Author's Note: Inspiration for this fic came from a spoiler I clearly dreamed up as I cannot find any mention of this so-called spoiler about why Will Halstead is staying in Chicago anywhere on the web. Derek's actual spoilers via Twitter sort of flub up this timeline but, hey, that's why (wo)man invented FanFiction. Finally, the title comes from the song referenced below – thanks again, Sophia!
I can hear the echo ringing in my head in moments I remember everything you said.
I can hear the echo ringing in my head in moments I've been dreaming of all night long.
– "Echo" by VÉRITÉ
The crowd roars in excitement as the puck slices through the air and then groans in collective disappointment as it bounces off the crossbar with a ding, as the Detroit Red Wings continue to hold a one-nothing lead over the Chicago Blackhawks with three minutes left in the second period. But the volume level on the flatscreen TV has been set to just slightly above mute stifling any of the crowd's audible exasperation from reaching the ears of those seated on the couch watching the game.
The heat emanating from the body pressed up against his side reminds Jay to bite back his own groan of disappointment, to swallow back the curse words he wants to mutter with a long drink from the can of soda in his left hand. The subtle shift of the body pressed against his as he raises the red, aluminum can to his lips causes his eyes to drift downward, and he shifts his gaze from the game on the television to the woman curled up next to him.
Her feet – icicles, really – are tucked under her near the crevice where the cushions meet the frame of the couch so her bent knees rest stacked atop one another against his, so the top of her thighs press against the side of his right leg. His right arm is draped casually over the back of the couch allowing her shoulder to dig rather painfully into his armpit, allowing her to press the side of her body into his as though he is the only thing keeping her upright in this moment.
Yet he barely registers the tingling sensation in his arm as it falls asleep because, in this position, she's resting her head against his chest completely at ease. And when that changes, when the Hawks lose yet another face off, Jay can feel the dimples of Erin's cheeks relax as her content smile morphs into a dissatisfied frown. He can feel the heat of the exasperated sigh she settles for over a few choice words through the fabric of his t-shirt.
Neither of them jerks to their feet like the crowd watching the game in person as Toews manages to breakaway with the puck and heads towards the Red Wings' goalie. Neither of them cheers aloud when Toews shoots and scores tying the match one-one as the buzzer sounds announcing the end of the second period.
Neither of them breathes when the baby held between them – tiny head tucked in the crook where their bodies meet, tiny butt pressed against his leg, and tiny hand curled into a fist around her shirt – suddenly jerks when the sound of the buzzer emanating from the television breaks the established silence and reaches his tiny ears. And neither of them looks away from the slumbering baby even as Jay sets down his drink and blindly reaches for the mute button on the remote sitting atop the armrest and purposely kept out of the reach of the baby – or, more accurately, Erin.
So Jay is still watching as Erin reaches out to gently run the back of her index finger against the baby's plump cheek, as she promises baby Ethan that everything is okay in her slightly gravelly voice. One that has grown deeper as the clock reaches closer and closer to midnight and exhaustion begins to settle in; one that is infused with a certain amount of warmth that Jay knows she reserves solely for kids.
And he cannot help as his lips curl into a wistful smile over her actions because there's something about this scene – him, Erin, and a baby curled up on the couch together watching a Blackhawks game – that seems almost like the idea of the two of them retiring or, at the very least, retreating from the oppressive heat of summer in Chicago to his grandfather's cabin in Wisconsin. Not entirely outside the realm of possibility; not entirely some fanciful idea he's cooked up could definitely never happen one day.
"What?"
Her question is asked with a questioning look and a bemused smile, and his own smile deepens in reply as little Ethan's hand clamps down tighter on Erin's t-shirt pulling the neckline down to expose the valley of pale, white skin between her breasts. And Erin's own smile falters for a moment as she reaches up to unfurl Ethan's hand, as she moves her head from Jay's chest and tosses him a teasing look of exasperation, as she mutters something about Ethan taking after his father.
"Yeah," Jay replies with a chuckle because Ethan is a bit like his father was back when Will was in high school and college and medical school. The little boy parties hard when he's awake, becomes irritable when he crashes, and is always trying to get girls – Erin, especially – out of their tops.
"Although if our daughter has your dimples, my smiling face, and your bossiness," Jay jokes as he raises the can of soda to his lips once more, "I'll probably end up riding shotgun with her by the time she's five."
As soon as the acidic liquid hits his throat, Jay wishes more than anything he could take back the words, could swallow them back with a swig of soda just as he did all the curse words directed at the Hawks' terrible playing. Because Erin's teasing look of exasperation has collapsed into a frown; because he suddenly grows clammy and cold as the tiny heat source radiating against his body is pulled away from him when Erin shifts into a seated position unsupported by him.
He waits with baited breath for her to make a joke, to default back to the 'we should keep things professional' answer she used to give him back before she showed up at his door and kissed him. Back before they dated for like a minute; back before they lost Nadia and then he nearly lost her. Back before the spark burned so bright that they could no longer cool it; back before he learned how thrilling a night of sitting on the couch together babysitting his nephew could be.
"Our–"
But, obviously, no jokes are forthcoming given the way Erin's voice hitches over that single word, the way her eyes widen in panic before shifting to look anywhere but at him or at the three-month-old baby slumbering in her arms. And the echoing silence makes his apartment feel unbearably hot as Jay watches over the rim of his soda can while she shifts aside uncomfortably, as she tries to adjust to him pushing them way past a one day where they retire together to Wisconsin to a forever where part of him and part of her walks on this Earth.
"It was just a tho–" he lamely begins in an attempt to backtrack, but the chirp of a cell phone interrupts him and they both turn away to check their respective phones. Erin seemingly grateful for the interruption and then disappointed to find the text isn't for her; Jay clearly frustrated when he swipes his finger across the screen and learns that Will is turning onto his street.
"Uh, Will's downstairs," Jay informs her softly as he shifts in his seat. His numb, right arm begins to tingle as he moves it from the back of the couch, but he barely registers the sensation because all his focus is fixated on Erin as she moves to stand with the baby in her arms. "Do you want me to ta–"
The adamant shake of her head cuts off his question, and an awkward and uncomfortable silence settles over the room as Erin lifts Ethan up to her shoulder. The little boy drowsily buries his head into her neck seemingly unfazed as Erin moves to her feet, as she heads towards Jay's bedroom running one hand reassuringly against Ethan's back.
And Jay wants to reach over the back of the couch and snag Erin's arm, wants to stop her and reassure her with a gentle squeeze of her hand that what he said was just a thought. A nice thought he can try to force himself to forget if it means he won't end up telling his commitment phobic partner that they'll cool it. Again.
But Jay doesn't want to jostle the baby awake so Erin slips around the couch without his interference leaving him to pick up the toys littered through the room, to grab the can of formula and the drying bottles from the kitchen counter. Each of the items is shoved into the black, gym bag Ethan's babysitter left with him when she dropped Ethan off at Jay's place about four hours ago, but the task isn't enough to keep Jay's eyes from straying towards the bedroom to catch glimpses of Erin as she buckles the sleeping baby in, as she tenderly tucks Ethan's green blanket around him.
Still watching her when there is a soft knock at the door, Jay stumbles slightly over the boots she left in a pile next to his neat line of shoes by the door when she showed up an hour after Ethan's sudden arrival forced him to cancel on her. So he's a little unsettled, a little off kilter as he wrenches open the front door of his apartment and invites his brother in.
"I really appreciate this," Will repeats for the umpteenth time as he steps into the apartment, as he clasps his brother's shoulder and gives it a squeeze. And then his eyes kind of nervously sweep across the empty living room before he tries to cover it up with a joke about Jay putting the baby in slammer to get out of babysitting.
"Relax," Jay replies as he pushes the bag into Will's hands. "Erin's got him in the bedroom."
"Erin?" Will asks with a surprised yet suggestive look that he tosses over shoulder back at Jay. The other Halstead raises his brows in a silent commandment for Will to knock it off as Erin steps out of the bedroom clutching the handle of Ethan's car seat in her hand.
Yet Jay and Erin are the only ones who continue to be phased by Erin's presence in Jay's apartment because any suggestive looks Will might have wanted to employ, any lines of questioning Will might have wanted to chase are forgotten at the sight of his young son. Because this man is not the gambler, the partier, and the womanizer Jay saw him grow into; because this man is the one who got a one night stand pregnant and now enthusiastically greets the slumbering byproduct of that night.
"Did you have a good time with your Uncle Jay?" Will questions as Erin passes the car seat into his outstretched hand. And then with a quick glance and a smirk over his shoulder back at his brother, Will adds, "Or did you ditch him for your Aunt Erin?"
The comment causes Jay's eyelids to fall in exasperation, causes his lips to tip downward into a frown because this is exactly the kind of comment he should have expected from his younger brother and exactly the kind of comment he did not need right now. Because Erin is already on edge over his suggestion that the two of them are going to have a daughter with her dimples and her bossiness; because Erin's smile is the same forced one she reserves for Ruzek or Voight when their jokes or comments, respectively, put them on thin ice with her.
Will, at least, can read the room offering Jay a small grimace as he turns away from Erin, as he begins lugging the sleeping infant buckled into his car seat towards the open door. His muttered apology, however, is lost beneath the sound of Erin's voice as she gestures towards the dark bedroom and reminds the two Halstead brothers that Ethan's bouncy chair is still here.
"Uh, Jay, could you?" Will cautiously asks lifting the car seat up and demonstrating how between that and the gym bag, he really doesn't have a hand free to lug the bouncy seat downstairs, too. The other Halstead acquiesces with a nod sliding his feet into a pair of sneakers lined up, slipping past Erin with a hesitant smile she forces herself to return, and then stepping out into the hallway after his brother with the chair bouncing and slamming into his knee with every step down the winding staircase.
"Sorry," Jay's brother says once more when Jay finally catches up to Will at the latter's parked car. The single father moves in one fluid motion latching the carseat in place, checking the seat belt, and then softly shutting the car door before turning towards his brother.
"You said you were seeing someone so I just assumed," Will says with an apologetic smile as his eyes quickly dart upward to look at his brother's apartment, as he reaches out to take the bouncy seat from Jay. "I mean, I don't know of very many work colleagues that would give up a Thursday night to help babysit."
"We're–" Jay trails off rather lamely because he doesn't know how to explain him and Erin. They're dating, but they're sneaking around. They're telling friends who never come down to the district or come around Molly's, but they're not telling the most important people in their lives. They're throwing themselves into this, but they're still doing that cautious, hesitant dance because they're worried about ruining the possibility of one day.
Correction: she's doing that cautious dance. He's telling her about how their daughter is going to have him wrapped around her finger.
The thought causes Jay to release a sardonic laugh while the lack of a label causes Will to frown, to look back up at the apartment windows with concern etched into his face. He knows Erin is the only person his brother talked about on the few times Will would call him before he moved back to Chicago, and he knows from the way his brother looks at Erin that he's long past smitten.
But Will also knows his brother spent weeks trying to keep Erin from falling off the edge, knows how panicked his brother looked when he showed up at Will's apartment with an unresponsive Erin one night, and knows from years of working in hospitals that loving an addict is as destructive as taking the drugs yourself. Maybe more so.
"You should probably get Ethan home," Jay mutters stepping away from the parked car and back onto the sidewalk in front of his building. He jams his right hand into his pocket before reminding his younger brother to drive safely and turns away towards the entrance of his apartment building before Will can echo the sentiment by reminding for his brother to also be careful.
Yet Jay barely makes it up one flight of stairs before he runs into Erin – boots on and keys rather than a forgotten baby item in hand – and the sound of his heart plummeting into the pit of his stomach with the realization that they're going back to cooling it becomes a roaring echo in his ears.
So loud that he can barely hear her excuse about it being late and how Voight is expecting them at work bright and early. So loud that he can barely register the feeling of her lips as she brushes them against his cheek in goodbye. So loud that he can barely hear the way his voice cracks over her name as he calls after her.
He takes two steps after her before his comment about it being just a thought morphs into a curse word, before she disappears out the front door of his apartment building and into the night. And Jay reaches up to rub his fingers against his forehead along his hairline as he watches her go, as he thinks about Wisconsin and a cousin for Ethan and that special he caught late one night on why commitment phobia is a thing.
He reminds himself that her silent escape is a defense mechanism as he lets himself back into his now empty apartment. He reminds himself that it is a behavior learned in response to years of disappointment as he clicks off the television. He reminds himself that any reasonable person would run the other way if their partner or their boyfriend or whatever the hell he is to Erin brought up babies after only a few weeks of whatever the hell it is that he and Erin are doing as he moves into the kitchen, wrenches open the fridge, and grabs himself a beer.
Yet the silence of his empty and dark apartment echoes in his ears as he leans up against the countertop and takes a long drink from the beer bottle in his hand. And the memories of all the beers he's shared with her when they've been in between rounds, when lacy underwear peeked out from under the hem of a t-shirt she snagged, when she'd kiss him with contradictory soft determination until he no longer needed to rehydrate to recuperate dominate his thoughts.
He finishes his beer in five quick drinks and in the short amount of time he's allotted himself before he's allowed to check his phone. He finishes another beer after he sees the phone's dark, notification-less screen in thirteen drinks and in the amount of time it takes him to convince himself that he should call her. And he finishes a third beer in seven sips and in the amount of time it takes him to drown out the echo in his ears of her phone ringing twice and then clicking over to voicemail.
The effects of the alcohol, of the tossing and the turning all night as he stews over what he said and shouldn't have said leaves him sluggish and slow the following morning. He completely sleeps through his first alarm and barely budges at the second so, by the time he does drag himself out of bed and into the bathroom, he does not have time to fixate on the second toothbrush standing upright in the cup on the counter beside his.
Does not have time to register that he's grabbed the wrong bottle of body wash until he has lathered himself head to toe in purple foam; does not have time to shave let alone complain that she nicked her razor and left it in the shower. Again.
And he arrives at the station with barely enough time to slip in the back entrance, up the stairs, and into his chair at his desk before Voight docks him for being late. Or, so he thinks because he reaches the second floor only to find Voight standing in the doorway of his office with his arms folded and an unreadable expression on his face.
"Nice of you to join us, Halstead," Voight greets rather icily as Jay makes his way to his desk with a small nod acknowledging Voight's greeting. The downcast eyes, the gaze focused entirely on the floor and his own feet as he steps towards his desk is entirely for his own benefit. He's not sure he can look across the room and see her sitting at her desk as though nothing happened last night; he's not sure he can continue to be the kind of guy that sneaks around her dad's back and pretends like there isn't a giant elephant in the room.
Yet he forces himself to look up, to look across the room and pretend like they're just strictly professional even after everything that's happened between them since she left for the task force. And he's slightly taken aback and, truthly, pretty damn worried to find her desk empty.
No open files on her desk. No coat hanging from her chair. No sign at all that she's come in this morning.
So worried, in fact, that he shifts his wide-eyed, worried gaze from her desk to their boss trying to gauge Voight's level of alarm. Except Voight seems unperturbed as he informs his team about the plan for the day – following up with Cold Case about a couple of unsolved homicides from the nineties – and only looks directly at Jay when he finishes speaking, when he gruffly calls Halstead into his office.
Jay can feel the heat of four inquisitive eyes as he pushes back his chair, as he strides into Voight's office after his boss and shuts the door behind. Yet nothing burns harsher than Voight's deadpan stare and nothing sets Jay on fire quite like Erin's gaze when their eyes meet. Fear and dread and anger build up inside him at the sight of Erin leaning up against the wall of Voight's office with her arms crossed because he has no idea what to think.
No idea if some attorney hoping to make a name for themselves started digging around in their old cases. No idea if they're about to be sent undercover. No idea if she went crying to Daddy last night in the hopes of running him and his stupid ideas out of the unit. No idea if she ended up somewhere she shouldn't have gone. No idea if–
"You're on foot patrol, Halstead," Voight announces from where he stands near his desk watching Halstead and Lindsay with his arms crossed and his eyes narrowed in warning. The announcement catches Jay off-guard pulling his attention from Erin to Voight and back again.
"What?" He questions loudly in an incredulous tone. That fear and dread has shifted to full-on anger, and his posture becomes more rigid. Challenging of authority as he steps towards Voight, as the anger begins to hammer away in his ears. "Why?"
"I told you if you liked working in this unit, then you needed to keep it in your pants," Voight replies in a harsh, dismissive tone. "You and Erin wanna play house? Fine. But not in my unit."
"Voight," Erin brays from her place in the corner of the small office. Her voice sounds almost like a warning, like she's also challenging Voight's edict, and so Jay's gaze bounces from Voight to her and back again with both anger and confusion etched onto his face.
"I warned you last night, Erin," Voight testily reminds her as he takes a seat in his office chair, as the confusion in Jay's eyes deepens. "You and Halstead lie to me for weeks? Then you have to rebuild that trust. So you're filling in as the unit's secretary and covering the desk for Platt when she needs you and Jay's on foot patrol until you pay back that time."
"And then we get to come back to Intelligence with our pardon," Erin fires back without missing a beat, without lifting her voice up at the end into a question as she slides her hand into Jay's. And Jay glances down at their entwined hands as she squeezes his and then up at Voight just in time to see the man give them a gruff nod.
"But like I said last night, Erin, if Halstead doesn't treat you right, he goes for a swim in the lake. No excuses," Voight announces with a menacing look directed at his male employee and meant to remind Halstead of all that he's capable of when it comes taking out those who've hurt this unit before dismissing the two offenders from his office.
Erin's hand releases its grip on Jay's as he opens the door, but she gives him that look – the one where her eyes drift lazily towards the break room and her right dimple concaves inward – so he is practically pulled into following her. Finds himself standing next to her waiting to pour himself a cup of coffee; finds himself struggling to process how he ended up on this new assignment.
"Okay, what just happened?"
"After I left your place last night, I went over to his house and I told Voight about us," she replies calmly as she pours the black liquid into her blue mug, as she continues to look straight forward at the cabinets and refuses to meet his gaze. "I know foot patrol isn't your favorite, but it was better than–"
"Erin," Jay interrupts because he doesn't care about the punishment or the alternatives. At least, not right now. Not when the announcement that she told Voight about them last night, apparently, is still echoing in his ears.
And he watches with hesitant eyes as she turns towards him, as she hands him a coffee mug in the way they've perfected over the past few weeks that allows the backs of their fingers to slowly, tenderly slide against one another. Watches as her bright eyes sweep upward to meet his; watches as her dimples deepen with a smile he's only seen on the rarest of occasions.
"What you said last night about part of you and part of me in one person? It's a nice thought," she admits in such a soft voice that he almost misses it before she smiles wide and he finds himself doing the same as she informs him that the thought is also kind of terrifying because five-year-olds can't reach the breaks.
And then she sobers, looks from his gaze to over his shoulder towards Voight's office and where the rest of their team sits, and drops her voice low as she says, "So I told Voight. Figured it was better we drop this bomb now, give him time to get over it, and save the other for one day in the future, maybe?"
Jay's smile widens over her words, and he leans in a little bit closer until their faces are only inches apart, until his proximity gives Voight something else to stew about as the sergeant steps out of his office and glances into the breakroom.
And it is not Voight bellowing at Halstead to report downstairs that echoes in their ears when Erin and Jay jump apart, when he heads downstairs to check in with Platt and Erin starts digging through a mountain of paperwork, but rather the possibility of his smiling face and her bossiness in one little person and the sound of Jay's voice as he replies back, "Oh, definitely".