Upstead comfort fics

Leg Complications

(In 6.21, Hailey's leg isn't as okay as she said it was.)
(I swear I haven't abandoned the one shots! I took a break to focus on getting my new story started and school has been busy, and now a dear friend's dad is not doing well and it's been heartbreaking to process (if any of y'all pray, please pray for a miracle for him), so these kinda got put on the back burner. Thank you for your patience!)
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Hailey flopped down on the couch after showering and changing the bandage on her leg. To say it had been a long day would be an understatement. She was exhausted, emotionally spent, and in pain, but she wasn't about to tell anyone that. She took some Tylenol when she got home, she'd be fine.

Jay showed up a little later with pizza from Bartoli's and she let him in before limping back to her couch and laying down. Jay sighed as he watched his best friend. He knew she'd had a bad day between the glass in her leg and breaking up with Adam, but he didn't expect her to be so lethargic.

"Hail, you wanna talk about anything?" He asked, sitting on the edge of the couch and looking at her.

"No, I just wanna go to sleep, but I know you're gonna make me eat and I probably won't sleep anyway," she grumbled, not even lifting her head up.

Jay put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it gently before going to get the pizza from the kitchen. He managed to get Hailey to eat a slice and a half before she refused to eat anything else.

"Okay, go up to bed, we had a long day. I'm going to stay on the couch just in case you wake up in pain, okay?" Hailey was out of it and didn't protest, she just went upstairs, slowly, and crawled into her bed, falling asleep instantly.

Jay checked in on her before he went to sleep in the guest room, keeping the door cracked so he could hear Hailey if she needed anything in the night. She'd stayed with him in the Fall when he got shot in the hip (the second night), so it was only the right thing to do.

To both of their surprise, Hailey slept through the night. Neither one of them had expected that with how her insomnia got when she was upset or had a lot going on in her head. She didn't even wake up to her alarm, so Jay went to check on her.

Hailey was still sound asleep, sweating, face twisted with pain. Jay immediately knew something was wrong and woke her up. She started to cry as soon as Jay roused her from her sleep. Her leg HURT and she felt so sick. She couldn't remember the last time she'd been in so much pain or felt so incredibly sick.

"Hey, Hail, let me check your leg. You're burning up," Hailey whined, she was having trouble waking up all the way and wanted to slip back into the abyss of not feeling sick or being in pain.

"Come on, you can be pissed at me later," Jay rolled her over and was thankful she'd slept in shorts so he could just remove the bandage.

"Stop, m gonna be sick," Hailey stumbled out of bed and barely made it to the bathroom before she was sick. Jay followed and helped her calm down and rinse her mouth before he made her sit down so he could check the wound on her leg.

He wanted to gag when the bandage came off. Her leg was very clearly infected, and it was disgusting. He'd never seen an infection set in so fast, which probably meant something was still in her leg. He knew she'd cleaned it before bed.

"Okay, Hailey, we need to go to med. you have an infection," she shook her head, hating hospitals just almost as much as Jay.

"I know, but we have to. I'm going to help you after I call Voight," she reluctantly nodded, tears slipping down her flushed cheeks.

Jay went and found some sweats for Hailey to put on and temporarily left her to change while he called Voight and explained that something was wrong and he was taking Hailey to med so they wouldn't be coming to work. By the time he finished the call, Hailey had managed to change and brush her teeth.

Jay ended up carrying her down to his truck, she'd nearly fallen down the stairs from the pain in her leg. He had them at med in under 30 minutes and Will saw them and got them back immediately.

"What's going on?" He asked, putting on gloves.

"She got a shard of glass in her leg yesterday, paramedics cleared her, but it's definitely infected. She's got a fever, she threw up, she's a little out of it, and the wound is oozing and hot. It's kinda gross," Jay explained, making sure Hailey was steady on the hospital bed.

"Okay, Hailey, how's the nausea?" Hailey shook her head, not wanting to speak, she felt so sick.

"I'm going to put this right here for you to use it while I check your vitals," Will put a basin by her.

Hailey made use of it a couple minutes later and Jay helped her calm down when she finished. She had a high fever and her heart rate was elevated. Will immediately got her started on some antibiotics and brought Natalie in to look at Hailey's leg.

"Oh man. Hailey, how much pain are you in?" She asked the younger woman.

"So much. It burns," she admitted.

"Okay, this is going to hurt, I need to irrigate the wound. I'll give you something for the pain ahead of time," Nat explained and Hailey nodded and grabbed Jay's hand.

"It's fine, just make it stop," Hailey pleaded.

Even with the medicine, the pain of Natalie cleaning the wound and thoroughly checking for any remaining glass had Hailey crying and throwing up once more. She never wanted to feel this way again.

"I know it hurts, just breathe, I'm here," Jay rubbed her back and tried his best to comfort her throughout the process. Hailey leaned into his chest and shut her eyes, waiting for the pain to stop.

Natalie finished and applied an antibiotic to the wound and bandaged it but didn't stitch it. "Okay, we're going to keep you here for the day and run antibiotics through your IV, then in a couple days I want you to come back and get this stitched."

Hailey nodded with a yawn. Fevers tended to knock her out, and Jay laid her down so she could sleep. They spent the whole day at med and Hailey slowly started to feel better. Jay got her home that evening and managed to convince her to eat some dinner before she went to lay down.

They watched a show and Jay cleaned the wound before he helped Hailey upstairs to get in her bed. Her leg was still pretty sore and walking hurt a lot.

"Can you stay?" She asked him quietly before he left her room.

"Yeah, I'll stay," he went and hugged Hailey before getting into the bed with her.

She managed to fall asleep but was a little restless that night, and she stayed home from work the next day. Then Jay took her back to med a couple days later to get stitches and she was soon back to work and feeling much better.