Archive of Our Own

Will Halstead has done that thing again—run his body on fumes and stubbornness until it stops negotiating. He hadn’t walked into the ED so much as he had arrived in it—like a phone left on vibrate, like a pager that never stopped buzzing. His coffee had gone cold somewhere around midnight. He’d kept drinking it anyway.

The fluorescent lights made everything feel a little too sharp: the white of bandages, the stainless steel, the maroon of scrubs, the red numbers blinking on monitors. Will’s eyes kept snagging on those numbers because numbers were easy. Numbers didn’t ask him how long he’d been awake.

“Halstead,” someone called.

Will turned too fast, like his body was trying to keep up with a mind that already sprinted ahead. “Yeah—what’ve you got?”

April—held out a chart. “Room twelve. Abdominal pain. Vitals are stable, but she’s been waiting.”

“I got it.” Will took the chart and smiled like it didn’t cost him anything. “Thanks.”

April didn’t move. Her eyes narrowed, not unkind, just… accurate. “You okay?”

Will’s instinct was immediate. Of course. The word lived ready on his tongue like a reflex. But his mouth was slow today. His throat felt dry. The muscles around his eyes were tight, like they’d been holding something up for too long. “Yeah,” he said, and heard how thin it came out.

April tilted her head. “You’ve got that look.”

“What look?” Will attempted humor, which came out more like static. “My rugged medical hero look?”

She snorted, but her gaze didn’t laugh. “The one where you think you’re fine until you start making mistakes.”

Will’s grip shifted on the chart. “I’m not making mistakes.”

“Not yet,” April said. “Which is why I’m telling you now.”

Will opened his mouth to argue—because arguing would prove he had energy—only for his brain to sputter like a skipped record. April’s eyebrows rose as if she’d caught him in the act of almost falling asleep standing up.

“I’m good,” Will said, firmer. He pointed vaguely down the corridor. “Room twelve.”

“Mm-hmm,” April replied in the tone people used right before they pulled you aside.

Will escaped before she could. Room twelve was quiet in that stretched, anxious way—patients waiting, families watching the door like it might do something miraculous. A young woman sat hunched on the bed, clutching her stomach. A man—boyfriend, husband, friend—hovered at the side with that helpless posture Will knew too well.

Will walked in with his practiced calm. “Hi, I’m Dr. Halstead. I hear you’re having some abdominal pain.”

The patient nodded, wincing, she explained, Will listened—really listened—and it helped. Pain had patterns. The body told stories if you knew how to read them. He asked the right questions. He ordered labs and imaging. He did everything correctly.

Until he turned to leave and realized he’d put his stethoscope… somewhere.

He patted his pockets. Checked around his neck. Looked at the patient as if she might have taken it.

The patient’s eyebrows lifted.

Will’s ears warmed. “Sorry. Long night.”

“It’s right there,” the man said gently, pointing.

Will turned. His stethoscope lay on the counter, exactly where Will himself had placed it two minutes earlier.

He picked it up and smiled too brightly. “Right. Thank you.”

He left the room and walked straight into the wall of noise outside—phones ringing, wheels squeaking, voices overlapping. The ED pulsed like a living thing, and Will’s tiredness was suddenly not just tiredness but something heavier, like gravity had increased without warning.

Get it together, he told himself. You can rest later.

Except “later” had become a myth.

He kept moving because stopping meant noticing.

He went from room to room, stitching, prescribing, reassuring, charting. He smiled at patients, joked with kids, talked down a panicked father. He caught a resident about to order the wrong dosage and corrected it with calm precision.

On the surface, he was Will Halstead: steady hands, quick mind, stubborn heart. Underneath, his body was sending up flares. His eyes burned. His hands felt slightly too far away from his thoughts. He scrawled notes faster, trying to outrun his own exhaustion, and a weird, prickly fear crawled up his spine: not fear of blood or trauma or the chaos of the ED, but fear of himself—of the moment his body decided it was done and chose that exact second to prove it.

A voice cut through. “Will.”

Natalie.

He looked up, and there she was at the nurses’ station, hair pulled back, expression somewhere between concern and frustration. That combination always got him.

“Hey,” Will said. “What’s up?”

She didn’t answer immediately. She just watched him, like she was assessing a patient. Will hated being assessed.

“You’ve been here since yesterday,” she said finally.

Will shrugged. “Welcome to medicine.”

Natalie’s eyes narrowed. “This isn’t normal.”

“It’s the ED,” he replied, and tried to laugh. “Normal left the building years ago.”

She reached out and took the chart from his hands before he could react. “When did you last sleep?”

Will opened his mouth. Closed it again. Sleep felt like a trick question. “I got some—”

Natalie’s face didn’t change, which was the problem. “Will.”

He exhaled. “I don’t know? I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine,” she said softly, and that softness made his defenses flare. “Your pupils are huge. You’re shaking.”

“I’m not shaking.” Will curled his fingers into a fist and shoved his hand into his pocket.

Natalie’s voice lowered. “You can’t keep doing this.”

“People need us,” Will said, too fast. Too intense. “We’re short-staffed. There are patients in the waiting room. If I go home, that’s one less doctor—”

“That’s not heroic,” Natalie interrupted. “That’s reckless.”

The word hit him harder than it should’ve, because some part of him already believed it. Will swallowed. “I’m handling it.”

Natalie caught his wrist. “Will.”

He tried to pull away. His pride was a living thing, furious and fragile. “I just—give me a minute.” Will stared at her, jaw tight, and felt the strange humiliation of being seen. Not in the flattering way. In the human way. In the way that stripped him down to facts.

He wasn’t fine. He wasn’t invincible. And that terrified him, because the day he wasn’t useful—what was he then?

He yanked his wrist free, not hard, but enough. “I’m going to finish these notes.”

He made it to the supply room before his body betrayed him. It wasn’t dramatic. It didn’t come with a crash. It was just… his knees deciding they were no longer interested in being load-bearing. Will grabbed the nearest shelf, fingers whitening around a box of gauze. His breath came shallow. The room spun in slow motion, like someone had turned the world’s speed down just enough to notice. He squeezed his eyes shut. Not here. Not now.

Will swallowed. “I just need—” He blinked, and his brain stalled. The sentence fell apart in the middle. He tried again, but the words kept slipping. The moment he sat against the shelves for a second, the last thread holding him upright snapped. His shoulders sagged forward. His head dipped. For a second he was just… heavy.

Will forced his gaze up. His eyes felt gritty, like sand. Will’s throat tightened. “I can’t leave.”

Will stared at his hands. His fingers were still trembling, small and stubborn. His stomach turned.

⸻

Inside the lounge, the lights were dimmer. Softer. There was a worn coffee table and a half-empty box of crackers and an old coffee pot that had seen too many nights. Will stared at the ceiling. His body felt like it was sinking into the ground, like gravity had finally decided to be unkind.

Will’s eyes stung unexpectedly. He blinked hard and pretended it was just exhaustion. “I’m fine.” He tried to stay awake out of habit. Out of stubbornness. Out of some deep fear that sleeping meant failing.But his eyelids grew heavy anyway.

——-
The ED finally exhales around two in the morning. Not quiet, not really, but softer. The overhead pages thin out. The trauma bays look less like war zones and more like rooms that might, if you squint, belong in a normal hospital.

Will peels his gloves off, rubs the heel of his hand into his eye, and blinks at the clock like it’s personally insulting him.

Three hours until he’s back.

He makes it as far as the physician workroom before the idea of driving home feels like a punchline. He’s had too much coffee and not enough of anything that counts as sleep. His thoughts lag half a beat behind his feet. Somewhere in his skull, a sensible little voice whispers, Don’t. He listens—rare, for him.

An empty room sits down a short hallway, lights dimmed, bed made, as if it’s waiting politely for a patient who never arrived. Will checks the door sign. Nothing urgent posted. No one inside. Will doesn’t so much decide to sleep as he fails to remain standing. At some point—he’ll never know when—his shoes come off. A half-conscious kick, a clumsy heel-to-toe shove until they’re just… not on him anymore. He doesn’t remember doing it. He only remembers the relief.

He’s still in scrubs. They’re not clean. There’s dried blood on the thigh, smeared along one sleeve, a dark thumbprint near his hip where someone grabbed him during a resus. On another night, he’d have changed. Tonight, he’s too far past caring.

“Just… ten minutes,” he tells the room, like it might argue.

He drops onto the edge of the bed, still in his bloody scrubs, because he doesn’t have the energy to take them off. His shoulders sag. The mattress is too soft, too inviting. He slides back until his head hits the pillow, a full-body surrender. He sits, exhales, and then he’s folding down onto the mattress, dragging the sheet and blanket up and over his head like a kid hiding from thunder. Somewhere between one breath and the next, he disappears. The hospital noise is still there—distant rolling carts, a muffled laugh, the rhythmic beep of a monitor down the hall—but his brain has already started closing its blinds.

Will grabs the top sheet and the thin blanket and hauls them up and over his head, cocooning himself from fluorescent light and whatever sliver of the world might try to keep asking things of him.

Deep down, the ED is a machine that never stops, but Will has always been the kind of sleeper who, once he drops, goes still as a stone at the bottom of a river. No fidgeting. No half-awake replies. Just quiet.

His breathing evens. And then he’s gone.

⸻

The porter’s night is routine in the way hospital nights can be routine: controlled chaos wrapped in checklists.

A call comes down to transport a body to the morgue.

“Bay seven,” the voice on the phone says—harried, tired. On the other end, someone is probably juggling families and paperwork and a dozen patients who all need something at once.

The porter writes it down.

By the time he reaches the hall, the chart clipped to the end of the gurney says a number could be a 4 or a 7 or really any number probably Bay 1. He doesn’t question it. He doesn’t have time to question it. There’s always another task waiting behind this one. He turns down the corridor, finds the room marked Bay 1, and sees exactly what he expects to see: a still form on a bed, sheet over the face, the shape of a body beneath it, some blood. He steps in with a gurney and a tired, resigned look—the look of someone doing a job that never gets easier. He glances at the bed, sees a human shape under linens, sees the chaos-stained scrubs peeking out near the edge, and the blood is… convincing. The sheet over the head seals it.

He doesn’t think doctor. He thinks: ED. Another one. Of course.

“Alright,” he mutters, quiet and respectful, and starts the transfer.

Will is a deep sleeper—heavy, still. The blanket stays pulled up. The porter doesn’t see a face. Doesn’t see eyelashes twitch. Doesn’t see a throat swallow.

He moves him to the gurney, straightens the sheet, then pulls out the tags. The plastic tie bites down around Will’s wrist.

The porter adds the paperwork to the clip at the end of the gurney, the way he’s done a thousand times: name, time, destination. Morgue.

“Alright,” the porter murmurs automatically, voice low out of habit, out of respect. “Let’s get you where you need to go.”

No movement. No sound.

He transfers the figure with practiced care, shifting the weight to the gurney. The sheet stays draped, the blanket still pulled up, a little tent over the head.

Will doesn’t stir. The porter doesn’t know Will Halstead’s sleeping habits, doesn’t know his particular talent for disappearing into unconsciousness like it’s someplace he’s been wanting to visit. He does what he’s been told to do. He wheels the gurney out.

Into the colder, dimmer world below the ED, where the morgue sits with its heavy doors and its air that always feels a few degrees too chilled.

Will rides the whole way like he’s being carried by a current. Then he wheels him out.

Down the elevators. Past quiet hallways that smell like disinfectant and old coffee, that hum faintly, fluorescent lights flickering like they’re tired too. No one pays attention. Why would they? It’s a hospital. A covered body on a gurney is just another grim dot in the night’s punctuation.

In the morgue intake area, the air changes—colder, cleaner, a chill that feels intentional.

The morgue tech is new. A temp, middle of the week, trying to learn names and shortcuts and where everything is without making it obvious he’s reading labels like they’re in a foreign language.

He sees the gurney roll in. Sees the porter. Sees the covered form.

“Another one?” the tech asks softly.

The porter nods. “Yeah. Came down from the ED.”

“Alright,” the tech says, and he means it like he’s trying to be gentle with the whole situation, even if he’s only been here long enough to learn that gentleness is mostly a tone of voice and a careful grip.

A temp tech meets them, badge still too crisp, eyes a little too wide. He’s new enough that he’s careful and fast at the same time, like he’s trying not to be noticed.

“From the ED,” the porter says, and hands over the chain-of-custody like it’s the only thing keeping the world from tipping sideways.

The tech scans the tag, checks the paperwork, nods. Everything says what it’s supposed to say: pronounced. transport. hold.

He doesn’t peel back the sheet. He doesn’t look for a face he wouldn’t recognize anyway. He assumes—because everyone assumes—that the living stay upstairs.

“Okay,” the tech murmurs.

He unzips a body bag and, with the porter’s help, slides Will in gently. The bloody scrubs make it feel… tragically appropriate. A body from the ED would look like that.

The tech pulls the zipper closed.

The sound is loud in the chilled quiet—zzzzzip—final in a way that makes the room feel smaller.

He pats the bag once, like an apology, then grips the edges and transfers it onto the slab with practiced motions he learned from someone else’s hands. Will stays still. No dramatic gasp. No Hollywood sit-up. Just breathing so slow and deep it doesn’t announce itself to anyone who isn’t looking for it.

The tech pushes the drawer in. Metal slides. Rubber seals whisper. And darkness takes Will again—this time with cold pressing in from every side. He doesn’t lift the sheet to look at the face. He doesn’t need to, he thinks. The body will be identified later. The paperwork will tell the story. Either it’s a transfer to a funeral home or it’s an autopsy, depending.

“Drawer six is open,” he says, as if announcing it makes the work feel less eerie.

Together they shift Will from the gurney to the cold slab. Will stays still. Will stays quiet. The tech slides the drawer in. Metal on metal. A soft, final thud. Then the latch clicks and the temp scribbles something on a form, unaware that he has just put one of Chicago’s most stubborn emergency physicians into a morgue drawer like a misplaced file.

⸻

The temp tech tries very hard not to look like a temp. He sits at the little desk just outside the cold room with a stack of intake paperwork and a pen that keeps vanishing under forms. His eyes keep moving—tag numbers, times, originating unit, disposition: hold for funeral home, hold pending ME, hold for autopsy.

He’s doing that thing new people do: double-checking everything, because being wrong down here feels… worse than being wrong anywhere else. He flips one sheet over and frowns.

“Hang on,” he mutters.

He stands, grabs the clipboard, and steps into the cold room. The air nips at his cheeks immediately.

He glances at the drawer labels, then at the tag info. He pulls one drawer out with a grunt—metal on tracks, the slab sliding toward him. A black body bag. Clean zipper line. Tags on the outside.

He checks the paperwork again like it might change its mind. Then he unzips, checks that it’s the right body. He doesn’t look deeper. He just zips the bag closed again quickly, with the kind of nervous efficiency that says I am not paid enough to improvise. He pushes the drawer back in.

Clack.

He exhales, shaky, and goes back to his desk to match paper to tag again, cheeks still cold. He pulls out another file, then another. He cross-references a couple of names, starts a short list of calls he needs to make—funeral home coordination, verification, whatever the next step is for each case.

Minutes tick by in the way they do down here: sluggish, indistinct.

He goes back into the cold room two more times, checking other drawers, re-reading tags, working through his queue. He sets up what he can, then leaves again—back to the desk, back to the phone, back to trying to sound like he knows exactly what he’s doing.

When he finally steps away to make calls, the cold room is left with its hum and its stillness and its sealed metal. And inside one of those drawers, inside a body bag zipped all the way closed, Will Halstead’s body quietly decides it has had enough.

⸻

Consciousness returns to Will in pieces, creeps in like someone raising the dimmer switch one millimeter at a time.

First comes discomfort: pressure against his shoulders and hips, a hard surface that doesn’t give. Then the cold, needling through fabric, pulling heat from him like a tax.

Then: cold. Not the mild chill of a hospital room. This is different—like the air itself has weight.

Next: pressure. Tightness around him. Hard surface beneath. No room to stretch his arms.

Finally: sound… or the lack of it. The ED has noise even when it’s quiet. This is almost nothing. A deep hush, as if the world has been muted.

Will’s eyes open to black.

He blinks anyway.

His hand moves, meets slick plastic. Not sheet. Not blanket. He tries to sit up and immediately hits resistance. The bag holds him in like a terrible hug. Air feels different—staler, tight in his throat, not dangerous exactly but wrong.

He inhales sharply, and the sound is loud in the dark.

Where am I?

His brain tries to connect the dots and can’t. It spits out wrong answers first.

Did I fall asleep in a supply closet?

Will’s eyes snap open in darkness.

His brain offers: hospital. On call. Empty room. Lie down. Blanket over head.

That was the last clear thing. He reaches for the zipper automatically—because that’s how you get out of things—and his fingers find nothing he can grip. The zipper pull is on the outside. Of course it is.

His pulse gets ideas.

“Okay,” he whispers, mostly to himself. “Okay, Will. Think.”

He presses his palms outward. The bag flexes, crinkles, but doesn’t give him room. He tries to twist, tries to get his shoulder under a seam to force slack, but the bag just slides against the slab beneath him.

He tries to sit up and bangs his forehead.

Pain blossoms, sharp and immediate. He sucks in a breath, which echoes strangely around him.

Panic tries to climb his throat.

“No,” he says, voice too loud, swallowed by the tight space. “No, no, no—”

He shoves at the wall, then the ceiling. Everything is close. Everything is metal, unforgiving.

His pulse kicks into a sprint. He forces himself to stop moving for half a second, to give his mind a chance to catch up.

Okay. Okay. Think.

The smell is faint but unmistakable—cleaner, sterile, and something colder underneath. Not blood. Not rot. Just… refrigeration and disinfectant.

Will’s stomach drops.

This is the morgue.

He swallows hard.

Then he hears it—faint, constant. A low hum. Refrigeration.

The cold room.

The realization lands heavy.

“No,” he breathes, and the word fogs inside his own head. “No, no—”

That’s the panic talking. He knows it is. Morgue drawers aren’t airtight. They can’t be. He forces himself to inhale slowly through his nose, exhale through his mouth.

In. Out.

In. Out.

He starts banging.

It’s awkward in a body bag. His elbows don’t have swing. He brings the heel of his hand to his forehead, grounding himself with the sting.

“Okay,” he whispers. “Okay. Someone made a mistake.”

That happens. He’s lived in the fallout of mistakes for years. But being inside one is… different. He swallows, then raises his fist and pounds three times—hard—on the metal above him. The sound is dull, trapped. He listens.

Nothing.

He pounds again, harder, knuckles flaring with pain. “Hey! HEY!”

His fists land muffled—thuds swallowed by plastic and whatever metal surrounds him. But he keeps going because it’s the only language he has.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

“HEY!” he shouts, and his voice sounds wrong too—dull, like it can’t fully leave him. “SOMEBODY—HEY!”

His voice cracks in the confined space, more startling than comforting. He pauses, listening, straining for footsteps, for a distant door, for anything.

Still nothing.

Will’s mind flicks through names the way it does on a code blue. Someone will come down. Someone always comes down. Security. A tech. A doctor signing paperwork. A transport runner.

He bangs harder until his knuckles feel bruised through the plastic and his shoulder starts to burn. He pauses to listen, holding his breath like that will make the world more audible.

Nothing answers. Silence. Or the hum. Or both.

He tries again. Ten more minutes of noise and pleading and impulse, pinballing between “I need to be calm” and “I need to be heard.”

It doesn’t matter.

No one hears him.

Eventually his voice turns ragged and his arms shake, and he’s forced—physically forced—to stop and breathe. He lies there, listening to his own heartbeat, trying to keep it from becoming a stampede. And then the brutal reality: it is three in the morning in the hospital basement. He presses his forehead to the cold metal through the body and tries to slow himself down again.

Okay. Someone comes down here eventually. People work down here. You’re in a hospital. You are not going to die in a drawer like a—

He cuts the thought off because it’s too dramatic, too tempting, too easy for his brain to weaponize.

He resets. Inhale. Exhale.

You’re fine. You’re alive. You’re going to get out.

His phone is in his pocket. He fumbles for it with shaking hands, then remembers he’s in scrubs. He checks the pocket once, twice.

Empty.

He must have left it at the nurses’ station.

Of course he did.

Will lets out a breath that is half laugh, half growl. “Classic.”

He bangs again, arms starting to ache from the awkward angle. Starting a new strategy: smaller, more rhythmic banging. Something that could travel through metal. Something distinct. He taps and pauses and taps, like Morse code he can’t actually remember. The goal is not strength now—it’s persistence.

Time becomes a thick soup.

Then—footsteps.

Not right away. Not close at first. But real, coming in with the weight of someone who belongs.

Will’s entire body locks with hope so sharp it almost hurts. This time he hears it—faintly. A vibration through the metal, like a faraway reply. Or maybe it’s his own pulse. He can’t tell.

He tries again. “HELLO? I’M ALIVE IN HERE!”

He bangs again—three hard hits, then a pause, then three more.

“HELLO?” he shouts, voice cracking. “I’M ALIVE—PLEASE!”

The footsteps stop. The words sound absurd. A sentence no one should ever have to say.

He listens so hard his ears hurt.

Then—finally—muffled footsteps. Not close, but real. Real enough that relief hits him so fast it makes him dizzy. Something clinks—keys, maybe, or a badge hitting metal.

A voice, distant but clear enough to slice through the hum: “Who’s in here?”

Will sucks in a breath. “HERE! I’M IN A BAG—IN A DRAWER—PLEASE!”

There’s a beat of silence, the kind where someone is deciding whether they’re hearing what they think they’re hearing.

He pounds again, frantic now. “HEY! DOWN HERE!”

The footsteps pause.

Silence.

Will holds his breath.

A voice, distant, confused: “What the—?”

Then the footsteps move fast. Drawers open one after another with sharp metallic slides, like someone searching. The cold room seems to echo with it. Will bangs again, desperate to be found.

“Keep talking,” the voice calls, nearer now. It sounds older. Tired but steady. Not panicked. Professional.

“I’M HERE!” Will yells. “I CAN’T OPEN IT!”

There’s a scrape, a jangle of keys, the rattling clink of a latch being tested.

A moment later, the drawer lurches. A drawer jerks outward—his drawer. Light spears in around the edges where the bag doesn’t cover. It knifes in through a widening gap—bright, harsh, beautiful.

The pathologist—white coat already on, hair still damp like he came straight from a shower—stares down at the body bag like it’s personally offended him.

He leans in, reads the tags, frowns.

Then, very carefully, he unzips.

The sound is brutal in Will’s ears: loud and final in reverse.

Fresh cold air hits Will’s face, and he gasps like he’s surfaced from deep water. His eyes are wide, hair flattened, scrubs smeared with blood that isn’t his, and he looks—honestly—like he’s been dug up. More air rushes over Will’s face like water after holding your breath too long. He squints, blinking furiously, and for a second the figure above him is just a silhouette.

The pathologist’s expression changes in a microsecond from irritation to alarm to something like disbelief.

Will manages, hoarse and furious and relieved all at once: “Morning.”

The pathologist blinks once. Twice. Then: “Dr. Halstead.”

Will swallows. “Yeah.”

A long beat.

“Why,” the pathologist says, voice very controlled, “are you in my morgue?”

Will exhales, shaky. “That is a fantastic question.”

The pathologist reaches in, grips Will’s forearm with a firm, grounding hand, and helps him sit up—slowly, like he’s expecting him to faint or bolt.

Will sits up slowly, joints protesting, head still throbbing from where he hit it. His blanket slips down, revealing the wrinkled scrubs and the hospital ID badge clipped at his waist, right there the whole time like a punchline the universe has been saving.

Will swings his legs over the edge of the slab and lets his feet find the floor. The morgue tiles are freezing through his shoes.

“Can you stand?” he asks.

Will nods, though his legs feel like they belong to someone else. “Yeah. I— yeah. I’m okay,” he says automatically—because he always says that, even when he isn’t. “Just… can you get me upstairs before I end up as someone’s paperwork problem?”

The pathologist’s jaw tightens. He glances at the tag again, then at Will, then back at the paperwork clipped nearby like it might bite him.

“We’re going upstairs,” he says, and there’s no room in his tone for argument. “And you’re going to tell me exactly what you remember. Then I’m going to have a conversation with every person whose name is on this chain.”

Will tries to laugh, but it comes out thin. “Get in line.” Will draws a slow breath, trying to let the adrenaline drain, and stares up at the bright morgue lights.

The pathologist pauses, then softens—just a fraction. “You’re safe now.”

Will nods, staring at the open drawer like he can’t quite believe it isn’t shutting again. “Yeah,” he whispers. “Yeah, I know.”

But the tremor in his hands says his body hasn’t gotten the memo yet. Three hours until his next shift.

He is going to have some words for whoever signed off on transporting him down in a body bag. And—God help him—he’s going to need coffee strong enough to raise the dead.

⸻

April notices it in the stupidest, most normal way: her pocket buzzing like it’s her problem.

Will’s phone.

She stops dead by the nurse’s station, pulls it out, and frowns at the lock screen like it’s about to explain itself. A couple of missed notifications. No new texts. Just… Will’s phone. In her hand.

Her brain rewinds: Will shoving it at her two hours ago—half a grin, exhausted eyes—“Hold this, yeah? I’ll forget it exists.” And April, rolling her eyes, tossing it in her pocket like: sure, Dr. Chaos, whatever.

Now the ED feels too big, too loud, too normal.

She scans the room. “Hey—has anyone seen Will?”

A couple nurses shake their heads without really looking up. Someone shrugs. “Thought he went home.”

April’s stomach drops. “He’s on again in—” she checks the clock, because she hates herself— “like, no time. He wouldn’t just bounce.”

Maggie clocks April’s face immediately. “April.”

“He left his phone with me,” April says, voice tightening. “And he’s not answering because—” she holds it up like proof “—I have it.”

Maggie’s expression hardens into that charge-nurse laser focus. “Okay. Where’d you last see him?”

“Hallway by the bays.” April’s eyes flick toward the corridor. “He said he was gonna close his eyes for a second.”

Maggie’s mouth goes flat. “Security.”

They move fast—two women who’ve seen too much and don’t waste time pretending this is fine. April pushes doors open, calling his name like it might yank him back into reality.

“Will? Will!”

The empty room is the first punch.

The bed is rumpled. The blanket bunched like someone dragged it over their head and vanished. And on the floor, kicked neatly to the side like an afterthought—Will’s shoes.

April just stares at them for a heartbeat too long.

Maggie says, very softly, “Oh no.”

April’s hands start shaking as she turns Will’s phone over and over, like it might turn into a tracking device if she begs hard enough. “He wouldn’t leave without these. He—he wouldn’t—”

Maggie’s already in motion.
“Call Goodwin. Now. And get me Security.”April’s voice comes out sharp and too loud. The question hangs there in the air, ugly and impossible.

And then Maggie looks at the bed again—at the shape of it, at the way the blanket was pulled. And the ED suddenly feels like it’s tilting.
——-

Will makes it exactly far enough to prove he’s stubborn.

The pathologist keeps a hand hovering near his elbow as they move out of the cold room, up the corridor toward the elevator—quiet, fluorescent, too much echo. Will’s bare ankles show above his kicked-off shoes-that-aren’t-there, his socks thin against the chilled air. His scrubs are stiff in places from drying blood. He feels grimy and unreal, like he’s wearing someone else’s night.

“Easy,” the pathologist says, watching him the way you watch a patient you don’t trust to stay upright.

Will nods like that settles it.

“Just—” he starts. His voice is rough. “Just need—coffee. And about ten hours.”

He takes another step. The world tilts. Not dramatically—just a sudden, nausea-slick lurch, the hallway pulling long, the lights flaring too bright, his hearing filling with a soft roar like a distant train.

His body makes the decision before his pride can argue. His knees buckle. He hits the floor hard, shoulder first, then cheek, breath knocked out of him in a sharp, involuntary sound. For a second he can’t move, can’t even get air into his lungs properly—just lies there while his heart tries to climb out of his ribs.

“Halstead!” The pathologist is down immediately, one knee on the tile, hand at Will’s shoulder, firm and grounding. “Will—look at me.”

Will blinks. The ceiling swims. He tries to make his mouth work.

“I’m…” He swallows. “…fine.”

“Sure you are.” The pathologist’s tone is dry but his eyes aren’t joking. He glances down the hallway, already calling it. “Don’t move.”

He reaches for his phone, thumbs flying with the kind of competence that’s done this more times than he wants to admit. “Security and a stretcher to the morgue corridor. Now. And tell the ED it’s—” he looks down at Will again, like even saying it out loud is ridiculous, “—Dr. Will Halstead.”

Will’s eyes flutter closed for half a second and he hates himself for it, hates how good it feels to stop fighting gravity.

The pathologist presses two fingers to Will’s wrist, checking out of instinct. “Talk to me. Are you having chest pain?”

Will shakes his head, tiny. “No. Just… dizzy.”

“Any trouble breathing?”

“No.”

“Did you hit your head when you went down?”

Will grimaces. “Floor says yes.”

The pathologist’s expression tightens. “Okay. Stay with me.”

Footsteps pound closer—fast, urgent. A security guard rounds the corner and a stretcher.

“What happened?” the guard demands.

The pathologist answers without looking up. “He collapsed. Get him upstairs. Now.”

There’s a pause—because even in a hospital, there’s a flicker of who is he to order that—and then the guard clocks the white coat, the authority in the voice, and the fact that the man on the tile is clearly a doctor in bloody scrubs, pale as paper.

They move. Efficient. Careful.

Will’s lifted onto the stretcher, someone draping a blanket around him like a shield. The elevator ride is a blur of cold-to-warmer air, metal walls, and the pathologist’s steady hand anchoring his shoulder so he doesn’t tip sideways.

By the time the doors open in the ED, the noise hits like a wave.

Maggie looks up first. She always does. Her eyes flick to the stretcher—then lock on Will’s face.

Everything in her shifts.

“Will?” It comes out sharp, disbelieving. “Oh my God—Will!”

People turn. Ethan’s head snaps around. A couple nurses freeze mid-task like the world just rewrote itself.

And then the questions start ricocheting.

“Why is he—”
“Is that blood?”
“Where the hell did he come from?”
“Who brought him—”

The pathologist barrels right through the chaos. “He needs a bed. Now.”

Maggie is already moving, hand on the stretcher like she’d fight anyone for it. “Trauma two,” she barks, and the ED obeys her the way it always does. “Clear it. Get me vitals.”

Will tries to speak—tries to make a joke, tries to take control of the narrative the way he always does—and his throat closes around nothing. His hands are shaking, not dramatically, just enough that he can’t hide it anymore.

Maggie leans in close as they roll him. “Hey. Hey, I’ve got you.” Her voice lowers, steadier. “Look at me, Will. You are here. You’re safe. Okay?”

He manages a nod. It’s pathetic how much that helps.

They transfer him onto the bed, blankets stacking up, someone stripping off his blood-crusted scrub top with quick, professional hands to check him over. A cuff tightens on his arm. A pulse ox clips to his finger.

Ethan appears at the bedside like he teleported, jaw set so hard it looks painful. “Will. Talk to me. What happened?”

Will wets his lips. “I… fell asleep. And then I… didn’t wake up where I fell asleep.”

Ethan’s eyes narrow, trying to parse that into something that makes sense.

Maggie, though—Maggie’s gaze flicks to the pathologist in the doorway, then back to Will. “Where was he?”

The pathologist speaks, calm but edged like a blade. “The morgue.”

Silence drops for half a second—an impossible vacuum in the ED.

Then, all at once:

“What?”
“No—”
“That’s not—”
“Are you kidding me?”

Will closes his eyes, the room tilting again, and exhales through his teeth. “Yeah,” he croaks. “Same reaction.”

Maggie’s face goes tight with anger so fierce it’s almost quiet. “Who did this.”

Ethan’s voice is lethal. “Will, were you in a drawer?”

Will gives the smallest nod.

Ethan looks like he might tear the hospital apart with his bare hands.

The pathologist steps in a fraction. “He was zipped in a body bag. He couldn’t open it from the inside.”

Maggie’s hand squeezes Will’s shoulder, careful not to hurt him. “You’re not going anywhere,” she says, like she’s telling fate itself. “Not until we’ve checked you head-to-toe.”

Will’s mouth twitches, something like a humor reflex. “No exceptions?”

“None,” Maggie says. “And if you argue, I’ll sedate you and call it therapeutic.”

Will finally gets a full breath in. It shudders on the way out.

“Okay,” he whispers. “Okay.”

And only then—once he’s horizontal, once the room stops spinning quite so much—does the shock catch up with him properly. His eyes stare at the ceiling, unfocused, while the ED moves around him like a practiced storm.

Maggie keeps one hand on him the whole time, like a promise.

Ethan stands guard at the bedside, shoulders squared, eyes hard.

And in the doorway, the pathologist watches the whole scene with a kind of contained fury that says: Someone is going to answer for this.

Warmth is supposed to help. Blankets, lights, people talking over you like you’re a chart with a pulse.

But the second Will’s eyes drift—just a blink too long—the ED ceiling stops being a ceiling.

It becomes something else.

Bright. Fixed. Too close.

A rectangle of light framed by stainless steel. His brain spits him back into the cold room like a rubber band snapping. He sees it in jerks—no smooth movie, just ugly flashes:

A slab. His body on it. Motionless. Tagged. A pathologist’s hands—gloved—opening a tray with a neat little click, like it’s a normal morning. The gleam of metal instruments lined up with calm purpose. And then—sharp, horrifyingly specific—rib spreaders, their teeth poised like a jaw about to open. A saw on a counter. Not revving, not bloody, just present, like a threat that doesn’t need to shout.

Will’s breath locks.

His chest goes tight, as if his ribs are already being pried apart from the inside.

“No—” he whispers, but it comes out thin. Someone says his name—maybe Maggie, maybe Ethan—like it’s a rope being thrown to him, but he can’t catch it. Another flash, worse, because it’s not. clinical. It’s final.

A gravestone. Too clean. Too new.

WILLIAM P. HALSTEAD
December 29, 1983 – November 30th, 2023

The dates shove ice straight into his stomach. His vision narrows. The room tilts. His hands go numb, then burn.

“I can’t—” he tries, and then the rest pours out in a rush. “I can’t breathe. I can’t—get it—off—”

He claws at the blanket like it’s the body bag again. The sound of fabric scrapes too close to a zipper in his head, and he loses it—he tries to sit up, tries to get away from the bed, away from the ceiling, away from everything. Maggie is there instantly, palms up, voice low but firm. “Will—look at me. Look at me.”

Ethan’s hand lands on his shoulder, not restraining exactly, just anchoring. “You’re in the ED,” he says, clipped and steady. “You are not downstairs. You are not in the morgue.”

Will shakes his head fast, eyes wide and glassy. “I saw— I saw the— the tools. I saw—”

“I know,” Maggie says, like she believes the terror without believing the vision. “That’s your brain replaying it. It’s a panic spike. It feels real, but you are here with us.”

Will tries to inhale. It catches halfway, like his lungs forgot the steps.

Maggie leans closer so he has to focus on her face. “Copy me, okay? In through your nose. Slow.”

Ethan’s voice threads in, calm like a metronome. “Four seconds in.”

Will tries. His breath shudders, but it goes in.

“Good,” Maggie says immediately. “Now out. Longer than in.”

He exhales, ragged. His fingers curl and uncurl against the sheet like he’s relearning what fabric is.

The gravestone flash tries again—sharp letters in his head—but Maggie interrupts it like she’s stepping between him and an oncoming car.

“Name five things you can see,” she says, fast but gentle. “Right now. Here.”

Will’s throat works. “Your— your badge. Uh… the IV pole. The— monitor. Ethan’s… hands. The curtain.”

“Good,” Maggie says. “Four things you can feel.”

Will swallows hard, staring at her like if he looks away he’ll fall back into the drawer. “Blanket. The bed. Ethan’s hand. The cuff… on my arm.”

“That’s it,” Ethan says. “Stay in the room. Stay in today.”

Today.

Will’s chest still thumps like a trapped animal, but the edges of the flashbacks start to blur when he forces his eyes to the real things: Maggie’s steady gaze. Ethan’s unyielding presence. The beep of the monitor that proves—over and over—that he’s here.

He takes another breath. It still shakes, but it completes.

His voice comes out broken. “It had… a date.”

Maggie’s expression softens without letting go of control. “A gravestone?”

Will nods once, small. “It said I was already… done.”

Ethan’s jaw tightens. “You’re not.”

Maggie squeezes his shoulder—warm, real. “That’s your fear trying to write an ending where there isn’t one.”

Will’s eyes sting, and he hates it, because he’s Will Halstead and he’s supposed to be the one holding it together. But terror doesn’t care about ego.

He whispers, “I thought I was going to— I thought someone was going to—”

“I know,” Maggie says again, and her voice is the closest thing to a promise. “No one is doing anything to you. We’re going to check you out medically, and then we’re going to keep you safe while your body comes down from this.”

Will’s breathing slows in ugly increments. Not fixed—just possible again.

The flashes don’t disappear. They retreat. Like a tide pulling back, still there, still dangerous, but no longer drowning him.

He stares at the ceiling, then flinches, and Maggie immediately shifts her body so she’s in his line of sight again.

“Stay with me,” she says. “Right here.”

Will nods, and this time it’s not just agreement—it’s survival.

The panic spike burns itself out into something else—something quieter and meaner.

Will stops fighting long enough for everyone around him to notice what his body’s been doing under the blankets.

“Temp’s dropping,” Maggie says, eyes flicking between the monitor and the thermometer like she doesn’t believe either of them. “That’s not— it should be coming up.”

Ethan is already at the foot of the bed, voice clipped into command mode. “What are we reading?”

“Core temp’s 34.1,” the nurse answers. “Was 34.6 ten minutes ago.”

Will’s teeth chatter so hard his jaw aches. He tries to tell them he’s fine—he always does—except the word gets chewed up by shivering and comes out as a breathy, stupid little sound.

Maggie piles another warmed blanket on him anyway. “Okay. More heat.”

They strip off what they can—bloody cold and wet undershirt—replace it with warm blankets like they’re building him a nest. Somebody snaps open chemical heat packs and tucks them into his armpits and groin, careful not to burn skin that’s already losing feeling.

Warmed IV fluids start running. His vein jumps under the catheter like it doesn’t want anything to do with him anymore.

Will looks down at his hands and barely recognizes them. Pale, waxy, fingertips gone bluish. His nails look like they belong to a corpse in a photo.

“My hands,” he says, voice shaking. “I can’t— I can’t feel—”

“I know,” Maggie says instantly, like she’s been waiting for him to say it. “Your body’s clamping down to protect your core. It happens when you get too cold or are in shock”

He laughs once—sharp, disbelieving, then it turns into a shudder. “Jesus.” Dr Halstead would know this but scared Will right now doesn’t.

Ethan leans in, eyes on Will’s face. “Will, stay with us, okay? Don’t try to be tough. Tell me if you feel chest pain. Tell me if you feel lightheaded.”

“I’m… lightheaded,” Will admits, because lying feels pointless with his teeth trying to file themselves down.

“BP’s soft,” the nurse says. “Pulse is—” she pauses, frowning, “—it’s there, but it’s thready.”

Maggie checks his cap refill and swears under her breath. “Peripheries are shutting down.”

Will’s shivering ramps up again, violent enough that the bed frame vibrates. It looks like fear, but it’s physiology—his muscles trying to manufacture heat like a broken furnace trying to kick on.

They put a forced-air warmer over him—one of those inflatable blankets that hums and blows hot air like a giant hairdryer for humans. It billows and settles, a warm tent.

It should help.

It doesn’t—at least not fast.

The number dips again.

33.8.

Maggie’s face goes still in that way that means she’s angry but not wasting the oxygen on it.

Ethan’s voice drops lower. “Check the reading. I want a reliable core temp. Rectal probe or bladder. Now.” This isn’t his friend right now just patient he needs to safe. Embarrassment isn’t something he is thinking about. Dignity now but not to the detriment of saving Will.

Someone moves quickly to do it with brisk professionalism, but there’s a tightness in the room now—everyone suddenly treating Will like something fragile.

Will stares at the ceiling and tries not to hear the morgue drawer in the hum of the warmer fan.

“I was only down there,” he rasps, “like… not even that long.”

“Cold hits different down there,” Maggie says, and her hand is on his shoulder again—firm, present. “And sometimes you keep dropping even after you’re out. Afterdrop. Your core’s playing catch-up.”

Will swallows. His lips feel numb. “Great. Love that for me.”

“Glucose?” Ethan asks.

“Normal.”

“ECG?”

They stick leads on him, careful like he’s made of glass. The monitor redraws his heartbeat in green lines—steady, for now. Ethan watches it like a hawk anyway.

“Keep him on continuous cardiac monitoring,” he orders. “Warm humidified O2. Keep the room warm. No unnecessary movement.”

Will’s eyes flick to him, a tiny spark of irritation under the haze. “No unnecessary movement,” he repeats faintly. “I’m literally… a burrito.”

Maggie huffs a laugh that doesn’t reach her eyes. “A freezing burrito.”

Another tremor hits him. His body is working so hard it looks exhausting—like he’s running a race he didn’t choose.

And the scariest part is the way his fingers are changing color at the tips, the way sensation keeps retreating up his hands like a tide.

“Shouldn’t the warm fluids be—” Will tries.

“They help,” Maggie cuts in gently, “but they’re not magic.”

Ethan’s gaze doesn’t leave the monitor for long. “If he keeps dropping or he stops shivering and his mental status changes, we escalate. ICU. Possibly more aggressive internal rewarming.”

Will blinks at him. “Internal,” he repeats, foggy.

Ethan finally looks at him fully. “We’re not there yet. But we’re not messing around.”

Will tries to nod, but it turns into another shiver.

Maggie tucks the warmer tighter around him like she can physically hold the heat in. “Come on, Halstead. Come back up.”

The temp reading stubbornly refuses to climb. It just sits there, cruel and flat, as if his body is pretending it doesn’t know what warmth is anymore.

Will closes his eyes—briefly—and when he opens them again his lashes are wet.

“I can’t feel my feet,” he admits, voice breaking on the last word like it’s embarrassing.

“I know,” Maggie says, immediate and unwavering. “We’re on it.”

The room keeps moving around him—purposeful, controlled—but Will can feel a different kind of fear now. Not the flashback kind. The physical kind. The kind that says: I am not in charge of my body right now.

Will’s eyes go unfocused in a way Maggie doesn’t like. Not sleepy. Not calm. Just… drifty, as if his thoughts are slipping on ice.

He swallows, blinks hard, and then his hands come up—sudden, clumsy—and he yanks at the forced-air warmer like it’s trying to suffocate him.

“Get—get it off,” he rasps.

Maggie catches the edge of the blanket before it slides away. “Will, no—”

“I’m roasting,” he insists, voice cracking with irritation that doesn’t match how weak he sounds. “I can’t— I can’t breathe, I’m—” He tugs again, harder, trying to sit up.

The nurse nearest him flinches when her fingertips brush his forearm. Cool. Almost cold. Not even close to “roasting.”

Maggie plants her hands gently but firmly on his shoulders, keeping him from launching himself out of bed. “You feel hot, but you’re not,” she says, slow and clear like talking someone back from an edge. “You’re cold. You have to keep the warming on.”

Will shakes his head, jaw trembling with shivers he seems not to notice anymore. “No, no, it’s— it’s burning me.” His fingers claw at the blanket again, desperate. “Take it off. Please—”

Ethan steps in on the other side, voice low and commanding. “Will. Look at me.”

Will doesn’t. His gaze is stuck somewhere past Ethan’s shoulder, like he’s seeing the morgue lights again, like the air in the bag is back in his throat.

Ethan doesn’t raise his voice. He doesn’t need to. “Will Halstead. Eyes on me.”

That lands. Will’s eyes flick, finally, and lock for half a second—wide, glassy, furious.

“I’m hot,” Will insists again, almost pleading now. “I’m sweating. I can’t—”

Maggie brings the thermometer back, shows him the number like it’s a lifeline. “You’re 33.7, Will. That’s dangerously low. Your brain is lying to you because you’re hypothermic.”

Will stares at the reading as if it’s written in a language he used to know.

His hands start tearing at the blankets again anyway, because logic is losing out to sensation.

“Okay,” Maggie says quickly, shifting tactics. She nods to the nurse. “Hands.”

They don’t pin him down—nothing that dramatic—but they contain the chaos: one nurse gently holds his forearms against the blanket, Maggie keeps the warmer in place, Ethan steadies his shoulder and leans in close enough that Will can’t ignore him.

“Will,” Ethan says, voice quiet and flat with seriousness, “if you take this off and your temperature drops further, your heart can go into a dangerous rhythm. I need you to stop fighting us.”

Will’s breath hitches. Confusion swims across his face. “My— my heart?”

“Yes,” Ethan says. “This is not optional.”

Something in Will’s expression shifts—fear cutting through the confusion for a moment—and he stops pulling. Not because he understands, exactly, but because Ethan’s tone has that doctor-to-doctor finality Will can’t quite override.

Maggie takes advantage of the pause. She tucks the blanket back up snugly, re-seals the forced-air warmer, then cups Will’s cheek briefly with a warm palm.

“You’re safe,” she tells him. “You’re warm in here. You’re not trapped. You’re just cold and your body’s misfiring.”

Will’s eyes flutter. “Feels… like fire.”

“I know,” Maggie says, soft but steady. “That’s a symptom. It passes.”

Will swallows, throat working. His shivering slows—not a good sign, not necessarily. Maggie’s gaze sharpens immediately.

“His shivering’s decreasing,” she says, all business again. “I don’t like that.”

Ethan’s posture changes, subtle but urgent. “Repeat temp. Full set of vitals. Get me a blood gas. Call ICU—give them a heads-up.”

Will hears “ICU” and his eyes widen, panic trying to claw back in.

“No,” he whispers. “No, I’m fine, I just— I just need—”

“You need help,” Maggie says firmly, and there’s no room for argument. “You don’t get to tough-guy this.”

Will’s hands twitch under the blanket, like they want to fight again, but he’s running out of fuel. Confusion and exhaustion tangle with fear until he looks smaller than he should, lost inside his own skin.

Ethan leans closer, voice dropping into something almost gentle. “Will. Stay with my voice. Keep breathing slow. We’re going to warm you up safely, okay?”

Will nods—barely. His eyes slide shut.

And this time, everybody in the room tenses, because it doesn’t look like sleep. It looks like his body letting go. By the time the sun starts to think about rising, Will’s numbers finally stop doing that slow, petty slide.

The forced-air warmer stays on. Warm fluids keep running. Somebody wedges heat packs where they’ll actually do something. Ethan hovers like a guard dog with a stethoscope, and Maggie refuses to leave the bedside longer than it takes to bark an order and return.

Eventually the core temp bumps up—not much, but enough.

34.0.
Then 34.3.
Then a stubborn little 34.7 that holds.

The shivering eases back into something less violent. Color returns to his fingers in reluctant inches. His blood pressure stops flirting with the floor. He’s still pale and wrecked, but his eyes track properly again, and when Maggie says his name, he answers on the first try.

“Hey,” she says, exhaling like she’s been holding her breath for an hour. “Welcome back.”

Will blinks up at her, expression tight. “Did I… make a scene.”

Maggie snorts. “You tried to undress yourself and swear at a heated blanket. I’ve seen worse.”

Ethan’s mouth twitches, almost a smile, but his eyes are still sharp. “You’re stable,” he says. “But you’re not going back to work.”

Will opens his mouth. Ethan cuts him off immediately. “Not a negotiation.”

So the ED does what it always does when it’s finished saving you: it hands you off. A transport team rolls him upstairs to observation with a chart clipped to the stretcher and a nurse giving report in clipped, efficient phrases—hypothermia, post-exposure, confusion, panic episode, monitor for arrhythmias, monitor temp, monitor mental status.

Twenty-four hours. Just to watch him. Just to make sure his body doesn’t decide to pull another trick. Will doesn’t love it, but he’s too tired to fight.

⸻

The obs ward is quieter in a way that feels suspicious. No sirens. No trauma alarms. Just clean hallways, soft voices, the steady beep of machines doing their jobs without drama. Will ends up in a bed with rails and a thin blanket that makes him feel like he’s wearing paper. On the over bed table there are a pile of blankets so he can load up on a couple more to keep him temp up. Someone tries to put him in a gown.

He grimaces. “Please don’t.”

“Hospital policy—”

“I was literally in a body bag a couple hours ago,” Will says flatly, and the nurse pauses like their brain needs a second to reboot.

“…Fair,” they concede, and leave him in his spare T-shirt and boxers under the blankets.

He’s staring at the wall when the door opens and Jay Halstead strolls in like he didn’t just have a call that probably started with hey, so, funny story—your brother got stored in the morgue.

Jay’s gaze lands on Will, takes in the pallor, the IV, the tired eyes, and his face tightens in a way that’s half anger, half relief.

“Okay,” Jay says, voice too casual to be real. “You look like garbage.”

Will’s mouth twitches. “Good morning to you too.”

Jay lifts a plastic bag like it’s evidence. “I brought you a dignity package.”

Will eyes it suspiciously. “That sounds bad.”

“It’s pajamas,” Jay says, pulling them out. Soft, dark fabric. “And a hoodie. So you’re not stuck in a gown that opens in the back like a betrayal.”

Will’s shoulders loosen a fraction. “Thank you.”

Jay tosses the hoodie onto the chair, then holds up the last item with a grin that’s trying to drag the mood back into the realm of normal.

Fluffy socks. Ridiculously fluffy.

Will stares. “Wow.”

Jay’s expression goes smug. “Right? These are premium.”

Will squints at them like he’s assessing a patient. “Those are… aggressively fluffy.”

“Hailey gave them to me as a joke,” Jay says, deadpan. “Said I ‘need more softness in my life.’”

Will takes them, rubbing the fabric between his fingers like he’s making sure they’re real. “And you kept them.”

Jay shrugs. “They’re warm. And apparently that’s something you struggle with.”

Will huffs a laugh that turns into a sigh. He looks down at his hands, where the color’s mostly back but the memory of numbness still lingers like phantom cold.

Jay’s grin fades at the edges. He steps closer to the bed. “Talk to me.”

Will opens his mouth, then closes it again. His throat works like the words have weight.

Jay’s voice drops. “I heard the highlights. I want the real version.”

Will’s fingers curl around the fluffy socks. “The real version is… I fell asleep. I woke up in the worst place possible.”

Jay’s jaw tightens. “Who put you there?”

Will’s eyes flick away. “A mistake. A bunch of them. Like dominoes.”

Jay leans on the bed rail, controlled fury held in place by the fact that Will is connected to a monitor. “Someone is going to answer for that.”

Will nods, but he looks tired more than vindicated. “I just… I keep seeing it. When I close my eyes.”

Jay’s expression softens, and for a second he looks less like a cop and more like a brother who used to share a room and know exactly what kind of nightmares Will wakes up from.

“You want me to stay?” Jay asks.

Will hesitates—then nods once. “Yeah.”

Jay points at the socks. “Put those on. Doctor’s orders.”

Will gives him a look. “You’re not a doctor.”

Jay’s smile returns, thin but determined. “After tonight, I’m basically a trauma surgeon by proximity. Put the socks on.”

Will does. Because the truth is, the warmth helps. Because the fluff is ridiculous. Because Jay is here, and the room feels less haunted with someone else in it.

⸻

Will feels less like a medical emergency and more like… a person who’s been put through a washing machine and then politely returned to the shelf.

He’s in comfy pajamas now—Jay’s doing—and a hoodie that smells faintly like detergent and home. The socks are absurd, but they’re doing real work. Every time he wiggles his toes he gets a tiny hit of relief like, yep, still here, still attached.

Still, his body is heavy. Not sleepy-heavy. Bone-heavy. The kind of tired that makes blinking feel like effort.

The room is warm. The blankets are warm. His hands aren’t blue anymore.

And he can’t stop wondering how he got that cold, that fast.

He stares at the monitor like it might explain itself if he glares hard enough. There’s a steady rhythm, a neat little line proving he’s alive and supervised and not allowed to evaporate into the background again.

He hates it.

He hates the cables. The beeping. The sticky ECG pads pulling at his skin when he shifts. He hates the IV poles standing over him like hall monitors.

Most of all, he hates that he can’t just get up and leave.

Will tries anyway—just a little—adjusting his position until his back stops aching. The movement makes the IV lines tug, and the pulse ox complains with a brief angry chirp, like it’s scolding him.

“Okay,” he mutters. “Fine. I’ll behave.”

Jay is in the chair by the window, half-dozing with his arms crossed, doing that brother thing where he pretends he’s not worried while his whole body is angled toward Will like a barricade.

A nurse drops off a tray—somewhere between breakfast and lunch, depending on what the hospital decides time is. Eggs that look like they got discouraged halfway into existing. Toast. Something in a little plastic cup that might be fruit if you’re generous.

Will eyes it like it’s a challenge.

He reaches for the fork with his left hand—his wrong hand—and immediately feels like he’s been demoted to toddler.

His right arm is the problem: cannulas, tape, a line that tugs every time he flexes, plus the gentle ache of bruising that’s starting to bloom. The arm is technically usable, but it feels like it belongs to equipment now.

So he uses his left, and the fork wobbles awkwardly, clinking softly against the tray.

He spears a piece of egg. Misses. Tries again. Gets it. It slides off halfway to his mouth.

Will exhales through his nose around the nasal cannula, irritation rising like a flare.

Jay’s eyes crack open. “You okay?”

Will stares at the fork like it betrayed him personally. “I’m fine.”

Jay sits up, immediately alert in that way that says he wasn’t really asleep. “That’s the same lie you told when you had a concussion and tried to go back to work or when you broke your leg in med school and still attended all your class for those two months.”

Will shoots him a look. “I did not have a—”

Jay raises his eyebrows.

Will sighs. “…Okay. I might have had a concussion.”

Jay leans forward, watching Will attempt another bite with slow, stubborn concentration. “Want help?”

“No.”

Jay’s mouth twitches. “You’re using the fork like it’s your first day as a human.”

Will makes an annoyed sound and finally gets a bite into his mouth. He chews, grimacing because even chewing feels like work.

“It’s just—” he says, voice muffled, “I hate this. Being stuck. Being watched. Being…” he gestures weakly at the wires, “…plugged in.”

Jay nods like he gets it, like he’s filed it away as something important. “Yeah. But you’re alive.”

Will pauses, fork hovering.

A flicker of the morgue drawer tries to surface again—the hum, the dark, the zipper sound—and he immediately focuses there instead: the hoodie sleeve bunched at his wrist, the stupid softness of the socks, the taste of bland eggs anchoring him to now.

“I know,” he says, quieter. “I just… don’t feel like I should’ve been that cold.”

Jay studies him. “Bodies are weird.”

Will gives a humorless little laugh. “Doctors say that when they don’t have an answer.”

Jay shrugs. “Cops say ‘ongoing investigation’ for the same reason.”

Will manages a real breath at that, the kind that loosens something in his chest.

He tries another bite. It’s still awkward. His hand keeps drifting like it’s not sure where to go, and every time the fork clinks he feels ridiculous. But he’s eating. His toes are warm. The monitor keeps chirping along like a metronome, annoying and comforting at the same time.

Jay shifts in the chair and speaks without looking directly at him. “You scared?”

Will’s throat tightens.

He could dodge. He could joke. He could say I’m fine again and make it a habit, turn it into armor.

Instead, after a long moment, he nods once.

“Yeah,” Will admits. “I was.”

Jay’s hand comes up, taps the bed rail lightly—present, not clingy. “Okay.”

Will blinks, and his eyes sting. He hates that too. He looks down at the tray and steals another bite with his wrong hand, jaw working slowly. “These socks are criminal.”

Jay smiles. “Hailey will be thrilled.”

Will’s mouth twitches around the food. “Tell her… thanks.”

Jay leans back again, settling into the chair like a guard posted at a door. “I will.”

And the room stays quiet after that—warm, boring, monitored—exactly the kind of boring Will never appreciates until it’s the only thing keeping him from the dark.