I. Olivia
I think I've seen this film before and I didn't like the ending.
You're not my homeland anymore.
So what am I defending now?
You were my town, now I'm in exile seein' you out.
If the clacking of her heels against the cement floor alerted him to her incoming arrival, Greg's tense, unmoving posture gave no indication.
Initially, she had no plans whatsoever to come down and see him, not after the way he reacted to her unannounced arrival, but sheer boredom and unsatiable curiosity persuaded her to change her mind. Before he went back to work, Jay had said Greg would be down here in this 'Hole'.
"Probably fiddling around with his computers and watching the highlights of last night's Hawks' game until we need him to look up something else for the case," her brother informed over his shoulder, his body already halfway out the breakroom door. She wanted to be so frustrated at Jay for not so subtly suggesting that she go down and see Greg, but she couldn't be. Not when Jay didn't know everything that happened between them eight years ago. In Jay's mind, Greg was just another "big brother" and "best friend" to his little sister and nothing more. And, given all of the complications that had recently taken over her life, Olivia wanted to maintain her brother's assumptions and keep him from getting suspicious.
So, once she was more than positive that Madison had given into her tiredness and fell into a deep sleep that would last at least an hour—maybe even more—she slipped out of the breakroom, signaled Jay to keep an eye on her godchild, and slunk downstairs to the lowest level in the building.
Anxiety was her companion the entire trip down.
What was he going to say? What was she going to say?
She felt like she was walking up to see Jay all over again, except this time she was seeing Greg and that made it infinitely more nerve-wracking. At the end of the day, Jay was her brother, her blood; Greg was none of those things. Sure, they all liked to think of him that way, but there was really nothing stopping him from completely shutting her out and casting away like she and that summer did not exist.
As much as she wished he did, he had no obligations to her whatsoever. Standing behind him now, him either oblivious to her presence or blatantly ignoring it, was more than enough proof of that.
Watching him stare up at the large computer screens in front of him, his body frozen in place despite leaning leisurely back in his chair, Olivia noticed that the calm, cool, and collected man she once knew had been reduced to a bundle of nerves. His fingers were nimbly twiddling around a capped pen in and out of both his hands. He was anxious, maybe even more than she was.
The silence that filled the so-called 'Hole' was charged and tense, desperate for one of them, presumably her, to act. Feeling like she had no choice in the matter—plus, with Madison sleeping upstairs she really knew there was no luxury of waiting around for him to acknowledge her—Olivia blurted out the first thing that came to mind: "What are you doing?"
Greg swiveled around in his chair so fast he almost fell out of it.
'So, he wasn't ignoring you!' she thought victoriously to herself, holding back the sigh of relief that threatened to pry open her mouth and escape.
Now able to set her eyes on him in his full entirety for more than a few moments, the first thing she noticed was that, despite looking sad and forlorn, his eyes were still her favorite shade of ocean blue. The second was that time had been both good and bad to him. But, he answered her question before she had the chance to delve further into that observation.
"The uh, the lights," he struggled to explain. "They uh, watching them change h-helps relax me."
She got the sense that he was plenty ashamed to admit that to her. Staring at the screens behind him, she looked on silently for a moment and observed the serenity that seemed to flow out of the screens and into her minds as the traffic lights switched from red to green to yellow to red. It was a pattern that held no rhyme or reason but, if one timed it right, it was also a mind trap and a very good one at that.
"I see what you mean," she said after a few moments of watching the screens for herself. And she really did; in those short few seconds, her mind felt faintly more at ease than it had since she stepped foot into the 21st District.
Greg nodded, but made no move to turn around and resume his watch. She had his full attention now and she could quite literally feel him looking her up and down, taking in the eight years of change that marked her body and outward appearance.
"You look good Liv," he finally mumbled. "Real good." She supposed she should take his words as a compliment, but there was something about the way he said them that made her feel like they were anything but. To her, it almost sounded as if he was trying to justify something to himself rather than shower her with a few simple words of affirmation.
"Thanks," she replied back in a whisper anyway. The goal of her coming down here was not to pick his brain, it was to make whatever amends were necessary to get them on the same page. "You too." And he did, despite the obvious changes in him. His hair was longer than the last time she had seen it and he looked paler and skinnier than she remembered, but overall, he still looked good. 'Of course he did,' she thought. 'It's Greg.'
Another silence, this time an awkward one, draped over them like a weighted blanket. Was he, like her, struggling over to find the right words to say so he just didn't even bother to say them? Or was she just supposed to carry on the whole conversation by herself, only pausing here and there to give him a chance to add his own two cents if he so desired?
Just as she was about to say as much, Greg cast his eyes downwards and said, "You came home."
"I had to come home," she immediately replied.
He looked up at her then, cocking his eyebrow and tilting his head in pure curiosity. "You didn't want to come?"
This time, the sigh did strangle its way out past her lips, but it was not one of relief. "It's been eight years Greg," she started. "Eight years…"
His eyes quickly left her face and he swiveled back around in his chair so that he was no longer looking at her at all.
'Huh,' she thought. Did she say the wrong thing? Did he want her to say she came back for him? Anger flared up inside of her at that. He had no right, absolutely no right, to think that she would ever come back for him. Not after what happened between them eight years earlier…
"I wrote to you," she said, her voice cold and firm.
"I know," was his whispered response. The strangled way it came out transfigured her next comment from a question to a statement.
"You didn't write back."
"I know."
She silently relished in the fact that he at least had the decency to sound ashamed. No matter how hard she tried, she simply could not let go of how crushed she had been when a month, two months, three months, four months went by without a written response back to the letter she poured all of her emotions into. After the fifth month rolled around, she gave up hope that a response would ever come and vowed to never speak of or to Greg Gerwitz again.
But that was eight years ago…the times have changed and her vow was being forced into a null and void state.
"Well," she clapped, having enough of this tip-toeing dance around one another. "Now that we have that cleared up." She hopped up onto the counter that separated her from him and swung her legs around it so she was mere inches away from him. Not liking that he was in his chair and evidently appearing smaller than she, she hopped off the counter and landed on the balls of her feet hard. Intense pain shot up through both her legs at the impact and her landing turned into an ungraceful one as she stumbled on her feet and fell to the floor in a heap.
Greg's face morphed into concern for her wellbeing as his body straightened up in his chair, but he made no effort to get up and help her to her feet. She was on her own for that. These days, she was always on her own.
Choosing not to get up but to remain on the floor, Olivia kicked off her heels and crossed her legs together. Leaning her back up against the counter she just hopped over, she peered up at Greg and debated whether or not to launch into one of the many spiels she hastily put together in her head on the way down to see him.
Just as she settled on which semi-rehearsed speech she was going to go with, Greg opened his mouth and beat her to the punch.
"The reason I didn't write to you wasn't because I didn't want to." His words were spoken slowly, as if he was afraid that, if he went any faster, his acquired stutter would come out and take away from what he was trying to say. "I did, more than anything. But, but I couldn't. Not when you were leaving to go to Harvard, leaving to go and fulfill all those crazy big dreams of yours while I was getting fucked up overseas. From day one, my second tour…" Greg trailed off, unsure of where to take what he was saying next.
Olivia wanted more than anything to jump down his throat and start yelling at him for such unoriginal reasonings that honestly sounded like they came out of some half-assed romance novel or movie. But she didn't. Despite whatever it was she was feeling, she knew this was something Greg was struggling to tell her and that whatever his words were, she needed to hear them in their entirety before she reacted.
"I struggled. A lot. And you and your future had no part getting mixed up with that." The frustrated huff he let out signaled to her that he was done talking and she wasted no seconds before she pounced.
"Be more original," Olivia scoffed. "You had no right to make that decision for me. And who's to even say anything would have come from writing back to me? One letter Greg! You could have written all of that in a letter if it's really what you were feeling! But no, you just chose to ignore me and make all of these decisions about my life and my future for me—"
"—That's not—"
"—More than that, it's not like my hopes and dreams panned out the way I wanted them to, did they? In the past year, my whole life turned upside down and my dreams quite literally crumbled up and died and here I am, back in Chicago of all the fucking places in the world with nothing to my name except a kid that's not actually mine and whatever is in my suitcase upstairs. So tell me, do you really think my life turned out the way it should have been with you out of the picture? Is it the way you imagined, the way you hoped it would be?" Her words had so much bite in them, Greg was unable to fend off the attack.
Flinch after flinch, his head drooped lower into his chest and his knuckles turned whiter from gripping the arms of his chair so tightly.
She used to fantasize about seeing him again and bringing up his lack of response to her letter. In her mind, an image straight out of The Notebook always appeared, except instead of Noah telling Allie that he did write her 365 letters, one for each day of the year, it was Greg. She always dreamed of him embracing her and apologizing for the fact that, for some reasons, his letters got lost in transit and never made it to her. Or, alternatively, he would present her with a large bundle of sealed envelopes, telling her that he was sorry he never got around to mailing them, but wanted her to know not a day went by where she wasn't on his mind.
Hearing him tell her that he ignored her because he thought her future would be better for it was like a knife to the heart and back all in one. Not one ounce of her felt bad that she was verbally attacking him over something he truly believed to be right.
Shooting him an icy stare, she pulled herself up off of the floor and dusted the spatters of dust that clung to her black nylon tights and skirt. Stepping back into her heels, she glared down at him and pondered over what to say next. This was not how she wanted this interaction to go and she knew that, if she wanted any chance for them to move on and leave Jay in the dark over what happened between them eight years ago, she was going to have to fix this fast.
"I'm sorry," she confessed, her gaze softening. "I didn't come down here to yell at you like that. It's just…I've been through a lot in the past twenty-four hours and I took a lot of that out on you and I am sorry." When Greg made no indication that he was going to say anything, she decided that maybe it was time for a confession of her own. "I never thought I'd come back to Chicago. You weren't here for it, but when I did leave, I went out guns blazing. And now, being back here, tail between my legs with literally nothing, well, let's just say it's not a good feeling. So I'm sorry because, like I said, none of that is your fault and I had no right treating you like it is." She paused, but again, Greg gave no sign that he was going to contribute or acknowledge what she was divulging to him.
So, she plowed on. "I don't understand your reasoning, but I'm sure you thought it was the right choice and maybe it was, for you. I can't fault that. So, I'm sorry and I hope that after everything, we can go back to being friends? I really did miss you Greggy." She was laying on thick, she knew that. But, she needed him to give her this, needed him to bring some sense of normalcy to her life, needed him to allow her to control this one thing so Jay wouldn't get ideas and kick her out of his life for something she knew would be viewed as a betrayal.
However, Greg gave her none of that. Every little thing she needed, he denied with five words—no more, no less.
"I think you should go," he muttered, spinning his chair around and focusing his attention back on the continuously changing traffic lights.
"Greg…" Olivia sighed, hurt and fear swirling up inside her, threatening to explode right on out. She lost Greg once before, was she really about to lose him again?
Yes, of course she was. And it was no one's fault but her own.
"I'm sorry," she meekly whispered one last time before turning on her heels and rushing out of the 'Hole,' this time taking the side door instead of attempting to make it over the counter again. She wasn't sure if she could stand humiliating herself any further in front of the man who clearly wanted nothing to do with her, despite her earlier thoughts that this was simply not true.
Tears burning in her eyes, Olivia paused on the stairs leading back up to the main floor of the district to gather herself together. She had no one to blame for Greg's response but herself and yet, knowing that did not make her feel better; it made her feel worse.
Even before everything that went down between them eight years ago, Greg had always been one of her closest confidants. Where she always felt that she had to be strong for Jay and their mom, she felt free to let her true feelings fly in front of her brother's best friend. When she needed a shoulder to cry on, he was always there with a spare shirt so that, when she soaked the one he was wearing through, he'd be able to change into something that provided comfort for the both of them after her tears would inevitably tire her out.
Despite everything, she needed that Greg right now, and instead of telling him that, she let her emotions get the best of her and pushed just the right number of buttons to rid Greg from her life for good.
"Way to fucking go Liv," she chided herself, sliding her hands through her long, dark brown hair and gripping at her roots aggressively. Squatting down, she let out a silent scream filled with frustration and sorrow. Once she felt satisfied to close her mouth, she stood up straight and headed back up the stairs as if nothing happened.
The scene that greeted her when she reentered the workplace for the Intelligence Unit was one of complete and utter chaos.
Madison was screeching in Jay's arms, doing everything her little body possibly could to try and get away from the man she didn't know. A female detective was standing next to her brother, trying to calm both him and the baby down, while another detective, who looked Puerto Rican and oddly familiar shouted out ideas for them to try on how to get Madison to stop crying.
"Will somebody just go and find Jay's sister?" A younger looking detective shouted over all the crying at the same time as the man who Olivia presumed was Jay's boss yelled in a menacing tone, "Halstead, get that kid and your sister out of here! You're done for the day! Just go home and take care of whatever family business you got going on NOW!"
Gulping at the mess she didn't mean to leave behind, Olivia raced towards her brother and immediately pulled Madison from his grasp. Within seconds of arriving into a familiar set of arms, Madison calmed down and curled into Olivia's chest, sniffling as the steady stream of tears coming out of her eyes slowed down.
"I am so sorry!" Olivia apologized, totally aghast over the state of disruption Madison had caused. "I thought she'd be asleep for a lot longer." Had she really been gone that long? Sneaking a glance up at the clock on the wall, she was confused to see that no, she really hadn't been—no more than twenty minutes had passed since she went to go see Greg.
"It's my fault," the female cop spoke up, her tone uniquely raspy. "I went to go make a cup of coffee and accidently dropped my thermos while trying to fill it up. The sound of the crash woke her up."
Of course the sound of the crash woke her up and frightened her; just the night before a different crashing sound woke her up and totally changed her life around. But these detectives didn't need to know that.
"I'm sorry I wasn't here to calm her down," Olivia apologized, wanting to placate the still angry and annoyed looks on some of her brother's coworkers—mainly his boss. "She doesn't do well in new places with new people, and I never should have let there be a situation where something like this could happen."
"It's okay," Jay's boss grounded out, his voice gravely and extremely intimidating. "But I meant what I said. Halstead, take your sister and the kid home and don't come back until they are settled in."
From the corner of her eye, Olivia watched on with curiosity as her brother straightened at the order and let out a stiff, "Yes sir," in response.
"Lindsay, you can go with them if you'd like," Jay's boss added before turning sharply on his heel and locking himself in his office with a slam of the heavy wooden door.
Something about the man's words prompted the female cop Lindsay to bristle, but nevertheless she reached for her coat and keys anyway while Jay informed Olivia that he'd grab hers and Madison's bags.
"C'mon," Lindsay gestured towards the stairs. Then, turning towards Jay, who was making his way towards the breakroom, she called out, "Jay, we'll meet you at the car!"
Olivia barely had time to hear her brother agree to Lindsay's words as the female detective started to lead her down the stairs.
"So," Lindsay began once the three of them were out of earshot from the rest of the Unit. "You're Jay's sister?"
"I am," Olivia confirmed with a nod of her head, confused as to why the detective was asking such a question.
"Hmm," Lindsay mused. "I didn't know Jay had a sister."
Though she supposed Jay wouldn't have had much to talk about in regard to her, the revelation that he never thought to mention her at all stung. Back in Boston, every single one of her friends knew about her older brother who was a Ranger and now a detective in the most elite unit in all of Illinois.
"Granted," Lindsay continued, oblivious to just how much her words were hurting Olivia. "No one knew about Will until the day he randomly showed up either."
The allusion to the parallels between her and Will stung even more.
Why?
'Because they force you to think about how much of a hypocrite you are and continue to be,' she thought bitterly to herself.
"How long ago was that?" she inquired, not wanting her thoughts to linger on one of her more prominent faults. "That Will came back?"
Olivia felt Lindsay's gaze tilt sideways towards her. "Is lack of communication a Halstead thing? Or just a thing between you and your brothers?"
Taken back by such a personal question, Olivia struggled to come up with an answer. Was this even the kind of question Detective Lindsay was privy to know the answer to?
"Both I guess," she eventually mumbled after realizing the detective had stopped walking and was impatiently waiting for an answer.
"Hmph," Lindsay smirked. "That's what I figured. Now come on, my car is just over here." Resuming their walk, Olivia was just about to ask her why she was driving them to Jay's apartment when Lindsay started to answer her the question she asked earlier. "Will came back maybe four, five months ago?" The female detective turned solemn as she recalled the dates in her head and shook her head in affirmation. "Yeah," she confirmed, her sorrow-filled voice indicating to Olivia that there was definitely a story there. "Five months ago."
"And he's been staying with Jay this whole time?" How had the two of them not managed to kill one another?
Detective Lindsay nodded her head once again, her mind seeming to be off in some memory of sorts. Olivia wanted desperately to ask her what she was thinking about and if she was okay but decided against it when she saw the detective's eyes visibly glaze over.
The three of them came to a stop in front of a black Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT8.
"Jay shouldn't be too far behind," Lindsay murmured, her still glossy eyes scanning the space behind them in search of her brother.
Craning her neck to the side in a search of her own, Olivia finally asked, "Why are you driving? Not that I'm not appreciative or have a problem with it or anything, I was just…just curious."
Without giving her eyes a break from their task of tracking down Jay, Lindsay let out a strangled cough as she grappled over how to respond. Luckily for the detective, her delay and hesitancy in answering was all Olivia needed to put the pieces together herself.
"Are you two…" The implied labeling of the relationship between her brother and his coworker was so clear that Lindsay had no choice but to confirm it.
"How long?" Olivia asked, stunned over the fact that her big brother had it in him to not just date a coworker, but to do so so blatantly. 'That must be why his boss said Lindsay could come with us,' Olivia thought to herself, the older man's words and lack of reasoning finally making sense to her.
"A little over a month," Lindsay admitted, her voice sounding raspier than it had since they were first introduced. "He uh, I uh, your brother is great." The compliment was handed out rather lamely, making it all the more unnecessary.
Growing up, Olivia was well aware of how great her brother was; as far as big brothers went, he was the best. More than that though, Jay had some sort of trait about him that both she and Will did not possess: the ability to leave a lasting mark on just about everyone he came into contact with. Jay was good, deeply and inherently good. And people noticed that about him, people were attracted to that aspect of him. Despite being picked on, it was what landed him a date with Allie Corson (one of the more popular girls in school) to junior prom, which was the kickstart of their relationship. Despite being mixed in with a group of more than deserving men, it was what got Jay many of his medals, awards, recognitions, and promotions during his time as an Army Ranger. Jay was a likeable guy, he always had been and he always will be.
Her? Not so much.
Will? Definitely not.
Then again, maybe her opinion on that matter was incredibly biased (and hypocritical).
Realizing that she had gotten too lost in her own thoughts, Olivia was relieved when Jay's voice called out to them, saving her from having to address what his girlfriend said.
"Jesus Christ Liv," he groaned, as he approached them. "Did you pack your bag with bricks or something?"
"Just as much as I could as fast as I could," she shot back airily. Annoyance jolted through as Jay's eyes involuntarily shifted to her bruised eye.
Damn, she had almost forgotten about that…
Her annoyance turned to a diluted pain when she realized that Greg never made any mention or indication that he saw it. Did he just not care? How could he just not care? She tried her hardest not to think of all the times he promised he'd keep her safe from anyone and everything that threatened to hurt her.
"Well," her brother's voice brought her back to the present. "I'd hate to see how much you would have packed if you actually had the time to get your stuff together."
"Don't be such a wimp Halstead," Lindsay chimed in, reaching out to take the bag containing Madison's clothes and a few of her toys from Jay and tossing it into the now open trunk of her Jeep.
"Shut up Erin," Jay teased lightheartedly. Olivia was momentarily too confused to enjoy seeing how carefree her brother was acting around them.
"Erin?" she asked, feeling like she was missing something.
"Oh shit uh, you guys didn't really get introduced to each other," Jay rubbed the back of his neck, his face morphed into a sheepish expression. "Liv, this is my partner Detective Erin Lindsay. She's uh, also my—"
"—Your girlfriend, I know," Olivia butted in. "That part has already been established. I just thought her first name was Lindsay."
"Most people do," Erin offered with an apologetic shrug. Saying nothing, Olivia watched Jay toss her suitcase and personal bag into the trunk and slam it shut with a loud thud!
The car ride to Jay's apartment was uneventful and relatively quiet. Jay and Erin spent much of it bickering over the radio while Olivia gazed out the window, watching as familiar places and streets came into view but disappeared before she had the chance to linger on them and the memories attached to them for too long.
It was weird being back in Chicago, weird seeing the landmarks of her childhood—even if just for a second. Like she admitted to Greg, when she left the city, she had gone out guns blazing and truly believing she was never going to come back.
'You couldn't even do the one thing you promised yourself you would,' she thought angrily to herself, turning her head away from the window just as Erin turned her Jeep into a parking lot.
As the car rolled to a stop in one of the spots not too far from the building's front door, Jay turned around in his seat and looked at her with a small smile. "Well," he shrugged. "This is it. Home sweet home."
Turning her head back towards the window, she looked up at the drab looking building and offered her brother a small shrug of her own. "Sure," she whispered, her hand reaching out to the side of her and latching around Madison's small, delicate one. "If you say so."
In that moment, she missed the brownstone apartment she and Collin shared in Charlestown. No matter how much she didn't want to think about Collin, she sure did miss their home together and wished with all of her might that she didn't have to leave it the way she and Madison did.
The walk up to Jay's apartment was slow and daunting. Unluckily for all of them, the building's elevator was broken so they had to lug themselves up eight flights of stairs, something that normally would have been fine, but having to bring up the luggage and to carry Madison (she refused to even attempt to walk), made the trip way harder and longer than it should have.
Jay seemed to be the only one who didn't mind the added hassle.
"Yeah, well not all of us are military trained like you Jay," Erin growled lowly, her annoyance with the situation very clear and very relatable.
Olivia watched her older brother's steps falter for just a second at the mention of his past military experience. "This has nothing to do with my military training," he choked out. Then, he completely stopped and whipped around to face them with a classic, shit-eating grin on his face. "I'm just in way better shape than you!" he gleefully announced before taking off up the final flight and a half of stairs.
"Damn you Halstead," Erin called out, her affectionate tone contradicting her words. Though she barely knew her, Olivia decided that she liked Erin and that the female detective seemed to be good for her brother.
Jay was fumbling with his keys, trying to unlock the apartment's door when Olivia, Madison, and Erin finally caught up to him.
"Will should be home," he warned, pushing the door open with a loud greeting to the eldest Halstead sibling, who was presumably inside. Erin followed right behind Jay, giving Olivia a much-needed moment to collect herself before she joined them and completed the Halstead sibling reunion.
If it wasn't for Madison nudging and pointing towards the door Jay and Erin just walked through, Olivia probably would have stayed out in that hallway forever.
Sucking up the last drops of her courage, she sucked in a deep breath and cautiously stepped across the threshold and exposed herself to whatever onslaught attack Will was going to unleash on her. 'You probably deserve it,' a voice in the back of her mind piped up as echoes of her screaming I hate you! I hate you! I hate you! rang out in both of her ears so loudly she almost missed Will's greeting.
"Well, well, well…" His taunting tone prompted her back to stiffen and shoulders to square back while Madison buried her face in the crook of her neck. "The prodigal daughter finally returns."
Openly scoffing, she set Madison down on Jay's couch and glared at her eldest brother, whose brown eyes blazed with fire. "That's rich coming from you."
"Liv," she heard Jay chime in warningly. She ignored him.
Maybe it was the events of the past twenty-four hours. Maybe it was the incessant need to snap at something or someone before she exploded. Maybe it was all the pain and anger from her conversation with Greg that was desperate to come together and let loose. Maybe it was the fact that, when she looked at Will, all she saw was a man who failed his family, a man who failed her when she needed him the most.
She honestly wasn't sure what caused her to snap so quickly and so abruptly. But snap quickly and abruptly she did.
The words that exploded from her mouth spewed out so fast she was barely registering what she was screaming at her eldest brother. Subconsciously she was aware that she brought up their mother dying and him not coming back until the morning of the funeral; that she brought up the time when their father finally lost it and decided to unleash his rage on his only daughter, Will ignored her calls and didn't think to call back until a week later when she was already in Boston; that she brought up how she could count the number of times he called her during the past eight years on one hand. Everything she had bottled up over the years in regard to her brother made themselves known.
Will took her feelings and hurled them right back at her with just as much ferocity, maybe even more.
"And what about when Jay needed you? Or Mouse? Where were you? Oh, that's right, off getting your fancy Harvard degree and living the good life in Boston and spending your summers on Nantucket with your new family. So don't you dare come at me when you did the same fucking thing," he snarled, jabbing his pointer finger in her direction.
Olivia vaguely registered hearing Jay attempt to interrupt their verbal sparring, but her awareness was cut off by Will continuing the fight. "No, what you did was worse," he spat, his self-righteousness tone rubbing dirt on an already open and infected wound. "I eventually came back and not because I had to. I came home, I check up on Dad. You know, I thought Jay was the bad one, not talking to Dad in almost two years. I had no idea you're going on eight and counting." He was openly mocking her, but she was too stunned by what he was saying to fight back. "In all the years I was away, I never forgot where I came from. Looking at you now, I really don't think you can say the same."
He wordlessly gestured up and down her fashionably outfitted body, wordlessly calling attention to the effect the years had had on her. Looking down, for the first time in a long time, Olivia was ashamed and mortified. There was nothing that she could say that would serve as a proper defense against all that her brother was saying. She should have known that coming back to Chicago was a bad idea, she should have known that eventually, her past would catch up with her and clash with her present. She should have known that no matter the amount of time, she would never be able to make herself into the kind of person she always wanted to be.
"Who gave you the shiner anyway?" Will inquired, his tone sounding more intrigued than angered. "I take it that's why you decided to finally come home."
Her initial anger reentered her body. "That's none of your damn business," she barked, glaring at her eldest brother.
"Oh, I think it is." Will surged forward and she yelped in blind fear as her body jerked itself backwards.
Looking stunned by her reaction, Will froze, giving Jay the perfect opportunity to jump in between them and shut down their argument for good.
"Enough!" the middle Halstead child shouted, his voice taking command of the whole room. "We are not doing this, not now. Will, back off and Liv, cool it."
If Jay's words weren't enough to pull Will and Olivia out of their spat, then the sounds of Madison wailing from the couch certainly did.
"Who's the kid?" Will asked out loud while Olivia sprang into action, scooped her goddaughter up in her arms, and began rocking her back and forth. "Did Liv have a kid?"
While Jay explained to Will who exactly Madison was, Olivia's eyes anxiously scanned the room until they landed on the kitchen. It was well past dinner time for Madison, and she knew without having to look that there were no more toddler-approved snacks in any of the packed suitcases and bags. Erin, who must have been watching her with a keen eye, took a step closer and spoke in a soft, calming tone so not to startle her or Madison any more than they already were. "Jay probably doesn't have any food she'd be able to eat. I don't either for that matter but uh, I do have a spare room with a decent amount of space if you wanted to crash with me. I know it's a little tight here and uh, given the uh, situation…well, the r-room is yours if you want it."
She swirled her head so she was facing the female detective head-on. "You don't even know me," she gasped. "And you want to offer me a room?"
Erin's face morphed into something that resembled thoughtfulness and pain. "No, I suppose I don't. But, I didn't really know the girl who stayed in the room before you and s-she turned out to be one of…one of the best people that I know. So, what do ya say? Want to ditch these knuckleheads?
Not sure if she had it in her to continue the fight against Will or provide answers to the questions Jay was certainly bidding his time to ask, Olivia accepted the generous offer with a slight, uncertain nod of her head. "That sounds…that sounds great thank you."
Maybe she was taking the coward's way out, but as Erin quickly explained to her brothers the change in plans, Olivia grabbed a hold of hers and Madison's bags and walked right out of Jay's apartment, shamelessly leaving without even a quick glance over her shoulder.
Thank you for already showing such a great interest in this; I really hope you all like where it goes! Reviews are greatly welcomed and very much appreciated :)