Nearly three hours had gone by when Dr. Derek Jefferson walked into the waiting room and up to the Reagan family. Danny was the first to shoot out of his seat, everyone else doing the same as the doctor began telling them Jamie's condition.
"Why don't you all follow me to a more private room," he told them with a kind and sympathetic tone, and they all immediately began to fear the worst. They all obliged, following the surgeon to one of the rooms they used for administrative meetings.
"Doctor," Frank spoke once the door was shut. "How is my son doing?"
Dr. Jefferson looked at the six people who were sitting or standing before him and sighed. "It looks like he's gonna make a full recovery."
There was more to what the doctor was saying, and Frank knew it. "But?"
"There were some complications with the surgery," he informed them, noticing the growing worry on their faces. "He had damage from the shrapnel to his liver and abdominal wall. The bullet that entered his abdomen was through-and-through, so there was no bullet for us to look for there, and we were able to remove the shrapnel from his liver and abdominal wall. We were also able to remove the bullet in his chest. It missed his heart and lungs. However, he experienced a tension pneumothorax, which caused him to temporarily stop breathing, and there was some significant internal bleeding. Thankfully, we were able to stop it and the surgery was a success."
There was a collective sigh of relief among the group at the news that Jamie was going to recover and be fine.
"Now, we are going to keep him sedated for now, and he is hooked up to a breathing machine. I want you to know that that is normal after a surgery such as this one. If all goes well, we should be able to extubate him within the next couple of days and lighten the sedation."
"When can we see him," Henry asked, and the doctor offered a smile.
"I'll send someone to get you when we get him set up in his room."
They thanked the doctor and headed back into the waiting room. It was twenty more minutes before a nurse walked into the waiting room and led them to the room they had Jamie in, which had two patrolmen standing guard outside of his room. They filed in, with Frank leading the line into the room and Eddie taking the caboose.
Although he kept his expressions in check, Frank felt sick at how pale Jamie looked. He looked like Joe had when he had to go and identify his older son's body. The only difference between then and now was the rhythmic beeping coming from the monitor, letting him know that his youngest's heart was still beating, and the sound from the breathing tube that let him know his son was still breathing.
Henry took a seat in the chair in the corner of the room, watching his youngest grandchild with sorrow and anger. He was angry that this happened to his grandson, and he--so badly--wanted to pick his shield back up again just so he could let the guy who shot Jamie pay for what he did. More than that, he was angry because he knew that there was nothing that he could really do, except be there for Jamie.
Erin was trying--and failing--not to cry. Every single day she worried about her brothers as they went out with their shields, waltzing into dangerous situations that could put them in the exact situation this family was in right now. The pain she had from losing Joe still seeped into every aspect of her life, and she couldn't bear to think how much worse that pain would be if Jamie died to.
Linda had tear stains on her face from the silent crying she had done earlier. She hadn't had any brothers growing up, and she had started dating Danny when they were thirteen, so Jamie became like a little brother to her, just like Joe had. In the same way that Erin felt, Linda couldn't bear the thought of losing another brother.
Danny's heart was pounding in his chest, remembering the last time he had received a call like this. It didn't matter how many times he repeated that the doctor had said Jamie would be okay in his head. All his mind could do was remember when his father had called him just a few years before to tell him that his other younger brother was dead. No matter how many times Danny gave Jamie a hard time about going from Harvard Law to NYPD, he couldn't deny that his brother was one hell of a cop.
Eddie hesitated to enter the room. She and Jamie had been through a lot in the last few years they had spent riding together, and she would be nothing short of a liar if she said that she hadn't begun to develop feelings for him. That's part of what was making entering his room so hard. She couldn't stand to see him in any way like how he looked when he was first brought in. In some weird and twisted way, she felt like Jamie getting shot was her fault. Logically she understood it wasn't her fault, that Jamie would have more than likely got shot no matter how close she was to him. Her heart, however, was pinning the blame solely on her. She should have been there, and she wasn't.
Finally, she entered the room and her breath caught in her throat when she looked at Jamie. It was like there was just a shell laying before her. Jamie wasn't giving her one of those looks that drove her insane. It was a look that he would use to tell her that he was fine when he wasn't. She used to complain to him about it, but she would give anything to receive that look from him right about now.
She decided that she couldn't stay in the room. As she turned to leave, she came up with the excuse of updating Sergeant Renzulli. She called the sergeant and let him know the news, and he passed it on to the rest of his precinct. All of them let out a relieved breath at the news.
