Author's note: Happy holidays, everyone! :D
...
"Gabriela Dawson is in recovery room 2." As soon as the nurse had finished the sentence, Matthew Casey was on his feet, ready to follow her to Dawson. And so was Peter Mills.
"Only one visitor for now please." The nurse's voice was caring, but also firm. Everyone in the waiting room could see that this wasn't up for discussion, that she wouldn't allow two or more of them to be in the recovery room, no matter how much they all cared about their coworker. Out of the corner of his eye Casey could see that Mills was hesitating. The young candidate didn't seem to be wanting to cave, while at the same time he probably knew that he should back down and let the lieutenant go. Chief Boden looked up at the both of them, sensing the subtle hint of tension that now filled the room. Otis, Herrmann and Mouch glanced between their lieutenant and the candidate as well, wondering if Mills would really dare to press this or not. Severide was sitting slumped back in his chair, not caring much about what was going on around him.
Casey turned his head to look at Mills, letting him know with one look that he wasn't going to back down and finally the candidate averted his eyes and slowly sat back down in his chair. The nurse lead Casey out of the waiting room and towards recovery, pointing him into the right direction of recovery room 2 before leaving him alone.
Contrary to the bright lights in the hallway, the room was dim. There was only one bed in it, a cabinet on one side of the wall and a little visitor's chair that looked even more uncomfortable than the ones in the waiting room. Casey closed the glass door behind him and walked towards the bed. He realized that a part of him had hoped that Dawson would be awake, but she wasn't. She looked fragile and pale in the hospital bed, hooked up to not one, but two different IV lines. Casey quietly moved the chair closer to the bed and sat down, letting out a small sigh. His eyes were still fixated on her. Seeing Dawson hurt was hard and wrong, but he couldn't avert his eyes either because he cared about her, he always had. It wasn't a sudden revelation he had as he looked at her in that hospital bed, it had always been there. In a way Casey had known for quite some time that she was important to him, it had just never hit him as hard as it did right now.
It was already dark outside and the only sound in the room was the calm and steady beeping of the heart monitor. Casey sat there for a few minutes before he leaned forward a little and reached for her hand, lightly squeezing it. The Christmas party she had invited him to came to his mind, it had ended so awkwardly after their almost-kiss. He had thought they had all the time in the world to get closer to each other, but the ambulance crash once again reminded him how fast everything could be over. It wasn't a reason to rush into anything, but it was a scary thing to think of.
The sudden ringing of his phone pulled Casey out of his thoughts and he let go of Dawson's hand before he reached into his pocket, glancing at the phone as he picked up. It was Antonio, who was finally calling him back. Casey cleared his throat and spoke in a quiet voice as he explained to him what had happened. At least he was now able to tell him that his sister was already out of surgery and that, if you could trust the doctors' words, she would be alright. As expected, Antonio was pretty worried and promised to come to the hospital right away. As he hung up, Casey noticed that Dawson's eyes were slowly fluttering open and he quickly shoved his phone back into his pocket and stood up from the chair. "Dawson?" he spoke softly, giving her time to fully open her eyes and take her surroundings in.
"Shay... She's..." Her voice was hoarse and she broke off. Casey took another step towards the bed as he saw tears shimmering in her eyes.
"Shay's still in surgery, we don't know anything yet." He would have eased her worries if he could, but sadly there was no better news to tell her. Shay had been in the OR for a long time and he wasn't exactly sure what that meant.
"But... she's … you heard the paramedics." The confusion in Dawson's eyes and voice was obvious. Casey watched her as she brought a hand up to her head, moving it through her hair and grimacing a little as if she was in pain.
"You were there, you heard them in the ambulance...when you were trying to get the gurney off me." She sounded lost and confused, but more than that she sounded devastated.
"Dawson, I wasn't there when the ambulance crashed." Casey looked right into her eyes with a serious expression on his face. He didn't know why she thought that he had been there after the crash, trying to get some gurney off her, he could only assume that she'd had some kind of nightmare or hallucination from the brain swelling, whatever the doctors might call it.
"I met you in the hospital and we went into an elevator to go down to the ER, remember? You passed out." He paused after that part, letting the words sink in. From the look on her face he could tell that she most likely remembered this too, she didn't act like she heard it for the first time. That was good, right?
"The doctors said you had a brain swelling and brought you into surgery," he continued, still looking into her eyes.
"Shay's … alive?" she asked, sounding hopeful and scared of the answer at the same time. Casey nodded in response to her question. "She's alive and in surgery. We don't know anything yet, but you know how much of a fighter she is."
Dawson relaxed a little at his words and took a deep breath. He was right, Shay was a fighter. She would pull through, she had to. They had been partners for so long, this couldn't be the end of it. Dawson soon found herself clinging to the hope that Shay was going to come out of surgery just fine, that eventually everything would go back to normal. There was a moment of silence in the room and she flinched a little when Casey's phone suddenly rang. He took it out and glanced down at it before looking back at Dawson. "It's the Chief."
All of a sudden they both felt like holding on to something but even though they were close enough, neither of them made a move for the other one's hand. They looked into each others eyes for a second, quietly giving the other some comfort as Casey slowly picked up the phone. Chief Boden finally had an update on Shay for them and Dawson could feel her heart slowly sink when the expression on Casey's face grew grave.