This is a shorter update than usually, but I've been busy juggling so many things at the moment that I didn't have that much time to be creative and come up with more. But I didn't wanna leave you without an update for too long.
Though I guess Maria's plan also works: Reading this story from the beginning is a good idea too. I'm glad you like it so much that it manages to brighten your mood.

Chapter Title "Alone" by Whispering Sons

DISCLAIMER: I don't own any Chicago PD, Fire or Med Characters, only my OCs!

"What are you doing here?" Jay bellowed at Nate.

"I just wanna talk… have a friendly chat?"

"A friendly chat?" That guy really had some nerve, Jay put his guard up higher.

"Yeah, a friendly chat just to kindly inquire what gives you the right to brain-wash Rianne, so that she won't talk to me anymore… dodge my calls, my texts… it's very unlike her. So I can't help but wonder what you might have said to her…" Nate's tone was nonchalant, like they really were having a friendly chat.

Jay didn't buy it for a second, they were anything but friends. Also he couldn't believe the twisted perception of the situation on Nate's side:

"Man, you can't be serious! Maybe you shouldn't have come on to her like you did and acted like a complete jackass for weeks… ever thought about that? She makes her own decisions about who she talks to, she doesn't need either one of us for that…"

Not that he hadn't an opinion about it, but Jay hadn't exactly forced her into cutting ties with Nate. Though talking to him now only confirmed every suspicion he'd had about that guy from the very beginning.

"I was just being honest! For the record: she digs that - honesty, you know? Or at least she used to." The other man was fumbling with a pack of smokes.

"Well, if that's what you wanna call it, fine. Now how about you respect her wishes, move out of her home and let her be?"

"How about you mind your own business, officer!" Nate casually lit the cigarette he'd extracted, blowing out smoke in Jay's direction, eyes fixating on him now in an increasing hostile manner.

"It's Detective!" Still Jay couldn't help but point that out every time.

He had earned that rank and he thought it was insulting to address him as anything less. Especially when guys who were currently challenging him did it.

"Whatever! Since you made a move on her she's been acting weird. She's been distant, emotionally unstable and now she doesn't even talk to me anymore, so I think you turned her against me. And it's just so wrong, because she needs me more than she knows. You're not doing her any favors by keeping her from me."

Jay openly laughed at Nate: "Look man, this is ridiculous. I'm not gonna have that conversation with you. She told you she's not in love with you and wants you to move out. She is with me now, so just quit the crazy act and let her live her life. If you truly were her friend you would just let her be happy."

It was like talking to a wall. How could one lose sense of reality like that? It was more like talking to a jealous and possessive ex-boyfriend than a so-called best friend.

"You know how it feels like? Watching someone you love walk down their road to ruin?" Nate was getting really close to Jay now, pushing against his chest with his hand, eyes boring into his:

"I can't let that happen. You are her road to ruin! Soon enough I will have to pick her up from bars, trying to keep her from drinking herself to death again!"

"Don't touch me man, really, don't! Just walk away!" Jay hated when someone invaded his personal space.

He felt his fists itching to punch his opponent, but tried to keep fighting it, taking a step back.
This would get him into real trouble, not only with Rianne. He knew she wasn't on board with solving things like that. Still his body was on high alert and he couldn't deny that he thought it would certainly feel very good and satisfying to teach Nate a lesson and wipe that stupid expression off his face. He was assessing Nate's bodyweight and height. The other man was slightly towering over him, but not really built that muscular, he could easily take him if he wanted to. Somewhere in the back of his mind Jay knew this wasn't good. That guy was pressing all the right buttons and knowing it.

"No, you walk away! You walk out of her life, just leave her alone. You're no good for her! Andrea's turning in his grave seeing the two of you canoodling around! You couldn't live up to him if you tried!"

Funny that Nate still seemed to justify his actions by pretending he was only protecting his best friend's wife, when in reality he had his own interests in mind.

"Oh, and I am sure you can?" Jay sneered at him, fuming inside.

"Come one guys, stop it!" Hailey tried to insert herself now, stepping closer to them, but Jay ignored her.

He knew he should really walk away from this, but he couldn't. There was a certain fascination with how Nate's mind worked. The poison from his words was slowly dripping into Jay's system, his overall body tension steadily increasing. Nate was taking another drag from his cigarette, still etching closer to Jay:

"It's been me and her right from the start. I know what she needs, I know everything about her! She's going to see reason real soon, so why don't you do us all a favor and speed up the process, so everything can go back to how it was. You've had your fun, you can get yourself any other pretty little girl. Maybe Rianne didn't tell you, but she won't play house with you forever, she will never settle down like that! Just take the win that you screwed someone so out of your league and back off!"

"Someone so out of my league?" Jay was laughing incredulously.

What the hell was that lunatic talking about? And what was all the talk about him being Rianne's way to ruin anyway? Which woman were they talking about here? Obviously Nate was still under the illusion that this was just about sex and having some fun together.

"You're fucking nuts man. I sure as hell won't walk away to leave her with a sicko like you. You actually know nothing about her, about us!" Jay noticed he was shouting at Nate now, feeling a vein throb in his temple.

His jaw was already hurting because he was pressing his teeth together so hard. In his back he felt Hailey closing in on them again, muttering his name to get him to calm down and back away, but it was only a faint noise that didn't really reach him at this point. Especially when he heard the next words leaving Nate's mouth:

"I know bro, she's a freaking bomb in the sack," Nate started to talk in a conspiratorial tone now, his eyes twinkling madly, Jay already exploding in the inside.

"But believe me: once that little whore inside her has had her fun she'll leave your sorry ass. From what I could hear she's faking it with you anyway… So once she comes crawling to me, begging for me to take her back, I'm gonna show her how it's like to be with a real man!" He flicked away his cigarette stump and spat out next to Jay's feet.

That was the final straw! Jay had been speedily inching closer to snapping as soon as the word "whore" in connection with Rianne had fallen from Nate's mouth. But after that splash of saliva only just failed to land on his boots, his vision closed in on Nate's smug face for a second. Before he could reign himself in, because he knew this was incredibly stupid and of course only playing into the other man's cards, Jay threw a forceful punch. His fist connected with Nate's nose hard, an awful crunching sound announcing that he had probably broken something.

His own angry grunt and Hailey's shocked "Jay, don't!" echoing in the aftermath.
She threw her tiny frame against him and shoved him backwards a few feet.
Blood immediately ran over Nate's lips and chin, dripping into the snow beneath his feet, leaving red dots on pure white and dirty grey snow. Jay prepared for a reverse punch, breathing heavily, ready to put up a fight and settle this matter once and for all, but his opponent just smirked, eerily calm, like he had won the lottery:

"Thank you very much Detective! I think that's officially called assault…. I'll have my complaint filed a.s.a.p.!"

Jay stared at him, bewildered. The Ruzek cousin made a half-turn, letting the blood from his nose run freely, not even bothering to wipe it away. He only was licking his lips quickly before he added pointing at Jay:

"I'm gonna keep making your life a living hell, if you don't break up with her!"

"That a threat, huh?" Jay went after him, but Nate didn't engage and kept smiling self-complacently, walked away to his car parked on the other side of the street and flipped Jay off.

This sent yet another hot jolt of anger through his gut. That fucking prick! Jay made an attempt to follow that little punk, when suddenly he felt Hailey's strong grip on his arm again:

"Jesus Jay, let him go! Don't make this worse!" she screamed at him, snapping him out of his angry haze for a moment.

"He started it! Hell Hailey you heard him… Fuck!"

"Yeah, he got you exactly where he wanted you," his partner stated matter-of-factly.

Now that the heavy adrenaline was wearing off he started to feel the throbbing pain in his hand where his knuckles had connected with Nate's face. He put his other hand around it protectively.

"What the hell happened?" Adam suddenly stormed out of the back-entrance to Intelligence, alarmed by the commotion.

"You should keep your damn cousin in line, dude!" Jay yelled at him, in his agitation only seeing the resemblance of Adam's to Nate's face now.

"What he do now?" Adam threw his hands up in the air, his tone angering Jay to no end.

It sounded more like he was talking about a stupid schoolboy who acted out a prank than a complete lunatic who had just threatened him and would probably cause some career headaches for him.

"What he do now? You got to be kidding me…."

"Jay! Walk it off!" Hailey violently pushed against his chest, before he could clock another Ruzek today.

He hadn't even noticed that he had been prowling towards Adam. Shocked by his low impulse control Jay decided to listen to Hailey and her blue eyes that were pleading with him, so he turned on his heel to walk around the block. Well, happy Halloween!
When Jay was under the impression he had calmed himself down enough to think straight he returned to his truck. Hailey was still there, obviously waiting on him. Adam on the other hand and everybody else who had been hanging around, had disappeared.

"He's going to try and talk to Nate again," Hailey informed him, without Jay needing to ask.

His partner was perceptive like that. He found he couldn't say anything for a while, just tried to come to terms with the new mess he made.

"You all right?" Her soft voice and her hand on his shoulder brought him back from a dark place his mind had momentarily wandered off to and he nodded at her.

"Yeah, thanks… I…"

"I got your back Jay, we'll figure this out. Maybe Adam will get him to back off and don't file that complaint. Otherwise we'll find another solution, we always do."

Her words comforted him, he knew he could trust her with this.

"You sure you need the drama though?" Hailey then said, sort of hesitatingly, but he had heard her.

She also had that certain look on her face where she was feeling him out.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Why was he getting the impression that he had to defend himself?
He crossed his arms over his chest. Just now he felt that his jacket was completely soaked because of the constant snowflakes falling down from the sky. A shiver went through him. This was supposed to have been a cosy evening curled up with his woman on the couch, looking forward to go see some action out on the streets tomorrow.

"Nevermind…" Hailey scooped up a handful of snow, rolled it into a ball and handed it to Jay to put on his already swollen and angry red knuckles.

He took it and flinched at the ice-cold sensation on his skin. Still he was confused by the strange look Hailey gave him:

"D'you agree with Nate on this? You think I should break up with Rianne?" he asked her, shuffling his feet, feeling suddenly uncomfortable to talk about this with his her.

He needed to go see Rianne, he was probably already late.

"That's not what I said. I'm just worried, that's all… She kind of promised to not get you into trouble and this didn't look like no trouble. "

"It's not like she asked Nate to make me punch him. And I think I can handle my relationship just fine. It would be even easier if everyone backed off…"

Not wanting her to put more words, thoughts and ideas in his head that were probably going to make it spin faster than it already was, he curtly said goodbye to Hailey and drove off. What the hell had that been supposed to even mean? What had Rianne and Hailey been talking about and when?

"Tank you Mrs. TD, that was so much fun!"

That little curly-haired boy with the spiderman-costume almost didn't let her go by the end of their candy-crawl, his gap-toothed smile warming her heart and making her promise to visit again some time soon. He was just so adorable. One of those kids who got the motherly side in her surfacing with full force.
Leaving all those happy faces in a sugar-rush, Rianne tried to not dampen her own mood by worrying why the hell Jay still hadn't shown up yet. Her phone had been on silent throughout the evening after she'd hung up with him and then her attention had been on the kids and their tour through the neighborhood. But she had checked it from time to time. No missed calls or texts, at least not from him.
She was just about to call him and maybe prepare to be taking the 'L' back home to his apartment because she didn't want to be waiting out here in the dark and in the snow forever, when the familiar roar of Jay's truck approached suddenly. He pulled to a stop right next to her at the curb. The windows rolled down and a tense voice ordered:

"Get in! Now!"

Was this attitude supposed to be a Halloween prank?

"Oh hi babe, nice to see you! Sorry I'm late and that I didn't call to say that something came up. I'll make it up to you…" she mocked him from where she was standing, not liking the bossy tone and the overall aggressiveness he was giving out.

He didn't even crack a smile at her teasing, forehead creased in a dangerous way. It looked more like that 'Jay Halstead Detective face' than the one he normally reserved for her.

"Rianne, get in the truck! I'll explain later!"

When she still didn't move and crossed her arms defiantly he added a strained: "Please!"

Something wasn't right, she heard it in his voice. So she finally listened, huffing and rolling her eyes when she sat down next to him. The snow had begun to fall even heavier now.
Jay just drove off without explaining, he seemed to be adamant to get home as fast as possible. All her questions on what was going on were ignored, so she decided to ignore him too. Rianne had noticed that he sometimes just was in a mood he couldn't snap out of so easily. So she tried to give him time, even though it got her in a mood too. Her phone beeped with a new message.

Nate…

Every time his name popped up on her screen she felt a slight pain go through her. It was a mixture of several feelings all rolled into one. Rianne had not been able to block him from her contacts up until now. Maybe she was in denial that it was never going to be the way it was before and couldn't really let it go completely. And she felt somehow responsible for him. Not that she had the illusion she could help him right now, but there was just something still binding her to him.

With a guilty conscience because of Jay she opened the picture that was attached to his message:

"You really wanna be with someone who is capable of doing this?"

It was a picture of Nate's face, a bloody nose, probably a black eye in the making.
Rianne stared at the screen for a second, taking it in, in disbelief, her heart beating faster, a sick feeling in her stomach. Then she directed her stare at Jay's hands clenching the steering-wheel. How could she have missed that his right one was bruised and swollen?

"What did you bloody do Jay?" She held her phone under his nose so that he could see what she was looking at, making him shake his head angrily and exhaling loud and deep:

"Nate came to the station, we got into a fight… and yeah… I hit him!"

"Why?"

She didn't wanna believe this. But also she didn't have a single doubt that Jay was capable of doing such a thing, because he was. She was in love with a short-fused hot-head, much to her current annoyance.

"He said some awful things, about you, about us, he was right up in my face. I snapped…"

"Fuck Jay! It looks like you broke his nose! Did he hit you too?"

She threw her phone back into her bag. She didn't wanna look at this evidence any longer.
Instead she looked over at Jay's face, he was still watching the road but getting himself worked up. The muscles in his jaw tightening, whole body taut like a bow.

"No he didn't, but it's just so fucked up! He's going to file a formal complaint against me now for assaulting him. I think he was planning just that…" Jay's voice was a strange mixture of pent up frustration, anger and remorse.

He was going way faster than he should in this kind of weather. Rianne felt her fingers grabbing hold of the leather-seat beneath her.

"Why didn't you just walk away?"

"I couldn't. Girl, I won't even repeat the things he said… and I fucking can't believe he sent that picture to you! Why didn't you block him from your contacts? Are you still talking to him?" He threw her a proving sideways glance, the hurt flickering in his eyes narrowed in suspicion, sending a sharp pang to her gut.

He was upset with her? She didn't do anything wrong.

"I told you he's still texting me, but I never answer, so don't look at me like I'm the one to blame here!" She was getting upset with him too now, because he was obviously doubting her.

"Did you somehow talk to Hailey by the way?" Jay seemed to be on a suspicious roll now.

'Here we go', she thought with an eyeroll at the mention of the other woman's name.

"I have talked to Hailey on some occasions, yeah. But what's that got to do with you punching Nate?"

"You know what's funny? You keep telling me I should stay out of your business and not get involved, that you are handling things and then you go behind my back and promise Hailey that you won't get me into trouble? Why are you two even talking about me?" Jay's voice was adapting a cynical note she didn't like at all.

"That's not what I said!"

Rianne couldn't believe that conversation was coming back to bite her in the ass now.

"She approached me at Molly's when we all were out last week. She told me I should think hard if I was up to the task of taking care of you and I told her that she should keep worrying about being your partner and leave the rest to me. I can't believe she twisted my words…"

What else had Hailey told Jay? Rianne could feel the blood pumping through her carotid.

"Why didn't you tell me about it?" Jay had that tight-lipped facial expression that sometimes still intimidated her, because it usually meant he was putting up walls.

Walls they had spent the last weeks breaking down with each other. They never should have left that loft-bubble... but then again Nate came and destroyed that little peace of heaven for them pretty much.

"Why should I? It was just a conversation between us women. She was the one meddling, but I know she's your partner, so I was handling it…"

"Again: You are handling it!" His voice was getting louder and louder, a hurt and angry animal in a four-wheel cage.

The air was getting thinner and thinner or so it felt like to her. Why was it suddenly hard to get enough oxygen?
The snow kept falling, the windshield wipers barely able to keep up with the work, making a lot of squelching noises. When Rianne looked out of the window, drowning out the sound of Jay continuing to curse under his breath, there was a tunnel of snowflakes blocking her from seeing anything else but tiny white droplets tumbling down to the ground, mesmerizing and slowly swallowing everything.

"Jay, stop the car! I need some air," she heard herself say, but it felt like the words didn't come out of her own mouth. Like someone else uttered them.

"No, I'm not letting you get out now, we're not finished!"

Jay kept blowing off more steam, but Rianne wasn't listening anymore. The only thing she could feel was shortness of breath and the urge to just get out, a hissing sound in her ears, the walls closing in on her. The car had to stop, they had to stop fighting or something terrible would happen.

She yelled at him to stop for another time, the panic now taking over her every fibre, her fingers reaching for the door-handle to be ready to jump out if she had to.

So at least now you know how Jay handled Nate... I didn't wanna do anything too dramatic (yet), so I hope you're not disappointed. Just felt like Jay has just been recovering from a severe injury - he needs a little break that poor guy.