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Will Halstead was not having a good day. Or night for that matter.
He was working the night shift in the ED on a busy Thursday night. While not as infamous among first responders as a Friday or Saturday night - particularly in a big city like Chicago - tonight was definitely giving the busiest of weekend nights a run for their money. Patients flooded in and out of treatment rooms (not all of them necessarily needing to be there mind you), their ailments ranging from snotty noses to major traumas. It was exhausting on a normal day, let alone when you hadn't had as much sleep as one would need in order to properly function during a mental ED night shift.
Thus, this was the situation Gaffney's resident redhead found himself in one fateful night about a week before Christmas.
Nightshifts at Gaffney lasted twelve hours - from 7pm to 7am. Will usually preferred to get at least four or five hours of sleep before coming in to work when he was on the first nightshift of a rotation, but today something had kept him from getting even two. He couldn't quite put his finger on exactly what had kept him from getting the much needed sleep, but he knew that he was paying for it now. His head felt stuffy - like he had an ear infection or some sort of intermittent vertigo - and he just felt....off. He'd started off the shift feeling relatively okay, but it had worsened as the hours ticked closer to midnight.
After the calamity that had been caused over the last few years as a result of first his meningitis, then - more recently - his ulcer, he couldn't say he was eager to go through another bout of illness at work; he knew that his colleagues would never let him live it down, and he didn't want to leave them even more shorthanded than they already were this close to the holidays. Hence why he was trying to make it look like it was perfectly natural to be leaning heavily against the nurse's station, having sidled up to Maggie to request the chart for his next patient.
"14 year old girl, paramedics brought her in with CPD about twenty minutes ago" Maggie said by way of greeting, not even glancing up as she handed Will the iPad with the girl's details loaded and waiting. "Apparently she was causing a disturbance at the group home and CPD want a doc to assess her before she gets charged - they think she's got some sort of wrist or hand injury from punching the daylights out of one of her carers."
Will reached up to take the tablet from her when a sudden wave of nausea nearly knocked him sideways. Blinking rapidly to dispel the haze encroaching on the corners of his vision, he was surprised when the sick feeling was gone almost as soon as it had come. Taking a few deep breaths, he shot the charge nurse a weak smile in thanks and headed in the direction of the treatment room where two CPD uniformed officers were standing outside.
"Careful Will," one of the officers warned, hand coming up to halt the doctor in his tracks. "She's already flattened her carers tonight and kicked one of our guys in the groin twice before we could get her cuffed; keep your wits about you."
Great, the redhead grumbled inside his head. Just what I need.
"I'll be fine" he said out loud, opening the sliding door of the treatment room and walking in with his 'patient smile' firmly in place.
"Hi Christie, I'm Doctor Halstead" he greeted as he approached the teenager. "Can you tell me what's happened tonight?"
The teenager scowled up at him. "Like you care, you fucking dick" she spat, green eyes flashing with hatred. "They deserved it, they kept trying to lock me up in my room - all because I stole my phone back from them."
Will had to stop himself from raising his eyebrows. Still, med school had taught him to always be compassionate and empathetic towards his patients, so he forced himself to say "That doesn't sound nice, I'm sorry you feel like that."
Christie rolled her eyes and turned her scowl to the officers standing outside her door. "Yeah, whatever."
Sensing that empathy and compassion wasn't going to get him too far on this one, Will gestured at the girl's wrist. "Do you mind if I have a look at your wrist and hand? See if we need to get you an x-ray?"
Christie didn't agree or disagree, so Will took a few steps closer and was just about to reach for her swollen hand when the teenager screamed and lashed out with her other arm, pushing the doctor backwards into the wall with a strength that belied her small frame.
Taken completely by surprise, Will let out a yell of his own when his abdomen and ribs came into contact with the IV trolley that he didn't realise had been behind him and he fell to the floor, winded. The commotion had attracted the attention of the police officers and one of the nurses who was walking past, who yelled for security and rushed into the room. The police officers got Christie restrained just as Ethan came into the room, his eyes immediately scanning the cubicle and narrowing when they landed on the still doubled-over Will - who was slowly being helped to his feet by the nurse.
"Come on, let's get you outta here" Ethan coaxed, taking the other doctor's arm and leading him out of the cubicle and back into the hustle of the main department. Of course, that was the exact moment that Maggie caught sight of them and raced over, concern written all over her face.
"Will? Are you okay?"
Still winded and trying to get his breathing back under control, Will nodded, then groaned as another wave of nausea forced all the colour from his face and for a few moments Maggie and Ethan were sure he was going to pass out.
"In here" Maggie pointed them in the direction of Treatment 4 and together they guided their friend into the room and onto the freshly made bed. Will finally seemed to have regained his breath, but the pallor and clamminess of his skin was extremely concerning for both of them.
"It's okay, I'm alright" Will tried to assure them, but Maggie just swatted his arm crossly. "She just caught me off guard, I didn't know the trolley was right there" he continued, finally opening his eyes and watching them both. Ethan didn't say anything as he hooked Will up to one of the monitors, while Maggie's anger appeared to disappear as the first few vitals started to appear on the screens beside them.
"Well, your blood pressure is a little on the low side" Ethan stated, taking Will's wrist in one hand and feeling his pulse. "And your pulse is a bit fast, but that could just be the adrenaline. We'll keep you in here for a few minutes and see if everything rights itself and then we'll go from there."
But - ever the stubborn one - Will was already sitting up and shifting to the edge of the bed. "Actually, I feel fine now. Like I said, she just winded me; and we can't afford to be a doc down tonight with how busy it is out there."
Ethan sighed heavily, not one bit happy with his patient's decision, but nodded with a somewhat resigned look on his face. Maggie watched carefully as their patient stood up and - when he didn't seem to be having any problems - she fixed him with a stern look and said "Only because you're right, but if you start feeling unwell again, you let me know ASAP, got it?"
Will couldn't help but smile at the rush of affection he felt for the charge nurse. "Cross my heart, Mags" he promised, squeezing her arm and striding back out into the ED with an “I’ll be fine!” called back over his shoulder.
Maggie and Ethan watched him go, something niggling in the backs of their minds that something wasn't quite right.
*****
With just 3-and-a-half hours left of his shift, Will wasn't sure just how "fine" he was really feeling after all. His stomach had started to ache maybe thirty minutes ago, he'd had multiple near misses with the nausea which seemed to have returned with a vengeance, he felt hot and occasionally dizzy, and he found himself having trouble focussing. At first he'd thought the stomach pain was from the altercation earlier, then that it was his ulcer acting up, now he wasn't sure what to think. He'd tried to press on it experimentally a few times, but all that had achieved was increasing the pain and making him feel slightly bloated.
He'd taken a moment to sit at the desk in the doctor's lounge for a brief minute under the guise of updating some charts (even though he could do that a lot easier on his iPad), but in reality he was trying to muster the strength to go back out into the madness. His only consolation at that moment was that he would soon be done with his shift and then he could go home and sleep the day away.
Just a few more hours..... he thought to himself as he rested his head in his hands for the briefest of seconds, his stomach aching and cramping consistently now.
"25 year old male, came in with vomiting and diarrhoea" Maggie's voice interrupted his growing misery as she tossed an iPad his way. "Treatment 2's all yours."
"Uh huh" was the muffled reply she got, and the nurse's dark eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Will-"
At the sound of his name, the redhead glanced up and immediately plastered a smile on his face, trying to assure his friend. "Sorry Mags, just a little tired - you know how nights are."
Maggie wasn't convinced, but she said nothing as she turned and walked back out of the room, concern somewhat abated when she heard Will's tell-tale steps behind her. She caught April's eye across the room and gestured for the Brazilian to stick close by and keep an eye on their friend. April - who Maggie had informed about the earlier incident and had been since assigned to Will all night - nodded and grabbed a fresh pair of gloves before following the doctor into the treatment room.
She found Will sitting on a chair beside the gurney and chatting with their patient about what had led to his ED presentation at four-thirty on a Friday morning, but something didn't seem quite right. His questions were short and he seemed a bit breathy when he spoke, she could see that his shoulders were slightly hunched and the arm not currently holding the iPad seemed to be subconsciously guarding his abdomen. The muscles around his eyes and mouth seemed tense and tight, there was a slight shimmer of sweat starting to dot along his hairline and his skin was paler than usual.
"And no one else in your house has been unwell?"
The patient shook his head, ducking his head into the basin he was holding and retching. April winced at the sound, reaching around to get the monitoring connected and starting to get the patient's vitals. "BP's 110/80, heart rate's 100, sats 98" she rattled off automatically, waiting for Will's next instructions, but when nothing was forthcoming from the doctor, she prompted him with a concerned "Doctor Halstead?"
Will's gaze met hers for the briefest of seconds, nodding distractedly after a moment and glancing back at the chart on his screen. "Uh, okay. Let's get a-" a sharp groan interrupted his sentence and he was forced to stop and take a few heavy breaths as his stomach cramped angrily and insistently and he felt a hot flush of nausea creeping over his skin.
"Doctor Halstead? Are you alright?"
The question, coming from their patient - Will had forgotten his name already - brought him sharply back into the room and to what he was supposed to be doing and he forced himself to straighten and attempt to look as normal as possible. "-A CBC, CMP, cultures and a urine sample" he rattled off, voice getting tighter as the pain ratcheted up another notch and he just barely managed to stop himself from doubling over as he stood and made to walk out of the room. "I- uh, I just need to-"
But he never finished that sentence. The pain in his stomach reached excruciating levels and he let out a strangled yell as it forced him to his knees and he collapsed - barely conscious - to the floor.
*****
Connor Rhodes hated 5am shift starts. The person who decided that having a twelve hour shift start so early in the morning should be tarred, feathered, and then shot in as many painful places as possible while still keeping them alive. He wasn't a morning person on the best of days, but 5am starts meant he had to leave his apartment at just after 4 in order to get to the hospital on time to get handover from the night staff and get himself organised for the day ahead.
He was on-call for trauma in the ED today, so he figured at least he would be able to have the assistance of adrenaline to help keep him awake - until the first few cups of coffee kicked in, that is.
Yawning as he walked through the sliding doors into the familiar chaos of the ED, he shot Maggie a tired smile and made his way to the lounge to drop off his bag and jacket.
That was when he heard the yell and the commotion that followed almost instantly after.
Dropping his things rather unceremoniously on the couch and not even bothering to take off his jacket, Connor rushed back into the ED, easily spotting the source of the noise being a crowd starting to form in front of Treatment 2. Pushing his way past a pair of med students, he saw Maggie and April kneeling next to a figure in red scrubs laying in an almost foetal position on the floor, their back facing the approaching surgeon.
"What happened?" he asked, crouching beside them and finally getting a look at who their patient was - his hand freezing momentarily when he recognised the ginger curls that were rapidly dampening with sweat. "Will?"
Maggie looked up at the sound of his voice and her eyes flickered with relief. April answered a second later with "I don't know, he just collapsed."
Nodding, Connor stepped around so that he could see his friend's face and he reached out and put a hand on his shoulder - not liking how sweaty the maroon scrubs seemed to feel under his touch, and liking the trembling coming from Will's body even less. "Will, talk to us bud; what's wrong?"
Will didn't answer; instead, he tried to curl into a tighter ball with a pained whimper, arms folding across his stomach almost protectively. Connor exchanged a glance with April and Maggie, who finally admitted "He was a bit unwell earlier, a patient pushed him into a trolley and winded him pretty bad, but he insisted he was okay to work."
April added "Everything seems to have gotten worse in the last five minutes or so, but he hasn't said anything to me" her hand reaching past Connor to check Will's pulse at his wrist. "Pulse is pretty fast" she informed them quietly, fingers shifting and squeezing their patient's hand in reassurance.
Connor glanced at Maggie, seeing his own worry reflected back in the charge nurse's gaze. "What room's free?" he asked, trying to ignore the breathy whimpers and whines coming from their patient. Maggie stood and looked around the department, seemingly spying an empty room and answering "Trauma 1 just vacated a few minutes ago" before turning to one of the med students (who was suddenly avoiding her eyes) and said "Smithers, go get the gurney out of Trauma 1 and bring it over here. The rest of you-" she addressed the small crowd that had gathered "back to work."
Within a minute, the gurney was right beside them and Connor was working out how best to get Will onto it - part of him cursing the fact that the ginger was taller than he was, even if he was much more lightly-built. As if reading his mind, Ethan suddenly appeared from the corridor leading to the elevators and sprinted over. "What happened?"
"I don't know" Connor answered truthfully, "but can you give me a hand to get him onto the bed?"
Ethan nodded and between the two of them, they managed to help Will to his feet - although they both hated being the cause of the pained sound that escaped him when they lifted him up - and then they were helping him onto the bed and heading straight for the empty trauma room. Once away from the prying eyes of the ED, Ethan started attaching the monitoring equipment once more, while Connor bent down beside their friend.
"Will? Are you with us?" he asked, squeezing the redhead's shoulder in both an attempt at comfort and also to gauge his responses. A groan answered him, followed by pain-filled brown eyes fluttering open. "Hey, there you are" Connor smiled despite the situation, relieved that their patient was still lucid enough to respond.
That smile quickly disappeared when a gasp of pain left Will's lips and he pulled his knees further into his chest, tears leaking out of the corners of his eyes. "Hey, keep those eyes on me, okay? What hurts?"
"St-stomach" Will panted, whining as Ethan tried to get an arm away from his abdomen to get a blood pressure cuff on.
"How long's your stomach been sore?" Connor pressed, glancing at the numbers starting to appear on the monitoring screen. "Heart rate 130, BP 100 over 60" he read aloud, sharing a concerned look with Ethan.
"All n-night, worse since about midnight" the redhead answered breathily, another whimper breaking past his gritted teeth.
"Just after you were assaulted?" Ethan piped up, pausing in the act of attaching the ECG leads to Will's wrists. Connor raised his eyebrows in alarm, and Ethan clarified "when that kid pushed you into the trolley, that was about midnight wasn't it?"
Connor had heard enough. "That could've caused you some serious damage, Will. I need to assess your abdomen properly."
Brown eyes flew open in a panic. "N-no, please Connor, please don't, it h-hurts."
Heart tightening in his chest at just how young his friend sounded at that moment, Connor put his hands on Will's clammy wrists, fingers subtly pressing onto his pulse point once more - and not liking the weak and fast beat under his touch.
"I know, and I'm sorry bud, but I need to take a look" he replied gently, grey eyes meeting Ethan's blue over Will's head. "Can you try and roll onto your back for me?" he asked, putting a hand on their patient's sweaty shoulder. When Will shook his head, Connor sighed and said "That's okay, Ethan and I'll give you a hand, on three, okay? One, two-"
On 'three', he and Ethan gently pushed and guided Will onto his back and tried to straighten his legs out onto the mattress. To his credit, Will let them do it, but his whole body was trembling and covered in sweat, his jaw clenched and his eyes squeezed tightly shut as he panted hard through the pain. Once somewhat settled, Ethan lifted the front of the scrubs top and attached the remaining ECG leads while Connor started to palpate their friend's abdomen.
He got minimal response from Will until his hands gently pressed onto the area of abdomen just above his right hip, and both doctors were startled by the strangled scream that broke free from their friend's lips, both having to react quickly to grab onto a leg each as Will attempted to bring his knees back up to his chest.
"Okay; easy bud, easy" Connor tried to reassure him, hands squeezing the tense and shaking limb in his hold in an attempt to comfort his friend. "Hey, it's okay."
His reassurances didn't seem to be working as Will suddenly rolled away and vomited heavily onto the floor, gasping and crying in pain with each retch and heave. There didn't seem to be a lot to bring up, and he suddenly went limp against the railings. Sharing an alarmed look with Ethan, the veteran quickly reached for a pulse at the clammy skin on Will's neck. Sighing in relief, he sent a tense smile Connor's way. "It's alright, I think he's just passed out from the pain."
Biting his lip, Connor watched the vitals on the monitor, relieved when everything seemed to be holding steady. "Okay, let's get a line in and start some morphine for the pain. I'll go find the portable ultrasound and we'll take it from there."
Ethan nodded in agreement and turned to get the equipment ready for an IV. Connor left the room, returning a few minutes later with the ED's portable ultrasound machine. He was relieved to see Will conscious once more, if still in obvious pain - he'd rolled back onto his side and was curled back into a tight ball - though hopefully the morphine that Ethan was currently administering into his IV would help him settle.
"I gave him some zofran as well, just in case - he said he was still feeling a bit nauseous" Ethan said by way of greeting when Connor walked back into the room.
"Good call" Connor agreed, pulling a chair up beside the bed and turning the ultrasound on as he sat. "How's the pain, Will?"
"Hurts" was Will's reply, groaning and shivering as another wave of pain and nausea crashed over him. "Maybe an eight?"
Connor couldn't help but raise an eyebrow. "What was it before?"
"Eleven."
"Heading in the right direction then" Ethan joked with a tired smirk.
Connor felt a smile pull at his own lips as he started to put some gel on the probe. "Well, since the pain seems to have settled a bit, let's take a look inside that abdomen and see if we can work out what's causing the problem."
"Does that mean you want me to roll over again?" Will's voice was small, almost child-like in its exhaustion and pain, and Connor hated that his friend felt so bad in that moment.
"'Fraid so" he confirmed, watching as Will gingerly and very slowly rolled onto his back, teeth clenched and breathing heavily once more, but able to do it himself this time.
Once he was (somewhat) settled, Connor gently pressed the ultrasound probe onto the central lower part of Will's abdomen - right over his bladder - in order to orient himself properly. Everything on that view appeared normal, so he applied some more gel before investigating the right upper quadrant - over the liver. He could feel Will tense slightly and heard him suck in a breath at the pressure but, to his credit, he kept as still as possible. Things seemed normal there too, but when Connor went to shift the probe to the right lower quadrant - to investigate the right kidney, bowel and appendix - Will's legs started to curl back towards his chest once more.
"I know it hurts, bud" Connor soothed gently, "but I need you to stay really still for me. I'll be as quick as I can, okay?"
It took a few seconds, but Will nodded and forced his legs to straighten back out, dark eyes brimming with pain once more. Sensing his growing distress, Ethan pushed another dose of morphine into his IV, taking hold of his hand and squeezing it once he was done. Despite the pain and nausea, Will shot his friend a grateful look, before closing his eyes. Connor took that as his cue and pressed the probe down, doing his best to ignore the sharp and pained intake of breath beside him.
As Connor moved the probe around to view the various organs, barely listening to the nonsensical reassurances Ethan was keeping up on the other side of the bed, he saw that he could cross 'kidney' and 'bowel' off the list of probable culprits, which left only one real suspect that fit with all the symptoms.
Sure enough, when he pressed the probe down a bit further, he was met with a swollen looking squiggle of an organ that always looked so innocent on an ordinary day, but today had decided to cause a whole world of trouble.
"Gotcha" he muttered.
*****
"What do you mean there's no ORs available?!" Connor exclaimed incredulously, barely managing to keep his voice down in the middle of the crowded ED. Maggie sighed and repeated what the surgical floor admin had told her.
"Carrie said it's not that there's no ORs available at all, it's that there's no one who can do the surgery until at least this afternoon."
Scowling and crossing his arms in frustration, the surgeon suddenly had an idea. "What if I do it?"
Maggie raised her eyebrows, hand resting on her hip. "I can't lose my one and only available trauma/CT surgeon to a routine op-" she began, but Rhodes cut her off.
"Exactly, it's a routine op. It's a simple appendectomy, it'll take less than an hour and then I'll be back."
Maggie looked like she wanted to argue further, but Connor wasn't giving up.
"Mags, you know I wouldn't be asking if this wasn't important. Will needs this surgery sooner rather than later, before his appendix bursts and then we're in even more trouble because we're dealing with peritoneal sepsis as well as needing emergency surgery."
He could see her resolve fading, before she finally sighed and called the surgical floor back.
"Carrie? Yeah it's Maggie again. Listen, I got a surgeon here who's happy to do that appendectomy if you've got a room? Yeah, Doctor Rhodes.” A pause, then Maggie gave Connor a thumbs up. Relieved, Connor gave her a grateful smile. "Yeah sure, I'll send them up to 3 shortly. Thanks."
"OR 3?"
Maggie nodded. "Yep, Carrie's got a few scrub nurses that can assist when their shift starts at 7."
"You're the best, Mags!"
Maggie just shooed him away with a swat of her hand and a soft "Go on, and you better look after him, or I'll get scheduling to put you on 5am starts for the entirety of next year!"
Connor pretended not to hear the charge nurse's (very real) threat as he walked back into Trauma 1, pulling the curtain shut behind him.
Thanks to a total of ten milligrams of morphine, the zofran, and some IV acetaminophen, Will had finally fallen asleep about half an hour ago - shortly after Rhodes had finished doing the ultrasound. Currently there was some gentamycin and cephalexin running into his IV, but one glance at the bags told him that they were almost finished. Connor was loathed to wake his friend - especially knowing how exhausted he was from the pain and being sick - but he needed to let him know what was happening, so he gently shook the redhead's shoulder with a soft "Will?"
At the sound of his name, Will's eyes fluttered open to half-mast; taking a few blinks before focussing on Connor. "Yeah?"
Connor smiled and took his friend's wrist and feeling for his radial pulse out of habit. "Hey you, how's the pain?"
Shifting - and then wincing in discomfort - Will's shoulders twitched in a weak shrug. "5?"
Nodding, the surgeon released the grip on his wrist. "Well, I have some somewhat good news: Maggie managed to sweet-talk the surgical floor into letting us have an OR and a team this morning, so I'll be taking you upstairs in a minute."
"Yay."
Chuckling at the response, Connor started to disconnect his patient from the monitors just as an orderly arrived and they left the treatment room, pushing the bed between them.
Within half an hour, Will was shifting over onto the cold hard metal of the operating table and laying down as the surgical team fluttered around him readying their equipment and drugs. The anaesthetist had already spoken to him - keeping the conversation short, thankfully - and now they were just waiting for the surgeon to scrub in and join them. It was then that Will realised that Connor hadn't said who was performing the surgery, but he got his answer a minute or so later when he spied a very familiar face among the crowd.
"I would've thought appendectomys were a little beneath the great Connor Rhodes?" Despite how awful he felt, he couldn't help but tease his friend - who let out a laugh in response.
"Well it was either this or your appendix probably would've burst before a surgeon was available" he replied, pleased that Will was feeling well enough to make a joke. "Don't get used to the special treatment though; I don't do this for all my patients."
Will just shot him a tired - but no less genuine - grin in return, and Connor gave the go-ahead for the anaesthetist to place the mask over Will's face.
"Alright, just breathe and count back from ten for me" Connor's voice was already echoing slightly as the meds began to take effect. "I'll see you when you wake up."
"Ten, nine...eight......seven..........six.........fmpphf......"
*****
True to Connor's promise to Maggie, it was a very simple procedure, and he was finishing the last stitch around forty minutes after Will was put to sleep. Pulling off his gloves, he followed the gurney into the recovery suite and watched as the anaesthetist administered the medications to reverse the anaesthetic. He'd just hang around for a little bit longer and then he'd get back down to the ED - he'd promised Will he'd be there when he woke up, after all.
He was there when Will started to cough and choke around the tube as he came around from the anaesthetic. As was normal, once the tube was removed Will fell back unconscious, not showing any signs of stirring until nearly fifteen minutes later when a hoarse groan sounded from the hospital bed and the beeping of the ECG slightly picked up in tempo.
"Hey pal" Connor whispered softly, watching closely as his patient's eyelids flickered - opening briefly and then squeezing shut against the brightness of the recovery room lights. Nadia - one of the theatre nurses who had assisted during the surgery - quickly dimmed the lights and spread a blanket over Will's body as he started to shiver.
"'time 's it?" Will's voice was hoarse and croaking like he'd spent a week in the desert, but it was still music to Connor's ears.
"Just after 9" he replied softly, pulling the blanket further up around his friend's shoulders. "You did great, it's all done now."
Glazed brown eyes finally opened at that, his patient giving him a somewhat dopey smile.
"How're you feeling?" Connor continued, settling back into his chair.
Will seemed to consider his answer for a moment, "bit sick, ‘n sore, but good."
Relieved, Connor smiled back at him with a quiet chuckle. "That's good. I'll sign off on some pain relief now and they'll give it to you once you're up on the ward. The sick feeling should subside in a minute; it's just from the anaesthesia."
"Hmm."
Outright laughing now, Connor stood and patted his friend's shoulder. "Okay, I can take a hint. I'll leave you to get some rest, and I'll come check on you a bit later."
Will didn't reply - a snore coming from his general direction told the surgeon he'd gone right back to sleep.
Shaking his head in fond amusement, Connor dimmed the lights the rest of the way and left the room; ready to face the rest of the day knowing his friend was going to be just fine.
*****
END
*****