The Lies We Tell
Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at /works/20869019.
Rating: Not Rated Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply Fandom: Chicago PD (TV) Character: Jay Halstead, Hailey Upton, Will Halstead Additional Tags: Whump, Hurt Jay Halstead, punctured lung, shot, Fix It Fic, Hallucinations, PTSD Series: Part 5 of Bad Things Happen Bingo Fics Collections: Bad Things Happen Bingo Stats: Published: 2019-10-02 Words: 1700 The Lies We Tell
My fill for the Punctured Lung square on my Bad Things Happen Bingo card. Thanks again for the beta, Jo!
Jay Halstead has done a lot to distance himself from the war. He tried not talking about it for one whole year. Then when that didn't work, he switched tactics and got himself a shrink. A real shrink. Not some hack at the VA who saw him more as a nuisance than an actual, legitimate client. An honest to god, psychotherapist with degrees and awards on the wall in case anyone wanted to question their credentials. A shrink he paid for out of pocket, even though his Chicago PD insurance probably would have picked some of it up. It was easier that way. Cash up front meant his name stayed out of databases and off official records.
The goal of those sessions had been to talk about the war for one whole year - guess how that one turned out.
And so he finds himself living with some bastardized version of both of things. He doesn't talk about the war, but tries not to clam up and pull away from any and everyone who asks him about it either. It's not healthy. It's not a solution. But it gets him through the day.
And that's his main focus at the moment. Just get through the goddamn day.
Most of the time he can go to work and not get lost in the memories of the war. It's taken the departure of Mouse, and a lot of denial and booze to get him to this strange place, but he's functioning, and that's enough right now. He's what some people might even call relatively stable. He thinks he's maybe even found some semblance of that thing everyone keeps telling him he should find: Normal.
(This is lie number one.)
Because then there are days when the shit hits the fan and nothing he does can quiet the storm. When he's forced into situations so reminiscent of his days in Afghanistan he's not sure how he doesn't end up on the floor in the fetal position, screaming his head off. That's what it was like for him those first few months after he came home from deployment. Days he hardly remembers. Days he's scrubbed from his memory with steel wool and the highest grade of acid one can buy these days before permits are required and people start asking questions. The ones he's convinced himself will stay hidden away.
(This is lie number two.)
Bullets pepper the side of the surveillance van. Little pings against the metal as Jay does the only thing he can think of. What instinct demands. He pulls Hailey down beneath him and shields her with his body. It's second nature. It's what he does; as natural to him as breathing.
The bullets sound like rain, and they don't stop. They punch holes through the metal sides of the van, and through him, before he can even rip one of the bullet proof vests off the wall and drop it over their heads.
Back, shoulder, chest, thigh. Little holes where skin and bone used to be. His blood pumping out of them as he loses his grip on reality.
And just like that he's back in that god forsaken place someone had the audacity to call a country once.
There's dust blowing off the sand dunes. It clogs his throat and makes him choke as he shields his civilian from the firefight. He's never hated a place so much in his life.
The gunfire seems to go on forever as the woman he's covering trembles and cries beneath him. The insurgents never seem to run out of bullets here.
The afghan sun beats down on his back as he waits to die.
Burning, always burning.
"Jay?"
He's pretty sure that's his platoon leader, fucking idiot. Doesn't he know? Hasn't he been here long enough to remember that even if the bullets stop flying, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's over? Sometimes they're only pretending to be out of bullets. Sometimes they're just faking being dead.
Jay has seen it himself a time or two - a corpse reanimating to reach for its gun. Been five feet away from a buddy who popped up out of his hole too early and got one right between the eyes. Brains and blood splattering everywhere.
Nope. He's seen too many people die from falling for that dumb trick.
"Jay, you gotta get off me! I can't breathe."
One touch to the side of his face is all it takes to bring him back to the present. One look into Hailey's concerned eyes for him to realize he's let himself slip again.
Jay opens his mouth to apologize, but is surprised when nothing comes out. He rolls off of her quickly and onto his back, gasping for air when his lungs suddenly won't work right.
Something is wrong.
There's a pressure on his chest he's never felt before. It's like twin steel bands wrapped around his torso that refuse to expand when his ribcage does. Every lungful of air is a struggle, a fight, and one he can tell he's going to lose.
Hailey is a blurry and indistinct form above him screaming things at him as he begins to drown. Even his head seems to be underwater as sounds muffle and his ears begin to ring.
Light is streaming into the van through the holes the bullets made in its side. They create pinpricks of light on the ceiling above him. It reminds him of Afghanistan again. Of the restless nights he spent on patrol staring up at the night sky, wondering if Will or his dad were looking up at those same stars and thinking of him. He didn't leave them on good terms. They fought. There were words. Awful words. Ones he wishes he had never uttered, that he could take back. He takes all of them back now.
There's a rule in the Halstead home: Never die angry.
(This is lie number three.)
His family is 0 - 1.
"God damn it Jay, stay with me! Where in the hell is that ambulance."
Increased pressure on his chest and a sharp flash of pain brings him out of his stupor just long enough to hear Haley's words. He tries to force his eyes open but they're not having it. His body is too focused on trying not to die.
There are voices, movement, strange moments of numbness punctuated by an agony he has no words to describe. People are talking to him. Demanding things of him, but all he wants to do is sleep. It's too much work to think, to breathe, to survive.
Someone is crying.
Hailey.
He has the sudden urge to tell her that he's sorry. Sorry that he's been such a shitty partner lately and for not telling her about the PTSD or about what a shit show his life has become. Apologize for letting the war sneak back in and win after he worked so hard to push it all so far down.
Don't talk about it and it's like it never happene d, right? Give people just enough information so they realize how messed up he still is over it and they stop asking question s, yeah? Christ. It's his fucking mantra these days.
He's trying so hard to live a normal life. And Hailey had been such a big part of that. His partner. Stability without all those pesky feelings.
(This is lie number four.)
Because it's not true. The feelings are there. But they're different. This is not like Erin. He'd die for Hailey, but it's not love. At least, not the kind they make movies about.
But the bands around his chest won't let him say it. They just keep getting tighter until his chest won't expand at all. Something pops then releases and Jay lets himself go with it. He has nothing left to fight with. Somewhere far away a voice calls to him.
"Jay stay with me! You're going to be okay!"
(This is lie number five.)
Or is it?
One unfortunate thing about working for the Chicago PD and having a brother who's an ER doc is that, more often than not, you're going to end up in his ER at some point. There's also a good chance you'll wind up in the OR of one of his friends who'll inevitably wind up letting him watch Jay's entire grisly surgery through a scrub room window. Will doesn't admit that at first. It takes him months and several beers before he's even able to talk to Jay about it.
It was too much for him: Jay showing up in his ER half dead from a punctured lung and three new bullet holes. Hours of surgery to repair the damage and several close calls with things Will still won't tell him about. Comas and drains.
Maybe Will would have been ok with all of this before. But not now. The wounds their father's passing left in them are still too fresh. Will nearly lost his entire family in the space of a year so Jay doesn't give him a hard time when he refuses to talk to him about what happened. He digests what Dr. Rhodes tells him and doesn't ask Will to clarify or explain what it all means in layman's terms. Jay survived, and that's what Will needs to focus on now.
They give him a commendation in the end. For things he doesn't even remember doing. He limps onto the stage, shakes hands with the Mayor, and tries to feel like he deserves it.
Will attends, eyes red rimmed like he's been crying.
Jay's life is still a shit show, but he's made a pact with himself. He's going back to his shrink and is going to try and be a better partner to Hailey. He's done with the lies and this half life he's living. He's done with existing only in the past. If he works hard maybe he can even run Intelligence some day when Voight decides to hang it up. He's good enough. He's smart enough. He can do anything he puts his mind to.
This is truth number one and he likes the sound of it.