Something short and sweet :)

It was the sound of her voice during one of his nightmares, mellifluous was an understatement

Jay Halstead first heard Erin Lindsay's laugh on his first day in Intelligence. He was sitting at his desk, taking in his surroundings when he heard footsteps coming up the stairs. She was deep in conversation with Antonio; the way she threw her head back and the way the sunshine reflected off of her face made his heart flutter. He knew at that exact moment he would do anything to hear that laugh for the rest of his life.

She held a cup of coffee in each hand, placing one down on his desk before extending it as she smiled at him. Her grip was firm and strong, much to his surprise despite her petite frame.

"You must be Halstead." He nodded. "Lindsay." Her voice made him smile and he hoped and prayed to all the Gods listening that she would sing lullabies to his children some day.

He loved that even when she was sick, the rasp of her voice remained and it was still light. He loved how quickly she could change her tone of voice from the loud and booming one when interrogating suspects to a soft and delicate one when talking to kids. The only time he could hear the sound of her voice change was whenever she was dead-tired from working a gruelling case, when the caffeine she drank liberally wasn't keeping up with her. When he could hear her losing her sanity due to the exasperation present in her tone.

Then he started sleeping next to her.

Her morning voice was extremely delicate, even with the pronounced rasp in it. Delicate: When a child is admiring something and they don't want to speak too loud and ruin the moment, so they whisper despite their excitement. Delicate: How a mother speaks to her child, soft and gentle and compassionate. Just as a mother should. Delicate: When a baby wraps their entire hand around your finger and you realize how precious life is.

Delicate: When her soft voice would travel through the convolutions of his brain during one of his nightmares.

She could feel how restless he was in his sleep. He shifted his positions frequently and he woke up multiple times in the night, his breathing patterns varying. Every time he did, she held her breath, hoping he would once again find the eternal bliss that was sleep. The unit had picked up a difficult case, and sleep was something they weren't getting much of. Their waking hours consisted of constant trips to the break room or the coffee house down the street, before sitting back in front of files on their respective desks. They occasionally got the adrenaline pump of a raid, only to fall short.

He was more sweaty than normal, and Erin automatically knew he was having nightmares. Every time he woke up, he would be pulled back into reality, into safety that isn't the hot desert sand of Afghanistan. It hadn't been that bad that night, considering he was getting back to sleep easy after every time he woke up.

Until he began thrashing and calling out in his dream.

He nudged her arm lightly by accident, waking her from her slumber. When she turned her head to face him, she knew he was asleep. It was his incoherent rambles and the jerks of his limbs that were his tell-tale sign of his torture.

She would do what she always did, first moving her hand through his hair, collecting some of his sweat before bringing it down towards his earlobe, rubbing small circles. His mother used to do it, he told her. Whenever he or Will weren't feeling well, she would rub the skin on his ear to lull him into a peaceful oblivion.

But Erin did it to wake him from his hostile unconsciousness.

She would whisper reassurances into the ear closer to her.

You're okay.

Just wake up for me.

You're safe.

You have me.

Don't worry.

You're fine.

When he would wake up, confused to the dead weight on his chest from her arm and the feeling of her thumb and index finger tickling his ear, his mind would be comforted by her voice. It was the sound of her voice during one of his nightmares, mellifluous was an understatement.

It's times like these when he thinks about when he almost lost her. When she was drinking herself to forget about her pain around people he had never seen before; being goaded by her excuse of a mother to "lend" her money for some pills that would leave her craving for more.

It was times when he was locked in Derek Keyes' basement with fists pounding his ribcage and the taser disrupting the rhythm in his body that he thought about her voice, about what she would say to him.

Stay strong.

They're coming to get you.

Please keep holding on.

I miss you.

I'm sorry.

He was sure that he was hallucinating when she was standing in front of the desk, hands in her pockets, her back to him as he was thrown down onto the couch. But when her voice said his name, he knew it was real, that he was safe. Because the only thing that that raspy voice meant to him was safety and security. Stability. Something he craved his entire life for. And she was the one person to provide that for him. A debt he couldn't repay.

It was times like this, in the middle of the night when he knew she was exhausted, yet she let him rest his head on her chest while she raked her fingers through his hair, telling him that everything was going to be all right.

And he knew it would be.

Because even though he would never stop dreaming of that God-forsaken place where the heat pricked at his skin or hearing his father's abusive words ringing through his brain, he knew that as long as he could hear her voice, everything would be okay.

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