Chicago Med fic: Mercy (8/10)

[faye_dartmouth]

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



-o-

The elevator may be faster, but Sharon steers them away from the bank of doors and they take the stairs instead. This seems to suit Jay, whose anxiety is already stirring toward a breaking point. Is it the best idea to let Jay question Emily? This case is personal for him now, and Sharon knows this poses some risks.

It’s also what makes it necessary.

She has lectured Dr. Halstead about protocol enough that her own lapses are probably apparent enough. But she’s learned -- she likes to think she’s learned -- to pick her moments.

This, right here, right now, is a moment.

If anything, it’s too little, too late.

She can’t fix the last several months. She can’t change the serial killer she approved to work in her ED. And she can’t go back and listen to Dr. Halstead’s concerns with a more open mind.

But she can try to save his life, and if that’s all she can accomplish today, then it won’t be so bad.

Still, by the time they get to the room, Jay looks like he’s about ready to burst. He’s dangerously quiet, and every nerve in his body seems to be recoiled and on alert. She sticks close to him, just in case. She’s not particularly concerned about what happens to Emily at this point, but the last thing the Halstead family needs is for one brother to be on death’s door and the other to be in jail.

Neatly, she steps around him, opening the door where they’d left Emily. She’s still handcuffed, sitting with the security guard. The guard gets hastily to his feet, and Emily smiles.

Sweet.

Sickening.

Sharon can’t quite suppress the shudder this time.

“I was just getting to know Russell a little better,” she says. “Did you know he’s got a vacation home? A cabin up in Michigan, but he can’t get there these days. Not with COVID and the long hours--”

It’s a fine line between pity and compassion. Emily has crossed it and is in all new territory.

“Russell, please stand outside,” Sharon says. “Contact CPD. They should already be aware of the situation developing, but they should know that their presence is needed quickly.”

“Ask for Intelligence,” Jay chimes in stiffly from over Sharon’s shoulder. “Get Voight here; tell him Halstead is calling all hands on deck.”

Russell glances at Emily one more time, truly flummoxed. Russell has worked in the hospital for years, and Sharon knows him to be trained, serious and competent. But Emily has managed to charm him to some degree, just enough so that he’s not sure what to think.

That’s understandable.

Sharon has more information, and she still isn’t sure what to think. She’s hired a serial killer, after all. It defies logic. It’s nice to think of the police taking over and taking this out of her hands, but it’s not that simple.

Nothing about this can be simple.

This is her concern, even more than she wants to admit or has cared to understand.

The effects of this are much bigger than one nurse.

Sharon will have to contend with that.

For now, though, she just has to contend with her.

Russell takes his orders with a brief nod and ducks out of the room. Sharon waits until the door closes before she looks at Emily once more. “You have a very limited opportunity to do the right thing here,” she says. “I’m not here to advise you on legal matters in any way, shape or form, but I will appeal to your compassion. You have the chance, right now, to save Will Halstead’s life. Tell us what you gave him.”

Somehow, sitting there in handcuffs, Emily still manages to smile. It’s not right, not any part of it. Sharon wishes again that she’d interviewed this woman. There’s no guarantee she wouldn’t have been hired anyway, but she knows what Dr. Halstead was talking about now. There’s something about her -- something that just isn’t right.

“I thought he went home?” she asks, feigning a confusion that isn’t remotely plausible. “I could see how upset he was before. It’s just not gotten better for him, has it? I don’t know all the details about what happened to land him on probation, but it broke his heart, to work so hard and to have no one notice.”

“Ms. Novak -- Emily -- I’m going to ask you one more time,” she says, refusing to listen to her. “What did you do to Dr. Halstead?”

She blinks up, her eyes composed of wide innocence. “I’ve been doing my job this whole time. You hired me to be a nurse, to take care of patients. Ms. Goodwin, I promise you, that’s the only thing I’ve ever cared about.”

The thing is, Sharon believes her. It’s a twisted version of the truth, but she’s so earnest that there’s no way not to buy the story. They are lies so carefully chosen, so deeply woven -- it’s possible that not even Emily fully understands them by this point. Lies so comprehensive that they are impossible to sort from the truth.

And not just small lies.

Big lies.

The worst possible lies.

Overwhelming, terrible, awful lies.

Lies so deep, so visceral, she doesn’t know how Emily can stomach them. There’s some part of this crazy woman that probably believes them.

“Emily, half of the CPD is going to be here any moment. All of your belongings will be taken. They will raid your apartment, no doubt. They’ll go over every patient file you’ve even touched since you started here. This is going to happen, and either you can be cooperative or difficult,” Sharon says. “I make no promises to you about how this will go, but if you have any conscience left, if you care about Dr. Halstead at all -- please, tell us what you’ve done.”

She sits forward, suddenly more intent. “Ms. Goodwin, I have been a dedicated employee. Look at my record,” she says, and her wide-eyed look of wonder is increasingly impossible to grasp. She turns her eyes between them, as if to implore them both. “I’m a nurse. I care about suffering. That’s all I’ve ever been dedicated to.”

Sharon would like nothing more than to walk far, far away, but that’s not a luxury she has at the moment. She is suddenly glad this is more than a personnel matter. Jay Halstead steps closer to her, nearly seething.

“So the aliases?” he asks. “You’ve got a string of them.”

She opens her mouth and laughs a little, as if she can’t believe it. “It’s not illegal to change your name.”

“And the string of hospitals, clinics -- all with questionable records,” Jay points out. “You’re wanted for murder in Florida.”

Somehow, she scoffs. “Murder? You cannot be serious! I couldn’t murder someone if I wanted to.”

Sharon’s not having any of it.

Jay, though, is having less.

“Everywhere you turn up, people die,” Jay says, and Sharon keeps herself close to him, a ready reminder to him to stay in place and not risk the investigation -- much less his career. “Then, you leave and poof -- they stop dying. It’s a hell of coincidence.”

“Ask anyone,” Emily insists. “They’ll tell you I’m nothing but a caring, dedicated nurse.”

“Who doesn’t finish procedures or follow protocol,” Sharon says, somehow finding her voice. Jay glances at her, and Sharon swallows back her hesitation and steps forward once more. “Dr. Halstead has been pointing it out for months, and I wouldn’t go looking to your fellow nurses for a character reference.”

“You can save us all a lot of trouble by just confessing,” Jay says, shaking his head. “Tell me what you did to my brother?”

“I have done nothing but help and support your brother,” she says, and her voice has hardened a little bit. She narrows her eyes at him. “No one else did. Certainly not you.”

She casts her gaze to Sharon, and the flintiness of her gaze is startling.

And Sharon understands it suddenly. She understands her. “Is that why you tried to kill him?” she asks with a newfound clarity. “Because you thought he was suffering, too?”

It’s the first time Sharon sees her flinch. Well and truly pull back. It’s a small moment, but it’s telling. Sharon presses her advantage.

“Well, he’s suffering now,” she says. “Over in the trauma bay. Intubated. Dr. Choi had to perform CPR to get him back. If you were going for a quick death, you screwed up.”

Her jaw twitches, and she blinks rapidly.

Jay is almost shaking in his rage. “What did you do to him?” he asks, and Sharon can see how firmly his feet are planted to the ground to keep himself from physically attacking her. She’s close enough to intervene, if needed. She’s just not sure she’d want to. “Tell me what you did to him.”

She’s making a choice, then. Sharon can see it, the nearly clinical operation behind her eyes. She has all the right appearances, but the execution is just slightly off. Emily trains her eyes on Sharon.

“You’re crazy,” she said with a look of trained indignancy. “All of you. Ms. Goodwin, please. Let’s be reasonable.”

She’s sought out Sharon because she thinks she’s the softer target. It’s true, she’s not as likely as Jay Halstead to outright shoot her, but that’s not saying much at this point. This woman has killed patients in Sharon’s hospital, and she’s attempted to murder the one person on staff who had devoted himself to helping her.

Firing her wouldn’t be sufficient.

At this point, she might not balk if the detective pulled his gun.

“Just answer the questions,” she says shortly.

Emily looks at her, her face contorting as if this whole thing offends her somehow. As if she’s the victim. As if she doesn’t have a string of aliases behind her and a wellspring of suffering in her wake.

“I have only done my charge as a nurse,” she says finally, stressing the words passionately. “I see suffering, and I take care of it. If you can’t see that or understand it, then that’s on you. Not me. Not me.”

Her ready dismissal of personal accountability is a hell of a thing, to be sure, but she’s not all wrong.

Standing there, looking at this woman Sharon had hired, she knows it’s not all her fault.

Emily won’t make an effort to fix it, but Sharon’s not about to give up. She looks at Jay, jerking her head to the door. “Let’s go.”

“But Will--”

“She’s not going to tell us anything,” she says, giving Emily a cool glance before meeting Jay’s gaze again. “We’ll find another way to help Will.”

It’s a promise, one that Jay needs to hear.

It’s a promise, one that Sharon desperately hopes she can keep.

-o-

During a trauma, things rarely go as expected. The idea of hope is not one that is readily applied. Instead, trauma is a time for clear, concise action. You have to be calm and in control, and you can’t panic when things go wrong.

Ethan has known this as long as he’s been a doctor. His own injuries have changed him, however. His competencies feel less attuned than before. And now that he’s standing there, working on someone he calls a friend, he’s struck by the fragility of it all.

Will’s fragility.

His own.

You can never take it personally, a trauma. You have to separate yourself out from it in order to retain any semblance of control. Ethan knows this.

But Ethan knows a lot of things.

None of it is quite as telling as it used to be, however.

Once they get Will transferred to the ED, it doesn’t take long for the team to mobilize. They get him set up to more monitors, and Ethan runs the EKG while the first set of labs go out. The physical exam has yielded little additional information. There’s no sign of injury. The symptoms of illness are diffuse and nondescript.

Will’s O2 levels have risen and stabilized, but that’s about the only positive change. His heart is still all over the map, out of rhythm and far too fast, and his blood pressure is equally unstable. The EKG seems to confirm Ethan’s previous suspicions that Will is having a heart attack.

He just has no idea why.

He’s seen this sort of thing before, of course. If this wasn’t Will lying on the gurney, Ethan would have run down a whole different kind of differential, going over any potential prescription or recreational drugs that could be in his system. It’s true, he’s not privy to all of Will’s medical history -- medications are certainly possible, though he knows Will well enough to deem it unlikely. Recreational drugs seems like an impossibility, and even any amount of alcohol consumption -- while on duty -- is almost certainly a no-go. Will’s a reliable doctor. Addicts are people, too -- Ethan knows too well from personal experience -- but that’s not Will.

So, what is Will? What the hell is going on?

And what does it actually have to do with Emily? Ms. Goodwin is telling him about aliases and murder. There’s no way she’s running around the ED slitting throats or bashing in heads. The only way to manage serial killing in the hospital is to use drugs.

Carefully concocted drug cocktails. They would be extremely effective at subduing patients and inducing symptoms that are commonly mistaken for natural causes. Moreover, anyone in the medical field would know which medications show up on a tox screen -- and which ones don’t.

If Emily’s a killer and Will is one of her victims, then Ethan has to assume he’s been dosed with something -- or a lot of something. But until he can identify what exactly, Ethan’s at an impasse. He can’t administer additional drugs for fear of causing a reaction. But without addressing Will’s vitals medically, Ethan can do nothing but sit there and watch him destabilize.

“He’s still throwing PVCs,” Doris says, her face pinched with worry.

Ethan can see that, and he grits his teeth. He looks back to Maggie. “Any word on that tox screen?” he says. “If we don’t start medicating him soon, he’s going to crash again.”

Maggie, usually cool and composed, hasn’t been able to make it past the door. She looks pale, her face stony. She nods. “I’m going to run to the lab,” she says. “I’ll bring them back myself, if it helps.”

Ethan lets her go; at this point, he thinks it just might. He fiddles with the line, and shakes his head.

Crockett has joined him, and he’s busy using the ultrasound to get a view of Will’s heart. “My bet is cardio’s going to ask for an echo,” he murmurs. “And I’d have to agree. It’s impossible to see if we’re looking at damage.”

“We have to start treating him,” he says sharply, even though Crockett is not to blame.

“What’s the ETA on cardio?” Crockett asks.

“Five minutes,” Doris reports, even as she continues to man the bag attached to Will’s ET tube.

“We could start with a few standard medications,” Ethan suggested, looking over to Crockett for confirmation. “It’s a risk, but he needs to be stabilized.”

Crockett puts away the ultrasound and looks at the monitor. “But he’s so unstable that if we do it wrong, we could kill him,” he points out. “I don’t like hedging my bets here, but I don’t see a lot of other options.”

“His heart muscle is dying right here, right now,” Ethan counters. “And he’s already crashed once. If he goes down again, we are really running the risk of brain damage.”

Crockett steps back, chewing his lip. “Okay. So we really need that tox screen.”

Just then, the door bursts open. It’s Maggie. She looks breathless; she looks relieved. “Preliminary tox screen is up,” she says. “They have most of the extended panel done, but they’re chasing down hits on the others we requested. Normally, they’d wait and release it all together, but I thought--”

Ethan is already pulling up the results on his iPad. So is Crockett. “But you thought we could use anything.”

And they could. Will’s dying, and they don’t know why -- or, more saliently, how. Anything is pretty much the only appropriate word. “None of the biggies are on here,” he says.

“No cocaine, heroine, meth -- the usual suspects,” Crockett says.

“But that makes sense if this is supposed to fly under the radar,” Ethan says, scrolling through the other results.

“Yeah, about that,” Crockett says. “It’s really Emily? A serial killer?”

Ethan barely understands it himself; there’s no way he can explain it to Crockett or anyone else in this room. Will doesn’t have time for that.

“We can swap stories about how we did or didn’t see it coming later,” he says, somewhat short. He looks from Crockett to Doris to Maggie, just to cover all his bases. “But right now, we need to deal with this.”

He taps at his screen, turning it around so they can see.

Crockett sees it first. “That’s only a paralytic used in extreme cases,” he says, his brow starting to furrow.

Maggie points at another item. “And this, right here. The combination here.”

Ethan nods, pulling it back. “I think we’re still missing a few things, but with these drugs in his system, he wouldn’t have a chance.”

“Instant heart attack,” Crockett says, shaking his head as he looks at Will balefully. “And with that amount of paralytic, he would have shut down in seconds, lungs and all.”

“She really did do this,” Maggie says, almost in disbelief. She, too, looks at Will. “He knew something was off with her, but we had no idea--”

“How many other times has she done this?” Doris asks, still bagging steadily even as her concern ratchets up a notch. “I was working with a murderer?”

“Posturing later,” Ethan reminds them, putting the iPad down and moving back to Will. “I feel pretty safe getting a few drugs on board now, but we still need to push for an extended panel. Anything they can think of, test for it.”

Crockett has come alongside Will’s other side. On the gurney, the red head hasn’t twitched. He’s limp, shirt cut away and the crisscrossing electrodes all across his chest. His heart is still out of its normal rhythm, and Ethan worries again about the potential for long-term damage.

“We should be able to reverse the paralytic, but it’s going to take time to get it out of his system,” Crockett says. Knowing Will is deeply sedated means there’s no further need to test his neural reflexes. With these doses, he’s not going to respond to anything. “The heart’s more pressing.”

“Let’s start with the basics,” he says. He looks to Maggie. “Can you get it for me?”

She still looks sallow, but she nods, moving over to the medicine locker.

“And where the hell is cardio?” Ethan demands, filling the first syringe and letting it deploy into the IV. He lets his gaze linger on Will once more, wishing he could do something to push his helplessness aside. “He needs our help now.”

Truth be told, Will needed it yesterday -- and all the days before that.

Regret is a bitter thing.

Suffering can be impossible to measure.

And harder still to treat.

-o-

Labs are still trickling in by the time cardio arrives, and they’ve started reversing the paralytic. The first of the heart drugs are in, but so far the effect has been minimal. Will’s still not breathing on his own, and his vitals continue to be erratic. Whatever drug combination has been used, Ethan’s pretty sure he hasn’t guessed it yet -- to Will’s detriment.

He wonders how Dean did it, back when Ethan was shot. How had he taken control? How had he eschewed all his doubts and all his fears? How had he been so aggressive when every instinct was to pull back and show caution?

Ethan knows that’s why he’s alive.

But he also knows it’s why he almost died in the first place.

That point of tension is impossible for him to reconcile, and most days he handles the paralysis by depersonalizing the stakes.

That respite is no longer available to him.

By the time cardio arrives a short time later, he’s at the rawest edge of his self control. He’s ready to stay, though, whatever that means, but he sees Ms. Goodwin loitering outside the room with Jay at her elbow.

He reminds himself that the call isn’t just his to make.

The pressure is real.

It’s also the only absolution he’ll get here.

He excuses himself, leaving Crockett to discuss the finer points of Will’s condition with the cardio attending. They’re going on about possible drug interactions while setting up the ventilator and sending Maggie back to the lab to check the status of several key cardiac panels.

All these years Ethan’s been making diagnoses, but he finally understands that what he does for patients is far more important than a clinical delineation. Survival has to be more than a heartbeat. This far into his own recovery, he would think he knew what that meant by now.

As he goes out to face his boss and Will’s brother, he doesn’t.

“How is he?” Ms. Goodwin asks. At her side, Jay is too tense to speak.

Ethan shakes his head, wishing he could offer more. “Not great,” he says. “We don’t know what’s in his system, which is making it hard to treat him effectively. At this point, I can’t say for sure if the heart damage he’s sustained is going to be permanent, but the odds go down the longer the drugs stay in his system. I think we were able to prevent brain damage with quick support when he crashed, but I’ll probably have neuro do a consult just to be sure.”

He knows the news isn’t exactly good, but it’s the only news he has. Jay’s either ready to start hitting people or be sick, Ethan can’t be sure which. But Ms. Goodwin takes a breath and seems to intervene for all their sakes. “So not good news, but it’s also not the worst news,” she offers with a semblance of diplomacy. As if there’s a glass half full approach to Will’s condition at the moment. “Have you been able to rule anything out in your differential?”

She’s keeping things to the issue at hand, which is a good thing. Remarkable, too. That they can talk shop while it’s Will in the exam room not breathing on his own on the cusp of cardiac arrest.

And Ethan can only shake his head again. “We’ve got two hits from the tox screen, and one of them was a paralytic,” he says. “We’ve started a few therapeutics, but they’re not taking much effect, so my guess is a broader cocktail was used.”

Ms. Goodwin sighs, because she knows what Ethan is saying. “And tracking obscure toxins will be difficult,” she murmurs.

“We’re running it for everything on record,” Ethan says.

“That’s good,” she says. “If Emily’s been as active as long as her history suggests, then she’s had years to fly under the radar. She has to have a very refined cocktail, and she knows how to hide her trail.”

“You should also pull as much bloodwork as you can from some of the other patients,” Jay interjects. “If you have samples left, we should run the same tests. See if we get any hits. That can help narrow things down.”

Sharon nods along. “And if we can identify the same toxins, we can start to establish her MO.”

“It’ll help build the case,” Jay says.

Ethan understands it, too. “You’ll want to reference that against the patient files. We need to specifically look for substances and doses that weren’t in line with the official treatment plan.”

Ms. Goodwin is nodding along readily. “I can get that expedited,” she says. “I’ll have Maggie get it started. Once PD gets here, we’ll have to deal with the legal rigmarole, but one thing at a time.”

Normally, Ethan knows that would be Jay’s area of concern. It barely registers for him. He’s still looking beyond Ethan at his brother. “You think he’s going to make it?”

They could talk about tox screens and differentials. They could go back and forth on treatment options and potential complications. It all obscured the simple question, the necessary delineation.

And, as with most things in his life these days, Ethan didn’t have a clear answer. He didn’t have an easy answer.

He can only look at Jay and offer him the truth. Dean’s good at everything else, but he’d never given Ethan that. Looking back, sometimes he thinks he would trade all the rest for honest answer from the man he’d trusted so completely. “I don’t know,” he says.

Jay laughs, short and bitter. “So, Will’s the only one here who noticed anything was wrong, and he’s the one who’s going to die for it? Really?”

“We’re working very hard, Jay,” Ethan says, and this much is still the truth. “He hasn’t given up, and I promise you, neither have we. If we have to run a test for every toxin in our database, we will.”

“I can also put in word with some of the previous hospitals, see what they know,” Ms. Goodwin offers. “There might be more details that could help us.”

It’s a good idea; they’re all good ideas. But all they have are good ideas.

And Will’s still in the other room, breathing through a tube.

If there’s any lesson to be learned from Will, it’s that patients come first. Will’s the patient today. Ms. Goodwin can handle the other stuff. For Ethan, Will comes first.

“Come on,” he says, nodding to Jay. “Why don’t we go see him?”

Because people say they want answers, but Ethan knows now what they really mean. He knows it because he’s lived it. People want comfort. Any way they can get it.

Jay looks at him, infinitely grateful despite everything. He nods.

Ethan nods back. He spares a glance at Ms. Goodwin before leading Jay back inside. He’ll handle this. She’ll handle the rest.

Time will tell who has the harder job.

-o-

Inside the room, things are quiet. Crockett has stayed close, working on the chart on his iPad. One of the nurses has left, but the other is at Will’s bedside, adjusting a few of the monitors for good measure. Crockett looks up, giving Ethan a knowing look. Then, he gets to his feet, putting the iPad down to reach out and shake Jay’s hand.

“Detective Halstead,” he says. “Not the circumstances I’d like to be seeing you again.”

Jay accepts the handshake, but he looks anxiously from Crockett to Will. “He’s, uh -- he’s--”

Jay can’t bring the words together, and Crockett quickly interjects back into the conversation to minimize the stress. “He’s fighting, that’s what he’s doing,” he says, offering up a smile as only Crockett can in a time like this. He spares a professional glance toward Ethan once more. “No change in his vitals. Cardio’s been through, and they’ll be back soon to go over a plan of how we’re going to proceed.”

“Until we know for sure what we’re looking at, it’s just going to take time,” Ethan says, feeling apologetic for this. “It feels a little like slow motion to us, too, but we can’t get it wrong or it could do more harm than good.”

“I just heard back from the lab,” Crockett says. “No positive hits, but we’ve ruled several others out. So, the differential is shrinking, at least.”

Neither of them tell Jay just how big it is. Just how many drugs could cause cardiac arrest. By themselves, the list is massive. When thinking about combinations of drugs, it’s nearly impossible to calculate.

Jay nods, quick rapid motions. His eyes are still on Will. “He’s been fighting to stay for months now. Working his ass off.”

Ethan has to sigh, feeling chagrined. “I know.”

“It’s our turn, though,” Jay says, and he looks at Ethan. “It’s our turn to fight for him.”

Ethan has to nod. “That’s exactly what I’m going to do, Jay. I promise you. I promise him,” he says. “Will belongs at Med, and I’m going to do everything in my power to keep him here.”

Jay nods back again, less convicted than before. He finally steps past Ethan and goes to Will’s side. The nurse politely excuses herself, and Ethan watches as the other Halstead brother hesitates. He stands next to the bed, taking it all in. The wires, the tubes -- and Will’s pale, unmoving features. Ethan knows that his vitals have improved since they found him, but somehow he still looks worse. The stillness has settled, and now that there’s time to see him like this, to really see him, the truth of it is sobering.

Will Halstead is dying.

And, despite Ethan’s best efforts, right now all he can do is sit around and watch.

-o-

Sharon has always known, ever since she left nursing to start in administration, that there are trade offs. The high stakes and long hours of working the floor of an ED -- well, it’s hard on you. The life and death, it wears you out. Sharon respects the hell out of her nurses, especially those in the ED, and she’s not actually sure she could still be doing it.

That said, administration isn’t some kind of respite.

Sure, the hours are a little better. Yes, there are more perks. No one has thrown up on her in years, and she hasn’t had to remove anything from someone’s rectum since she was 40. Those are things you can’t put a pricetag on, to be sure.

But now, she’s gone and hired a serial killer.

So, trade-offs, indeed.

As an administrator, she can’t sit by his bedside. She can’t run the labs or order tests.

But his life is still her responsibility.

And she takes that very, very seriously.

She quickly directs Maggie to the patient files, and she has her pull Doris to help her run through the necessary files to sort in anticipation for the warrant. She puts her other charge nurse in charge of contacting previous hospitals. The police need a warrant, but they might be able to get some information via professional channels since Dr. Halstead is a patient whose life is in jeopardy. She’ll let Peter handle the legal nuances later. Right now, saving the life is the paramount concern.

Once she gets that squared away -- and she trusts Maggie to oversee this part of the job and to oversee it with all necessary diligence since she has a soft spot for the red headed attending -- she turns her attention to the police presence.

At Med, they’ve maintained a good working relationship with the cops. This has proven mutually beneficial. She can help PD out when cases need hospital cooperation. And when the hospital needs a police support force, she knows she can always count on someone reliable to show up.

This one will be a bit more tricky. The facts of the case are still being unfolded, and though they may want the same thing, Sharon is not naive to think they’re necessarily on the same side. If the investigation shows negligence in the hospital, they will call that to account, no matter how many favors Hank Voight might owe her.

In her preoccupation, she’s not fully appreciated just how many of Chicago’s finest have turned out. Indeed, she does see Hank Voight and his keen Intelligence Unit -- picking up right where Jay Halstead left off. But there’s also a whole host of uniformed officers, not to mention CSIs, aids -- the whole nine yards. It’s rapidly becoming apparent that the whole ED is going to be considered a crime scene in the short term, and Sharon is going to have to compensate -- and fast.

Shuttering the ED is no small feat, and it’s not one she undertakes lightly. The press will already be itching for a story, and she imagines there are a handful of reporters already outside, sniffing around. There are protocols in place for crime scenes within the hospital, and it’s happened before. Just not to this scale. To investigate a serial killer? Who may have been active for months?

The scale of this is massive.

She confers with Hank, who has all his ducks in a row for once. The warrants have been expedited, and Sharon makes the call to close the ED, giving the board only a cursory notification. She doesn’t envision anyone will object at a time like this.

Emily has been hauled off, and Sharon has the the staff start to redirect. She tries to consolidate as much of the patient load as she can, and she orders the staff to make themselves accessible to the cops. She can’t answer the questions now -- and there are plenty of questions -- but she confirms that there has been a personnel matter with legal implications and that no one is to come or go with clearing it with Hank Voight first. She clears the waiting room, and she informs the PR team of the impending disaster.

She’s going up to her office to gather her own paperwork regarding Emily for Hank, when she finds her office occupied.

It’s Gwen again.

She looks a lot less happier than the last time they met in person.

So far, Sharon has confirmed only the bare minimum to the scantest number of people possible. She knows rumors will have started and that speculation will be rife. She also knows that Gwen probably knows more than all that.

This doesn’t actually bother her. If anything, she thinks it’s Gwen’s job to know. She doesn’t always appreciate what the woman does with the knowledge she has, but Sharon can’t fault her ambition.

And for once, they both have bigger fish to fry.

“Tell me it’s not that bad,” Gwen says without preamble. She doesn’t wait for Sharon to collect herself; she doesn’t ask if it’s true or not. She’s already in damage control.

Sharon purses her lips, making her way over to her desk. “I don’t know how much you know, but I’m guessing anything you’ve heard -- the reality is worse.”

Gwen does not look pleased, but her fear is more pronounced than the animosity she barely holds at bay. “I’m told that one of our nurses has been arrested. Something about her involvement in the death of a patient.”

Sharon scoffs and shakes her head. “That’s just the half of it,” she says. “Emily Novak has been taken into custody on suspicion of multiple murders right here in this hospital. She’s also been arrested for attempted murder and assault on one of our staff members. He’s in critical condition down in the ED.”

Gwen is usually the epitome of composure, but this one has her speechless. She gapes for a moment, and then she shakes her head. “Emily Novak? But there’s no way.”

“There’s every way,” Sharon says. “I didn’t want to see it either, but the evidence is pretty clear. She’s been involved with every suspicious case, and she was the last one seen on the scene of today’s crime.”

Gwen shakes her head. “That’s circumstantial.”

Sharon is tired. She’s also not amused. She reaches for the paper on her desk, the copy of the background check Jay Halstead had provided. “And this?”

Gwen takes it, clearly suspicious. Her face darkens as she reads it. “What is this?”

“A background check performed by CPD,” Sharon says, matter of fact. “Emily Novak is an alias. She’s been linked to a string of aliases, and each one can be connected to a string of suspicious deaths in hospitals, nursing homes and more.”

The evidence is convincing.

It’s more than convincing.

It’s damning.

Sharon can see the heat rise in Gwen’s cheeks. She’s gone stiff.

Sharon tips her head, studying her carefully. “Did you even run the background check like you promised?”

Gwen’s brow is creased, face hot as she looks at Sharon. “Of course I did. The standard background check, but clearly she provided information to foil it, and we aren’t CPD, Sharon. You know this.”

And maybe that excuse would be valid if it weren’t the only lapse. Sharon looks at her hard and long. “And did you call a single reference? Did we verify her work history? Her school transcripts?”

Gwen is reeling now. Sharon has never caught her so off her guard. “I had a reference. An impeccable one.”

But that line doesn’t play here. It doesn’t play now. “You had a high paying reference,” she counters. “And we never stopped to ask why the price was as high as it was. You or me.”

Gwen puts the paper down and glares at Sharon, but her incredulity seems over the top. “Are you suggesting that the donor’s son knew? Because this donor was a highly respected part of this community, and his family has been active in all areas of local politics and philanthropy. His name is above reproach. I can promise you that.”

His money had also been above question, it seemed.

This is a moment when Sharon should probably hold her tongue, but professional deference has got to be damned at this point.

Sharon scoffs.

As if having the highest profile person in Chicago can possibly make this right.

Hell, they could have the mayor herself give a reference, and they were still in the same damn place.

She’s not surprised; not by that. She’s had a serial killer working on her staff, so of course there are going to be high level ties that somehow justify the mistake.

Even while Will Halstead fights for his life.

And countless families bury loved ones prematurely.

“I don’t know what I’m suggesting,” she snaps. “I just know we hired a serial killer. You, me, the hospital, the board -- all of us. We put her in a position of power over vulnerable patients, and there’s no way to spin that one for the press -- much less our patients, the public and our donors. And don’t even get me started on our vulnerabilities if Will Halstead decides to sue us.”

That gets her attention. Somehow, mentioning a legal dispute carries more weight than a murderous angel of mercy in their own halls. “Will Halstead?” Gwen asks with renewed zeal. “Did he screw this up?”

It figures that she’s looking for a scapegoat. “No, he’s the one who figured it out before anyone else,” she says, her own guilt twisting in her gut. She hadn’t believed him; she’d told him to get his act together. “And he nearly died for it.”

This sobers her somewhat, and the animosity fades slightly. Whether it’s concern for one of her staff or just general worries about liability, her controlled facade is less confident now. “How did it happen?”

But Sharon is well past sympathy by this point. “How? We’re still working that out, but it looks like our killer uses a subtle mix of drugs that is hard to detect without a targeted tox screen. The effects mimic a heart attack, and most patients who die seem to do so from natural causes. We found the same mix of drugs in Will Halstead’s system as at least one other patient. We’ll have to pull blood work from the rest to see what we can piece together,” she explains. She shakes her head. “But if you’re asking about liability more than method, then you should know it happened on hospital property. Our hire, our property: there’s not a court in the world that would convict us right here and now.”

Gwen sobers even more, and she inhales. “How is he? Is he expected to recover?”

It’s almost funny, except none of it is funny. “Oh, so now you’re concerned. Two seconds ago you were hoping to scapegoat him.”

Gwen sighs. “Sharon, I know you think I’m nothing but a conniving bureaucrat who will play the system for my own benefit,” she says. “And it’s true. I play this game -- and I play it well, and I play it without apologies.”

She tightens her jaw, refusing to be cowed. “I’m not offended by your ambition.”

“Just my methods, I’m sure,” Gwen surmises. “And I’ll accept that, because we play different roles here. We have to play different roles. Checks and balances, as it were. Our interpretations of success are not so different, though. I just want to make this right, Sharon.”

It’s tempting to think she’s being flippant, because Gwen certainly is good at making promises she has no intention of keeping. Her moods are volatile, and her motivations are always her own. She’s made her mistakes, but so has Sharon. It's hard to remember it sometimes -- since Gwen hides it so well -- but they’re just human after all.

Either that, or Gwen is finally scared out of her mind at the amount of liability the hospital and her as its head are open to right now.

Whatever the case may be, solidarity can be found in anything if the odds are great enough. “Well, we have a ways to go to get there,” Sharon says, a little less flustered now. She shakes her head. “And I hope both you and I see that throwing anyone under the bus will leave the hospital completely vulnerable.”

Gwen is already nodding. “I agree,” she says. “Any sign of weakness -- any division in our response to this -- will put this hospital into bankruptcy.”

Sharon takes this answer carefully, giving Gwen keen consideration. “I won’t lie about this,” she says, with a hint of warning. “Not about any of it. Your role or mine.”

“There are cases where discretion helps,” Gwen says. “But a serial killer? In our hospital? The press, the police -- no stone will be left unturned. Our only defense can be complete transparency and honesty.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that,” Sharon says. “Because the questions are going to start coming in, sooner rather than later.”

Gwen nods, as if this is something she is already expecting. “Keep me informed, then,” she says. “Of the investigation, the proceedings. And of Dr. Halstead’s condition, please.”

It’s something, at least.

Sharon’s just not sure if this renewed good faith is far too little, far too late.

-o-

As a hospital administrator, Sharon knows her job is sweeping. She has to handle the big picture items, and in this case, the shee scale of the problem is going to prove problematic if she doesn’t get out of ahead of it. Honestly, she’s not even sure that will matter. She just knows if she doesn’t stay on top of this situation, it will take her down -- and likely the hospital along with her.

That being said, staying cooped up in her office, going through paperwork, tracking relevant email threads and getting on the phone with as many important players in the situation is hard to sustain. Not because she’s not good at it, but because she keeps thinking of the details that seem to be less relevant.

In other words, she’s worried about Dr. Halstead.

The man has been a source of frustration for years. His moments of brilliance hardly seem to justify the headaches he’s caused her, and there have been plenty of moments when she’s thought about how easy it would be just to fire him. It’s not the Sharon is too soft hearted, because she thinks she has the appropriate balance of compassion and common sense to do her job.

But that’s the rub. It’s a job, most of the time, but some things -- sometimes -- are personal. She can’t invest in the success or failure of each person on her staff -- or every patient in her hospital -- but there are always those select few.

And Will Halstead has always failed for all the right reasons.

His desire to give a woman with cancer more time with her family is understandable, even if ultimately misguided. His need to save his mentor, even when she’s already gone, shows just how human he is. And his willingness to cover for Natalie? Not just Natalie -- but to do it for Natalie’s mother?

It’s as stupid as it can possibly be, but it’s so good hearted that it nearly makes her want to cry as she pounds her head against the wall.

So she keeps giving him second chances, and third chances, and fourth chances. She fires him in her rage, and brings him back in her simple humanity. Will Halstead is as much of Med as anyone on the staff. She can’t imagine the damn ED without him, even if sometimes she wishes she could.

It kills her a little bit, then, that she didn’t believe him. He’s the little boy who cried wolf, only Sharon’s been keenly reminded that he’s right more often than he’s wrong. Now, to be fair, when he’s wrong, it can bring down the whole hospital, but he’s also right.

He’s been right about Emily.

And she’d dismissed him out of hand, completely.

You can call it guilt. You can call it responsibility. Sharon doesn’t actually care what you call it. She’s already on her way back downstairs to check up on Dr. Halstead. The ED is on lockdown -- a measure she’d approve while the police canvas the area -- and she’s temporarily closed them off to new patients while only allowing critical cases to be transported out. Police are swarming the area, and she’s glad that it’s Voight in charge. They know each other enough not to step on each other’s feet, and maybe at least he’ll get results quickly.

Not that she knows exactly what those results will be. They’re getting warrants to pull all of Emily’s cases, and they have permission to search portions of the ED. It’s a mess with privacy laws, but Sharon has entrusted the job of sorting out the legalities to Peter, much to his utter chagrin. He’ll earn his paycheck on this one, at least.

The staff is being questioned, and the police have taken over a series of rooms to make the process more efficient. Someone is cataloguing items from one of the exam rooms, and Sharon is sure there are plenty of questions to ask, but she’s only got one.

She finds Dr. Choi in the room with Dr. Halstead. She catches sight of the red headed doctor, still unconscious and ventilated, before Dr. Choi sees her and ducks out to meet her.

“How is he?” she asked when he’s barely outside the room.

Dr. Choi glances back, his face set and anxious. “I wish I had something better to report, but it’s still hard to say,” he says. “We’ve gotten the vitals to stabilize a little, but until we know what she gave him, it’s going to be hard to keep his heart in rhythm. We did get the paralytic out of his system, but we’ve given him other sedation to keep him calm while he’s intubated.”

Sharon nods along in understanding. “So he’s shown signs of consciousness?”

Dr. Choi nods back. “The neuro consult was more or less positive, but they’ve ordered an image series just to be sure,” he says. “We’re all working a little bit in the dark here.”

She purses her lips and tries not to think about it. Emily could tell them in a second what’s in Will’s system, but she imagines a serial killer is not going to be likely to gives them the tools to save her last victim. Inside the room, Jay Halstead is in a chair at Will’s side. He’s pale and stony faced. His coworkers are hard at work all throughout the ED, but he hardly seems to notice. She could guess that he might convince Emily otherwise, but that’s probably more reason to keep him here. Killing Emily will only give the DA grounds to convict Jay instead.

But if it saved Will--

It gives Sharon pause.

She forces herself to shake her head. “What has cardiology said about his heart?”

“We’re still having trouble keeping his rhythm stable,” Dr. Choi explains. “We’ve managed to keep him from crashing, but he’s still all over the map. It’s making any further testing difficult, which means we haven’t fully ascertained if there is permanent damage or not. For now, we can only guess as to what’s in his system.”

Sharon frowns, her brow darkening. “There are no hits from the lab?”

“Nothing new. Just the paralytic, and the minor cardiac drug,” he says. “But taken in isolation, there’s no way it’d have this profound of an effect. Cardiology is taking a conservative treatment for now, a few mild, baseline medications to stabilize him, before we consider other options. Or better still, get a complete lab workup that tells us what we’re dealing with. The sooner we can get these drugs neutralized or out of his system, the better.”

“And nothing new from the lab?” Sharon asks.

“Panel after panel is negative,” Dr. Choi reports. He shakes his head with a sense of resignation. “We’re fishing without bait here.”

“And that’s it?” Sharon asks. She spares a glance over Dr. Choi’s shoulder where Dr. Halstead is still visible, unmoving and pale. “We’re still doing the waiting game?”

“If there’s damage to the heart, surgery is an option, but we can’t know anything until the drugs are out of his system,” Dr. Choi says. He shrugs, clearly feeling helpless. “At this point, we just don’t know what will help and what will hurt.”

She keeps her eyes trained on Dr. Halstead, and the feeling of failure is inevitable. She’ll tell herself a thousand times this isn’t her fault -- she’ll rationalize it, all of it -- but she knows that actions have consequences. Those consequences are real, whether they were intended or not.

Absolution will never make her feel better.

And here she is. Standing there thinking about what makes her feel better. Dr. Halstead is fighting for his life. How many families are living without their loved ones because of Sharon’s choices? The perspective is sobering.

She grounds herself in it. Someday, she’ll need the absolution to sleep at night. Right now, it’s not about sleep. Right now, it’s about answers.

“Do you think the damage is going to be that severe?” she asks, looking at Dr. Choi again. “Is surgery really on the table for this?”

Dr. Choi waffles, not because he isn’t sure. But because it’s an answer he doesn’t want to give. “Everything’s on the table,” he says, and he shakes his head with a note of resignation. “We need to get his heart stabilized. If he has another heart attack--”

“I know,” Sharon says, and she doesn’t make him finish the thought for both their sakes. She reaches out, squeezing his forearm gently as she offers him a smile. “Keep me informed.”

Dr. Choi nods, for what it’s worth, and Sharon hesitates.

“Do you think he’ll mind visitors?” she asks, nodding inside where Jay has seated himself by Dr. Halstead’s side.

“He’s been pretty quiet,” Dr. Choi observes. He lifts one shoulder. “A visit from you probably wouldn’t hurt.”

“I’m not sure how it’d help,” Sharon says, matter of fact. “I don’t have any answers.”

“Well, maybe he just needs someone to listen to the questions,” Dr. Choi offers. “It might help.”

It might, she agrees.

Then again, it might not.

Either way, she’s about to find out.

-o-

All these years Sharon’s spent in hospitals, but there’s no way around it. There’s nothing comfortable or reassuring about being on the inside of one of these rooms. She knows these halls in and out; this building is as much her home as the place she won in the divorce, but for patients, for their families -- they have no choice. They have no other option.

They can talk about making the rooms more inviting. They can make the furniture more comfortable. They can improve the amenities or promote a better bedside manner. That doesn’t change the reality, though. The difficult, overwhelming reality that this place? This home of hers?

Will almost always be a place people associate with the worst moments of their lives.

And here Sharon is.

Walking into another room with a detective she knows and a doctor she can’t help but like.

A room that one of them may never come out of alive.

But that’s why the job is important. That’s why she has to be here. If no one will fight for people on the worst days of the lives, then all is truly lost.

She just wished that made it easier.

She’s not silent when she enters, and she knows Jay hears her. She watches him stiffen, going just slightly rigid, almost at attention at Dr. Halstead’s side. He doesn’t turn to look at her, though. He waits for her to make the first move.

“I talked to Dr. Choi,” she says, coming around to stop on the other side of Dr. Halstead’s bed.

From this vantage point, the seriousness of the situation is impossible to miss. Dr. Halstead is annoying and overly confident, sometimes. He’s frustrating and can be exceptionally full of himself. But he’s never still like this. Never.

She pauses to take a breath and ends up wetting her lips as she gathers herself enough to continue.

“He’s doing better,” she says, although she’s aware that it sounds like damning with faint praise. She presses her lips together and thinks it through again. “I wouldn’t count him out yet.”

That seems more apt. She likes to think of it like that -- to think of him like that. That, somewhere under the drugs and pain, he’s still fighting. Somewhere, beneath the stillness, he’s waging the same incessant war he’s always waged. That his determination -- the determination that led him to cover up stolen pills and revive a woman with a DNR -- is still there, working in his favor this time.

Sitting there, Jay doesn’t answer. He doesn’t even look at her. He’d come to the hospital today, all business. He couldn’t have seen this coming.

The hard part is that Sharon should have. If she’d listened.

There’s nothing to be done for it, then. If she wants to make it right, it’s the big stuff and the little stuff. She looks from Dr. Halstead, directly to Jay. “I’m sorry. For this. For everything. I’m very sorry this happened.”

This time, the words elicit a reaction. His face twists, lips turning up in a bitter smile. Then, he looks at her. “You think I want your apologies?”

The bitterness is couched. The aggression is veiled. The threat is muted, but Sharon understands the precarious edges this man is standing on. “I’m here to help. You and your brother. So tell me, if not an apology, what is it that you do want?”

Jay shakes his head, the bitterness of his expression deepening ruefully. “How about my brother? How about that? Can you give me that?”

Vitriol is not uncommon in these situations. Sharon has been on the receiving end of every human emotion there is. The grief can break you. But it’s the hatred that makes you question everything.

Just like Sharon is questioning it now.

And coming up very, very short.

“I’d offer you assurances, but you know we’re doing everything we can,” she says, keeping it frank between them. She allows herself a sigh as she looks at her employee again. “It’s just not as fast as any of us would like, and I wish I could promise you it’d work.”

Jay looks away, eyes back on his brother. “Will’s always talking about that. There’s no absolutes and crap.”

“He’s right,” Sharon rejoins softly. She lets her gaze linger on Dr. Halstead as well. “But he never lets that stop him. It’s what always gets him into trouble. For his patients, he won’t stop. And he’s not right about everything, certainly, but he’s right about that.”

Jay takes that for what it is, and the emotion to sustain the bitterness is too much for him to muster. He seems to sink back, some of the tension draining from him once more. The air of resignation is heavy between them, and he looks to Sharon once more. “Tell me how this happened.”

It’s not quite a request she expects. She tips her head to the side. “Surely, you could talk to your boss about that. The police--”

But Jay shakes his head, this time almost adamantly. “She was your nurse, working in your ED. Will disappears on his shift, right here, right under our noses,” he says. “I can follow leads. We can collect evidence. But you can tell me what happened.”

He’s right, of course. In the hard ways. In the important ways.

Finally, she gives him a resolute nod. “I’m going to figure that out,” she promises, and it’s not an easy promise, but it’s an important one. She looks to Dr. Halstead, and renews her commitment to it once and for all. “For both your sakes.”

-o-

Dr. Choi has Dr. Halstead’s case under control, as best he can. Maggie is handling the start of the internal investigation. Hank Voight has the criminal probe fully underway. Sharon has set all the pieces in motion, and it was a sign of her supreme delegation skills that she now found herself superfluous.

She could go back to her office, sit down and start to do damage control. It would be necessary, surely. She could start calling up donors and explaining things before it all went public. She could confer with Peter about their legal position. She could sit down with PR to discuss the best spin. Necessary tasks, perhaps.

She looks around her ED again. Roped off exam rooms. Nurses giving statements at the nurse’s station. Dr. Choi scouring his iPad as if there might be some new results that help him save Will Halstead.

And behind her, two brothers going through something they shouldn’t have to face.

All because Sharon delegated tasks.

Instead of handling them herself.

That’s a mistake to make once, but not twice. Not today.

Digging out her phone, she pulls up the phone number. Gwen sounds surprised when she answers, not having gotten very far. “Sharon, is everything okay? Do we have a confession? How is Dr. Halstead?” she asks, the litany of rapidfire questions revealing that Sharon’s not the only one stepping up her game today.

“Nothing new on either front,” she reports. “But I think there may be a way to jumpstart the investigation and possibly save Dr. Halstead’s life.”

“Oh?” Gwen asks, sounding genuinely relieved. “And what’s that?”

“Well, I’ll need a favor from you,” Sharon says.

“Oh,” Gwen says, and she sounds a little less relieved now. “I’m not good with favors, Sharon. You know this. Especially now.”

Sharon presses her lips together with a grim, knowing smile. “You’ll be good with this one.”

It’s not a threat, exactly. But it’s also not a casual comment.

Gwen understands the distinction, even over the phone. “I’m listening.”

It’s a benign sort of invitation, but Sharon will take it. “I need the name of the donor who recommended Emily.”

Gwen’s reaction is predictable and probably instinctual. “That’s confidential information, Sharon. You know that.”

“If you think for a minute that the police are not going to ask you that question and come at you with a warrant, then you’re not as smart as I thought you were,” Sharon says stiffly. “And you said you wanted to make this right. Well, this is how we do it.”

“I don’t see how the name will matter,” Gwen retorts.

“Maybe it will, maybe it won’t, but Emily Novak has been playing this game a long time, and the more we know about her, the more we know about our role in this mess,” Sharon says. She drops her voice, stepping away from the room even while she glances back at the two Halstead brothers. “Will Halstead’s condition isn’t getting better. No one is saying it, but I don’t know if he’s going to live. So getting the name, following up on that lead, is the only thing I can think to do.”

Gwen is terse in her reply. “I’m not sure how there’s much in it for me. Giving up the name of a donor is a serious breach--”

“Gwen, if we have any appearance of dragging our feet, we are open to all sorts of liability,” Sharon says tiredly. “Do I really have to spell it out for you? There are no good answers here. Just the necessary ones. And who knows? If you tell me the name, we might actually save one life to compensate for all the ones we put at risk.”

The line is quiet for a moment, but finally, she hears Gwen inhale. “Addison Trudeau.”

Sharon stops short. This one surprises her. “Addison Trudeau? The lawyer?”

“The philanthropist,” Gwen says with a telling inflection. “We take money from a lot of sources, and some of it requires a little more nuance, but Addison Trudeau has always been the real deal. Powerful, rich and deeply reclusive. He values his privacy.”

“He’s been on the donor list for years, but I never could get a meeting with him,” Sharon says. “He passed away last year, didn’t he?”

“The donation in question comes from his estate, which is not being managed by his son, Eric,” she says. “He expressed an interest in maintaining some of his father’s charity work, but was figuring out which causes were most important to him. I assured him that Chicago Med was a worthwhile investment.”

Assured sounds like a professional matter, but Sharon isn’t stupid. Such assurances rarely come without strings attached. “And what was it your promised you?”

“Nothing untoward, I promise you, and it’s all very well documented with the board,” Gwen says, a touch defensive over the line. “But he did want to make sure his father’s nurse, who had cared for him in this last six months, was taken care of.”

“Wait. Emily? Emily Novak was Addison Trudeau’s nurse when he died?” she asks.

Gwen is quiet for another moment. “We can’t assume--”

“And we also can’t ignore,” Sharon says.

She starts moving toward the door again, and she can hear Gwen sigh. “Sharon--”

“I swear to God, if you tell me not to alienate this donor--”

“Sharon,” Gwen says again, more firmly now. “Just -- find out what you need to find out.”

It’s a tacit approval for what comes next.

Because Sharon’s about to go kicking over rocks.

And there’s no telling what will squirm out.