Author's Note: I know I'm behind on 'Addendum' updates, but please don't hate me for starting a new fic. I've had this idea in my head since before 3x10 aired, and it's been crowding out all the other ideas I have for 'Addendum' and other Linstead fics. The plan is for this to be a short, multi-chapter fic covering a twenty-four hour period and varying in points of view. Please let me know your thoughts!
Can you feel my heartbeat?
Pounding into nothing.
Broken bones are floating in my empty body.
Can you feel it reaching?
Moving through the feeling.
Won't you bring me down?
- "Heartbeat" by VÉRITÉ
The splash of water pulls his attention from the iPhone in his hand. His thumb stops slide upward against the screen; the headlines of the Trib ceases scrolling across the display. And Jay twists his head so his gaze moves from the phone to the mirror about the sink visible through the partially opened bathroom door at his left. Reflected in the mirror is a flash of shaky, pale limbs struggle to hold up her weight, and he watches his face fall in the mirror as her limbs give out. Shoves his phone into the front pocket of his jeans at the second splash of water.
"Erin," Jay calls out as he pushes open the door and steps into the small bathroom. Her head twists towards him, and her eyes brighten with fiery anger. She can do this herself. He's not supposed to hover. All arguments they've had so frequently that he can guess what she's going to say before she can say it, before she can press her hands against the edge of the tub and try again.
And when her hands slip against the edge of the tub, when she struggles to lift her own weight, he steps in before she has to ask. Before she has to swallow her pride and ask for help; before her anger can be twisted around and directed at herself.
Jay plunges his arm into the hot water in order to curl his right hand under her knees, and his left hand skims across her back as he tries to find a good place to grip. His fingers curl around her ribcage as he carefully tries to avoid the scar, the red line running from her right armpit to midway across her chest. It stops only a few centimeters from her left breast, from the singular reminder of what used to be on both sides.
Yet Jay is careful to train his gaze somewhere else. Focuses on the way her bald head lulls against his chest as he lifts her out of the bathtub; focuses on snagging a clean towel off the rack so she doesn't freeze in short walk from bathroom to bedroom. And Erin does what she always does when this happens - winces and flinches as she finds the strength to pull the towel over the parts she doesn't want him or her or anyone else in this world to see. Over the scar across her chest, over the chemo port buried under her skin near the base of her left collarbone, and over the belly that has concaved inward from persistent nausea and lack of appetite.
He can tell her wrists are bothering her because her grip on the towel is looser tonight, because she doesn't bother to clutch onto the now dampened fabric of his Henley. He thinks she left her wrist guards - the ones Nat said were good for alleviating carpal tunnel syndrome - downstairs on the couch, but that isn't the item he offers to fetch for her as he pushes open the door to her childhood bedroom with his foot.
"No," she replies with determination seeping back in her voice. He steps over the pile of dirty clothes on the floor, moves around the suitcase no one bothered to unpack when they moved in here. What was supposed to be a temporary move - a bridge between his furlough ending and Erin getting some of her strength back - turned into something more long term as money and time grew tighter. And now unpacking that suitcase feels like admitting that this is more permanent than they planned and, besides, the task has fallen to the bottom on their to-do list.
"You haven't taken anything for days," Jay reminds her as he carefully sets Erin down on the unmade bed. He hates to push the pills on her, to be the guy in her life urging her to pop percocets like candy, but it's also so hard to see her like this. To watch her wince in pain when she presses her hand into the mattress in order to steady herself; to feel her shaking beside him in this tiny, twin bed at night because she hurts so badly.
"No," she repeats. The fire in her eyes returns as she lifts her gaze upward to look at him, as she grits her teeth and arranges the towel around her body. They've had this argument before, too. The one where her single answer tells him what she's afraid of - that if she starts taking the pills, she won't be able to stop - and his pushing makes her make comparisons to her past that she'll later rather tearfully regret.
And so Jay backs off the topic with a sigh as the fingers of his right hand rise to rub against his forehead, as his gaze shifts from Erin to the pile of clean clothes stacked on the dresser. He doesn't recall doing laundry recently, and the relatively small size of the stack tells him exactly who washed those clothes.
Hank made his rules about laundry pretty clear when they moved in here - that Erin's clothes have been included in the family laundry pile since she was fourteen but Jay is responsible for washing his own skives. Fair enough. Jay doesn't much like the idea of Hank touching his things anyways, and living in this house where Hank doesn't like shoes by the front door or pans drying on the stove or car keys left on the counter is trying enough.
The pile of laundry partially obscures the stack of non-narcotic medicines - the anti-nausea patches that don't help, the cough drops that help keep Erin's throat moist like the popsicles she's given at chemo, the cream to help alleviate scarring - from Jay's view, and it takes Jay a minute to locate it after he strides across the room towards the dresser. When he finds the cream, he holds it against his chest with his chin freeing up his hands to sort through the laundry.
Sure enough, only Erin's t-shirts and pajamas and workout pants made it through the wash, and Jay grabs a pair of black leggings and a loose fitting t-shirt from the pile for her. Drapes them over her shoulder and then works on locating a clean pair of underwear from the suitcase on the floor. Picks his black hoodie up off the floor for her because it's basically become hers anyways these days. Her own hoodie pinches the scar under her armpit; her own hoodie has to be removed when the nurses need access to her chemo port.
The droop of Erin's towel when he walks back over to her is a non-verbal request for help and confirmation of just how much pain her wrists are hurting her. It's one of the more silent side effects of chemo and radiation. One he saw his mother struggle with during her own battle with cancer as she still tried to play the role of Susie Homemaker for his dad.
And so Jay drops the clothes on the bed beside Erin and sinks to his knees in front of her. Unscrews the cap on the cream, squirts a generous amount on the fingers of his right hand, and then looks up to her as he sets the cream down on the floor beside him. Her gaze is fixated away from him on the window that rattles every single night because of the wind and even though he knows it has nothing to do with him, it still hurts when she flinches as he peels back the towel exposing the scar to his gaze.
The skin surgically pinched together feels foreign and rough under his fingertips as he gently rubs in the cream. Erin's surgeon, her oncologist, and Nat were all adamant that this would help, and Jay will admit that the color has faded from the angry purplish red he caught a single glimpse of in Erin's hospital room when the doctor came in to change her bandages to more a muted red. To the kind of color that tells him this part of her is healing even as the doctors pump poison into her body.
Erin could lose both breasts, and he would still love her. Erin could lose every limb or change her entire appearance, and Jay would still love her. Because Jay loves Erin for more than just her body, and he told her that when finally stopped icing him out and told him about her diagnosis. Repeated it over and over again when the doctors advised holding off on reconstructive surgery until after she finished chemo and radiation, when he first got a glimpse of her newly lopsided figure.
But it is still hard to see the scar, to touch it with his fingers and not remember the silky skin that used to be there. To feel the beating of her heart under his fingertips as he rubs in the cream and wonder why him, why this had to happen to his girl after cancer already took his mom. It's a selfish thought that he hates himself for every time it pops into his mind, and Jay is so caught up in beating himself up for this thought that he nearly misses the low, gravelly words Erin is whispering out.
"You should go."
"I've got some time until my shift," Jay reminds her as he glances over towards the alarm clock on the nightstand. He's got about forty minutes before he needs to leave for Med, which isn't enough time to do a load of laundry, but plenty of time to help Erin out with getting dressed and locating those damn wrist guards. And he'll make sure to clean up the mess downstairs before he leaves. Jay refuses to leave that mess - the dirty dishes on the table, the vomit on the floor - for Hank to find when he gets home. He doesn't want to piss off his sergeant after Hank let him leave work early today, after Hank's turned a blind eye to Jay picking up side jobs and pulling doubles.
"You should go," Erin repeats again, and the tone of her voice causes Jay's hand to still against her chest. Half the cream is rubbed in; the other half is still in globs along the line of her scar. His eyes sweep up to look at her, to see the red rimming around her eyes and the way she hollows out her cheeks to stop from crying.
"Erin," Jay replies with a sigh because he knows she isn't worried about him being late, knows she's giving him permission for something he never wants to do.
"I can't give you-"
"Stop," Jay interrupts. They've had this argument so many times in the past, and he's so sick of hearing all the bullshit reasons why she's not enough. If the reconstructive surgery never happens and she's left with this scar, then so be it. She's still the most beautiful, selfless, amazing person he knows. If the chemo and the radiation saves her life but kills their chances of having kids, then so be it. He wasn't sure he ever wanted kids to begin with.
"You deserve bet-"
"Hey," Jay interrupts again, and this time he moves his left hand to her jaw. Holds her chin in the space between his thumb and his index finger and forces her to look him in the eyes. Tears are welling in her eyes, and he rubs his thumb against her jawline as she tries to blink them back, as she falls back into the old habit of trying to hid her pain from those that love her. "I don't deserve anything, but what I want is to spend time with my fiancee before her dad gets home and finds us alone in her bedroom."
Jay cracks a small smile in the hopes that it combined with his comment will make her laugh, but Erin just shakes her head against his palm and reminds him that she's not his fiancee. Not anymore. And his face falls at the memory of her showing up at his half-packed apartment late one night and shoving the ring into his hand, at getting into a screaming match a few weeks later when he finds out the real reason why she ended it. Of pushing the ring in her hand again and telling her that she can end things if she truly doesn't love him, but she doesn't get to make decisions about what he wants or what he deserves.
And what he wants is to be with Erin so while the status of their relationship has remained in limbo, his presence in her life has not. He was there during the mastectomy; sat in silence in the waiting room next to Voight and tried not to think about the last time he was in a hospital waiting for someone he loves to have a tumor removed. He's was there through the recovery process at the hospital and then at the apartment when she'd pass out and hit her head, and he's sat through more chemo appointments - first with his mom and now with Erin - than one man should in a lifetime. He's held her when she's cried from pain, and he's cried alone in the basement of Hank's house when seeing her hurting so much gets to him.
He's been through Erin telling him to go and Voight telling him to go and his own brother asking him if he's prepared for what Erin's cancer will mean for his future. He's picked up patrol shifts and a second job working security at Med because Erin's on FMLA and the bills have started stacking up already. Because, as he told Hank, Erin's his fiancee whether she wears the damn ring or not and he's gonna help pay for the extra night at the hospital and the physical therapy and the experimental drugs that insurance doesn't cover. Because he loves her. End of discussion.
He tells her exactly that, watches the protest die on her lips at the finality of his voice because she's probably just as tried of this argument as he is. Because she probably knows after nearly five years of dating and seven years of being partners that there are something he's never gonna budge on. Would still be here even if she did say she no longer loves him because she's his partner and his friend and he's never gonna stop caring about her.
"You want help gettin' dressed?" Jay asks after a moment's pause, and Erin allows the placement of her hands against his shoulders to be her answer. Steps her feet into the underwear and the black workout pants he arranges on the floor for her; presses her hands against his shoulders to steady herself when it comes time for her to stand so he can pull her pants up. And despite her fears, despite the argument she tried to start again, even Erin smiles when Jay presses a kiss against her lumpy, bald head when it pops through the hole of her t-shirt as he helps her slide it on.
"I'm gonna take a nap," she informs him after he's helped her pull on the hoodie. Her hands are cradled against her chest now, and Jay cannot suppress the worry that flickers across his face at the sight. If chemo destroys her wrists, if it leaves her unable to hold her gun let alone take down a prep then -
Jay forces himself to push aside the thoughts of a future and focus on the now, focus on the way Erin awkwardly shimmies up the bed towards the pillows because it hurts too much to use her wrists. And he tugs gently on her pinkie toe when she lays down and buries her face into the pillow. Smiles at the way she kicks him and playfully tells him to leave her alone just like she'd do on the mornings he'd tried to walk her up and get her to go running with him.
And the smile doesn't leave his face as he picks up some of the mess - she can at least try to keep her mess contained when she isn't at her apartment - and returns the cream and her other meds where they belong. Nor does it fall when he moves from the bedroom shutting the door behind him to the bedroom where he drains the tub and wipes up the puddles on the floor.
The smile quickly disappears, though, when he heads downstairs and finds Voight on his hands and knees in the kitchen using paper towels to mop up the vomit. He didn't hear his sarge arrive home - a fact that frightens him given the frequency at which is occurs - and the look Voight shoots him is enough to make Jay pause in the doorway of the kitchen.
"Lasagna's no good?" Hank gruffly asks shift his gaze from Jay to the mess of the paper towels to the dinner plates at the kitchen table. For a couple weeks now, lasagna's been the only thing that Erin can stomach, and word about that fact got around the district and the church Jay grew up in. There are homemade lasagnas in the fridge, the freezer, and the chest freezer downstairs in the basement. But Erin had taken six bites of the one Jay heated up for dinner tonight and then promptly thrown up on the floor and on the hands she raised to try and stop it.
"No," Jay replies, although the answer is pretty obvious, and Hank merely grunts in acknowledgement. Adds some words about finding Erin something to eat later as he moves to his feet, as he tosses the used paper towels into the small, white trashcan under the kitchen sink while Jay informs him that Erin's upstairs taking a nap.
"She take anything?"
"No," Jay repeats, and he can see the disapproving lock of Hank's jaw, the press of his tongue against his cheek as he takes in this information. He and Hank have both been here before - seen their loved one wracked with pain from the cancer and the chem and seen Erin stumble over pills - and they both share the frustration of knowing they can't be yet another guy in Erin's life encouraging her to pop pills.
"Rest of the day?" Hank questions they work on cleaning up the kitchen - Jay washing the dishes, Hank using Lysol or some other extra strength cleaner on the floor - and Jay gives him the standard report about the afternoon. How Burgess said Erin slept all morning; how Erin grumbled about not needing a babysitter because she hasn't passed out in weeks. How the doctor said Erin's chemo port was still usable so they could probably push off surgery for a couple more weeks; how chemo has, obviously, made her sick but she seems to be doing fine.
That last piece of his report causes Hank's lips to purse together, and his hard gaze shifts from the floor to the ceiling as though he can see right into Erin's room above. And Jay is glad his back is to Voight as he tries and fails to sidestep Voight's question about Erin telling him to leave again because he doesn't want to see the look on Voight's face and he's tired of masking his own.
"You should go," Hank replies after a long pause in which he's moved to his feet, and Jay very nearly slams the plate down onto the sink as his anger pitches over Voight repeating Erin's direction from early.
"I told you, I'm not-" Jay starts turning around to face the father of his fiancee or his girlfriend or whatever the hell label Erin will let him use. But Voight cuts him off with narrowed eyes and a nod towards the clock on the stove. Jay's got less than ten minutes to get over to Med, to change in his security uniform and trade for a non-infectious disease floor with the other guards on duty.
And so Jay nods, wipes his hands off on the towel hanging from the oven door, and reaches for the keys and the wallet he left on the counter when he and Erin got to Voight's house this afternoon. Starts to move past Voight, but pauses when Hank twists his steely gaze towards him.
"You're a good guy, Halstead."
The compliment is unsettling and surprising, but Jay is at least grateful that Hank doesn't reach out to hug him or squeeze his shoulder as he has in the past. It's weird enough pseudo-living in the man's house. Odder still to have his boss featured so prominently in his personal life even after all these years. And all Jay can muster is a small nod of acknowledgement because it's always made him uncomfortable when people praise him for sticking by Erin's side. Because despite how radically different this life is from the one he thought they'd have when he proposed, despite how many bad memories this is dragging up for him, there's nowhere else he wants to be than with his girl.