Hi friends! I made it! It's still Tuesday... on the West Coast. I'm going to continue thanking you every week for all of the love you've shown this story. I'll be very curious to know what you all think of this next chapter, so please share your thoughts here, or over on Tumblr (livinginwriterland)! Hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it (while on a plane, nonetheless).
A few minutes had turned into a few hours, which had turned into Jordan crawling her way into Hailey's hospital bed and falling asleep beside her. And all of these things were things that Will Halstead knew he shouldn't allow to happen, but couldn't bring himself to stop.
Currently, Jay sat in the chair beside Hailey's hospital bed, unable to sleep. He was unable to close his eyes and even rest, for that matter. He couldn't rest while his mind was wide awake; reeling and turning. A current home of endless "what if's". Of worst case scenarios, even though they weren't fully aware of what the whole scenario was just yet. But Jordan had a tumor, and in her blood work they'd detected cancer cells, and that was all Jay had needed to hear to immediately and repetitively dive off and into the deep end of theoretical possibilities.
As Hailey stirred in her sleep, Jay straightened, sitting up in the chair by default. He waited until her eyes blinked open, then leaned forward, his voice a whisper as he spoke to her. "Hey," he said, reaching for the plastic cup on the table next to him and offering it to her.
Hailey leaned her upper body forwards some and took a drink from the straw before settling back into the pillows. "Thank you," she said, appreciating how he'd practically read her mind. Despite all of the fluids they had her hooked up to, she felt just as dehydrated as she did weak and exhausted. "What time is it?" She asked, glancing around the room. Underneath her uninjured arm, Jordan was still fast asleep.
"Almost 5am," Jay answered.
Disgustingly early, Hailey thought. And Jay didn't look like he'd gotten any sleep in that chair, either.
"Can I get you anything?" He asked.
Hailey shook her head. "You should go home, though," she suggested softly, closing her eyes as she spoke. "Get some sleep and a shower. I could go for a shower…"
"I'm good right here." Jay settled back into his seat as if to further prove his words. The blonde sighed, but smiled.
"Jay," she said pointedly, her eyes reopening. Hailey extended the arm that was around Jordan out to him as much as she could. Jay frowned slightly, but took his partner's hand in his own. "We're fine," she insisted, looking him in the eye.
Jay stared at their hands, then lifted his eyes to stare back at her, unblinking at first. His gaze eventually shifted to Jordan, who wasn't quite fine. It killed him to sit there, knowing, while Hailey was still in the dark.
"Really, Jay," she insisted, noticing the change in his expression as he looked down at her daughter.
Jay shook his head. He had to tell her.
After a deep, calming breath and another moment of silence, he began to —
"Hailey, there's…" Jay started to say, but stopped himself short at the sound of knuckles tapping against the doorframe.
As if right on cue, Jay turned his head over his shoulder to find Will standing in the doorway. The doctor shot his younger brother a look before switching his focus to Hailey. "Morning," he said, plastering a smile to his face. "How are we doin' in here?"
"Okay," Hailey answered. Her default.
"How's your pain?" Will asked while assessing the bandage on her arm.
"It's fine," Hailey said. A lie.
Jay and Will both stared at her, seeing right through it.
Hailey wanted to roll her eyes, but refrained. She sighed before admitting, "About a seven."
Will nodded as he made a few adjustments to her virtual chart. "I'll order you something to help with that." Looking to Jordan then, he regretfully stated, "I'm afraid we need to get Little Miss here back to her own room."
Hailey turned her head to press a long kiss to the side of Jordan's. After a few moments, she looked back up at Will. "Thank you," she told him, genuine. She was appreciative of the corners he likely had to cut in order to allow Jordan to stay with her as long as she had in the first place.
The way Will saw it, it was nothing, and he nodded once in acknowledgement. "You can go to her a little later on," he stated, confident that by mid-morning she'd be okay to get up and move around so long as she felt up to it. And he imagined she would once he broke the impending news.
He began to maneuver the wheelchair Jordan had used the previous night towards Hailey's bed when Jay stood and blocked its path. "I got her." Carefully, he bent over and scooped Jordan up with ease, cradling her in his arms as she remained asleep.
"Please go home and get some rest after," Hailey tried again, placing her hand on his forearm.
Once again, Jay's eyes initially landed on her hand. He wanted to resist her insistence, but he couldn't deny her caring touch, the concerned crease on her forehead, and the stern yet adoring look in her bright blue eyes.
He would do anything she wanted him to, really.
"Fine," he relented in a whisper. "I'll take a shower and maybe a twenty minute power nap."
Hailey smiled then, satisfied as she watched Jay so lovingly carry the most important thing in her life out of the room.
Four hours later.
For patients, time often lagged when stuck within the confining walls of a hospital. For doctors, it flew by.
Hailey couldn't remember how many times she'd drifted in and out of sleep between the hours hours of five and nine, but by the time she woke up at 9:03am, Jay was by her side again — freshly showered, in a new change of clothes, with his phone and a cup of coffee in his hands.
He sent Will a quick text as Hailey came to: She's awake.
"Hey, sleepy head," Jay smiled.
Hailey matched his smile with a dimpled, close-lipped one of her own. "Hi," she said. "How's Jordan? She awake?"
"She's good. Chatty. Asking about you," Jay replied. "She woke up about an hour ago. Kim's with her now. I think Jordan talked her into playing Uno?"
Hailey's smile transformed into a small laugh at this. "Of course she did." Even though Hailey had seen kids pull through some of the worst possible situations, the resiliency of them never failed to amaze her. After adjusting herself so that she was sitting up more, she asked, "Can you get Will? I want to go see her."
Just then, Jay's phone buzzed. He glanced down at the screen, reading the incoming text from Will before stating, "He's actually already on his way." And just like that, the sinking feeling in the pit of Jay's stomach returned.
The feeling seemed to grow with every minute that passed while Jay waited for Will to make his entrance. When he finally did no more than five minutes later, Jay stood abruptly and shoved his hands in his pockets nervously, his eyes shifting back and forth between his brother and Dr. Manning, who'd entered behind him. Will nodded in his direction; a silent message of sorts that screamed "chill out".
"Hi, Hailey, how are you feeling?" Natalie asked with a bright smile, placing a hand on top of the sheets covering the detective's legs.
While Hailey knew the doctors were just doing their jobs, how many more times was she going to get asked a variation of that same damn question? Forcing a smile in return, she told her, "I just want to go see Jordan."
"We'll take you to her soon," Natalie assured the blonde.
An awkward silence followed then, filling the space between the four of them. Natalie's smile slowly fell. Will fidgeted with the iPad in his hands. Jay looked everywhere but directly at her. And Hailey didn't miss a beat of any of it. "Why not now…?" She asked, her tone of voice almost warning. "What's going on?"
Her first instinct was to look to Jay for an answer, but it was Will who took a step forward and spoke first, but only after pulling up something on his iPad. "We need to talk to you about Jordan."
"What about her?" Hailey questioned, quickly growing impatient.
Will took a breath before continuing. "When the paramedics brought her in she had a piece of glass protruding from her chest. Dr. Manning and I took an x-ray to get a closer look at any internal damage it may have caused and we found this." Will flipped his iPad around and presented the chest x-ray he was referring to to Hailey. He pointed to a cloudy spot on the imaging. A spot that Hailey could barely make out.
She leaned forward and squinted her eyes, trying to figure out what the hell Will was pointing to and trying to get at. "What… What am I looking at here?"
"That spot that Will is pointing at is a mass that we found," Natalie explained.
"A mass?" Hailey inquired. Off Natalie's nod, she added, "Okay. But you can take it out," Hailey said, as if it was a fact.
Silence fell over the group again.
"Right?" She prompted.
"That's the hope," Natalie answered.
"The hope?" Hailey shot back, incredulous. "What are you—"
"Jordan's blood tested for high levels of two metabolites called Homovanillic acid, HVA, and Vanillylmandelic acid, VMA," Will cut in, "which is usually suggestive of a catecholamine-secreting tumor, which, we've seen in the x-ray. We'll need to have an oncologist consult and run a series of tests to confirm and see how far it's spread, but… I believe Jordan has what's called Neuroblastoma. A rare form of childhood cancer."
Hailey stared at Will, wide-eyed and terrified, unfazed by the way the monitors she was hooked up to started to beep as the rhythm of her heartbeat sped up. The doctors glanced at it, keeping a careful eye on her vitals as Hailey struggled to absorb and make sense of all that they'd just said. She shook her head as she spoke, her eyes darting to everyone in the room at one point or another. "She… She was brought here a-after a car accident. For glass in her chest. And now you're telling me she has cancer? It— No." Hailey stopped long enough to draw in a ragged breath and find Jay's eyes. She froze when she did. "Did you know this whole time?" She half-demanded, half-accused.
All Jay could do was shake his head and apologize. "Hailey, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry." One of his arms was crossed over his chest, while the other cradled the lower half of his face in his hands, as if he was literally holding himself together.
"But she's not sick. I don't — It was only a car accident…" Hailey continued rambling, now to no one in particular, covering her own face as her disbelief and panic manifested in the form of tears.
Will sympathetically reached out to place a comforting hand on Hailey's shoulder as she heaved a sob. "I know, Hailey. I know. I'm so sorry," he echoed and then paused, catching a glimpse of Jay out of the corner of his eye. Knowing his brother likely needed to hear these next words even more than Hailey, Will finished, "But that car accident might have saved her life."
Jay's eyes connected with Will's for a half a beat — just enough time for these words to really land, and for him to catch his older brother nodding his head at him in Hailey's direction.
Getting the hint, Jay slumped down on the bed next to Hailey and wrapped his arms around her. Dropping her hand from her face, Hailey collapsed into his chest.
Will took a few steps back then towards the end of the bed next to Natalie. Simultaneously, they exchanged a mutual look of heartbreak; a mutual look of agreement: that this was easily one of the worst parts of their jobs.
Quietly then, they exited the room to give the two detectives some time, leaving Hailey to fall apart in her partner's arms.