CHAPTER EIGHT: A HUNDRED PERCENT
The next day, Erin woke up to the smell of bacon and coffee from the kitchen. She smiled lazily, her eyes still shut as she breathed in the familiar smell of Jay when he entered the room. One eye opened to let him know she was awake, and he grinned at her, clambering into the bed next to her and gently nudging her out of the way with a freezing cold toe.
"Morning, gorgeous," he beamed. He handed her a mug of coffee and placed a tray of bacon and toast on the bed.
"Morning," Erin mumbled, propping herself up onto her elbows and leaning towards him to kiss him good morning.
"Figured you could use a lie-in," he told her, and she frowned, reaching over to the dresser to see what the time was. She nearly screamed when she realized that it was past ten.
"Voight came over this morning to see how you were doing," Jay continued.
Erin raised an eyebrow. "Hank came over here?"
"Yeah," Jay nodded. "But I told him that you were sleeping, and he said it's okay if you want to take the day off today."
"Day off?" Erin asked incredulously. "Dude, it's Sunday! It's meant to be a day off for everyone!"
Jay smirked. "Uh, yeah. Unless you're in Hank Voight's unit, obviously."
Erin rolled her eyes. "So he's got us all working overtime this weekend? Is everyone else going in today, or…?"
"I know Antonio isn't – Brett's on shift at 51 and you know he hates leaving Ava and Diego alone with Laura on the outs. Kev was gonna do the same but I'm pretty sure he sweet-talked Antonio into babysitting Vanessa and Jordan too. Burgess will be in, and Ollinsky –"
"Obviously," Erin interjected, and the two shared a laugh at how their co-worker never seemed to leave the bullpen. They all had their secret suspicions that he lived there – a joke that had been going on for years. Lately, though, they spared him the harassment of joking about his living situation. After Lexi's death, the fact that he lived in his wife's garage seemed too tender of a topic. But both Erin and Jay had spent their fair few nights sleeping at the district. (Especially when they had broken up a few years back and Jay had moved in with Will and his then-girlfriend Nina, whom he then broke up with and left both of them effectively homeless. Good times).
"But yeah. Not sure about Ruzek, but no one's ever sure about Ruzek."
They laughed briefly and then fell into silence together. Jay was feeding Erin slices of bacon and laughing at her trying to lick the grease off her lips.
"Seriously, though," he murmured after a while. "How are you doing?"
Erin just shrugged. And then nodded slowly. "I can handle it," she said, which earned her two, very concerned, raised eyebrows.
"Erin…"
She sighed. "I'm okay, I think. I don't know. We'll see."
Jay lifted his hand to her face and cupped it tenderly. She leant against it, savoring the moment. In spite of everything, she felt peaceful.
Jay just leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead.
"What's your day like?" Erin asked him when they had gone back to munching his – delicious – breakfast.
"Uh, that depends."
"On what?"
"What you want to do."
Erin rolled her eyes. "Jay, I'm a big girl. I can handle myself."
He shrugged. "I just want you to know that you're not alone, okay? If I do go into work it's not because I don't want to spend every second that I can with you."
"I do know," she smiled. "And I love you for it. But I was thinking about coming in myself today."
"Are you sure that's a good idea? Avery will very probably be there."
Erin swallowed. "I know. I just think that there's no use running from it. Maybe I messed up somewhere, maybe I didn't, but I want her to know that I'm not hiding from her."
"Okay," Jay agreed.
She frowned. "Okay?"
"Yeah, okay," he laughed. "If that's what you want, I'll back your play. A hundred percent. Just, please don't…"
He didn't need to finish, and one look at Erin's face warned him not to. They both knew where that was going. Please don't let this be a banana peel for you, and I think you know what I mean. Erin remembered Voight telling her after Nadia died. Please don't let this be a repeat of last time.
As much as she hated the fact that it always came to this – people telling her not to go backwards as if she wanted an excuse to morph back into the drug-addicted teen that she'd been trying to outrun ever since – she knew that Jay said it from a place of love.
"I'm not going to," she assured him. "I've got too much to lose."
"That's my girl," Jay grinned, and jumped out of bed. "I'm gonna take a shower," he called from the kitchen, where he was depositing their dirty kitchenware.
Erin kinked an eyebrow and made her way into the bathroom, turning on the water and peeling off yesterday's t-shirt and a pair of old leggings that she had apparently slept in.
At the sound of the water, Jay's head immediately appeared around the side of the door.
"Um," he began, pursing his lips together and making his nose scrunch up when he was playing with her.
"Me too," she said, smirking.
"Erin," Ruzek greeted the detective as she rounded the corner and entered the bullpen. "Jay," he nodded at his friend.
"Hey, Adam," Erin said. "Didn't realize you'd be in today."
He shrugged. Erin's eyes narrowed when she noticed the way his glance flickered to the break room and she opened her mouth to grill him about what was going on, when he cut her off. "Oh, you know. Nothing better to do, right?"
Jay smirked. He, along with everyone else in the district, knew that he had been spending practically all of his free time with Burgess recently, but no one was going to draw attention to that – especially under Voight's roof.
"Erin!" barked the Sergeant from his office, right on cue.
She took a deep breath and shoved her empty takeaway coffee cup at Jay, who took it sheepishly. "Sorry," she mouthed, and backed away slowly and dramatically. Jay laughed and shook his head. What a dork his girlfriend could be.
"Shut the door," was the first thing her boss greeted her with. She obliged, willingly. She had the sense that this was going to be a conversation that she did not want the rest of the unit to overhear.
"What's up, Hank?" she asked.
"How are you doing?"
Erin shrugged. "Okay. No – I'm pretty good," she corrected herself.
Voight narrowed his eyes, the spitting image of Erin's own facial expression just a few seconds ago when she had suspected something, too.
"Are you sure?" he knew he sounded like a cross between an overprotective father and a cop interrogating a perp, but he couldn't help it. He'd been extra protective over Erin ever since she got back from New York – didn't Jay know it – and he couldn't stand it when she was upset and not confiding in him. "I want you to know that if you need anything, I'm with you –"
"—until the wheels come off," Erin finished. "I know. Thanks, Hank."
"So how are you really doing?"
She sighed. "Honestly? I just keep turning it round and around in my head, you know, 'what if I hadn't done this,' or 'what about if I'd just done that,' but I know that it's not gonna help me. I'm ready to sit down and talk to Avery, to try to help her, if she wants it."
"Is that what you want? To help her?" Voight asked. He already knew the answer, of course.
Erin nodded. "If she'll let me."
He took a deep breath, readying himself for what was coming next. "I have an idea of how you can do just that. As long as you're absolutely certain that you're ready to commit to helping this girl. She's not nine years old any more. Even if – when – you get her back on her feet, there's a long way to go from there."
She swallowed. "I'm certain. This kid needs someone to show her that there are people who care."
Voight smiled at her, his eyebrows relaxing into a soft, tender expression. "I'm so proud of you, kiddo," he said. "You know, this time five years ago we'd be heading down a very different path under the same set of circumstances."
At that, Erin's eyes misted over with tears. It felt different, to hear it come from Voight, than it did from Jay. "I know," she whispered, trying not to let on that her throat was stiff with emotion.
"Erin, I'm so proud of you."
She smiled, her eyes misting over slightly. "Well," she responded. "I couldn't have got where I am without you, you know that. You're the reason I want to help that girl in the first place. She's me, Hank."
He squeezed her shoulder. "I know she is. But listen, I don't want you to get hurt again. Promise me you'll step back if it gets too much?"
Her eyelids fluttered closed in resignation as she sighed and nodded. "Okay. But this isn't gonna be like last time. I can handle it."
Voight nearly laughed at that remark. "Oh really? What's your name, Erin Voight?"
Erin shrugged, a sarcastic beam breaking out over her face. "Everything I learned, I learned from the master." She curtsied dramatically and Voight let out a snort.
"Okay, okay. Take care of yourself. That's all I ask. And something tells me that Halstead –" he suddenly noticed the detective hovering next to his desk, looking away from the window to the Sergeant's office sheepishly, his neck and cheeks turning slightly pink at the embarrassment of being caught trying to snoop. "—will be there to help you, too."
Erin smiled.
"So are you sure about this?"
She nodded fiercely. "A hundred percent. I want to help her, Hank."
"Okay then. Here's my suggestion."
And he started to talk.
Jay looked up at the two as they emerged from the office. He was still looking slightly embarrassed, and he blushed even harder when Erin winked at him from behind Voight's back. In spite of himself, a smile crept onto his face and he shook his head at his partner. God, he was so in love with her.
"Hey guys?" called Burgess from her desk. She had her phone tucked between her shoulder and her ear and she was staring at a computer screen, her forehead puckered and head cocked in concentration.
The rest of the unit gathered around her desk when she put the phone back down.
"That was Dr. Choi. They've just had another one brought in. Same MO: white kid, rich, OD'd on chemically altered Heroin."
"Okay, Burgess, you take Jay and go check it out. Ruzek, you go too."
The three of them nodded and grabbed their coats. Jay shot Erin a side glance as he left the bullpen, and she smirked at him. He groaned silently at the sudden realization that he would have to sit in the back seat.
Erin waggled her fingers jokily goodbye.
Ollinsky was buried in paperwork on his desk in the corner of the office space. Erin hadn't even noticed that he was there until she heard the crunching of an apple and a disgruntled "don't mind me," from her colleague. Erin snorted.
"I won't, Al. You're good," she chuckled.
At that moment, Atwater appeared in the doorway. "Sarge," he said, and Voight nodded in response.
"What have you got?"
"Yesterday when we looked through all of our gang records, we didn't get any hits on the tattoo described by the witness, but I was talkin' to my buddy down in the gang unit to see if he knew anything about a spider tat, and he asked what case I was workin' on –"
"Get to the point, Kevin," Voight rushed him, eager to get Erin talking to Avery again.
Kevin looked from Voight to the break room where Avery was sat. "Okay, well, long story short, Luca was working as a CI for a huge gang operation who are also trying to take down Sanchez."
Voight's jaw dropped and Alvin nearly choked on his apple. "No way," muttered the Sergeant. "No way."
"Yeah," Atwater continued. "He'd been funneling them information about their organization for weeks, and they hadn't heard from him in a couple days. Said they didn't want to push so as not to jeopardize his anonymity, and they said they were close to a breakthrough but relied on one last piece of information. Luca said he would've gotten it for them, but clearly…"
"He didn't," Erin finished.
"Good work, Kev," Voight clapped the officer on the back. "But this changes everything. Alvin, go with Kevin and dig up all the gang unit's files on this organization, and Kevin, bring your friend up here and whoever's in charge down there, okay? I don't care if we have to split this case, but there are fourteen kids dead and we need to put these assholes in the ground, you hear me? We work together on this."
Atwater and Ollinsky nodded and left the bullpen, leaving Erin and Voight in the silent room.
"Erin," he addressed her, and she turned to face him. She swallowed. "We need to get her into protective custody." He jerked his head in the direction of the break room. "Remember what we talked about?"
She took a deep breath and nodded. I can do this. She thought.
"You've got this," Voight whispered and patted her on the shoulder softly as she walked past.
