24. X-Ray
The first time Vanessa Rojas needed an x-ray as a cop was three weeks into the job with Intelligence. It was rather a funny story, albeit one she would not like to repeat. Her and Atwater had been trying to serve a warrant when they approached the house and something came smashing out of the window and it landed on her foot.
"WHAT THE FUCK?!" She screamed at the window.
All Atwater could do was not do break into tears laughing. He pointed to the ground, gun in hand. "That's a TV."
"Someone threw a TV at us!" Vanessa fumed.
Atwater again tries not to laugh but failed miserably. "And it connected."
Vanessa managed to get the ghetto 90's TV off her foot. "Go. See if the joker is still in the house. I'll be behind you."
Atwater came out five minutes later with a kid in handcuffs. Vanessa approaches the kid. "Before it was a couple failure to appears, now you have an assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest. Really stupid."
After dropping the kid off at booking, Atwater took Vanessa to the hospital to get xrays and document the assault on a police officer.
At the hospital, Maggie took one look at her and laughed. "I see we have a new suspect to torture in Intelligence," she smiled.
"Vanessa Rojas," Vanessa introduced. She handed a form that had already been signed by Platt to Maggie.
Maggie raised an eyebrow. "Someone threw a TV at you? That's one I haven't heard of before."
"Glad to be your first."
The first time Kenny Rixton needed x-rays was his second stint in Intelligence. Unfortunately he zigged when he should have zagged when trying to avoid flying bullets and ended up behind a car and not shot. But his knee was not too happy about the diving and sideways motions he had just taken to avoid near death.
After getting up when Burgess had announced "suspect down," he gingerly stood up. And it hurt like hell. Alexa was going to kill him.
"You don't look so hot," Rojas commented.
He winced. "I'm fine."
Even Hailey raised her eyebrow. "Yeah, sure. That was a definite Superman dive behind that car."
He held up his hand. "I'm fine, guys. Thanks, but I'm just getting old."
Finally by the end of the day and him limping around, Hailey had enough. "We are going to the hospital and you are getting an MRI or an x-ray on your knee."
Rixton groaned and rolled his eyes. "Thanks, Hailey. But I already called my doctor. I have an appointment tomorrow for an MRI."
She looked at him. "Wow, that's slightly responsible coming from you."
"What can I say, I like to surprise you sometimes."
She gestured to the stairs. "Come on, let's go. I already texted Kosta and he has some food ready for pick up. Figured your wife will be homicidally pissed at you for getting injured on the job again so the least you can do is bring food home."
He just shook his head and hobbled down the stairs as she followed. "Halstead meeting us at my place?"
"Of course. I already texted Alexa."
"I liked you more when you didn't have my wife's number."
The third time Hailey needed x-rays in Intelligence and the first time she was seriously injured on the job was doing something that her and Jay had perfected quite well. Even Ruzek had attempted it once or twice before and gotten a 10/10 on the landings. Unfortunately this time she did not stick the landing when she leaped over a car like she had done a hundred times before.
She landed with a hard thud on her right side and immediately knew her shoulder was fucked. She knew. She winced and got up to continue chasing the subject but Burgess screaming at her to stop made her stop and bend over at the knees, in pain.
They got the guy and throughout the day she ignored the pain. The excruciating pain. Which led her to the bottle of half drank bottle of Jameson's that Jay had around the house. When whiskey didn't fix the pain, she knew she was fucked more than she thought when she got up originally. She wasn't a whiskey drinker, preferring it to gin and whiskey usually numbed pain, or so she thought.
Jay was on a stakeout with Rojas, which led her a little bit in a bind. First she texted Will and got an affirmative that he was on duty at the hospital that night. With that bit taken care of, she texted Hayden that she needed a ride to the hospital. It was so nice that he had his drivers license now. Hayden entered the house fifteen minutes later, on account of Tim and Tammy living close, and started laughing as Hailey approached the door in Jay's sweats and an oversized CPD sweatshirt. "Nice double standard."
She looked the door behind her and threw him her SUV keys with her good hand to drive. "What do you mean?"
"Last time I thought I broke my hand and decided to finish out the game you yelled and yelled at me. Now, you finish a day's work and decide to self medicate with Jameson's before even thinking of going to the hospital."
Hailey looked at her nephew, knowing he was right. "Fuck you."
Hayden started the SUV. "Those aren't nice words, or so you've told me."
"I can still beat you up with one hand, mister."
He drove her to the hospital and parked in the visitor lot. "I just asked you to drive me," Hailey replied.
He turned off the car. "And leave you at the hospital without getting results? Nah. Plus, it's Friday night. I have nowhere else I'd rather be than spending it with you."
She waited for him to open her passenger side door. "I'm going to pretend that's sincere."
Will was waiting for them and laughed when he saw Hayden. "He in trouble?"
Hayden shook his head. "Exact opposite. Making sure she actually gets x-rays done."
Will just shook his head as Hailey sat on the bead and grimaced. "You're going to hate me but I asked Jay what happened and apparently he managed to get the dash cam footage from the patrol car down the street. Gives me a pretty good idea of what happened."
Hailey groaned. "So, what next?"
"X-rays and wait for Dr. Caussin, who is the ortho on call, to finish up surgery."
Jay sat in Hailey's room later that night. She was thankfully asleep. He had told Hayden to go home and get some sleep as he had batting practice at 6 am the next morning. The x-ray's had come back with a shattered collarbone and they were just waiting on Dr. Caussin to determine if they were going to do surgery on it. Surgery with plates and screws to stabilize it was the most likely outcome.
He was scrolling through his work phone, reading an email from the District Commander, when someone appeared at the doorway. He looked up to see Hailey's former partner standing there. "Everson."
"Voight told me I could find Upton here," Detective Alex Everson explained. "Unfortunately crime doesn't sleep."
Jay nodded, respecting that because it was true. "What do you need from Hailey at this hour?"
"Old case of ours from Robbery-Homicide that got hot a couple hours ago. Need to know if she knows anything about one of our long standing suspects," Everson said.
Jay leaned back in his chair. "I wish you luck."
Everson paused for a minute and then didn't leave. "How's Hayden doing?"
The Intelligence Detective's head popped up. "How do you know Hayden?"
Everson leaned against the glass doorframe. "Back in her Robbery-Homicide days, Danny came into town one time. It was ugly. Beat Sarah half to death in a drunken rage. Needless to say, Hailey stashed Hayden at my house for a week until Danny left."
Jay was a little taken aback by Everson's story but it fit. He had heard of Danny's temper. "What happened to Danny after he beat up Sarah?'
"Called the NCIS Great Lakes office and they pretty much left it up to his command. I think he got a NJP out of it but he was a Staff Sergeant at the time so it was a slap on the wrist." Everson just shook her head, remembering everything that happened with that week. It was one hell of an ugly week.
He was learning so much about things. "And you've kept in touch with Hayden?"
Everson twisted his wedding ring. "My eight year old son thinks the world of him, so yes. I haven't seen the kid around as much now that you moved in with Hailey and he moved in with Tim and Tammy and had some stability."
"So that's where the crack came about the sweatshirt at the Kahlia Davis crime scene? You knew we are living together on the downlow?"
Everson laughed. "I had to. You know he applied for West Point?"
Jay almost dropped his phone. "West Point? What the fuck?' Jay knew about the other schools scouting Hayden. He had already been drafted by the MLB, but lower than expected and with his academics he had decided to go to school first. Everyone around the teenager was happy with that choice.
"Surprised me too."
"You need a Senator's recommendation," Jay said. "How'd he get one? I know Tim's a retired Colonel in the Air Force but I don't think Tim has that much sway."
Everson shrugged. "I'll leave it up to him to tell you. Tell Upton I'm looking for her." With that, he left.
Just after Everson left, Will came into the room and looked at his brother. "You ready to bring your relationship to the next level?"
"There's a next level?"
Will laughed. "So naiive of you. When you have to play nurse to someone, yes. Dr. Caussin wants to do surgery on her within two hours. You want to tell her or should I?"
Jay just looked at his brother. "I'll tell her."
Will paused. "Has she ever been injured on the job?"
Jay shook his head. "Nope. So this shall be fun for me and her."
"Oh boy, a Hailey Upton who can't do anything for a minimum of six weeks. Lord, help us all," Will said.
Jay looked at his brother and smiled. "Like you said, relationship test."
Will laughed. "Ah, you two have this. If she doesn't kill you, first."
And then Jay went to go wake her up and tell her that her life was going to be severely changed for the next two months with her arm in a sling after surgery. He knew they'd make it through the two months, he just wasn't sure they'd make it through with all their sanity intact though. At least he could go to work. Hailey was going to go crazy.
Next- Y; Yellow
AN: I'm not really great at "whumping" so I hope this is okay! Going to try and finish this up before the one year anniversary of when I started this.
