Chapter Text
They were in the bullpen when Jay got the call.
The team had just solved a drive-by, some power play by a low-level runner in the Southside Hustlers. For once, the dots were easy to connect, and Voight got a confession out of the suspect in under an hour.
Everyone was milling about. The detectives were in the vague post-case euphoria where everyone talks about heading to Molly’s early and maybe trying out that new Greek restaurant Hailey swears is genuine. Ruzek and Burgess were laughing about something in the corner. Voight was taking photos off the board while discussing something with Atwater.
Jay, for his part, was glad the case had wrapped up. He and Hailey were still in the honeymoon phase, and he was looking forward to the night off if you caught his drift. There was a time, after everything (after Erin), that he thought he would never be happy again. He couldn’t be more glad he was wrong. Jay stretched backward in his chair and glanced at the clock. It was early, but the case was over, so Jay figured he could head home without Voight reading too much into it.
Right as he moved to gather his things, his phone rang, and all the faces in the bullpen swiveled to him. Jay let out a small sigh and picked up the phone. It was from a number he didn't recognize but had a Chicago area code. It could be a CI from a burner or something to do with one of Intelligence’s ongoing cases. Jay shrugged and picked it up. Better safe than sorry.
“Detective Halstead? Jay?” The voice of Sharon Goodwin surprised him. Why was the head of the ED at Chicago Med calling him? If it was a police matter, it would’ve gone through dispatch. That left only one scenario. It was Will.
“What did my brother do this time?” Jay rolled his eyes, making reassuring eye contact with Hailey. She smiled at his antics. His little brother was famous for getting in minor trouble, and the Intelligence unit knew it. Jay absently remembered that Will’s birthday was coming up.
Sharon paused at the end of the line. “It’s–“ Her voice caught. Jay sat up in his seat. He knew that tone of voice. He used it all the time, talking to victims' families.
“Jay.” Sharon audibly swallowed. “Jay. We’re contacting you because you’re Will’s emergency contact. He collapsed in the ED. I think you better come to Med.”
Jay must’ve given something away because Hailey’s eyes met his in alarm. The side conversation between Ruzek and Burgess petered off, and Voight turned to look at Jay with his particular brand of grizzled concern.
“Is he critical? What’s wrong with him?” Jay demanded. This was his little brother. Jay was supposed to have the dangerous job, not Will. Jay wasn’t supposed to get these kinds of calls. Will was a surgeon, Will was safe.
“I can tell you more when you get here, but Will’s condition is serious. Jay, I know this is a shock, but is there anyone else I need to get in touch with? You’re his only listed contact.”
“No,” Jay answered on autopilot, “Other than the hospital, I’m all he has left.”
Jay heard Sharon promise to meet him at the hospital waiting room, and then the call ended with an ominous click. The room had gone silent, but Jay didn’t notice. He was too busy trying to remember the last time he saw his brother.
Was it in the ED last week, when Jay was interviewing a witness? No, it must’ve been Tuesday at Molly’s. Will was drinking with Dr. Choi, but he had paused to raise his beer to Jay across the room. At the time, Jay had laughed and raised his beer back but quickly went back to his conversation with Ruzek. Will had looked healthy, Jay thought. Will had just looked like Will, same unruly red hair, same slightly sharp smile, same world weariness carried in the hook of his smile.
When Hailey put a hand on his arm, Jay realized he had gotten to his feet.
“What’s wrong? Did something happen at the hospital?” Hailey asked, eyes searching. She must not have liked what she found because she stepped in his way as he tried to push past her.
“I have to go, Hailey. That was Goodwin, she said Will collapsed. She said it’s serious.”
Hailey exchanged a quick glance with Voight, who gave her a small nod.
“I’ll go with you, then.” She said, shoulders set resolute.
Jay took that as permission to leave and was half-way down the stairs before Hailey had the chance to stop him. He heard her tell the rest of Intelligence that she’d text with an update, but his mind was miles away.
~
Hailey had been in this waiting room before. She had waited for news on victims, cops, and Jay when he got shot. Her day-long vigil was not a memory that she liked to poke, but it meant that she knew the contours of the space well. Jay was breathing heavily beside her, and Hailey could feel the anxiety rolling off him in waves.
Hailey had been in serious situations before, situations that mobilized the entire city. That being said, this was the first time the hospital chief of staff met her at the door, and Hailey had a sneaking suspicion it wasn’t a good sign. The look on Goodwin’s face was an even worse one. Hailey hoped Jay didn’t notice.
Her partner had been vibrating with energy on the car ride over. Jay was fiercely protective of Will. He took the title of big brother seriously and, since Will came back to Chicago, they had been close. They had beers at Molly’s at least once a week and texted back and forth with sarcastic acerbity.
Hailey likes Will, admires his dedication to his patients, but she’s mature enough to know that she cares about him because Jay cares. Jay loves his brother, and she loves Jay. For her, it’s as simple as that.
Jay took the last few steps to Goodwin in less than a second and started firing off questions. Hailey hung back a few steps, observing the situation with the detective’s eye she never fully turned off.
Goodwin’s professional mask cracked a touch at the raw concern in Jay’s eyes. She used a pause in Jay’s volley to start answering, and Hailey watched as Goodwin informed him that Will had a brain bleed no-one had known about that caused him to faint in the middle of the ED. Will had been rushed into surgery, and Dr. Abrams had stopped the bleeding.
Dr. Manning, who sported two extraordinarily red-rimmed eyes, added that the bleed most likely came from an injury Will had got yesterday when a patient had a seizure. The doctors fell silent for a moment, and Hailey stepped forward.
“What aren’t you saying?” Hailey asked. “Look, me and Jay are both cops, and we know when someone’s holding something back. Just give it to us straight.” She hoped that Jay didn’t mind her interjection, or the use of the royal we, but she wasn’t about to let her partner be lied to by some cagey doctors.
Jay’s gaze swiveled to her, and then back at the doctors accusingly.
Dr. Abrams took a small step forward and cleared his throat. “It was touch-and-go for a while in the OR, and we’re concerned about Will’s brain function.”
Each word seemed to hit Jay with the force of a blow.
Dr. Abrams continued. “If Will’s post-surgical coma persists with the current lack of neural activity for more than 24 hours, I will have to declare brain death.”
Jay, who had been frantic through the whole explanation, began to deflate. Hailey shifted, and from this angle, she could see Jay better. He looked scarily similar to how he looked when Angela Nelson shot him.
Her partner was silent for a moment, then closed his eyes. When he opened them, they were blank, and his voice came out empty and scraping. “Can I see him?”
Dr. Manning, from her position a few steps behind Ms. Goodwin, answered before Dr. Abrams could. “Yes, I’ll take you to him.”
Hailey moved to follow, she could see Dr. Marcel about to say something about the ICU’s visitor policy, but before Hailey could gently remind him that she carried a gun, Goodwin intervened, murmuring to let her go.
While trailing Jay to Will’s room, Hailey texted Burgess a quick Not Good, knowing Kim would pass it on to the rest of Intelligence. Hailey hesitated, then added Tell Voight Jay needs time - could end badly. She could add more details, but knowing Voight and his information-digging ways, it wasn’t necessary. She slipped her phone into her pocket and strode to match pace with Jay.
Dr. Manning was talking to him as they walked, but it was clear Jay couldn’t really hear her. Hailey suddenly remembered that Dr. Manning was Will’s ex-fiance. Hailey had known Dr. Manning cared about her partner’s brother from the way she was carrying herself– like something vital had shattered– but had assumed it was the loyalty that came with a high-intensity job. Doctors and cops had that in common.
If she had to, Hailey would guess that Will and her weren’t together now, but she could see the echoes of love etched in the concern on the doctor’s face.
They finally reached Will’s room, and the door hissed open. Jay stood in the doorway, rigid with shock. Huh, Hailey thought absently, sometimes it is bad as it looks.
~
According to those who knew her, Nat was an excellent doctor, a good mother, and an even better friend. She and Will had their own fraught history, but she would’ve thought that wouldn’t’ve stopped her from being a decent friend. That is, until yesterday.
The patient, a 52-year old electrician, had been shocked during a routine power grid maintenance. Will and her were doing the diagnostic intake, something they had done hundreds of times before when the patient started seizing. Will held him down while Nat prepared the sedation, but the man got in a lucky blow, and Will’s skull smacked into the wall behind him.
Once the patient was stable, Nat did a quick exam on a protesting Will, but nothing seemed wrong. Will followed the penlight with annoyance and frowned as Natalie continued to fuss. She could see that he was about to snap and say something they both regretted, so she stepped back. Will gave her a grateful smile and nodded along as she recommended rest and to tell her if he developed a headache. That was the end of it. The rest of the shift was uneventful.
It was a full eighteen hours later when Will collapsed. He was an hour into a double and between patients, chatting at the nurses’ station with Ethan and Dr. Marcel. Natalie only noticed them because she wanted to ask Will about a diagnosis he had made on a shared patient. It was one of his more impressive catches, and she wanted to pick his brain.
She was only a few feet away when Will slurred in the middle of a sentence and raised a hand to the back of his head. Nat watched Dr. Choi ask him if he was alright, but Will waved him off. He straightened, noticed Nat walking towards them, smiled blindingly, and then collapsed like a puppet with the strings cut.
Everything moved very quickly after that. Dr. Choi and Dr. Marcel were on him in a second. As soon as they got him on a gurney in Trauma 1, Will started seizing. They sedated him, and Dr. Abrams was called. At some point, Nat found herself outside Will’s bay, watching as Dr. Abrams assessed him. Time passed strangely, moving around her still form as she watched Will fade. Nat wasn’t a neurosurgeon, but something dark and coiling inside of her told her that she might never speak to Will again.
Nat was aware of the hospital buzzing behind her; by this point, the entire hospital knew Dr. Halstead had collapsed. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Dr. Charles and Ms. Goodwin talking with Maggie near the nurses' station. She wondered how long it would take the whole hospital to find out if Will–. No. Natalie refused to think that way.
Dr. Abrams’s voice cut through her musings, “It looks like an intracranial hematoma,” he frowned and flipped through the EEG readings, “A bad one if his intracranial pressure is any indication.”
Ethan said what they were all thinking, “What caused this? Will doesn’t have any underlying conditions, and I don’t see a record of head trauma….”
The door hissed, and Natalie stepped into the room. The three doctors’ gazes were on her in a second.
She choked out, “It was yesterday. A patient seized and Will hit his head. I didn’t see it hit the wall,” Natalie could feel her eyes watering, “I did an exam. He said it was fine, that it barely even hurt.”
If the doctors were surprised that Will downplayed his injury, they didn’t show it.
Dr. Marcel moved to put on Nat’s shoulder. “Natalie,” he gently intoned, “You couldn’t’ve known.” He pulled her into a hug, and the dam broke.
Dr. Abrams ignored Natalie’s tears and flipped the chart closed. He let out a sigh and said “That fits. He’s going to need surgery soon to relieve the pressure. Who’s his medical proxy?”
Natalie hiccupped. “It’s his brother. Jay. The detective.”
Goodwin walked in. “I’ll get in contact with Jay, Nat. It’s alright. Why don’t you go sit down? Have some water?”
Nat squared her shoulders. “Yes. I–” All the monitors went off at once.
“Pressure’s rising. He needs to go into surgery now. It’s officially emergent. Let’s go, people.” Dr. Abrams strode out of the room. Will, unconscious on a gurney, followed close behind.