Chicago Med fic: Suckerpunched (10/10)
Dec. 23rd, 2021 05:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
faye_dartmouthPART ONE
PART TWO
PART THREE
PART FOUR
PART FIVE
PART SIX
PART SEVEN
PART EIGHT
PART NINE
PART TEN
-o-
He wasn’t sure how long he stood there, unmoving at the last spot his brother had been conscious. He wasn’t sure if people were giving him space, but no one came in to bother him. No one asked him what he was doing or why.
In his mind, he could still see the video. Will trying to walk away. Will turning back.
The single punch.
All the things in Will’s life he should have seen coming, and this one wasn’t his fault.
How was that even fair? How could the universe be that cruel? All the bad things that happened to good people? The first time in his brother’s life he tried to do the right thing, and it ended up like this?
An unlucky punch.
Smacking his head against the counter -- and his medical career was gone.
Hitting the ground hard -- and his memories of Canaryville, their parents, their childhood -- gone, too.
A single punch, and all of the bullets Jay had taken amounted to nothing. The years of tension didn’t matter. The hard work they’d put in to make it right meant nothing. If it amounted to an accident in the doctor’s lounge.
Jay was startled when his phone pinged, and he swallowed hard, trying to collect himself as he dug it out of his pocket. He’d been so preoccupied with unraveling the last of the mystery that he hadn’t thought to keep in touch. At work, they mostly knew not to contact him at the moment, but this one was from Hailey.
Probably checking in.
Then, he opened the message.
Jay, come quick.
He stared at it, trying to make sense of the words. Still dumbfounded, a second message popped up.
Trust me.
There was another pause.
You need to be here.
Because justice didn’t save lives.
Confessions didn’t bring people back.
Solving crimes didn’t change a tragedy.
Jay had given all he had, and it might not ever be enough.
Jay. Will needs you.
And Jay ran as fast and as hard as he possibly could.
-o-
Given the last few days -- hell, the last few everything where his family was concerned -- Jay expected the worst. That was how it was, after all. Doctors were all calling him in for the worst possible news.
We’re sorry. The cancer is terminal.
There’s a better use for this vent.
Ten to one.
Those odds had been framed like hope, but Jay had been naive to think anything other than this outcome. There was one chance Will would live.
The other nine chances were that Jay was planning another funeral. That he was the last Halstead standing. The last Halstead -- period.
Will was going to leave him again.
Only this time, he wasn’t coming back.
This time, Will might already be gone.
He’d all but lived at the hospital over the last few days. He’d already known it well, but it was rote now. A horrible, necessary routine, even more grim than the one he charted taking his mom to chemo each week. One that was bleaker than the arson investigation he never should have been on.
But the end was the same.
The end--
A lost family member--
Was still the same.
He was breathless by the time he got back to Will’s floor, and he half plowed through the ICU staff as he barrelled recklessly forward. He only stopped when Hailey intercepted him, catching him by the shoulders and drawing him to a stop before he could go inside.
“Jay, hey, wait,” she said, trying to keep a hold on him.
He pulled back, shaking his head wildly. “How bad is it?” he asked. “Is it his pressure? He’s not dead, is he? Is he--?”
It was a horrible realization. That in all his efforts to avoid the reality, he’d missed it. He’d been with his mom when she’d passed. He’d been holding his father’s hand when he passed, too. But if he’d missed it with Will, if Will had slipped away and he’d been bitching to some asshole--
He couldn’t think it.
“Jay, just take a breath,” Hailey said, coaching him now. “Stop--”
But there was no way to stop. Not now, not about this. “You can just tell me. You have to tell me, Hailey. If he’s dead, I have to know.”
Her face wrinkled in surprise. “Jay, wait -- Will -- he’s not dead.”
She said it plainly enough, but none of it computed. Jay had reached his capacity for making sense today, and now he just found himself at a total, incomprehensible loss. “But,” he started, the pit in his stomach still gnawing and deep. “Your messages. I don’t understand.”
She drew a breath and looked instantly regretful. “Jay -- no, you've got the wrong idea,” she said. “I’m going to let you go in there to see, but you need to calm down first. Get yourself together.”
Calm wasn’t something he was actually capable of at the moment. Heart pounding, head spinning, the overwhelming sense of loss was suddenly too palpable to ignore. “But you said to get here. Will needs me.”
“Yeah,” she said, emphatic now as she took him by the arm. “Will does need you.”
“So, is he dead?” Jay asked, his voice threatening to break. “Hailey, is he--”
“Jay--”
He couldn’t listen any longer, though. He tried to pull away and step past her. “Is the doctor in there? I have to talk to him--”
She stepped sideways, keeping herself firmly in front of him while her fingers tightened around his biceps. “Jay, please--”
But there was nothing for it.
For any of it.
Jay had spent so much time resenting Will. He’d worn his brother down for his bad choices, and he’d guilted him into becoming the brother he thought he wanted. And all those years he’d thought of himself as the good brother, the better son, and he’d never bothered to ask himself why. Why Will had left. Why he hadn’t come back. Why he made walking away look so damn easy.
And he’d taken so much comfort in Will being there for him. He’d relished it, Will becoming the brother Jay needed, the one he’d wanted.
For what, then? What had his brother gained? What had Will needed?
This investigation had shown Jay that there were two sides to every story, a fact he’d known too well as a cop, but he’d never applied it personally before. To understand it in his brother, how one narrative could tell the truth and still not tell it at all. Jay threw punches; Will took them. Jay would go down fighting someday, but Will would just go down.
Someday, he might not get back up.
Someday might be today.
All Jay had tried to salvage here, and it wasn’t wasn’t.
It wasn’t enough.
Hailey was still holding him fast when Dr. Abrams came from the room. All but bereft now, Jay pulled away from Hailey. “How is he? Is he--?”
Jay was braced for the worst.
So it was disconcerting, to say the least, when Dr. Abrams smiled.
Like actually smiled.
The callous son of a bitch, the no-nonsense bastard, the asshole Jay found to be a conceited prick.
Smiled.
Hailey’s grip eased, and Jay stood back. The surreal sense had overtaken him again, dummying him into submission. Standing there, he stared slack-jawed, trying to make sense of the impossible.
“The pressure is officially under control,” he announced proudly.
He said it like it made sense, like Jay would know exactly what he was talking about.
When Jay could only stare at him in utter, uncomprehending disbelief, the man was somewhat taken aback.
“That’s a good thing,” Dr. Abrams clarified. “It means the pressure in his brain has finally subsided to normal levels.”
When Jay still seemed to have no idea what was going on, Dr. Abrams raised his eyebrows curiously.
“It means he’s getting better,” he said. And he nodded. “This is the good news we’ve been waiting for. I wasn’t sure we’d get here, but I feel pretty safe in telling you that Will’s definitely turned a corner.”
Will was getting better.
This was good news.
Will had turned a corner.
Jay drew a staggering breath as he grappled with this notion. Hailey’s grip had slacken, and Jay felt himself teeter on the edge of his own self control. “He’s not dead?” was the only thing he managed to say, his voice sounding impossibly small.
Dr. Abrams, bastard though he was, looked uncharacteristically soft. “Far from it,” he said. “We’ve been noting drops in his pressure since the second surgery, but they’ve been erratic. This morning, when they stayed low, we monitored him closely to make sure it wasn’t a fluke. But it’s been 12 hours and his levels have only continued to fall. Obviously, things can change, but that’s not the only positive sign.”
Jay was gaping now, the breath thick in his lungs as his heart thudded against the inside of his chest.
Abrams had been smiling before. Now, he was all but beaming. “There’s a reason I wanted the room clear so I could perform a pretty in-depth neuro exam,” he explained. “And he’s starting to show signs of consciousness. His brain function is starting to return.”
Consciousness.
Brain function.
Will wasn’t just not dead. Will had brain function. Will wasn’t brain dead. Will might recover. “What?” Jay asked, almost breathless like he’d been hit in the gut. “But -- how?”
“Brain activity is very hard to detect when the pressure is so high,” Dr. Abrams explained. “That’s why we put off any kind of determination on activity until levels are in check. It isn’t until the pressure goes down that we really start to see what kind of prognosis we’re dealing with.”
Jay’s eyes were wide, and his head felt light. Hailey hovered close to him, as if afraid he might crumple to the ground right then and there. “And?” he asked, shaking visibly now.
“And,” Dr. Abrams said, slow and careful. “We’re seeing steady increases in activity on the monitors. He’s not conscious, and he’s not even triggering the vent yet, but in the exam, he’s starting to respond to painful stimuli. I know it doesn’t seem like much, but I fully expect more brain function to return over the next few days. This is a crucial first step in his recovery. It’s the milestone we were hoping for.”
Jay thought he knew what the doctor was saying, but he didn’t trust himself to believe it. He couldn’t. “Do you--?” he started, but his voice broke off. He inhaled sharply, feeling a sting in his eyes. “Do you mean?”
“He’s improving,” Dr. Abrams said, simply and direct. “Will’s improving.”
He was crying now, almost without knowledge or control, and he thought he might pass out if he could remember how to move properly. “Really?”
“Yes,” Dr. Abrams said, just as frank as ever. “And I’m not going to stand here and make promises -- Will has a very long way to go, and there are a lot of pitfalls along the way -- but this is improvement. This means we can stop talking about mitigation. Now, we can start talking about recovery.”
Jay half choked on a sob, which threatened to keel him over. “Recovery?”
“A very long recovery, mind you,” Dr. Abrams warned. “And I need you to be completely realistic.”
Dr. Abrams was trying to frame the good news now, trying to put it in context, but Jay was too busy grappling with the good news to make sense of it. “But it’s recovery. He’s going to recover?”
He asked it, a question. Scared to believe. Scared to hope.
Dr. Abrams, though, was more pleased than he wanted to let on. He sighed, almost sounding content as he leaned forward with a small hint of conspiratorial friendliness. “Based on my current assessment of his condition, yes. Will is likely to experience some recovery. I didn’t want to have to tell you for a second time that one of your family members was braindead.”
It was in poor taste, maybe, but it was a candor Jay would appreciate later. When he could think straight. Still trembling, he blinked hard. “So the odds? What are his odds?”
They both knew how this went. Their earlier conversations had played with the numbers, and Jay knew how a thousand to one played between them. Abrams didn’t flinch at the question. “It really does depend on what we’re talking about,” he explained. “I mean, at this point, I’d say that a meaningful recovery is more than fifty percent likely. With what I’m seeing now, he’s got an excellent chance at waking up and showing signs of consciousness, interacting with the world in some capacity.”
That was the mild take. Jay knew that the man was holding out. He knew it because the asshole had smiled, and he hadn’t smiled for some capacity. Jay was scared to hope, but this son of a bitch couldn’t help himself for once. “And complete recovery?” he pressed, because he could. Because this time, he actually could.
Dr. Abrams considered that, dipping his head from side to side. Hailey was stoic beside them, looking between Jay and the doctor as she waited for any cue to act. “That’s harder to say, but you know that,” he said.
He couldn’t deny his hope, but he didn’t want to share it prematurely.
But Jay knew.
And he needed to have it said. “Better than a thousand to one?”
“I’d say better than ten to one,” Dr. Abrams said, steady and sure. “He’s going to have a few things to work out, but with therapy and treatment--”
“He won’t have to do it alone,” Jay said, suddenly finding his voice more confident now. He found his footing more sure.
And Dr. Abrams almost smiled again. “No,” he agreed. “He definitely won’t.”
-o-
After the good news, Dr. Abrams coached him on what to do and what not to do, but Jay hardly listened. He got it: he couldn’t jostle Will, and Will’s condition, though improving, was still precarious. As if Jay could forget that Will’s skull was still unattached.
And Jay wasn’t about to throw a raucous party. He wasn’t about to be loud or celebratory.
He just wanted to see his brother.
After all this, he just needed to be with his brother.
Hailey waited outside, just on the other side of the door. She understood what Jay needed. Sometimes he needed her with him.
Some things, however, he needed to do on his own.
This was one of them.
Going inside, going back to his brother’s side.
This was one of them.
In all honesty, Will looked the same as before. The same pale pallor in his complexion, the same hollowed look to his features. The bandages were just as bulky, and the tube hadn’t been moved. Even the machines, with their steady hums and rhythms, made it seem like nothing had changed.
But when he took Will’s fingers in his own, folded his hand over the top and squeezed, it felt different.
He’d convinced the hospital that Will deserved to be here.
Now, he just had to wait for Will to rise to the challenge.
For the first time in a long time, Jay was pretty sure he would.
-o-
With the medical team cleared out, Jay knew the tone of Will’s care had changed. So had the course of the investigation. But here, just Jay and his brother, it was hard to make sense of the relief.
It was hard to make sense of anything.
Hailey stood back, and for awhile Jay was too transfixed with his brother’s progress to notice. But when he turned back, he realized she looked more haunted than before somehow.
“I’m sorry,” she said before he had a chance to ask her what was wrong. She shook her head with a long sigh. “I scared you -- and I’m sorry.”
The apology caught him more than a little off guard. “What?”
She was too far into this now, and the apologies just kept spilling out. “I didn’t want to say anything too much over text,” she explained. “I just thought the doctor should be the one to tell you--”
“I know--”
“But it freaked you out,” Hailey said, brow creased in concern. “I should have told you it was good news.”
“I just assumed, okay?” Jay said. The emotional whirlwind was still hard to process, but he wanted her to understand that he didn’t blame her. She’d been so good to him. So good to Will. So good at this. Family. If things weren’t so precarious, he’d ask her to marry him right now. He drew a breath, trying to steady himself once more. “Things with Will just hadn’t been going well, so I assumed the worst.”
“Well, it has been a pretty crappy run here,” she said, taking his hand gently. Her face twisted with genuine regret. “I should have just called--”
“Hailey, you didn’t do anything wrong,” he said, pulling his hand free to cup her face. “You’ve been amazing. This whole time. Honestly, you’ve been amazing.”
She looked surprised at the depth of his gratitude. “I just wanted to be here for you,” she said. “For both of you. It’s family, right?”
That was the kind of thing you said, sometimes, especially in their line of work. Bands of brothers; team as family.
But that wasn’t what she was talking about.
And that wasn’t what Jay wanted to hear anyway.
In all the things Jay had lost with his family, he couldn’t afford to neglect the thing he’d found. He’d cling to Will with all he had. And now, he knew, it was time to cling to Hailey, too.
For once, he trusted they were all clinging back.
Smiling, he bent forward and kissed her. “It’s family,” he agreed, kissing her again. “It’s definitely family.”
Pulling back, she looked pleased -- although she seemed too embarrassed to show it, given the circumstances. No doubt, Will had turned a corner, but this wasn’t over yet. There were still procedures that needed to be done to fit his skull back together, and that didn’t even get started on the amount of recovery he’d need. As good as Will’s brain activity was, there was still no guarantee how much of Will had survived -- or how much they’d eventually get back.
The good was good, though.
Even if the bad was still bad.
Hope, however powerful, didn’t negate the realities they were still facing. Realities that Jay would not ignore, not for his sake, not for Hailey’s and definitely not for Will’s.
That said, he had no way of knowing what the full medical picture would look like. What he did know, however, was that the legal picture was a lot clearer. He had trusted Hailey with Will up to this point, and now he would trust her with the rest. Because he could deal with whatever crap recovery entailed, but he couldn’t be a part of the legal process.
He needed her now, just as much as before.
“I actually wanted to talk to you about something else,” he said. “Another favor.”
“Yeah?” she asked. She was still mindful of where they were -- and what they were doing in Will’s hospital room -- but the hope had permeated both of them. Her voice was lighter. “What’s that?”
“Well, while I was gone, a lot happened,” he said.
That wasn’t an answer she had been expecting. “It did? Did you find your evidence?”
“I did,” Jay said. “Got a confession, too.”
Her eyes widened as shock set in. “Archer confessed?”
“To everything,” he said. “He said it was an accident, and even though I think he’s a bastard, I think he’s telling the truth. He took a pot shot at Will, but he didn’t mean for this.”
He nodded toward his brother, letting the scene speak for itself.
Hailey had been great in girlfriend mode over the last few days, but she was still one of the best cops he’d ever known. “So, what?” she asked. “You think we have a case for assault?”
“I do,” he said. “You’re going to have to go talk to Ms. Goodwin for the rest of the evidence, and you’ll need a statement from Ethan Choi--”
“Wait,” she said, shaking her head. “Me?”
“Well, it can’t be me,” Jay said. “There’s no way in hell I could bring a case against the guy who assaulted my brother -- and expect to win. If I’m involved with the investigation at all in an official capacity, then we’ll lose the case before we even get to trial.”
She was frowning now. “But I thought you didn’t want to get the others involved.”
“I didn’t,” Jay said. “Not until I understood what was happening. I had to make my peace first. I had to come to terms with this. Everything I’ve done so far, I’ve done for Will. Now that we’re talking about justice -- I just don’t think that’s my game this time. I mean, I’ve tried that route before.”
Hailey nodded, drawing her lips together in memory. They all knew what Jay had done to the arsonist after his father had died. If the guy hadn’t been killed, the litigation would have been a nightmare for Jay’s inability to separate justice from revenge.
Hailey loved him enough not to say it.
They were both too smart not to think it, though.
“You want me to take it to Voight?” she asked.
“I want you to take it to Voight,” he said.
She pressed her lips together, glancing over at Will as she was thoughtful for a moment. “And you’re sure that’s what you want to do? That’s what Will would want you to do?”
“Will took too much crap from that guy for far too long,” Jay said. “Will thought he had to prove himself, and he bent over backward to make sure he could keep his job. And that nearly got him killed. I don’t know if Will would want this or not, but Will shouldn’t have had to be in this position. Will worked too hard. He deserved better.”
“And you’re sure the case is solid?” Hailey asked. “If it’s not a slam dunk, then it could be hard for Will during recovery.”
“The evidence is pretty strong,” Jay told her. “Go to Goodwin. Talk to Ethan. They both know Will’s innocent here. I want to make sure that everyone else knows it, too. Besides, if the asshole isn’t prosecuted, I may accidentally hit him back. Or worse.”
He was kidding.
Mostly.
Hailey smiled because she got the -- almost -- joke. “So an investigation into Archer is definitely the better choice, unless I want to be investigating you as well.”
“Yeah,” Jay agreed. “Probably.”
She grew quiet for a moment, drawing close to him once more. “Are you sure you don’t want me to stay?”
He dipped his head toward hers until their brows were touching. He breathed in her scent, closing his eyes as he found solidarity there. “Of course I do,” he murmured. “But you’ll be back, right?”
Foreheads touching, their eyelids fluttered against each other. She smiled. “Yeah. I’ll be back.”
“Then, that’s all I need,” he said. “Well, that and a conviction.”
She drew away once more, laughing as she got to her feet. “And a conviction,” she agreed. Leaning forward, she squeezed Will’s foot. “Keep me posted, okay? I’ve been watching every twitch and movement carefully, so I want to know how he’s doing.”
“I’ll be sure to let him know that he’s not allowed to wake up without you,” he quipped.
“I wouldn’t go that far,” she said. “But I think Will and I have reached an understanding. He knows where we stand.”
Family, then.
Jay watched her leave, staring at the empty door for a minute before looking back at Will. He grinned.
Family.
-o-
Jay’s next few days were a lot like the last few days. He lived in the hospital, sleeping in uncomfortable chairs and eating hospital food while taking half-baked showers in the bathroom. In a lot of ways, Will hadn’t changed either. Despite the progress he was making, Will was still deeply unconscious. Any signs of consciousness Dr. Abrams kept talking about were impossible for Jay to make out.
But it was still better, naturally. The feel of impending doom had started to life, and Jay was able to start making chitchat with his brother’s comatose body instead of sorrowful speculation. He didn’t have to ask Will to hold on anymore. All he had to do was hold on and wait for Will to finally come around.
He did so with an exasperation that was mostly for show, but joshing around with his brother helped pass the time. When nothing else was normal -- Will’s skull was still missing and he was still breathing through a tube -- the banter gave some semblance of what had been, what would be.
And that was a routine he could live with. That was a rhythm he could keep.
He started to learn the names of the nurses. He started answering his texts and phone calls. He told Maggie to allow visitors once more. Hailey still spent her days by Will’s side with him, but sometimes he talked her into going home and cleaning up -- and she always came back with a smile and food.
And he started to let himself believe. Not just the big stuff, but the little stuff. That Will could hear him. That when his fingers curled he was squeezing Jay’s hand. When his face turned, he was listening to Jay’s voice. That Will was coming back to him, second by second, breath by breath, Will was coming back to him after all.
-o-
He heard from Sharon Goodwin after several days, telling him that the hospital had opened an official incident report. Dr. Archer was still employed by the hospital pending the review, but he had been placed on leave. Jay didn’t like that the asshole was still drawing a paycheck while Will struggled to recover, but he had learned to measure success in smaller ways these days.
And he wasn’t without options, after all. Whatever the hospital decided to do with Archer was their business. Will’s job was safe, and Jay didn’t need the hospital to fire Archer.
Not when there was still a legal case to be made.
It wasn’t his case, though.
It wasn’t Hailey’s.
When Voight finally showed up, nearly a week after Will’s accident, Jay had to admit, he was glad to see him.
“I would have come sooner, but Upton threatened me -- actually threatened me, mind you -- if I didn’t give you some space,” he said.
He was joking.
He also wasn’t joking.
Jay appreciated both in different ways. He knew his boss well by this point. Voight had taken him under his wing, turned him into the cop he was today. That was for better and for worse, and for all that Jay chafed under Voight’s supervision sometimes, he couldn’t deny that Voight would be there for him.
Not always in the way Jay wanted.
But he’d be there for him.
“It was just a lot, you know,” Jay said. “I needed to focus on Will.”
Voight nodded, because he understood that much, even if he didn’t necessarily like ceding control. “Upton says he’s doing a lot better.”
Jay nodded back, looking at his brother. It was crazy where they were at. Where the fact that Will was having purposeful movements felt like something to brag about.
But considering the alternative, Jay would brag all day long.
“They weren’t sure he was going to come through it,” he said. “But he’s proved him wrong.”
“I wouldn’t bet against a Halstead,” Voight quipped. He inhaled deeply, studying Will for a moment. “Hailey’s brought the case to me.”
Jay nodded. He wasn’t surprised, of course. He’d asked Hailey to run with this, but if Voight was making this house call, it was either to tell him something good or something bad.
“Looks pretty strong,” Voight said. “The video evidence. Witness statements. Dr. Choi’s statement.”
“The guy hit will unprovoked,” Jay said shortly. He looked at his boss and shook his head. “That’s all you need.”
Voight looked at him back, a bit more reserved. “Like I said, it looks pretty strong,” he said. “But I wouldn’t go so far as to tell it a slam dunk.”
Jay scoffed. “What more do we need? We have video of the altercation. The guy confessed.”
“The confession is likely to be deemed inadmissible,” Voight said. “You know that.”
“So drag his ass in. Get it in writing,” Jay said.
“He’s lawyered up,” Voight told him.
Jay rolled his eyes, sighing audibly. “Why are you here, Sarge? Really, though? To talk me out of the case?”
“No,” he said. “Just so you know what to expect.”
He snorted, crossing his arms stubbornly over his chest. “I trust Upton to get it done.”
“Upton’s not on the case,” Voight told him.
This time, Jay was surprised. “But why the hell not?”
Voight gave him a knowing look. There was no weariness, no resignation. Just simple understanding and no room for debate. “You know why.”
Jay drew back. He wouldn’t be chastened -- not about that -- but he knew he didn’t have much ground to stand on here.
“I mean, she took all those days off. She sat by Will’s side,” Voight said. “I’m not asking, and you’re not telling, but we both know what it means.”
There was a part of Jay that wanted to protest, but in truth, he wasn’t sure what he would object to. Voight was known for some hard-line stances, but this one was couched in the softest take. Voight had a penchant, after all, of breaking all the right rules.
“You’ll make sure this happens?” Jay asked. “You and the rest of the team?”
Voight nodded, as though this had always been self evident. “We’ll make it happen,” he promised.
That was a promise Jay knew he could trust.
-o-
It really did all come back to Will, however. By the end of Will’s first week in the hospital, Dr. Abrams was sounding increasingly optimistic. After a series of brain scans, he boosted Will’s odds of recovery even higher, and Will’s vitals had been stable for several days now. Better still, his ICP was back within normal levels -- and showed no further signs of changing.
With this in mind, Dr. Abrams wanted to schedule another surgery.
The last surgery.
To put Will’s skull back together.
Needless to say, Jay couldn’t sign the forms fast enough this time.
The wait was long -- apparently it required some delicate work, reattaching things -- but there was no burden in the waiting room this time. There was no dread. There was just hope.
Hailey waited with him, passing the time in conversation, and Jay watched her, still a little awestruck that she was here.
“We should do it,” he said, interrupting her conversation about the quality of food in vending machines. “We should just do it.”
She stopped, looking at him quizzically. “Do what? Live off vending machines?”
“No,” Jay said. “Get married. Just like you said.”
She stopped, blinking in surprise. “You said we should wait until things calmed down. You were right -- I was impulsive--”
“I was wrong,” Jay said. “We should do it. We should get married.”
She opened her mouth, clearly not sure what to say. “Are you--” she started and she tried to collect herself. “Are you proposing?”
“Hell, yes, I am,” Jay said. “You being here, you staying with me -- it’s been everything, Hailey. And more than that, it feels right. It feels like--”
“Family,” she supplied for her, a smile starting to stretch across her face.
He grinned back, reaching over and taking her hand in his. “Family.”
Her smile widened, and it looked like she might cry.
“So, what do you say?” Jay asked. “Want to do it?”
She nodded, almost as if she didn’t trust herself to speak. “Yes,” she squeaked, breathless and airy. “Yes.”
“Then, we’ll do it,” Jay said. “As soon as Will’s awake.”
“As soon as Will can be there as your best man,” she said.
Because Hailey knew.
Hailey had always known.
And now Jay did, too.
“I love you,” he said, reaching out to cup her face as he kissed her.
She kissed him back, putting her hands on his cheeks. “I love you, too.”
Because hope -- like family -- was always as simple as you wanted it to be.
-o-
After the surgery, Dr. Abrams was nearly jubilant. He explained it all to Jay, almost in excited details, how well the reattachment had gone, how well Will had tolerated the surgery.
But all that mattered was that Will had a skull again.
Also, he was going to live.
Will was really, sincerely going to live.
-o-
And Will did.
He went beyond stable to raising stages of consciousness. It was more than painful stimuli now; recent scans showed increased activity across the board. There was still widespread damage, but the signs of recovery were readily apparent -- and increasing day by day.
Then, one day, nearly a week and a half after the accident, Will started to breathe on his own.
At first, when the alarm started going off, Jay feared the worst. Will’s life had been rather mundane in the ICU since the second surgery, but he was too well trained around hospitals not to understand that the risks were still real. For a split second, he thought the bottom was falling out again.
But the nurse didn’t call a code.
She smiled. “He’s triggering the vent,” she explained.
Jay stared at her. Surely he was supposed to make sense of that, but he had no idea.
She patted him on the arm. “He’s starting to breathe on his own.”
Realization was slow to dawn, and Jay looked at his brother in shock. “You mean, he’s waking up?”
She grinned now. “I mean he’s waking up.”
-o-
Dr. Abrams came and confirmed the nurse’s pronouncement, and after an extensive neuro exam, he said he expected Will to regain consciousness in the next few days. He cautioned Jay extensively about what that might mean -- how Will might not be fully cognizant at first. He recommended not to take Will’s first few days too seriously. It was very normal for patients in Will’s condition to need a long process of waking up before they regained functional cognition.
Jay tried to take this for what it was, a realistic assessment of what was to come, and attempted to brace himself accordingly. Will waking up wasn’t the endgame, after all. There was still along way for Will to go to make a meaningful recovery.
Even so, it was hard not to feel optimistic.
That was the problem with hope. It was contagious, and once you got it inside of you, it was really hard to keep it in check.
And it got a little intense, to be honest. Jay stopped talking to visitors. He really stopped talking to Hailey. He refused to leave Will’s hospital room for any reason, and he half near gave himself a bladder infection from insisting on always being by his brother’s side.
It was just -- Will was waking up.
Will had nearly died, and now Will was waking up.
Jay was sure as hell going to be the first thing his brother saw. That way, no matter what state his brother’s mind was in at the moment, he would know -- on some level -- that everything was going to be okay.
He would know he wasn’t alone.
Now, Jay had mentally prepared himself for the long haul.
To his surprise, the next morning, Will started to rouse. He had done this on and off, snuffling about and moving weakly. Jay had taken his hand to calm him down, as was their custom. But this time, instead of settling back into sleep, Will opened his eyes.
Like, legit, opened his eyes.
For a second at first.
Then he opened them again.
Looking around blearily, Will’s expression was blank. He blinked again, this time registering with some confusion.
Jay gaped for a moment, dumbstruck while he watched his brother’s eyes scan the ceiling. Then, one of the alarms started to chirp, and Jay recognized the ragged rise and fall of Will’s chest from his past bouts of fighting the vent. He realized his brother was about two seconds away from panicking, when he remembered he actually had a plan.
Standing up, he squeezed Will’s hand tighter. He reached up with his other hand, taking his brother’s cheek and tilting his head back toward him. Positioning himself above his brother, he drew his brother’s attention to him, cursing slightly when it actually worked.
Will’s brown eyes turned, dazed and wet, and met Jay’s gaze.
“Will?” he asid, somewhere between hopeful and terrified. “Are you -- can you understand me?”
It was a stupid thing to ask, and it wasn’t what Jay had been intending. His plan had been to assure Will that he was okay, that he wasn’t alone, but Dr. Abrams had failed to warn him that his own coherent thinking skills would be as equally questionable as Will’s in these first few tentative moments.
For his part, Will looked just shy of panicked. His breathing was hitching again, and he was close to gagging himself on the tube. Jay couldn't afford to lose his control -- not when he was solely responsible for Will’s at the moment.
“Hey,” Jay coaxed, keeping both his hands steady where they were. “You’re okay. Will? You’re okay.”
Will’s eyes darted around, and it wasn’t entirely clear if he understood what Jay was telling him or if he just didn’t believe him.
Jay maintained his steady presence, now fully in control of his own emotions. “You’re in a hospital,” he said. “You’re at Med. Do you remember that? Do you remember being in the hospital?”
After a second, Will’s eyes dragged back to Jay. It took him a moment, a long painful moment, but he shook his head slightly.
And Jay nearly lost it.
Because sure, Will was confused. Will was dazed. Will didn’t remember anything.
But he shook his head.
He responded.
More than that, Will recognized him. Will knew him.
Because for as scared as his brother was, he trusted Jay now.
And there was no way in hell Jay was going to let him down now.
“There was an accident,” Jay explained, slow and steady as he spoke. “You got hurt pretty bad.”
Still breathing erratically, Will started to visibly tremble. Tears welled up and leaked from the corner of his eyes.
Jay comforted him, moving his hand from Will’s jaw to smooth out the tears. “I know, I know, it’s okay,” he said, as soothingly as he could. He grinned so wide it hurt, and tears burned in his eyes, too. “It was pretty touch and go for a bit, but you’re doing a lot better, okay? You’re doing a lot better.”
That was the easy version of things. It didn’t talk about the parts of his skull that had been sewn back on. It didn’t touch on his low levels of brain activity. There was nothing to say about how long he’d been comatose or how the scans indicated some damage had occurred. It didn’t go into the therapy he’d need, the long and frustrating road to recovery.
They’d get there, and Jay knew it.
They’d get there and through it.
Together.
Jay knew that -- Jay would promise his whole life on that -- but Will was still struggling. Eye brimming, he couldn’t make sense of it all, and the questions in his eyes implored Jay to explain, to fix it -- now. His lips moved a little, and his body seemed to arch. The alarm triggered again as Will half gagged.
“You’re intubated,” Jay coached him, fingers firm around Will’s, his other still on his brother’s cheek. “You know what that means. You can’t talk. You just got to let it do the work for you.”
There was a glint of understanding in Will’s eyes, but the knowledge Will still possessed clearly only sparked more anxiety. It was a hard thing, waking up in a hospital with the drugs and the tubes and the loss of time.
But Will was coming back from a brain injury.
Until a day ago, his skull had literally been open.
Medical degree or not, that would be a hell of a lot to make sense of.
Still, Will’s fingers tightened around his. Jay could feel him physically trembling, and he wished like hell the doctor would hurry up.
“It’s all medical mumbo jumbo to me. The doctor’s going to explain it to you soon, okay?” he said. “You just have to know that you’re okay. You are okay, Will. Everything’s okay.”
Because being a Halstead meant you knew how to take a punch.
And get right back up again.
Sometimes it took you longer than others.
Sometimes you needed help getting yourself off the ground.
But you always, always got back up.
-o-
Jay was asked to step outside when Dr. Abrams showed up, and they were far enough into this process that he didn’t take it personally. Dr. Abrams could be an asshole, but Jay trusted him as a competent doctor. When he said Will needed a few minutes, Jay took him at his word.
Besides, Jay needed a few minutes, too.
Because Will was awake.
All this time, trapped on the impossibility of hope, and now it had been realized.
With that gratification came the litany of other fears. This could be one step back to normal. Or this could be the high point. The dangerous part of a hope fulfilled was that it made you hungry for more, but what if there was no more? What if the prognosis was still bad?
It was hope at a breaking point, when the good was close enough to taste but the possibility of bad could no longer be avoided. Will had recognized him -- he knew that. More than that, Will had understood him -- to some degree, at least. But Will had been scared and agitated, and you had to know more than who your brother was to ever practice medicine again.
Suddenly all the nuances were abundantly clear to him. Motor deficits might mean Will would never walk right away. He might never be able to hold a scalpel, much less cut someone open to save their life. His ability to process language might be impaired. All that medical knowledge -- those years of studies and hands-on training -- might never come back.
And even in the best case scenarios, Will’s emotional stability might be compromised. He could have less ability to control himself. His ability to handle stress, moderate stimuli -- it could all be compromised. Some of it would come back -- Will’s brain was young, and it was already healing around the damage -- but it might not all come back.
Balance issues. Nerve pain. Memory loss. Speech, language, gait -- all of it.
Hailey was there now, standing outside Will’s room with Jay while he paced back and forth. He’d been anxious during the first surgeries, but not like this. This was a different type of anxiety. At this point, he still didn’t know for sure if Will would be able to stand up at best man during his wedding -- or if his brother, the smart Halstead, was going to be resigned to something much less now.
The possibilities were narrowing, and the schism between success and failure was getting harder and hard to ascertain. All these waiting rooms, trying to see if Will would live or die.
Now, here he was, waiting to find out what kind of life his brother was going to have.
When Dr. Abrams came out, Jay nearly accosted him he was so anxious. Though normally stoic, the man didn’t seem to hold it against Jay. In fact, he caught Jay by the shoulders to steady him, and then opened with the good news.
“I was able to extubate Will, and he’s breathing just fine on his own,” he explained. “Moreover, the initial neuro exams are showing very positive results. Considering where we started this process, I am more than pleased with where we’re at.”
Jay nodded readily, barely willing to be kept at bay. “So he’s okay? He’s going to be okay?”
Hailey hovered just behind him, and Dr. Abrams tilted his head to the side somewhat. “That’s not really how we think about things after a brain injury.”
If Dr. Abrams was falling back on doctor lingo, then that really wasn’t what Jay wanted to hear. He shook his head. “Then, how do you think about it?”
Dr. Abrams drew a long, slow breath. “Look, let’s just start with the basics of where we’re at right now.”
“Okay,” Jay said. “And where is that?”
“Okay, like I said, Will’s awake. He’s extubated and successfully breathing on his own, maintaining his own vitals,” he said.
“Okay,” Jay said, trying his best not to bounce on his feet. He glanced anxiously around the doctor to the room but he couldn’t catch a glimpse of Will. Hailey drew closer to him still, as if sensing his growing anxiety.
Dr. Abrams continued. “And he is capable of speech. He’s not speaking in complete sentences, but he can answer questions and obey commands,” the neurosurgeon explained. “More than that, he knows who he is. There are indications that his long term memory is still intact, but his more recent experiences do seem hazy. That is totally normal.”
Jay nodded along. “Yeah, okay,” he said. “So is he okay?”
“He’s got full motor function, but his coordination is pretty off,” Dr. Abrams went on. “But overall, his cognition is further along than I would have expected at this point.”
Jay shook his head, his impatience getting the better of him. “But everything you’re telling me is good. Right? So if you’re still cautious here, then what aren’t you telling me?”
His questions were spot-on, and they both knew it. Dr. Abrams flattened his lips a little bit and adjusted his stance. “I told you. You can’t be so reductive, not in something like this. In medicine, it rarely works. With TBIs, it works even less. Yes, everything I’m seeing so far is positive -- better than I’d even hoped. But you have to see this realistically. He’s still got a very long ways to go, and there are going to be many ups and downs in the process. Recovery is not a straight line with brain injuries. It’s just not.”
Jay tried to nod. He tried to accept it.
But Dr. Abrams shook his head, as if sensing what Jay wasn’t grasping. “He’s responses at the moment are still very diminished. Good for what he’s been through, but we’re talking about a long way from normal. He’s going to have to refine his movements, practice his speech. Even things as simple as processing his emotions,” he said. “And these things -- don’t have a timeline. I have no idea how long his recovery will take or even what it will look like.”
Jay had a bottom line, though. He knew what his goal had been, and he wanted to know now if it was time to adjust it. “He’s a doctor, though. Is he going to practice medicine again? I know not today or anytime soon. But will he be a doctor again?”
It was a straightforward question, but Dr. Abrams’ drew back. Clearly, it didn’t have an equivocal answer. “That kind of thing is nearly impossible to say. Even if he can regain mobility and language and memory, there’s no telling what kind of shifts we might see in his personality,” he said. “Jay, your brother was without brain activity for the better part of a week. I know this isn’t what you want to hear right now, but we have to set our sights lower.”
It was a realistic answer. Hell, it was probably even reasonable. He felt Hailey, stiff and silent by his side. And he thought of his brother, the wide-eyed look of terror when he’d woken up and understood that something was very, very wrong.
Jay didn’t have all the answers.
He knew he never would.
But he needed this answer.
For his sake as much as Will’s.
“In your professional opinion -- and I’m not going to hold you to it -- but I need to know,” Jay said. “Will he practice medicine again?”
Dr. Abrams sighed. He clearly didn’t want to answer. But this asshole had told Jay his father was dead, and they both knew how this game went.
They both knew.
“As a professional, I can only tell you I don’t know,” Dr. Abrams said. But then he paused and inhaled deeply. “But, as someone who is personally invested in this case, I can tell you that I’m going to work my ass off to make sure that the answer is yes. It’s not going to happen right away -- and it may take longer than you want to think about -- but that’s the goal I’m setting right now. As long as you are on board.”
Jay felt his chest clench. He felt his heart swell. “Hell, yes.”
Dr. Abrams inclined his head, almost with a rueful smile. “Then I look forward to spending more time with you, Detective Halstead.”
Jay grunted, but he was smiling, too. “You’re still a son of a bitch.”
Now, they were both smiling.
“Just so we understand each other,” Abrams said. “You can see him now.”
-o-
Needless to say, Jay went back in alone. Hailey gave his fingers a squeeze and kissed him, and he went in by himself. The nurse saw him, smiled, and bustled out.
Giving Jay a chance to talk to his brother.
And, for the first time since this whole mess began, a chance for his brother to talk to him back.
Will was propped up in the bed now. It had been raised so Will was more vertical, and the pillow beneath his head was keeping him more or less upright. Will looked exhausted, and despite being unconscious for the better part of two weeks Jay was sure his brother was just that.
But when Jay approached, his eyes widened. He looked momentarily agitated, but Jay came up next to him. He forgot about the damn chair and he sat right on the bed, close enough so that they were touching.
“Hey,” he said. “Look who’s finally awake.”
The lighthearted approach was a little lost on Will. He still looked absolutely stricken. “Jay,” he said, halting and scratchy. His voice sounded terrible -- from the tube just as much as anything else, he was sure. “I don’t -- I don’t remember--”
Jay reached out, settling a hand on Will’s arm. “I know, I know,” he said. “The doctor says that’s normal, right? Head injuries and all that? You really got your bell rung.”
His head was still wrapped with bandages, but Will still managed to furrow his brow. “I’m just -- confused,” he said, still straining to get the words out. “A hemorrhage?”
“Hey, I’m not a doctor here,” Jay said. “It’s taken me nearly two weeks ot have any idea what’s going on. If you have questions about the injury or whatever, I’m sure Abrams can come back and walk you through it.”
But Will just looked more vexed. “But what happened?” he asked, and Jay realized he was caught up on the same point Jay had been. They weren’t so dissimilar after all. “Sam didn’t -- he didn’t--”
Jay squeezed Will’s wrist a little bit, bringing his attention back around before a fresh wave of panic could set in. “There was a fight, okay? Do you remember a fight?”
He felt a little guilty after asking; he knew Will couldn’t remember.
Will’s eyes widened again in obvious alarm. “I screwed - I screwed -- up? Did I--”
Jay shook his head, keeping his touch steady and shushing him quickly. “No, you didn’t. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Will started trembling again, his frustration plain. “But -- I don’t -- I don’t understand--”
“I know,” Jay said, gentle in his commiseration. “And you know? It’s kind of a long story. When you’re feeling better, we’ll talk about it. I’ll tell you everything.”
The reassurance was what it was, but Will just looked lost. The weight of it all -- the injury, the recovery, the impairments -- were a hell of a thing to wake up to. Jay had been grappling with it all week, and he was just now coming to terms. For Will, to wake up to this was going to be a challenge.
On the verge of tears again, Will shook his head. “I don’t know -- I don’t -- know -- if I can do this.”
His voice was small now, almost childlike. Almost an admission of vulnerability, of weakness. Of fear.
And Jay realized that maybe he’d missed the point.
He’d spent this time trying to put the pieces together, trying to build a case.
But the pieces -- they didn’t build a case. Not really.
No, the pieces built Will’s life.
This wasn’t about proving Archer had done this.
No, this was about proving Will had changed.
That Will still had a place at Med.
That he had gotten this far.
That he wouldn’t have to do the rest of it alone.
“You can, Will,” Jay said, and he’d never meant anything more. “If I’ve learned anything over the last week, it’s that you really can.”
And Will still looked scared. He still looked weak and terrified and on the verge of losing control. But he wet his lips, managing to form the question. “Will you help?”
Over the last two weeks, Jay had faced a lot of hard questions. He’d grappled with a lot of hard answers.
But this one.
This one was really easy.
He smiled, steady and sure as he held his brother’s gaze. “Of course,” he said, holding Will’s gaze until his brother smiled back. “Of course.”
PART TWO
PART THREE
PART FOUR
PART FIVE
PART SIX
PART SEVEN
PART EIGHT
PART NINE
PART TEN
-o-
He wasn’t sure how long he stood there, unmoving at the last spot his brother had been conscious. He wasn’t sure if people were giving him space, but no one came in to bother him. No one asked him what he was doing or why.
In his mind, he could still see the video. Will trying to walk away. Will turning back.
The single punch.
All the things in Will’s life he should have seen coming, and this one wasn’t his fault.
How was that even fair? How could the universe be that cruel? All the bad things that happened to good people? The first time in his brother’s life he tried to do the right thing, and it ended up like this?
An unlucky punch.
Smacking his head against the counter -- and his medical career was gone.
Hitting the ground hard -- and his memories of Canaryville, their parents, their childhood -- gone, too.
A single punch, and all of the bullets Jay had taken amounted to nothing. The years of tension didn’t matter. The hard work they’d put in to make it right meant nothing. If it amounted to an accident in the doctor’s lounge.
Jay was startled when his phone pinged, and he swallowed hard, trying to collect himself as he dug it out of his pocket. He’d been so preoccupied with unraveling the last of the mystery that he hadn’t thought to keep in touch. At work, they mostly knew not to contact him at the moment, but this one was from Hailey.
Probably checking in.
Then, he opened the message.
Jay, come quick.
He stared at it, trying to make sense of the words. Still dumbfounded, a second message popped up.
Trust me.
There was another pause.
You need to be here.
Because justice didn’t save lives.
Confessions didn’t bring people back.
Solving crimes didn’t change a tragedy.
Jay had given all he had, and it might not ever be enough.
Jay. Will needs you.
And Jay ran as fast and as hard as he possibly could.
-o-
Given the last few days -- hell, the last few everything where his family was concerned -- Jay expected the worst. That was how it was, after all. Doctors were all calling him in for the worst possible news.
We’re sorry. The cancer is terminal.
There’s a better use for this vent.
Ten to one.
Those odds had been framed like hope, but Jay had been naive to think anything other than this outcome. There was one chance Will would live.
The other nine chances were that Jay was planning another funeral. That he was the last Halstead standing. The last Halstead -- period.
Will was going to leave him again.
Only this time, he wasn’t coming back.
This time, Will might already be gone.
He’d all but lived at the hospital over the last few days. He’d already known it well, but it was rote now. A horrible, necessary routine, even more grim than the one he charted taking his mom to chemo each week. One that was bleaker than the arson investigation he never should have been on.
But the end was the same.
The end--
A lost family member--
Was still the same.
He was breathless by the time he got back to Will’s floor, and he half plowed through the ICU staff as he barrelled recklessly forward. He only stopped when Hailey intercepted him, catching him by the shoulders and drawing him to a stop before he could go inside.
“Jay, hey, wait,” she said, trying to keep a hold on him.
He pulled back, shaking his head wildly. “How bad is it?” he asked. “Is it his pressure? He’s not dead, is he? Is he--?”
It was a horrible realization. That in all his efforts to avoid the reality, he’d missed it. He’d been with his mom when she’d passed. He’d been holding his father’s hand when he passed, too. But if he’d missed it with Will, if Will had slipped away and he’d been bitching to some asshole--
He couldn’t think it.
“Jay, just take a breath,” Hailey said, coaching him now. “Stop--”
But there was no way to stop. Not now, not about this. “You can just tell me. You have to tell me, Hailey. If he’s dead, I have to know.”
Her face wrinkled in surprise. “Jay, wait -- Will -- he’s not dead.”
She said it plainly enough, but none of it computed. Jay had reached his capacity for making sense today, and now he just found himself at a total, incomprehensible loss. “But,” he started, the pit in his stomach still gnawing and deep. “Your messages. I don’t understand.”
She drew a breath and looked instantly regretful. “Jay -- no, you've got the wrong idea,” she said. “I’m going to let you go in there to see, but you need to calm down first. Get yourself together.”
Calm wasn’t something he was actually capable of at the moment. Heart pounding, head spinning, the overwhelming sense of loss was suddenly too palpable to ignore. “But you said to get here. Will needs me.”
“Yeah,” she said, emphatic now as she took him by the arm. “Will does need you.”
“So, is he dead?” Jay asked, his voice threatening to break. “Hailey, is he--”
“Jay--”
He couldn’t listen any longer, though. He tried to pull away and step past her. “Is the doctor in there? I have to talk to him--”
She stepped sideways, keeping herself firmly in front of him while her fingers tightened around his biceps. “Jay, please--”
But there was nothing for it.
For any of it.
Jay had spent so much time resenting Will. He’d worn his brother down for his bad choices, and he’d guilted him into becoming the brother he thought he wanted. And all those years he’d thought of himself as the good brother, the better son, and he’d never bothered to ask himself why. Why Will had left. Why he hadn’t come back. Why he made walking away look so damn easy.
And he’d taken so much comfort in Will being there for him. He’d relished it, Will becoming the brother Jay needed, the one he’d wanted.
For what, then? What had his brother gained? What had Will needed?
This investigation had shown Jay that there were two sides to every story, a fact he’d known too well as a cop, but he’d never applied it personally before. To understand it in his brother, how one narrative could tell the truth and still not tell it at all. Jay threw punches; Will took them. Jay would go down fighting someday, but Will would just go down.
Someday, he might not get back up.
Someday might be today.
All Jay had tried to salvage here, and it wasn’t wasn’t.
It wasn’t enough.
Hailey was still holding him fast when Dr. Abrams came from the room. All but bereft now, Jay pulled away from Hailey. “How is he? Is he--?”
Jay was braced for the worst.
So it was disconcerting, to say the least, when Dr. Abrams smiled.
Like actually smiled.
The callous son of a bitch, the no-nonsense bastard, the asshole Jay found to be a conceited prick.
Smiled.
Hailey’s grip eased, and Jay stood back. The surreal sense had overtaken him again, dummying him into submission. Standing there, he stared slack-jawed, trying to make sense of the impossible.
“The pressure is officially under control,” he announced proudly.
He said it like it made sense, like Jay would know exactly what he was talking about.
When Jay could only stare at him in utter, uncomprehending disbelief, the man was somewhat taken aback.
“That’s a good thing,” Dr. Abrams clarified. “It means the pressure in his brain has finally subsided to normal levels.”
When Jay still seemed to have no idea what was going on, Dr. Abrams raised his eyebrows curiously.
“It means he’s getting better,” he said. And he nodded. “This is the good news we’ve been waiting for. I wasn’t sure we’d get here, but I feel pretty safe in telling you that Will’s definitely turned a corner.”
Will was getting better.
This was good news.
Will had turned a corner.
Jay drew a staggering breath as he grappled with this notion. Hailey’s grip had slacken, and Jay felt himself teeter on the edge of his own self control. “He’s not dead?” was the only thing he managed to say, his voice sounding impossibly small.
Dr. Abrams, bastard though he was, looked uncharacteristically soft. “Far from it,” he said. “We’ve been noting drops in his pressure since the second surgery, but they’ve been erratic. This morning, when they stayed low, we monitored him closely to make sure it wasn’t a fluke. But it’s been 12 hours and his levels have only continued to fall. Obviously, things can change, but that’s not the only positive sign.”
Jay was gaping now, the breath thick in his lungs as his heart thudded against the inside of his chest.
Abrams had been smiling before. Now, he was all but beaming. “There’s a reason I wanted the room clear so I could perform a pretty in-depth neuro exam,” he explained. “And he’s starting to show signs of consciousness. His brain function is starting to return.”
Consciousness.
Brain function.
Will wasn’t just not dead. Will had brain function. Will wasn’t brain dead. Will might recover. “What?” Jay asked, almost breathless like he’d been hit in the gut. “But -- how?”
“Brain activity is very hard to detect when the pressure is so high,” Dr. Abrams explained. “That’s why we put off any kind of determination on activity until levels are in check. It isn’t until the pressure goes down that we really start to see what kind of prognosis we’re dealing with.”
Jay’s eyes were wide, and his head felt light. Hailey hovered close to him, as if afraid he might crumple to the ground right then and there. “And?” he asked, shaking visibly now.
“And,” Dr. Abrams said, slow and careful. “We’re seeing steady increases in activity on the monitors. He’s not conscious, and he’s not even triggering the vent yet, but in the exam, he’s starting to respond to painful stimuli. I know it doesn’t seem like much, but I fully expect more brain function to return over the next few days. This is a crucial first step in his recovery. It’s the milestone we were hoping for.”
Jay thought he knew what the doctor was saying, but he didn’t trust himself to believe it. He couldn’t. “Do you--?” he started, but his voice broke off. He inhaled sharply, feeling a sting in his eyes. “Do you mean?”
“He’s improving,” Dr. Abrams said, simply and direct. “Will’s improving.”
He was crying now, almost without knowledge or control, and he thought he might pass out if he could remember how to move properly. “Really?”
“Yes,” Dr. Abrams said, just as frank as ever. “And I’m not going to stand here and make promises -- Will has a very long way to go, and there are a lot of pitfalls along the way -- but this is improvement. This means we can stop talking about mitigation. Now, we can start talking about recovery.”
Jay half choked on a sob, which threatened to keel him over. “Recovery?”
“A very long recovery, mind you,” Dr. Abrams warned. “And I need you to be completely realistic.”
Dr. Abrams was trying to frame the good news now, trying to put it in context, but Jay was too busy grappling with the good news to make sense of it. “But it’s recovery. He’s going to recover?”
He asked it, a question. Scared to believe. Scared to hope.
Dr. Abrams, though, was more pleased than he wanted to let on. He sighed, almost sounding content as he leaned forward with a small hint of conspiratorial friendliness. “Based on my current assessment of his condition, yes. Will is likely to experience some recovery. I didn’t want to have to tell you for a second time that one of your family members was braindead.”
It was in poor taste, maybe, but it was a candor Jay would appreciate later. When he could think straight. Still trembling, he blinked hard. “So the odds? What are his odds?”
They both knew how this went. Their earlier conversations had played with the numbers, and Jay knew how a thousand to one played between them. Abrams didn’t flinch at the question. “It really does depend on what we’re talking about,” he explained. “I mean, at this point, I’d say that a meaningful recovery is more than fifty percent likely. With what I’m seeing now, he’s got an excellent chance at waking up and showing signs of consciousness, interacting with the world in some capacity.”
That was the mild take. Jay knew that the man was holding out. He knew it because the asshole had smiled, and he hadn’t smiled for some capacity. Jay was scared to hope, but this son of a bitch couldn’t help himself for once. “And complete recovery?” he pressed, because he could. Because this time, he actually could.
Dr. Abrams considered that, dipping his head from side to side. Hailey was stoic beside them, looking between Jay and the doctor as she waited for any cue to act. “That’s harder to say, but you know that,” he said.
He couldn’t deny his hope, but he didn’t want to share it prematurely.
But Jay knew.
And he needed to have it said. “Better than a thousand to one?”
“I’d say better than ten to one,” Dr. Abrams said, steady and sure. “He’s going to have a few things to work out, but with therapy and treatment--”
“He won’t have to do it alone,” Jay said, suddenly finding his voice more confident now. He found his footing more sure.
And Dr. Abrams almost smiled again. “No,” he agreed. “He definitely won’t.”
-o-
After the good news, Dr. Abrams coached him on what to do and what not to do, but Jay hardly listened. He got it: he couldn’t jostle Will, and Will’s condition, though improving, was still precarious. As if Jay could forget that Will’s skull was still unattached.
And Jay wasn’t about to throw a raucous party. He wasn’t about to be loud or celebratory.
He just wanted to see his brother.
After all this, he just needed to be with his brother.
Hailey waited outside, just on the other side of the door. She understood what Jay needed. Sometimes he needed her with him.
Some things, however, he needed to do on his own.
This was one of them.
Going inside, going back to his brother’s side.
This was one of them.
In all honesty, Will looked the same as before. The same pale pallor in his complexion, the same hollowed look to his features. The bandages were just as bulky, and the tube hadn’t been moved. Even the machines, with their steady hums and rhythms, made it seem like nothing had changed.
But when he took Will’s fingers in his own, folded his hand over the top and squeezed, it felt different.
He’d convinced the hospital that Will deserved to be here.
Now, he just had to wait for Will to rise to the challenge.
For the first time in a long time, Jay was pretty sure he would.
-o-
With the medical team cleared out, Jay knew the tone of Will’s care had changed. So had the course of the investigation. But here, just Jay and his brother, it was hard to make sense of the relief.
It was hard to make sense of anything.
Hailey stood back, and for awhile Jay was too transfixed with his brother’s progress to notice. But when he turned back, he realized she looked more haunted than before somehow.
“I’m sorry,” she said before he had a chance to ask her what was wrong. She shook her head with a long sigh. “I scared you -- and I’m sorry.”
The apology caught him more than a little off guard. “What?”
She was too far into this now, and the apologies just kept spilling out. “I didn’t want to say anything too much over text,” she explained. “I just thought the doctor should be the one to tell you--”
“I know--”
“But it freaked you out,” Hailey said, brow creased in concern. “I should have told you it was good news.”
“I just assumed, okay?” Jay said. The emotional whirlwind was still hard to process, but he wanted her to understand that he didn’t blame her. She’d been so good to him. So good to Will. So good at this. Family. If things weren’t so precarious, he’d ask her to marry him right now. He drew a breath, trying to steady himself once more. “Things with Will just hadn’t been going well, so I assumed the worst.”
“Well, it has been a pretty crappy run here,” she said, taking his hand gently. Her face twisted with genuine regret. “I should have just called--”
“Hailey, you didn’t do anything wrong,” he said, pulling his hand free to cup her face. “You’ve been amazing. This whole time. Honestly, you’ve been amazing.”
She looked surprised at the depth of his gratitude. “I just wanted to be here for you,” she said. “For both of you. It’s family, right?”
That was the kind of thing you said, sometimes, especially in their line of work. Bands of brothers; team as family.
But that wasn’t what she was talking about.
And that wasn’t what Jay wanted to hear anyway.
In all the things Jay had lost with his family, he couldn’t afford to neglect the thing he’d found. He’d cling to Will with all he had. And now, he knew, it was time to cling to Hailey, too.
For once, he trusted they were all clinging back.
Smiling, he bent forward and kissed her. “It’s family,” he agreed, kissing her again. “It’s definitely family.”
Pulling back, she looked pleased -- although she seemed too embarrassed to show it, given the circumstances. No doubt, Will had turned a corner, but this wasn’t over yet. There were still procedures that needed to be done to fit his skull back together, and that didn’t even get started on the amount of recovery he’d need. As good as Will’s brain activity was, there was still no guarantee how much of Will had survived -- or how much they’d eventually get back.
The good was good, though.
Even if the bad was still bad.
Hope, however powerful, didn’t negate the realities they were still facing. Realities that Jay would not ignore, not for his sake, not for Hailey’s and definitely not for Will’s.
That said, he had no way of knowing what the full medical picture would look like. What he did know, however, was that the legal picture was a lot clearer. He had trusted Hailey with Will up to this point, and now he would trust her with the rest. Because he could deal with whatever crap recovery entailed, but he couldn’t be a part of the legal process.
He needed her now, just as much as before.
“I actually wanted to talk to you about something else,” he said. “Another favor.”
“Yeah?” she asked. She was still mindful of where they were -- and what they were doing in Will’s hospital room -- but the hope had permeated both of them. Her voice was lighter. “What’s that?”
“Well, while I was gone, a lot happened,” he said.
That wasn’t an answer she had been expecting. “It did? Did you find your evidence?”
“I did,” Jay said. “Got a confession, too.”
Her eyes widened as shock set in. “Archer confessed?”
“To everything,” he said. “He said it was an accident, and even though I think he’s a bastard, I think he’s telling the truth. He took a pot shot at Will, but he didn’t mean for this.”
He nodded toward his brother, letting the scene speak for itself.
Hailey had been great in girlfriend mode over the last few days, but she was still one of the best cops he’d ever known. “So, what?” she asked. “You think we have a case for assault?”
“I do,” he said. “You’re going to have to go talk to Ms. Goodwin for the rest of the evidence, and you’ll need a statement from Ethan Choi--”
“Wait,” she said, shaking her head. “Me?”
“Well, it can’t be me,” Jay said. “There’s no way in hell I could bring a case against the guy who assaulted my brother -- and expect to win. If I’m involved with the investigation at all in an official capacity, then we’ll lose the case before we even get to trial.”
She was frowning now. “But I thought you didn’t want to get the others involved.”
“I didn’t,” Jay said. “Not until I understood what was happening. I had to make my peace first. I had to come to terms with this. Everything I’ve done so far, I’ve done for Will. Now that we’re talking about justice -- I just don’t think that’s my game this time. I mean, I’ve tried that route before.”
Hailey nodded, drawing her lips together in memory. They all knew what Jay had done to the arsonist after his father had died. If the guy hadn’t been killed, the litigation would have been a nightmare for Jay’s inability to separate justice from revenge.
Hailey loved him enough not to say it.
They were both too smart not to think it, though.
“You want me to take it to Voight?” she asked.
“I want you to take it to Voight,” he said.
She pressed her lips together, glancing over at Will as she was thoughtful for a moment. “And you’re sure that’s what you want to do? That’s what Will would want you to do?”
“Will took too much crap from that guy for far too long,” Jay said. “Will thought he had to prove himself, and he bent over backward to make sure he could keep his job. And that nearly got him killed. I don’t know if Will would want this or not, but Will shouldn’t have had to be in this position. Will worked too hard. He deserved better.”
“And you’re sure the case is solid?” Hailey asked. “If it’s not a slam dunk, then it could be hard for Will during recovery.”
“The evidence is pretty strong,” Jay told her. “Go to Goodwin. Talk to Ethan. They both know Will’s innocent here. I want to make sure that everyone else knows it, too. Besides, if the asshole isn’t prosecuted, I may accidentally hit him back. Or worse.”
He was kidding.
Mostly.
Hailey smiled because she got the -- almost -- joke. “So an investigation into Archer is definitely the better choice, unless I want to be investigating you as well.”
“Yeah,” Jay agreed. “Probably.”
She grew quiet for a moment, drawing close to him once more. “Are you sure you don’t want me to stay?”
He dipped his head toward hers until their brows were touching. He breathed in her scent, closing his eyes as he found solidarity there. “Of course I do,” he murmured. “But you’ll be back, right?”
Foreheads touching, their eyelids fluttered against each other. She smiled. “Yeah. I’ll be back.”
“Then, that’s all I need,” he said. “Well, that and a conviction.”
She drew away once more, laughing as she got to her feet. “And a conviction,” she agreed. Leaning forward, she squeezed Will’s foot. “Keep me posted, okay? I’ve been watching every twitch and movement carefully, so I want to know how he’s doing.”
“I’ll be sure to let him know that he’s not allowed to wake up without you,” he quipped.
“I wouldn’t go that far,” she said. “But I think Will and I have reached an understanding. He knows where we stand.”
Family, then.
Jay watched her leave, staring at the empty door for a minute before looking back at Will. He grinned.
Family.
-o-
Jay’s next few days were a lot like the last few days. He lived in the hospital, sleeping in uncomfortable chairs and eating hospital food while taking half-baked showers in the bathroom. In a lot of ways, Will hadn’t changed either. Despite the progress he was making, Will was still deeply unconscious. Any signs of consciousness Dr. Abrams kept talking about were impossible for Jay to make out.
But it was still better, naturally. The feel of impending doom had started to life, and Jay was able to start making chitchat with his brother’s comatose body instead of sorrowful speculation. He didn’t have to ask Will to hold on anymore. All he had to do was hold on and wait for Will to finally come around.
He did so with an exasperation that was mostly for show, but joshing around with his brother helped pass the time. When nothing else was normal -- Will’s skull was still missing and he was still breathing through a tube -- the banter gave some semblance of what had been, what would be.
And that was a routine he could live with. That was a rhythm he could keep.
He started to learn the names of the nurses. He started answering his texts and phone calls. He told Maggie to allow visitors once more. Hailey still spent her days by Will’s side with him, but sometimes he talked her into going home and cleaning up -- and she always came back with a smile and food.
And he started to let himself believe. Not just the big stuff, but the little stuff. That Will could hear him. That when his fingers curled he was squeezing Jay’s hand. When his face turned, he was listening to Jay’s voice. That Will was coming back to him, second by second, breath by breath, Will was coming back to him after all.
-o-
He heard from Sharon Goodwin after several days, telling him that the hospital had opened an official incident report. Dr. Archer was still employed by the hospital pending the review, but he had been placed on leave. Jay didn’t like that the asshole was still drawing a paycheck while Will struggled to recover, but he had learned to measure success in smaller ways these days.
And he wasn’t without options, after all. Whatever the hospital decided to do with Archer was their business. Will’s job was safe, and Jay didn’t need the hospital to fire Archer.
Not when there was still a legal case to be made.
It wasn’t his case, though.
It wasn’t Hailey’s.
When Voight finally showed up, nearly a week after Will’s accident, Jay had to admit, he was glad to see him.
“I would have come sooner, but Upton threatened me -- actually threatened me, mind you -- if I didn’t give you some space,” he said.
He was joking.
He also wasn’t joking.
Jay appreciated both in different ways. He knew his boss well by this point. Voight had taken him under his wing, turned him into the cop he was today. That was for better and for worse, and for all that Jay chafed under Voight’s supervision sometimes, he couldn’t deny that Voight would be there for him.
Not always in the way Jay wanted.
But he’d be there for him.
“It was just a lot, you know,” Jay said. “I needed to focus on Will.”
Voight nodded, because he understood that much, even if he didn’t necessarily like ceding control. “Upton says he’s doing a lot better.”
Jay nodded back, looking at his brother. It was crazy where they were at. Where the fact that Will was having purposeful movements felt like something to brag about.
But considering the alternative, Jay would brag all day long.
“They weren’t sure he was going to come through it,” he said. “But he’s proved him wrong.”
“I wouldn’t bet against a Halstead,” Voight quipped. He inhaled deeply, studying Will for a moment. “Hailey’s brought the case to me.”
Jay nodded. He wasn’t surprised, of course. He’d asked Hailey to run with this, but if Voight was making this house call, it was either to tell him something good or something bad.
“Looks pretty strong,” Voight said. “The video evidence. Witness statements. Dr. Choi’s statement.”
“The guy hit will unprovoked,” Jay said shortly. He looked at his boss and shook his head. “That’s all you need.”
Voight looked at him back, a bit more reserved. “Like I said, it looks pretty strong,” he said. “But I wouldn’t go so far as to tell it a slam dunk.”
Jay scoffed. “What more do we need? We have video of the altercation. The guy confessed.”
“The confession is likely to be deemed inadmissible,” Voight said. “You know that.”
“So drag his ass in. Get it in writing,” Jay said.
“He’s lawyered up,” Voight told him.
Jay rolled his eyes, sighing audibly. “Why are you here, Sarge? Really, though? To talk me out of the case?”
“No,” he said. “Just so you know what to expect.”
He snorted, crossing his arms stubbornly over his chest. “I trust Upton to get it done.”
“Upton’s not on the case,” Voight told him.
This time, Jay was surprised. “But why the hell not?”
Voight gave him a knowing look. There was no weariness, no resignation. Just simple understanding and no room for debate. “You know why.”
Jay drew back. He wouldn’t be chastened -- not about that -- but he knew he didn’t have much ground to stand on here.
“I mean, she took all those days off. She sat by Will’s side,” Voight said. “I’m not asking, and you’re not telling, but we both know what it means.”
There was a part of Jay that wanted to protest, but in truth, he wasn’t sure what he would object to. Voight was known for some hard-line stances, but this one was couched in the softest take. Voight had a penchant, after all, of breaking all the right rules.
“You’ll make sure this happens?” Jay asked. “You and the rest of the team?”
Voight nodded, as though this had always been self evident. “We’ll make it happen,” he promised.
That was a promise Jay knew he could trust.
-o-
It really did all come back to Will, however. By the end of Will’s first week in the hospital, Dr. Abrams was sounding increasingly optimistic. After a series of brain scans, he boosted Will’s odds of recovery even higher, and Will’s vitals had been stable for several days now. Better still, his ICP was back within normal levels -- and showed no further signs of changing.
With this in mind, Dr. Abrams wanted to schedule another surgery.
The last surgery.
To put Will’s skull back together.
Needless to say, Jay couldn’t sign the forms fast enough this time.
The wait was long -- apparently it required some delicate work, reattaching things -- but there was no burden in the waiting room this time. There was no dread. There was just hope.
Hailey waited with him, passing the time in conversation, and Jay watched her, still a little awestruck that she was here.
“We should do it,” he said, interrupting her conversation about the quality of food in vending machines. “We should just do it.”
She stopped, looking at him quizzically. “Do what? Live off vending machines?”
“No,” Jay said. “Get married. Just like you said.”
She stopped, blinking in surprise. “You said we should wait until things calmed down. You were right -- I was impulsive--”
“I was wrong,” Jay said. “We should do it. We should get married.”
She opened her mouth, clearly not sure what to say. “Are you--” she started and she tried to collect herself. “Are you proposing?”
“Hell, yes, I am,” Jay said. “You being here, you staying with me -- it’s been everything, Hailey. And more than that, it feels right. It feels like--”
“Family,” she supplied for her, a smile starting to stretch across her face.
He grinned back, reaching over and taking her hand in his. “Family.”
Her smile widened, and it looked like she might cry.
“So, what do you say?” Jay asked. “Want to do it?”
She nodded, almost as if she didn’t trust herself to speak. “Yes,” she squeaked, breathless and airy. “Yes.”
“Then, we’ll do it,” Jay said. “As soon as Will’s awake.”
“As soon as Will can be there as your best man,” she said.
Because Hailey knew.
Hailey had always known.
And now Jay did, too.
“I love you,” he said, reaching out to cup her face as he kissed her.
She kissed him back, putting her hands on his cheeks. “I love you, too.”
Because hope -- like family -- was always as simple as you wanted it to be.
-o-
After the surgery, Dr. Abrams was nearly jubilant. He explained it all to Jay, almost in excited details, how well the reattachment had gone, how well Will had tolerated the surgery.
But all that mattered was that Will had a skull again.
Also, he was going to live.
Will was really, sincerely going to live.
-o-
And Will did.
He went beyond stable to raising stages of consciousness. It was more than painful stimuli now; recent scans showed increased activity across the board. There was still widespread damage, but the signs of recovery were readily apparent -- and increasing day by day.
Then, one day, nearly a week and a half after the accident, Will started to breathe on his own.
At first, when the alarm started going off, Jay feared the worst. Will’s life had been rather mundane in the ICU since the second surgery, but he was too well trained around hospitals not to understand that the risks were still real. For a split second, he thought the bottom was falling out again.
But the nurse didn’t call a code.
She smiled. “He’s triggering the vent,” she explained.
Jay stared at her. Surely he was supposed to make sense of that, but he had no idea.
She patted him on the arm. “He’s starting to breathe on his own.”
Realization was slow to dawn, and Jay looked at his brother in shock. “You mean, he’s waking up?”
She grinned now. “I mean he’s waking up.”
-o-
Dr. Abrams came and confirmed the nurse’s pronouncement, and after an extensive neuro exam, he said he expected Will to regain consciousness in the next few days. He cautioned Jay extensively about what that might mean -- how Will might not be fully cognizant at first. He recommended not to take Will’s first few days too seriously. It was very normal for patients in Will’s condition to need a long process of waking up before they regained functional cognition.
Jay tried to take this for what it was, a realistic assessment of what was to come, and attempted to brace himself accordingly. Will waking up wasn’t the endgame, after all. There was still along way for Will to go to make a meaningful recovery.
Even so, it was hard not to feel optimistic.
That was the problem with hope. It was contagious, and once you got it inside of you, it was really hard to keep it in check.
And it got a little intense, to be honest. Jay stopped talking to visitors. He really stopped talking to Hailey. He refused to leave Will’s hospital room for any reason, and he half near gave himself a bladder infection from insisting on always being by his brother’s side.
It was just -- Will was waking up.
Will had nearly died, and now Will was waking up.
Jay was sure as hell going to be the first thing his brother saw. That way, no matter what state his brother’s mind was in at the moment, he would know -- on some level -- that everything was going to be okay.
He would know he wasn’t alone.
Now, Jay had mentally prepared himself for the long haul.
To his surprise, the next morning, Will started to rouse. He had done this on and off, snuffling about and moving weakly. Jay had taken his hand to calm him down, as was their custom. But this time, instead of settling back into sleep, Will opened his eyes.
Like, legit, opened his eyes.
For a second at first.
Then he opened them again.
Looking around blearily, Will’s expression was blank. He blinked again, this time registering with some confusion.
Jay gaped for a moment, dumbstruck while he watched his brother’s eyes scan the ceiling. Then, one of the alarms started to chirp, and Jay recognized the ragged rise and fall of Will’s chest from his past bouts of fighting the vent. He realized his brother was about two seconds away from panicking, when he remembered he actually had a plan.
Standing up, he squeezed Will’s hand tighter. He reached up with his other hand, taking his brother’s cheek and tilting his head back toward him. Positioning himself above his brother, he drew his brother’s attention to him, cursing slightly when it actually worked.
Will’s brown eyes turned, dazed and wet, and met Jay’s gaze.
“Will?” he asid, somewhere between hopeful and terrified. “Are you -- can you understand me?”
It was a stupid thing to ask, and it wasn’t what Jay had been intending. His plan had been to assure Will that he was okay, that he wasn’t alone, but Dr. Abrams had failed to warn him that his own coherent thinking skills would be as equally questionable as Will’s in these first few tentative moments.
For his part, Will looked just shy of panicked. His breathing was hitching again, and he was close to gagging himself on the tube. Jay couldn't afford to lose his control -- not when he was solely responsible for Will’s at the moment.
“Hey,” Jay coaxed, keeping both his hands steady where they were. “You’re okay. Will? You’re okay.”
Will’s eyes darted around, and it wasn’t entirely clear if he understood what Jay was telling him or if he just didn’t believe him.
Jay maintained his steady presence, now fully in control of his own emotions. “You’re in a hospital,” he said. “You’re at Med. Do you remember that? Do you remember being in the hospital?”
After a second, Will’s eyes dragged back to Jay. It took him a moment, a long painful moment, but he shook his head slightly.
And Jay nearly lost it.
Because sure, Will was confused. Will was dazed. Will didn’t remember anything.
But he shook his head.
He responded.
More than that, Will recognized him. Will knew him.
Because for as scared as his brother was, he trusted Jay now.
And there was no way in hell Jay was going to let him down now.
“There was an accident,” Jay explained, slow and steady as he spoke. “You got hurt pretty bad.”
Still breathing erratically, Will started to visibly tremble. Tears welled up and leaked from the corner of his eyes.
Jay comforted him, moving his hand from Will’s jaw to smooth out the tears. “I know, I know, it’s okay,” he said, as soothingly as he could. He grinned so wide it hurt, and tears burned in his eyes, too. “It was pretty touch and go for a bit, but you’re doing a lot better, okay? You’re doing a lot better.”
That was the easy version of things. It didn’t talk about the parts of his skull that had been sewn back on. It didn’t touch on his low levels of brain activity. There was nothing to say about how long he’d been comatose or how the scans indicated some damage had occurred. It didn’t go into the therapy he’d need, the long and frustrating road to recovery.
They’d get there, and Jay knew it.
They’d get there and through it.
Together.
Jay knew that -- Jay would promise his whole life on that -- but Will was still struggling. Eye brimming, he couldn’t make sense of it all, and the questions in his eyes implored Jay to explain, to fix it -- now. His lips moved a little, and his body seemed to arch. The alarm triggered again as Will half gagged.
“You’re intubated,” Jay coached him, fingers firm around Will’s, his other still on his brother’s cheek. “You know what that means. You can’t talk. You just got to let it do the work for you.”
There was a glint of understanding in Will’s eyes, but the knowledge Will still possessed clearly only sparked more anxiety. It was a hard thing, waking up in a hospital with the drugs and the tubes and the loss of time.
But Will was coming back from a brain injury.
Until a day ago, his skull had literally been open.
Medical degree or not, that would be a hell of a lot to make sense of.
Still, Will’s fingers tightened around his. Jay could feel him physically trembling, and he wished like hell the doctor would hurry up.
“It’s all medical mumbo jumbo to me. The doctor’s going to explain it to you soon, okay?” he said. “You just have to know that you’re okay. You are okay, Will. Everything’s okay.”
Because being a Halstead meant you knew how to take a punch.
And get right back up again.
Sometimes it took you longer than others.
Sometimes you needed help getting yourself off the ground.
But you always, always got back up.
-o-
Jay was asked to step outside when Dr. Abrams showed up, and they were far enough into this process that he didn’t take it personally. Dr. Abrams could be an asshole, but Jay trusted him as a competent doctor. When he said Will needed a few minutes, Jay took him at his word.
Besides, Jay needed a few minutes, too.
Because Will was awake.
All this time, trapped on the impossibility of hope, and now it had been realized.
With that gratification came the litany of other fears. This could be one step back to normal. Or this could be the high point. The dangerous part of a hope fulfilled was that it made you hungry for more, but what if there was no more? What if the prognosis was still bad?
It was hope at a breaking point, when the good was close enough to taste but the possibility of bad could no longer be avoided. Will had recognized him -- he knew that. More than that, Will had understood him -- to some degree, at least. But Will had been scared and agitated, and you had to know more than who your brother was to ever practice medicine again.
Suddenly all the nuances were abundantly clear to him. Motor deficits might mean Will would never walk right away. He might never be able to hold a scalpel, much less cut someone open to save their life. His ability to process language might be impaired. All that medical knowledge -- those years of studies and hands-on training -- might never come back.
And even in the best case scenarios, Will’s emotional stability might be compromised. He could have less ability to control himself. His ability to handle stress, moderate stimuli -- it could all be compromised. Some of it would come back -- Will’s brain was young, and it was already healing around the damage -- but it might not all come back.
Balance issues. Nerve pain. Memory loss. Speech, language, gait -- all of it.
Hailey was there now, standing outside Will’s room with Jay while he paced back and forth. He’d been anxious during the first surgeries, but not like this. This was a different type of anxiety. At this point, he still didn’t know for sure if Will would be able to stand up at best man during his wedding -- or if his brother, the smart Halstead, was going to be resigned to something much less now.
The possibilities were narrowing, and the schism between success and failure was getting harder and hard to ascertain. All these waiting rooms, trying to see if Will would live or die.
Now, here he was, waiting to find out what kind of life his brother was going to have.
When Dr. Abrams came out, Jay nearly accosted him he was so anxious. Though normally stoic, the man didn’t seem to hold it against Jay. In fact, he caught Jay by the shoulders to steady him, and then opened with the good news.
“I was able to extubate Will, and he’s breathing just fine on his own,” he explained. “Moreover, the initial neuro exams are showing very positive results. Considering where we started this process, I am more than pleased with where we’re at.”
Jay nodded readily, barely willing to be kept at bay. “So he’s okay? He’s going to be okay?”
Hailey hovered just behind him, and Dr. Abrams tilted his head to the side somewhat. “That’s not really how we think about things after a brain injury.”
If Dr. Abrams was falling back on doctor lingo, then that really wasn’t what Jay wanted to hear. He shook his head. “Then, how do you think about it?”
Dr. Abrams drew a long, slow breath. “Look, let’s just start with the basics of where we’re at right now.”
“Okay,” Jay said. “And where is that?”
“Okay, like I said, Will’s awake. He’s extubated and successfully breathing on his own, maintaining his own vitals,” he said.
“Okay,” Jay said, trying his best not to bounce on his feet. He glanced anxiously around the doctor to the room but he couldn’t catch a glimpse of Will. Hailey drew closer to him still, as if sensing his growing anxiety.
Dr. Abrams continued. “And he is capable of speech. He’s not speaking in complete sentences, but he can answer questions and obey commands,” the neurosurgeon explained. “More than that, he knows who he is. There are indications that his long term memory is still intact, but his more recent experiences do seem hazy. That is totally normal.”
Jay nodded along. “Yeah, okay,” he said. “So is he okay?”
“He’s got full motor function, but his coordination is pretty off,” Dr. Abrams went on. “But overall, his cognition is further along than I would have expected at this point.”
Jay shook his head, his impatience getting the better of him. “But everything you’re telling me is good. Right? So if you’re still cautious here, then what aren’t you telling me?”
His questions were spot-on, and they both knew it. Dr. Abrams flattened his lips a little bit and adjusted his stance. “I told you. You can’t be so reductive, not in something like this. In medicine, it rarely works. With TBIs, it works even less. Yes, everything I’m seeing so far is positive -- better than I’d even hoped. But you have to see this realistically. He’s still got a very long ways to go, and there are going to be many ups and downs in the process. Recovery is not a straight line with brain injuries. It’s just not.”
Jay tried to nod. He tried to accept it.
But Dr. Abrams shook his head, as if sensing what Jay wasn’t grasping. “He’s responses at the moment are still very diminished. Good for what he’s been through, but we’re talking about a long way from normal. He’s going to have to refine his movements, practice his speech. Even things as simple as processing his emotions,” he said. “And these things -- don’t have a timeline. I have no idea how long his recovery will take or even what it will look like.”
Jay had a bottom line, though. He knew what his goal had been, and he wanted to know now if it was time to adjust it. “He’s a doctor, though. Is he going to practice medicine again? I know not today or anytime soon. But will he be a doctor again?”
It was a straightforward question, but Dr. Abrams’ drew back. Clearly, it didn’t have an equivocal answer. “That kind of thing is nearly impossible to say. Even if he can regain mobility and language and memory, there’s no telling what kind of shifts we might see in his personality,” he said. “Jay, your brother was without brain activity for the better part of a week. I know this isn’t what you want to hear right now, but we have to set our sights lower.”
It was a realistic answer. Hell, it was probably even reasonable. He felt Hailey, stiff and silent by his side. And he thought of his brother, the wide-eyed look of terror when he’d woken up and understood that something was very, very wrong.
Jay didn’t have all the answers.
He knew he never would.
But he needed this answer.
For his sake as much as Will’s.
“In your professional opinion -- and I’m not going to hold you to it -- but I need to know,” Jay said. “Will he practice medicine again?”
Dr. Abrams sighed. He clearly didn’t want to answer. But this asshole had told Jay his father was dead, and they both knew how this game went.
They both knew.
“As a professional, I can only tell you I don’t know,” Dr. Abrams said. But then he paused and inhaled deeply. “But, as someone who is personally invested in this case, I can tell you that I’m going to work my ass off to make sure that the answer is yes. It’s not going to happen right away -- and it may take longer than you want to think about -- but that’s the goal I’m setting right now. As long as you are on board.”
Jay felt his chest clench. He felt his heart swell. “Hell, yes.”
Dr. Abrams inclined his head, almost with a rueful smile. “Then I look forward to spending more time with you, Detective Halstead.”
Jay grunted, but he was smiling, too. “You’re still a son of a bitch.”
Now, they were both smiling.
“Just so we understand each other,” Abrams said. “You can see him now.”
-o-
Needless to say, Jay went back in alone. Hailey gave his fingers a squeeze and kissed him, and he went in by himself. The nurse saw him, smiled, and bustled out.
Giving Jay a chance to talk to his brother.
And, for the first time since this whole mess began, a chance for his brother to talk to him back.
Will was propped up in the bed now. It had been raised so Will was more vertical, and the pillow beneath his head was keeping him more or less upright. Will looked exhausted, and despite being unconscious for the better part of two weeks Jay was sure his brother was just that.
But when Jay approached, his eyes widened. He looked momentarily agitated, but Jay came up next to him. He forgot about the damn chair and he sat right on the bed, close enough so that they were touching.
“Hey,” he said. “Look who’s finally awake.”
The lighthearted approach was a little lost on Will. He still looked absolutely stricken. “Jay,” he said, halting and scratchy. His voice sounded terrible -- from the tube just as much as anything else, he was sure. “I don’t -- I don’t remember--”
Jay reached out, settling a hand on Will’s arm. “I know, I know,” he said. “The doctor says that’s normal, right? Head injuries and all that? You really got your bell rung.”
His head was still wrapped with bandages, but Will still managed to furrow his brow. “I’m just -- confused,” he said, still straining to get the words out. “A hemorrhage?”
“Hey, I’m not a doctor here,” Jay said. “It’s taken me nearly two weeks ot have any idea what’s going on. If you have questions about the injury or whatever, I’m sure Abrams can come back and walk you through it.”
But Will just looked more vexed. “But what happened?” he asked, and Jay realized he was caught up on the same point Jay had been. They weren’t so dissimilar after all. “Sam didn’t -- he didn’t--”
Jay squeezed Will’s wrist a little bit, bringing his attention back around before a fresh wave of panic could set in. “There was a fight, okay? Do you remember a fight?”
He felt a little guilty after asking; he knew Will couldn’t remember.
Will’s eyes widened again in obvious alarm. “I screwed - I screwed -- up? Did I--”
Jay shook his head, keeping his touch steady and shushing him quickly. “No, you didn’t. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Will started trembling again, his frustration plain. “But -- I don’t -- I don’t understand--”
“I know,” Jay said, gentle in his commiseration. “And you know? It’s kind of a long story. When you’re feeling better, we’ll talk about it. I’ll tell you everything.”
The reassurance was what it was, but Will just looked lost. The weight of it all -- the injury, the recovery, the impairments -- were a hell of a thing to wake up to. Jay had been grappling with it all week, and he was just now coming to terms. For Will, to wake up to this was going to be a challenge.
On the verge of tears again, Will shook his head. “I don’t know -- I don’t -- know -- if I can do this.”
His voice was small now, almost childlike. Almost an admission of vulnerability, of weakness. Of fear.
And Jay realized that maybe he’d missed the point.
He’d spent this time trying to put the pieces together, trying to build a case.
But the pieces -- they didn’t build a case. Not really.
No, the pieces built Will’s life.
This wasn’t about proving Archer had done this.
No, this was about proving Will had changed.
That Will still had a place at Med.
That he had gotten this far.
That he wouldn’t have to do the rest of it alone.
“You can, Will,” Jay said, and he’d never meant anything more. “If I’ve learned anything over the last week, it’s that you really can.”
And Will still looked scared. He still looked weak and terrified and on the verge of losing control. But he wet his lips, managing to form the question. “Will you help?”
Over the last two weeks, Jay had faced a lot of hard questions. He’d grappled with a lot of hard answers.
But this one.
This one was really easy.
He smiled, steady and sure as he held his brother’s gaze. “Of course,” he said, holding Will’s gaze until his brother smiled back. “Of course.”
