Chapter Five
Jay just wanted to be alone with his brother; the outside world did not matter to him anymore. His entire focus was on his on his brother and it had to be. He now was the only protection his brother had from any threat that still remained. But the worst part of this whole situation was that he knew that he couldn't be alone with his brother, his brother had his own world and friends that also needed to see him.
But more importantly, Jay knew that Natalie needed to see Will. His brother had normally never truthly fallen for someone before and this bad. He cared deeply for Nat, and Jay found it funny that his brother's love for a girl would keep him in the city that they grew up. However there was a down side to that, Jay couldn't get his brother to shut up about her.
Will had told him that Nat's husband had died overseas and from his own personal experiences he knew that losing someone can break even the strongest of people. And to make it worse, was that she was carrying her husband's son.
Jay had been worried that Will would get heart broken if he had ever acted on his feelings and he would yet again lose his brother. But he could tell when he meet her that she cared very much for his brother. That the feelings that Will had for her was meet with the same. He just hoped that his brother, when he woke up, had the strength to finally ask her out.
But at the same time, Jay knew that Natalie couldn't lose someone else she cared and that if they did loss Will, life would unbearable for both of them. Jay however knew that Will knew this, and his only hope was that his brother would fight to get back to her so they both could be honest about their feelings.
But until then, he had a job to do. A job that meant keeping his older brother safe and for that he needed to remain strong. However at the same time it felt like the world was slowly crashing around him. Jay, with a deep breath, moved closer to his brother's bed. Watching as his wounded brother slept in a land without pain.
Jay didn't want to believe that it was his older brother lying there in the bed. The shell of a body, was not the Will he knew. The only thing that allowed him to knew that this was indeed his brother was his dark red hair that laid on his brother's pillow at different angles like it normally did.
Will had geled it back when he returned from New York and had kept it cut short where it looked dark brown. But when he returned home, Will had gone back to liking it think that. His red curls had returned. Like their mothers.
That small thing, may comfort many but not him. What worried him was the fact that his brother was deadly pale. He was white, almost grey. His skin held hardly any health colour. It was like all the energy seem to have been drained from his brother's face and arms.
When he had been with the Rangers, he had seen this before. He had seen his fellow ranger and a lot more civilians that pale before when he was working overseas and the outcome was normally never good. It was commonly said that if a ranger looked that pale then they normally sent home in a body bag. Only a lucky few made it to the base hospital but then again only a hand full of them survived.
A moment from the corner of his eye snapped him out of the thought. That wasn't going to happen here. And not to his older brother. His brother was a Halstead, and Halstead men were hard to kill. Whatever nearly killed them always made them stronger.
Jay moved next to his brother's bed and took Will's pale hand in his. He was cold. And they matched his face, his skin was pale white with only a hit of pigment. He needed to look away but as he glanced up he saw Connor looking at one of the machines that was connected to Will. He regretted as now he noted what was running into and off his brother's broken body.
The first thing he noticed when he walked in was the thick white tube that ran down his brother's throat. Jay could follow the tube into the large machine to his brother's right where a machine sat pushing oxygen into his brother's weakened lungs softly. The other machines sat dotted around his brother's head. Some showing his brother's heart rate, oxygen percentage and blood pressure.
Next to the machines were tall metal IV poles, some contacted bags of clear liquid pushing fluids and nutrients into his brother's arm. The pole closest to the heart monitor was full of fresh blood bags. The lines that were pushed into the bags ran down into Will's skin. Pushing the thing that his brother needed the most as quickly as they could. And it seemed to be working, Jay could see a small pink tinge that has started to appear on his brother's lips. A positive clue that whatever Connor had done was working and that his brother was slowly but clearly moving back to the world of the living.
Erin had entered the room the same time as Connor, she didn't even notice what he was doing as all her focus was on the two Halstead brothers. But more so on her partner. Out of the year and a half she had worked with Jay she had never been able to fully read Jay's face. She could only guess that with his military training, he had been taught to hide his emotions. But one thing was clear was to her, family was everything to him. And knowing that someone had tried to kill a member of that family was destroying him. She could see it.
As Jay took hold of Will's hand, Erin could see the pair more clearly. The sight of someone she cared about on a hospital bed made her think back to Camille. She felt like she was back in that hospital room, watching as her step mom died right in front of her. Emotion hit her all at once, she could only watch as someone she cared about went through that pain again.
But she couldn't sit there, praying for Will to survive when she had a job to do. Now Will was set up in his own room, she knew that it was her job to set up where the officers were going to be placed in order to protect Will. She turned out of the room and headed to speak to the Sergeant in charge of Will's protective team.
April watched as Erin left the room, and sighed. She hated seeing anyone like this however when it was someone she cared about, it made her feel a lot worse. But also knowing that he was still in danger made her stomach turn.
It is true that sometimes Dr. Halstead drove her mad and sometimes she wanted to kill him but at the same time she could tell that he cared. Sometimes a little too much. He was gentle when it came to his patients and was quick to the mark to protect the people he worked with and also the patients they treated. However what was clear to her and to everyone else was that he was crazy about Natalie.
However there was something about the young doctor what had showed her that there was more than what meets the eye with him. She could tell Will would fight for every person he could. And work on making them feel better, both physically and mentally.
But with all that work, she had seen him break. Slowly but definitely break down. Things got to him and the cracks in his armour would show more clearly. However he never stopped trying. Even if it meant going against the rules. And he had a habit of it.
Natalie couldn't look at Will without it feeling like a knife to the heart. She had seen her patients look like that before however she had never seen someone she cared about be in the same position.
Will was lying there deadly pale and she couldn't help herself as her mind took her back to seeing Jeff. He reminded her of Jeff. The only difference was that Will was still there, still alive. But she could see the small hint of pigment that was slowly appearing over Will's features. However she knew that from a medical point of view; that Will had a fight to go through before they could say if he would make a full recovery.
When she looked at Will's pale face, she could feel her heart fall closer and closer to the knife edge. She couldn't lose another person she cared about. Not again. She had already attended the funeral of her husband and best friend. She couldn't go through another one. And she knew that she couldn't lose Will.
She watched as Jay ran his hand across Will's hair, it was the only thing that remained the same as before. She had noticed that the two brothers were close and the way she had seen the pair in Molly's or at the hospital, she knew that they acted like they were the only family each other had left or cared about.
She looked closer at Will's face, he looked so young. He didn't have the look he had wore most days, this was how he truthly looked. Not the joker or the serious doctor. But the young man he still was. Will had always tried to hide how he felt, and only when his emotions got the better of him did he show them.
However now, she could see the pain that was written clearly across Will's pale face. And from his eyes she could see that tears had cut into his face, she could only guess why those tears had fallen.
She knew that after what had happened with his last patient that Will would believed that he had this coming. That he was to blame for not saving her. That he should have spotted the signs that weren't there in order to save the woman's life. However she like everyone knew that nothing could have stopped her from dying. He wasn't to blame and he didn't deserve this.
Will was doing his job, and he had tried his best to save her. He wasn't even the doctor that called Mrs Walker. She had. They had to stop him from performing CPR on her; he wasn't giving up. But they all knew that she was already gone. Nothing could have changed that.
It just didn't seem fair. None of it did.
Will had fought for her and now he was fighting to save his own life. He was already blaming himself and now the woman's husband had stabbed him in the heart. Like he hadn't been bleeding enough guilt.
And now, all they could do was sit back and hope that he was strong enough to pull through. She slowly leaving April entered the room and moved to the other side of Will from Jay. Connor had moved to the foot of the bed, updating Will's notes.
They all knew that Jay was not going to leave Will. Not now. Sadly, they had too. Even when the one thing that all wanted to do was to stay by their friend's side.
Natalie looked down and slowly too Will's cold hand in hers. She could feel the cold skin touch her warm hand and hoped that he would feel her there. Feel that she wasn't going to leave him, and that she would be with him every step of the way.
She knew that Will was fighting, she could see it in him. He was fighting to live, to come back to her. But she knew that he was also dealing with his own guilt. They needed Will to live, all of them. Owen couldn't lose anymore family. And neither could she.