AN: Yay, we (the story, Jay and Rianne and everyone else playing their part in it) have reached 40 followers! That's so exciting, thank you! We're gonna ride out that hospital drama in this chapter some more, so enjoy reading!

Chapter Title "Wake Up Sleeper" by Wildwood Kin

DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the Chicago PD, Fire or Med characters, only my OCs!

While he was leaning against a window on the upper floor near the ORs, a warm hand was pressed to his back suddenly. Will flinched at first, lost in thought and not expecting anyone else here.

"How are you holding up?" Those warm hands were snaking around his shoulders then and he leaned back into them.

Thank God for small mercies! Turning around to let himself sink into Natalies waiting embrace Will let some of the tears that had been prickling behind his eyes for most parts of this hellish night, fall. The pressure Nat was applying to his body increased and she just held him, saying nothing and waiting for him to let her go when he felt like it.
Will didn't ask how she had heard or how she'd gotten Owen taken care of so quickly. She wasn't supposed to be working until late afternoon today. It went without saying that she wanted to be there for him, for his brother.

The whole place had been buzzing with police officers, all showing up to be there for Jay; to show respect and support. It had been a long night of hoping and praying while doctors operated on him and repaired the artery that got nicked because of his gunshot wound.
When morning came and there was a splinter of hope that Jay would pull through, most of them had left continuing to do their work. Just a still very distressed Hailey had been sitting in the waiting room for a long time and was adamant to stay until they could say for sure that Jay was going to be okay and out of surgery.

Will's night had been a constant switch between dealing with his own feelings, fearing for his brother's life and caring for everyone else involved. He'd been updating Intelligence, taking care of his own patients and running back and forth between the OR and Rianne's hospital bed, because Jay's fate had propelled that poor soul backwards into some kind of PTSD-episode. Two people he really cared about were messed up, in pain, and he was right in the middle of it. There wasn't really anything he could do at the moment. It was a freaking nightmare!

Just when he was about to answer his fiancé, the doors of the OR swung open and Crockett Marcel was coming out. When he saw Will and Natalie he carefully smiled at them, looking exhausted from the long surgery, but Will felt his heart loose ten pounds at the sight of that encouraging expression on the other doctor's face.

"He will be fine!" The surgeon said out loud before he had reached him and Nat.

Even more silent tears were streaming down Will's face, he momentarily buried it in his hands. He wouldn't have known how to deal with any other outcome.
Then he reached for Natalie again and because he couldn't help himself hugged his colleague too, thanking him profoundly.

"We were able to stop the bleeding completely and repaired the damage to his shoulder. Anyway he's very lucky to be alive, concerning the amount of blood he lost! So, we're gonna let him come off the anesthesia very slowly and keep him in the ICU for observation. We have to look out for possible fever, infection, any kind of repercussions from the head laceration he suffered or bad reactions to the blood transfusions. He also has a broken rib. I'll check in again later. I'm gonna update his unit now." Marcel said and slapped Will on the back, before he left.

Natalie reached for Will's hand, squeezing it tight. Her dark brown eyes were radiating comfort and compassion when he looked down at her.

"He's just a damn lucky bastard!" Will breathed, having trouble to reign his feelings in.

"Yeah, seems like he's got nine lives..." Natalie added.

Rianne had slept for what felt like an eternity.
In reality it had only been five hours of tranquilizer induced comatose sleep. She couldn't tell what time of the day it was. Opening her eyes she was a bit shocked to see Matt sitting next to her bed, looking concerned. Again she felt like she was being propelled to a different time. When he noticed her opening her eyes he stood and came over to her, putting a gentle hand on her shoulder:

"Hey, welcome back!"

"What are you doing here?"

"Seems I am one of your emergency contacts... Will called me. You gave us a bit of a scare!"

Rianne was still not able to really think. She felt calmer than before, but yet overall dizzy and there was this big lump pressing down on her sternum. Her eyes were burning from crying so much earlier.

"I brought you a change of clothes from the loft. Thought you don't wanna stay in a hospital gown..."

Matt wanted to show her what he brought, but she held onto his arm, looking up at him questioningly, not daring to speak the words, because she felt her lip getting unsteady again. But Matt understood anyway:

"He's still alive Rianne! I don't know what the latest update is, but last time I checked with Will it was looking good!"

"That son of a bitch lied to me!" Funny that this was the first thing that came to her mind right now.

"Well, you can go and tell him what you think of him in person!" Will entered the room on this note.

Matt and her turned their heads to him, not really understanding:

"He's out of the woods, he will pull through! So, history will not repeat itself this time! You can see for yourself" Will elaborated, just now she noticed the relieved smile on his face.

At first his words didn't really catch up to Rianne. When they sank in the shortage of breath started again, as well as the uncontrollable crying. She hated being a hysteric mess, but it seemed she couldn't help it. Matt immediately hugged her to him, mumbling encouraging words that everything would be fine.

"Maybe we should call Dr. Charles. See if she is up for this?" she heard him say.

"Daniel's not here today and I don't trust the psychiatrist on call. She needs to see that he's okay for herself! I think this will help more than any kind of counseling and sedation ever could," Will sounded a little impatient.

They were both talking als if she wasn't in the room with them. As it seemed impossible for her at the moment to form any real thoughts of her own and have an opinion on the matter anyway she didn't really care. With Matt's help she got dressed in loose sweats and a shirt. The sensation to her legs still hadn't returned, so they put her in a wheelchair and took her up to the ICU.
Matt had to stay out of the room, because there weren't that many people allowed in with Jay. Before Will took her inside she grabbed Matt's hand and made him promise to get her out of there, if she gave him a signal. He agreed to stay and watch out.

Being wheeled into the room she held her breath when her eyes took in the person lying in that hospital bed.
Jay was still intubated, several other cannulae poking out of him, his face pale with sunken cheeks. It had been cleansed of the blood, but he still looked rough with those cuts and bruises on his otherwise so perfect features. A heart-monitor showed a steady rhythm, another machine was helping him breathe for now. Will had gotten her as close to the bed as possible. For a minute she was just staring at Jay, torn between sorrow and fear because he looked just as still as Andrea had when she'd seen him for the last time. But when she reached for his hand she found it was warm, his fingers slightly twitching in hers. She could see his chest rising and falling. Jay really was still alive, but he looked so frail. The limp hand she was holding no comparison to the strong one that had held hers, touched her body in that natural and confident way she had gotten used to.
Rianne was slightly beginning to shake at his side, feeling very cold suddenly.

His eyelids fluttered after what seemed like an eternity to her. His long lashes were blinking open and closed erratically. When his body had managed to control it, his eyes were barely focusing on anything around him until they suddenly fixated themselves on hers. It was just a small moment between them, she didn't even know if he had recognized her. Then Jay's eyes went wide, his heart-rate spiking up as he was struggling against the breathing tube. Will rushed to his side, addressing him, doctor tone in place:

"Jay! Jay? Can you hear me?"

Jay slowly turned his head to the sound of Will's voice and looked at his brother, nodding, his breathing still unsteady. Rianne pressed her eyes shut and his hand tighter, it felt terrible to see him in distress like that.

"I need you to calm down bro! I'll take the tube out, but you have to breathe along with me slowly first!"

For once doing like he was told Jay managed to focus on Will breathing with him, before he was ordered to cough as hard as he could so that Will could get him extubated.
Coughing and wheezing some more after the tube was out, Jay's head sank back into the pillow, obviously already exhausted. His breath rattled in his chest some more, but his heart rate quickly slowed down to a normal rhythm. Rianne saw that his lip had a nasty cut on it too. Her heart ached for him and yet she felt the white noise in her ears come back full force. This was all too much, too soon. She didn't really know what to do with herself.

Jay had closed his eyes again for a moment, turning his head to the side where she was and squeezed her hand as tight as he seemingly could.
Rianne wasn't able to take in the look he was giving her when he opened his eyes again, because she was seeing everything through a veil of fresh tears:

"I'm glad you're okay..." she softly whispered in his direction, her voice breaking.

Then she let go of his hand although it broke her heart and drove out of the room before she started to hyperventilate in front of it.

After Rianne had left the room so quickly when Jay'd woken up, Hailey had been sitting at his bedside for a long time, so she could see for herself that he was indeed going to be okay. His brother already talked about needing to get out of the hospital as soon as possible in between falling asleep now and then, because of the still heavy sedation. Will would have to make clear to him that this wasn't going to happen anytime soon. Hell no! Damn it he just almost died!

Hailey had left then to get some sleep and go back to join Intelligence on their newest case and Will went to check on his brother again.
It had been a whirlwind of a night and now that the storms were calming down, Will was just tired and let himself fall onto the little armchair next to Jay's bed.

Jay stirred awake from a nap after a while, the dark circles around his eyes along with the pain lines on his face making him look ten years older. With all the tubes still connecting him to different machines he appeared fragile and not at all how Will was used to seeing his badass little brother.
He would have liked to punch him in the face had it not been totally inappropriate, but he was just so damn angry with Jay. Why did he have to play the hero all the time? Didn't he realize that they were the only family they had left? That there was no one else anymore? What had he been thinking?

But instead of burdening him with these thoughts right away Will just made sure Jay wasn't in any pain and asked if he needed anything. Besides complaining about the needles sticking inside of him he said he was doing fine. That meant he wanted to bear the pain he certainly had without increasing the intake of painkillers. Typical!

"I, I wanted to…, was I..." Jay trailed off, his face suddenly very flushed.

At first Will thought he didn't feel good and instantly got a churning feeling inside his stomach, but then he realized Jay hadn't continued to speak because he was embarrassed and shy about something. His brother's voice was still rough due to having been intubated for so long.

"Spit it out Jay!" Will pressed, wondering if his suspicion about his brother's thoughts were right.

"Was I hallucinating before or was Rianne here when I woke up the first time?"

"Yes, she was here."

"So, where'd she go?" Jay tried to sound like he was "just checking", but of course he was afraid what the answer would be.

Will sighed. How should he explain this to him?:

"Jay she was in the E. D. when they brought you in."

"Oh, shit!" His brother's eyes went wide.

"Yeah, they wheeled you right past her and she blacked-out, had some sort of panic attack. I guess seeing you covered in blood, hanging on by a thread brought up some bad memories and post-traumatic stress. They had to give her some tranquilizers to calm her down, apparently there's some psychosomatic trauma to her legs."

"Fuck. Where did they take her?" Jay seemed to be tempted to get out of bed and go see her.

Will noticed him sitting up as best as he could in his state. Jay knew what that meant for Rianne and it pained Will to be the bearer of bad news:

"They admitted her to the psych ward for observation. She was a real mess last night and again this morning after being in here."

"I need you to take me to her, I have to talk to her!" Panic was now written all over Jay's face.

He was almost expecting him to jump out of the bed all of a sudden and go running to search for Rianne.

"Geesh Jay, have you even looked at yourself? You're not going anywhere right now! I don't know how to get this into your thick skull: You almost died! Do you even realize that? Christ, you're giving me a headache. Just take a beat!" Will exhaled long and loud, his forehead in wrinkles, thinking about how to give some serious advice to his brother without sounding too negative:

"Maybe you don't want to hear this, but I don't know how far back this episode will propel her. For Rianne's sake I hope not too far, but grief is a bitch. Every time you think you're over it, it succeeds in getting to you another way, so is trauma. So do yourselves a favor and let her recover and come to you, keep your issues in check and take care of getting on your feet again!"

"What issues are you alluding to?"

"Your abandonment issues for example..."

They couldn't continue their conversation because of a knock on the door. Sergeant Voight and Kim Burgess had arrived, wanting to see Jay and probably ask him some questions about the case. Will knew it was important they did that but wished everyone would just back off and let Jay get better first:

"Don't let him talk you into getting him out of here. He's not leaving this bed until I say so!" Will advised the two Intelligence members in passing.

Another whole day of medically induced sleep passed by, Rianne felt a little better when she woke up. Stronger, although not so stable like she would like to.

After seeing Jay and losing it again outside of his hospital room, the rest of the day had been a blur. She remembered waking up from time to time, looking at white hospital walls, hearing the beeping of machines and closing her eyes at all this again. She had wanted to crawl up in a ball, hide under the pillows and blankets and never come back out. She didn't answer to those who were talking to her, didn't even recognize their faces.
Now the gloomy feeling, the panic, had subsided mostly and a certain calmness had settled inside of her.

Still she just couldn't bring herself to go back upstairs to visit Jay or where ever they had taken him by now.
Rianne was beyond glad he was okay, but she felt she had no right to be there with him. Maybe it was time to realize, that she had let this go on for far too long anyway. That she should stay away completely, not letting him get any closer than he already had. She was not strong enough to loose someone like this again. In the beginning she had sworn to herself that she would keep a certain emotional distance, never letting go completely. That hadn't worked out exactly - Jay had already come too close in so many ways. Losing him would crash and burn her heart and soul for good, she knew that. There would be no recovering from this. She didn't like to feel this helpless and weak and out of control. He had already made her loose control in different variations, this had to stop.

Matt stopped by again in the late evening. She sometimes equally hated and loved that her friends cared about her so much and seemed to have a sixth sense when she needed them the most, even if she didn't say it. Would he have asked her she would have pretended to be fine and said that she didn't want him to bother visiting, she would get herself out of there pretty soon. Even if her legs still refused to work properly. The right one was okay, the left at least slightly sensitive to pain.
But instead of desperation, her fury about this had returned. If she couldn't walk, she would crawl out of here. Maybe she could get her friends to help her with that at least.
After checking on her well-being Matt updated her on Stella, who was also currently in the hospital and had promised to check in with her later too. First she had to tend to her man though. Kelly had been in a bad situation with an arsonist. He had come out of it unharmed, but nevertheless Rianne was sure Stella was just as shaken up about Kelly as she was about Jay.

"Any update on Halstead?" Matt asked her.

"I don't know, haven't seen him. D'you think maybe you could get a doctor in here so we can talk about getting me released?" Rianne quickly changed the subject, adamant to close this chapter.

No such luck with Matt though. He was always tackling delicate topics right on and was looking at her intensely with his serious face in play:

"Why won't you go see him when you were obviously so worried yesterday that you had a break-down?"

"I wasn't worried - I was triggered. It was a post-traumatic-stress episode…" She heard herself sounding like a know-it-all.

Matt wouldn't let her off the hook that easily:

"Please! You know that's probably what it was, but for post-traumatic-stress to be triggered there has to be some connection to a traumatic situation. You saw someone you're connected with, maybe even in love with, get life-threateningly injured. Like you saw Andrea get hurt! I am no psychology major but I guess this means that Jay isn't just some guy to you. Why aren't you with him then, seems like you're feeling better now?"

"Because what's the use? You saw me! He doesn't need this drama. He doesn't need a woman by his side who is going nuts every time he gets hurt or things might get dangerous. He's a police officer for Christ's sake! What was I thinking? And again, like I said: He didn't listen to me and got himself into trouble that could have been prevented! So obviously it doesn't matter very much to him how I feel about that." Rianne heard that her voice was getting kind of hysterical again, the tears she had left choking her up.

"Don't you think that's for him to decide what he needs and what he doesn't need? And if I may say so: I'm not so sure that if the roles were reversed you wouldn't have done the same thing he did. And this has nothing to do with how important the other one is to you, it's just in your nature."

When she didn't answer him and her tears just kept falling from her eyes Matt continued to ramble:

"Andrea would have laughed in your face right now, you know that don't you? He would have asked what you are waiting for. What you are so afraid of. You know that life without death does not exist, you can't have the one without the other, so why drive with the brakes on in the meantime? And you would have told me: 'Don't forget to forgive and don't wait too long to do it. Life is the chance, there will be no better one. It's a damn privilege to be alive, so love, don't wait for next year when the timing might be better. Don't hesitate to tell the people you love that you love them no matter if your love is refrained. There is nothing to lose, so be bold and brave and fundamentally uncool, be vulnerable and soft!' And so on... That's kind of what you said to me when I was struggling with the fact that I was still alive after some lunatic pointed a gun at me and pulled the trigger. My damn luck was that the magazine compartment of that bullet was empty, do you remember?" Matt took a deep breath, exhausted by the unusually long and pretentious speech he had given her.

Against her will Rianne groaned and had to smile a little, cringing:

"Oh my God - I said all that? Was I on something or did I swallow a life-coach-magazine at that time?"

"Pretty much your own words! You can rant on like that if you're on a roll."

"I still cannot go and he's still a damn hypocrite!" As if she was changing her mind that easily just because Matt Casey decided to have his philosophical day.

"And you said to me once: That feeling, that connection - it won't go away just because you don't want it to be there," Stella suddenly chimed in from the doorway, obviously having listend to the last parts of her conversation with Matt.

Rianne rolled her eyes and pushed her head back into the pillows: Here we go, she thought, her own lectures were catching up to her!

AN: I hope you're not too angry at Rianne for not being the tough one here. I felt like it wouldn't have been consistent with her life-experience if seeing Jay on the edge of dying hadn't triggered something from her past.