Chicago Med fic: Restitution (6/10)

[faye_dartmouth]

PART ONE
PART TWO
PART THREE
PART FOUR
PART FIVE
PART SIX
PART SEVEN
PART EIGHT
PART NINE
PART TEN



-o-

Adam came back with a congratulatory, I-told-you-so air, but Will was too numb to be assuaged or offended. Instead, he paid the bar tab and excused himself to go home. Adam looked concerned, and Will managed to promise him that he was fine, everything was fine.

He’d see Adam in the morning.

And life would just go on.

Back at his apartment, Will still grappled with the untold depth of his shock. He fiddled around in the kitchen, but didn’t eat more than a few handfuls of cereal. He drank some water and changed into his pajamas, sitting on the bed and staring blankly at the wall in the hopes of….something.

Will wasn’t sure what, to be honest. He wasn’t sure of anything.

He couldn’t quite make sense of it.

Had he really changed the course of his life on a misplaced fear of the truth? He’d run from Africa on account of Grace and his relationship with Adam -- and for what? It hadn’t been his fault. There had been no hard feelings. He could have stayed, bought Adam a drink, and finished off his fellowship as planned.

And then what? Who knew what would have happened. Would he have ended up in New York? Would he have dabbled in plastic surgery? Would he have ended up in Chicago, making every wrong choice imaginable?

It was almost inconceivable as he sat there. So much of his life had been formed by a simple choice to run from his problems instead of facing them. If he had just stayed, if he had figured things out and seen things through like a man, this all could have been so much different.

He’d run away to protect himself, but in some ways, he’d done just the opposite.

It was true for Africa. It was probably true for the colleges he’d left and the whole of Canaryville that he’d left behind him. Hell, he’d done the same thing with Natalie, running away from the hard work and costing himself everything.

This was why you finished what you started.

Because, either way, closure mattered.

It was a good lesson to learn.

Will had just learned it far, far too late.

Sitting there, still numb and dumbfounded, he was disturbed from his reverie by the sound of a ping from his phone. Blankly, he picked it up, logging in without thinking. The text was from Jay.

Hey, are we talking later? his brother asked.

Will sighed, and he couldn’t imagine having to speak to anyone right now. Hesitating, he typed a slow and careful reply. Maybe not tonight. Tomorrow?

Jay was quickly typing back a reply. Big plans?

Will wished he could smile. No. Just a long day.

That was all Will really had to say about it, and he thought the matter was settled. However, after several moments of quiet, his phone pinged once more.

Are you sure everything’s okay? Jay asked. You seem weird lately.

Will made a little face as he typed back a reply. I thought I was always weird to you.

Jay’s reply back came quick. Weirder.

Will was poised to reply, but he found himself hesitant. He had to think about it, then. About all of it. About his burgeoning social life, and his dramatic retreat. About the fact that he’d based the last ten years on a lie he’d been too afraid to confront. His life could have been different -- it would have been different -- had he just been a man in the first place.

And here he was, standing on the cusp of it once more.

Ready to move forward?

Or terrified to move?

He blinked, his screen coming back into focus. Across the sea, Jay was waiting for his reply. Not weird. Just busy.

This was the truth, even if an incomplete version of it. He didn’t much want to lie to his brother, but the whole truth was probably too much for a string of text messages late at night.

Jay took a long moment before he returned the next message. So things are okay?

Now, that was a question, wasn’t it?

Will had screwed up. He’d fallen into the same stupid patterns and made familiar, painful mistakes.

But he had stuck it through.

This time, he had faced it.

And here he was, coming out on the other side.

Maybe not better for it, but still here.

Still here.

Yeah, he replied. I’m figuring things out.

-o-

The thing was -- the really crazy thing about staying was -- it got easier. The first day was hard, sure. The second day was still awkward. On the third day, Will was still eating his lunch alone, staying away from small talk as much as possible. But, by the week’s end, he agreed to meet the other doctors for lunch. The following week, Will started hanging out at the nurse’s station again.

On Friday, he accepted Adam’s repeated invitation to come out for a drink and, somehow, after only one alcoholic behavior, he ended up singing karaoke on stage for nearly an hour straight.

Sometimes, it turned out, it wasn’t just about losing control.

Sometimes, it was about letting go.

That difference mattered.

That difference mattered a lot.

-o-

Then, maybe -- just maybe -- things were okay.

Will had a handle on work. He had found a place among his colleagues. He had made peace with Grace -- and a huge portion of his shameful past. On top of all that, he and Adam were closer than ever, and Will realized that things weren’t just going okay.

They were going well.

They were going really well.

At first, it was a novelty.

Then, he felt a growing sense of confidence that he could neither shake nor feel comfortable with. He was afraid of jinxing it with a sense of self assuredness, but he couldn’t get past the reality that he finally felt like he knew what he was doing again. For the first time in months, he could come to work and just be a doctor. He didn’t have to think about the mistakes he’d made in the past. All he had to think about were the challenges ahead of him today.

Today, as it turned out, there was a local construction accident. Mass casualties, divided amongst the local hospital. With increased work capacity, their hospital was able to take on five critical patients.

This was, naturally, how they ended up with 8.

Will called one DOA and was able to direct a resident to stabilize a second one. His third patient was a harder case, and Will decided the guy had a chance to live -- but only with fast and immediate treatment. He did what he could in the treatment room, amazed the guy had survived this long. The best shot at survival -- the only shot at survival -- was a quick trip right up the OR to address the massive internal injuries that Will had managed to stopgap.

He had the wheels unlocked, and the nurse was managing the monitor as Will prepared to roll the gurney out. He made it two feet before Adam appeared in the doorway to the exam room, eyes wide. “Stop, you cannot go.”

“What are you talking about?” Will said, pushing the gurney forward a few more paces. “You saw the scans. This is a redline.”

Adam, however, held his ground. “You cannot,” he said. “There are no operating theaters available.”

Will stopped short of Adam’s planted feet. He shook his head in confusion. “What do you mean there are no theaters? Who’s in one?”

He had taken on a compliant demeanor since arriving in Africa with his tail between his legs, but he didn’t know how to be a shrinking violet in the heat of a trauma. He’d put himself last, but he wouldn’t let his patients suffer on his behalf.

The sobriety of Adam’s look gave him pause. “DeLasso has the splenectomy from the car accident. He’s already an hour in. That is another hour before closing.”

Will shook his head, not sure why those details mattered. “Fine. Then what about two?”

“Two is not online,” Adam explained tersely. “It is the lights. They have shorted out once more. And the electrical breaker is flaky, so we cannot ensure steady equipment function for a procedure.”

Will groaned in frustration. “I thought maintenance had fixed that.”

“They had, but it was merely a stopgap,” Adam said. “The team is working on it, but I would not operate in two.”

Will sighed, almost too brimmed with adrenaline from the trauma to be adequately exasperated. “And Dorren just took up the other construction site vic,” he muttered. “Unbelievable. We have an unstable larynx, and we’re just supposed to sit and hope for the best?”

Adam didn’t look particularly apologetic, even if he sounded like he could relate. “Supplies have always been tight--”

“Yeah, I know, but this isn’t about supplies. We literally have everything we need to save this guy’s life,” Will said, glancing back at his patient.

Adam followed his gaze and considered. “I will go talk to Dorrell. Maybe he can wait. Or we could look into a transfer--”

Will shook his head quickly. “No, no way. He’s far too unstable,” he said, his mind thinking now. “And, I mean, I just said it: we have everything we need. The supplies, the staff--”

Adam’s brow knitted for a moment. “But no secure surgical site.”

The idea was forming, and Will could not stop it now. “The exam area can be sealed off.”

Adam was looking increasingly dubious. “That’s not protocol--”

Will looked at him readily. “But isn’t it? I mean, I’ve read the protocol packet, like, a dozen times. Protocol says that surgical procedures need to occur in a sterile environment. It never specifically indicates that it has to be in a theater. It’ll take a little work, but I think we can get this room ready.”

“Your interpretation of that rule is quite flexible right now,” Adam said with warning. “The clear intent--”

“Is to save lives,” Will cut him off. He shook his head, fully fixated on this now. “This guy is going to die. What do you want me to do? Let it happen?”

Adam looked from Will to his patient and then back again. The dubious look was turned with interest now, and he narrowed his eyes with a small, controlled nod. Adam was a company man, but he’d never been one to play it safe. To work at a company like this, you couldn’t. “And you feel confident you can do this?”

“I feel confident that we have to try,” Will said, because he lacked confidence in all his other decisions, but not the medicine. Never the medicine. “Doing nothing means he’ll die.”

Adam spared him a grin. “And this will be just like old times, my friend. Get the room ready, and I’ll make sure Dr. Salvo knows what we’re doing.”

“Hurry up,” Will said, wheeling the gurney back into place and locking the wheels once more. “Or you’ll miss all the fun.”

Adam laughed hard as he slipped from the room, and Will was faced with his decision for the first time. He was planning to perform a complex surgical procedure outside an equipped and regulated OR. He would have to compromise on lighting and use makeshift sterile procedures. Access to supplies would be limited, and there was no guarantee he’d have OR nurses on hand, much less one of the hospital’s anesthesiologists.

It wasn’t against the rules -- if he succeeded.

If he failed -- then he knew there was no promise for how his interpretation of the hospital’s policy would fare.

He looked at his patient.

Only his patient.

And decided that this was a risk he had to take.

-o-

It took Adam five minutes to talk to the hospital’s upper management. In that short period of time, Will managed to secure a support team, prep the OR and implement sterile procedures. He had two scrub nurses and an anesthesiologist ready to go, and he was scrubbing himself in while the patient was prepped and the tools were arranged as best they could under the circumstances. When Adam joined him at the sink, he looked back at the tableau. He looked impressed.

“So you are not going to chicken out?” he asked.

Will continued scrubbing, paying extra attention to his fingernails. “Why would I?”

Adam smirked somewhat. “Ten years ago, that is what I would have thought. But now? You have come back to me with timidity.”

“I’m just trying to follow the rules,” Will countered. “You have to grow up sometime.”

“But do you?” Adam said. He jerked his head toward their makeshift OR. “Or do you just learn to pick your moments?”

Will finished, holding his hands up as he stepped away from the sink. “I’m going with maturity,” he said. Then, patting his hands dry, he shrugged a little. “Unless this turns out badly.”

Adam raised his eyebrows. “And then?”

“Then,” Will said, gloving up over his gown. “Apparently, I’m still a work in progress.”

Adam turned off the water and joined him. “I hope so, my friend. Any way this turns out, I hope so.”

-o-

Will still remembered the time he performed a questionable medical procedure outside in scorching heat during a marathon. He’d been hot, sweaty and out of options. Fresh off a near-lawsuit and sky-high insurance premiums, he’d been scared to act. He’d second guessed himself every step of the way, from one questionable decision made in desperation to the next.

It had turned out, somehow. The patient had lived -- and thrived -- and Will had found himself on the right side of breaking the rules.

He still remembered that.

That one time when he’d managed to get it right.

When he’d agreed to give Natalie’s mom the trial meds off the books, he’d been taking a no less auspicious gambit. It had backfired with the undiagnosed medical condition, and Will had been forced to shut the whole thing down. That story had a happy ending, too, but it wasn’t his.

It was hard for him to reconcile, sometimes. How you could be so right one time and so wrong the next. They called it the practice of medicine, and sometimes it felt like that. Like you were always practicing but never making perfect.

Well, for Will, anyway. He was pretty sure most other doctors ended up getting it right. Or, at the very least, the ended up getting better -- and not worse. Will had apparently peaked his first year as an attending. After that, he’d made a series of one bad decision after another and here he was.

Standing in a subpar OR in an underfunded hospital in Africa. He was working outside the rules with a patient that was gravely injured. He’d gone and stacked the odds against himself, and here he was, standing in front of an open patient, wondering what kind of decision he was making now.

A good one?

A bad one?

Whatever choice he’d made, he had no choice but to follow through.

It was time to finish the things he started.

-o-

The surgery took four hours.

Without access to the recovery ward, they monitored the patient in the room. Will knew it was standard policy to leave that to the nurses, but he felt invested at this point. He sat on one side of the bed, going over his notes, trying to figure out how to make the complexity of the procedure make sense in the context he’d created.

Across from him, Adam sat poised. He’d gone through his charting much faster, and he was idly watching the patient’s vitals as the anesthesia wore off and they balanced the drugs in his system.

After the day they’d had, neither of them had much energy left for small talk, and they were at a point in their friendship that it wasn’t necessary anyway. Will was used to going rogue; it was one of his many character flaws. But going in with someone else carried a whole different kind of weight.

Will just worried that his brilliant idea for innovative patient care had torpedoed his career -- and Adam’s right along with it.

Hesitating over one of his patient notes, Will looked up and couldn’t keep silent any longer. “I don’t know if I did this right,” he said.

“The notes?” Adam asked. He made a face. “Charting is a boring exercise of policy--”

“No,” Will said. He nodded to the patient. “I’m not sure I made the right choice for the patient. I mean, we operated without any supports in place. We have no idea if it even worked.”

“But when are we ever sure?” Adam asked. “People who want guarantees have no place in medicine.”

“But we have to take reasonable measures that are proven,” Will said. “We can’t just play with people’s lives.”

“Yet, that is what we do,” Adam said. He shrugged. “Halstead, to pretend like we will ever have total confidence is hubris. It is the God complex. It is folly. We took a chance, and it was the only chance the patient had. The alternative was death.”

“So anything goes for a last resort?” Will asked.

“It wasn’t anything,” Adam said. “You struggle with the nuance, my friend. Policy exists to help us best treat patients. It is a guideline, a framework -- but that is also why it always falls short.”

“But how do we know?” Will asked. “How do we know when to disregard it?”

“You used to go with your gut,” Adam told him.

Will shook his head with a small snort. He looked at the patient and the rise and fall of his chest. “My gut isn’t always right. It’s not nearly as right as I think it is, sometimes.”

Adam shrugged again, as if this thought was moderately inconsequential. “I figure we look at the options. When the options lines up with policy, then wonderful. When they do not, we pick the option that confers the most benefit with the least risk.”

“But how do we know?” Will asked, pressing the issue now. He sat forward intently. “How can we be sure?”

Adam seemed to be somewhat disconcerted by the question. “I do not believe we always get to know.”

Will sank back with a long sigh. “Somehow, that doesn’t make me feel better.”

“And why not?” he asked, genuinely curious.

Will made a vague gesture with his hands, still slumped back in his seat with the patient between them. “You’re saying that I should just -- I don’t know -- accept the fact that I’ll never know. That I should just keep making decisions with a hope and a prayer.”

“And skill and experience,” Adam reminded him. “But how else do we do this job? Just look at what we do, what we really do, my friend. We take lives into our hands -- our imperfect hands. We treat patients with all of our biases and shortcomings because there is no one else to do the job. If we do not embrace our own fallibility, then we could never treat anyone. The world would not be a better place for that. The world would be not good at all.”

For all of the logic of Adam’s point, Will still shook his head. The uncertainty of it -- the unknown, irrational element -- was a paradigm he didn’t know how to reconcile. He had taken too many chances that were wrong to feel comfortable with the idea of ambiguity -- even when it was staring him dead in the eye. “It’s too uncertain. You said it yourself, we deal with life and death. We owe our patients our confidence.”

“Then you think we owe them lies?” Adam retorted. “We offer them what we can, and there are no promises, no guarantees. We try to do our best, nothing more. We work hard, we train, we study -- and sometimes we do prevail. Sometimes, we do not.”

Adam said it with a finality that Will could not counter, not even if he had the willpower to attempt such a comeback. His defense was not logical, anyway. This was an emotion, a deep keening doubt that he could not make go away.

For all that he’d accomplished, it still felt like he was getting nowhere. Or, at least, wherever he was headed, he still couldn’t make out the destination.

Adam was not so oblivious. He gave Will a look across the bed. “This is why you have come here, is it not?”

“What?”

“Because you have lost your confidence,” Adam presumed.

Will shifted back in his chair, feeling inherently defensive. He looked back down at his notes. “I told you, the reason I left Chicago was complicated.”

“All reasons are,” Adam said. “But the lack of references. The veiled hints. It is not so hard to see that something went wrong. That you made a choice you regret.”

Will’s eyes blurred so much he could barely see his own writing. “Are you asking?” he said, looking up finally. “Why I left?”

Adam wrinkled his nose. “Why would I? I have hired you. I have brought you here. I have put you in my own hospital with my own blessing. And you are saving lives, my friend. You are saving many lives.”

“But you said it yourself: we screw up, too,” Will said, feeling hesitant. “And, I mean, you have no idea just how much I can screw up.”

Adam shrugged off-handedly, making a small face. “So you are no longer young and brash. You have realized that you are not God, and this is a scary thing at first,” he said. He held up a finger, pointing it at his temple. “But I know that once you realize it, you will accept it. Once you accept it, then you will be an even better doctor, still.”

For a moment, he could only stare at Adam in disbelief. For not knowing the full story, Adam seemed to have a handle on the cliff’s notes. Finally, when he couldn’t make it all parse, he sat back, his posture loosening once more. “I don’t feel like I’ve earned your faith.”

Adam's smile was somehow both brazen and gentle. “Then, stay here longer, please. I will show you how leaving Chicago will be the best move you ever made.”

“Funny,” Will quipped ruefully. “I never saw leaving Chicago in a positive light.”

“You will,” Adam said, somehow smug now. “But look! The patient awakes!”

Will turned his attention to the patient, eyes flickering over the monitors first. The SATs were rising, and the elevated heart rate was indicative of regaining consciousness. On the bed, the man was beginning to move. Then, his eyelids started to flutter.

Will was still too shocked to move, but Adam had the wherewithal to get to his feet. He positioned himself in the patient’s line of sight. “Mr. Keita, try to relax. You have just finished a very extensive surgery. You are currently recovering in the hospital. Do you understand?”

Mr. Keita, still on heavy drugs and intubated, looked confused and startled, eyes roaming around while his breathing seemed to hitch momentarily. There were a few blips on the monitors, and Will got up and joined Adam.

“Mr. Keita, there is a tube down your throat helping you breathe,” Will explained. “You just have to let it do its job.”

It sounded like a simple request on the surface, but Will could only imagine just how hard it was for the patient. Bombarded with strange sensations, limited in his physical capacity -- the man was utterly dependent on Will and Adam at the moment.

“Mr. Keita,” Adam said again. “Can you nod your head to tell us you understand?”

Slowly, carefully, the man raised his head. A small motion, but a perceptible one.

Adam glanced at Will with a grin. Then, he picked up Mr. Keita’s hands. “Can you squeeze my fingers?”

It took a moment while the patient clearly put thought into the effort, and Will watched the fingers with his breath baited. It seemed to take a lot of effort, but the movement was steady, if weak. Sure, if muted.

“That is very good, sir,” Adam said. He got up, moving around to the feet. He lifted the blankets and gave a little nod to Will.

Will stepped forward, smiling down as best he could in Mr. Keita’s line of vision. “Let’s try your feet now, Mr. Keita. Can you press down? Like you’re driving a car?”

The patient’s ability to follow commands was defined but slow, and this one seemed to take extra effort to pull off. The man’s brow furrowed slightly, as if he was trying to remember how the nerve impulses worked up and down his body.

Then, with reduced strength but decided movement, the foot pressed down. Adam looked to Will once more, grinning from ear to ear.

Will’s own smile was small, and he directed it to the patient. He patted him on the shoulder with as much reassurance as he had. “That’s very good, Mr. Keita. That’s very, very good.”

Adam came back around to the other side. “You are still very weak, and you are still recovering,” he said. “You must rest while your body heals, Mr. Keita. Just rest.”

Weak as he was, Mr. Keita willingly obliged, and his eyes drifted shut again while Will turned the monitors to a quieter mode and Adam checked the medication line.

“We can pull all the paralytic, but we’ll need to maintain a high level of sedatives while he deals with the pain,” Adam said.

“It will help with the ventilator,” Will agreed. “But maybe, if he keeps improving, he can come off that tomorrow.”

“It is a goal, I hope,” Adam agreed. He reached over, picking the chart up to add a few notes. “I will see if there is room upstairs in the ICU, so we can transfer him there.”

“If not, we’ll need to coach a few of the nurses on ICU care,” Will said.

“Danielle has much experience in that ward,” Adam said. “I will page her, bring her in until the transfer is approved.”

“I want to monitor his cardiac function, and he’s at high risk for clots--”

“And we will watch for it, Halstead,” Adam said. He put the chart down and gave Will a look. “You do know that this is good news, yes? That we were successful?”

“He’s not out of the woods yet,” Will said, casting the patient an uneasy look.

Adam grunted, moving away from the bed. “None of us are,” he said. He jerked his head to the door. “Now, come.”

“But the patient--”

“Will be monitored,” Adam said.

“But the charts--”

“Will still be there tomorrow,” Adam told him.

Will’s mouth was open with another protest, but Adam’s look was hard and long.

“Now, come,” he said again. “Quitting too soon is a problem. So is not knowing when to quit.”

It seemed like good advice in theory, but Will looked at the patient again. The result of his actions. The face of his consequences.

He was so far along that he didn’t even know what success and failure looked like anymore. He was out of measuring sticks. He no longer understood the standards or how to apply them. That was what made policy easy for him now, a series of rote questions, yes or no, right or wrong.

In between, in the ambiguity, Will was forced to reckon with his own moral judgements -- for better and for worse.

Today, at least, with a patient on his way to recovery, Will had to find comfort in the better.

-o-

Will waffled -- and badly -- but Adam took a hard line about this sort of thing, and Will had no choice but to follow his lead. That wasn’t entirely true, of course. He probably had a choice, but he barely trusted himself to make decisions like that.

Life and death, Will tended to do okay with.

All the other stuff, though, Will knew he didn’t always have enough discernment.

So when Adam took him by the arm out of the hospital, he followed. He followed Adam all the way to the bar, and sat down next to him at his friend’s bidding. Once situated, Adam called the bartender over, ordering two beers. He looked at Will when he was done, smiling. “This first round -- it is on me.”

Will looked at him, curious. “You’ve got the first round?”

“And I would offer the second, if I thought you could handle it,” he quipped.

“But why?” Will asked. “You’ve been trying to bum drinks off me since we were 26.”

“Ah, well,” Adam said. “We are not 26 anymore.”

“Oh, so I’m supposed to believe that you’ve grown up?” Will joked.

“No, it is you!” Adam returned quickly.

Will scoffed. “This after I tell you just how insecure I feel.”

“That changes nothing,” Adam said. “You are the one -- the one who has changed so much. You have always been a good doctor, but what I saw today -- the level of commitment -- Halstead, you are not 26 anymore, and I say that in the best way possible.”

The compliment was so strong and so unbidden that Will felt immediately embarrassed. “Today was a team effort,” he said. “I was just doing what I could.”

“No, you were doing more,” Adam insisted as their drinks were delivered.

Will nodded politely, wishing a little that he could disappear. “I thought you were against God complexes.”

“But not good medicine,” he said ardently. “I’ve been doing this job for a long time, and what we faced today is not so unusual. But you did not see the problem. You saw solutions. Solutions that helped the patients and worked for the hospital.”

“Adam, come on. I didn’t even know if it was going to work. It was a hail Mary,” Will said, even as he took up his drink. “I just did the job. The job you hired me for, by the way.”

Adam rapidly shook his head. “No, everyone else did their job. I did my job. You went above and beyond.”

He toasted his glass toward Will but didn’t drink yet.

Will turned his glass around in his hand, feeling uncomfortable with the praise. “Not really. I just -- looked at the rules a little differently to get a better outcome. I told you, sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t. I took a risk. You should probably be reprimanding me.”

Adam gawked at him, putting the glass down. “Reprimanding you for saving lives?”

“I could have put the hospital in jeopardy -- the whole organization,” Will said. He pursed his lips, feeling a little bit flush. “It was the wrong call--”

“Halstead! You must stop!” Adam said. He leaned forward, putting a heavy hand on Will’s shoulder. “You used creativity to solve a problem, and your dynamic treatment plan has allowed a patient to survive that would have otherwise died. What you need is a commendation, but such things are not in the budget. You will have to settle for this drink and my respect.”

He nudged Will’s hand closer to him, and the drink sloshed a little. “Oh, please.”

“I am quite serious!” Adam said, almost protesting now. He sat back with a wide gesture. “This is why I recommended you to the program -- again -- even without a lot of references. Most of the time, we do not accept people who wash out, but I knew all along you were different. I knew all along the kind of doctor you were. And this, right here, my friend. This is the doctor I’ve always known, mistakes and bad references aside.”

Will looked away, still feeling sheepish with the praise. He studied his drink, chewing on the inside of his lip. “I don’t know. Maybe,” he said with just a touch of acknowledgement as he glanced up to Adam. “But I meant what I said, too. What happened today -- that our patient is alive -- that was a team effort.”

Adam nodded quite readily now. “Yes, a team effort, a valiant team effort. A team you led all on your own,” he said, jabbing his finger at Will’s chest. “My idea would have left the patient dead. His family would be in mourning tonight. And everyone else? They had no ideas. You are being humble, my friend. I would say it doesn’t suit you, but it seems that it does now.”

“Humility with reason,” Will assured him. His smile fell and he looked down at the bar for a long, quiet second. When he drew a breath, he looked back up at Adam “Why didn’t you ask why I left Chicago? I mean, we keep talking around this, but really. Don't you want to know?”

Adam made a little face, as though Will had said something ridiculous. “I do know.”

Will gave him a small, hesitant look. A telling look. “Not really.”

Will was giving him an opening. Adam’s indifferent shrug indicated that he had no interest in taking it. “Ah, well,” he said. “You got fired, yes?”

Will reddened out of reflex.

Adam continued with utter nonchalance. “As is such, it is just that I do not think getting fired is the worst thing that can happen to a person. Certainly not a good doctor.”

It was a generous sort of take on the situation, one that Will probably would have shared for most of his career. “Adam, I just want to make sure you understand. There are plenty of bad reasons to be fired. Especially for a doctor.”

The more serious Will got, the less concerned Adam seemed to be. “And there are a few good ones, too,” he said. “As you recall, I do not have a spotless record either.”

“I know,” Will said, remembering the stories Adam had told him all those years ago. “But how can you be so sure that I was fired for a good one?”

The question left Adam quizzical. He cocked his head, looking genuinely perplexed. “You love what you do. You are a doctor. If you got fired, then I am confident. You were fired to save a life. You have never let things stand in the way. That is precisely the reason why I recommended that the board hire you back.”

It was a confidence that Will couldn’t grasp. He was pretty sure it was a confidence he didn’t deserve. At the very least, it was a confidence he didn’t share. “You really do seem pretty sure about this.”

Adam made a face, wrinkling his nose. “And you do not,” he commented. He shook his head, as if the notion perplexed him. “Have you forgotten who you are? Has all that time in the fancy hospitals made you overlook the truth?

That point was well made. The allure of Med had always been prestige. It was regarded as the best facility in the city, and Will had always taken some comfort in knowing he was a part of that. He’d thought that maintaining his place at Med had made up for his other failures.

However, back in Africa, he was reminded of a different side of the story. That medicine wasn’t always cutting edge advancements. Sometimes, medicine flourished in the trenches. When there wasn’t money or prestige; when there was just hard work and lives to save.

It was what he’d always loved about this job. To prove himself, all he’d needed was for a patient to live despite all the obstacles. There were no protracted debates about medical ethics and legal concerns. There were just people who needed help, and doctors who were willing to give up everything to help them.

He dipped his head forward, feeling suddenly renewed sheepish. “Maybe.”

Adam’s smile was warm as he clapped Will on the shoulder. ‘Then, it is good that you are here so that I may remind you of it once more,” he said. He nodded at Will tellingly. “I saw it in you today. It has always been there. When you are not tied up in that question, you are the best doctor I’ve ever seen.”

“You sure you’re not trying to give me a God complex?” Will asked.

Adam pushed his drink back at him. “Let me buy you a second drink, and we can quickly dispel you of that notion.”

Will laughed, taking up the drink earnestly this time. “Well, then, I can’t very well refuse that, can I?”

Adam toasted him again, and this time their glasses clinked. “No, my friend, you very well cannot.”

-o-

Two drinks wasn’t actually enough to get Will drunk, but he felt pleasantly tipsy when he got a ride home that night. Adam had invited him to stay longer, but Will protested, saying he had an early shift. Despite Adam reminding him that he controlled the schedule, Will still made his quiet exit for home.

It was getting late by the time he got back, but it was always getting late here. Will’s job had a schedule, but the hours were always flexible. Not in the sense that you could take time off as wanted. To the contrary, they were flexible to keep you on as long as needed -- and then some. Will was always arriving early and leaving late. He liked to tell himself that was just the demand of the job.

He was starting to wonder, though. Other doctors worked hard, but not like him. Adam was the most dedicated guy Will knew, and he was still out at the bar, having a good time.

In other words, it was possible to do the job and still live a life. That was still an option that was on the table. In fact, it was an option that Adam was pushing at him time and again.

Will had always been reluctant to take him up on it. He didn’t trust himself. He still struggled with feelings of worth. There was a part of him that was scared to be happy.

There was a part of him that saw himself sitting in his crappy apartment, feeling good about himself, and immediately feeling guilty about it.

This was how it started, after all. This was how his ego led him astray. All it took was one good day. One positive outcome. A few compliments. And his ego grew. And grew and grew and grew, and sooner or later, Will forgot that the rules applied to him, too.

Adam talked about embracing fallibility, but he surely didn’t grasp what that really meant for a guy like Will. His fallibility was dangerous. It made him blind. It made him a risk not worth taking. He’d talked Adam into sticking his neck out for him -- and Adam had gone above and beyond.

That left him indebted to Adam. Adam would never think of it like that, but Will would be remiss not to. Will had been drowning, and Adam had offered him a life preserver he didn’t deserve. Now, he was barely keep his head above water, and it was all because of Adam.

Adam believed in him, which still defied all logic. He had always known Adam to be deeply instinctually, both in medicine and in life. To think that he trusted Will--

Will could have just told him about the trial. That would have cleared the air, made this easier.

But Adam didn’t like easy. That was probably the point he was trying to make. Adam believed that risks had to be worth taking.

Will would be the best doctor Adam had on staff. He would work harder, push himself more, put everything on the line.

If that meant being Adam’s friend, too, then Will would do that as well. He would go out for drinks, and he would be both confessor and confidante in equal turns.

If that meant being part of a community, then Will had no choice. He had to keep himself in check, obviously, and it would be a fine line to walk. But Adam hadn’t asked questions when he hired him. Will didn’t have the right to say no now.

Because Adam hired him to be his right-hand man.

And that was exactly what Will was going to be.

-o-

Will had started to socialize for Adam’s sake, as it seemed to be expected of him. But what started out as a few drinks and laughing jokes turned into Will telling stories of his own. Karaoke turned into impromptu concerts with his guitar, and Will joined pickup soccer games in one of the parks near the hospital.

He was terrible at soccer, and he sang like a white boy. People were awed by his stories of hospitals in New York and Chicago, and Will was known as a lightweight who danced better than he had a right to with his silly red hair.

These were necessary next steps, he told himself.

Even while struggling to acknowledge that they were, indeed, next steps.

In other words, somehow, against his will and almost entirely by accident and chance, Will was finally moving forward.

-o-

Despite his fledgling social life, Will was still mostly preoccupied with work. There was still a lot of work to be done, and the hospital was still stretched beyond its actual limits. Will was quick to agree to a night out these days, but he was also the first one to volunteer for an extra shift when one became necessary.

On a busy morning, he rarely had time to sit down and drink a cup of coffee. However, there were some mornings that allowed him a bit more breathing room.

This was one of those mornings.

He didn’t dare sit down with his coffee -- that was just an invitation for a trauma to come in -- but he enjoyed his cup by the nurse’s station, daring to take out his phone for a quick peek. He had a routine list of contacts that he still ignored, and he sent a quick reply to Jay and another to Hailey before reading one from Maggie.

Of everyone from Med, Maggie was the most persistent. He still received plenty of texts from friends and colleagues, but Maggie made a habit to text him daily, as if she genuinely missed him. He often deflected personal questions about himself to ask about her instead. How was her sister? When was the next family BBQ? How were things going with Ben?

But today, her text was a lot simpler. Missing you a lot today, she said. ED just isn’t the same without you.

Will tried to do the math on the timezones, and was a little surprised they were both online at the same time. No matter. Maggie had left that reply wide open to a joke.

Will smirked, giving the ED a glance just to be sure he still had time to kill. They were slow at the moment. He had a patient pending in CT, but he had a few moments. Hastily, he typed a reply. You mean things are operating smoothly, then.

Maggie texted back almost immediately. The opposite. Things are a mess here. We miss you.

It made him smile, then. It had been months since he’d been back in Chicago, and all that time, fielding texts had hurt -- every single time. That was one reason why he did it so rarely.

It was different today, though. Where there was once regret, now there was fondness. Where there had been pain, now Will felt grateful. Well, I miss you, too.

For him, that was really that.

But Maggie was rapidly returning his text. You should be here, she said, before adding a quick addendum. You should come home.

Maggie wasn’t lying, and Will knew that, but Maggie also didn’t understand. Maggie couldn’t possibly understand. Sparing time for one last reply, Will typed it out as carefully and purposefully as he could. I’m exactly where I need to be.

-o-

And he was.

When he felt good about it, when he wasn’t sure. When he was depressed, when he thought he might actually have a chance.

Will was where he was meant to be.

It had its ups and downs, naturally. That was life in the ED.

Some days, he was saving lives the dramatic way. There were close shaves, frantic triage situations and makeshift ORs.

Other days, it was the simple things. Setting a broken arm. Helping a pregnant woman get her prenatal vitamins. Treating a case of malaria.

Medicine was harder here in a lot of ways.

But in others, it was just so much easier.

-o-

There were times, though. Times when he was lying in his bed, in the small, crappy apartment with a finicky air conditioner, when he thought of life back home in Chicago. He couldn’t help it, really. That was such a big part of who he was, and it would be foolish to pretend like it didn’t happen, like it wasn’t a part of him.

It was. It was as much a part of him as this place, and just because he wasn’t ready to go back didn’t mean that he didn’t think about it. It didn’t mean that he didn’t miss it with every fiber in his being.

Because he remembered.

Alone in his bed, staring up into the bleak darkness while sleep evaded him, he remembered.

He remembered smiling at Natalie. He remembered working a tough case with Ethan. He remembered confiding in Maggie at the nurse’s station and saving the day.

Those were good days, he thought.

Mostly, though, he remembered how very long ago they seemed.

-o-

Fortunately, there was no time to dwell on what once was or even what might have been. Though Will got paid less and enjoyed far fewer perks, he worked more. His hours were more demanding, and it wasn’t uncommon to get paged in the middle of the night.

Or, as it turned out today, early in the morning. When he got the ping, he was deep asleep. Fumbling for his phone, he blearily made out the message.

Car accident on the interstate.

Mass casualties.

All ED staff was to report.

Groggily, Will dropped the phone back on the bedside table. He looked at the clock.

His alarm was about to go off in less than ten minutes.

Sighing, he scrubbed a hand over his face and rolled out of bed. This was why he was here, after all. This, right here. To do the job when no one else wanted to.

Still half asleep, Will threw on a pair of scrubs that looked mostly clean. He had to skip the shower, but he stopped to brush his teeth. He took a cup of coffee and a raw bagel to go, and exiting out to the street, he was glad that he’d taken a place so close to the hospital.

It made these early call times a little easier to manage.

It did nothing, however, for the chaos he faced every time he walked through the hospital doors.

He’d seen chaotic scenes before. There had been plenty of dramatic events back in Chicago. Hell, on his first day, some guy had tried to blow up the ED with a deadly virus. Will had been through high rise fires, multi-car accidents, mass shootings and deadly outbreaks. The pressure wasn’t new to him.

The resources available to him were something of a novelty.

Or the lack thereof.

Even when the ED back in Chicago was cut off from the outside world and the rest of the hospital, he’d still had fully stocked exam rooms and highly trained staff -- not to mention an entire support system right outside. He’d taken that backup for granted -- the way his brother was always just a phone call away.

Jay was a lot farther away right now.

And whatever backup Will wanted, all he had was the hard working men and women right beside him. Supplies were hit and miss. Facilities were prone to blackouts and rationing. Despite an increased security presence, it wasn’t uncommon to find weapons stashed in the ED. That was just how it was here. People weren’t stupider; they weren’t more violent. They just had less access to the things people took for granted in a city like Chicago. Chicago wasn’t a perfect city, and America was not some halcyon nation, but money made a difference.

Money made all the difference.

Will had been quite adept with funding at his back.

Here, he had to show how good he was on his own. Day after day after day.

Today, therefore, was just another day.

He told himself that as he picked up a chart, barely checking in with the charge nurse before he was ordered to an exam room.

“Traumatic amputation!” she yelled at him, sparing one last bit of guidance. “Be careful! He’s a bleeder!”

A bleeder was an understatement. One patient in, and Will had to change his scrubs already. There was no way to reattach the foot, but the patient was stable and the bleeding had been stopped. Will ordered up a full round of antibiotics and tried to send him upstairs to wait in the queue for surgery.

The second patient was less bloody, but Will diagnosed a concussion after the girl vomited all over him -- twice. He had to borrow a pair of scrubs from the supply closet, shipping his patient off to CT to confirm there was no bleed, before he treated another patient with a chest tube before ruling out a broken neck.

By this point, the ED had reached its capacity -- and then some. They were always short on space, but patients were now lined up in the hallway whenever a room wasn’t available. At some point during the day, Will found himself examining patients right in the waiting room. He came across a girl with a collapsed airway, and he performed a trach, right then and there, while her mother wailed in desperation. As she was transferred up to the ICU, the mother clung to him, thanking him profusely for saving her baby girl.

He told her it was fine, it was just fine.

“Just part of the job,” he assured her, helping her along after her daughter. “Just part of the job.”

-o-

With so much to do, Will didn’t bother to watch the clock. It didn’t matter, anyway. He was never fully off duty while here. He’d let the boundaries between work and home slide before, but here, on his own on a foreign continent, the concept of a private life just didn’t exist in the same way anymore.

When the stream of patients finally slowed, Will stopped long enough to grab something to eat. Then, he buried himself in charts, trying in vain to catch up with the neverending deluge. By the time he finally finished that task, he was tired. No, he was exhausted. He had no energy or will to go home. There was no need. When he did check the time, he realized there was only five hours until he was back on for the morning shift.

Will hadn’t been this weary since residency, and he poked from one exam to another until he found one that was vacant. He scrawled a note, posted it on the door, and collapsed on the gurney with his shoes still on. Within seconds, he was already drifting off to sleep.

This was what it was, then. After all his years of work and training, he had to bring it back to where it started: saving lives.

There was no need for praise.

There was no cushy paycheck.

There was no publication with his name on it.

Just the job done well.

Just the job done.

His consciousness flitted away, and he breathed into sleep.

That was enough, then.

That was enough.

-o-

And Will got up the next day.

And the day after that.

The thing was, Will just kept getting up. He kept doing the job. Each day, it was just as hard as the last. The hours never got better. The pay never improved.

But each day was also a little easier than the last.

That was what you called growing up, apparently.

It seemed like Will was well overdue.

-o-

Sometimes, he worried that he would run out of things to say to Jay on the phone -- that without video games and sports, they might have nothing in common -- but he found the opposite to be true. They talked to each other now more than ever, and despite the fact that Will had moved as far away as possible, they seemed closer now. More like brothers.

They talked about their days. Will told him about Adam and the latest antics in the ED. Jay kept Will up to date with the latest gossip among Chicago’s first responders, and Will always pressed for details about how things were with Hailey. They talked about working long hours, taking on hard cases, and how sometimes it seemed like they would never be enough.

It was funny. All their lives they’d believed they were so very different, and Will was learning now just how alike they were. They both wanted the same things, in the end. To save people, to do the right thing. They had just done it differently, and maybe that was okay.

Maybe Will was okay.

There was a novelty to that idea, one that Will couldn’t quite wrap his head around sometimes. So when Jay called him, asked him how things were going, sometimes Will stopped and thought about his answer before he gave it.

“You know, it’s going okay,” Will said, thinking about it a little more. “It’s actually going really good.”

“Good? That’s good,” Jay said.

“Yeah,” Will agreed. “I think it is.”

-o-

With things going the way they were, Will was pretty happy to stick with the status quo. Things were going well; he had no desire to change them. If he could keep this up, it might actually lead to real, sustainable change -- for him as a person and as a doctor.

The status quo wasn’t a personal choice, however. At least, not all the time. Not all the factors were within his control.

It was a nuance Will had not fully appreciated, since he had spent so much time in his life choosing the wrong or difficult thing. Sometimes, despite your best intentions, difficult things chose you.

That was the case when, after two months of impeccable performance and personal fortitude, there was an unexpected knock at his front door.

The knock was not just a little unexpected. It didn’t even make sense. In the time Will had lived in the city, he hadn’t had a single visitor. Adam had stopped by a time or two to drop him off or to give him a few extra household supplies since Will had come to Africa with so little -- but social calls? Will’s social life was a direct extension of the hospital. He accepted invitations. He didn’t extend them. No one beyond Adam even knew where he lived.

Dumbfounded by the knock, Will didn’t do anything for several long moments. He was contemplating if it could be a delivery or his landlord, when the knocking sounded again, this time taking on a frantic cadence.

Will put down the food he was preparing in the kitchen, and made his way to the door. There was no peep hole, so he opened it with some caution -- and then swung it open in absolute surprise.

“Grace?” he asked, jaw dropping open.

On the other side of the threshold, Adam’s sister stood. She was dressed with her usual impeccable flair, but there were unexpected signs of distress. Her hair was mussed from its usual style, and her makeup was smeared.

Worst of all, Will could see the cut on her lip and the swelling of her nose, not to mention the blossoming bruise around her cheek and eye.

“Please,” she said, collecting a breath but not quite holding it in before she broke with a sob. “I did not know where else to go.”

Will blinked, still surprised and taken aback. He’d promised himself to never be alone with Grace again -- and here she was, inviting herself into his apartment. There was a part of him that screamed no at the suggestion, but looking at her, he found that he couldn’t.

She was a mess.

She was upset.

There was something in her eyes, in her expression, in her stance -- Grace was terrified.

Will was a doctor. More importantly, Will was Adam’s friend. There was no way he could turn Grace away in this state.

“Come in, come on,” he said, stepping back from the door to usher her inside. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

He shut the door behind her, feeling self conscious on a variety of levels. His place wasn’t exactly good for company -- it was small, crappy and poorly outfitted. He wasn’t an especially messy person, but he also wasn’t fastidious in his house keeping.

It had been a moot point thus far, as he had not made a point to be alone with a woman so far -- much less Grace, who he now considered something of a protected property.

So, to have anyone in his house was going to be overwhelming.

To have it be a woman would be more so.

And Grace?

Well, Will felt a little sick, and he was already starting to sweat.

But Grace shuffled inside, still sniffling as she followed the hallway to the lackluster living room. Under normal circumstances, he was sure she would comment. Today, however, she just took a few halting breaths and sat down “I am so sorry,” she apologized. “I did not know where to go.”

“It’s fine,” he said, even though it didn’t feel fine. He had a used couch and one of Adam’s old chairs. She had sat on the couch, so Will perched awkwardly on the chair, taking her appearance in once more. “What’s going on?”

He noticed now that she was shaking. Her clothes seemed rumpled, and Will got a sinking feeling even before she could say anything. He hadn’t worked all these years in various EDs not to recognize the signs of assault when they were presented right in front of him.

“I was seeing this man -- and he hurt me,” she said, almost letting the words explode from her mouth. She sobbed once and fresh tears leaked from her eyes as her hands anxiously clutched her purse. “We had been dating for a month, more or less. Casual, though. You know.”

Will nodded mostly because it was expected of him -- he did remember, but his time with Grace was marred by overall confusion from his end. He’d come to terms, but seeing things from her perspective was still hard for him to grasp.

“I never told him we were exclusive,” she said, breathing picking up its pace again. “I made no promises, so when he saw me tonight, out with another man, I thought nothing.”

Will winced in anticipation for what was to come next.

“But he did not think nothing,” she said. “I got home after my date, and he was waiting for me outside the building. I thought he was going to kill me -- I had to fight him off!”

Will moved from his seat and over to the couch, reaching up tentatively to brush her hair out of her face and get a better look at the bruises and cuts. They looked mostly superficial, thankfully, but he continued to brush her hair away and tilt her head to the lamplight. “Did you lose consciousness? How would you rate your pain?”

She shook her head a little. “I got away before he could do too much,” she said. “It doesn’t hurt that much.”

Will got up, disappearing into the bathroom for a moment and coming back with his first aid kit and medical bag. He sat back down. “You should really call the cops,” he said, getting out some antiseptic and gauze. He reached up gently and started blotting away the blood from the cut on her cheek. “The police--”

But she shook her head so fiercely that Will had to drop his hands. “No!” she said. “You do not understand! The man -- my boyfriend -- he is a cop! They will not believe me!”

Will frowned, reaching back up to dab again. “But if you have a first-hand account--”

“I cannot,” she said, starting to cry again. “There is no way!”

Will reached down, taking her hands in his. “It’s okay,” he said. “So maybe you don’t go to the cops locally. Maybe you go to another district.”

“They would never believe me,” she said, face crumpling again. “A woman like me? Who would?”

“Grace,” he said. “You didn’t do anything to deserve this. It doesn’t matter how you dress or who you date -- nothing justifies violence.”

She tried to control her breathing again, but started keening instead.

Will reached out, bracing her shoulder with his hand. “Grace, please. If not the cops, then at least go to Adam--”

Grace inhaled shakily, tears still falling. Her fingers tried to wipe at them, but the bruising on her face was too pronounced. “Adam is out of town -- you know this. Remember?”

“Right, he’s at a board meeting,” Will remembered, feeling stupid. Feeling flustered, he looked around again, not sure what to do with himself. “But, I mean, you have other family. I’ve met your cousins. And Adam says your parents--”

“Are not in this town,” Grace said. “And I cannot tell my cousins. I do not trust them, not like I trust you or Adam, my brothers.”

That was a level of trust Will wasn’t ready for, that much was certain. But faced with it -- faced with Grace’s immediate fear -- he couldn’t bring himself to quibble. “But I’m not even from here,” he said. “I wouldn’t even know what to do.”

“But Adam trusts you completely in a crisis, I have heard him say so,” Grace said. Her face was tear streaked, and she was pleading.

“But surely one of your cousins--”

“No!” she said, almost exploding with the word. “I will not endure their judgement! Not for anything! They think me to be too liberal. They will sit there and they will tell me I deserved it. The way I dress, the way I talk, the things I do--”

“Hey,” he said, shaking his head at her with stern compassion. “No one has it coming. It doesn’t matter what you wear or say--”

Her eyes were full of tears. “That is why I am here,” she said. “I am scared, and I know you will help me. I know that no matter what, you will help me.”

He looked at her, chest feeling tight. He considered the possibility once more than she was leading him on, but he supposed it didn’t matter. She came to him in tears, and that didn’t mean he had to fix everything for her -- let alone fix her.

He just had to be there for her.

That was the right thing to do.

Reaching out, he took her gently by the shoulders. “Grace, you don’t need to be scared,” he said. “As long as you’re here, nothing is going to happen to you.”

Her eyes sparked with fear. “But if I leave--”

“Then don’t leave,” he said, and then he quickly followed up. “You can stay here tonight. Adam gets home tomorrow. You’ll sleep on the couch, and tomorrow we’ll go together to see him and talk it through.”

Her breathing was shallow. “Do you promise?”

He let go of her shoulders and smiled. “I promise.”