16. Poinsettia

Jay came up the stairs one morning to see one Trudy Platt sitting in Voight's chair. He looked at Atwater, who looked a little petrified. Hailey was engrossed in her computer. Adam was nowhere to be found and he knew Rojas was downstairs talking to a patrolman about something. Now he was a little scared about what was going on and why Platt was in Voight's office.

"Sarge," he said, cautiously as he approached the shrine of Voight's office.

Platt had made herself at home in the office with her cup of coffee and feet on the table, reading a report. "Nice to see you, Halstead. A little late?"

"I had to meet one of my CI's," he explained. "Where's Voight?"

"Sick."

Jay narrowed his eyes. "Voight doesn't get sick."

"He's sick."

"Voight doesn't get sick," he repeated.

Platt took her feet of Voight's desk. "Are you really questioning my intelligence and your brother's medical degree?"

"Never."

"Good. Voight has pneumonia. Randy and I were over for dinner last night and he just looked awful. We finally got him to agree to take him to Med and sure enough, he's sicker than a dog."

Jay paused. "You and Mouch were having dinner at Voight's?"

"Anything wrong with that?"

"Uh, no. Just didn't know the three of you had dinner on a regular basis."

Platt continued reading the report, as she was the whole time in the conversation. "Anyways, Voight didn't want to stay home as Rojas has that bust going down today but I said I'd handle it."

"We can't figure out how to handle a drug bust by ourselves?" Jay questioned Platt.

Platt put down the coffee, the report and looked at the Detective. "Apparently not," she fakely smiled. "Now go round up everyone so we can discuss this."

Right before Rojas was about to go make the drug deal and they were going to arrest the supplied, Platt held a little powwow. She had her bulletproof vest on and even her revolver in her holster. "Feels good to be back out here," she winked at Adam. He just shook his head. Sometimes Trudy Platt was more scarier than Hank Voight. In her own way.

"Let's do this," Hailey said.

"Bug out word if something goes wrong is Poinsettia," Platt said.

Rojas looked at the Desk Sergeant, who she hadn't had much interaction with. The rest of Intelligence wished they hadn't had the lovely dealings they had with Platt. "What kind of word is that?!"

"Well the whole point if having a code word is not to use it," Platt fired back. Jay and Hailey had to smile. "Plus, if you do have to use it, it will help your bullshitting skills on finding a phrase to use the word poinsettia in."

Rojas shook her head. "Great. Now I'm really hoping this goes down smoothly."

"Come on kid, it will."

Jay knocked on Voight's door later that night. "Open up, it's me!"

Voight opened the door, cautiously, wondering why his Detective was banging on his door. Platt was right, he looked like shit. "This is a surprise," he said as he opened the door a little wider.

Jay stepped inside and held out a bag. "Figured you probably wouldn't eat so I brought dinner."

His Sergeant looked at him. "Huh. Well, what did you bring?"

"Greek food."

Voight raised an eyebrow. "From that place that's only open because Upton really likes it so she put the owner on the books as a CI after the owner's son got caught with a brick of heroin and some serious health code violations?"

Jay opened the bag and handed Voight the food. "Yeah. Kosta called Hailey about something so we went down there tonight to see what he had. He gave us dinner on the house so we figured you could use dinner as well."

"It is appreciated," Voight said. "How'd Platt do today?"

"It's Platt," Jay said.

"And Rojas?"

"Well, Platt gave her an insanely hard code word to use in her drug buy."

Voight looked at Jay. "Figures. What was it?"

"Poinsettia. Props to Vanessa to figuring out how to use in a sentence though."

"How'd she use it?"

"'this is making my eyes lit up like my mom's lights and poinsettia's at Christmas' about the drugs that Ricky showed her."

Voight cracked a smile. "Not bad. Not bad at all."

Jay headed back for the door. "Anyways, enjoy the food and I hope you start feeling better."

"Yeah. Thanks for the food and tell Upton thanks when you get home."

"Sarge?" Jay asked.

Voight shook his head. "You don't think I know you are practically living over there, Jay? Nothing gets by me."

"Good night," Jay said, before leaving.

He opened Hailey's front door and stood in the hallway for half a second. She saw the pause and looked at him. "What's up?"

"Voight knows about us."

She shrugged. "Reasonable assumption."

"He just came out and said it though," Jay said as he walked fully into her place.

She handed him a beer. "Well did he say anything else?"

He shrugged. "No, not really."

Hailey smiled. "Better than kicking us out of Intelligence for having an in house romance."

"Better than a lecture, I guess."

"Or that," she said, drinking her own beer and sitting on the couch. "Come sit, we shall binge watch whatever you want to watch, drink beer and pretend we don't work at a job where our boss gives a shit about our personal lives."

Jay sat on the couch beside her and put his arm over her shoulders. "I can drink to that. Netflix and chill?"

She looked up at him and gave him a dirty glare. "You so wish."

He leaned down and kissed her hair. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just glad I have you in all this madness."

She laughed, not really paying attention to him and focusing on the TV and finding something to watch on Netflix. "I suppose I feel the same way."

Next- Q; Quickie.

AN: Woof; this was a hard one to write. Figured I'd put something down on paper while something formed into my head. Let me know how you like it. The next one "quickie" should be a good one ;)