Timeline: Late season 7

Completed: Dec. 07, 2019

"Jay! What are you doing? Wait for back up! The team is five minutes out!" Hailey yells at her partner as he runs towards the abandoned warehouse.

"We don't have five minutes! If we wait we might lose the girls!" Jay yells back, not caring if his partner doesn't follow him.

Hailey looks back, hoping to see the rest of the team arriving, but is met with nothing. She makes the decision to follow Jay, not able to let him go without some backup.

She catches him just before he kicks in the door to the back room in the building. The two clear the room, until Jay hears something.

The sound so quiet, Jay wouldn't have heard it if not for his years as a Ranger. Knowing exactly what that sound was, Jay frantically looks for his partner, "Hailey! Bomb, run!" he yells running towards her to ger her out of harm's way.

Jay grabs her, but can't get out of the room before the device goes off. Jay grabs Hailey in a last-ditch effort to protect her.

The device goes off, sending the two detectives flying from the force. Hailey is protected by Jay, but he knocks his head against a concrete support pole, getting knocked out in the process.

Not knowing what is in the bomb or if there are more, Hailey is cautious not wanting to put herself and Jay in any more danger. When the room stops shaking from the force of the explosive, Hailey takes a chance to look around.

Her first concern is her unconscious partner. Looking at him, she notes that the only visible damage is where his head is bleeding. She looks around the room and makes note that it looks like the bomb was for the purpose of structural damage: several support beams are out and their exit is blocked by debris.

Hailey could climb over the debris to get out, but that would mean leaving Jay by himself while she called for help. Hailey decides to stay with her partner, listening to her heart and not her head. Hailey knows that she can't lift her partner while he's unconscious, and even if she could, she'd be worried about spinal damage.

So she waits for her team to arrive, knowing they can't be too far away.

After waiting for what seems like forever, Hailey hears the voices of her team. "Jay! Hailey!"

"In here!" she calls back.

"Hailey is Jay with you?!" she recognizes Adam's voice.

"Yeah! He needs help! He's unconscious! Head injury, possible spinal injury!" she calls out wanting her partner to get help as soon as possible.

Hailey hears his response and him calling for someone to call for an ambulance, but her only focus is on Jay, watching to make sure he's still breathing.

So focused on her partner, Hailey doesn't realize when Adam enters the room until he is right next to her. "Are you alright?" he asks, taking in both of their appearances.

"I'm fine. Jay took the brunt of it. I don't think the bomb was meant to take life, it looks like it was meant for structural damage," Hailey informs him of her observation.

Before Adam can respond, Brett and Foster of Firehouse 51 are being escorted in by Severide and Cruz. The paramedics get to work on the unconscious detective, putting a c-collar around his neck before placing him on a backboard. Brett then puts in an IV line, Hailey knows Jay would hate both the needle and the collar if he were awake.

"What about you? Are you okay?" Brett asks Hailey as Severide, Cruz, and Adam are getting Jay into the Stokes basket.

"I'm fine, Jay protected me," Hailey answers.

The six of the carefully make their way out of the room while making sure they get Jay out with as little problems as possible.

Once they get out of the warehouse with all the rubble, they are able to move him to the stretcher.

"I'm going with him," Hailey tells Voight as she is halfway into the back of the ambulance, not giving him a choice about letting her go. A feeling of déjà vu as she climbs in, the last time he was unconscious in the back of an ambulance because his big heart got him shot. This time he was once again hurt because he was trying to help someone.

Arriving at Med, Hailey is pushed away as Marcel and Choi get Jay into a trauma room to treat him. Watching helplessly, Hailey can only hope that he will be okay.

Hailey doesn't realize that Natalie has been trying to get her attention until she feels a hand on her shoulder. "Hailey, he's in the best hands possible," she tells her as she leads the detective to the doctors' lounge where a distraught Will is trying to get past Maggie to be with his brother.

When he sees Hailey he has to ask, "What happened?"

"I don't know. We cleared the room, then he yelled about a bomb. It knocked him into a support beam and knocked him out."

Before Will can formulate an answer, April appears in the doorway, "They're taking him to CT to see if there is a bleed."

"I should find the others, they'll want to know," Hailey speaks out loud before making her way out to the waiting room.

When the rest of the intelligence team sees her they all ask different variations of how is he doing.

"They took him to CT. That's all I know."

The team waits, none able to hide their nerves. After almost an hour of waiting, Will walks in to give them an update. "The good news is that there is no spinal damage or brain bleed," Will tells them when he has the team's attention. "He does have a minor skull fracture so he's going to be put in the ICU so we can monitor that. If there are no complications, he can go home in a week."

"Can we see him?" Voight asks.

"Make it short. I don't want to overwhelm him," Will answers, knowing they will find a way to see him either way.

Will leads them to his ICU room and they go in two at a time. Hailey goes in last, with the mind-set of not leaving until she can see for herself that Jay is going to be okay.

After seeing Jay, the rest of the team goes back to the district knowing that he will be okay and wanting to be able to tell him that they got the guy who was trafficking the girls. Hailey remains in the seat next to his bed.

Hailey talks to him about whatever she can think of, hoping he can hear her. Unbeknownst to her and everyone else what his future hold.

Finally around six o'clock, a full five hours after being rescued from the warehouse, Jay opens his eyes. It is slow, but Hailey is able to see his blue-green eyes. "Hey, welcome back," she whispers.

Jay's brows furrow in confusion. He can see Hailey's lips moving, but no sound is coming out. Now that he thinks about it, he can't hear the annoying beeping of every machine that is normally on in a hospital.

"Jay, what's wrong?" Hailey asks when she realizes that the heart monitor attached to him is going crazy.

Jay is looking around the room like a wild animal that is trapped. Hailey takes her hand and gently forces Jay's face to look at her. "What's wrong?" she repeats.

Jay still can't hear his partner. Wide-eyed, Jay stumbles, "I-I can't…" Jay can feel the vibration in his throat making the sounds, but he still can't hear.

"You can't what?" Her lips are moving, but still no sound.

"I can't hear."

This worries Hailey, but she tries to not let it show. Hailey nods, pointing to the call button, letting him know she was going to call for help. "He's awake, but there is a bit of a problem," she speaks into it when a nurse answers.

A couple of minutes later, a nurse, doctor, and Will walk into the room. "He can't hear anything," Hailey informs them.

Will immediately goes to his brother, placing a hand on his shoulder in support.

"We're going to run some tests, but this could be a complication of the head injury," the doctor tells them. He then finds a piece of paper to write down what he just said to let Jay know. Jay reads the note before looking to Will overwhelmed. Will nods his head and Jay agrees, trusting his brother wouldn't agree to anything that would hurt him.

Jay is taken for the tests, leaving Will and Hailey in his room. Hailey looks to the red-head, "What chance does he have at getting his hearing back?"

"Hailey, I'm not an audiologist," Will tells her, trying to avoid the question.

"Will," Hailey stresses. "I need to know, I just want to help him."

"Hearing is a funny thing, sometimes a person can regain their hearing. But if this is a complication of the head injury- it's most likely permanent."

"So he can forget about his career as a detective," Hailey thinks out loud.

"In all likelihood, yes," Will speaks.

"What do I do? How do I convince him that there's more to life than being a police officer?" Hailey asks.

"We figure it out as we go," Will tells her, not having another answer.

Jay is brought back to his room an hour and a half later. "The doctor will be in in a bit to talk about the results."

Hailey places a hand on Jay's forearm, silently showing her support for him.

Before anyone can say anything, a doctor walks in. Looking to see that Jay is not alone, he takes the dry-erase board that he brought with him and writes something before handing it to Jay. Reading the board, Jay nods his head. "I was just asking if it was okay with him for you guys to know what happening," he tells the two.

"So what's causing his hearing loss?" Will asks.

"The skull fracture, though small, did damage to his temporal lobe. This is where your primary auditory cortex is; this cortex is responsible for interpreting sounds and language that we hear," the doctor explains.

"Is there anything that can be done?" Hailey asks.

"Not much, I'm going to connect him with an audiologist. He's not a candidate for a cochlear implant because his hearing is affected in his brain and not his cochlear."

"Is there a chance that his hearing can return on its own?"

"The audiologist can answer better than me, but I believe there is a less than ten percent chance of that happening." He waits and gives that a minute for the two to sink in. "The audiologist will be in within the next hour or so."

The doctor then takes the whiteboard and writes a condensed version of the verdict for Jay. The skull fracture you sustained did damage to the part of your brain that processes sounds and language. An audiologist will be in within the next hour or so. Do you have any questions?

"Permanent?" Jay asks.

The doctor takes the board to write his answer again. Most likely, yes. Because your hearing loss is from a brain injury, you are not a candidate for a cochlear implant.

Jay nods, looking to his brother. "Thanks, Doc. I think Jay needs time to process this," Will speaks for his brother.

The doctor leaves, leaving the three alone in the ICU room.

Hailey moves so she is sitting on the edge of his bed. She makes sure Jay is looking at her before she tells him, "Everything will be okay," making sure to enunciate each word.

Almost an hour later a lady walks into Jay's room. "Hi, my name is Dr. Carter. I'm an audiologist, is now a good time?"

"Yeah," Will answers while Hailey grabs Jay's attention.

Dr. Carter places her laptop on Jay's tray facing him. She then takes a seat on a stool and sits a wireless keyboard on her lap. She types as she speaks, "My name is Dr. Carter and I'm an audiologist here. Do you go by Jacob?"

"Jay," the detective tells her.

"Okay, Jay. Who is with you?"

"My brother and partner from work."

"Okay. Is it okay if we talk about what's going to happen with them here?" Jay nods. "Okay. So, from the notes, you were told what caused your hearing loss."

"Yes."

"Do you have any questions or do you want to talk about what this means moving forward?"

"No questions right now," Jay answers looking to Hailey and Will. The two agree with him.

"Okay. So, right now we aren't going to do much. The priority is the skull fracture, in a couple of days if your doctor is okay with it, we are going to take you for a test to see how much of your hearing was affected-"

"I can't hear anything," Jay interrupts.

"Hearing is measured by decibels, so by seeing what you can and cannot hear will tell us the severity of your hearing loss. Hearing loss is broken into five levels of classification: mild hearing loss, moderate hearing loss, moderately severe hearing loss, severe hearing loss, and profound hearing loss. By understanding where your hearing loss is, we can decide what course of action to take."

"What do you mean by course of action?" Hailey asks.

"I mean, what path is Jay going to take for communication and if he will benefit from hearing aids. If so, we will make molds of your ears and get you set up with them.

"What did you mean by the type of communication?" Will asks.

"And how much will hearing aids help him?" Hailey asks.

"It will depend on where he falls in the classification of hearing loss. It could be anywhere from being very beneficial to only having him hear ambient sound. There are different ways that he can communicate. Some people chose to rely on writing down their conversations and now with technology it has gotten easier. There is also lip-reading and communicating verbally, though even the best lip-readers only catch about thirty-three percent of what is said. A lot of it is filling in the blanks on the context of what the conversation is. Cued speech is another option as well as learning sign language."

"What's cued speech?" Jay asks.

"It's a method of communication where the mouth movements of speech are combined with a system of hand movements. The sounds have a handshape and place around the mouth."

"This is a lot," Jay states.

"It's okay to be overwhelmed. This is a big change in your life, a fast change. I'm going to leave you some pamphlets on cued speech and American Sign Language as well as information on the different types of hearing aids. If you have any questions, just have someone page me and if not, I will see you when we do the hearing test."

She makes sure the three of them don't have any more questions before leaving the room.

When she leaves, Jay looks to his brother and partner, as if asking what they think he should do.

Hailey takes the whiteboard that the first doctor left, Read the pamphlets and whatever you decide, Will and I will support.

Jay looks at them after reading her message and nods.

Two days later Jay is deemed stable enough to move for the hearing test. The three of them move to where the hearing test is going to take place. Jay is put in a different room while Hailey and Will are in the room with Dr. Carter.

Jay was given a set of headphones and was told to raise his right hand when he heard a sound from the right side of the headset and the same for his left. After fifteen minutes, Jay raised his left hand twice, and his right hand once.

When Jay walks into the room with the others, frustration is clear on his face. "That was so bad."

Hailey rests her hand on his arm giving a silent reassurance.

Dr. Carter is focused on her monitors for a moment before turning her attention to the three of them. "So, it looks like your hearing loss is between sever and profound."

"What does that mean for him?" Hailey asks, hand still on his arm.

"A hearing aid would help some, but you would still be relying on lip-reading or other forms of communication."

"Okay," Jay states. "What should I do?" he asks his brother.

"It's up to you."

"I don't want to feel isolated," Jay tells Dr. Carter.

"Okay, we can do the molds now if you want."

"Okay.

Dr. Carter gets what she needs to do the moldings. She places the cotton stopper in Jay's right ear before kneading the molding material and putting it in the syringe. "This will feel a little weird," she warns. She then repeats the same process for the left ear.

The moldings sit in his ears for five minutes while they harden.

"That feels weird," Jay comments when she takes them out.

"With your degree of hearing loss, you can either do Behind-The-Ear, BTE, or In-The-Ear, ITE. Both are pretty similar in function, because of their size both will pick up more wind noise than other models, but they are the only options with your degree of hearing loss. ITEs can get clogged with earwax," she informs him.

"Behind-The-Ear?" Jay answers though it sounds more like a question. Will nods encouragingly to his brother.

"It's going to take one to two weeks for them to come in. When they do, I'll contact you to come in and do the programming."

After getting the information from Dr. Carter, they take Jay back to his room.

"What do I do about work?" Jay asks the question that has been plaguing him.

You tell Voight and Hailey and I will be with you every step, Will writes knowing his brother has a long road ahead of him

A/N: So I think I had a little too much fun with this one. I am interested in Deaf culture, the ASL in my username is a reference to my interest in American Sign Language. Is anyone interested in this becoming an independent FanFic?