Erin POV

I step out of the airport and take a deep breath. It feels good to be home, back in New York. I've been in Los Angeles for a week, helping run a case with the LAPD and while the sunshine and warm weather was a very welcome change from the January chill of New York, all I want is to see my sweet daughter and husband, I've been thinking about those faces since they dropped me off six days ago. Plus I feel like crap, after the five hour flight from LAX to LGA, I feel like I'm coated in a layer of plane soot.

My flight was supposed to land later tonight, but I got on an earlier flight this morning and I jumped at the chance to get home sooner, besides it's fun to hit Kelly with a surprise sometimes. Emma should still be at daycare and he's goes on shift at the firehouse in a couple hours, but we can always have some fun before he leaves.

"Miss do you need a cab?" A guy in a uniform behind a desk asks as he looks at me with a smile.

"Yes please, thank you sir," I tell him as he begins to hail a cab, my large red suitcase parked next to my feet and a black backpack resting on top of it, my cell phone in my hand. He nods over at me as a yellow cab pulls up in front of the curb.

"Here you are," He tells me as he grabs my suitcase to throw it in the trunk of the car.

"Thank you, have a great day," I tell him as I get in the cab, settling myself in the backseat.

"Where to?" The driver asks, a thick New Jersey accent pouring through his words.

"203 W 89th Street please," I tell him as I swipe open my phone, mindlessly scrolling through my email and various social media apps in an effort to keep myself awake. Even though it's only like 4:30 in the afternoon, but something about the flying and the sun already starting to set is just making my eyelids droop. Just stay awake Erin, stay awake for 45 more minutes.

"Lady we're here!" I hear loudly in my ear, followed by a loud honk of the taxi horn. Shit. I fell asleep. I rapidly open my eyes and shove my hand into my backpack to grab my wallet and pay him the fare so I can just go home.

"Sorry, so sorry," I ramble as I fumble with the clasp on my wallet, grabbing a some cash from the mess of money and cards. "Thank you, keep the change,"

I shove my wallet back in my bag and retrieve the phone that fell out of my hand in my sleep from the floor of the cab and get the hell out, pulling my suitcase out of the trunk and feeling satisfied with myself as the cab rolls away. I'm home, finally.

Our building doesn't have an elevator, but it doesn't really matter to us because we live on the first floor which is insanely nice. We moved in here right after we got married and we always thought that once we had kids, but we fell in love with the place and after Emma was born, neither of us wanted to leave. It's small, definitely a tight fit, but it works for us, it's the only place we've ever lived in here in New York.

I lug my over packed suitcase down the carpeted hallway and only stop to pull my keys out of my pocket and push open our front door. Until then, everything is alright, good even. But as soon as that door opened, I know that something is wrong.

Most of the things look normal, some of Em's toy are littered around the family room, her stroller pushed in the corner and there's a cluttering of shoes near the front door, but there's two bottles of beer on the kitchen counter, both of them half full and Kelly's jacket is thrown on the floor, his jacket is never on the floor. He's always been insane about that, making sure that I've always hung them up on the hooks, it was one of his things.

Walking towards my bedroom, our bedroom I already know what I'm going to see, my husband with another woman and it only becomes clearer as I advance down the hallway, his shirt thrown on the ground and a black lace bra hanging on a door knob, but I know that I won't believe it until I see it.

He hears me coming and as he sees me in the doorway. I see the fear and guilt in his eyes, he knows he's been caught, the blonde in the bed next to him just looking shocked and confused.

"Erin, let me explain!" He exclaims, quickly moving to jump out of the bed.

"Kelly don't," I tell him, "I'm done," I turn away from him and just walk out the door. I grab my keys off the dish on the kitchen counter and pull my bags right back out the front door. He doesn't even make an attempt to follow me. I can feel the tears start to roll down as the shock wears off and the reality of what's just happened sinks in.

He cheated on me. My husband cheated on me. Six years of marriage and just like that it's over.

I have no idea where I'm going, but I can't stay here. Things have been a little bit off ever since Emma was born, I knew going into it that I wanted kids more than he did, I knew that. I also knew that the only reason having kids was even a remote option to him was because I wanted it so much and he loved me, so we had a kid. When she was born, he didn't bond with her right away, I knew that. But as she got older, it didn't improve too much. It's one of the reasons that I hate leaving her so much, I trust her with Kelly of course, but it's just different. His focus was never on her, his focus has always been on his career and I appreciate that he loves his job, I do. But I wish that she would be a priority to him.

I didn't even grab any of our stuff, I just rolled my suitcase out, all of Emma's stuff is still in the apartment. Emma. God I'm the worst mother, I didn't even think about her in all of this, Kelly's her dad. She's only 18 months old so I won't have to explain this to her, probably the only perk of this entire situation. But I have to pick her up, her daycare will be closing in like thirty minutes, luckily her car seat is in my car and not his so I won't have to go through him.

I approach my car and I know that I look like a hot mess, I already did after the five hour flight, but now I've got tears streaming down my face. But I really don't care.

I throw myself into the car and book it, I just want to get out. I have a little bit of a plan formed in my head, I have to pick up my daughter but after that, I have no idea where I'm going to go.

By the time I pull up in front of Emma's daycare, my sobs have stopped but I still take a minute to just sit and breathe, decompress and pull myself together, I cannot walk into that building like the jilted wife, so I wipe my tears and get it together, it's time to be a mom.

I do it quickly, all I want to do is see my daughter, breathe in her familiar scent and just hold her, she'll make everything better, she always does.

"Hey," I say, putting a smile on my face as I walk into the building to see Harriet, a familiar face from Emma's daycare.

"Erin, you're back," She says with a smile, "Emma's been missing you," I feel my heart fill with guilt at her words, I hate, hate leaving Emma for anytime and this past week has been the longest I've ever been without her, but the guy we were chasing, it was one of those cases that needed to be solved.

"Oh I missed her too," I say as she buzzes me back. "It's really good to be home,"

"Well she'll be glad to see you, I'm sure," I nod back at her and give her a smile before walking through the short hallway to her room, the Dolphins.

As I walk into the room, I catch her playing quietly with Tessa, on of her teachers in the corner, some of the pieces of her light brown hair falling out of the two pig tails at the top of her head.

"Mama!" She shouts as she notices me in the corner, toddling over to me as fast as she can.

"Hey Monkey," I say with a smile as I scoop her up in my arms, covering her little body with kisses as she giggles uncontrollably. "I missed you baby,"

"Love you," She responds to me, "love" coming out more like "luh".

"I love you too," I tell her, giving her another kiss on the head as I switch her over to my hip.

"Hey Erin," Tessa says, as she comes over to me, handing me Emma's diaper bag. "Glad you're back, little miss has been whining for her mama all week,"

"I heard," I say with a bit of a guilty look on my face, "I'm just glad to be home,"

"Yeah, so we'll see you Monday?" She asks.

"Um yeah," I tell her as we turn to leave. Truthfully, I have no idea where we'll be on Monday.

"Alright, bye bye Miss Emma!" She says with a wave and a smile.

"Say bye to Tessa!" I say as I grab her little hand to wave back at her.

"Bye bye!" She says back, one of her favorite words. I grab her little coat from an open section of the diaper bag and pulling her fluffy gray jacket over her teeny frame.

"Alright sweet girl let's roll," I say as I buckle her into her car seat, an idea popping into my head as I do. "Do you want to go see your friend Noah?" She babbles happily and gives me a bit of a toothy smile, "I'll take that as a yes my dear," Noah's a little older than her, he's two and a half now, but he absolutely adores her and Emma loves him.

I take my spot in the driver's seat of the car, turning on the ignition and pulling out of the spot, putting the radio on a low volume and humming along as Emma babbles happily in the background. I know exactly where we're going now, to my boss Olivia Benson's apartment. I've worked under her in the Special Victims Unit for a little over six years and she's become really important to me over the years. She's become a role model to me and especially because now we're both moms, she's the first person I go to whenever I need advice. Or whatever the hell I need right now.

I spend the rest of the maybe twenty minute drive to Olivia's just trying to process everything, thumbing through my thoughts and decided what I actually want and need to do. I can pick up all our stuff tomorrow, Kelly goes on shift tonight at six and he'll be on until six tomorrow night, so that's covered. But as for where I'm going to go? I have no clue.

"Alright we're here," I announce, not like she'll respond or anything. I grab her diaper bag from the passenger seat and sling it over my shoulder before grabbing her out of her seat and swinging her onto my hip, her cute little smile blaring through at me. She's wide awake, those blue eyes staring back at me, the same eyes of her father that I've looked into for so many years.

She was born with the blue eyes, like most babies, but as she got older we waited patiently for them to turn hazel like mine, but they just kept getting bluer and bluer until they matched the exact color of her father's. She'd been born with blonde hair too, much to the surprise of us as we both had brown hair, his much darker than mine. But she's our little blonde baby.

I push in the front door of Olivia's building, grateful to be out of the New York cold and start making my way up the two flights of stairs to her apartment. I reach her apartment, 3H and I take a deep breath before taking my fist to the door, Emma babbling happily on my hip. I know that my eyes are still red and puffy, but even if they weren't, she's going to be able to tell that something is wrong. Olivia Benson can read people like nobody else.

"Coming!" I hear from inside as Olivia rushes to the door. "Erin?" She says in surprise as she sees me standing with my baby on her welcome mat. "What are you doing here?" She must have just gotten home from work because she's still got her badge clipped to her waistband.

"Livvy!" Emma yells as she sees her in the doorway.

"Hi Emma," She says with a kind smile, her eyes still showing the confusion as to our unexpected visit.

"I'm sorry for coming up on you unexpectedly, but I really need to talk to someone," I say, my voice suddenly shaking a little bit. I thought I had pulled myself together but suddenly the idea of discussing it, makes me want to cry again. She knows something is wrong, I'm almost never like this. I'm usually pretty good at keeping it together on the job, that's what happens when you're a female cop. It's a male dominated profession, so we can't show weakness. Luckily it's not too much of an issue in our unit, but yeah sometimes when we bring other squads, they do question the fact that we have three females in the unit.

"Yeah of course come in," She says ushering us in. "Lucy's was about to leave but I can ask her to stay for a couple minutes and watch the kids,"

"That would be really great," I tell her as I set her diaper bag down on a chair.

"C'mon, they're in Noah's room," She says as I follow he down the hallway. "Hey Lucy, can you stay for a couple minutes longer, I have to talk to Erin about something,"

"Yeah of course no problem," She says looking up at us with those kind eyes.

"You wouldn't mind watching Emma too?" Olivia asks.

"Of course not," She says, holding out her arms as I set Emma on the ground. She giggles as she toddles over to them, collapsing on her bottom in front of the small circle of toys. She nods me back towards the front room, both of us taking a spot on either end of her couch.

"Alright, what's up?" She asks. I take a deep breath and decide that there is only one way to do this, straight on.

"Kelly cheated on me," I tell her simply, biting my bottom lip slightly as I wait for her reaction. I don't know how long it is before she speaks again, easily it could have been less than five seconds but it felt like an eternity.

"What happened?"

"I walked in on him. I got back from the airport, I got an earlier flight so I was going to surprise him and I came home to find him in bed with another woman,"

"I'm sorry Erin," She says, taking my hand in hers.

"Yeah, but in a weird way, I'm kind of grateful that I found out now. I wouldn't want to stay in a relationship that I was being taken advantage of, so I'm glad I got out now," I say honestly. It's the first time I've said it or even thought it, but it feels right.

"So you're done?" She asks.

"I'm done, I left him." I confirm.

"Alright, so what's next?"

"I don't know, I can't stay there. I mean I can go back tonight, he's on shift so the house will be empty, but I need to be out before six tomorrow night,"

"Do you want to get out of the city?"

"Yeah," I say honestly, " but I don't know where I would go, I have a job here and Emma has a life here,"

"Erin, she's a year and a half old, she's not going to know any different and do I love having you in my unit, I always have, you're a fantastic cop. But I'm not going to be the reason that you stay if you should go,"

"Liv, even if I was going to go, where would I go?" I ask, overwhelmed by her latest notion.

"You could go back home," She suggests.

"Chicago?" I respond in surprise.

"Work in Voight's unit, I talked to him a week or two ago and he's got a spot open in Intelligence, you know he would love to have you,"

"Really?" I ask, "I talked to him when I was in LA and he didn't mention anything about it to me,"

"It just came up in a conversation," She says, brushing it off.

"I don't know, I'm so incredibly angry at Kelly right now, but I can't take Emma away from him."

"Erin, I'm going to be brutally honest with you right now, I think he'll be okay. He never wanted to have kids, you know that. So just give him a call, tell him that you're going home and you need some space and then just leave it at that, see what he says. If he makes the effort to see Em, you can deal with that then okay? But right now you need to do what's best for you and what's best for your daughter and maybe what's best for her right now is going to Chicago,"

"I know, I need to just think about Emmy right now,"I tell her.

"No, you need to think about you too. You are a fantastic mother and you always put your daughter first, but sometimes you need to think about yourself too alright?"

"Yeah," I say quietly, contemplating all the options, "I think I'm going to call Voight,"

"You should," She says as I pull my phone from my pocket. I hit the third number on my speed dial, only behind Kelly and Olivia and put the phone to my ear as it rings.

"Hank Voight, Intelligence," He answers in his normally gruff voice.

"It's me," I responds.

"Kid, what's up," He says, his voice softening instantly.

"Hank I think I need to come home,"

New story time! I know that there's a lot of blanks in this story right now and some things don't make sense, but as time goes on things will be explained. I'm not totally sure if I'm going to continue this story, so if you like it, please let me know. I hope you enjoyed the chapter and please review!

Much love,

Addie