Thank you all for your kind and supportive reviews. I really appreciate it.
Here's another chapter for you. It's mostly a filler chapter to set the stage for the big reveal further into the story, but has a bit of Jay whump too. If the doctor's name sounds familiar, that's probably because he is. He's a recurring character from the early One Chicago seasons, mostly Fire, though he made an appearance on PD at least once.
Enjoy.
"Dr. Arata!" The trauma surgeon stopped in his tracks and turned around only to come face to face with the head nurse of Lakeshore hospital's emergency room. Not one to beat around the bush, she cut straight to the point and put forward her request. "Would you mind examining the patient in treatment four? He's been here for hours, but no one had the time to have a look at him yet." The doctor cocked his head and arched an eyebrow. Usually, surgeons weren't asked to help with the influx of patients in the pit, mostly because it was of the utmost importance that they were free to be on standby in case they required someone to perform emergency surgery. Subsequently, it was never a good omen if they were asked to take care of the non-critical patients.
Reading his mind, the nurse sighed, "I know, I know. And I hate to ask, but two of my doctors called in sick and I have no one on standby." David Arata wasn't surprised. With the most recent budget cuts, the hospital was chronically understaffed. So, it was no wonder, she hadn't found anyone to cover. "We're swamped right now. More urgent emergencies keep rolling in, pushing the patient in four further down the priority list, but I swear if he has to wait much longer, he might bail, and I honestly don't think he should be going anywhere with the symptoms he presents."
The doctor regarded her for a long minute, his expression wary and slightly irate, then glanced at the clock on the wall behind her. It was barely past ten in the morning, and he'd been here since five, having been called in an hour before his shift would have officially started to perform what turned out to be rather complicated five-hour emergency surgery. A surgery that had been touch-and-go for a while with the patient just barely escaping death. Thankfully, the man was finally stable and on his way to recovery, which permitted David to take a quick break and grab himself a cup of the tar-like sludge they called coffee here, something he despised but would desperately need if he wanted to make it to the end of what would be a very long shift.
However, the hospital as usual had other plans than to sanction him as little as five minutes of quiet. Of course, as a surgeon of nearly twenty years, he knew well enough that those were rather hard to come by and elusive. Emergencies lurked around every corner, and today that sentiment rang especially true. Letting his eyes wander over the hustle and bustle, it didn't go without notice that the ER was already crowded with people seeking medical attention and it would only become more and more congested by the minute. If they already had trouble getting everyone treated, it would be sheer impossible for the department to provide their patients the proper care they needed and deserved, especially those who weren't high on the triage.
Knowing that he didn't have any scheduled surgeries for the next couple of hours, therefore was basically on standby for the emergency room, anyway, in case a critical patient needed to be operated on, the doctor relented. He backtracked a bit and passed the admission desk, motioning for the nurse to hand him the chart and give him a brief overview of the patient. Just as he expected, she was naturally quick to deliver. "Jay Halstead, twenty-nine, came in with severe back pain and quite an impressive collection of bruising and swelling to his face," she rattled off as she fell into step beside him, a mutual decision already made that she would assist in the examination.
Arata nodded thoughtfully, furrowing his brows as he went through a mental checklist of things he would need to look out for. The listed injuries suggested the patient had been in a fight and considering he'd been here since the early morning hours, there was a good chance that he was also intoxicated or in the process of sobering up, which usually went hand in hand with poor compliance. An unnoticed visual assessment from outside probably wouldn't hurt for further information if that was the case. Consequently, he slowed his steps and came to a halt in front of the partition glass wall to get a preliminary glimpse. However, the sight that greeted him confused him.
From the nurse's initial statement, he had expected the patient to be a flighty one. Someone who was already in the process of wearing the floor thin with restless pacing, on the point of leaving because it took ages for a doctor to examine him. But the young man in the cubicle was surprisingly sedentary, recumbent even. Lying on the bed, both legs bent at an angle, the left steeper than the right and tilting to the side, his lower back arching slightly off the mattress in a painful-looking way. One arm was resting on his abdomen, the hand tightly clenched into a fist at the seam of his hoodie's pouch, whilst the other was loosely thrown across his eyes, just enough to shield them from the fluorescent ceiling lights but carefully avoiding the purple puffy left side of his head. The man was in no state to just up and leave. "Why'd you think the patient was going to bail? Doesn't look like it to me," he noted absentmindedly.
The nurse snorted in amusement, not at all fooled by the contradiction between her earlier statement and the picture in front of them right now. "Because it happened before. Multiple times, I might add," she retorted, her voice a mix of humor and mockery. David gave her a bewildered sidelong glance. "He's a frequent flyer. A few stitches here, a concussion there… a GSW not too long ago." A chuckle bubbled up her throat upon seeing his questioning look. "He's CPD," she added as if that would explain everything. And in a way it did. There was a reason why police officers were battling for second place on the list of 'least favorite patients', after all, the first being doctors and nurses themselves.
Placing a hand on the door handle, the surgeon muttered under his breath, "good to know," then pushed the door open and stepped inside. He briefly checked the chart for the officer's correct rank, knowing from experience how obnoxiously fastidious some of them could be about being addressed by the right one, then made his presence known. "Detective Halstead," the young man sluggishly lifted his right arm off his face, the careful movement indicative of the amounts of pain he was in, then squinted and blinked as the bright hospital lights assaulted his retinas. Light sensitivity and a headache then, David mused, checking the first two boxes off his mental list before introducing himself to his patient. "I'm Dr. Arata."
Gently lowering his arm to the side, Jay fleetingly met his eyes as he replied with a soft yet strained barely audible, "Doctor." With the blanketing limb out of the way, the surgeon was awarded an unobstructed view of the officer's face. It looked even worse than he imagined, littered with bruises of various shapes, sizes, and colors: one on his right temple blossoming right below the hairline, another barely hidden beneath a five o'clock shadow on his chin, and a smaller one near the corner of his mouth where the bottom lip was busted.
The by far most noticeable, though, was the purplish, almost black discoloration of the left side of his face, its magnitude concerning if not alarming. The outline of a boot was unmistakable, as was the print marked by the negligibly paler isles at the heart of the contusion. Someone had stomped on him, and that someone had used an excessive amount of force when he'd done so. Where facial bones protruded, the skin was broken and crusted with dried blood, pulling with the massive swelling beneath, and the surgeon knew right away that there was a strong probability that he was looking at a fracture of either the orbital bone or the zygomatic arch.
X-rays would bring certitude on that, so Dr. Arata opened his mouth, fully intent on asking the nurse to call radiology and have Halstead scheduled for imaging. But before he could get a word out, he was interrupted by a pained whimper from the bed as his patient struggled to push himself into a sitting position. That it caused him tremendous pain was evident in his labored breathing and the fine sheen of sweat gathering on his forehead. "Hey, hey, take it easy, Detective," the nurse cautioned the ailing man and rushed to his side. "No need to flog a dead horse when we have these," she grabbed the bed remote off the hook and waved it in front of his face, finger hovering over the button that would bring him into a more upright position.
Before she had a chance to press it, Arata stopped her with a shake of his head. "No, leave it for now. Let him catch his breath first," he directed evenly. He closed the door behind him and joined them by the bed, letting his eyes roam over his patient's features. "Looks like you went a few rounds with a professional boxer, Detective," he commented wryly. "Can you tell me what happened?" Leaning in, he used his index finger and thumb to pull Halstead's eyelids apart and study his pupil reactions, purposely forgoing a penlight as he did. He'd seen the kid's light sensitivity already; no need to cause more discomfort.
Jay instinctively tried to pull away but with his limited range of motion had to resort to glaring at the doctor instead. "Went a few rounds with a professional boxer," he countered secretively and raised a challenging right brow, indicating that he had no desire to elaborate. Dr. Arata wasn't fazed, just cocked an eyebrow of his own at the arcane statement – it was just the kind of evasive answer he expected from any of those young and cocky testosterone-driven cops who were too proud and presumptuous to admit they were in pain. Usually, it was accentuated with a decent amount of snobbishness and arrogance as well. Not with this guy, though. The anticipated aloofness was decidedly missing, Jay's tone filled with embarrassment and self-loathing, topped off with a weary sadness, a dangerous combination of emotions that worried David. But whatever the reason for it, it was none of his business.
It was his business to locate and diagnose the detective's injuries, however, and the nebulous response didn't exactly clue him in on any of those, much less revealed the source of the officer's unbearable pain. Aside from the obvious bruises and the nurse's mention of back pain, he was still none the wiser about what to look for. Halstead didn't seem keen on outright telling him. He would have to use a backroad to get to his answers, and by the looks of it, dry sarcasm was right up the young man's alley. Hoping it would prompt his patient into expanding on the emergence of his misery, he quipped, "last time I checked, boxers use their fists and not their feet." Unfortunately, the joke fell flat, and Jay merely continued to stare stoically ahead. Not that Dr. Arata let himself be fooled by that; after all, no matter how hard this kid tried, he couldn't hide the prominent tremors humming through his body or the periodic spasms that seemed to have the man's vertebrae in a vice grip.
"Okay, tell me this then," the surgeon launched into yet another approach, fingers reaching out to palpate the larger contusion on the brunette's temple, and when he didn't find anything of concern there moved on to assess the split lip. Keeping his tone light and nonjudgmental, he continued, "did this professional boxer you encountered use anything besides their fists and feet? Any blunt objects, a bat maybe, or a pipe? Anything like that?" He tapped the officer under the chin to examine the scratched bruise there, then guided his head to the side to check if thus far undetected lacerations hid beneath the short-cropped scalp hair. Finding none, he dedicated his attention to the disturbing boot-shaped mark and gently felt along the outer ring before palpating the bulgy area around his eye socket.
Halstead shook his head and replied with a taciturn, "nope," wincing and hissing ever so slightly when the surgeon pressed down on a particularly tender spot right beside a gash at the eyebrow. "Just his fists," he replied guardedly, then added a quieter, "and his foot…multiple times." The last part was no more than a bitter huff under his breath that caused David to temporarily halt his ministrations to let his eyes wander for a moment, wondering where else the kicks might have landed, but couldn't find any visible marks. He studied the young man for a moment, taking in the rather telling blank expression, and knew he wouldn't expand on his accidental slip for the time being.
Filing the shrouded information away to be further explored later, he focused on the pronounced swelling right above the zygomatic arch. As soon as his fingers brushed over the calloused bump, the detective recoiled violently, groaning in pain as the jerk flared the pain in other parts of his body. While the reaction confirmed the doctor's earlier evaluation that x-rays would indeed be needed, Dr. Arata was more concerned about the shivers running through Halstead's entire frame and what they alluded to. Cocking his head, he searched his patient's eyes, waiting for hazy Maui blues to glance up. "Would you mind telling me where those fists and feet, plural, landed? Aside from your face that is?" By way of a reply, the brunette merely lowered his gaze, the facial muscles of his right side twitching dismissively. Lips compressed into a thin line as he shifted ever so slightly to ease the pressure on his spine.
To no avail. Instead of the relief he had hoped for, it only caused more discomfort and elicited another barely suppressed moan that played straight into David's hands as it opened a window of opportunity for him to segue into his main concerns. "They wouldn't by any chance have connected with your back at some point, would they?" Jay knitted his right brow in confusion and shook his head in denial. The surgeon couldn't help but mimic the motion, though in his case out of lack of understanding as to why the kid would make it deliberately hard for them both when he'd sought out the ER in the first place. Nurse Isabel here told me you reported severe back pain when you came in earlier. And while I might look like one, I'm not a fool. I can tell your back is giving your trouble. So why don't you start being honest with me?"
Jay huffed in mild annoyance and turned his head away from the doctor. His pounding headache from earlier made a vengeful reappearance. To will it away, the detective brought a hand up and massaged the bridge of his nose, then dragged it over his face, its battered state temporarily forgotten but was reminded of it the second it scraped over his tender left cheek.
One lapse of judgment led to another when Halstead inhaled sharply to compensate for the discomfort. An ill-advised deep breath inadvertently setting off a whole firework of nerve-splitting sensations in his spine. Jay cried out in anguish, then gritted his teeth to muffle the wretched sobs that followed. He threw his head back into the pillow, aggravating the dull ache in his skill but nothing compared to the sheer agony that had him writhing on the mattress. The shifting sensation from earlier that morning returned, literally grating on his nerves, and his back muscles spasms to such a painful degree that the detective feared his vertebrae would break in half any minute now. He clenched his fists, dug his nails into the palms of his hand to divert the pain elsewhere but it didn't work. White-hot tears started leaking from the corners of his eyes as he scrunched up his face like a snotty wadded tissue. The grimace pulled at the cuts and swollen facial skin, but if the pain there flared anew, it didn't register in the young man's brain; the ripples already tore him asunder, overriding everything else.
Alarmed by the raw agony, Dr. Arata turned towards Isabel, a deep frown wrinkling his forehead. "Get an IV started now. Straight to ten milligrams of morphine and one milligram of methocarbamol," he ordered quietly, grave concern resonating in his baritone voice. "He's going to need it." The implication that their patient would need more meds later and probably wouldn't be discharged anytime soon remained unsaid but rang loud and clear in the request for the intravenous line. Leaving the nurse to gather all necessary equipment, the surgeon crouched down beside Jay until he was level with his head. "Hang in there, Detective. Breathe," he guided him, his voice calm and reassuring. "We'll give you something for the pain in a minute." A slight hitch in Halstead's panting and a pitiful high-pitched whimper was the only indication that he'd heard.
Staggered inhales and equally shaky exhales filled the room as the brunette tried to slow his breathing. Eventually, the scorching spasms subsided to a more bearable level. David gave him a few more minutes to regulate his breathing, then addressed the one question that had been nagging him since he'd stepped into the room. "Now wouldn't be a bad time for you to tell me where the worst of the pain is located. I'm assuming, it's your back?" As expected, the brunette didn't say anything, and for a moment the doctor was convinced that he wouldn't get an answer whatsoever, but then he caught movement near the young man's hip, the fingers of his right hand pointing in the vague direction of his right flank. "Your lower back?" the surgeon pressed. His patient nodded jerkily. "May I take a closer look?" Another nod, more hesitant and subdued than the first. "Do you think you can roll onto your side for me?"
The brunette didn't answer, just grappled for the bed railing with his left whilst trying to bring his right hand over his body as well to turn over. But as soon as he lifted his elbow, the appendage started to shake from the strain on the muscles in his upper back and Jay had to lower it once more. Noticing how much effort just the small motion cost the young man, Dr. Arata moved closer to assist, but Jay shook his head and grunted, "I can do it," bit down hard on the insides of his cheeks and tried again, this time digging his elbow and the heel of his boot into the mattress for help. A hopeless endeavor. When his leg refused to cooperate and slipped on the sheet, sending a searing, tingling sensation to his spine, he had no choice but to surrender. Feeling betrayed by his own body and embarrassed by his overall weakness, Jay couldn't hold back a heart-wrenching dejected sob.
Dr. Arata had enough of watching the kid torture himself and sprang into action as soon as the wretched sound escaped. "My God, just let us help you, Detective," he asserted, his voice gruff yet gentle and tinged with worry. "Nurse Isabel, a hand," he called over his shoulder, trying not to dwell on the lack of protest from his patient. The head nurse glanced up, catching a fleeting glimpse of the ailing young man. It was enough for her to drop the equipment and rush over to the other side of the bed. With united forces and practiced moves, they rolled the detective onto his left as swiftly and efficiently as they could. Despite their best efforts, the ordeal left the brunette panting and moaning quietly, inhales and exhales coming in short, shallow gasps when his vertebrae rebelled the sudden movement after staying in the same position for hours.
Noticing his obvious discomfort, Isabel briefly stepped away from the bed to grab a few small pillows off a rack in the far corner and placed one under Halstead's arm for support, then gave his forearm a comforting squeeze. In the meantime, Dr. Arata reached for the hem of the black hoodie, carefully exposing the young man's back, and frowned when a shadow of discolored skin underneath came into view, presaging a massive bruise. As he pushed the sweater further up Jay's back to see the full extent of it, the doctor halted his movements. Releasing all air from his lungs, he shook his head in consternation. Before the nurse even had a chance to get a glimpse herself, the surgeon instructed, "call radiology. Put in a rush order for a CT. Now."
Yeah, yeah, I know. I left it on a bit of a cliffhanger there. I hope you don't mind too much. Sorry.
Any thoughts?