The Lake Effect
A/N: So I needed something to make that finale suck less. (Overall it was good, but the lack of Linstead sucked!) This is the result. They're probably both a little OOC just because I'm tired of Sad!Erin and I just know the writers are going to drag that one out more. Also, the grammar/syntax of this isn't supposed to be incredibly coherent. It's kind of a stream of consciousness from each of them – so if you're looking for something grammatically correct, you're in the wrong place. Also I really appreciate the word Fuck so I used it.
You don't have to do this on your own, like there's no one that cares about you.
You don't have to act like you're alone, like the walls are closing in around you.
You don't have to pretend no one knows, like there's no one that understands you.
I'm not just some face you used to know – I know all about you.
All About You, Birdy
He's not worried.
No, Jay Halstead has seen and done a lot of things, so of course he is not worrying about where the hell Erin fucking Lindsay is. It's just that they tell you to not to panic on airplanes unless the flight attendants are worrying, and a phone call from Hank Voight at 1:30am looking for her is basically the same thing.
She's been (understandably) off since Nadia died. Sure, she says she's fine but Jay knows better. He knows her. In fact, Erin's primary defense mechanism is shutting down – and he lets her because it's what she needs. He lets her walk around like a zombie. He watches her all but beg a kid to put a bullet in her head. He can't breathe when he learns there's a hit out on her, but he even stands by when they find her (and her newest boy toy) a little beat up that night. He's let her keep pushing him farther and farther away because it's always been what she needs.
Until now.
He leaves his apartment and races to the one place in Chicago he knows she'll be. She showed him once. Back before they "cooled it".
"This is my favorite spot in the City," she'd said.
And for the entire six minute drive, he prays to whatever God that will listen that she's alright.
Jay pulls his car right up to the gates of Navy Pier and jumps out, only pausing for a moment to show the irate security guard his badge. The pier is closed, but he just has this gut feeling she's here so he opens the gate. He runs the length of the Pier, past the ferris wheel and the beer gardens, but stops short when he sees a small figure leaning against the railing at the very end of the Pier.
And he finally lets out a sigh of relief because he knows he's found Erin.
He walks up next to her, slowly so she doesn't kill him, and stands next to her. A shiver runs through him when his arm grazes hers by accident. He chooses to blame it on the Lake Effect.
'Of course she picks the coldest place in the City,' he thinks, cursing the damned spring night again and again. He says nothing. He just looks off into the distance and watches the lighthouse flicker until she speaks.
"What, you put a tail on me or something?" Erin says, not bothering to look at him.
"No," Jay laughs, empty and hollow, "but Voight was about to put out a BOLO for you any second. You're lucky it's just me and not the entire Chicago SWAT team."
She rolls her eyes and let's out an exasperated sigh. "What do you want, Jay?"
Erin's voice is quiet and hoarse, and he thinks maybe she's starting to spiral. She looks exhausted. She looks like a mess. A beautiful mess, of course, but a disaster nevertheless. Jay amends his first thought. This isn't the start, this is the spiral.
"I want to know why you're hiding out at your spot at two in the morning," he says, finally turning to face her.
She looks up at him in surprise. "You remembered?"
He lays his hand against her cold cheek, softly brushing her windblown hair out of her face. "Always."
Erin leans into his hand and for a second he sees the fire light in her eyes again. But she quickly pulls away from him, blinking once and then fixes her gaze on the lighthouse. The spark is gone.
Jay drops his hand and sighs. They're stuck in a stalemate and time seems to still for a moment. She looks out at the water while he looks at her. It's silent for a while, except for the sound of the waves of Lake Michigan crashing against the pier.
"Let me take you home," Jay says softly as he begins to back away from the railing.
"Or how about you go home and leave me alone. You're ruining my spot," she grits out, whipping her entire body around to face him.
He knows this is has been a long time coming so he's not really shocked at the venom in her voice. He moves to reach for her, but she turns her back to him again.
"I can't go home," she whispers to the lake with a shiver. He knows it's not meant for him, but Jay catches it anyway. Her home is technically still a crime scene.
"At least put my jacket on," he says, walking up behind her and draping it around her shoulders. "I'm not leaving without you."
He feels her lean back into him and just for a moment he pretends like everything is fine and nothing has changed. Like they're still Erin and Jay. It's all over too soon when she quickly pulls away and shrugs his hands off of her.
"Er," he says and moves next to her again.
"Fine!" She growls, turning to face him and shoving her arms through the sleeves of the jacket.
He's seen her lash out before so he knows that she's about to go off. He's seen her full blown Erin Lindsay rage directed at others and he's seen it directed at him. He prepares himself for the worst, but he knows what he's up against. He knows her.
"You wanna know the truth? I've been high for the last three days. Hell, I'm probably still high right now," she spits.
"Okay."
"And I slept with someone."
"Okay."
"And I quit Intelligence."
"Okay."
"It's not okay!" She yells, covering her mouth in an attempt to stop a sob from escaping.
And she's right. It's not okay. Nothing she just said was really okay, but he knows that she's drowning – just trying to find something to grasp onto. So without even realizing it, he forgives her immediately.
"Erin," he whispers. It's this moment where he realizes that he is in love with Erin Lindsay. Because even when she's grasping onto the wrong people and the wrong things, he still loves her unconditionally.
Her eyes fill with tears. "I got her killed. I killed Na- ... I killed her."
"Erin," he starts, "you don't have to do this all on your own. We're all here for you. I'm here for you, so lean on me."
"I don't need you to fix me, Jay!" She tries to shout, but her voice cracks and she looks up to the moon to keep the tears from escaping her eyes.
"I know." He stands next to her, grabbing her hand on the railing and lacing his fingers through hers. She (weakly) fights him the entire time but he holds on to her tightly. "But I think you might need someone to hold your hand while you fix yourself."
Erin is pretty sure that Jay doesn't know shit.
He rides in on his white horse, (destroying her spot in the process) demanding to save the damsel in distress. But she's a fucking mess and he can't save her. No one can save her. She's not worth saving. She knows she's bad news and everything she touches dies. It's about damn time that he realizes it too, so she hurls whatever she can at him; the cold, hard, bitter truth because she knows it will hurt him.
It's harder to hate herself and she hopes he'll do it for her, but he doesn't. He stands there and takes everything she throws at him, like he accepts her for who she is regardless of what she's done.
Her voice breaks when she yells, "you can't fix me!"
Instantly she blames him for making her cry. She's been mostly successful in trying to turn off her emotions this week but she always feels something when she's around him. It's his damn fault for making her feel this much. She starts mentally cursing stupid fucking Jay and his stupid fucking superhero complex and his stupid fucking beautiful face but before she can tell him, he drops that line.
"I think you might need someone to hold your hand while you fix yourself," he'd said.
After weeks of feeling hollow and empty, this one line fills her with so many emotions that her tears finally spill over. Because he's right. She doesn't need a hero to save her; she's entirely capable of saving herself. She's so sick and tired of always being the broken one - something that Voight never seems to understand. She doesn't need someone to fix her. She just needs someone to stand next to her while she pieces herself back together.
And Jay was standing with her at the end of Navy Pier in the middle of the night, offering to be that someone. So for the first time in a long time Erin lets herself cry.
"I've got you," he says, releasing her hand and pulling her into him.
He doesn't shush her or tell her everything will be okay and for that she's grateful. Instead, he wraps his arms around her and rests his chin on her head. She grabs onto him, twisting his long sleeved shirt in her hands like she's holding on for dear life and cries big, horribly aching sobs. She's not sure that she'll ever stop but he holds her until she can't cry anymore.
She's not sure how much time has passed, but she glances up to the sky and the stars to see that the moon has moved again. She guesses it's been a while. When she finally catches her breath, Erin leans back to look at him only to find a tear rolling down his cheek.
"I'm sorry," she whispers, reaching up to brush the tear away with her thumb. She doesn't have to ask why he's crying because she knows. He feels what she feels; her pain is his pain.
She wonders how it's even possible that someone could care for her this much; that he takes her pain and wears it to lessen her own burden. She thinks that this might be love. It's not just the nauseatingly romantic crap that Hollywood sells, but rather the raw heartbreaking moments spent on a pier in the darkness. She loves him and she's terrified and every instinct she has is telling her to run, but she stays in his arms.
"Don't be," he says as he presses a kiss to her forehead.
She leans into him once more, this time relaxing her grip on his shirt and turning her head toward the water. She feels calm for the first time in a while, so she closes her eyes and concentrates on the sound of the lake and Jay's heartbeat. Erin opens her eyes to see the Chicago Harbor Lighthouse, a little known symbol of the City that she's never really given a lot of thought to until now.
"You know, I never used to understand the lighthouse," she says, offhandedly.
Jay pulls back and gives her a look that reads 'what the hell are you talking about,' so she lets go of him, but grabs one hand to guide him back to the railing.
"I mean, I've always liked it. But what's the point of even having one? Lake Michigan is big, but not that big. It's not like people actually get lost out there," she gestures to the water.
"And now?" He asks, obviously still confused as to why she's talking about lighthouses right now. After she just had that… moment or whatever that was.
"Now I get it," She says, this time looking at him instead of the lighthouse. "It's not supposed to do anything. It's just there, like a light in the darkness to help guide you back home."
A look of recognition flickers in his eyes like he finally understands what she's been trying to say. She smiles softly at him when he puts an arm around her and says, "That's why you have back-up."
She leans her head on his shoulder, staring out over the water. It takes her a minute, but soon she realizes she doesn't need that lighthouse when she has Jay.
"Let's go home," Erin says to him, only giving one last glance at the lighthouse before heading back down the pier with him.
A shiver runs through her when his arm brushes hers and catches her hand in his own. She blames it on the Lake Effect.
A/N: So that's it! Not that I don't love the fluffy happy ending fics where Jay fixes her and they all live happily ever after, because I do. But Erin is such a strong, independent bad ass and I just don't think that she needs him to save her. I liked how it ended so I don't plan on continuing it.
Chicago is my favorite city on the planet and I spend a lot of time there. The edge of Navy Pier is actually my favorite spot in the city, so feel free to check it out if you're ever in town. I absolutely adore the Chicago Harbor Lighthouse and Erin's thoughts about it in this resemble my own.
PS. I capitalize words like City and Pier because they're intended to refer to the specific city and pier, my grammar nazi friends! (:
Anyway, please Review/Follow/Favorite/Whatever - Something to let me know you were here.
Disclaimer: I do not own Chicago PD, etc. Those rights go to Dick Wolf & co.