The Darkest of Days

part five

It was nearly four when they finally got some news regarding Jake.

The waiting room was very quiet, Charles had fallen asleep on one of the chairs just gone midnight and had been out since, Holt had drifted off eventually too in the corner of the room not that long ago, Rosa had been fighting off the drowsy state with several trips to and from the cafeteria to refill on coffee and was occupying herself by watching the silenced TV hanging on the wall - too far up to be good for your neck, but maybe the caffeine overload she had poured into her body the last two hours had numbed off the strain.

Mac was happily looking around the waiting room, playing with one of the toys Amy was tiredly hanging in front of her son's face to keep him bouncy. He had woken up thirty minutes or so ago but hadn't cried, just google-eyed the room around him, looking with wonder to the pastel green wallpaper and the bright tiled floor.

Since having a baby, Amy hadn't managed to stay awake any later than midnight without sleeping a little beforehand, so this was some kind of record. And while the fact her eyes were heavy, the coffee she had been given from Rosa on her first trip at one was beginning to wear off, and sleep was basically calling her name, Amy shook her head every time and managed to pull her eyes back open again.

She couldn't sleep. Not yet. Not until she knew Jake was off of that damned operating table and that one of the biggest risks was over. She knew the ICU wouldn't be a walk in the park, but she also knew that when he was in that room she could be by his side until the sedative wore off, even longer after that.

Because if the worst were to happen in the ICU, she would be there beside him to say goodbye properly. If it were to happen - which she doesn't want in a million years, hopes it would never happen because even the thought of it caused the worst dread and pit of sadness to form in her chest - she would want for it to be like that.

She begins drifting off with her thoughts bombarding her mind, but tug and release of the stuffed giraffe in her hand brings her back, waking her up completely again. She sits up and drops the animal in the car seat at her feet, gaining a smile in return from Mac as he grasps the giraffe in his hand and pulls it away into his lap.

Amy yawns, looking around the room and letting her eyes drift and fall onto the OR doors like they had done every time she had looked around, but also like every other time she had looked, there wasn't anyone there.

However just as she was turning her head back around, someone dressed in scrubs exited the large OR doors and begun walking toward the waiting room.

She tried not to get her hopes up, there had been doctors walking around the place all night and while at first, she practically leaped out of her chair when they walked over before she ended up slumped back in the plastic-coated seat when they spoke to another person from the waiting room or disappeared off completely.

She felt as though she was back at eleven o'clock up until the doctor stepped closer, calling Amy's name, making the sergeant step up quickly whilst nodding her head. Rosa stayed sat down, thinking whether to wake Charles and Holt but choosing to go against it.

There's a look on the doctor's face, a drop in her lips that tightens Amy's chest in all the wrong ways. A weight soon drops down against Amy's shoulders when the doctor doesn't say anything for too long. Mac senses something was wrong and begins stirring in his seat but stops when Rosa sits forward and pulls the infant up and into her arms. A breath hitches in the back of the sergeant's throat when the doctor eventually opens her mouth.

With a sigh, the woman in the blue scrubs finally chose to answer the two cop's very worried expression. The voice that comes out sounded very much like pitty, sending off alarm bells in Amy's head.

"It was a difficult surgery. The abdominal bullet caused a lot of hemorrhaging and internal bleeding as it had damaged the left hepatic artery, it proved a laborious fix but we were able to control the bleed. The bullet that hit his chest just missed his heart, it did a lot more damage to his lung and ribs. He's got three broken ribs and his left lung was punctured by the bullet but other than that the overall injury in his chest was minimal. He was very lucky though, if the bullet had been any higher or any more to the left, it would have pierced through his aorta or even his actual heart and it would have killed him instantly."

Only Jake would be that lucky. Amy thinks to herself, a smile of so much relief plastered on her face.

The doctor speaks up again, bringing Amy back again. "He's just being closed up now, and then he'll be moved to the ICU for recovery. He's got a road ahead of him, but he's a trooper. You should be able to see him soon." She says, giving a small smile toward the two cops in front of her before walking off back through the corridor and into the OR doors again.

Rosa waits for a moment after the doctor's departure before standing from the seat, keeping Mac in her arms to stop him from crying and waking Charles and Holt. He was in her arms, he wasn't crying, he seemed okay now but she wasn't taking any chances by putting him down. She lets Amy turns around to face her on her own before she speaks up, allowing Amy to take the infant from her arms. "You feel better now?"

Amy fusses over the two-month-old for a brief moment before moving her gaze up to meet her friends. She nods slowly, as if saying she was still not completely sure. "A little, but you heard what that doctor said, he's still got a road ahead of him, he's not in the clear yet."

Rosa puts her hand against Amy's shoulders, giving her a sympathetic look. "She also said that Jake's a trooper. He's gonna be fine, and you know it. By the time Mac has learned how to crawl, Jake is gonna be chasing him around the apartment, just you wait and see."

She can't help but smile slightly. She hopes Mac isn't crawling anytime soon, it seemed as though he was growing up way too soon and it only felt like yesterday that both her and Jake were fussing over him in the hospital the day he was born. However she knows it's likely to be soon though, Mac was just learning to push himself over on to his back from his stomach during tummy time - he hadn't done it yet, but she knew it was a very almost finished work-in-progress.

With a nod of her head, she allows the image to fill her mind though. There's a second smile that hits her as she looks down at Mac, who was too occupied by the wallpaper paint again to notice his mother's gaze. That reminds her of Jake, and his incapability to keep his attention on something he wasn't really interested in for more than ten seconds, and she knows it's very much like father, like son between Mac and Jake.

"Yeah, he will." Amy mutters out, keeping her gaze locked on her son when he finally looks to her with his wide brown eyes, Jake's smile creeping through and denting itself into the infant's face as he recognizes the familiar face of his mother.