So this is the last... already finished... chapter that I have for you. This morning I also got a lot more work on my table (I work as a freelancer), so the busy weeks ahead just got even busier. But I will try to at the very minimum give you one chapter a week. And as I said before, I promise not to abandon this story at any point, it will be finished. I've started the next chapter and will try to finish it in the coming days, so you shouldn't have to wait too long. In the meantime, here is chapter 7 and it kind of ends with a cliffhanger... sorry, not sorry!
ERIN POV.
Erin was sitting at her desk with a huge pile of paperwork in front of her, a pile she should have finished a long time ago but she had barely gotten anywhere. Good thing they hadn't caught any case today because she just couldn't concentrate. Today, likely right now, the Halstead brothers were meeting for the first time in four years and that was all she could think about.
"Lindsay my office now!" the voice of Hank Voight disturbed her thoughts as she was brought back to reality. She did what he asked and made her way to her boss office.
"What's up Sarge?", she said almost as a sigh.
Hank runckled his pan.. "Well that's what I wanted to ask you.."
"What do you mean?"
"Well that pile of paperwork is just as high as it was this morning, and it's almost five."
Erin looked out the office window towards her desk and then up at the clock above the door frame, as she realised that Hank was right, she hadn't got anything done during the whole day and the clock was indeed almost five. "Uhmm… sorry about that, I… I just…" she didn't really have any good explanation to come with.
"Hey kiddo look at me" Hank said with concern in his voice and Erin's glare trembled towards his as he said so.
"I don't care about your paperwork, well as your boss I do and you will have to get it done but that's not why I called you in here."
"It's not?", now she was really puzzled, if it wasn't for the large pile on her desk then she had no idea what Hank really wanted.
"I didn't call you in here as your boss, but as your father," he continued as Erin bit her lip, now even more worried than she'd been when he'd mentioned the paperwork she'd clearly failed to do.
"I've known you nearly your entire life and I do pride myself with knowing you better than anyone. I know when something is off with you and something is clearly off, you've been absent the entire day. Hell you've not been here 100% for months and I've tried giving you space, but kid I… Just let me in, please. What's going on?"
She hadn't planned on telling Hank about her regular visits to Statsville, about her talk to Will about any of it. She hadn't planned on ever telling him. But in that moment she decided to let him in because she no longer knew what to do. She had already decided that she had to find out if her gut was right, she had to investigate Halstead's case properly, find out if he was innocent as she believed and in that case prove it. Now as she stood here she realised that she needed Hank's help to do so.
After a moment of silence she just blurred it out. "I think he's innocent". Hank chewed on his gum and tilted his chair as he calmly said "Okey… who do you think is innocent?" They didn't have any currently ongoing case and he had no clue who Erin was talking about.
"Ehmm.. Jay… Jay Halstead…" she finally said as Hank let the chair hit the ground again with a shocked facial expression, he then nodded to her to go on.
Erin went on telling Hank about it all, well maybe not all of it. She left out the parts of flirtatious banters and that the main reason she couldn't stop visiting Jay was because she couldn't get those beautiful green eyes out of her head. But she did tell him about how she continued to visit Jay and how he'd helped her, well them, with the cases. How she gotten to know him, about meeting Will, reading the case file and how nothing added up.
"..and when Will told me that Jay couldn't have done it… I believed him."
Hank rubbed his forehead trying to take in everything Erin had just said. Sure he knew something was going on and at some point he had even suspected it had something with the cop-killer to do, but he had never expected this.
"Will, Jay… you are on first name basis with these two?" he finally said.
Erin was taken a bit of guard, as that was clearly not the main thing she thought he'd react to.
"Ehmm… yeah… would get a bit confusing otherwise since they are both 'Halstead'", in reality she hadn't even reflected over it earlier, it had just developed that way naturally.
"Ok, fair enough.. I guess."
Before Hank could say anything more Erin cleared her throat and got her nerves in the right place as she asked… "So, ehmm.. I've decided to take a look at the case, see if there is anything that can help Jay.. eh I mean Halstead.. and I'd really like it if you and the Intelligence Unit could help me?"
"I'm sorry Erin but the answer has to be No.." Hank continued to chew his gum as he he looked at Erin with a runckled forehead.. "I know I can't keep you from doing what you need to do but this unit won't help, even if I wanted to I couldn't get that through the proper channels. And to make it clear, I don't want to. Such a thing would harm us way more than do us any good… but if you have to and I really hope you don't, then you'll have to take some days off.. because I can't have you here working when your head is all down another rabbit hole."
Erin sighed… "Then I'll use my vacation days then. Thanks for nothing" she slammed the door as she left.
—
JAY POV.
It had been a few hours since Will left and Jay had yet to get the big grin off of his face. He made a mental note that he really had to thank Erin for making him see his brother again, he hadn't felt this good since… well that he couldn't actually remember. But he had for sure never felt this good during the seven years he spent behind bars.
Sure he still felt all the pain, all the hurt and all the guilt but now somehow it was more bearable. He hadn't understood how much he really had needed a conversation like that with Will, the reason for that might been because they had never had one quite like that before. That honest, that emotional.
More than that it had been great to see how much Will had matured, how much he'd grown up. He had even acted like a big brother. Jay couldn't help but feel proud and in that moment he couldn't help but thinking about how much he really loved his brother. Then he remembered what his brother had said "you are falling for her"… and his smile grew even wider as he started to think about Erin Lindsay and the fact that Will had been right.
He was brought back by the banging on his cell door. "Halstead, it's time to get some air!", Jay was so transfixed in his happy thoughts that he completely missed the chuckle that had left the guards lips after the words. A sign he'd normally pick up on and that would tell him that air was indeed awaiting him but so was something else, something way less pleasant.
But this time Jay missed the sign leaving him believing that he was in fact just being brought out of the cell to get some air. Something that happened extremely rarely.
Jay was still wearing his big grin as he was guided out to the small outdoor area where death-row convicts on few occasions got to enjoy the wind in their hair. As the guard took of his bracelets and started to close the door he laughed while saying "I don't know why you got that smile Halstead, but I'm confident it'll be gone when I come back."
His prediction was right as the smile left Jay's lips as soon he spotted the three muscular convicts being released into the small area. This was no reward for good behaviour, this was a beating.
One he could take on, maybe even two… but three, there was no way. Jay tried his best to fight them off but he soon found himself on the ground, with three convicts punching and kicking him. "Guess you are regretting your line of work now… PIG!" was the last thing he heard before everything went dark.
Had it been six months ago, Jay would probably have just given up… let them kick him to death. He was dead anyhow. But not now, now he had something to fight for. Sure he was still set to die but he needed to see Will again and he needed to see Erin again. He couldn't die now, not when he'd just gotten his brother back
