Honestly I'm not even going to set the stage since this is an episode AU. Tag to the double hitter where the sniper was killing cops. And not one person from Intelligence gets hit? Not even when they were clearing the car and They were all out in the open? Surely someone would request som Jay whump right?

Prompt: The FridgeLovesFood: I do have another prompt about last night's (4x07) episode. This guy who was shooting on cops was only hitting patrolmen. I would love to read something when Jay gets hit by him.

*cracks knuckles*

*clears throat*

*channels inner Benedict Cumberbatch*

Shall we begin?

"Ten one, ten one! Twenty six-twenty two! Shots fired!"

"Patrol twenty six-twenty two, you have the air, I need a location."

"Officer down, my partner's been shot!"

…

Breakfast had been fine. Erin had ordered her bagel with cream cheese and proceeded to slap two slices of tomato on the thing, I spent fifteen minutes trying to get the ketchup out of the bottle for my homefries, and we both spent the time telling each other how disgusting our respective eating habits were before I realized I forgot to notify dispatch and her wonderful manipulative drug addict of a mother walked in.

I plastered my best smile on my face and used a warm tone, pulling out the same fake face I used in the Rangers when forced to respect a dumbass superior. It works just fine really, I even manage to almost get an escape from our fake little family get together, except Erin didn't want to be there just as much as me, and that attempt was thwarted. I'd be lying however, if I said I didn't feel a tiny burst of warmth in my chest when Erin refused to let her mother throw me out of the conversation.

Still, I was almost out of the booth…

I got out of it a minute later, when the panicked voice came over the radio, spouting the code every officer loathes to hear, and one we hear to often in this city.

Like I said. Breakfast had been fine.

…

The scene was similar to things I've heard, but it wasn't a familiar one. The block was empty, the apartment complex quiet, and the lone squad car's lights silent as they flickered.

Then we pulled up, and every second of training I've ever had was screaming at me to tell how wide open we were. Even as I got out of the car and raised my gun, the military part of brain was whispering ambush, and the instinctual part was barking expletives at my body for putting me in such a vulnerable position. One glance at the officers on the ground helped solidify the forming image of events and it only made my feet move faster, made my mind sharper as I pull the dying man to cover behind an electrical box.

It's automatic now, once some semblance of protection is behind me and I know I'm no longer in immediate danger of having a hole put through my chest, to analyze the situation and process every detail incase of further conflict. Although as I holster my gun and pull out my radio, it occurs to me that if the person shooting was even remotely decent, he could have hit me or Erin before we even got out of the car. He should've hit one of us, he had plenty of time. The only reason he (or she, I've seen plenty of woman who can shoot better than most of the chicago police force) didn't, is because they are long gone. That also means this is not only their first time, but it's also the trial run, and any mass murderer doesn't plan on getting caught before they start. He probably ran the second he knew he hit his target.

My hand wraps around the wound of the fallen officer, feeling rapidly cooling skin contrast with warm, thick blood as it pulses sluggishly from his throat. I put my radio back on my vest and look down, and for one adrenaline filled, delirious second, I think its Terri.

Then I blink, and police are flooding the area as another man dies beneath my hand.

…

Interviewing the man's partner was painful in the way moving a sore muscle is. It's deep and it resonate in every part of your tissue and its not something you want to do again. I can see the guilt, the raging self doubt in his eyes and understand it, because when something happens like that, when someone you're responsible just drops, you don't think about why, you just think that you should have stopped it, that you should've known.

Rationality is mostly absent in the grieving process. The difference between what I've seen, what I've experienced, and what others have had to deal with, is that those things happened to me in a war zone. In some way, we as soldiers just about signed up for it. He didn't. When you pin a badge to your chest, you're asking to see some violence. You might even be asking to get shot at. But you're not asking to be hypervigilant, to be afraid of being in a crowd of people because it's a target for a suicide bomber, to be scanning rooftops for gun muzzles so maybe you can save everyone instead of just yourself.

I'm sincere when I tell him there was nothing he could have done differently to stop it. I mean it. The guy picked someone at random. It could have easily been him who was hit or any other unit who would have pulled up, unexpecting, to that street.

He walks away to talk to a grieving family, and I know he doesn't hear it. I hope, for his sake, one day he will.

…

Antonio is leaving and it's like a punch to the gut. An almost literal one, because when I find out I have to take a second to remind myself to inhale again.

The undignified "What?!" comes out of my mouth before I can stop it, and Dawson just brushes it off his shoulder like there's nothing too it. Like it was easy for him.

The guy who brought me into Intelligence, who gave me something better than being a third year detective, was walking out the door with silence and his head held high, and the rest of us were going to be left to pick up the pieces when this case was over.

We go back to work.

…

"Right down there." Burgess points towards the end of the alleyway, crosses the distance to stand next to Erin and I. "Cars parked at the tail end of a dead end alley, no one's approached."

"Did you see any movement inside?" I ask, glancing down backstreet to scan over the car. It's entirely possible he just parked it and left, and if he did, he's definitely got some brains on him, because now we'll have very little to go off of when trying to find his location.

"No, plain clothes walked by, car looks cold."

"Looks like he ditched it, we almost missed it back there." A dark skinned officer with the name 'Riley' across her vest speak up, her partner behind her and two other officers to her right. "We'll approach with you just incase he's in there layin low." The oldest officer all of us here speaks then, and we spread out. The members of intelligence that are here move to the right side, the other officers, the left.

There a familiar pressure on my shoulder as Ruzek lands a hand there, Atwater behind him, Erin infront of me. I tap her shoulder, and we all move forward. We're quiet and seamless, both lines of officers moving quickly and efficiently towards the car.

"Chicago PD!" Erin calls once we reach the end of the alley, stopping with a space to her right. I slip behind her and Adam follows, sticking next to me as I fill the area, covering any angle someone might have if they were to slip out the passenger side of the vehicle. "Anybody in the car, come out with you hands up!"

The white chevy remains motionless and silent as Riley and her partner scutter over in a crouch to move the small blue and green couch with ripped, dirty fabric.

It's that, of all things, that makes me start to think about the other reason he'd abandon his car in the back of an alley that has only one escape route. If you abandon a car, you abandon it, you don't close gates around it, and then put something in front of said gates to keep people from getting at it.

You would do that however, if you knew someone was looking for it. And if you needed that someone to be there as long as possible. Why you'd need them there for as long as possible is-

There's static on the radio. On mine, on Adams, on Erin's.

-because you'd need time to aim.

"Riley!" The scream echoes through the alley as she drops in a spray of blood and brain matter.

'Instinct works just fine when you listen to it, Halstead!' I think to myself angrily, dropping to one knee with the rest of the group even as I know it won't do shit. I put a hand on Ruzeks vest as we stand, pushing him back just a few inches to stand slightly behind me. He does the same, one hand pressed against my side that I- I-

Somewhere far far away, there's the report of the rifle.

It felt like nothing. Like nothing at all. There was...something there, but it felt like absolutely nothing happened. There was no change, no sudden excruciating pain, no sharp loss of breath. I was standing, then I wasn't.

I wasn't instantly on the ground either, which must've been the strangest part of this. It was like some invisible force picked me up and threw me...in slow motion. The fact that I had the time to think "well this is weird" while in mid air probably should have clued me into how screwed I was.

Things get blurry on the way down. The crystal clear details of the sunlit alley smudged as I fall, edges dragging and pulling until all I could make out were vague blobs of color. Also, I need to stop standing so close to hard edges because while the rest of my body meets the nice, dirty pavement, the back of my head meets the concrete barrier with a nice 'crack' that even my brain (which went from hyperaware to cloudy very fast) can process as very fucking bad.

I blink a few times, dragging my eyes back open each time as that nothing becomes sleepiness, and then that sleepiness becomes exhaustion. It's all very disconcerting really, because I'm dying, I'm sure of that, and yet I feel nothing. I've...I've done this before, I think, I...dying, yes, that's what...I mean I should be feeling something, shouldn't I? Afraid? Angry? Defiant?

I'd like to feel something at least, if I'm going to kick the bucket (is this really what it's like anyway? Like emptiness? Just a step into the dark, away from everything and into nothing?) and besides I should at least get to see that whole 'life-flashing-before-your-eyes' thing people talk abo-

Ow.

My breath wheezes out in a weak exhale, and what felt like an hour must have only been seconds, because I'm still on the ground, in the alley, and there's still bullets exiting guns in rapid succession. Somebody - Adam, I think, if I recognize the voice correctly - if putting all his weight against my chest and it's all there now, all rushing back to me in bright colors and too-loud sounds. I'd scream if I had the breath, not just because of the pain, but of the overwhelming sensory input that makes me feel like my head is going to explode.

Atwater is yelling at Burgesses partner to get their squad car, Erin and two other officers are shooting, Kim is dragging the other unfortunate officer backwards with the help of her partner, and Ruzek is crouch over me, two hands hastily positioned over my chest, simultaneously yelling at me and the others. I'm dragged somewhere, only a few feet but it's enough, and the shots raining down next to my head stop after some weird rumbling noise. There's blood on my lips and in the back of my throat, and the metallicness of it makes me gag until Atwater crouches down and turns my head to the side so I can expel the stuff out of my mouth.

That was nice of him. It made breathing a little easier. And breathing is essential now, because there were all those things I didn't feel before, but they are here now. I'm rapidly descending into shock, so the pain is but a footnote (although with a sniper round through your sternum, 'footnote' is relative) but the...the emotion is there now.

I've never...I haven't feared for my own life since my mother died. From that point, I measured my will to live by the fate of the people I might leave behind should I die. People I cared about more than I did myself. Albeit, that sentiment was buried the years after I came home, after...after they...well, let's just saw the flaw in living for other people, is that if those people leave, you're left without a reason to move on, and therefor with one to die.

And yet I...I never got to that point. I drank myself into a hole every night because it was easier than being aware of my existence, but it somehow never crossed my mind to just stop. In some stupid way, I had convinced myself that living like that, with that pain, was my punishment. That I deserved it somehow, because they were dead and I wasn't, so it didn't matter that some days I couldn't walk down the street, while others I couldn't even think of being enclosed by the four walls of my hotel room. It was always too much, too soon, and I never felt like I could breath.

But through it all, through those months before Mouse dragged me home, I never wanted to die. Sometimes I expected too, but that didn't mean I agreed with the notion. From the earliest days I can remember, I always had this naive hope that tomorrow would be better. And if not tomorrow then maybe next week, and before I die, I'd like to have one more happy memory.

So I pushed on. Again and again, and never once did I allow myself to seriously consider just letting go, even if the ways I did so were just as self destructive as the option of suicide.

I never wanted to die. But I have wanted - begged - for a way to stop it all. A sign that I really was a coward, and that I was meant to have died overseas in that convoy. An accident that would take me from this world so I didn't have to do it myself.

It didn't happen. I moved on. And now, when I've finally gotten through most of it, there's a homicidal maniac with a cop-complex who decides to go rampaging around my city and had the audacity to put a bullet through me. Which of course means that Voight will kill the guy no matter what, but still. I get the feeling Voight will have to get in line.

Still, it's a new feeling, as panic rips through me, unrestrained for the first time since I graduated basic. I've forgotten what that's like, and my lungs heave with the sudden emotion.

I don't want to die, I don't want to die, I don't want to die, I don't-

I don't have a choice. I'm running out of time and I can do nothing but be aware of it and hope that my team can get me out.

I hate it. I hate it because of what it represents to me. From the second i was permanently assigned to the Fifty Fourth, my team had meant everything. It was my job to get stronger, to learn, to be better than your average rookie, because I refused to have people hurt because of me. Of course, it didn't work that way, but it was my job to protect them, my job to be the one who gets them home. Hollinsworth always used to say that when it came to letting people die, I was the most stubborn son of a bitch he ever met, running into impossible situations where all logic dictated that I leave that person there.

"You'd never let anyone die if you had a choice...except for youself. Not allowing any of us to be the sacrificial lamb but taking on that role yourself is hell of a double standard Halstead."

Yeah well. Me dieing would've been easier than looking their families in the eye, and saying, as the person responsible for them, that you were sorry you couldn't bring them home.

I blink and we're in a car now. Atwater, Ruzek, Burgess and Riley, with Kurtis driving through the streets like he's doing his best to impersonate Lindsay (which is to say, he's trying to get us killed before we actually make it to the hospital). The first two in that list are focused on me, which is good, because I keep losing track of my surrounding in a way that makes me sure I'm just losing consciousness periodically.

I've never been in such a position where I'm aware enough of my own peril that I'm rooting for people to get to a hospital faster. Probably because I have two injury statuses: 'fuck you I don't need a hospital' and 'unconscious/semiconscious and severely injured'. I've never been coherent in the last one like I am now.

It's just...it's so many things, it's so many reasons why. How do you deal with being aware of your own death? Because I can't move, I'm hearing voices of people who aren't there, and I can barely hold onto my thoughts.

I'm scared.

My diaphragm spasms at the admission but I am, I'm terrified, I don't want to die, I don't want to just- just disappear, I-

I want to see them again. I want to hold Erin, and I want to hug Will, and I want to have drinks with guys at Molly's and I want to call Sam and tell him I'm sorry about Matt, and I want to let him know Maddy is safe and I want to hear Mouse talk about what happened to us. I want to hear them laugh and see them smile.

I don't want to hear them sobbing, I don't want to listen to Will tell me goodbye because if I...if I can't hold on much longer, I don't want their last memory to be me choking on my own blood.

And my god is there a lot of blood.

Details are vague, but I'm pretty certain it's Kev's chest my face is currently pressed onto, as my vision sharpens and focuses enough for me to make out the 'A-T-W' on his name tag. That also means that if I survive this (as it's looking less and less likely if the way Ruzek has begun to openly panic is any sign, because for all that I joke about him, I've never seen Ruzek well and truly panic) then I get to buy him a new shirt, as every time I exhale there's that liquid gurgling in my airway, and my tongue works to push as much as it can out of my mouth before my lungs try to inhale it again.

"...gonna be okay...just hang on...almost there…" Ruzeks voice flits past my ears as it has been since the beginning of all this, and I've never payed much attention to words but more to the tone, and I must be close now if the way he sounds like he's about to sob means something.

I'm close to that place now, I don't want to go to. It's dark and its foreign and i don't know what'll happen to me, please, I'm scared mom, it isn't fair, for the first time in a long time, it's not just the people i leave behind it's me I don't- I can't I-

I just want-

Just one more time-

…

Ruzek

The patrolman is dead less than a minute when the second shot makes contact with its target.

There's a sharp 'THWACK' that my brain doesn't process correctly until Jay's vest, which was previously against my hand in a simple reflexive gesture that was half to make sure he was still there, and half to offer some weird form of protection (really it was for my own sanity), just disappears.

There's a sharp grunt right after, and then a hard thump as his body hits the ground.

I panic.

Hardcore, undeniable, curl up in a ball and sob, panic.

Lucky for me, and for Jay, it isn't the first time I do so while on the job, and it probably won't be the last.

My feet move of their own accord, and my gun finds its holster before I even register my hand changing position. Someone - Erin, it sounds like - calls out the position of the shooter, and now the uniformed police as well as our own are firing back. Bleakly I wonder if Erin even realizes that her partner's been hit, but the return fire gives me time and cover.

I've also started to realize that my version of what 'panicking' means is probably something vastly different to what it would have been a few years ago. Panicking would've meant incoherent fear and uncoordinated actions. Panicking now means my heart just about pounds out of my chest and I lose my breath, but I do so while managing to stay with the program, to still do my job.

My knees hit the pavement hard, and I lean forward to position my body over his. For a split second I hesitate, letting my gaze flick away from the rather small hole in his vest and up to his face, where dazed, dull blue-green eyes stare back.

Then another shot cracks the concrete just next to my head, and I lean forward, pressing my hands against the wound and putting all of my weight on his chest.

"Kevin get me some cover! You-" I turn my face back towards Jays, because I wasn't there for Jules, but I'm there for him and fuck him if he thinks he can just give up or whatever bullshit he's thinking of doing as his eyes start to close. "- stay the fuck awake or so help me Halstead I will bring a hurt upon you that's gonna rival that of the last time you pissed off Voight."

"Adam!"

"Help me with him!" I scream, and then Kev has one side of Jay and I have the other, and we drag him straight backwards behind a dumpster that Erin pulls around and now I have time to actually evaluate Jay because my head isn't about to be blown off. He's doing about as well as I expected.

Which is to say, not good. At all.

I am literally elbow deep in the blood of one of my best friends. Some part of my brain short circuits and I'm gasping for breath right along Jay, who's skin is as white as a piece of paper, whose eyes are unfocused and confused, who looks like he's dying because he is, and all I can do is pray my hands are slowing the bleeding enough that'll he'll survive to Med.

"Garcia! You get on the horn, you tell them there's an officer down and you do it now!" I scream as Halstead's breath starts to gurgle oddly in his throat. Kev is right beside me on his knees, turning Jay's head to the side as gently as he can. Despite the vacancy in his eyes, Jay's mouth and throat work in tandem to spill the red liquid out from between his lips.

There's the sound of an engine behind me and the more rapid sound of bullets hitting a windshield. I look up only for a second to see Burgess's squad car screech to a halt a few feet from us.

"Cover!" I call, moving my hands from Jay's chest and suppressing the urge to puke at the amount of blood that floods from the wound.

"We got you, go!" Ering calls back, and Atwater tucks his arms under Jay's shoulders and knees and lifts his limp body like a ragdoll. I sprint over to the back seat, and whip open the door, sliding straight into the middle seat as Kim struggles to get Riley into the door. My hands operate on pure instinct (since my brain is just out putting static) as I help both of them into the open seat. She closes the door as I spin around to grap Jay's legs.

Another shot hits the windshield and I lean forward, grab a fist full of Kevins jacket, and yank him the rest of the way into the now very crowded back row.

"Go Kurtis, get us out of here!" Burgess screams in my ear and the car lurches backwards with tires screeching.

"Kev-" I start, seeing the blood dripping down the arm closest to me and sparing a smidge of worry for him.

"I'm good, I'm good, just help me with him!" Nodding, I push my legs to the ground, as I was previously sitting on my knees. Once firmly seated, I pick up Jay's legs and place them across my lap, allowing Atwater to resituate Jay's upper body so he's shoulder is pressed to Kevin's chest.

"Fuck." I choke out noticing the way Jay's vest is saturated with blood, blood that's quickly soaking Atwater's as well. The car reeks of it, and my hands smear streaks of the deep, wine colored liquid across Jay's face as I cradle his head. He's unconscious now, and I know at least, that he needs to not be that.

"Jay? Hey man-" My voice cracks, and the car swerves violently enough I have to slap a hand against the window to keep my head from going through the thing. I try to ignore the bloody print I leave behind when I regain my balance. "Hey man, hey, Jay? Jay you gotta wake up okay I-...I need you to wake up, yeah? Open your eyes."

His skin is like ice beneath my fingers. I swallow a gasp and feel my chest tighten in denial. This is not happening, I am not losing someone - we are not loosing someone else!

"Halstead!" I bark out, shaking him as I do so. Miraculously, his eyes flutter open to mere slits and I let out a cry of relief as he does so. A tiny trickle of fresh blood trails down his chin, and I cup my hands behind his neck and head, gently tilting him forward again. Kevin seems to tighten his grip on the man once I let go, so I lean back a little and let him place his other hand (the one not holding Jay's torso to his chest) against his chest to press against the wound. I sit back and stare at Jay, and notice the fear flash through his eyes as each breath pushes more blood from his mouth.

"You're okay." I tell him, tell myself, tell everyone in the car and any higher being that will listen and make it so. "You're gonna be okay, you're gonna be fine. Just hang on alright? Just stay with us, we're almost there, we...we'll get you help, alright, Will's gonna be there, he's gonna help you. Okay? Just stay with me alright, just stay here. Please Jay, just- just stay with us." I break at the end of it, a silent spasm of my diaphragm making me choke.

"Please." I whisper, because I am crying now, and despite what he'll say, Kev is struggling not to do the same. I have no idea if Burgess understands whats going on four feet to her right, because she's holding a dead body right now, but it doesn't matter, not when Jay is dying under my hands, not when he slips unconscious with regret in his eyes.

"Jay, hey, no, man you gotta- no, nono, you stay with me, stay the fuck here Halstead, I am not losing you too okay-" I plead, leaning forward again to do something, anything, to keep him here.

The car comes to a stop so fast I sail into back of the passengers seat. The door is ripped open and Connor Rhodes is standing there, expression grim.

"Let's go! No, don't move!" He directs the last part to Kevin, who went to get out of the car. Instead an army of nurses and orderlies shove hands underneath Jay's shoulder and drag him out of the car and onto the waiting gurney. The literal second his body's on the sheets they are moving, sprinting with him into the Emergency Department's main doors. Kurtis apparently had enough sense to go straight the ambulance roll up.

They disappear with him, and by the time I glance behind me, Burgess and her partner are out of the car and following them with Riley limp between them.

It's too quiet in the car. Too blank and open and my head's still spinning with thoughts going too fast to catch. I clamber out of the car after Atwater, and follow him into the hospital to run smack dab into Maggie.

"Bathroom." She says, as casual as one would inform someone about the weather outside. I blink, bumping into Atwaters shoulder as I stop.

"What?" I manage, after opening and closing my mouth a few times. She grabs my wrist and raises my arm for me to look at, painted bright red and covered with enough of it that it's dripping to the floor below. Again, I can't formulate the importance of this, because Jay is dying, and could already be dead, and I'm supposed to be concerned about blood on my arm?

"No, I, I wanna see Jay-"

"Adam." A heavy hand lays on my shoulder, and I turn to look up at Kevin. Kevin who is, as usual, steady as a rock, even with blood on his chest and neck where Jay had to cough it up.

"C'mon man. Let's go get cleaned up. They won't let us see him for a while." I don't miss the implied 'I hope' at the end of that sentence. Because us seeing him anytime soon would mean he's in the morgue.

"Ruzek listen to me." Maggie's soft, steady hand slips into my shaking one, not even flinching at the blood. I look her in the eye, and some of her calmness helps steady me. "You did your job. You got him here alive. Both of you. But Will can't see you like this and you're doing no one any good standing here dripping on the floor. I'll help you, okay? But you need to calm down."

"I-" A sob cuts through me. It's too much. Too much noise, too much blood, too much going on in my head. Too much. But not enough.

"He's my friend." I say softly. Maggie raises a hand to my face.

"I know sweetheart. He's mine too."

…

Blood doesn't come off your hands easily. Physically and metaphorically.

I stood still and pliant in the Guy's bathroom as Maggie peeled my blood soaked vest off. I didn't say a word when she did the same to Atwater, and I didn't disobey her instructions to strip my ruined shirt. Then I squeezed some soap into my hands, turned the faucet to warm and started washing my skin.

Twenty minutes later she came back, and I was still scrubbing the blood from my hands and arms.

"Adam." Kev says softly, as soft as I've ever heard him speak, but I don't stop, because my skin is still tinted pink, still stained with his blood, with Jays blood. And I can't get it off.

A pair of soft, gentle hands are wrapping around my wrists, stopping my increasingly aggressive movements. I can feel her gaze on me but I continue to stare at my palms, which are cupped close together. The water spashes between them, filling the crevashes of my skin and boucing into the sink below. The water turns off and a ball of paper towels in placed in my open hands.

I sniff, staring at them.

"C'mon Ruz." Theres that soft tone again, the one that's so weird and out of place it matches our situation almost perfectly. Its wrong, its so wrong, it shouldn't be coming from Kevin. All of this is wrong, and none of it should have happened. But it did, and it is.

I remember asking Halstead a question once, after a particularly rough case where we lost a kid. Knocking on his door at two in the morning I wasn't that surprised to see him looking awake as ever, even if his hair said he just crawled out of bed. He always managed to go from dead asleep to wide awake and alert almost instantly, a skill I admired until I thought about how he learned it.

"How do you deal with stuff like this?"

"Me?"

"Yeah you." I sass, sipping my water (no alcohol he said, it starts bad habits) and staring out into the city. Apparently Jay's idea of 'let's have a talk' is sitting on the roof of his apartment complex and staring at the skyline.

I like it.

"Why me?"

"Because- well, I mean...you're always so level headed, man. Today I was two seconds away from having a mental breakdown when I saw that body and you just...you had it. You took control, you didn't cry or puke or react beyond dealing with the mother in the best way possible. I could barely talk for two hours afterwards." I glance at him. "Is it...I mean did you…"

"No." He says quickly. Too quickly. "I'm not used to it. You never get used to that, and if you do...well it's a bad thing. It's just...the kid was dead. There was nothing I could do to help the child, but if I could help the mother, then I was helping someone. Helping people...helps me. And I can't help people if I don't have a level head. That's how I 'stay calm' as you put it...that's how I try to, anyway. It doesn't mean I don't grieve."

"Yeah but you gotta have some way of-"

"Adam. The hardest part of this, of anything really, is accepting it happened. Accepting there is nothing you can do about it now, because it's done, it's over with. Only when you stop trying to play the 'what if' game, can you start to move on."

I push out a breath and slowly crumple the paper towels in my hands, drying my skin. A soft dark blue t-shirt lands in front of me, and I slip that on too.

"Where is he." I rasp, voice harder than normal. Forcing a breath between my lips I put my hands onto the sink counter and hang my head.

"Surgery." Maggie states. "It wasn't your fault you know."

I purse my lips and nod, struggling against the sudden surge of emotion that makes me want to break down and sob again.

"I know." I whisper, then raise my head to look myself in the mirror. "That doesn't make it hurt any less."

She comes up next to me, looking at the smudges of pink water still on the fake granite vanity.

"He's your friend. I don't expect it too"

….

"What. Happened."

"He's in surgery, the bullet hit some really important stuff but it went through mostly clean, they're just doing damage control at this point. Trying to sew everything back together and to get as much blood into him as they can while doing it. That's all we know so far."

Voight actually stops his homicidal rage act for a few second to blink in surprise at my answer. No, it wasn't for the question he asked, but I know he already got the information out of Erin, and if he didn't, then it isn't hard to figure out. Jay is in surgery because of a gunshot wound, therefor, what happened was that he was shot. Not hard. I answered what his first question should have been.

I continue picking at my fingernails, trying to scrape the dried flecks of blood out from underneath them. There's some conversations around me, but I haven't heard my name, so I don't care.

Atwater stands, and then the waiting room gets quieter as footsteps are sounded leading away from my general vicinity.

Alvins face fills my vision as he kneels in front of me.

"You alright?" I nod, pursing my lips. Breath. Just breath.

"Yeah. Yeah, I- uh, he...I didn't see it coming but Jay he...he figured it out a second too late. I don't think it would have mattered he still would have hit someone but...maybe we could've moved faster and I don't know, maybe he wouldn't have gotten a bullet through his chest."

"Or maybe you would've." My partner instantly counters. "This wasn't-"

"-anyones fault, especially not mine, I know." I interrupt, finishing for him. "I know it's not my fault but Al, man, you weren't there, you didn't have to- jesus, he basically died right underneath my hands-" I cut myself off, sucking in a sharp breath of air and turning my head away.

"He'll make it Adam."

"Doesn't matter." I reply, exhaling and settling back into the chair. "It's not like I'll ever forget."

Alvin doesn't say anything after that.

…

"You gonna go home anytime soon?" I raise an eyebrow, glancing at Kevin who's reappeared at the doorway, the two coffee cups indicating his trip to the cafeteria was successful.

"Are you?" I shoot back, watching without amusement at he looks at the figure lying prone on the bed.

"Nope." He says, handing one of the steaming cups to me as he settles back into his chair.

They let us in a few hours ago, and in that time both Kev and I were the only ones who were able to stay. One part because we refused to leave, another because I'm pretty sure I look as exhausted as I feel.

Plus, someone had to get this bastard. Erin seemed ripe for the job, taking less than a minute in the room to gaze at her partner, before just about sprinting from the hospital. Voight followed after spending his a few minutes alone with his detective and Al barely got two feet into the room, just enough to see Jay half dead underneath a million wires and tubes, before mumbling something about following them. Antonio didn't even get the chance to step foot in the hospital, command was demanding an update and he was the only one still at the precinct.

It left Atwater and me to sit in sullen silence together, listening to nothing but the ventilator systematically pushing air into Jay's chest.

Some might find it unsettling, a constant reminder that their loved one almost died, that they still could die. I found it calming. That machine meant there was still someone attached to it fighting to live. It meant Jay wasn't as dead as he looked in that car, it meant he was still in that battered and broken body. It meant he was here and not somewhere else.

Plus the near calm quiet was comforting. There was no pressure to talk, which was amazing because I barely had it in me to sit upright, never mind work up the social pretense to talk to somebody about this shit.

His skin is white, which is normally something we like to tease him on, because it seems the guy never really tans past 'normal skin color', but he also never burns so that's just undeniably not fair. The problem with describing white skin is that what we picture as white in terms of skin color is that of what we've seen on a person. For most, 'white' refers to a light shade of tan. It's why when someone's sick, and their skin matches the bleached sheets they lay on, do we feel so surprised.

He is white. Which is an obvious statement, but this is not the heatly sort, this is the sort that scares even the doctors working on him who are telling us he might pull through.

That might autocorrects to will in my head. There is no viable option where he doesn't pull through this, fuck, he took a sniper round to the chest and bleed out in my car yet somehow survived surgery. The bastard is going to wake up.

He doesn't get a choice. I will not bury someone else.

Plus, if he di- if he doesn't wake up soon, Will is going to have all of our heads on a platter. I pinch the bridge of my nose, grimacing as I remember the older halstead's reaction.

He actually punched Voight.

Like square across the jaw.

And It was fucking great, right up until he was screaming, words born out of pain and rage and fear and Rhodes was working in tandem with Olinski to drag the hysterical doctor into a more secluded room.

His words still hung in the air though and I don't just mean the ones where he was telling us how much Jay sacrificed for us and this was how we repaid him?

"If he dies-" Will had screamed. "-it's on you!"

I sigh, leaning back in the slightly more comfy chair. Sipping my coffee I resume my vigil, letting the events of today repeat over and over behind my eyes. I know it'll be a while before I can sleep without seeing him fall, and wake up still seeing his blood on my hands.

It's amazing how far we've come. Not just as a team, but as friends. As a family. Voight used to hate Jay, now he approves of his and Erin's relationship. I used to be the rookie, Dawson used to have to play mediator, Alvin always had to decide between being Voights friend and being the cop he needed to be. Now Atwater's the young one, but even he's experienced, he isn't just the new guy like I was. Antonio is leaving, but he's doing so to be closer to his family, which I understand but still feel sad about, even as I remind myself it's not like he's disappearing forever. Still, I'll miss the steadiness he brought. I think that's where Jay learned it from. Or at least, the person who he adapted to be more like, was Antonio. Comparing then and now, is so vastly different and the same it's startling. Especially between Jay and I.

I looked up to him, I really did. But I also knew I didn't have the temperament to be like him, and I knew coming in that he was still learning. I learned more from watching him and Voight fight back and forth than I actually did from Halstead teaching me.

The more I think back, the more I find all these instances where we changed. The first time we shared a laugh. The first time I defended him, the first time we made an inside joke.

The first time I saw the military side of him. The first time he made me better.

…

"Yeah I've been thinking about sending out a memo so people stop asking me."

"Woah hold up. Who do you think you're talking to?"

"I'm sorry man, it's just everyone's been asking me."

"Say that next time."

...

"Klepmt. That's a funny name. C'mon say it." Halstead tilts his head, smirking at Erin.

"It's kind of funny."

...

"You good buddy?'

I manage a thumbs up as pain radiates across my chest and back, grimacing and squinting up at the second floor deck I just fell from.

...

"You good?" Jay nods, soaking wet and breathing hard, but flashes a thumbs up.

"Nice job buddy."

...

Seeing Jay hanging from his wrists, screaming as he's tortured and having to look away, not able to stomach seeing the pain on my friends face.

...

"So you'd rather protect them and bury jay?"

...

"No I am not losing a partner and my friend on the same day. You find someone else."

…

"Hey." Jay's head pops up, tired, haunted eyes staring at me as the rest of the team leaves. "We got you."

Some of the shadows recede. He nods.

….

"-kay, just stay calm. I'm gonna take it out, just cough for me okay….aaand there you go. Don't try to talk to much, and get some rest." I scrunch my face up as pain assaults my neck and back, slowly coming back to my senses.

I slept? Shit, I slept and- ow, fuck I slept very awkwardly and for a long time and - is that Will talking?

"...Rhodes only let me stay because you were still out, so I'm gonna go ho- no, hey, its alright, I'll be back. Just go back to sleep Jay, you'll be okay. You're teams here to keep you company see? Yeah, yeah I know. I'm going."

Well he sure as hell wouldn't talk to Atwater like that.

"Jay!" I yell, eyes snapping open as I jerk forward, almost falling out of my chair as the remaining puzzle pieces fit into place. My muscles protest enough at the change of positions that I know I must have been out long, but the fact that two tired blue green eyes stare amused at me solidifies the fact. I glance at Kev who looks like he's caught between trying not to laugh and being so relieved he could cry some manly tears.

"You're not dead." The words slip out from my mouth and blink, ready to slap myself. Okay, so maybe I'm not alert as I thought. Jay smiles, an action made sloppy by drugs and exhaustion, but it does manage to loosen the tight ball of emotions in my chest.

"Fff'gur' tha' 'ne...out y'urselfff?" He slurs slowly, and the cold knot of worry and fear disintigrates, because man, did I worry I'd never hear that voice again. I laugh anyway, then settle back into my chair, wincing as blood flow starts to return to my legs.

"How long was I out?" I ask Atwater quietly, watching as Jay's eyes start to droop.

"Uhhhh…" He glances at the clock. "Bout since I came back from coffee yesterday so...fourteen hours? I think?" My eyes widen at the admission.

"Shit. The case?" A soft grunt to my left tells me Jay's still with the conversation like the stubborn mule he is. Kev gives a wry grin, rolling his eyes at Halstead's need to know about work.

"We got the kid. His dad was a police officer and...well let's just say it was rough. Alvin had to put him down, Voight tried negotiating, but the kid had hostages, guns, and a drive to kill as many cops as he could so…" He ends with a shrug that conveys much more than his words do. I don't feel anything but satisfaction that the guy is dead. And I don't feel bad about that.

"I know not everyone's here right now, but once they closed the case, they all came to see you at some point. Dawson's and Al are still here actually, they went to get some food, but Voight took Erin home." Atwater continues, looking slightly unfortable talking about the rest of Intelligence. "And uh, no offense, but I'm gonna bounce. Unlike sleeping beauty over here-"

"Hey!"

"-I haven't really slept." I send a fake glare at my partner's direction, before looking back at Jay. There's still no color to his skin, but at the very least he gives another loose smirk and mumbles 'beauty' like it's a question. I stare.

"You have a hole through your chest, bleed out in my arms less than a day ago, and couldn't breath without assistance until ten minutes ago, but you still have the mirth to make fun of my face?!"

The slow blink and beaming smile I get in response is enough.

I drop my head into my heads, groaning. Atwater laughs right as Antonio and Alvin appear in the doorway.

"Hey he's awake!" I nod.

"Yeah he's a little disoriented though."

Olinski pauses, staring at.

"Apparently, since he is referring to himself in the third person." I blink.

"What? No, I meant Jay, see-" And of course, as I refer to him, Halstead decided right then is a good time to pass out, and I look like I'm insane.

Dawson just raises an eyebrow and plops onto the tiny couch by the window.

"Nah, okay, I'm not crazy, ask Atwater, he talked to him too. He was awake. Right, Kev?" I glance at my friends face and immediately regret my words. He's got a look of fake innocence and confusion, and I want to strangle him.

"I don't know what you're talking 'bout Ruzek. You just woke up and started talking gibberish, then I said I'd give you a ride, and then they walked in."

The group stares at me and I know, I swear the planned this.

"Fuck you." I mutter, grabbing my phone from the tiny bedside table.

"See what I mean?" Atwater says, tone light. "Random, unintelligent gibberish."

Their laughter follows me out into the hallway and makes my footsteps just a little bit lighter.

'He's okay.' I tell myself, walking towards reception. 'They're okay.'

Maggie sees me and gives me a 'I told you so look'.

I smile and wave back.

…

"Every day, you risk your lives for this city. For the people you love. For your families, your friends. And for strangers. And for those who resent you. Your job is to still protect them. No threat changes that. You serve. You protect. And you all come home tonight."

Well, that was ride. I started this in...oh geez. July? June? Way long ago, but it needed to be done bc come on a sniper targeting police officers and not one of the team gets hit? Not on my watch.

Thank you so much for you patience! ALso to clarify real quick, Tonight is small oneshot, there will be no more for that story. The Desk however is going to be part of a series, in which I basically write random aesthetics of Jay Halstead and missing scenes that need to happen but don't.

Please review! Pretty, pretty, pretty 'I-need-motivation-because-I'm-a-struggling-college-student' PuhLEAZE!