Rebellion

Chicago. The signs were there long before anyone started paying attention to them. You could look in the right places and the city was a war zone, look in the wrong ones and you'd see the perfect lives of the rich and famous, the people who covered the magazines you pretended to read. The city was under attack from within, the drug lords and the gang leaders were finally taking their city back and at the centre of it all was Hank Voight.

A former dirty cop and convict, the father of two was in the higher branches of Chicago's dark side. Once a young man with dreams of making the world a better place and alongside him would be his wife, his childhood sweetheart Camille - but he didn't like to dwell on his past. The dreams were those of a young, naïve man. The kind that would be killed on these streets if he didn't have his wits about him.

Today he would protect his streets, as he did every day, in the hope that at the end of the day he could eat dinner with Erin and Justin and then he'd wake up the next day with the same aspirations.

Thinking about his children, Justin the young man who was following in his father's footsteps, with more hatred towards the cops and government than even he himself might have. Then there was Erin, his daughter with dreams of becoming a top surgeon at Chicago Med, shattered by family status. Apparently a Voight wouldn't be offered a job in any hospital in Chicago and she refused to leave her city, it was home.

The girl could have anything, be anything if she left the city but here she was, stuck working in a walk in clinic, often dealing with gunshot wounds and stabbings with under qualified staff and unsuitable equipment. She still lived with him, Justin too, but the circumstances behind their decisions to remain in the house they had grown up in differed. While Justin was barely getting by working a low-paid job in construction and spending his free time partying, Erin was working hard, helping people and improving their lives, she was independent and mature. One of his children had no choice but to be living at home, the other was a fool for her choice.

He walked through his front door only to be greeted with Justin yelling at Erin, not an uncommon sight for him to see his children arguing. Just a rarity for it to be Justin doing the chastising and taking the moral high ground.

"You're making a mistake." His voice carried through the house, it sounded as though they were in the kitchen.

"What do you want me to do here? Turn her away?" she yelled right back at him.

Hank sighed, despite their ages he swore they acted like ten year olds most days.

"You can't treat her, she's a CI!"

Now that got his attention.

"What's going on here?" He asked as he stepped into the kitchen, immediately upon seeing his daughter's face he knew he wouldn't like it.

He saw his children exchange glances, neither one of them speaking up.

"Well?"

Eventually Justin decided it was time to speak, Erin merely rolled her eyes and watched him tell on her.

"A girl came into the clinic today, she's got HIV." Hank nodded, encouraging him to continue. "She says she came to the clinic because she can't afford treatment but I think she's undercover with the cops; Catalano says she's a CI at the 21st."

Hank considered the situation for a moment, before turning to Erin, a clearly negative expression on his face.

"Hank before you say anything, just hear me out," she begged him.

Unhappily, he allowed his daughter to take the floor.

"This girl's name is Nadia Decotis, she's nineteen years old and her family live out of state." She took a breath before continuing. "Her dad was abusive and her mom was an alcoholic, she can't go back there. She was working as a prostitute since she was fifteen just so she could get away from them, but a few months ago she found out she had HIV so she decided to get away from that life. She's working in a bar a few blocks away and she can't afford treatment. We can't let this girl die just because Joe Catalano says she's a CI."

"I trust Joe, if he says she's a CI then she's a CI," Justin put in.

"Joe thought that I was a CI a couple of months ago for Christ's sake," Erin argued back.

"Both of you need to stop yelling at each other before I kick both of your asses out of this house."

His children stopped arguing to look at him, Erin's eyes passionate and on fire whilst Justin's were suspicious and full of rage.

"We can't have a CI this close to us Dad, it's not safe for anyone."

"What about Nadia? She has HIV, we tested to confirm it today," Erin huffed. "Do you want to just let her die? Even if she is a CI what is she going to find at the clinic?"

"She'll be close to you which leads the cops to us," Justin seethed.

Hank couldn't take it anymore, he couldn't think with them yelling at each other.

"Stop," he commanded. "Let's just have dinner and we can talk about it more later."

Whilst neither Erin nor Justin seemed pleased with this suggestion they realised they weren't going to get anywhere if they just kept arguing.

Dinner had given Hank time to think, to consider the options and consider how much risk he was willing to take to save this girl's life. A CI in his territory, near his daughter was far from ideal; it was dangerous. Nothing was worth the risk of his children's life, that was if she was really a CI. And there lay the dilemma. Joe Catalano was an infamously unreliable source of information, the likelihood that this girl really was a CI was low and she had HIV. Without treatment the rest of her life would be a living hell, she was just a nineteen year old kid.

He switched off the bulls game that was on the television and turned to face his two children.

"What the hell dad," he complained. "I was watching that."

Erin just sat stoically, waiting for his decision. Not that he thought for a minute it would make the slightest difference whether or not she would treat the girl.

"I want to meet this girl, Nadia," he stated.

"You can't be serious," Justin muttered.

"I want to meet her, get a look in her eyes but you should treat her," he clarified, watching his daughter's face light up.

"Thanks for the support Dad," she stood to hug him.

"Always the favourite."

Justin's mutter from the corner of the room caused Hank to frown.

"I have some conditions," he insisted. "The minute you get suspicious of her or the minute we have any proof that she really is a CI, you send her away. I don't care where she goes but she does not step through the doors of that clinic if she's a CI. We have our own family to protect here, Erin."

"I know, I promise I'll keep an eye on her."

"Set up a meet for tomorrow, the sooner I get a look at this girl the sooner I can get a real opinion on her."

Jay Halstead was a good man, or at least he tried to be. An inherent need to do the right thing had made most of his crucial life choices for him. When he graduated high school and didn't know what to do next, the army showed him how he could protect people. When he returned to his city to find it had turned into a living hell he became a cop, the bad guys deserved punishment and the good guys deserved justice. The more time he spent in this city, the more he realised just how much grey existed between the black and white visible to the rest of the world. When he got back from Afghanistan he had thought that being a cop would be good for him, give him structure, a purpose again. God, he'd been mistaken.

Seeing Chicago, the real Chicago, had only intensified the nightmares and had broken the few, already fragile relationships he'd kept since his venture in the army. His ex-girlfriend, his brother, his father. None of them wanted to be a part of his life anymore, and it's not like he could even blame anyone but himself. Did he particularly care about his dad? No, their relationship had been hanging by thread ever since his mom died. But his brother? He'd always thought there was something worth salvaging there.

And then there was Allie, his first love, realistically his only love. They'd broken up when he'd gone into the army but they'd stayed in touch and when he came back they'd even had a short fling. That relationship had crashed and burned as quickly as it had started though. Now there was just his best friend, Mouse, and his work colleagues. They spent enough time together to be considered friends, he thought. The others though, the ones with real family and real friends; Alvin, Antonio, even Adam and Kevin, they wouldn't count him as a friend, certainly not family. Jay liked to keep to himself in the unit, he was friendly and occasionally he'd go for drinks at Molly's with the guys but that was as far as it went. He knew Adam and Kevin had some kind of bromance going on, he didn't want to be a part of that.

"Hey."

Jay sat opposite the young girl at a café, bringing with him the coffees he had just bought and pushing one towards her, she smiled gratefully but would barely look at him; her hands were shaking as she grabbed the coffee.

"So, how did it go today?" He asked, it was the whole reason he was here in the first place.

Nadia took a long drink before responding, she looked like she needed it.

"They don't like it," she stated. "I think they know I'm a CI. Or at least they think that they know."

"So they sent you away?" His worst fears had been realised, he needed Nadia to be in there. He knew that if he could get just one of the Voights talking then this whole case would be solved.

"Not exactly," she shrugged. "The girl, Erin, wanted to help me. It was her brother that seemed suspicious. Erin called me and asked to meet tomorrow, says she wants to discuss treatment."

"You didn't see Hank Voight?" he questioned earnestly.

"No," she looked up at him finally. "I didn't get the impression he was there a lot."

"Thanks Nadia, this really is going to help so many people," he stated as he handed her the envelope filled with her payment.

"I know," she confirmed as she took the envelope and put it in her pocket. "But just so you know; I'm doing this because I want a future, I don't know how long it will be but I want to make the rest of my life good. I don't want to regret this."

He considered her words carefully. When he'd overheard some nurses from Chicago Med talking about a young girl with HIV and her just trying to escape a rough life, he'd been intrigued. It couldn't have been a coincidence that he heard about this girl right after the discovery that Voight's daughter worked in a clinic for people who couldn't afford treatment. He'd got the girls contact information and 6 weeks later here they were, their careful planning and organising to take down Hank Voight was finally happening.

"I know Nadia," he reached for her hand comfortingly. "I know this is a huge risk for you and the minute it gets too much we can pull you out of there. But you have to trust me."

She nodded and looked down at her feet. He guessed that trust was still yet to come from her end.

"I've heard what Hank Voight can do," she murmured. "I don't want that to be me."

He understood perfectly what kind of a risk she was taking, it was the one his previous CI had refused to. He didn't want this girl to die, she was just getting her life back on track and she would get free healthcare at Erin Voight's clinic in addition to the CI money she would be given. It was her chance for a new start and he wasn't going to let her down.

Hope you guys like this idea, if you do I'll continue with the story.