This is my response to all of the speculation and spoilers that seem to be floating around. Be kind.
"I thought it would help." She's at his door, disheveled, clearly drunk. He is surprised to see her standing in his doorway. He hasn't seen her since it happened, since she died.
Erin takes a cautious breath as she uses the wall to stabilize her and makes her way into his dark apartment, the fact that he must have been sleeping registers but she doesn't particularly care. The only light is coming from his bedroom that she looks at longingly, positive that once she shares the details of her evening she will not be welcomed into it again.
"Drinking?" his voice pulls her from her thoughts as she helps herself to a beer, not ready to sober.
"Drinking, meaningless sex." Her eyes can't meet his as she takes a long pull from her beer. She doesn't have to look up to know the hurt that is in his eyes, the hurt that she caused. Though if she was honest Jay was lucking out, Erin is used to causing way more damage.
She feels him move around her, retrieving some pain relief of his own in the form of whiskey. Neither say a word, just settle in the pain.
"I didn't want to hurt you." Erin's voice offers, strong despite her intoxication.
"I know." He responds sincerely, before taking another swig from his glass.
The kindness and understanding in the man's eyes solidifies it. Erin loves Jay, more than she thought her heart would ever allow. The kind of love she dreamt of as a child when she would lie on a dirty mattress, reaching for sleep in spite of debilitating hunger pains. The kind of love she thought was impossible in her former life, the life where she gave herself to others for food, for shelter, for drugs.
"I just need the pain to stop. I need to forget." The strength in her voice is gone as her tired body drops to the floor and she finally allows the tears to fall. "She got clean, went back to school, changed her entire life around and what did she get? Raped, thrown naked in a gutter like a piece of trash. None of it mattered." She choked out.
Jay silently moved towards her, joining her on the floor. He fought the urge to touch her, to hold her, deciding it was best to sit next to her in solidarity.
"She was happy." His confident voice cuts through her sobs, "Before she died. She was happy. Not the kind of happy you get from being high or drugged, but genuinely happy. Happy to have the opportunity to make something of herself, to help people the way you helped her. She was proud of the person she was becoming."
"And look where it got her." Erin looks at her partner for the first time since she lost control. The pain and concern engulf his face, making him look much older than he did just two days ago.
"I'm not saying it was fair, Erin, or that it makes sense. But that kind of happiness? That kind of hope? I like to think it matters."
"She was just a kid." Her broken voice responds as she slowly reaches into her pocket and pulls out a small bag, shoving it at her partner. "Take this from me, will you? Before I continue on my war path."
"The fuck? Erin, are you kidding me?" Jay finally allows his anger to show, face becoming red as he throws the bag across the apartment. Erin flinches as she hears the smack it makes against the wall, the force behind the throw making the bag appear much heavier than it was.
"I need to make the pain stop, Jay."
"That's not how." He snaps as he stands, reaching for the bottle of whiskey but choosing to splash his face with cold water instead.
"He was right." She whispers, not moving from her spot on the cold floor. She reaches for the glass he left behind, finishing whatever liquid was left.
"What?" He growls, more exhausted than anything.
"Hank. He was right about us, keeping it professional."
"Because this is professional?" Halstead grips the edge of his counter as his head slowly shakes. "Showing up like this at my apartment in the middle of the night?"
"I know what you think." She whispers, ignoring his anger. "But you're wrong."
"Tell me what I think. I would love to know." The pain drips from his voice as his knuckles turn white.
"That I care about you but I don't love myself. That I don't think I am worthy of being loved, that I need to sabotage myself. Us. But that's wrong. That's not what it is." She looks across the small kitchen to the pictures hung above his bed, a motorcycle, not unlike his own. The feeling of them together on it overwhelms her, the feeling of being pressed closely against him, trusting completely in him. The memory forces an involuntary smile, despite the grim atmosphere.
"Then what is it? Because showing up here, fresh from another guy's bed with a bag of coke? Sure as hell seems like sabotage to me." His anger fills the room, but Erin does not flinch. She knows he would never hurt her, no matter how much the rage took over. Erin knew that she was and would always be safe with Jay Halstead.
"Hank loved me when I was like this all the time. He loved me first. Before I was in a neat package, the pretty girl with the dark past. When I was a wreck, showing up in the middle of the night, covered in another man's sweat with a pocket full of drugs. He loved me. I can't betray that; act like it means nothing, because it means something. It means everything to me. And I know that it's not fun to be here after everything and I know I hurt you by what I did. But this darkness, its in me. And if you can't handle it, well, then Hank was right."
"You're not that person anymore, Erin."
"Clearly I am." She shrugs, standing to refill his, now her, glass.
"Just because I didn't respond the way you wanted me to doesn't mean that I can't handle it." He answers taking the glass from her hands and finishing its contents.
"Look what I'm doing to you." Erin whispers as she grabs the glass back from him. "You know the first thing I noticed about you?"
"My gorgeous face." He grins in spite of himself, amazed that their banter comes out so naturally.
"Besides that. Help me sit." She motions to the counter behind her, her drunken state has robbed her of her coordination and she needs the much larger man's help to hop up on it.
Jay's hands easily wrap around her waist, engulfing her as they had once before. But this time instead of pulling her towards him, he lifts her away, gentling setting her on the counter before him.
"I noticed your light." She responds reaching out to place her hands on his shoulders, hoping to settle the spinning world around her. "I could tell that you had been through a lot, that you had seen a lot, but it didn't defeat you. You might have seen darkness but you didn't have any in you. I noticed the same thing about her." Erin's eyes fill with tears at the thought of her friend, the one taken from her so soon.
"I don't have that light. I only get it from others. People like Hank, like you."
"You can have my light, all of it." Jay answers, leaning his forehead against her own.
"People with the light are always willing to share." A dry laugh escapes her lips, "unfortunately, my darkness is seeping in." She points a finger to his heart, pushing him away ever so slightly. "Seeing that darkness in you hurts more than losing her. I won't have it."
"Don't punish me for not smiling and laughing and acting like it wasn't a big deal that you brought drugs to my place in the middle of the night. It is a big deal, Erin. I'm not wrong."
"I know." She offers quietly, slouching against the side of the fridge, the past 48 hours finally catching up with her body.
"I don't see darkness in you. Just pain." He responds, lifting her chin so she can look him in the eyes.
"And let me guess, you are going to save me from that pain." Her head snaps up on her own volition, pushing him away as she ungracefully jumps from the counter, nearly losing her balance. "I'm not a princess who needs to be saved."
"You can't push me away. It's not going to work." He follows her through the apartment, not granting her escape.
"I shouldn't be here." She mumbles falling into the wall.
"Yes you should, you belong with me."
"Can I shower? I need to shower. I need this all off of me." Erin starts to panic pulling her clothes away from her body, disgust of her previous actions setting in.
"I'll lay out clean clothes." He offers, making his way towards the bedroom.
"I know where they are. I just, I need a minute, ok?"
"Ok. I'll be in the kitchen."
Erin doesn't respond as she pulls clothes from the familiar drawers, knowing exactly where to find what she wanted. She turns into the bathroom and turns the water on as hot as it will go, the physical pain is punishing, yet deserved. Her shampoo and conditioner still stand on the shelf inside the shower, which makes her cry even more. The grief is overwhelming, and Erin wondered again why she was there. Why she selfishly drug Jay into all of this, into her darkness. Eventually, the hot water turns warm and then to cold as Erin forces herself out and into his clothes. She dresses quickly, unable to stomach the look of herself in the mirror, her body covered in evidence of her earlier mistake.
"You're wrong you know." His voice rips through the apartment before she can fully exit the bathroom. "I have darkness in me, too."
"Jay, can we sleep please? Just let this one go, I'm sorry I ended up here. I don't have the energy to fight. I will leave before you wake up."
"No, we need to have this conversation. You didn't put any darkness in me. It has been there. That light you saw, Erin, you put it there."
"Jay, forget what I said, about darkness and light. I'm drunk, I'm not making any sense." She reasons collapsing onto the bed.
"I have darkness. I hate my father for abandoning my mother when she was dying. Hate him. Haven't spoken to him in two years, probably never will again." He yells, causing Erin to sit up, "I killed people, watched my best friends die in a war I don't even know that I can justify anymore. I slept with girls to make the pictures in my mind of the things I've seen go away. It defeated me. I drank my way through my first year home. I was a mess before Antonio pulled me up into intelligence. Before I met you. You saved me, just like you saved Nadia."
"Don't say her name. I didn't fucking save her, Jay, I killed her!" The words explode from her lips as the sobs overtake her small body. This time he moves to hold her, pulling her into him despite her efforts.
"You didn't kill her. A psychopath killed her. You saved her, from the drugs, the pimps. It doesn't make sense, and it's not fair, but it is not your fault. She loved you, Erin. She wouldn't want you to do this to yourself."
She cried in his arms for what felt like forever, and he waited patiently to continue. "You think you bring out the darkness in people, Erin, but you are wrong. You bring out the hope. You brought it out in Voight, you brought it out in Nadia, and you bring it out in me. And I know you aren't ready to hear this right now, but Hank loves you. Nadia loved you. I love you. There is nothing that I can say to make this pain go away and there is nothing you can do to make it all better. But I am going to be here with you, because you would be here for me. I am so sorry that all of this is happening, but it is not your fault."
"I don't believe you."
"You don't have to, yet."
"The way you feel about me. I feel the same way about you, even if I don't show it."
"I know."
"I'll say it back, too, one day."
"I know you will."
"I just, I need this day to be over. Can this day be over?" Her small voice questions, eyes drooping shut.
"It can be over."
"I'm not going to ask you to hold me." She yawns as she falls back into his bed.
"You don't have to." A small smile spreads on his face as he pulls her into his side. He stays awake until he is sure she is asleep. And while he knows that they haven't escaped the darkness completely, he can sleep well tonight knowing he pulled her, even just a little bit, into the light.
The End.