Sometimes she doesn't know how she makes it through the day.
She doesn't always show it, but she still struggles. It is cases like this one that hit closest to home. A doctor misdiagnosing patients, killing them with chemo to feel like their savior brings up many repressed memories of Camille's death; the death of the woman who practically raised her, along with Voight. It brings up her teenage years, and the feeling of finally having a mother after living with an addict or being on her own for so long. It also makes her remember everyone else she's ever lost; and, as someone who never really had many people she could trust, she had lost far too many. Some losses are still too fresh for her to remember.
She could use a drink right about now. Voight is gone. He made some excuse, and she knows he needs to be alone right now. Alone with the ghost of his wife, the wife that he still is, and forever will be, mourning.
"Molly's?" Antonio asks and all she can manage to do is nod. The whole team is going, like always after a tough case. Except Mouse, who almost never joins them, but they all seem to understand. She walks there with Tony and Ruzek, who's on the phone with Kim. They arrive just in time. News came from the hospital that Herman will make a full recovery, and that, if nothing else, is worth celebrating.
She's on her second beer when Jay walks in and sits down beside her, the bartender passing him a beer before he has a chance to order one. She eyes him carefully. He has been awfully quiet through this whole ordeal. He didn't offer his opinion; he didn't comment on the situation. He just stood right next to her the whole time, if, at any given second, she would need someone to lean on. Erin is grateful for that. She is grateful for him giving her the space she needed today. She's grateful for her partner. The same one that's now teasing her with the look in his eyes, saying he's buying the next round.
So they get their drinks and join the team, who are already half-drunk along with half of the Chicago fire department. She drinks a shot to soothe the pain of loss, and then another one. She's in a bad place. The makeup that she so diligently put on this morning is failing to cover up the dark patches under her eyes and the paleness of her face. Her eyes are still red from the tears she stubbornly wiped away hours ago. And from the ones she never let fall in the first place. She could go down that easy road to oblivion she knows so well, the one she's gone down before, the one that's been her only way of coping since she was fourteen, but the steady hand covering hers keeps her from drinking her problems away. She knows now, there is a better way.
She thinks about the fact that she doesn't have problems sharing any of the stories with Voight, the ones he knows, and the new ones. But Voight already knows her, even the parts of her she didn't want anyone to know. It's Jay she wants to let in. She needs to. So she starts talking.
She tells him the story about the dress, the same one she told Hank hours ago. Then she tells another one, a funny one. He listens and chuckles when she mentions how Camille wanted to teach her house chores and she ended up colouring the whites by forgetting a red sock in the stack of clothes. She tells him about the time she passed out drunk on the floor after a long period of total sobriety, coming home from a party. She didn't actually feel the need to drink, but the others pulled her in. She tells him how scared she was that they'd sent her away again with sadness in her voice. But they didn't. They never did.
She talks about Nadia too. He doesn't bring her up, her name being taboo, as if he thinks she'll break just by hearing her name. Maybe he's right, but she doesn't want to forget about Nadia. She wants to remember the laughs they shared at 2am in her apartment, and the struggles they shared with one another. She wants to remember the look in Nadia's eyes when she told her she wanted to become a Chicago police officer. All she wants, is to erase from her memory the day Nadia was killed, the white of her skin and the hollow look in her eyes when they found her body in a shallow grave on the beach. She wants to forget Yates and his perverted sick mind. But not her. Never her.
So it's midnight and she's had one too many, and he's holding her, whether it's to keep her from falling, or because he wants to feel her close, she doesn't know. She knows, though, that she wants to go home with him. Her head falls on his shoulder as they walk out of Molly's together.
She catches a glimpse of their reflection in a shop nearby, and she thinks that if anyone saw them right now, they would just see a happy couple. A couple in love. The guy in the reflection is chuckling because of something the girl just murmured into his neck and his hand instinctively wraps tighter around her. The girl in the reflection is smiling, sadly, but genuinely. Erin knows, though, that the girl is sad, because the world is a scary place−if anyone knows just how scary it's her −but she's also smiling, because she knows there are people worth fighting for every day.
"You're not driving." He states when they start approaching their cars. It's not that she had that much to drink, but she's been up all night, so she's tired, and the case they've been dealing with personally affected her, more than she cares to admit.
"Jay…" He thinks she is going to fight him on the matter, but there seems to be no complaints on her side. There is something in her eyes. He doesn't know what exactly, and he's not used seeing her like this. "Don't leave me alone tonight," she whispers, her words barely audible, drowned out by the sound of cars.
"Wasn't planning on it." He opens the door for her, because he knows that even though she's all tough, there is a part of her that likes being treated like a lady.
He knows how difficult it was for her to say this. For her to admit she needs someone. He knows that by sharing the stories from her teenage years, she let him in the part of her life she's not very keen on sharing with anybody but those who already know about it. Most of all he knows she's never directly asked him to stay before. He likes it.
So he takes her home.
She thanks him, between kisses and sleepy murmurs. She thanks him for being there, for not giving up. He tells her she doesn't ever need to worry about that. Because he's not going anywhere.
She also thanks him for not leaving her. Not for not physically walking away, when she often gave him a reason to, but for staying alive in those moments when she wasn't sure if she was ever going to see him again. She thanks him for forgiving her for the fact that she wasn't there, and that might've gotten him kidnapped and tortured.
Then she lets him take her to bed, and suddenly she's a lot more awake than she was seconds ago. She thanks him for that too.
Sometimes she doesn't know how she makes it through the day.
Then she opens her eyes, lifts her head off his chest and looks at him. And suddenly she knows exactly how.