An Unfortunate Mix-Up ✔️

Chapter 46: ....24 hours....

It had been 24 hours since the bullet left the chamber, hit him square in the back, caused him to fall down and scream out in pain, followed by panic by his partners. It had been 23 hours of being at the hospital, going through a series of tests, IV stuck in his arm, and a needle pricked in his back every four hours.

So why was he getting nowhere? 

Taking a breath, perhaps he would need to bite that bullet and do the surgery. He could only imagine what it'd be like lying on a table having your back cut into as a doctor played with the nerves there. It'd certainly bring pain, probably a lot more than when a bone or skin is struck. It'd bring being in the hospital longer, with these sights that he hated not disappearing anytime soon. It'd also mean being out of the job he loved that much longer. 

"Do you want anything, Jay?" Natalie asks after going through checking over all of his vitals once again, just like she had every two hours - before a needle being stuck in him, and halfway before the next visit. He liked Natalie, wished things had worked out between Natalie and Will, but was growing annoyed of seeing her in this nature.

"No, thank you," Jay replies as a sigh escapes his lips, his eyes looking down at the lower half of his body. He would take anything at this point - an involuntary twitch, a spasm, tingling - but yet right now it just felt like dead weight attached to his waist. "I'm sorry if I'm being an ass but I really don't want to be here, Nat." 

"Would we expect anything different, Chuckles?" Trudy asks as she stands in the doorway. Jay had gotten old of the visits over the period of time. He knew everyone cared and wanted to check on him, but he would rather be left alone in his pity of a situation right now. That said, you could never turn down an opportunity to see Trudy.

"That's Detective Chuckles." They both chuckle a little in response, bringing a small smile to Natalie's face as she left the room. It was the first time she'd seen a chuckle or smile from Jay in the past day. Instead, he was just filled with pain and frustration it seemed. "Did you seriously bring me coffee?" 

"I always seem to catch you drinking it when I head upstairs, either early morning or late at night." Trudy makes her way over and hands him the cup with a smile. "I figured maybe it'd wake the rest of your body up, and to remind you just how terrible police station coffee tastes." 

"I hope to taste a lot more cups..." He then takes a sip, making the same face as always - pure disgust.

"Well, you could always take over my job and man the desk. I'd love to see your responses to some of the cops somedays." Jay looks over, surprised and intrigued by the comment at the same time. There was nobody that could ever picture a job like that for Jay, knowing he always wanted to be right in the action. However, given his way of offering advice - sometimes when not requested, it would give him an opportunity to do that all day.

"I don't think anyone could do the job as well as you do." He then reaches for the television remote, flipping it on as he finds the channel the Daytona 500 was on. "I promised Alex I would check in and see how he makes out, considering he starts first. I have never sat and watched an event in my life, but I got nothing else to do right now." 

"Mouch and Hermann went to one of those awhile ago. I remember looking at him like he was crazy - the same way he does when I want to go out on a chase myself. They both said they had a great time and would go again..." Jay nods his head, not surprised by the comment as a whole. "I think he said something about Chase Elliott being his favou-"

"That's Alex's teammate, actually. He was supposed to pick us up from the airport and then ran late, and well, the rest is history." He lets out a sigh, not wanting to think about the days that transpired after that - and how they connected to now. However, he also knew that he could not blame Chase for what happened. People ran late all the time, and plans went wrong. He also knew if Derek hadn't found him there that day, he would have somewhere else with how determined he was. It was just a matter of time with how thought he about it.

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"I finally finished one of these things!" Alex lets out after the race, offering a high-five for Blake Harris, who could only chuckle at his driver's behavior already. After years of starting on the pole and failing to finish, there was a checked flag and top-10 for Alex this time around.

"So what you're saying is I'm already doing a better job than Greg?" Blake teases, causing Alex to just chuckle in response. "Can I please tell him that Monday?" 

"You can do whatever you want - but you should value your life to a point." Alex then grabs a drink, followed by answering a series of questions for the media members standing around. Some of them concerned the action on-track, while others were about how he was doing. He kept telling the same thing as he did the days before - he was absolutely fine, no pain at all, ready to move forward. 

"Is that the truth, Alex? Are you seriously okay?" Alex nods his head as a smile crosses his face. He had been worried about residual effects, but that certainly hadn't been the case. "I'm glad, because I don't know what I'd do without my biggest Ally here."