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From the moment he woke up that morning, Will’s day was absolute garbage, especially considering he hadn’t been able to see Connor in a few days. Connor had gone out of town for a medical conference in San Francisco and WIll had had to stay in Chicago since he couldn’t get out of his shifts. He woke up alone, and there was an ache in his chest from Connor’s absence, and there wasn’t enough coffee in the world to touch his fatigue from it all. When an omega on the edge of heat-induced mania was brought in, scratching at her own arms and face in desperation, he should have known that it was just going to go downhill from there.
“What is this?” Lanik asked, standing in the doorway to the bay where Will and Natalie were working on sedating the patient. She was a younger woman, only twenty-one years old, and her alpha had ramped up her heat just to leave her in the middle. Instead of coming down from it safely, she was starving for touch, crashing so violently that she was out of her mind, thrashing and screaming at them. It was rare that cases got this bad, but unfortunately it was not unheard of, but with recent education initiatives about omega heat cycles, it was absolutely unimaginable that someone would do this on purpose.
Lanik’s voice grated on Will’s nerves, his posturing pheromones even though he was already the chief of the ED. He pushed Will around, throwing weight unnecessarily, and it just made Will want to scream.
“This is Lana Carron, and she’s in heat mania,” Will replied. “We’re working on sedating her but -”
“Why is she in a public bay? Do you know how dangerous that is?”
“ I’m the only one in danger here, Lanik, and you know that, so don’t go spouting off about safety right now,” Will snapped, catching Lana’s arm and pressing it down into the mattress below her. “We’ll get her into a private room as soon as she’s sedated, but right now she’s here under Safe Haven laws, which you should know by now as the chief of the department. So, if you could stand back and let us do our jobs, that would be great.”
“Doctor Halstead, step back from the patient,” Lanik said firmly.
“No. I’m busy.”
Natalie finally pressed the needle into Lana’s arm and Will felt Lana’s body relax, the drugs flooding through her and easing her mania. He eased her back against the mattress and looked over at Lanik.
“Doctor Manning will take it from here. You are not to be anywhere near Miss Carron until her mania is no longer a danger to you.”
Heat mania was rare, but could be contagious if a manic omega were to come into contact with another omega in heat. The lucky part was that Will wasn’t in heat. He was late for his cycle, but that wasn’t uncommon for him, especially with Connor being away.
“I’ll be fi-”
“It is not a request, Doctor Halstead. Step. Back.”
There was enough of a command in his voice that Will had to obey, stepping back away from the patient with a grimace. He didn’t have to like the command, but he did have to follow it. That was the worst part, he’d always thought, that when an alpha of high enough rank gave a command, Will had to obey whether or not he wanted to, whether or not it would hurt him.
“That’s better, now take a walk, Doctor Halstead, and get some air. I can’t have you becoming manic yourself.”
“I -” but he was cut off by another shout from Maggie about an incoming patient trauma.
“Doctor Manning, have her transferred as soon as possible. She needs to be in quarantine.”
“Okay,” she replied, and gave Will an apologetic smile. He turned and started to leave the ED, heading to the elevator to head up to the rooftop balcony for some fresh air as he’d been instructed, but paused at the entrance into the rest of the hospital with a startle. There was a cramping in his lower stomach that he couldn’t explain. He gripped his side, moving to the side of the door so he was out of the way, and let out a slow breath to try and settle it. Once he stopped, he could feel a roiling nausea starting to crest, rising into his throat. Forcing it down, he closed his eyes and tried to just breathe, tried to just ignore it. There was no way this was happening.
He was hot all over, and he was exhausted, but he hadn’t been sleeping, and he hadn’t been eating, and -
A wave of confusion and lightheadedness washed over him.
Fumbling for his phone in his pocket, he managed to find Connor’s contact at the top of his list and called him. Then, he was falling. He was falling, but he couldn’t remember hitting the ground.
Everything hurt, he was sensitive all over, and he wanted nothing more than to curl up and give away whatever life he had left. The space he’d found himself in was watery and nauseating, drifting in and out of semi-consciousness to sounds he couldn’t place.
“-alled Rhodes and -”
There was a bang.
“Hams on his way, it’s -”
A crash.
“Heat, I think -”
Beeping.
“Sick from it.”
Yelling.
A hand touched him and a soft voice said, “hey, I’m here.”
He couldn’t place it, but he knew the voice.
“-ill he wake up?”
“No -”
Will reached out towards the voice, but he felt weighed down. Their presence at his side was soothing, and he could track the way the fingertips moved across his skin. He wanted to feel all the way across him, and he groaned, trying to find them to pull them close.
“Will? Can you hear me, sunshine?”
He forced the words out.
“Con?”
“Oh, baby. Oh, baby, you’re okay. I’m here.”
He forced his eyes open next and tipped his head to the side. He was in an isolation bay, the lights turned down low, and Connor was there. He was wearing his travel clothes, a pair of jeans and a sweater, and he looked so soft.
“Hey,” Will said. “When did you get back?”
“I was on the tarmac at O’Hare when you called,” he said, and brushed his fingers up Will’s arm again. “It was terrifying to hear you having a seizure over the phone, unable to even get off the plane.”
“I’m sorry,” Will whispered, already feeling unconsciousness pulling at him again. “I didn’t mean to -”
“Shh, that’s not your fault, baby. I wasn’t here to take care of you. But I’m here now.”
“Yeah,” he said and let himself fall back asleep.
When he came to next, Connor was sipping from a coffee cup in one hand and was holding his hand with the other. He had his phone propped up against Will’s arm where he was watching something that Will couldn’t see or hear, a single earbud in Connor’s ear so he didn’t disturb Will while he rested.
“Hey,” Will said softly, and Connor’s attention flicked up onto his eyes. “Hey, you’re still here.”
“Yeah, baby, you’re in the hospital. Of course, I’m here.”
“You’re a good mate,” he said softly, tilting his head to the side just enough to fully see Connor’s face, concern etched into his features. And finally, he had enough sense to ask, “what happened?”
“You were in heat when I left, apparently,” Connor said and frowned. “And you got heatsick from not being taken care of, and they think that your handling the heat mania case kicked it into overdrive, so you fainted and had a seizure.”
“Oh, god,” Will whispered, and he looked up at Connor. “I’m sorry. I should’ve known.”
“No, babe, your cycle is unpredictable and asymptomatic at the best of times. You’re not to blame here, not at all. You’re not in trouble.”
“I should’ve been more careful, around Lana, and -”
“Shh,” Connor said, sitting forward until he was practically leaning into Will’s space. “You’re not at fault. You’re okay. This happens, right? We’ve dealt with it before, and we’ll deal with it again. I’ll make sure to be more vigilant about checking for heat symptoms before I have to go anywhere, or you can just go with me. We’ll figure it out. Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Will agreed, and leaned his head towards Connor. It was enough, he leaned in to press a kiss into his forehead. “Sorry for scaring you.”
“No need to apologize, sweets.”
“I know. I missed you, though.”
“I missed you, too. Next time, you’re coming with me. I don’t like being away from you that long, or being that far away. If there’s a flight involved, it’s too far for me to go alone.”
Will tilted his head back and looked up at Connor. He hadn’t changed, and Will had no idea how much time had passed. The room was still dimly lit, and his monitor beeped steadily in time with his heart.
“Can I have a kiss?” he asked.
“Oh, you can have as many as you want,” Connor said, and tipped his chin up a little more to kiss him sweetly on the lips. It was short, and gentle, and perfect. Will smiled as he pulled away.
“I suspect I need to be observed for a while longer before I can get out of here?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Well, is it against protocol for my mate to cuddle me?” he asked.
“No, I think it’s actually perfectly in line with protocol.”
“Then, you are too far away, baby.”
“So I am,” he agreed, and he let the railing down on the side of the bed to climb in. Will made room and curled into Connor once they had settled, careful not to disturb any probes or the IV he’d been given. “There we are, much better. Right where you belong.”
“You, too,” Will agreed.
“Me, too.”
He pressed a kiss into Will’s forehead, and Will felt the tension from Connor’s absence ease from his body. They’d get through this, together, just as they had everything else.