The call wasn't the worst part for Will. It was the wait. Waiting to see his younger brother. Part of him didn't want to see him. He didn't want to see him so vulnerable, because he wasn't used to it. But part of him wanted to see the damage, assess it himself. Maybe it wasn't as bad as they said it was. But a possible spinal injury? Holy shit. That was never good. Will gripped the counter top as he waited. An ambulance came in for a car crash victim before Jay which thoroughly messed up Will's nerves.Will couldn't hear anything, barely able to stand. Thought fragments floated in and out of his head, Will no longer being able to form reasonable, coherent thoughts. Anxiety now dictated his every move. He was so scared. Hailey said there was a lot of blood. The funny thing was that blood normally doesn't bother Will but whenever Jay gets cut on the job, something about seeing his brother bleed makes him instantly nauseous.
"PD in the house!" Maggie's shout broke his train of thought. Before Will knew it, Jay was unloaded from the ambulance and being wheeled straight towards him. The moment his eyes landed on Jay, it was like the rest of the world faded away. Jay was so bruised and bloody he was barely recognizable. The swelling had disfigured his face so badly. Both eyes were a deep purple color and swollen. He looked so weak and vulnerable with a brace around his neck.
"Jay" he breathed out. He ran to Jay's side. There were so many tubes and wires. His dark eyelashes were barely visible over the bruises.
All too soon Jay was rolled past him. Will weakly limp-jogged after the stretcher, getting just shy of the trauma bay before he was sidestepped by maggie. "You cannot be in there, Will. You know that." She says. She gives him a pointed look. Will makes the decision to pace in front of the bay instead. He watches as the lift Jay onto a gurney, the rush of his heartbeat pounding in his chest. "He- he- he'snotad.n.r!" Will barely spits out, his chest heaving for air. Everything feels like it's spinning.
Will sucks a breath of air in. "He's not a DNR!" He says louder this time, almost shouting. He attracts a few nervous glances. "If something happens, he's not a DNR. He's not a DNR." He pleads with anyone who will listen. Will notices the splint on Jay's right leg.
There's too much equipment everywhere, splints on limbs, tubes and wires, bloody garments. Too many gloved hands racing around Jay. With all the clutter there's barely much of Jay left, at least barely much to see of Jay's body.
It seems like time slows down, 16 seconds feels like 16 hours. But that's all that passed. 16 seconds. 16 seconds between when Jay crossed the threshold of the hospital and Will heard a frantic "Will!" shouted from somewhere beside him. Will sharply turns to see Hailey running up to him.
Specks of blood stain up her sleeves forming deep maroon cuffs on both arms. She's out of breath ever so slightly from jogging to him from her car outside.
"Hey" he says softly. He doesn't know if he should be empathetic or if he should freak out right here, right now.
Her hand almost immediately goes up to her forehead. She's stressed out, little lines start to form across her forehead. She's gazing at no specific thing next to him for just a half second before her eyes curiously gaze into the trauma bay. The look she makes upon seeing the commotion immediately gives Will the answer as to how he should approach the situation. He needs to take charge, and redirect Hailey before either one or both of them have a panic attack.
"Hey, Hey", he says, hoping to get her attention as he grabs her shoulders. She looks up at him and Will notices the silicone wedding ring on her left ring finger, just before she drops her arm. He remembers Jay and Hailey calling him the day after their elopement, both beaming with joy as they told him. He had known they were engaged but they had never picked a wedding date. He liked the way they did it. Will didn't think that a formal wedding fit their personalities. Will was happy that they decided to just do what made them happy. Will snaps back into reality, remembering that Hailey was standing in front of him. Hailey was looking at him confused and WIll blushed in embarrassment. Hailey had most definitely seen Will zone out. Will decided to brush it off and act like nothing happened. There were more important things to worry about.
"Let's go to the waiting room." Hailey starts to fight him, not wanting to move. Will so deeply understood what she was feeling. She just wanted to be near Jay, whether out of anxiety or curiosity. She wanted to be one of the first to know what Jay's condition was. She wanted him to know that she was there…. Then a darker thought comes into Will's head.
They both didn't want Jay to die thinking they left him or neglected him.
"Hails, we're in the way. We gotta get out of the middle of the walkway." He says, gently tugging her shoulders.
"Come on, let's go sit. The waiting room is just over here." he says, guiding her to the waiting area. He gently pushed her into a seat, and crouched down to be at eye level.
"You good? You here with us?" Looking her in the eyes. He had seen Jay dissociate and get trapped within his own thoughts more times than he could count. He knew exactly what it looked like for someone to completely leave reality. He saw her gaze snap back into the present. Her eyes finally meet his.
"Uh, yeah, yeah, I'm good." She says halfheartedly, not because she was actually good, but because she really did not want to talk about it.
"You gonna be okay?" Will asks, knowing for a fact that she was lying.
"Yeah, I think so." She pauses, taking in a breath. "That was a lot, I-I haven't stopped moving since…." her voice trails off. Will takes a seat next to her.
"And now everything feels like it's spinning? Adrenaline crash?"
"Yeah" Hailey softly said, grateful that he understood.
"Would a trip to the bathroom to clean yourself up help?" Will asks.
"Yeah, I need to get…" Hailey looks down at her hands, "this off of me."
They both stood up and started walking to the restroom. There was a beat of silence as they walked, each returning to their own thoughts.
"You think he's gonna be okay?" Hailey asks.
"Uh, I don't know. Since I'm not his doctor, I don't have access to any details yet."
"I know…" Hailey says, "but you saw him…when he came in, right?" Will sucks in a breath, his body feeling viscerally sick as he flashes back to Jay's limp body, being moved and messed with without his knowledge
"I did. I only saw as much you did before he came in. He certainly doesn't look great, but looks can be deceiving." He said. He knew he was talking around the question instead of actually answering it.
As they arrived at the restroom, Will turned to Hailey and said "you want me to wait outside?"
She softly smiled at him. "No, but thank you. I think I'll be okay."
Will held the door for her and then walked towards the waiting room. He saw that more members of the team had trickled in at that point, including Mouse. Mouse locked eyes with him and Will took a deep breath.
'Hey." Will says, greeting Mouse. He immediately picks up on Mouse's figitiness. He knew about Mouse's anxiety and PTSD and could image how stressed he was feeling in this moment. Will put his hand on Mouse's shoulder
"Hey, he's gonna be okay." Mouse shakes his head nervously.
"I-I saw- I saw the body cams. I- I saw all of it."
"I'm so sorry you had to see tha-"
"You remember a few years, when Jay got abducted… after that drug deal gone wrong?"
Will noded and internally cringed. That was one memory that Will did not like thinking about. It was one other time that Will had been genuinely concerned about losing Jay. The weight of the anxiety of waiting for the team to find Jay had been almost unbearable.
'This- This is so much worse than that." Mouse stuttered out. WIll couldn't bear to think about that time again. He had just gotten to a place where Jay's screams didn't haunt him nightly. He no longer allowed himself to replay those memories. Will had to be strong when he was around jay, but he never told Jay that he had had to go to psychotherapy with Dr. Charles because of how traumatic the experience had been. At one point Will had to be put on anxiety medication because he could barely function anymore. He missed shifts, slept all day, spent the night manic and worried about Jay. He wouldn't admit to his brother how dysregulated he was because Jay was dealing with his own trauma. So, Mouse had been the receiver of all the late night texts, the hourly update requests, the trauma dumping, venting, and the mother-henning. Mouse knew how bad things had gotten all those years ago.
"Yeah" was all that Will could muster out.
"You think he would be okay?"Mouse asked. Will knew that Greg wasn't asking for Will's professional medical opinion. He was looking for any reassurance that he could get, any glimmer of hope possible. But Will also knew that he honestly couldn't give Greg that reassurance. In the case that something goes sideways later down the road, and Jay doesn't end up pulling through, he didn't want Greg to feel lied to.
"Honestly…" Will hesitated, "I couldn't tell you. I have as much information as you do. They wouldn't let me near him when he came in. He didn't look good, though." WIll said in a hushed tone. He knew that if anyone thought he was sharing new information about Jay, they would chomp at the bit to hear it. Mouse fidgeted for a minute before running his hands through his hair, drawing a deep breath in.
"Did anyone tell you what happened yet?" Mouse said, peering at the ground.
"No, man, no one has said anything yet."
"Ah man, it was bad. Dude comes up and shoves him through a third story window. They both fall to the ground, I guess the guy used Jay as a sort of buffer to break the fall. Then for no fucking reason just starts beating the shit out Jay. Dude was probably high as a kite, and had no idea what he was doing." Mouse shook his head.
Will inhaled, he didn't know that Jay had sustained that much trauma. No wonder why he was brought in with so much equipment. Will clenched his hand in a fist, shocked at what he had just heard. He didn't know what to say. Will sat down and stared at the wall, and Mouse got the cue that Will didn't want to talk anymore. Mouse took a seat next to him and the pair sat in silence while they waited. A few minutes later Hailey joined them, her face and hands had been washed.
Will waited in the doctor's lounge. He waited in the locker room. He waited in the bathroom. He waited on the roof. He eventually went back down to the ED waiting room and waited with Hailey. At some point Voight came too. He got a snack, played Solitaire on his phone, incessantly texted coworkers asking about Jay, played some more solitaire and took a nap and still found himself watching the hands on the clock, wondering how long it would be before they got an update.
About 5 hours in was when the fatigue really started setting in. Hialey was exhausted, and in truth everyone was exhausted. There were cops that floated in and out of the suffocatingly small waiting room asking how Jay was doing, each of them receiving the same nondescript answer. It would be 10 hours before they got any information on Jay's condition.