Authors Note:

The Episode Get My Cigarettes I was able to see Hank Voight as a person with a heart for the first time. I love that the show is expanding his character and giving more of a back story on him. I am unsure if this will be a one shot or if I will continue it. My focus on this is his interactions with his team helping to support him. Please leave reviews.

Erin POV

I had just finished lecturing him when Antonio came in and asked if he knew Nick... one of his best friends growing up. Someone who had been like an uncle to me since he had taken me in. I saw the tears form in his eyes and went to hug him but he pushed passed me and followed Antonio. Since he had lost Camille he became distant. He used to be one person at work and a different person at home, warm, loving...after she died he wouldn't let himself show emotion. It shocked me that just hearing that Nick was killed had brought the emotion back to him. I knew at some point he would snap and I was scared for him what that would look like.

Before he left for the gentlemen's club I told him my piece, waved my white flag, let him know I was over what I saw as being a traitor. I understood why he did what he did and I didn't have to like it. He took me in...him and Camille saved my life. I tried to help him after she died, I tried to help with Justin. I was only a few years older than Justin was but I made sure he had three meals a day. When he would cry himself to sleep because he missed his mom I was the one to hold him so that Hank never had to.

All of the nights I fell asleep on the other side of the wall from Hank, I could hear him crying, praying...I was never brave enough to go into his room and hold him. I moved out on Justin's eighteenth birthday. He was old enough to take care of himself...and I felt like I needed to break away, to really start my career with Chicago PD. Our relationship was different after I moved out, like he no longer knew how to act around me. When he got out of jail he was able to put me on his team, with Antonio and Al...I knew it was his way to look out for me again. His way to ensure I would be safe.

Nadia told me that he had spent the night in his office the night he found out about Nick...said he spent the night staring at an old picture. When Antonio told me that he kept going back to talk to Trisha that it would wear him down, he would try to get answers from her and it would just bring up old memories...his failures, his losses. He hadn't done more than play poker with those guys in years but I knew it didn't make a difference for him. They had been friends in the past, they were like brothers...family.

Closing the case was easy, and once I finished the paperwork I went to Hank's house instead of my own. I used my key to let myself in and flipped on the lap in the entryway. I walked through the living room to his study and knew that he was sitting at his desk despite all of the other lights in the house being off. "Talk to me." I whispered as I walked purposefully towards him.

He was leaned back in his chair, hands crossed in his lap. "Erin.." he whispered with his gravely voice. I saw the pain in his eyes and knew it was now or never.

I sat down on the edge of his desk and put my hand on his knee. "Dad...please talk to me." He stared into my eyes and he slowly shook his head, fighting to keep his walls up. I leaned forward and put my hands on his shoulders and squeezed, "You promised me. When I was fifteen you promised me...just...please."

When I saw the first tear fall from his eye I pulled him forward into me, he wrapped his arms around my hips and he buried his face in my stomach. I felt his entire body shake as he cried, silently at first but his sobs and moans got louder. Decades of the pain he had been holding in was pouring out. As hard as it was for me to hold him, to see someone I tried to see as impenetrable to be here broken I knew it was harder for him to let it go.

As the room slowly got lighter his sobs got quieter. I knew he was exhausted, spent, totally vulnerable for the first time I think since his father had been killed. "You should sleep." I whispered as I ran my fingers through his short gray hair.

"Will you stay?" He asked me without picking up his head.

"Of course." When he picked up his head and tried to sit up straight he was too tired to balance. "Dad?"

"Tonight is the first time you have called me that." He said wobbling in the office chair.

"You need to sleep. Nick's funeral is in a few hours and you cant even sit up straight."

"You will stay?"

I nodded again and grabbed his hand, "go up and go to bed, you are too old for all nighters."

I led him up the stairs and helped to tuck him into his bed, I had only been in his room once in all the time I had lived there, when they brought Camille home from the hospital to die in her own bed...I sat in there with her, with Justin, and with Hank as she took her last breathes. The room had not changed, her robe was still laying across the chair at the edge of the bed. When he saw me looking at it he smiled, "I am a creature of habit Erin...her toothbrush is still in the bathroom too. I haven't been able to get rid of anything...if I close my eyes and pray real hard it is like she is still here with me."

"Why haven't you ever said anything?"

"I couldn't."

"But you can now?"

"It isn't easy."

"Please don't stop." I said walking over to him as he sat down on his bed, I kissed his forehead.

"Thank you for not giving up on an impossible old man." He said as he laid his head down on his pillow.

"I'll be in my room if you need me...try to get some sleep." I said as I walked away from him. I turned off the light and whispered, "Thank you for being my Dad."

"Thank you for being my daughter." He said already half asleep. I pulled the door partially closed after me and walked around the corner and into my room. I fell asleep listening to his soft snores through the wall and thanking God for bringing us together as a family.

Hank Voight was my father. He had rescued me, saved me, turned my life around and made me who I am today. I was determined to help him find his smile again, even if it was just a secret smile. I owed that man my life.