Willa woke up the next morning feeling groggy, her back aching from the discomfort of lying on an overpriced couch that wasn't meant for sleeping. She rubbed her eyes and turned over, almost falling off said couch in the process. Once regaining her momentum, she swung her legs over the edge as the smell of freshly brewed coffee hit her nostrils.
"Morning, sunshine," greeted an all too familiar voice.
Willa rubbed more sleep out of her eyes. "You better be holding a big cup of coffee for me, or I will not be the ray of sunshine you're hoping for."
Emma laughed and handed her the mug in her hands. "I know not to talk to you before coffee."
Willa took a big mouthful and sighed with the familiar feeling of caffeine coursing through her system. "All those late nights in college and Med School taught you your lesson, good."
"That's right." She sat on the couch next to Willa and breathed in heavily. Emma called it friendship at first sight that first day in college, and Willa was inclined to agree. Eventually, they'd ended up in the same Med School and in the same hospital for their residencies. Emma had gotten her first choice of Oncology, while Willa had matched with her fourth choice in Pediatrics.
"How is Chicago? I know you were nervous about going back."
Willa took another gulp of coffee. "I love it," she confessed. "I finally get to do emergency medicine, and I can't even begin to describe how satisfying that is."
Emma nodded, a smile on her lips. "I'm glad. You were miserable in Peds."
"Tell me about it." Pediatrics had been her fourth choice after putting emergency medicine at three different New York hospitals down before it. Still, they had all rejected her, so she'd accepted the Peds position where Emma was doing Oncology. Helping kids had been rewarding but telling parents that their kid was terminally ill after months or years of fighting took its toll, and it was not the kind of medicine Willa wanted to practice.
"Are you seeing anyone?"
She had been expecting this. Emma was anything but subtle in her pursuit to find love for Willa.
"No."
"Then why are you grinning like an idiot?"
Willa caught herself. Standing, she made a straight line for the kitchen to avoid her friend's prying eyes. "We're not together," Willa clarified, knowing there was no point in lying to her best friend. Emma came into the kitchen and offered her a bowl to pour the cereal into.
"Then what are you?"
She shrugged, something she seemed to be doing a lot of these days. "I don't know, Em. All I know is it's a bad idea." She grabbed the milk from the fridge and poured it on her cornflakes. She put a large spoonful in her mouth, hoping it would distract Emma but deep inside, she knew better.
"Why is it a bad idea?"
She hesitated, knowing Emma would chastise her for being such an idiot. "He's a cop."
Emma's eyes widened. "A cop?" Willa nodded, swallowing her cereal. "You're stupider than I thought you were."
"Like I said," Willa shot back. "We're not together."
Emma topped up her own coffee, then buried her face in her hands. "I would almost prefer any of your old deadbeat boyfriends to a cop."
"Hey," Willa warned. "That's low. We can't all meet Prince Charming on the second day of college."
"You're right," she agreed. "I'm sorry, I just know that being with a cop can be difficult." Emma's father had been a beat cop his entire adult life. He never really got hurt until their sophomore year of college when he was shot while on the job and died on the operating table. A similar thing had happened to Willa's mother ten years before that.
"I know," Willa said. "It's even worse in Chicago. We have a trauma room exclusively for gunshots that we call Baghdad."
Emma's eyes widened again. "You're kidding."
"Wish I was," Willa muttered, shaking her head.
Emma disappeared into the bathroom to shower before going to look at wedding venues with her fiancé, Jack. After finishing her cereal, Willa poured herself another cup of coffee. She went back to the couch and checked her phone for any messages and found just one, from Jay of all people. It was a picture taken through a windshield, the morning sky a beautiful mixture of blues, pinks, and yellows. He'd sent a short note with the image only minutes earlier.
Hope you made it to New York okay, but you're missing the view. J.H.
She smiled to herself at the thought that he was thinking of her. She pressed his name on the screen and waited only a brief moment for him to pick up.
"Didn't have you pinned down as a sap, Detective," she teased after his hello.
His chuckle sent shivers down her spine. "I like a good sunrise, sue me."
"I might," she told him, lips turned up in a faint smile.
"Have you seen your dad yet?"
She took a sip of her coffee before answering. "Not yet," she replied. "I'm leaving in about half an hour."
She heard a car door slam shut on his end of the line. "Where are you staying anyway?"
"With some friends from college," she told him.
"That's good," he said into the phone. A second later, his voice sounded far away in a faint greeting to someone he was clearly in front of.
"You just got to the District, didn't you?"
If a sigh could sound disappointed, she swore that's what she heard when he let out a breath. "Yeah," he muttered. "I have to go."
"Of course, go get some bad guys," she teased. "Thanks for checking in."
"You got it. See you soon, Willa." She hung up the phone with a final goodbye and placed it on the sofa table. She willed her breathing to even out, not realizing it had been quite so shallow while speaking to him.
Not long after hanging up, Emma came out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around her hair but dressed. "So, what's his name?" She asked.
Willa looked up from rifling through her bag. "What?"
"This cop," she clarified. "What's his name?"
She felt her cheeks flush as she thought of him and his damn smile. "Jay," she answered. "Detective Jay Halstead."
Emma's eyebrows flew up. "Detective?"
Willa nodded. "Yes, with the Intelligence Unit."
Emma leaned against the doorframe between the kitchen and living room. "Are you sure about this? About him?"
Willa stood, grabbing her coffee cup. "I'm not sure about anything, okay? Can we just talk about it later? I have to get to Lakeview."
"Of course," Emma agreed. Willa went to get dressed and grabbed a travel mug of coffee before catching the subway to Lakeview Psychiatric, where her father currently lived. Putting him in there was one of the hardest decisions she'd ever had to make, but he would tell her that it was okay in his most lucid moments. It didn't stop the guilt from almost crushing her alive.
She was greeted by Carly, the head nurse when she checked in at the reception desk. "Willa, honey, you look exhausted."
She gave the woman a hug. "Good to see you, too."
"Let me page Collins," she said and made her way back around her desk. "He wants to speak to you, as does Dr. Parson."
Willa took a seat in one of the chairs scattered around the room and waited for the two men to arrive. She'd always liked Dr. Parson, but her relationship with the administrator, Mark Collins, was rocky and strained, to say the least. She thought he was terrible at his job and had told him as much at least once.
"How is Chicago?" Carly asked while they waited.
"Intense," Willa replied as the weight of the word fell on her shoulders. Intense was definitely the right word for it, though, with all the violent crime. It was different from working in Pediatrics, where she worked almost exclusively with a long-term illness, not immediate care.
She was torn from her thoughts when Collins rounded the corner, followed by Dr. Parson. They both greeted her and showed her into Collins' office. He sat behind the desk while Willa and Parson were relegated to the chairs on the opposite side.
Collins hesitated, which was never a good sign. "Look, Willa, there is no easy way to say this-"
"Cut the bullshit, Mark," she grunted and put her hand up to get him to shut up. "You're going to push him out, right?"
Dr. Parson looked horrified, but Collins didn't flinch, and that's when she knew she'd hit the nail on the head. "It's not personal, Willa."
She stood, slamming the table. "That's Dr. Atticus to you."
Collins opened his mouth, but Dr. Parson held his hand out. "Dr. Atticus, I assure you, I did not know about this, nor was I consulted. I strongly recommend that your father not be transferred to another facility as it would likely worsen his condition."
Willa raised an eyebrow at the man across the desk from her. "You've had it in for my dad the minute I put him here," she hissed.
"That's absurd," he scoffed. Willa made a lunge for him, but Dr. Parson held her back and told her to cool it.
"Screw you, Collins," she shouted. She tore the office door open and stormed out into the corridor. She ran her hands through her hair and paced back and forth until Parson joined her outside.
"Dr. Atticus," he said and closed the door to Collins' office behind him. "I know you care about your dad, but going off on Collins is not the answer." She resented how calm he was and that she couldn't keep a lid on her temper when it came to her dad.
She let out a shaky breath. "Can I just see him, please?"
He reached into his white lab coat and pulled out a visitor I.D. badge. "Let's go."
She clipped it on. "Thank you."
Parson explained precisely what happened when her father tried to stab Brenda while going to her father's room. "Collins pulled Brenda off your father's care even though she fought to stay on." He opened the door to a room with padded walls. "Sam, your daughter's here to see you."
Her father looked up from his hands, and his face lit up. She rushed inside and gave him a big hug. He held her so tight she was sure he'd never let go again. "I did something bad, Willa-Bill," he whispered, his voice shaking. She hadn't expected him to be so lucid and aware of what he'd done.
"It's okay, Dad," she assured him. "You're okay."
He let go but kept his hands on her arms, his blue eyes boring into hers as if making sure she was really there and not something his mind had conjured up. "You didn't come, so I thought she killed you. I wanted to avenge you."
"It's okay, Dad," she repeated. "I moved back to Chicago; we talked about this."
"Right." His eyes glazed over like they always did when his auditory hallucinations came back after being lucid for a while. He sat back on his bed and started mumbling to himself, wringing his hands while pulling at his hair occasionally. She let a deep sigh go before leaving the room, closing the door behind her.
Nurse Brenda, a heavyset woman in her late forties, was waiting for her outside. "Brenda," Willa began. "I'm so sorry about what happened."
She gave her a hug. "Don't worry about it; I'm fine. Dr. Parson adjusted his meds, and he's been more alert and aware for a few days now, which is promising."
"Parson told me you fought to stay in my dad's care. Thank you."
Brenda's dark eyes were kind - they reminded Willa of her mother. "Sam's one of the kindest patients here even when he's in a bad place. He's a good man."
Willa spent the rest of the day with her dad. They played scrabble and go fish, they had lunch, and while he had a therapy session, she argued with Collins some more and got Brenda back on her father's case when she threatened to go to the board. She watched him go at it on the treadmill and tell Carly she was beautiful while administering his medication. Apart from a couple of times when he spoke to the voices in his head, he was a reasonably average guy and did everything he would have done otherwise.
She looked at her watch towards the end of the afternoon. "Listen, Dad," she said and touched his arm. His head jerked up, eyes wide. "I have to go, okay? I'll be back tomorrow to see you."
His eyes went from just wide to panicked. "How many sleeps?"
She smiled at the system they'd developed after she had him admitted. "Just one," she reminded him.
"Big sleep or small sleep?"
"A big one."
He nodded and wrung his hands again. "You hear that, Davey? Only one big sleep." She patted him on the back and went down the corridor to the nurse's station, where Carly was busy updating patient charts.
"I'm off," she said and handed her visitor's badge back to her. "I'll be back tomorrow for a few hours before catching a flight back to Chicago."
Carly clicked her pen. "Okay, kid. Sleep well."
"I'd say right back at you, but let me guess," Willa said and smirked. "You're on the graveyard shift?"
She nodded. "Someone has to pay the bills."
"How's Tyler doing?"
She smiled with the kind of pride only a mother could have. "He's in college now," she informed her and squeezed Willa's hand. "He's studying Biochem, just like you."
"That's great. If he ever needs some notes, tell him to shoot me an e-mail."
"Thank you, Willa. See you tomorrow."
A/N: As mentioned in the endnotes of the previous chapter, someone on Tumblr asked if there would be smut in this fic. Since then, a few other people have asked the same thing or expressed interest in it. I'm working on some test scenes to see if I can do it in a way that makes sense. I'll keep you updated. I'm not an expert in the mental illness (paranoid schizophrenia) that Sam Atticus suffers from, but I tried to keep it as realistic as possible. I did take a few creative liberties, but none that should be harmful in any way. Don't forget to leave a review and let me know what you think. You can follow and come talk to me on tumblr itscapokaybye. Thanks for reading!
