What is a Linstead? This is just me trying to come up with a plausible explanation as to why Erin and Jay barely interacted on 3x14.

I own nothing.

I look over at Erin and she's pacing back and forth as Antonio brings everyone up to speed on the status of Yates whereabouts. Since she flew in last night she's been distant, like her head is in the clouds and her feet nowhere near the grounds of reality. It's almost like she doesn't seem to understand the gravity of this situation. She is brushing this off as if Yates hasn't personally threatened her, as if he hasn't already ripped a chunk out of her heart. I look at the note taped on the board, see you back home, Erin, and a chill runs up my spine.

I know she's hurting and I really want to just pull her aside and kiss her qualms away, but Erin and I are currently… out of sync, to put it lightly. We've been butting heads from the moment she landed in Chicago. Actually, we've been at odds ever since she decided to go to New York. I thought it was insane and irresponsible of Voight to send her over there. Cathartic or not, Erin was not ready to face Yates. But she went and just like I had predicted, she returned home licking old wounds and nursing new ones.

I'm not an I-told-you-so kind of person, so I let Erin have her silence last night. I even let her push me out because I know this is how she protects herself. Erin's innate defense mechanism is to isolate herself, bury her feelings, and plow forward like nothing is wrong. Like all is good. Like she's fine. But as she was getting ready to hop in the shower, I saw the large bruise on her knee, which was red and swollen. That was when I lost it.

"Erin—"

"Don't worry I'm okay," she said before I could get another word in.

"Let me see," I said bending down to examine the extent of her injury.

"I'm fine." She pulled away. "I just need to put some ice on it," she said and walked towards the bathroom.

"Babe, you could have a torn ligament," I told her.

"No, I just tripped… it's nothing."

"Erin, it's not nothing," I said. "None of this is nothing."

She looked at me and sighed. "Can we please not do this?"

"I think we need to talk about it because I'm worried about you."

"You don't have to worry."

I chuckled in disbelief. "Erin, there's a vindictive psychopath out there and he is coming for you and you don't seem that worried about it."

She looked at me with narrow eyes and said, "Let him to come. I want that son of a bitch to pay for what he did."

"Oh, he will," I told her. "But you can't for a second think you're in the right mind to go head-to-head with him."

"My head is where it needs to be," she spat out. "And you shouldn't be one to talk."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, I don't know. Remember when Bembenek put a bounty on your head? You almost got you yourself killed."

"If I hadn't put myself out there innocent people would have died."

"If I don't put myself out there more women will died."

I ran a hand through my hair and said as gently as I could, "Erin, you have to sit this one out."

She laughed dryly, "This is my job. I'm NOT sitting this one out."

"I don't think you will have a choice in the matter."

She was taken aback by my words. "Jay, you can't tell me what I can and cannot do."

"Oh, I don't think I'll be the one raining on your vindictive parade," I blurted out without thinking.

"Vindictive parade?" She bit her bottom lip so hard I expected to see blood. "Yates killed Nadia and if you don't feel the same level of rage towards that scumbag like I do, then…" She let the sentence go unfinished.

"Erin, Yates deserves to be at the bottom of the river," I told her. "But I don't want you to be the dead weight that keeps him underwater."

"Jay, I know what I'm doing."

"Do you?"

She released a deep breath. "We are done talking about this. I need to shower," she said and walked to the bathroom and slammed the door closed.

When she finished her shower I had a bag of ice for and some ibuprofen waiting for her. We didn't talk much and we have been unintentionally avoiding each other since, which is the last thing I wanted. But that's how the dice rolled and I have to deal with it.

After Antonio is done talking, Voight delegates what needs to be done and I see Erin's inner turmoil ripple across her face. My heart tightens. I walk over to her and ask how's her knee. She says it's okay, but she knows that's not really what I wanted to ask and before I can say anything she says, "I'm fine."

Out of all the cases that's been dropped on our desk, this one takes the cake for being the absolute worse. It opened old wounds and exposed the flaws in our armor. Getting played by Yates, yet again, felt like being sucker punched in the gut, hard and fast. Never have I felt so vulnerable and so apprehensive, and now with Erin front and center, I find it difficult to maintain a clear head. I pride myself in keeping my personal life separate from work, but I can't seem to detangle one from the other right now. The lines are blurred and everything is jumbled.

We follow leads all day and just when we think we got him boxed in, everything goes sideways. When I hear that Erin is on her way to meet up with Yates I can barely breathe. I feel like every nerve ending in my body is firing all at once. I can hear myself screaming to our team to get back in the cars, but it is distant and far away. When we finally pull to the house, Voight's car is already there. We barge in and there lies Yates with a coin slot in his forehead. I barely get to see Erin because Voight whisks her away, for good reason. I stand there watching him usher her to his car – the shock fading, but the pain is still raw and too real on her face.

The scene is cleared and soon enough we are given the green light to return to the district. The first thing I do is look for Erin. I want to pull her into my arms and just hold her. But when I find her she's in the locker room, quietly siting on the wooden bench, staring at her phone. I can't find it in me to disturb her. I understand she needs time to process what just happened. I retreat to the bullpen and begin to take the board down. Ruzek soon joins me.

It isn't long before I see her quietly enter the bullpen and inform Voight and Benson that Yates's death would be ruled as a clean kill. She walks towards her desk and just as Ruzek is pulling off Nadia's photo she asks if she can have it. Her voice is mellow and no longer has an edge to it. I follow her to her desk and ask if she's doing okay. I fully wait for her to say, I'm fine, but she doesn't. Instead she says, "I don't know yet."

And it's the first honest answer she's given me in the last couple of days. I feel like we're being watched, so I don't say anything else and just return to filing away the items from the board. Not being able to her right now feels like bullets being shot into me. I hate seeing her look so down and miserable.

When everyone begin filtering out for the night, Erin approaches my desk and says, "Olivia asked me to go for a drink."

I look up at her and her eyes are bloodshot and hollow. "You should go," I tell her.

Erin nods.

She begins to leave, but I grab her wrist and she stops and looks at me. "Come over tonight?"

It takes a minute, but she nods. "Yeah."

She gives me a tight lip smile and shuffles out.

…x…

When I finally hear the knock on my door, my heart flips. I swing the door open and Erin is standing there – beat, just the shell of the girl I know. But now it's just us and I take her cold hands and pull her to me. She melts in my arms and I can't help but pull away just so that I can kiss her. The kiss is slow and soft – like a memory of a kiss. Erin sighs against my mouth, and I tightened my embrace, drawing her even closer. When our lips part I look down at her. Her eyelids tremble open, light emerald irises expanding as her eyes focus on me.

"Can we not talk about today?"

I lean my forehead against hers and say, "Of course."

Even if I wanted to talk about today, where would I begin? Should I dump all my anger and tell her how irresponsible it was for her to go after Yates alone? Do I tell her how sorry I am for keeping my distant and not having her back through this whole ordeal? Or should I poke at old wounds and assess her state of mind? Honestly, all I want is to go to bed and pull Erin into my arms and sleep for three days straight.

"I'm beat," I tell her. "Shall we turn in early?"

She heaves a sigh of relief. "Yes, please."

We walk to the bedroom and while she's undressing I see the purple and blue bruises trailing her knee. She winces while pulling her jeans off and curses under her breath.

"Here, let me help you," I offer and slowly slide her jeans from her legs. I bend down to examine her injury and this time she doesn't pull away. I lift her leg and put small pressure around her swollen knee. She flinches. I move her leg from side to side, but she doesn't complain.

"I don't think you have any torn ligament. But you should ice it to keep the swelling down." I gently lower her leg to the floor and stand up. "Let me get you an icepack and some ibuprofen."

When I return she is wearing one of my t-shirts and sitting on top of the comforter with her legs stretched in front of her. I pull my shirt off, strip down to my boxers, and climb into bed. I hand her the ibuprofen and a bottle of water and wrap the icepack around her knee with a dish towel.

"Thank you," she says, placing the water bottle on the nightstand. "For everything."

I crawl towards her and we slide down the bed together. "I haven't done anything," I say and we pull the covers over ourselves. We snuggle close.

"You are here now," she rasps into my chest.

I kiss her hair and wrap my arms around her. I wait for her breathing to even out, but it never does. I know she's not fighting sleep, it's just not going to come tonight. It doesn't take long for her silent tears to trickle onto my bare skin. Her body shudders against mine and I feel powerless. She cries her pain away and I just hold her, burying my face in her hair, silently telling her that I love her.

I hope you enjoyed this. Thank you for reading.