Title: Scenes

Author: ZombieJazz

Fandom: Chicago PD

Disclaimer: I don't own them. Chicago PD and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The character of Ethan has been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.

Summary: A collection of one-shots/scenes using the characters as represented in the AU established in Interesting Dynamics. The chapters currently represent scenes happening immediately after So This is Christmas. As I continue to update, they'll just provide one-shot snap shots into the characters' lives and likely some recasts of scenes from the show. This series focuses on Voight and his family, as well as Erin Lindsay's growing relationship with Jay Halstead. This is not a linear narrative with a beginning-middle-end. It's just scenes.

SPOILER ALERT: There are MAJOR spoilers in this collection from Interesting Dynamics and So This is Christmas.

Erin stood gazing into the fridge in the break room. She didn't bring anything and she'd been so tied to her desk with the paperwork Hank was piling onto them that she felt like if she retreated for a lunch break she'd be sneered at. Especially since she'd been doing some sneaking around and disappearing from her desk already that day. So instead it was about two in the afternoon and she hadn't had anything beyond coffee and a stale baked good in the morning. She was contemplating raiding the vending machine.

Burgess came in and she gave her a glance. "Hey," she greeted with a thin smile. "Getting some lunch with Adam?" she asked, glancing at the paper bag Burgess had with her.

Chances were it was better than any of the Tupperware leftovers in the fridge. Most of them looked rather dated. She actually likely shouldn't be caught gazing in there too long or Hank might decide her next task was to clean out their fridge. Paperwork sounded better than that. So, another cup of coffee it was. At least it'd keep her awake and with how little sleep she was running on – that was likely a good idea too given the boredom-inducing task she'd been tasked with that day.

She hated the year-end paperwork. She supposed if they kept up with it better during the year, the last week or so of the year wouldn't be this torturous. But no one liked the paper-pushing aspect of the job. So they all just did the minimum amount of reports needed to make it through the daily and weekly filings that came along with the job and shutting cases and handing things off to the feds or the D.A.'s office.

"Yeah," Kim said as Erin moved across the counter space to the coffee station. "Thought since we're both here, I'd come up."

Erin gave a little nod. Made sense. And maybe Adam being in the break room for a while would shut him up for a bit. He was whining the loudest of anyone about the paperwork. But that was pretty much the norm. Adam was loud. And young. And tended to complain. Vocally. Though, he was getting better about his ego and entitlement issues. Likely because he felt like he wasn't low one on the totem pole anymore. That went to Atwater and Mouse.

"Hey …" Kim called, as she started working on making her cup of coffee. "I didn't get to ask you how your Christmas was?"

Erin gave her another glance and a little nod. "Nice," she allowed but saw the way the other cop was examining her and squinted back at her a bit. "You?" she asked a bit more cautiously.

"Oh, yeah, good," Kim provided almost too quickly like she'd been caught in some sort of lie.

Erin eyed her. Didn't really see the point of lying about Christmas. You either had a nice one or you didn't. Or you didn't celebrate it at all. But most people would be used to hearing that someone's Christmas was crap or that their family was psychotic. It was a cop shop. That was pretty much par for the course. Though, Burgess didn't really strike her as the kind of person who would be ready to admit those kinds of thing.

"Good," Erin allowed, though. Because if it had been a shitty one and Kim didn't want to elaborate, she understood that too. Besides, she wasn't really sure she felt like chit-chat.

"Yeah," Kim nodded, and pulled a sandwich out of the bag – looking at it like she was thinking about starting without Ruzek. "Did you get anything? Like … anything nice?"

Erin cast her another look from where she was adding gross amounts of sugar to her disgustingly stale cop coffee. That seemed like a leading question. Strange. Didn't usually get adults asking what you got. Some people offered up what they got – bragged about that new big screen TV or whatever. But to ask what you got? They weren't in high school.

She shrugged, though. "We don't go that crazy with Christmas. Mostly just do stockings," she admitted.

She felt weird to say anything else she'd specifically received – particularly the turntable. It was from Hank. He was their boss. And even though everyone knew they were family, it was strange to talk about more personal stuff in the work environment. But she thought about it for a moment and then grabbed at the necklace around her neck, going over to at least show off that.

"I got this from Ethan," she provided. "It's like a $20 necklace. But that's some allowance for him. It's really sweet."

"Oh, it's nice," Kim allowed with a little nod, like it wasn't at all what she'd expected to be shown when she came over.

Erin squinted at her again. Did she know? She couldn't know. Her and Jay had decided she wasn't going to wear the ring into work yet. She wanted it resized so there wasn't an accidental loss of it anyways. But, more specifically, they'd decided they weren't ready to tell everyone at work yet. Not until they worked out some more of the details themselves. At least a general timeframe on when they were going to actually get married – which wouldn't be until the summer at the earliest and she suspected more like into 2017. They both wanted some time to sort out the whole work situation a bit about who was going where and doing what and if and how Hank would support them in that. So they were just keeping it hush-hush for now. Or at least that was her and Jay's plan.

She couldn't see Hank telling anyone. He knew there were complications to publicizing it. And he had enough complications with being the boss of his former ward. That took enough turned eyes. Policy would definitely frown on an engaged couple working in the same unit – let alone usually being paired as partners. It wasn't just Hank who didn't like the idea. The CPD didn't like the idea. So it was best just not to talk about it until things were a little more set in stone. Alvin would get that too. He wasn't the kind of guy who'd be chatty about their personal lives. He kept his own so quiet to be talking about anyone else's. Erin supposed that Michelle might've told Antonio. But Antonio wasn't even in work that week. She thought his plan was to spend most of the week out with his kids – so he wasn't likely even at the boxing gym for Michelle to tell. And even if Michelle did, though Erin could see Antonio maybe giving her or Jay a wink-wink-nudge-nudge about it – he wouldn't be telling the whole station. The only ones to really run their mouths like that would be Adam and Atwater. She supposed Kim too but she would've likely heard it from someone in Intelligence first and Erin just couldn't see how it would've gotten back to anyone in Intelligence yet … already?

Though, Ethan had been in the District the day before. But he hadn't been upstairs at all. She was pretty sure he hadn't left the side of those puppies the entire time. And, if he had run his mouth, she thought she would've been hearing it back from a lot more people by now. Because it'd be in patrol's mouth and then you were on the rumor mill. The only person she was getting hints from that maybe it was public information was Kim. So maybe she was just imagining things. Maybe Kim really did just want to brag about some sort of present and was looking for an opening?

"What about you?" Erin tried.

Kim just gave her a little shrug. "Not much. Bought myself the new iPhone."

Erin gave a little nod at that and kept eyeing her, measuring the comment, trying to decide what was really going on underneath this. Because there definitely seemed to be an underneath this.

"So nothing really exciting happened over your weekend?" Kim pressed.

Erin gave her head a slow shake. "We took Hank to a Hawks game as an early birthday present. Other than that …" she gave a little shrug.

Kim gave her another small nod, still looking at her with those doe eyes. Something was definitely up.

But her phone buzzed in her pocket, pulling her away from the observation of the other woman. Erin pulled it out and eyed the caller I.D. questioningly, putting it up to her ear.

"Ethan?" she said into the phone.

"You need to come get me," her baby brother said with a near cracking voice.

She rubbed at her eyebrow and pulled the phone away to glance at the time. "Aren't you at the movie?" she asked.

"No," Ethan pressed. "I'm not watching the movie."

"What? Where are you?" she demanded, concerned.

"At the theater but I'm not seeing the movie," he said. He sounded broken.

Erin sighed. "What happened?"

"I want to COME HOME," Ethan whined at her.

She let out another sigh. Maybe she would be getting a lunch break after all. To go clean up this mess. Because apparently Justin couldn't even handle taking Ethan to a fucking movie. How are is it to take a twelve-year-old to a movie? To sit next to his brother for a couple hours?

"Where's Justin?" she asked.

"I'M NOT GOING HOME WITH HIM," Ethan nearly yelled at her.

"Calm down," she said a bit more sternly. "Why not?"

"He's being an asshole!" Ethan barked in her ear.

She let out a breath and shook her head. Yeah. Asshole. That pretty much summed up how Justin had been acting the past forty-eight hours. He'd gotten through Christmas Day, their skate and almost through the Blackhawks game without being a brat. But really, it'd just been Christmas Day. Some of his tendencies started to show by Saturday and by the hockey game on Sunday night, he was grating on her nerves. But Monday afternoon he'd all out pissed her off. And, now apparently he'd pulled his usual move to send Ethan running from him.

Who knew what he'd said or done – but he always found a way to say or do something that made Ethan feel like the smallest, littlest, most worthless and useless creature on the planet. Jay was right. Getting through a visit with Justin without Ethan ending up in tears would be a feat of its own.

Erin had been hopeful that this time they could do it. That it was Christmas. That he had Olive and the baby with him. That it would be months before they all saw each other again. That he'd understand that Ethan was just out of the hospital and still a sick and tired little boy. But apparently not so much. Apparently asking all of that of Justin was too much to ask. As usual.

It was always fucking something with him. Always something to rock the boat. Something to try to get attention – Hank's attention – in the most destructive and ridiculous ways. Still. Now with him a twenty-three-year-old man. A married man. A father. Still. So fucking ridiculous. And picking on his twelve-year-old brother? He just didn't make sense sometimes. At all.

"What theater are you at?" she mumbled.

But her eyes pulled in the direction of the door as Jay poked his head in. He looked at her questioningly and whispered, "Voight wants us to go shake down that guy at the pawn shop. Can you roll?"

She held up a finger to get a moment but gave Jay a little nod. "OK, Eth, I'll be there in a bit to pick you up. Just hang tight, OK? Stay inside where it's warm. I'll find you."

She sighed as she hung up the phone and looked to Jay, though her eyes landed on Burgess' briefly again, who was examining Jay with the same scrunity that she'd been given. Erin squinted at her again. She didn't have time for this right now. Until something got back to her that said their engagement was public and it was turning into a wildfire, she was just going to ignore it. Not worth dealing with something before it's a problem. Hopefully it wouldn't become one. Besides, she had other problems to deal with at the moment. Her fucking brothers.

She headed for the door, casting Jay a look. "We need to make a detour on the way," she muttered.

"Ethan?" he asked.

She shrugged. She didn't want to publicize that she was leaving work to go out on Intelligence business but was going to be going to deal with personal family business first.

"Justin strikes again?" Jay asked, following after her.

She gave him an annoyed look. "When doesn't he?" she muttered.

Not only had he just fucked up Ethan's day. He'd fucked up hers. Again.

The morning and his departure so they could get back to their 'normal', 'quiet' lives couldn't come soon enough.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Two chapters got posted yesterday. As usual, the second one didn't get an FF bump so you might've pissed it. It's Justin and Ethan at the movies.