Hailey wants to follow behind, but a look from Kevin dissuades her, she then turns to Jay by sheer reflex but can see he's agreeing with Kevin, finally she hears Kim murmuring "Shift's not over...", sitting back at her desk and turning back on her monitor.
The thing is there's no real end of shift for Intelligence, shift ends whenever the last person standing leaves.
So they sit in silence for the next couple of hours, only the sound of their tapping breaking the silence; going back and forth through the same material wishing for a break or a missing detail here or there.
"It's 10 pm people, go home."
Voight had stayed silently in his office, studying his team, gauging the mood, will there be another one of their little uprisings, or do they understand his stance for once? In any case, it was late and there was nothing more to do today. Hopefully, a few weeks out on the beat would help kick some sense into Vanessa's thick skull.
"I need to check some files..." tries Kim while the team is eyeing each other, not knowing how far they could push.
"I said we're done, pack it all up it's not an ongoing case now, go home, get some sleep and come back fresh tomorrow, we have a bigger fish to catch."
After a moment of uncertainty they start packing up, Hailey checks frantically her phone, she'd already sent a couple of unanswered texts to Vanessa.
The small pit on her stomach was getting bigger by the minute, she had a bad feeling about all of this.
She needed to rush home, grabbing her bag, she dials Vanessa's phone speeding through the building, paying attention to no one when she hears "Hailey!" Jay is running after her on her way to the parking lot "Hold on, don't you think we should..." but she interrupts him mid-way "Jay sorry but not now, first I have to go find her!" she thinks she hears Kim calling out her name too but she doesn't stop, either way, she jumps on her car and drives to Kim's address all lights blazing.
"Hey Hailey! I was... Where are you going?!" the two meet up in the hallway of Kim's flat several minutes later, "Vanessa isn't home, I'm gonna go look for her."
"Ok I'll come with you!"
"No you better stay home in case she comes back, I'm gonna... I don't know, I'm gonna go find her andd bring her back." she finishes with a low voice.
It's 2 a.m when she is back home, Kim jumps off the couch when she opens the door but quickly slumps back when she sees Hailey alone.
"Did she call you?"
"No, still no news, I stayed up waiting to hear from her, I even put my radio on to check if there are any distress calls there, but nothing."
"Same I drove around town, to the bridges, and even tracked down the guys from her last unit, but nothing."
"Should we call it in? Have the team look for her?"
Hailey pauses and thinks, it's been a total of 5 maybe 6 hours since they last saw her, unless there was any specific threat they couldn't in their right mind launch a manhunt in the middle of the night with nothing to go on from.
"Let's wait til morning, if she doesn't show up for shift tomorrow we ping her phone and put out an alert."
The two women split into their respective rooms, but after a while, sleep escaping her, Hailey comes back to nestle on the couch and decides to keep watch there until morning comes.
She wakes up in a jerk when Kim gently shakes her shoulder to wake her up, "It's seven a.m girl, we need to get a move on."
Hailey jumps to her phone and checks the texts, still nothing.
"Wanna eat something or just coffee? " "I'm too stressed I don't think I can eat anything... what if I'm failing her again? What if she is somewhere laying on a ditch while we didn't do anything to find her?"
"Hey hey hey, don't go there... says Kim softly sitting down next to Hailey, I kept thinking about all kinds of scenarios during the night, and then I remembered an episode that happened with my sister... I know they're not the same people, and those are not the same circumstances, but Nicole disappeared like this one day. I was staying with her at the time and she was just so afraid of everything, she wouldn't go out, we had to order in all kinds of things but then she'd be paranoid about delivery guys... she wouldn't go pick up her daughter from school and I had to sub for her for a couple of weeks on her maternal duties. Anyways, one day, I was feeling a bit sick and for some reason, she decides she wants cinnamon rolls, so she says she is going out to get some for all of us... and she doesn't return home for 6 hours... I was out of my mind, all the darkest scenarios going through my mind, driving like a madwoman around town with my niece in the backseat, and just when I was about to call Kevin for backup, she comes back home, with her silly rolls in a bag and she just says she just needed the walk, that she'd missed it and she never got around to telling me where she went during all that time... I thought she was going through a mental breakdown, but after that day, she started reverting slowly back to normal."
They both started their morning in silence contemplating what Kim had just said. Praying silently for the best outcome, ignoring Jay calls blowing up their phone.
When she left the district she had no idea where it would lead her, she thought she would be going home, but somewhere on her way there, she felt it was the wrong place for her to be.
For starters this wasn't her home, it was Kim's home, and she had contributed to exiling Hailey from her own home, so her path led her to what she knew as home for the most part of her adult life, the streets of Chicago.
She wandered on the cold pavement of the city, getting away from the big avenues and the bridges, those were for the people who commute from normal home life to normal work life, she felt like an imposter walking those streets, like the coating on her was finally crackling and everybody would see it, soon they would be pointing at her and laughing at her telling her to fuck off far away with the poor, the addicts and other indigents.
This is how she ended up in the 24 hours donut shop where they would let the tweakers, the prostitutes, and other night dwellers hang there.
But when she arrived there, she realized even that place had changed, not a total makeover but just a bit more shiny coating and a little less of street people.
Still, she felt more at home here than anywhere else right now.
She ordered a coffee from the exhausted cashier and sat down at a table by the window and finally could start to contemplate the catastrophic shit she got herself into.
In a week the life she had just started building for herself, the life she had just started believing in had come crashing like the fucking plane on 9/11.
Without warning, all the sacrifices, the ghosting, the lying, the training, the classes, everything and more she had gone through, breaking into the Academy, breaking into Narcotics, breaking into Intelligence, making new friends... the whole thing was being taken away from her.
She could hear voices, faceless people from her past in her head, mocking her, "Vanessa, the DCS kid who thought too big of herself", " You shoulda gotten yourself a man and a baby and make up for your own miserable childhood". " Did you really think these people could take you seriously?" What should she do now? She was very much thinking about disappearing, looking at the cars passing, she thought of the Coach station which wasn't far off, she could walk there and take the first bus out, burn through her cash and start a new life in an unknown place. The whole country was unknown to her, she had never been out of Illinois. She could start over as a nobody, anywhere else in the world.
Walking down the streets she continues convincing herself she didn't have to come back to whatever her life was. They would understand and very soon forget about her.
She would miss Hailey the most, and maybe Kim too since they had shown her kindness she never suspected existed. And Kevin of course, her first friend, who just accepted her as she was, the one person with whom just a look would suffice to know that they understand each other.
There were so many destinations, some coaches going as far south as Georgia, some others to neighboring Canada.
She wondered if she was more a girl who would thrive under the sun or under more cold. She didn't even know stuff like that about herself. Her whole life has just been a string of situations she had to endure.
What if it's not a move out she needed, what if she needed to be reborn? Maybe she was paying for the sins of a former life? What if she could start it all back?
Without realizing how, she finds herself on the express highway from which the buses were coming in and out of the town. It's deep into the night, the only thing she could hear was the wind and the cars speeding by. Her heartbeat slowed down as she looks down the overpass, what if that was it for her? Her life as a throwaway, maybe it was never meant for her to make it this far, maybe there's freedom in death.
She wished for peace, then took in a deep breath.
They were getting on the late side of the clock, using all excuses to linger more in the flat wishing for Vanessa to eventually come back, because if she doesn't, it means they will be clocking in and having to report her missing at that point.
But suddenly the noise of a key introduced in the keyhole makes both women dart their eyes to the door, where a weary Vanessa appears nonplussed.
"For fuck sake Vanessa! Where have you been? We've been so worried!"Their younger friend answers back with a faint smile, "I'm good, I just needed to walk, to clear my mind."
"Where did you spend the night? It's freezing out there!"
"Not when you know where to go" she adds dryly, Kim and Hailey exchange a glance.
Something is clearly wrong with her. But again, how couldn't it be?
"You can tell us, whatever it is you need, you can count on us. We're gonna fight Voight's decision, he'll reinstate you."
"Forget about that, it's all good. I need to get ready and leave for shift, I don't want to show up late on my first day on Patrol." And with a forced smile, she heads to the bedroom to get ahold of fresh clothes and get ready for her new life on the 21st.