Hi Everyone - hope you're having a great weekend! Here's the next chapter for you all to enjoy - if you all keep being the awesome readers and reviewers that you are, I might upload the next chapter before the end of the month! As always, enjoy this chapter! :)

Chapter 25

***A couple of weeks later***

"You keeping track of the time?"

"You were the one that bought me this watch, remember?" Voight said, chuckling at the memory of a twenty-one year old Erin buying Voight a new watch because his other one had been shattered in an explosion he had previously been caught in. He'd worn it every day ever since, partly because Erin had given it to him, and partly because it was a standing joke between them that Voight couldn't keep track of the time.

"I remember," Erin said, "Can you pass me that roll of packing tape?"

"Yeah sure," Voight replied, tossing a new roll of packing tape across the kitchen island to where Erin was standing inside the kitchen. She was working on packing up dishes and kitchenware while Voight was packing up books and assorted things in the living room. Erin still felt a little unsettled inside her apartment, but having Voight for company had been helping, as well as her daily therapy and Voight's gracious act of cleaning out her bathroom so she never had to set foot in it again.

"We should probably head out in a few minutes so you're not late," Voight said after packing a few more books into one of the boxes sitting open on the coffee table. He was relieved that Erin was feeling better and committed to going to therapy every day. He was looking forward to having her under his roof again for a while, although he was nervous whether or not she would be okay with him starting to go back to work in a few days; that meant that unless he got someone else to talk some time off and hang out with her, that she would be alone in the house for an extended amount of time. He trusted Erin, but he saw that she was still recovering mentally.

"Okay, I'm ready to go," Erin announced, grabbing her purse of the table and switching off the ceiling lights. "We've been making a lot of progress the past few days."

"We certainly have," Voight said, putting an arm around her. "Just think, you only have to be in here for a couple more weeks and then you never have to be in here again."

"I know, I just feel like a different Erin lived here than the Erin I feel like now," Erin admitted quietly.

"I can see that," Voight said, "Maybe you should tell your therapist that."

"Ha, we'll see," Erin said as they headed to the car. A little while later, Erin actually did tell her therapist how she was feeling about the whole "packing up" thing.

"It's weird. I used to love everything about that apartment and now it's like a splinter in my foot. It's annoyingly still there."

"Well, to use your metaphor, once you're done packing, you'll be able to pull that splinter out, correct?" the therapist replied.

"Right," Erin said.

After a pause ensued, the therapist asked, "Have you reached out to anyone else yet? Jay, perhaps?"

"Not yet," Erin replied nervously.

"Any reason why? You have improved drastically these last two weeks," the therapist complimented.

"I'm just worried that he won't trust me again," Erin admitted.

"I would encourage you to focus on the potential positives rather than the potential negatives," the therapist explained, "You told me on your first day that Jay told you that he was prepared to forgive you and start over, so I don't see why he wouldn't eventually trust you again."

"You make it sound so easy," Erin said, feeling a little annoyed.

"It may, but you and I both know it's not," the therapist replied bluntly, "And the only way for you to find out if you and Jay will work is if you try again. And if you care about him, why not try?"

***Later that day***

"Jay, you coming to Molly's tonight?" Antonio asked with a smile on his face. They had just managed to close a hard case, despite dissent from Narcotics, and everyone was eager to celebrate. Everyone except Jay, that is.

Everyone had noticed that Jay still seemed a little out of it since the Erin incident, but what Jay hadn't told anyone was that he couldn't stop worrying about her because he hadn't actually talked to her since the day she woke up in the hospital…and he now hated the way he'd left it with her. He had gotten an indirect "hello" from her via Voight a couple of times, but that wasn't the same as hearing the voice of the girl who had stolen his heart.

After a pause, Jay said, "You know, I think I'm gonna pass tonight. I kinda feel like just heading home to relax."

"Ah, come on Jay, that's all you've been doing lately," Ruzek complained.

"Maybe some other night," Jay said, standing up to put on his jacket and grab his phone and keys off his desk. "Goodnight, guys."

"Night, Jay," replied the rest of the unit, exchanging the same looks they'd been giving each other for the past couple of weeks. Before the Erin incident, Jay had been off. But since the Erin incident, it was almost like her absence had been eating him alive. Once he got into his car and turned on the heating, he saw a notification come up on his phone. Looking at it more closely, he nearly gasped when he saw that he had a missed call. And a voicemail.

From Erin.

Is it really her? His brain said, his breath suddenly quickening as he unlocked his phone and pressed "Play" next to her voicemail.

"Hey Jay, it's Erin," she said, pausing for a few seconds, "I'm sorry that it took me so long to call, but let me know when you'd be free to talk. See you soon. Bye." To make sure that his mind wasn't playing tricks on him, he replayed the voicemail three times before putting the phone down, putting the car in drive, and heading straight for Voight's house.

As he pulled up outside, Erin had just finished eating dinner with Voight. She had left her phone on the counter, and Voight noticed that she kept looking at it, as if she was expecting someone's reply. "You waiting for a call or something?"

"What?" Erin said, caught a little off guard. "Oh, yeah, um…I called Jay earlier."

"You did?" Voight said, raising an eyebrow as he picked up both of their dishes.

"Yeah, I had to leave a voicemail, so I hope that he calls back at some point soon," Erin admitted. "Now that I've called him again, I suddenly miss talking to him."

"Well, then I hope for your sake that he calls soon," Voight replied. Ironically, no sooner had he finished talking did Erin's phone start to ring and Jay Halstead's name flashed on the caller ID.

Erin sprang from her seat, grabbed the phone, and was just about to hit "Answer" when she looked up at Voight nervously. Voight nodded to the front room and said, "You can take the call somewhere else if you want."

"Thanks," Erin said.

"Good luck," Voight said.

"Thanks, Hank," Erin said, pressing "Answer" just as she reached the front room.

"Hi," she said nervously into the speaker.

"Hey, Erin," Jay replied, a huge smile covering his face for two reasons – one, that he was hearing her voice for the first time in 3 weeks, and two, that she couldn't see that he was sitting right outside the house.