Chicago Med fic: Mercy (10/10)
PART ONE
PART TWO
PART THREE
PART FOUR
PART FIVE
PART SIX
PART SEVEN
PART EIGHT
PART NINE
PART TEN
-o-
He’s taken Will for granted ever since he got back to work. For all that he’s doublechecked all of Will’s work, he hasn’t paid attention to Will at all.
It’s ironic now. He sits there, watching every rise and fall of his chest, every beat of his heart on the monitor.
Jay accepts his presence without much comment. He doesn’t know Jay well, but he can be a man of few words. There’s nothing much to say now. The apologies aren’t enough. The recriminations don’t lead anywhere. The focus is Will for now.
The focus is Will.
Ethan steps away from time to time, handing off ED tasks and making sure things are running as smoothly as possible with the chaos of the day. The area is still an active crime scene, and patients are being moved with the utmost care. The police are processing evidence and conducting interviews, and it’s no easy task to do anything resembling medicine.
The patient load is thinning out, at least, but Ethan pulls all the strings and plays the rank card to make sure that both cardio and neuro can get in for regular consults with Will. Cardio is pleased with his output levels now, and a few extra tests are requested just to be sure the heart seems to be recovering without further intervention. Neuro is even more optimistic. The latest scans show no evidence of brain damage, and he’s beginning to show response to stimuli once more.
If Ethan lessens the sedation, he’s likely to wake up just fine.
He’s also likely to start breathing on his own if they extubate, now that all other bodily functions are showing signs of coming online. It’s tempting to go ahead and do it -- all of it -- but Will’s not ready yet. He’s been through too much. Ethan can’t rush this.
It’s not easy. Ethan doesn’t like waiting, and sometimes he wishes he could be more like Archer. He could just be aggressive, push through no matter what. It’s a risky way to live, though. It’s an easy way to die, unfortunately.
The risk saved Ethan’s life.
It nearly killed Will.
Now he has to be his own man, his own doctor, his own leader.
His own friend.
-o-
Normally, with a case like this, it’s customary to send the patient upstairs and secure a bed in one of the other wards. However, with the shutdown of the ED, the transfer process has been understandably complicated. And besides, no one seems especially keen to let Will out of their sight.
As if their vigilance now can make up for their earlier oversights.
All the same, it’s not a transfer Ethan is going to put in, and there’s not a single person on staff who is going to question him on it, including Sharon Goodwin. Ms. Goodwin is in and out, and she checks on Will in regular intervals, but she spends more of her time orchestrating the investigation. She mitigates the police presence, and he’s sure she’s also taking the hospital’s internal review into high gear. There’s a lot to be done. She’s handling the case.
Ethan is responsible for handling Will.
Will’s vitals continue to improve, and his status grows increasingly less precarious. There is no sign of downturn in his gains, and Ethan suspects, if things continue as they’re going, they’ll be able to reduce sedation levels and take him off the ventilator within the day.
That’s the optimistic outlook, and Ethan thinks it's increasingly realistic.
Though, admittedly, he’s scared to say it out loud.
Especially with Will’s brother in the room.
He offers Jay as much as he can. He gets food and drink. He answers any questions. He makes uncomfortable, awkward small talk.
And then, when there’s nothing else for him to do, he listens.
Because Jay can be the strong and silent type, but when things really get rough -- when things really get bad -- Ethan knows that kind of vulnerability can change a man.
So Ethan, for Will’s sake and his own conscience, listens.
“It’s just -- it doesn’t seem fair,” Jay says, shaking his head. He sounds exhausted; no doubt, he is exhausted. “All the crap he’s put up with, all the work he’s done -- and this is what he gets? He didn’t even do anything wrong this time.”
Ethan does his best not to wince. “He has been working very hard lately.”
Scoffing, Jay looks at him with some incredulity. “Hard? He’s worked his ass off. Don’t get me wrong: my brother’s an idiot. He can screw up more than anyone I know. But he’s the kind of guy who makes it right.”
“Well, he was doing a good job,” Ethan tells him, hoping to sound reassuring. “He’d made amazing progress.”
Jay shakes his head, looking back at Will. “You wouldn’t have known it talking to him,” he murmurs. “Idiot was still convinced he was going to get fired. That’s why he refused to back off or let down. He had to keep going. I thought the stress was going to kill him, but I guess a serial killer beat him to it.”
It’s probably not a revelation. At least, Ethan has enough self awareness to know it shouldn’t be. Will’s issues have not been hard to see. His drama has been played out all over the ED -- all over Ethan’s ED -- and he’s been busy enough with his own hardships to worry about Will’s. In fact, if anything, he’s found Will’s vulnerable position rather convenient. It’s made him amenable to work with, and Ethan’s been so fond of having a reliable right-hand man that he’s not questioned the context of any of it.
Will’s made that easy. Will’s made everything easy. He’s taken to his punishment with such aplomb. He’s made not a single fight with his probation, and he’s been thorough and deferential. He’s stepped up in every possible way, and Ethan’s too smart not to see this as an effort to prove himself.
He’s just never stopped to consider when the need for proof is over.
When is the case self evident?
It seems silly to say so now, with Will still unconscious and his prognosis unknown. It seems especially silly to say it to his brother, who is keeping a vigil the best he can.
But it’s important for Ethan to know. He has to acknowledge it, if only for himself. He knows how much he’s been struggling, and he knows how much it’s affected him. It’s easy to get lost in that kind of thing, to let it overwhelm you, to let it define you. All his work in pushing back against that, all he’s seen is his own struggle.
When other people were suffering right along with him, right in front of him.
Ethan’s had support and time and patience.
Will’s had to do it all alone.
Well, not anymore.
“I’ll see him through this, Jay,” Ethan promises. “I’m going to be there, every step of the way.”
Jay looks at him, fleetingly grateful, before he turns his attention back to his brother. The promise is bold; the promise is real.
It may not be enough, though.
It is, however, all Ethan has.
-o-
Will’s spent his whole life moving full steam ahead. He’s never been able to keep moving fast enough. He’d moved out of Canaryville the instant he graduated. He’d never wanted to stay in one place very long. One thing, the next, the next.
Will’s not sure if he’s scared of things getting hard. Maybe he’s scared of things being real. Maybe he’s just scared.
He’s scared now, at least.
Surfacing from the darkness, unconsciousness is cloying. There’s a deep ache that has settled deep in his bones, and it feels like he’s breathing through cotton. His lungs feel wet and sluggish, and every muscle seems to be in protest. Waking up shouldn’t be this hard, and yet, all he really wants to do is go right back to sleep.
Except it’s not that easy, is it? It’s not even sleep.
The facts dance at the edge of his memory, and it feels like he knows something, but he can’t quite remember. He can’t quite--
He slips away again, and he loses track of time. There’s movements; there’s talking. For a second, he opens his eyes, but the light is too much, too much. He closes them again.
And then, he breathes. The grating in his lungs is almost painful, and the acuity of the pain is an anchor to consciousness. It’s not one he’s looking for, but it’s there nonetheless. He can’t run from it, it seems. He coughs, and it’s so painful he nearly retches, and he feels himself losing control, slipping away, but a hand takes up his own.
The fingers are warm, familiar. He feels them against his skin, and the hand locks around his with a certainty Will needs. The next breath is just as painful as the last, but he finds fortitude in it, and with another breath, he opens his eyes.
The onslaught of sensation is sudden and overwhelming, and Will roils with the disorientation. He can’t make sense of what’s going on with his body -- what’s going on with him -- but he recognizes the face in front of his.
It’s Jay, of course. His brother. His face is framed against the backdrop of a hospital room, and he looks worn and tired. But he smiles anyway.
He doesn’t just smile.
He grins, broad and wide, like a little boy and Christmas morning. Will can’t figure out why Jay is so damn happy, and his body isn’t working quite well enough to ask.
It seems to be unimportant. Jay reaches up with his free hand, brushing Will’s hair off his forehead and running his fingers through the tufts of his hair in a smooth, calming motion, just like their mom used to do when they were kids. “You’re okay,” Jay coaches him. “You’re going to be okay.”
He’s so sure that Will has no choice but to comply. He feels the tension unfurl in his chest just slightly, and the muscles in his throat relax as his next breath comes somewhat easier.
Jay nods his encouragement. “There you go, that’s it,” he continues. He pauses, gauging Will’s efforts for another moment. He lifts his eyebrows. “How are you feeling?”
Another ragged breath, and Will swallows. His throat is dry, and when he attempts to find his voice, it’s scratchy to the point of garbling. Jay’s fingers squeeze tighter, and Will tries again. “Terrible,” he admits. He has to pause, close his eyes and take a breath. When he opens his eyes again, Jay is still right there. “What happened?”
He looks concerned, but not especially surprised. “You don’t remember?”
Will feels his breath catch, and his whole body seems to vibrate with his next breath. He holds his brother’s gaze with all his strength. “Remember what?”
Jay looks like he wants to laugh a little bit. That’s how bad it is, then. “The serial killer,” he says, just ruefully enough that Will knows he’s not joking.
Which seems impossible.
Surely, Will would remember that.
There’d been peril and intrigue, sure. But none of it had been directed at him. Instead, he’d been the source of it, the cause. He struggles to put the pieces together, but the disparate pieces are still hard to grasp as he tries to find a narrative thread he can hold onto.
He remembers his probation, of course. He remembers the long, endless hours. He remembers his patients dying, one right after another. He remembers losing control of his emotions, and Goodwin sending him home.
There’s nothing more, though. There’s nothing more than that. “I was -- going home,” he says, starting and stopping as his dry throat protests. Swallowing takes effort, and he winces as Jay leans back a little, giving him some space. “I -- was talking to Emily.”
Will’s not sure what he’s said, but he sees his brother’s face harden. It’s almost a reflex, like Jay’s taken a punch to the gut. “Yeah,” he says shortly. “Like I said.”
He says it plainly enough, but Will’s too weak. His memory is too fragmented. All he can do is shake his head. “I don’t get it. Emily’s just a bad nurse.”
Jay straightens up entirely now, but he doesn’t let go of Will’s hand. “You wish, buddy,” he says. “We wish. But we caught her, thanks to you.”
He’s being serious somehow, and Will’s frown deepens. “But--”
Jay puts down his hand and draws a breath. “You were right about her all along. There was something off about her. Your patients, the ones who died -- it was her. She was using some drug cocktail, something hard to trace.”
Will’s just this side of consciousness, and the shock of Jay’s words is about to send him out again. “But -- she---”
Jay nods. “Killed them,” he says. “Hospital’s pulling the records and the cops are all over it. We’ve got five cases with pretty strong confirmation, and we’re investigating another dozen more. You should she was the common thread, and you were right, Will. I’m sorry no one believed you in time.”
Wil’s mind reels. The patients he’d lost. The records he’d been unable to make parse.
Breathless, he gapes at Jay. “And what happened to me?”
“She went after you, too,” Jay says, and now he’s matter of fact. “Dosed you with who knows hell what. We barely got you back, buddy. It’s been pretty touch and go for awhile.”
Will’s still struggling to make sense of Emily being a serial killer, so to grapple with his own near-death experience is actually a bit much for him.
The thing is, it makes sense.
Not the nearly dying part.
But Emily.
He’d been thinking it was all some contrivance. A series of accidents stemming from negligence. A procedural snafu.
But that many patients? That many unexplained cases?
Will hadn’t been losing his mind. He’d been seeing the pattern he couldn’t make sense of.
Jay puts his hand on Will’s arm again, squeezing it. “We can talk about it more later,” he says. “You’ve been through a lot.”
Jay’s just talking about the last bit here, but Will feels like the last few years could qualify.
“It’ll be better when you’re awake again,” Jay tells him reassuringly.
Will has to smile as he closes his eyes again, suddenly too tired to keep them open.
It’s hard to imagine, all that’s happened, how things could actually be worse.
-o-
Of course, things can always get worse. His life has been a downward spiral, moving from one bad thing to the next.
But his heart keeps beating. His lungs keep working.
And, even in sleep, Will realizes that something has changed.
He’s not alone anymore.
He’s not alone.
This, he knows, is what better feels like.
-o-
He slips in and out, waking and sleeping in uneven intervals. It probably should bother him, but he’s too tired to care. Too weary to change it. Will’s gotten better at living with the inevitable.
The inevitable can be hard, overwhelming.
He’s starting to appreciate the living part of it, though.
He’s got no shortage of visitors either. Jay is a constant presence, and most of the Intelligence unit seems to stop by to check on him. Even Voight says hello, and Will suspects he wants it to be more than a social call but Jay stares him down so hard that he says nothing of what happened. That’ll come, Will’s sure.
He also gets lots of visits from the hospital. Natalie calls him, frantic when she hears the news. His room becomes something like a parade stop as people pass by, and Will’s pretty sure he’s smiled and nodded at every person in the hospital by now. It’s mostly well intentioned, Will knows. It’s a little awkward, too, but he appreciates the sense of solidarity. Maybe he has a place after all.
It’s Ethan who is there the most, and it doesn’t take much for Will to figure out that he’s the primary on his case. They haven’t transferred him out of the ED for some reason, and Will suspects that’s Ethan’s call.
When he’s well enough -- passing all the physical and cognitive tests Ethan gives him -- the other man sits down and sighs. Will raises his eyebrows. “So?” he asks.
“So,” Ethan says. “You think you’re ready to hear the damage? All of it?”
All tips his head to the side. He’s still mostly bed ridden, but the bed has been propped up so he doesn’t feel like an invalid. That isn’t to say he isn’t one, though. Though recovering, he’s weak and tired. He’s going to have to know the rundown sooner or later. “Might as well,” Will says, shrugging somewhat. “I know the basics, right? A toxic combination of drugs. Heart attack.”
He says it without letting his voice shake. He’s pretty sure it’s not real to him yet.
Toxic combination of drugs.
Heart attack.
He almost died.
Ethan’s jaw is firm. He’s already come to terms with it, it seems. Even if not willingly. “Those are the broad strokes, yes,” he says. “And I can get you the exact list of everything we found in your system, if you want.”
Will shakes his head for now. “What did she do to me?”
Ethan collects another breath, but this is clearly a conversation he’s been preparing for. “The best we can figure is that she hit you with a paralytic first,” he explains. “Something strong, fast. Probably enough to take you down before you even knew what hit you.”
His memory flashes. He sees himself going numb, cradling in her arms. She lifts a hand to his cheek.
He swallows the memory back, and nods at Ethan.
Ethan takes his cue to continue. “The next one is a little more complicated. The best we can tell, she’s been siphoning off portions of the ED meds. Taking the leftovers, creating her own cocktails. We would definitely investigate if a whole vial went missing, but when it’s just a little here or there--”
“It just looks like a paperwork error,” Will realizes.
Ethan nods in agreement. “She seemed to know exactly what drugs to use, the ones that we use in the ED but don’t always test for on tox screens. Things that would fly under the radar so to speak, unless you know what you’re looking for.”
“Overdoses that look like natural causes,” Will says. “And paralyzed patients who are unable to do anything.”
“Or feel anything,” Ethan says. “After the paralytic, most of them wouldn’t have even known what was happening.”
“Painless,” Will says softly. “She was always going on about ending suffering--”
Ethan’s face tightens, and he straightens somewhat. “Anyway, the combination she gave you did stop your heart. It actually sent you into multisystem organ failure with marked effects on your liver, lungs and kidneys in addition to your heart. We provided supportive care to keep you alive until we figured out what was going on. Then, once we found out the precise drug combinations, we were able to reverse them.”
“How did you find out?” Will asks.
“Some were lucky hits on the tox screen,” Ethan says. “But you’ll have to ask Ms. Goodwin. She’s the one who found out. All I did was stay here and try to keep you alive long enough.”
He says it like a throwaway, but Will’s still alive for it. He shakes his head. “Ethan, thank you--”
But Ethan shakes his head and pulls back. “I never should have let this happen.”
“She knew what she was doing,” Will reasons. “Jay’s told me just how many places she’s been, doing the exact same thing.”
It’s not an argument Ethan is ready to accept. “You suspected something was off. I should have listened.”
“Ethan--”
“No, I’m serious,” Ethan says, and he seems to gather himself up once more. “You’ve been great the last six months. I knew you were trying to prove yourself, and I needed your support to run this ED, so I let you think you still had something to prove. And even then, I didn’t listen when you needed help. That’s no way to show respect to a coworker.” He hesitates. “That’s no way to treat a friend.”
His voice is quieter, and Will feels a pang in his gut. This need to belong; all it takes is a near-death experience. He has to smile. “Let’s not pretend like I was exactly a reliable source,” he says. “I mean, you had your reasons. Everyone did.”
“But you knew, Will.”
Will lifts his shoulders. “Not that she was a serial killer,” he says. “I feel just as stupid as the rest of you.”
Ethan doesn’t look like he buys it.
“And what happened -- doesn’t matter,” he says. “I mean, I’m okay, right? That’s what everyone keeps telling me. I’m okay.”
Ethan sits back again, regaining his composure and slipping back into doctor mode. “You are,” he says. “We’ve run a complete battery of tests just to be sure. You did crash twice, but we were able to maintain oxygenation and get your heart beating again quickly. There’s no sign of brain damage, and neuro has given you an all clear.”
This hardly surprises Will. He’s pretty sure he would have noticed brain damage by now.
Ethan moistens his lips, continuing with a little less confidence. “The rest of your systems were harder hit,” he says, almost sounding regretful. “Supportive care kept you alive, but the strain on your kidneys, liver and heart were real.”
“Renal output’s been good,” Will points out, too aware of his own bag of pee hanging at the end of the bed. “How are my liver enzymes?”
“Rebounding,” Ethan confirms. “The liver tends to be resilient.”
“So the heart,” Will says, and he allows himself a moment of concern. “What does cardio say?”
“That it was damaged,” he says, and he has the courtesy not to veil it. “We talked about the possibility of surgery for awhile, but as your condition has stabilized, we’ve started to see the kind of recovery we like.”
Will takes the news as well as anyone can, and he tries not to notice how sweaty his palms have gotten or the way his heart seems to be pounding louder now. He reminds himself of the bottom line. He is okay.
Ethan follows this up with reassurance. “The latest tests look particularly good,” he says. “Function, rhythm, output -- we think you’re going to make a full recovery.”
He’s skirting the details, and Will’s mind triggers with a bunch of questions about his numbers and levels. But it’s all too much, he decides. He hears the beating of his heart, and he feels the air as it passes through his lungs. He thinks about the patients he hadn’t been able to save, and he wonders how many of them Emily had killed instead. He looks at Ethan, almost in shock. “So, I got lucky.”
It’s the only conclusion he can fathom at the moment, but Ethan looks taken aback. “Will, you nearly died,” he says. “I’d hardly call that luck.”
It’s perspective, probably. And Will, being the one lying in the bed knowing how close he’s come, understands this the way he needs to. “She could have dozens of victims,” he points out, even as he sees each of their faces in his head. It’s too many to recollect, and he has to shrug. “For some reason, I’m not one of them. I’d say that’s pretty lucky.”
Ethan’s expression in return is almost pained. “That’s a pretty low bar you’re setting.”
Will chuckles, breathy and tired. “I have to start somewhere.”
Ethan draws his lips together and shrugs halfway. “I suppose,” he relents. “But let’s focus on getting you further than that.”
Will’s still confused about a lot of things, and he’s still putting together the pieces of what happened. But the idea of something better going forward? Well, that’s the best news he’s heard all day. “Agreed.”
Ethan nods, and he’s resolute in this. “I’ll be there. For the recovery in the hospital and out. I’ll be there.”
Will smiles politely, adjusting the blankets self consciously on his bed. “I know.”
But Ethan doesn’t let up. “Not as your doctor, Will. As your friend,” he says, and the intensity of his look almost makes Will wish he could look away. “I’ll be there like I should have been there all along. Like you were there for me.”
Will is blushing now, despite himself. “I was just doing my job.”
“And I’m doing mine,” he says. Then, he chuckles with a tired self deprecation. “Finally.”
Will’s too tired to argue. And honestly, he’s too relieved to pretend like he isn’t. It’s silly, probably. How he has to lose everything to find out that he has everything. “Thanks, Ethan,” he says. And he means it. He means it. “Really.”
Ethan smiles back, and he gets back to his feet. He pats Will on the arm. “I’d say anytime, but I don’t want to give you any ideas,” he jokes.
Will flushes an even deeper red, and he can feel it burning in his cheeks.
Ethan steps away, still smiling. “Now, you rest up,” he says. “I’ll be back to check on you soon.”
Will’s had people checking up on him for the last six months.
This is the first time it feels like a good thing.
A really, really good thing.
-o-
Jay’s off duty by this point, but now that Will’s on the mend, he knows his brother is going to be hard pressed to stay out of things. There’s no way Voight will let him near the nitty gritty of the case, but Jay will still find a way to stay informed.
And, by his sheer presence, involved.
He comes back looking refreshed, having eaten and showered.
He also comes back flush with information.
“The case is snowballing big time,” he tells Will. “They’ve looped in jurisdiction from at least five other places Emily’s lived and worked -- and we’re working on more. Voight thinks this thing is a shoe-in. There’s no way she walks.”
“I still haven’t given my statement,” Will reminds him.
This sobers Jay somewhat. He’s sitting in the chair, and he gives Will a keen assessment that clearly makes him uncomfortable. “It was only yesterday,” he says. “You nearly died. I told Voight to give you a little more time.”
Will gives his brother a withering look. It’s hard to imagine that this had all been a 24 hour turnaround. He’s still laid up, sure. Ethan hasn’t cleared him to get up. He should technically be in the ICU with these protocols, but Will knows this is a compromise for all their benefits. He’s going to be okay, probably. But Will has to accept that he’s not there yet.
Just like Jay has to accept that Will wants to be a part of this.
Hell, he has to be.
It’s the only way he’s going to make sense of any of it.
“I want to do it,” he says. “She went after my patients.”
Jay looks somewhat exasperated. “She went after you,” he points out. “I’m not sure you’ve really acknowledged that.”
As if his brother has any right to talk to him about PTSD and unresolved trauma. Jay with his time in the war. Will with his time as a CI. And now serial killers.
Will sighs, but he doesn’t have any right to argue either. “All the more reason to talk about it,” he says. “I have to start facing it, sooner or later.”
“Well, there’s more than enough information to process even without you serving as the key witness,” Jay says. “You cracked the case, but you cracked it wide open. It’s going to take weeks to gather the evidence. We’re probably a month away from a formal charge.”
Will has to shake his head. “I still can’t believe it was Emily. I mean, Emily. I know I had suspicions, doubts, whatever. But a serial killer?”
Jay can only nod. “The first background check with the alias came up empty, but I took it deeper, just like you wanted,” he says. “I was trying to find out the stuff about Michigan State or whatever. And that’s when I started to find the aliases. From there, the pieces just started falling into place. I was on my way to tell you -- and Goodwin when…”
He trails off and shrugs, suddenly much quieter.
“You know,” Jay finishes lamely.
Will does know, at least in theory. He still doesn’t remember the attack, though.
But the thought of Emily makes him shudder even more than before. “How many victims do they think she had at Med?”
“I told you, it’s not my case anymore,” Jay reminds him. “I handed it off entirely, so I can’t say for sure. I know Voight is checking some followups, and Goodwin is pushing for a hospital inquiry to see what they can find out about the patients. I’m pretty sure they’ve pulled files on every case Emily worked on.”
Will has to shake his head, his disbelief still hard to overcome. “But she’s a nurse. She cares for people. It doesn’t make sense,” he says, trying to reason through the unreasonable. “Nurses don’t just wake up one morning and start killing their patients.”
“But I told you, she’s been doing it for awhile,” Jay says. “When I ran the other check, I found her alias at hospitals all around the country. Each one of those places made local headlines for suspicious deaths. The girl is straight-up nuts.”
“But we’re talking about what?” Will ventures, still parsing it out. “Dozens of victims?”
Jay sighs long and hard. “Maybe more,” he says. “I’ve tracked 10 years of activity. Easy.”
Will shifts on the bed, trying to shake off the exhaustion. “10 years? Really?”
Jay sits back, a little bemused. “Why are you so surprised by all of this? I mean, you were the one with the lead. You were the one insisting I check up on her.”
“Because I doubted she went to Michigan State, maybe she’d fudged her credentials,” Will says. He shrugs helplessly. “And I mean, I figured I had to be wrong. I usually am these days.”
Jay looks just a touch exasperated. He’s sure it’s a look softened by what they’ve both been through over the last few days. “If you really doubted her that much, then why the hell did you even go with her?”
It’s a question that seems too obvious to answer. Will scrunches up his face. He doesn’t remember most of it, but he remembers this. Or maybe he just knows it. The one true thing about himself that he’s never had to hide from. All his faults, but this much has always been his one, saving grace. “Well, she said there was a patient. Someone who needed help,” he explains. “I had to go.”
Jay rolls his eyes. “You are so predictable.”
Will finds no need to defend himself in this. “I’m a doctor.”
The answer is familiar, at least, and Jay smiles tiredly. “Sure, but you knew she was a crazy person.”
Will’s shrug in return is sheepish. “To be fair, at that point, everyone had convinced me I was the crazy one.”
He doesn’t mean anything by the comment, but Jay’s expression still hardens just a little. Will’s processing this in his way; Jay’s taking his own path. They’ve never handled things the same. Will is better at forgiving, and he hasn’t even thought of culpabilities yet.
He’s never needed to point fingers here. Maybe he’s been too busy trying to absolve himself. Maybe he’s just relieved that the life he saved is his own this time. Maybe he’ll resent it in time; maybe he’ll just be happy to let this go, all of it.
“Jay, I can give the statement,” he says, looking at his brother earnestly so he understands. “I want to.”
Jay’s too good of a cop; Jay’s too good of a brother. “Yeah,” he agrees and he lumbers tiredly to his feet. “I guess you probably do.”
“Thanks, Jay,” Will says. And he has to add the obvious. “I mean, for all of it.”
Jay’s look back is quizzical. “I didn’t save your life.”
“But you believed me,” Will says. “When no one else did.”
“Yeah, well,” Jay says. “You’re an idiot, but you’re my idiot. I figured if you were choosing to stay, you had a reason.”
Will smiles, weak and even more sheepish than before. “Maybe I’ll get it right sooner or later.”
Jay snorts, but it’s all in good humor. “Well, you were right about Emily,” he points out. “I’m pretty sure you just earned a bunch of credibility with everyone over that one. Don’t squander it.”
Will nods. “I don’t plan to.”
Jay smirks, but it’s a fond gesture. “Okay,” he says. “I’ll go track down Voight, see if someone can take your statement. Don’t go anywhere, okay?”
Will grins back, even wider now. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
-o-
The funny thing is, Will finally feels like all the pieces are sliding into place. With his patients, yes. With Emily, sure.
And mostly, with his life.
It’s been like living in limbo for the last six months. As if his career’s not the only thing on probation. This unsettled sense of reality has permeating everything he does, everything he thinks. He’s been looking for redemption; he’s been looking for stability. He’s been looking.
He’s found it, it seems.
He finally arrived at the place he wants to be.
And all it took was a serial killer to get him there.
Irony, at its finest.
But Will will take it.
Will will definitely take it.
-o-
He dozes off while he waits for Jay, and when he hears the door open, he expects to see his brother with Voight in tow. He’s surprised, then, that Ms. Goodwin is the one who is standing at the edge of her bed.
She smiles, hedging and apologetic. “Is this a bad time?”
Will blinks rapidly, trying to clear his mind. He sits up a little bit, but there’s nothing to be done for just how bad he knows he must look right now. He’s doing better, but he’s still laid out and hooked up to the machines. It’s not the most flattering position to be in while you talk to your boss, but Will is at least used to that.
“No, it’s fine,” he says, quickly. He wets his lips and does his best to look ready. He manages a smile. “Ethan says he hopes I’ll be out of here in a couple of days.”
“Well, Dr. Choi wants to be thorough, and a few days is probably for the best,” Ms. Goodwin says, and he feels her appraising look as she scans him. She draws herself up. “You are looking better, though.”
She sounds pleased, somehow, even if she seems to do her best not to smile.
Will shifts, awkward at the scrutiny. “I’m feeling better, too,” he offers, though it seems like a silly thing to say, considering how he was unconscious for the worst of it. “Kind of looking forward to moving past it, honestly.”
She nods at that, because it seems to be a point she understands. But she draws another breath and looks at him, as if she’s made up her mind about something. “I came to apologize.”
It’s not what he’s expecting, for some reason. He’s got a good sense of what happened, so it’s probably not surprising, but he still remembers standing in her office, having her send him home.
Again.
It’s a palpable sensation, and it’s hard to shake.
When he doesn’t come up with a reply, Ms. Goodwin continues. “You raised valid concerns all along about Emily, and I disregarded you out of hand,” she explains. “It cost patients their lives. It nearly cost you yours. And I’m sorry.”
It’s a careful statement, but it’s wrong to call it calculated. He’s pretty sure an outright apology has not been vetted by the hospital’s lawyer, but this is clearly something she’s thought about before she’s said it. As it turns out, Will’s not the only one with regrets at Chicago Med.
“I don’t blame you, though,” he says. “I mean, my behavior, my performance. I don’t really trust myself, even. So I don’t know why you would.”
“That lack of self confidence is also something I’ve had a part in,” Ms. Goodwin says. “You made mistakes -- very serious mistakes -- but it’s silly for us to pretend like you haven’t made the progress you’ve made.”
“But it’s not even one mistake,” Will says. “I keep making them. I’d like to sit here and tell you I’ll never make them again, but I don’t know. Like I said, I don’t even trust myself.”
She sighs somewhat. “You’re not the easiest employee, I have to tell you, but it’s not because you’re a bad doctor. That’s really the problem. You’re a good doctor -- one of the best we have -- but you’re just so damn stupid about it sometimes,” she says, and she shakes her head. She’s being candid, but this time -- for once -- there’s no ire in her eyes as she makes the admonition. “It would be a lot easier if I could just fire you and be done with it, but I like you on my staff too much. Your instincts are good, but they’re not infallible. None of us have that. I mean, how else do you explain how I hired Dean Archer as interim chief? Of all people?”
Will chuckles at that.
She hems herself back, still shaking her head. “Use your instincts alongside common sense. Remember that sometimes our gut tells us to do stupid things like hiring a serial killer. Just slow down. Check yourself. That’s all, Dr. Halstead. That’s all any of us can do.”
Will nods, still feeling embarrassed somehow. “I’m trying,” he says, and it’s almost a promise. “I swear, I’ve been trying.”
“You’re more than trying; you’re succeeding,” Ms. Goodwin tells him, and she lifts her brows at him as she purses her lips. “And I suppose the rest of us could try, too. Your efforts have not exactly been rewarded, and that’s partially my fault. Your instincts spared this hospital a much larger problem than the one it has -- and you tried to warn me earlier, but I disregarded you out of hand.”
He hears the apology in her voice, but he hears the truth, too. His cheeks are reddening once again, and he shakes his head, feeling even more awkward. “I don’t even blame you, all the crap I pulled,” he says. He reaches a shaky hand back to scrub the back of his head. “Maybe I just need to start over, for everyone’s sake.”
She inhales, but it’s a composed and measured gesture. “I wouldn’t blame you if you did, but…”
She trails off and shrugs a little.
Will sits up a little, feeling on alert. “But?”
“But,” she starts, and she makes a small shrug of self deprecation. “I’d hate to lose you.”
There’s sentiment there, and Will feels his heart swell. He’s craved acceptance, this is true. But what he wants more than anything -- what he needs -- is approval. “I just want to show everyone -- show you -- that I can do this. That I deserve to be here.”
She draws herself and nods. “Then stay, Dr. Halstead,” she says, voice thick with emotion. “Slow down. Shut up. And just stay.”
A lot of things about this are hard.
This, though.
This isn’t.
He swallows back his own emotions, working up the saliva in his throat as he finds his voice amid it all. “Okay,” he agrees. “I can do that.”
She smirks now, bobbing her head before she turns to leave. “I wouldn’t doubt that for a second.”
He watches her go, and he’s still weak, still laid out in the hospital bed. He’s still feeling out the limitations of his body, and there’s a part of him that knows he hasn’t fully reconciled what recovery will look like for him. He hasn’t contended with the emotional reality of what he’s been through -- not any of it -- and he knows Jay has put off questions from the police as long as he can. It’s all going to come to a head eventually, and Will’s not naive enough to think it will be easy.
But considering what he’s been through, it really doesn’t seem so hard.
-o-
Sharon doesn’t let herself look back. It’s not a habit she’s in, not professionally or personally. You don’t get to where she is in life if you hold onto the past, and that’s a lesson she should have taken to heart with Will Halstead some years ago.
Because people are imperfect. People make mistakes. They screw up; they let you down.
Sometimes, it seems like it’s easier to cut them out, and sometimes it is.
But sometimes it’s different. Sometimes it’s more than that. Sometimes you have to look back just a little in order to look forward. This history informs the past, and if you don’t ask the right questions, you won’t get the right answers.
That’s the case with Emily Novak -- or whatever her real name is.
She suspects it’s also true for Will Halstead -- in the other direction.
People can be more than their mistakes, if you let them.
If you try to see them.
So Sharon walks away and she doesn’t look back. She’ll answer all the questions she has to answer about Emily and the hiring process. She’ll talk to the police, her bosses, the press -- all of it.
But she doesn’t have to look back to know that Dr. Halstead is still there.
That’s a relief, of course. It’s absolution. It’s hope.
So, today’s been a long day, to be sure.
But it’s not so bad.
For as long as the day’s been, there are longer ones to come, and Sharon knows it. The investigation is only going to get more intense, and the trial is going to be a mess in and of itself. There will be private lawsuits, too, Sharon can almost guarantee it, and that will be a costly headache -- and one they deserve. Sharon won’t shirk it, not when she shirked the things that matter most and got them in this mess.
Dr. Halstead, at least, is one less victim. He’ll survive; he’ll recover. She trusts he’ll be back at work in no time. He’ll be a hero in the press, too. Gwen will pamper him, want to use him as a hospital asset. The face of the hero who stopped the monster. It’ll sell well in the papers, and it might help them water down their liability in court. At least, this way, everyone will think of Med as the hospital that stopped a serial killer and overlook the part where Sharon hired her in the first place.
She has Dr. Halstead to thank for that, and she knows it. She won’t forget it, either, not even when he makes his next mistake. They’re all human, after all. And they’ve got a ways to go.
That’s just how it is.
Like she said to Dr. Halstead, you have to slow down, do things the right way.
You have to know your people, first and foremost.
That’s how you serve.
That’s how you thrive.
At Med, that’s all they have, in the end. All the accolades, all the donors, all the prestige: that’s all they really have.
It’s all they need.
In that light, Sharon thinks as she heads back up to her office to get back to work, the day doesn’t seem that long after all.
PART TWO
PART THREE
PART FOUR
PART FIVE
PART SIX
PART SEVEN
PART EIGHT
PART NINE
PART TEN
-o-
He’s taken Will for granted ever since he got back to work. For all that he’s doublechecked all of Will’s work, he hasn’t paid attention to Will at all.
It’s ironic now. He sits there, watching every rise and fall of his chest, every beat of his heart on the monitor.
Jay accepts his presence without much comment. He doesn’t know Jay well, but he can be a man of few words. There’s nothing much to say now. The apologies aren’t enough. The recriminations don’t lead anywhere. The focus is Will for now.
The focus is Will.
Ethan steps away from time to time, handing off ED tasks and making sure things are running as smoothly as possible with the chaos of the day. The area is still an active crime scene, and patients are being moved with the utmost care. The police are processing evidence and conducting interviews, and it’s no easy task to do anything resembling medicine.
The patient load is thinning out, at least, but Ethan pulls all the strings and plays the rank card to make sure that both cardio and neuro can get in for regular consults with Will. Cardio is pleased with his output levels now, and a few extra tests are requested just to be sure the heart seems to be recovering without further intervention. Neuro is even more optimistic. The latest scans show no evidence of brain damage, and he’s beginning to show response to stimuli once more.
If Ethan lessens the sedation, he’s likely to wake up just fine.
He’s also likely to start breathing on his own if they extubate, now that all other bodily functions are showing signs of coming online. It’s tempting to go ahead and do it -- all of it -- but Will’s not ready yet. He’s been through too much. Ethan can’t rush this.
It’s not easy. Ethan doesn’t like waiting, and sometimes he wishes he could be more like Archer. He could just be aggressive, push through no matter what. It’s a risky way to live, though. It’s an easy way to die, unfortunately.
The risk saved Ethan’s life.
It nearly killed Will.
Now he has to be his own man, his own doctor, his own leader.
His own friend.
-o-
Normally, with a case like this, it’s customary to send the patient upstairs and secure a bed in one of the other wards. However, with the shutdown of the ED, the transfer process has been understandably complicated. And besides, no one seems especially keen to let Will out of their sight.
As if their vigilance now can make up for their earlier oversights.
All the same, it’s not a transfer Ethan is going to put in, and there’s not a single person on staff who is going to question him on it, including Sharon Goodwin. Ms. Goodwin is in and out, and she checks on Will in regular intervals, but she spends more of her time orchestrating the investigation. She mitigates the police presence, and he’s sure she’s also taking the hospital’s internal review into high gear. There’s a lot to be done. She’s handling the case.
Ethan is responsible for handling Will.
Will’s vitals continue to improve, and his status grows increasingly less precarious. There is no sign of downturn in his gains, and Ethan suspects, if things continue as they’re going, they’ll be able to reduce sedation levels and take him off the ventilator within the day.
That’s the optimistic outlook, and Ethan thinks it's increasingly realistic.
Though, admittedly, he’s scared to say it out loud.
Especially with Will’s brother in the room.
He offers Jay as much as he can. He gets food and drink. He answers any questions. He makes uncomfortable, awkward small talk.
And then, when there’s nothing else for him to do, he listens.
Because Jay can be the strong and silent type, but when things really get rough -- when things really get bad -- Ethan knows that kind of vulnerability can change a man.
So Ethan, for Will’s sake and his own conscience, listens.
“It’s just -- it doesn’t seem fair,” Jay says, shaking his head. He sounds exhausted; no doubt, he is exhausted. “All the crap he’s put up with, all the work he’s done -- and this is what he gets? He didn’t even do anything wrong this time.”
Ethan does his best not to wince. “He has been working very hard lately.”
Scoffing, Jay looks at him with some incredulity. “Hard? He’s worked his ass off. Don’t get me wrong: my brother’s an idiot. He can screw up more than anyone I know. But he’s the kind of guy who makes it right.”
“Well, he was doing a good job,” Ethan tells him, hoping to sound reassuring. “He’d made amazing progress.”
Jay shakes his head, looking back at Will. “You wouldn’t have known it talking to him,” he murmurs. “Idiot was still convinced he was going to get fired. That’s why he refused to back off or let down. He had to keep going. I thought the stress was going to kill him, but I guess a serial killer beat him to it.”
It’s probably not a revelation. At least, Ethan has enough self awareness to know it shouldn’t be. Will’s issues have not been hard to see. His drama has been played out all over the ED -- all over Ethan’s ED -- and he’s been busy enough with his own hardships to worry about Will’s. In fact, if anything, he’s found Will’s vulnerable position rather convenient. It’s made him amenable to work with, and Ethan’s been so fond of having a reliable right-hand man that he’s not questioned the context of any of it.
Will’s made that easy. Will’s made everything easy. He’s taken to his punishment with such aplomb. He’s made not a single fight with his probation, and he’s been thorough and deferential. He’s stepped up in every possible way, and Ethan’s too smart not to see this as an effort to prove himself.
He’s just never stopped to consider when the need for proof is over.
When is the case self evident?
It seems silly to say so now, with Will still unconscious and his prognosis unknown. It seems especially silly to say it to his brother, who is keeping a vigil the best he can.
But it’s important for Ethan to know. He has to acknowledge it, if only for himself. He knows how much he’s been struggling, and he knows how much it’s affected him. It’s easy to get lost in that kind of thing, to let it overwhelm you, to let it define you. All his work in pushing back against that, all he’s seen is his own struggle.
When other people were suffering right along with him, right in front of him.
Ethan’s had support and time and patience.
Will’s had to do it all alone.
Well, not anymore.
“I’ll see him through this, Jay,” Ethan promises. “I’m going to be there, every step of the way.”
Jay looks at him, fleetingly grateful, before he turns his attention back to his brother. The promise is bold; the promise is real.
It may not be enough, though.
It is, however, all Ethan has.
-o-
Will’s spent his whole life moving full steam ahead. He’s never been able to keep moving fast enough. He’d moved out of Canaryville the instant he graduated. He’d never wanted to stay in one place very long. One thing, the next, the next.
Will’s not sure if he’s scared of things getting hard. Maybe he’s scared of things being real. Maybe he’s just scared.
He’s scared now, at least.
Surfacing from the darkness, unconsciousness is cloying. There’s a deep ache that has settled deep in his bones, and it feels like he’s breathing through cotton. His lungs feel wet and sluggish, and every muscle seems to be in protest. Waking up shouldn’t be this hard, and yet, all he really wants to do is go right back to sleep.
Except it’s not that easy, is it? It’s not even sleep.
The facts dance at the edge of his memory, and it feels like he knows something, but he can’t quite remember. He can’t quite--
He slips away again, and he loses track of time. There’s movements; there’s talking. For a second, he opens his eyes, but the light is too much, too much. He closes them again.
And then, he breathes. The grating in his lungs is almost painful, and the acuity of the pain is an anchor to consciousness. It’s not one he’s looking for, but it’s there nonetheless. He can’t run from it, it seems. He coughs, and it’s so painful he nearly retches, and he feels himself losing control, slipping away, but a hand takes up his own.
The fingers are warm, familiar. He feels them against his skin, and the hand locks around his with a certainty Will needs. The next breath is just as painful as the last, but he finds fortitude in it, and with another breath, he opens his eyes.
The onslaught of sensation is sudden and overwhelming, and Will roils with the disorientation. He can’t make sense of what’s going on with his body -- what’s going on with him -- but he recognizes the face in front of his.
It’s Jay, of course. His brother. His face is framed against the backdrop of a hospital room, and he looks worn and tired. But he smiles anyway.
He doesn’t just smile.
He grins, broad and wide, like a little boy and Christmas morning. Will can’t figure out why Jay is so damn happy, and his body isn’t working quite well enough to ask.
It seems to be unimportant. Jay reaches up with his free hand, brushing Will’s hair off his forehead and running his fingers through the tufts of his hair in a smooth, calming motion, just like their mom used to do when they were kids. “You’re okay,” Jay coaches him. “You’re going to be okay.”
He’s so sure that Will has no choice but to comply. He feels the tension unfurl in his chest just slightly, and the muscles in his throat relax as his next breath comes somewhat easier.
Jay nods his encouragement. “There you go, that’s it,” he continues. He pauses, gauging Will’s efforts for another moment. He lifts his eyebrows. “How are you feeling?”
Another ragged breath, and Will swallows. His throat is dry, and when he attempts to find his voice, it’s scratchy to the point of garbling. Jay’s fingers squeeze tighter, and Will tries again. “Terrible,” he admits. He has to pause, close his eyes and take a breath. When he opens his eyes again, Jay is still right there. “What happened?”
He looks concerned, but not especially surprised. “You don’t remember?”
Will feels his breath catch, and his whole body seems to vibrate with his next breath. He holds his brother’s gaze with all his strength. “Remember what?”
Jay looks like he wants to laugh a little bit. That’s how bad it is, then. “The serial killer,” he says, just ruefully enough that Will knows he’s not joking.
Which seems impossible.
Surely, Will would remember that.
There’d been peril and intrigue, sure. But none of it had been directed at him. Instead, he’d been the source of it, the cause. He struggles to put the pieces together, but the disparate pieces are still hard to grasp as he tries to find a narrative thread he can hold onto.
He remembers his probation, of course. He remembers the long, endless hours. He remembers his patients dying, one right after another. He remembers losing control of his emotions, and Goodwin sending him home.
There’s nothing more, though. There’s nothing more than that. “I was -- going home,” he says, starting and stopping as his dry throat protests. Swallowing takes effort, and he winces as Jay leans back a little, giving him some space. “I -- was talking to Emily.”
Will’s not sure what he’s said, but he sees his brother’s face harden. It’s almost a reflex, like Jay’s taken a punch to the gut. “Yeah,” he says shortly. “Like I said.”
He says it plainly enough, but Will’s too weak. His memory is too fragmented. All he can do is shake his head. “I don’t get it. Emily’s just a bad nurse.”
Jay straightens up entirely now, but he doesn’t let go of Will’s hand. “You wish, buddy,” he says. “We wish. But we caught her, thanks to you.”
He’s being serious somehow, and Will’s frown deepens. “But--”
Jay puts down his hand and draws a breath. “You were right about her all along. There was something off about her. Your patients, the ones who died -- it was her. She was using some drug cocktail, something hard to trace.”
Will’s just this side of consciousness, and the shock of Jay’s words is about to send him out again. “But -- she---”
Jay nods. “Killed them,” he says. “Hospital’s pulling the records and the cops are all over it. We’ve got five cases with pretty strong confirmation, and we’re investigating another dozen more. You should she was the common thread, and you were right, Will. I’m sorry no one believed you in time.”
Wil’s mind reels. The patients he’d lost. The records he’d been unable to make parse.
Breathless, he gapes at Jay. “And what happened to me?”
“She went after you, too,” Jay says, and now he’s matter of fact. “Dosed you with who knows hell what. We barely got you back, buddy. It’s been pretty touch and go for awhile.”
Will’s still struggling to make sense of Emily being a serial killer, so to grapple with his own near-death experience is actually a bit much for him.
The thing is, it makes sense.
Not the nearly dying part.
But Emily.
He’d been thinking it was all some contrivance. A series of accidents stemming from negligence. A procedural snafu.
But that many patients? That many unexplained cases?
Will hadn’t been losing his mind. He’d been seeing the pattern he couldn’t make sense of.
Jay puts his hand on Will’s arm again, squeezing it. “We can talk about it more later,” he says. “You’ve been through a lot.”
Jay’s just talking about the last bit here, but Will feels like the last few years could qualify.
“It’ll be better when you’re awake again,” Jay tells him reassuringly.
Will has to smile as he closes his eyes again, suddenly too tired to keep them open.
It’s hard to imagine, all that’s happened, how things could actually be worse.
-o-
Of course, things can always get worse. His life has been a downward spiral, moving from one bad thing to the next.
But his heart keeps beating. His lungs keep working.
And, even in sleep, Will realizes that something has changed.
He’s not alone anymore.
He’s not alone.
This, he knows, is what better feels like.
-o-
He slips in and out, waking and sleeping in uneven intervals. It probably should bother him, but he’s too tired to care. Too weary to change it. Will’s gotten better at living with the inevitable.
The inevitable can be hard, overwhelming.
He’s starting to appreciate the living part of it, though.
He’s got no shortage of visitors either. Jay is a constant presence, and most of the Intelligence unit seems to stop by to check on him. Even Voight says hello, and Will suspects he wants it to be more than a social call but Jay stares him down so hard that he says nothing of what happened. That’ll come, Will’s sure.
He also gets lots of visits from the hospital. Natalie calls him, frantic when she hears the news. His room becomes something like a parade stop as people pass by, and Will’s pretty sure he’s smiled and nodded at every person in the hospital by now. It’s mostly well intentioned, Will knows. It’s a little awkward, too, but he appreciates the sense of solidarity. Maybe he has a place after all.
It’s Ethan who is there the most, and it doesn’t take much for Will to figure out that he’s the primary on his case. They haven’t transferred him out of the ED for some reason, and Will suspects that’s Ethan’s call.
When he’s well enough -- passing all the physical and cognitive tests Ethan gives him -- the other man sits down and sighs. Will raises his eyebrows. “So?” he asks.
“So,” Ethan says. “You think you’re ready to hear the damage? All of it?”
All tips his head to the side. He’s still mostly bed ridden, but the bed has been propped up so he doesn’t feel like an invalid. That isn’t to say he isn’t one, though. Though recovering, he’s weak and tired. He’s going to have to know the rundown sooner or later. “Might as well,” Will says, shrugging somewhat. “I know the basics, right? A toxic combination of drugs. Heart attack.”
He says it without letting his voice shake. He’s pretty sure it’s not real to him yet.
Toxic combination of drugs.
Heart attack.
He almost died.
Ethan’s jaw is firm. He’s already come to terms with it, it seems. Even if not willingly. “Those are the broad strokes, yes,” he says. “And I can get you the exact list of everything we found in your system, if you want.”
Will shakes his head for now. “What did she do to me?”
Ethan collects another breath, but this is clearly a conversation he’s been preparing for. “The best we can figure is that she hit you with a paralytic first,” he explains. “Something strong, fast. Probably enough to take you down before you even knew what hit you.”
His memory flashes. He sees himself going numb, cradling in her arms. She lifts a hand to his cheek.
He swallows the memory back, and nods at Ethan.
Ethan takes his cue to continue. “The next one is a little more complicated. The best we can tell, she’s been siphoning off portions of the ED meds. Taking the leftovers, creating her own cocktails. We would definitely investigate if a whole vial went missing, but when it’s just a little here or there--”
“It just looks like a paperwork error,” Will realizes.
Ethan nods in agreement. “She seemed to know exactly what drugs to use, the ones that we use in the ED but don’t always test for on tox screens. Things that would fly under the radar so to speak, unless you know what you’re looking for.”
“Overdoses that look like natural causes,” Will says. “And paralyzed patients who are unable to do anything.”
“Or feel anything,” Ethan says. “After the paralytic, most of them wouldn’t have even known what was happening.”
“Painless,” Will says softly. “She was always going on about ending suffering--”
Ethan’s face tightens, and he straightens somewhat. “Anyway, the combination she gave you did stop your heart. It actually sent you into multisystem organ failure with marked effects on your liver, lungs and kidneys in addition to your heart. We provided supportive care to keep you alive until we figured out what was going on. Then, once we found out the precise drug combinations, we were able to reverse them.”
“How did you find out?” Will asks.
“Some were lucky hits on the tox screen,” Ethan says. “But you’ll have to ask Ms. Goodwin. She’s the one who found out. All I did was stay here and try to keep you alive long enough.”
He says it like a throwaway, but Will’s still alive for it. He shakes his head. “Ethan, thank you--”
But Ethan shakes his head and pulls back. “I never should have let this happen.”
“She knew what she was doing,” Will reasons. “Jay’s told me just how many places she’s been, doing the exact same thing.”
It’s not an argument Ethan is ready to accept. “You suspected something was off. I should have listened.”
“Ethan--”
“No, I’m serious,” Ethan says, and he seems to gather himself up once more. “You’ve been great the last six months. I knew you were trying to prove yourself, and I needed your support to run this ED, so I let you think you still had something to prove. And even then, I didn’t listen when you needed help. That’s no way to show respect to a coworker.” He hesitates. “That’s no way to treat a friend.”
His voice is quieter, and Will feels a pang in his gut. This need to belong; all it takes is a near-death experience. He has to smile. “Let’s not pretend like I was exactly a reliable source,” he says. “I mean, you had your reasons. Everyone did.”
“But you knew, Will.”
Will lifts his shoulders. “Not that she was a serial killer,” he says. “I feel just as stupid as the rest of you.”
Ethan doesn’t look like he buys it.
“And what happened -- doesn’t matter,” he says. “I mean, I’m okay, right? That’s what everyone keeps telling me. I’m okay.”
Ethan sits back again, regaining his composure and slipping back into doctor mode. “You are,” he says. “We’ve run a complete battery of tests just to be sure. You did crash twice, but we were able to maintain oxygenation and get your heart beating again quickly. There’s no sign of brain damage, and neuro has given you an all clear.”
This hardly surprises Will. He’s pretty sure he would have noticed brain damage by now.
Ethan moistens his lips, continuing with a little less confidence. “The rest of your systems were harder hit,” he says, almost sounding regretful. “Supportive care kept you alive, but the strain on your kidneys, liver and heart were real.”
“Renal output’s been good,” Will points out, too aware of his own bag of pee hanging at the end of the bed. “How are my liver enzymes?”
“Rebounding,” Ethan confirms. “The liver tends to be resilient.”
“So the heart,” Will says, and he allows himself a moment of concern. “What does cardio say?”
“That it was damaged,” he says, and he has the courtesy not to veil it. “We talked about the possibility of surgery for awhile, but as your condition has stabilized, we’ve started to see the kind of recovery we like.”
Will takes the news as well as anyone can, and he tries not to notice how sweaty his palms have gotten or the way his heart seems to be pounding louder now. He reminds himself of the bottom line. He is okay.
Ethan follows this up with reassurance. “The latest tests look particularly good,” he says. “Function, rhythm, output -- we think you’re going to make a full recovery.”
He’s skirting the details, and Will’s mind triggers with a bunch of questions about his numbers and levels. But it’s all too much, he decides. He hears the beating of his heart, and he feels the air as it passes through his lungs. He thinks about the patients he hadn’t been able to save, and he wonders how many of them Emily had killed instead. He looks at Ethan, almost in shock. “So, I got lucky.”
It’s the only conclusion he can fathom at the moment, but Ethan looks taken aback. “Will, you nearly died,” he says. “I’d hardly call that luck.”
It’s perspective, probably. And Will, being the one lying in the bed knowing how close he’s come, understands this the way he needs to. “She could have dozens of victims,” he points out, even as he sees each of their faces in his head. It’s too many to recollect, and he has to shrug. “For some reason, I’m not one of them. I’d say that’s pretty lucky.”
Ethan’s expression in return is almost pained. “That’s a pretty low bar you’re setting.”
Will chuckles, breathy and tired. “I have to start somewhere.”
Ethan draws his lips together and shrugs halfway. “I suppose,” he relents. “But let’s focus on getting you further than that.”
Will’s still confused about a lot of things, and he’s still putting together the pieces of what happened. But the idea of something better going forward? Well, that’s the best news he’s heard all day. “Agreed.”
Ethan nods, and he’s resolute in this. “I’ll be there. For the recovery in the hospital and out. I’ll be there.”
Will smiles politely, adjusting the blankets self consciously on his bed. “I know.”
But Ethan doesn’t let up. “Not as your doctor, Will. As your friend,” he says, and the intensity of his look almost makes Will wish he could look away. “I’ll be there like I should have been there all along. Like you were there for me.”
Will is blushing now, despite himself. “I was just doing my job.”
“And I’m doing mine,” he says. Then, he chuckles with a tired self deprecation. “Finally.”
Will’s too tired to argue. And honestly, he’s too relieved to pretend like he isn’t. It’s silly, probably. How he has to lose everything to find out that he has everything. “Thanks, Ethan,” he says. And he means it. He means it. “Really.”
Ethan smiles back, and he gets back to his feet. He pats Will on the arm. “I’d say anytime, but I don’t want to give you any ideas,” he jokes.
Will flushes an even deeper red, and he can feel it burning in his cheeks.
Ethan steps away, still smiling. “Now, you rest up,” he says. “I’ll be back to check on you soon.”
Will’s had people checking up on him for the last six months.
This is the first time it feels like a good thing.
A really, really good thing.
-o-
Jay’s off duty by this point, but now that Will’s on the mend, he knows his brother is going to be hard pressed to stay out of things. There’s no way Voight will let him near the nitty gritty of the case, but Jay will still find a way to stay informed.
And, by his sheer presence, involved.
He comes back looking refreshed, having eaten and showered.
He also comes back flush with information.
“The case is snowballing big time,” he tells Will. “They’ve looped in jurisdiction from at least five other places Emily’s lived and worked -- and we’re working on more. Voight thinks this thing is a shoe-in. There’s no way she walks.”
“I still haven’t given my statement,” Will reminds him.
This sobers Jay somewhat. He’s sitting in the chair, and he gives Will a keen assessment that clearly makes him uncomfortable. “It was only yesterday,” he says. “You nearly died. I told Voight to give you a little more time.”
Will gives his brother a withering look. It’s hard to imagine that this had all been a 24 hour turnaround. He’s still laid up, sure. Ethan hasn’t cleared him to get up. He should technically be in the ICU with these protocols, but Will knows this is a compromise for all their benefits. He’s going to be okay, probably. But Will has to accept that he’s not there yet.
Just like Jay has to accept that Will wants to be a part of this.
Hell, he has to be.
It’s the only way he’s going to make sense of any of it.
“I want to do it,” he says. “She went after my patients.”
Jay looks somewhat exasperated. “She went after you,” he points out. “I’m not sure you’ve really acknowledged that.”
As if his brother has any right to talk to him about PTSD and unresolved trauma. Jay with his time in the war. Will with his time as a CI. And now serial killers.
Will sighs, but he doesn’t have any right to argue either. “All the more reason to talk about it,” he says. “I have to start facing it, sooner or later.”
“Well, there’s more than enough information to process even without you serving as the key witness,” Jay says. “You cracked the case, but you cracked it wide open. It’s going to take weeks to gather the evidence. We’re probably a month away from a formal charge.”
Will has to shake his head. “I still can’t believe it was Emily. I mean, Emily. I know I had suspicions, doubts, whatever. But a serial killer?”
Jay can only nod. “The first background check with the alias came up empty, but I took it deeper, just like you wanted,” he says. “I was trying to find out the stuff about Michigan State or whatever. And that’s when I started to find the aliases. From there, the pieces just started falling into place. I was on my way to tell you -- and Goodwin when…”
He trails off and shrugs, suddenly much quieter.
“You know,” Jay finishes lamely.
Will does know, at least in theory. He still doesn’t remember the attack, though.
But the thought of Emily makes him shudder even more than before. “How many victims do they think she had at Med?”
“I told you, it’s not my case anymore,” Jay reminds him. “I handed it off entirely, so I can’t say for sure. I know Voight is checking some followups, and Goodwin is pushing for a hospital inquiry to see what they can find out about the patients. I’m pretty sure they’ve pulled files on every case Emily worked on.”
Will has to shake his head, his disbelief still hard to overcome. “But she’s a nurse. She cares for people. It doesn’t make sense,” he says, trying to reason through the unreasonable. “Nurses don’t just wake up one morning and start killing their patients.”
“But I told you, she’s been doing it for awhile,” Jay says. “When I ran the other check, I found her alias at hospitals all around the country. Each one of those places made local headlines for suspicious deaths. The girl is straight-up nuts.”
“But we’re talking about what?” Will ventures, still parsing it out. “Dozens of victims?”
Jay sighs long and hard. “Maybe more,” he says. “I’ve tracked 10 years of activity. Easy.”
Will shifts on the bed, trying to shake off the exhaustion. “10 years? Really?”
Jay sits back, a little bemused. “Why are you so surprised by all of this? I mean, you were the one with the lead. You were the one insisting I check up on her.”
“Because I doubted she went to Michigan State, maybe she’d fudged her credentials,” Will says. He shrugs helplessly. “And I mean, I figured I had to be wrong. I usually am these days.”
Jay looks just a touch exasperated. He’s sure it’s a look softened by what they’ve both been through over the last few days. “If you really doubted her that much, then why the hell did you even go with her?”
It’s a question that seems too obvious to answer. Will scrunches up his face. He doesn’t remember most of it, but he remembers this. Or maybe he just knows it. The one true thing about himself that he’s never had to hide from. All his faults, but this much has always been his one, saving grace. “Well, she said there was a patient. Someone who needed help,” he explains. “I had to go.”
Jay rolls his eyes. “You are so predictable.”
Will finds no need to defend himself in this. “I’m a doctor.”
The answer is familiar, at least, and Jay smiles tiredly. “Sure, but you knew she was a crazy person.”
Will’s shrug in return is sheepish. “To be fair, at that point, everyone had convinced me I was the crazy one.”
He doesn’t mean anything by the comment, but Jay’s expression still hardens just a little. Will’s processing this in his way; Jay’s taking his own path. They’ve never handled things the same. Will is better at forgiving, and he hasn’t even thought of culpabilities yet.
He’s never needed to point fingers here. Maybe he’s been too busy trying to absolve himself. Maybe he’s just relieved that the life he saved is his own this time. Maybe he’ll resent it in time; maybe he’ll just be happy to let this go, all of it.
“Jay, I can give the statement,” he says, looking at his brother earnestly so he understands. “I want to.”
Jay’s too good of a cop; Jay’s too good of a brother. “Yeah,” he agrees and he lumbers tiredly to his feet. “I guess you probably do.”
“Thanks, Jay,” Will says. And he has to add the obvious. “I mean, for all of it.”
Jay’s look back is quizzical. “I didn’t save your life.”
“But you believed me,” Will says. “When no one else did.”
“Yeah, well,” Jay says. “You’re an idiot, but you’re my idiot. I figured if you were choosing to stay, you had a reason.”
Will smiles, weak and even more sheepish than before. “Maybe I’ll get it right sooner or later.”
Jay snorts, but it’s all in good humor. “Well, you were right about Emily,” he points out. “I’m pretty sure you just earned a bunch of credibility with everyone over that one. Don’t squander it.”
Will nods. “I don’t plan to.”
Jay smirks, but it’s a fond gesture. “Okay,” he says. “I’ll go track down Voight, see if someone can take your statement. Don’t go anywhere, okay?”
Will grins back, even wider now. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
-o-
The funny thing is, Will finally feels like all the pieces are sliding into place. With his patients, yes. With Emily, sure.
And mostly, with his life.
It’s been like living in limbo for the last six months. As if his career’s not the only thing on probation. This unsettled sense of reality has permeating everything he does, everything he thinks. He’s been looking for redemption; he’s been looking for stability. He’s been looking.
He’s found it, it seems.
He finally arrived at the place he wants to be.
And all it took was a serial killer to get him there.
Irony, at its finest.
But Will will take it.
Will will definitely take it.
-o-
He dozes off while he waits for Jay, and when he hears the door open, he expects to see his brother with Voight in tow. He’s surprised, then, that Ms. Goodwin is the one who is standing at the edge of her bed.
She smiles, hedging and apologetic. “Is this a bad time?”
Will blinks rapidly, trying to clear his mind. He sits up a little bit, but there’s nothing to be done for just how bad he knows he must look right now. He’s doing better, but he’s still laid out and hooked up to the machines. It’s not the most flattering position to be in while you talk to your boss, but Will is at least used to that.
“No, it’s fine,” he says, quickly. He wets his lips and does his best to look ready. He manages a smile. “Ethan says he hopes I’ll be out of here in a couple of days.”
“Well, Dr. Choi wants to be thorough, and a few days is probably for the best,” Ms. Goodwin says, and he feels her appraising look as she scans him. She draws herself up. “You are looking better, though.”
She sounds pleased, somehow, even if she seems to do her best not to smile.
Will shifts, awkward at the scrutiny. “I’m feeling better, too,” he offers, though it seems like a silly thing to say, considering how he was unconscious for the worst of it. “Kind of looking forward to moving past it, honestly.”
She nods at that, because it seems to be a point she understands. But she draws another breath and looks at him, as if she’s made up her mind about something. “I came to apologize.”
It’s not what he’s expecting, for some reason. He’s got a good sense of what happened, so it’s probably not surprising, but he still remembers standing in her office, having her send him home.
Again.
It’s a palpable sensation, and it’s hard to shake.
When he doesn’t come up with a reply, Ms. Goodwin continues. “You raised valid concerns all along about Emily, and I disregarded you out of hand,” she explains. “It cost patients their lives. It nearly cost you yours. And I’m sorry.”
It’s a careful statement, but it’s wrong to call it calculated. He’s pretty sure an outright apology has not been vetted by the hospital’s lawyer, but this is clearly something she’s thought about before she’s said it. As it turns out, Will’s not the only one with regrets at Chicago Med.
“I don’t blame you, though,” he says. “I mean, my behavior, my performance. I don’t really trust myself, even. So I don’t know why you would.”
“That lack of self confidence is also something I’ve had a part in,” Ms. Goodwin says. “You made mistakes -- very serious mistakes -- but it’s silly for us to pretend like you haven’t made the progress you’ve made.”
“But it’s not even one mistake,” Will says. “I keep making them. I’d like to sit here and tell you I’ll never make them again, but I don’t know. Like I said, I don’t even trust myself.”
She sighs somewhat. “You’re not the easiest employee, I have to tell you, but it’s not because you’re a bad doctor. That’s really the problem. You’re a good doctor -- one of the best we have -- but you’re just so damn stupid about it sometimes,” she says, and she shakes her head. She’s being candid, but this time -- for once -- there’s no ire in her eyes as she makes the admonition. “It would be a lot easier if I could just fire you and be done with it, but I like you on my staff too much. Your instincts are good, but they’re not infallible. None of us have that. I mean, how else do you explain how I hired Dean Archer as interim chief? Of all people?”
Will chuckles at that.
She hems herself back, still shaking her head. “Use your instincts alongside common sense. Remember that sometimes our gut tells us to do stupid things like hiring a serial killer. Just slow down. Check yourself. That’s all, Dr. Halstead. That’s all any of us can do.”
Will nods, still feeling embarrassed somehow. “I’m trying,” he says, and it’s almost a promise. “I swear, I’ve been trying.”
“You’re more than trying; you’re succeeding,” Ms. Goodwin tells him, and she lifts her brows at him as she purses her lips. “And I suppose the rest of us could try, too. Your efforts have not exactly been rewarded, and that’s partially my fault. Your instincts spared this hospital a much larger problem than the one it has -- and you tried to warn me earlier, but I disregarded you out of hand.”
He hears the apology in her voice, but he hears the truth, too. His cheeks are reddening once again, and he shakes his head, feeling even more awkward. “I don’t even blame you, all the crap I pulled,” he says. He reaches a shaky hand back to scrub the back of his head. “Maybe I just need to start over, for everyone’s sake.”
She inhales, but it’s a composed and measured gesture. “I wouldn’t blame you if you did, but…”
She trails off and shrugs a little.
Will sits up a little, feeling on alert. “But?”
“But,” she starts, and she makes a small shrug of self deprecation. “I’d hate to lose you.”
There’s sentiment there, and Will feels his heart swell. He’s craved acceptance, this is true. But what he wants more than anything -- what he needs -- is approval. “I just want to show everyone -- show you -- that I can do this. That I deserve to be here.”
She draws herself and nods. “Then stay, Dr. Halstead,” she says, voice thick with emotion. “Slow down. Shut up. And just stay.”
A lot of things about this are hard.
This, though.
This isn’t.
He swallows back his own emotions, working up the saliva in his throat as he finds his voice amid it all. “Okay,” he agrees. “I can do that.”
She smirks now, bobbing her head before she turns to leave. “I wouldn’t doubt that for a second.”
He watches her go, and he’s still weak, still laid out in the hospital bed. He’s still feeling out the limitations of his body, and there’s a part of him that knows he hasn’t fully reconciled what recovery will look like for him. He hasn’t contended with the emotional reality of what he’s been through -- not any of it -- and he knows Jay has put off questions from the police as long as he can. It’s all going to come to a head eventually, and Will’s not naive enough to think it will be easy.
But considering what he’s been through, it really doesn’t seem so hard.
-o-
Sharon doesn’t let herself look back. It’s not a habit she’s in, not professionally or personally. You don’t get to where she is in life if you hold onto the past, and that’s a lesson she should have taken to heart with Will Halstead some years ago.
Because people are imperfect. People make mistakes. They screw up; they let you down.
Sometimes, it seems like it’s easier to cut them out, and sometimes it is.
But sometimes it’s different. Sometimes it’s more than that. Sometimes you have to look back just a little in order to look forward. This history informs the past, and if you don’t ask the right questions, you won’t get the right answers.
That’s the case with Emily Novak -- or whatever her real name is.
She suspects it’s also true for Will Halstead -- in the other direction.
People can be more than their mistakes, if you let them.
If you try to see them.
So Sharon walks away and she doesn’t look back. She’ll answer all the questions she has to answer about Emily and the hiring process. She’ll talk to the police, her bosses, the press -- all of it.
But she doesn’t have to look back to know that Dr. Halstead is still there.
That’s a relief, of course. It’s absolution. It’s hope.
So, today’s been a long day, to be sure.
But it’s not so bad.
For as long as the day’s been, there are longer ones to come, and Sharon knows it. The investigation is only going to get more intense, and the trial is going to be a mess in and of itself. There will be private lawsuits, too, Sharon can almost guarantee it, and that will be a costly headache -- and one they deserve. Sharon won’t shirk it, not when she shirked the things that matter most and got them in this mess.
Dr. Halstead, at least, is one less victim. He’ll survive; he’ll recover. She trusts he’ll be back at work in no time. He’ll be a hero in the press, too. Gwen will pamper him, want to use him as a hospital asset. The face of the hero who stopped the monster. It’ll sell well in the papers, and it might help them water down their liability in court. At least, this way, everyone will think of Med as the hospital that stopped a serial killer and overlook the part where Sharon hired her in the first place.
She has Dr. Halstead to thank for that, and she knows it. She won’t forget it, either, not even when he makes his next mistake. They’re all human, after all. And they’ve got a ways to go.
That’s just how it is.
Like she said to Dr. Halstead, you have to slow down, do things the right way.
You have to know your people, first and foremost.
That’s how you serve.
That’s how you thrive.
At Med, that’s all they have, in the end. All the accolades, all the donors, all the prestige: that’s all they really have.
It’s all they need.
In that light, Sharon thinks as she heads back up to her office to get back to work, the day doesn’t seem that long after all.