AN: You all ready for a little Halstead anxiousness and distress? :-) As usual I hope you'll enjoy this chapter.

Chapter Title "I Would Die 4 U" by Rose Cousins, Bear's Den, Christof van der Ven

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

"33 year old female, presenting with nausea and vomiting as well as heavy epigastralgia. In and out of consciousness on the ride over here. Signs of dehydration, blood pressure 70 over 40, also tachycardic. Hit her head during a fall and cut her hand on shards of glass in the process…"

He was glad he had been level-headed enough to call an ambulance and not transported her in his own vehicle. With Rianne's condition worsening by the minute and him trying to prevent her from going into shock, it would have been a bumpy ride and not at all responsible. Just now with nurses and doctors gathering around the stretcher, getting her into a treatment room, he felt how relieved he actually was to not have to handle the situation alone anymore.

"Will, step aside! We got this!" Maggie's voice caught him off-guard and he took a step back.

Will refused to leave the room though until someone would actively throw him out. Like on autopilot he rattled off everything he knew about Rianne's current symptoms as well as her medical history. They could rule out appendicitis as he knew she'd had that when she was a child. Hopefully blood tests, ultrasound and CT would show that this was nothing severe. Although Will worried about the massive pain in her right upper abdomen he had found her in. A pain attack so heavy that she'd lost balance and crashed into the coffee table when getting up from the couch to open the door for him, knocking over all the debris on it and cutting herself. Thank God he still held on to that emergency key to Jay's apartment or she would have just laid there, semi-conscious with a heavy bleeding wound on her left palm.

Rianne hadn't been able to say a thing until now, her soft features contorted with pain, body ridden by colics and heaves. She'd been vomiting up all the water she'd been trying to keep herself hydrated with all day on their way over to Gaffney Medical Center. Will had had a hard time staying calm and collected at seeing her in so obvious agony.
It seemed that the pain meds they had put her on were finally showing some effects finally. When the team wheeled her past him on their way to more testing and treatment upstairs, Rianne grabbed his arm and looked at him out of big tired and glossy eyes, that were also full of fear:

"Jay?" she breathed, still protecting her stomach with her arm.

"He's coming, don't worry…"

"Tell him…. sorry?" Her limb and clammy grip on his arm slightly increased.

Her overall weak state gave Will the chills, but he tried to sound up-beat, when he told her:

"You can tell him that yourself! Don't go melodramatic on me now!"

Treating family members and friends was not a foreign issue to him. Nonetheless Will couldn't help but feel extremely anxious. This was the girl he knew his brother loved more than anything, who had changed Jay's world somehow and had stood by him through the last rough months, who had cracked his hard shell and let him into hers as well. Will wouldn't let anything happen to her. Jay would surely kill him otherwise.

"I'll stay with her until my brother gets here!" he announced to the staff and joined them in the elevator, holding on to the railing of Rianne's hospital bed.

Storming into the ED like he owned the place, with an air of authority around him to hide his trepidation, Jay's face was a badly applied mask of raw emotions.
Will had already spotted him from a mile away, wild eyes looking around searchingly, hoping to find Rianne somewhere.
The older Halstead sighed at the prospect of getting Jay filled in on the latest status of his girlfriend, painfully aware that the last time they had both been here worrying about someone they considered family, it had actually been their dad and things had not gone down well.

"Slow down! It will be okay!" Will said, when his brother only just came to an abrupt halt right in front of him.

"Where is she?" Jay threw his hands up in the air, tone annoyed and almost accusing Will for not immediately presenting him Rianne on a silver platter.

"They had to get her up to the OR for an emergency procedure, but it's…"

"Emergency procedure for what?"

Will cringed. He knew he should have chosen his words more carefully. After all this was Jay he was talking to. Hot-headed bundle of feelings and barely contained mess of all kinds of worries. So some trigger words had better been avoided.
But the damage was already done. Jay looked as if someone was just about to pull the rug from under his feet, while he awaited Will's explanation.
In these moments Will had the urge to give his brother a long comforting hug. It was his kid brother and he was hurting. But he knew that Jay would have resented and refused that hug right now, he was in a way too wired state. There were very few people that could touch Jay in these moments of emotional overflow and not risk getting pushed away or punched in the face. Will was not always one of them and the person who had constantly been able to break through all of Jay's defenses was currently not available. So he tried to soothe Jay with his words instead:

"Her gallbladder is seriously infected, they don't know what caused it yet, but we were worried that if it's not taken out immediately, there would be a threat of rupturing at this state of infection. That would be bad and cause complications. So they are taking it out right now and everything should be fine. No need to worry!"

"No need to worry, you've got to be joking, man! Why aren't you in the OR with her?" Jay's eyes sparked with something close to fury.

Will tried to tell himself it was just misdirected fear to keep himself calm and not smack his brother over the head.

"Because I am not a specialist and I am on my ED-shift right now. Besides you very well know that we aren't allowed to operate on family members…"

Will knew Rianne wasn't technically a family member yet, but he surely considered her one and as much as he wanted to see and control that no one made a mistake he knew he had to trust his fellow doctor's to just do their job. Just like he had had to trust Dr. Marcel that he wouldn't let his brother die on the table a few months ago.

Said brother first looked as if he wanted to continue arguing with him, but then ran his hands over his face as if to smooth out all the anxiety lines on it. It was only then that Will saw the knuckles on his right hand were seriously bruised. So he guessed it had been a rough day at the office on top of everything else for Jay.
He seemed a little unsteady on his legs for a minute, so Will put his hand on his shoulder and pulled him into the doctor's lounge, getting him something to drink and an ice-pack for his hand, before he filled him in on what had happened exactly.

"They ruled out a concussion. It's really just a bump on the head and they are stitching up her hand in the OR as we speak. The cut was rather deep, but that's fixable… Now we just have to wait until they are finished. When she wakes up she'll be as good as new in no time. You know how tough she is…"

Jay hung his head for a moment, shoulders slumping over, eyes closing. When he looked up at Will, all his earlier irritation had been replaced with confusion and regret mixed with a little bit of self-blame. Suddenly his brother looked very young and helpless:

"Why the hell wouldn't she say something?" Jay's voice cracked for a second.

"I knew she was still sick, but not that she was that sick and weak. I would have come home immediately and not met with Hailey. But she was pretending to be fine when I called her to check. Why would she do that?"

Will snorted at his brother's comment: "Hello pot, meet kettle! Jay, you're one and the same on that front! Just think about it!"

Seldom had he seen more stubborn people than these two. If they ever were in a real bad fight Will thought it would be fun to see who swallowed their pride to mend fences first.

"Besides it is not unusual for these symptoms to come in waves. So maybe she actually was kind of okay when you spoke to her."

Jay still seemed to feel torn and responsible, because he had been with Hailey when his girlfriend had needed him.

"I should have seen through her front and come home anyway…"

"Jay, you know that's not always possible. You can't know everything about a person. It certainly takes more time and even then… Hell we are related by blood and sometimes I feel I only know half of what is going on in your life."

Jay had to know that there was a little bit truth to it. After all he had his own things he kept to himself too. A very recent thing involving a certain heirloom ring for example.

When Will led his brother into the wake-up room later and watched his eyes take in Rianne, lying in a bed, very still, monitors watching over her heartbeat and oxygen levels, IV sticking to her hand, he didn't know what to make of the expression on Jay's face: For a second all the color drained out of his freckled cheeks and he swayed a little, making Will fear he would collapse next to him. But then, just as quick as it had come on, the sentiment was gone. With a typical Jay gesture of running his hand over his neck he went to sit beside his girlfriend to wait until she woke up. Only the fact that he vigorously pressed his lips together to keep them from trembling told that Jay wasn't as okay as he wanted to appear at all.

At first she thought she was having another fever dream, but then Rianne noticed that her vision was no longer blurry. Her whole abdomen felt sore, but the excruciating pain in her stomach was miraculously gone, as was the constant queasiness. It seemed doable that she could actively control her body parts and form thoughts in her head that made actual sense. Vague recollections of how she had gotten here were popping up all at once and she closed her eyes again to keep them at bay. They were making her dizzy.

The moment she very slowly turned her head to the side to take in the room, there was a sudden movement, a warm familiar hand on her arm and a tall shadow looming over her.

"Hey, sleeping beauty…"

Tender fingers carefully pushed some strands of hair behind her ear. She blinked her lids a few more times to be able to see more clearly. Despite the joking tone of that soft voice, troubled green eyes were watching her closely, and told a different story about Jay's well-being. Deep bags under them, white dry lips with just a hint of freckles, veins popping out on his forehead let her know that he had been watching over her for a long time and gotten now rest at all. Rianne didn't know what time it was or for how long she'd been here. All the machines and the hospital bed she was in told her though that her mission to get this stomach bug under control all by herself had failed miserably.
Still searching for her voice she gave him the bravest smile she could muster, at least feeling immediately better to have him by her side.

Jay seemed to have found something in her eyes that made him relax a little. He pulled the chair he seemed to have been occupying until now closer to her bed and sat down again.

"Do you know you had surgery?"

"I think… I vaguely remember agreeing to the removal of something."

"Yeah, your gallbladder…" she heard Jay smile, but it sounded a little unhappy.

Rianne's brain felt like it was stuffed with cotton wool and she had difficulties keeping her eyes open and focusing for long. It could have been seconds or minutes with her closing and opening them before she suddenly heard herself asking:

"Is it gone then?"

Jay just nodded beside her and cleared his throat.

"So… what's the verdict? How am I doing?"

"I was hoping you could tell me! Are you in any pain?" Jay ran his fingers through her hair again, it felt nice.

"Not as much as right before the surgery I guess… My shoulder hurts, my stomach feels absurdly bloated and I think the incisions hurts, but that's all. Don't feel quite so feverish anymore."

Her voice sounded really weird in her ears. Like someone else was talking for her.

"The doctor's wanna come back in later, talk to you about your recovery plan and special diet. Things you should avoid eating until your body adjusts to the new situation. Could be that you will experience some weight loss at first."

Jay's unusual doctor language made her snort a little. She lost track of time and reality for a minute again. It was exhausting to talk and concentrate when her lids still felt way too heavy. Maybe she needed to sleep a bit more. But then there was this voice calling out her name again:

"Rianne, hey… Talk to me for a little while longer, will ya?"

Jay had gotten up from his chair, obviously worried she was losing consciousness again. He took her free hand in his and squeezed it.

"Well, that weight-loss would come in handy considering those vacation pounds, don't you think?" she joked, but when she looked at Jay she saw that he wasn't really amused:

"Very funny!"

"I think it's at least a little bit funny!"

"I don't think it's funny at all!"

He wasn't looking at her, he was looking at their entwined hands and trying to reign in his emotions, the muscles in his jaw working overtime. It was her turn to squeeze his hand and pull him back to the present:

"Hey! Jay, I'm gonna be fine!"

"I was really scared for you!" His voice got all scratchy and unsteady and the gleam of tears in his eyes when he met her gaze again made hers well up too.

"I know. I'm so sorry!"

Feeling the need to hold and assure him everything would be alright Rianne tugged at his hand to make him sit down next to her. As immobile as she herself was she was glad Jay understood and let her pull him down into a hug, cradling his head against the crook of her neck and kissing his stubbly cheek. She felt his hot breath against her skin come out in stutters and a deep sob run through his body that relaxed against hers shortly. It pained her to feel like she had failed him.

Her life's mission was to be strong for people. Strong for this man. She didn't need to add to his grievances. But it seemed her body had betrayed her just once more, reminding her that she was not invincible.

Jay only gave himself a minute of simply resting in her arms before he straightened up, took a deep breath and cleared his throat to escape the heavy emotions weighing down on them. Rianne then noticed his swollen right hand and the red angry knuckles, already starting to scap.

"What happened here?"

"Oh, it's nothing really... work..."

She knew by the look on his face that he didn't want to talk about it, so she swallowed her questions and just pressed her lips to his injuries, making him return the gesture on her stitched-up hand as well.
Rianne felt her eyes slowly getting droopy again, so she urged Jay to tell her something that would keep her awake a little longer, so he did.

"You know how we were joking about the celibacy thing?"

"Yeah, what about it?"

"Turns out we actually have to go through with that. At least for 10 to 14 days the doctors said! And you'll probably be on medical leave for 4 to 6 weeks."

This new information was a sure way to get Rianne's full attention, because: Hell no! This could not be true!

For the last 24 hours Jay mostly had no recollection of how he had exactly made it from one place to another. Starting from his late night trip to Med, to worrying and waiting for his girlfriend to come to, to getting back to work and back to Med from there to check on her again. He just had to make sure Rianne was okay, that she would continue to be okay and on the mend. It was all he had been able to think about.

Because it was his fault really, wasn't it? He should have known that she was in no condition to be alone while sick. He should have been there and taken care of her instead of…

…Instead of saving another woman from her abusive husband? A woman he had found beaten and scared, and gotten involved in the only way he seemed to know how: Just jumped right in! He had jumped in and rescued a beaten victim by eventually beating up the abuser himself. Did this make him a violent man too? Did he have a temper that was bordering on uncontrollable? Had he just been acting in self-defense when Shane hindered him and Michelle to leave the house yesterday or hadn't it also been because he felt so much hate for this man? A man beating up his undeserving wife, mother of his daughter? Had he really done a good thing like Hailey had assured him?

There had been something in Michelle's eyes when she had looked at him, standing over her husband down on the floor, bleeding. Jay's knuckles throbbing, yet just about to throw another punch at the man's face below him. Aching to throw that one final punch really to make Shane see how it felt to be at a physical disadvantage, unable to escape the blows raining down on him. It had been that something in her eyes that had made Jay stop though. Because he didn't want to become the same violent monster laying in front of him. But his inner fury and desire to inflict as much pain as possible, him coming close to beating that man until he would not move anymore, had scared him to death.

And would it someday be a situation just like this? A quandary between job and private life that would cost him one or the other? Would he always have to break off parts of himself in order to be this or that? To adjust and to fit?

He really hated that he wasn't a very optimistic person, at least not concerning himself. Always imagining worst case scenarios and easily spinning out when something got under his skin. And there were just so many things that got under his skin.

These last 24 hours: It had all been like a rush, an uncontrolled ride he had no say in, he had found himself floating along with.

That he was going back to the apartment now was only due to his girlfriend's adamant request for him to go home and at least take a shower before coming back, claiming he reeked a little after being in mostly the same clothes for the last two days.

Under different circumstances he might have asked if to borrow some scrubs and take a shower in the doctor's quarters and stay, but as it so happened Jay had run into Sylvie Brett and Matt Casey. They had come in tonight with Sylvie's birth mum experiencing false labor symptoms. So there were two more people checking in and keeping an eye on Rianne later, comforting him a little.

Jay was also very aware he was close to coming undone and it was better to have the solitude and quiet of his own four walls around him when that happened. He had been pretty good at hiding his turmoil and the sick feeling that had accompanied him throughout his work day. Sometimes he was good at toughening it out.

Rianne had been looking better and almost chipper this evening, but there was no getting rid of the images that had thrown him for a loop when first seeing her after surgery in the early morning hours and what those images had brought to the surface:

Her otherwise so lively face pale and with dark shadows under her eyes, cheeks sunken in, hooked up to monitors and needles, drains, whatever: It had reminded him so much of a time he desperately wanted to forget. A time where he had sat beside a hospital bed for hours, days and weeks, a frail woman lying in it, hooked up to IV poles. He had been a witness to seeing all her life being slowly sucked out of her. It had been his mom on her last rounds of chemo. All these feelings of loss and grief connected to that time had made his head spin for a second and twisted up his intestines. He'd almost lost it right then and there, resisting the urge to storm out of the room and throw up outside with only an infinitesimal portion of self-control. The realization that he couldn't possibly loose Rianne, not ever, that he momentarily thought he wouldn't survive this if he ever did, had hit him straight into the heart, baseball-bat hard. She was knitted into his life, his everyday, by now. Her love was like a soothing balm to him and he needed her so much! As his friend, his confidante and his safe place.

Even though he was pretty mad at her for playing down her condition before, he had still wanted to kiss the hell out of her face.

When he entered their living-room he froze for a second at the blood evidence of last night's events. He had almost forgotten about it, but of course Will had not been able to get his girlfriend an ambulance asap and care about the mess this place was in at the same time.

Now Jay kept staring at broken fragments of glass and porcelain and at a pretty impressive pool of blood. Some of it had seeped into the carpet under the coffee table, some had dried and sunken into the thankfully dark hardwood floors, but still there was some dark red and brown liquid reminding him that this could have gone terribly wrong.
Jay wasn't squeamish when it came to blood, he couldn't be and he had surely seen his amount of revolting and gruesome crime-scenes and not batted an eye. But this was different.

So all through the process of cleaning and scrubbing away the remnants of a stupid accident, an unfortunate series of events, he gritted his teeth, his fingers almost painfully clenching around the brush he was using and still trying to stem the flood of emotions that was threatening to swallow him up. As long as he kept scrubbing it was bearable, but the minute he really slowed down to take his long awaited shower, now even more necessary than before, because of the remains of blood on his now wrinkled hands, when he stripped off his clothes and walked into the bathroom he couldn't keep it together any longer. The moment he turned on the faucets hot tears were mixing with the scalding stream of water, at least warming up his cold bones. Salty liquid got washed away by a cleansing current, the noise of it drowning out the sound of his painful sobs. He let that irrationally big fear wash over him, drowned in it completely for as long as he stood there so that the tension and pain it inflicted would hopefully ebb away after he surfaced again.

Never had it been more evident how Rianne was really everywhere. Her neatly arranged Clinique facial products on the shelves… okay, he had done the neat arranging, but he somehow liked that she liked to stick to one special product line. Her hair clogging up the shower drain and sticking to his sweaters sometimes. Her idle origami paper-projects on the kitchen table and all the diet-coke in the fridge. Her smell, her clothes lying around, used coffee and tea cups on several surfaces. Jay had noticed that his need for order and neatness on most days, clashed with a slightly messier streak in her. It was one of their more evident differences they got into little fights about. But being a spectator to all the life she spread around her now, made him only miss her more. She was inextinguishable and he wouldn't know what to do with himself if he one day had to walk back into their shared home, knowing she would never come back to him.
The episode with his dad had shown him that you could lose people in the blink of an eye, get no good-bye. From one minute to the next they could be gone, just like that. It wasn't like there was a guarantee to have all the time in the world together.
Maybe sometimes with his job it was better to have no private life, no ties at all. Be a lone wolf like Hank Voight. No ties, nothing more to loose. If only the upsides that these ties had to offer weren't so alluring.
At the same time the fear of losing them and being left alone again kept her icy claws around Jay's heart right now and wouldn't let go.

"Why can't you just hang out there a little longer? I'll be two hours tops."

"Is that Rianne?" Adam asked Jay in passing, who told the person on the other end to hold on for a second to be able to hear him.

They were gathered in the bullpen, both men in their jackets, ready to leave the workplace. Only that Jay had gotten a call before the one he was currently on. His colleague's annoyed state told Ruzek that Halstead seemed to have another predicament in the work-life-balance section on his hand. Everyone knew that the fact his girlfriend was still at Med and he couldn't be with her 24/7 was making him a little cranky.
Jay covered his phone:

"Yeah, she's already getting discharged and wants to take a cab home now, because I can't pick her up right away. That was Casey who just called me before about their con-artist case. You know the one who faked his own death by driving his girlfriend's car into the lake with a self-made construction, so that he didn't actually have to be in it? Casey found him and is at his house right now, so I need to take care of that, because I promised him I would. But I don't want Rianne to go home alone either!"

"I could pick her up if you want? I'm heading to Med now anyway. Kim's got another check up…"

"Really?"

"Yeah…" There weren't many opportunities Jay would actually let someone help him and it wasn't really a bother for Adam.

"That would be great man, thanks!" A hint of relief flooded Jay's stern features.

"Sure thing…"

He told Jay to tell Rianne he would call her to arrange the details, before Adam headed for the stairs. He heard Jay curse behind him when he ended the call:

"She's just so stubborn!"

"Believe me, I feel you bro!"

Yeah, because he was just about to meet with his own stubborn woman.

Adam noticed that he had never been to Jay's place before when he walked up the stairs behind Rianne. They had to take a break on the second flight of stairs for her to catch her breath for a minute. She was obviously annoyed with her lingering physical exhaustion and waved off the concerned look that he was giving her:

"Just need to rest up a bit."

"Yeah, I can see that," Adam wouldn't say anything else because he very well knew that any lecture, however well-intentioned, would be in vain.

But it was very clear why Jay hadn't wanted her to go home all by herself.
Her arguing continued once they were inside and he had put all her stuff from the hospital down:

"If you have somewhere to be Adam, I think I can manage…"

"Nice try Ri, but Jay expected you to say something like that and left very clear instructions not to listen to you. So like it or not you're stuck with me until he gets here!"

He had noticed that she had tensed up at him calling her "Ri". It was then that Adam realized only Nate and Andrea had used this shortening of her name for her.
Leaning against the kitchen counter Rianne looked up at him with an air of insecurity about her:

"Have you… spoken to him at all?"

It was a little weird that she would say that so directly, as if reading his thoughts and that he knew exactly who she was talking about.

"No, not since he told me I should go to hell for not having his back that day of the shooting. To my knowledge he is still in that psychiatric facility. I'm thinking about reaching out every once in a while though. He's my cousin after all…"

"Yeah, me too…"

Rianne told him shortly how she had met with Andrea's mum just a few days before and how that had stirred up some old feelings and questions, but had also brought her some peace of mind.

"Funny how things change, hm?" she mused, looking so frail in her 'just released from hospital' state that Adam felt the need to pull her in for a hug:

"Yeah… and yet some things hopefully will stay the same…"

Maybe it was also him that needed some comfort after today. But when he heard Rianne wince in his strong grip around her he abruptly let her go.

"Everything okay with you and Kim? I picked up some tension between you two at Med…"

Rianne had been waiting outside the treatment room during Kim's check-up. Adam had "collected" her from her hospital ward to prevent her getting away and drive home on her own after all. After finding out that everything was going well he'd been so relieved, like he always was when they got assurance that the little boy inside Kim was continuing to grow healthily, Adam had wanted to share that joy with Kim for a while longer. Talk about baby stuff, make plans. But Burgess had only exchanged a few words with Rianne and told them that she couldn't join the two of them for a stomach-friendly diet dinner or help pass the time until Jay got home, because she had other places to be. Whatever that meant.

Adam had hoped that neither of the two women had seen how bummed out he had been about that. But it seemed he either was that transparent or Rianne just as perceptive as usual, even on her not so bright days.

"I don't know… I feel we are not on the same page. Actually haven't been for a while. She somehow thinks that I blame her for what happened, for almost losing our baby. One time she outwardly asked me to be mad at her and tell her off for having acted the way she did, but I couldn't do that and I still can't. I'm just glad they are okay and I want to spend every minute with her and be there for everything, but she won't let me…"

Rianne just looked at him for a while, still steadying herself against the kitchen counter, before she said:

"I'm sure it will be fine Adam. You and Kim will figure it out. You always do! And that baby couldn't wish for a more loving and invested father than you are… Kim knows that! I guess she might just need some time to let you in again, after she's done being mad at herself for almost risk losing your child. And no matter how things between you two turn out romantically: You will never loose her Adam. She will always be the mother of your child and you will always be the father of hers. No matter what happens!"

He hadn't thought about it like that until now. And it was a nice thing to say. The part about him being a great dad! So nice actually that he felt the tears burning behind his eyes. He patted Rianne's arm and nodded a few times, trying to reign in his feelings, not looking at her on purpose. She'd hit a sore and soft spot and he didn't need her to see that so clearly. Adam's go-to as usual was a topic-change:

"So, you heard what the doctors told you: Being active might help you to recover fast, but your body is good at telling you your limits so listen closely to it and rest whenever it tells you to rest, so maybe you should go to bed now!"

Rianne rolled her eyes at him, but thankfully complied and got ready to lie down again.

Taking in the bedroom, Adam eyed the slightly crooked bed-frame or rather the not really fitting pieces of it. It looked like it had been stitched together somehow. He pointed at it when Rianne caught him eyeballing their bed:

"Is that an off-the-shelf product or… custom made?"

She blushed, which told him everything about how it must have come to this: "Hm… custom made?"

He must've grinned stupidly, because Rianne hit him slightly over the ear, before climbing onto the mattress. This private leverage on one of his colleagues actually lifted his mood a little.

After helping Rianne be comfortable and getting her another pillow to help secure her sleeping position and take the pressure off her stitches, Adam found himself nursing the last beer left in the sparsely equipped fridge and cuddling with Rianne's cat, who seemed to be happy to get reacquainted with a familiar face.
A little while later the front door opened and Jay walked in.

"She's asleep," Adam mumbled when registering Halstead's searching looks and a certain hint of panic in his eyes at not seeing Rianne around when he entered the kitchen.

Límon immediately hopped off Adam's arm and ran over to Jay, roaming around his legs and mewling heartbreakingly. Adam never would have picked his co-worker to be someone who cared for such a ferocious looking animal, but Jay actually stooped down and took a minute to pat the little guy's head, before her got up again and took off his jacket.

"Oh… okay…" he mumbled in Adam's general direction, a little distractedly.

"You want another beer?" Jay asked when he passed him and took a look in the fridge himself.

"Actually I just drank the only one left in there, but I'll promise to buy you a drink next time you're at Molly's."

Jay only had a tired mocking smile left for him, as if he wanted to say: 'When is that ever going to happen?' and closed the door again, reaching for a glass and filling it up with water instead.

The only real words that left his mouth though were: "Thanks for doing this Ruz, I owe you one!"

"We're cool, really! You should get some sleep too. I'm gonna hit the road then!"

Meeting Jay's thankful gaze after he'd shortly pulled him in for a brisk hug, Adam couldn't help but get something off his chest. Jay must have thought he did a good job at hiding his emotions, but in reality he didn't. Looking more closely you could always tell wether or not something was affecting him and Adam knew how scary it could be to worry about the woman you loved:

"Look man, I know how it is, but… don't let this fear have all the power over you! It messes with your head and makes you do stupid things! Just a little bit of unsolicited advise"

AN2: I don't even dare attempt to write in so much detail about Jay's possible experiences with his mum's sickness, but I sure think it is one of the things still affecting him to some length in the present. Seeing someone you love getting sick or dying is something that never leaves you no matter how old you are, how old you get. So I think Jay would be even more scared than most in a situation like this one here.
If you wanna read a story that contains more content about the chapter in Jay's life that revolves around losing his mother (and some other great stuff too):

ChinVilla has done an awesome job of portraying it, so check out her story "The Birth of Worlds"! If you have a boatload of tissues at home that is :-)