A/N: I've got some exciting stuff coming up. Hope you're enjoying it. Let me know what you think :)
When Connor came into the waiting room, he didn't have much time to let Erin and Hank know what was going on. Before the two had even stood up from their chairs, Connor said, "We've looked at his scans, and it seems he's had a brain bleed. Normally we'd leave it to see if the problem could resolve on its own, but because his body is still recovering from the stress of being shot, we don't think that would happen and it's starting to increase the pressure inside his head. So we're going to go in and manually get rid of the blood. He's on his way into surgery right now – I'm just about to head up there to scrub in. People will come down to update you on his condition." As quickly as he had arrived, he had gone, leaving both Hank and Erin to process what he had said.
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Compared to the heightened emotions in the waiting room, the operating theatre was calm. Despite Jay's uncertain fate, the doctors were easily making their way through the steps of the surgery. By the time Erin and Hank received their first update, the surgeons had opened Jay's skull and were suctioning the excess blood around his brain. By the second update, they had got rid of all the loose blood around his brain and had started to reattach the bone flap with plates and screws. The third and final update was to tell Erin and Hank that the surgery had gone well, and that Jay was in recovery.
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As soon as she knew that Jay was out of surgery, Erin let out a breath she didn't realise she was holding. The stress of the last few days had taken its toll on Erin. The lack of sleep resulted in dark circles under her eyes and had left her even more nervous and on edge. Both Erin and Hank walked through the hallways of the hospital, apprehensive about what they would see when they finally entered Jay's room. When the pair reached the correct room, they both paused, Erin to take a deep breath in attempts to calm her nerves, and Hank to check how Erin was coping. What Hank found was that Erin was fidgeting with her fingers, pulling at the end of each digit like she did as teenager. To combat this, he put one steadying hand on top of both of hers, then he moved to wrap his other arm around her and bring her in for a hug. "We can't panic, not until we know what's going on," he rasped. Erin only nodded in response, the movement causing Hank to feel her quite tears soaking into his t-shirt. "Let's go see how he's doing then," he punctuated by squeezing her a little and then releasing her from his hold. Before they went into Jays room Hank handed Erin a handkerchief to wipe her eyes and nose. Once she no longer looked too distraught, Hank nudged her forward so they could both walk into Jay's hospital room. It was a difficult scene for Erin to see. Some of Jay's head was covered by a bandage, and even from the end of the room she could see that some of his hair had been shaved off, right at the place she loved so much to weave her fingers through as they kissed. Other than his bandage Jay physically looked ok, but it was the worry of how he would be mentally once he woke up that worried Erin.
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It was the slight movement of his fingers in hers that alerted Erin to Jays coming to. It had been 6 long hours since Jay had been out of surgery and Erin had not been able to rest for one moment of it. She had spent the whole time looking for any changes. But when Erin finally felt something, she gasped, loud enough for Hank to hear. She was stuck for a few seconds, just staring at Jays hand, until Hanks voice brought her out of her trance. "What is it Erin? Is he waking up?" Hank questioned. At the sound of Hank's voice Erin looked up, but she didn't answer him. Instead she ran out the room to alert the nurses and doctors that Jay was waking up.
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With the hustle and bustle of people rushing into his room, Jay was fully woken up. Dr Rhodes was over to the side of his bed immediately. First the doctor lifted Jay's eyelids and shone a pen light in his eyes. After a few more tests checking Jay's arms, legs and face, the doctor started to ask Jay some questions. "Hi Jay, we're just going to do few checks ok. Do you know where you are?" A nod. "Do you recognise the people in this room?" Another nod and this time as his eyes moved lazily around the room and finally rested on Erin, he gave a fleeting smile. "Can you tell me what year it is?" Jay opened his mouth and tried to say 2020, but what came out was "'wenny 'wenny." Even Jay looked confused, as if what came out of his mouth was not what expected to hear and certainly not how he wanted to say it. Dr Rhodes wrote something down and then looked back at Jay, "Did you mean twenty twenty?" A nod. "Was it hard to say?" Jay furrowed his eyebrows as if to think about it and then nodded again. Dr Rhodes then said, "Jay, I'm just going to go outside and talk to Erin and Hank for a bit, is that ok?" Jay looked over at the doctor with glassy eyes but eventually he nodded and then Dr Rhodes motioned for both Erin and Hank to join him outside the room. Once outside the doctor started to speak immediately, "We saw some good signs showing Jays recovery from the brain bleed. He's well oriented, he can remember the date, where he is, and who everyone is. We aren't sure why it happened. It could have been from the general anaesthetic he had for the gunshot. He could have had a weakness in the vessels the burst under the stress his body was under from the gunshot. He might have had a weakness there that would have burst anyway. We might never find out why it happened, but all that matters is that we fixed it. Now the speech slurring could be from muscle weakness, during the tests I did notice some weakness and altered movements. Maybe that will return as the anaesthesia continues to wear off, maybe he'll be able to retrain his muscles with the help of physical and occupational therapy, but there is a small chance and I do mean just a small chance that this is it. This is how Jay might be for the rest of his life." Both Erin and Hank looked very overwhelmed by everything Dr Rhodes had said. Neither of them said anything to respond, so the doctor spoke again, "We will set him up with some physical therapy, to work on gaining the strength back and we can also refer him to a speech therapist if his speech doesn't improve when the anaesthesia wears off. As long as we can keep him stable and infection free, you could be looking to take him home as soon as next week. We will keep checking on him every half an hour or so and a nurse will be in later with some information about recovery after brain surgery. Let us know if you need anything." Dr Rhodes was paged, so he left quickly to tend to another problem, while Erin and Hank slowly made their way back to Jays room. As they approached the door, Hank reached for Erin's arm to stop her. "I'm going to give you to some time. I'm just a call away if you need anything," he rasped, punctuating his statement with a hug. When Hank had walked off, Erin took a steadying breath and then walked back into Jay's room. As she was entering a nurse was leaving, having just taken blood for some tests. Erin moved across the room and into the rigid chair that sat next to Jay's bed. When she set her hand down on top of his, Jay's head snapped towards her, his eyes sad and lonely and desperate for information. "So I've finished talking to the doctor, do...um do you want to know what he said?" Erin asked, unsure of what he wanted, whether it was to sit in silence or having constant chatter to take his mind off it. Jay tried to grasp her hand as he nodded, craving more information about why he was in the hospital and why he was struggling to move and talk. "Ok, I'll tell you everything he told me, but you have to promise me you'll tell me if it gets too much," Erin said, this time pleading with him to try and look after his mental health as well as his physical health. "So you remember having surgery for a gunshot wound," he nodded in response. Then Jay tried to lift a hand to his face to wipe the tears that had started to roll down his cheeks, but with his weakness Jay was taking a long time to move his hand up. So eventually Erin took his hand in hers and moved them, so together they could wipe away his tears. "Well once we got you home, you started acting out of sorts and I got… worried. When we came in, they took you for some scans. They said you'd had a brain bleed and they needed to operate immediately. And now we are here" Erin explained. But Jay asked her a question without even having to talk because he used his eyes. He looked at Erin, then looked at himself, and then back to Erin. The tears started to roll down his cheeks again. Together, again, they wiped his tears away. She continued, "The surgery went well, but the brain is a mystery. You've woken up with some weakness, which is worse on your left side. Your speech also seems to be affected, but again that could be the anaesthesia, so they are waiting to see if that resolves on its own. They're not sure if it's from the anaesthesia but seeing as the weakness is still here, they're thinking it might not be." Jay seemed to take in everything Erin said, nodding occasionally. He tried to get some words out, but alongside the weakness he was gradually getting more and more emotional, so they were very jumbled and slurred. But even so, Erin knew what he would ask. She knew what he wanted to know. "There's a small chance that its permanent, but it's a really small chance. Dr Rhodes said that its most likely to get easier with some physical therapy and that you'll regain strength with time," she said. Jay seemed weighed down by the information and soon his eyes fluttered closed.
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The next time Jay was awake he tried to talk to her, "Err… I'm thorry," he said. And although it was a little slurred, the sleep seemed to have helped because each word was distinguishable from one another, which wasn't the case before. Erin tilted Jay's chin towards her, so she could look into his eyes. "You do not need to apologise. You have nothing and I mean nothing to apologise for. You got hurt at work. We do a dangerous job and we know what the risks are. This is just a complication. A bump in the road. A hurdle to jump over. We'll handle it. Together. Ok. I'm not going anywhere. So we will handle it together, whatever the ends result is. You and me, in it for the long haul. And you can be sad, or you can be angry, you can feel whatever you want to feel. But you don't get to be sorry because you did nothing wrong. So have a rest. I'll be sitting right here when you wake up. And if you want to talk then we can talk, or if you want to sit in silence, we can do that, but whatever we do we're going to do it together. You and me, forever. Now get some sleep. I love you."