Chapter 2 - The Fall
Thank you so much for your encouragement, you are so amazing, and I feel so supported. Actually I finished this chapter days ago, but I didn't feel satisfied about the setting when I read the stories, so I rewrote it.
I'm sorry that I 'disappeared' for such a long time. Sometimes self quarantine can make people lazy. After self quarantine days in late January and early February, I started to move to another place. Too many staff to be sorted out, even now, and even this moment, I still haven't finished moving. The outbreak keeps me staying at home. I almost freaked out about the rapidly worsening situation. I don't know where you come from, but I sincerely wish all of you healthy.
During days I'm waiting for every next episode and taylorandmacster10 's new chapter, I find Dedeen 's 'Fall apart' first 8 chapters are really great. Why first 8? Just because I only finish reading these chapters.
BTW, I "secretly" changed agents' names in chapter 1, guess why and what will happen in coming episodes. LOL.
Without further ado, let's start it!
Hailey suits up and gets armed as soon as she got the order from Voight. She rushes down to the garage, standing next to the pickup truck that Jay used to drive. She dreamt Jay sitting in shotgun, teasing her getting a little bit clumsy after she produced their babies. She's expected this day for months, expected his presence at the stair, saying hi and hugging everybody in the room, especially her.
Almost everyone in Intelligence gathers at the garage when she is staring at pickup truck, even Platt followed and tells them that some patrol are told to standby and can answer their calls at any time they need. But Voight is still upstairs. They know they are waiting for FBI or simply any hint from Jay to send the escort to the scene.
Voight sits at his desk; he throws his phone to the right side of the desk while he's turning his chair to the window. The screen is still on. There is only 'flymyrsp' in the message from an unknown sender. At first sight he saw the message, he thought this might me someone misaddressed to him. However, as a Sergeant, he sensed this might not be that simple. He guesses who the unknown sender can be, if it is him, Voight can imagine how unusual the thing is because during all these months, this guy has never contacted him, not even a sign. He figures there must be something happened to him.
Matt came to the station a little bit earlier than usual as he promised Brett and Foster to be their driver. Brett and Foster are both selected for further medical training, which will be started from today. He drove them to the airport to catch the earliest flight so that they could save unnecessary costs. He became completely awake after the drive. He sees two unknown ladies talking and sorting things out next to the ambulance when he walks into the station. He confuses for seconds but later realizes these two ladies must be arranged to cover for Brett and Foster and must be the "someone" in Foster's words.
Nothing will be a better tool for ladies to get familiar with others than TV shows and make-ups. The ladies laugh loudly when one of them mention the hilarious part of their favorite series and find Casey looking at them. They step their pace up to Casey, "Good morning Captain, I'm Sophia McQueen. I'm a new graduate." "Hello Captain, I'm Marina Britton, used to be a paramedic in Springfield, I've heard your name there. Really glad to work with you." "Matt Casey. Thank you for covering for them." "Actually, we should say thank you to give us the chance to work here. We both are rookies in Chicago, we haven't been assigned to any firehouse now. Although the official assignment will come in next week, it's really great to start as soon as possible. Oh, I'm a workaholic." Maybe a "talkaholic" as well, Matt guesses.
"Engine 51, Truck 81, Squad 3, Ambulance 61, warehouse fire at 5360 Roosevelt Road…"
"Welcome to 51!" Matt shouts to the ladies as he runs away to the truck. All of them rush into their rigs within seconds, "These ladies are covering for Brett and Foster? Quite sexy." Stella teases while they are on the way to the fire scene. "Girls, fire in a warehouse can be really horrible, be careful!"
"Copy that! "
Truck 81 leads the way to the scene, then comes the squad 3 and engine, and 61 follows at the end. In order to get to the scene as fast as they can, McQueen drives through a lane which is closer but only small sized cars are able to go through. However, when they try to go back to the main road to meet the guys, they see a middle-aged man standing in the middle of the lane, holding a cellphone in his hand and waving his arms to ask them to stop, and occasionally points to another direction. McQueen steps on the brake, and both of them get off the car. Britton looks along where he points, there is a sedan parking not far from them. "Hurry up, a man is unconscious in the car!"
Without any hesitation, they follow the man to the accident place. The sedan was stopped in front of a tree, only few feet left to crash into it. The driver's forehead is leaning on the steering wheel facing the unfolded wallet on his legs. His left hand are holding the wallet, but his right hand is lying limply next to the handbrake. If you are not careful enough, you only will think this man is just trying to read something secretly. McQueen looks at Kelly for "I was jogging when I saw the car in a distance. I thought he was drunk. I called him several times, no response. So I tried to call 911 but I heard your siren."
"Ambulance 61 to the main, we take an traffic accident injured on the way to the scene, could you please send another ambulance to the fire?" Sophia reported to the main at the same time Marina checks the driver. She hands to Marina the C-collar and help her to get the victim out. It's not hard with the pedestrian's help- the car is in good shape on driver's side and driver is not stuck in any place.
"Take in the accident. Ambulance 42 is sending to the fire."
They then put the driver on the stretcher to check his vital, when they try to put the pulse oximeter, they see him tightly holding the wallet, though he is unresponsive and unconscious. "Not breathing, no pulse." Sophia disappointedly looks at Marina, shaking her head.
"Intubation! You bag him, I'll do CPR!"
It was an impressive day for Will Halstead and Natalie. After rounds of breakups and reconciliations, Will and Natalie finally confirmed that the other is the right and the only person that they want to spend the rest of life with. Stubborn as Will, he invited all ED members to their new apartment, telling them to bring all the instrument they can play for this musical housewarming party. He also phoned Connor Rhodes at the very beginning of his plan to ask him to be his best man in the future. He knew nobody can replace Jay as his best man, but he don't know when Jay can come back and after all these years, after all they went through, he don't want Natalie to wait any longer. The party was climaxed with his propose at the middle of the party. Natalie said yes without any hesitation. They drank rounds and rounds, not until Will started to murmur drunk words did they realize that it's already mid night and some of them have shifts on the next day. The direct consequence of Will's over-drinking is that he slept over the alarm, even ignored Natalie's wake-up calls in the morning. He woke up in a sudden, quickly got dressed and cleaned after he heard a door shut, then he rushed to pick up a toast but found Natalie giggling next to the door. Luckily, not too late, he thought.
They arrived right on time. When Will puts his iPad on the counter, he heard Maggie calling him.
"Incoming! Dr. Halstead, trauma 4!"
"Ryan Spencer, 34-year-old male, pedestrians found him unconscious in the car on Roosevelt Road. GCS 3, no breathing, BP unrecordable, IO on leg, intubated in the field…" Paramedics state as they are pushing the gurney into the Med. However, when Will come closer to the door to get the patient, he is totally freaking out. Maggie comes seconds later than Will, but she also got shocked when she takes the first sight at the patient. "Need a doctor, Dr. Marcel!" Maggie shouts, "Will, you are not allowed to deal with this patient, get outta here! That's the rule!"
"Maggie…"
"What do we get? "
"It's Jay." Maggie tells Marcel with lip language, as soon as she realizes why Jay becomes Ryan. "Dr. Choi!" Marcel calls as soon as he enter the trauma room.
"William Halstead, you know why he is Ryan, do you?" Will wants to say something, but Maggie continues saying before any words flip out from him. "Who ever he is now, he is your brother, you can not treat him, your judgement is comprised... Will, he's in good hands." She's trying to push Will out of the room at the same time she says to Will. "He..." The pagers warning attracts both of their attention. "Multiple Burn patient, Dr. Manning, trauma 3! Dr. Halstead?" "Yes." With a little hesitation and after looking into Jay's room, Will runs into trauma 3.
"Still unresponsive. We gonna change that king airway to a formal ET tube." Marcel quickly checks Jay's status, and judges.
"I'll get a line in the groin." Dr. Choi starts immediately.
April hands Marcel a tube, "No gag reflex, didn't even need a sedation, not good." Marcel knows what may happen when intubate a patient whose GCS is only 3, but he still feel a little shock, sympathy and even distressed.
While Dr. Marcel is changing the tube, Dr. Choi gets Jay's clothes cut, he sees a large scale of bruise on Jay's left side. He immediately puts gel on his body, and does ultrasound scan. He even doesn't have time to let Marcel know the internal bleeding before the monitor sharply beeps.
"Prepare to shock, alright, shock to 120. Clear!"
"No pulse."
"Push a milligram epi, charge to 200. Clear! "
"I have a pulse. Sinus tach at 115."
"Anyway, he is back. " Marcel finally realizes he was holing his breath for the whole resuscitation. He deeply exhales and sighs. "Send a rainbow of tubes and a type and cross. Get his blood gas. Inform OR, we're coming."
It is a long morning for almost all the ER doctors, Natalie knows how hard it is for Will to focus on handling this patient while his brother is still on the line. Will got butterflies in his stomach as he accidentally saw Jay's gurney passed trauma 3. He realized Jay must be sent to OR. He tries to force the thought down his throat, but alas, he knows he's just to ignore the significant elephant in the room. He looks upset, obviously. Natalie realizes, even the other nurses can realize. As soon as the patient is stable, Natalie tells Will that she can handle it and let him do what he wants. He immediately rushes to the OR leaving all of them a thank-you.
Will stands in the observation room. No sooner than he catches his breath, he sees numbers on monitors dropping and Marcel and Choi halt the surgery. He waits with bated breath. He can't hear what they are saying in the OR, but he figures them compressing and carrying out tracheotomy on Jay. As an attending physician, he can't help processing differential diagnosis what may happen medically to Jay in his mind. The more he thinks, the worse situation he finds out. He forces himself to stop thinking anything and stay calm, but Jay's continuous dropping sats and unresponsive status tell him that Jay is basically in a life or death situation.
Luckily, not after very long time, the surgery continues. Then Dr. Abrams comes. He stands by Jay's head, putting in a bolt. And then someone caress his shoulder and biceps from the back side, he turns backwards and sees Natalie. She holds his head towards her and leans to his forehead. "He's gonna be okay."
The operation doesn't end until early afternoon. After the resuscitation in the OR, Dr. Choi and Dr. Manning was called out because of the massive casualties. Will was to join them, but he received a call from Godwin telling him that he is the backup. They both know the reason, but cannot say it out. He thanked Godwin and stayed in observation room for Jay. As soon as he see the Dr. Marcel closed Jay's chest, Will runs to wait at the OR's door. He paces back and forth, keeping rubbing his hands out of anxiety. When he sees the door open, he strides to Marcel. "How's the surgery?"
"He got spleen rupture. It caused his massive internal bleeding. We had to remove it and finally stop bleeding, which is good. However, he got v-fib during the surgery, we got him back but found even he was intubated, his sats were still dropping, we had to trache him." Dr. Marcel hears Will sighing, he breaks for some seconds, giving Will time to adjust himself, "I'm afraid he suffered a traumatic head injury and so far, he's in coma."
"He's gonna be okay, isn't he?"
"Will, you're a doctor too, you know I can't promise anything. Dr. Abrams keeps him on ICP monitor to keep his Intracranial pressure at 18. They are sending him to Neuro-ICU."
"Thank you Dr. Marcel, I..." This is his first time to be so worried about some of his family. He was in Sudan when his mom passed away, he regretted but didn't worried before his leaving. He even didn't know his mom's illness. He went through 2 heart surgeries with his dad, but both surgeries went smoothly. But this time is different. He saw Jay coming lifelessly, but struggling to survive. He can see so many uncertainty of Jay's life and future, but have no way to get the answer.
Dr. Marcel squeezes Will's shoulder, "I need to contact his family, I mean Ryan Spencer's family. Should I contact Hailey?"
Will takes a deep breath, "No, not Hailey, contact Hank Voight. I will tell Hailey."
Life is an adventure filled with unexpected highs and lows. Sometimes life is like a mist, you can see it for a short time, then it goes away. This is how Hailey feels when she stands outside the ward. She went to the hospital as soon as she received Will's call. She can't help expecting to see Jay, but she can't do this without considering his and his children's safety, as well as the undercover protocol. She looks through the window and only spies a lifeless man covered by dozens of wires and tubes. Only the regular beeps from the machine tells Hailey that his man is temporarily alive. She turns back to the ward, covering her month with hands. She wants to help, but the only thing she can do now is to pray. She walks out of Neuro-ICU. She doesn't know what she will do if she stays there for a second longer. She can't ensure that she won't cross the line. She really misses him; she needs him, and she know he needs her too.
* Enjoy this chapter, I wrote and rewrote this chapter few times, but I'm still not satisfied about the final version. Please let me know your suggestion, opinions, etc.
* Maybe this is too early to say, but if you trust me and want me to verbalise your idea, let me know too. I have a lot of ideas on Jay whump these days, should I also write some one-shots?
* Thank you for messages and reviews, knowing that there is someone waiting for my fan fiction is really my motivation to continue.
* In next chapter, let's dig more on what happen to Jay!