Our Scars

Nothingness

41

Nothingness (Title by Editors)

Getting called at any impossible time of day or night was nothing Hank Voight got teed off about. It was part of his job and well: he had chosen this life.

As there was really no one left complaining about disturbances at ungodly hours Hank sometimes feared he didn't even registered them anymore. It just didn't matter. There wasn't much room for privacy anyway and who was he kidding? He lived for this stuff.

What did matter though was whenever he got a call that one of his team members found her or himself in a difficult and dangerous situation. Even more so a situation that no one was expecting because it didn't revolve around an active case. And it mattered even more that again he had been called about Halstead. That kid really wasn't able to catch a break currently. Also it seemed that the one's Hank cared most about always found some banana peel more to skid on.

Wide awake and alert due to adrenaline and two strong espressos on the way he strode into the ED of Chicago Med just 15 minutes after he'd gotten the call. Just like he'd promised and as if he owned the place. Will Halstead awaited him at the front desk. It felt like only yesterday he'd been here waiting here on updates on his brother's status after Jay had gotten shot.

"Walk with me!" The red-head nodded curtly, looking a little pasty and not completely sober.

"What are we dealing with?" Mostly time was of the essence so Voight demanded infos on their way to wherever his detective was.

"Jay, me and some friends of mine have been out drinking. At one point he wanted to go home or rather meet Rianne at Molly's, so he left. Turns out he never got there. Rianne received a picture of Jay making out with another girl. She didn't buy it and got a bad feeling, so her Severide and Kidd went to look for him. They found Jay in some alleyway a half mile away from the club we were in earlier, seriously shot up with drugs and almost frozen to death. We think he was set-up, but the problem is we can't really prove that, so it would be reported as a self-inflicted drug overdose and possible suicide attempt if we don't do something..."

Voight took this in, gave Will a frown and one of his signature grunts. Some predicament Halstead had gotten himself into. Again!

They had reached a room in the ED where he was welcomed with an almost familiar picture: Jay propped up in a hospital bed, oxygen and monitors, IV's attached to him, distraught looking female by his side. He guessed it was the fate of dating a policeman, especially an invested one like Jay, to spend a lot of time fearing for his life. He knew for sure Camille had gone through this constantly.

"Sergeant Voight! Thank you so much for getting here so quickly! I'm really sorry..."

The moment they opened the door to the room Rianne Torres Delgado jumped up from the seat she had taken next to Jay's bed. She shook his extended hand with quite some force despite looking tired and stressed out.

"Don't apologize and please call me Hank! So, he hasn't woken up yet?" He jutted his chin out to where his detective was lying, unmoving, limp and terribly pale.

Just a steady beeping of the heart-monitor announced he was in fact alive.

"No, but he's stable and this is definitely not a coma. His body has suffered a lot of trauma from the extreme exposure to the cold and the effect of all those drugs. So the doctor's said it's perfectly normal that it might take him a while to come to. I just hope there is no permanent damage! No one knows exactly how long he's been out there before we found him and his heart stopped at least once..." the woman's normally clear and melodious voice faded and her eyes glazed over.