Author's Note: This fic is set pre-series and is an attempt to explain why Erin gave Jay that knowing look in 1x01 when he told Kim about being in the Army and why Jay made that comment in 1x05 about Erin being there for him before. Please be advised that suicide is mentioned in this fic.
I had a one way ticket to a place where all the demons go.
Where the wind don't change, and nothing in the ground can ever grow.
No hope, just lies.
And you're taught to cry in your pillow.
But I'll survive.
- "Alive" by Sia
The wind whips across the open, green landscape creating a howling noise as it scrapes past the closest thing to skyscrapers that exist this far out from the city center and sending the stars and bars of the American flag fluttering against the mahogany coffin. The white stripes of surrender and the red lines of blood brushing up against one another in the wind until all he sees is pink, is the comingling of duty and sacrifice. He blinks, closes his eyes for a moment in the hopes of forgetting how the sand beneath his boots had been stained pink then red and then, finally, black from a life lost forever.
How Susanna Lahey's white carpet was stained pink then red and then, finally, black from a life lost forever after Tom put the revolver his father gave him when he enlisted into his mouth and pulled the trigger at two thirty-seven on a Thursday afternoon. How the whites of Jay's eyes were stained pink and then red as the tears and the frustration sprung to his eyes when Mike called him at seven-fifty-seven on a Friday morning to let him know.
Ten men now whittled down to four. Less than half of the unit left.
The crack of a gun firing causes Jay's eyes to fly open as instinct kicks in, as his right hand moves to his hip and his eyes dart around the small crowd to find the source. His right hand meets air; he left his piece back in the locked drawer of his apartment out of respect for Susanna and the kids, Jackson and Georgia. His wide eyes meet the solemn huddle of mourners; Susanna, Jackson, and Georgia seated in the front row of chairs across the casket from him with Tom's parents and in-laws behind them and a handful of people who knew Tom in the before but didn't know him in the after.
One mourner – brunette hair, black dress, and high heels that somehow haven't sunk into the mud – who neither knew Tom in the before or in the after. One mourner whose right hand also flew to her hip at the sound of gunfire; one mourner whose eyes relax when she realizes the sound came from the Honor Guard.
"She's pretty, huh?" Mike booms over the sound of repetitive gunfire, and Jay nods his head in agreement because there's no sense lying. Because he's too busy wrapping his head around the image of her in a dress to catch himself in time, to catch the pause between Mike explaining that no one knows who she is and him asking, "You don't think Tom was steppin' out on-"
"No," Brian harshly interrupts from where he stands on the other side of Jay glancing sideways to glare at both him and Mike, to try to drill some kind of shame into Mike over that suggestion because they all know how Tom felt about Susanna. Used to make fun of him calling him whipped because he'd skip showers and meals in order to Skype with Susanna or to write her another long ass love letter.
The gunfire cracks again, and Jay's eyes flicker from the face in the crowd to the tiny hand clutched so tightly in Mike's that the fingers are beginning to turn white. Without judgment, without commentary, he bumps his right arm against Mike's left and tilts his head downward towards where Carly stands beside her father with a grimace on her face.
"Sorry, baby," Mike says on a shaky exhale as he releases the five-year-old's hand, as he bends down to place a kiss atop her head. Her curly, black hair is pulled in all different directions by the wind, and Jay hopes the way she jams her hand into the pocket of her pink sweatshirt is a reaction to the cold rather than a sign of anything else because he can feel the wind through his dress uniform. Decides that must be the case when the little girl asks to be picked up and immediately buries her face into her father's neck as though to escape the wind.
"Jesus Christ," Brian mutters over the sounds of the trumpets playing, and Jay shifts his gaze from Mike and Carly to the man wearing a dress uniform and currently blocking his view of Susanna and Georgia. Not that he wants to watch Susanna accept the now folded flag into her embrace; not that he wants to watch the poor bastard on notification and funeral duty recite that hollow pledge of appreciation.
He did it once. Stood in front of a twenty-year-old, pregnant widow right after he got home from his first tour and asked on behalf of the President of the United States, the United States Army, and a grateful Nation for her to, please, accept the folded flag in his hands as a symbol of appreciation for her loved one's honorable and faithful service. For a brief moment, he thought that woman was going to slap him. Braced himself for it. Anticipated it, and then didn't know what to say when her face crumpled and a family member had to take the flag from him on her behalf.
That night, back on base, he had received notification that he and his company were being shipped out to Afghanistan at week's end.
"Never gets any easier," Brian mumbles as the captain steps away from Susanna, as the trio standing opposite from her watches her clutch the flag to her chest and family members reach out to clutch her. The priest says a final homely – Jay's hand instinctively moving across his chest in the sign of the cross with the final 'amen' – and then the crowd begins to disperse like leaves scattered in the wind.
Some head straight to the cars while others cluster around Susanna and the kids, and Jay thinks briefly about joining them, about trying once again to express to Susanna how sorry he is. How going undercover, getting shot, and then being bounced up to Intelligence three weeks ago shouldn't have prevented him from reaching out to Tom, from taking him out for a beer and talking him down off the ledge.
Except Tom had been good. Tom had been steady. He hadn't taken it out on people who didn't deserve it. He hadn't ended up with an ex-wife, a restraining order, and a custody agreement that let him see his kid two weekends a month and after school on Wednesdays. He hadn't ended up with a boyfriend who thought being back in the closet was easier than dealing with the demons of war. He hadn't ended up with scrambled thoughts trading information on the South Side for twenty bucks and a Big Mac.
Tom had kept those demons looked up so tight until one day they crawled out and dragged him down, until one day Jay found himself hugging Susanna in the middle of St. Ann's unable to say anything. And so instead of bee-lining straight to Susanna, instead of being yet another mourner who doesn't know what to say, he untucks his cap from under his arm and slowly walks towards the brunette standing off to the side away from the mourners.
"Hey," she greets in her raspy voice as she crosses her arms over her chest, as her eyes sweep upward to meet his. The fact that she's here – never mind the dress or the way she's looking at him – catches him slightly off-guard because while they've fallen into a cohesive, smooth partnership he never had out on patrol or while working undercover with guns and gangs, he's still only known her for two and a half weeks and he sure as hell didn't expect to see her out here this morning. Tells her as much simply by the confused look in his eyes as he echoes her simple greeting.
"Doesn't take much of a detective to read the paper, Jay," Erin informs him with a smile, but there's something off about the way she shifts her gaze and the name of their boss immediately springs to the forefront of his mind. He hadn't elaborated much when he told his sergeant he was taking a personal day today, but the man has unfettered access to personnel files and she has unfettered access to Voight.
"I'm sorry about your friend," she says after a long pause, after finally breaking the lingering eye contact as he stood before her mulling over how to ask her about her relationship with their sergeant. "He sounded like a good guy."
"He was," Jay replies trying to keep his voice from breaking over the past tense verbiage because Tom was the last one on a very short list he thought he'd be referring to in the past tense. "Always had the whole company's back."
Erin nods her head like she knows because the paper had been quite clear on that detailing how Tom ran out under enemy fire to drag two men – a Corporal John Whitter and a Staff Sergeant William Arnaldur – to safety, how he received a silver star for his actions that day.
What the paper hadn't said, what no one had realized until last Thursday was Tom also received a whole host of demons that day and, later, would choose to receive a silver bullet to the brain for his actions. The paper, the honor guard, and the Army, itself, would look the other way on that detail. Whether out of respect Tom's legacy and his kids or because his father-in-law was a state senator or because the Army didn't want another unassisted case of PTSD coming to light, Jay couldn't say and there's a part of them that doesn't want to know, doesn't want Erin and the rest of the world to see his brother in arms as weak.
Another part of him that wants to tell the truth, wants the brothers in arms who served across Afghanistan and Iraq with him even if they didn't stand directly beside him to know that they aren't alone, that the demons inside them over the things they did and saw don't make them weak. Doesn't make him weak.
And he looks at Erin with his mouth slightly parted, with words on his lips he cannot say while she nods her head like she understands because maybe she does. Because just last week she had his back while he busted down the door of a crack house and the dealer fired right at him; because just yesterday she was right there with him squashing down emotions after the nurse over at Chicago Med called to say the three-year-old boy they found in that crack house didn't make it.
"Hey, Halstead, you comin'?" A voice – Mike's, clearly – booms from somewhere behind him, and Jay breaks his gaze away from Erin to look over his shoulder at Mike, Brian, and Carly. He nods his head, gestures for them to give him a moment, and then rolls his eyes when he turns back around only for Mike to boom from behind him that he should bring the girl, too.
"I don't know how much time you've got," Jay begins with a small smile, "but a couple of us are gonna go down to the diner and get some breakfast, if you want to join."
"Sure," Erin agrees with a nonchalant shrug before adding that she has the morning off.
"The whole morning?" Jay questions, and the surprise is evident in his voice because he's still unaccustomed to whatever kind of relationship she's got going on with Voight that would cause the hardass head of Intelligence to give her the morning off without much hassle. Surprise she sasses back at when she widens her eyes in a silent challenge for him to go to toe to toe with her, when she frowns at him, when she answers with a single word.
"Hmm," Jay replies and then pauses before sweeps his gaze up and down her form. He doesn't even have to look at her eyes to know she's bristling under the attention and he sort of stumbles over his own words as he tries to find the words to explain that he wasn't looking at her that way. "I brought my bike, but I don't think that dress-"
"I'll drive," she says cutting him off, and his lips immediately lift into a smile because he should have known that would be her answer considering it's been her answer since he first climbed up the stairs to Intelligence, stuck his hand out, and introduced himself to his new partner. He tells her where to go – an old diner about two miles down the road – before adding that he'll see her there. He's not on shift; he's not about to ride shotgun like a dutiful house husband on his day off.
They drift apart then – her to the Chrysler 300 parked behind the long line of cars trailing the hearse and him back to Brian, Mike, and Carly, who have drifted their way over to Susanna and the kids to offer their final respects. Combat followed by a couple of years on the force mean he knows she's watching him, can feel her eyes burning into his back as he gives Susanna another hug and another apology.
Yet he forgets about Erin and why she decided to come out here today when Jackson doesn't ask to see his badge like he used to do every time Jay made the drive out to Urbana to see the Laheys, when Georgia bursts into tears because Jay screws up and calls her Peach just like her daddy did. Hot, heavy tears that stain the jacket of his dress uniform and don't dry until he is halfway down the road to the diner, until the cold wind has time to whip through his coat and chill him further.
The parking lot of the diner is mostly empty, and his eyes dart from one parked car to the next looking for the 300 as he rips off his coat followed by the tie. He sighs when he doesn't see her car, and drapes both the coat and tie over his arm as he pulls the saddlebag from his bike before holding it up to Brian, who has just pulled into the parking lot, in silent notification that he's going to go change.
The diner bathroom is dingy and small like all diner bathrooms, and Jay doesn't waste time shedding off his uniform and changing into a comfortable pair of jeans, a t-shirt, and his black hoodie. A suit would have been a more comfortable choice than his old uniform, and Jay starts to make himself the promise that he'll wear a suit instead of his old uniform next time. Catches himself and smacks his hand against the edge of the white, porcelain sink as anger over the fact that he thinks there's going to be a next time, that he knows there's going to be a next time courses through him.
The pain in his hand barely phases just like the pain in shoulder barely registered when he took a bullet during that undercover gig last month because, if anything, Jay is good as pushing down his emotions, at being the calm in the middle of a storm. And he pushes it all down – all the sadness and the anger and the resignation – as he splashes cold water onto his face, as he stuffs his dress blues into his saddle bag, as he steps out of the bathroom and nearly collides right into the petite brunette who has just stepped into the diner.
She's shorter now having traded in the heels and dress for jeans and her red, leather jacket, and he sort of towers over her as they both take a step away from one another, step around, and then back into one another whilst jostling for position. She laughs first, caves first for once in this short-lived partnership and allows him to step past her so Jay can lead the way to the booth in the back that Mike and Brian have snagged.
The two men scooch over; Brian rounding around the circular table so he sits at the end of the booth and Mike grabbing Carly and pulling her over so the little girl sits in the middle between him and Jay, so the only place for Erin to sit is right next to Jay. And the two men aren't exactly subtle in their pointed looks, in the way they shift their gazes expectantly from Jay to Erin as she casually slides into the booth next to him.
"Brian McIntyre, Mike Wazowski," Jay says pointing at the two men before jerking his hand back and pointing over to Erin, "this is my partner, Erin Lindsay. Erin, this is Brian, Mike. We served in the Rangers together. And the munchkin over here is Mike's daughter, Carly."
"Partner, huh?" Brian questions with a suggestive grin before taking a swig of steaming hot coffee from the heavy, white mug in his hand. "You copyin' my terminology now, huh?"
"At work," Jay corrects with a deadpanned look, with narrowed eyes that say not to mess with him as he picks up one of Carly's crayons and begins to help the little girl color in the firetruck printed on her placemat.
"I get it – don't ask, don't tell," Brian quips with his hands raised in mock surrender. The only man seated at the table still in his dress blues, the only man still in the Army ignores the pointed look tossed his way by his brother in arms and Mike's gruff laughter choosing instead to focus on Erin, to offer her a sympathetic smile as he inquires how long she's been saddled with Jay as her partner.
"About three weeks," Erin replies after taking a drink from her coffee mug.
"Still within the return window, right?" Brian inquires, and Jay watches cautiously out of the corner of his eye as Erin laughs and shrugs her shoulders noncommittally in reply. He's pretty sure she could return him, if she wanted; kick him back down to gangs with one word to their sergeant thanks to whatever hook she's got with Voight.
"Nah, you don't wanna do that," Mike booms from his seat beside Brian. A few of the diners' patrons, the cook behind the window, and the waitress behind the bar who acknowledged Jay's arrival earlier with a nod of her head all turn to look at them because Mike's never learned how to be quiet, how to speak in anything other than stereo.
"Inside voices, Daddy," the little girl seated beside him admonishes, and her words send a ripple wave of soft laughter around the diner.
"Yeah, Ellie," Jay chimes in with a chuckle as he substitutes out the red crayon for the black and sets to work coloring in the tires, "inside voices."
"Ellie?" Erin echoes shifting her gaze from Jay to Mike to Brian and employing that inquisitive voice Jay has come to know so well over the last couple weeks of detective work with her. A voice that isn't exactly harsh or rude in its search for answers, but pretty much lets the perp know they're not going to get away without giving her some kind of information in return.
"Yeah, our platoon used to call Wazowski here," Brian replies reach out with an elbow to rib Mike in his rounded gut, "Elephant – 'Ellie', for short – because he ain't exactly a quiet guy. Always knew when he was coming like a thundering herd of elephants."
"Whole unit had nicknames," Mike adds before rattling a couple of examples off, before gesturing over to Brian and explaining how at sixty-three inches, their comrade barely made the height requirement for the Rangers but kicked everyone's asses when it came to carrying packs through the desert earning him the nickname, 'Ant'.
"Tiny but mighty," Brian interjects with a stone cold glare before releasing a hearty laugh. "Gurwitch is called Mouse 'cause he gets into everything. Eat wires, too. And Lahey, of course, was Tomcat because poor bastard was a lovesick fool."
An uneasy silence falls over the table at the reminder of their friend's name – Brian guzzling down coffee, Mike reaching out to squeeze his daughter's shoulder, and Jay clutching the black crayon tighter in his hand as he presses down hard on the paper. Nearly tears a hole in the drawing from the weight of his force; nearly snaps the crayon in half until he feels Erin brush up against him as she shifts uncomfortably in her seat, as her voice cracks over her question about what they called Jay.
"No, come on, guys," Jay tries to interject before the guys can say anything, but his determination to end this part of the conversation before it begins only causes Erin to shift forward eagerly in her seat and Brian to lean forward in his to meet her.
"Snipes," Brian replies with a small smile, with a laugh that sounds genuine rather than forced as though this is the one memory of war that he actually enjoys. "Originally, short for sniper because he was the best shot in the unit. Used to piss the Taliban off 'cause they never knew where he was, and they'd go on this fool's errands to try and find him. So it also came to stand for snipe hunts."
"That's why you don't want a refund on him being your partner," Mike interjects; his voice booming once again. "You gonna be out there on the street? You want Snipes to have your back."
"Saved mine at least twice," Brian informs Erin in a voice that becomes more somber with every spoken syllable. "Him and Mouse are the only reasons why I didn't come home in a box. Would have given them both a medal. Not just Lahey."
Jay can feel Erin's gaze on him, but he refuses to look at her because he doesn't want to see admiration in her eyes over him doing what had to be done. Doesn't want anyone's thanks when five – now, six – of his men still ended up in boxes; doesn't want anyone's appreciation when he's still got men out there waging private battles.
And then her hand slips into his underneath the table, squeezes it so tightly that warmth spreads up his arm and then throughout his body at the contact that he has no choice but to look at her. To hold her gaze and see the understanding – or, at least, the attempt at understanding – in his partner's eyes
Until the waitress arrives asking what they want to order and tearing away Erin's gaze; until the upside down phone on the table in front of her buzzes and she releases his hand in order to flip the phone over and read the caller ID. The single word in block letters causes her to frown even as she clicks off the phone – something he wouldn't dare do if 'Voight' flashed across his lock screen of his phone – and then she's sliding out of the booth, making her apologies to Brian and Mike about it being work that called and having to go.
"Nice to meet you, Erin. Hope we see more of you," Mike booms out before turning his attention to his little girl and asking her what she wants to eat. His voice carries so loud and so far that Jay's not entirely sure Erin heard his offer to walk her out until they both step outside the diner, until she slows down her pace so he can catch up to her.
"So Snipes, huh?" She questions throwing him a smirk and laughing when his face falls into a deadpanned frown of disapproval. When he stops mid-walk through the parking lot so she reaches the 300 first. When she ends up leaning against the trunk of the car smiling back at him as he stands fuming in the parking lot.
"Don't worry," Erin promises with a smirk as Jay steps towards her, as he moves to close the unusually large gap between them, "I won't say anything to the rest of the unit provided you don't say anything about me in a dress."
"Deal," Jay exhales into her face after pretending to mull the tit-for-tat offer over with serious consideration, after leaning in and further closing the gap between them. She rolls her eyes at his mock seriousness, at the way his face breaks out in wide grin as she folds her arms across her chest, and then her face softens and her voice wavers as she looks over his shoulder towards the diner and then back at him again.
"I'm sorry about your friend," she repeats because she doesn't know what to say. A sentiment he knows all too well; a sentiment etched into his own face every time he has to make the drive out to Lincoln National Cemetery.
"Yeah," Jay mutters as he raises his hand to rub his fingers against his forehead right at the hairline, as he tries once more to squash the emotions rising up inside him. The sadness and the anger he doesn't want to take out on her because she – like so many other people in his life – doesn't deserve it. "Uh, thanks for being here today."
"You're my partner, Jay," she says solemnly as though the roughly three weeks they've known each other explains why she'd drive all the way out here and show up at a funeral merely to support him. Why she'd give up a morning to sit in a questionable diner with his friends; why the squeeze of her hand against his calms him down and says things he's not sure they're supposed to say to one another.
"That mean you're not going to return me?" Jay quips with a smile that widens when she smiles, when she rolls her eyes and pushes herself away from the trunk of the car heading straight for the front seat like always as she calls over her shoulder that she'll see him tomorrow. He begins to walk away as she wrenches open the door, stops when he hears her call out his name over the heavy traffic zooming past the diner.
"Couple of my friends and I are getting together for drinks tonight, if you wanna come by," Erin says as she clutches the front door of the car and looks at him with a smirk on her face. "Meet my friend Caitlin."
"Caitlin?" Jay echoes in confusion to which Erin merely shrugs and says something about her meeting his friends so it's only fair that he meet hers.
And he jams his hands in his pockets as he decides to agree to meet up with her and Caitlin and her other unnamed friends later on because Carly and Mike will head back to St. Louis after breakfast, Brian has to report back to base by nine o'clock tonight, and, frankly, he doesn't want to be alone tonight. Wants to enjoy having a partner who's there for him on bad days.
"Yeah, I'll be there," he replies while she fishes out her buzzing cellphone. He doesn't have to see the screen to know who it is, and he offers her a grimace as he adds, "You better get back before Voight gets pissed and bounces you down to patrol."
"He can try," Erin quips with a sassy smile that causes the dimple on her right cheek to cave in, and then she's sliding into the driver's seat. Shutting the door and throwing the car into the reverse whilst Jay strides across the parking lot and back into the diner.
"You ask her out yet?" Mike's voice booms throughout the diner as Jay makes his way towards the circular booth in the corner. He frowns, shakes his head side to side in frustration as he plops back down into the booth, and informs both men that it isn't like that between him and Erin.
"Uh huh," Brian agrees with a tone and a look that makes it more the obvious that he doesn't believe him. "Because work buddies absolutely show up at funerals to support one another."
"You two are here, aren't you?" Jay points out because it's not all that different. In the three years he served alongside these two, he saw some pretty horrific stuff and was shot at more than a few times; in the three weeks he's served alongside Lindsay, he's seen some pretty horrific stuff and been shot at more than a few times.
"Listen, learn from Tomcat," Brian counsels. "Write her some lovesick poetry. Talk about her all the time. Just maybe don't propose to her within twenty-four hours of your first date, okay?"
"I don't think he even waited that long," Jay replies with snort of laughter, and all three men seated around the table smile for the first time all day at the memory of their friend.
"Pretty sure he went on that date with the ring in his pocket," Mike announces in his booming voice, and then it drops to an such an unusually low octave that Jay and Brian have to strain to hear him. "Must have been some kind of hellhole if he was willing to leave Susanna behind."
"Swear jar, Daddy," Carly interrupts sticking out her upturned palm in a demand for money that releases some of the tension in the air, that sends her father reaching deep into his pockets for his wallet with a roll of his eyes and an off the cuff comment about how Jay and Brian should never have kids because all they do is take your money and your freedom of speech.
"Tell that to Joe," Brian mutters before taking another swig of coffee. "Don't Ask, Don't Tell is repealed and suddenly he's talking about marriage and babies."
"Oh, man," Mike booms looking over towards Jay with a pointed look. "This guy, Mister Hates Monogamy and the Institution of Marriage, himself might get married before you ask that partner of yours out? That's sad."
The comment causes Brian to laugh and Jay to roll his eyes as he reaches for one of Carly's crayons again, as he starts coloring the leaves of the trees as he informs his friends that he's meeting up with Erin for drinks later. Tacks on that her friends, including a woman named Caitlin, will be there as well when he sees the looks on Brian and Mike's faces.
"Besides, she's got something going on with our boss. Pretty sure I'd have to get his permission first before I asked her out," Jay informs them as the waitress begins placing their orders on the table in front of them. "And I think we've been to enough funerals this month."
"I'll drink to that," Mike replies clanking his mug of coffee against Carly's plastic cup of milk and then taking a big gulp before telling Carly to put down the crayons and eat her food before it gets cold.
Bryan nods his head in agreement before tucking into his large stack of pancakes whilst Jay fishes out the buzzing cell phone in the pocket of his hoodie, swipes his finger across the screen, and reads the text from Erin saying to call if he needs to talk.
A message that causes him to smile until he reads the last few words about how Caitlin is excited to meet him because, honestly, that's not the girl he's excited about seeing tonight. Because that's not the girl whose support – however briefly in person that support was – is going to help him survive today.