Author's Note: This scene is set at the end of 3x11, "Knocked the Family Right Out", which I thought was one of the better episodes this season until 3x14 negated everything that happened in it. Oh, CPD and your consistency issues.
She tugs the collar of her coat against her neck as the front door of the Cliffords' condo clicks shut, and she waits for the telltale thump of the deadbolt being thrown behind her before she steps away from the front door. Tugs even harder at the collar of her coat as she lets her eyes sweep over the neighborhood. Contemplates the mismatch between the tranquil streets and the shattered little girl in the house behind her, the gentrified condominium development and the crime wave that struck here the other night.
She's worked the beat long enough to know that no one - regardless of wealth, race, gender - is immune from being the victim of a crime, but that's a hard reality for a fourteen-year-old girl to face. Hard enough for a thirty-year-old cop who was gullible enough to believe Tawny, to think that people would physically fake a rape in order to cover up for their accomplices. Because Erin's seen a lot - done a lot - but that? That's hard to fathom.
Which is exactly what Tawny and Spence and Pete had been counting out. The reason why she went in without backup; the reason why she ended up with a thudding headache and a knife to her throat.
She had felt the Cliffords' gaze on her throat as she bid them goodnight, but she hadn't been willing to answer their unspoken questions. Didn't want to burden them with anything more than what they already carry - the little girl seeking refuge in the guest bedroom because she's too afraid to sleep amongst her dolls - and instead reiterated her promise that the man who hurt their daughter wasn't going to hurt anyone else. That they or Carolyn could call her anytime - day or night.
Because that - being someone's support during the worst moment of their life - and the mark against her throat are the burdens she agreed to carry the day they pinned her star on her chest. The burden Hank had tried to warn her about the day she told him and Camille that she wanted to be a cop, and then, of course, the burden she had to decide she was ready to carry - needed to carry - the day Hank gave her her star back.
It's a burden she should know by now that she doesn't need to carry alone, that she's got Hank and the unit and Jay to lean on. And a mental reminder that clicks in her head as her eyes sweep from the quiet sidewalks to the 300 parked across the street where Jay sits patiently waiting in the passenger seat.
His hunched over posture gives her pause - she's been on edge all afternoon - but he soon shifts in his seat, and she can tell from his movements and the slope of his back that he's mess around with his phone. Probably texting Will or checking the Hawks' score or trying to convince Mouse to leave his hole for the night and come out to Molly's.
And, eventually, he lifts his head sweeping his gaze across the cityscape because he's a cop and he's vigilant and he's her backup. Taking on the role even during something as simple and mundane as a follow-up visit with the victim.
Erin had agreed to him accompanying her after he silently followed her out of the break room, after she noticed his hand instinctively curling around the jacket draped over the back of his chair as she gathered up her keys and stuffed some of that untouched paperwork into the drawer of her desk, which she'd get to it eventually. Didn't need Hank nosing around the bullpen after the unit had gone home and then getting on her case about it first thing in the morning.
But she had drawn the line at Jay coming into the Cliffords' house with her. Had told him to wait in the car without a backwards glance because she didn't want to see that look on his face. The look that said he was riddled with an anxiety and fear that he's desperately trying to suppress behind stern features and a smooth nod of his head.
The one he gave her when he pulled her off that bed and directed her attention away from the body behind them by pressing his fingers against her throat. The stinging sensation, the way he kept clutching at her neck reminding her just how close she had been to becoming another name on the wall out in front of the District hung up right next to Jules and Jin and Nadia.
The one he gave her in the break room as he lectured her about going in without backup. A different kind of lecture than the ones she gets from Hank because there's no yelling or words being spat out in anger. Just soft yet piercing eyes and a firm pled for her to understand that he cares, that seeing her strung out or tied up or in a bad way is really fucking hard for him to handle. Which maybe means they're inching too close to the sole reason why Hank doesn't allow in-house romances.
Not close enough that they need to separate, drag Hank into a conversation about their relationship and their careers right now. After all, she still managed to rattle off the location of the suspects and he had clued in Antonio before they got wrapped up in one another. Before Jay's hand was back on her neck and he was cupping her cheek trying to make sure that she was okay.
But that conversation for one day is probably getting closer than she originally anticipated given the way her mind had raced to him when she was pinned down with a knife against her throat. Given the looks - the 'I messed up and I'm sorry' meeting the 'You had me worried there for a sec' - they traded in the break room. Given the way Jay is watching her now as she makes her way towards the Chrysler because that's not the look of a concerned partner but rather of a partner partner. The kind of look that tugs the corners of her mouth upward as she yanks open the door.
"You good?" Jay questions over the beeping sound as she slides into the driver's seat. She left the keys in the ignition for him just incase he got cold and wanted to turn on the heater while he waited. An unnecessary gesture given how Jay always runs hotter than her; wanders around this city in just a hoodie and a thin leather jacket long after she's pulled out the parka and the red, wool beanie.
Yet the heaters are running; the vents all directed towards her seat in anticipation that even a quick walk from the Cliffords' front door to the 300 would leave her chilled. Another unnecessary gesture that pulls at Erin's lips, that causes her to twist her head to look at him.
She flinches, of course, when the collar of her trenchcoat ends up rubbing against the scrape on her neck. The cut may not have been deep, but it still stings. Still inflames her cheeks a deep red at the reminder of how stupid, how gullible she was today.
And her reaction time is slowed for the third time today. Not because she's been rendered incapacitated by a blow to the head or a drug-soaked cloth to the mouth, but because it's Jay and he's never given her any reason to pull away. To recoil from anything other than the truth he's trying to get her to see.
So she allows his fingers to slide along her throat for the second time today. Tries not to flinch when the rough pads of his fingertips touch against the deepest part of the cut. Holds his gaze as his eyes deepen with worry and then follow said gaze as his eyes dart from the center console between them to the glove box.
"We've really got to start keeping a first aid kit in here," he murmurs. She had used up the tissues kept in the glove box - a holdover from a few years ago when he came to work with the flu - to clean off her face, and anything serious usually means a visit with Ambulance Sixty-One.
The rest - the bruises, the small cuts and abrasions - are walked off. The old tough guy routine she mastered at a young age - one far younger than Carolyn - and then had drilled into her over the years of being a cop, particularly a detective in Voight's unit.
"She's afraid to sleep in her own bed," Erin informs Jay as his eyes follow the fingers he's trailing across her neck. He's reassuring himself that the cut is superficial, that he got there in time, and it takes a moment for him to pull away. For that concern in his eyes over her physical well-being to morph into concern about what she's got going on upstairs as his hand moves to cup her cheek.
"And tomorrow she'll wake up knowing that we got the guy," he reminds her as she tilts her head into the warmth of his palm. There's a momentary pause where she thinks he might add something else - something about how he gets to wake up knowing he got to his partner in time - but he's already said what he needed to say in the break room and he lets the strum of his thumb against her cheekbone speak instead. Say all the things that neither of them is ready to voice just yet.
"Can we skip Molly's and have that beer at the apartment?" Erin asks after a moment, after Jay's hand has fallen from her face to his lap. She's not really interested in putting on a face for their coworkers or the firemen or the doctors milling about Molly's tonight. Doesn't want eyes on her neck or questions about whether or not Jay will be cleared of wrong doing for the shot he was forced to take.
"Definitely," he promises cracking a smile as he twists back around in his seat to grab the seat belt dangling beside the passenger door. His smile causes her to smile; his enthusiasm causes her to twist in her seat to grab her own seat belt. Because this - her driving and him riding shotgun back to her place - is quickly become their new normal. The cathartic cap on a rough day.
