Chapter 3

"Just where is everyone else today?" Jamie griped as he hung up the phone after leaving yet another message for Danny while continuing to stalk back and forth in front of the admissions desk at St. Victor's hospital with a growing limp now as he tired himself out before pausing once more with a knock at the window as the unamused woman behind the glass rolled her eyes and frowned back.

"Ma'am," he tried again with a tight smile when she finally conceded and opened it a crack as he was doing his best to quell a growing frustration level with this new, obstinate, unsympathetic, unimpressed nurse who followed the letter of the law and had thus far refused all requests for information regarding Henry's condition or status while he was still being evaluated somewhere behind a curtain in the busy emergency room.

"The rest of the Commissioner's family will be here shortly," he lied outright since he had been unable to reach his brother, Linda or Erin directly despite multiple attempts and so far, had only managed to alert Nicki who was on her way after leaving a shift at the Columbia University campus bookstore where she was working for the summer while taking a few elective classes. "Would it at least be possible to open up the private waiting room down the hall so I can move everyone in there for security purposes?" he asked through gritted teeth and flashed the gold badge at his belt once more in an attempt to get something out of her since right now his upset, and frankly unkempt-looking wife, daughter, and still-somewhat fragile baby boy were seated in the middle of a crowded waiting room surrounded by people coughing up God only knows what.

"I'll see if someone knows where the key is," she answered with no obvious intent to do that, followed by a dismissive "Next," and a wave to the person standing aside him as he was tempted to reach for his duty piece had it been available.

"Jamie," Eddie's steadying voice came from behind instead. "Honey, please sit down. You're not using your crutches like you're supposed to when you get tired, and you're gonna wind up taking a face plant in front of everyone here soon."

"Well, then at least maybe I'd be able to get back there and see what the hell is happening!" he huffed before finally obeying and slumping into the seat next to her while pulling Kaylin back onto his lap for a hug that the likewise stressed little girl reciprocated as she buried her face in his neck. "I don't like the thought of him being alone, Ed," he admitted sadly as she instantly reached over for his hand while he choked up on another memory. "Grandma Betty was alone," he revealed the reason behind the angst. "No one knows how long before he found her and by that time it was too late. So was Joe… it's just not right…" he trailed off. "We're supposed to be there for our family when something bad happens… just like everyone did for me."

"He's not alone, Jamie," Eddie assured as she teared up alongside him and leaned her head on his shoulder. "We're here, and he's gonna be okay. He got help right away. Thank God it happened in our house and not somewhere out on the street or when he was by himself this morning after your Dad left, right? He made it home."

"I guess, it's just that he never lets us down. With Dad not here, I don't want anything to…"

"Jamie Reagan, I thought I'd find you here!" a shrill call from the double doorway interrupted their thoughts, and both jumped to their feet once more as Addison Greene made her way towards them with a prominent baby bump of her own on full display beneath her scrubs. "Aw, there's your sweet little guy! He looks so good!" she cooed with a hand on her belly as she spotted the sleeping infant in the carrier next to them. "George and I just found out we're having a girl!" she beamed with a radiant smile as that momentous engagement trip to Red Rocks the previous December had indeed left more than a ring on her finger with an expectant bundle of joy now the size of a spaghetti squash due to arrive in the beginning of September. "He wanted to know, and I wanted a surprise, but then at the last visit I just went ahead and gave in and told them to tell us. Isn't that AWESOME? Little Joey can have a real girlfriend for play dates now!"

"That's great, Ad. Congratulations," Jamie acknowledged sincerely even as Eddie nearly spasmed aside of him twitching at the thought although honestly now their son's future dating life and the specter of a nightmare he kept having about a potential mating with Magenta Mahoy that this little announcement recounted was the last thing on their minds. "Did you see Pop back there?" he queried.

"Oh, right… that's how I knew you'd be out here, silly!" Addie remembered as pregnancy had done nothing if not amplify her usual bubbly nature. "Dr. Conklin was just getting to him when I got called down on a respiratory consult in the next bed for a five-year-old boy who had a seizure then and there and needed CPR. Plus, there's a lady across the way whose eyeball just popped right out of her head… imagine that!" she continued spouting off while Jamie's mind was spinning since there had been nothing definitive revealed about his grandfather's condition in that little font of information.

"ADDISON," Eddie stepped in finally to refocus her. "We're really worried about Henry," she emphasized.

"Oh, of course," Addie came down a notch apologetically and recognized she had been off on a tangent as was often her nature. "The doctor's still busy with that little boy, but he told me to tell you Henry's stable and they're going to move him up to the cardiac wing on the seventh floor for observation after he comes back from a head CT… You can wait at the end of the north hall up there, and he'll talk to you; it shouldn't be long. I'll call up to clear a private room so you can be comfortable and maybe get some rest?" she added with a raised eye and a nod towards Eddie's somewhat unnaturally unordered state complete with mismatched shoes that Jamie had deliberately not drawn attention to and an obvious large spot in the middle of her wrinkled tee at breast level courtesy of their beloved little spit up meister as he was now affectionately known. "I could even bring you a spare scrub top if you wanted to, um… freshen up."

"You could… wait, what?" Eddie puzzled at that turn in the conversation before she looked down and realized exactly how she had left the house and why it seemed like everyone was staring at her ever since she sat down next to a contrasting husband dressed in a sharp business suit. "Oh, God! Jamie!"

"Thanks, Addie, but why the CT?" he once again refrained from commenting on his wife's unfortunate appearance and doubled his worry now over the admission about an unexpected test. "It's neuro? I thought it was his heart? Did he have a stroke?"

"It doesn't look like it… at least not a big one. They are treating him for an arrhythmia though, so that's one of the possible complications to rule out. His heart was beating out of sorts, but it's back in a normal rhythm now. At first, they didn't think anything else was wrong, but after I came down he kept calling me Angela and talking about Joe bringing me to dinner this week," she admitted with a sad shrug and referenced her look-alike older sister who had one time been engaged to Jamie's brother before his death in the line of duty. "I mentioned that he was a little altered, and they decided to send him for the scan to be sure nothing else was going on. It's probably just an imbalance in the meds. We see it all the time. Try not to worry, okay?" she encouraged. "On a scale of all things happening back there today, Henry's doing fine. Go upstairs, and you'll hear it from the doctor himself."

"Yeah, okay… that's good, right?" Jamie acknowledged with a sigh of relief before reaching over and hugging his former girlfriend much to Eddie's vexation as she rolled her eyes behind their backs. "Thanks for looking out for us," he added just as his phone began to ring. "Danny," he informed them before walking away and taking a deep breath as he accepted the call. "Finally! What've you been doing?"

"Me? Kid, you're the one blowing up my phone! We're in with the three-bill-an-hour lawyer trying to work this thing out with Marcus. You sent us to him, remember? Linda's a mess, and I can't afford to be out here in the hall wasting any time doing this! Now, what's going on?"

###

"Kid, what's going on? Why do you have Mom's phone? My CO pulled me out of maneuvers and said she's been trying to reach me and to call home right away, but nobody's answering there!" Danny demanded in a rough, but an uncharacteristically panicked voice. "Is it Linda or Jack? Dad?" he demanded. "Joe?" he bellowed thinking of his rookie brother out on the streets wearing a shield as a target now. "C'mon! Jamie, I need to know!"

"Grandma's really sick," Jamie answered flatly in a small, lonely voice as he sat by himself on a chair outside of the ICU while Henry and Mary were inside meeting with the doctor to hear the results after Betty was brought back from an emergency procedure. His mother tried without success to get through to Frank or Joe after many attempts so had tasked her youngest son to continue the efforts from here, and after growing frustrated he instead decided to reach out to his oldest sibling, the protector of the family. "Grandpa found her on the floor and brought her to the hospital. They think it's her heart, but that's all I know 'cause I'm not allowed to see her, and nobody else is here!" Jamie started crying as fear was settling in now. He had seen the look on his grandfather's face when they arrived, and as hard as he tried to stay tough like he knew his big brothers and father would expect, there was no holding back the feelings of a scared little boy right now.

"You're supposed to be here, Danny! Why'd you go away?"

"Aw, Jay don't do this again," his older brother huffed as he absorbed the news and turned to slide his back down the wall to sit on the floor next to the phone bank while he pulled his cap into his chest before covering his eyes. Although his decision to enlist had been met with a wave of various emotions from the rest of the family including his wife who struggled to understand why he would choose to leave her and their young son in this manner, it had been Jamie who had internalized his feelings and shut down, outwardly refusing to acknowledge there were valid reasons behind Danny's decision to go off to war. His older brother had then turned the tables and chipped away at that settlement to give in to their mother's wishes and pursue an Ivy League degree thus driving yet another wedge between the two siblings who had suffered through a rocky relationship the past few years as the gap between their ages and perceived ideals tore them apart.

"We just got our orders to pull out Saturday. I'm headed overseas."

"Can't you ask for some kind of emergency leave or something?" Jamie tried again frantically as the thought of losing two Reagan members at the same time was just too much to bear.

"Doesn't work that way, kid. Not for grandparents," Danny admitted with a heaviness in his chest as the realization hit that he could not be home with the rest of them at this time and it ripped his heart. "Immediate family only."

"But, that's stupid! Grandma Betty is your immediate family!" Jamie retorted angrily. "It was your idea to leave now, and she's always been there for us!"

"I know, kid, and I swear to you I'd be there if I could…"

###

"We'll be there as soon as we can," Danny vowed and abruptly hung up after hearing the news about Henry, leaving Jamie to stare at his phone shaking his head just as the sliding emergency room entry doors opened to reveal an anxious Erin Reagan rushing in with her daughter on her heels.

"Jamie! How is he?" his sister demanded as soon as she made her way over to them. "What happened? Nicki had to stop at the office and get me! Why didn't you call?"

"I did, Erin… like eight times! Your secretary didn't even pick up. Why didn't you answer?"

"Uncle Jamie, don't! Mom's already upset!" Nicki quickly defended, knowing that her mother's past actions might come up again in this instance so soon after the misgivings between her mother and Eddie over his accident.

"It's the evidence tampering case," Erin explained with a tight, worried grimace. "My work phone was confiscated. We had a US Attorney and an FBI Director unseal a two-count indictment against ADA Scanlon from my office first thing this morning. She's being arraigned at the Manhattan federal courthouse, like... right now…" Erin paused with a look at her watch and shook her head, clearly overwhelmed by the events of the day. "They're in the building reviewing all the files and serving subpoenas for everyone whoever shared so much as a cup of coffee with her… including me, Jamie. I've had two cases thrown out the past year because of missing evidence from the property clerk, plus that time my assistant tampered with a gun when it was under our custody. There's a big spotlight on me now. Anthony's under investigation, too. It's been… I can't even explain, and now this? I was supposed to be the next one questioned, but I told them I was leaving anyway unless they had a warrant with my name on it. Maybe they do by now. How is he?" she teared up and refocused on the crisis at hand.

"He got light headed and passed out at our house this morning, so Eddie called for a bus. Addison was just here and said he's stable though," Jamie tried to reassure his sister and niece as he gave them both hugs. "He's going for a scan, and then they're taking him up to the cardiac unit on seven for observation. She said they were treating him for an arrhythmia."

"Addie's a respiratory therapist, not a heart doctor!" Erin fretted. "You should have called his own cardiologist down here! Did he take his meds this morning? What did Dad say?"

"We did call Dr. Conklin," Eddie stepped in to take a little pressure off her husband, having first-hand knowledge of how demanding her sister-in-law could become over family medical issues. "He's the one that ordered the test and said he would meet us upstairs."

"Dad's on a flight to Seattle," Jamie explained further as he started to gather their things and Nicki was astute enough to take Kaylin from him as she could see her uncle was overdoing it. Even though his recovery was going well, there was still a limit to how much he could handle at one time without suffering the painful consequences. "He's not due to land out there until two o'clock our time, so we can't talk to him until then, okay? I'm not going to try to tell him about this in an email or a message or something while they're in the air, plus we don't really know anything yet. Danny and Linda are on their way. Let's just go talk to the doctor and see what's happening."

###

"Jamie! How is she? Where's Mom and Grandpa?" Erin demanded as she rushed down the hall dressed for court, limping on a broken heel while struggling to carry a bundled four-year-old sleeping Nicki only to find her upset youngest brother still sitting alone outside of the locked ICU unit.

"Oh, please don't be crying! That means it's bad! Here, can you take Nic for a minute?" she begged after noticing his puddled state and tried not to get overly emotional herself as he stood up to greet her while she reached over for a hug and to hand over the little girl.

"I'm sorry you were alone, and it took me so long to get here. I was clerking for Judge Fennel, and Jack had dinner plans with a guy from a firm uptown about a job opening. He's been trying to get in there forever, so he couldn't put it off," she griped at that excuse while kicking off her uncomfortable shoes which were certainly not made for carrying the added weight of a child at speed all the way up from the parking garage and through the hospital. "He wouldn't even pick her up from daycare for me!"

"Dad'll kill him when he gets here," Jamie noted sadly. "He never liked the guy."

"Right, I know," Erin sighed as she acknowledged that was the God's honest truth and was proving to be a sticking point in her young marriage. "Where is he, anyway?"

"I don't know; nobody will tell me anything," Jamie sniffed in frustration. "Joe just called and said there's something big going on in Manhattan… he didn't know what, but they got assigned down in the subway tunnels all afternoon so that's why he didn't get back to us until now. Renzulli was taking him over to the 12th so he could grab his car, and he said he'd go find Dad."

"Okay, that's good. Joe can take care of that and bring him here… c'mon, let's sit back down then," Erin tried to direct her spent little brother before the doors to the unit opened and they both looked up to see an apparently distraught Mary struggling to hold things together in front of her children as she came up to embrace them both.

"Mom, what's happened?" Erin cried as she caved immediately after witnessing that and let her emotions go in front of her mother. "Please tell us she didn't die!"

"No, honey, but Grandma Betty's had a very serious heart attack," Mary informed them carefully through tears as she openly grieved for the older woman who served as such a matriarch to the whole Reagan family. "It probably started earlier in the week when she said she wasn't feeling well, but by now there's been a lot of damage to the muscle, and it's having a hard time beating properly. They've done a procedure to open the blockage, and tried to make her comfortable, but the doctor told us that she still might not make it through the night, so Pop is refusing to leave her side," she added and tried to let that shocking admission sink in before continuing. "I want us to all go down to the chapel and pray hard for her until your father gets here, okay? We need strength," she admitted as her own heart broke for an absent husband who would no doubt do the same when he heard that news.

That chapter is dedicated to jlmayer who was unfortunate enough to witness some of those medical emergencies firsthand recently and has my respect! Next, Frank steps back into the story in the past, and in the present, we find out the latest on Henry's condition. It becomes a battle with a stubborn Reagan patriarch as to how treatment will proceed on both fronts before a certain blonde, formerly known as Janko woman conjures up the spirit of one past and takes charge.