#upstead fic

He doesn’t think it’s that big of a deal.

Yeah, he’s sick.

He’d eventually had to accept that given the pretty obvious fever and the blinding pain in his head.

But all he needs is to stay in bed, relax and take some Tylenol for his fever.

Drink plenty of fluids.

He can take care of himself at home while Hailey goes to work.

Or if she really wants, she can stay home and play nurse.

Even better if she can get her hands on a sexy nurse costume.

That’ll really help him feel better.

Only something has her on edge within a few minutes of them waking up and instead of bringing him Tylenol and something to drink, she calls Will.

After a hasty conversation, and a few questions for Jay, she’s hanging up the phone and dragging him out of bed.

And he wants to be sick and miserable in his own bed, not in an Urgent Care somewhere.

But she doesn’t drive to the nearest Urgent Care and it isn’t long before he realizes that she’s heading straight to Med.

“‘Sso n’t ‘mergencyoom ‘thy.” He mutters into the door.

“Will thinks you might have meningitis.” She snaps. “That’s Emergency Room worthy.”

She sounds worried so instead of arguing, he sighs and burrows closer to the door.

He’s freezing but his face feels hot and the cool glass feels nice against his forehead.

The light outside is insanely bright and is making his headache even worse, causing his stomach to twist an turn.

She pulls into the ambulance bay and then pulls him gently away from the door.

Before he can ask why, the door is swinging open and his brother is there.

But instead of the usual comfort and reassurance that he’s used to from the man when he feels rotten, all he gets is urgency.

An immediate order to try to touch his chin to his chest followed by a rapid fire string of questions that Jay can’t keep up with.

Doesn’t Will know that his head is trying to explode?

Something does seem to tip Will off to that and he backs down, slowing down.

“Let’s get you inside, buddy.” He says softly.

Let’s get him home- Jay thinks.

Emergency Departments are loud, he can already hear the people talking inside and doesn’t want to go any closer.

He feels like crap and he’d very much like to feel like crap in his own bed rather than in the middle of a rave with people poking and prodding at him.

But Will isn’t taking no for an answer and levers Jay up out of the car.

His stomach answers that, violently ejecting it’s contents.

Will’s startled cry is right next to his ear and loud, way too loud.

Makes him puke more.

There’s a rapid scramble of footsteps and wheels around him and then something is being pressed up against his face, keeping the putrid smell of his vomit close.

He’s lifted onto something soft.

Feels the stab of something sharp at the crook of his elbow.

Tries to turn his head away from the loud, panicked voices.

Pain explodes in his neck as he tries and he can’t quite manage to motion.

A soft hand lands on the back of his head, gently cradling it as he continues puking.

The sound slowly quiets and his stomach starts to settle.

A light pierces into his eyes and he whimpers but can’t turn away.

The hand is back; soft, safe as it brushes through his hair.

Her voice is a soft hum that he can’t quite understand but he focuses on it anyway.

He reaches for her and she takes his hand, squeezing it gently.

He’s in pain and he doesn’t know what’s happening, where he is.

Hailey is here.

Hailey will protect him.

They let her in the room because Jay is panicking; neck muscles tense as he tries to move away from them, limbs flailing in attempts to push them away.

He calms as she talks to him, brushing her fingers through his hair and holding his hand.

Will offers her a tight smile but he’s worried.

And that worries her too.

Ethan gathers equipment for a lumbar puncture and then asks for her help getting Jay positioned.

She coaxes him onto his side, getting him to curl his body into the fetal position and then kneels in front of him, continuing to stroke his hair and pleading for him to stay still.

He whimpers when the needle goes in but she hushes him, kisses his forehead and he stays still.

Trusts her.

Tears spring to her eyes.

She’d told him once that she trusted him from the moment she met him.

That she’d follow him blind.

If there’s better proof that he would do the same, she’d like to see it.

The doctors get what they need and back out of the room, leaving them in silence as she helps him get more comfortable and perches on the side of the bed next to him.

“What now?” She asks quietly.

“They’ll rush testing.” Will says. “Make sure it is meningitis and figure out what kind. A nurse will be in soon with antibiotics, they’ll want to start them quickly in case it’s bacterial. They’ll also start him on corticosteroids to help reduce the inflammation and hopefully head off some of the more dangerous complications. As well as something to help bring his fever down. Has he been feeling sick?”

“I think he had a headache yesterday.” She says. “Maybe a low grade fever but he was insisting he was just tired. But he’s been quiet a couple days. I just…”

“Thought it was because of Friday.” He fills in.

The anniversary of the IED that had killed most of his unit and sent he and Mouse straight to medical discharge.

She can’t remember a time that he wasn’t quiet during the weeks leading up to that.

“He’s gonna have nightmares.” She says quietly. “With a fever they’ll be bad ones.”

“We’ll take care of him.” Will promises her. “Just like we always do.”

“Meningitis is bad though, right?” She asks.

“With any luck it’s viral.” He tells her. “We’ll manage his symptoms, push fluids and he’ll be right as rain soon enough.”

“And if it’s not?” She asks.

“Antibiotics for the most common strains are on their way.” He tells her. “We’re getting out ahead of it if it is bacterial.”

“And what if it’s….” she trails off, trying to remember. “It can be fungal, right?”

His face is stony.

“Fungal is bad.” He admits. “But it’s rare so it’s unlikely.”

“You know your brother’s luck.” She says darkly.

“Most likely he would have had to breathe in spores.” He says. “Though with his immune system a little hindered by the loss of his spleen he’s more vulnerable to it spreading from elsewhere in his body, like his stomach. Ethan’s aware of his medical history so he’ll be testing for it. Can you think of anywhere he might have been exposed?”

“We were in an old warehouse a couple of days ago.” She says. “Dark, damp, musty. So maybe.”

“We’ll see what the tests say.” He says. “The good thing is that if it is fungal he won’t have passed it on to the rest of the team or you, unless you breathed in the same spores. But we do need to consider testing and if it comes back as bacterial, you’ll all need prophylactic antibiotics.”

“I need to call Voight.” She says. “I’ll let him know. Would it help if we could get samples from the warehouse to test?”

“If the crime lab can get some while wearing N95s to make sure they don’t pick up anything, yes.” He tells her.

She nods, reaching for her phone.

He fucking hates the sand.

It’s hot and gritty, blows around on the wind and gets absolutely everywhere.

Yes, that everywhere.

Even when he has the time for a proper shower, ridding himself of the damn stuff, it’s back almost the second he turns the water off, clinging to his damp skin.

Right now it’s rubbing his face raw as he lies on his stomach behind the only cover for miles; alternating between trying to keep Mouse awake and firing off bursts of cover fire trying to keep the insurgents back.

His stomach, chest and leg hurt but there isn’t space in the rotation for worrying about that so he’s ignoring them.

Hopefully the medics and extraction team will be here soon.

Because he’s running low on ammo.

Is having a harder time ignoring the smell of burning flesh and copper on the air.

So many dead.

So many brothers in arms being buried in shallow graves as the sand blows over their corpses.

Three humvees.

Fifteen soldiers.

Four killed instantly.

Three more in secondary explosions.

Another dead from a bullet to the back of his head as he’d tried to pull another soldier from the burning wreckage.

Two more shot and killed by an enemy sniper before Jay had zeroed in on his perch and returned the favor.

Three that he’d managed to drag away from what was left of their transport only to watch their eyes fall closed and their chests still as he tried his best to treat gruesome injures on four victims with only the medical equipment that he carries on his person and the med bag he’d salvaged after their medical had gone down.

All while trying to defend their position from attack.

There aren’t a lot of insurgents out there, at least he doesn’t think there are, but his aim is off because he can’t see out of his left eye and with his attention split, the best he can do seems to be to push them back.

Only he and Mouse are left.

A deafening silence falls.

The gunfire is muted in the distance, the roaring of the wind stops, even his own breathing stills for a moment.

Mouse isn’t breathing.

He looks around, praying that backup will arrive soon with the training and equipment that he needs.

Presses fingers against the side of his friend’s neck, praying that he’ll feel a pulse, however weak it may be.

Tilts Mouse’s head back, starting compressions.

Only pauses to provide rescue breaths and check for a pulse.

Two minutes.

Five.

Ten.

Fifteen minutes pass and still there’s no pulse, no breathing, no backup.

He’s alone.

Completely and utterly alone.

He drops, giving in to the waves of pain and grief that wash over him.

Curls into the fetal position and cries, his heart being ripped out of his chest with each sob that breaks free.

He failed.

Jay’s having a nightmare.

Face twisted in pain and anguish behind the oxygen mask, incoherent whispered pleas stealing breath that he doesn’t have to spare, and limbs moving aimlessly.

His fever is holding steady a little over 103 degrees and nothing that she says seems to be able to break through it, to break the nightmare’s hold on him.

Tests had come back an hour ago, confirming their worst fears that the meningitis is fungal, not bacterial, and the antibiotics in his IV have been swapped out for antifungals.

He’s broken out in a rash that spans his entire chest and both arms but any other side effects have blended in with what he was already experiencing from the meningitis.

And they can’t seem to get his fever below 103.

She wishes she knew what was happening in his nightmares, wishes she could find a way to pull him from them and offer him some semblance of comfort.

The hard part is that she’s pretty sure the IED has taken a starring role, that much of what he’s seeing are real memories, events that however tragic and horrifying, had actually happened.

That she won’t be able to reassure him that it was just a dream.

Because it wasn’t.

Because her husband had lived through something horrible, something that had left him with devastating memories that he has to live with every single day.

Which he does so well that even the people who know him the best sometimes forget.

It’s only now, with his defenses ripped away by the cruel hands of fever and illness, that even she is allowed to see how much they still torment him.

He rolls to his side, resuming the same fetal position that she’d guided him into for the lumbar puncture and starts to cry.

Awful, full body sobs that take her heart and squeeze it tightly.

She guides the monitoring wires, IVs and oxygen tubing around his body, getting them settled in positions that won’t kink the lines or risk pulling them out of place.

There’s no need to hit the call button because alarms are already going off as his heart rate and respirations leap out the ranges that the doctors have set.

She presses her forehead to his, cups the back of his neck and talks to him, begging him to hear her through the heavy cloak of fever that’s wrapped around his mind.

Footsteps thunder into the room, medical personnel talking loudly about drugs that they can use to settle his physical reaction to his demons before he hurts himself.

“I’m here, sweetheart.” She whispers. “I’m here and you’re not alone anymore.”

He starts to quiet, to settle, but she knows without looking that she has only a sedative to thank for it.

His body is at peace but his mind isn’t.

So as the medical personnel leave the room, she slides onto the bed next to him and pulls him into her arms.

“Still here.” She tells him. “I’m not leaving you, Jay.”

He sees light.

For the first time in what feels like forever, it doesn’t seer into the core of his very being.

He blinks, looking around the all too familiar hospital room in the dim light of lights just bright enough for nurses to see what they’re doing.

Listens to the beeping of monitors long enough to decide that he’s probably on the mend.

Scans the pair of chairs pulled up next to the bed and frowns when they’re both empty.

Is he alone?

A small jab answers that question and he looks down to see Hailey on the bed next to him, her hair splayed across his chest as her head rests on his shoulder.

Pokes her side and smiles as she squirms slightly but doesn’t wake.

He loves her.

It’s not a new realization but every so often, it washes over him so strongly that he wonders if he’d ever known what love was before that moment.

He tries to speak, to say her name, but his vocal chords don’t seem to be responding and his neck aches dully so he resorts to poking her again.

She wakes this time, blinking up at him with confused, sleepy blue eyes that quickly brighten.

“Jay.” She gasps, pulling away from him and sitting up.

He misses he warmth immediately.

“Hey.” She says softly. “How do you feel?”

He tries to talk but ends up settling for a frustrated shrug.

“You’ll get there.” She tells him. “Will and Ethan have been pleased with your vitals and test results. Though they did think you’d be awake yesterday.”

How long has it been?

“It’s been a week since I brought you in.” She says, reading his mind. “The first three or four days were pretty bad. Your fever was so high and the nightmares were… well it looked terrible from out here so I have doubt it was worse in there.”

He nods minutely, pushing the memories away.

He’s dealt with them enough for the moment.

“Anyway.” She says, shaking her head. “Your fever finally broke toward the end of day four and things have been steadily improving ever since. And now you’re awake.”

The relief over that is plainly visible on her face and he offers a small smile.

“You ready for some poking and prodding?” She asks, nodding to the call button.

He sighs but nods again and she pushes the button.

Ethan steps into the room a few minutes later.

“I sent someone to drag Will out of the shower.” He says, explaining where Jay’s brother is. “He’s going to be miffed that you had to wake up just after I forced him to leave for a bit but he’ll deal with it.”

The exam takes a little longer than usual, made more difficult by the fact that Jay can’t verbally answer questions, but they’re just wrapping up when Will steps in, dressed in clean scrubs with his hair wet.

He grumps theatrically about Jay just having to wake up while he was gone but his relief is impossible to miss.

If he could, he’d apologize for worrying them and thank them for being here for him, but he has to make do with whatever his eyes can manage to convey.