Hey guys this is a quick one shot from a prompt given to me by linsteadlove about what could happen if Erin ends up taking the job with the feds, and then Jay gets hurt while she's gone. I hope you like it. let me know what you think in a review.

"Hey, Lindsay you going with us for drinks tonight?" One of the guys on her new task force team asked as they were all finishing up for the day. Before she had a chance to answer him, her phone began to vibrate in her pocket.

"Yeah sure. Just give me a sec." She responded while sliding the answer bar on her phone screen. She tried to conceal a smile as she held the phone to her ear.

"Hey, Halstead." She greeted happily.

"Erin, it's Antonio."

"Why are you calling me on Jay's phone?" She cut him off confused.

"That's not important right now. Jay was… He's hurt, Erin."

Her heart sank into her stomach, and she struggled to come up with words. "What… how… What do you mean he's hurt?" She finally asked flustered.

"We're at the hospital now. He is in surgery. That's all I know."

"Then I'm coming home. I'm going to the airport right now!"

"Erin, maybe you should wait until we have some news. You've only had this job for a few…"

She cut him off again. "You just called and said my partner is badly wounded! What the hell did you think my reaction would be? I'm going to the airport now!" She yelled into the phone before hanging up on him.

Her knee bounced rapidly annoying the person in the seat beside her, but she couldn't stop herself. It was all beginning to settle in. She'd rushed to the airport when Antonio called. She didn't even bother to go home and pack a bag. She just needed to get back to Chicago. She needed to be with her family. She needed to be there for him. So there she sat, aboard an airplane, knee bouncing rapidly, in rout back to her hometown of Chicago, Illinois.

When her flight landed Antonio was there to pick her up. She promised herself she wouldn't cry. She needed to stay strong, but when she saw the exhaustion on his face, the worry, and the fear she felt her own tears began to build. She took a deep breath and willed them away, as Antonio pulled her into a hug.

"We've missed you around here, Lindsay. Welcome back to Chicago."

"It's good to be home. Not under these circumstances, but I missed all of you guys. Where's Hank? I thought he would have been here to pick me up." She asked as they walked towards the car.

"He stayed at the hospital. He's taking this one pretty hard, Erin. He thinks it's his fault. It's his team, and he thinks its obligation to protect everyone, you know?"

"Be honest with me Antonio, how bad is it?" She asked as they got into the car and began the drive to the hospital.

"It's not great, Erin. He's in a medically induced coma. There's a tube down his throat keeping him breathing right now. There was brain swelling from where he was hit in the head so many times. The stab wound thankfully didn't hit anything to major. He just lost a lot of blood before the paramedics arrived. Now we're just waiting and praying for him to wake up."

There came the pesky tears again building up in her eyes. She couldn't stop them this time and one rolled down her cheek. Antonio noticed as he drove. "He's a fighter, Erin. He's going to be fine. We just gotta have faith. Besides I think if you go in there and tell him to wake his ass up he'll do it." Antonio teased, "Before you left, when you'd say jump, Halstead would respond how high."

Erin chuckled. "You're exaggerating. We were not like that."

"Are you telling me you didn't wear the pant in that partnership? You didn't even let the man drive, Lindsay. He loved it though. Don't let him fool you. You guys were great partners. Some of the most in sync detectives I've ever seen."

"If I were a good partner I would have been here to have his back." She whispered just as Antonio pulled into a parking spot outside of the hospital. He turned off the engine and turned to face Erin, and gave her shoulder a squeeze.

"This isn't your fault. It took me a long time to realize that what happened to Jules was not my fault. I know it's hard because it's your partner, but this isn't on you. This is on the jackass that's going to rot away in a prison cell. Jay is going to be fine. He'll be back to giving us all hell at the station, and moping around because he misses you in no time. Now go see him. He's waiting for you."

"He's not just my partner, Antonio." She whispered with tears spilling down her cheeks.

"I know." Antonio nodded gloomily whilst giving her shoulder another comforting squeeze.

She stood in the doorway of Jay's hospital room and took in a deep breath. She wasn't expecting to feel so emotional upon seeing him, but her knees wanted to give, and she felt like falling into a puddle and crying on the floor. Hank's jacket was draped over the back of the chair in the room, but he was nowhere to be found. Erin assumed he'd gone to get a coffee or something.

Slowly but surely she made her way to Jay's bedside. "You couldn't even last three weeks without me huh?" She joked. She needed to joke in order to prevent the tears in her eyes from overflowing. She wanted to reach out and grab his hand but she wasn't sure if she should, so instead she just sat hers beside his on the edge of the bed. Their fingertips just barely grazed one another's.

After looking over her shoulder to check if anyone was coming she began to speak again. "Truth be told I was ready to come home. Now I have an excuse for coming back, so thank you. You manage to have my back even with me all the way in DC. I guess I shouldn't have expected anything less from you." She smiled half-heartedly. "You've always been a great partner."

Her own words began to make she choke up. She fell back into the seat beside his bed. "I'm so sorry, Jay. I'm so sorry for everything." Finally she reached out and grabbed his hand.

"I know you encouraged me to take the job if I thought it would make me happy, but I just should have been here to have your back. I knew this job wasn't what I wanted, and it wouldn't make me happy, but I took it anyways. I took it because I was a coward, and I was running away, and I'm sorry for that." She started to cry then.

"I was scared, Jay. I was afraid of letting someone in again. I was afraid of getting hurt. I was afraid of the fact that you can make me feel so much without even trying. Now I'm just so sorry for not acknowledging how I felt when I had the chance, and I'm sorry for insisting we keep it professional even though it was always the furthest thing from what I wanted. I'm just really sorry, Jay, and I just really need you to wake up." Her voice was at a whisper by the time she got to the end.

She silently cried while stroking his hand for a couple of minutes before the signature Erin Lindsay defense mechanism switched on. She instantly became angry and dropped his hand from hers. She stood from the chair quickly. "Jay Halstead, wake your ass up! You can not do this to me." She spoke firmly almost in a yell. "I need you to open your stupid beautiful eyes, so I can apologize to you in person you son of a bitch." She was crying still although her tone sounded angry. She obviously wasn't really angry with Jay, but this is the only way she knew how to deal with things. She got pissed off because it's easier then admitting to herself that she's hurt. Anger is easier then vulnerability.

"I swear to god, Jay if you don't wake up I'm never going to forgive you. What were you doing? How did you end up like this? Where you not paying attention you dumb ass?" She sniffled and tried to wipe away some tears, but it was useless since they just kept coming.

"What am I supposed to do if you die, Jay? Huh, what then? How am I supposed to live with that? What am I gonna do? What about the Christmas present I already bought you? What am I supposed to do with that? What about the bet we made about the super bowl this year? What about Scrabble?" All of a sudden her voice became a whimper and her tone less angry, but more serious. "What about one day, Jay? How are you going to leave me before our one day? You can't… You can't leave me."

She fell back into the chair. "You can't leave me. Not yet. You just can't." She leaned her head down onto the edge of his bed sniffling. "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry." She gently kissed the back of his hand and fell asleep mumbling, "I'm so sorry, you can't leave me," over and over again. She was exhausted in every sense of the word.

She wasn't sure exactly how long she'd been out when she heard yelling. After a few seconds she groggily came to, and realized it was Voight's unmistakable voice calling out. He stood in the doorway facing out towards the hall and it took her a few seconds to comprehend what he was shouting.

"Hey we need a doctor in here, or a nurse, or somebody. Now."

Erin was instantly over came by panic. She shot up and looked at Jay's face, expecting the worst. Instead his gorgeous crystal blue eyes were blinking back at her. "Jay? You're awake."

He was incapable of responding due to the tube down his throat and before she could say anything else to him, his bedside was bombarded with nurses and doctors. Everything that happened after that was a blur. She was consumed by pure euphoria. He was awake. That's all that mattered.

Not long after the tube was removed from his throat. Voight made Erin leave the room with him while they removed the tube, she paced impatiently in the hallway.

"I'm going to go call the team. Can I trust you to wait out here until they are finished checking him out?"

She sighed before nodding. "Yes. I'll wait."

"Good." He patted her back. "By the way it's good to see you, kid."

"You to Hank." She replied giving him a genuine smile.

It felt like an eternity had passed when she was finally allowed back into the room, although it had really been more like twenty minutes. She walked back in feeling the lump in her throat and the tears beginning to well.

"God I'm so glad you woke up."

Jay half smiled at her. "Water please." He rasped out.

She hurried over to give him a drink form the tiny paper cup resting beside his bed.

"Better?" She asked after he had sipped some of the fluid through a straw.

Jay nodded in return the corners of his mouth fighting to turn up into a smile. "So now that I've opened my 'stupid beautiful' eyes is their anything you wanna tell me?"

"You could hear that?" She asked blushing with embarrassment.

"Every word."