Chicago Med fic: Restitution (1/10)
Title: Restitution
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
A/N: Set post S6, written without seeing S7 yet. Therefore, AU. It’s not a route the show ever would go, but I liked it enough to explore it. Fills my depression prompt for hc_bingo
Summary: Will’s time at Med ends. A whole different journey begins.
PART ONE
PART TWO
PART THREE
PART FOUR
PART FIVE
PART SIX
PART SEVEN
PART EIGHT
PART NINE
PART TEN
-o-
Will had been fired before.
In truth, this was hardly new territory. In fact, if anything, the last ten years at Med were the aberration. If you looked back at his life, he was prone to spectacular successes and disastrous failures. He was good at flying high. It was just that he had no sense of landing. He was a self-made Icarus, flying into every sun in his sights.
Being suspended from high school.
Getting kicked out of college.
Cutting and running from his fellowship in Africa.
Managing to get fired from his prestigious plastic surgery firm in New York City.
Making it nearly a decade at Med?
A fluke, really.
A mistake.
It was always destined to end like this, and part of Will had always known it.
He just wished it didn’t hurt quite so much.
-o-
After leaving the hospital, Will’s first inclination was to get drunk. Like, really drunk. Unfortunately, getting drunk involved going to a bar, and the last thing he needed to do was end up at Molly’s, giving his sob story to every cop and firefighter in town. Or worse, face his colleagues. Word would get out, and he knew there was nothing he could do about that, but he at least wanted to be as far away as possible when that happened. If he never saw another person from Med for the rest of his life -- well, that was the plan.
That was the only plan.
Will’s fallback solution.
Run hard. Flee fast. Never look back.
With getting drunk out of the picture, he retreated back home. His apartment was sad and lonely, but his dog was at least glad to see him. He found whatever alcohol he had in the fridge -- cheap beer and a half finished bottle of tequila -- and he proceeded to start getting drunk in a much sadder, much more pathetic fashion. He could call Jay for support, but if facing his colleagues after this was going to be hard, telling his brother he’d screwed up again was nearly impossible.
About two drinks in, he didn’t feel drunk or buzzed.
He just felt miserable.
And a little bit sick to his stomach.
Had he really just done this? Had he really just blown up his entire career over a woman he’d once been in love with? Had he really just tanked Sabeena’s trial a week before it was set to be published? Had he honestly just risked Natalie’s mother’s life? Had he sincerely covered for Natalie at his own expense? Had he actually just taken ten years of his life and thrown it all away -- personally and professionally?
Yes, was the obvious answer.
Yes, he had.
He had done it wilfully and knowingly. He had walked into it with his eyes wide open. He had made a choice -- not just one choice, but a series of conscious, knowing choices. The only mystery was why he hadn’t seen this coming.
Now he was too miserable to even get drunk.
When he first heard the knocking on his door, he thought it was a mistake. Maybe he was a lot drunker than he’d imagined. Maybe he was finally losing his sanity in the midst of his own stupidity. But the knock came again, and Will levered himself out of his chair, abandoning the beer he couldn’t bring himself to drink. He opened the door abruptly, not sure what he was expecting.
Even so, the sight of Ms. Goodwin -- the woman who had just unceremoniously fired his ass -- was standing at his door.
He stared at her, jaw slack for a moment.
She seemed uncomfortable, drawing a breath and adjusting her stance expectantly.
Expectant for what, Will wasn’t sure.
After a long moment of silence, she tipped her head to the side. “Dr. Halstead,” she said. “I’m sorry to bother you at home--”
She was being polite for some reason, and Will couldn’t make sense of it. He shook his head, brow furrowed. “Do I need to fill out paperwork or something?” he asked. His mind reeled. “Are there liability issues? Are you going after my license?”
He had spun out every worst case scenario in a matter of seconds, and Ms. Goodwin blinked in surprise. “No,” she said. Then, she sighed. “I think we need to talk.”
“I don’t see why,” Will said. “And as I’m not your employee anymore--”
She held up her hand. This time, though, it was something of an invitation. “Please, Dr. Halstead,” she said again. “I would really like to talk.”
Dumbfounded, Will didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know what to say.
So he stepped back from the door and let her inside.
-o-
There was some part of Will’s brain that thought about going through the polite motions. He wasn’t a complete neanderthal. He knew how to act when you invited someone into your home. You offered them something to eat and drink. You let them take a seat. You make small talk.
Will was nowhere drunk enough for that.
He wasn’t quite sober enough for it either.
He led her to the living room so they weren’t standing in the cramped entryway, and when he turned to face her, she looked uncomfortable. She was still in her work clothes, hair done and makeup on. She looked out of place in his crappy apartment. It was likely that her ensemble cost more than one month’s rent.
Will might have cared if she was still his boss, but as she wasn’t, he wasn’t sure what to do. He could grovel for a good reference. Or he could just act like this was another burning bridge.
For what it was worth, all he did was stand there until she finally cleared her throat and grimaced. It occurred to Will later that it was her attempt at a smile. “I talked to Dr. Manning,” she said.
That was probably relevant, but Will wasn’t really sure why. When she’d fired him, she hadn’t needed context. There was no reason to assume it was a factor now.
When he didn’t respond, she gathered herself and continued. “She provided new light on the situation with the medication and the trial,” she said. “Dr. Manning explained that, in her desperation to save her mother, she stole the trial pills. She lied to you and to everyone else, and when you found out, you realized just how serious the situation was and tried to protect her. While you were complicit in her actions at that point, you were not the instigator.”
Will was still at a total loss. He shrugged. “So?”
“Her explanation provides critical context that I did not know when I fired you this afternoon,” she said. “Context that might have altered my decisions.”
Will frowned. “You said it yourself. I was complicit. My choices put a patient at risk, compromised the trial and hurt the hospital. Nothing has changed.”
This time, her shoulders fell a little and Will saw her composure shift. “Things have changed,” she said. “Dr. Manning acted in desperation, and you saw her in an impossible situation. Your decision was not the right one to make, but it is an understandable choice. You acted out of compassion for Dr. Manning and her mother -- and Dr. Virani said you did your best to protect the integrity of the trial despite what had been done. In this context, your actions are understandable.”
She was trying to explain it, but Will still didn’t get it. “Understandable?” he repeated. “And still completely unethical. I deserved to be fired today.”
Now, she just looked weary. “Probably, yes,” she said. “But things aren’t always about what we deserve. Dr. Halstead.”
She was talking in circles now. It was counterintuitive, and it was just too much. “Ms. Goodwin, I really don’t understand what you’re doing here.”
Her lips thinned out and she rubbed her hands together. “Dr. Halstead, it’s been a long year. It’s been a bad year. All of us -- we've been through a lot, we’ve lost a lot. And we’ve made mistakes we wished we hadn’t made, and we’ve been blinded by the people closest to us. We already came close to losing one of our own today, and I’ll be honest with you, I don’t think we can survive another loss. I’m not sure I can survive another loss.”
His heart was loud in his chest, and the sound was deafening between his ears. He stood, frozen in place, unable to speak.
“What you and Dr. Manning did was wrong, and her confession left me no choice but to take action--”
“Wait, what?” Will interjected. His heart plummeted to his stomach. “You fired Natalie?”
“She stole the pills,” Ms. Goodwin said plaintively. “That was why I fired you. Because you confessed to stealing the pills, and that kind of action cannot be tolerated. Since Dr. Manning has confessed to that, your role in this situation has changed.”
He gaped. “You can’t fire Natalie. Her mother -- she has a son--”
“And she understands the repercussions of her actions,” Ms. Goodwin said. “Given the circumstances, I’m quite confident that she’ll be able to find alternative employment. The penalty for making a choice to save her mother will be viewed with some indulgence by many healthcare providers. But you--”
She stopped and gave him a piercing look.
He was weary, too, though. He just stared back at her.
“You,” she continued with a tired note. “You acted for the care of a colleague. You acted in concern for a patient. I would like to think you’ll show more judgment in the future, but I can’t fault you for your intentions here. You are very good at being wrong and right at the same time. It’s frustrating as your employers, but it’s true.”
Will felt like he was being damned with faint praise, and he was torn between feeling mortified and reassured. Mostly, at this point, he was just starting to feel numb.
“All that is to say that Dr. Manning made a compelling case,” Ms. Goodwin said. “Not to mention the fact that I heard from nearly every other staff member in the ED saying that they wished I would reconsider.”
Will made a face. “What?”
Ms. Goodwin nodded. “Maggie was ardent in your defense. April, too. Dr. Charles asked me to take some time and rethink things. Even Dr. Marcel tried to explain the situation better.”
That didn’t make sense.
None of this made any sense.
“Dr. Halstead, you may not be the best choice for ED chief, and you may be every administrator's headache, but you are a good doctor,” she said. “Losing you in the ED would be an irreplaceable loss. Given these factors and the true circumstances regarding your role in this situation, I would like to offer you your job back.”
A wave of disbelief washed over him. It was too much, too surreal, too fast. He had still been making sense of losing his job, and this sudden turn of luck didn’t parse.
It couldn’t.
Will had ruined the trial. Will had lied to his boss and his colleagues. He had breached every ethical standard he could think of, and his actions had serious repercussions for the hospital. He had proved Ms. Goodwin right about him. He didn’t deserve the promotion.
In fact, he didn’t deserve a spot at Med.
He didn’t deserve anything.
She was still watching him, and he realized that she was waiting for an answer.
As if there was any other answer to give.
He shook his head, still stunned. “Are you being serious right now?”
“I came to your apartment at ten in the evening,” she said. “I’m very serious.”
“You really want me to take my job back,” he said. “My job at Med after everything I’ve done.”
Ms. Goodwin leaned back, as if taking actual stock of that question. “I’m not here to absolve you. You would be under close supervision of myself and of Dr. Archer, who has agreed to be our interim ED chief--”
Will’s eyes actually goggled at that. “Dr. Archer?”
“Until Dr. Choi is fully recovered,” she continued, not missing a beat. “But as the theft of the pill was the major concern, Dr. Manning’s confession makes my decision to fire you premature.”
She was being sensible, except that it wasn’t sensible. Nothing was sensible. Nothing had been sensible since the start of this pandemic, since he’d fallen in love with Hannah, since he’d broken up with Natalie, since he’d been in witness protection, since he’d left Natalie at the altar, since a childhood friend held a gun to his head and threatened to kill him in cold blood.
His life didn’t make sense.
He couldn’t stand here and play sensible.
“You really think that changes things?” he asked, not bothering to hide his incredulity. “I mean, we both know my history. The reasons you didn’t give me the promotion are still there. They’re just worse now. You’re asking me to stay at a dead-end job.”
“I’m asking you to stay and be a part of an ED that saves lives,” Ms. Goodwin said. “You do very good work, Dr. Halstead. Don’t miss what I’m saying here.”
“No, I’m hearing what you’re saying, probably better than you think,” he said. She hadn’t let him speak before, but she wasn’t his boss now. This was his apartment, and if this was his screw up, then he was going to take it to its end. “I don’t have a future at Med. I don’t have a reputation at Med. I’d be on thin ice with every decision I made. That’s no way to practice medicine.”
Her brow darkened a little, and there was something of surprise in her eyes. “Professionally, you’ve made missteps, but I wouldn’t make this offer if I didn’t think you were an important and valuable part of the staff. You may not be ED chief material, but you are liked and respected.”
“Am I?” Will asked, all but scoffing now. “Am I really?”
“Yes,” she replied simply. “I’m not a fool, and I’m not governed by sentiment. This isn’t an offer made out of pity.”
Yet, there Will stood, in his own apartment, half drunk, feeling more pitiful than he’d ever felt in his life. “I can’t go back,” he said, and the words felt like rocks on his tongue, heavier than any truth he’d ever been forced to speak. “You fired me without a word. You fired me without regrets or reservations. You made your choice, and you shouldn’t be standing here, trying to take it back.”
Somehow, she looked concerned. “Dr. Halstead--”
But it was his turn to interject. She hadn’t wanted his excuses, and now he didn’t want hers. “No, I understand what you’re trying to do, but I can’t take the job at Med,” he said. “You fired me with cause, Ms. Goodwin, and there are no quick fixes or last minute saves this time. I have to work my way out of this on my own.”
“I wish you would reconsider,” she said, staidly.
He smiled, small and sad. “Part of you doesn’t.”
She drew a breath and flattened her lips, but she didn’t quite deny it. “My offer still stands. Dr. Halstead. Think it over.”
“Thank you for coming, Ms. Goodwin,” he said, nodding to the door. “But I don’t think that will be necessary.”
-o-
She made no further overtures, and she saw herself out. When Will locked the door behind her, he stood there for a moment, staring at the backside of the door, wondering what the hell had just happened.
Had Sharon Goodwin really come here to give him his job back?
Had he actually just turned the offer down?
His dream job? The one that had brought him home? The one that had grounded him for the better part of a decade? The one he’d told himself he’d never leave? That job?
There was already ample evidence that he was a complete idiot. No sense in trying to disprove that now.
Feeling dead with shock, and sick with dread, Will knew there was only one way to deal with this now.
Now it was time to take all the cheap beer, every last bit of tequila, and get as drunk as he possibly could.
-o-
Fortunately, with as little good alcohol as Will had on hand, it didn’t take much. He was a lightweight most of the time, and with an empty stomach and a mopey disposition, he was primed to be drunk.
The fact that he considered that fortunate was probably a foreboding sign.
However, instead of worrying about it, Will just drank more.
He drank until he passed out, falling asleep on his couch without any wherewithal to undress or get into bed. It didn’t matter, though. He had nowhere to go, nothing to do, no one to see.
Nothing mattered at all.
-o-
Will slept like the dead that night, waking only sometime in the early morning to throw up. He wasn’t sure if that part was real or not, but when he woke up again in the midday, he was in the bathroom, splayed on the floor, and his mouth tasted like acidic cotton.
The thought of it was enough to make him nauseous again.
And sitting up was all it took for his stomach to rebel.
He made it to the toilet just in time, proceeding to vomit until he had nothing left but dry heaves.
Exhausted, he slumped back against the wall, blearily trying to take stock of things. He was in his bathroom. He was badly hungover.
Oh, and he was still unemployed and pathetic.
Also, he was still sick.
Lurching forward, Will threw up again.
After another ten minutes in the bathroom, Will managed to sit up enough to take a drink of water from the sink. From there, he half crawled to his bedroom. When he got there, he thought about his phone out in the living room. He should probably check his messages, but there was no point.
Instead, he flopped onto his back on the bed.
That was all, then.
He closed his eyes.
That was all.
-o-
Will slept all day and into the afternoon. He woke up once in the midafternoon, but feeling miserable and sick, he didn’t have the motivation to get out of bed. He slept for several more hours until he woke around dinnertime, and the inevitability of being awake was too pervasive to ignore.
He couldn’t sleep his way through this.
No, that would be too easy.
Will had blown up his career in a spectacular, over the top spectacle. He would have to contend with that sooner or later.
Flopping out of bed, he felt horribly sober. Weary and spent, he half wished it had all been a dream, but the last few years had had so many nightmares that he didn’t know where to start. Getting fired was just the icing on the cake, really. He’d torpedoed his relationship with Sabeena. He’d humiliated himself with the drug execs. He’d lost out on a promotion to Ethan. His girlfriend had overdosed on drugs.
What was he even doing?
What had he even been thinking?
He was a mess. He was a walking disaster. Goodwin should have fired him months ago.
He should have just let Tim Burke shoot him in the back of the head and just be done with it already.
The masochistic thought galvanized him, but not in any productive kind of way. He was just cognizant enough to know that he was spiralling here -- and badly. He felt numb suddenly, like all the blood was draining from his head. Dizzy and lightheaded, it felt like he was floating outside himself, seeing his own pathetic, worthless little life as it culminated to absolutely nothing.
He couldn’t.
He couldn’t -- what? Go on? Maintain this train of thought? Manage?
The notion was nebulous and pressing all at the same time, and Will’s throat tightened. He probably would have thrown up again if he had anything left to give.
He didn’t, though.
Will was empty.
Will was done.
He wasn’t particularly inclined for nihilism, and he coped with it badly. As he had already drunk all the alcohol he had -- and what would he do to purchase more now that he was unemployed? -- Will did the only thing he could think to do, his notorious last resort.
He picked himself up, grabbed his keys and wallet, and went straight to Jay’s.
-o-
Now, Will didn’t like to pretend like his brother was his fallback plan. He was a little too proud to be so weak, and he didn’t want Jay to think of it like that. Like that was all Jay was -- a backup plan. Jay was more than that, but the simple fact was that Will wasn’t. He didn’t want his brother to realize just how much of a mess he could make sometimes.
And Will could make a mess.
In college.
In Africa.
In New York.
There was some comfort in knowing that whatever humiliation Will brought to Jay’s door, it would hardly be new to his brother. Hell, Jay would probably think it was long overdue. He’d always known that Will was a disaster. And here Will was, proving his brother right again.
It was the final piece of his ultimate humiliation. There was an innate temptation to run from it, but there was nowhere to go. There was no way he could turn to anyone at work. And friends? What friends did he have outside of Fire and PD? Jay would be pissed, but Jay was his brother. If there was anyone left to accept his pathetic ass, it was going to be him.
At least, that was what Will told himself as he knocked on Jay’s door.
His brother answered, looking surprised.
The surprise, however, quickly gave way to concern.
“Will? Are you okay?” he asked immediately. He stepped through the door to get a better look at Will. Will, despite himself, flinched back. His brother’s concern intensified. “What’s wrong?”
It was too much. Jay was worried about Will -- and for what? For Will’s own stupid mistakes? For a problem entirely of Will’s own making? He didn’t deserve the concern, and he would have no choice but to accept his brother’s pity.
“Will, you’re freaking me out, man,” his brother said, voice starting to rise. “What’s wrong?”
Blinking, Will remembered that he was still there. He was still stuck in this moment, and he had no way out of it. He half choked on a sob before managing to inhale raggedly. He blinked again -- harder now -- and tentatively looked up into his brother’s face.
“I screwed up,” he admitted in halting, tremulous words. “Jay, I screwed up really bad.”
-o-
Will knew that he could drive Jay crazy. He even knew how much his brother had resented him from time to time. They went back and forth on that, and even when they made nice, Will wasn’t naive. He knew that some of his actions had hurt Jay more than he’d allowed himself to realize -- and that some of those wounds would never fully heal.
But they were brothers.
They were the last two Halsteads standing.
That was why, despite everything, Will had come here. Because Will could be an idiot and an asshole, and he could screw up fifty-thousand times, and Jay would still be his brother. He took that for granted sometimes, and that was to his detriment. He didn’t take it for granted now.
Not that he was thinking that clearly at the moment. His mind felt hazy; his limbs felt numb. Jay let him inside, and Will had to be all but led to the couch. He sat down, almost on autopilot, and Jay sat next to him, more intent than ever. “What happened?” Jay asked. “Are you hurt?”
Will understood the words, but he couldn’t make sense of them anyway. He blinked at his brother, heart thudding in his chest.
“Will,” Jay said, more firmly than ever. “Will, talk to me. What’s wrong?”
What was wrong?
What wasn’t wrong?
It had all fallen apart. The whole bottom had fallen out.
Unbidden, his breathing caught. He blinked and realized that his eyes were burning. “Everything,” he said numbly. “Everything’s wrong.”
It was an apt answer, but Jay’s brow immediately furrowed. “Okay, you’re going to have to be a little more specific. Start at the beginning.”
Will inhaled again, and he felt like he was suffocating. The beginning.
He didn’t know where the beginning was. Was it when he’d agreed to cover for Natalie? Was it when Natalie took the pills in the first place? Was it the drug trial? The promotion? Hannah?
Was it the car crash? Was it witness protection? Maybe it had started all the way back when he first agreed to stay at Med, and this was just the inevitable decline that was a decade in the making.
He looked at Jay, and wished he didn’t have to do this. As much as it hurt him, it would hurt Jay, too. And Jay was about the only person left who didn’t think he was the worst person ever.
He deserved it, though.
He deserved it all.
“I got fired,” he said, and the words were like lead, heavy and bitter in his mouth.
Jay looked like he didn’t understand. “You what?”
That made it worse. That Will had made it long enough that this was actually a surprise. “I got fired,” he said again, trying to steady his voice. “Goodwin fired me, and then she offered me my job back.”
That elucidation only seemed to make the story less clear. “Okay--” Jay started.
But Will shook his head. Because there was no happy ending here. “And then I quit,” he said, and it sounded more ridiculous when he said it. His breathing caught again, on something like a sob and a hysterical laugh.
Sitting across from him on the couch, Jay looked more confused than ever. “You’re going to have to back up a bit here, buddy.”
Will had come here for his brother’s support -- support he didn’t deserve. He had no right to hold anything back.
Whatever was left of him was Jay’s for the taking.
-o-
The story wasn’t actually as long as it seemed like it should be. Explaining the way Natalie had stolen the drugs was straightforward enough, especially when he pointed out the severity of her mother’s condition. Trying to justify his choice to cover up for Natalie -- to abet her bad decisions -- was a harder sell, but Will didn’t pretend like he had the high ground here. He had known it was bad. He had known it was a disaster waiting to happen.
In truth, that was why he’d done it.
If there was a disaster coming, he’d thought he’d be ready for it. He’d thought he could fall on that sword so Natalie wouldn’t have to. He’d been trying to protect her, protect Owen, protect her mom.
Jay even seemed to understand that, because it was a Will Halstead kind of move. When he got to the part about rejecting Goodwin’s subsequent job offer, though, he seemed to have a little more trouble making sense of things.
It wasn’t even something Will could fully explain. It wasn’t merely a question of pride, though he was sure that was part of it. It was just -- he’d made this mistake. He’d made it knowingly and willingly. Whether or not he stole the pills, he’d let it get this far. He deserved the punishment. He couldn’t go back to work knowing that he hadn’t earned his place there.
Jay listened, gently prodding the story out of Will like he probably did with suspects in an interrogation room. While Will was sure he was guilty of any charge Jay might levy against him now, his brother sat back and sighed instead.
He looked Will up and down, and he smiled sympathetically. “So, it’s that bad, huh?”
Chest still tight, Will managed a watery smile of his own. He felt shaky and weak, and his voice had lost all intonation. “I think it might be worse.”
Jay might have been the rough and tumble cop, but he was still capable of understated acts of compassion. In fact, he might have been better at them than Will was sometimes. Instead of blame or condescension, Jay clapped him on the shoulder. “Well, we’ll figure out your next move in the morning,” he said, getting to his feet. “For now, just get some rest.”
His brother was ready to leave that as it was, but Will’s gut twisted. “Jay.”
His brother stopped, looking back at him.
“I’m sorry,” he blurted.
“For what?” Jay said.
“For everything,” Will said, shrugging. “For showing up here like this. For letting it get this far. You knew all along I’d screw it up, and here I am.”
“Dude, I told you, we’ll figure it out in the morning,” Jay told him. “Right, wrong or the other. Right now, you look like crap. You need some rest to even try getting your head on straight.”
It seemed like good advice, though Will couldn’t figure out why. He had done nothing but sleep -- and drink -- over the last twenty-four hours, but somehow, he was still exhausted. He was stuck, poised between a rock and a hard place, and the fight or flight adrenaline that usually kicked in during times like these was unable to take root this time.
In truth, the thought of moving felt like too much.
All those times he’d run and run and run.
This time, he was spent.
All he could do was stay.
-o-
As instructed, Will rested. He fell asleep sitting up with the baseball game playing in the background, the drone of the crowd abandoning him in unconsciousness. He slept like that the whole night, fully clothed and sitting up, though at some point, Jay had the decency to turn off the TV and throw a blanket over him.
Needless to say, despite sleeping for the better part of 48 hours now, Will woke up feeling ragged once more. There was a part of his brain -- the barely functional doctor part -- that told him he was suffering from situational depression. The shock of a major life change could easily bring about this kind of numb exhaustion. For most people, it passed.
Will didn’t find that thought especially encouraging.
Plus, his back was killing him.
Will wasn’t as young as he used to be. He found that his resilience had abated. As he took a shower, he momentarily panicked, feeling like he might be over the hill. The panic was deep and striking, but Will breathed through it. The last thing he needed was to spark a mid-life crisis. Things were bad enough right now.
Besides, what would he even do in a mid-life crisis? He’d already sowed his wild oats. He’d hooked up with more women than he could remember, and he’d lived hard and fast. He was always the first to show up, the first to bail. He could go from nearly flunking out one semester to graduating top of his class the next. Steadiness, though. Consistency.
He’d never been good at it before.
The last ten years had messed him up, though. He’d learned to live. To be connected.
To finish something.
He’d finished the job at Med, it seemed.
Just not the way he’d hoped.
Getting out of the shower, Will dried himself off and attempted to make himself look human again. It was a tall order, and he gave up with his hair and settled for a swig of mouthwash instead. Presentable, he was not, but Jay was the one person left on the planet who would take him anyway.
At the table, Jay had out a few boxes of cereals and a carton of milk. There were a few bananas in a bowl, and coffee was on the counter. Belatedly, Will looked at the time. It was nearly 10.
“Aren’t you supposed to be at work?” Will asked, sitting across from Jay and grabbing the first box of cereal. “I mean, one of us is still employed, right?”
“Sure, but I took a day,” Jay said.
Will glanced at him. He was too worn to elicit much alarm, but it wasn’t the answer he expected.
Jay shrugged nonchalantly. “You’re kind of a mess,” he said. “I’m not sure I trust you alone in the house.”
Will snorted, pouring the milk next. “I’m not going to do anything.”
“I know,” Jay said. “That’s the problem. You’d sit here and mope, feeling sorry for yourself.”
Will looked at him balefully. “I got fired, Jay. Excuse me if I need a day.”
“This is day two, I believe. Or three -- your timeline is a little wonky,” Jay pointed out.
Will couldn’t deny that. Sullenly, he picked up his spoon. “Whatever,” he said. “I’m just saying you don’t need to waste a day on me.”
Jay gave him a longsuffering expression. “Let’s spare each other the self sacrificial nonsense, and let’s just do what we do. We figure it out.
That sentiment had sounded hopeful last night. Now, in the barren light of day, it just sounded inane. “There’s nothing to figure out. I got fired.”
“Yeah,” Jay said, matter of fact. “And then you got offered your job back. So it’s not really as bleak as you’re making it out to be.”
Will took a slow bite and chewed it before swallowing. He shook his head. “I told you already. I can’t take the job back.”
Jay was peeling a banana now. “And I’m telling you now, we’ll talk about that. And then we’ll talk about other job options.”
Will filled up his spoon again. “But I’m not hireable.”
Jay had taken his first bite and he raised his eyebrows. “You’re a doctor. You’ve got, like, loads of schooling and training -- not to mention first-rate experience. You’re really going to tell me that you’re not hireable?”
“My disregard for medical ethics -- the way I tanked the trial -- it’s a lot worse than you realize, Jay,” Will said.
Jay swallowed another bite of banana. “So you think this is it, then? You’re just done being a doctor?”
Jay said it to be confrontational, and the plainness of it had the desired effect. Will sat back, spoon idle in his fingers, as he considered the implications of that. “I guess I don’t know,” he confessed. He hadn’t put it into those terms, but the finality of the conclusion didn’t see that far off. “I mean, the things I did--”
Will was willing to entertain the thought, but Jay wasn’t. He wasn’t buying it at all. “Were to help someone you care about. It’s not good, I get it. Maybe it’s fireable -- but maybe it’s not. I mean, Goodwin did offer to hire you back. And you didn’t lose your license, did you?”
Will frowned, too wrapped up in the thought to bother eating now. It seemed like a low bar at first blush, but he had to admit, it was a pretty salient detail. “I guess not.”
“Okay,” Jay said, still acting as if jumping that low bar was somehow impressive. “And it’s not like you’re out there killing people or stealing things.”
Will grimaced. “That’s actually exactly what happened.”
Jay rolled his eyes. “Not the killing people,” he said. “And you didn’t steal anything.”
The bar seemed to be getting lower, somehow. “So the only bad people are murderers?”
“Stop it,” Jay ordered him. “You’re not a bad person.”
Will groaned, slumping back against the chair. “Just a really bad doctor.”
“Again, you were saving lives--”
“Natalie’s mother could have died--”
“Which is what you told Natalie,” Jay pointed out. He shook his head. “Look, you’re mad at yourself, and nothing I say is going to stop you from thinking that you screwed up.”
“I did screw up,” Will insisted. He had to insist. He shrugged to demonstrate just how self evident it was. “I mean, like that is the essence of what I did. I screwed up on every possible front.”
“But for the right reasons,” Jay said with a hint of exasperation. “I could tell you that all day long until I’m blue in the face, but we both know you don’t need to hear it from me.”
“And you think I want to talk to other people about the many ways in which I put people’s lives and jobs in jeopardy all because I can never stick to actual medical ethics?” Will asked.
“No,” Jay said, his tone perfunctory. “I think you need to hear it from Natalie.”
Will’s jaw dropped open. “What? Why!”
“Because you might actually listen to her,” Jay said. “And also, she called you all night and your phone wouldn’t stop pinging. You kept sleeping through it so I finally answered for you.”
“Jay!”
Jay was not intimidated by Will, especially not at this point. “She just wants to see you. I think it might do you some good.”
Will stiffened, crossing his arms over his chest. “There’s nothing to say.”
Jay wrinkled his nose. “There might be a few things.”
Will had been through a lot already. He wasn’t sure he was emotionally ready for this. He’d barely kept it together the last time he’d talked to Natalie. To do it again? After realizing the depth of just how far he’d fallen. He shook his head. “Jay--”
For all that Jay had been a sympathetic ear, he wasn’t sympathetic about this. “Just go,” he said. “You need to do it.”
“Jay--”
“And if you don’t, I’ll kick you out on your unemployed ass,” Jay said with a matter of fact smirk.
Will sighed, but there was no way around his resignation now. “It’s not going to change how I feel about the job.”
“Fine,” Jay said. “But it might change how you feel about yourself. And besides, it’s Natalie. You two have needed closure for three years now. You might as well do it right this time.”
-o-
Will agreed to go because he didn’t really have a choice. He offered to take the train over some time over the morning while Jay was at work, but Jay had other plans. Those plans included taking the day off from work and driving Will over himself.
Because apparently Will was really that bad off.
His brother was now taking sick days on his behalf.
Will felt like he was the epitome of pathetic. But he was so pathetic that he couldn’t argue the point. At this point, he probably deserved it. He deserved everything.
Natalie still lived at the same brownstone, the one they’d shared while they were engaged. He’d spent time living in that house, making it a home. He was the one who’d fixed the back door when the frame had swelled. He’d fixed the toilet in the downstairs bathroom, and he’d hung a new ceiling fan in Owen’s room.
The home he’d forfeited when he lied to Natalie.
The life he’d given up for a gun he couldn’t let go of.
Each failure, just as cutting as the last. Maybe that was why Jay thought he needed to come: to appreciate how long this had been coming.
Jay had the decency to drop him off down the street, but he insisted on sitting in the car. He’d promised to catch up on his email while he waited, as if he thought Will might need some privacy while he continued his long, hard fall from grace.
The only turn of luck he had was that Natalie was outside. That way he wouldn’t have to face Owen or whatever babysitting Natalie had scrounged up for the day. Of course, Natalie was loading up a storage unit, which had been parked in front of her house. The implications were impossible to miss.
He stopped short, feeling breathless at the end of her driveway.
When she saw him, she stopped short, too.
Two days ago, Will had told her that he still cared about her. Two days ago, Will had been willing to give up everything for her. Two days ago, he’d thought it was over.
It didn’t feel over now.
If anything, it felt more raw than ever before.
“Will,” she said. “You came.”
Will panicked for a second, but with Jay just down the street, there was no way out of this. He cleared his throat, but it didn’t help. “Um, yeah,” he said. He glanced from her to the storage unit. “You’re moving?”
She nodded. “I’m going to take Mom back to Seattle when she’s released,” she said. “We have family out there, connections. I already got a lead on a job, something in pediatrics. Stable hours, a nice practice.”
The way she said it, it was like a picture perfect happily ever after. It was probably the ending she was always destined for, the one he’d stopped her from taking all those years ago. He’d thought things could change back then. He thought destiny might be something he could mold to his favor.
He’d been stupid.
Really, really stupid.
“That’s good,” he said, but there was no emotion behind the words. “That’s good.”
“Yeah,” she said, and her own emotion didn’t quite live up to the expectation either. She rallied it anyway. “It is.”
The moment lingered between them, all the things they should have said over the years louder than the silence. They should have been; they could have been.
And yet, here they weren’t.
Finally, it was too much, and he blurted the question. “Why did you do it? Why did you go to Goodwin?”
She looked at him like the question might be ludicrous. She almost looked offended. “How can you ask me that? I went to Goodwin for the same reason you did.”
Her honesty threatened to break him. “I just want you to be happy. I mean, you have people who count on you. Your mother, Owen--”
Natalie was making a face, and she shook her head, more adamant than before. “And you deserve to be happy, too,” she said. “You know that, right? You deserve to be happy.”
It wasn’t something he’d thought about. Maybe, on and off. Maybe, when Sabeena had made him feel worthwhile. Maybe, when he was being courted by the drug company exec. Maybe he’d entertained the idea of happiness.
But it hadn’t been real.
None of it had been real.
At a loss, he didn’t know what to say.
Natalie sighed, coming closer to him and crossing the driveway for the first time. “Will, I appreciate what you did -- I do. But I made these choices, and they’re mine. I get why you do what you do, Will. I always have. You care too much; you can’t ever let something be if you think you can do more. It’s why you ignored that advanced directie. It’s why you unblinded the trial patient. It’s why you helped my mother even when it was a terrible idea. Because you care, Will. You care about each and every patient the same way I care about my mother.”
“Natalie, I was stupid,” he said. “About everything, all of it. I just -- when I realized what you’d done. When I realized I could help your mother -- help you -- I just couldn’t not do it. And I never learn--”
“Hey,” she said, reaching out and taking his hand now. “That’s what I’m saying. I used to think you were belittling me by trying to fix things, but that’s not what it is. You just can’t stand to see other people suffering. And sometimes that does make you stupid. But it always makes you a good person.”
Her fingers squeezed his, and he felt his resolve begin to crumble. “Natalie--”
He was on the cusp of losing control, and she knew it. She reached up with her other hand to touch his cheek. “You don’t have to worry about me,” she said. “I’m ready to go -- I mean, I got what I wanted. My mom is alive and getting better. I still have Owen, and plenty of good references. I was ready to leave Chicago after my husband died, but I stayed for you. I don’t regret that choice for a moment, but it’s time for me to go. The only reason I wish I could stay was to see what you do next.”
He withdrew his hand, breath catching in his throat. Tears were burning in his eyes. “I’m not staying either.”
Her smile faded. She stepped back. “What? But Goodwin said--”
“I didn’t accept her offer,” he said. “I didn’t take the job back.”
Now, Natalie’s mouth dropped open. “But -- why?”
He made a vague, helpless gesture. “Goodwin fired me. No regrets, no sorrys -- she just fired me,” he said. “What career could I possibly have at Med? Goodwin would never look at me the same way again. There’s no possibility for advancement. Med is a dead-end for me.”
Blinking in shock, Natalie was reeling now. “But, Will--”
“I wish you hadn’t burned down your career for me, because mine’s already gone,” he said. His voice felt taut; his chest felt heavy. “It has been for a long time now, but this just finally made me see it. I’ve been going nowhere, Natalie.”
“That’s not true,” she started to protest.
But Will shook his head. “It is,” he insisted. “It is true.”
Her expression broke, and then she reached for him again. Her fingers clasped his, and then she drew close. Without warning, she leaned up into him, pressing her lips to his.
The kiss shocked him, and by the time he realized what had happened, she’d pulled away again. She was smiling again, this time with a bittersweet lilt that felt just about right. “We really are a pair, aren’t we?”
She said it, so cavalier and easy, like they both hadn’t just been fired from the best jobs they’d ever had.
“Staying really would be pretty stupid,” she agreed. “For both of us.”
“Yeah,” he said softly. “I guess it would.”
“It is ironic, though,” she said. “You getting fired for me, and then me getting fired for you. And neither of us got the happy ending.”
“Well, it’s not our finest moment,” Will said.
She bit her lip, cocking her head to one side. “Do you remember when you told me it was over? Do you remember saying that all we do is hurt each other?”
He nodded. “I think this proves I was right.”
She shook her head. “Nah,” she said. “I think it proves the opposite.”
With that, she crossed to him again. This time, when she kissed him, he was ready. The touch was warm and familiar. It was final.
When she withdrew, he was still struggling to catch his breath.
“Keep in touch,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said vaguely. “I mean, you, too.”
She nodded. “And Will?”
He blinked back at her. “Yeah?”
She hesitated, as if she wasn’t sure he’d understand. “Remember to be happy.”
He nodded his assent, and it was only later, in his car to drive back to Jay’s place, that he realized that he had no idea what that meant.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
A/N: Set post S6, written without seeing S7 yet. Therefore, AU. It’s not a route the show ever would go, but I liked it enough to explore it. Fills my depression prompt for hc_bingo
Summary: Will’s time at Med ends. A whole different journey begins.
PART ONE
PART TWO
PART THREE
PART FOUR
PART FIVE
PART SIX
PART SEVEN
PART EIGHT
PART NINE
PART TEN
-o-
Will had been fired before.
In truth, this was hardly new territory. In fact, if anything, the last ten years at Med were the aberration. If you looked back at his life, he was prone to spectacular successes and disastrous failures. He was good at flying high. It was just that he had no sense of landing. He was a self-made Icarus, flying into every sun in his sights.
Being suspended from high school.
Getting kicked out of college.
Cutting and running from his fellowship in Africa.
Managing to get fired from his prestigious plastic surgery firm in New York City.
Making it nearly a decade at Med?
A fluke, really.
A mistake.
It was always destined to end like this, and part of Will had always known it.
He just wished it didn’t hurt quite so much.
-o-
After leaving the hospital, Will’s first inclination was to get drunk. Like, really drunk. Unfortunately, getting drunk involved going to a bar, and the last thing he needed to do was end up at Molly’s, giving his sob story to every cop and firefighter in town. Or worse, face his colleagues. Word would get out, and he knew there was nothing he could do about that, but he at least wanted to be as far away as possible when that happened. If he never saw another person from Med for the rest of his life -- well, that was the plan.
That was the only plan.
Will’s fallback solution.
Run hard. Flee fast. Never look back.
With getting drunk out of the picture, he retreated back home. His apartment was sad and lonely, but his dog was at least glad to see him. He found whatever alcohol he had in the fridge -- cheap beer and a half finished bottle of tequila -- and he proceeded to start getting drunk in a much sadder, much more pathetic fashion. He could call Jay for support, but if facing his colleagues after this was going to be hard, telling his brother he’d screwed up again was nearly impossible.
About two drinks in, he didn’t feel drunk or buzzed.
He just felt miserable.
And a little bit sick to his stomach.
Had he really just done this? Had he really just blown up his entire career over a woman he’d once been in love with? Had he really just tanked Sabeena’s trial a week before it was set to be published? Had he honestly just risked Natalie’s mother’s life? Had he sincerely covered for Natalie at his own expense? Had he actually just taken ten years of his life and thrown it all away -- personally and professionally?
Yes, was the obvious answer.
Yes, he had.
He had done it wilfully and knowingly. He had walked into it with his eyes wide open. He had made a choice -- not just one choice, but a series of conscious, knowing choices. The only mystery was why he hadn’t seen this coming.
Now he was too miserable to even get drunk.
When he first heard the knocking on his door, he thought it was a mistake. Maybe he was a lot drunker than he’d imagined. Maybe he was finally losing his sanity in the midst of his own stupidity. But the knock came again, and Will levered himself out of his chair, abandoning the beer he couldn’t bring himself to drink. He opened the door abruptly, not sure what he was expecting.
Even so, the sight of Ms. Goodwin -- the woman who had just unceremoniously fired his ass -- was standing at his door.
He stared at her, jaw slack for a moment.
She seemed uncomfortable, drawing a breath and adjusting her stance expectantly.
Expectant for what, Will wasn’t sure.
After a long moment of silence, she tipped her head to the side. “Dr. Halstead,” she said. “I’m sorry to bother you at home--”
She was being polite for some reason, and Will couldn’t make sense of it. He shook his head, brow furrowed. “Do I need to fill out paperwork or something?” he asked. His mind reeled. “Are there liability issues? Are you going after my license?”
He had spun out every worst case scenario in a matter of seconds, and Ms. Goodwin blinked in surprise. “No,” she said. Then, she sighed. “I think we need to talk.”
“I don’t see why,” Will said. “And as I’m not your employee anymore--”
She held up her hand. This time, though, it was something of an invitation. “Please, Dr. Halstead,” she said again. “I would really like to talk.”
Dumbfounded, Will didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know what to say.
So he stepped back from the door and let her inside.
-o-
There was some part of Will’s brain that thought about going through the polite motions. He wasn’t a complete neanderthal. He knew how to act when you invited someone into your home. You offered them something to eat and drink. You let them take a seat. You make small talk.
Will was nowhere drunk enough for that.
He wasn’t quite sober enough for it either.
He led her to the living room so they weren’t standing in the cramped entryway, and when he turned to face her, she looked uncomfortable. She was still in her work clothes, hair done and makeup on. She looked out of place in his crappy apartment. It was likely that her ensemble cost more than one month’s rent.
Will might have cared if she was still his boss, but as she wasn’t, he wasn’t sure what to do. He could grovel for a good reference. Or he could just act like this was another burning bridge.
For what it was worth, all he did was stand there until she finally cleared her throat and grimaced. It occurred to Will later that it was her attempt at a smile. “I talked to Dr. Manning,” she said.
That was probably relevant, but Will wasn’t really sure why. When she’d fired him, she hadn’t needed context. There was no reason to assume it was a factor now.
When he didn’t respond, she gathered herself and continued. “She provided new light on the situation with the medication and the trial,” she said. “Dr. Manning explained that, in her desperation to save her mother, she stole the trial pills. She lied to you and to everyone else, and when you found out, you realized just how serious the situation was and tried to protect her. While you were complicit in her actions at that point, you were not the instigator.”
Will was still at a total loss. He shrugged. “So?”
“Her explanation provides critical context that I did not know when I fired you this afternoon,” she said. “Context that might have altered my decisions.”
Will frowned. “You said it yourself. I was complicit. My choices put a patient at risk, compromised the trial and hurt the hospital. Nothing has changed.”
This time, her shoulders fell a little and Will saw her composure shift. “Things have changed,” she said. “Dr. Manning acted in desperation, and you saw her in an impossible situation. Your decision was not the right one to make, but it is an understandable choice. You acted out of compassion for Dr. Manning and her mother -- and Dr. Virani said you did your best to protect the integrity of the trial despite what had been done. In this context, your actions are understandable.”
She was trying to explain it, but Will still didn’t get it. “Understandable?” he repeated. “And still completely unethical. I deserved to be fired today.”
Now, she just looked weary. “Probably, yes,” she said. “But things aren’t always about what we deserve. Dr. Halstead.”
She was talking in circles now. It was counterintuitive, and it was just too much. “Ms. Goodwin, I really don’t understand what you’re doing here.”
Her lips thinned out and she rubbed her hands together. “Dr. Halstead, it’s been a long year. It’s been a bad year. All of us -- we've been through a lot, we’ve lost a lot. And we’ve made mistakes we wished we hadn’t made, and we’ve been blinded by the people closest to us. We already came close to losing one of our own today, and I’ll be honest with you, I don’t think we can survive another loss. I’m not sure I can survive another loss.”
His heart was loud in his chest, and the sound was deafening between his ears. He stood, frozen in place, unable to speak.
“What you and Dr. Manning did was wrong, and her confession left me no choice but to take action--”
“Wait, what?” Will interjected. His heart plummeted to his stomach. “You fired Natalie?”
“She stole the pills,” Ms. Goodwin said plaintively. “That was why I fired you. Because you confessed to stealing the pills, and that kind of action cannot be tolerated. Since Dr. Manning has confessed to that, your role in this situation has changed.”
He gaped. “You can’t fire Natalie. Her mother -- she has a son--”
“And she understands the repercussions of her actions,” Ms. Goodwin said. “Given the circumstances, I’m quite confident that she’ll be able to find alternative employment. The penalty for making a choice to save her mother will be viewed with some indulgence by many healthcare providers. But you--”
She stopped and gave him a piercing look.
He was weary, too, though. He just stared back at her.
“You,” she continued with a tired note. “You acted for the care of a colleague. You acted in concern for a patient. I would like to think you’ll show more judgment in the future, but I can’t fault you for your intentions here. You are very good at being wrong and right at the same time. It’s frustrating as your employers, but it’s true.”
Will felt like he was being damned with faint praise, and he was torn between feeling mortified and reassured. Mostly, at this point, he was just starting to feel numb.
“All that is to say that Dr. Manning made a compelling case,” Ms. Goodwin said. “Not to mention the fact that I heard from nearly every other staff member in the ED saying that they wished I would reconsider.”
Will made a face. “What?”
Ms. Goodwin nodded. “Maggie was ardent in your defense. April, too. Dr. Charles asked me to take some time and rethink things. Even Dr. Marcel tried to explain the situation better.”
That didn’t make sense.
None of this made any sense.
“Dr. Halstead, you may not be the best choice for ED chief, and you may be every administrator's headache, but you are a good doctor,” she said. “Losing you in the ED would be an irreplaceable loss. Given these factors and the true circumstances regarding your role in this situation, I would like to offer you your job back.”
A wave of disbelief washed over him. It was too much, too surreal, too fast. He had still been making sense of losing his job, and this sudden turn of luck didn’t parse.
It couldn’t.
Will had ruined the trial. Will had lied to his boss and his colleagues. He had breached every ethical standard he could think of, and his actions had serious repercussions for the hospital. He had proved Ms. Goodwin right about him. He didn’t deserve the promotion.
In fact, he didn’t deserve a spot at Med.
He didn’t deserve anything.
She was still watching him, and he realized that she was waiting for an answer.
As if there was any other answer to give.
He shook his head, still stunned. “Are you being serious right now?”
“I came to your apartment at ten in the evening,” she said. “I’m very serious.”
“You really want me to take my job back,” he said. “My job at Med after everything I’ve done.”
Ms. Goodwin leaned back, as if taking actual stock of that question. “I’m not here to absolve you. You would be under close supervision of myself and of Dr. Archer, who has agreed to be our interim ED chief--”
Will’s eyes actually goggled at that. “Dr. Archer?”
“Until Dr. Choi is fully recovered,” she continued, not missing a beat. “But as the theft of the pill was the major concern, Dr. Manning’s confession makes my decision to fire you premature.”
She was being sensible, except that it wasn’t sensible. Nothing was sensible. Nothing had been sensible since the start of this pandemic, since he’d fallen in love with Hannah, since he’d broken up with Natalie, since he’d been in witness protection, since he’d left Natalie at the altar, since a childhood friend held a gun to his head and threatened to kill him in cold blood.
His life didn’t make sense.
He couldn’t stand here and play sensible.
“You really think that changes things?” he asked, not bothering to hide his incredulity. “I mean, we both know my history. The reasons you didn’t give me the promotion are still there. They’re just worse now. You’re asking me to stay at a dead-end job.”
“I’m asking you to stay and be a part of an ED that saves lives,” Ms. Goodwin said. “You do very good work, Dr. Halstead. Don’t miss what I’m saying here.”
“No, I’m hearing what you’re saying, probably better than you think,” he said. She hadn’t let him speak before, but she wasn’t his boss now. This was his apartment, and if this was his screw up, then he was going to take it to its end. “I don’t have a future at Med. I don’t have a reputation at Med. I’d be on thin ice with every decision I made. That’s no way to practice medicine.”
Her brow darkened a little, and there was something of surprise in her eyes. “Professionally, you’ve made missteps, but I wouldn’t make this offer if I didn’t think you were an important and valuable part of the staff. You may not be ED chief material, but you are liked and respected.”
“Am I?” Will asked, all but scoffing now. “Am I really?”
“Yes,” she replied simply. “I’m not a fool, and I’m not governed by sentiment. This isn’t an offer made out of pity.”
Yet, there Will stood, in his own apartment, half drunk, feeling more pitiful than he’d ever felt in his life. “I can’t go back,” he said, and the words felt like rocks on his tongue, heavier than any truth he’d ever been forced to speak. “You fired me without a word. You fired me without regrets or reservations. You made your choice, and you shouldn’t be standing here, trying to take it back.”
Somehow, she looked concerned. “Dr. Halstead--”
But it was his turn to interject. She hadn’t wanted his excuses, and now he didn’t want hers. “No, I understand what you’re trying to do, but I can’t take the job at Med,” he said. “You fired me with cause, Ms. Goodwin, and there are no quick fixes or last minute saves this time. I have to work my way out of this on my own.”
“I wish you would reconsider,” she said, staidly.
He smiled, small and sad. “Part of you doesn’t.”
She drew a breath and flattened her lips, but she didn’t quite deny it. “My offer still stands. Dr. Halstead. Think it over.”
“Thank you for coming, Ms. Goodwin,” he said, nodding to the door. “But I don’t think that will be necessary.”
-o-
She made no further overtures, and she saw herself out. When Will locked the door behind her, he stood there for a moment, staring at the backside of the door, wondering what the hell had just happened.
Had Sharon Goodwin really come here to give him his job back?
Had he actually just turned the offer down?
His dream job? The one that had brought him home? The one that had grounded him for the better part of a decade? The one he’d told himself he’d never leave? That job?
There was already ample evidence that he was a complete idiot. No sense in trying to disprove that now.
Feeling dead with shock, and sick with dread, Will knew there was only one way to deal with this now.
Now it was time to take all the cheap beer, every last bit of tequila, and get as drunk as he possibly could.
-o-
Fortunately, with as little good alcohol as Will had on hand, it didn’t take much. He was a lightweight most of the time, and with an empty stomach and a mopey disposition, he was primed to be drunk.
The fact that he considered that fortunate was probably a foreboding sign.
However, instead of worrying about it, Will just drank more.
He drank until he passed out, falling asleep on his couch without any wherewithal to undress or get into bed. It didn’t matter, though. He had nowhere to go, nothing to do, no one to see.
Nothing mattered at all.
-o-
Will slept like the dead that night, waking only sometime in the early morning to throw up. He wasn’t sure if that part was real or not, but when he woke up again in the midday, he was in the bathroom, splayed on the floor, and his mouth tasted like acidic cotton.
The thought of it was enough to make him nauseous again.
And sitting up was all it took for his stomach to rebel.
He made it to the toilet just in time, proceeding to vomit until he had nothing left but dry heaves.
Exhausted, he slumped back against the wall, blearily trying to take stock of things. He was in his bathroom. He was badly hungover.
Oh, and he was still unemployed and pathetic.
Also, he was still sick.
Lurching forward, Will threw up again.
After another ten minutes in the bathroom, Will managed to sit up enough to take a drink of water from the sink. From there, he half crawled to his bedroom. When he got there, he thought about his phone out in the living room. He should probably check his messages, but there was no point.
Instead, he flopped onto his back on the bed.
That was all, then.
He closed his eyes.
That was all.
-o-
Will slept all day and into the afternoon. He woke up once in the midafternoon, but feeling miserable and sick, he didn’t have the motivation to get out of bed. He slept for several more hours until he woke around dinnertime, and the inevitability of being awake was too pervasive to ignore.
He couldn’t sleep his way through this.
No, that would be too easy.
Will had blown up his career in a spectacular, over the top spectacle. He would have to contend with that sooner or later.
Flopping out of bed, he felt horribly sober. Weary and spent, he half wished it had all been a dream, but the last few years had had so many nightmares that he didn’t know where to start. Getting fired was just the icing on the cake, really. He’d torpedoed his relationship with Sabeena. He’d humiliated himself with the drug execs. He’d lost out on a promotion to Ethan. His girlfriend had overdosed on drugs.
What was he even doing?
What had he even been thinking?
He was a mess. He was a walking disaster. Goodwin should have fired him months ago.
He should have just let Tim Burke shoot him in the back of the head and just be done with it already.
The masochistic thought galvanized him, but not in any productive kind of way. He was just cognizant enough to know that he was spiralling here -- and badly. He felt numb suddenly, like all the blood was draining from his head. Dizzy and lightheaded, it felt like he was floating outside himself, seeing his own pathetic, worthless little life as it culminated to absolutely nothing.
He couldn’t.
He couldn’t -- what? Go on? Maintain this train of thought? Manage?
The notion was nebulous and pressing all at the same time, and Will’s throat tightened. He probably would have thrown up again if he had anything left to give.
He didn’t, though.
Will was empty.
Will was done.
He wasn’t particularly inclined for nihilism, and he coped with it badly. As he had already drunk all the alcohol he had -- and what would he do to purchase more now that he was unemployed? -- Will did the only thing he could think to do, his notorious last resort.
He picked himself up, grabbed his keys and wallet, and went straight to Jay’s.
-o-
Now, Will didn’t like to pretend like his brother was his fallback plan. He was a little too proud to be so weak, and he didn’t want Jay to think of it like that. Like that was all Jay was -- a backup plan. Jay was more than that, but the simple fact was that Will wasn’t. He didn’t want his brother to realize just how much of a mess he could make sometimes.
And Will could make a mess.
In college.
In Africa.
In New York.
There was some comfort in knowing that whatever humiliation Will brought to Jay’s door, it would hardly be new to his brother. Hell, Jay would probably think it was long overdue. He’d always known that Will was a disaster. And here Will was, proving his brother right again.
It was the final piece of his ultimate humiliation. There was an innate temptation to run from it, but there was nowhere to go. There was no way he could turn to anyone at work. And friends? What friends did he have outside of Fire and PD? Jay would be pissed, but Jay was his brother. If there was anyone left to accept his pathetic ass, it was going to be him.
At least, that was what Will told himself as he knocked on Jay’s door.
His brother answered, looking surprised.
The surprise, however, quickly gave way to concern.
“Will? Are you okay?” he asked immediately. He stepped through the door to get a better look at Will. Will, despite himself, flinched back. His brother’s concern intensified. “What’s wrong?”
It was too much. Jay was worried about Will -- and for what? For Will’s own stupid mistakes? For a problem entirely of Will’s own making? He didn’t deserve the concern, and he would have no choice but to accept his brother’s pity.
“Will, you’re freaking me out, man,” his brother said, voice starting to rise. “What’s wrong?”
Blinking, Will remembered that he was still there. He was still stuck in this moment, and he had no way out of it. He half choked on a sob before managing to inhale raggedly. He blinked again -- harder now -- and tentatively looked up into his brother’s face.
“I screwed up,” he admitted in halting, tremulous words. “Jay, I screwed up really bad.”
-o-
Will knew that he could drive Jay crazy. He even knew how much his brother had resented him from time to time. They went back and forth on that, and even when they made nice, Will wasn’t naive. He knew that some of his actions had hurt Jay more than he’d allowed himself to realize -- and that some of those wounds would never fully heal.
But they were brothers.
They were the last two Halsteads standing.
That was why, despite everything, Will had come here. Because Will could be an idiot and an asshole, and he could screw up fifty-thousand times, and Jay would still be his brother. He took that for granted sometimes, and that was to his detriment. He didn’t take it for granted now.
Not that he was thinking that clearly at the moment. His mind felt hazy; his limbs felt numb. Jay let him inside, and Will had to be all but led to the couch. He sat down, almost on autopilot, and Jay sat next to him, more intent than ever. “What happened?” Jay asked. “Are you hurt?”
Will understood the words, but he couldn’t make sense of them anyway. He blinked at his brother, heart thudding in his chest.
“Will,” Jay said, more firmly than ever. “Will, talk to me. What’s wrong?”
What was wrong?
What wasn’t wrong?
It had all fallen apart. The whole bottom had fallen out.
Unbidden, his breathing caught. He blinked and realized that his eyes were burning. “Everything,” he said numbly. “Everything’s wrong.”
It was an apt answer, but Jay’s brow immediately furrowed. “Okay, you’re going to have to be a little more specific. Start at the beginning.”
Will inhaled again, and he felt like he was suffocating. The beginning.
He didn’t know where the beginning was. Was it when he’d agreed to cover for Natalie? Was it when Natalie took the pills in the first place? Was it the drug trial? The promotion? Hannah?
Was it the car crash? Was it witness protection? Maybe it had started all the way back when he first agreed to stay at Med, and this was just the inevitable decline that was a decade in the making.
He looked at Jay, and wished he didn’t have to do this. As much as it hurt him, it would hurt Jay, too. And Jay was about the only person left who didn’t think he was the worst person ever.
He deserved it, though.
He deserved it all.
“I got fired,” he said, and the words were like lead, heavy and bitter in his mouth.
Jay looked like he didn’t understand. “You what?”
That made it worse. That Will had made it long enough that this was actually a surprise. “I got fired,” he said again, trying to steady his voice. “Goodwin fired me, and then she offered me my job back.”
That elucidation only seemed to make the story less clear. “Okay--” Jay started.
But Will shook his head. Because there was no happy ending here. “And then I quit,” he said, and it sounded more ridiculous when he said it. His breathing caught again, on something like a sob and a hysterical laugh.
Sitting across from him on the couch, Jay looked more confused than ever. “You’re going to have to back up a bit here, buddy.”
Will had come here for his brother’s support -- support he didn’t deserve. He had no right to hold anything back.
Whatever was left of him was Jay’s for the taking.
-o-
The story wasn’t actually as long as it seemed like it should be. Explaining the way Natalie had stolen the drugs was straightforward enough, especially when he pointed out the severity of her mother’s condition. Trying to justify his choice to cover up for Natalie -- to abet her bad decisions -- was a harder sell, but Will didn’t pretend like he had the high ground here. He had known it was bad. He had known it was a disaster waiting to happen.
In truth, that was why he’d done it.
If there was a disaster coming, he’d thought he’d be ready for it. He’d thought he could fall on that sword so Natalie wouldn’t have to. He’d been trying to protect her, protect Owen, protect her mom.
Jay even seemed to understand that, because it was a Will Halstead kind of move. When he got to the part about rejecting Goodwin’s subsequent job offer, though, he seemed to have a little more trouble making sense of things.
It wasn’t even something Will could fully explain. It wasn’t merely a question of pride, though he was sure that was part of it. It was just -- he’d made this mistake. He’d made it knowingly and willingly. Whether or not he stole the pills, he’d let it get this far. He deserved the punishment. He couldn’t go back to work knowing that he hadn’t earned his place there.
Jay listened, gently prodding the story out of Will like he probably did with suspects in an interrogation room. While Will was sure he was guilty of any charge Jay might levy against him now, his brother sat back and sighed instead.
He looked Will up and down, and he smiled sympathetically. “So, it’s that bad, huh?”
Chest still tight, Will managed a watery smile of his own. He felt shaky and weak, and his voice had lost all intonation. “I think it might be worse.”
Jay might have been the rough and tumble cop, but he was still capable of understated acts of compassion. In fact, he might have been better at them than Will was sometimes. Instead of blame or condescension, Jay clapped him on the shoulder. “Well, we’ll figure out your next move in the morning,” he said, getting to his feet. “For now, just get some rest.”
His brother was ready to leave that as it was, but Will’s gut twisted. “Jay.”
His brother stopped, looking back at him.
“I’m sorry,” he blurted.
“For what?” Jay said.
“For everything,” Will said, shrugging. “For showing up here like this. For letting it get this far. You knew all along I’d screw it up, and here I am.”
“Dude, I told you, we’ll figure it out in the morning,” Jay told him. “Right, wrong or the other. Right now, you look like crap. You need some rest to even try getting your head on straight.”
It seemed like good advice, though Will couldn’t figure out why. He had done nothing but sleep -- and drink -- over the last twenty-four hours, but somehow, he was still exhausted. He was stuck, poised between a rock and a hard place, and the fight or flight adrenaline that usually kicked in during times like these was unable to take root this time.
In truth, the thought of moving felt like too much.
All those times he’d run and run and run.
This time, he was spent.
All he could do was stay.
-o-
As instructed, Will rested. He fell asleep sitting up with the baseball game playing in the background, the drone of the crowd abandoning him in unconsciousness. He slept like that the whole night, fully clothed and sitting up, though at some point, Jay had the decency to turn off the TV and throw a blanket over him.
Needless to say, despite sleeping for the better part of 48 hours now, Will woke up feeling ragged once more. There was a part of his brain -- the barely functional doctor part -- that told him he was suffering from situational depression. The shock of a major life change could easily bring about this kind of numb exhaustion. For most people, it passed.
Will didn’t find that thought especially encouraging.
Plus, his back was killing him.
Will wasn’t as young as he used to be. He found that his resilience had abated. As he took a shower, he momentarily panicked, feeling like he might be over the hill. The panic was deep and striking, but Will breathed through it. The last thing he needed was to spark a mid-life crisis. Things were bad enough right now.
Besides, what would he even do in a mid-life crisis? He’d already sowed his wild oats. He’d hooked up with more women than he could remember, and he’d lived hard and fast. He was always the first to show up, the first to bail. He could go from nearly flunking out one semester to graduating top of his class the next. Steadiness, though. Consistency.
He’d never been good at it before.
The last ten years had messed him up, though. He’d learned to live. To be connected.
To finish something.
He’d finished the job at Med, it seemed.
Just not the way he’d hoped.
Getting out of the shower, Will dried himself off and attempted to make himself look human again. It was a tall order, and he gave up with his hair and settled for a swig of mouthwash instead. Presentable, he was not, but Jay was the one person left on the planet who would take him anyway.
At the table, Jay had out a few boxes of cereals and a carton of milk. There were a few bananas in a bowl, and coffee was on the counter. Belatedly, Will looked at the time. It was nearly 10.
“Aren’t you supposed to be at work?” Will asked, sitting across from Jay and grabbing the first box of cereal. “I mean, one of us is still employed, right?”
“Sure, but I took a day,” Jay said.
Will glanced at him. He was too worn to elicit much alarm, but it wasn’t the answer he expected.
Jay shrugged nonchalantly. “You’re kind of a mess,” he said. “I’m not sure I trust you alone in the house.”
Will snorted, pouring the milk next. “I’m not going to do anything.”
“I know,” Jay said. “That’s the problem. You’d sit here and mope, feeling sorry for yourself.”
Will looked at him balefully. “I got fired, Jay. Excuse me if I need a day.”
“This is day two, I believe. Or three -- your timeline is a little wonky,” Jay pointed out.
Will couldn’t deny that. Sullenly, he picked up his spoon. “Whatever,” he said. “I’m just saying you don’t need to waste a day on me.”
Jay gave him a longsuffering expression. “Let’s spare each other the self sacrificial nonsense, and let’s just do what we do. We figure it out.
That sentiment had sounded hopeful last night. Now, in the barren light of day, it just sounded inane. “There’s nothing to figure out. I got fired.”
“Yeah,” Jay said, matter of fact. “And then you got offered your job back. So it’s not really as bleak as you’re making it out to be.”
Will took a slow bite and chewed it before swallowing. He shook his head. “I told you already. I can’t take the job back.”
Jay was peeling a banana now. “And I’m telling you now, we’ll talk about that. And then we’ll talk about other job options.”
Will filled up his spoon again. “But I’m not hireable.”
Jay had taken his first bite and he raised his eyebrows. “You’re a doctor. You’ve got, like, loads of schooling and training -- not to mention first-rate experience. You’re really going to tell me that you’re not hireable?”
“My disregard for medical ethics -- the way I tanked the trial -- it’s a lot worse than you realize, Jay,” Will said.
Jay swallowed another bite of banana. “So you think this is it, then? You’re just done being a doctor?”
Jay said it to be confrontational, and the plainness of it had the desired effect. Will sat back, spoon idle in his fingers, as he considered the implications of that. “I guess I don’t know,” he confessed. He hadn’t put it into those terms, but the finality of the conclusion didn’t see that far off. “I mean, the things I did--”
Will was willing to entertain the thought, but Jay wasn’t. He wasn’t buying it at all. “Were to help someone you care about. It’s not good, I get it. Maybe it’s fireable -- but maybe it’s not. I mean, Goodwin did offer to hire you back. And you didn’t lose your license, did you?”
Will frowned, too wrapped up in the thought to bother eating now. It seemed like a low bar at first blush, but he had to admit, it was a pretty salient detail. “I guess not.”
“Okay,” Jay said, still acting as if jumping that low bar was somehow impressive. “And it’s not like you’re out there killing people or stealing things.”
Will grimaced. “That’s actually exactly what happened.”
Jay rolled his eyes. “Not the killing people,” he said. “And you didn’t steal anything.”
The bar seemed to be getting lower, somehow. “So the only bad people are murderers?”
“Stop it,” Jay ordered him. “You’re not a bad person.”
Will groaned, slumping back against the chair. “Just a really bad doctor.”
“Again, you were saving lives--”
“Natalie’s mother could have died--”
“Which is what you told Natalie,” Jay pointed out. He shook his head. “Look, you’re mad at yourself, and nothing I say is going to stop you from thinking that you screwed up.”
“I did screw up,” Will insisted. He had to insist. He shrugged to demonstrate just how self evident it was. “I mean, like that is the essence of what I did. I screwed up on every possible front.”
“But for the right reasons,” Jay said with a hint of exasperation. “I could tell you that all day long until I’m blue in the face, but we both know you don’t need to hear it from me.”
“And you think I want to talk to other people about the many ways in which I put people’s lives and jobs in jeopardy all because I can never stick to actual medical ethics?” Will asked.
“No,” Jay said, his tone perfunctory. “I think you need to hear it from Natalie.”
Will’s jaw dropped open. “What? Why!”
“Because you might actually listen to her,” Jay said. “And also, she called you all night and your phone wouldn’t stop pinging. You kept sleeping through it so I finally answered for you.”
“Jay!”
Jay was not intimidated by Will, especially not at this point. “She just wants to see you. I think it might do you some good.”
Will stiffened, crossing his arms over his chest. “There’s nothing to say.”
Jay wrinkled his nose. “There might be a few things.”
Will had been through a lot already. He wasn’t sure he was emotionally ready for this. He’d barely kept it together the last time he’d talked to Natalie. To do it again? After realizing the depth of just how far he’d fallen. He shook his head. “Jay--”
For all that Jay had been a sympathetic ear, he wasn’t sympathetic about this. “Just go,” he said. “You need to do it.”
“Jay--”
“And if you don’t, I’ll kick you out on your unemployed ass,” Jay said with a matter of fact smirk.
Will sighed, but there was no way around his resignation now. “It’s not going to change how I feel about the job.”
“Fine,” Jay said. “But it might change how you feel about yourself. And besides, it’s Natalie. You two have needed closure for three years now. You might as well do it right this time.”
-o-
Will agreed to go because he didn’t really have a choice. He offered to take the train over some time over the morning while Jay was at work, but Jay had other plans. Those plans included taking the day off from work and driving Will over himself.
Because apparently Will was really that bad off.
His brother was now taking sick days on his behalf.
Will felt like he was the epitome of pathetic. But he was so pathetic that he couldn’t argue the point. At this point, he probably deserved it. He deserved everything.
Natalie still lived at the same brownstone, the one they’d shared while they were engaged. He’d spent time living in that house, making it a home. He was the one who’d fixed the back door when the frame had swelled. He’d fixed the toilet in the downstairs bathroom, and he’d hung a new ceiling fan in Owen’s room.
The home he’d forfeited when he lied to Natalie.
The life he’d given up for a gun he couldn’t let go of.
Each failure, just as cutting as the last. Maybe that was why Jay thought he needed to come: to appreciate how long this had been coming.
Jay had the decency to drop him off down the street, but he insisted on sitting in the car. He’d promised to catch up on his email while he waited, as if he thought Will might need some privacy while he continued his long, hard fall from grace.
The only turn of luck he had was that Natalie was outside. That way he wouldn’t have to face Owen or whatever babysitting Natalie had scrounged up for the day. Of course, Natalie was loading up a storage unit, which had been parked in front of her house. The implications were impossible to miss.
He stopped short, feeling breathless at the end of her driveway.
When she saw him, she stopped short, too.
Two days ago, Will had told her that he still cared about her. Two days ago, Will had been willing to give up everything for her. Two days ago, he’d thought it was over.
It didn’t feel over now.
If anything, it felt more raw than ever before.
“Will,” she said. “You came.”
Will panicked for a second, but with Jay just down the street, there was no way out of this. He cleared his throat, but it didn’t help. “Um, yeah,” he said. He glanced from her to the storage unit. “You’re moving?”
She nodded. “I’m going to take Mom back to Seattle when she’s released,” she said. “We have family out there, connections. I already got a lead on a job, something in pediatrics. Stable hours, a nice practice.”
The way she said it, it was like a picture perfect happily ever after. It was probably the ending she was always destined for, the one he’d stopped her from taking all those years ago. He’d thought things could change back then. He thought destiny might be something he could mold to his favor.
He’d been stupid.
Really, really stupid.
“That’s good,” he said, but there was no emotion behind the words. “That’s good.”
“Yeah,” she said, and her own emotion didn’t quite live up to the expectation either. She rallied it anyway. “It is.”
The moment lingered between them, all the things they should have said over the years louder than the silence. They should have been; they could have been.
And yet, here they weren’t.
Finally, it was too much, and he blurted the question. “Why did you do it? Why did you go to Goodwin?”
She looked at him like the question might be ludicrous. She almost looked offended. “How can you ask me that? I went to Goodwin for the same reason you did.”
Her honesty threatened to break him. “I just want you to be happy. I mean, you have people who count on you. Your mother, Owen--”
Natalie was making a face, and she shook her head, more adamant than before. “And you deserve to be happy, too,” she said. “You know that, right? You deserve to be happy.”
It wasn’t something he’d thought about. Maybe, on and off. Maybe, when Sabeena had made him feel worthwhile. Maybe, when he was being courted by the drug company exec. Maybe he’d entertained the idea of happiness.
But it hadn’t been real.
None of it had been real.
At a loss, he didn’t know what to say.
Natalie sighed, coming closer to him and crossing the driveway for the first time. “Will, I appreciate what you did -- I do. But I made these choices, and they’re mine. I get why you do what you do, Will. I always have. You care too much; you can’t ever let something be if you think you can do more. It’s why you ignored that advanced directie. It’s why you unblinded the trial patient. It’s why you helped my mother even when it was a terrible idea. Because you care, Will. You care about each and every patient the same way I care about my mother.”
“Natalie, I was stupid,” he said. “About everything, all of it. I just -- when I realized what you’d done. When I realized I could help your mother -- help you -- I just couldn’t not do it. And I never learn--”
“Hey,” she said, reaching out and taking his hand now. “That’s what I’m saying. I used to think you were belittling me by trying to fix things, but that’s not what it is. You just can’t stand to see other people suffering. And sometimes that does make you stupid. But it always makes you a good person.”
Her fingers squeezed his, and he felt his resolve begin to crumble. “Natalie--”
He was on the cusp of losing control, and she knew it. She reached up with her other hand to touch his cheek. “You don’t have to worry about me,” she said. “I’m ready to go -- I mean, I got what I wanted. My mom is alive and getting better. I still have Owen, and plenty of good references. I was ready to leave Chicago after my husband died, but I stayed for you. I don’t regret that choice for a moment, but it’s time for me to go. The only reason I wish I could stay was to see what you do next.”
He withdrew his hand, breath catching in his throat. Tears were burning in his eyes. “I’m not staying either.”
Her smile faded. She stepped back. “What? But Goodwin said--”
“I didn’t accept her offer,” he said. “I didn’t take the job back.”
Now, Natalie’s mouth dropped open. “But -- why?”
He made a vague, helpless gesture. “Goodwin fired me. No regrets, no sorrys -- she just fired me,” he said. “What career could I possibly have at Med? Goodwin would never look at me the same way again. There’s no possibility for advancement. Med is a dead-end for me.”
Blinking in shock, Natalie was reeling now. “But, Will--”
“I wish you hadn’t burned down your career for me, because mine’s already gone,” he said. His voice felt taut; his chest felt heavy. “It has been for a long time now, but this just finally made me see it. I’ve been going nowhere, Natalie.”
“That’s not true,” she started to protest.
But Will shook his head. “It is,” he insisted. “It is true.”
Her expression broke, and then she reached for him again. Her fingers clasped his, and then she drew close. Without warning, she leaned up into him, pressing her lips to his.
The kiss shocked him, and by the time he realized what had happened, she’d pulled away again. She was smiling again, this time with a bittersweet lilt that felt just about right. “We really are a pair, aren’t we?”
She said it, so cavalier and easy, like they both hadn’t just been fired from the best jobs they’d ever had.
“Staying really would be pretty stupid,” she agreed. “For both of us.”
“Yeah,” he said softly. “I guess it would.”
“It is ironic, though,” she said. “You getting fired for me, and then me getting fired for you. And neither of us got the happy ending.”
“Well, it’s not our finest moment,” Will said.
She bit her lip, cocking her head to one side. “Do you remember when you told me it was over? Do you remember saying that all we do is hurt each other?”
He nodded. “I think this proves I was right.”
She shook her head. “Nah,” she said. “I think it proves the opposite.”
With that, she crossed to him again. This time, when she kissed him, he was ready. The touch was warm and familiar. It was final.
When she withdrew, he was still struggling to catch his breath.
“Keep in touch,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said vaguely. “I mean, you, too.”
She nodded. “And Will?”
He blinked back at her. “Yeah?”
She hesitated, as if she wasn’t sure he’d understand. “Remember to be happy.”
He nodded his assent, and it was only later, in his car to drive back to Jay’s place, that he realized that he had no idea what that meant.