Waking up isn't like it is in the movies, no drama, no tearful reunions.
It's quiet aside from the bustle of activity outside his room, it's cracking one eye and then the other open to check that he's not woken in some waiting room to heaven or hell or somewhere in between.
It's a sharp pain that's muted by whatever the hell they've given him and this feeling of weakness that he's not felt so heavily since after it all went to crap in Afghanistan.
The nasal cannula too that he's far too familiar with.
He shifts and tries to sit up, knowing it's a bad idea but hey he is the king of bad ideas or has been of late so he does it.
The world shifts, Jay's vision clouds over and he slumps back, eyes firmly shut and his hearing which is just this white noise of pain accompanying the sound of his own heavy strained breaths.
He's so wrapped up in the pain that he doesn't hear the footsteps and when a hand gently touches his arm, his eyes fly open and he strikes out with his right hand.
"Woah, Jay, it's me, Will."
His eyes focus, find Will's and he lets out a slow shuddered breath, tries a smile he imagines is as watery as his eyes which suddenly fill with tears he blinks away.
Will looks exhausted, his eyes are red, probably just from tiredness Jay figures but maybe a little something else too.
A little something else again comes pouring out of his brother.
"You got to stop scaring me like this. You almost died, Jay. Y'hear me, almost."
The way he says 'died', the way his voice cracks on the 'almost' tells Jay more than anyone explaining his injuries could ever do.
Jay says nothing, his fingers find the material of the blanket on the bed and worry at a small part of it, he wants to not look at Will because looking at him means confronting how close he cut it this time but he owes it to him he thinks, owes it the only blood he has in his life nowadays to listen, and not just listen but see, show some sign of letting Will know he understands, he gets it.
"I'm sorry."
Will shakes his head, not angrily, not with annoyance, and somehow it's worse that Jay recognizes it's with sadness.
"Don't apologize for something that could happen again and again unless you leave and that's not me pressuring you into leaving. I just get scared, you're all I have that connects me to being a kid and when I get a call out of nowhere telling me my brother's been found but he's been shot and I didn't even realize you needed to be found?" then as if he's trying somehow to understand it himself he repeats, "It's just you almost died."
"But I didn't."
Will looks like he wants to hit Jay or hit something.
"You want to know how close you were? It grazed an artery, Marcel had to operate, and I had to tell your team, it wasn't certain that you'd be okay so yeah you didn't Jay, you didn't and I can't tell you how relieved I am but also I'm, well I'm."
Will scrapes a hand over his face, shakes his head, and then grabs onto Jay's right hand.
"I'm so relieved you're here and I'm not having to organize your funeral is all, man. You look like shit, but you will be okay." He lets out a shaky laugh.
"I am sorry though," Jay repeats wondering why sorry is all he feels he can say, wondering why he's incapable of anything other than just wanting to fall back to sleep, avoid facing up to the memory of what happened, what he confessed.
Will squeezes his hand gently, a half-smile on his face.
"See this how I know you're sorry and that you're also feeling shitty cause you didn't say I look like crap too."
Jay scoffs lightly, eyebrows raised upwards for a fraction of a second, "It's not so fun to point out the obvious, man."
Will rolls his eyes, "There he is, okay, listen I will let them know at the 21st that you're awake, just rest for now okay."
"I can sleep just as easily at home?" Jay tries, in his head crossing his fingers and toes, putting on his best pleading expression which worked about once when he was a kid in an argument with Will.
Will pulls his hand away then and shakes his head.
"I swear to god Jay, shut up before I sedate you, okay, one last time you almost died, you need to rest, you will rest and when you're home which will not be today, we will talk about all of this and why I need you to be careful for you, not for me, not for intelligence, not for anyone, you ."
Jay looks away, down at the blanket, anywhere but at Will, somehow managing a small nod and a quiet, "Okay."
It's quiet in the room then and Jay thinks Will left, thinks about shutting his eyes but when he does, he just hears a bang and when he hears that bang, he's somewhere else entirely and his eyes blink open again and he feels shaky, not just weak shaky, but upset, triggered shaky and it just blows.
The scrape of a chair startles him but brings him back fully and Will's there, next to him sat down, a look of understanding that would normally grate so much but right now feels almost as comforting as a hug from their mom when he was a child.
"Go to sleep, it's okay, it's going to be okay."
Something tells him that Will's wrong, it's so far from 'it's going to be okay' but his body, his mind, they both need rest so he nods, thinks about saying thank you but his eyes shut before he can do that and before he can hear Will's sobs of relief as they echo around the room and a quiet promise of 'I got your back this time Jay, not going to let you pretend this was all nothing."
Jay wakes another time, long enough to call for a nurse who raises the bed, it shouldn't help him as much as it does but he feels less vulnerable with it, more on equal terms although he's no less tired and wiped out with a little addition of pain that she sees in his eyes and resolves with a press of a couple of buttons almost immediately.
He's too tired to be troubled by the gunshot that made him end up here. He's too tired to ask after Angela, he's just too tired to do anything other than sleep.
Then he wakes again, and it's with a start, with a flinch that follows a noise that when he blinks his eyes open and sees a nurse outside his room crouching down to pick up a file has him realizing he's jumpy as hell.
He's about to shut his eyes again, hope against hope that the fact he feels more alert won't mean it's harder to sleep again when someone clears their throat quietly and he looks to his right.
She looks tired, her eyes as red-rimmed as Will's and as she takes a step closer to him, her lower lip wobbles so slightly before she shakes herself a little and grins as Jay catches her eye.
"Welcome back, how are you feeling?"
"Like I was asleep for a year."
Hailey shrugs, "You needed a little rest," she gives him this look, daring him, challenging him to argue with her.
It doesn't stop Jay trying with her where he failed with Will.
"Hailey, you know I hate hospitals."
It's a tiny laugh as she replies, "I do," she knows what's coming and he knows how she'll respond and its each of them humoring each other, it's comforting even though he's genuinely so desperate to get out of here, he feels close to tears if he someone doesn't say yes soon.
"You gotta get me outta here," he tries the eyes again, except he feels like all they probably do if how he's feeling is anything to go by is serve to prove how much he needs to be here still.
Her response that comes with a warm smile that somehow makes her shake of the head and 'Not optional, no," feel okay is no surprise.
The shift in her demeanor that Jay thinks he imagines but realizes he doesn't as Voight walks in is something he comes back to after they leave him while the doctor runs some tests on him.
Something that when he's not sleeping or thinking of Angela and of the stupid mistakes he's made recently, mistakes that haven't just affected him, makes him wonder.
"It's against my better judgment Jay, you should stay one more day, just to be certain."
Jay sighs, "Well then, it's a good job that you can't be my doctor given you're my mother hen of a brother already, it's a good job Dr. Marcel knows I'm okay and that I heal better at home."
"You almost di-."
"Oh my god, I'll be ninety-four-years old in a retirement home and you'll still be saying that won't you buddy. Will, I get it, I get I scared you but you gotta let it go, man, please?"
Will looks ready to argue, except this time Jay's ready to reply. Sure he doesn't feel like new physically or mentally, he's ready to admit that it'll take some time for both, but he'll never recover here, not properly.
Won't even begin to recover like he should until he's got his own space again, space to face what happened.
"Were you scared? Never mind, when she shot you, when they had you, when you were getting beat to hell, what did you think of?"
Jay knows Will can take it, knows Will sees daily the aftermath of the most awful things. It wouldn't hurt to tell the truth.
"Mostly, I thought of how the hell do I get me and Angela out of there, but there was a moment when I thought of your reaction when I was rescued and that you'd roll your eyes so hard at me but I'd be able to tell how afraid you were cause I've been afraid before and I know how bad it gets and then I got shot and all I could think of was Mom and Angela, what she said."
"Which was?" Will prompts.
Jay considers telling him, thinks he could do with telling someone else because honestly, he could do with someone telling him it's not true as since it came back to him, as if it ever left, it's been a constant mantra in his head and there's the rational part of his brain that tells him she was scared, angry and had every reason to be and maybe if he asked her now, she'd take it back.
Then there's the side of his brain that's already fragile, the side of his brain that he tries to quiet, tries to keep in check that questions why he always gets out of these things in one piece or thereabouts when Angela was right all along.
"She just got a little upset, that's all."
Will says nothing for a moment, stares Jay down in a way that forces Jay to look away.
"Sure hope you're a better liar than that when you're UC," they share a small smile before Will adds, "Just know it's not bad or weak to talk about what happened or anything that may give you difficulty Jay, you got people who'll listen any day, any night. You just have to talk to us."
"Sure," Jay replies quietly.
"I believe ya, look just be-," there's a familiar noise of Will's bleeper then and thank goodness for Will's job as he looks down and gives Jay a wry smile, "Okay, you're saved from an even longer lecture for now but please Jay, just be careful."
He's out the room so fast, Jay's still half waving and saying aloud in a soft whisper to the room.
"Don't think I'll ever be anything other than careful again."