Reassure (Jay Halstead x OC.)

20

"Jay! Jay!"

Jay just continued to push. To shove and shove until Will stepped back out of his way and let him run away down the ward.

Tears spilled from his eyes and down his face as his whole body shuck like he had a train wracking through him. His vision was blurry and he felt his chest constrict. He couldn't breathe.

"Will?" He heard another familiar voice call into the fog but he just kept running until he was in a stark white hallway and no blurry figures could be seen. He collapsed against a wall into a little window side bench and sobbed hard and deep into his hands. Folding himself down like a crumpled up piece of paper, into a ball. He wished for the ground to swallow him whole.

The walls around him seemed to vibrate as they closed in, inch by inch. His dog tags burned around his neck as he clutched the cool metal for some small semblance of reality to snap back to. He must have been in a nightmare. A terror. He would wake up. He had to wake up. He clutched harder.

-.-.-.-.-

"Will?" Will snapped around, he too was dazed but he was in doctor mode right now but only three words kept battering around inside his head,   "Brain", "dead", "dad". In that order.

He had been down too long. And Will had tried, he had fought and fought and kept going until he couldn't anymore. Until, Maggie and another nurse had to pull him away, until Jay finally clocked onto what he was telling himself too. Their dad was gone.

He may have been breathing (with a machine) again and his heart may have been beating (with a machine) again. But Pat Halstead was gone.

He had been told so himself, by Sam, the esteemed, accoladed, Head of Neurology.

Their dad was gone.

Jay had stopped begging his older brother like a scared child for answers, he had snapped, then he had cried, then he had ran. He was Jay.

And now Will faced Reign. The girl he looked at as a sister. A friend. A fellow south side survivor. His brother's tether. His anchor at sea. And now Jay was dangerously close to sailing into the rocks.

Will wouldn't crumble. Not here. Not at his place of work, not as a doctor with patients all around and colleagues who depended on him. Hems do that later, take a moment to break down.

"Will....your dad...?" She had come stumbling, half covered by her hospital gown out of her bay with Noah trailing behind her looking just as confused as to why she had jumped up.

Her wound still bled, half-stitched. "Will....is he?"

"He's dead." Will had never heard his own voice sound so harsh, so course.  Like he had swallowed gravel or ice.

He sounded cold.

He hated himself for not softening the blow.

"Oh Will." She was welling up already, she chocked out a sob, "I'm so sorry." She went to move to hug him but he had to stay numb for now so he dodged her almost manoeuvring her so Noah could take her back to her bay.

"Will?!" She sounded half way between heart-broken and confused. A sort of dazed call of concern and slight rejection.

He just kept walking.

-.-.-.-.-

She didn't see either of the brothers after that. Too busy getting finished with Noah, getting discharged, checking on Stella, shouting at Kelly for getting himself removed from the ER.

She was exhausted. Drained both physically and emotionally. It hadn't been coming for a while like when they lost Mrs Halstead, loosing Pat Halstead had been more sudden and yet just as cruel.

She headed home from the hospital was her mind reeling.

"Hey Jay, it's me. When you get this....please call me back. Will, he told me about your dad and I-.....I am so sorry. I'll see you at home.....please call, or come home soon." She left him a voice mail, praying he'd see it and calm her back. She was worried about him.

Terribly worried.

Jay and his dad had their rough spots but they loved one another so much it hurt. Like a fire needs fuel to feed it. That father-son love needed both parties. And now that love was slowly dwindling. With every argument leading up to Pat's death, Jay had been pulling away and she could just sense Jay's guilt and self-anger.

She needed to be with him, make him know how much his dad loved him. Make him feel loved again.

-.-.-.-.-.-

Lip had seen his eldest sister smoke a whole four times in his life.

Once after a particularly horrible Monica episode. Once after Liam was born. Once after she punched a girl and got suspended from middle school sticking up for Fiona. And once after a night over at the Halstead's house six years ago. The day of Mrs. Halstead's funeral.

This made five.

"Rough night?" He called as he approached the porch to his sister and Jay's house with cautious steps. He could see Debbie through the window shooting him a "don't do it." Look.

"Rough doesn't begin to describe it." She replied. Her voice cracked, she had been crying.

Now he was worried even more.

"Do you wanna tell me-."

"Jay and Will's dad died. Loads of people did, in a fire today but....but there was so many,...and Jay and Will, I'm so worried and Pat...." She choked and hiccuped, "he's gone." She sobbed out now, her cigarette hand shaking as she took a drag, dipped her head and shook violently as sobs racked her frame.

"Rei...fuck....i...I'm so sorry."
"I couldn't find Jay." She sobbed again. "Ah!" He placed his hand on her shoulder supportively but quickly revoked it as if burned by her when she flinched and yelped in pain. "What happened to your..."

"I dislocated it." She bluntly responded. "You need to sleep. I'll call Jay again, call around, see where he's at. You were hurt."

"I was hurt. Now I'm waiting for my grieving friend." She stubbornly responded. "No you're not. Come on. Put that out....lets get inside."