"Dad, you're getting a call." Olivia points out, looking down to the phone sat in the cup holder between hers and her father's seat.

Will keeps his eyes on the road in front of him. "Who is it?" He questions.

Olivia takes a second to respond as she takes a closer look to the caller ID before sending her dad a smile from the passenger seat. "It's Maggie."

He sighs. Today was meant to be his day off out of the ED. He debates the next thing he was going to say for a moment before deciding to pick it up rather than letting it ring - something might have happened that caused the ED to get slammed, he couldn't not answer the phone. He sends a very brief look to Olivia. "Could you answer it and find out what she wants?"

The girl nods, leaning forward and taking the phone out of the cup holder and raising it to her ear as she accepted the call. The smile remains on her face as she greets the woman on the other side of the line. "Hi Maggie."

Maggie sounds a little shocked by who answered the phone. "Olivia, hi, aren't you supposed to be in school?" She questions.

Livvy nods, even though Maggie wouldn't be able to see that bit. "Yeah, but I had an early dentist appointment, they didn't have one for after school, so dad's taking me in now."

"Is he there?" Maggie asks curiously.

Olivia looks to her father beside her. "He is, but he's driving so he can't have the phone."

She can hear Maggie sigh on the other end. "Is there any way I could talk to him? This is kinda important."

"Is everything okay?" Livvy questions, furrowing her eyebrows deeply, which grabbed Will's brief attention - as much as he could give before having to look back on the road.

"Yeah, there's nothing you need to worry about, I just need to talk to your dad about important work things," Maggie responds calmly, which was a change having sounded nervous the whole time. "Are you sure I can't talk to him right now?" She asks again.

Olivia shakes her head. "No, sorry."

"Okay, just can you tell your dad to call me back as soon as he stops driving?"

Livvy nods. "Yeah, of course." She says before taking the phone away from her ear after Maggie hangs up.

Will furrows his eyebrows, watching Olivia put the phone back in the cup holder in the corner of his eye. "What did she want?" He wonders.

"You need to call her back when you're not driving, apparently it's important." Olivia replies, and the car falls into silence.

The rest of the drive to the school was quiet and Will reaches for his phone just before he pulls to a stop in front of the school. He stops the car and puts the piece of technology against his ear, surprised at how fast Maggie picks up on the other end.

"You needed me." He says to greet her.

Maggie gets straight to the point, choosing not to put off telling him. "Will, Jay's just been brought into the ED."

Will's face drops as he sinks into his seat. "When?"

"About five minutes ago," she replies, answering his next question before he had a chance to ask it, "He and Hailey got caught up in a drive-by shooting, he wasn't shot but he hit his head pretty hard and he's lost a lot of blood. He was in and out of consciousness in the ambulance ride over and he's severely hypotensive and his heart rate is very high."

He scrunches his face up and puts his hands on the wheel in front of him. "How hypotensive?"

Will can hear Maggie slowly shake her head on the other end. "He's my patient, you know I can't share that with you."

"He's my brother." Will cuts in sharply, and he can just about see Olivia's ears perk up at this, turning her head to look at him as if waiting to hear more.

There's a pause before Maggie speaks up again. "Sixty-five over forty."

Will's breath becomes hitched in the back of his throat, making him quietly choke out his words. "That's really low," he says before he can take in another staggered breath, "I'll be there in ten minutes." He says before ending the call.

Olivia breaks the silence before it could start, looking up to her father with a little hint of worry in her eyes. "Is everything okay with Jay?" She questions.

Will nods. "You don't need to worry about it, you should have gotten out the car when I pulled up, you need to go into school."

"Dad..."

He cuts in. "Livvy, you need to go inside and I need to get to the hospital."

Olivia's face drops down subtly with worry. "Jay's in the hospital?" She asks, the shock in her voice feeling somewhat forced, like pretending to be shocked at a gift you received when you already knew what was inside, like she already knew that fact.

"I said you don't need to worry about it, so can you please get out the car and go into school?" Will asks, his voice snappy and quick.

There's a pause of silence before Livvy cautiously nods and climbs out the car, allowing the passenger door to slowly click shut on it's own as she made her way up the front path into the school, allowing Will to be able to drive off quickly on his way to the hospital.

************

Will rushed through the entrance door to the hospital, scanning his eyes across the waiting room. He doesn't find anyone he recognized so he ran forward and into the ED, immediately spotting Maggie by the front desk so he runs over to her.

"Where is he?" He asks quickly, making her turn away from one of the other nurses she was speaking to and around to face him.

Maggie pauses for a moment before pointing to one of the rooms on the other side of the ED. "He's in trauma two," she responds, allowing Will the chance to look over to the room before she cuts in again before he could go over, explaining his brother's diagnosis, "But he's just gone up to radiology for a CT. He's lost a lot of blood, Will, and he's still going in and out. Why don't you go grab a coffee or something? I'll let you know when he's back down." 

Will shakes his head, keeping his eyes locked on the trauma room he had been told Jay was being treated inside. "I'm not going anywhere." He says before walking away from Maggie, going over to the room.

He doesn't knock on the door when he gets to it. It was open ajar so he pushes it all the way open, making Hailey stand up from the chair she was seated on and whip her head up to look at him. There's a hint of disappointment in her eyes, which were red, swollen and tear-filled, and she looks back down to the floor when she notices it was only Will stood in the doorway.

Will slowly makes his way into the trauma room, sliding the door shut behind him.

"You just missed him," Hailey begins, looking back up to Will again and pointing behind him back outside into the ED again, "They've taken him up to radiology for a CT scan, to see if there's any bleed on the brain or hematoma or something like that, I can't remember what they called it."

He puts his hands in his pocket jacket, tilting his head to one side. "How are you doing?"

There's a pause as Hailey shifts her eyes across the room, avoiding eye contact with him. Her eyes started burning again as she shook her head. "I should have just listened to him," she says, making Will furrow his brows lightly, "I was so sure he wasn't fine, if I had just believed him we wouldn't have been fighting when the car went past. He never would have hit his head if it wasn't for me. We wouldn't be here."

Will steps forward and wraps his arms around her, allowing her to bury her head into his shoulder. He pats her back slowly, whispering reassuringly as he does. "Hey, he's gonna be fine, he always comes out fine."

Despite saying that to try and calm her nerves, he wasn't so sure if he believed that himself. The moment he walked into the door he had spotted the dried darkened patch on her jeans. It was clear she had tried to scrub it or clean it off, but the residual stain remained.

Hailey nodded hesitatingly into his shoulder but doesn't say anything until she pulled away a few moments later. She wiped the dampness from her eyes with her hand and gave Will a very forced smile, quickly changing the subject. "Could you pick Macie up from school, if we're not out of here in time?"

Will nods almost immediately. "Of course."

She then begins playing with the rings on her fourth finger, dropping her gaze down to them very briefly before back up at Will. "But don't tell her Jay's in the hospital. Not until we know exactly what's going on. There's no point in getting her all worried if there's nothing wrong. When she asks, just tell her we got caught up at work or something."

"Okay," Will replies, taking a breath before speaking again, "Do you know who did the shooting yet?" He questions.

Hailey shakes her head, crossing her arms over her chest. "Adam and Kim are looking through security footage to try and get a visual on the car and searching for anyone who might have seen something, but so far nothing. The guy who was shot had his back turned the whole time and I only saw the flash before I ducked down. Jay might have seen something, but he's not conscious long enough for any one to ask or get a lucid answer out of."

"You'll find who did this to him, I'm sure of it."

************

"Why am I here?" Macie suddenly asks, breaking the silence that had enveloped the apartment since they sat down to eat.

The girl had been mostly quiet since Will picked her up from school, especially since Will had picked up a bag for her from Jay and Hailey's place, and while Will was glad about that - it had meant she hadn't asked any difficult to answer questions about why it was him picking her up from school or why he had grabbed some pajamas and clothes for tomorrow morning or why she was going over to his apartment last minute - he couldn't help but worry about her because it was usually a struggle to get Macie to stop talking.

This had been one of the first questions she had asked him, two and a half hours after they got to his apartment. He knew what he was supposed to say if, or, as Hailey had put it, when, she asked, but now he actually had the question to answer, he was coming up empty.

At first he was pleased Olivia stepped in from the opposite side of the table to him, but it soon came crashing down on him when he realized what his daughter was telling Macie.

"He's in the hospital." Olivia blurts out, answering for Will after he took too long to reply.

Will's eyes widen as he stares to Liv across the table. "Olivia!" He scowls, somewhat gritting the words through his teeth.

Olivia shrugs, placing the fork she had in her hand down beside her plate. "What? She deserves to know the truth rather than being lied to straight to her face."

Whilst Will and Olivia had had their small exchange of words Macie had looked down to her plate, beginning to spin her fork across the plate aimlessly. Will noticed this after a beat of silence and he put his hand out, placing it on his niece's shoulders, making the girl bring her gaze up to look at him.

"Mae, you don't need to worry. He's gonna be okay, he just has to stay there tonight so they can give him some medicine so he can feel better." Will reassures with a small smile on his face.

In the corner of his eye, Will can see Olivia roll her eyes so he sends her a serious stare for a beat before looking back to his niece softly.

Macie shakes her head. "I'm not worried," she says, "I stopped being worried a long time ago."

Will furrows his brows. "You did?" He questions.

The girl nods slowly, continuing to play with her dinner with her fork. "I learned that if I worry every time this happens then I'm always gonna be worried. This has happened so many times I know not to worry."

Will sits back into his chair fully and doesn't say a word after, and the rest of the table follows suit, staying in silence for the rest of the meal.

************

Will pushed his daughter's room door open completely, causing her to look up from the book she had in her hand. He gives her a small smile and leans into the room slightly. "Light's out, Livvy."

Olivia nods, putting the book onto her nightstand. She goes to lie down entirely but doesn't, looking to her father with a crease in eyebrows, catching his attention before he could leave the room. She plays with her hands briefly before blurting out what was on her mind. "Is Jay gonna die?" She asks.

Will's eyes open wide as he steps into Liv's room, taking a peek outside into the hall before shutting the door. Macie was sleeping in his bedroom across the hall and he didn't need her to hear this part of the conversation. "Where is that coming from?" He asks defensively.

She shrugs. "I heard the conversation you and Maggie had over the phone this morning, I heard what she said about Jay, about how he was severely hypotensive and he lost a lot of blood and his heart rate was high, it doesn't take a genius to put those together and know that's really bad. Plus I have two parents who are both doctors, I know what it all means," she sighs before taking a breath, Will allowing her to continue speaking, "And I looked up those numbers she gave you, sixty-something-over-forty. That's not good, dad, it's really not good."

"No, it's not," he nods as he began making his way over to her bed, sitting down by her feet once he made it to the mattress, "But when I left the hospital to pick you and Macie up from school his numbers were better, they were still low but they were better than what they were before. He was mostly awake and he was able to give his description of the car to Kim and Adam. They're still having to give him some blood because he did lose a lot but he will be able to go home. He's gonna be fine."

Olivia eyes him hesitantly. "You're not lying to me are you?"

Will sends her another smile. "When have I ever done that?" He wonders.

"When you said you and mom were fine," she replies with a saddened look on her face, "Less than a month later you guys are living on separate sides of Chicago and you couldn't stand being in the same room."

He gives her a sigh. "I know that was hard for you, kiddo but we're were always fighting and it wasn't a good house environment for you. We spilt up to make it better for you. Plus this way you get two birthdays and two Christmases," he says with a chuckle, making Olivia smile subtly too, before he pats her leg from over the comforter, "C'mon you should get some sleep, you've got a busy day tomorrow. I'll drop you off at violin practice and take Macie to the hospital to see Jay. I'll pick you up after you're done."

"Is Macie gonna be staying here tomorrow night too?"

Will shrugs, unable to give her a definitive answer just yet. "If Jay has to stay in the hospital tomorrow night too then yeah, she will. If not she'll go home with them."

There's a pause before Olivia speaks up again. "If Jay does have to stay in the hospital another night, would be be able to go see him after school the day after tomorrow? If he's still at the hospital."

He gives her a small shakes of his head. "You go to your mom's that day."

Her faces falls with realization. "Oh right, yeah."

"We could always go over to his next week when you're back here again," he suggests, gaining no response from his daughter, "Or I'm sure your mom wouldn't mind picking you up from the hospital instead."

Liv shakes her head, blowing it off. "Never mind, it was just a thought."

Will gives her a smile before standing from the mattress and towering over her, leaning down and putting a kiss to her forehead. "Goodnight, Livvy."

She returns the smile, a little more forcefully than his. "Goodnight."

this was a very will centric chapter, cause i feel like it is a lot of jay and his point of view so i wanted to mix it up a bit like i did last chapter, which was a bit more geared toward hailey.

also for anyone who's wondering, i still imagine will munson *every time* i'm talking about will halstead. it's really screwing with my head XD