The first thing Sergeant Voight does upon arriving back at Intelligence is announce Erin's departure from the team. He waves Erin's badge around, announces that Erin has decided to quit her job effective immediately, and that until further notice Burgess will be taking her place.
Nobody takes the news harder than Jay, who follows Hank into his office and demands to know what is going on. "This isn't Erin, Hank. She wouldn't do something stupid like this. What happened?"
Hank just shrugs and drops Erin's badge onto his desk, staring at it forlornly. The anger and sadness are ever present in his voice. "You're right, it's not. Bunny got to her and now the kid won't listen to a damn word I say, as a friend, a father, or her boss. She's drowning and no matter how many life rafts we toss her, she won't take them."
Bunny, of course. He should have known. Well, no more. "Not this time, Hank. Bunny doesn't get to destroy Erin without going through me first. I'm taking the rest of my shift off. Call if you need me."
Hank doesn't object as Jay walks out of his office, only calls after his retreating form as he stares at the picture of him and Erin on his desk. "Don't come back without her, Halstead."
Fifteen minutes later the door to the diner/bar where Bunny works bangs open and the bottle of beer in Erin's hand is ripped from her grasp. It crashes and shatters on the wall behind her as Bunny makes her way towards them. "Let's go, Erin."
Erin only pushes Jay away from her and reaches behind the bar for another bottle of beer. "I'm not going anywhere, Jay. Didn't you hear? I quit."
The new bottle of beer meets the same fate as the last, splashing beer all over the wall and floor as Bunny finally closes in on them. "Hey, you heard my daughter Detective. She doesn't want to go anywhere, so why don't you just leave?"
Anger, pure unadulterated rage, floods Jay's system as he rounds on the woman who is supposed to be a mother. "You're sick, lady, you know that? What kind of mother sets out to destroy her own daughter?"
Bunny only scoffs and sets her hands on her hips, leveling Jay with an indignant glare. "Now you listen to me-"
Jay doesn't even let Bunny finish her sentence. He's far too livid with the woman to hear anything she has to say and his priority is getting Erin away from this place. "No, you listen! You're a pathetic excuse for a mother! You've never been there for your daughter! You're supposed to build her up not tear her down at every turn because you can't stand the thought that she's going to be better than you ever were! All you've ever been is a toxic existence in her life! So before you really destroy her, I'm taking her with me. And unlike Hank, I'll take her by force if I have to. Let's go Erin. Now."
Erin only shakes her head and reaches behind the bar for yet another beer. "I'm not going anywhere, Jay."
Well, fine then. Force it is. "Fine. Have it your way. We're leaving, now."
For the third time, Erin's beer meets with the wall and shatters into a thousand pieces as Jay behinds down and throws her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Erin, of course, objects the entire time, punching Jay's back with her fists as he moves towards the open door. "Jay Halstead you put me down! I don't want to go anywhere with you! Why can't you just leave me alone!? All of you!"
Bunny throws herself between Jay and the door to the bar, determined not to lose her daughter a second time. Damn this girl for having so many caring people in her life when she doesn't deserve them. "Hey, now, my daughter says she doesn't want to go! Put her down right now or I'll..."
With zero reservations, Jay gets into Bunny's face and the slightly crazy look in his eye shuts her up immediately. The menacing tone of his voice only helps. "Or you'll what, Bunny? Call the cops? Lady, I am the cops. I'm taking Erin with me and the next time you want to sink your claws into her, you're gonna have to go through me. Stay out of Erin's life. She doesn't need your poison in her life."
Just like that, Bunny loses her daughter once again.
It doesn't occur to her as she watches the handsome young detective carry Erin off that she'll never see her daughter again because a girl will always need her mother.
Or so Bunny likes to think.
In the car, Erin continues to throw a tantrum, no different than a child denied her favorite candy. She's screaming and crying and slamming her fist repeatedly against the door, demanding to be let go so she can just drown her sorrows away in beer. "Let me out! LET ME OUT! Why!? WHY can't you and Hank just leave me the hell alone! I quit for godsakes! I gave up my badge, don't you get it!?"
Over the sound of Erin's heart breaking, Jay plays the one card that he knows will get her to listen to anything he has to say. "NADIA... Nadia wouldn't want this for you Erin. She wouldn't want you to ruin your life because of her. You know that better than anyone."
Nadia. Poor, sweet, innocent Nadia. She should be alive right now, taking her detective's exam and joining them up in Intelligence. Not rotting away in a wooden box buried under six feet of dirt. "DON'T Jay. You leave Nadia out of this!"
For the love of god. "WHY?! Why leave Nadia out of it when she's the reason you're throwing your life away!? Do you really think she would want this for you? Do you?"
Probably not. But Nadia is dead. There's no point in speculating about the what-ifs. There are only the facts and the fact is, "Nadia's dead, Jay. She's dead because of me. What right do I have to be alive and happy when she had to suffer such a terrible, horrible death?"
Every right, he wants to say, because it's not Erin's fault that she's dead. But he knows it will be a long time before she stops blaming herself. So he plays the only other card he has stored away. "If you don't want to live for yourself, do it for me. For Hank. For Nadia. Do all of the things that she couldn't do, Erin. Because if you throw away your life, you're throwing Nadia away with it and I know you don't want to do that."
He's right. They both know he is. But Erin is reluctant to admit that Jay is right for once so she resolves herself to staring out the window.
The rest of the car ride goes by in cold silence until Erin realizes that they're going away from the precinct, and when she sees the sign broadcasting the name of the cemetery where Nadia was laid to rest, her blood runs cold. "No. No no no no no. Stop the car, Jay. STOP THE DAMN CAR!"
A minute later, per Erin's loudly voiced request, Jay stops the car. But by then it's much too late and not five minutes later, she finds herself standing over Nadia's tombstone.
Nadia Decotis
1995-2015
Always loved, Always missed, Never forgotten
"Unable are the loved to die. For love is immortality."
As they study the quote by Emily Dickinson engraved on Nadia's tombstone, Jay slides a comforting arm around Erin's shoulder and presses a kiss to the side of her head. "Nadia might be gone, but her memory, her spirit, lives on through you. Don't let Nadia disappear, Erin."
Just like that the dam breaks. Tears flow freely down Erin's cheeks and she falls to her knees, sobbing so loudly she scares a nearby squirrel.
Behind her Jay drops to his knees and wraps his arms around her waist to keep her anchored to the rest of the world. He presses his lips to the crown of her head and whispers into her hair the words he knows she needs to hear the most.
"Nadia's death isn't on you. It never was."
Because he was the one who let her go out by herself to get the cake.
Nadia Decotis' death is on him.
A/N: Well, there it is. My first ever Chicago PD fanfic. For whatever reason, all of my stories recently have this recurring theme where the guy goes all caveman and carries the girl off. Don't ask my why, I don't even know myself lol.