Get My Cigarettes
A/N: Okay so I know next month Chicago P.D.'s going to come back with a new season and then we'll actually get to see what happens with Erin, but I decided to take my own approach to the situation following the season finale, strictly for personal satisfaction and I hope everyone else enjoys it as well. Please read and review.
Disclaimer: Standard disclaimers apply, don't own, don't sue.
Trudy Platt's hand absentmindedly reached for the button to buzz upstairs, then at the last minute she pulled it back and remembered there wasn't anyone upstairs to buzz anymore. Nobody to buzz and make small talk by the fat box with, nobody to help up the police department's own corporate ladder to actually being an officer, it sucked. On her way in that morning she'd paid the memorial wall a visit and stopped at Nadia's stone, she would've thought by now she'd start remembering that Nadia wasn't working upstairs anymore. It didn't seem to make any difference, it was no secret they'd all had their experiences in losing their own people, that's why the memorial wall was so big, but all the times it had happened before, nothing could make the grieving process this time any easier, and Trudy knew it.
The obvious loss to their house aside, things were slowly getting back to normal, slowly, it had been days since Trudy even felt like hassling Roman and Burgess, even now she had the slightest of inklings to give them hell about something, but she just didn't have it in her yet.
The sight of Voight entering the station grabbed Trudy's attention, as did what happened next. Without a word to anybody, Voight walked past the other officers, right past the front desk, and headed for the stairs. To anybody who didn't know Voight, nobody would've given the sight much thought. But Trudy knew something was wrong. Even without Voight uttering so much as a single syllable, and with a largely unreadable expression on his face, there was just something about the way he came in and the way he moved, that Trudy got a jolting vibe off of him that something was sorely wrong. Trudy had worked there long enough to know that Voight never, or at least not without good reason, ever exploded at his own men, and yet she had the distinctive feeling if he were to say anything to her in this instance, even she would be scared of him. Still, this didn't stop her from leaving her desk and following after him.
"Hank!" she called to the Sergeant as she caught up with him halfway up the stairs.
Voight turned and looked at the desk sergeant who stood a few steps below him and in what would ordinarily pass for his usual demeanor, asked her, "What is it, Trudy?"
"Hank, what's wrong?" she asked him.
Voight was good to keep a stone poker face that you couldn't ever tell what he was thinking, but now even that betrayed him slightly, it was obvious that he wasn't expecting that, but he quickly recovered and asked her, "What do you mean?"
"Come on, Hank, I know you," Trudy told him, "What is it?"
Voight looked to the side as if he wanted to make sure no one was listening, and he started to come back down the stairs, he passed her and murmured so only she could hear him, "Not here."
Trudy followed Voight to the locker room where it would just be the two of them. Voight locked the door so nobody could come in, and on his way back to Trudy, he hit a couple of the lockers in passing and kicked another for good measure. Before Trudy could ask him anything, he told her as he circled her, "Bunny's got her hooks back into Erin."
"What?" Trudy asked him.
Voight stopped pacing and told her, "I went to pick her up for work, and she is determined to stay with that stupid bitch and the lowlife company she keeps. She's fallen back on her old habits, she is hooked to whatever bottle she can get her hands on and that bitch who calls herself a 'mother' is handing them all to her."
"Aw Hank," Trudy shook her head, "I am so sorry."
Hank took two steps to the side and punched another locker.
"That's what you ought to do to Bunny," Trudy told him.
Voight ignored his busted knuckles and shook his head, "She knows just what she has to do to keep a hold over Erin, and it's working. She's using Erin's own grief over Nadia's murder to keep her hooked. She's going to ruin that girl just so she can lord it over me that she's got her back on her side and play the half assed attempt of a loving mother. It's a game for that psychopathic woman, it's a game and Erin's her pawn to play as she chooses."
Trudy took this all in and said to Hank, "I can't believe Erin would just forget about everything you've done for her, Hank, she has to remember that you were always there for her when Bunny wasn't."
"If she ever got a chance to sober up and stay that way, maybe," Voight replied, "But Bunny's going to do everything in her power to make sure that doesn't happen."
"Okay…" Trudy folded her arms against her chest and thought about it for a few seconds and told Hank, "Okay, so we haul Erin in, put her in a cell long enough for her system to detox, when she's clean again…"
Voight shook his head, "No, we're not going to do that."
"We can make it official," Trudy said, "We could raid Bunny's place on suspicion of…anything really, haul in everyone, keep Erin separated from the rest." Voight continued to shake his head, Trudy told him, "I know she's like your daughter, Voight, and no parent wants to have their daughter locked up, let alone to actually do it themselves, but it would be for her own good and…"
"No, Trudy," Voight told her, "We do that, until she finally dried out, Bunny would still win, she'd see us as the bad guys and it might be enough to drive her back there even after she sobered up."
"Okay then," Trudy thought again, "We can still raid the bar and just haul Bunny in. We keep her locked up long enough for Erin to dry out, we get Erin into a detox clinic…"
Voight shook his head again.
"Voight, help me out here," she said to him, "I'm willing to help you in any way, but we need a plan to make it work."
For being the man who always had the plan, Voight looked genuinely lost on this one, so much so he had to rely on gesturing with his hands to help drive his point home as he told his desk sergeant, "Trudy, we are not going to do anything."
"What?" Trudy couldn't believe her ears.
"If Erin's going to come back, it's going to have to be of her own volition," Voight told her, and sighed, and added, "She's going to have to make the first move, she is going to have to wake up and remember what Bunny did."
Instinctively Trudy knew Voight was right but all the same she just had to get the point across, "As long as she has Bunny manipulating and enabling her, she's going to have to hit pretty rock bottom before she does that."
Voight slowly nodded, "I know, that's the hard part to live with."
Trudy shook her head and told him, "I'm sorry, Hank."
"I know, so am I," he replied. Taking a step back towards the lockers, Voight kicked another one, and went off on a small tirade like he was the only person in the room, "I take her in when she's 16, I treat her like she's one of my own, I raise her because God knows her own mother sure as hell never did, I do everything for her that I can, I make sure she gets into the best school available, I helped her get her ass straightened out, I watched her earn a place in this House, I've always been there for her if she ever needed me…" as if just noticing Trudy was in the room for the first time, he moved towards her and told her, "I would give my life for Erin, and this is how it all ends."
He put on a good show of being able to resist all temptation to beat the shit out of Bunny and haul Erin's ass away from her sociopathic whore hound excuse of a mother, but Trudy knew Voight well enough to know he wanted nothing other than to do just that, even though he did know full well it wouldn't actually solve anything…maybe. Voight was always the action man with the plan, he always knew how to handle people be it the violent scum of the city, the higher brass, dirty cops, anybody, everybody, but now he was in a position where he couldn't do anything, and Trudy knew that just had to be killing him, especially given it concerned someone he cared so much about.
"What're you going to tell the others?" Trudy asked, knowing full well eventually everybody was going to wonder where Lindsay was.
Voight shook his head, "Nothing for now, I'll tell them she's taking a day off if anyone asks."
Trudy just nodded.
End of the shift. Couldn't come soon enough where Voight was concerned. Everybody else was getting ready to head to Molly's for a round of drinks, Voight had no intention of joining them. He needed a good stiff drink and he decided to do it in the privacy of his own home where he didn't have to see anyone, he didn't have to talk to anyone, and he didn't have to explain anything to anybody. He put on his jacket and walked past the front desk and called to Trudy, "I'll see you tomorrow, Trudy, I'm heading home."
"Hank?" the desk sergeant's voice called to him questioningly.
Voight stopped and turned on his heel and looked back at her to see what it was she wanted.
Trudy looked like she wasn't even sure about saying what she was about to say, but she finally asked him, "You want some company?"
Voight thought about it for about two seconds and flatly remarked, "Sure, why not?"
Trudy grabbed her jacket and followed him out of the station. She got in her car and followed Hank back to his house. They went in, turned on the lights, and Voight poured them each a glass full of the strongest booze he kept in the house, and they both collapsed on the couch while they drank it.
"So," Trudy said after a long and, to her anyway, awkward silence, "How're you holding up?"
Voight just stared straight ahead at nothing in particular and answered automatically, "Fine", not sounding his usual convincing self, even though truth be told that was seldom ever convincing either. When you worked with Voight for as long as Trudy had, you knew the real 'fine's from the cover 'fines' that were just said to end any potential questions about a situation. Nobody else really seemed to catch onto that yet, anybody else, if Voight said 'fine', they let it go at that.
Trudy chose her next words carefully, she knew they were a two-edged sword that could be used for Voight to bite her head off. "Hear anything out of Erin?"
Voight shook his head, "Nope."
Trudy just slowly nodded.
"Hank," she told him, "No matter what Bunny tries to make up, you were the one who raised Erin, you were her parent, nobody can ever say otherwise…sooner or later Erin's going to have to admit it."
In this rare instance, in the privacy of his own home, in the company of only his desk sergeant whom he had known and worked with for many years, Voight looked half glum and half sheepish as he responded, "Thanks, Trudy." Somehow it seemed in this moment that even a self assured man about everything as Voight always was, even he needed to be reassured once in a while.
Voight was not in a talkative mood that night, and Trudy respected that. When they finished one drink, he got up and poured them another, then thought better of it and came back with the whole bottle. Trudy only had a couple of drinks, but she watched Voight and guessed before the night was over, the bottle was going to be empty. In a way it was a bit ironic and Trudy could appreciate that, Bunny was twisting Erin's own emotions against her to make her more dependent on booze and drugs to get her right where she wanted her, and the effect it was having on Voight had him reaching for the bottle to dull the pain as well. The difference was Hank was not and had never been addicted to it, it wasn't a crutch to him, he could take it or leave it, and Trudy knew he was professional enough to leave it at home, on the job he was all professional, all business, he would never compromise himself or his house, no matter what he was going through in his own life.
Voight's head was swimming. He'd gone to bed after drinking most of the whiskey, but he couldn't sleep. He just lay in bed somewhere between the states of awake and asleep for the longest time. Then when he finally did fall asleep, instead of a dream his mind started flashing back to when Erin was a teenager and she first came to live with them. It had been an adjustment for everyone but at the time he'd sure thought it had been worth it because over time he could see the change occurring in Erin that she was finally breaking away from her old habits and moving forward with her life and making something of herself.
His mind reamed back to when he pulled the strings to get Erin accepted into St. Ignatius, and he had to spell it out for her that her ass would be out if she got into a single fight or so much as threw one punch at somebody. For a street kid, especially a street kid going to school with a bunch of snobby rich bitches and they found out she was a street kid, you might as well tell her to 'don't breathe', but he knew Erin could do it, despite how hard he knew it was for her, and she did do it. She'd always been able to beat the odds, but now…
Voight thought he heard something and he woke up and looked around the dark bedroom, and saw there was nothing. Just a dream. He flopped back against the pillow and grumbled, then said to the other side of the bed, "Camille, I don't know what we're going to do with that girl…" he turned on his side, "Camille?"
The lamp on the nightstand snapped on and reality came crashing down that it was several years later than Voight remembered it being, and occupying the other side of the bed was Trudy Platt, still in her work clothes, her police jacket included.
"Trudy," he sat up and rubbed his eyes and tried to clear his mind, "I'm sorry."
She just nodded slightly and replied, "It's okay, Hank."
She knew it shouldn't, but what just occurred gave her some hope that maybe it was just normal to never fully accept that a loved one was gone, no matter what it was that took them out of the world. Realistically she knew that sooner or later the day would come when she didn't reach to buzz Nadia upstairs, but for now she couldn't begin to think when that might be. She could see the stone on the wall, she could look around and notice there was a face missing from the crowd, but she still hadn't fully been able to come to terms with the fact that Nadia was never coming back. There were still times it felt unreal, like maybe she'd just taken a few days off, maybe she was off on vacation and would be back the next week, but then reality always came crashing down on her. And if what just happened here was any indicator, then it was possible a few years from now she would still look up and expect to see her coming downstairs.
Voight wouldn't admit it, but he was embarrassed because he couldn't remember what happened or how the two of them wound up in his bed. That was when he looked down and saw that he was still dressed too, the only thing missing was his shoes, and he looked over and realized the same was true for Trudy.
"Trudy, help me out here," he said hesitantly, "What's going on?"
His desk sergeant explained, "We decided it might be better if I stay here with you for the night."
Voight tried to think back to that decision, and he couldn't, so he asked her bluntly, "Why?"
Trudy shrugged he shoulders, "I don't remember…" she looked over at the clock and told him, "It's going on 2 in the morning and I'm tired, let's just go back to sleep and we can figure it out in the morning."
Voight grumbled something under his breath and finally nodded in agreement. And then his phone rang.
"You know," Trudy said, refusing to move from her side of the bed, "There's no law that says you have to answer that."
"Except my own," Voight told her.
She shrugged, "Yeah, except that one."
Voight reached over and picked up his phone, focused his tired eyes on the screen to see who was calling, and did something akin to a double take.
"Who is it?" Trudy asked.
Instead of answering her, Voight put the phone to his ear and said simply, "Yeah? …where are you? …Okay…we'll be right down." He ended the call and told Trudy, "Get your shoes on," and he all but jumped out of the bed.
"What happened?" Trudy asked as she got up.
