Chicago PD/Chicago Med fic: Caged Emotions (3/3)
PART ONE
PART TWO
PART THREE
-o-
Jay’s overcome with emotion, but fortunately for him and Hailey both, the team is a bit more focused. Jay’s racket has roused Hailey, but it’s the rest of the team working together that figures out how to dismantle the plexiglass, cutting a several holes first to facilitate the flow of air and then, finally, a hole large enough to help Hailey through.
He’s the first to go to her, helping her out over the cut plexiglass, supporting her weight as she gets her feet beneath her. She comes out of the cage, leaning heavily against him.
Gasping, coughing, reeling.
Breathing.
She’s alive, then.
She’s alive.
It’s a surreal moment. The success is so overwhelming that he hardly understands it. Hailey’s alive.
Still supporting her, Hailey takes a few more gasping breaths before she straightens up enough to look at Jay.
“Will,” Hailey croaks. “Did you find Will?”
It’s a question that makes them all stop, and Jay feels the heat rush to his head and everything starts to buzz. No one wants to say anything, and Jay himself is unable to speak for the weight of the truth.
Hailey looks at him, in horrified understanding. “You didn’t find him?” she asks, her voice trembling. She struggles to her feet, and Jay’s too numb to stop her. “But--”
“This was our only lead that panned out,” Voight says. “We’ve checked off a lot of other locations, and we still have teams running the whole city--”
It sounds good. It sounds like the right thing. It’s all they can do.
12 hours have passed -- and then some. Hailey’s tank had been nearly empty. Looking at it now, there’s nothing left. There’s no way. Will’s--
“No,” Hailey says, and she looks at Jay again, shaking her head. “But I saw where they took him. I saw it.”
Voight looks momentarily confused. Jay straightens to look at her as he wonders if he misheard. “You what?”
She’s still laboring for air, but she’s intent on making this point. “It was the same crew who took us, who did this,” she says. “And they abducted me first, and by the time we were in transit, I had regained consciousness. Before I could wake Will or even figure out what was going on, they stopped. They took Will out. I was still bound and gagged, so I pretended I was still unconscious, but I got a good look at the place -- and I heard everything.”
Strained and raspy, her words are clear. Her eyes are certain.
No one else dares speak, but Jay approaches her again. “You know where he is?”
“Not exactly,” she admits, looking at him fully now. Only him. 12 hours and counting. “But we were by a dock. Not one of the big ones. Not a shipping dock. But a private one. Smaller boats, yachts, that sort of thing. I didn’t get a chance to see anything specific, though, but I know it was a private dock.”
“A private dock,” Jay says, and he shakes his head. He’s read the file so many times that he has the details memorized, but with the rise and fall of his adrenaline levels, it’s still hard to make it all parse. “I mean, Scarro loved boating. It’s something he did with Michael all the time. It’s all Michael can talk about when he talks about his dad.”
The rest of the team is gathering now. “But we checked their typical route -- the island they used to visit,” Atwater says. “There’s nothing there, and the boat they used to use? It’s in a dry dock. Hasn’t been touched since Michael was arrested.”
“But we’re not looking for the boat,” Jay says, eyes growing wide. “We’re looking for the dock. Do we have anything on that? The location of the dock they used to have?”
“We don’t have it yet,” Voight says, and he’s resolute about this. “But we will.”
The team takes the implicit order, and they all get to work, making calls, making references, making any lead they can.
They’re out of time.
Jay looks at Hailey, haggard, worn, and breathing.
He takes her by the hand, and his chest hurts when he breathes.
He doesn’t want to believe that they’re out of time.
-o-
The medics tend to Hailey, who accepts their help quietly and without fanfare. They offer to take her to the hospital, just in case, but Hailey declines and they don’t object. She’s fine.
She’s been kidnapped and locked in an airtight cage and deprived of oxygen, but that’s the sort of thing that happens when you work for Intelligence.
Jay’s not sure she believes she’s fine or if she just doesn’t want to leave him. Honestly, he doesn’t care. The thought of being separated from her now, when Will’s life is still on the line, is untenable. He can’t bring himself to face it. If he’s really put his brother’s life at risk, then he needs to remember why it’s worth it.
He needs Hailey here to remind him it’s not in vain.
Even if they are recovering a dead body right now.
The last 12 hours, Jay’s been meticulous with the time, but it gets away from him now. He doesn’t want to know how much time has passed, how long it’s been since Will’s oxygen supply ran out.
Ignorance isn’t bliss, but it is something.
The team has fanned out across the parking lot, and he sits with Hailey on the bumper of one of the squad cars. Her fingers are laced with his, and her warmth is returning.
“Will’s going to be okay,” she tells him. “We’re going to find him.”
Will’s probably dead, but he doesn’t say that. He doesn’t know how. “Was he okay?” he asks instead. “When you saw him? Was he okay?”
He’s not sure why it matters. If Will’s dead now, then it’s irrelevant how he was then. But still, Jay finds he wants to know. He wants to know everything, every detail. If those were his brother’s last moments, then he has to know.
“Out cold,” she says quietly. She shakes her head, still shivering despite her burgeoning warmth. “I don’t know. We were probably on location for 20 or 30 minutes before they came back without him. I never saw him again. I never saw him awake.”
She diverts her eyes, and Jay takes her by the arms gently. Not all is lost, he reminds himself. He sees her, still breathing in front of him. Not all is lost. “Hey,” he says, even softer now. He bends down until she looks him in the eyes again. “Are you okay?”
She hesitates as she looks back at him, her voice even lower than before. “They put me in a cage, Jay. I thought I was going to die.”
“I know,” Jay says. “And it’s my fault.”
Her brow creases. “No, Jay--”
“He did this to get back at me,” Jay tells her.
“Because Scarro’s a monster,” she says. “What happened to me, what happened to Will -- it’s not your fault.”
It feels like his fault, though. Scarro had asked him about the things they’d do for family. The limits, the boundaries. The compromises.
He’d told Scarro he knew his family was worth it.
Scarro had called his bluff, just to find that Jay wasn’t bluffing at all. Jay’s playing Scarro’s game, but it’s rigged. It’s doomed to failure, and even success is not enough. It’s been nearly 13 hours, and Will’s oxygen will be depleted by now.
He takes her up in his arms, pulling her into a hug. He buries his face into her hair and feels the movement of her heart next to his chest. She breathes against his cheek.
Somewhere, across town, Will is in a cage by the water, dying by himself.
It’s not Jay’s fault.
But it sure as hell feels like it is.
“Hey!” Burgess says. “Hey, hey, hey!”
Jay pulls away, taking Hailey’s hand in his own and squeezing as he turns. Burgess is practically jumping up and down.
“I got something,” she says, staring at her phone. “Holy crap, I think I’ve got something.”
“Text us the address,” Voight says, already in motion. “You can tell us on the way.”
-o-
They ride together, Voight in the driver’s seat and Burgess in the passenger’s seat, dictating what she knows. Jay sits with Hailey in the backseat, pressed close to her and unable to let go. She clings to his hand; he clings to everything. In the cars behind them, the rest of the team follows.
“I was thinking about what Jay’s been talking about,” Burgess explains. “About seeing the kid. About how it’s personal. So I ran addresses not connected to the dad. I ran the ones connected to Michael.”
Hailey’s fingers squeeze his. Jay swallows.
Voight keeps his eyes on the road. “Makes sense. And this address?”
“It’s a private dock,” Burgess says. “The kid talked about sailing, right? That was a big deal?”
She glances back at Jay for affirmation, and he can only nod.
Burgess smiles sadly, eyes flitting from Jay to Hailey before she looks back at Voight again. “So, this is his place,” he says. “His mom actually bought it, and it was placed in a trust until Michael turned 18. It’s been his ever since, and it’s never had Scarro’s name on it, which is why it’s never been in our records or even on our radar at all.”
She looks around, as if for confirmation once more, and ends up shrugging helplessly.
“I can’t say for sure if it’s right, but it makes sense, right? It fits the profile, right?” she asks, almost sounding apologetic as she meets Jay’s eyes.
There are no certainties, then. This is Jay’s last chance to bring his brother home alive, and they’re going on something that makes sense and fits the profile. No proof. No documented connection. All they can do is play Scarro’s game and hope they win.
Jay still can’t speak, but Hailey nods next to him. “That sounds pretty good to me,” she says. “This has always been about Michael. The revenge isn’t in Scarro’s name. It’s in Michael’s.”
She looks at Jay, willing him to look back at her. She’s the one that nearly died, but she’s the one comforting him now.
“You found me,” she tells him steadily, not looking away even while the car careens around a corner, sirens blaring. “Let us help you find Will.”
Because Lester Scarro is on a slab in a morgue somewhere. Michael Scarro is rotting away in prison. Hailey’s hand is warm, her face flush, next to Jay. And Will--
And it’s time to bring Will home.
-o-
As they near the location, Voight starts to slow down and Hailey perks up. She sits up straighter, looking around the area. By the time they park, she’s already climbing out of the car, taking it in as the rest of the team pulls up behind them. Jay follows her, eyes trained on her face.
She nods. “This is it,” she says. “I remember this place.”
She looks to Voight and nods again.
She looks at Jay.
“This is it.”
-o-
Jay’s not technically on this case, but there’s no way in hell he’s not going inside. He and Hailey hang back together, waiting for the rest of the team to form a quick and exact strike team. Voight wastes no time on getting them inside, and within seconds they have the front door down, the back door cleared, and they’ve flooded the main level of the boat house.
Unarmed, Jay keeps a respectful distance at first, but as each room is cleared, he finds he can’t wait any longer. Hailey pulls him, nodding toward the stairs. “The basement.”
Jay knows what he’s supposed to do, but he also knows that none of it matters. He’s supposed to be having a normal day. He’s supposed to go to work, come home to his girlfriend, and grab a beer with his brother after work.
None of them are supposed to be here.
Hailey, traumatized. Jay, at the end of his rope.
And Will--
Jay’s lost track of the time, but he knows there’s no point in counting the seconds anymore. It’s been too long.
He needs to find Will now.
The team is still securing the upstairs, and Jay rushes past. Hailey’s right behind him, and he hears Voight direct the team to fall in line. He plunges down the stairwell, and someone behind him has the sense to turn on the lights. He hits the bottom landing at nearly a full run, and he nearly spills into the main room of the basement.
He takes the scene in by flashes.
A cement floor.
Cinderblock walls.
A window with a glimpse of the water.
Then, Jay sees a tank of oxygen. A newspaper on the ground. A box of sealed plexiglass.
And a tall, limp figure sprawled on the floor, a shock of red hair standing out starkly.
“Will!” Jay calls, rushing forward once more. He pounds his fists on the plexiglass, all but screaming now. “Will!”
There’s no sound from inside the cube, no movement. Will’s on his side, long limbs splayed out in front of him. He’s turned away from Jay, and Jay can’t see his face, but his body is eerily still.
“Will! Come on!” he yells, pounding against the glass, kicking it now. “Will!”
He doesn’t realize he’s crying until Hailey pulls him back, her arms wrapped around him. Reeling, he can’t fight her, and he stands there while Voight and the team moves forward. The empty oxygen tank is kicked out of the way. The newspaper is scattered. They’ve got tools to cut through the glass, and Voight wastes no time.
Except all the time has been wasted.
The timer is flashing at zero. The oxygen tank has no air left. Will’s in an airtight cage with no oxygen left. Jay wasted the last 12 hours.
He’s wasted a lot longer than that.
Holding grudges, placing blame, fostering his resentment. All these times he got pissed at his brother for not staying, and Jay didn’t show up when it mattered. Will’s--
Jay’s crying now, and he hears a sob and belatedly realizes it’s his own. Hailey buries her face in his shoulder, hre breath against his skin. “It’s okay,” she tells him. “Jay, it’s okay.”
They cut through the plexiglass, prying apart a section at the seams. It’s loud, but the noise seems to fall on Jay’s deaf ears. On the ground, in the cage, Will hasn’t so much as twitched or stirred.
Finally, a large enough portion of the plexiglass is moved away, and Voight is the first one in. Jay’s still stuck in place, grounded by Hailey, whose touch is the only thing that reminds him he’s still alive.
He’s grateful for that, in some ways.
In other ways, he hates it.
He can’t be alive -- not if Will’s--
If Will’s--
Voight is on his knee, rolling Will over onto his back. His brother flops limply, head lolling to the side as Voight presses two trained fingers into the pulse point on his neck. He keeps his face steady, even as he leans down and listens close to Will’s mouth.
“Okay,” he calls out, sitting back up again and repositioning himself. “We need to start CPR. Where’s the backup?”
Burgess falls in line next to him, taking up position next to Will’s head while Voight starts a vigorous round of compressions on Will’s breastbone.
“Any minute,” Atwater reports. “Two units are already here. We got fire and two ambulances less than five minutes out.”
Voight doesn’t miss a beat, continuing the compressions like it’s nothing, like it’s not Will lying there.
And Jay’s no doctor -- he’s got basically zero interest in that -- but he’s not an idiot. He understands the mechanics of what’s happening. Will’s heart isn’t beating. His lungs aren’t moving air. Voight is pumping his heart to move his blood manually, and Burgess steps in seamlessly, providing steady bursts of oxygen as she pinches his nose and blows into his mouth. It’s a stopgap, a last resort.
Until they can bring Will back.
If they can bring Will back.
There’s no telling how long it’s been. There’s no way to know how much of Will’s brain is even left. If Will’s never getting out of that cage after all.
The scene is coming alive now, backup arriving and the full team in motion. Jay still finds himself frozen, paralyzed on the spot. He can’t move, he can’t think, he can’t--
Hailey’s fingers are locked around his own. He can feel her close to him, and they’re both holding their breath now.
Voight continues pushing hard, and Burgess leans down at intervals to offer Will some air. When a pair of medics pushes through, Jay barely notices. He stares, stuck in place like he’s the one locked in a cage this time, as they roll out their gear and take over. Will’s shirt is cut away, and someone places an ambo bag over Will’s mouth and nose and starts to squeeze it. Voight steps back, giving them some space, and two electrodes are placed on Will’s chest.
Everything stops, and they all listen.
“Okay,” one of the medics says. “He’s in v-tach. Let’s get in an amp of epi, and someone get the charge up.”
CPR continues again, a brief frenetic clip. It seems like seconds -- it seems like a lifetime -- before they stop again, and this time, they put the paddles on Will’s chest. Everyone clears.
Will jolts, the shot of electricity making him twitch. His body goes limp again, and there’s no change on the portable monitor, and the crew is immediately back to work.
Compressing Will’s heart, squeezing air into his lungs. The lifesaving measures Will has done a thousand times, used to save his own life.
“Let’s give it another ounce of epi,” the medic says, his brow furrowed as he maintains a vigorous pace of compressions. He glances toward Voight. “Do we know how long he’s been done?”
There’s no flicker of emotion on Voight’s face. “No,” he says.
Voight’s face is impassive, but the medic’s expression gives a little, and Jay’s gut twists. No one else will say it -- not with Jay standing there, on the edge of himself -- but the medic’s expression is a testament to what they all know.
Will could be gone.
Will could be gone.
Hailey holds him; the team stands close. Voight doesn’t move.
“Okay, give me a charge to 350,” the medic says, and the machine whines to life again as both medics lean back, hands up. “Clear.”
And this time, it works.
It’s almost inexplicable, and honestly, Jay hardly understands. The medics sit back, attending to other details, hooking up and IV and setting up the rest of the monitors. There’s a rhythm on the readout, and Jay sees Will’s chest rise and fall in the chaos around him.
Everyone collectively exhales, and the relief is palpable all around him. Hailey draws closer still, and Jay thinks about the hole Lester Scarro blew through the back of his head and the hollow look in Michael’s eyes.
And Hailey holding his hand.
And Will, who had been without oxygen for who knows how long.
The things you do for family.
It’s a numb understanding of something that Jay’s always taken for granted. Nursing his mom while she died. Handling his dad’s affairs when he couldn’t do it himself. And Will--
Jay can’t even shudder, he’s so outside himself at the moment.
“Come on,” Hailey says while the medics load Will onto a gurney and take him out to the ambulance. “We’ll hop a ride.”
That’s a plan, anyway.
Following after Will’s unconscious body, that’s sure as hell better than anything else he’s got right now.
-o-
Jay tucks himself into the back of the ambulance, staying out of the way of the medic as he tends to his brother. Hailey’s up in the front, sitting next to the driver, and the sirens roar as they speed through the streets. The medic checks and monitors, making a few adjustments here and there. On the gurney, Will is breathing, but he isn’t moving. He doesn’t open his eyes.
Jay’s found him, though. Jay’s found his brother.
The medic jots a few things down. He seems to be frowning.
Will skin is still pale, but his lips have lost their bluish hue. He offers no reassurance. He offers no sign of life.
Somehow, Jay feels as lost as he did before.
-o-
Once they get to Med, everything happens quickly. The last 24 hours have been exceeding slow, but it all slows down to a crawl now. The seconds are lifetimes, and he’s got nothing left in him. When Maggie takes him to a quiet, private waiting room, he obliges. He’s spent all he has; now he has to wait and see.
There is solace, of course. Hailey sits with him, allowing Maggie to give her a quick once-over before quietly declaring her fit. Jay tries to remind himself that Hailey’s has gone through something traumatic here, that she needs him to be strong, but Jay can’t.
He can’t.
Hailey seems to understand that. She thanks Maggie, who politely excuses herself to go check on Will. Hailey stays, sitting as close as she can. She’s careful; she’s quiet.
She’s alive.
Jay reminds himself of that.
He got Hailey back. He saved Hailey. Lester Scarro is dead, and Michael is never getting out of prison, but Hailey’s here.
When he remembers to look up, she smiles at him.
He wonders if this is what hell is, after all.
Getting half of what you want.
And having to learn to live with it.
Scarro never pulled it off. He salvaged his reputation with his son, but lost the boy anyway. Scarro ate a bullet to get away with it, using revenge as his only salve.
That option’s not on the table for Jay.
Hailey’s still smiling, and Jay has to look away.
“Hey,” she says -- she cajoles, she chides. “Hey.”
He looks up reluctantly.
“We need to stay strong,” she says. “For Will.”
He has to laugh, and the sound is short and bitter. “I’m the reason Will’s here. I’m the reason you’re here. You both nearly died because of me. Will might be dead. And that’s on me.”
She shakes her head, adamant. “You’re not responsible for what that psychopath did. I know on some level you know that.”
“I put his kid in prison--”
“Because he broke the law,” Haily says. “And you gave Scarro every out. He didn’t take it.”
“No,” Jay agrees wryly. “He just took everything I cared about instead.”
“Which is on him,” Hailey says. She shakes her head. “I was the one in that cage Jay. I was the one who they dragged out of the apartment. And not for one second did I blame you.”
“Michael Scarro never had any idea what he was doing. He trust his father, and it didn’t matter,” Jay points out.
“I agree he’s a victim here, but that doesn’t change who the perpetrator is,” Hailey says. “I don’t blame you, and I know Will doesn’t either.”
“Because Will might be dead,” Jay retrots despite himself.
Hailey frowns, but she doesn’t reprimand him. “If you blame yourself for this, if you take on this burden, then Scarro’s won, Jay,” she says. “You can’t let him win.”
He looks down again, wishing he could concede that point.
Wishing like hell that it didn’t seem so much like Scarro already had.
-o-
It’s Ethan who talks to him, and to say he’s somber is an understatement. He’s the epitome of professionalism, but Jay can see it’s not an easy conversation to have.
And why would it be?
He’s telling Jay that Will never wake up.
“But I do feel like the scans are promising,” Ethan tries to clarify, even after admitting the possibility of a worst case scenario. “He’s showing some response to stimuli, but he’s still deeply unconscious, which isn’t uncommon after the kind of trauma he’s been through.”
That’s one way of putting it.
After being locked in a cage and slowly suffocated for want of air.
“It’s not just the lack of oxygen,” Ethan explains. “He’s also suffering from CO2 exposure. As the air levels diminished, he was breathing in high levels of his own CO2. I think the effects are temporary, but until we flush his system, he’s going to have a hard time waking up.”
Jay doesn’t know what to say. There’s nothing to say. Not only did Will suffocate, but he choked to death on his own CO2. No one wants to say it, but Jay thinks it. It’s a terrible way to die.
“I think if we give it a couple of hours, Will might surprise us,” Ethan offers, and he smiles. Jay senses that he means this, but even doctors are prone to hope when it’s personal enough. Jay’s learned not to take things for granted this time around, good or bad. “Come on. You can sit with him now.”
Jay’s afraid to hope right now, but he’s desperate to believe. He knows they found Will, but the last time he saw his brother, it had hardly been an encouraging sight. He needs to see him, hold his hand, watch him breathe.
Will’s out of the cage now.
But neither of them are quite free yet.
-o-
Will’s still down in the ED, which Jay suspects has more to do with the ED staff wanting to keep him close rather than anything else. There’s some sense of relief when he sees his brother. Pale and still, he’s breathing unassisted, with nothing but a small nasal cannula providing supplemental air. He’s on an IV and some monitors, but mostly, he looks asleep.
As if anyone would ever choose to sleep just for kicks on a gurney in the ED.
He’s been dressed in a gown, for what that’s worth, and the sheet covering him has been neatly arranged, probably for Jay’s benefit as much as anything. Hailey follows close behind him, but she keeps her distance. She wants to be there for Jay, but she knows this is a moment between two brothers.
Because he found Will. All those years Will spent running, and this time, he’d been taken against his Will. And for what? For Jay. For Jay’s debts, for his failings. Scarro had wanted him, and he’d taken it out on Will and Hailey instead.
So here Jay is. Standing there, watching his brother, and hoping he’ll stay this time. He’s spent a lot of time being mad at Will. Funny, right now, he can’t really remember why.
They’re not so dissimilar. They both do what they can to survive. Jay relies on denial, but Will’s more open with his emotions. When crap gets hard, he just runs away instead. These coping mechanisms have separated them far too long. It’s like an invisible wall of plexiglass cutting them off from one another, sucking the air out of them until there’s nothing left.
Freedom comes at a price, then.
If it comes at all.
Jay hesitates for a moment, but he’s searched for Will too long, too hard. He steps forward, grabbing a chair and pulling it close. He sits down, feeling heavier than ever, and he sighs. When he gathers his next breath, he reaches down and picks up Will’s hand.
It’s more demonstrative than usual, but the touch is important. It’s almost necessary.
Will’s got some bruising along his hairline -- no doubt from his abduction. Ethan hadn’t mentioned it, which leads Jay to think it’s mostly superficial. But it implies that Will hadn’t gone down without a fight.
More than that, Will’s fingers are bloody and bruised. The skin is split along the knuckles, and it looks painful.
It is painful -- for both of them.
Will fought hard to get out, pounding his fists against the glass until something had to give. The glass never did; Will’s hands -- and his willpower -- had.
He hasn’t asked Hailey about her experience, about how hard she fought. He hasn’t asked her if she saw the attack coming, if she had a chance to fight back. He hasn’t wanted to think about it, to dwell on it.
And he’d been so focused on getting them back that he hadn’t had to.
The reality is harder to ignore now.
All he can think, while he watches his brother slumber, is that Will passed out -- stopped breathing -- died-- thinking no one had come for him.
He has to put his brother’s hand down and pull away. He feels sick to his stomach, and for a moment, he thinks he might throw up. Hailey is up next to him in an instant, a hand on his shoulder. “Hey--” she starts.
He pulls away from her touch, too. “No,” he says, swallowing over the words roughly. “I’m okay. I just--”
“I know,” she says.
He shakes his head, finally looking at her. “I know you know,” he says. “Just like Will knows. I should be the one comforting you here, not the other way around. Hailey, what you went through--”
She draws a breath, and stiffens a little. Jay notices for the first time that her hands are bruised, too. There’s a pain in her eyes, but it’s not from any physical injury. “What we all went through.”
Jay has to snort, and he looks at Will while his eyes burn. “You were the one in a cage. You and Will.”
“And you had to look for us,” Hailey says. “This was targeted at you. It’s okay to admit that. It’s okay.”
He looks up at her again, wondering how the hell he got so lucky. “But what you went through--”
“Was scary,” she agrees, almost soft in her admittance. “But the thought of what it was doing to you was worse than what it might do to me. I just kept thinking, I wish the bastard had killed me, because I never would want you to suffer like that. 12 hours and my oxygen was running out. 12 hours and you never got to take a deep breath either.”
He stands then, next to her until they’re face to face. “If anything happened to you--”
He lifts a hand up to her cheek and cups it, the tears almost threatening to spill over.
She reaches up and takes his hand gently. “I know,” she says. “I know.”
“I’m sorry,” he croaks, as the emotion overtakes him. “Hailey--”
“It’s not your fault,” she assures him quickly. She leans down, taking his face in her hands. “Jay, I know it’s not your fault. Will knows it, too.”
Jay’s face contorts as he barely keeps in a sob. “But he took you--”
Her fingers drop down and take his once more. “And I was scared, I was. But I knew you were coming. I knew you’d do everything to find me. So really? Honestly? The thing that scared me most is what it’d do to you if you were too late.”
“But what he did to you--”
“He knew you, but not well enough,” Hailey says. “He knew how to hurt you, sure. But he didn’t know you. What you’d do for your family is not what he’d do for his. I knew you’d come, Jay. Even when the air got thin, even when it was hard to breathe, I knew. I never doubted. And I know Will would believe the same.”
He looks away, gaze falling back on his unconscious brother. “Except I didn’t get there in time for Will.”
She doesn’t relent. “You did, though.”
“He wasn’t breathing, Hailey,” he says. “I know he’s responding to stimuli and breathing, but he’s a doctor. If something’s happened--”
She shakes her head, almost refusing to listen to it. “It doesn’t matter. This thing -- all of it -- it’s not about success or failure. That’s not what relationships are,” she says, drawing his eyes back to her. “It’s about the effort we make. It’s about what we put into it. That’s what family is, Jay. Scarro never understood that.”
But Jay knows it.
Standing there with Hailey.
Standing there at Will’s bedside.
Family isn’t about protecting yourself. It’s about protecting them.
It’s why Scarro will rot in hell.
And Jay is safe and sound, right where he is.
-o-
Will continues to show positive signs, according to Ethan. As best Jay can tell, that simply means his brother stays sleeping, completely unaware, grimacing slightly whenever Ethan performs a neuro check. The neurosurgeon comes down for a consult, but there’s no love lost between the two of them, so he runs a few checks, smiles politely and Jay and says all seems well.
The ED staff hovers, but there’s a notable lack of urgency. The lingering sense of anxiety is hard to shake, but Jay has to admit, the assumption in the ED seems to suggest Will’s going to be okay. Or, at the very least, that he’s going to wake up. Jay’s waited all this time, held his breath for what feels like 12 hours straight. It’s just like Will to be a stubborn bastard and make him wait a little longer.
Hailey stays with him, a constant, reassuring presence. He knows she’s there for him, but the way she sits so close to him, touching him, he starts to suspect he’s also there for her. There’s a mutuality there he’s not quite allowed himself to see before. He likes it. It’s an acuity he’s never appreciated before, one he’ll never take for granted now.
Funny. He has Scarro to thank for that.
That was never Scarro’s point, to be sure, but it seems Scarro’s the one who’s been in the cage he can’t unlock all this time.
-o-
Voight comes by later, without a noticeable entourage. Jay suspects this is intentional. He knows the team will be worried -- about him, about Hailey, even about Will -- but some things are delicate.
Some things are private.
Voight won’t let that last forever -- statements must be taken and cases must be closed -- but he’ll allow Jay that for now. He’s a bastard, but he’s not quite heartless. At least, not with those he calls his own.
“It’s coming together,” he tells Jay, keeping a respectful distance just outside Will’s room. Hailey is still inside with Will, curled up, half asleep on the chair. “The whole case.”
Jay nods because he’s not sure what else to do. He’s not sure it matters.
Voight gives him a careful look. “We have options, you know,” he says. “To make this right. Scarro’s dead, but we can go after some of his lieutenants. We may even be able to take a fresh shot at his organization by extension. And I mean, pinning a few extra charges on Michael Scarro should be a slam dunk.”
It’s an offer of justice on the surface, but Jay knows what it is. It’s an offer for revenge. A sanitized version, perhaps, less vicious than the one that got him here, but no less vindictive. “No,” he says. “I mean, go after the organization, sure. But leave Michael out of it. The kid had nothing to do with it.”
It’s a response that seems to surprise Voight. “The kid had everything to do with it.”
“But it’s not his fault,” Jay says. “What Scarro did, he thinks he did for Michael, but he did it for himself. That kid’s been just as screwed over as any of us. Will and Hailey -- they got out of their cages. Michael never will.”
Voight considers this, and if he’s surprised, then he hides it well. “That doesn’t sound like the guy who hunted down his father’s killer and shot him on the streets against direct orders.”
Jay’s smile is painfully rueful. “Yeah, well, revenge never gets you very far does it,” he says. “But I beat Scarro’s game. I got my family out of cages, and he never did. He’s going to rot in hell by himself this time. All things considered, I guess that means I won.”
Voight nods, and he seems to accept that answer for what it is. “I guess it does,” he agrees. He bobs his head toward the room. “Take all the time you need. Hailey, too. Call me when Will wakes up.”
“Sure,” he says. “And Sarge?”
Voight pauses.
“Thanks,” he says. “I couldn’t have won without you and the team.”
“That’s what the team’s for,” Voight tells him. “Our own version of family.”
He smiles faintly. It feels certain. “Yeah,” he says. “Family.”
With that, Voight excuses himself, and Jay is left to tend to his family once more. He sits with his girlfriend at his brother’s bedside, and he reminds himself what he has. Jay usually keeps his emotions locked away, but he’s done with cages. For himself and everyone else.
He kisses Hailey on the head and takes up Will’s hand again.
And the last of the locked walls finally seems to break free.
-o-
The hours in the ED are long, but Jay doesn’t dare complain. He knows what long really feels like, and this isn’t it. Before, Will and Hailey’s air had been running out. Now, there here with him, and Jay can see the rise and fall of Will’s chest, and he can feel Hailey’s breath against his arm as she sleeps next to him in Will’s room.
This reassurance is important, but it’s not the thing he really wants. All the positive signs don’t mean anything until Will starts to stir. Then, about five hours after his rescue, Will wakes up.
Hailey’s excused herself to the cafeteria, insisting that Jay eats. Jay agrees only so she’ll eat, and it seems like an apt compromise. He hates that she’s gone, but when Will’s eyes start to flutter, Jay’s focused entirely.
“Will?” he asks, and he gets to his feet. His fingers lace around Will’s, and he positions himself well into his brother’s line of sight. This way, he’s the first thing his brother sees when his eyes open, and there’s a moment of blurry confusion before his eyes focus, and Jay sees recognition there.
He grins, despite himself.
Will can be weak and confused, but he knows who Jay is. Slowly, he wets his lips, and struggles to form the single syllable. “Jay?”
Jay’s grin only widen. “Yeah, buddy. It’s me. How’re you doing?”
It’s a dumb question. Will had been kidnapped and locked in a cage before being slowly suffocated to death. He’s recovering from hypoxia and carbon dioxide poisoning. There’s no way the answer to Jay’s question is fine.
“I -- don’t know,” Will says slowly, and his eyes start to dart around, taking in his surroundings. He sees the monitors above his bed, and he looks down at himself. His heart rate audibly quickens on the monitors. “What happened?”
Jay tightens his grip on his brother’s hand reflexibly. “You’re okay,” he says. “You’re going to be fine.”
This doesn’t have the calming effect Jay’s going for. “But what happened? What’s wrong with me?”
He can see his brother trying to make it parse, his doctor brain in overdrive as he tries and fails to diagnose himself. “Seriously, you’re fine,” Jay says, feeling a flush rise in his cheeks. “Look, why don’t I go get Ethan. He’s been taking care of you.”
But Will’s fingers lock tighter around his. “No,” he says, voice still somewhat raspy. He wrinkles his nose, and he seems to remember a little more. “I was in a cage?”
Jay settles back down, and he feels his cheeks redden. “Yeah,” he says. “You were.”
Will takes another breath, and he’s clearly working hard here. “There was no air,” he says. And he looks confused. “Why was there no air?”
Jay has to wet his lips, but there’s no way to avoid this. “It was a sick game,” he says. “Revenge for my work on the Scarro case. The old man targeted you and Hailey, like that made up for his son going to prison.”
It’s the short version, but even that seems to be a little much for Will. “Revenge? But -- I don’t remember--”
“You took a pretty good hit to the head, I’m guessing,” Jay says. “Do you remember being attacked?”
At this, Will looks blank and he shakes his head. “No,” he says. “I was -- getting ready for work. Then I woke up in this cage and I saw the oxygen. But that’s it.”
Voight won’t love the lack of detail that will be in Will’s statement, but Jay finds himself grateful. Will doesn’t need to remember those details. Not when they’re burned into Jay’s memory for all time.
“Well, it doesn’t matter,” Jay tells him. “What matters is that you’re okay. You, Hailey, me -- we’re okay.”
It’s a sentiment that seems to get through to Will. The confusion eases, and he smiles. “I knew you’d come,” he says. “I didn’t understand what was happening or why, but I knew you’d come.”
“How could you possibly know that?” Jay asks.
“Because you’re family,” Will tells him. “And you’ve always done everything you can for family.”
Jay feels something warm in his chest, and he reaches up, ruffling his brother’s unkempt red locks. “I’m going to get that doctor,” he says. “Get you checked out.”
This time, Will doesn’t fight him.
This time, Will agrees.
Family, see.
It’s all about family.
-o-
Will’s given the all clear. Ethan is very pleased with his progress, and he passes all of Dr. Abrams’ neuro exams with flying colors. They expect no lingering effects, but Ethan insists on keeping him in the hospital. It’s a testament to how weak Will is that he doesn’t fight it.
It’s a testament to how scared Jay was that he doesn’t fight it either. Most of the time he hates hospitals, he’s likened them to prisons.
He knows better now.
All the same, it makes for a long night ahead, and Jay insists that Hailey goes home with Burgess for the night, to rest and recover properly. He promises to leave his phone on, and she’s already texting him from the car as Burgess drives them back.
Will may be okay, but he’s still exhausted. Jay would love nothing better than to talk to his brother, but he knows Will needs rest. After all he’s been through, he deserves it.
Jay should sleep too -- he knows he’s exhausted -- but he can’t bring himself to do it. He finds himself sitting there, watching his brother as he breathes, slow, even breaths all through the night.
It’s reassuring.
It’s heartening.
It’s everything.
Scarro’s never been a liar, but neither has Jay. Jay told Scarro he knew his family was worth it, and here he is. Here they are.
They’re worth it.
More than anything else on this planet, Jay knows they’re worth it.
-o-
Will goes home the next day, and Jay insists that he crash at his place for the next day or so. Will rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t put up much of a fight, and they swing by Burgess’ place to pick up Hailey. They go home together, the three of them, safe within the four, secure walls of Jay’s apartment.
Jay takes a breath.
He lets it out.
Everything is really going to be okay.
-o-
Several weeks later, when Hailey’s back at work and Will’s at his own place again, Jay takes an afternoon to himself. He visits Michael Scarro in prison first, just to see how the kid’s doing. Then, he swings by a cemetery, and he drives around until he finds the fresh plot for Lester Scarro.
At his grave, it’s tempting to say something vindictive. Jay’s never above an I-told-you-so. But he can’t do it this time. Because of how close he came. Because of why he’s here.
He takes out the note from his pocket, the suicide note that had been released to him from the closed crime scene. He puts it on the stone. “I don’t need this, but you might still want it,” he says, stepping back once more.
He looks around. The plot is immaculate; the stone pristine. Scarro has spared no expense, even in his death.
He looks back at the lettering, the date of his birth, the date of his death. Somewhere, under this dirt, Scarro’s locked in his own prison, and it’s not the kind you get out of it.
It’s funny. He almost feels sorry for him.
Clearing his throat, Jay says what he needs to say. “I know your plan failed, but it’s not as bad as you think,” he says. “Your lawyers couldn’t get Michael off, but they made a great will. You left him a fortune, and it’s his, free and clear.”
The day is sunny; it’s clear.
Jay feels the breeze flutter across the trees and he inhales again.
“And all this crap, all the work we did to undo your little plan, it saved three lives,” he says. “We found fresh evidence, the kind that lets cases get reopened. I just told Michael today. He’s getting a new trial. He’ll still do some time, but it’s not going to be a life sentence this time. Not even close.”
He thinks about Scarro sitting behind the desk in his office. The set of his jaw.
Because family protects. Don’t you know anything about family, Detective?
“You’re a bastard, and I think you made the wrong call,” Jay says. “But I’ll look after Michael. He deserves better than what you gave him. He deserves it.”
Jay walks out of the cemetery, keeping his promise close to heart. There’s no worse condemnation, he figures, than the grace of the person you wronged the most.
Jay knows a hell of a lot about family after all.
PART TWO
PART THREE
-o-
Jay’s overcome with emotion, but fortunately for him and Hailey both, the team is a bit more focused. Jay’s racket has roused Hailey, but it’s the rest of the team working together that figures out how to dismantle the plexiglass, cutting a several holes first to facilitate the flow of air and then, finally, a hole large enough to help Hailey through.
He’s the first to go to her, helping her out over the cut plexiglass, supporting her weight as she gets her feet beneath her. She comes out of the cage, leaning heavily against him.
Gasping, coughing, reeling.
Breathing.
She’s alive, then.
She’s alive.
It’s a surreal moment. The success is so overwhelming that he hardly understands it. Hailey’s alive.
Still supporting her, Hailey takes a few more gasping breaths before she straightens up enough to look at Jay.
“Will,” Hailey croaks. “Did you find Will?”
It’s a question that makes them all stop, and Jay feels the heat rush to his head and everything starts to buzz. No one wants to say anything, and Jay himself is unable to speak for the weight of the truth.
Hailey looks at him, in horrified understanding. “You didn’t find him?” she asks, her voice trembling. She struggles to her feet, and Jay’s too numb to stop her. “But--”
“This was our only lead that panned out,” Voight says. “We’ve checked off a lot of other locations, and we still have teams running the whole city--”
It sounds good. It sounds like the right thing. It’s all they can do.
12 hours have passed -- and then some. Hailey’s tank had been nearly empty. Looking at it now, there’s nothing left. There’s no way. Will’s--
“No,” Hailey says, and she looks at Jay again, shaking her head. “But I saw where they took him. I saw it.”
Voight looks momentarily confused. Jay straightens to look at her as he wonders if he misheard. “You what?”
She’s still laboring for air, but she’s intent on making this point. “It was the same crew who took us, who did this,” she says. “And they abducted me first, and by the time we were in transit, I had regained consciousness. Before I could wake Will or even figure out what was going on, they stopped. They took Will out. I was still bound and gagged, so I pretended I was still unconscious, but I got a good look at the place -- and I heard everything.”
Strained and raspy, her words are clear. Her eyes are certain.
No one else dares speak, but Jay approaches her again. “You know where he is?”
“Not exactly,” she admits, looking at him fully now. Only him. 12 hours and counting. “But we were by a dock. Not one of the big ones. Not a shipping dock. But a private one. Smaller boats, yachts, that sort of thing. I didn’t get a chance to see anything specific, though, but I know it was a private dock.”
“A private dock,” Jay says, and he shakes his head. He’s read the file so many times that he has the details memorized, but with the rise and fall of his adrenaline levels, it’s still hard to make it all parse. “I mean, Scarro loved boating. It’s something he did with Michael all the time. It’s all Michael can talk about when he talks about his dad.”
The rest of the team is gathering now. “But we checked their typical route -- the island they used to visit,” Atwater says. “There’s nothing there, and the boat they used to use? It’s in a dry dock. Hasn’t been touched since Michael was arrested.”
“But we’re not looking for the boat,” Jay says, eyes growing wide. “We’re looking for the dock. Do we have anything on that? The location of the dock they used to have?”
“We don’t have it yet,” Voight says, and he’s resolute about this. “But we will.”
The team takes the implicit order, and they all get to work, making calls, making references, making any lead they can.
They’re out of time.
Jay looks at Hailey, haggard, worn, and breathing.
He takes her by the hand, and his chest hurts when he breathes.
He doesn’t want to believe that they’re out of time.
-o-
The medics tend to Hailey, who accepts their help quietly and without fanfare. They offer to take her to the hospital, just in case, but Hailey declines and they don’t object. She’s fine.
She’s been kidnapped and locked in an airtight cage and deprived of oxygen, but that’s the sort of thing that happens when you work for Intelligence.
Jay’s not sure she believes she’s fine or if she just doesn’t want to leave him. Honestly, he doesn’t care. The thought of being separated from her now, when Will’s life is still on the line, is untenable. He can’t bring himself to face it. If he’s really put his brother’s life at risk, then he needs to remember why it’s worth it.
He needs Hailey here to remind him it’s not in vain.
Even if they are recovering a dead body right now.
The last 12 hours, Jay’s been meticulous with the time, but it gets away from him now. He doesn’t want to know how much time has passed, how long it’s been since Will’s oxygen supply ran out.
Ignorance isn’t bliss, but it is something.
The team has fanned out across the parking lot, and he sits with Hailey on the bumper of one of the squad cars. Her fingers are laced with his, and her warmth is returning.
“Will’s going to be okay,” she tells him. “We’re going to find him.”
Will’s probably dead, but he doesn’t say that. He doesn’t know how. “Was he okay?” he asks instead. “When you saw him? Was he okay?”
He’s not sure why it matters. If Will’s dead now, then it’s irrelevant how he was then. But still, Jay finds he wants to know. He wants to know everything, every detail. If those were his brother’s last moments, then he has to know.
“Out cold,” she says quietly. She shakes her head, still shivering despite her burgeoning warmth. “I don’t know. We were probably on location for 20 or 30 minutes before they came back without him. I never saw him again. I never saw him awake.”
She diverts her eyes, and Jay takes her by the arms gently. Not all is lost, he reminds himself. He sees her, still breathing in front of him. Not all is lost. “Hey,” he says, even softer now. He bends down until she looks him in the eyes again. “Are you okay?”
She hesitates as she looks back at him, her voice even lower than before. “They put me in a cage, Jay. I thought I was going to die.”
“I know,” Jay says. “And it’s my fault.”
Her brow creases. “No, Jay--”
“He did this to get back at me,” Jay tells her.
“Because Scarro’s a monster,” she says. “What happened to me, what happened to Will -- it’s not your fault.”
It feels like his fault, though. Scarro had asked him about the things they’d do for family. The limits, the boundaries. The compromises.
He’d told Scarro he knew his family was worth it.
Scarro had called his bluff, just to find that Jay wasn’t bluffing at all. Jay’s playing Scarro’s game, but it’s rigged. It’s doomed to failure, and even success is not enough. It’s been nearly 13 hours, and Will’s oxygen will be depleted by now.
He takes her up in his arms, pulling her into a hug. He buries his face into her hair and feels the movement of her heart next to his chest. She breathes against his cheek.
Somewhere, across town, Will is in a cage by the water, dying by himself.
It’s not Jay’s fault.
But it sure as hell feels like it is.
“Hey!” Burgess says. “Hey, hey, hey!”
Jay pulls away, taking Hailey’s hand in his own and squeezing as he turns. Burgess is practically jumping up and down.
“I got something,” she says, staring at her phone. “Holy crap, I think I’ve got something.”
“Text us the address,” Voight says, already in motion. “You can tell us on the way.”
-o-
They ride together, Voight in the driver’s seat and Burgess in the passenger’s seat, dictating what she knows. Jay sits with Hailey in the backseat, pressed close to her and unable to let go. She clings to his hand; he clings to everything. In the cars behind them, the rest of the team follows.
“I was thinking about what Jay’s been talking about,” Burgess explains. “About seeing the kid. About how it’s personal. So I ran addresses not connected to the dad. I ran the ones connected to Michael.”
Hailey’s fingers squeeze his. Jay swallows.
Voight keeps his eyes on the road. “Makes sense. And this address?”
“It’s a private dock,” Burgess says. “The kid talked about sailing, right? That was a big deal?”
She glances back at Jay for affirmation, and he can only nod.
Burgess smiles sadly, eyes flitting from Jay to Hailey before she looks back at Voight again. “So, this is his place,” he says. “His mom actually bought it, and it was placed in a trust until Michael turned 18. It’s been his ever since, and it’s never had Scarro’s name on it, which is why it’s never been in our records or even on our radar at all.”
She looks around, as if for confirmation once more, and ends up shrugging helplessly.
“I can’t say for sure if it’s right, but it makes sense, right? It fits the profile, right?” she asks, almost sounding apologetic as she meets Jay’s eyes.
There are no certainties, then. This is Jay’s last chance to bring his brother home alive, and they’re going on something that makes sense and fits the profile. No proof. No documented connection. All they can do is play Scarro’s game and hope they win.
Jay still can’t speak, but Hailey nods next to him. “That sounds pretty good to me,” she says. “This has always been about Michael. The revenge isn’t in Scarro’s name. It’s in Michael’s.”
She looks at Jay, willing him to look back at her. She’s the one that nearly died, but she’s the one comforting him now.
“You found me,” she tells him steadily, not looking away even while the car careens around a corner, sirens blaring. “Let us help you find Will.”
Because Lester Scarro is on a slab in a morgue somewhere. Michael Scarro is rotting away in prison. Hailey’s hand is warm, her face flush, next to Jay. And Will--
And it’s time to bring Will home.
-o-
As they near the location, Voight starts to slow down and Hailey perks up. She sits up straighter, looking around the area. By the time they park, she’s already climbing out of the car, taking it in as the rest of the team pulls up behind them. Jay follows her, eyes trained on her face.
She nods. “This is it,” she says. “I remember this place.”
She looks to Voight and nods again.
She looks at Jay.
“This is it.”
-o-
Jay’s not technically on this case, but there’s no way in hell he’s not going inside. He and Hailey hang back together, waiting for the rest of the team to form a quick and exact strike team. Voight wastes no time on getting them inside, and within seconds they have the front door down, the back door cleared, and they’ve flooded the main level of the boat house.
Unarmed, Jay keeps a respectful distance at first, but as each room is cleared, he finds he can’t wait any longer. Hailey pulls him, nodding toward the stairs. “The basement.”
Jay knows what he’s supposed to do, but he also knows that none of it matters. He’s supposed to be having a normal day. He’s supposed to go to work, come home to his girlfriend, and grab a beer with his brother after work.
None of them are supposed to be here.
Hailey, traumatized. Jay, at the end of his rope.
And Will--
Jay’s lost track of the time, but he knows there’s no point in counting the seconds anymore. It’s been too long.
He needs to find Will now.
The team is still securing the upstairs, and Jay rushes past. Hailey’s right behind him, and he hears Voight direct the team to fall in line. He plunges down the stairwell, and someone behind him has the sense to turn on the lights. He hits the bottom landing at nearly a full run, and he nearly spills into the main room of the basement.
He takes the scene in by flashes.
A cement floor.
Cinderblock walls.
A window with a glimpse of the water.
Then, Jay sees a tank of oxygen. A newspaper on the ground. A box of sealed plexiglass.
And a tall, limp figure sprawled on the floor, a shock of red hair standing out starkly.
“Will!” Jay calls, rushing forward once more. He pounds his fists on the plexiglass, all but screaming now. “Will!”
There’s no sound from inside the cube, no movement. Will’s on his side, long limbs splayed out in front of him. He’s turned away from Jay, and Jay can’t see his face, but his body is eerily still.
“Will! Come on!” he yells, pounding against the glass, kicking it now. “Will!”
He doesn’t realize he’s crying until Hailey pulls him back, her arms wrapped around him. Reeling, he can’t fight her, and he stands there while Voight and the team moves forward. The empty oxygen tank is kicked out of the way. The newspaper is scattered. They’ve got tools to cut through the glass, and Voight wastes no time.
Except all the time has been wasted.
The timer is flashing at zero. The oxygen tank has no air left. Will’s in an airtight cage with no oxygen left. Jay wasted the last 12 hours.
He’s wasted a lot longer than that.
Holding grudges, placing blame, fostering his resentment. All these times he got pissed at his brother for not staying, and Jay didn’t show up when it mattered. Will’s--
Jay’s crying now, and he hears a sob and belatedly realizes it’s his own. Hailey buries her face in his shoulder, hre breath against his skin. “It’s okay,” she tells him. “Jay, it’s okay.”
They cut through the plexiglass, prying apart a section at the seams. It’s loud, but the noise seems to fall on Jay’s deaf ears. On the ground, in the cage, Will hasn’t so much as twitched or stirred.
Finally, a large enough portion of the plexiglass is moved away, and Voight is the first one in. Jay’s still stuck in place, grounded by Hailey, whose touch is the only thing that reminds him he’s still alive.
He’s grateful for that, in some ways.
In other ways, he hates it.
He can’t be alive -- not if Will’s--
If Will’s--
Voight is on his knee, rolling Will over onto his back. His brother flops limply, head lolling to the side as Voight presses two trained fingers into the pulse point on his neck. He keeps his face steady, even as he leans down and listens close to Will’s mouth.
“Okay,” he calls out, sitting back up again and repositioning himself. “We need to start CPR. Where’s the backup?”
Burgess falls in line next to him, taking up position next to Will’s head while Voight starts a vigorous round of compressions on Will’s breastbone.
“Any minute,” Atwater reports. “Two units are already here. We got fire and two ambulances less than five minutes out.”
Voight doesn’t miss a beat, continuing the compressions like it’s nothing, like it’s not Will lying there.
And Jay’s no doctor -- he’s got basically zero interest in that -- but he’s not an idiot. He understands the mechanics of what’s happening. Will’s heart isn’t beating. His lungs aren’t moving air. Voight is pumping his heart to move his blood manually, and Burgess steps in seamlessly, providing steady bursts of oxygen as she pinches his nose and blows into his mouth. It’s a stopgap, a last resort.
Until they can bring Will back.
If they can bring Will back.
There’s no telling how long it’s been. There’s no way to know how much of Will’s brain is even left. If Will’s never getting out of that cage after all.
The scene is coming alive now, backup arriving and the full team in motion. Jay still finds himself frozen, paralyzed on the spot. He can’t move, he can’t think, he can’t--
Hailey’s fingers are locked around his own. He can feel her close to him, and they’re both holding their breath now.
Voight continues pushing hard, and Burgess leans down at intervals to offer Will some air. When a pair of medics pushes through, Jay barely notices. He stares, stuck in place like he’s the one locked in a cage this time, as they roll out their gear and take over. Will’s shirt is cut away, and someone places an ambo bag over Will’s mouth and nose and starts to squeeze it. Voight steps back, giving them some space, and two electrodes are placed on Will’s chest.
Everything stops, and they all listen.
“Okay,” one of the medics says. “He’s in v-tach. Let’s get in an amp of epi, and someone get the charge up.”
CPR continues again, a brief frenetic clip. It seems like seconds -- it seems like a lifetime -- before they stop again, and this time, they put the paddles on Will’s chest. Everyone clears.
Will jolts, the shot of electricity making him twitch. His body goes limp again, and there’s no change on the portable monitor, and the crew is immediately back to work.
Compressing Will’s heart, squeezing air into his lungs. The lifesaving measures Will has done a thousand times, used to save his own life.
“Let’s give it another ounce of epi,” the medic says, his brow furrowed as he maintains a vigorous pace of compressions. He glances toward Voight. “Do we know how long he’s been done?”
There’s no flicker of emotion on Voight’s face. “No,” he says.
Voight’s face is impassive, but the medic’s expression gives a little, and Jay’s gut twists. No one else will say it -- not with Jay standing there, on the edge of himself -- but the medic’s expression is a testament to what they all know.
Will could be gone.
Will could be gone.
Hailey holds him; the team stands close. Voight doesn’t move.
“Okay, give me a charge to 350,” the medic says, and the machine whines to life again as both medics lean back, hands up. “Clear.”
And this time, it works.
It’s almost inexplicable, and honestly, Jay hardly understands. The medics sit back, attending to other details, hooking up and IV and setting up the rest of the monitors. There’s a rhythm on the readout, and Jay sees Will’s chest rise and fall in the chaos around him.
Everyone collectively exhales, and the relief is palpable all around him. Hailey draws closer still, and Jay thinks about the hole Lester Scarro blew through the back of his head and the hollow look in Michael’s eyes.
And Hailey holding his hand.
And Will, who had been without oxygen for who knows how long.
The things you do for family.
It’s a numb understanding of something that Jay’s always taken for granted. Nursing his mom while she died. Handling his dad’s affairs when he couldn’t do it himself. And Will--
Jay can’t even shudder, he’s so outside himself at the moment.
“Come on,” Hailey says while the medics load Will onto a gurney and take him out to the ambulance. “We’ll hop a ride.”
That’s a plan, anyway.
Following after Will’s unconscious body, that’s sure as hell better than anything else he’s got right now.
-o-
Jay tucks himself into the back of the ambulance, staying out of the way of the medic as he tends to his brother. Hailey’s up in the front, sitting next to the driver, and the sirens roar as they speed through the streets. The medic checks and monitors, making a few adjustments here and there. On the gurney, Will is breathing, but he isn’t moving. He doesn’t open his eyes.
Jay’s found him, though. Jay’s found his brother.
The medic jots a few things down. He seems to be frowning.
Will skin is still pale, but his lips have lost their bluish hue. He offers no reassurance. He offers no sign of life.
Somehow, Jay feels as lost as he did before.
-o-
Once they get to Med, everything happens quickly. The last 24 hours have been exceeding slow, but it all slows down to a crawl now. The seconds are lifetimes, and he’s got nothing left in him. When Maggie takes him to a quiet, private waiting room, he obliges. He’s spent all he has; now he has to wait and see.
There is solace, of course. Hailey sits with him, allowing Maggie to give her a quick once-over before quietly declaring her fit. Jay tries to remind himself that Hailey’s has gone through something traumatic here, that she needs him to be strong, but Jay can’t.
He can’t.
Hailey seems to understand that. She thanks Maggie, who politely excuses herself to go check on Will. Hailey stays, sitting as close as she can. She’s careful; she’s quiet.
She’s alive.
Jay reminds himself of that.
He got Hailey back. He saved Hailey. Lester Scarro is dead, and Michael is never getting out of prison, but Hailey’s here.
When he remembers to look up, she smiles at him.
He wonders if this is what hell is, after all.
Getting half of what you want.
And having to learn to live with it.
Scarro never pulled it off. He salvaged his reputation with his son, but lost the boy anyway. Scarro ate a bullet to get away with it, using revenge as his only salve.
That option’s not on the table for Jay.
Hailey’s still smiling, and Jay has to look away.
“Hey,” she says -- she cajoles, she chides. “Hey.”
He looks up reluctantly.
“We need to stay strong,” she says. “For Will.”
He has to laugh, and the sound is short and bitter. “I’m the reason Will’s here. I’m the reason you’re here. You both nearly died because of me. Will might be dead. And that’s on me.”
She shakes her head, adamant. “You’re not responsible for what that psychopath did. I know on some level you know that.”
“I put his kid in prison--”
“Because he broke the law,” Haily says. “And you gave Scarro every out. He didn’t take it.”
“No,” Jay agrees wryly. “He just took everything I cared about instead.”
“Which is on him,” Hailey says. She shakes her head. “I was the one in that cage Jay. I was the one who they dragged out of the apartment. And not for one second did I blame you.”
“Michael Scarro never had any idea what he was doing. He trust his father, and it didn’t matter,” Jay points out.
“I agree he’s a victim here, but that doesn’t change who the perpetrator is,” Hailey says. “I don’t blame you, and I know Will doesn’t either.”
“Because Will might be dead,” Jay retrots despite himself.
Hailey frowns, but she doesn’t reprimand him. “If you blame yourself for this, if you take on this burden, then Scarro’s won, Jay,” she says. “You can’t let him win.”
He looks down again, wishing he could concede that point.
Wishing like hell that it didn’t seem so much like Scarro already had.
-o-
It’s Ethan who talks to him, and to say he’s somber is an understatement. He’s the epitome of professionalism, but Jay can see it’s not an easy conversation to have.
And why would it be?
He’s telling Jay that Will never wake up.
“But I do feel like the scans are promising,” Ethan tries to clarify, even after admitting the possibility of a worst case scenario. “He’s showing some response to stimuli, but he’s still deeply unconscious, which isn’t uncommon after the kind of trauma he’s been through.”
That’s one way of putting it.
After being locked in a cage and slowly suffocated for want of air.
“It’s not just the lack of oxygen,” Ethan explains. “He’s also suffering from CO2 exposure. As the air levels diminished, he was breathing in high levels of his own CO2. I think the effects are temporary, but until we flush his system, he’s going to have a hard time waking up.”
Jay doesn’t know what to say. There’s nothing to say. Not only did Will suffocate, but he choked to death on his own CO2. No one wants to say it, but Jay thinks it. It’s a terrible way to die.
“I think if we give it a couple of hours, Will might surprise us,” Ethan offers, and he smiles. Jay senses that he means this, but even doctors are prone to hope when it’s personal enough. Jay’s learned not to take things for granted this time around, good or bad. “Come on. You can sit with him now.”
Jay’s afraid to hope right now, but he’s desperate to believe. He knows they found Will, but the last time he saw his brother, it had hardly been an encouraging sight. He needs to see him, hold his hand, watch him breathe.
Will’s out of the cage now.
But neither of them are quite free yet.
-o-
Will’s still down in the ED, which Jay suspects has more to do with the ED staff wanting to keep him close rather than anything else. There’s some sense of relief when he sees his brother. Pale and still, he’s breathing unassisted, with nothing but a small nasal cannula providing supplemental air. He’s on an IV and some monitors, but mostly, he looks asleep.
As if anyone would ever choose to sleep just for kicks on a gurney in the ED.
He’s been dressed in a gown, for what that’s worth, and the sheet covering him has been neatly arranged, probably for Jay’s benefit as much as anything. Hailey follows close behind him, but she keeps her distance. She wants to be there for Jay, but she knows this is a moment between two brothers.
Because he found Will. All those years Will spent running, and this time, he’d been taken against his Will. And for what? For Jay. For Jay’s debts, for his failings. Scarro had wanted him, and he’d taken it out on Will and Hailey instead.
So here Jay is. Standing there, watching his brother, and hoping he’ll stay this time. He’s spent a lot of time being mad at Will. Funny, right now, he can’t really remember why.
They’re not so dissimilar. They both do what they can to survive. Jay relies on denial, but Will’s more open with his emotions. When crap gets hard, he just runs away instead. These coping mechanisms have separated them far too long. It’s like an invisible wall of plexiglass cutting them off from one another, sucking the air out of them until there’s nothing left.
Freedom comes at a price, then.
If it comes at all.
Jay hesitates for a moment, but he’s searched for Will too long, too hard. He steps forward, grabbing a chair and pulling it close. He sits down, feeling heavier than ever, and he sighs. When he gathers his next breath, he reaches down and picks up Will’s hand.
It’s more demonstrative than usual, but the touch is important. It’s almost necessary.
Will’s got some bruising along his hairline -- no doubt from his abduction. Ethan hadn’t mentioned it, which leads Jay to think it’s mostly superficial. But it implies that Will hadn’t gone down without a fight.
More than that, Will’s fingers are bloody and bruised. The skin is split along the knuckles, and it looks painful.
It is painful -- for both of them.
Will fought hard to get out, pounding his fists against the glass until something had to give. The glass never did; Will’s hands -- and his willpower -- had.
He hasn’t asked Hailey about her experience, about how hard she fought. He hasn’t asked her if she saw the attack coming, if she had a chance to fight back. He hasn’t wanted to think about it, to dwell on it.
And he’d been so focused on getting them back that he hadn’t had to.
The reality is harder to ignore now.
All he can think, while he watches his brother slumber, is that Will passed out -- stopped breathing -- died-- thinking no one had come for him.
He has to put his brother’s hand down and pull away. He feels sick to his stomach, and for a moment, he thinks he might throw up. Hailey is up next to him in an instant, a hand on his shoulder. “Hey--” she starts.
He pulls away from her touch, too. “No,” he says, swallowing over the words roughly. “I’m okay. I just--”
“I know,” she says.
He shakes his head, finally looking at her. “I know you know,” he says. “Just like Will knows. I should be the one comforting you here, not the other way around. Hailey, what you went through--”
She draws a breath, and stiffens a little. Jay notices for the first time that her hands are bruised, too. There’s a pain in her eyes, but it’s not from any physical injury. “What we all went through.”
Jay has to snort, and he looks at Will while his eyes burn. “You were the one in a cage. You and Will.”
“And you had to look for us,” Hailey says. “This was targeted at you. It’s okay to admit that. It’s okay.”
He looks up at her again, wondering how the hell he got so lucky. “But what you went through--”
“Was scary,” she agrees, almost soft in her admittance. “But the thought of what it was doing to you was worse than what it might do to me. I just kept thinking, I wish the bastard had killed me, because I never would want you to suffer like that. 12 hours and my oxygen was running out. 12 hours and you never got to take a deep breath either.”
He stands then, next to her until they’re face to face. “If anything happened to you--”
He lifts a hand up to her cheek and cups it, the tears almost threatening to spill over.
She reaches up and takes his hand gently. “I know,” she says. “I know.”
“I’m sorry,” he croaks, as the emotion overtakes him. “Hailey--”
“It’s not your fault,” she assures him quickly. She leans down, taking his face in her hands. “Jay, I know it’s not your fault. Will knows it, too.”
Jay’s face contorts as he barely keeps in a sob. “But he took you--”
Her fingers drop down and take his once more. “And I was scared, I was. But I knew you were coming. I knew you’d do everything to find me. So really? Honestly? The thing that scared me most is what it’d do to you if you were too late.”
“But what he did to you--”
“He knew you, but not well enough,” Hailey says. “He knew how to hurt you, sure. But he didn’t know you. What you’d do for your family is not what he’d do for his. I knew you’d come, Jay. Even when the air got thin, even when it was hard to breathe, I knew. I never doubted. And I know Will would believe the same.”
He looks away, gaze falling back on his unconscious brother. “Except I didn’t get there in time for Will.”
She doesn’t relent. “You did, though.”
“He wasn’t breathing, Hailey,” he says. “I know he’s responding to stimuli and breathing, but he’s a doctor. If something’s happened--”
She shakes her head, almost refusing to listen to it. “It doesn’t matter. This thing -- all of it -- it’s not about success or failure. That’s not what relationships are,” she says, drawing his eyes back to her. “It’s about the effort we make. It’s about what we put into it. That’s what family is, Jay. Scarro never understood that.”
But Jay knows it.
Standing there with Hailey.
Standing there at Will’s bedside.
Family isn’t about protecting yourself. It’s about protecting them.
It’s why Scarro will rot in hell.
And Jay is safe and sound, right where he is.
-o-
Will continues to show positive signs, according to Ethan. As best Jay can tell, that simply means his brother stays sleeping, completely unaware, grimacing slightly whenever Ethan performs a neuro check. The neurosurgeon comes down for a consult, but there’s no love lost between the two of them, so he runs a few checks, smiles politely and Jay and says all seems well.
The ED staff hovers, but there’s a notable lack of urgency. The lingering sense of anxiety is hard to shake, but Jay has to admit, the assumption in the ED seems to suggest Will’s going to be okay. Or, at the very least, that he’s going to wake up. Jay’s waited all this time, held his breath for what feels like 12 hours straight. It’s just like Will to be a stubborn bastard and make him wait a little longer.
Hailey stays with him, a constant, reassuring presence. He knows she’s there for him, but the way she sits so close to him, touching him, he starts to suspect he’s also there for her. There’s a mutuality there he’s not quite allowed himself to see before. He likes it. It’s an acuity he’s never appreciated before, one he’ll never take for granted now.
Funny. He has Scarro to thank for that.
That was never Scarro’s point, to be sure, but it seems Scarro’s the one who’s been in the cage he can’t unlock all this time.
-o-
Voight comes by later, without a noticeable entourage. Jay suspects this is intentional. He knows the team will be worried -- about him, about Hailey, even about Will -- but some things are delicate.
Some things are private.
Voight won’t let that last forever -- statements must be taken and cases must be closed -- but he’ll allow Jay that for now. He’s a bastard, but he’s not quite heartless. At least, not with those he calls his own.
“It’s coming together,” he tells Jay, keeping a respectful distance just outside Will’s room. Hailey is still inside with Will, curled up, half asleep on the chair. “The whole case.”
Jay nods because he’s not sure what else to do. He’s not sure it matters.
Voight gives him a careful look. “We have options, you know,” he says. “To make this right. Scarro’s dead, but we can go after some of his lieutenants. We may even be able to take a fresh shot at his organization by extension. And I mean, pinning a few extra charges on Michael Scarro should be a slam dunk.”
It’s an offer of justice on the surface, but Jay knows what it is. It’s an offer for revenge. A sanitized version, perhaps, less vicious than the one that got him here, but no less vindictive. “No,” he says. “I mean, go after the organization, sure. But leave Michael out of it. The kid had nothing to do with it.”
It’s a response that seems to surprise Voight. “The kid had everything to do with it.”
“But it’s not his fault,” Jay says. “What Scarro did, he thinks he did for Michael, but he did it for himself. That kid’s been just as screwed over as any of us. Will and Hailey -- they got out of their cages. Michael never will.”
Voight considers this, and if he’s surprised, then he hides it well. “That doesn’t sound like the guy who hunted down his father’s killer and shot him on the streets against direct orders.”
Jay’s smile is painfully rueful. “Yeah, well, revenge never gets you very far does it,” he says. “But I beat Scarro’s game. I got my family out of cages, and he never did. He’s going to rot in hell by himself this time. All things considered, I guess that means I won.”
Voight nods, and he seems to accept that answer for what it is. “I guess it does,” he agrees. He bobs his head toward the room. “Take all the time you need. Hailey, too. Call me when Will wakes up.”
“Sure,” he says. “And Sarge?”
Voight pauses.
“Thanks,” he says. “I couldn’t have won without you and the team.”
“That’s what the team’s for,” Voight tells him. “Our own version of family.”
He smiles faintly. It feels certain. “Yeah,” he says. “Family.”
With that, Voight excuses himself, and Jay is left to tend to his family once more. He sits with his girlfriend at his brother’s bedside, and he reminds himself what he has. Jay usually keeps his emotions locked away, but he’s done with cages. For himself and everyone else.
He kisses Hailey on the head and takes up Will’s hand again.
And the last of the locked walls finally seems to break free.
-o-
The hours in the ED are long, but Jay doesn’t dare complain. He knows what long really feels like, and this isn’t it. Before, Will and Hailey’s air had been running out. Now, there here with him, and Jay can see the rise and fall of Will’s chest, and he can feel Hailey’s breath against his arm as she sleeps next to him in Will’s room.
This reassurance is important, but it’s not the thing he really wants. All the positive signs don’t mean anything until Will starts to stir. Then, about five hours after his rescue, Will wakes up.
Hailey’s excused herself to the cafeteria, insisting that Jay eats. Jay agrees only so she’ll eat, and it seems like an apt compromise. He hates that she’s gone, but when Will’s eyes start to flutter, Jay’s focused entirely.
“Will?” he asks, and he gets to his feet. His fingers lace around Will’s, and he positions himself well into his brother’s line of sight. This way, he’s the first thing his brother sees when his eyes open, and there’s a moment of blurry confusion before his eyes focus, and Jay sees recognition there.
He grins, despite himself.
Will can be weak and confused, but he knows who Jay is. Slowly, he wets his lips, and struggles to form the single syllable. “Jay?”
Jay’s grin only widen. “Yeah, buddy. It’s me. How’re you doing?”
It’s a dumb question. Will had been kidnapped and locked in a cage before being slowly suffocated to death. He’s recovering from hypoxia and carbon dioxide poisoning. There’s no way the answer to Jay’s question is fine.
“I -- don’t know,” Will says slowly, and his eyes start to dart around, taking in his surroundings. He sees the monitors above his bed, and he looks down at himself. His heart rate audibly quickens on the monitors. “What happened?”
Jay tightens his grip on his brother’s hand reflexibly. “You’re okay,” he says. “You’re going to be fine.”
This doesn’t have the calming effect Jay’s going for. “But what happened? What’s wrong with me?”
He can see his brother trying to make it parse, his doctor brain in overdrive as he tries and fails to diagnose himself. “Seriously, you’re fine,” Jay says, feeling a flush rise in his cheeks. “Look, why don’t I go get Ethan. He’s been taking care of you.”
But Will’s fingers lock tighter around his. “No,” he says, voice still somewhat raspy. He wrinkles his nose, and he seems to remember a little more. “I was in a cage?”
Jay settles back down, and he feels his cheeks redden. “Yeah,” he says. “You were.”
Will takes another breath, and he’s clearly working hard here. “There was no air,” he says. And he looks confused. “Why was there no air?”
Jay has to wet his lips, but there’s no way to avoid this. “It was a sick game,” he says. “Revenge for my work on the Scarro case. The old man targeted you and Hailey, like that made up for his son going to prison.”
It’s the short version, but even that seems to be a little much for Will. “Revenge? But -- I don’t remember--”
“You took a pretty good hit to the head, I’m guessing,” Jay says. “Do you remember being attacked?”
At this, Will looks blank and he shakes his head. “No,” he says. “I was -- getting ready for work. Then I woke up in this cage and I saw the oxygen. But that’s it.”
Voight won’t love the lack of detail that will be in Will’s statement, but Jay finds himself grateful. Will doesn’t need to remember those details. Not when they’re burned into Jay’s memory for all time.
“Well, it doesn’t matter,” Jay tells him. “What matters is that you’re okay. You, Hailey, me -- we’re okay.”
It’s a sentiment that seems to get through to Will. The confusion eases, and he smiles. “I knew you’d come,” he says. “I didn’t understand what was happening or why, but I knew you’d come.”
“How could you possibly know that?” Jay asks.
“Because you’re family,” Will tells him. “And you’ve always done everything you can for family.”
Jay feels something warm in his chest, and he reaches up, ruffling his brother’s unkempt red locks. “I’m going to get that doctor,” he says. “Get you checked out.”
This time, Will doesn’t fight him.
This time, Will agrees.
Family, see.
It’s all about family.
-o-
Will’s given the all clear. Ethan is very pleased with his progress, and he passes all of Dr. Abrams’ neuro exams with flying colors. They expect no lingering effects, but Ethan insists on keeping him in the hospital. It’s a testament to how weak Will is that he doesn’t fight it.
It’s a testament to how scared Jay was that he doesn’t fight it either. Most of the time he hates hospitals, he’s likened them to prisons.
He knows better now.
All the same, it makes for a long night ahead, and Jay insists that Hailey goes home with Burgess for the night, to rest and recover properly. He promises to leave his phone on, and she’s already texting him from the car as Burgess drives them back.
Will may be okay, but he’s still exhausted. Jay would love nothing better than to talk to his brother, but he knows Will needs rest. After all he’s been through, he deserves it.
Jay should sleep too -- he knows he’s exhausted -- but he can’t bring himself to do it. He finds himself sitting there, watching his brother as he breathes, slow, even breaths all through the night.
It’s reassuring.
It’s heartening.
It’s everything.
Scarro’s never been a liar, but neither has Jay. Jay told Scarro he knew his family was worth it, and here he is. Here they are.
They’re worth it.
More than anything else on this planet, Jay knows they’re worth it.
-o-
Will goes home the next day, and Jay insists that he crash at his place for the next day or so. Will rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t put up much of a fight, and they swing by Burgess’ place to pick up Hailey. They go home together, the three of them, safe within the four, secure walls of Jay’s apartment.
Jay takes a breath.
He lets it out.
Everything is really going to be okay.
-o-
Several weeks later, when Hailey’s back at work and Will’s at his own place again, Jay takes an afternoon to himself. He visits Michael Scarro in prison first, just to see how the kid’s doing. Then, he swings by a cemetery, and he drives around until he finds the fresh plot for Lester Scarro.
At his grave, it’s tempting to say something vindictive. Jay’s never above an I-told-you-so. But he can’t do it this time. Because of how close he came. Because of why he’s here.
He takes out the note from his pocket, the suicide note that had been released to him from the closed crime scene. He puts it on the stone. “I don’t need this, but you might still want it,” he says, stepping back once more.
He looks around. The plot is immaculate; the stone pristine. Scarro has spared no expense, even in his death.
He looks back at the lettering, the date of his birth, the date of his death. Somewhere, under this dirt, Scarro’s locked in his own prison, and it’s not the kind you get out of it.
It’s funny. He almost feels sorry for him.
Clearing his throat, Jay says what he needs to say. “I know your plan failed, but it’s not as bad as you think,” he says. “Your lawyers couldn’t get Michael off, but they made a great will. You left him a fortune, and it’s his, free and clear.”
The day is sunny; it’s clear.
Jay feels the breeze flutter across the trees and he inhales again.
“And all this crap, all the work we did to undo your little plan, it saved three lives,” he says. “We found fresh evidence, the kind that lets cases get reopened. I just told Michael today. He’s getting a new trial. He’ll still do some time, but it’s not going to be a life sentence this time. Not even close.”
He thinks about Scarro sitting behind the desk in his office. The set of his jaw.
Because family protects. Don’t you know anything about family, Detective?
“You’re a bastard, and I think you made the wrong call,” Jay says. “But I’ll look after Michael. He deserves better than what you gave him. He deserves it.”
Jay walks out of the cemetery, keeping his promise close to heart. There’s no worse condemnation, he figures, than the grace of the person you wronged the most.
Jay knows a hell of a lot about family after all.