The shrill ringing of a cell phone caused Erin to jolt awake at 3:54am. She turned to her side to grab her phone of Jay's nightstand, thinking it was Voight telling them that Intelligence had finally caught a case, but then realized that it was only Jay's phone ringing, taking away that possibility. Immediately knowing something was wrong, her heart began to pound as she nudged her boyfriend awake.

"Jay!" she tried to say loudly, but her voice was horse from waking up so suddenly. Jay just groaned and flipped over onto his stomach, still sound asleep. Knowing how hard he was to wake up and knowing that the phone was going to stop ringing soon, Erin took a deep breath and grabbed his phone off the nightstand, pressing the green button.

"Hello?" she spoke quietly into the receiver.

"Wh-who is this?" a shaky female voice asked and Erin could tell whoever was on the other end was crying.

"Uhm, hold on," Erin stammered, her heart dropping and her brain clouding with confusion. She reached back over to the nightstand and turned on the lamp, then turned back to Jay and hit his arm. "Jay!" she spoke louder this time.

Jay's eyes shot open. "Jesus, Erin, what!?" He snapped, startled by the sudden awakening. He immediately regretted his reaction when he saw the fear in his girlfriend's eyes as she handed him his cell phone. He quickly got out of bed and made his way out into his living room before putting the phone to his ear. "Hello?"

Erin almost got out of bed and followed Jay but judging by his outburst when she woke him, she decided against it. She held her breath as she tried to listen to Jay's conversation in the living room and her concern only increased when she heard a few select curse words followed by, "Oh my god. When? How?" Eventually she couldn't fight it anymore and she climbed out of his bed and tiptoed into the living room. Her heart shattered into a million pieces when she saw Jay, who was off the phone at this point, leaning on his kitchen counter and staring out the window. He was gripping the edge of the counter so tight his knuckles were turning white and his shoulders were beginning to shake with sobs. Erin quickly made her way across his kitchen and wrapped her arms around his waist, burying her head between his shoulder blades and pressing kisses to his spine.

"What happened?" she whispered into his back. Not saying a word, Jay spun around so he was facing Erin and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, burying his face in her hair. "Jay?" she asked again; she knew her boyfriend was exactly like her – he wouldn't say a word about what was bothering him and he would shut everyone out until it ate him alive.

"Jake… Jacob Quentin… he was my buddy from my first tour. Saved my life a few times… he shot himself. His wife just called, Er, and he put a bullet in his brain so he didn't have to deal with his nightmares anymore," Jay tightened his hold on Erin and she rubbed his back soothingly, feeling his tears wet her hair. "I knew his PTSD was bad, but I didn't know it was like that. I should have been there for him. I hadn't talked to him in months. I should've checked in."

"Hey," Erin pulled her head away from his chest to look up at him. "Don't do that. There is nothing you could have done to prevent this," she said sternly, forcing his bloodshot eyes to meet hers. She truly had no idea what to say; she knew that no matter what came out of his mouth, Jay was going to blame himself, but she promised herself that no matter what this led to, she would not give up on him because he never gave up on her.

"It's 4am. Let's go lay down, I'll tell Voight we're taking off tomorrow," she said gently, pulling out of his embrace and taking Jay's hand to lead him back into the bedroom. Jay followed, still not saying a word. He got into his bed first and Erin was slightly relieved when he motioned for her to lie close to him. She turned off the lamp that she'd put on earlier and climbed into bed beside him and placed a quick kiss on his lips before resting her head in the crook of his shoulder and lazily drawing patterns on his chest.

"Tell me about him," she whispered, knowing sleep wasn't going to be an option for the rest of the night.

Jay let out a deep sigh. "He was strong. My first tour was his third and he looked out for me. He's the one who got me out of the Humvee the first time…" his voice trailed off and Erin moved her hand off his chest to intertwine her fingers with his, giving his hand a gentle squeeze.

"What was your favorite memory with him?" Erin asked, trying to make Jay focus on the positives.

"Summer 2012 – actually right before I started working in Intelligence. We went on a boy's trip up to the cabin in Wisconsin but Jake made us leave our phones and computers and all electronics at home for the whole week. It was our first time all together in years and it was great. One night we were playing some drinking game and Jake was dared to jump into the lake naked but he got spotted by a boat of fishermen," Jay let out a dry laugh.

"Focus on memories like that," Erin squeezed his hand again. "That's what he'd want you to do, ya know?"

Jay just grunted, and Erin continued. "Maybe after his funeral we can use some of our vacation days and go up to the cabin? Voight's gonna put us on forced furlough soon anyway," she suggested. She knew Jay needed it and it would be worth every mosquito bite she got.

"Really?" Jay asked, and Erin swore she almost heard excitement in his voice. She let go of his hand and rolled over to prop herself up on her elbows, cupping his cheek with one hand.

"Really." She ran her thumb over his stubble, her heart breaking a little more when she could make out the tears in his eyes through the dark. "When's the funeral?"

"Day after tomorrow. In Springfield."

"We'll go straight from there. I'll clear everything with Voight in the morning," Erin promised.

"Erin, you don't have to come to the services with me," Jay said hoarsely.

"Yes I do. After everything you've done for me, I definitely do," she rubbed his cheek one last time before pressing a gentle kiss on his forehead and cuddling back into his side.

"Er-"

"Jay, stop. It's okay to admit that you need people, ya know," she went back to drawing on his chest. "You're strong, babe. You're the strongest man I know and you've been there for me hundreds of times, but just let me be here for you, okay?"

"Okay," Jay whispered.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Two days later, Erin and Jay loaded their bags into the back of Erin's car and began the three hour drive to Springfield. Jay was silent for the first hour of the drive but kept a death grip on Erin's free hand with his left hand as his right hand constantly adjusted the pins on his uniform.

Eventually Erin couldn't take the silence anymore. "What're you thinking?" she asked softly.

"I don't know." Jay answered honestly. "I'm scared, Er. I'm scared I'm going to see his wife and she's going to blame me for not checking up on him. I could have picked up on the signs."

"She's not going to blame you. I told you that once and I'll tell you a hundred times until you believe it." Erin squeezed his hand. "She's probably so thankful that you were there for him as much as you were. You said you were one of the first people she called, Jay. That just proves how much they both love you."

"Loved." He corrected her.

"No," she sighed. "Love. Present tense. He's always going to be with you and he definitely does not like watching you beat yourself up over this. I don't either."

"I hate this damn uniform." Jay changed the subject and began to fiddle with his pins again.

"You look hot in it," Erin smirked, trying to lighten the mood. Jay just grunted again and Erin turned up the radio and gave up on trying to make conversation. Even though she was silent, her mind was racing. She had never seen her boyfriend shut down like this before, not even after his undercover op, and she absolutely hated it.

Her mind was moving at 1000 miles per minute and before she could stop herself she blurted out, "Do you have nightmares?" She regretted the words as soon as they left her mouth and Jay's head snapped towards her.

"Not anymore," he said quietly and much more gently than Erin expected.

"What stopped them?" she matched his gentle tone.

"You," he said simply, and now it was Erin's turn to snap her head towards him.

"What?"

"You. I haven't had a nightmare since we got together, since I've been sleeping next to you. They started to come back when I was in Austin after I hadn't talked to you or seen you in weeks but the first night I got back to your apartment they were gone again. They were one of the reasons I was dreading going back to my parents house for the wedding so much, too. My nightmares were always really bad there because that's where I lived when I first came home from overseas so I was scared they'd come back when I slept there again… but you slept there with me and I was fine. And I've been fine since. Over three years of nightmares and all it took was one person to make them go away, it's kinda crazy."

Erin opened her mouth and closed it again, unsure of what to say. That was more than Jay had said to her in the past two days combined and now her heart was so full she couldn't even find the words to explain it. "I love you," she choked out. "I love you so much and my heart physically hurts watching you go through this right now. But you're going to get through it, you know that, right?"

"Yeah, I do," Jay looked at her and smiled his first real smile in two days. "Because I have a really amazing support system."

Erin smiled and brought his hand up to her lips, kissing his knuckles as he squeezed her hand, not taking her eyes off the road. According to her GPS, they were five minutes out from the funeral home and even though they had made progress in the last ten minutes, she knew things were about to get hard.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Next up is Wisconsin! I don't really want to write about the funeral in detail because that's depressing af, I just wanted to give you all the idea that Erin was there for Jay (obviously!) There will be some mention of it during the next chapter but not much so I hope that's okay. Thanks for reading, keep reviewing! I love hearing your feedback & ideas, you guys are the best! xo :)