Chicago Med/Chicago PD fic: Cold as Fear (1/5)
Title: Cold as Fear
Disclaimer: Nope, I got nothing.
A/N: set during S6, prior to the storyline with Natalie and her mom. Therefore, this is AU. No beta. Fills forced to face fear prompt for hc_bingo.
Summary: Jay and Will carpool to work. It doesn’t go very well.
PART ONE
PART TWO
PART THREE
PART FOUR
PART FIVE
-o-
Jay got the call early.
Now, Jay had always been a man of service. The army hadn’t cared about the time when something needed to be done, and honestly, the police force wasn’t much better. His hours had normalized once he’d gotten out of the uniform, but you couldn’t solve cases by watching the clock. Voight had never been big on playing by the book, so regular office hours weren’t a thing in Intelligence.
And that was fine. Jay had come to terms with that. He accepted it, embraced it, lived it.
So getting a call at 6 AM?
No problem.
When said call is from his brother?
Definitely a problem.
Surely, Jay was being a little unfair. What did it matter what the wakeup call was? And didn’t he care about his brother? His last bit of family?
But that was what made it hard. Because he knew Will. Because he knew all of Will’s best and worst traits -- and how all of those traits tended to make him an unpredictable force in his life. He was the guy who played the hero and still got himself fired. He broke up bar fights and still managed to start them. Will was just smart enough to be the most reckless bastard he’d ever met.
You’d think that him being a doctor would make that better.
It didn’t.
Add all that to the fact that Will was his last bit of family. He wasn’t stable like Mom. He wasn’t annoyingly predictable like Dad. Will could be a loose cannon who either saved the day or wrecked things, always for the best of reasons. It was true that Jay had the more dangerous line of work, and it was also true that he was criticized for his recklessness from time to time, but come on. He knew his brother far, far too well.
So to get a call at 6 AM?
After the guy hadn’t called him for weeks?
Yeah, Jay wasn’t sure he wanted to answer it.
And he knew he absolutely had no choice but to pick up.
With a sigh, he picked up the phone and put it to his ear. “Hello?”
On the other end, Will hedged politely for a moment, as Will was likely to do when he wanted to ask Jay for something. “Hey,” he said. “Sorry for calling so early--”
The guy didn’t sound sorry. A little sorry, maybe, but Jay knew the difference between polite sorry and actual sorry when it came to his brother. Will was good with formalities. He was less good at the real stuff, the nitty gritty, the long haul.
“--but I know you get up early for work,” Will continued. “And I’m kind of in need of a ride.”
Jay rolled his eyes, flinging his arm over his head as he flopped back on his pillows. “I don’t get up this early,” he snapped. Weeks of nothing but two word texts, and now he only calls because he wants something. It was typical. “And why the hell do you need a ride? On today of all days?”
It had started snowing last night, and if the sound of the wind outside was any indication, it hadn’t stopped yet. Jay hadn’t gotten up yet to survey the damage, but he’d lived in Chicago all his life. He knew when a winter storm was the real deal. This one was just shy of shutting down the city.
Not that the city ever shut down for a guy like him.
Or a guy like Will.
He could almost see the pandering inflection on Will’s face even if they were on the phone. “Today’s the problem,” he said. “This new place I’m at -- parking is a mess and it’s exposed. We’ve had a week straight of below-zero temperatures, and with this snow and ice? I barely got the door open, and the engine won’t even turn over.”
Jay shook his head in exasperation. “You grew up in Chicago,” he said. “You’re supposed to have a backup plan for the weather. Take the El.”
“I can’t with COVID restrictions at the hospital,” Will said. “And I do have a backup plan. My backup plan is my amazing, dedicated, loyal police officer brother.”
He ended with his voice going up hopefully, as if he could butter Jay into doing what they wanted like they were kids again. The problem was that it had usually worked back then.
Why the hell did it still work now? When Jay was older and knew so much better?
Damn it.
He stifled the curse and closed his eyes. “Seriously?”
“Doctors don’t get snow days,” Will cajoled. “Come on.”
Jay opened his eyes with a pointed glare. “Yeah, cops don’t either,” he snapped back. “Don’t play the who’s-job-is-more-important game.”
“I would never,” Will said, even though he 100 percent, totally would. “I know that you have to go into work just like I do, which is also why I knew you were exactly the right person to call since you would already be out.”
Jay huffed as he sat up. “I’ll be over in 30 minutes,” he muttered with a shake of his head. “That means you’re downstairs, waiting outside the building--”
“It’s, like, below zero!” Will started to protest.
“And you’re bumming a ride off me,” Jay said tersely. “Keep complaining, and you’ll be walking in that below zero weather.”
Will, wisely, relented. “Okay, okay,” he said. “I’ll be downstairs, waiting outside in 30 minutes.”
“Fine,” Jay said, grumpily getting out of the bed. “See you then.”
“Great,” Will said, far too enthusiastic for 6 AM on the snowiest and coldest week in years. “You’re still my hero!”
“Shut up,” Jay said, hanging up the phone. He threw it on the bed and rubbed a hand over his face with a groan.
He could tell already: this was going to be a hell of a day.
-o-
He’d known the weather was bad, but he hadn’t known just how bad it was. The snow hadn’t just continued. It had gotten quite a bit worse. Schools were canceled, and the DOT was advising people to stay at home when possible.
That was great. Really.
If only Jay was able to actually stay at home.
He could take some solace in the idea that other people might at least be scared off by the weather. The cold kept a lot of people at home. The snow would keep even more. At least if he was the only crazy asshole in a car, the ride might be less perilous. Fewer people to hit, and all.
Jay took a short shower, finding that the hot water wasn’t hot enough. He grabbed a quick breakfast and poured himself some coffee to go. He’d like to take more time with things, but he’d told Will 30 minutes. In this weather, the short commute to his brother’s place was going to take twice as long. As much as he enjoyed the thought of his brother standing outside in the cold a little longer, Will would be a pain in the ass if he were late.
Well, more of a pain in the ass. That was sort of his perpetual state, but still. Jay didn’t need to give him cause, because the bastard could be smug when he saw fit.
Even with covered parking, his car was sluggish to start that morning. The temperatures had been arctic for nearly a week now, and it had taken a toll on everything. Living in the city during the pandemic was hard enough. Getting through it during one of the coldest snaps in years just made things extra special.
His car finally started, and when Jay managed to defrost the windows enough to drive safely, he pulled out from the ramp. On the street, the cold was the least of his concerns. The rapidly falling snow was going to make this trip really interesting, to say the least.
Because his job wasn’t dangerous enough already. Why not throw in subzero snowstorms into the mix?
He drove slowly, exercising caution and restraint as he navigated the streets around his house. The side streets were by far the worst, receiving the least care and attention, but the major thoroughfares were at least passable. Traffic was light, but it didn’t take much on a day like this.
He rolled up to Will’s apartment with just a few minutes to spare. It was just enough time to park and look thoroughly exasperated while he waited from his brother to make his way down the stairs and out the front. He ducked through the snow, making it to the car at a brisk pace. When he sat down, snow flaked off his hair and he made a sufficient scene for Jay to glare at him.
“It’s cold outside!” Will protested.
“Yeah, I’ve been sitting out here waiting for you,” Jay pointed out. “I know.”
Will brushed the snow off his coat onto the floor. “You’ve been in a heated car.”
“Which you are covering with your snow,” Jay said.
“There’s not a lot of other options,” Will said. He nodded to the window and the weather outside. “I couldn’t avoid it.”
Jay huffed, putting the car into gear as he warily pulled away from the curb. “You were late.”
“No, you were early,” Will said. “I was right on time.”
“Whatever,” Jay muttered. He made it to the corner, braking early to make sure they stopped in time.
“I thought you said you were okay with this,” Will said, giving him a pointed look.
“You didn’t give me a lot of options,” Jay returned. “You never do.”
Will scoffed, as if the truth offended him. As if they both didn’t know that this was exactly how this story went. Jay played steady and reliable while Will swooped in and out as it suited him. “My car wouldn’t start!”
“We live in Chicago. It’s cold in the winter,” Jay said, taking the first turn carefully. “You have to learn to figure it out.”
“I am figuring it out,” Will said. “Seriously, man. What’s your deal this morning?”
What was his deal this morning?
The weather?
The early hour?
The unexpected carpooling?
The never-ending pandemic?
Or all of it -- combined with the years of things he’d never said to his brother, all coming to a head at the worst time possible.
There was enough to worry about in this world. He didn’t like reminders that his brother was still one of those things.
It was easier when things were normal. When they got together for drinks, when there were no quarantine protocols. When his brother was an actual presence in his life and not a name on his contact list.
See, he and Will got along okay when they were together. When Will was AWOL, then Jay remembered how much of his life he’d spent staring after his brother as he walked away.
“It’s just like you, is all,” Jay said pointedly. He jutted his chin out. It was early; he hadn’t had enough caffeine. It was cold and snowy and sometimes his brother made things sound too easy at the expense of everyone else.
And sometimes he was just in a bad mood.
And sometimes Will just knew how to make it worse.
Brothers, and all.
Through the good, the bad and the purposefully annoying.
Will frowned, brow furrowed. “What’s like me?”
“Being inconsistent,” Jay said. He gave his brother a sideways look. “Not following through.”
Will immediately groaned, tilting his head back with exasperation. “I think that criticism is getting a little old by now,” he said. “I mean, I have been in Chicago for a long time now.”
The point might have been valid, but Jay was driving his brother through slush and wind on a freezing morning. He didn’t feel like ceding the point either way. And there was consistency, then there was consistency. Will didn’t get the difference. That was part of the never ending problem.
Things had been cold between them for years.
Will wasn’t exactly doing his part to keep them close.
Six AM carpooling included.
“Sure, but look at the rest of it,” he said, because he was a cop. He could work the evidence. “One day, you’re getting sued; the next, you’re the poster boy. You’re getting promotions; you’re getting passed over. And don’t even get me started on the girlfriends.”
Will’s mouth dropped open. He looked genuinely shocked in the passenger’s seat. “Are you being serious with me right now?”
“What?” Jay asked, shrugging his shoulders indifferently. He’d found the weak spot and he knew it. Will had professional integrity well enough even under duress, but ever since Natalie, his personal life had left them both unsure. “You finally keep a job for more than a year, but you’ve still got a cycle of girlfriends. You’re not even seeing anyone now, are you?”
“Sabeena,” Will countered.
Jay made a face. “You don’t even know where you two stand,” he said with a petty gripe.
Tellingly, Will didn’t deny it.
“You mean you think my car not starting is because I don’t have a girlfriend?” Will asked, sounding downright incredulous now. “Really?”
“I’m just saying you’re the kind of guy who needs a stabilizing influence,” Jay said. “I mean, I’ve seen you at your best--”
Will scoffed. “Which was?”
Jay opened his mouth, but finally thought better of it.
He didn’t need to say it anyway. They both already knew.
Will’s mouth dropped open in response once more. Somehow, it was even more dramatic this time. “You mean when I was with Natalie?”
“I didn’t say it,” Jay said, keeping his eyes on the road this time. The road conditions were bad enough; that was probably where they belonged. Plus, it was a convenient out so he didn’t have to make eye contact while jabbing his brother below the belt.
“No, but you implied it,” Will said. There was a note of hurt in his voice. “You actually think I can’t be a functional adult on my own?”
“I’m just saying you’re a better functional adult when you’re with another functional adult,” Jay said. He glanced at his brother again, this time feeling a little guilty. His brother deserved a hard time, but it was possible that Jay had overstepped -- a little. He softened his look. “That’s not so bad.”
“Yeah, I think it is,” Will said. He huffed a little, setting his jaw and crossing his arms over his chest as he looked out at the road too.
Jay sighed. So maybe it was possible he’d overstepped a lot. He’d clearly offended his brother, and he wasn’t sorry in the sense that he was spewing nonsense -- to the contrary, he thought he was dead on. Will had always been strong willed, impulsive and kind of a moron when you got right down to it. He had a habit of making all the wrong choices for what he deemed to be the right reasons, but it didn’t matter. That was why he’d picked a school so far away. That was why he’d never bothered to come home when their mom was sick. That was why he was Will and Jay was Jay.
True, he’d seen his brother change a lot since moving back to Chicago, and things were good between them now. But Will was still Will.
And Jay could tell him all day long that he was an idiot, but he didn’t tend to listen unless he was head over heels in love.
For all that Will had trained his mind, he still acted with his gut. Always had, probably always would. It would be his greatest strength and probably his greatest weakness, and Jay had no intention of admitting how alike they could be sometimes.
And this wasn’t about Will’s virtues. This was about the cold pit in Jay’s gut whenever Will’s number showed up on his caller ID.
“You were just the happiest when you were with her,” Jay said, trying to soften it a little more. “I think you know that better than I do.”
“Natalie and I were no good for each other,” Will replied quickly, the same canned answer he’d been using for a year now. “All we did was hurt each other.”
“Because you went on an undercover sting operation, and she had a TBI,” Jay reminded him. He gave his brother a purposeful sideways look. “Pretty sure those are extenuating circumstances that hurt everyone, man.”
“She told me to get out of her life,” Will said, almost insisting now. “She’s moved on.”
It was Jay’s turn to be incredulous. “She wanted you back, asshole,” he snorted. “She moved on because you said no.”
Will grew silent at that, lips thin and face drawn. It was something he’d thought about, clearly. It also wasn’t something he’d come to any conclusions on.
And whatever.
It wasn’t any of Jay’s business anyway.
It wasn’t.
Growing quiet, Jay looked back to the road. It was getting hard to see the center line. The windshield wipers were going furiously as they turned down the street with the river, and the dull, squeaking sound filled the void between them.
He shook his head, feeling stupid. He glanced at his brother, who was all but sulking in the passenger’s seat, and Jay took pity on him. “It’s not a big deal, giving you a ride,” he said, feeling a little exasperated in return now. “But I don’t think you’re happy, man. Doing what you’re doing. Dating paramedics and messing around with your trial partner. Moving in with recovering addicts.”
“That’s not--” Will was quick to protest in reference to Hannah.
Jay waved a hand in the air to cut him off before putting it back on the wheel again to stabilize the car in the accumulating slush. “I’m not judging her -- or you, okay? Addiction is an illness; I got it. It doesn’t make you a bad person, I know.”
Will seemed only marginally mollified.
Jay dared to go on anyway, because Will was in danger of missing his more salient point. “It’s just -- I know things aren’t going the way you want. With the promotion. With your fellow docs. Even the trial -- you’re always on edge about it, like you’re waiting for the other shoe to fall.”
“And you think I blew it when I let Natalie go,” Will concluded for him. “That it all went downhill when I turned her down.”
Jay looked at him, wondering if his brother would admit it yet. Will’s eyes were back on the road, and he was sitting rigidly in his seat. “I’m just wondering if you think about it. You know. Natalie.”
Will shook his head, gaze going off out his window where the snow was falling frenetically. He let out a long, slow breath. “Of course I think about it,” he admitted. His voice was quiet, hard to hear over the sound of the tires over the snow. “But I know it’s been too long. Even if we could go back. It’s like the moment’s past us already.”
Will sounded wistful, and there was probably something to that. There was probably a lot to that. Regret, hurt, unspoken feelings -- all of it. It was evidence that Jay was on the right tact here.
The problem was that Jay only had so much tolerance for this kind of thing. It was Will’s life to lead, and Jay wasn’t about to go interfering in it. What Will did with his love life was really his business.
Besides, stable girlfriend or no stable girlfriend, Will was still his idiot brother. There was no getting around that. Even being with Natalie hadn’t mitigated his brother’s propensity to make the absolute worst choices for the best reasons. Will had always been impossible when it came to his impulses. There was no way he’d listen to Jay even if he did have a point.
It didn’t really matter, anyway. It wasn’t about being right or wrong. It was about this stuff, the two of them. It was about emergency carpooling in a snowstorm, calling each other up to watch the game. Jay wasn’t about to admit it or anything, but he was glad his brother was back. It felt kind of good, to have someone crash on his couch and call him up for a ride. Someone to trust.
Someone who trusted him.
They’d never been great at the family thing, but that was a moment that hadn’t passed them at the very least. Jay had some solace in that.
There was, however, no solace in the weather.
“You couldn’t have picked a better day to carpool?” he asked, trying to up his windshield wipers only to find them on high already. “I mean, seriously.”
“That’s Chicago for you,” Will agreed in commiseration. “Freezing temperatures, snow and wind. The perfect winter trifecta.”
Jay huffed in reply, leaning closer to get a better look out the windshield. Conditions had been bad when he set out this morning to pick his brother up. They had only gotten worse -- with no sign of it letting up anytime soon. He imagined that teachers were at home, still snug in their pajamas. White collar workers were logging in remotely. But he and Will were on the front lines. They didn’t get snow days.
Safety was a funny thing. He had to put his own in jeopardy to afford it to anyone else.
For all their differences, that was at least one thing he and Will could understand together.
“You should take the road down by the river,” Will advised him, leaning forward as well through the onslaught of white. “It’s a more major thoroughfare. It’ll get plowed first.”
“Sure, and be more heavily traveled,” Jay pointed out, even as he slowed down to make the necessary lane change.
“This bad out, at least there aren’t too many people out,” Will said.
Jay had been working this city too long to put much faith in people, but he didn’t spare the attention it took to disagree. His tires ground over the snow, nearly locking on the ice as he worked the brake. He slowed down as much as he could in order to navigate the turn, watching his mirrors carefully to make sure some asshole wasn’t coming up on his tail. The last thing he needed was to start off his morning with a wreck.
If for no other reason then he’d never live it down.
Making his way down the next block, Jay slowed down even more. They turned onto a road by the river, and while traffic was still sparse, it was definitely there. Jay tried to keep his bearing through the falling snow, aware of the vehicle several car lengths ahead starting to change lanes. He kept the distance between them, but with road conditions being what they were, Jay knew it wouldn’t take much to close that gap.
To think, everyone at the district thought he was reckless.
Not even.
Well, not reckless in some ways. In the line of duty, he had some inherent weaknesses. He stole a glance at his brother and remembered another one. Because he had been a good brother to pick Will up.
He wasn’t that good of a brother, though.
If Natalie was off the table, then Jay would go with the next best thing. “So how’s Sabeena?” he asked pointedly. “Why didn’t you call her to carpool?”
This time, Will looked a little embarrassed. Jay was hitting all the hot buttons this morning, it seemed.
Another car turned into traffic ahead of them, the movements jerky and uneven. Jay applied the brake cautiously to give himself more space. The car in front of him did the same.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I could have, I guess.”
The car that had pulled out changed lanes, moving to the center. Jay spared his brother a sideways look. “But?”
“But I didn’t,” Will said abruptly. “I don’t know. Sometimes it seems good, fun. But other times, I’m not even sure what we’re doing. It would help if she didn’t flirt with everything that moves.”
Jay chuckled at that. “It can’t be so bad.”
“She’s been hanging out with Ethan,” Will told him pointedly.
“So?” Jay asked. “Doctors are friendly with each other, right?”
“Chess,” Will said. “They were playing chess.”
Jay gave him a look, nose turned up. “Okay, so that is a little pretentious,” he admitted. “And weird. Why are you dating a girl that plays chess?”
Will shook his head, looking a little exasperated. “Honestly, there are times I don’t know for sure.”
In front of them, the car in the middle lane swerved again. It caught a patch of ice, dancing precariously all over the road. This far back, Jay had plenty of time to compensate. The car between them, however, wasn’t so lucky.
Natural instinct was to slam on the brakes as the car skidded out of control. It spun, slamming at a gaining speed into the other car. Jay pumped the brakes purposefully to keep his own car in check, and Will instinctively braced himself against the dash, face going white while the accident unfolded.
It was all adrenaline now. Jay had been a soldier first; he was a cop now. He knew what it was in the heat of battle.
Or in the subzero cold of winter.
It was about control and self awareness.
That was why some people survived -- and others didn’t.
They were slowing, brakes grinding, but in front of them, the scene was unfolding at a much faster pace. The collision spun the two cars, and they collided again, this time even harder than before. The offending car ended up in the right direction, still in its lane of traffic. After wobbling, it righted itself and just kept driving, fleeing at a reckless pace.
The other car, however, was less fortunate with its momentum. It veered to the side, sliding badly on the snow and ice that had accumulated on the roadway. For a second, it looked like the driver was trying to recover, but by then, the speed and the ice were too much. As the offending car careened away, the second car jumped the curb, spinning out onto the frozen river.
Next to him, Will swore. Jay brought his car to a stop at the side of the road, turning on his emergency lights for good measure. In these conditions, it probably wouldn't help much, but it was better than nothing. He was reaching for his phone while Will already had his door open and had stepped out into the snow.
“Will, just hang on!” he yelled over the sound of slowed traffic behind them and the whining of the wind against his face. “Will--”
His brother wasn’t listening, and the emergency operator picked up. He locked his eyes beyond Will to the car. It was hard to see the line of the river, but that far out, Jay knew the car had to be on the thinnest part of the ice. It was holding -- for now -- but time wasn’t on their side.
Fortunately, while most people got freaked out on an emergency phone call, this was all old hat to Jay. He barked out his location, requested fire and ambulance, and provided a concise picture of the scene. “Two victims, in a car, out on the river,” he said, starting his way over the shoulder and down the embankment toward the river. “The ice is holding but I don’t know for how long.”
“Detective, if you can stay on the line--” the operator started.
And Jay wasn’t really listening anymore. He wasn’t great with orders under ideal circumstances. Will had already made it out to the car -- out onto the ice without checking its stability, of course -- and Jay wasn’t going to waste time repeating himself.
“I’m going to start securing the scene,” Jay said. “Just hurry with the rescue team!”
With that, he hung up, hastily shoving the phone into his pocket. The ground beneath him was slick, and his feet nearly splayed out to the side when he hit the ice of the river. Skidding, he fumbled for his balance. The ice remained steady beneath him, though it wasn’t clear to him how thick or stable the situation actually was.
Normally, he’d like to use a bit more restraint -- which, yes, he appreciated the irony -- but that car was already out there.
Worse, Will was already at the driver’s side door.
“Will!” he called out as he neared. He had to move carefully to watch his footing, and he was too aware of the way the ice started to shift beneath his feet. Something creaked, a groan that dissipated in the wind, and Jay started to get a really bad feeling about this. “Will!”
His calls went mostly unheeded. It wasn’t until he got there, next to Will outside the driver’s door that his brother acknowledged him at all. “The door’s jammed!”
Jay spared the door a glance -- it was badly bent in a few key spots, the front of the car badly out of alignment -- and then looked at Will. “And this ice is unstable!”
“All the more reason to move quickly!” Will said. “There are two people inside -- we need to get them out.”
Will had the medical know-how, but Jay had been at a lot more accidents on the scene. While normal protocol was to keep people where they were, that only applied when conditions were safe. Usually, safety had more to do with gas leaks and fires after a car accident. Admittedly, this whole precarious frozen river thing was a new one.
Through a quick evaluation, he decided that his brother’s judgement -- while inherently sketchy -- was warranted here.
“Okay,” he said. Their eye contact was strained with the force of the wind and the onslaught of icy snow. “You stay here, work on the driver’s door. I’ll get the passenger.”
Will nodded, moving back to the driver’s door while Jay took hurried steps around the back of the car. He slipped, trying to catch himself on the trunk while he skidded. He hit hard on his knee, and though the reverberation hurt, the subtle sound of cracking was more disconcerting.
For a horrible moment, he thought the whole thing might go. Two seconds later, when he was still on solid ground, he concluded that he had gotten lucky -- for now. There was no guarantee that such luck would last long.
He just had to hope it would last long enough.
Back on his feet, he used the car to balance himself the rest of the way around. He felt unstable on his feet, but at this point, he wasn’t sure if that was his slippery gait, his anxious nerves or the ice starting to give way beneath his feet.
Probably a little of all three.
By the time he reached the passenger’s side door, there was a woman visibly trying to claw her way out. Jay helped by opening the door -- this side swung open with relative ease -- and the woman half fell out the opening. Jay caught her, but her forward momentum and the slick surface made it impossible to keep his balance. They both crashed to the ice, and Jay heard it shudder with even more force this time.
The woman, however, didn’t even seem to notice. Frantically, she tried to get up, slipping down promptly. Only when Jay got his feet was he able to get her up and steady her.
He caught her, bracing her as best he could against the snow and cold. “Hey, hey,” he said, bringing her attention on him despite their current circumstances. When panicking, people needed something to focus on in order to calm down. A human connection could restore sanity when things were tough. As much as Jay wanted to get her the hell off this ice, he knew he’d never pull it off without her help. “What’s your name?”
She was about Jay’s age, maybe a little younger. White, average build, nondescript. There was a bleeding wound on her head, and she was definitely dazed, but when she looked at Jay, there was coherency in her eyes. “Jessie,” she said, pausing to gasp on a cry. Her breathing was rushed and stunted, tears streaking down her cheeks. “I’m Jessie.”
She was talking, so that was a start. “Okay, Jessie, I want you to stay with me,” he said, leaning down to try to coax her gaze back on him and not on the car. He didn’t know how much she realized yet. A car accident was traumatic enough for most people. She probably hadn’t fully grasped where they’d landed. He kept his hands on her arms to direct her attention away from the scene. “I’m a cop, okay? And my brother over there is a doctor. We’re going to help you.”
Calm and controlled as he was, it wasn’t enough. Jessie turned back, pulling against his grip. “Jason!” she called, voice starting to pitch as she struggled to get free. “Jason!”
Frantic as she was, Jessie was in no state to help out in the rescue of the driver. No, when responding to an emergency situation, the key was to secure the area first. That meant moving victims and witnesses clear.
Even when they weren’t very cooperative.
He didn’t ease his grip, forcibly turning the woman back toward him and started to walk her around. “Who’s Jason?” he asked, guiding her, step-by-step around the vehicle toward more stable ground.
Jessie cooperated, but only just. “My husband,” she said, straining to look back toward the driver’s door. “Jason!”
As they rounded, Will stepped away from the door he was working on, looking flushed. “The door’s jammed,” he said to Jay, but he quickly looked to Jessie. “How are you doing? Did you hit your head?”
Jessie’s breathing had turned into startled gasps now. “Um, a little, I don’t know,” she stammered. “Jason--”
Jay was pretty good in a crisis.
It turned out, so was his brother.
Will bent down, looking Jessie eye to eye as he reached up to palpate the cut on her head. “Does anything hurt? Your chest? Back?”
Jessie, however, paid about as much attention to Will as she did to Jay. She was still straining against Jay’s grip, trying to see around Will. “Jason!”
Will struggled in his personal relationships, and his coping skills were about as good as his rational decision making under duress. But there were moments -- fleeting moments -- when Jay saw just what kind of professional his brother was. “We’re going to get Jason out in just a moment,” he assured her, leaning down to examine the rest of her body. “But let’s start by making sure you’re okay.”
Jessie turned to Will in distress. “I’m fine!” she said. “I hit my head on the window. My chest feels bruised from the seatbelt,” she said. “But Jason got it worse!”
In the snow, Jay couldn’t see anything to contradict her. Will had made a quick assessment, looking for signs of blood on her torso or legs and coming up with nothing. He stood back up, looking over Jessie’s head to Jay. “Can you take her?” he asked. His voice was a little hard to hear in the storm, and the wind was whipping around them with renewed intensity. “I can’t see anything too problematic here, but she’s going to need a much more thorough assessment.”
“Yeah,” Jay said. “But we have to get off this ice -- all of us. It’s frozen, but with the weight of the car--”
Will wasn’t even listening. He was leaning down again to talk to the woman. “Jessie, I want you to go with Jay here. He’s going to get you to safety.”
She was starting to sob now, and Jay could feel her tremble as fresh blood leaked down the side of her face. “You’ll help Jason?”
Will helped her for several paces, in sync with Jay. They moved slowly and carefully over the patches of snow and ice until they had cleared the edge of the frozen river to the incline of the bank. “We will, okay?” Will assured her, using one hand to brace himself against the bank as Jay climbed ahead of them. He reached back to help Jessie up, and Will guided her up. “I’m going to go help him right now, okay? Just go with Jay.”
Jay knew Will, and he knew his older brother could be full of crap when he wanted to be. But having him move back to Chicago, seeing him in action as an actual doctor -- well, there was no way around it. His brother knew what he was doing.
He was still a moron, mind you.
But he was a pretty damn good doctor.
Those things didn’t have to be mutually exclusive, apparently.
“Come on,” he said, gently pulling Jessie away up the bank to more even ground. The wind blasted them hard, and snow dusted across Jessie’s face even as Jay blinked it out of his own eyes. “Let’s get somewhere a little safer.”
Jessie slipped a few times moving up, but Jay managed to get her to the side of the road. He kept clear of the roadway as best he could, aware of the uptick in traffic now that the hour was getting later. There was another car pulled over -- not the asshole who started this, Jay noted bitterly -- but the young man had stopped out of his car, phone to his ear, looking anxious as Jay approached.
“I saw the whole thing!” the kid said. “Is she okay?”
Jay didn’t bother to explain the situation, and he didn’t bother to ask. This kid had stopped, and if he thought he was getting away with rubbernecking, he was wrong. “I need you to sit with her, keep her still and calm until help arrives,” he ordered.
The kid complied, taking Jessie by the arm.
“Off the roadway -- in these conditions--”
“Yeah, yeah,” the kid said. “But the car--”
“I’m a cop; I’m taking care of it,” Jay barked. “Sit tight. Backup is on its way.”
The kid might have had questions, but Jay didn’t have time for answers. Jessie was still crying, calling after him for her husband. Jay had to focus, though, slipping his way back down the embankment, feeling the biting cold against the exposed skin of his face. If possible, conditions were worsening. The storm wasn’t relenting, and the temperatures had stayed stubbornly cold.
His feet had trouble getting traction. He wiped out on his ass when he hit the river bed, and he heard something whine. He thought for a moment it could be the wind; he told himself, for his own sanity, it had to be the wind.
Hastily, he got his footing again, easing his way back across the ice where the car was positioned in the middle of the frozen waterway. Will was still there, jerking at the door. The metal creaked, but didn’t give, and Will slipped as well in his efforts to pry it open.
He wasn’t in time to catch his brother, but he was close enough to hear the impact. Over the road of the wind, the nuances were hard to distinguish, but Jay’s instincts were pretty good with these kinds of things. The force of the impact; the creaking whine.
Will scrambled back to his feet.
The sound lurched again, and Jay knew it wasn’t just the wind off the lake or the force of the snow as it whipped around his ears.
The ice.
This whole thing was going -- and it was going soon.
“Hey!” he said, coming up alongside his brother. He lifted his voice louder so his brother couldn’t conveniently ignore him, as he was likely to do. “Will!”
All the same, Will predictably ignored him. In doctor mode, it was hard to say if it was a conscious choice or just his brother’s unrelenting focus on the job. Either way, it was going to be a problem.
Still, for all that his brother was an asshole, Jay could be stubborn, too. He wasn’t some shrinking violet here, and he could hold his own with anyone -- especially Will. He reached out, grabbing Will by the arm, medicine be damned. “Will! We got to go!”
Will turned, face set and determined. He really was in full-on doctor mode now, which probably was to be expected. But it sure as hell wasn’t going to make this any easier. “This man has likely spinal injuries. I have to stabilize him--”
Jay didn’t waste time rolling his eyes. They could have their pissing match over priorities later. When they were both on stable ground, and Jay could win fair and square in the debate over which one took precedence: medical procedures or security at the scene. “And he’ll be a lot worse off if he falls into a freezing river,” he pointed out, because one of them had to have common sense, and it sure as hell wasn’t going to be the red-headed idiot who bummed a ride to work. “The ice can’t take the weight much longer. It’s going to go.”
Will, the bastard that he was, hardly seemed to hear him. “I just need another minute.”
“Will, we may not have another minute!” Jay yelled, trying not to notice as the ice creaked yet again. This time, the car visibly shifted. There was no pretending; there was no time to waste. “Will--”
Will was an idiot, but that damn medical school had to count for something. He sobered quickly, going a little pale. “Then help me get him out,” he said.
All things considered, it was an acceptable compromise. They both had taken oaths to serve and protect and whatnot, so it wasn’t like Jay was set to let this guy kick it. Protect and serve; it was kind of a thing.
“This side is jammed, we’ll never get him out,” Will said, already making his way around to the far end of the car without waiting for feedback. He raised his voice so Jay could hear him. “But I’ll need you to stay there, help him maneuver him!”
That sounded like a terrible idea, honestly -- to go farther out onto the ice that was about to break -- but it wasn’t like Will was listening to him anyway. The best Jay could hope for was to help get this guy out and then ream Will out for being a pisspoor first responder later.
He leaned down, prying the door open a little more to give him better access. The man was conscious, but Jay doubted he was coherent. Head wounds were always bloody messes, but this one looked bloodier than normal, and the guy was heaving for air, back pressed against the seat with a stricken look on his face.
Spinal injuries, head injuries -- Jay just knew they had to get out. Now. “Just hang on, man,” Jay said, not sure if it was okay to pat the guy on the arm. “We’re taking care of you.”
The man didn’t seem to hear him, and he started to wheeze instead. On the other side, Will appeared in the passenger’s seat. He hastily unbuckled the seatbelt for the guy. “Easy, easy,” Will coached, and he sounded a lot more convincing than Jay had. “We got you.”
Then, Will looked across to Jay.
“Okay, I need you to support his neck and head while I move him,” Will instructed, positioning himself farther in the car, hands moving to the guy’s upper body. “Here--”
“You want me to--?”
“Right here, head and neck,” Will said, moving Jay’s hands to the right position. “Keep him as steady as you can while I move him out.”
Jay complied, and the man cried out as Will started moving him. Jay flinched, but he didn’t dare move. Time was of the essence here. “Will?”
“Move with us,” Will said, coaxing them farther across the car seat. Jay had to lean into the car to provide the necessary support.
Jay could feel his heart pounding. The wind was whipping outside, the cold gusts of air impossible to escape.
“Steady, steady, we need to be very careful moving him,” Will said, as if he was oblivious to their surroundings. “I’m going to scoot him closer to him, and then you’re going to have to hand him off to me.”
“But how--”
“Just do your best,” Will said, already moving the guy.
Questions abounded, but there was nothing to be done for it. His brother the doctor was shoving a badly injured man with possible spinal injuries at him, and Jay just had to roll with it. He had little experience as a medic -- first aid training had been little more than applying pressure and keeping your cool -- but he was pretty good at following orders in a pinch.
The progress was steady -- but slow.
Too slow.
Jay had always been better at multitasking than Will, who’d always been prone to tunnel vision. As a result, Will was being all ED doc right now, eyes on the patient.
It was up to Jay to have any semblance of common sense.
Case in point: the conditions. The weather was still bad. The ice was worse.
The car shifts again, louder cracks. “Will, you got to get out of there! This ice is going!”
“Just a minute!” Will said, guiding the man out. “We’re almost there!”
The man slipped out onto the ice, and Will scurried backward to compensate, bracing the man more than himself by a ways. Somehow, Will kept his feet, pressing the man close to his chest while he slipped across the surface of the whited out ice.
Jay was running around the back end of the car to meet them, but the ice cracked again. This time, the sound was loud enough to split the storm. Jay yelped, stumbling back, and he saw Will do the same. “Will! Get out of there!” he yelled.
But it was too late. Will was supporting the guy’s weight, and they made a move around the back of the car, where Jay stood with an outstretched hand. But before Will could take it, the ice cracked open wide. The car was swallowed whole, and Jay was thrown backward. Farther out on the ice, Will had nowhere to go. He yanked backward fast enough to avoid being caught up in the car, but the ice beneath him split as well. Within a second, a horrible, clear second, Will and the guy had slipped into the water.
And for another second, even more horrible than the first, Jay forgot all about his composure under fire as a trained first responder. Okay? He forgot about his combat training. He forgot about his police experience. For that second, he was just a brother watching Will go into the freezing water, knowing just how bad it was.
It was bad, okay?
The snow, the wind, the cold, the car, the shock.
It was really bad.
“Will!” he heard his own voice scream, sounding hoarse and distant across the winter landscape.
He was answered with a splash, and he realized that the second had passed.
Jay wasn’t some innocent bystander, after all. He was a trained first responder. He did have combat experience. And if he could pull out all the stops for total strangers, then you sure as hell better believe he could do it for his brother.
Within another second, he was running forward. Cognizant of the ice, he dropped low, pushing his way along the surface to the open gash where the water was still sloshing. The car was sinking rapidly out of view, and just like that, Will bobbed back above the surface.
Will gasped raggedly, spluttering badly. His red hair was plastered to his head, and he rocked back, yanking the man up with him. They bobbed several times before Will seemed to settle them on the surface, breathing heavily with the man on top of his chest.
“Will!” he called again, more directed this time. He reached forward, grasping at the water to try to bring his brother closer. He missed once, hand splashing into the icy river, but the second time he snagged the guy’s arm. With some work, he was able to bring them both closer to the ledge.
“Jay,” Will said, gurgling a little as the weight of the man pushed him back under. Jay struggled to keep them both up, the weight of their winter coats threatening to pull them both down. “Take him--”
Jay tried to comply, but their laborious efforts to get the man out didn’t seem to be working. “I need you to work with me,” Jay gritted out. He could hear commotion behind him, but this far out on the ice, he knew no one else could risk coming out. “Will, you need to help.”
Will seemed to make some effort, the guy floating closer to Jay, giving him some ability to wrap his arms around him better. He reached out, trying to bring Will closer, too.
With this task, Will was less helpful. Not that his brother was trying to be difficult, but it was taking too long. Will’s response times were getting slow, and Jay realized he was taking on most of the guy’s weight.
Fine, Jay thought pragmatically. He’d get the guy out, then he’d haul his brother’s ass out after him. With a grunt, he heaved the guy up. The ledge of ice cracked beneath him, giving way a little. Jay had to scramble back before his upper body crashed in, and as he frantically scooted backward, he was able to lift the man out and up onto the solid ice.
Only when he looked back did he realize that Will had helped him push the whole time.
With one arm on the man, keeping him steady, Jay reached back out to his brother. “Come on, swim closer,” he said. “I can get you out.”
Will was flagging now. His eyes were open, but the lids were drooping. Ice was forming on the curls of his hair. “No, get him -- get him out--”
He was cut off, gulping water as his head dipped momentarily below the surface.
Jay reached out, but his brother was too far away now. The ice shelf had been too badly damaged; he couldn’t reach. “Will, I need you to swim--”
Will, though barely with his head over the water, just shook his head. “Get him out!”
Jay hesitated. Serve and protect. Serve and protect. The mantra in his head didn’t provide the grounding he needed. Because to serve and protect -- that included family.
But it didn’t preference them.
Damn it.
That was the rub, wasn’t it? Jay was a professional. This was his job. Hell, it was Will’s job, too, and emotions didn’t have a place in it. Even when he really, really wanted them to.
Clearly, the guy wasn’t moving, and he looked bad off. In terms of triage, Jay didn’t have to be a doctor to know which one took precedence.
And more than that, he knew his brother, son of a bitch that he was. Will would never choose a patient over himself, ever. Not even in freezing cold water. Hell, Will was barely conscious, and there he was, all but insisting that his brother do what they both knew was right.
Jay hated that, almost as much as he hated Will right now.
“Damn it, you keep your head above water,” Jay yelled at him, even as Will’s eyes dulled in the cold. Ice had already crystallized in his hair, clinging to his eyebrows. He splashed the surface of the water for good measure. “Will, stay above water! I’ll be right back!”
There was no time to see if Will responded. If he was going to pull this off, he had to be fast -- and everything was working against him. The bitter cold had already sapped his energy, and the wetness on his arm had extended down his torso. The man’s weight was wet and heavy, and Jay was so cold that he could barely feel his feet by the time he made it back to the side of the road.
That was the bad news.
The good news?
Was that Jay wasn’t the only one on the scene anymore.
The fire trucks were just rolling up. A pair of paramedics were already assessing the wife, talking to the kid who had pulled over to help.
In the flashing lights, Jay lost track of himself for a moment. He was surprised when a pair of firefighters took the man from his arms, laying him out on the ground. Then, Casey took him by the shoulders and turned him to face him. “Hey! Jay! Hey!” he called.
He’d called more than once, Jay realized belatedly.
The cold was getting to him more than he’d realized. Or the shock.
Casey shook him again, peering at him from under his bulky fire hat. “Report said there were two victims,” he called over the growing melee of emergency vehicles. “Are they both out?”
Jay blinked, doing his best to get his wits back. “From the car crash, yeah,” he replied, but then he shook his head as his heart skipped a new beat. “But someone else went in.”
Casey’s brow creased in obvious concern. “Good samaritan?”
Jay shook his head numbly. “Will.”
Casey stared at him for a moment, trying to make that parse. “Will? Your brother?” he asked, sounding genuinely taken aback. The shock of the realization passed quickly for him, and Casey proved just what kind of professional he was. “We’ll get some gear in place to go back out safely. Just give us a sec--”
Jay was trembling, but he didn’t feel cold. His chest was tight, but he couldn’t even feel the snow on his face anymore. Casey was confused, but Jay wasn’t. And Casey could be a good trained professional. Jay, though. Jay was going to be a brother. “We don’t have a second!”
And protocol be damned. He’d never liked it all that much anyway. He’d learned early on that following orders wasn’t the same as doing the right thing. There was a time and place for calm, orderly and practical.
This?
With his brother in the freezing water?
Just wasn’t one of them.
Behind him, Casey was barking out orders as more firefighters filed out of the truck. A police cruiser was on site now, and one of the ambulances was already rolling away. He could trust the other first responders to handle that.
Jay was going to handle this.
The thought galvanized him out of his shellshocked stupor. With numb feet, he stumbled his way back, slipping on the snow and ice as his heart hammered frantically in his chest. Adrenaline was making up for whatever impact the cold was having on him. At this point, it was going to be his greatest asset. Sheer adrenaline -- the rush of a life on the line -- had saved his life more times than he could count. More lives than a cat, it seemed.
Maybe -- just maybe -- he had one to spare for Will.
His idiot brother.
Will had always been a difficult asshole. He had spent so much time swinging blindly. For being the smartest guy Jay knew, he was such a moron. Getting into fights. Thinking with his heart -- or worse, his fists. He went with his gut, every single time. Sure, Will had grown up a lot since coming back to Chicago, but it still felt like he was just never quite going to get it right. With his career, with Natalie--
One step forward, two steps back. But he’d stayed this time, and Jay had let himself think it would be different. He’d let himself believe -- God help him, he’d let himself actually believe -- Will was going to see this one through.
But he kept jumping into the line of fire. Staying in exploding hospitals. Getting stuck in an undercover gig with the FBI. Chasing injured people out onto thin ice. He wondered if this is how his teammates felt about his own reckless streak. Self awareness wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
Besides, not the time.
Definitely not the place.
Jay skidded across the top of the ice, barely able to stop his forward momentum as it creaked beneath him. He caught himself, hand plunging into the water. “Will!” he called. “Damn it, Will!”
Will had never listened to him, not once, so it probably wasn’t a surprise that he hadn’t listened to him now. Jay’s invectives were entirely ignored because Will was gone.
The surface of the water was dark and not quite still. But there was no floating figure waiting for him.
Of course not.
That’d be easy, right?
None of it was ever easy.
And Will was already under the surface.
“Will!” he yelled again, his own voice sounding brittle on the wind, dampened by the falling snow. There was no sign of movement in response. The cold was one thing; drowning, though?
Well, damn it.
The question of how long seemed like a pointless calculation. How long was too long -- and what did it matter? Will was the doctor. Jay was the cop. This was how it was going to go. This time, Jay was going to save his life.
The stupid, arrogant bastard: Jay was going to save him.
Because Mom was already gone. Because Dad was already gone. Because they’d sold the house in Canaryville and there was no one left but the two of them.
So there was no way in hell it was just going to be Jay.
“Damn it,” he muttered, scanning the dark surface. The car was fully gone now, submerged in the large open gash in the snow-covered river. In the dizzying fall of fresh snow, it was hard to get his bearings, hard to see, hard to think. “Will!”
He had good instincts; he had strong observational skills.
But he was out in the cold here.
This was personal, and all he could think about was some pisspoor doctor at Med telling him that his brother was gone and how very, very sorry they were.
Screw that.
Screw that.
Will had gone under, and this was the last place he’d seen him. If Will couldn’t swim out, then Jay would drag him out. If the bastard couldn’t keep his head above water, well, then, whatever. Jay would jump in after him and hold him up.
It wasn’t exactly a conscious thought; it was more a reflex. Because Jay was a cop.
Because Jay was a brother.
Eyes still blinded by the snow, he judged the approximate location he’d last seen his brother and jumped in after him.
Disclaimer: Nope, I got nothing.
A/N: set during S6, prior to the storyline with Natalie and her mom. Therefore, this is AU. No beta. Fills forced to face fear prompt for hc_bingo.
Summary: Jay and Will carpool to work. It doesn’t go very well.
PART ONE
PART TWO
PART THREE
PART FOUR
PART FIVE
-o-
Jay got the call early.
Now, Jay had always been a man of service. The army hadn’t cared about the time when something needed to be done, and honestly, the police force wasn’t much better. His hours had normalized once he’d gotten out of the uniform, but you couldn’t solve cases by watching the clock. Voight had never been big on playing by the book, so regular office hours weren’t a thing in Intelligence.
And that was fine. Jay had come to terms with that. He accepted it, embraced it, lived it.
So getting a call at 6 AM?
No problem.
When said call is from his brother?
Definitely a problem.
Surely, Jay was being a little unfair. What did it matter what the wakeup call was? And didn’t he care about his brother? His last bit of family?
But that was what made it hard. Because he knew Will. Because he knew all of Will’s best and worst traits -- and how all of those traits tended to make him an unpredictable force in his life. He was the guy who played the hero and still got himself fired. He broke up bar fights and still managed to start them. Will was just smart enough to be the most reckless bastard he’d ever met.
You’d think that him being a doctor would make that better.
It didn’t.
Add all that to the fact that Will was his last bit of family. He wasn’t stable like Mom. He wasn’t annoyingly predictable like Dad. Will could be a loose cannon who either saved the day or wrecked things, always for the best of reasons. It was true that Jay had the more dangerous line of work, and it was also true that he was criticized for his recklessness from time to time, but come on. He knew his brother far, far too well.
So to get a call at 6 AM?
After the guy hadn’t called him for weeks?
Yeah, Jay wasn’t sure he wanted to answer it.
And he knew he absolutely had no choice but to pick up.
With a sigh, he picked up the phone and put it to his ear. “Hello?”
On the other end, Will hedged politely for a moment, as Will was likely to do when he wanted to ask Jay for something. “Hey,” he said. “Sorry for calling so early--”
The guy didn’t sound sorry. A little sorry, maybe, but Jay knew the difference between polite sorry and actual sorry when it came to his brother. Will was good with formalities. He was less good at the real stuff, the nitty gritty, the long haul.
“--but I know you get up early for work,” Will continued. “And I’m kind of in need of a ride.”
Jay rolled his eyes, flinging his arm over his head as he flopped back on his pillows. “I don’t get up this early,” he snapped. Weeks of nothing but two word texts, and now he only calls because he wants something. It was typical. “And why the hell do you need a ride? On today of all days?”
It had started snowing last night, and if the sound of the wind outside was any indication, it hadn’t stopped yet. Jay hadn’t gotten up yet to survey the damage, but he’d lived in Chicago all his life. He knew when a winter storm was the real deal. This one was just shy of shutting down the city.
Not that the city ever shut down for a guy like him.
Or a guy like Will.
He could almost see the pandering inflection on Will’s face even if they were on the phone. “Today’s the problem,” he said. “This new place I’m at -- parking is a mess and it’s exposed. We’ve had a week straight of below-zero temperatures, and with this snow and ice? I barely got the door open, and the engine won’t even turn over.”
Jay shook his head in exasperation. “You grew up in Chicago,” he said. “You’re supposed to have a backup plan for the weather. Take the El.”
“I can’t with COVID restrictions at the hospital,” Will said. “And I do have a backup plan. My backup plan is my amazing, dedicated, loyal police officer brother.”
He ended with his voice going up hopefully, as if he could butter Jay into doing what they wanted like they were kids again. The problem was that it had usually worked back then.
Why the hell did it still work now? When Jay was older and knew so much better?
Damn it.
He stifled the curse and closed his eyes. “Seriously?”
“Doctors don’t get snow days,” Will cajoled. “Come on.”
Jay opened his eyes with a pointed glare. “Yeah, cops don’t either,” he snapped back. “Don’t play the who’s-job-is-more-important game.”
“I would never,” Will said, even though he 100 percent, totally would. “I know that you have to go into work just like I do, which is also why I knew you were exactly the right person to call since you would already be out.”
Jay huffed as he sat up. “I’ll be over in 30 minutes,” he muttered with a shake of his head. “That means you’re downstairs, waiting outside the building--”
“It’s, like, below zero!” Will started to protest.
“And you’re bumming a ride off me,” Jay said tersely. “Keep complaining, and you’ll be walking in that below zero weather.”
Will, wisely, relented. “Okay, okay,” he said. “I’ll be downstairs, waiting outside in 30 minutes.”
“Fine,” Jay said, grumpily getting out of the bed. “See you then.”
“Great,” Will said, far too enthusiastic for 6 AM on the snowiest and coldest week in years. “You’re still my hero!”
“Shut up,” Jay said, hanging up the phone. He threw it on the bed and rubbed a hand over his face with a groan.
He could tell already: this was going to be a hell of a day.
-o-
He’d known the weather was bad, but he hadn’t known just how bad it was. The snow hadn’t just continued. It had gotten quite a bit worse. Schools were canceled, and the DOT was advising people to stay at home when possible.
That was great. Really.
If only Jay was able to actually stay at home.
He could take some solace in the idea that other people might at least be scared off by the weather. The cold kept a lot of people at home. The snow would keep even more. At least if he was the only crazy asshole in a car, the ride might be less perilous. Fewer people to hit, and all.
Jay took a short shower, finding that the hot water wasn’t hot enough. He grabbed a quick breakfast and poured himself some coffee to go. He’d like to take more time with things, but he’d told Will 30 minutes. In this weather, the short commute to his brother’s place was going to take twice as long. As much as he enjoyed the thought of his brother standing outside in the cold a little longer, Will would be a pain in the ass if he were late.
Well, more of a pain in the ass. That was sort of his perpetual state, but still. Jay didn’t need to give him cause, because the bastard could be smug when he saw fit.
Even with covered parking, his car was sluggish to start that morning. The temperatures had been arctic for nearly a week now, and it had taken a toll on everything. Living in the city during the pandemic was hard enough. Getting through it during one of the coldest snaps in years just made things extra special.
His car finally started, and when Jay managed to defrost the windows enough to drive safely, he pulled out from the ramp. On the street, the cold was the least of his concerns. The rapidly falling snow was going to make this trip really interesting, to say the least.
Because his job wasn’t dangerous enough already. Why not throw in subzero snowstorms into the mix?
He drove slowly, exercising caution and restraint as he navigated the streets around his house. The side streets were by far the worst, receiving the least care and attention, but the major thoroughfares were at least passable. Traffic was light, but it didn’t take much on a day like this.
He rolled up to Will’s apartment with just a few minutes to spare. It was just enough time to park and look thoroughly exasperated while he waited from his brother to make his way down the stairs and out the front. He ducked through the snow, making it to the car at a brisk pace. When he sat down, snow flaked off his hair and he made a sufficient scene for Jay to glare at him.
“It’s cold outside!” Will protested.
“Yeah, I’ve been sitting out here waiting for you,” Jay pointed out. “I know.”
Will brushed the snow off his coat onto the floor. “You’ve been in a heated car.”
“Which you are covering with your snow,” Jay said.
“There’s not a lot of other options,” Will said. He nodded to the window and the weather outside. “I couldn’t avoid it.”
Jay huffed, putting the car into gear as he warily pulled away from the curb. “You were late.”
“No, you were early,” Will said. “I was right on time.”
“Whatever,” Jay muttered. He made it to the corner, braking early to make sure they stopped in time.
“I thought you said you were okay with this,” Will said, giving him a pointed look.
“You didn’t give me a lot of options,” Jay returned. “You never do.”
Will scoffed, as if the truth offended him. As if they both didn’t know that this was exactly how this story went. Jay played steady and reliable while Will swooped in and out as it suited him. “My car wouldn’t start!”
“We live in Chicago. It’s cold in the winter,” Jay said, taking the first turn carefully. “You have to learn to figure it out.”
“I am figuring it out,” Will said. “Seriously, man. What’s your deal this morning?”
What was his deal this morning?
The weather?
The early hour?
The unexpected carpooling?
The never-ending pandemic?
Or all of it -- combined with the years of things he’d never said to his brother, all coming to a head at the worst time possible.
There was enough to worry about in this world. He didn’t like reminders that his brother was still one of those things.
It was easier when things were normal. When they got together for drinks, when there were no quarantine protocols. When his brother was an actual presence in his life and not a name on his contact list.
See, he and Will got along okay when they were together. When Will was AWOL, then Jay remembered how much of his life he’d spent staring after his brother as he walked away.
“It’s just like you, is all,” Jay said pointedly. He jutted his chin out. It was early; he hadn’t had enough caffeine. It was cold and snowy and sometimes his brother made things sound too easy at the expense of everyone else.
And sometimes he was just in a bad mood.
And sometimes Will just knew how to make it worse.
Brothers, and all.
Through the good, the bad and the purposefully annoying.
Will frowned, brow furrowed. “What’s like me?”
“Being inconsistent,” Jay said. He gave his brother a sideways look. “Not following through.”
Will immediately groaned, tilting his head back with exasperation. “I think that criticism is getting a little old by now,” he said. “I mean, I have been in Chicago for a long time now.”
The point might have been valid, but Jay was driving his brother through slush and wind on a freezing morning. He didn’t feel like ceding the point either way. And there was consistency, then there was consistency. Will didn’t get the difference. That was part of the never ending problem.
Things had been cold between them for years.
Will wasn’t exactly doing his part to keep them close.
Six AM carpooling included.
“Sure, but look at the rest of it,” he said, because he was a cop. He could work the evidence. “One day, you’re getting sued; the next, you’re the poster boy. You’re getting promotions; you’re getting passed over. And don’t even get me started on the girlfriends.”
Will’s mouth dropped open. He looked genuinely shocked in the passenger’s seat. “Are you being serious with me right now?”
“What?” Jay asked, shrugging his shoulders indifferently. He’d found the weak spot and he knew it. Will had professional integrity well enough even under duress, but ever since Natalie, his personal life had left them both unsure. “You finally keep a job for more than a year, but you’ve still got a cycle of girlfriends. You’re not even seeing anyone now, are you?”
“Sabeena,” Will countered.
Jay made a face. “You don’t even know where you two stand,” he said with a petty gripe.
Tellingly, Will didn’t deny it.
“You mean you think my car not starting is because I don’t have a girlfriend?” Will asked, sounding downright incredulous now. “Really?”
“I’m just saying you’re the kind of guy who needs a stabilizing influence,” Jay said. “I mean, I’ve seen you at your best--”
Will scoffed. “Which was?”
Jay opened his mouth, but finally thought better of it.
He didn’t need to say it anyway. They both already knew.
Will’s mouth dropped open in response once more. Somehow, it was even more dramatic this time. “You mean when I was with Natalie?”
“I didn’t say it,” Jay said, keeping his eyes on the road this time. The road conditions were bad enough; that was probably where they belonged. Plus, it was a convenient out so he didn’t have to make eye contact while jabbing his brother below the belt.
“No, but you implied it,” Will said. There was a note of hurt in his voice. “You actually think I can’t be a functional adult on my own?”
“I’m just saying you’re a better functional adult when you’re with another functional adult,” Jay said. He glanced at his brother again, this time feeling a little guilty. His brother deserved a hard time, but it was possible that Jay had overstepped -- a little. He softened his look. “That’s not so bad.”
“Yeah, I think it is,” Will said. He huffed a little, setting his jaw and crossing his arms over his chest as he looked out at the road too.
Jay sighed. So maybe it was possible he’d overstepped a lot. He’d clearly offended his brother, and he wasn’t sorry in the sense that he was spewing nonsense -- to the contrary, he thought he was dead on. Will had always been strong willed, impulsive and kind of a moron when you got right down to it. He had a habit of making all the wrong choices for what he deemed to be the right reasons, but it didn’t matter. That was why he’d picked a school so far away. That was why he’d never bothered to come home when their mom was sick. That was why he was Will and Jay was Jay.
True, he’d seen his brother change a lot since moving back to Chicago, and things were good between them now. But Will was still Will.
And Jay could tell him all day long that he was an idiot, but he didn’t tend to listen unless he was head over heels in love.
For all that Will had trained his mind, he still acted with his gut. Always had, probably always would. It would be his greatest strength and probably his greatest weakness, and Jay had no intention of admitting how alike they could be sometimes.
And this wasn’t about Will’s virtues. This was about the cold pit in Jay’s gut whenever Will’s number showed up on his caller ID.
“You were just the happiest when you were with her,” Jay said, trying to soften it a little more. “I think you know that better than I do.”
“Natalie and I were no good for each other,” Will replied quickly, the same canned answer he’d been using for a year now. “All we did was hurt each other.”
“Because you went on an undercover sting operation, and she had a TBI,” Jay reminded him. He gave his brother a purposeful sideways look. “Pretty sure those are extenuating circumstances that hurt everyone, man.”
“She told me to get out of her life,” Will said, almost insisting now. “She’s moved on.”
It was Jay’s turn to be incredulous. “She wanted you back, asshole,” he snorted. “She moved on because you said no.”
Will grew silent at that, lips thin and face drawn. It was something he’d thought about, clearly. It also wasn’t something he’d come to any conclusions on.
And whatever.
It wasn’t any of Jay’s business anyway.
It wasn’t.
Growing quiet, Jay looked back to the road. It was getting hard to see the center line. The windshield wipers were going furiously as they turned down the street with the river, and the dull, squeaking sound filled the void between them.
He shook his head, feeling stupid. He glanced at his brother, who was all but sulking in the passenger’s seat, and Jay took pity on him. “It’s not a big deal, giving you a ride,” he said, feeling a little exasperated in return now. “But I don’t think you’re happy, man. Doing what you’re doing. Dating paramedics and messing around with your trial partner. Moving in with recovering addicts.”
“That’s not--” Will was quick to protest in reference to Hannah.
Jay waved a hand in the air to cut him off before putting it back on the wheel again to stabilize the car in the accumulating slush. “I’m not judging her -- or you, okay? Addiction is an illness; I got it. It doesn’t make you a bad person, I know.”
Will seemed only marginally mollified.
Jay dared to go on anyway, because Will was in danger of missing his more salient point. “It’s just -- I know things aren’t going the way you want. With the promotion. With your fellow docs. Even the trial -- you’re always on edge about it, like you’re waiting for the other shoe to fall.”
“And you think I blew it when I let Natalie go,” Will concluded for him. “That it all went downhill when I turned her down.”
Jay looked at him, wondering if his brother would admit it yet. Will’s eyes were back on the road, and he was sitting rigidly in his seat. “I’m just wondering if you think about it. You know. Natalie.”
Will shook his head, gaze going off out his window where the snow was falling frenetically. He let out a long, slow breath. “Of course I think about it,” he admitted. His voice was quiet, hard to hear over the sound of the tires over the snow. “But I know it’s been too long. Even if we could go back. It’s like the moment’s past us already.”
Will sounded wistful, and there was probably something to that. There was probably a lot to that. Regret, hurt, unspoken feelings -- all of it. It was evidence that Jay was on the right tact here.
The problem was that Jay only had so much tolerance for this kind of thing. It was Will’s life to lead, and Jay wasn’t about to go interfering in it. What Will did with his love life was really his business.
Besides, stable girlfriend or no stable girlfriend, Will was still his idiot brother. There was no getting around that. Even being with Natalie hadn’t mitigated his brother’s propensity to make the absolute worst choices for the best reasons. Will had always been impossible when it came to his impulses. There was no way he’d listen to Jay even if he did have a point.
It didn’t really matter, anyway. It wasn’t about being right or wrong. It was about this stuff, the two of them. It was about emergency carpooling in a snowstorm, calling each other up to watch the game. Jay wasn’t about to admit it or anything, but he was glad his brother was back. It felt kind of good, to have someone crash on his couch and call him up for a ride. Someone to trust.
Someone who trusted him.
They’d never been great at the family thing, but that was a moment that hadn’t passed them at the very least. Jay had some solace in that.
There was, however, no solace in the weather.
“You couldn’t have picked a better day to carpool?” he asked, trying to up his windshield wipers only to find them on high already. “I mean, seriously.”
“That’s Chicago for you,” Will agreed in commiseration. “Freezing temperatures, snow and wind. The perfect winter trifecta.”
Jay huffed in reply, leaning closer to get a better look out the windshield. Conditions had been bad when he set out this morning to pick his brother up. They had only gotten worse -- with no sign of it letting up anytime soon. He imagined that teachers were at home, still snug in their pajamas. White collar workers were logging in remotely. But he and Will were on the front lines. They didn’t get snow days.
Safety was a funny thing. He had to put his own in jeopardy to afford it to anyone else.
For all their differences, that was at least one thing he and Will could understand together.
“You should take the road down by the river,” Will advised him, leaning forward as well through the onslaught of white. “It’s a more major thoroughfare. It’ll get plowed first.”
“Sure, and be more heavily traveled,” Jay pointed out, even as he slowed down to make the necessary lane change.
“This bad out, at least there aren’t too many people out,” Will said.
Jay had been working this city too long to put much faith in people, but he didn’t spare the attention it took to disagree. His tires ground over the snow, nearly locking on the ice as he worked the brake. He slowed down as much as he could in order to navigate the turn, watching his mirrors carefully to make sure some asshole wasn’t coming up on his tail. The last thing he needed was to start off his morning with a wreck.
If for no other reason then he’d never live it down.
Making his way down the next block, Jay slowed down even more. They turned onto a road by the river, and while traffic was still sparse, it was definitely there. Jay tried to keep his bearing through the falling snow, aware of the vehicle several car lengths ahead starting to change lanes. He kept the distance between them, but with road conditions being what they were, Jay knew it wouldn’t take much to close that gap.
To think, everyone at the district thought he was reckless.
Not even.
Well, not reckless in some ways. In the line of duty, he had some inherent weaknesses. He stole a glance at his brother and remembered another one. Because he had been a good brother to pick Will up.
He wasn’t that good of a brother, though.
If Natalie was off the table, then Jay would go with the next best thing. “So how’s Sabeena?” he asked pointedly. “Why didn’t you call her to carpool?”
This time, Will looked a little embarrassed. Jay was hitting all the hot buttons this morning, it seemed.
Another car turned into traffic ahead of them, the movements jerky and uneven. Jay applied the brake cautiously to give himself more space. The car in front of him did the same.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I could have, I guess.”
The car that had pulled out changed lanes, moving to the center. Jay spared his brother a sideways look. “But?”
“But I didn’t,” Will said abruptly. “I don’t know. Sometimes it seems good, fun. But other times, I’m not even sure what we’re doing. It would help if she didn’t flirt with everything that moves.”
Jay chuckled at that. “It can’t be so bad.”
“She’s been hanging out with Ethan,” Will told him pointedly.
“So?” Jay asked. “Doctors are friendly with each other, right?”
“Chess,” Will said. “They were playing chess.”
Jay gave him a look, nose turned up. “Okay, so that is a little pretentious,” he admitted. “And weird. Why are you dating a girl that plays chess?”
Will shook his head, looking a little exasperated. “Honestly, there are times I don’t know for sure.”
In front of them, the car in the middle lane swerved again. It caught a patch of ice, dancing precariously all over the road. This far back, Jay had plenty of time to compensate. The car between them, however, wasn’t so lucky.
Natural instinct was to slam on the brakes as the car skidded out of control. It spun, slamming at a gaining speed into the other car. Jay pumped the brakes purposefully to keep his own car in check, and Will instinctively braced himself against the dash, face going white while the accident unfolded.
It was all adrenaline now. Jay had been a soldier first; he was a cop now. He knew what it was in the heat of battle.
Or in the subzero cold of winter.
It was about control and self awareness.
That was why some people survived -- and others didn’t.
They were slowing, brakes grinding, but in front of them, the scene was unfolding at a much faster pace. The collision spun the two cars, and they collided again, this time even harder than before. The offending car ended up in the right direction, still in its lane of traffic. After wobbling, it righted itself and just kept driving, fleeing at a reckless pace.
The other car, however, was less fortunate with its momentum. It veered to the side, sliding badly on the snow and ice that had accumulated on the roadway. For a second, it looked like the driver was trying to recover, but by then, the speed and the ice were too much. As the offending car careened away, the second car jumped the curb, spinning out onto the frozen river.
Next to him, Will swore. Jay brought his car to a stop at the side of the road, turning on his emergency lights for good measure. In these conditions, it probably wouldn't help much, but it was better than nothing. He was reaching for his phone while Will already had his door open and had stepped out into the snow.
“Will, just hang on!” he yelled over the sound of slowed traffic behind them and the whining of the wind against his face. “Will--”
His brother wasn’t listening, and the emergency operator picked up. He locked his eyes beyond Will to the car. It was hard to see the line of the river, but that far out, Jay knew the car had to be on the thinnest part of the ice. It was holding -- for now -- but time wasn’t on their side.
Fortunately, while most people got freaked out on an emergency phone call, this was all old hat to Jay. He barked out his location, requested fire and ambulance, and provided a concise picture of the scene. “Two victims, in a car, out on the river,” he said, starting his way over the shoulder and down the embankment toward the river. “The ice is holding but I don’t know for how long.”
“Detective, if you can stay on the line--” the operator started.
And Jay wasn’t really listening anymore. He wasn’t great with orders under ideal circumstances. Will had already made it out to the car -- out onto the ice without checking its stability, of course -- and Jay wasn’t going to waste time repeating himself.
“I’m going to start securing the scene,” Jay said. “Just hurry with the rescue team!”
With that, he hung up, hastily shoving the phone into his pocket. The ground beneath him was slick, and his feet nearly splayed out to the side when he hit the ice of the river. Skidding, he fumbled for his balance. The ice remained steady beneath him, though it wasn’t clear to him how thick or stable the situation actually was.
Normally, he’d like to use a bit more restraint -- which, yes, he appreciated the irony -- but that car was already out there.
Worse, Will was already at the driver’s side door.
“Will!” he called out as he neared. He had to move carefully to watch his footing, and he was too aware of the way the ice started to shift beneath his feet. Something creaked, a groan that dissipated in the wind, and Jay started to get a really bad feeling about this. “Will!”
His calls went mostly unheeded. It wasn’t until he got there, next to Will outside the driver’s door that his brother acknowledged him at all. “The door’s jammed!”
Jay spared the door a glance -- it was badly bent in a few key spots, the front of the car badly out of alignment -- and then looked at Will. “And this ice is unstable!”
“All the more reason to move quickly!” Will said. “There are two people inside -- we need to get them out.”
Will had the medical know-how, but Jay had been at a lot more accidents on the scene. While normal protocol was to keep people where they were, that only applied when conditions were safe. Usually, safety had more to do with gas leaks and fires after a car accident. Admittedly, this whole precarious frozen river thing was a new one.
Through a quick evaluation, he decided that his brother’s judgement -- while inherently sketchy -- was warranted here.
“Okay,” he said. Their eye contact was strained with the force of the wind and the onslaught of icy snow. “You stay here, work on the driver’s door. I’ll get the passenger.”
Will nodded, moving back to the driver’s door while Jay took hurried steps around the back of the car. He slipped, trying to catch himself on the trunk while he skidded. He hit hard on his knee, and though the reverberation hurt, the subtle sound of cracking was more disconcerting.
For a horrible moment, he thought the whole thing might go. Two seconds later, when he was still on solid ground, he concluded that he had gotten lucky -- for now. There was no guarantee that such luck would last long.
He just had to hope it would last long enough.
Back on his feet, he used the car to balance himself the rest of the way around. He felt unstable on his feet, but at this point, he wasn’t sure if that was his slippery gait, his anxious nerves or the ice starting to give way beneath his feet.
Probably a little of all three.
By the time he reached the passenger’s side door, there was a woman visibly trying to claw her way out. Jay helped by opening the door -- this side swung open with relative ease -- and the woman half fell out the opening. Jay caught her, but her forward momentum and the slick surface made it impossible to keep his balance. They both crashed to the ice, and Jay heard it shudder with even more force this time.
The woman, however, didn’t even seem to notice. Frantically, she tried to get up, slipping down promptly. Only when Jay got his feet was he able to get her up and steady her.
He caught her, bracing her as best he could against the snow and cold. “Hey, hey,” he said, bringing her attention on him despite their current circumstances. When panicking, people needed something to focus on in order to calm down. A human connection could restore sanity when things were tough. As much as Jay wanted to get her the hell off this ice, he knew he’d never pull it off without her help. “What’s your name?”
She was about Jay’s age, maybe a little younger. White, average build, nondescript. There was a bleeding wound on her head, and she was definitely dazed, but when she looked at Jay, there was coherency in her eyes. “Jessie,” she said, pausing to gasp on a cry. Her breathing was rushed and stunted, tears streaking down her cheeks. “I’m Jessie.”
She was talking, so that was a start. “Okay, Jessie, I want you to stay with me,” he said, leaning down to try to coax her gaze back on him and not on the car. He didn’t know how much she realized yet. A car accident was traumatic enough for most people. She probably hadn’t fully grasped where they’d landed. He kept his hands on her arms to direct her attention away from the scene. “I’m a cop, okay? And my brother over there is a doctor. We’re going to help you.”
Calm and controlled as he was, it wasn’t enough. Jessie turned back, pulling against his grip. “Jason!” she called, voice starting to pitch as she struggled to get free. “Jason!”
Frantic as she was, Jessie was in no state to help out in the rescue of the driver. No, when responding to an emergency situation, the key was to secure the area first. That meant moving victims and witnesses clear.
Even when they weren’t very cooperative.
He didn’t ease his grip, forcibly turning the woman back toward him and started to walk her around. “Who’s Jason?” he asked, guiding her, step-by-step around the vehicle toward more stable ground.
Jessie cooperated, but only just. “My husband,” she said, straining to look back toward the driver’s door. “Jason!”
As they rounded, Will stepped away from the door he was working on, looking flushed. “The door’s jammed,” he said to Jay, but he quickly looked to Jessie. “How are you doing? Did you hit your head?”
Jessie’s breathing had turned into startled gasps now. “Um, a little, I don’t know,” she stammered. “Jason--”
Jay was pretty good in a crisis.
It turned out, so was his brother.
Will bent down, looking Jessie eye to eye as he reached up to palpate the cut on her head. “Does anything hurt? Your chest? Back?”
Jessie, however, paid about as much attention to Will as she did to Jay. She was still straining against Jay’s grip, trying to see around Will. “Jason!”
Will struggled in his personal relationships, and his coping skills were about as good as his rational decision making under duress. But there were moments -- fleeting moments -- when Jay saw just what kind of professional his brother was. “We’re going to get Jason out in just a moment,” he assured her, leaning down to examine the rest of her body. “But let’s start by making sure you’re okay.”
Jessie turned to Will in distress. “I’m fine!” she said. “I hit my head on the window. My chest feels bruised from the seatbelt,” she said. “But Jason got it worse!”
In the snow, Jay couldn’t see anything to contradict her. Will had made a quick assessment, looking for signs of blood on her torso or legs and coming up with nothing. He stood back up, looking over Jessie’s head to Jay. “Can you take her?” he asked. His voice was a little hard to hear in the storm, and the wind was whipping around them with renewed intensity. “I can’t see anything too problematic here, but she’s going to need a much more thorough assessment.”
“Yeah,” Jay said. “But we have to get off this ice -- all of us. It’s frozen, but with the weight of the car--”
Will wasn’t even listening. He was leaning down again to talk to the woman. “Jessie, I want you to go with Jay here. He’s going to get you to safety.”
She was starting to sob now, and Jay could feel her tremble as fresh blood leaked down the side of her face. “You’ll help Jason?”
Will helped her for several paces, in sync with Jay. They moved slowly and carefully over the patches of snow and ice until they had cleared the edge of the frozen river to the incline of the bank. “We will, okay?” Will assured her, using one hand to brace himself against the bank as Jay climbed ahead of them. He reached back to help Jessie up, and Will guided her up. “I’m going to go help him right now, okay? Just go with Jay.”
Jay knew Will, and he knew his older brother could be full of crap when he wanted to be. But having him move back to Chicago, seeing him in action as an actual doctor -- well, there was no way around it. His brother knew what he was doing.
He was still a moron, mind you.
But he was a pretty damn good doctor.
Those things didn’t have to be mutually exclusive, apparently.
“Come on,” he said, gently pulling Jessie away up the bank to more even ground. The wind blasted them hard, and snow dusted across Jessie’s face even as Jay blinked it out of his own eyes. “Let’s get somewhere a little safer.”
Jessie slipped a few times moving up, but Jay managed to get her to the side of the road. He kept clear of the roadway as best he could, aware of the uptick in traffic now that the hour was getting later. There was another car pulled over -- not the asshole who started this, Jay noted bitterly -- but the young man had stopped out of his car, phone to his ear, looking anxious as Jay approached.
“I saw the whole thing!” the kid said. “Is she okay?”
Jay didn’t bother to explain the situation, and he didn’t bother to ask. This kid had stopped, and if he thought he was getting away with rubbernecking, he was wrong. “I need you to sit with her, keep her still and calm until help arrives,” he ordered.
The kid complied, taking Jessie by the arm.
“Off the roadway -- in these conditions--”
“Yeah, yeah,” the kid said. “But the car--”
“I’m a cop; I’m taking care of it,” Jay barked. “Sit tight. Backup is on its way.”
The kid might have had questions, but Jay didn’t have time for answers. Jessie was still crying, calling after him for her husband. Jay had to focus, though, slipping his way back down the embankment, feeling the biting cold against the exposed skin of his face. If possible, conditions were worsening. The storm wasn’t relenting, and the temperatures had stayed stubbornly cold.
His feet had trouble getting traction. He wiped out on his ass when he hit the river bed, and he heard something whine. He thought for a moment it could be the wind; he told himself, for his own sanity, it had to be the wind.
Hastily, he got his footing again, easing his way back across the ice where the car was positioned in the middle of the frozen waterway. Will was still there, jerking at the door. The metal creaked, but didn’t give, and Will slipped as well in his efforts to pry it open.
He wasn’t in time to catch his brother, but he was close enough to hear the impact. Over the road of the wind, the nuances were hard to distinguish, but Jay’s instincts were pretty good with these kinds of things. The force of the impact; the creaking whine.
Will scrambled back to his feet.
The sound lurched again, and Jay knew it wasn’t just the wind off the lake or the force of the snow as it whipped around his ears.
The ice.
This whole thing was going -- and it was going soon.
“Hey!” he said, coming up alongside his brother. He lifted his voice louder so his brother couldn’t conveniently ignore him, as he was likely to do. “Will!”
All the same, Will predictably ignored him. In doctor mode, it was hard to say if it was a conscious choice or just his brother’s unrelenting focus on the job. Either way, it was going to be a problem.
Still, for all that his brother was an asshole, Jay could be stubborn, too. He wasn’t some shrinking violet here, and he could hold his own with anyone -- especially Will. He reached out, grabbing Will by the arm, medicine be damned. “Will! We got to go!”
Will turned, face set and determined. He really was in full-on doctor mode now, which probably was to be expected. But it sure as hell wasn’t going to make this any easier. “This man has likely spinal injuries. I have to stabilize him--”
Jay didn’t waste time rolling his eyes. They could have their pissing match over priorities later. When they were both on stable ground, and Jay could win fair and square in the debate over which one took precedence: medical procedures or security at the scene. “And he’ll be a lot worse off if he falls into a freezing river,” he pointed out, because one of them had to have common sense, and it sure as hell wasn’t going to be the red-headed idiot who bummed a ride to work. “The ice can’t take the weight much longer. It’s going to go.”
Will, the bastard that he was, hardly seemed to hear him. “I just need another minute.”
“Will, we may not have another minute!” Jay yelled, trying not to notice as the ice creaked yet again. This time, the car visibly shifted. There was no pretending; there was no time to waste. “Will--”
Will was an idiot, but that damn medical school had to count for something. He sobered quickly, going a little pale. “Then help me get him out,” he said.
All things considered, it was an acceptable compromise. They both had taken oaths to serve and protect and whatnot, so it wasn’t like Jay was set to let this guy kick it. Protect and serve; it was kind of a thing.
“This side is jammed, we’ll never get him out,” Will said, already making his way around to the far end of the car without waiting for feedback. He raised his voice so Jay could hear him. “But I’ll need you to stay there, help him maneuver him!”
That sounded like a terrible idea, honestly -- to go farther out onto the ice that was about to break -- but it wasn’t like Will was listening to him anyway. The best Jay could hope for was to help get this guy out and then ream Will out for being a pisspoor first responder later.
He leaned down, prying the door open a little more to give him better access. The man was conscious, but Jay doubted he was coherent. Head wounds were always bloody messes, but this one looked bloodier than normal, and the guy was heaving for air, back pressed against the seat with a stricken look on his face.
Spinal injuries, head injuries -- Jay just knew they had to get out. Now. “Just hang on, man,” Jay said, not sure if it was okay to pat the guy on the arm. “We’re taking care of you.”
The man didn’t seem to hear him, and he started to wheeze instead. On the other side, Will appeared in the passenger’s seat. He hastily unbuckled the seatbelt for the guy. “Easy, easy,” Will coached, and he sounded a lot more convincing than Jay had. “We got you.”
Then, Will looked across to Jay.
“Okay, I need you to support his neck and head while I move him,” Will instructed, positioning himself farther in the car, hands moving to the guy’s upper body. “Here--”
“You want me to--?”
“Right here, head and neck,” Will said, moving Jay’s hands to the right position. “Keep him as steady as you can while I move him out.”
Jay complied, and the man cried out as Will started moving him. Jay flinched, but he didn’t dare move. Time was of the essence here. “Will?”
“Move with us,” Will said, coaxing them farther across the car seat. Jay had to lean into the car to provide the necessary support.
Jay could feel his heart pounding. The wind was whipping outside, the cold gusts of air impossible to escape.
“Steady, steady, we need to be very careful moving him,” Will said, as if he was oblivious to their surroundings. “I’m going to scoot him closer to him, and then you’re going to have to hand him off to me.”
“But how--”
“Just do your best,” Will said, already moving the guy.
Questions abounded, but there was nothing to be done for it. His brother the doctor was shoving a badly injured man with possible spinal injuries at him, and Jay just had to roll with it. He had little experience as a medic -- first aid training had been little more than applying pressure and keeping your cool -- but he was pretty good at following orders in a pinch.
The progress was steady -- but slow.
Too slow.
Jay had always been better at multitasking than Will, who’d always been prone to tunnel vision. As a result, Will was being all ED doc right now, eyes on the patient.
It was up to Jay to have any semblance of common sense.
Case in point: the conditions. The weather was still bad. The ice was worse.
The car shifts again, louder cracks. “Will, you got to get out of there! This ice is going!”
“Just a minute!” Will said, guiding the man out. “We’re almost there!”
The man slipped out onto the ice, and Will scurried backward to compensate, bracing the man more than himself by a ways. Somehow, Will kept his feet, pressing the man close to his chest while he slipped across the surface of the whited out ice.
Jay was running around the back end of the car to meet them, but the ice cracked again. This time, the sound was loud enough to split the storm. Jay yelped, stumbling back, and he saw Will do the same. “Will! Get out of there!” he yelled.
But it was too late. Will was supporting the guy’s weight, and they made a move around the back of the car, where Jay stood with an outstretched hand. But before Will could take it, the ice cracked open wide. The car was swallowed whole, and Jay was thrown backward. Farther out on the ice, Will had nowhere to go. He yanked backward fast enough to avoid being caught up in the car, but the ice beneath him split as well. Within a second, a horrible, clear second, Will and the guy had slipped into the water.
And for another second, even more horrible than the first, Jay forgot all about his composure under fire as a trained first responder. Okay? He forgot about his combat training. He forgot about his police experience. For that second, he was just a brother watching Will go into the freezing water, knowing just how bad it was.
It was bad, okay?
The snow, the wind, the cold, the car, the shock.
It was really bad.
“Will!” he heard his own voice scream, sounding hoarse and distant across the winter landscape.
He was answered with a splash, and he realized that the second had passed.
Jay wasn’t some innocent bystander, after all. He was a trained first responder. He did have combat experience. And if he could pull out all the stops for total strangers, then you sure as hell better believe he could do it for his brother.
Within another second, he was running forward. Cognizant of the ice, he dropped low, pushing his way along the surface to the open gash where the water was still sloshing. The car was sinking rapidly out of view, and just like that, Will bobbed back above the surface.
Will gasped raggedly, spluttering badly. His red hair was plastered to his head, and he rocked back, yanking the man up with him. They bobbed several times before Will seemed to settle them on the surface, breathing heavily with the man on top of his chest.
“Will!” he called again, more directed this time. He reached forward, grasping at the water to try to bring his brother closer. He missed once, hand splashing into the icy river, but the second time he snagged the guy’s arm. With some work, he was able to bring them both closer to the ledge.
“Jay,” Will said, gurgling a little as the weight of the man pushed him back under. Jay struggled to keep them both up, the weight of their winter coats threatening to pull them both down. “Take him--”
Jay tried to comply, but their laborious efforts to get the man out didn’t seem to be working. “I need you to work with me,” Jay gritted out. He could hear commotion behind him, but this far out on the ice, he knew no one else could risk coming out. “Will, you need to help.”
Will seemed to make some effort, the guy floating closer to Jay, giving him some ability to wrap his arms around him better. He reached out, trying to bring Will closer, too.
With this task, Will was less helpful. Not that his brother was trying to be difficult, but it was taking too long. Will’s response times were getting slow, and Jay realized he was taking on most of the guy’s weight.
Fine, Jay thought pragmatically. He’d get the guy out, then he’d haul his brother’s ass out after him. With a grunt, he heaved the guy up. The ledge of ice cracked beneath him, giving way a little. Jay had to scramble back before his upper body crashed in, and as he frantically scooted backward, he was able to lift the man out and up onto the solid ice.
Only when he looked back did he realize that Will had helped him push the whole time.
With one arm on the man, keeping him steady, Jay reached back out to his brother. “Come on, swim closer,” he said. “I can get you out.”
Will was flagging now. His eyes were open, but the lids were drooping. Ice was forming on the curls of his hair. “No, get him -- get him out--”
He was cut off, gulping water as his head dipped momentarily below the surface.
Jay reached out, but his brother was too far away now. The ice shelf had been too badly damaged; he couldn’t reach. “Will, I need you to swim--”
Will, though barely with his head over the water, just shook his head. “Get him out!”
Jay hesitated. Serve and protect. Serve and protect. The mantra in his head didn’t provide the grounding he needed. Because to serve and protect -- that included family.
But it didn’t preference them.
Damn it.
That was the rub, wasn’t it? Jay was a professional. This was his job. Hell, it was Will’s job, too, and emotions didn’t have a place in it. Even when he really, really wanted them to.
Clearly, the guy wasn’t moving, and he looked bad off. In terms of triage, Jay didn’t have to be a doctor to know which one took precedence.
And more than that, he knew his brother, son of a bitch that he was. Will would never choose a patient over himself, ever. Not even in freezing cold water. Hell, Will was barely conscious, and there he was, all but insisting that his brother do what they both knew was right.
Jay hated that, almost as much as he hated Will right now.
“Damn it, you keep your head above water,” Jay yelled at him, even as Will’s eyes dulled in the cold. Ice had already crystallized in his hair, clinging to his eyebrows. He splashed the surface of the water for good measure. “Will, stay above water! I’ll be right back!”
There was no time to see if Will responded. If he was going to pull this off, he had to be fast -- and everything was working against him. The bitter cold had already sapped his energy, and the wetness on his arm had extended down his torso. The man’s weight was wet and heavy, and Jay was so cold that he could barely feel his feet by the time he made it back to the side of the road.
That was the bad news.
The good news?
Was that Jay wasn’t the only one on the scene anymore.
The fire trucks were just rolling up. A pair of paramedics were already assessing the wife, talking to the kid who had pulled over to help.
In the flashing lights, Jay lost track of himself for a moment. He was surprised when a pair of firefighters took the man from his arms, laying him out on the ground. Then, Casey took him by the shoulders and turned him to face him. “Hey! Jay! Hey!” he called.
He’d called more than once, Jay realized belatedly.
The cold was getting to him more than he’d realized. Or the shock.
Casey shook him again, peering at him from under his bulky fire hat. “Report said there were two victims,” he called over the growing melee of emergency vehicles. “Are they both out?”
Jay blinked, doing his best to get his wits back. “From the car crash, yeah,” he replied, but then he shook his head as his heart skipped a new beat. “But someone else went in.”
Casey’s brow creased in obvious concern. “Good samaritan?”
Jay shook his head numbly. “Will.”
Casey stared at him for a moment, trying to make that parse. “Will? Your brother?” he asked, sounding genuinely taken aback. The shock of the realization passed quickly for him, and Casey proved just what kind of professional he was. “We’ll get some gear in place to go back out safely. Just give us a sec--”
Jay was trembling, but he didn’t feel cold. His chest was tight, but he couldn’t even feel the snow on his face anymore. Casey was confused, but Jay wasn’t. And Casey could be a good trained professional. Jay, though. Jay was going to be a brother. “We don’t have a second!”
And protocol be damned. He’d never liked it all that much anyway. He’d learned early on that following orders wasn’t the same as doing the right thing. There was a time and place for calm, orderly and practical.
This?
With his brother in the freezing water?
Just wasn’t one of them.
Behind him, Casey was barking out orders as more firefighters filed out of the truck. A police cruiser was on site now, and one of the ambulances was already rolling away. He could trust the other first responders to handle that.
Jay was going to handle this.
The thought galvanized him out of his shellshocked stupor. With numb feet, he stumbled his way back, slipping on the snow and ice as his heart hammered frantically in his chest. Adrenaline was making up for whatever impact the cold was having on him. At this point, it was going to be his greatest asset. Sheer adrenaline -- the rush of a life on the line -- had saved his life more times than he could count. More lives than a cat, it seemed.
Maybe -- just maybe -- he had one to spare for Will.
His idiot brother.
Will had always been a difficult asshole. He had spent so much time swinging blindly. For being the smartest guy Jay knew, he was such a moron. Getting into fights. Thinking with his heart -- or worse, his fists. He went with his gut, every single time. Sure, Will had grown up a lot since coming back to Chicago, but it still felt like he was just never quite going to get it right. With his career, with Natalie--
One step forward, two steps back. But he’d stayed this time, and Jay had let himself think it would be different. He’d let himself believe -- God help him, he’d let himself actually believe -- Will was going to see this one through.
But he kept jumping into the line of fire. Staying in exploding hospitals. Getting stuck in an undercover gig with the FBI. Chasing injured people out onto thin ice. He wondered if this is how his teammates felt about his own reckless streak. Self awareness wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
Besides, not the time.
Definitely not the place.
Jay skidded across the top of the ice, barely able to stop his forward momentum as it creaked beneath him. He caught himself, hand plunging into the water. “Will!” he called. “Damn it, Will!”
Will had never listened to him, not once, so it probably wasn’t a surprise that he hadn’t listened to him now. Jay’s invectives were entirely ignored because Will was gone.
The surface of the water was dark and not quite still. But there was no floating figure waiting for him.
Of course not.
That’d be easy, right?
None of it was ever easy.
And Will was already under the surface.
“Will!” he yelled again, his own voice sounding brittle on the wind, dampened by the falling snow. There was no sign of movement in response. The cold was one thing; drowning, though?
Well, damn it.
The question of how long seemed like a pointless calculation. How long was too long -- and what did it matter? Will was the doctor. Jay was the cop. This was how it was going to go. This time, Jay was going to save his life.
The stupid, arrogant bastard: Jay was going to save him.
Because Mom was already gone. Because Dad was already gone. Because they’d sold the house in Canaryville and there was no one left but the two of them.
So there was no way in hell it was just going to be Jay.
“Damn it,” he muttered, scanning the dark surface. The car was fully gone now, submerged in the large open gash in the snow-covered river. In the dizzying fall of fresh snow, it was hard to get his bearings, hard to see, hard to think. “Will!”
He had good instincts; he had strong observational skills.
But he was out in the cold here.
This was personal, and all he could think about was some pisspoor doctor at Med telling him that his brother was gone and how very, very sorry they were.
Screw that.
Screw that.
Will had gone under, and this was the last place he’d seen him. If Will couldn’t swim out, then Jay would drag him out. If the bastard couldn’t keep his head above water, well, then, whatever. Jay would jump in after him and hold him up.
It wasn’t exactly a conscious thought; it was more a reflex. Because Jay was a cop.
Because Jay was a brother.
Eyes still blinded by the snow, he judged the approximate location he’d last seen his brother and jumped in after him.