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letitrainletitsnowbutdontletmego · 7 years

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Finally - Chapter 9: Hospital

aka: 9 times Jay tries to win Voight over (intentionally and not so intentionally) and the 1 time he doesn’t need to.

Also on ff.net and AO3.

Many, many thanks to @justkillingtimewhileiwait for all of her help, listening to me bounce ideas off her, ramble on about what I wanted to write and mostly, the beta-ing. You are awesome! :)

“Erin.” Voight breathing her name in relief was what snapped her attention up from the linoleum floor of the ER where she had been staring for the better part of the past 30 minutes.

Her senses suddenly came crashing back to her; the sounds of the busy hospital, the smell of the alcohol being swabbed at her skin, the sight of bright white lights of the room and the feel of heat on her arm as she was being stitched. Only taste remained, but as she couldn’t taste blood, she counted herself lucky.

Voight was in front of her within four steps, causing her to crane her neck up from her position on the edge of the bed. “How bad is it?”

Erin blinked a couple of times as she forced herself to interpret his words and come up with a reply. “It’s just a graze,”

He nodded, peering at the two neat lines of black stitches on her left bicep before catching her eyes again. “And Jay?”

Erin shook her head, feeling her eyes begin to fill once again even as she willed herself not to cry. Not again. Not here. “It’s bad, Hank,” she whispered, her voice coming out shakily and rougher than she would like. Shaking her head, her eyes drifted back to the floor, unable to look at Voight as she spoke lest she broke down. “He crashed twice on the way here. They- they took him straight up to surgery after they got him stable. Will’s up there waiting.”

“Erin-” he began, but when she failed to look up, she felt him shift until he was eye level with her, claiming her attention with a warm hand upon hers on the examination table. Erin had barely noticed how they had cleaned up her hands with warm water to make sure she didn’t have any other injuries. “Hey, look at me, kiddo,” Voight demanded, and she slowly did as he said. “Your partner is nothing if not stubborn. He’s a fighter, okay? He’s not going to let this beat him.”

“You didn’t see him, you don’t know that! They got him three times and I couldn’t-” she broke off, taking in a ragged breath and willing herself to calm down so not to remember all the red, warm, sticky blood she had had the worst time trying to control until the EMTs had reached them.

After returning fire and getting all the perpetrators down, Erin had turned to Jay, who had looked paler than she had ever seen him. Guiding him to the floor where they were, she had quickly seen the causes of it and radioed in for an urgent ambulance. She had managed to keep Jay talking and awake for no more than 2 minutes.

She could feel the small tugs on her arm as the doctor worked to put in her stitches, not saying a word or acknowledging the two of them as she did so. Curling her hands around the edge of the table, she fought the urge to scream and shout, to stop with the platitudes, to beg for an update even though she was told she would only get one once he was out of surgery.

Closing her eyes, she forced herself to compartmentalise as she filled Voight in with what had happened. “They were waiting for us, knew we wouldn’t be on our guard ‘cause they were just witnesses. It’s only because Jay thought he heard something that we hit the ground before they opened fire. Or he pulled me down; I don’t remember,” she admitted, shaking her head and knowing it was the emotional stress right then that was causing her memories to get a bit jumbled up.

“We’ll piece it all together once we get a statement from the both of you, but until then, let’s get you patched up, and then we’ll head up to see how Jay’s doing,” he told her calmly, patting her hand a couple of times before standing up straight again.

Nodding, Erin peered up through her lashes at the thought of leaving the ER and heading back into the reality of waiting. “Hank, I’m scared. It was really bad,” she murmured softly, hearing him sigh in response.

“Don’t go there, Erin. Until we hear anything else, you’ve got to believe he’ll be fine, alright?” he said strictly, leaving no room for argument. Knowing there was nothing she could say to that, she nodded once again, allowing her eyes to close as she felt him lovingly cup her cheek and press a kiss to the top of her head.

It was the best comfort she could seek right then.

…

Surgery had apparently been a success, but Erin was not seeing any progress. It had been over 7 hours since she’d been allowed to see Jay, laying on the hospital bed with IVs attached to both hands, wires monitoring his vitals and an oxygen mask ensuring he got enough.

Will had explained to her in layman’s terms that it had been the bullet Jay had taken to the abdomen which had caused the most problem. It had nicked the hepatic artery, which was why he had lost so much blood. Luckily, and Erin had scoffed dryly at his use of the word, it hadn’t caused any other internal damage, with the two other wounds also being easy fixes. The one that had hit him just below his shoulder had been lodged in the muscle with the one in his arm was more of a flesh wound.

Everyone else had returned to the district soon after hearing Jay would be okay, with only Voight lingering back to make sure she would be alright at the hospital. After assuring him she would, and that she had Will there too, he had given her a brief hug, reminded her he had told her how stubborn her partner was and to call if she needed anything at all.

The chair she sat on at the side of Jay’s bed was anything but comfortable, but she wasn’t about to complain. The last time she had muttered about her arm itching, Will had tried to arrange her a morphine drip to help with the pain. She had shot him down immediately without stating why, saying she’d prefer a numbing agent instead.

Will must have been happy to have something to do after feeling almost useless the entire day as his little brother was being tended to that he had fetched a tube of lidocaine himself and applied it around her stitches. Erin would have insisted on doing it herself if she hadn’t recognised the need for a reprieve from simply watching Jay do nothing on Will’s features. So she had bared it and said thank you at the end.

Gently running her fingers over the back of Jay’s she carefully curled her hand around his once again, making sure not to joust the needle in the back of it. He was warm and familiar, and if she closed her eyes and blocked out the sounds, she could almost imagine they were in bed at home. With her on her tablet, reading a book or surfing the internet as Jay slept besides her, hand clutched in hers and resting somewhere on her. Using her tablet one-handed wasn’t the easiest achievement in the word but she would gladly sacrifice her other hand if it meant holding his.

It was nearing 2 a.m. when she felt his fingers twitch against hers. Sitting up straight, Erin leaned forward to take a proper look at him and stood up when she saw his eyes start to blink open slowly.

“Will, he’s waking up,” she called out to the doctor. Will jumped to his feet from where he was sat on the small couch against the wall, resting his eyes in a way that had made her think he had actually been asleep. Turning all her attention back to her boyfriend, she reached out to gently skim the pads of her fingers over his temple. “Jay?”

He immediately reacted to her touch, trying to bring up the hand she wasn’t holding. However, Will got to him first and held his arm down to the bed to keep him still. “Don’t move, Jay. Just give me a second, alright?”

Will then went about checking his vitals in ways Erin could not understand. She noticed he only called for assistance once he had done what he wanted, and she smiled softly at his brotherly gesture, wanting to check on him first before anyone else began prodding around.

Jay tried to reach up again, going for the mask on his face but only to be stopped by Will insisting he left it alone until he fully woke up from his anaesthesia.

“Hey, hey, no. Listen to your brother for now,” Erin told him as he weakly attempted to fight Will’s instructions.

She stepped closer to him, leaning over the top of the bed so she could see him properly and hoped he could too. The anaesthesia was still in his system, and she could tell he was fighting sleep by the way his eyelids pulled to be closed. Erin ran her fingers through his hair tenderly, hoping to coerce him to give in without any fight. He turned his head ever so slightly in her direction at her ministrations.

“I’m here, I’m right here, baby. I’m not going anywhere. Relax, okay? You’re going to be alright,” she murmured reassuringly, ignoring Will as he carried on with his duties or the new presence in the room in the form of Doctor Rhodes.

Jay’s eyes eventually fluttered close but she felt him squeeze her hand more fiercely than she thought should have been possible for someone in his state. Ghosting her lips over his forehead, she pulled back and smiled softly to herself as relief flooded her completely.

…

When Jay came around the next evening, it was the first time he was fully coherent. Which meant Erin had to deal with empathetically assuring him that she was fine and showing him her injuries when Will ratted her out to prove to him that it truly wasn’t that bad.

Between the two of them, they were able to fill Jay in with what happened after paying the 'witnesses’ a visit. He had been shocked to say the least, anger quickly replacing it until Erin informed him that they had taken out the two shooters immediately. The case was closed now, anyway, and once they had Jay’s statement, it would be filed away. A pretty anticlimactic ending to a horrifying case, Erin thought, but kept it to herself.

“So, um, just so you know, you don’t get to do this again, okay?” Erin told him once they were alone. Will had a shift starting in a few hours and had gone to take a power nap, leaving Erin with Jay for the first time since everything had happened.

“What, get shot? It’s not at the top of my list of fun things to do,” Jay remarked smartly. He had been propped up on the bed so he wasn’t completely lying down anymore, allowing Erin to see him better and for him to feel less like a patient.

“Anything that lands you here, like this. This is it. I can’t do this again, Jay,” she stated from where she sat in the chair next to his bed as she had for the past 24-plus hours. She had her elbow on the bed next to his legs with her head being supported by her hand.

“Erin, I’m going to be fine,” he said for what seemed like the millionth time to her, and she couldn’t help the wry smile that curved at her lips.

“Yeah, but for a while there, I had no idea what I was going to hear next,” she explained, swallowing around the lump that had formed in her throat and willing her emotions away. Not now, not again. Not when Jay was up, talking and even joking with her. The memories and the associated feelings with what had happened would just take a bit longer to disappear. “And hearing you didn’t make it was on equal footing with everything was fine.”

Jay watched her for a moment before sighing. He reached out a hand towards her, palm up on the bed. Slipping her other hand into his, she gripped his wrist as he did hers, thumbs hooked around each other. She could feel his pulse against her fingertips, and it was somehow more reassuring than the machines that he had been attached to when he had been asleep.

“It’ll take a hell lot more than some bullets to keep me from you, alright? I’m not going anywhere, not for a long time,” he told her, his voice not leaving any room for argument as if he could dictate his further simply by willing it. Erin wondered briefly if he had recalled her words from early that morning, when she had soothed him back to sleep but considering he couldn’t remember waking up, she put it down to pure coincidence. “I still have so many plans on how to annoy you for the rest of your life.”

Raising a brow at his casual smirk, she pondered, “Is that so? Wanna clue me in on what to expect?”

“Nah, where’s the fun in that?” Jay teased with a boyish grin, making her roll her eyes.

She ducked her head initially to hide her laughter, but was forced to lift it up to cover up a yawn with her hand. It hadn’t hit her until then that she hadn’t slept in well over 36 hours.

“Sorry,” she murmured, shaking her head to push away the fog of sleep threatening to overtake her.

Jay squeezed her hand gently and gave her a soft look. “Go home and sleep, Erin. You must be exhausted.”

“I can sleep perfectly fine here,” she replied with a gentle smile, resting her elbow back onto the bed and resuming her previous position.

“No, you can’t, and I’m in no shape to give you any massages anytime soon,” he told her pointedly.

Erin shook her head again. “I’m not leaving you, Jay. And I’m not going home unless it’s with you,” she said adamantly, ignoring his attempt to lighten the mood which at other times would have her smartly snarking back.

“Then you’re gonna need someone to swing by the apartment because I hear it could be a few days and you’re gonna need more clothes,” he pointed out, repeating what Doctor Rhodes had said after explaining what he had done during surgery when Jay had asked. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Will and Erin, he just knew the two of them would try to sugarcoat the worst of it whilst also insisting he needed to take it easy to recuperate.

“I’ll sort it out tomorrow,” Erin brushed off flippantly, pursing her lips against another yawn but failing to keep it back.

“Come here,” Jay finally sighed when she looked at him sheepishly, tugging at her hand. “Come up here and lay down with me. If you’re not gonna head home then the least I can do is share my bed with you.”

“How gallant,” she chuckled, not needing to be told twice as she kicked off her shoes and climbed onto the narrow bed. Fortunately, their good sides matched, meaning she was able to curl into his side without nudging any of his injuries. “Don’t let me hurt you.”

“You won’t, I promise. Nothing about you laying with me could ever hurt,” he murmured as she laid her head on his shoulder, feeling him brush his lips over her forehead as his arm came around her to hold her to him. Erin was grateful, not just to be held close but also because she was sure she would fall off the bed if he didn’t.

“Is this okay?” she asked, resting a hand on his chest just next to the gauze which covered the wound on his other shoulder.

“It’s perfect,” he replied and she allowed herself to relax into him, settling until she could close her eyes and almost pretend they were back at home in their own bed.

They fell into a comfortable silence; Erin focusing on the soft beating of his heart below her ear whilst she felt him play with her fingers splayed on his chest. She was sure it was enough to lull her to sleep, his gentle touch was soothing, as was simply having him there, warm and alive beneath her. However, she could practically hear the time ticking by, her eyes staying shut but her mind refusing to give her some peace.

“Talk to me about something,” she finally muttered, feeling Jay pause momentarily in his touch and resting his hand upon hers before carrying on not a second later. It was clear he had thought she had fallen asleep, and she smiled to herself at his surprise.

He cleared his throat before he spoke, and when she heard amusement lining his words, Erin almost regretted asking. “You know what is at the top of my list of fun things to do?”

“Don’t say it-” she warned, tilting her head back and opening her eyes to glare at him.

“You,” he finished with a lopsided grin, ignoring her and her glare.

“What did I just say?” she grumbled with a huff, tucking her face into the crook of his neck to stop him from seeing the smile that threatened to break out. “Idiot.”

“You told me to talk to you about something, so I did,” Jay reasoned innocently, his hand trailing up her arm to where the bandages for her stitches wrapped around her bicep and then back down to her hand. “Alright, alright, how about the story of how Will use to convince me we had a long lost sister who was sent away? And told me I’d follow suit every time I did something he didn’t like?”

…

Jay wasn’t sure how long he had spent telling the story to Erin before he had noticed she was truly asleep, but knew it had been at least an hour since then and sleep was definitely evading him. He put it down to the fact that he had slept for a good day and hadn’t done much to tire himself out since the anaesthesia had worn off completely. Even the painkillers weren’t that drowsy.

Contemplating picking up Erin’s phone from where it laid on the table next to the bed for some entertainment, he had just figured out how to reach out without dislodging or moving her when a familiar voice sounded from the doorway.

“I’m pretty sure that’s against hospital regulations,” Voight stated dryly, nodding towards Erin.

Jay froze for a moment, unsure how to tread these unfamiliar waters where his boss was not shooting him an 'if-looks-could-kill’, hardened glare or gruffly telling him to keep things professional, even if being hospitalised most likely counted as personal time.

“You want to tell her to move? Because you’re more than welcome to tell her to move,” Jay lied, not wanting her to move at all. He kept his voice quiet, not wanting to wake her up even as he unintentionally curled a hand around her hip for reasons didn’t know. Probably a self-preservation method to either keep Voight from doing as he had said or hurting him. Not that either scenario was likely; they both knew what Erin was like when forced to wake up and even Hank Voight had better ways of dealing with someone than when they were recovering.

Voight smiled and took a step into the room, stopping by the foot of his bed. “How are you doing?”

“Good. I mean, apart from these holes in my body, I’m practically fine,” Jay answered casually, playing off his injuries as he had been doing every time someone asked him. He wouldn’t tell them about the burning hot pain each wound caused him, with the painkillers only taking the edge off. Nor about how even breathing seemed to sting a little in places he was sure shouldn’t be aching.

“You weren’t fine when you were bleeding out everywhere. It was a close one,” Voight told him, more emotional and concerned than Jay had ever heard him talk to anyone other than Erin. It was a welcomed change, but Jay knew better than to over analyse it.

“So you do care, Sarge! I knew it,” he replied with his boyish smile, earning himself an eyeroll unlike which he knew Erin would give him too if she was awake.

“You literally died less than 24 hours ago in front of her; I’m here to make sure you don’t do it again anytime soon,” Voight retorted, all signs of his caring nature gone from his tone though Jay could still see the softness in his features.

Sobering up, Jay nodded once. “I’ll be alright in a few weeks,” he assured him, knowing what Erin must have gone through the previous day would have shaken up the man who had practically raised her, regardless of his feelings towards their relationship or him.

“You saved her life,” Voight stated, recalling what Doctor Rhodes had told him about Jay’s injuries and Erin’s account of the shooting. The bullet Jay had taken to the shoulder was the perfect height to get Erin right in the head, meaning any response slower than theirs had been would probably have resulted in him losing his only remaining child.

“I would have done the same for anyone,” Jay said earnestly, brushing off Voight’s intense stare, under which he felt uneasy. He knew he’d have to give his statement about the events of what happened once he was better but he didn’t feel like rehashing it until he had to.

“I know, kid, I know,” Voight said with a smile, laying a hand on his leg and squeezing gently. Jay didn’t miss the gesture, nor the nickname which he used exclusively for Erin, but knew not mention it. “Get better soon. And call me if you need anything, especially with Erin.”

Quickly clearing his mind about Voight’s actions, he watched as the other man looked at him expectantly, obviously having seen Jay react to his demand to call him. “Can you come by in the morning to get her to go home? She refused tonight but I don’t want her to stay here all day again.”

“I’ll be here by 9,” Voight assured him. Taking one final glance at the woman in question, he merely said goodbye before leaving.

“Was that Hank or was I dreaming?” Erin murmured not a minute later, causing Jay to bristle at the sudden words being spoken warmly into his neck without stirring.

“That was him. He just wanted to see how I was, and you,” he confirmed, smiling when she moaned as she shifted to lay her head on his shoulder again. “Though I’m surprised he didn’t manhandle you out of here for this,” he added, pressing her close again with the hand on her waist to indicate exactly what he meant.

“Told you he liked you,” Erin taunted, pulling her hand out from under his on his chest to brush back her hair from her face as she peered up at him. “Or it’s because you’ve just been shot. Might want to be on guard once you’re back to work.”

“Might use you as my guard,” Jay retorted lightly, catching her eyes. “You dream of Voight?”

“Shut up,” she groaned at his play on her earlier words, returning to her her previous position pressed against him and closing her eyes, purposefully ignoring his silent laughter as she welcomed sleep again.

#linstead #erin lindsay #jay halstead #cpd #my fics #9+1 #linstead fanfiction

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