Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Hacking up a lung is not the way anyone wants to wake up in the morning. Not that it’s been happening for very long, but it was bound to happen.

I’m only a week post-emergency brain surgery. I’ve only been home two days. Yesterday, I started to feel a little more tired, and had a bit of a cough. I just assumed that it had to do with the fact that I was actually home and moving and not confined to my hospital bed.

Clearly, my cough says otherwise.

I’m dragging my body up into a sitting position while still trying to clear my throat and airways when the lights flip on and footsteps thunder faster towards me. Hailey and Jay are in my room within seconds: Hailey placing herself beside my bed, crouching as she watches me carefully, Jay rummaging through the nightstand to find the thermometer and additional antihistamines.

“Breathe, kiddo– just clear it all out.” Jay tells me as he braces my body, holding me steady to take a temp.

“It’s okay, just try to slow your breathing.” Hailey follows up gently.

But it takes more than just me trying to slow down my breathing for me to stop the desperate spasming in my throat, the hunger for air gripping me as tightly as I grip my sheets. I cling to the cotton as if somehow, the will in my fingers will force air through my lungs, letting me breathe again.

But only sputtered gasps and whistled wheezes find their way through my being as I manage to somehow slow the neckbreak pace of my cells fighting each other for oxygen. Jay has snuck a hand under my tightly gripped fist and unclenched it, only to slip his own storied fingers through mine to ground me.

“Breathe, Grace.” he whispers. “Slow down. Breathe.”

Right. Breathe. Because it’s so easy to tell someone to do something that should be second nature for a human being.

At this point, Hailey is also sitting on the bed, scooching closer to me, inhaler primed and positioned in front of me.

“Whenever you're ready, grab this– I’ll help.” She promises, nudging closer.

I nod as I reach forward, letting her meet me in the middle and do the heavy lifting of guiding the dispenser to my mouth, pressing down as soon as she sees me attempting to initiate. The bitter bite of the bronchodilators coats my entire mouth, but I force myself to hold onto this already shallow breath in the hopes that it will do something– anything– to calm this spell.

A huff of air spills past my lips, almost without any effort from me. I stagger my breaths as much as I can, but I still feel like I’m gasping for air that doesn’t exist, my heart racing as my head spins like a top. As soon as I can, I’m reaching for another puff of meds, this time, feeling like something went past my throat and hit close to my lungs.

I hold off the second breath, this time counting consciously: one, two , three, four, five, six–

I can’t hold off anymore as I sputter and cough again, this time trying not to gag because of how strong that cough came on. Hailey merely holds one hand– the hand that had reached out to initiate the inhaler– tightly as I try to gain my bearings. Behind me, Jay’s rubbing my back, his palms thrumming as they slide across my ribs in some semblance of a rhythm as he tries to coax me into relaxing.

It’s working, but not fast enough.

Jay’s very clearly aware of this, because as I continue attempting to breathe slower and return myself to a more calm state of being, I hear the nighstand’s drawer open and a quick rummage through. Seconds later, I feel something clipped onto my finger and an initial ‘beep’ floods my senses.

Pulse Oximeter. Good call.

It’s only moments later that it starts blaring at us, its high pitched whine persistently chiming for attention. Unrelenting with his one handed back rub, Jay uses his free hand to grab mine, bringing the pulse oximeter up closer to see the number, and I hazard a glance.

92%.

Oh. Yeah, not super ideal.

“Breathe, Grace, you’re doing so good. Just keep breathing.” He reassures me from behind, his hand still rubbing my back, trying to distract me from the stinging burn of each attempt to clear my lungs, the weight of gravity pulling my cells in onto themselves as they inflame and cement with mucus. I force another cough as I feel my bronchioles caving in on me, feel the ridging of my larynx with every ripple it rides through my respiratory path. Nothing, not even Jay and Hailey’s steady reassurances breaks through the sudden panic that courses through me as I feel the effects of this attack overtake the narrow channels that were opened up by my inhaler. Still, I swallow and hold my breath, trying to focus on holding Hailey’s gaze, on letting Jay support my body– on keeping me breathing. I gasp again when it becomes too much, and somehow, this time, I feel just a straw’s worth of air rush into me, deep, deep into the lungs.

I hold my breath. Then I do it again- release, slowly; breathe in, slowly. The straw is widening.

I still need a few more breaths to really come back to reality, to feel the chill sweeping my bones and the cold sweat I’ve broken out into, the way my hands are gripping Hailey’s sliding over precious water and salt ions my decidedly self-destructive body is kicking out at my most vulnerable moments.

“You okay?” Jay asks softly as the exhaustion catches up to me. I let my body slump back, sinking into the pillows that have been propped up against the bed frame. The beeping from my pulse ox finally stops.

“Tired,” I mutter, my voice made hoarse by the grating of my breath against sickened lungs and weakened chest muscles.

“I’ll get you water.” Hailey squeezes my hand and leaves us in silence.

My eyes are drooping, but I can still feel Jay’s steady gaze studying me. The weight of it almost swallows me whole– it’s a vat of sludge as thick as tar, coating, no– devouring – everything in its wake.

“I can hear you thinking over there.” my voice halts, fading in and out as the air within my chest still sputters out uneven, pulsing strong then faintly wisping through me.

“I think it’s time to go to Med.” he says gently, getting straight to the point. “You don’t sound so great.”

“Gee, glad I got your opinion, Doc.” I sass. “Wanna hook me up to an IV while you’re at it?”

“Grace.” He sighs. He’s trying, dammit, I know he is. Holding out on emergency maneuvers till they’re called for, coaxing me into doing things like I’m a damn scared cat in a storm. The irony of me fighting him on this is not lost on me when I was practically begging for the ER just a week ago.

A week. A week since he watched me rushed into surgery. Less than a week since our little blowup. Days since I’ve been home.

“I don’t wanna go back.” I sigh, and my unspoken words hang in the air like flashing hazards in the rearview: I just want this to be over. I just want to go back to normal.

Whatever the hell normal is supposed to be for me, anyways.

“I know.” he acknowledges quietly. “But I don’t want to take any chances right now.”

“He’s right.” Hailey adds as she pads in with a glass, pressing it into Jay’s waiting hand as I drag myself up slowly. “Your body is already working overtime trying to heal itself. We don’t want you ending up with an infection or a reopened bleed from the coughing.”

The sharp warnings from my pulse ox begin to trill again as I lean into Jay. Carefully, he nudges the glass to my lips, and the slow dribble of water down my chin as I try my best to take a stable sip feels like the final blow to seal the deal.

“Okay” I sigh, rubbing at the damp corner of my face, already frustrated with how my recovery is panning out. “Let’s go to Med.”

Chapter Text

The drive there is quiet save for the inconsistent beeping of my pulse ox, its frazzled whining mantra picking up as my oxygen dips below 95 and dying as soon as I get above that threshold, Lights stream in and out as we roll down streets and turn corners, spaces shifting in visibility until finally, we’re rounding the block to Med, and the lights are brighter than ever.

“Come on,” Jay says, more to himself than me, as he opens the backseat door and scoops me up into his arms, blankets and all- something he insisted on as he ushered me out the door. The cold air to my face triggers another coughing fit, and it only makes him move faster. As he walks through the doors into the ER waiting and triage, the lights get to be too much, and I wince, only adding to my existing distress. It doesn’t go unnoticed.

“You okay?” he asks again, starting to sound like one of those pre-programmed six-phrase robotic toys meant for only children and lonely children. I sigh as I hold back as much of the coughing as I can, trying to keep my composure. Trying not to lose it with him, because, dammit, he’s trying and I need to be trying, too.

“Yeah.” I try to talk softly, but it comes out a whistle-whisper punctuated by coughs “Too bright,”

He is clearly biting back a curse as he thinks back to my bedroom. “I don’t know if we grabbed your shades.”

“There’s a spare in my emergency bag. Hailey’ll probably bring that in, right?” I wince, starting to feel the sharpness of my throat and lungs made raw, the tickle in my chest morphing back into tightness.

“I’ll text her, soon as we get you checked in”.

It doesn’t take all that long to do that, given that it’s two in the morning, my wheezing is audible, and they just so happen to hear “released two days ago” before ushering me right through the double doors into the guts of the ER bay. Beeping monitors, loud chatter, papers printing, and shouted orders fill the already crowded sensory space; one I can’t help but add my wheezy breathing and strangled coughs to. But as soon as we walk through,
Doris is leading us to an open bed, busy logging me in as a patient and grabbing a portable vein finder lamp. Bless her for remembering just how awful a stick I am since my last stay.

Jay sets me down gently, using the sheet on the bed to create a blanket hood to shield my eyes. Once he’s satisfied I won’t fall off the bed or wobble from coughing too hard, he drags a chair over and plops down, grabbing a hand of mine with one of his and using the other to text someone, likely Hailey.

“I thought we told you to stay out of the ER,” Natalie smiles as she comes in. “Or the Hospital, in general.”

“She’s been coughing for the last two days, bad asthma attack 25 minutes ago. Wheezing and coughs haven’t stopped, and even with the inhaler her oxygen is tanking into the low 90s.” Jay supplies as I focus on trying not to cough through his entire debrief.

“How hard is it to breathe, scale of one to ten?” Nat wastes no time grabbing her stethoscope and gently aiding me sitting up and leaning forward to listen to my lungs.

“Five.” I answer honestly “Feels like I’ve been running during allergy season.”

“She’s coughed hard enough that it looks and sounds like choking, but she always manages to come back.” Jay adds, squeezing my hand. Nat shifts the bell of the stethoscope in the all too familiar Z pattern before shifting it to my sternum, checking my wrist for a pulse at the same time.

“You’re definitely tighter than I’d like to hear.” She lets out a breath, clearly as disappointed as I am. “What have you done other than your inhaler?”
“Usual meds, eight doses total of the budenosine .” I supplied, refreshing her knowledge. “Last 24 hours.”

“Okay, do another dose of budenosine, I’ll order a neb, fluids, and some labs to make sure we’re not missing an infection or blood clot, we’ll let you hang out on oxygen for a little bit and then we’ll go from there.” She smiles reassuringly, and though I know that’s in her nature as a Peds specialist, damn if it doesn’t annoy me to hear the subtext of those words delivered so easily.

Infection. Blood clot.
Potential hospital stay.

And yet, I swallow down my fears and manage to give a half- breathed “thanks”, rich as Jay plants my inhaler in my hands. I hunch forward and force myself to use every possible muscle to inhale- one dose, hold, release. As I’m repeating for the second dose and Natalie heads out, Hailey sneaks in with my emergency bag in a tow. Doris soon follows with a whole phlebotomy tray.

“Joy of Joys, Doris” I manage, and somehow I think I’m starting to sound a bit better, though still grate-y.

“You know it, buster. You broke our deal, you pay the piper.” She tries to serve her usual no nonsense attitude with a bit of her usual spunk, but the effect does off as she finally turns on the infrared lamp and positions it. My bruises from my last stay are still plenty prominent.

“This is gonna be a long one.” I think to myself.

Hailey clearly reads my face, because as usual, she’s sending Jay out the door for Coffee and getting me to focus on her.

“Breathe.” She reminded me gently.

“That’s why I’m here,” I deadpan, and she and Doris share a chuckle. Lucky for me, since Doris knows what she’s doing and came prepared, I end up with heating packs on the crooks of each arm, have the bed raised to a full sitting position, and am given a minute to just be while she records all my vitals to watch for any sudden changes.

“See,” Hailey points out “You have a second. Take it.”

And I do. I close my eyes and focus on how my lungs might just be opening up enough for me to be able to get a semi-decent breath in, and keep my momentum of slow breaths in, gentle timed held breath, and slow breaths out. Moments later I feel one of the packs move off of my arm and the careful prodding of a skilled master of phlebotomy. I can certainly call her that after this visit, since it takes her all of two stabs to get the blood for my labs and the IV in.

But damn, it tires me out. Just the whole ordeal of breathing right now feels like moving mountains.

“Just rest.” She states plainly, with no expectations behind her voice. “You don’t need to take care of yourself right now. I’m right here to give them the full rundown.”

Satisfied, I close my eyes.

Chapter Text

Though I closed my eyes, I’m pretty sure I didn’t fall asleep. Not fully, anyways.

There’s been the usual quiet flurry of patients ushered in, nurses charting and chatting, and a handful of Paramedics with gurneys. I hear voices, but I’m not with it enough to know who it is.

Just that it's safe.

When my eyes do open, Jay and Hailey are in the room, Jay snoozing lightly, Hailey reading a book. Seems like I was just in time because a nurse from Radiology is coming in with a wheelchair.

“Can I bribe you with a twenty to bust me out of here?” I joke, my voice strained by all the wheezing and coughing.

“No, but you can get yourself in this chair for me and confirm your name and date of birth.” She replies with no nonsense.

Crap. I got one of those nurses. Those few and far in between, “My job is not to be nice to you,” nurses. One of those, “I will not tolerate small talk” nurses.

It’s been a hot minute since I’ve had one of them. But graveyard shifts don’t exactly bring out the best in people, so I hold my tongue and stick to a no-nonsense demeanor as I silently rustle out of the bed and detach myself from the monitors.

“Can I come with?” Hailey asks. “We’ve had a few scares in the last few weeks and I’d rather be as close as I can. I’ll wait outside the X-ray room.”

“Ma’am, she’s not a minor and it’s a chest x-ray, she’ll live.” The nurse replied curtly as she detached me from my infusion pump and secured the rest of my line. She glances briefly at my oxygen sats, then mutters a “Shouldn’t be gone that long,” to herself as she takes off my oxygen mask and directs me to the chair..

“Are you sure I can’t come?” Hailey asks again. “It’s never been a problem before.”

“And I give permission.” I add.

Clearly done with this conversation, she shoots Hailey a sort-of “your choice” look, before starting to mosey out of the ER Bay. I turn to watch Hailey, and am relieved when she gets up and starts walking with us.

It must show, because she shoots me a reassuring smile and mouths, “I’ll stay close” behind nurse no-nonsense’s back.

The ride over to Radiology is a dull maze of twists and turns in the guts of Gaffeney. Most days, I find it interesting- I don’t ever end up in this area unless I have a scan, which means that there’s usually something new to find. But today, I’m too worn to try and spot any name plates or special rooms for fancy equipment. Today, I’m wishing we would’ve used the X-rays in Baghdad to spare me the excursion. Anything to have stayed where I was.

Mercifully, the trip is short this time, and I’m choosing not to think about whether my perception of time has been swayed by my fatigue as I pull myself out of the chair, confirm my name and DOB one more time, and pose for the radioactive camera up against the plate. I can’t read any expressions of the tech’s face, and soon enough, Hailey winks at me as we start to proceed back to the ER.

When we enter the curtained off space, Jay is awake and playing on his phone. He looks up to greet us with a simple nod, and then does his usual no language communicating thing with Hailey. I’m not trying to give myself a migraine on top of this mess this early in the morning, so I simply shuffle back into the bed and let the nurse hook me back up to the monitors, infusion pump, and oxygen.

“Feeling better?” Jay asks me softly, genuinely trying to gauge how I’m feeling.
“I don’t feel as tight.” I supply. “Just wanna get home.”

“Soon as we can, kiddo.” He reassures me. “Let’s wait for Nat to give the final verdict.”
“If it’s a good scan, I wouldn’t hold your breath on a quick response.” I remind him.
“I’d rather it be a delayed response about you just having a bad asthma day than it be something else.” he points out, and Hailey just nods in response as she takes her seat next to him again.

“That, and then we don’t have to call Will with bad news.” Hailey adds.
“We’ll be calling either way, since that’s what he asked for.” Jay amended.

I let myself huff a little as I turn onto my side and let my mind take stock of my body. As I told Jay, I don’t feel as tight, but my lungs and throat have a raw sort of feeling to them- like they’ve been scraped up with a butter knife. There’s a tinge of blood that hits my tongue every once in a while, like I burst a capillary somewhere further down the tract, and there’s a odd combination of chill and stifling heat that my body can’t decide on.

I just know I feel uncomfortable.

I bring my hands to my face and rub tiredly at it, trying to relax myself; loosen the muscles in my face and neck. I rub my feet together, then flex them– up and down, circles inward, then circles outward. I scrunch my shoulders and drop them down. I force myself to breathe slowly and deeply.

“Want some music? We’ve got your headphones if you need them.” Jay nudges.

“No.” I grit out.

“Then talk to me, because you look like you’re either gonna seize or try to kill something with how tense you look.” he states calmly, trying to quell whatever nervous beast is stirring within me.

I stare at him, trying to read him like he's reading me. Trying to see if I can find the things he spots through his lens in mine. But all I see is a calm front and I know for a fact I am not calm right now. Tired, but not calm.

“Breathe.” He adds gently, and I let out a breath I didn’t know I was still holding. My lungs ache dully as the air runs out of them, letting their walls fold in on themselves slowly, pulling my mood down with them.

“And scoot,” Hailey adds, getting up to rummage in my emergency bag. A few moments later, she joins me on the bed and covers us both with one of my hospital blankets.

“You’re not gonna get any rest if all you’re gonna do is keep stressing out about when we get out of here.” She strokes my hair back gently, her words a softer variation of the reality check that is likely still waiting somewhere out there. “We’re stuck waiting here whether they release you in an hour or a week. Until we hear back, we’re waiting. Rest while you can.”

“I’d like to rest at home.” I try to spit the words, but apparently my viciousness is whiny when sick.

“And you will, whenever they say you can go home. Nothing’s gonna change that reality, so in the meantime– migraine headband or eye mask? I think the fluorescents' are messing with you.”

She has a point. And so, I give in. For now.

“Headband.” I reply, my voice almost dying out on the last sounds.

“It’ll hopefully block some of the sound too.” Jay adds thoughtfully, reaching into the bag and handing me the headband. “I’ll play your quiet playlist for a little bit, just in case.”

Nodding, I accept the headband and stretch it over my skull till I feel the blissful pressure and darkness swallow me, the mask of my face pressed into cold gel and the sounds around me muffled save for the soft notes of music that drift past the mask. Hailey’s hand gently strokes my arm, and for the first time in a while, I can actually feel a peaceful sleep wash away conscious thought.

Chapter Text

People tell me that sleep makes you better.

It’s a great joke to tell, because I instantly feel worse on waking.

I’m full-blown shaky, nauseous, and that weird hot-and-cold combo that makes your skin crawl while coming with the fatigue that keeps you from doing anything that would stop you from feeling this way. My blurry vision, half blinded by brightness, isn’t helping the situation as I sluggishly seek out someone— anyone— to fix this.

“Help,” I wheeze softly, feeling practically immobilized by my body, weighed down and somehow drowning in bed.

I’m in a bed.

So why am I drowning?

The realization has me catapulting up and forward, my chest desperately trying to shake out whatever it is that is coating every alveoli, sealing me off from air. My coughs turn from anecdotal to critical in seconds, a high pitched wheeze interspersing choked, ragged echoes of something being rattled through my chest. I can feel a hand on my back, a body beside me, a hand clutching my arm, trying to pry it back from where it’s clawing at my skin— as if skin is what pulls breath away from my being. As if blood will be enough to restore me.

And yet, it’s not enough. I feel hands support me as I keep gasping, the choked rattles turning to whistles till someone leans me forward and pounds— one, two, three— sharp blows to the ribs, my spine rattling with the reverb. But it works, and I’m spitting up thick, blood tinged mucus into an emesis pan that’s been shoved beneath my chin.

When the panic settles and my hazy consciousness clears into focus, I see Jay planted right in front of me, his worried gaze unmoving. Behind him, Natalie and Will stand with another doctor, overlooking radiographs and a pair of tablets.

“Are you with us?”

Hailey’s voice floats through the fog, and I feel my arm squeezed firmly. It’s only then that I notice she’s right beside me— right where she fell asleep, propping me up with one arm and squeezing my own with another. Monitors chirp relentlessly as a nurse darts her eyes between the beeping screens and me.

“Grace, can you hear me?” Jay asks again, slowly, enunciating his syllables.

Finally, my muscles begin unlocking.

“Yeah.” I breathe with a gasp, only to be met with a quieter breath released from him.

“Okay. God, you scared me, kiddo.” He breathes out, his words almost sounding like they were meant for himself and not for me. He plants himself on the bed next to me and grabs my forehead, his lips pressed gently to my sweat-soaked brow.

“You’re okay” his breath fans out onto my skin. My hairline grows even warmer as I feel a second head— Hailey’s— tuck up against my own and whisper comfort in silent breaths.

I just take it in— my chest still somewhat heaving, my lungs still crackling with flames, my abs throbbing with aching pulse. Seconds ago, I was drowning.

I’m not drowning. Not anymore.

There’s nothing holding me down, nothing drawing the air from my lungs.

Just me.

Me and my failing body that keeps ticking, somehow, some way.

I let us exist as we are for a few moments, till the discomfort settles back into me and forces me to pull away. I let myself collapse back onto the bed, my eyes almost automatically falling shut.

“ ‘m feeling sick.” I mumble, life sapped out of my being as I fight to open my eyes again.

When I finally get them peeled back, Jay and Hailey are frowning, but don’t look too surprised.

“You’re sats started dropping in your sleep,” Jay replies by way of explanation. “Feel sick how?”

“Hot ‘n cold.” The words stick to my tounge as I try forcing them out. “Shaky,”

“Yeah, we can see that,” he sighs as he grabs my other hand— the one Hailey hasn’t been gripping since I woke— and holds it steady in his own. I can feel the twitch and tremble of my muscles as they shiver in his grasp. “Anything else? Breathing?”

“Chest tight,” I respond, tapping where I can feel the most of the squeezing and scraping. “Hurts.”

He nods, and the room spins with his motion. I squeeze my eyes shut, slamming the heels of my palms into the crest of my eye sockets.

“Headache?” Hailey asks softly.

“Dizzy.” I correct. “Kinda lightheaded-like.”

“You’re not getting enough oxygen,” Jay supplies, “just keep breathing slowly. Hopefully it’ll pass.”

So I do just that— keep breathing, slowly. But it’s not going away, not really. The nurse ups my O2 flow, the humidity of my breath mixing even more starkly with the cold, dry flow that spurts through the tubing. Droplets become visible as the mask fogs up more, and I can only hope that with each breath, I’m just that much closer to ditching this joint.

But then Nat and Will walk in and I can see the writing on the wall before the words are even spoken. They don’t have to say anything— I know that look. I’ve been on the receiving end of it far too often.

“I’m not heading home tonight, am I?” I rasp, my voice sounding more weathered than it should.

“Well, it looks like you’ve got a bad case of pneumonia- we’ll have to take cultures to see exactly what kind. It’s likely something you picked up when you were here the last time.” Nat informs me plainly, but the regret is evident in her expression: bad news sucks, no matter how often you give it or get it.

“So what’s the treatment plan?” Jay asks for me, probably eager to skip the whole do-si-do act of doctor-patient interactions. He’s had way too many of those in the last week.

So have I.

“I talked to Nat, we both think it’s best to admit you.” Will breaks the worse news to us— a smart choice, seeing as to how it’s harder for us to hound Will to change Nat’s mind if he already agrees. “It’s just for now, probably not for longer than 24 hours. We’ll put you on the Pulmonology ward— monitor your breathing while we wait for labs and go from there. Best case scenario is IV fluids, O2 and antibiotics to take home.”

I don’t ask about the worst case scenario. We’ve all seen what the Pandemic did. We have no intention of dwelling on those thoughts.

“Are you sure this is the best course of treatment?” Jay asks, with a raw edge to his voice that I haven’t heard since just after my surgery.

“With her history, it is.” Will stands behind his word. “I know you all hate being admitted, but I need you to hear me on this one: we aren’t letting you leave until we have a decent idea of what kind of pneumonia this is. Because we do not want to waste time guessing on this one.”

Jay and Hailey look convinced. Natalie and Will are firm.

“Okay, then.” I breathe. “Send in the phlebotomy team. Take your swabs, run your cultures. Get me home.”

I’ve already set my foot in the door. I can grit and bear it till they can let me out.

“I’ll send them in.” Nat smiles as she leaves.

Jay, Will, and Hailey thank her as she steps out past the curtains. Will pulls up the chair Jay was in and sets himself down.

“Time ‘sit?” I let my words slur, no longer pulled up on high alert.

“Almost five thirty in the morning.” Will supplies, double checking his watch to confirm. His shift, if he has one today, shouldn’t start till seven at the earliest. “I came in early to check on you and send the lovebirds out for breakfast,”

“You couldn’t have just grabbed it yourself?” Jay rolls his eyes at him.

“I’d rather not stand in line worrying about messing up your order.” Will fires back playfully. “And I was even gonna offer to cover everyone, but if you picking breakfast from a place of your choice is such a hassle—“

“He’ll get over it,” Hailey supplied quickly, holding her hand out. “Hand over your phone, I know exactly where we’re ordering from.”

“Not Greektown” Jay half groans. “I really don’t want to deal with the 290 interchange,”

“Well, that’s your mistake for not taking Will up on his generous offer.” Hailey grins. “We’ll get the good coffee too. Any requests, you two?”

“Surprise me, so long as I can eat it in a hurry or on the go,” Will grins as he watches Jay stress out over the nightmare of navigating traffic. “Or whichever dish takes the longest to cook. Your choice.”

“You know what, Will? You can-”

“Shush— Gracie, what do you want?” Hailey cuts Jay off successfully, diverting the conversation to me.

“Not hungry.” I reply curtly.

“Not a choice.” Jay shoots back just as quickly.

“I’m serious, I’m nauseous.” I swallow, just the thought of food being enough to set me off again. I know I’ve been “off food” for a while now, but I just had major surgery and have been wheezing like a geyser for the last two days— I should qualify for a get-out-of-jail-free card.

“I’ll get you something light, and I want you to at least try it when we get back. Fair?” Hailey spells it out for me.

Trying is gonna be a lot harder than I want it to be, but I’ll take it for now if it means I’m not having to think about food.

“Fine.” I sigh, somehow sinking in even deeper to the mattress as I deflate my answer. I find myself disengaging as Hailey convinces Jay to start driving out now, promising that they’re first stop will be Coffee. Will is clearly on board with this, casually mentioning that he’s not on duty till eight a.m.— 12 hours on shift and then another 12 on-call. Perfect time for them to grab a to-go growler.

Within minutes, they’re out the door. Or past the curtains, anyways.

“You’re a good brother.” I tell Will, and I mean it— he really didn’t have to come this early to check in. “And I appreciate you giving Jay and Hailey a break.”

“You ever remember that I too want some time with you without Jay mother-henning you the entire time?” He grins, shifting over to sit in Hailey’s spot, tucking my head onto my head while sneaking a temp check.

“I don’t have a fever, Will.” I sigh, but don’t roll my eyes or fight it. Both of those things are futile at this point.

“I think you might be wrong on that one. Kinda surprised Jay was willing to leave when you’re spiking one.” He ruffles the hair right at my hairline before smoothing it back behind my ears. “You don’t look that great, kiddo. Don’t sound that good either.”

“But you got Jay to leave,” I supplied. “So I must be okay enough for that.”

“I’m gonna hazard a guess that Jay’s convincing Hailey to order delivery for everything and that they’re just gonna have some quiet time on the roof till it arrives.” He muses.

“That’s gonna be cold.” I quip.

“They’re lovebirds, they’ll figure out how to keep warm.” He smirks, and I cringe a little.

“C’mon man, there are things that I do not want to think about when I’m already feeling gross and pukey.” I gag, and it's forceful enough that Will shifts his position and pulls the emesis bowl closer. It takes a few quiet breaths and firm swallows, but I manage to keep my fluids where they belong: inside me.

“You’re right,” he concedes, clearly apologetic. “That wasn’t fair.”

“No it was not, and I’ll make sure Doris reminds you of that the next time you have a super gross situation to deal with, won’t you Doris?” I ask sweetly, acknowledging the nurse who’s been waiting to come in.

“Reminding him the next time he has to demonstrate a rectal exam or probe should do the trick,” she grins back as Will winces.

“C’mon Doris, you know I don’t do those anymore.” He sighs, knowing that most of the department is willing to put him through crap to put him back in his place and put a smile on people’s faces.

For the most part, Will is a good sport about it. But rectal abscesses are only so much fun.

“You just never know when a student might forget how to do one,” she grouses as she scans my wristband and begins setting me up, as Will immediately pours his head into his palms and mutters a curse, I laugh, but only for a second before my mirth turns to breathless coughing, sharp guttural rattling echoing through the space.

Growing lightheaded, I grip Will’s arm in an attempt to ground myself. He must catch on quickly because the sensation of his fleece jacket sleeve is quickly replaced by his firm palm beneath mine, a solid presence to cling to. I squeeze as hard as I can, feeling my own strength grow faint before all at once, something dislodges enough for me to gasp a full breath again.

When I’ve finally come down from the panic of choking on air, Will’s rubbing my back and holding my hand reassuringly, mirroring Hailey’s previous actions. Doris alternates watching me and the monitors, clicking buttons on machines and jotting notes on her iPad. Only when she’s convinced that this stint has fully passed does she resume prepping for additional labs— swabs for cultures.

“You said you were nauseous- do you want an emesis bag just in case?” She asks kindly.

I hesitate, knowing just how hard it is to breathe already. If I start throwing up, will I have any energy to clear my airway at all.

“We have suction, and plenty of doctors here to keep you safe. If it happens, it happens and we take care of it.” Will reads my mind, reassuring me that aspiration is not something that’s on the docket today.

“I can get another nurse or two in here just in case. But you know I’m super quick and I’m pretty gentle with the swabs” Doris also chimes in.

I know what I have to do to get me out of here. I take a slow breath, steeling myself for my response.

“Yes to both, please and thanks Doris.” I smile, not faltering even when I feel the whistle in my chest.

Will squeezes me as Doris pokes her head out to round up some nurses.

Here we go.

Chapter Text

I clearly underestimated what labs were about to take out of me.

True to my fears, as soon as Doris began swabbing my throat for cultures, I began to gag. I gripped Will’s hand tightly, fingers locking and desperately trying to hold off what I could of my reflex before my body took the reins. As soon as Doris pulled the swab out, I shoved her away and lunged for the emesis bag.

I threw up- once, then twice.

And now I can’t stop.

“Shh,” Will tries to soothe me as he rubs my back and shoulders gently. “Kiddo you gotta try to breathe. You’re running on empty here.”

He’s not kidding. I’ve only brought up bile, burning and singeing my sinuses, scraping my passages raw. My breathing is no longer regulated— only gasps and snorts and desperate lungfuls of air that seem to only worsen the terror my body is unleashing on itself.

I feel like I’m being turned inside out.

“Gracie, honey, breathe,” he reminds me gently, continuing his ministrations, but it’s all I can do to try and hold my head above metaphorical water and keep from the very real possibility of me drowning on dry land. But my body doesn’t listen to prayers or pleas from even the most well meaning lips, and my body begins to cave in on itself from the sheer exhaustion of my ordeal. Will— wonderful, attentive Will— immediately picks up on my weary body and uses his arm to prop me up against his own chest.

“Can we get IV Ondansetron on board here?” Will asks the nurses quietly, continuing to soothe me as he squeezes my body carefully against his, the rumble of his voice reverberating into my bones through his own. I’m so out of it that I don’t catch the response that must come shortly after. I’m too consumed with the second skin of sickness that is suffocating me, stifling my breaths and twisting my insides in ways I would rather it not.

In the haze of the sickness, I can feel Will’s strong arms still holding me. Silently being the stability that my body won’t—can’t— give me, no matter how much my muscles strain and shiver between my skin and bones. Carefully, cautiously, he wraps his arm under my own and pulls me into his chest so that I’m leaning into him. His heart sits right beneath my ears, thrumming a steady rhythm that soothes me.

Jay used to do this— a long time ago. Back when the world was smaller and dustier and I didn’t have these brothers. And he kept doing it as the world changed and I gained a family.

But it’s been a while since I’ve heard someone else’s heartbeat like this. It’s kind of nice.

“There we go. Just keep breathing.” His reassurances rumble through his chest like a happy murmur. “Nice and easy. Just try to relax”

The meds must be kicking in, because I can feel the unwieldy turnings of my insides begin to right themselves ever so slowly, and the sickening feeling in my throat and mouth begins to subside. The hand that has been running up and down my back in an attempt to soothe the assault of nausea on my body shifts up to my forehead and cups it steady to Will’s shoulder, stilling his relaxed body to alert after a second. He shifts down to my cheeks and neck, but I already know where this is headed.

“Don’t have a fever,” my last words slur halfheartedly as I let myself sink into his warmth. As much as I want to fight him on this, I don’t think I can. My eyes are fluttering shut despite my trying to keep them open. I don’t trust my body not to decide to have another meltdown within the next hour.

But it’s been so long since I’ve felt this decent.

“Shh.” Will simply hushes me. “It’s okay, you’re okay. Just relax. Don’t worry about anything else, okay?”

“Why?” I whine softly, not really meaning to, my body worn out by the ordeal of the last few minutes alone.

“‘Cause it’s my turn to do that. I’m the doctor.” He kisses the top of my head and reclines the bed back a touch, enough to settle us both down comfortably.

“But—”

“Shh—” he cuts me off again.

If there’s anything more, I’m too fast asleep to hear it.

Thank nurses for good drugs.

And thank family for their safe haven.

Chapter Text

When I finally wake up, it’s to a hospital room. Like, an actual hospital room.

I’m alone in here, which I’m not sure how they managed to land one knowing that Med is currently at capacity.

Maybe I get an exemption for having a compromised immune system and a infectious illness. Either way, I get a quiet room to myself.

There’s no Jay or Hailey in here, but there’s evidence of them- a go bag beside a pair of chairs, a few jackets and blankets draped over their ends. Chargers plugged into outlets, though phones are nowhere in sight.

“I thought we’d at least have another half hour of you sleeping- Jay and Hailey are gonna be mad that they missed it.” Will pokes his head in the doorway. He’s gowned up in infectious ward attire— complete with the sterile gloves, mask and face shield.

“Am I that bad?” I rasp out, voice grating from a dry and sore throat.

“No, but we still have other viral infections you could catch and we’re not risking it.” His eyes smile from behind the plastic shielding. “You’ve got bacterial pneumonia, and seeing that your body isn’t responding as quickly to the antibiotics as we hoped, we moved you up here as a precaution. Seeing if we could get you to sleep through the worst of it was not a part of the plan, but it wasn’t unwelcome either. Jay thinks it’s been a while since you slept that well unmedicated.” He supplies as he busies himself about the monitors and infusion pumps, checking to see that they’re all still functioning well.

“Hm.” I respond, not really sure whether to remind him that technically, I’m still medicated, since they haven’t taken me off my pain meds yet. “Time ‘sit?” I ask tiredly, stretching out and readjusting myself in an attempt to get comfortable.

“Only 9 in the morning- you didn’t nap that long. Intelligence caught a case- Voight’s having the lovebirds pick up a secure laptop with footage to comb through so you get me for another fifteen minutes, if I’m lucky?”

“And pray tell,” I persist through the cough that I’ve been failing to stifle, “what counts as you being unlucky?”

“Probably Jay and Hailey getting stuck at work or them arriving before texting me that they’re on their way and me having to deal with Jay grouching about how they moved you up to isolation without telling them. Or you.” He unscrews a water bottle and hands it to me.

“But their stuff’s in here— so not true isolation?”

“You’re on the CCU- there’s reverse isolation protocols in place. You can have two family members in at a time, plus hospital staff. Everyone coming in needs sterile PPE because Dr. Abram’s thinks it’s too soon to take you off of the steroids. Your blood pressure’s wonky again, but that’s no surprise with what you’re dealing with, so CCU it is for now.” He relays as I take a sip of water and try clearing out my throat.

“And my oxygen stats?” I ask finally, still groggy sounding but not as scratchy as earlier.

“Low 90s, for the most part. Not ideal.” His expression is hidden behind the glare of warped plastic and a KN95 mask.

“Did you see a COVID patient or something that you have to wear the face shield?” I finally ask the question that’s been nagging at me. His gaze pinches, and I have a familiar sinking feeling.

“Jay and Hailey didn’t just get pulled for a run of the mill case, did they?” I ask slowly, hesitant to even want to hear the reality without them safe next to me.

“There’s been an influx of patients coming in with some very unusual symptoms.” Will tries to skirt around the concept.

“William, I’m not in the mood for mind games. What case did Jay and Hailey get pulled onto?”

“There’s a suspected bioterror attack using some sort of weaponized aerosolized agent. We’re not sure if it spreads via contact with infected individuals or just the vector, so you’ve earned a VIP upgrade.” He sighs, trying to keep the mood light despite the very obviously not cheery reality.

“You, Jay and Hailey need to be working then. Why are you here?”

“Believe it or not, they’ve mostly got the situation contained. The agent was released in a biochemical classroom at the U- they immediately locked down the premises and followed biohazard protocols. I got designated to work with non- bioterror emergencies, so I can come and see you when needed. Jay and Hailey got put on intel duty since they need the rest of Intelligence with boots on the ground in case this was just a test.”

“And if it was just a test?” I ask pointedly.

“Then we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.” He replies simply, as if that’s supposed to fix all the problems with the world. My face must give it away, because he makes it a point to lower the rails and sit down on the bed.

“You know they’ve done this before. This is not their first rodeo.” He reminds me.

“But they had Jay and Hailey for that last deal.” I respond with just as much restraint as I can. Jay and Hailey need to be on the street, they cannot be sitting on computers because my body decided it wasn’t going to cooperate.
“You trust Voight to make the right calls for the city, right?” He asks me gently.

“I trust Trudy to make sure that Voight makes the right calls for this city. Voight doesn’t mean shit to me right now.” I roll my eyes.

“Well, then– trust Trudy. You know that she’s not letting Detectives Chuckles and Dollface play hooky when the city needs them.”

“Dollface? Ew, oh that’s so creeper van man, even for you.” I groan, facepalming and trying to get that out of my head.

“Hey! Hailey has very doll-like features and I was thinking on the spot for something to go well with Chuckles. Not my fault that she doesn’t have a bad nickname already.”

“That’s Jay’s own fault for being smug and toying with-” I try to get it out in one breath, but my chest grows tight and suddenly there’s air slipping past my lungs that I can’t seem to get use of. I cough a little, hoping it clears up some space, but the rattling blocks up my chest and within seconds, I feel like the only two things I can do are cough or gasp for air. I can hardly notice the alarms going off and what I assume is chaos around me as my nasal cannula gets switched out for a mask, and then gets switched to a nebulizer mouthpiece. Something gets pushed in my line- too quickly for my fragile veins to compensate, and I visibly curl around my arm, trying to protect what feels like a blown line.

“Breathe, Gracie– let the meds do their job. Just breathe. Push out as much air as you can.” Will coaches me through yet another round of this miserable mess.

He keeps coaching me, occasionally listening to my heart or feeling my pulse for his own comfort– everything ought to be visible on the screen in real time since I can still hear the steady beep of my own pulse and the resounding O2 sats alarm alerting everyone in earshot to my very, very low sat index that is taking its sweet time to climb back into the safe zone.

“Breathe out.” Will reminds me, rubbing my back as my sore muscles slowly cooperate. Time starts slowing down finally, the shakes from the nebulizer kick in, and I’m able to pull the mouthpiece away for long enough to reach for my water bottle. Will’s kind enough to notice and gets it unscrewed for me before handing it over.

A quick sip does little to wash away the bitter coating of the meds, but much to clear the blood and phlegm as far as it can go for the moment. Will snatches it back before I get too into the action and overdo my fluids. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s hit his capacity dealing with my nausea for the day.

“Take it easy. Your sats are holding for now. How does your chest feel?” He asks gently as the nurses disperse quietly, someone handing off a tablet to chart on before they give us space.

“Tight, but not awful.” My voice is raw.

“Okay, we’re switching to ASL now- that throat needs some rest. Pain? Scale of one to ten?”

“Seven,” I sign while I continue the nebulizer treatment.

“Seven” He notes quietly as he charts, before turning back to me. “Where’s the pain?”

I motion to my chest, showing a diffuse pain that’s spread all over, then point to my abs and my back.

“Chest- all over, ab and back muscles?” He confirms, and I nod back to him. He charts quietly for a few more minutes before grabbing my warm hospital blanket from my hospital bag.

“Only because you’re shivering right now. Your temp spikes, it goes away.” He warns, and I nod my understanding as he gently spreads it over me and motions for me to scoot over. Then he crawls onto the bed with me and turns on the tv.”

“I know you’re probably feeling pretty crappy right now, so I’ll make you a deal. I’ll turn on Animal Planet for like 15 minutes. But if it gets boring or gross, then I’m switching to whatever game’s on right now. Deal?” He asks gently. I’m guessing Hailey and Jay will be back by the end of the 15 minutes, and he’ll have to leave, so I just lean into him and squeeze his hand three times.

I. Love. You. All I need to say.

He kisses my forehead and switches on Animal Planet but proceeds to immediately change the channel when he realizes it's about giraffes in heat.

I can’t help but chuckle. I hope he never changes.

Chapter Text

“Seriously? No warning, no heads up, no hey man just FYI? What the hell, Will?” Jay groans as he hauls two large bags of tech into the room while Hailey follows with a bag of takeout and a tray of drinks.

“Really? Mask and gown- both of you. She’s tacky and febrile with a case of pneumonia a week out of emergency neurosurgery. We don’t need anything else going wrong here.”

“Please, this is me we’re talking about- anything that can go wrong, will.” I sigh, my exhale quickly being swallowed by a few stray coughs. The nasal cannula tickles as it falls out of place from my jerking, but I quickly place it back as I catch my breath.

“Okay, Miss Murphy’s law.” Jay rolls his eyes.

“It’s Finnigan’s, actually. Murphy is an adage, Finnigan has been documented and published.” I correct him.

“Does it really count if it was a science fiction publication?” Will counters, grabbing a drink he must be sure is his from Hailey’s tray.

“You both need to quit the sci fi debates. Both of you are determined to be right and both of you are too stubborn to let an argument go when necessary.” Hailey settles it as she deftly switches out Will’s beverage for a different one, then sips out of the cup she took from Will.

“Example: Will can’t even acknowledge he doesn’t know how to spot his own coffee.” Jay supplies as he takes his own drink from Hailey’s drink tray and gets a sip.

“And you just like being a smartass,” I deadpanned.”

“It’s Detective Smartass, Gracie. He needs the title to feel important.” Will grins as he mockingly lifts his mug up in a pseudo-toast tilted ever so slightly in Jay’s direction.

“And clearly I’ve walked in on an argument—” Connor Rhodes’ sarcasm can’t be masked by a KN95 or a face shield as he steps in, arms loaded with items. “I’d come back but I’m already wearing PPE and I have some for the two lovely humans who have been keeping the city safe. And I have an order from Maggie to, and I quote, “Send Will Halstead’s ass back where it belongs downstairs because a trauma is en-route and you need to consult with a post-op pneumonia patient,”. Also, Maggie and the team send their love and have told me out of the care in their hearts, they’re not visiting till they know they won’t make you sicker.” His eyes lift just a hair behind the shield, enough for me to tell there’s a smile that goes with the sentiment.

“Tell Maggie and all the rest of the lovely humans keeping the city safe and healthy downstairs we appreciate them and we will gladly send Will Halstead back downstairs to do his part.” I emphasize with a grin of my own.

“Jeez, I can’t take care of my ailing kid sister?” He sighs mockingly, “However will I manage?”

“Just fine, I’d imagine. You didn’t do much to begin with, initiating a coughing fit and all,” I shook my head with noted indifference.

“You take that back-” he points at me with his tablet as he lightly punches Jay’s shoulder, then pats Connor’s arm on the way out as a thank-you. “I saved your life!”

“You changed the channel on me!” I yelled after him, but my lungs caught up to me and I wheezed on the last word. It took a few coughs and a sip of water to go back to full breaths again. Hailey helps while Jay just shakes his head, trying to look less amused than he is, and Connor just waits for me to be done with my water before finally asking,

“Changed the channel?”

“Apparently he can’t deal with giraffes in heat.” I supply. Jay just groans.

“Not those stupid animal shows again,” he drags out his words.

“You’re the one who introduced them to me!” I exclaim.

“And I fully regret it now. All I did was show you one episode of Crocodile Hunter and now l can’t seem to keep you away from the Discovery network.” He sighs.

“Would you rather she be watching her true crime documentaries and serial killer shows?” Hailey grins as she sips her coffee. Jay shudders as Connor chuckles in response.

“It’s soothing.” I defend myself as Connor grabs his stethoscope to check me over.

“I believe you. Breathe in,” he instructs, placing the bell on one side of the chest, then the other. He adjusts the pressure, switches to my back and has me repeat my breathing exercises as he listens to the different lung sounds and heart ventricles.

“So, you don’t sound great.” He admits. “I can hear rales- your lungs are inflamed and probably have quite a bit of fluid in them from the sound of those coughs. We’ve got you on all the meds we need to plus oxygen- now it’s just a waiting game for them to kick in. How’s your hydration been at home?”

“Semi decent.” I replied.

“She does okay- she doesn’t love us pushing fluids but she knows she’s gotta keep to the recommendations if she wants a smooth recovery.” Hailey gently strokes my hair back from my forehead as she talks.

“Electrolytes?” Connor asks, charting on the tablet as he converses.

“A few pedialyte popsicles a day along with one or two hydration solution drinks.” Jay answers this time, and I can’t help but feel a little miffed. “We’ve been varying it with water, juice, and almond milk to keep her interested in fluids.”

“She is also right here and would prefer you not talk about her like she’s an imbecile. Or a vegetable.” I groan.

“Okay, Miss chairwoman, tell me about your food intake, med intake, and germ exposure. Following protocol?”

“I get shit for not eating enough, but I eat till I’m full,” I remark flatly, a “cut the language” being tiredly flown at me by Jay from his chair.

“She does try to eat.” Hailey affirms, but the silence that follows speaks volumes.

“How many calories are we talking? Protein? Carbs? Anything other than straight sugar?”

“She’ll usually have at least one protein item a day, sometimes two. Meat in soups, scrambled eggs, yogurt. She’ll snack on fruit and a few veggies. Toast, sometimes plain rice. She still isn’t on a regular diet or eating schedule though.” Jay fills in for Connor’s benefit.

“And I take my meds as directed and have only been home, so that answers all of those questions for you.” I yawn. “Can we up my steroids so I’m not so tired?” I barely stifle the second and think yawns that follow as I try talking.

“No can do- that’s your body trying to rest enough to repair itself and recover. You know the drill. Sam’ll probably be by to check you out himself, but I think you’re still pretty neurologically intact from what I’ve seen so far.” His voice has a light lilt to it as he adjusts a monitor. “I think my job here’s done for now. Keep on the electrolytes and fluids, and hopefully those antibiotics will be kicking in soon.”

“When can I get out of here?” I sigh as I curl up tighter into the side of the bed. I’m tired just by being here, in a sterile room purposefully depersonalized and unwelcoming.

“Give it 24 hours and then we’ll revisit that conversation. I’ll check in later– buzz us if you don’t feel good.” Connor emphasizes the last bit as he pats my shoulder in a makeshift goodbye, stepping out of the room to continue his rounds.

“I hate this.” I sigh quietly.

“I know you do. We do too- it’s no fun being stuck in the hospital. It’s also no fun watching you like this.” Hailey notes gently as she raises my bed frame to a higher upright position. “But if you want to get better and out of here, I want you to compromise and try some food.”

“Can I at least watch surveillance footage with you while I eat?” I ask, fully knowing the answer.

To my surprise, Jay and Hailey look at each other with their freaky telepathic look.

“Really?” I ask, genuinely excited now.

“Well, you are a student on campus– you know these spots better than we do.” Jay admits. “And it’s an imminent threat in a high-traffic area. Plus you’re watching off of our screens and you can’t go anywhere or do anything other than this or sleep.”

“Can we put it on the TV screen?” I ask.

“Absolutely not.” Hailey replies as she hands me a yogurt parfait and a small dish of scrambled eggs.

“Food first, then you can help us with the tech stuff.” Jay confirms, and I roll my eyes more for dramatic effect than sass as I begin picking at my food.

Over the next half hour, Jay and Hailey, each on either side of me set up with two chairs and a laptop each, begin reviewing tapes while making notes and pecking at their own food. I tried sneaking some of my food onto Jay’s plate, but he noticed after the second bite when he realized there was less hot sauce on the eggs he just ate. After that, he threatened to put away the tech if I didn’t keep eating.

By the time I finally manage to convince him that trying to get me to eat any more food is futile, it’s nearly noon, and Jay and Hailey have collectively gone through nearly 8 hours of footage. There’s a few people we keep an eye on, but nothing too interesting. Mostly routine comings and goings, and logs of key card IDs match up with the entrances and exits on CCTV footage.

“This is scut work.” I moaned as I tried finding a position that felt comfortable enough to sleep in. After weeks of being seriously ill and now being steeped alive by a fever, my bones were starting to more than just ache. Hailey must’ve noticed the discomfort a while ago, because by the time she gets my attention, my electric heating pad is warm and waiting for me. I don’t even have to speak- she just lays it over my sore lower ribs, and the audible “pop” that comes from one of my vertebrae nearly makes Jay jump out of his skin.

“Did you just— was that your back? Did you just crack your back? Laying there?” He asks, both morbidly curious and grossed out by the sound.

“Technically, the heating pack cracked it. My muscles have been spasming so hard that my bones aren’t sitting in the right spots.” I sigh, wriggling about trying to get my sore muscles to magically unlock with the right movement.

“Should we be getting you meds for that? Backs aren’t supposed to do that.” He sighs, brow furrowed, clearly hung up on the joint thing.

“You know that my body is weird. It’s either the heat pack or they put their hands up and sigh. If they try giving me any more meds it’s either gonna make me look like I have Munchausen’s or a drug problem.” I reply. “And besides, wouldn’t you rather I be—”

It seems that all I had to do was decide to mention the fact that I haven’t been coughing for my lungs to start back up again. The first few coughs felt dry, superficial. But they quickly got deeper, wetter, and more painful. I quickly reached out blindly across the bed for something to ground me, and found Jay’s larger palm fitting in mine as I leaned myself forward, bracing tightly as I tried desperately to clear my airway. But even with my frantic rallies to clear out the wet fluid rattling in my alveolar passages, I can’t seem to get anything in. Or out.

“Push out slowly, Gracie. C’mon, I know it hurts but you gotta slow down your breathing. Hold your breath for a second, then push it out.” Hailey coaches softly in my ear, petite hands rubbing the space between my shoulder blades.

I follow her, despite every instinct in me pushing for me to do otherwise. I hold my breath for a split second, then breathe out, sputtering and choking as I try to match the pace and steps she’s laid out for me.

“C’mon Grace, one more go. You’ve got this. Breathe. Hold. Release.”

Sure enough, within one more cycle, I’m starting to feel a little calmer. Still inflamed, still breathless, and still tight. Just not as panicked.

“Good job— keep breathing. You’re doing so good, breathe in;” she keeps coaching me, walking me through three, then five cycles of breathing, till finally feeling semi to mostly okay. By this point, a few nurses have stepped in. One’s charting from the foot of the bed, another is switching out my cannula for a mask- a change I suspect is now going to be more permanent. A third nurse is adjusting monitors and calling out vitals.

“Grace, I don’t like the way your cough sounds— do you mind if I listen to it before I page the attending on call?” He asks gently, and I let him listen to what I presume to be wet, rattly lungs for a minute. Satisfied with what he hears, he removes the scope and mentions paging Connor to see me “sooner rather than later”.

Within moments, the room is quiet again.

“I feel like hot garbage.” I remark breathlessly, and that earns a quiet chuckle from both Jay and Hailey.

“I can imagine- that was quite the coughing fit.” He grins back gently. “Did you manage to clear out your lungs a bit?”

“No, I just feel more achy and gross.” I sigh. “And tired. I wanna go home.”

I’m aware that I’m whining at this point, but I can’t bring myself to care. I’m tired. I’m nauseated. I just want to feel better.

It must show on my face, because Jay is grabbing a wet wipe from my hospital go bag and wiping my forehead gently with it, smoothing away the flyaway hairs and readjusting me gently back into the bed. Hailey is doing something similar, shifting pillows and the heating pad till I’m optimally elevated while still in a resting position.

“Feel better now?” Jay asks softly, and even though I do, I just burst out in tears.

“Hey, hey, shhh— I got you. You’re okay.” Jay soothes softly as he crawls onto the bed and tucks me into the crook of his shoulder.

“I’m just— I can’t,” I grouse, flailing pathetically both verbally and physically as my emotions fall into a tailspin.

“Shhh— it’s okay, it’s been a long few days. I know you’re tired, I know you don’t feel good. I’m right here, Hailey’s right here. We’ve got you, kiddo. You’re okay,”

Jay just holds me and lets me cry it out for a few more minutes before I’m finally able to regain my composure.

“Sorry,” I sniffle, dragging my hand down my face, then scrubbing at it aggressively as if any movement will dampen the memory of what just occurred. I’m not a crier, by any means, and I hate crying even more. It makes me feel out of control.

And that is the last thing I want right now.

“Hey, you’re entitled to cry. You’re having a bad few days. It’s a rough patch. You don’t feel good.” Hailey states the obvious. “It is okay for you to cry. It’s okay for your body to process what’s happening however it needs to. I know you don’t like being vulnerable, but you are doing so good letting us help right now, and the best thing that you can do is keep letting us help. It may not make things magically fast forward through time and skip to when you’re home and feeling better, but it will make it easier to get through.” She reassures me.

“You don’t have to be brave for us,” Jay reminds me, tucking my hair back behind my ear. “Just rest. Just work on getting better. We can handle the rest.”

I’m too tired to find it in me to fight it. Jay simply grabs his computer and settles down with me on his left shoulder, beginning to work from his new position as my pillow.

“Rest a bit,” Hailey reassures me, tucking me in with the sheets just to remind me she’s here too. “There’s plenty of time for other things.”

I simply sigh and bury myself close into Jay, letting myself doze for as long as I can.

Chapter Text

I wake up to a wicked migraine and nausea. And pain.

Everything hurts, my chest and back in particular are on fire. The wear of coughing on them is starting to pick up- the jagged sharpness that was once scraping my insides is now carving me up readily and viciously.

“Shh,” Hailey hushes me gently as I wince and grimace, my eyes still not open, my body faking sleep in the name of exhaustion.

I simply whimper and whine, the signature puppy dog yelping giving away my discomfort.

Cool hands, petite but no less strong touch their knuckles to my forehead. Only to quickly be replaced by larger ones far too rough to be Will’s dainty doctor hands.

“Migraine,” I barely mouth the word, my breath dying halfway through it, my lungs choking on nothing but cool oxygen and its own by-products. Coughing begins to clear it, but it also triggers my gag reflex, which seems to have softened since the surgery. I finally pry my lead-heavy eyelids open and reach blindly about for an emesis bag. Hailey moves faster than me, thrusting one into my hands and yanking me fully hunched over so I don’t choke or aspirate. My hands shake from the cold and strain and lingering tingling in my nerves from the migraine disrupting whatever nerve cells are supposed to be functioning. The gagging, nowhere near forceful enough to clear out whatever it is that’s triggering this, leaves a watery dribble and sad plopping sounds to accompany it.

There’s not much in my stomach to start- yogurt, some egg, a bit of fruit. All of it comes up, plus bile and any fluids my body was lucky enough to have. And a large amount of phlegm.

When the gagging finally shifts to dry heaves and it’s clear there’s nothing else to bring up, the emesis bag goes away. I get passed a cup of water and a metal pan to rinse and spit. When I do, I notice blood.

Ugh.

“Okay now?” Jay asks softly. The lights are dimmed, curtains pulled. Hailey’s talking to a nurse at the door, handing off the pan to her.

My head hurts. Which might be an understatement.

“No,” I wheeze out. “My head.”

My head feels bad, really, really bad. Everything hurts, and though I don’t quite feel like death yet, I hurt something awful and I can’t think straight.

“Okay. Hailey’s on it- Just breathe, okay? Your oxygen is low- it could be that. So breathe for now- we’ll see if it gets better.”

“Jay,” I whine, really whine. I feel shaky and not okay in the slightest, and he’s asking me to breathe?

“I know, help’s coming. I just need you to hang in there a second, okay? Hailey’s working on it. You know she’ll make sure they get what you need.” He keeps up his ministrations, trying to soothe me without upping my panic levels.

But the explosive pain in my head won’t stop booming it’s resonating cascade of cacophony down, and I forget my own surgical history as I bear down on my head with my hands splayed, fingers digging deep into the skull in an attempt to excise any pain present permanently. My temple still throbs, and I push even harder with the heels of my palms.

“Hey, hey, no, Grace- You’re gonna hurt yourself.” Jay speaks calmly, moving my increasingly combative limbs away from my face, trying to shield my head with his own ginormous ones. But I press his hands into my head and it takes him getting behind me and restraining my arms while holding me to his chest to stop me from applying pressure.
“No— No!” I protest, flailing my body with what little strength I still have, knowing that my body is not going to cooperate unless the pain stops. And pressing on my head makes the pain lessen, so why won’t Jay just leave me be?

“Shh…” he tries his best to settle me, as he adjusts his grip to a one arm hold with the other trying to brace my head. I keep trying to flail in an attempt to get more pressure on my skull, but it doesn’t work. For how strong he is, Jay sure knows how to temper and use his strength.

“Thank god… trying to squeeze her head… fighting … she won’t settle.” I make out fragments of this new started conversation between trying to wrangle myself out of Jay’s army ranger-trained grip and into a comfortable position. Anything that doesn’t make my head feel like it’s trying to explode on itself.

And then, someone must push something into my IV line to make me settle, because the world starts to soften around the edges. It’s hazy- floaty even. Like the feeling you get before you pass out.

I think it occurred to me that I was about to get knocked out. But I don’t know for sure, because just as quickly as the world began shifting, the silence engulfs me whole.

When I finally begin coming to, I’m in a different room. One with a lot more sounds and extremely bright lights. Beeps and trills and whirs of different machines fill up the space that seems far too small for me. It takes a second and an unconscious attempt at swallowing to realize I have something down my throat. I immediately reach forward, but find my arms yanking. My eyes fly open as I try to fight whatever’s pulling on me, and my coughs push past the stuff in my throat but don’t move it. The blinding white of the brightness has my vision blurred out, so I keep trying to wake myself up and get myself out of whatever this contraption that holds me is when I finally manage to get my vision cleared enough to make out nurses rushing around me, adjusting monitors, trying to calm me down. One’s on the phone with someone, I’m assuming a doctor, another is rushing in with-

“Hey, it’s okay, it’s okay.” Will rushes in, shoving a nurse out of the way and making sure that I was able to focus on him. “You’re at Med- you’re in the ICU.You have pneumonia, and it’s making recovery from surgery harder. The team intubated you- that’s what the tube is. Just leave it be for now, let Connor come get a look and we’ll extubate. Try not to tug or cough in the meantime. I know it’s hard, I’m sorry.”

“Look who’s up.” Connect can’t walk in a moment too soon. “Hey Grace.”

“Tube out, please.” I sign rapidly, desperate to be able to be back in a body that at least partially belongs to me, and not to a medical establishment.

“Give him a second— She’s asking for the tube to come out,” Will chides me, then translates my frantic gesturing for Connor’s benefit.

“She’s breathing over the vent, but I don’t like her sats still.” He sighs.

“That could be from the stinking pneumonia,” I think to myself.

“That’s probably from the pneumonia, and you know Sam’s not gonna like us sedating her any longer,” Will reasons, already gloving up.

“Fine. But she goes on BiPap till her sats come back up.” Connor grabs a pair of gloves and starts gowning up so he can fully step into the room. Once he’s gowned, gloved, and masked, he starts the extubation process, asking me to breathe and do my best to keep from coughing or triggering a gag reflex while he winds the tube out of my throat.

It takes a hot second, and then I finally let myself sputter and breathe, a full breath of air filling my lungs in a way that seems foreign. It’s been far too long since I’ve been able to breathe calmly and deeply like this.

I lean back into the bed, spent, but still feeling better than when I last remember being awake. I let my eyes fall closed as I focus on breathing quietly for a second, and Will’s hand cups my cheek gently, stroking the side of my face.

“You gonna fall asleep on me?” He asks in a whisper. “Jay and Hailey have been waiting to see you.”

“Wanna see them.” I mumble with as much energy as I can muster without breaking myself out of whatever calming trance extubation has put me in. “Just tired. Resting my eyes.”

“Yeah, I have a feeling those sedatives are still in your system. Can you at least answer a few questions for Connor so that he can keep Sam calm and not ready to blow an aneurysm of his own.”

“Sam would perform his own surgery just to show off his spite for others’ incompetence,” I mumble sleepily, but don’t protest when Will and Connor chuckle to themselves while giving orders to nurses and adjusting my bed’s incline and med dosage now that l’m awake. Connor walks me through the usual neuro checks- awareness and clarity of person, place, and time; checking my reflexes and a few more advanced tests that I know are only being done because I have been unconscious for at least a few hours, I assume, and that too only days after emergency surgery. I’m mad I have to open my eyes for a good chunk of it to show my alertness, but I know the faster I prove I’m cognitively and neurologically intact, the faster I get out of here.

When he’s finally satisfied, Connor gives me a thumbs up and a gentle shoulder squeeze before heading out. I respond by simply shutting my eyes. I’m far too tired to think about anything else.

Except for the nausea that’s still somehow bubbling up inside me.

“Why am I still feeling sick and nauseated?” I ask, my voice dying out with dryness by the end of it.

“Here- open your eyes and take a sip.” Will nudges my hand with a cup after a moment, and helps sit me up and take the BiPAP mask off my face. “Turns out we needed to give you antibiotics that fall closer to the penicillin range than we usually do to help clear out the infection. That’s what’s been triggering the nausea. We took you off Zofran when we had you intubated, so we can try something stronger this time to help get rid of that.”

“And what about other allergic responses? Hives? Edema?” I ask once I’ve taken enough sips to feel my voice resonating clearly.

“Pre-meded you with extra steroids and antihistamines.”

“And you said I couldn’t have any more steroids.” I teased gently, fitting the mask back on my face. “Looks like I was right.”

“Hey, that was Connor who said that, not me. And we did have to work with Sam to figure out the right doses and scrips.” Will comments as he helps make sure I have a firm seal.

“Look who’s up.” Jay smiles as he and Hailey come in. Jay kisses my forehead and Hailey plops herself beside me and begins fixing my hair for me, gently pulling it out of my face and tucking it back behind my ears.

“How are you feeling now?” She asks gently. “Better after that long nap?”

“Better.” I grin, my breath fogging up the mask. “Can I go home now?”

“You just woke up. Don’t think we’re letting you off the hook that easy.” Will grins and pats Jay’s shoulder as he makes his way to the door. “I gotta check in on the Pit. Make sure she rests.” He points Jay out specifically with his verbal reminder before heading out.

“Jay, please.” I almost beg, the whine more than just apparent. He sighs.

“Hey, you just woke up. You gave us a hell of a scare.” He reminds me.

“I’m still here.” I remind him back.

“I know. But you gotta let the doctors and us do the heavy lifting for a bit— and that includes giving in to Will’s Doctor mode for a while.”

“I don’t feel good and I want to go home.” I try bargaining with him.

“And you will, as soon as the doctors give the all clear.” Hailey reassures me. “I’m gonna grab some coffee. Do you want any jello or popsicles?” She asks.

“Ice chips don’t sound so bad,” I mumble, and Jay just sort of grimaces as Hailey kisses my forehead and promises to be back soon.

“You gotta want something after being out that long.” Jay chides, smoothing my hair down my head gently.

“How long was I out?” I ask softly.

“Just a day. They sedated you to give your body a break— put you on a ventilator to up your oxygen levels while they figured out the right meds. Once they managed to do that and give you the right stuff, you started turning things around pretty quick. It’s just about 6 in the evening now.”

“And the case?” I add after a moment.

“Caught the guy. Turned out to be a nut job mad about not being accepted to the forensics program.” He grinned.

“You’re kidding.” I must look as incredulous as I feel, because Jay launches into the details of how Kim and Adam ran into this repair dude who told them that the HVAC system had been serviced recently and managed to find out that the university’s usual servicing company had hired a third party to contract workers for working on a specific part of the system. Guy didn’t even need to step onto campus to leak the vector. Just needed to get to where the part was serviced.

“Anyways, once we figured out where the vector was, the CDC mobile unit suited up, retrieved it, identified it, and treated everyone. Wasn’t even bioterror— guy used a modified chemical compound that made it look like someone had leaked something like anthrax or SARS.” He rolls his eyes, satisfied with the team’s success

“Don’t ever go into the medical field- neither of those things are remotely related, except for the infection being caused by inhalation and also causing similar levels of mass panic in an uneducated and educated public alike.” I groaned good naturedly, then coughed a bit to clear my throat. “At least you got the bad guys while I was out. Something good came out of me being stuck here.”

“Actually, Hailey and I didn’t do anything but review that footage we brought in.” He revealed. “You got sicker, and plus, air ducts are not our jam. But CFD has had experience with them in arson investigations, so Voight and Trudy tapped in Severide and the crew at 51 to help. They’re the ones that located the part in the building.”

“But it was citywide emergency,” I reminded him. “How could you step away from that?”

“We had another emergency right here. Chicago has plenty of people to help take care of it. My job yesterday and today, and all the days before and after, is to help take care of you. So is Hailey’s. So is Will’s.”

“I took you and Hailey away from your work.” I sighed, then coughed a little from my lungs finally loosening up a bit.

“You didn’t take me or Hailey away from anything.”Jay reminds me, leaning me forward and rubbing my back to help break up the mucus. “You’re family. We wanted, and needed, to stay right here.”

A knock at the door paused the conversation. A nurse poked her head in the doorway.

“I have visitors for you, if that’s okay.” They smiled kindly. “Mind if I let them in?”

“CPD done with paperwork already?” I looked at Jay confused, but he looked just as puzzled as I was.

“No— Kim said she’d stop by with Makayla when you were out of the ICU. And everyone else is supposedly handling paperwork still.” He checked his phone.

“I think you’ll want to see Chicago’s finest. They brought something with them to cheer you up.” The nurse continued. “Dr. Halstead already approved it.”

“Then I guess it’s okay,” I said, still uncertain, but immediately changed my mind when I saw Tuesday bound into the room and jump up onto the bed.”

“Tuesday- no, Tuesday— down. She’s still recovering!” Sylvie chided gently as she, Stella, Kelly, and Ritter all trailed in after the happy Dalmatian.

“Oh my god!” I grinned, a real, actual grin, letting myself get licked and loved to death by the lovable firehouse companion. “Hi Tuesday, Hi. Oh, you’re such a good girl— yes, yes you are.”

“How the hell did you manage to pull this?” Jay smiled as he hugged Sylvie.

“Chief filled us in after he heard about the rough time you guys have had from Voight. Figured we’d bring in some positive reinforcement since we all know how you Halsteads take to being out of commission. Grace having a separate room helped.” Sylvie hugged him back, then let him make his rounds greeting everyone. She came up to me and squeezed my shoulder gently.

“How’re you really feeling? We were told you’d been intubated and sedated. We were fully ready to come in tomorrow once you were fully extubated, but then Will texted us that you were up and on BiPap.We were already at Molly’s so we figured we’d come.”

“Apparently. I just came out of it a little bit ago. Did you—” My voice was swallowed up by a wheeze, and I reached over for my water as Sylvie gently handed it to me. I had to take a breather to cough up more gunk, get my mask off and take a sip of water, then reseal the damned plastic contraption to my face before continuing.

“How in the world did you figure out how to get Tuesday in here? And can I convince you to bring her to the Children’s ward?” I asked with a grin as I scratched behind Tuesday’s ears generously and signaled for her to join me in the bed. She joined immediately, and to her credit, was mindful of my mask and all of my medical equipment.

“It helps when you have Chicago’s finest on your side.” She winked back. “Plus, we had help.”

“And we’ve got popsicles, soup, casseroles and takeout stashed in the ED lounge with your name on it. Straight from Cindy and Donna. We know how bad hospital food can get. Grace might not be able to have it right away, but we made sure to pack extras to freeze so that she can have some when the doctors are ready to let her have some real food.” Stella grinned back. “Will can take it home for you or bring it up. Plus, we have strict orders to tell you to rest up and be back soon for trivia night at Molly’s and at the station. Hermann’s been getting cocky without someone to take him down a notch or two.”

“C’mon, isn’t Lee Henry filling in for me?” I chuckled back, coughs swallowing up my last laugh, but already feeling less strained and sounding less sharp.

“Girl, no one’s planning on taking your place in that department.” Ritter chuckled. “You better brush up on those facts.”

“You know what that means, Jay.” I grinned as he groaned good naturedly.

“I cannot sit through another documentary or nature show.” He facepalmed as he thought through the consequences of me prepping for a comeback.

“Kelly can get Hermann to trade correct answers for free drinks.” I teased.

“Hey, I’m good but even I’m not that good. You’re on your own, kid.” Kelly ribbed back.

“I didn’t know I was coming back to a party or I would’ve brought more coffee.” Hailey grinned as she joined us, handing a cup to Jay. “And a dog biscuit. Though I don’t think they have those at the cafeteria.”

“That’s okay, Tuesday, I’ll share my ice with you.” I smiled as I took the cup Hailey handed me and immediately poured some of the chips out onto my hand, offering them to Tuesday. She immediately began scarfing them down, thrilled at the unexpected treat.

“You better eat some of those too. Your throat sounds like it needs it.” Jay reminded me, and I used a single finger from the cup holding hand to break the seal of my mask, drag to my neck, and then tossed a few ice chips straight back from the cup, psych ward style. Jay just rolled his eyes at my antics as I put the cup down to re-secure the mask with Sylvie’s help.

“We just wanted to stop by and bring in the happy cavalry. Heard from your Sergeant that you’ve been having a rough go of it and we figured a few licks from this one might help.” Ritter smiled at Hailey by way of explanation.

“And they do— yes they absolutely do.” I smiled and petted Tuesday down as her tail thumped happily.

“Five minute warning.” The nurse from earlier snuck her head in. “You gotta head out soon.”

“Can they sneak her to say hi to the kids on the Ped’s floor? Please?” I asked gently. “Jessica and Laura are working tonight and would be happy to sneak her to the right kiddos.”

“Go for it— but you have to hurry— I’ll let you into the stairwell.” They smiled and held open the door.

“Guess that’s our cue- Feel better Grace!” Kelly grinned and patted my leg beneath the blanket as Ritter leashed Tuesday up and Stella and Sylvie hugged me quickly before rushing out the door.

Within moments, the room was much emptier and quieter. But something was different.

“Better now?” Hailey asked, a knowing look in her eye.

For the first time since this whole ordeal started, and maybe even since before it, I grinned back.

“Yeah. Yeah, I think I am.”

Chapter Text

What they don’t tell you about getting sick is that it’s always a matter of time before the other shoe drops.

I fell asleep happy. Content. Relatively okay.

I woke up in hell.

The whimpers are out my mouth before I can even stop them. Hands jamming themselves against my eye sockets like they were meant to house every bone that presses in to the crevices, then releasing and weakening as I feel a wave of near syncope wash over me.

Only to be repeated again.

“No… no…” I whisper to myself. This cannot be happening. Not this soon.

“Shhh,” I hear the bed railing drop and feel the mattress dip as someone crawls in. Jay— too heavy to be Hailey, too careful to be Will.

“Breathe, Gracie, you gotta breathe so you can tell me what’s wrong. I can’t fix it if I don’t know how.” He reminds me softly, his warm hand feeling cool as he rubs my feverish back, triggering the shakes.

“Cold. Hurts.” I cry broken, my throat seizing up as I try to push out the words from within me. I cough and sputter out till enough space opens up for breaths. My teeth start chattering without reprieve, and I can’t help but think that this is what it feels like when the other shoe drops. “Gonna pass out.” I finally manage.

“Kiddo, you’re laying down, you can’t pass out. Just try to relax,” Jay tells me in an attempt to soothe, but then the alarms on the monitors blare, and I can feel his posture grow rigid enough to know that if he hasn’t changed his mind about that statement yet, that he’s about to.

“Okay, shh, we’ve got some nurses coming in to help you right now. Just try to relax, let them do what they have to. You’re okay, I gotcha.” He keeps reassuring me as the lights flip on bright, people begin crowding me and I feel my limbs being pulled in all directions. My eyes are still sealed shut, and I instinctively grab Jay’s arm in the darkness with a death grip.

“Wha— okay, hey, it’s okay. They need an arm to grab your vitals. Wanna give them the non-IV one?” Jay’s already handing off my good arm to whichever nurse is standing at the ready.

“Don’t leave.” I whisper at the tail end of a cough, trying to hold it together while my body falls apart.

“Hey, I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.” He chuckles, helping reposition me by rolling me sideways to face what I assume is a nurse with a BP cuff, based on the sensation of cold vinyl wrapping round my arm and squeezing the living daylights out of me. I still don’t let go of his arm with the IV hand.

My arms go numb before the monitor finally beeps. I practically will my muscles to stay engaged beyond feeling.

“87/62,” I just barely hear a voice all out as my bed gets shuffled around, buttons get hit, monitors keep beeping, and my legs get propped up on blankets, I think. Or one of those foam triangle things they use for broken limbs.

“Grace, how are you feeling?” Connor’s voice is close, his hand on my semi numb one, squeezing hard.

“Ow.” I mumble, tired and drained.

“Grace, I need you to try using your words. Or sign, whatever works. Maggie is in here to interpret for me if needed.”

“Sick. Nauseous. Floaty.” I finally manage after a few steadying breaths and attempts at clearing my throat. “Don’t want to pass out.”

“Glad we’re on the same page.” Connor’s words are lighter, but his voice isn’t. “I’m gonna push some of your usual cardiac meds and pressors with an additional bag of fluids. We’re gonna run a second line.”

“No,” my face contorts beyond my will, and I can feel my body physically trying to cry, but too drained to produce any tears.

“Gracie, shh,” Jay keeps trying to soothe me from what must now be a very uncomfortable position, being tethered down by a bag of skin and bones in a hospital bed that’s not your own, surrounded by medical professionals that are shooting orders and trying to maneuver the bag of skin and bones that won’t let go of you.

“I know it’s painful, I know, but it’s either that or we give you an IO or try to double the speed we’re infusing at. Neither of those options will go down well: your veins are fragile and the last thing we want is to blow something so bad we have to take you to surgery for it. And an IO is more painful than it’s worth. I’m having radiology bring up the big guns: ultrasound probes and the Vein lamp. I will make them stop if we can’t find a good one within three sticks, you have my word.” Connor promises what he can.

It’s on me now.

“Okay,” I murmur softly, eyes still pressed closed, stars starting to spin in my vision even without seeing light.

“I also want to move you back down to the ED for a bit. Just so that I can keep a closer eye on you and we have Baghdad available if needed. I don’t think we’ll get there, but I don’t want you going full syncope or crashing on me without any of the tools for us to do damage control at the last second. Jay’s gonna have to get out of the bed for a little bit so we can transport you. He can still hold your hand— I just need you to bear with us while we get you downstairs and set up, okay?” He explains calmly, as if he isn’t glazing over the fact that he’s contingency prepping for a possible emergency surgery situation.

I cling tighter to Jay as I process this. I do not want another surgery this week. I don’t want another moment when I’m put out and under anesthesia without me knowing. The unknowns are just far too scary.

“Hey,” Jay brushes my hair back, tucking it behind my ear. Strokes the line of my nose with his finger like he used to when I was little and couldn’t fall asleep. “I am right here. I’m not going anywhere. You and I both know that Connor knows what he’s talking about. He’s gonna make sure you're okay, so we’re gonna follow his instructions. I’ll hold your hand the entire way down until we get set up in the room, okay? And I’ll keep holding it after if you need me to. I’m not leaving you, kiddo.”

It’s a promise. One made in the middle of a desert a lifetime ago, and being renewed in a hospital bed.

I nod, curt yet clear, and immediately the world turns chaotic again. Noises blur the soundscape as I try my hardest to hone in on the important bits. Orders barked left and right for chest X rays and cardiac meds, ultrasound tech requests and IV specifications. Another round of labs. A 12 lead to be placed once I’m set up downstairs.

Jay must extricate himself from the bed and find a comfortable position, because I can feel his arm lift and move my own, him switching hands a few times before he finally finds an appropriate position to stand in. Within seconds, we’re moving, and overhead lights shifting positions in addition to the unpredictable motion of the bed cause me to curl into myself tightly, failing to muffle or limit my coughs as I try to ground myself enough to keep my vertigo at bay.

Jay must notice this, because he maneuvers his hand out of mine and quickly covers my eyes with his hand. I instantly relax a bit more, and am able to just focus on sinking into the give of the mattress and covering my ears as best I can while breathing.

When I finally stop moving and get parked in one of the ER bays, Hailey is waiting to switch hands with Jay so that they can get the cardiac leads on. He mentions something to the nurses about getting something for my fever as he steps out, and though Hailey is usually a pretty good emotional support human, for some reason, she’s not fitting the bill right now. The tears at my inability to control anything, especially my emotions, come rolling down full force.

“Why am I like this?” I start scream-sobbing out of near-nowhere, sending the entire room into a tailspin. Hailey starts trying to calm me down, clearly worried by the blaring monitors. Nurses come rushing in, trying to urge me to breathe, pushing meds. Amidst my wheeze-sobbing, I make out a few white coats in the chaos, and one markedly not white coat wearing doctor dressed in sweats.

“What happened?” Will asks Hailey as he lowers the rails on both sides and tilts my bed backwards, putting my head lower than my legs.

“I think it’s the change in environment— Jay handed her off to me and they started putting on the cardiac leads and all hell just broke loose. I can’t get her to stop crying, she’s unable to respond, and she’s agitated. Her body’s not keeping up either.”

“It’s the meds.” Sam’s dry tone glazes over the rush in the room, stilling it as he approaches me. Despite his current lax appearance, Sam isn’t exactly known for his bedside manner with patients, and the room grows tenser with each step. I, however, am still trying to break myself out of whatever it is that this storm of emotions is.

“Grace, I need you to focus on me. I’ve got some questions.” Sam says firmly, pulling up a rolling stool and sitting in it. Somehow, the approach works, and I manage to focus in on him despite continuing to sob. I nod to show that I’m listening, my blubbering coughs still straining the sanctity of the moment.

“You’ve been on ketamine before— does what’s happening to your emotions and anxiety feel like the first time you took ketamine?”

“No— it was scary but it was better than this!” I almost panic as I try to get the words out fast and clear enough for Sam to fix it. “I feel like I’m dying and going crazy all at once. And I can’t stop crying or wanting to hurt myself to make the pain go away.”

I don’t know how else to put it. My skin feels wrong, my bones are prickling, and every sad thought makes me want to hurt myself until I don’t hurt anymore. The pain makes me sick to my stomach, and yet I dig the heels of my palms back into my eye sockets in a pathetic attempt to ground myself.

“I think this is a trauma response as well as a reaction to the medications we’ve been giving her. Do we know what they prescribed her after the blast she was caught in as a child?” Sam asks Will, and he grabs his phone to scroll through what I can only assume are my medical files.

“Yup here we go— morphine and diazepam— it’s all they had on base after getting through the other injured personnel. They switched her meds a few times when she got moved to the military hospital and then she was finally weaned off.” Will must hand him his phone to scroll through, because Sam goes quiet, then makes a few noncommittal sounds, and finally begins barking orders.

“Stop the morphine and diazepam - cut her off entirely. Switch her to ketamine- wait a full 24 hours before administering it if she can tolerate it so she doesn’t panic again. She was on a lower than normal dose to begin with, even with the combo of the two— we should be able to start the ketamine with a slow 100mg infusion . No more opiates— they’re dysregulating her. Tylenol and steroids only.”

“Isn’t that a little high for what we had her on? She only had 2mg of IV morphine and 1mg of Diazepam every 4 hours.” One of the nurses has the audacity to question Sam. I’m not with it enough to say for sure, but in the moment, I can swear everyone else just freezes.

“The opiates weren’t low because she had a low tolerance for drugs, they’re low because the patient has a history of PTSD related anxiety and depression and has had Ketamine as an add on antidepressant. We don’t screw around with drug interactions with someone like her, so we kept the dose low. And she can’t tolerate it, so now we’re switching to Ketamine and anything less than 85mgs won’t settle her fast enough or keep her settled for long. What was her last breakthrough panic attack and syncope episode record on a treatment day, Dr. Halstead?”

“Ninety minutes from admin to syncope,” Will responds curtly, clearly prepared for the question. I’m glad I don’t remember enough of it clearly, but I do know that Jay and Will wouldn’t let me out of their sight for the next three weeks. They were nervous I’d pass out face down somewhere and suffocate myself.

“Exactly. Stick with the 100mg slow infusion, monitor and adjust titration as needed, page me if we need to renegotiate the dose. In the meantime, 1,500 mg Acetaminophen every six hours, dropping down to 1,000 after 24 hours if she can tolerate it. We can up the ketamine a bit more if we need her to sleep through the worst of it: she won’t be recovering if she can’t actually rest.”

Softening footsteps is the only indication that he’s out the door. Managing to get enough of a grasp on myself to pry my palms away from my skull, I immediately search the room for Will and Hailey and Jay.

Will’s typing something up, Hailey approaches me when she sees me finally starting to hold it together, cautiously reaching her hand out to offer a safe haven.

“I want Jay.” I tell her clearly, too anxious to feel guilty about making her feel insufficient in the moment.

“He’s right outside talking to Connor and Sam: I can grab him if you need me to, or Will can.”

“Will,” is all I can get out, and I'm fortunate that he knows exactly what to do without me explicitly saying it. He walks over to the sliding door, sticks his head out, yells for Jay, and Jay is at my side. I’m sure it’s a little more than just those steps, but it’s all I can keep track of while the world keeps turning inside out and my body makes me feel like I’m spinning out of control.

“Jay, take me home. I want to go home and sleep and not feel like I’m gonna effing drop dead of my heart hammering and my bones turning into barbed wire. I don’t want to puke anymore, I don’t want to feel like this. I just want to sleep and be done with this shit.” I gnash out, feeling my mouth foam and pool with saliva as I try to articulate what I’m feeling without looking or acting like a lunatic. I’ve been on Psych holds before, and I don’t intend on landing myself on a self contained ward when I already feel like setting myself on fire.

“Whoa- okay, breathe, I’m right here. I need you to breathe so that I know you're calm enough to hear what I’m saying.” Jay coaxes gently, dragging a chair over to the edge of the bed and sitting down in it, setting his hands on my shoulders so that my focus is zeroed in on him.

“You’re gonna be okay. I know the meds are making you feel like crap. I know it’s kicking up your anxiety and PTSD into high gear and I know you feel completely out of control. I need you to hear me, Gracie: it’s okay. You’re not gonna hurt me if you lose it. You’re not gonna hurt Hailey. You’re not gonna hurt Will, or Connor, or Doctor McShit Attitude.”

“His name is Sam.” I sniffle, swallowing tightly despite my urge to cough as the nausea comes on full force.

“Hey, you’re already listening to me. That’s a good thing, even though I’ll never get why you like him so much. But here’s what I need you to hear: you can be mad. You can let it out. You aren’t gonna end up alone on the Psych ward because you’re having a tough few days and the meds you got don’t like you. We aren’t letting you out of our sight: I made a promise. I’m gonna keep it.” He reminds me.

“I don’t want it to hurt more if I let it out. It just hurts more.” My lower lip wobbles, unable to be kept still, and the tears pour down what I’m sure is now a very puffy, red, tear-stained steroid face.

“You trust me?” He asks gently, reaching forward to gently nudge me back against the head of the bed. The fact that I let him is all the answer he needs.

He works quickly, getting Will to grab a heated blanket from the nurses station, having Hailey run out to get me a smoothie, and hitting the call button to have the nurse ask Connor if I can have my usual muscle relaxers and any outside foods other than smoothies. Will’s back in the room soon, and Jay simply wraps me up tight enough to feel compressed without hindering my breathing. Then he settles himself right next to me and tucks me under his arm, stabilizing my neck with pillows and keeping my IV arm out of harm’s way.

“You can cry, you know. You’re having a shit week. Your body’s being a jerk. Will is right here to make sure that it doesn’t hurt so bad anymore. But Gracie, you can’t keep holding it all in. Birdie, it’s hurting you. And we can’t fix it.”

Birdie. That does it— Mouse called me that first, when I was first learning English, when I was first learning to communicate with them. The crew kept flipping back and forth between these different bird nicknames— parrot, hawk, and sparrow—before landing on songbird. And then Mouse shortened it to Birdie.

I shake, and tremble, and sob: soundlessly, still afraid that letting it out— really letting it out— will only make it worse and make me feel like crap. But then the gasps hit and I can’t keep holding back anymore and I start spilling my guts.

“I don’t want to keep waiting to just die — I want to get better or be done.” I scream into the void of blurred colors and beeping machines. Jay simply squeezes me tighter and waits for me to continue, rubbing my back as encouragement.

“I don’t want to be useless, I don’t want to keep laying in bed all day not able to do anything, I don’t want to sleep if all I’m getting out of it is coming back to this. I want to be better or I want to be done. I want off oxygen and supportive measures because all they’re doing is keeping me the fuck here when nothing in my body wants me fucking alive and breathing.”

“Okay. Okay. Seems like we’ve been feeling really crappy and not sharing, huh?” He asks softly, still rubbing my back with one arm, gently smoothing the tears out of my face with the other.”

“Well, fuck you, Jay, you haven’t exactly been helpful with that these last few weeks either!” I shriek, trying to hit him, but he simply wraps me up in a bear hug and keeps holding me tight enough to keep from hurting him or myself.

“I know.” He replies simply, “I was being shitty. But I was scared, and you and I both know we don’t exactly do good when we’re scared. We end up freaking out and arguing and saying stuff we don’t mean.”

“I want this to stop.” I cry, letting my muscles sag and allowing myself to be held, really held while awake and fully able to exercise my independence, for the first time in a long time.

“I do, too.” Jay agrees. “But if that’s gonna happen, your body’s gonna need rest, and we’re gonna have to play by its rules for a little bit. I know it’s hard, I do. And it’s harder for you because you can’t take the medicines that will really help you without making yourself feel crappier. So we’re gonna be careful about making sure to listen to the doctors. We’re gonna do what we can to keep you comfortable, and we’re gonna try as hard as we can to make this easy for you, because we can and we want to and we love you. You’re safe, Gracie, we’re gonna keep you safe. Even when it doesn’t feel like it.”

“Here, honey, take a sip,” Will hands Jay a cup of water and helps me settle myself upright while Jay helps me hold the cup to my lips. I only take a few sips before pushing it away, eyes watering at the sensation of nausea and the very thought of going through the process of emptying everything inside me again.

“Nausea?” Will asks cautiously, watching my face twist and me hold up a fist to my mouth, as if the motion will be enough to stop me from puking again.

I simply nod my response, too afraid that trying to talk will make it worse.

“Isn’t there anything else you can give her med wise? This antibiotic is making her miserable,” Jay sighs, directing his question towards
Will while continuing to rub my back and hold me close. “We both know she’s not a complainer, and she hasn’t been able to stop crying and asking for this to stop. Plus, she’s absolutely beat from the puking spells she’s had. Those coughing spells can’t be helping that either.”

“The cultures that we took came back positive for Acinetobacter Pneumonia. There’s literally no other medication that’s recommended other than the Sulbactam Durlobactam combo we have her on, because this is the only medication that keeps the bacteria from spreading while killing the existing bacteria.” He sighs. “The other stuff that we tried before this didn’t put a dent in it— you saw how fast her fever was spiking. She would’ve been septic in hours if we hadn’t switched her over.”

“Anything we can give her for the nausea?” Jay continues, hushing my whimpers when he accidentally rubs a sore spot a bit too harsh.

“She’s already on Compazine. I don’t want to switch her out of this med because it’s one of the stronger ones we dole out in general, plus it’s what helps her migraine nausea spells. If that migraine comes back, which knowing her it probably will until the infection clears out enough for her fever to be gone, I don’t want her to have the rug pulled out from under her because I tried something new.”

“And this- oh, Birdie, I’m sorry.” Jay softens his tone and volume when I noticeably startle and shake against him, my bones physically rattling from the stiffness that they’ve acquired via my fever. “This isn’t having the rug pulled out from under her? Jesus Christ, Will: her bones pop every time she tries to move. She’s barely stringing words together and can’t stop apologizing or putting in AMA discharge requests when she finds it in herself to put together more than a few sentences.”

“Hey, I hate this too. It’s hell watching her go through this, I agree. But we can’t just keep flipping meds around— every time we make a change at this point, we have to wait for her system to clear out as much of the previous medication as possible to avoid interactions.” Will retorts firmly, not even bothering to sass or tease Jay for using hospital accurate acronyms for a change.

I can feel Jay sigh, his hand shifting from my back to brace my forehead, then feel my cheek.

“‘S not gonna change that fast.” I mumble sleepily, my body starting to give into the calm chemicals that have now begun surging through my system.

“Shh, it’s okay, I got you.” He whispers back to me. “She’s warmer than she was 20 minutes ago.”

“And twenty minutes ago she was in transit being transferred downstairs so that Connor and I could keep a closer eye on her while keeping her near Baghdad in case we needed to move to surgery. Twenty minutes ago she hadn’t even started freaking out from how off-kilter her meds made her feel. I know we’ve been downplaying this for her sanity’s sake, but she’s really sick, Jay.” Will reminds Jay, and possibly me, of the reality we’re looking at here. “If she wasn’t already such a complex case that’s so closely connected to us, they’d be talking about keeping her in the ICU for another week before even considering shifting her anywhere else. If she was any other patient, we would be talking about long term care facilities, but she’s not. She’s ours. And we take care of our own in the ways they need it.”

“It’s just hard seeing her like this.” Jay strokes the bridge of my nose again, clearly aware I’m not asleep yet, but trying every trick he knows to get me to conk out. “She’s such a tough kid, and then—”

“And then life knocks her down and we get reminded how fragile her health really is.” Will finishes for him. “Don’t I know it. One of the Peds nurses from their ICU ward came down last week to ask what year of residency she was in. I had to tell her that she wasn’t even in med school. Or done with college. She’s just… Grace. Learns everything like a sponge just to make things easier on others. Shares tips with families on how to cope with medical stuff like she gets paid to do it. Happy to settle into a volunteer position because people need her in those spaces. Willing to bend over backwards to help.”

“She sounds just like her brothers.” Hailey must walk in and plop down in the chair on the other side of me. “She out yet?”

“She’s getting there. Tired and nauseous. But I think the deep pressure and warmth is helping her settle.” Jay pauses stroking the bridge of my nose to let Hailey’s petite hands feel my forehead without crowding me.”

“‘M okayish.” I supply sleepily, my eyes still shut in an attempt to ground myself.

“It’s okay, sweetheart, you just rest. Just breathe, okay? We’ve got you.” Hailey reassures me, tucking the blanket in closer around me, settling the gathers under my chin.

“Wanna try a warm washcloth on her forehead? Might relax her muscles and help fight that fever.” Will suggests, and suddenly, a warm damp rectangle is pressed firm to my forehead.

A few more muscles relax, allowing my joints to audibly pop back into their rightful place. Jay stiffens up against me, muttering an “ouch,” to himself as he readjusts me gently.

“I hurt you?” I slur out, clearly exhausted but still somewhat with it.

“No, Gracie. Your bone popping just… freaks me out a little. Makes me worried you’re hurting more.” He kisses my hairline gently where the washcloth stops . “You just nap, okay? We’ll be here when you wake up.”

Finally starting to feel my bones settle into the comfort offered, I let myself rest.

Chapter Text

I sleep fitfully through the night, mostly because every time the doctors restarted my infusion or the meds start wearing off, I’d start feeling worse. Luckily for me, Jay’s question to Connor gets through, and Connor agrees to muscle relaxers to stop the joint popping, as well as to letting me eat some of Cindy and Donna’s cooking plus the smoothie Hailey got me. As he put it, any calorie in my body was a good calorie. Plus the coughing is finally starting to wear off.

Unfortunately for us all, compazine and steroids can only do so much when your body is also being infused with something it’s allergic to.

When I’m not puking up fluids,
I’m losing them the other route. My cap refill is in the gutter, and my blood pressure has been tanking despite that second IV line I got woken up for and made to infuse into my good arm. Will and Connor got plenty of secondhand grouchy snark from me the entire time I got stabbed, because despite what Connor promised with IV lamps and ultrasound, the radiology department did not get the memo and it resulted in five sticks to the good arm and two to the already used one in a pathetic attempt to somehow reduce stabs. It didn’t work. The sixth and final stab to the “good” arm at that point finally flashed a clean return, but only after they lowered the gauge and got a Peds nurse down to help with the IV. She was a good sport about it, too.

“Next time, just have them call us up first,” she had patted my hand in an attempt to comfort me before heading back to her regular duties.

Though she means well, colorful bandaids and kind words aren’t enough medicine to fix me tonight.

“Is it safe to come in here?” Connor whispered as he poked his head. Jay was snoozing in the comfy chair in the far corner, tired after the long few days he’d had in the hospital so far. I’d insisted he at least try and sleep if he was gonna stay in the room, and it seems like his exhaustion (or more likely, April’s reassurance that she’d wake him if something went wrong) finally won him over.

“You’re not gonna tell me I need another line, are you?” I groused, clearing my throat, tired out from the last round of infusions. I shouldn’t have needed to: the bruises I had around my IV sites and the blown attempts spoke for themselves.

“No. Just wanted to check in on our most popular patient.” He smiled gently, pulling up a chair beside me. “Where’s Hailey?”

“Sleeping in Dr. Charles’ office. Her insomnia’s been acting up and Jay didn’t want her to crash out because she kept missing out on sleep. To be honest, I don’t want that either.” I sighed, rubbing my newest IV placement’s protective tape absentmindedly. “How come you’re still here?”

“Emergency surgery ran long. Just got off and I needed a little cheering up from our favorite grouch in a hospital bed.” He kept up the cheery appearances.

“Sorry your surgery didn’t go so great, but I don’t think I’d pick me to see after any surgery, if I wanted to be happy.”

“Funny you should say that—“ he scooted in closer, pulling out his phone, “I had a Peds patient for that surgery I just did. Familiar face on the ward. When we were wheeling them into surgery, the only question that they had for me was how long it would be before they could make magic wands with you. Told me all about this very fancy set up you’ve got in the multipurpose room on Wednesday mornings where kids sand their own sticks— pardon me, wand woods—, pour their own resin power gems, and even use hand drills for cores and assembly.”

He pulled up a list on his phone and handed it to me to read, with a simple, “I promised I’d find out what kind of chemicals would be used to make a wand meeting these specifications, and let them know how long it would be before they could make their wand.”

“I’m guessing you won’t tell me who it is no matter what I try because of HIPPA stuff, but based on this list,” I double checked the imaginative outline for the perfect wand, “ I’d probably wait 3 weeks before approaching resin materials, sanding paper, or a drill. If they asked for you, it’s cardiothoracic or vascular in nature, which means immunocompromise and cardio-pulmonary complications are an immediate concern. We’re not risking that for a wand.”

“You drive a hard bargain, Doctor Halstead,” he jokes, pocketing his phone. “Sure they need to wait that long? Nothing sooner?”

“Will they last the three weeks? Honestly? I’ll move it up if I have to.” I say seriously, and the look in his eyes tells me he knows I mean it.

“They’ll be fine. Surgery actually went great.” He reassures me. “The emergency was minor- we only took it to the OR because we wanted to sedate the patient completely to reduce stress. It’s you I’m a little more worried about.”

“Fucking hell, Connor, I’m alive aren’t I?” I whisper-shout, being mindful not to wake Jay. “Isn’t that what everyone here wants? What you and Will and all the other doctors and nurses have been hoping for?”

“It is. But we don’t want you depressed out of your mind either. And based on that little hissy fit you threw during your IV placement a few hours ago, I’m willing to bet that you’re not exactly thrilled to be on the breathing side of the life-death line.” He reasons. “Care to share?”

“You promised no more than three sticks and an ultrasound probe.” I grumble, looking away, almost ashamed to pin my lack of fight on something so mundane it’s practically routine at this point.

“I did, and I’m sorry, but I think I can speak for most of our hospital staff and all of your siblings when I say that we’re worried about you. That fire that keeps you going, keeps you showing up for kids and gets them to think beyond their hospital bed and meds— it’s gone. You’re just…”

“Tired? Dead inside? Mechanically breathing because apparently the brainstem is the last to go? All of the above?” I supply, and he chuckles.

“Do you get your sarcasm from Jay or Will?”

“Oh, 100% from Will,” I manage a chuckle back at the very thought. “Jay’s who I get my sass from.”

The seconds tick fast though, and soon the moment falls flat.

“Hey— here’s why I really stopped by.” Connor pulls my focus onto him for a moment. “Whatever crap you feel like you’re in that’s drowning you— I promise, the person that you are without your illness is still in there. The person that the Peds kids and even the teenagers look forward to hanging out with. The person that Jay and Will poke fun at when we hang out at Molly’s. The kid who likes to pull excellent pranks on her brothers and whips everyone into shape at trivia nights. I promise you, you are still here. It’s just gonna take a hot second to go back to normal.”

“Yeah, ‘cause having a brain aneurysm at 21 is so normal.” I laugh mirthlessly, clearing a cough towards the end of it.

“Having a struggle is human. Yours just happens to be your health, and it also happens to be chronic. It’s not easy— in fact it does suck. But you’re in school, you work a part time job-”

“I quit that— weeks ago. Before the aneurysm.” I supplied. “You’re not exactly making your case here.”

“You have a volunteer position that you haven’t quit, though.” Connor grinned. “And I’m sure if that Peds nurse spills the beans about who she just had to do a small bore IV placement on, you’ll have the letters and artwork to show just how appreciated you are for being you.”

“She better not—” I shudder at the thought of kids dropping like flies with this bug. “The last thing any of us need is a kid trying to jailbreak the floor and spread this bug to a bunch of immunocompromised kiddos and their very anxious human incubators- physically and emotionally speaking.”

“And there’s that sass,” he laughs, still quiet enough that Jay doesn’t wake. Either that, or he’s up and eavesdropping, but he’ll be damned if he’ll let either of us know about it before he’s ready. “But really- just hang in there, okay? Let Will and Jay and Hailey and all the rest of us who love you take care of you in the ways we know how. Making sure you’re comfortable and feeling loved is sometimes the best medicine for a smooth recovery.”

“And what about a miracle recovery?” I ask, still frustrated with how pent up and exhausted I’m feeling all at once.

“Let me know when you invent that potion, Peds Magic sustainer,” he winks, getting up to leave. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning during rounds.”

“But you have the day off.” I call after him, confused.

“And yet, for some reason, every single one of my nurses has personally come to tell me that Will Halstead requests me to round on you tomorrow.” I facepalm at his remark, cursing Will for being dramatic.

“You don’t have to, you know.” I reply. “You need your sleep.”

“I want to.” Is all he says, and heads out without another sound.

I’m left to my quiet, somewhat restless thoughts until the next nurse comes in for vitals and infusions.

Chapter Text

I’m still up and down when morning comes. Between losing fluids a few more times during the night, and my pressure bottoming out once, everyone is officially conspiring for me to eat.

So it should come as no surprise to me when Will shows up at 9 am with the bag of popsicles that 51 left, frozen cookie dough ice cream, and a milkshake. Plus Hailey’s smoothie from yesterday, which was wisely stuck in the freezer overnight, and a small cup of Cindy’s soup.

I turn my nose up at it all and hide into Hailey, trying to curl my frame to be enveloped by her.

“C’mon, sweetheart, you gotta try a few bites. You’ve barely had anything to eat over the last few days.” She runs her fingers through my tangled mop, gently teasing my frizzy waves apart. “You need calories if you want to shower unassisted.”

“Put in another line. Or a tube.” I mutter, and Jay audibly hisses at that.

“Absolutely not— Maggie is already having to negotiate with the ER staff down here on who is willing to use the little Halstead as a pincushion.” Will chides. “No one— least of all us— likes seeing you hurting. We’re not causing you voluntary harm. And the feeding tube will only mean a longer hospital stay and long term damage to your mental health.”

“You’re causing iatrogenic harm by making me eat.” I reason back, not enough fight left in me to cover up the sheer terror that the idea is causing.

“Iatro— what?” Jay asks.

“She’s saying that making her eat is causing her further harm. She’s trying to reason that making her eat is breaking the Hippocratic oath in a worse manner than a feeding tube would.” Will explains. “Which it’s not. You’re going on the scale when Connor rounds on you, and if you’re below 95 pounds, you’re choosing between going through all the possible alternative medications we could put you on and the scary side effects that we’ve all discussed at your migraine appointments, or staying in the hospital for three weeks on an NG tube, complete with all the wonderful side effects that the tube world has to offer. And I’m not advocating for Jay and Hailey to get access to stay here 24/7 with you or come in whenever they can. In fact, I’ll specifically recommend against it.”

“Will!” Jay exclaims tersely, half biting down the word as if it will actually hurt Will to hear Jay use his full force.

“No, these are scary choices we’re having to make. I’m not gonna enable you into letting us make a bad decision on your behalf because you feel crappy from the side effects. You feel shitty, I get it, but you and I both know why we haven’t given you drugs like Reglan or metoclopramide or promethazine. We’re talking serious consequences here— Tardive Dyskenisa, seizures, Neuroleptic Malignant Syndrome. You want to fill Jay and Hailey in on what those words mean? And how bad they can be?” He challenges stone-faced.

Fuck. Will’s pissed.

“Yeah, I thought so. So you’re gonna get on that scale. You’re gonna let Connor and whoever’s rounding with him lecture you on how bad this has gotten. You’re gonna go with whatever it is he recommends. And we’ll go from there. You may not value your life all that much, Grace, but some of us do. And while we watch other patients with no other choices begging for a viable option, you’re over here throwing every good medical route we have in the trash cause it isn’t convenient for you.” He angrily dumps the grocery bag onto the comfy chair and slaps the Tupperware of soup onto the bedside rolling table.

“I’ve got rounds,” is all he says as he leaves.

“I should—”

“Nope— I’ll do it. You two are just gonna throw punches if you leave. Stay here. I’ll be back.” Hailey cuts in before Jay can head out, settling me onto my back gently, before kissing Jay a quick goodbye and leaving.

I turn to face the glass wall away from Jay, instinctively curling up and burying myself under the covers.

It doesn’t work. Jay creeps into my eyeline and settles himself hunched forward in the chair beside my bed, eyes trained on me.

I shut mine to avoid looking at him.

“Hey,” he speaks gently, trying to get me to open up.

But like anyone with a bruised ego and the pride of any sibling unwilling to back down from a stupid argument, I stay firm.

“Will didn’t mean that.”

“Yeah, he did,” my words are likely muffled by the blankets, but I don’t care.

“Okay, you know what I’m trying to say here: he means well. He’s worried about you. We all are.”

“So you keep telling me.”

“Wanna tell me what all that Doctor speak was about?” He nudges. Damn him for appealing to my infodumping side.

“Reglan and metoclopeamide and promethazine are anti-nausea drugs.”

“Yeah, well, I kinda figured that out. I’m a smart cookie too.” He jokes, but it doesn’t get even the hint of a smile out of me. “And I know what seizures are, but what were those other things? I heard Malignant— these meds, they don’t give you cancer, do they?”

Ugh. He’s baiting me.

Dammit.

“So they do give you cancer? And they prescribe that stuff to people? That’s gotta be illegal.”

I can’t believe he’s actually gonna get this to work on me. Fuck. Mouse would be disappointed.

“Neuroleptic Malignant Syndrome is just a whole bunch of really bad symptoms that kick up after you reduce how much dopamine is being received and used by your body. It’s bad because it’s a life-or-death situation, and there’s no guarantee you'll come back from it the same as you went in.”

“And the other thing?”

“Tardive Dyskenisa. You know how people with Parkinson’s end up not being able to control their movements?”

“Yeah?” He asks, fully leaning in now.

“It’s like that, but for your face. Your lips, your tongue, all of your face muscles just start misbehaving. And they can’t go back to normal.”

“I thought you already had that and it went away?” He asks gently, referring to one of the many times we had to change my antidepressants.

“We were in the really early stages, and with that medication, you can reverse the effects by stopping the medication entirely and never going back on it. Going on these meds… there’s no going back. Not to mention mine did take a while to go away.”

“How long are we talking?” He asks, a little more worried but clearly trying to reign it in.

“Six, eight months, maybe?” I curl in closer on myself, knowing he’s not gonna like the answer no matter what I say, “All I know is that for a while, I was worried it was permanent, but then I finally stopped noticing it.”

“Is it actually gone now?” He asks for confirmation, now failing to withhold any concern.

“My tongue and face gets tired more often, but I figure that’s the spasms. All of me is always tired now, compared to when I was on that medication. But I haven’t gnawed through a chunk of my tongue in a while so that’s a plus, I suppose.” I keep it as bland as I can.

“Okay. Scoot,” he nudges me, getting up and lowering my bed railing so he can hop onto the bed beside me. Knowing refusing is only going to result in him either moving me himself (embarrassing) or laying on top of me till I cry “uncle!” (Painful and ego bruising), I give in, practically shoving my face into the other bedrail as a compromise.

It doesn’t work. He scoops his close arm underneath my far one and tucks me into the crook of his arm.

“You stink.” I try shoving myself away.

“So do you.” He returns, continuing to keep me close with a grip that makes my attempts look like child’s play. “I still love you.”

“You’re being very hard to love right now.” I reply, still fighting. “Holding me hostage and all. I’m gonna call Sergeant Platt. Tell her you're being mean.”

“She eats punks like you for breakfast, you really want to do-si-do with her?”
He grins, using his other hand to finally brace my whole body against his side, then swings his leg over my ankles to lock them in place. “Gracie, stop fighting. Will was having a moment. You’ve had plenty these last few days.”

“Yeah? Why the fuck are you staying since I am clearly a spoiled brat who doesn’t care that other people want her getting better and keeps trying to kill herself because eating feels like dying and so dying might as well be preferable.”

“That is not what Will said or meant and you know that.”

“Does he?”

“What do you think Hailey left the room for? Coffee?”

“It would be more productive,” I grumble, trying and failing to headbutt him as he locks me down tighter.

“You know the more you fight me on this the harder it’s gonna be right?”

“If I’m gonna die trying, I might as well die trying to out wrestle you.” I keep wriggling. “It’s just—”

“Stop.” He urges me firmly, his soldier voice coming out. “You need to settle down. Your heart rate monitor is gonna start beeping like crazy if you keep going. It’s already in the 150s.”

I finally look over, and sure enough, the monitor beeps out a 158 and climbing. Dammit.

“I hate that you love me this much.” I grumble to myself, but he hears it anyways.

“Birdie, you could make me live in desert summers year round and I’d still love you. You could be in the hospital for the next 100 years and I’d still show up every day. You could trash every phone I ever get, change the locks to every door, I’ll still find my way to you. I’m your big brother, this is how it works.” He keeps his tone warm and reassuring.

It’s hard to keep my walls up when he’s like this. Open, welcoming, comforting. Home in every sense of the word. Despite every twist away, he somehow manages to hold me closer. And I, though loathe to admit it, find comfort in the action.

“I don’t want this.” I groan, dissatisfied with his ability to welcome the difficult so gracefully.

“Tough luck,” is all he responds with.

He won’t open the can of worms to how he literally scooped me out of the combat hospital and brought me home, and for that, I’m grateful.

We just lay there for a moment . Quiet. Still. Monitors beeping around us, infusion machines whirring.

“Will’s just scared, you know.” He finally speaks the words I’ve been waiting for.

“Well, he can join the club.” I try to keep a bitter edge to my voice, but I’m sure all that’s conveyed is sorrow.

“I know. And we’ve been telling you that it’s okay to be scared and it’s all gonna be okay and keeping it as positive as possible because you’re so sick still. It’s hard to remember that you’re still just a college kid sometimes. And that you’re just trying to get to tomorrow.”

“Isn’t this the speech Will’s supposed to be getting?” I unconsciously start to slacken my muscles, and notice Jay does the same.

“Hailey’s better at doctor speak than I am— I’m sure she’ll figure out a way to get her point across.” He chuckles, readjusting his hold so that I’m laying perfectly in the crook of his arm without straining any muscles. “What I want to do is make sure you’re okay,”

“Gee, Doc, I’m still supposed to be on the ICU but I keep getting bounced around because the doctors are worried I’m gonna blow another vein or artery or stop breathing ‘cause my heart or lungs might give out — what do you think?” I fumble over some of my words, but manage to get them out.

“I think you're overwhelmed, exhausted, frustrated, and scared; and I think no matter what we say or do, the only thing that’s gonna fix it for good is getting you healthy again. Which starts with you eating.” He reasons. “But it would be helpful for us to know things like the fact that eating makes you feel like dying. Might actually help make things easier for you.”

“They don’t want to put a tube in.” I supply simply.

“Birdie, no one wants to put a tube in— least of all you. Will’s had this talk with all of us? Remember? As long as you can try putting food in your stomach, you gotta try. We’re not trying to hurt you, it’s just gonna hurt less in the long run.”

I do know. Logically, anyways. Tube feeds are grueling on your system. No bulk, no fiber, no solids. An adult body is not meant to be sustained as such. A faint memory from long ago, before the Windy City, briefly surfaces in the form of a wounded soldier spoon fed rice gruel with comforting words that seem far too distant to have been my own. But I shove that away. None of those facets of time or recollection are going to be helpful to me picking myself up out of this mess.

“So how is knowing anything else making it easier for me? You’re still making me eat.” I grumble.

“Well let me start with this: tell me more about how eating feels like dying.” He gently stroked my hair as encouragement.

“I mean- it’s pretty self explanatory. I eat, I feel like I’m gonna die. End of story,” I tell him. Short and sweet.

“Not end of story: what does eating specifically do or feel like that makes you feel like you're dying?” He pestered. “Like, what feels wrong? Your stomach, your head? Your mouth?”

“All of it?” I sigh. “I mean, it hurts to eat in general because my muscles keep spasming or sliding out of place with the top-up doses of muscle relaxers. It’s not fun to accidentally chew through your tongue or cheek as frequently as once a month. I’m tired of my blood pressure playing games with me when I’m trying to sit up and eat so I don’t choke. Swallowing is hard ‘cause my muscles don’t want to cooperate, and either don’t swallow food and get it stuck in my, send it down to my vocal chords, or try aspirating my food.” I give myself a moment to breathe in between the spasms and exhaustion of pouring out coherent speech like it’s easy. Like it’s natural. Like it’s second nature, when it has become anything but.

“And that’s not even getting to the whole nausea deal.” I breathe as I finally gain enough of a grip to continue. “That’s just a whole other deal that takes forever to unpack, but the bottom line is: why eat if all my energy goes towards trying to put food in me and failing to keep it inside. Not to mention puking takes up any leftover energy and absolutely kaputs my ability to do anything but cry and be a whiny baby.”

“You’re not a whiny baby, you're hurting and you're tired. And your body’s working a lot harder than it should be to eat. Why didn’t you just tell us that eating takes that much out of you?” Jay asks hesitantly, perhaps knowing the answer before I offer it to him.

“Isn’t saying ‘I hurt’ enough? Just the sheer energy that explanation took is going to reduce my capacity for the day.”

Jay sighs, and kisses the top of my head, clearly lost for words.

“Okay, new deal, if you say “I feel shitty” or something along the lines that outlines that you hurt higher than a five on the pain scale, I’ll try to advocate for different options. But if the doctors still want you to try, I want you to promise me that you’re gonna do what you can in the moment to follow instructions.”

“What if I choke and die?” I ask sarcastically, with just enough of an edge to it to remind him that though I might be pretending to be trivial and dramatic, choking is a real concern.

“I’ll be right here.” He promises. “I’m not gonna let that happen.”

Chapter Text

The next few hours roll by with cautious movements. Jay makes me pick two foods from the items Will brought in for me. I cooperate with reservations, selecting Cindy’s soup and Hailey’s smoothie. I’m sure that me being pissed off at Will played into my decision, but I don’t have any more fucks to give about that: my body’s about to fight it’s least favorite war.

It’s my least favorite mostly because, in my mind, it’s an avoidable one. But according to Jay and Will and all my other doctors around, it’s not avoidable and it is a necessary evil.

“Okay- remind me, what’s the deal?” He asks me arbitrarily.

“Really?” I roll my eyes back at him, not in the mood to have a parent.

“C’mon, Grace, humor me.” He pushes the smoothie and soup closer.

I huff, then take a breath.

“Half of each unless I puke midway. I can take up to three hours to finish it collectively. My pace, your limit.” I draw out my words long and loose, and he pushes the spoon for the soup into my hands.

I didn’t anticipate the amount of fear that’s been built up into my body over this. My palms sweat and my hands tremble just enough for me to worry that the spoon might drop out of it. Just the thought of food alone is nauseating, but seeing it is almost inducing the gags.

I look up at the ceiling tiles, the overhead X-Ray, the adjustable lamps and ceiling lights. My eyes still blur with tears.

But I promised.

So I take a breath, and I try.

I make it all of four spoonfuls of soup in before I’m reaching for the emesis bag, scrambling over Jay and getting my IV tubing crossed up in his tech stuff from district. He’s just managed to untangle all of it when Connor walks in with a temp nurse. Wonder who called in sick today?

“Food’s not going so well, huh?” Connor tries being sympathetic.

I give him as much of a death glare as I can as I focus on my breathing.

“She’s only four spoonfuls in- and there’s maybe six ounces of soup in that cup? Plus a twelve ounce smoothie that she can try. She promised to at least get half of each down before turning her nose up. Unless she throws up, which is … on thin ice right now.” Jay thinks before he finishes his sentence, which tells me that he was about to make a sassy joke in poor taste, or a terrible pun that would make me feel sicker.

“Well, all things considered, especially knowing what we know about your nausea and fluids the last few days, we’re doing pretty okay. I am glad to hear you're trying food, but remember, the goal is to keep as many fluids and calories as you can, not lose them because you’re overdoing it.

“Tube?” I modulate my intonation between breaths to hopefully indicate enough of a question to the rounding professionals.

“Birdie,” Jay breathes softly, wanting to chide but I can see the worry on his face. I’m clearly looking as good as I feel for him to be calling me that, and the cold sweats I’m breaking out into are making me feel so desperately awful I can barely keep my grasp on consciousness.

“I want to run some labs before I talk to Will about that.” Connor speaks gently, checking my vitals and hitting notes on his tablet. “I know you hate puking, I do, but if you are managing to keep something down, I don’t want to switch to enteral feeds and trigger refeeding syndrome. Plus a J-tube or a G tube both mean more surgery. Not something we really want to do.”

Connor waits for the nausea to pass by doing his best to distract me, asking Jay about the bioterror case, chatting about the hockey season so far, Molly’s gossip, anything and everything under the sun. Around twenty minutes later, I finally regain my composure.

“I hope I’m not holding you up on rounds,” I sighed, as he began taking my blood pressure.

“Nah, I split my rounds with a fellow. Wanted to make sure I had enough time to spend with you.” He smiled as the auto cuff beeped and released.
“97/78. Okay, not awful, considering where we’re at and what we’re dealing with,”

“So Will’s being a real pain in the ass for you too, huh?” I rolled my eyes.

“Grace,” Jay warns simply, the unspoken words hanging clear in the air: cut the attitude.

“Eh, he’s the usual for me, is he being extra special for you?”

“Ugh, if you take all of them—” I circle Jay with Hailey’s stuff with an open claw as if my words aren’t clear enough, “out for a few beers and peace and quiet so I can nap without someone telling me to eat, I’d be really, really appreciative.” I replied, grateful that someone in the cubicle is being flexible with my terrible mood.

“Not till we can trust you to stay breathing and functional without machines or till you can come with us, Grace.” Jay runs his palm down his face, clearly done with my avoidance tactics for the day.

“Well, how about you take a quick walk with me— hop on the scale real quick, stop by the nurse’s station for a blood draw and some social time, and then we have a chat about what treatment will hopefully look like going forward,” Connor wraps up all the of the vitals work that can be done from a mostly reclined position and motions for me to step out of the room.

I manage to make it farther than I statistically should before my vision starts blacking out. With how low that measurement was, I theoretically shouldn’t have been able to stand up and start walking.

I made it to the curtain before the near-syncope hit- all at once, a growing black hole swallowing my vision and me along with it, my body floating into the limbo of zero gravity. And then the blood flow to my brain must be restored enough because sensation comes flooding back like I’m doused in neural activity: the pain, weakness, nausea, and pressure from the sudden changes in circulation, blood pressure, and heart rate slam my system. My body, heavy and uncontrolled, is half crouched, half laying on the cold tile floor. My aching head is filled with wool, my sinuses and ears feel like they’re swimming with the fishies, and my stomach revolts before I have time to register it.

Someone turns me on my side as I vomit, my head hanging off a rough warm surface, something heavy and warm keeping me mostly still. The ringing in my ears is still too loud to make out words, but I can feel the hand squeezes that are meant to reassure my fuzzy existence, and I allow myself to just exist while I still can.

Somehow, the fog starts clearing. My face is being wiped with a warm washcloth. Connor’s face, crooked in my line of sight, sits in front of me, arms on his knees as he moves his eyes from me, to something above me. There’s these swishes of color around us, and it takes a second to realize that the swishes are the nurse
scrub pants rotating around the revolving chaos circus that I have become.

“Huh?” I finally manage to vocalize, as my hearing clears enough to start processing things. Beeps and words taken out of context that have yet to make sense.

“Grace, can you hear me?” Connor asks gentle and slow, lowering himself further to sit cross-legged and clipping something to my finger.”

“Yeah?” I respond, still sort of out of it. “What’s goin’ on?”

My voice kinda doesn’t feel our sound right, but I sort of just ignore it at this
point. I’ll figure it out when I’m clear enough to put the pieces of the puzzle in front of me together.

“Do you know where you are?” Connor keeps his voice steady and calmer than I’m sure I deserve at this moment.

“Doctor?” I ask. I mean, Connor’s wearing his white coat. We must be at the hospital, or one of Med’s visits at the very least.

“Yeah. I’m a doctor. Do you know where you are?”

“Med?” I finally say the magic word, and Connect scoots over to take my blood pressure.

It’s only then that I notice I’m laying on someone. I try pulling myself up, but hand lock me down gently into my position, and a familiar voice hushes me.

Jay.

“Don’t move. I’ve got you- We don’t want a repeat of what just happened.” Jay rubs my shoulder gently as he tries to hold me still enough for Connor to get the BP cuff on me and get a reading. Once he’s done that, I get lifted back into bed gently, Jay pulling his chair up close to the side Connor’s not on, grabbing my hand and pushing my hair back gently as Connor grabs a forehead temp and winces at the number.

“That good, huh?” I sigh.

“104.1,” Is all he can reply, sitting himself down on the edge of the bed as he pulls up something on his tablet.

“Connor?” Jay asks for us both, leaning forward, clearly worried.

“I think that temp spike is just from her body freaking out from the syncope. Jay, how do you feel about me bringing in a regular old scale in to weigh her with? You pick her up and step on it, then we subtract your weight to take a guess at hers?” Connor asks, still staring down his tablet.

“If you think it’ll help, it’s not a problem.” He responds, “Something you want to tell us?”

“I’m just a little worried that we might be slightly overdosing you because we’re going off of your healthy weight index.” He sighs, glancing up at me.

“But if it’s only slightly, it shouldn’t be an issue.” I try countering.

“Unless your liver isn’t processing things right.” Connor reminds me gently, the unspoken words hanging thick in the air.

“Okay, what is it that you two know that I don’t?” Jay asks firmly after a beat, slightly annoyed by being left out of the loop.

“If Grace’s liver is already overwhelmed, which I would expect it is now that we’ve been chucking additional meds at it for the last week or so, too much of a med could be causing damage that we aren’t tracking. It could cause her to get worse quicker.” Connor tries sugarcoating it.

“He’s saying we could be shooting my body straight into multisystem failure.” I fill in for Jay.

“I did not say that.” Connor frowns pointedly.

“Yeah, well, you were thinking it.” I lightly press my palms to my forehead, causing both Jay and Connor to reach and grab a hand to pull away.

“Quit that—You just had brain surgery.” Jay reminds me.

“Gee, thanks, it’s easy to forget that when your doctor tells you that you’re a jump hop skip away from shooting your liver into cirrhosis.” I snipe, back in a foul mood.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I’ll go grab that scale and put in for some lab work.” Connor places my hand in his lap, pats my leg with practiced care, and heads out the cubicle.

“You want to talk about it?” Jay whispers, knowing my mood isn’t going to improve anytime soon no matter what he does.

“I’m so fucking done with this shit.” I groan, voice tight, pushing my palms into my eye sockets to relieve some of the pressure from my ever-building migraine.

“I know, but you gotta stop doing that.” Jay chides as he pulls my hands away, locking them down at my sides.

“It fucking hurts and I want this to fucking stop. I want people to stop looking at me like I’m going to fucking shatter and I want everything to go back to normal.” I try wriggling, but it’s no use. Jay simply holds my wrists down, gently rubbing his thumbs against my already uncomfortable skin in an attempt to distract and soothe.

“I know, Birdie. Believe me, I know.” He reminds me. “But distracting yourself with more pain is not the answer. And putting pressure on your skull this soon after surgery isn’t going to be helpful for the swelling or healing, even if it helps your migraine at the moment.”

I know he doesn’t know everything, but he does understand being forced into bed because you’re hurt and your body needs time.

“How about we try some grounding exercises?” He suggests, grabbing my phone and setting a visual timer on it.

“But I’m not panicking.” I furrow my brow.

“Just humor me, okay? You’re upset about a situation that you can’t control that you also can’t ignore.” He places the phone in my hand and walks me through the 5-4-3-2-1 method. Five things I can see. Four things I can feel. Three things I can hear. Two things I can smell. One thing I can taste.

I humor him. And by the time we’re done, Connor’s back with the scale. He sets it down by the bed, then comes to help adjust my IV poles and infusion devices as Jay picks me up and steps on the scale. He gets on, lets Connor note the number, then puts me down and goes to get back on it so Connor can do the math.

Jay used to be a sniper in the army, whether he likes to admit it or not, he’s good at math. So when I see them both look over to me with deep concern, I know I’m not in for a sucker-and-sticker-kind of fix-it protocol.

“Okay, so I’ve lost a lot of weight,” I start, knowing it has to be pretty bad for them to keep looking at me like they are. Like I’m gonna disappear.

“Grace, you’re 89 pounds,” Jay says seriously. “That’s a lot of weight missing off someone who barely weighs 130 on a good day.”

“And definitely something we need to consider while dosing you from here on out.” Connor finalizes his notes on his tablet before looking back at us, “I’m going to input this in the system and have a nurse come in to run those labs. Unfortunately, I think we have to try and stay on an oral intake diet. If you want it to just be liquids, that’s fine- we’ll take what we can get. Anything with nutritional value and electrolytes is good. But I’m officially worried that refeeding syndrome is a very real possibility, and given your current romp on the dark side of your emotions, I’d rather not keep you here longer than we need to.”

“I will also, however, tell Will to back off a bit on the force feeding.” He notes, and he earns a half smile from me for that, while Jay looks both shocked and concerned.

“Didn’t you just say she lost a third of her body weight? What do you mean you’re telling Will to ‘back off’?”

“If Grace has lost this much weight in this short a time— nine weeks, according to this record— from puking and not having an appetite, we need to be looking at any and all medications that could be keeping her from absorbing nutrients, digesting her food, and keeping it down in the first place. The really scary thing when you’re chronically ill is the chance of falling through the cracks of the system, and I have a sinking feeling that she’s done just that because we haven’t taken a good look at her med list since before surgery. If she’s not able to digest food, she’s not gonna get any nutrition out of it. It’s just gonna keep making things worse for her. It’s why I’m suggesting anything that she thinks she can keep down- liquids are probably easiest, and electrolytes should hopefully keep her metabolic function in check.”

Jay fixes his face, releasing Connor to his duties, before noticing my slight tremble. I blame it on the fever, but Jay takes it as a challenge to
be comforting me.

Within minutes, he’s on my bed with me, has me wrapped me up in that dumb hospital blanket and squished against his chest to be forced to account for his heartbeat. It’s shocking how easy it is to relax me once he does this, because I can feel all my muscles starting to release and loosen up.

I whimper and moan slightly as a particularly painful spot unspams itself and pops. Jay stays good at keeping still, and gently shushes me softly when I don’t quiet down myself.

“I’ve got you, Gracie. I’m right here.” He reminds me, tucking me in and holding me as steady as he can. He knows the shakes make the dizzy spells worse and worsen the puking spells, and I’ve never been more grateful about his laser focus attention to movement.

“I’m sorry I’m so much work.” I sniffle. “And that I’m being such a baby about this.”

“Gracie, hey, look at me—” Jay makes it a point to scoot back just enough so that he knows I can focus on him. “You are not work. I’m worried, so I’m gonna be here. Hailey’s worried, so she’s going to talk to Will so that he can get his head on straight and then come back to be with you. Will’s freaking out because he’s so worried about you. Remember how it was when I got shot?”

“I’d rather not,” I muttered. The way I held my breath around him for weeks hoping that I wouldn’t breathe wrong and get him sick had Will dragging me down to Dr. Charles as often as he could get me to actually leave Jay’s immediate proximity. Which wasn’t often.

“Yeah, fair. But remember how you absolutely refused to leave me? Goes both ways, kiddo.”

“That’s different. You got shot in the line of duty. I’m just a ticking IED waiting to go off. And I don’t want you or anyone else to get hurt.” I try to get myself further away from Jay as I say the words, reminding myself of just how rotten I feel knowing how I’m subtracting from their lives.

“Birdie, we’ve talked about this.” He sighed, somehow managing to pull me in tight enough to kiss the top of my head. “I know it’s hard to remember, and it’s hard to change the things we keep telling ourselves and the things that have built the person you are. But you getting sick— even the very real chances of you dying— aren’t hurting us. It hurts to see you like this, yes, but it hurts because we love you and we don’t like seeing you in pain. It’s why Will’s so frustrated: he’s a doctor and he feels like there’s nothing more he can do. But eating feels like the one thing that he— that we— can control. And so he’s upset that you keep pushing for something that might be much worse for you in the long run rather than you continuing to try on something he thinks is safer.”

“But it hurts,” my voice literally cracks on the last word as my throat tightens up so fast you’d think I was having anaphylaxis. But the monitors stay steady even through my coughing it open, and that tells us it’s anything but.

“And I know that now, and I told Connor about that when you had your little spell earlier. And Connor’s gonna talk to Will about it— you heard him say it— but you also gotta remember we’re on your side.” He squeezes me gently, as if trying to physically instill the memory of these words into my bones. “All of us. I know that I don’t really get all of it, but I know enough to know that you’ll start feeling so much better once we get you healthy enough to go home. And so that’s our goal right now: get you discharged as soon as we can. Step one of that goal is getting your food intake high enough to actually clear out the pneumonia.”

“I want to do it.” I say softly, “I just—”

“I know. And I’m proud of you. For continuing to try, for trying to advocate for yourself, for telling me just how sick eating makes you feel. I’m proud of you for all of it, even for all the crying we’ve gotten in the last few days.”

“I’m being a baby,” I whine, my coughs starting up as I try pushing the upper limits of my speaking range, “Exhibit A is me whining right now.”

“Hey— wanna know where I picked up this trick that I’ve been using on you the last few hours? The wrapping up and deep pressure stuff?” Jay immediately distracts me with something that feels totally random, but I have a feeling I know how it ties in.

“I’m being a baby so you’re treating me like a baby?”

“No! Well—ugh—” he runs his palm down his face like he does when he’s absolutely exasperated with me.

“Hailey and I have also been having sessions with Dr. Charles. So has Will. It was Hailey and Dr. Charles’ idea after you kept mentioning this worry around taking time and energy away from us and it hurting us in the end. Now, we don’t think you’re hurting us, but Dr. Charles and Hailey thought it would be good for everyone to have regular check-ins while you’re recovering. We’ve also been meeting more often since you got admitted a few days ago because we knew after that case you were gonna have a little extra freak out time. And Birdie, that is okay. You’ve got serious trauma and very real fears that make you feel like you’re constantly on thin ice trying to keep it all together. We’re just trying to make it so that it’s easier for your body and mind to know that you’re safe and we aren’t going anywhere.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me that? I'd at least freak out a little less that you were running yourselves ragged. And I’m still confused about the stupid sheet trick.”

“Hey, it’s not stupid if it works.” Jay wraps me tighter, smirking as he watches me try and fail to squirm my way out of the wrap, triggering coughs.

“Are you trying to mummify me?” I finally sigh when I’m done, pulse rate already alerting on the monitors. Oh well.

“No, it’s deep pressure therapy,” Jay chuckled, “ done in a controlled setting with me watching how you respond to a sheet being wrapped around your body, restraining you while allowing for easy respirations. Dr. Charles thought it might help reset something in your system and trick you into relaxing. Though it certainly is an improvement on your attempts at recreating the mummies you learned about when you were a kid.”

“Hey! You can’t tell me that you and Will didn’t have a science history phase while growing up- at least one of you went into medicine.”

“And notice how that wasn’t me. I had other ways of driving people nuts.” he grinned.

“Like beating the shit out of kids being punks to you for breakfast?” I joked, reminding him of his old school day fights.

“Okay, maybe we don’t need to go that far. You get my point though. He laughs, a real, hearty laugh, and I smile back.

“There’s that smile. I’ve missed it.” He remarks, stroking a stay tear off my face with his thumb. “You’ve had a lot of rough days in a row. I was kind of worried that the only way we’d get you to smile again was if we got you a pet.”

“I wouldn’t say no to that,” I half smile, then lose the moment. “And I’m not meaning to be so gloomy, it’s just—”

“Hey— you owe me no explanation. You of all people remember what it was like after we got back. It’s hard to keep things in perspective when you’re drowning in the thick of it.” He reminds me. “Just keep doing what you’re doing right now. Keep letting us show up to take care of you. Keep showing us when you’re not feeling good. This is what we want to be here for. This is what we love being able to do- making hard things easier.”

“This is the exact opposite of what I love doing though,” I tell him frankly, and he laughs at that.

“Grace, if you ever start enjoying being sick in bed, we’re gonna have to have a serious one-on-one with Dr. Charles.” He grinned at me, trying to keep the mood light.

“I meant that I’m making things harder for you,” I tell him simply. “And that is not my job. Or my ideal scenario by a long shot.”

“Hey, you didn’t choose your body out of a lineup when you were born. You didn’t scramble your own genetic code and give yourself a condition that makes life hard for you.”

“I knew I was probably going to get caught in that IED blast, and I still ran towards it.” I muttered, referencing the last time Jay and I had been in the only country I had ever called home up until that point.

Jay frowns, and pulls me onto his lap, like I was ten again. He must’ve put two and two together- no one had a clue as to how messed up my insides were until I got hit by the blast with the rest of the convoy, and therefore, in some twisted sense, I did cause this. Not directly, but the blast made everything worse— took out my spleen and a few other things while causing lasting scarring and damage.

Jay pulls his head out of the or position it was in and puts my face in his hands so I’m forced to see him eye-to-eye as he speaks.

“You were brave.” He tells me, sincerity bleeding through his voice. “You saw them set the IED. You knew what would happen if we hit it. And you still ran after us to try and warn us. If we hadn’t slowed down and switched positions in the convoy to let you catch up to us we would’ve been far worse off. You saved lives, Grace. You got communications over to base just as the bomb went off. You’re the reason that there weren’t any more casualties. You fought tooth and nail to stay alive. And you still are, Birdie. That’s not you choosing to make life hard. That’s you choosing to be selfless. Our team loved you before you did that— and you making that choice to try to save us sealed the deal for me. You were a Halstead— through and through. Nothing left to do but bring you home and keep loving you. Just in a safer place.”

He pulls me back in and holds me tight for a beat, then speaks softly.

“I thought you knew that. All this time.”

“I just thought I was an orphan caught in a blast and you felt guilty. For a while.” I whispered back.

“And later?”

“I knew you loved me. When you introduced me to Will, took me to the cabin, let me meet your parents.”

“Your parents too, Mom called you hers before she died, remember? And dad… he at least had two nicknames for you. And we know that at least one of them turned affectionate in the end. ”

“Yeah. Mom would’ve loved Hailey. A lot.”

He didn’t have any words for me, but the tighter squeeze sent the message: I know. Hailey would’ve loved her too. I miss her. Thank you for saying that.

Chapter Text

He keeps holding me like that till I ask to try food again. I know he’s trying his best to school his face, but I’m glad to know that my eating takes some worry off his shoulders.

Even if it feels like hell to me.

By the time I’ve managed a third spoonful of soup, a nurse has already been to draw my labs and did splendidly with it, Jay’s back in his coaching position in the chair by the bed and Hailey’s back from her chat with Will, bearing pedialyte popsicles, applesauce pouches, electrolyte sachets, and an extra heating pad.

“Collin gave me a heads up, so
I ran home to grab supplies.” She kisses Jay in greeting then jumps on the bed and scoots in close. “Did you two have a nice heart to heart?”

Huh. If she knows that—

“How long have you been out there?” I ask, messing around with the soup and spoon as I try to delay my fourth bite.

“Oh, I just got here— heads up from Collin, remember?” She leans back comfortably, handing Jay something quietly. He looks surprised as he takes them, then smiles.

“My AirPods?” He chuckles. “Why?”

“So you can watch the game while Grace and I listen to the new audiobook I got us, smiling as she flashes me the cover. My eyes grow huge with excitement as Jay begins to shift uncomfortably.

“Am I about to be scarred for life again? Do I need to text Adam and Kevin to spring me?”

“Nah, it’s a nature book.” I grin, excited at the thought of finally getting to listen to it— I’ve been waiting for my hold at the library for weeks now.

“That’s not as reassuring as you think it is.” Jay mutters, pulling out his phone and pulling up the pre-game coverage to watch.

“You have to keep eating- I heard about Jay’s deal. You still have an hour and a half on your timer- let’s see what you can get done while Jay’s distracted.”

“I heard that.” Jay mumbled, but he was already way too into the pregame stats reel to really care about what he was saying.

“See,” Hailey whispered. “I’ll grab a few more emesis bags just in case. You just keep trying your best.”

So I do. It takes almost the entire time, but I manage all of the soup and half the smoothie. I shove it away when I’m done, stomach still on thin ice.

By now, Jay’s switched to watching the game without the AirPods on so that Connor, Dr. Charles, Maggie, and whoever else is on staff today can listen into the game when they stick their head in. He keeps yelling about how his team is not playing a good defense today and how the refs need to get their eyes checked, which is always a spectacle to watch. Jay getting pissed at games is a regular thing, but it’s never not funny.

“Now all you’re missing is a cold beer and a loss by a mile and it’ll be just like we’re at home.” I wink at him cheekily. Hailey rolls her eyes as Jay flips me off and curses the fact that I just jinxed the game for him. Lucky for me, she knows better than to get in between us when we’re trying to rile each other up.

“Is it safe for me to trade with the lovebirds?” Will sticks his head in. “I’ve got the next dose of meds and test results to go over.”

“We’ll stay for the results and then get out of your hair,” Hailey kisses my head and swats away my hands as I try to keep her next to me. For someone who doesn’t mind getting in fights with her brothers, I sure am terrible at making up without risking another fight or tears. Hailey and Jay know this, and despite that, they’re gonna feed me to the wolves.

Ugh.

“So, your test results actually look better than expected- WBC is dropping, platelets are back in range, metabolic panel is actually pretty normal— your glucose is a little low, but that’s to be expected. Connor and I still think we need to be aggressive with electrolytes till you recover so your heart and kidneys aren’t at risk while you’re healing. Oxygen Sats have been looking really good the last 24 hours, so we’re gonna switch you to oxygen on a nasal cannula and see how you do on it. If you stay stable through the evening, we’ll move you to a private room for the night. We’ll do another set of x-rays and repeat cultures tomorrow to see where we’re at, but if we keep heading in this direction, the team agrees that you can probably go home in a few days.”

I try to just take in the good news. Home soon. Jay pats Will’s shoulder and Hailey hugs Will before they head out, and Will begins switching out my saline and med drips. I use the time to fiddle with my new and improved nasal cannula, which Will then tells me to quit doing or risk getting switched to a mask.

When he’s finally done, he takes Jay's spot and settles in. I distract myself with my phone to fill the uncomfortable silence.

“Hey.” He finally grabs my hand and forces my attention.

“I’m sorry for being a jerk.” He says quietly. “Hailey talked to me about it. I was letting my doctoring emotions get in the way of being your brother.”

“Don’t you mean the other way around? And aren’t you glad Hailey went after you instead of Jay and you getting into another fistfight?”

“No, I do mean my doctoring was getting in the way of being your brother. Because my job is to listen to you as my sister first, and as a patient second.” He smiles. “You’re just usually so good at following Doctor orders that it’s been hard to remember that maybe your refusal has nothing to do with stubbornness and everything to do with something that I should be paying better attention to.”

“My symptoms?” I roll my eyes. “You’re already all over that. Doesn’t Maggie regularly lock you out of my chart at this point? I know she has a shortcut on her computer.”

“Okay— I’m gonna put a pin in that for now because I was not aware that you could do that and I want the down low on that.” He chuckles and I smile, knowing that he really will need me for that— I’ve hung out at the nurses station longer than he has most days, and I’ve learned charting tricks just from watching the nurses toggle in and out of my personal chart.

“But no— I’m not talking about your symptoms— I’m talking about your behavior. And the things you hadn’t been saying along with the things you were already telling us. Grace, you don’t complain that much. You actually don’t outright refuse a crap ton of things once you're in the hospital either. So if you’d been telling us for the last several days that you weren’t hungry, and you had been throwing up almost everything you tried? That should’ve been a signal to me that something was going on. And I’m sorry that my first instinct was to put you down as being stubborn to piss the team off and grandstand a right to be self-destructive. So I’m sorry- I should’ve been a lot more understanding. And patient.”

“I forgive you, but I am still mad. Not about you being the unreasonable one— someone’s gotta take that title from Jay at least part of the time— hey!” I swat back the hand that just lightly shoved me with a smile. “But you made it sound like I don’t care that you guys are trying to help. And you know that’s not true.”

“I know.” He sighed. “Kinda took Hailey breaking that down for me to realize what I said. You’ve got every right to still be mad about it, but I can start making it up to you, right.”

“I mean, you can try, but you also just dosed me up with the antibiotic that makes me feel like crap, so good luck trying to— ugh, not you, too! Is this Dr. Charles’s whole treatment plan for me? Loosen me up by giving me deep pressure therapy so I cry it out?” I exclaim as he grabs the thin cotton blanket Jay’s been using and motions for me to scoot over.

“No, but I’ll let him know you said that.” He laughs, wrapping me up and settling me on the bed. “Truth be told I didn’t think it was going to work as well as it did. Then we took a blood pressure while you were sleeping that first time Jay tried it and your vitals were perfect— I don’t think we’ve ever gotten those numbers out of you while you were sick. Your temp even dropped down to somewhere in the 102 range. But now that we know it works— and that it works really well, I think it’s worth it to let you have it as much as you need it while we’re in the hospital. And you’ve had a pretty stressful morning already. Just trying to even the score.” He tucks me gently under his arm once he’s got me all wrapped up, then motions towards the monitors once I’ve been comfy for a second.

When I look over, I see why Jay’s been so persistent about it— pulse ox 100%, Resp rate of 10– the lowest I’ve seen it all stay. HR sitting at 104 and dropping.

“Yeah, it’s like your brain just magically waits for this signal to start letting your body settle.” Will rubs my back gently as he talks. “All these years, and who would’ve thought that a hug was the magic cure you needed?”

“Maybe it’s not the hug. Maybe it’s just family.” I snuggle in closer, letting the warmth lull me to sleep before the nausea takes me out.

Will just kisses my forehead and settles in for a nap.