, he exited into the hall, closing the door behind him before he remembered to breathe. He spared a glance back, where his brother was sulking on the bed. He was alive, though. He was okay.
This disaster averted.
Now, Jay just had to brace himself for the next one that would inevitably come. But not today, he told himself as he made his way to the nurse’s station.
Just not today.
Because this long day wasn’t over yet.
