A/N: Thank you for all your lovely feedback. Like a guest had told me to, I wanted to ask you if you are interested in being my beta reader. When you are english and have a little bit time, I would appreaciate a pn, because I know that my grammar/tense is worse and I just need a little help. I don't have any english friends who could help me, so maybe you are interested. Think about it and text me :) Thank you for your help 3

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

There was this kid

Jay leant against the balcony and watching into the clear sky. In his one hand he old a beer, the other one was in his pocket. He could hear the music from the inside. He could hear all the laughing and the chatting. Today was Ruzeks birthday and he invited his coworkers for the little party at his apartment. It was nearly midnight.

The man took his gaze of the sky, sighed and took a sip beer. Today wasn't his day. Today had totally sucked. Today was one of the crappiest days of the whole year. But he tried to hide it from his colleagues. He didn't want to ruin Ruzeks birthday, so he came out. He needed some silence. He needed to be alone. Jay could feel how his whole body began to shook. He didn't want to think about it any much longer. He didn't want to live with this pain. But he had to. He had no choice. The detective swallowed and closed his eyes for a few seconds.

Then he heard the sound of an opening and closing door. As he opened his eyes he saw that it was Erin who just entered the balcony. "Hey", she whispered and smiled at him.

"Hey", Jay responded and trying to set his feelings straight.

Erin watched her partner carefully. She had observed him nearly five minutes before she decided to join him. Even if she wasn't sure if he would like that. At first the woman thought to ask Halstead if everything was okay, but she knew the answer already. He would say Yeah, everything is fine. Even if he knew that she knew that it was a lie. So instead of that she stopped a few steps in front of him and asked: "May I stick with you for a while?"

"Yeah, of course." Halstead nodded and looked into her beautiful face. He was just looking into her eyes. Right into her shining eyes. Did she even know how beautiful she was?

"Thanks." Erin said and leant against the balcony next to her partner.

There was silence. No one of them said a word. Erin was waiting for Halstead to say something and Halstead was trying to threw his thoughts out of his head. He looked at the bottle in his hand. He could feel how the pain was starting to come up again. He could feel his heart beat faster and how his hands began to shook. He swallowed again. To get his hands under control he started to peeled off the beer lable.

He licked his lips before his voice broke the silence and caught Lindsay attention.

"You know what is the hardest part of being a soldier?" He didn't look at her.

Erin was surprised that her partner asked her this question like out of nowhere. She watched him how his fingers peeled off the beer lable. She could see that he didn't feel comfortable. But she could tee that this wasn't just a question. He wanted to tell her something.

"Not really.", she answered softly and was still watching him.

Jay nodded. "There are many things you have to deal with. But the most hardest part of being a soldier is to come back home." Halstead turned his head to looking at her for a second. He tried to smile.

"It is the hardest part to come back home … you are not the same person you was before you went to war."

He turned his attention back to the beer lable.

"You'll never be the same person ever again. You know that the people who had stayed home are the same. But you aren't. All the things … they changed you forever. Your friends and your family say they know you, that they can understand what you had been through but honestly, they never will. Sometimes they don't want to, because it is too painful for them to accept that their lovely son, that their nice friend, isn't the same anymore."

Erin watched her friend carefully. On the sound of his voice she knew that he hadn't talk about this in a long time. Maybe he never did. It bothered him. It seemed to kill him inside. Her hazel eyes flicked from his sad face to the bottle in his hand and then back to his face. She held her breathe and kept listening to him.

Jay starred at the bottle into his hands and could feel Erins gaze. But he couldn't look back. He was still trying to fight against the knot in his throat and the tears in his eyes.

"When you are at war … you don't have much time to think about things. You have to react fast because when you are out there it is kill or to be killed."

Jay bit his underlip. He closed his eyes and as he opened them he was giving his partner a weak smile. He swallowed.

Erin felt sorry for Jay. She didn't know exactly what he had been through and why he tell her all of this, but she could see the pain in his eyes. His weak smile broke her heart. She wanted to put her arms around him and comfort him. She wanted to take away the pain from his eyes but she couldn't.

He didn't know why he tell her all this stuff but it felt good. It felt good to talk to somebody who was just listening and in a way Halstead thought that she might understood him. Like really understanding him. Jay took a last sip out of his beer bottle before he continued.

"There was this kid." He started and his voice was just a whisper, trying to push the knot out of his throat.

"My unit and I were in a gun fight. Marc and I went into a house as someone started to shoot." Jay could feel how his adrenalin began to rush through his veins.

"My friend was shot. I saw how he felt on the floor and … I was trying to save him, but the shooter was still shooting. So I had to hide myself. And as everything was clear and I went to Marc … he was dead."

There was a silence. Erin's eyes were filled with tears, but she managed to let them disappear.

Jay moved his jaw and rubbed his forehead. Now as he was telling Erin everything all these things came up perfectly clear. He could see every detail right before his eyes.

He sighed. "I went through the house. Searching for the shooter. And then he fired again. And ... I … I fired back and hit him. I shot him into his head ... He was a kid. Eight, maybe ten years old. He was a kid who wanted to protect his mother and his baby sister. He was a kid Erin."

Now Jay was looking to her. She could clearly see the tears in his blue eyes. The pain on his face and the guilt in his voice. He called her Erin. Something he never did before. She swallowed.

"He was eight years old, holding a gun to protect the ones he loved and I shot him. A kid … he wasn't evil. He was scared and helpless. He wanted to protect his family. He could may be alive if I just hadn't pull the trigger. If I just hadn't shot him in the head. It was today … today three years ago. When I lost my best friend and I killed a kid with cold blood."

Jay could feel how the tears streamed down his face. He looked away and wiped them away. With his thumb and his index finger he rubbed his eyes and licked his lips. His voice was still shaking. He felt the cold in his body and how he got sick. His stomach hurts. His heart hurts.

He breathed in and breathed out, trying to control himself.

"It wasn't your fault." For the first time in minutes Erin said something. Her voice was soft and worried. She bit her lips. She didn't want to see Jay this way much longer. She knew that it means a lot to him that he could tell her all these things. But she wanted to have her old goofy, flirty partner back.

Jay chuckled and shook his head. "It was."

"The war change you because you have to do things you would never do in your normal life. You come home, knowing with full of pain what you did. Full of pain that you had left your friends behind. That not everybody make it home … alive. They call you a hero of war or a lucky man, but how are you supposed to live with all these awful things you had seen and you had done? You just can't forget it and carry on with your life like everything is all right. When you come home you are a stranger.

You see dead people everywhere. Your dead friends. The guys you had shot. Sometime I can't sleep because I am hearing all the screams and the bombs. I still see how Marc dies and how this boy fell onto the floor. You … you know that you can't live a life like that and … some are thinking about suicide, because they didn't take the pain much longer. Honestly a lot of returned soldier did … me included."

He thought about to kill himself? Erin was shocked. Her heart stopped for a split of second. But ... on the other hand she knew this kind of feeling. Before Voight had saved her she wanted to kill herself a dozen times but she never was 'strong' enough to did it.

"You don't tell people, because they can't understand you why you want to kill yourself. They are trying to fix you but they can't. Because you just can't fix someone like a broken vase. These things will always be on your mind until you die … I am a wreck Lindsay! And there are nights I ask myself why it wasn't me instead of Marc … because I would be rather dead than living with this kind of pain and the people around you who are trying to fix you."

She couldn't just stand here much longer. She couldn't just listen to him without doing anything. So Erin took a step closer to her partner and grabbed his hand. It was just as simple as meaningful. Jay looked down to their hands, then he glanced at her with tears in his eyes and lost his mind right as he looked at her. He could feel how her thumb rubbed his backhand carefully. Erin was just watching at him. She felt her heart beat much faster than it should be. A tingling tension rushed from her hand which was holding Halstead's right through her whole body.

Halstead was trying not to loose himself as he slowly mirrored her smile. He knew she would listen to him. He knew that she wasn't judging him, because he knew that she was his person. His person and the only one who could fix him for good.