Work Text:
Waiting rooms are something special. A lot of people call it a surreal kind of experience, sometimes satisfying, sometimes depressing, even traumatizing. Each person who enters that place feels something. Whether it is anxiety, fear, dread… something even anger and joy are mixed together into a mess that no one can truly understand. All of them cope in different ways, some pace around the room, some overthink, some are trying to keep calm, and some pray.
Others are a mix. Others are just everything at once. And others are anything at all.
The only feeling that brings all the strangers together, is the feeling of ambiguity. An uncertain sensation, where you can just wait and hope for the best outcome.
That’s the same feeling Gloria, Gabriel, Amir, and Player were feeling inside that waiting room.
It’s only been a few minutes since they last knew about their partner. For all of them, it feels like hours. Eternal hours.
They all remember the moment vividly. He is up, he is saying something, then he is on the ground, and someone is calling 911. The ambulance came while someone was giving air to him, and that person was pushed away, so they can do what they have to do.
That memory is as clear as day.
The rest is a blur. Some went in a car, and one of them went in an ambulance. Gabriel remembers having the pill bottle in his hand, and still can’t wrap his head around it.
Gloria remembers driving, and still can’t wrap her head around it.
Amir and Player are in the back of the car, and both still can’t wrap their head around it.
Getting to the hospital was also a blur. They don’t remember when they got out of their respective car and ran to the hospital. They don’t remember the time, or who they talked to. They don’t even remember the day.
But there they are, at the waiting room. And yet they can’t still wrap their head around what happened.
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Amir is pacing around. He knows that if he sits down, his leg will start trembling. He is thinking and thinking of every outcome.
He will be okay, there’s a chance that the overdose wouldn’t be so bad. It was just respiratory depression no slow heartbeat, there was a heartbeat…
Or maybe the heart was getting slower when the ambulance came. He doesn’t remember if the person giving the respiratory procedure stopped before. He doesn’t remember how many minutes he was left without air. Was the person in the ambulance doing the same thing? He doesn't know, he didn't go there with them... why he didn't? He doesn't know either.
Respiratory depression over an overdose can cause brain damage. Benzodiazepines can cause multiple organ failure and can kill you fast, alongside seizures, soft tissue necrosis, cardiac dysrhythmias, and even hemolysis, depending on the drug. And that depends on the time it lasts on the body, the action time, the lasting time... the classification is important...
He wasn’t there in time. Just like with Rupert, he wasn’t there to stop it. All he could hear was his Chief yelling for someone to bring a gurney or an oxygen mask or something. He called 911. It’s all he could do, giving shaky and very shocked answers, as he enters the room and sees his body, being surrounded by people he knew and talked with. He doesn’t remember what he said, but by the blurred memory of it, he was as frantic as he was now. He can’t lose another member. He can’t lose another friend. He wouldn’t forgive himself if he does it, with how much he knew about science and chemistry, he should have known about the chemical imbalance that the body has over someone’s death. It destroys you. He knows it does, he has been there he knows it first-hand.
Then why didn’t he see the same imbalance? Why didn’t see that? He could have stopped it.
“This is not about you Amir not now, not now"; he is right now being intubated. If the Benzodiazepines were pure, he can be given Flumazenil and will start breathing in due time. Its’ protocol, every 15 seconds it has to be given 0.1 milligrams of that until the minute passes. He will start breathing. He has to it’s just…”
The overdose. He could try to ask the doctor or whoever is in charge, once it’s due. Is his friend at the Emergency Room? Did he pass to the Intense Care Unit? He has to know this he is the Lab Chief. He should know this.
Why he doesn’t know this? He has to know, because he would know what to do. And he thinks he knows what to do because he is okay. He is going to breathe; he is not declared dead yet. Not even when benzodiazepine overdoses it's one of the known cases of death in the United States regarding suicide, even if the death rate of pure Benzodiazepine is only 9%. (Did he mix it with something else? Because then that spikes to 84% of death occurrences. He has to know if Gabriel’s medication doesn’t have an opioid involved.) Not even when organ failure can cause terrible consequences to his body, and that can result in death. Not even when even if he survives, there is a chance of brain damage. Even if it’s not as probable, it can happen.
“He has to be okay. Right?” Is all he can think. But all of the outcomes are confusing. He can be alive, he can be dead right now, or in a few hours. Or he cannot talk with them anymore, or maybe he is in a coma that he is not going to ever wake up from, and he is on a ventilator, forever. And they will have to say goodbye and disconnect for good. Can they even have a funeral in their conditions right now?!. Or maybe he will not be like that and will wake up, but in the mental exam, he will be declared mentally unable or unstable and he will have to be out of the force and be taken care of for the rest of his life, and he will fall into another depressive state, where he won't get out. Or maybe he will be okay, and act like nothing ever happened. Is that even possible?
All of those thoughts were mixed into a blender, he doesn’t know what the right answer is anymore. So, he can just walk, hoping those can organize it. Maybe he could call Jasper. Probably he has an answer.
Or maybe just to talk. He wants to talk; his throat feels like it’s going to explode. But he is occupied, occupied at work, work that he was supposed to be there, and being useful not like here where he wasn’t and now his friend is being treated and they know nothing about it. He can’t interrupt it. Can he?
No one sees it, but his eyes are full of tears. He is not speaking, nor yelling.
His train of thought is only interrupted when he trips as he tried to sit down because of Gloria who is still looking at the door, sitting. It’s all that she has been doing.
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Looking. Looking everywhere. Looking at everything. Looking at everyone.
She is waiting for someone to come out of there. No one has come out of there.
She is looking everywhere. Looking if someone can give her an answer as to why. If she missed a clue, or if someone is looking back, and tells them something they may have forgotten.
She was technically the newest in town, in relation to knowing him. Even Player had more knowledge.
But it feels like she met him a while back, even if it was just a year ago. She knows how mad he can get when there’s injustice, how sad he could be when something hits him personally, and how irrational his actions sometimes are on a bad day… how many puns he can get he’s nervous, and how bold and passionate he is towards his job, friends, love… everything. He is passionate.
Then when did she lose track at the moments, he stopped being passionate, when he became sadder when he became angrier and more irrational? Did anyone notice it at all?
She is supposed to be a mother. She is supposed to know where this kind of stuff happens, when suddenly someone changes their mood, meaning that there is something happening. Then why didn’t she notice it?
She hopes she is able to see it on Carter if he goes through this because if she can't look at it on a grown man then-
“This is not about you Gloria, not now; maybe he just took a harsh decision?” Is all she tried to hope.
“What a stupid idea” it’s the next thought. A sudden decision. This is not a sudden decision. She has been taught the basics of depression, and depression is not sudden.
Its accumulation. Accumulation of feelings, moments, even words. And one day, all of them make an amalgamation and they pop into the person, not wanting to be there, feeling hopeless, feeling too much, and at the same time, feeling nothing. They teach you that in courses to catch a teenager’s depression back in Chicago schools.
The moment was still fresh to her, she can still see it. She was talking about Zoe, and suddenly he appeared. He should be with Gabriel. He wasn’t supposed to be there. He thanked everyone, he looked distraught. His voice was cracking like glass and wobbly like jelly. He had eye bags from crying. His tie was untied, his hair looked like he had just woken up from a nap.
And suddenly he had the pills. She didn’t react in time, when he said goodbye, saying how worthless he was when he downed tall of the pills at once and swallowed them all without even drinking water. (“Why is water so important now?”)
And at the brink of a moment, he was on the ground, with a loud thump. He probably has a bad bruise of that, no one was able to hold him. He fell flat. Chief Parker also saw it and suddenly went to see his pulse.
There was a pulse. There was no breathing. His mouth was open and un-responsible. She has the idea of the hospital and saw his chest wasn’t moving, but aside from that, she didn’t know what to do.
She only obeyed orders. Orders of activating a protocol, and waiting for the ambulance to come, as Parker yelled for someone to call 911. She saw how many people were entering the room, and how many were going in and out. It was all in stop motion, as she was slowly walking to the entrance of the precinct to wait for the ambulance to come, so she can guide them to the room.
Looking, waiting. It’s all she could do. Even now.
She is the only one who looks at the clock. She is the only one who knows the track of time. Carter is probably at her house by now, or he is walking there. He will be alone, probably for the rest of the day… maybe even night. Maybe her ex-husband will take care of him. She hasn’t told him that she is still at work. Is she even at work right now? This doesn’t feel like work.
She has to tell him. Yet she feels stuck.
There is more work to do. They still have no answer as to why Zoe was “levitating stuff” given by her killer’s word. What a stupid and selfish motive. For the news. To gain a star in the Hall of Fame.
Stupid, stupid, so stupid. She only could look at how stupid that stupid motive from that stupid person was. And yet she has to investigate that. She has to talk with him. She and Player. Both together have to ask.
She wonders how her Chief is doing. She didn’t want to go, because she had to still fill a protocol. “Work issues, I’ll meet you there later" were her words, but something tells her that she wanted to come. She is probably in her room. Maybe she is not phased? She looked worried.
Maybe she was. And has to push all that away, for the sake of the job.
This job sucks. Sometimes. It sucks.
She looks again, this time to confirm If her seatmate was there. He’s still there, in the same position as he put himself in ever since they got there.
Correction. Physically, he was there. Mentally, he was long gone.
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When the rest of the group was at the hospital, they already saw Gabriel seated in the chair. He was looking at the ground. He didn’t have the pill bottle in hand. But his hand gestures looked like he had them.
His last words were while seated in that chair. He said with a steady voice that he was admitted to the emergency room, and had to stay there. That was the last time he looked at the rest, before giving a big sigh and looking down to the ground.
His muscles are not hurting by the position of it, which is good and at the same time, bad. Good because it doesn’t hurt.
Bad because his back was actually hurting. But his mind was so immersed into a mind work world, that he couldn’t feel it anymore.
His palms are open together, at times turning into a praying position. He is not so sure if he’s religious, or if anybody in that room is, but he found himself some solace in believing that some powerful superior sense would help them out, even if it’s a little push.
Maybe this is why he was acting so "okay" at the cult. Maybe he was used to this. He was able to trick his mind into it, believing in something that doesn’t have facts.
But that’s only because that’s something he can control. And this situation is something that got out of his control. He had it in control, he was supposed to control it.
Ever since he found himself comforting him at the psych hospital, while keeping him away from the body of his deceased loved one, he knew that he had to be in control of this.
He had to. He was the one capable to medicate him enough so he would stop crying and would rest his aching body, without the risk of "this" happening.
He had to pay attention to it multiple times. He slipped up one time and suddenly he was in the main room, promising to bring hell upon the killer, grabbing someone’s collar to the point of breaking down. He had to be more careful and more in control than ever.
So it wasn’t a surprise that his panic heavily increased when he found that his medicine cabinet was open.
And his pills weren’t there.
It was only a matter to connect the dots to realize what the screaming was about a second later.
He just went to the bathroom.
He tried to look for the empty bottle, on the ground. And he froze when he found it. Because it’s all he could do. Freeze, while thinking how out of control this situation got, and that he has no power to change things drastically like with a pill to calm the nervous system.
He is supposed to be the calm one, and he is showing it. But his mind is screaming, yelling that he is not prepared enough, that he let the moment go. Those thoughts didn’t go away, not when the ambulance came, nor when he was sitting and answering the questions, nor when he passed the empty bottle and stayed outside waiting for the rest.
When he studied psychology and got himself to be a profiler, it was so he could be prepared for everything. Every symptom is measurable, and every change in their behavior can be put into criteria. And you can learn the criteria, and know what to do because you became prepared.
But he didn’t know what to do.
“This is not about you, Gabriel. But it’s your fault if he dies.”
Every one has some fault. He showed so many signs and so many events where they could have prevented it. So many criteria fitting into Major depression. The loneliness feeling, the irrational thinking, the despair, and possibly suicidal thoughts… all in more than 6 months.
Was there overeating? He does… all the time unless…
Everything was there. He didn’t see it, and it was RIGHT THERE.
He can sense his body growing tense by the minute, how all of the guilty thoughts were increasing in his mind, how he could have averted it. He knew that Benzodiazepines take away the 4th Phase of REM sleep, he knew that he would get cranky and irritable, why did he keep giving them?! Why he left to the bathroom knowing that Gloria and Player found out who killed her?! Why he didn’t lock the cabinet AND WHY SINCE HE KNEW HE KNOWS LOCK PICKING HE KEPT THE PILLS AT THE CABINET AND BOT WITH HIM WHY WHY WHY-?!
Suddenly his ear senses come back. His mind blocks out.
And just in time. Everyone heard it.
the voice exclaims again, waiting for an answer.
Amir stops his pace, and Gloria looks. Gabriel tries to compose himself and gets up. He is the controlled one. He is the one in the ambulance, who told everything.
So he is the one who will know what happened. While he walks, he sees Player, making what appears to be, a call.
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He can only imagine how Player is feeling. They both know each other for a while. More than anyone else in that room.
And yet, Player wasn’t able to see the signs, like him. The sudden signs. He bets that Player feels guilty.
Player is just on the phone and is looking at the door. Is calling someone, probably one of his parents. Probably Ramirez, so he could know the news? Ramirez is close to him.
Is it even good to call someone like that? He can still turn out ok, probably the dose he took wasn’t that bad. Gabriel is hopeful.
Not the same can be said of Player. They are indeed calling someone. It’s all they have been doing. Calling, acting, and trying to keep themselves on the ground.
That is all they can do. When was having his angry moments, or sad moments, or moments he could joke at the job, they were the anchor to keep him on the ground. It worked with him, it worked with Gloria, Rita, Amir, everyone. It was always them. The one who had to act up, the one who couldn’t shed tears at the very moment.
And yet there they were. Trying to keep themselves on the ground, because they knew that they were tearing up. Trying to this time, act up, not like last time, that they didn’t yank the pills away, nor grabbed him when he was falling, or giving the breathing technique.
Chief Parker did that. Not them.
All they could is think, just like the other 2… 3 times when this situation happened. Is trying to keep themselves collected because they were at work.
But this wasn’t work. Unlike Gloria, Player is sure of it. This can’t be "work".
They can't cry. They can't bring themselves to tears when at any moment they would have to run, if he needs help or an antidote, or a funeral number.
They don’t remember the name of the antidote. They don’t know the name.
They should have known better. It’s what some person, some young psychology student once said. He’s a kettle boiling up. They knew he could explode. But didn’t know how. Or when.
They should have known that when kettles boil you have the chance to turn off the fire before it runs out of water and the metal start to melt, damaging itself, until it becomes nothing like the kettle they knew.
That teenager was right. The whole time. And they didn’t listen.
Someone answered to Player’s call, and that someone is getting the news. That someone is freaking out. Is asking with panic how did this happen? No one truly knows.
Yet Player still gives the rundown. And the person tells them to keep them updated, still sounding like they will cry at the ambiguity.
Player stops the call, giving a long sigh.
Worst-case scenario.
“This is not about you, Player. Control yourself, you have to make a solution. Because he is not fine. He is dying. This is about him.”
Another long sigh, and comes back to the group.
At the same time, Gabriel comes back as well from talking to the doctor. His face doesn’t inspire hope.
“I’ve spoken to the doctors about Jones' condition…”
…
“And it’s not good.”
…
Worst Case Scenario.
He’s not getting out of the door.
We are running out of time.
This is the 3rd time, and you didn’t stop it.
…
… this is all your fault.