A/N: This is a longer one and will have to last you, as I am super busy with work and I am going on a much needed mini-break! Thanks for all the continued love over all of these years. *hearts*
Chapter 3
Hallmark Holiday Feb 2016
Cally's smile from actually getting to share breakfast with her husband diminished as soon as she saw Voight's face up in IU. He greeted her with an extra gruff, "Morning, cupcake, you missed all the fun."
"I'm not even late," she replied, pointing at the clock as she took in the general pallor hanging over the unit as well as Erin's empty desk. It was then she spied the maroon U of C sweatshirt lying on her desk. "What's this for, I know I complain about Dawson keeping it like a meat locker in here but…" she trailed off as Hank beckoned her into his office.
"Why can't Burgess do it, she wants up here so damn badly and she is younger than I am!" Cally protested, angry at her friend for jetting off to New York for a case, even if she understood that Nadia's killer took precedence.
"Ask Ruzek," Hank snapped, working his jaw. "Didn't know marriage was going to make you soft, Callahan."
Cally shook her head in disbelief, "not wanting to go fully undercover and sleeping in a dorm room is not about being soft, Voight, what's wrong with waiting a couple of days and putting Lindsey in?"
Hank closed his eyes and rubbed his face. He knew she would bring this up, but he didn't want to admit it out loud. "You don't have a history with heroin, Callahan, and you are the only one in the unit that has more than a community college degree. So get your knapsack ready, cupcake."
Clarke opened the door to their condo and was immediately greeted with the intoxicating aroma of dinner. He took in the carefully set table, champagne chilling in the bucket, roses carefully arranged in a vase and wondered for a second if they maybe might be celebrating something they had been trying for since July. Cally stuck her head out of the kitchen and said "hope you're hungry, cowboy!"
"Starving, vending machines are not filling, but what's all this, babe, Valentine's Day is next month and I thought you hated Hallmark holidays."
"I do," she replied, carrying out a platter of steak and potatoes, "but I figured I should feed you before I duck on you for this damn UC assignment Voigt is sticking me on."
Clarke raised his eyebrows, working on that inner Zen thing Boden had complimented him on. Love was still not lost between him and the head of the IU, even if he knew Cally was one of the best in the unit. "They aren't having you go undercover at a strip club or something are they?" he asked, slightly dreading the answer.
Cally laughed, "no, I get to wear clothes for this one. Like yoga pants and sweatshirts. It's at U of C but…" she trailed off, setting the food down and moving a chair right next to him.
"I'm not going to like this, am I?"
"Thing is, I gotta live on campus, as an RA and this case is, complicated and everyone is going to want in on it. You know how territorial Hanks is, so it might take a while, like a few, um, weeks."
Jeff ran his hand across his face, his patience being tested. It had been bad enough adjusting to a much heavier and inconsistent schedule since being in med school, but that had been helped by Cally not jumping at every case that crossed her desk. Since they had been trying for a little Clarke, they had agreed she could cool it, that her position was secure and even if it wasn't, she had proven herself to the Chicago PD and any other department would be happy to have her.
"When do you go?" he asked, reaching for her again, not wanting to hate her job when she was so damn accepting of his, but still wishing she had something a little more predictable.
"Monday," she admitted with a sigh, "bonus, Voight gave me the weekend off."
"How nice of him," he quipped, rubbing his neck before deciding to make better use of their time together.
He pulled her on to his lap, sliding his hands under her sweatshirt, fingers brushing and teasing, leaning in, lips hovering near hers as he breathed out a "just watch your six. Though it is just a bunch of rich kids, how hard can it be?"
"How hard can it be to get a bunch of spoiled brats to talk?" Erin griped, flopping on the twin extra-long in Cally's room after a couple of weeks of nothing more than static and dead-ends playing grad students at U of C.
Despite Voight trying his best, Lindsey demanded to be put on the case so someone was on the inside with Callahan.
"Oh they have no problem talking, if by talking you mean whining about the most asinine of bullshit," Cally said, flipping a page of a book.
Erin pulled herself back up, "you aren't really studying, right, Callahan?" she asked with a smirk.
"Shut up," Cally said, slamming the book shut and shoving it aside, thought that didn't stop Erin from picking it up and reading aloud. "Complex Adaptive Systems for Emergency Preparedness and Homeland Security, sounds titillating. Tell me you aren't actually raising your hand in classes."
"No, though given the rocket scientists in some of them, maybe I should start..." she replied, looking over her friend carefully. "How you feeling? You look tired."
Erin suppressed an eye roll; she knew her friend meant well, but she wasn't enjoying being treated like a fragile piece of glass. Just because the case was about heroin didn't meant she was going to go down that road again. "I am fine, Cal, you are worse than Hank!"
"Don't you mean Jay," Cally countered, knowing her friend's phone had been blowing up with texts of concern that weren't entirely case related from their fellow detective.
"I'm going to need you to shut your nerdy mouth, Callahan!"
"You like it, you like him worrying about you and being all overprotective, admit it."
"Shut up, Callahan!" Erin admonished, but was interrupted by Cally's buzzing phone.
"Yeah, Caleb, no, I'll be right down." Cailin shook her head, shoving her phone back in her pocket. "Kid is seriously the worst when it comes to girls, but he also has an illegal poker game where they are betting more than meal passes, so I gotta keep him talking." Her sigh told them both that wasn't difficult.
Nearly two more weeks went by without them gaining much traction. "It has been a stinking month and these kids are talking about everything but dealing drugs or each other!" Cailin vented to Voight over the
phone, pacing in her room, her patience wearing thin.
"What about your CI?" Voight asked, though his tone said he was also low on patience.
"Squirrelly and a pain in both of our asses. Any movement on the suppliers?"
"Dawson was running a couple of leads, but he's kind of tied up in personal stuff right now," Voight replied,not wanting to get into what was going on with Antonio.
Cally and Erin both were at wits end, and tried to convince their boss to let them get back to streets, where the both felt they could do more good than with a bunch of rich college kids who decided putting their tuition in their veins was a better investment than a degree.
"Get with Ruzek and Atwater and see what they have gotten on the supplier end, help them put the puzzle pieces together if you can't flip someone by next week, I'm pulling the plug. Even though Commander Fisher will be less than enthralled with that lack of arrests."
"You win some, you lose some, sir."
"I don't like losing, Callahan."
A confused Erin grabbed her buzzing phone trying to not fall out of the tiny dorm bed. "What's up, Cal?" she asked by way of answering, an inkling telling her the woman wouldn't be calling unless something major was happening.
"My idiot CI managed to get picked up by Campus Police and is threatening to blow the whole damn op if he can't keep his mouth shut!" Cally snapped. She was less than pleased when Caleb called from the campus police station, freaking out about going to an actual police station, let alone jail. He started yelling for his cop RA, her cover protected only by the fact that he was in an empty drunk tank when he did so.
It took some finessing with campus police, trying to pretend like they were on the same level as the two angry detectives that came storming into the station. Unfortunately, both women went on the offensive first, leading them too cool their jets for hours while administration was dragged out of bed and things were cleared with legal.
"I freaking hate rich kids, stupid private college punks," Erin said, pacing in the office they had been stuck in, "no offense."
Cally shrugged, "don't look at me I went to a public school, it was just out of state, and that was only because I got a full ride. And agreed, these little bastards could use a nice dose of the real world. You should have just let them haul Caleb down to Cook County."
It was Cailin who swallowed her pride first, somewhere around dawn; Erin was still seething as Cally flirted her way through the so-called campus police Captain and the Dean of Students in order to get them access to Caleb and use his fear to their advantage.
As soon as Caleb saw the two women, he was an open book, campus cops terrifying him enough, the detectives didn't have to employ any of their normal techniques. "I'll tell you everything!" he offered immediately.
Cally and Erin listened to the creative ways these rich kids bet: drugs, exam keys, going on family vacations, nights with their girlfriends; both detectives had trouble keeping their emotions in check.
Word got out on this exclusive poker game, people wanted in, made the stakes even higher. Also got the eye of some professors and administrators on campus; but instead of shutting it down, these assholes wanted their own back room game. They also wanted party favors and those often included drugs. A Poli Sci prof leading the charge, able to get the best of both, giving Caleb an "administrative fee" for helping with the supply chain of and for keeping things on the DL.
Erin knew when Cailin was going to lose it, saw those blue eyes turn to storm clouds and lightening, saw her coil back, shoving the table forward, pinning Caleb before it shoved him and his chair over backwards. "What the hell is wrong with you, kid?" she hissed, crouching over a terrified Caleb who suddenly looked much younger than his late teen years.
"Callahan," Lindsay warned.
"Stop, please," Caleb squeaked, looking like he was about to wet his chinos.
"Fine," Cally said, hauling him and his chair back upright, "since you asked nicely. When is the next game supposed to be?"
"Thursday night," Caleb said, sweating profusely, despite the chill in the room.
Cally and Erin looked at each other. "Good. You're going to drop by the dear professor's office hours later today and tell him the buy-in got a little higher and you have a new lead on a supplier who has some of that clean snow everybody's been trying to get their hands on," Erin said, her wheels turning.
The plan had to come together quick, too quick for any of their liking. After weeks of nothing on this fact-finding mission, now they were having to slap it together. Halstead standing is as the new supplier, Caleb's big bro, back from out East, club promoting turning into a lucrative side business.
But Caleb was cagey, his ADHD spinning him nearly out of control, practically turning cartwheels in the hallway, waiting on the Prof's office hours. Halstead wanted to smack the kid upside the head and was about to as the professor's door finally opened.
"Mr. Graber, coming to talk to me about your failing grade on your last exam, I presume, looking for a little extra credit?" the Professor sneered, before catching sight of Halstead. "Who is your friend?" he asked, eyes narrowing suspiciously, "looks a little old to be a student."
"It's, uh, my big bro, he just got back NYC…he's a club promoter…" Caleb stuttered out, swallowing nervously, his eyes darting around the office and back out to the hallway where Cally was standing in the shadows of a bust of some old dead guy and glaring at him.
The professor followed Caleb's eyes. Cally felt her heart stop as she tried to make herself invisible. "Who is out there, Caleb?" he asked, starting to walk towards the hallway.
"Nobody just some bitch cop-"
Halstead and Callahan both winced at the same time as the curses of the team came over their mics.
His sentence didn't have to go any further, the professor turning on his heel and making quick use of the french doors behind him, that big partner's desk between him and Halstead serving as enough of a deterrent for him to rabbit out through the courtyard. Cally flung Caleb at Ruzek, cursing up a storm as she ordered him to sit stupid kid while chasing after Halstead and the professor.
They charged through campus, yelling into their comms, not knowing the landscape as well as the professor. They lost sight of him in the sea of bundled students getting out of class for the day, heading every which way and all not seeming to notice the foot chase happening around them. Cally scrambled up steps, trying to get a better vantage point, trying to spy the professor's camel colored blazer in the sea of winter coats, finally spotting him, the stereotypical elbow patches giving him away.
"He just exited the main quad south side, heading for the Midway," Cally yelled.
"On him," Erin's voice came, as the entire IU focused their efforts towards the Midway. Erin was on his tail, having already been stationed on the south side of campus, her arms and legs pumping with all their might, thinking this prof must be a runner for fun; ignoring the cramping in her side. Preying on kids, it wasn't right, position of power, he would be the one on his knees soon enough.
She closed the gap as he made his way to the ice rink, either not thinking or just trying to lose that determined brunette tail. Erin followed right behind, almost able to reach out and grab him when her feet met with a patch of ice that wasn't part of the rink, her feet coming out from under her without warning. Her body seemed to take flight before she even knew what was happening, her head meeting the metal railing of the stairwell, the wind knocked out of her as she tumbled down the steps, the world going black.
The team wasn't far behind, grateful for the concern citizens who had already called 911 and stopped the running professor. The team separated to attend to the still down Erin Lindsey and to catch the professor. Olinsky cuffed the professor while Dawson and Atwater moved the crowd back and away. Halstead glared at Cally as they both made moves to Erin's side.
"Don't move," Voight ordered, worried about his daughter-like detective's neck as she started to come to.
"Stay still, Er, paramedics are on on their way, we could practically carry you to Chicago Med, it will be okay," Cally said, seeing a look of panic in those hazel eyes, brushing Erin's hair gently back from her face, exposing the head wound that had knocked her out, the metal railing thicker than Lindsay's skull. It would be a joke once she was cleared.
"Over here!" Voight said, waving the paramedics and their stretcher over, not a moment too soon as Erin once again slipped out of consciousness.
"We're right behind you, Erin," Voight said, his face that of a father, not a boss as Erin's silent form was loaded into the back of the ambo. As soon as it drove off, he gestured to Olinksy and Dawson, "I want to know everything and everyone that professor knows, now, get him to talk, I don't care how!"
By this time Ruzek had joined the group, dragging Stacey and Caleb with him. "Get them in to the district," Voight barked before he pointed at Atwater and Halstead, "you two, run background on all of them, get Burgess to help you."
"Shouldn't we be with Erin?" Halstead protested. Despite things being on and off between the two of them, his heart seizing as he saw Erin unconscious at the bottom of the stairs.
Voight narrowed his eyes, "that is where Callahan and I will be. Go, now, I'll call when we know something. Callahan, get a car."
Cally did so, even though it would be as quick to walk, another sign that Voight wasn't thinking straight, but she wasn't about to argue. She pulled up in front of the ER, parking illegally, throwing the police placard up, following Voight inside. "She's going to be fine, Hank, just like she was fine on this case."
He looked ready to say something, before shaking his head and striding into the room, badge already out, bellowing for information.
Cally paced in the waiting room, the minutes feeling like hours, especially with Voight's gaze heavy on her, his expression going back and forth from worried to angry. She would get an earful and then some from him, and soon.
"You know this is your fault, Callahan," Jay barked, cornering her by the coffee machine, time stretching into hours as they waited for Erin to wake up, nothing showing on any scans to indicate permanent damage.
A pit of worry had already grown in her stomach. Her CI had blown her cover, if that hadn't happened then the professor wouldn't have rabbited and then Erin wouldn't be lying unconscious somewhere in this damn hospital. Once again, she had gotten her cover blown and put a coworker in danger. Even if this time didn't involve a shootout or death, maybe she was no better than a beat cop. Maybe she should be out there with Roman and Burgess should be getting the chance to prove her worth up in IU.
Her worries were echoed in Halstead's words. "Your damn CI couldn't keep his mouth shut and Erin wouldn't have even been on the case if you would have gotten in and out!"
Her self-doubt overrode her defensiveness, and she could feel herself falling down the well, taking Jay's verbal abuse and turning it into an albatross around her neck. Cally pressed her fingertips to her eyelids, willing the world away for a brief moment, grateful for the familiar voice that sounded over her shoulder.
"Cailin, what happened?" Clarke asked, taking in Halstead's posture and protectively moving in front of his wife. "Take a walk, Jay," he commanded more than asked before turning back to Cally.
"Cal, what is it?" he asked, taking in the faraway look in her eye, knowing exactly what it was, but still hoping it wasn't happening again.
"Jeff, I think this is all my fault," she croaked out, the panic attack finally taking over.
"It wasn't your fault," Voight snapped as a shell of Cailin Callahan sat in front of his desk first thing the next morning.
His words echoed Jeff's. She had also heard the same thing all last night from Casey. And her team sans Jay. And Shay. And Holly. But it didn't matter. As soon as Caleb called her a cop, the professor rabbited and that chase led to the tumble that let to Lindsey being laid up in a hospital bed.
"This damn case has been cursed from the beginning, it is not your fault. Lindsey is fine, her head is a hell of a lot harder than that. I need you to quit blaming yourself and help bring every last scumbag attached to this case down, do you think you can handle that?" Voight roared, his anger enough to put Cailin fuel a fire she hadn't felt since her NYPD days.
"Yes, sir," she said, leaving his office and zeroing in on Olinksy. "Prof still in the cages?" Olinksy nodded, his eyes following after the blonde as she went tearing down the stairs, a woman on a mission.
"Remind me to never piss her off," Ruzek gulped.
Atwater raised his eyebrows at him, "you do that on a weekly basis. That was not pissed off, that was something entirely different."
Olinsky and Dawson gave her a few minutes, but they both knew better than to let her down there alone for too long.
"What, he and I were just having a nice little chat, weren't we doc?" she said, looking at her two teammates with wide blinking eyes, scary good with that innocent blonde thing. Olinsky suppressed a shiver while Dawson thought he could almost see the light dimming behind her eyes, remembering that VC detective he had met years ago.
"I will tell you two whatever you want to know, just call off your bitch!" the professor pleaded, his eyes begging Dawson and Olinksy.
"It's Detective Bitch," Cally replied, stepping forward before letting go of her hold on the cuffs, the momentum knocking him off-balance, his face meeting that concrete. "Oops, he was heavier than I thought," she replied, with a shrug as the men rushed in to right him. "Start talking, doc."
Ruzek and Atwater just stared at her, deer in headlights and she stomped back up to IU, Voight working a toothpick and giving her a slight nod before retreating back to his office, Halstead shook his head in disgust.