Chicago Med fic: The Longest Day (1/3)
Title: The Longest Day
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
A/N: Set in a post 6 world, written before watching anything with S7. Fills my natural disasters square for ”hc_bingo”
Summary: Will has a long day. Jay has a longer one.
-o-
PART ONE
PART TWO
PART THREE
It was a long day.
Now, that was probably a silly assessment. Kind of reductive. Pointless, even.
All the days working the ED were long. And they were long days in a long few years. Between pandemics, failed relationships and medical trials that Will ethically violated, everything was sort of long. He’d been fired, and then rehired, and now he felt like he was stuck in the longest probationary period in the world, trying to prove to everyone he still had a place at Med.
Trying to prove it to himself, mostly.
So, yeah, it was long.
Not to mention the fact that Chicago had been caught up in the worst heatwave to hit the Midwest in centuries. Literally, it was the hottest one on record, and the intense heat, ironically, had a snowball effect. People got hotter, and their tempers got shorter. As fuse boxes went out across the city as the power grid failed, personal fuses got lit left and right. People were angry; people were hot.
The violence spilled into the EDs, and Med had been hopping for nearly a week now while the temperatures got hotter and hotter and hotter.
So yeah, it was a long day. Just like yesterday was a long day, just like tomorrow would be another long day. The weather wasn’t supposed to turn until sometime mid next week, which meant they would have to endure longer still. While everyone else vented their frustrations in various ways, Will had no outlet. On probation, he had to pull the longest hours. He had to volunteer for every extra shift that came up. It wasn’t required, of course, but he knew how this went. If Will wanted to stay at Med, then he had to act like it. He had to pick the longest days, the hardest cases -- all of it, no reprieve.
He wasn’t sure, then, if it was a blessing or a curse that his neighborhood had been hit by the rolling blackouts. A few of them had been timed, but when the grid failed a few days ago, his power had gone down and not come back up. He figured, at least this made staying at the air conditioned hospital a little more palatable. If only he had time to eat, rest and generally take care of himself.
But beggars could not be choosers.
And Will?
Despite his many years on the job and his overall prowess as a doctor, Will was most definitely a beggar. Long days, as best he could figure, were better than no days. Still, natural disasters would be easier to mitigate if he weren’t dealing with the fallout of his personal disasters so readily. It was a little much, really.
Ultimately, Will could not control the weather.
All he could do was control himself.
He kept that focus and hoped for the best.
-o-
The best, as it turned out, was really a relative sort of thing.
He’d gone home the night before, but the oppressive heat in his apartment had made sleep impossible. He’d come back in early, thinking he could at least get some coffee made to get himself going when Maggie caught him and pulled him into a trauma.
“But I’m not even on duty yet,” he protested.
She grunted, giving him a bemused look that didn’t look bemused at all. “Tell that to the city,” she said. “I think they’ve all lost their damn minds. We’ve got another shooting.”
Will frowned, abandoning his pursuit of caffeine. “Another one?”
“If you don’t like gunshots, there’s also a kid who burned himself on a car. Oh, and a car accident,” she said. “We’ve got the whole gamut.”
Will groaned. “I’ll take the gunshot,” he muttered. “It can’t be that bad, can it?”
-o-
It could, apparently.
Will wasn’t sure why he bothered pretending otherwise. At this point in his life, all the things he’d done and been through, of course it could be that bad. In fact, he probably should have been surprised if it wasn’t.
You could even call it karma. He probably deserved this. It was probably part of his ongoing penance. Whatever happened to saying a few hail Mary’s? He should really consider going to confession again. It might help mitigate this.
The gunshot, at first, looked mostly superficial. Will thought they were going to get lucky with a through and through with the shoulder -- clean, bandage and send off with a prescription for antibiotics -- but then the guy’s pressure tanked and Will realized that the man had failed to tell them about the second gunshot wound. The one to his back that was leaking copious amounts of blood. He caught it, of course, but only a few seconds before the guy’s pressure tanked, and Will was suddenly forced to apply lifesaving measures while telling the nurse to call up to the OR for a redline.
This was crazy, but the ED was often crazy, and Will felt like this was all well under control as he got the man’s vitals to stabilize and wheeled him out of the ED alongside an OR resident to make their way to the elevators and make a quick dump. This guy would live, then, and Will could go back to losing his mind with the next patient.
Long days and whatnot.
Except this day?
Yeah, it was longer still.
They were just climbing into the elevator when the electricity flickered for the first time. The doors had closed when they blinked out a second time. Will wisely held off on pushing the buttons, and his caution was proven valuable when it went out altogether, plunging the elevator, the OR resident and Will, into silence.
“What the hell?” the resident said, and he sounded as if he couldn’t believe this was happening.
Will could believe it, though. Will believed everything at this point. If there was a disaster coming, then he might as well just position himself squarely in front of it. It was going to hit him either way.
“Generators should kick in,” Will murmured, continuing to ventilate the man by hand. He wished, suddenly, he’d brought a nurse with him, but they’d been swamped. That was why he’d bothered to make the OR transfer himself, despite being wholly overqualified.
Almost as if on cue, the lights flickered back on, and the OR resident looked relieved. Will was less relieved and more to the point. He pressed the open button on the elevator.
“But what are you doing?” the resident asked.
“Do you really want to be stuck in this elevator if they go out again?” Will asked, starting to push the gurney back out with only partial compliance from the resident. “Generator power is inconsistent, and they’ll ration it.”
“But the elevators--”
“Are not as critical as OR lights and lifesaving equipment,” Will said, directing them back into the hallway. The ED was jittery now, and Will knew that this long day was going to be a lot longer than he’d anticipated. Which was saying something. He’d anticipated it being bad.
The resident still looked vexed. “Is the hybrid OR open?”
“No, booked already,” Will said. “We got a gang banger in there from earlier, or I would have put this guy there in the first place.”
No, the resident looked distressed. “But what are we going to do?”
Will stopped, looking around and considering his options. “Well, we can take him back to an ED room. It’s not perfect, but we can pull off surgery if I can get Maggie to clear Baghdad.”
Apparently, the resident found this idea especially distressing.
“The only other option is to take the stairs,” Will said. “Or is just one floor up. We’ll need a nurse to manually ventilate, and it’d be heavy--”
The resident nodded rapidly. “The stairs. We take the stairs.”
-o-
The decision was made, and though Will had suggested it, he wasn’t sure it was the best option. He might have said that -- he technically had seniority over a resident -- but it wasn’t something he was about to take for granted. And really, the stairs were an option, and the OR was on the second floor and the guy really would be better served with an actual surgical team--
And Will wasn’t going to rock the boat. He wasn’t going to shake things up. He had stuck to having as few opinions as possible, and his whole thing? Was about being a team player. He was a valuable part of the hospital family. He had to step up, he had to work within the system.
So the stairs it was.
They recruited a nurse, took the backboard off the gurney, had Maggie call up to the OR to still expect them. He even went so far as to clear the move with Ethan, who was back as the ED Chief these days, and he said it sounded acceptable to him, given the current circumstances.
So, Will had his i’s dotted and his t’s crossed.
And up the stairs they went.
It was no easy feat, hefting an full-grown injured man up the stairs in a dark stairwell without air conditioning while a nurse tried to continue manual ventilation, but he thought they were getting there.
Until, of course, they weren’t.
They made it to the landing when the monitors blared. With the man clearly crashing, Will put him down. The nurse went to her knees to keep ventilating, and the resident was all but panicking. Will started to run the code, and realized that their window for surgery was rapidly closing. With the blood loss -- surgery had to be now.
Like, now.
Will had just enough tools on hand to get it started, but the resident had felt overwhelmed about surgery in an ED bay. He was even less keen to operate in a stairwell, and he helpfully volunteered to go get help and supplies while Will started without him.
So, you know, that was great.
Will performing emergency surgery.
Without proper equipment.
In a stairwell.
Because that was just the kind of long day he was going to have.
-o-
By the time the resident came back with a pair of nurses and proper equipment, Will had already done most of the hard work. The guy was stable, and all they had to do was close.
So, you know, it went okay.
Just long.
And expected.
And hot.
It was super hot in that stairwell. And Will hadn’t slept much the night before, and he hadn’t eaten breakfast or had his morning coffee.
Though, the idea of coffee now sounded pretty awful. The caffeine would keep him awake, sure, but the idea of roasting himself from the inside basically sounded like a choice to die slowly and painfully during the worst disaster to hit Chicago in years. People liked to talk like heatwaves weren’t that bad since they didn’t do widespread destruction, but Will would have to politely disagree. The destruction to his sanity, here, was palpable.
Probably irreversible, too.
Hot, sweaty and bloody, Will went back down to the lounge to change into scrubs that weren’t a disgusting health hazard. Now that the thought of coffee was too much to handle, he checked his watch and decided that breakfast might be a better option anyway. Nourishment -- real calories -- would keep him going even when the caffeine failed him. He was just about to sneak off when Maggie grabbed him by the arm.
“We got another one,” she said.
“But I haven’t even eaten,” he protested.
She snagged a bottle of water, handing it to him with a look of apology. “Long day,” she said.
Will grunted as he followed. “The longest.”
-o-
He took a drink of water, but there was no time for anything else. His next case was a domestic dispute, and apparently the conflict wasn’t over even though both parties were admitted to the ED. It was policy to separate them to different hospitals most of the time, but apparently most other EDs were booked solid or closed to trauma entirely. So, here Will was.
Breaking up a fight between a young girlfriend and boyfriend. The girlfriend had a badly broken wrist already. The boyfriend had a knife wound in his side. Will got them separated long enough to deposit them in separate rooms. He stitched the knife wound up first -- a flesh wound -- and then he set the arm. He was finishing up their paperwork for a quick and efficient discharge when he found them ripping each other’s clothes off in the throes of physical passion.
Ironically, it was this interaction that was harder to break up, and Will got a bloody nose for his trouble. When he finally got them discharged, he was hot, sweaty and bloody again. This time, he had to borrow a pair of scrubs. Afterward, he couldn’t find his bottle of water, but he wrangled up a new one, and he got a few swigs in when Ethan came in, looking grim faced and tired.
“Pile up on the interstate,” he said. “Pretty bad.”
Will put the bottle of water down, dread filling in his stomach. This was really a long day for everyone, then. “How many are we taking?”
“As many as we can,” Ethan said. “Most of the EDs are closed. That’s why they’re trying to do a lot of triage down onsite.”
“Okay,” Will said.
Ethan flattened his lips. “What do you think?” he asked. “You ready for a field trip?”
Will frowned. “How many people are going?”
“I can’t spare many if we’re taking most of the casualties,” Ethan said. “I thought I’d send you and two of the nurses. Are you up for it?”
The answer was no. Will was not up for it. He had barely slept. He hadn’t eaten. He had barely even sat down to think. He had had to changes his scrubs twice already, and the thought of being outside in the unrelenting heat for an undisclosed period of time? Was awful.
There was no way Will had any business saying yes.
The problem was that Will also had no business saying no.
He was the screw up. He was the one who had created disaster after disaster over the last few years. It was up to him to fix this one, to do his part. He was on probation. If he was going to earn his place back, then he had to say yes.
“Sure,” he said, grabbing the water and rummaging for his medical bag. “Who knows? The fresh air might do me good.”
-o-
He was wrong, naturally. Will was often wrong, but this time he was overwhelmingly wrong. The fresh air didn’t do anyone good because the air in Chicago was no longer fresh. The freshness had been squelched away by the suffocating humidity, and the intensity of the heat was not softened by anything resembling a breeze.
Out on the scene, in the scorching sunlight now less, it felt terrible.
It felt more than terrible.
It felt like he might actually pass out. The sun on the pavement was unrelenting, and any time he got close to a car, he actually was a risk for burning himself. Fire had set up a triage station with as much cover as they could muster, but it did little to take the edge off the worst of the conditions.
The only real way to get through it was to stay busy.
And Will stayed busy.
He stayed very busy.
Though started with triage, he was quickly called to tend the most critical patients. He performed several procedures, with direct approval from Ethan of course, and he was in constant communication with first responders and the administrative staff back at Med to make the best patient calls. He had to put more people on hold than he would have liked, but with the limited capacity of the local EDs, he was going to have to treat as many people as possible and send them off for follow up care with their family care doctors. It wasn’t ideal, but today was way past ideal.
At one point, he was called to a particularly gruesome scene. In the heart of the pileup, one driver was still stuck in his car, pinned beneath a semi. With time running out -- the man was suffering from a plethora of internal injuries, Will had to make the tough call of amputating his foot in order to make sure they got him to the hospital in time to save his life.
Obviously, performing a field amputation was never easy.
Performing it without much backup while in the middle of a heatwave on a highway?
Yeah, that was hard.
He got it done, though.
Will was seeing things through for once in his life, and he got it done.
-o-
In the heat and the chaos -- and the heat -- Will really did lose all track of time. He wasn’t sure what time it was when the scene was cleared and he hopped a ride back to Med with one of the ambulances. Sylvie Brett was in the back with him, treating a patient with mild injuries, and she gave him a keen once-over.
Will was too tired to pretend like he hadn’t noticed. “What?”
“You look flush,” she said, nodding at him.
“I’m a redhead,” Will reminded her. “It doesn’t take much.”
But Brett shook her head. “No, you look flush,” she said. “Are you getting enough water?”
That seemed like a ridiculous question. First, because Will was a doctor. He knew about basic hydration. And second, because Will couldn’t remember anything right now -- he was too damn hot.
His hesitation must have been telling. “Make sure you ease off when you get back to Med,” she said. “Hydrate.”
“Are you a doctor now?” Will quipped.
She shrugged, unfazed. “No, but I saw two firefighters go down today -- and three patrolmen. The last thing I need is for you to go down. They’d never let me back in the ED if I lost you.”
Will chuckled, but he shook his head. “I’m fine.”
“And I’m serious,” she said, prepping to move as they pulled up to a stop outside Med. “This stuff creeps up on you. Hydrate.”
-o-
He rolled his eyes and chuffed, but he couldn’t pretend like Brett didn’t have a point. He was a little lightheaded when he got right down to it, and now that his adrenaline was wearing off, he felt shaky. He changed out of his scrubs -- yes, again -- and sat down to have some water. He got about halfway through the bottle, when Maggie was at the door.
“Another one?” he asked, seeing the look on her face.
She nodded. “Another one.”
-o-
With everything, Will worked all the way through dinner. By the time he was done, his shift had long been over, but Ms. Goodwin came to him and asked if he could cover for the evening shift.
“Just for a little while,” she said. “With the crash earlier today and the power outages, we have a few staff struggling to get in. If you could cover, just for a few hours--”
Will smiled, no matter how exhausted he felt. “Of course,” he said. “Anything for the team.”
-o-
Anything.
And everything.
The string of traumas didn’t let up. In fact, when the sun started to set, people just seemed to go more crazy. It was pushing 9 when he finally thought about going home, and as tired as he was, the idea of going back to an overheated, miserable apartment without any fresh food or cold water was unappealing to say the least.
At work, he had to keep his game face on. He couldn’t show signs of weakness.
But there was one option.
He did have a brother.
Jay had already seen him through all of his other embarrassments and failures. Jay knew who he was, imperfect and flawed, and despite everything, Jay still accepted him -- loved him even.
Surely, his brother might be willing to let him crash at his place for the night. Will would take Jay’s uncomfortable used couch as long -- hell, he’d sleep on the floor -- as long as there was air conditioning.
And, you know, an ice dispenser might be a nice perk.
Unfortunately, Jay didn’t answer. Will shot him a text for his brother to call him back, and finally clocked out for the day.
A long day, he thought to himself, but it was finally over.
-o-
Until it wasn’t.
Will made his way up to the top of the parking ramp -- in more heat, by the way, which was barely stunted by the sun going down -- and when he opened his car to start it, the engine didn’t turn over.
It rumbled a little bit, grinding momentarily, before falling alarmingly silent.
He tried again, and got the same result, because of course he did.
He sat in the driver’s seat for a moment, torn between crying and screaming. Alternatively, he could just stay here and die.
It was more appealing than he might have thought.
However, he had too much to do to die. Instead, he pulled out his phone. Jay hadn’t gotten back to him, so he tried calling again.
And again.
When Jay still didn’t answer, he left another text. He considered just going over to his brother’s place, invitation be damned, and letting himself inside. But Jay had been too good to him, and really, the idea of dropping in unannounced while his brother was still figuring things out with Hailey was unappealing. And just rude, really.
Will could ask his brother for favors, but he wasn’t about to foist himself on Jay unexpectedly. Especially when he had no idea what Jay was doing.
No, Jay would get back to him when he had time.
Until then, Will would just have to make do. He’d made it this far; surely, he could finish the day.
Climbing out of his car, he trudged back to the stair to make his way to the nearest train station.
Surely.
-o-
The hospital had been hot. His car had been dead. Things on the El weren’t much better. Crowded and with poor air circulation, Will finally got out several stops early just to walk the rest of the way home. He was parched by the time he got there, and he anxiously checked his phone to see if Jay had gotten back to him.
There was no reply, though.
He considered calling again, but at this point, it would just look desperate.
Just because he was desperate didn’t mean he had to advertise it to literally everyone.
Besides, he thought with half-delusional hope, maybe his power would be back on.
However, his street was eerily dark. The windows were all open in his building, and Will knew that a long day had officially given way to a long night.
The elevator was nonoperational, and though Will only lived on the third floor, it felt like it took all his energy to climb it. He found that the simple coordination required to dig out his keys and unlocked his apartment nearly left him undone. He was officially lightheaded now, and he thought back to what Brett had told him earlier.
Hydration.
He needed to be hydrated.
He’d been drinking some water, but not enough. And his meals had been even more sporadic. Eating an apple and a bag of Skittles hardly counted.
However, inside, the situation wasn’t exactly encouraging. He’d been working so many long hours that he hadn’t had time to go to the store. Worse, anything perishable in the apartment was long since ruined. He had a box of cereal, but it was on the top shelf, and Will needed to sit down for a minute first.
He dropped his keys off on the table by the door, and rummaged around in the kitchen for anything to drink. He found a half empty bottle of water, but he was so hot that he dumped the tepid water on his head instead of drinking it.
Exhausted, he decided just to discard the shirt entirely. Pulling it off, he dumped it on the living room floor, far too tired to bother picking it up or putting it away. He checked for messages one more time before dropping his phone on the couch. He knew he needed to go back to the kitchen and get some water -- and some food -- but he wanted to get himself together first.
In the bedroom, he kicked his shoes off. He’d left the windows in the main room open, but he opened these as well. The fire escape went down from here, which was why he’d left them closed, but at this point, if someone wanted to rob him or murder him, Will was pretty sure he was happy to let them have at it.
The simple process didn’t require a huge expenditure of energy, but Will was more tired than he’d realized. Shaky on his feet, he needed to sit down.
On the bed, he focused on his breathing, but it did little to clear his head. His ears were ringing; the world was feeling fuzzy.
He blinked hard, trying to collect himself. Exhaustion. Dehydration. Malnourishment.
Will hadn’t been taking care of himself -- at all. He had an early morning ahead of him, but he needed to eat. He needed to drink.
He needed to sleep.
The dizziness gave way to a pounding headache, and Will’s stomach churned. For as hungry as he knew he was, the thought of food was suddenly off putting. He needed to relax. He needed to get himself together. He needed to go back and call Jay again. Call anyone.
It was getting hard to think. His train of thought kept diverting--
And he was tired.
Will flopped back, feeling the instant relief as he closed his eyes.
He was just so tired.
If he could rest for a moment.
If he could close his eyes for a second.
If he could breathe.
Then he might get through this after all.
-o-
He might.
Will closed his eyes, and slipped away.
He might not.
-o-
It was a long day.
For a detective on the Chicago PD, that was kind of a given. It wasn’t that all days were terrible, but most of them were pretty long. Voight didn’t run his ship any other way. You did what you had to do, and funny enough, criminals didn’t bother to abide by business hours. So, what could you do?
Except endure the long days.
And Jay was okay with that. He really was. He liked his team. He liked his job. He had issues with Voight sometimes, but it was all good.
But this weather? The heatwave to end all heatwaves?
What the hell was with that. He knew global warming was a thing, but seriously.
That made long days?
Really damn long.
-o-
And busy.
Jay hadn’t fully decided if he preferred his long days to be busy or slow, but it didn’t matter. This day was long, busy and hot. So, like, the perfect trifecta of absolute insanity.
They had one case that was ongoing, some investigation into a local drug conflict with possible ties to a few gangs. It was kind of a messy case, with lots of ins and outs, and it required tracking down a lot of random leads and taking copious statements.
And then more statements.
Did Jay mention the statements?
That was tedious, but then every time he started to get somewhere, he’d get a call. About a robbery. About a shooting. About the fact that everyone in this damn city was losing their minds. The entire unit was constantly on the move, and trying to keep track of everything was an administrative nightmare. Which meant when Jay wasn’t going all over the city trying to keep the peace, he was stuck at his desk, buried under a mountain of paperwork while the air condition puttered along, whining in protest at the constant overuse.
Jay knew how it felt.
He would whine constantly, too, if he thought anyone would notice.
They wouldn’t, though.
Not on days as long as this one.
-o-
Well, maybe one person would notice.
But that was only because Hailey loved him. Like, a lot. On days like today, it would be nice if their relationship wasn’t a private affair. He could go for some relational comfort, but instead they still had to act like things between them were strictly business. He was pretty sure Voight had figured it out already, but if this was a don’t ask, don’t tell situation, then Jay had to toe the line.
Most of the time, that was fine. It wasn’t like he needed to go making out with Hailey during a coffee break. But had he mentioned how long this stupid day was?
“Hey,” she said, rounding back toward him and sitting down at her desk across from him. “I got a lead.”
“On what?” Jay asked, glancing up from the pile of work on his desk.
“The drug case,” she said, as though that was obvious.
It wasn’t. Not with the shootings, robberies and other cases lined up in their queue. “Yeah?” he said.
“You think you want to come?” she asked. “It’d be better to do it as a pair.”
Safety, security, proprietary -- all that.
Also, time alone in a car with Hailey?
Jay raised his eyebrows with some interest. “I can think of a few other things to do as a pair.”
She blushed slightly and gave him a withering look. “Jay--”
“I’m just saying,” he protested.
She looked around furtively. “Maybe tonight--”
“Of course tonight,” he said.
“But you keep saying you should hang out with Will,” she reminded him.
Jay rolled his eyes. It was true that he hadn’t spent much time with Will lately, but they were both busy professionals. And, honestly, Will was kind of a drag these days. It’d been bad enough talking to him about breaking up with Hannah or going out with Sabeena, or God help him, the details of his heart medication trial. And now that Will had managed to blow up his life -- again, by the way, this wasn’t new territory for his brother -- it was just tedious.
Sure, he knew Will was struggling. And he knew Will needed support to get it back together. But honestly? A lot of this was his own fault.
It would be good for him to pick himself up by the bootstraps. Will’s ego needed the check, and he was always at his best when he was focused on a meaningful project. The need to prove himself would make a difference.
It just wouldn’t make him very good company in the meantime.
And spending time with Hailey was just way more fun at the moment.
“Will’s fine,” Jay told her.
She looked dubious. “Are you sure? The last time I saw him, he looked pretty down. And not to mention exhausted.”
“Well, he’s on probation. It’s not going to be great for awhile,” Jay said. “And we’re all exhausted. Heatwave, remember?”
She inclined her head. “How could I forget?” she said. “I think I haven’t stopped sweating in a week.”
“And I’m still sure we could find better reasons for that--”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re impossible,” she said. “Do you want to go?”
“Home?” he asked.
“To follow up on my lead,” she said dryly.
“Not really,” Jay said, even as he closed his laptop and shuffled the papers around. “But we might as well. No need to drag this day out any longer than necessary.”
-o-
Yeah, the day was going to drag itself out, regardless of Jay’s work ethic, actions or intentions.
As it turned out, Hailey’s lead was good.
Too good.
They go there for an interview but end up in a shootout, chase and ultimately a series of high profile arrests that blow the case wide open. They had to spend the next several hours overseeing the processing of the scene, and by the time they got back to District, they were hot, tired and strung out on adrenaline.
But there was air conditioning.
And water.
And did Jay mention the amazing reality of air conditioning?
Sitting at his desk, it was well past the lunch hour, but he and Hailey had picked up something on the way back. Now, he could cool down, hydrate and get something in his stomach in order to survive the rest of this long day.
Across from him, Hailey smirked. “You look way too happy for a day like today.”
“That bust was epic,” he said. “I mean, crazy, sure.”
“And hot--”
“Well, it’s the worst heatwave in, like, ever,” Jay said coyly. “Haven’t you heard?”
“Hm, yeah,” Hailey said. “Someone might have mentioned it. I think my place might be without electricity, though. I just heard from one of my neighbors that it went down.”
“That’s no problem,” Jay said. “Because mine is still going strong.”
“Oh,” she quipped. “Is that an invitation?”
“It’s a requirement,” Jay said. “You’re not going to go back to a hot apartment, are you? After a long day like today? That’s, like, a recipe for heatstroke or something.”
“Or something,” she said. “You sure you don’t want to check with Will?”
“Will is fine,” Jay said. “Trust me.”
She grinned widely in reply because she did trust him -- and so much more.
-o-
Speaking of Will, Jay did have a few texts from his brother. He was whining about his apartment -- the electricity was off last night -- and apparently he’d been called out to a pileup on the interstate. It was going to be a long one, according to Will, and he’d check in with Jay later.
Sounds good, Jay replied as he put his phone away and got back to work.
And that was that, as far as Jay was concerned.
-o-
Now, Jay had high hopes for an evening with Hailey. But he did still have to survive the rest of the day. A good portion of CPD had been called to respond to the pileup Will was at, which meant the rest of the force was spread thin. That meant that Intelligence was on call a lot more than normal, and Jay barely had time for his paperwork with it all.
Not that he minded.
Paperwork was boring.
But air conditioning was nice.
It was a novel concept that just occurred to him: it might be possible to reduce crime through improving basic living conditions. It probably wasn’t a novel idea, but the way people responded to something like a heatwave certainly suggested it might be effective. Every call he went on, almost without fail, was to a place where the electricity was off or the air wasn’t working. Sure, he knew that heat could kill you in and of itself, but it also just made you insane.
He worked well past dinner, and by the time he and Hailey were able to clock out for the night, he was pretty well beat.
“We could cook,” Hailey suggested on their way out.
“And turn on the oven?” Jay asked. “No way. We’ll pick up something.”
“We picked up lunch,” Hailey reminded him.
“And it was delicious,” Jay said. “You pick. Italian or Indian?”
“Hm,” she said thoughtfully. “Mexican.”
“Burritos,” he said. “I like it.”
She smiled at him, nudging into him gently. “I like you.”
He bumped her back. “And afterward, we’ll find more pleasant ways to sweat.”
She groaned and rolled her eyes.
She did not, however, protest at all.
-o-
Jay put on his mask to go in and pick up the burritos -- along with a side of refried beans, rice and chips and queso for good measure -- and as he stood in the queue, he spared a few seconds to check his phone. He had checked it throughout the day, of course, but during work hours, on a day like today, he’d had to focus on work-related messages.
Personal stuff just got pushed back.
Especially when it was Will being Will.
As it was, his brother had called him several times in the last few hours. He was just going to his texts to see what the follow up was when his name was called. Shoving his phone back in his pocket, he collected his food, heading back out to the car to Hailey.
Because long days did end.
And Jay wanted this one to end as well as possible.
-o-
Back at his place, the electricity was still on. He had left the AC running all day. He and Hailey had a full meal, cold beers and each other.
Long days could be hard.
Sometimes, long nights could be better.
Just as things started heating up in a better way, Jay’s phone rang again. He saw Will’s name on the caller ID, and he turned it to silent as he put his attention back on the impending private heatwave where it belonged.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
A/N: Set in a post 6 world, written before watching anything with S7. Fills my natural disasters square for ”hc_bingo”
Summary: Will has a long day. Jay has a longer one.
-o-
PART ONE
PART TWO
PART THREE
It was a long day.
Now, that was probably a silly assessment. Kind of reductive. Pointless, even.
All the days working the ED were long. And they were long days in a long few years. Between pandemics, failed relationships and medical trials that Will ethically violated, everything was sort of long. He’d been fired, and then rehired, and now he felt like he was stuck in the longest probationary period in the world, trying to prove to everyone he still had a place at Med.
Trying to prove it to himself, mostly.
So, yeah, it was long.
Not to mention the fact that Chicago had been caught up in the worst heatwave to hit the Midwest in centuries. Literally, it was the hottest one on record, and the intense heat, ironically, had a snowball effect. People got hotter, and their tempers got shorter. As fuse boxes went out across the city as the power grid failed, personal fuses got lit left and right. People were angry; people were hot.
The violence spilled into the EDs, and Med had been hopping for nearly a week now while the temperatures got hotter and hotter and hotter.
So yeah, it was a long day. Just like yesterday was a long day, just like tomorrow would be another long day. The weather wasn’t supposed to turn until sometime mid next week, which meant they would have to endure longer still. While everyone else vented their frustrations in various ways, Will had no outlet. On probation, he had to pull the longest hours. He had to volunteer for every extra shift that came up. It wasn’t required, of course, but he knew how this went. If Will wanted to stay at Med, then he had to act like it. He had to pick the longest days, the hardest cases -- all of it, no reprieve.
He wasn’t sure, then, if it was a blessing or a curse that his neighborhood had been hit by the rolling blackouts. A few of them had been timed, but when the grid failed a few days ago, his power had gone down and not come back up. He figured, at least this made staying at the air conditioned hospital a little more palatable. If only he had time to eat, rest and generally take care of himself.
But beggars could not be choosers.
And Will?
Despite his many years on the job and his overall prowess as a doctor, Will was most definitely a beggar. Long days, as best he could figure, were better than no days. Still, natural disasters would be easier to mitigate if he weren’t dealing with the fallout of his personal disasters so readily. It was a little much, really.
Ultimately, Will could not control the weather.
All he could do was control himself.
He kept that focus and hoped for the best.
-o-
The best, as it turned out, was really a relative sort of thing.
He’d gone home the night before, but the oppressive heat in his apartment had made sleep impossible. He’d come back in early, thinking he could at least get some coffee made to get himself going when Maggie caught him and pulled him into a trauma.
“But I’m not even on duty yet,” he protested.
She grunted, giving him a bemused look that didn’t look bemused at all. “Tell that to the city,” she said. “I think they’ve all lost their damn minds. We’ve got another shooting.”
Will frowned, abandoning his pursuit of caffeine. “Another one?”
“If you don’t like gunshots, there’s also a kid who burned himself on a car. Oh, and a car accident,” she said. “We’ve got the whole gamut.”
Will groaned. “I’ll take the gunshot,” he muttered. “It can’t be that bad, can it?”
-o-
It could, apparently.
Will wasn’t sure why he bothered pretending otherwise. At this point in his life, all the things he’d done and been through, of course it could be that bad. In fact, he probably should have been surprised if it wasn’t.
You could even call it karma. He probably deserved this. It was probably part of his ongoing penance. Whatever happened to saying a few hail Mary’s? He should really consider going to confession again. It might help mitigate this.
The gunshot, at first, looked mostly superficial. Will thought they were going to get lucky with a through and through with the shoulder -- clean, bandage and send off with a prescription for antibiotics -- but then the guy’s pressure tanked and Will realized that the man had failed to tell them about the second gunshot wound. The one to his back that was leaking copious amounts of blood. He caught it, of course, but only a few seconds before the guy’s pressure tanked, and Will was suddenly forced to apply lifesaving measures while telling the nurse to call up to the OR for a redline.
This was crazy, but the ED was often crazy, and Will felt like this was all well under control as he got the man’s vitals to stabilize and wheeled him out of the ED alongside an OR resident to make their way to the elevators and make a quick dump. This guy would live, then, and Will could go back to losing his mind with the next patient.
Long days and whatnot.
Except this day?
Yeah, it was longer still.
They were just climbing into the elevator when the electricity flickered for the first time. The doors had closed when they blinked out a second time. Will wisely held off on pushing the buttons, and his caution was proven valuable when it went out altogether, plunging the elevator, the OR resident and Will, into silence.
“What the hell?” the resident said, and he sounded as if he couldn’t believe this was happening.
Will could believe it, though. Will believed everything at this point. If there was a disaster coming, then he might as well just position himself squarely in front of it. It was going to hit him either way.
“Generators should kick in,” Will murmured, continuing to ventilate the man by hand. He wished, suddenly, he’d brought a nurse with him, but they’d been swamped. That was why he’d bothered to make the OR transfer himself, despite being wholly overqualified.
Almost as if on cue, the lights flickered back on, and the OR resident looked relieved. Will was less relieved and more to the point. He pressed the open button on the elevator.
“But what are you doing?” the resident asked.
“Do you really want to be stuck in this elevator if they go out again?” Will asked, starting to push the gurney back out with only partial compliance from the resident. “Generator power is inconsistent, and they’ll ration it.”
“But the elevators--”
“Are not as critical as OR lights and lifesaving equipment,” Will said, directing them back into the hallway. The ED was jittery now, and Will knew that this long day was going to be a lot longer than he’d anticipated. Which was saying something. He’d anticipated it being bad.
The resident still looked vexed. “Is the hybrid OR open?”
“No, booked already,” Will said. “We got a gang banger in there from earlier, or I would have put this guy there in the first place.”
No, the resident looked distressed. “But what are we going to do?”
Will stopped, looking around and considering his options. “Well, we can take him back to an ED room. It’s not perfect, but we can pull off surgery if I can get Maggie to clear Baghdad.”
Apparently, the resident found this idea especially distressing.
“The only other option is to take the stairs,” Will said. “Or is just one floor up. We’ll need a nurse to manually ventilate, and it’d be heavy--”
The resident nodded rapidly. “The stairs. We take the stairs.”
-o-
The decision was made, and though Will had suggested it, he wasn’t sure it was the best option. He might have said that -- he technically had seniority over a resident -- but it wasn’t something he was about to take for granted. And really, the stairs were an option, and the OR was on the second floor and the guy really would be better served with an actual surgical team--
And Will wasn’t going to rock the boat. He wasn’t going to shake things up. He had stuck to having as few opinions as possible, and his whole thing? Was about being a team player. He was a valuable part of the hospital family. He had to step up, he had to work within the system.
So the stairs it was.
They recruited a nurse, took the backboard off the gurney, had Maggie call up to the OR to still expect them. He even went so far as to clear the move with Ethan, who was back as the ED Chief these days, and he said it sounded acceptable to him, given the current circumstances.
So, Will had his i’s dotted and his t’s crossed.
And up the stairs they went.
It was no easy feat, hefting an full-grown injured man up the stairs in a dark stairwell without air conditioning while a nurse tried to continue manual ventilation, but he thought they were getting there.
Until, of course, they weren’t.
They made it to the landing when the monitors blared. With the man clearly crashing, Will put him down. The nurse went to her knees to keep ventilating, and the resident was all but panicking. Will started to run the code, and realized that their window for surgery was rapidly closing. With the blood loss -- surgery had to be now.
Like, now.
Will had just enough tools on hand to get it started, but the resident had felt overwhelmed about surgery in an ED bay. He was even less keen to operate in a stairwell, and he helpfully volunteered to go get help and supplies while Will started without him.
So, you know, that was great.
Will performing emergency surgery.
Without proper equipment.
In a stairwell.
Because that was just the kind of long day he was going to have.
-o-
By the time the resident came back with a pair of nurses and proper equipment, Will had already done most of the hard work. The guy was stable, and all they had to do was close.
So, you know, it went okay.
Just long.
And expected.
And hot.
It was super hot in that stairwell. And Will hadn’t slept much the night before, and he hadn’t eaten breakfast or had his morning coffee.
Though, the idea of coffee now sounded pretty awful. The caffeine would keep him awake, sure, but the idea of roasting himself from the inside basically sounded like a choice to die slowly and painfully during the worst disaster to hit Chicago in years. People liked to talk like heatwaves weren’t that bad since they didn’t do widespread destruction, but Will would have to politely disagree. The destruction to his sanity, here, was palpable.
Probably irreversible, too.
Hot, sweaty and bloody, Will went back down to the lounge to change into scrubs that weren’t a disgusting health hazard. Now that the thought of coffee was too much to handle, he checked his watch and decided that breakfast might be a better option anyway. Nourishment -- real calories -- would keep him going even when the caffeine failed him. He was just about to sneak off when Maggie grabbed him by the arm.
“We got another one,” she said.
“But I haven’t even eaten,” he protested.
She snagged a bottle of water, handing it to him with a look of apology. “Long day,” she said.
Will grunted as he followed. “The longest.”
-o-
He took a drink of water, but there was no time for anything else. His next case was a domestic dispute, and apparently the conflict wasn’t over even though both parties were admitted to the ED. It was policy to separate them to different hospitals most of the time, but apparently most other EDs were booked solid or closed to trauma entirely. So, here Will was.
Breaking up a fight between a young girlfriend and boyfriend. The girlfriend had a badly broken wrist already. The boyfriend had a knife wound in his side. Will got them separated long enough to deposit them in separate rooms. He stitched the knife wound up first -- a flesh wound -- and then he set the arm. He was finishing up their paperwork for a quick and efficient discharge when he found them ripping each other’s clothes off in the throes of physical passion.
Ironically, it was this interaction that was harder to break up, and Will got a bloody nose for his trouble. When he finally got them discharged, he was hot, sweaty and bloody again. This time, he had to borrow a pair of scrubs. Afterward, he couldn’t find his bottle of water, but he wrangled up a new one, and he got a few swigs in when Ethan came in, looking grim faced and tired.
“Pile up on the interstate,” he said. “Pretty bad.”
Will put the bottle of water down, dread filling in his stomach. This was really a long day for everyone, then. “How many are we taking?”
“As many as we can,” Ethan said. “Most of the EDs are closed. That’s why they’re trying to do a lot of triage down onsite.”
“Okay,” Will said.
Ethan flattened his lips. “What do you think?” he asked. “You ready for a field trip?”
Will frowned. “How many people are going?”
“I can’t spare many if we’re taking most of the casualties,” Ethan said. “I thought I’d send you and two of the nurses. Are you up for it?”
The answer was no. Will was not up for it. He had barely slept. He hadn’t eaten. He had barely even sat down to think. He had had to changes his scrubs twice already, and the thought of being outside in the unrelenting heat for an undisclosed period of time? Was awful.
There was no way Will had any business saying yes.
The problem was that Will also had no business saying no.
He was the screw up. He was the one who had created disaster after disaster over the last few years. It was up to him to fix this one, to do his part. He was on probation. If he was going to earn his place back, then he had to say yes.
“Sure,” he said, grabbing the water and rummaging for his medical bag. “Who knows? The fresh air might do me good.”
-o-
He was wrong, naturally. Will was often wrong, but this time he was overwhelmingly wrong. The fresh air didn’t do anyone good because the air in Chicago was no longer fresh. The freshness had been squelched away by the suffocating humidity, and the intensity of the heat was not softened by anything resembling a breeze.
Out on the scene, in the scorching sunlight now less, it felt terrible.
It felt more than terrible.
It felt like he might actually pass out. The sun on the pavement was unrelenting, and any time he got close to a car, he actually was a risk for burning himself. Fire had set up a triage station with as much cover as they could muster, but it did little to take the edge off the worst of the conditions.
The only real way to get through it was to stay busy.
And Will stayed busy.
He stayed very busy.
Though started with triage, he was quickly called to tend the most critical patients. He performed several procedures, with direct approval from Ethan of course, and he was in constant communication with first responders and the administrative staff back at Med to make the best patient calls. He had to put more people on hold than he would have liked, but with the limited capacity of the local EDs, he was going to have to treat as many people as possible and send them off for follow up care with their family care doctors. It wasn’t ideal, but today was way past ideal.
At one point, he was called to a particularly gruesome scene. In the heart of the pileup, one driver was still stuck in his car, pinned beneath a semi. With time running out -- the man was suffering from a plethora of internal injuries, Will had to make the tough call of amputating his foot in order to make sure they got him to the hospital in time to save his life.
Obviously, performing a field amputation was never easy.
Performing it without much backup while in the middle of a heatwave on a highway?
Yeah, that was hard.
He got it done, though.
Will was seeing things through for once in his life, and he got it done.
-o-
In the heat and the chaos -- and the heat -- Will really did lose all track of time. He wasn’t sure what time it was when the scene was cleared and he hopped a ride back to Med with one of the ambulances. Sylvie Brett was in the back with him, treating a patient with mild injuries, and she gave him a keen once-over.
Will was too tired to pretend like he hadn’t noticed. “What?”
“You look flush,” she said, nodding at him.
“I’m a redhead,” Will reminded her. “It doesn’t take much.”
But Brett shook her head. “No, you look flush,” she said. “Are you getting enough water?”
That seemed like a ridiculous question. First, because Will was a doctor. He knew about basic hydration. And second, because Will couldn’t remember anything right now -- he was too damn hot.
His hesitation must have been telling. “Make sure you ease off when you get back to Med,” she said. “Hydrate.”
“Are you a doctor now?” Will quipped.
She shrugged, unfazed. “No, but I saw two firefighters go down today -- and three patrolmen. The last thing I need is for you to go down. They’d never let me back in the ED if I lost you.”
Will chuckled, but he shook his head. “I’m fine.”
“And I’m serious,” she said, prepping to move as they pulled up to a stop outside Med. “This stuff creeps up on you. Hydrate.”
-o-
He rolled his eyes and chuffed, but he couldn’t pretend like Brett didn’t have a point. He was a little lightheaded when he got right down to it, and now that his adrenaline was wearing off, he felt shaky. He changed out of his scrubs -- yes, again -- and sat down to have some water. He got about halfway through the bottle, when Maggie was at the door.
“Another one?” he asked, seeing the look on her face.
She nodded. “Another one.”
-o-
With everything, Will worked all the way through dinner. By the time he was done, his shift had long been over, but Ms. Goodwin came to him and asked if he could cover for the evening shift.
“Just for a little while,” she said. “With the crash earlier today and the power outages, we have a few staff struggling to get in. If you could cover, just for a few hours--”
Will smiled, no matter how exhausted he felt. “Of course,” he said. “Anything for the team.”
-o-
Anything.
And everything.
The string of traumas didn’t let up. In fact, when the sun started to set, people just seemed to go more crazy. It was pushing 9 when he finally thought about going home, and as tired as he was, the idea of going back to an overheated, miserable apartment without any fresh food or cold water was unappealing to say the least.
At work, he had to keep his game face on. He couldn’t show signs of weakness.
But there was one option.
He did have a brother.
Jay had already seen him through all of his other embarrassments and failures. Jay knew who he was, imperfect and flawed, and despite everything, Jay still accepted him -- loved him even.
Surely, his brother might be willing to let him crash at his place for the night. Will would take Jay’s uncomfortable used couch as long -- hell, he’d sleep on the floor -- as long as there was air conditioning.
And, you know, an ice dispenser might be a nice perk.
Unfortunately, Jay didn’t answer. Will shot him a text for his brother to call him back, and finally clocked out for the day.
A long day, he thought to himself, but it was finally over.
-o-
Until it wasn’t.
Will made his way up to the top of the parking ramp -- in more heat, by the way, which was barely stunted by the sun going down -- and when he opened his car to start it, the engine didn’t turn over.
It rumbled a little bit, grinding momentarily, before falling alarmingly silent.
He tried again, and got the same result, because of course he did.
He sat in the driver’s seat for a moment, torn between crying and screaming. Alternatively, he could just stay here and die.
It was more appealing than he might have thought.
However, he had too much to do to die. Instead, he pulled out his phone. Jay hadn’t gotten back to him, so he tried calling again.
And again.
When Jay still didn’t answer, he left another text. He considered just going over to his brother’s place, invitation be damned, and letting himself inside. But Jay had been too good to him, and really, the idea of dropping in unannounced while his brother was still figuring things out with Hailey was unappealing. And just rude, really.
Will could ask his brother for favors, but he wasn’t about to foist himself on Jay unexpectedly. Especially when he had no idea what Jay was doing.
No, Jay would get back to him when he had time.
Until then, Will would just have to make do. He’d made it this far; surely, he could finish the day.
Climbing out of his car, he trudged back to the stair to make his way to the nearest train station.
Surely.
-o-
The hospital had been hot. His car had been dead. Things on the El weren’t much better. Crowded and with poor air circulation, Will finally got out several stops early just to walk the rest of the way home. He was parched by the time he got there, and he anxiously checked his phone to see if Jay had gotten back to him.
There was no reply, though.
He considered calling again, but at this point, it would just look desperate.
Just because he was desperate didn’t mean he had to advertise it to literally everyone.
Besides, he thought with half-delusional hope, maybe his power would be back on.
However, his street was eerily dark. The windows were all open in his building, and Will knew that a long day had officially given way to a long night.
The elevator was nonoperational, and though Will only lived on the third floor, it felt like it took all his energy to climb it. He found that the simple coordination required to dig out his keys and unlocked his apartment nearly left him undone. He was officially lightheaded now, and he thought back to what Brett had told him earlier.
Hydration.
He needed to be hydrated.
He’d been drinking some water, but not enough. And his meals had been even more sporadic. Eating an apple and a bag of Skittles hardly counted.
However, inside, the situation wasn’t exactly encouraging. He’d been working so many long hours that he hadn’t had time to go to the store. Worse, anything perishable in the apartment was long since ruined. He had a box of cereal, but it was on the top shelf, and Will needed to sit down for a minute first.
He dropped his keys off on the table by the door, and rummaged around in the kitchen for anything to drink. He found a half empty bottle of water, but he was so hot that he dumped the tepid water on his head instead of drinking it.
Exhausted, he decided just to discard the shirt entirely. Pulling it off, he dumped it on the living room floor, far too tired to bother picking it up or putting it away. He checked for messages one more time before dropping his phone on the couch. He knew he needed to go back to the kitchen and get some water -- and some food -- but he wanted to get himself together first.
In the bedroom, he kicked his shoes off. He’d left the windows in the main room open, but he opened these as well. The fire escape went down from here, which was why he’d left them closed, but at this point, if someone wanted to rob him or murder him, Will was pretty sure he was happy to let them have at it.
The simple process didn’t require a huge expenditure of energy, but Will was more tired than he’d realized. Shaky on his feet, he needed to sit down.
On the bed, he focused on his breathing, but it did little to clear his head. His ears were ringing; the world was feeling fuzzy.
He blinked hard, trying to collect himself. Exhaustion. Dehydration. Malnourishment.
Will hadn’t been taking care of himself -- at all. He had an early morning ahead of him, but he needed to eat. He needed to drink.
He needed to sleep.
The dizziness gave way to a pounding headache, and Will’s stomach churned. For as hungry as he knew he was, the thought of food was suddenly off putting. He needed to relax. He needed to get himself together. He needed to go back and call Jay again. Call anyone.
It was getting hard to think. His train of thought kept diverting--
And he was tired.
Will flopped back, feeling the instant relief as he closed his eyes.
He was just so tired.
If he could rest for a moment.
If he could close his eyes for a second.
If he could breathe.
Then he might get through this after all.
-o-
He might.
Will closed his eyes, and slipped away.
He might not.
-o-
It was a long day.
For a detective on the Chicago PD, that was kind of a given. It wasn’t that all days were terrible, but most of them were pretty long. Voight didn’t run his ship any other way. You did what you had to do, and funny enough, criminals didn’t bother to abide by business hours. So, what could you do?
Except endure the long days.
And Jay was okay with that. He really was. He liked his team. He liked his job. He had issues with Voight sometimes, but it was all good.
But this weather? The heatwave to end all heatwaves?
What the hell was with that. He knew global warming was a thing, but seriously.
That made long days?
Really damn long.
-o-
And busy.
Jay hadn’t fully decided if he preferred his long days to be busy or slow, but it didn’t matter. This day was long, busy and hot. So, like, the perfect trifecta of absolute insanity.
They had one case that was ongoing, some investigation into a local drug conflict with possible ties to a few gangs. It was kind of a messy case, with lots of ins and outs, and it required tracking down a lot of random leads and taking copious statements.
And then more statements.
Did Jay mention the statements?
That was tedious, but then every time he started to get somewhere, he’d get a call. About a robbery. About a shooting. About the fact that everyone in this damn city was losing their minds. The entire unit was constantly on the move, and trying to keep track of everything was an administrative nightmare. Which meant when Jay wasn’t going all over the city trying to keep the peace, he was stuck at his desk, buried under a mountain of paperwork while the air condition puttered along, whining in protest at the constant overuse.
Jay knew how it felt.
He would whine constantly, too, if he thought anyone would notice.
They wouldn’t, though.
Not on days as long as this one.
-o-
Well, maybe one person would notice.
But that was only because Hailey loved him. Like, a lot. On days like today, it would be nice if their relationship wasn’t a private affair. He could go for some relational comfort, but instead they still had to act like things between them were strictly business. He was pretty sure Voight had figured it out already, but if this was a don’t ask, don’t tell situation, then Jay had to toe the line.
Most of the time, that was fine. It wasn’t like he needed to go making out with Hailey during a coffee break. But had he mentioned how long this stupid day was?
“Hey,” she said, rounding back toward him and sitting down at her desk across from him. “I got a lead.”
“On what?” Jay asked, glancing up from the pile of work on his desk.
“The drug case,” she said, as though that was obvious.
It wasn’t. Not with the shootings, robberies and other cases lined up in their queue. “Yeah?” he said.
“You think you want to come?” she asked. “It’d be better to do it as a pair.”
Safety, security, proprietary -- all that.
Also, time alone in a car with Hailey?
Jay raised his eyebrows with some interest. “I can think of a few other things to do as a pair.”
She blushed slightly and gave him a withering look. “Jay--”
“I’m just saying,” he protested.
She looked around furtively. “Maybe tonight--”
“Of course tonight,” he said.
“But you keep saying you should hang out with Will,” she reminded him.
Jay rolled his eyes. It was true that he hadn’t spent much time with Will lately, but they were both busy professionals. And, honestly, Will was kind of a drag these days. It’d been bad enough talking to him about breaking up with Hannah or going out with Sabeena, or God help him, the details of his heart medication trial. And now that Will had managed to blow up his life -- again, by the way, this wasn’t new territory for his brother -- it was just tedious.
Sure, he knew Will was struggling. And he knew Will needed support to get it back together. But honestly? A lot of this was his own fault.
It would be good for him to pick himself up by the bootstraps. Will’s ego needed the check, and he was always at his best when he was focused on a meaningful project. The need to prove himself would make a difference.
It just wouldn’t make him very good company in the meantime.
And spending time with Hailey was just way more fun at the moment.
“Will’s fine,” Jay told her.
She looked dubious. “Are you sure? The last time I saw him, he looked pretty down. And not to mention exhausted.”
“Well, he’s on probation. It’s not going to be great for awhile,” Jay said. “And we’re all exhausted. Heatwave, remember?”
She inclined her head. “How could I forget?” she said. “I think I haven’t stopped sweating in a week.”
“And I’m still sure we could find better reasons for that--”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re impossible,” she said. “Do you want to go?”
“Home?” he asked.
“To follow up on my lead,” she said dryly.
“Not really,” Jay said, even as he closed his laptop and shuffled the papers around. “But we might as well. No need to drag this day out any longer than necessary.”
-o-
Yeah, the day was going to drag itself out, regardless of Jay’s work ethic, actions or intentions.
As it turned out, Hailey’s lead was good.
Too good.
They go there for an interview but end up in a shootout, chase and ultimately a series of high profile arrests that blow the case wide open. They had to spend the next several hours overseeing the processing of the scene, and by the time they got back to District, they were hot, tired and strung out on adrenaline.
But there was air conditioning.
And water.
And did Jay mention the amazing reality of air conditioning?
Sitting at his desk, it was well past the lunch hour, but he and Hailey had picked up something on the way back. Now, he could cool down, hydrate and get something in his stomach in order to survive the rest of this long day.
Across from him, Hailey smirked. “You look way too happy for a day like today.”
“That bust was epic,” he said. “I mean, crazy, sure.”
“And hot--”
“Well, it’s the worst heatwave in, like, ever,” Jay said coyly. “Haven’t you heard?”
“Hm, yeah,” Hailey said. “Someone might have mentioned it. I think my place might be without electricity, though. I just heard from one of my neighbors that it went down.”
“That’s no problem,” Jay said. “Because mine is still going strong.”
“Oh,” she quipped. “Is that an invitation?”
“It’s a requirement,” Jay said. “You’re not going to go back to a hot apartment, are you? After a long day like today? That’s, like, a recipe for heatstroke or something.”
“Or something,” she said. “You sure you don’t want to check with Will?”
“Will is fine,” Jay said. “Trust me.”
She grinned widely in reply because she did trust him -- and so much more.
-o-
Speaking of Will, Jay did have a few texts from his brother. He was whining about his apartment -- the electricity was off last night -- and apparently he’d been called out to a pileup on the interstate. It was going to be a long one, according to Will, and he’d check in with Jay later.
Sounds good, Jay replied as he put his phone away and got back to work.
And that was that, as far as Jay was concerned.
-o-
Now, Jay had high hopes for an evening with Hailey. But he did still have to survive the rest of the day. A good portion of CPD had been called to respond to the pileup Will was at, which meant the rest of the force was spread thin. That meant that Intelligence was on call a lot more than normal, and Jay barely had time for his paperwork with it all.
Not that he minded.
Paperwork was boring.
But air conditioning was nice.
It was a novel concept that just occurred to him: it might be possible to reduce crime through improving basic living conditions. It probably wasn’t a novel idea, but the way people responded to something like a heatwave certainly suggested it might be effective. Every call he went on, almost without fail, was to a place where the electricity was off or the air wasn’t working. Sure, he knew that heat could kill you in and of itself, but it also just made you insane.
He worked well past dinner, and by the time he and Hailey were able to clock out for the night, he was pretty well beat.
“We could cook,” Hailey suggested on their way out.
“And turn on the oven?” Jay asked. “No way. We’ll pick up something.”
“We picked up lunch,” Hailey reminded him.
“And it was delicious,” Jay said. “You pick. Italian or Indian?”
“Hm,” she said thoughtfully. “Mexican.”
“Burritos,” he said. “I like it.”
She smiled at him, nudging into him gently. “I like you.”
He bumped her back. “And afterward, we’ll find more pleasant ways to sweat.”
She groaned and rolled her eyes.
She did not, however, protest at all.
-o-
Jay put on his mask to go in and pick up the burritos -- along with a side of refried beans, rice and chips and queso for good measure -- and as he stood in the queue, he spared a few seconds to check his phone. He had checked it throughout the day, of course, but during work hours, on a day like today, he’d had to focus on work-related messages.
Personal stuff just got pushed back.
Especially when it was Will being Will.
As it was, his brother had called him several times in the last few hours. He was just going to his texts to see what the follow up was when his name was called. Shoving his phone back in his pocket, he collected his food, heading back out to the car to Hailey.
Because long days did end.
And Jay wanted this one to end as well as possible.
-o-
Back at his place, the electricity was still on. He had left the AC running all day. He and Hailey had a full meal, cold beers and each other.
Long days could be hard.
Sometimes, long nights could be better.
Just as things started heating up in a better way, Jay’s phone rang again. He saw Will’s name on the caller ID, and he turned it to silent as he put his attention back on the impending private heatwave where it belonged.