A/N: Hi, all. Apologies for taking so long to get this to you. Sometimes, when life knocks you down, you literally don't want to do anything. Writing is my passion, and I couldn't even do that. I hit a wall pretty hard and am just now working on getting back on my feet but I know others have it worse than me, so I really can't complain. I've turned to the stories in multiple fandoms to help me and from the bottom of my heart I thank those who write them. And if, somehow, my story does the same for someone out there, I hope this helps.

Warnings: mentions/descriptions of blood, nothing more than what you'd see on the show. I've also taken creative liberties with Jay's Ranger days, too. Even after seven season, he's such a blank slate, and I wanted to fill in some of those blanks for this story.

Please enjoy and stay safe.

Chapter 5: Atonement

"It's okay."

Jay knew the risks of telling Angela he was a cop. He knew what could happen to him, to Intelligence, once Angela found out the truth. But he also knew he couldn't live with himself if he kept that truth locked up. So when the woman he'd been helping found out he was the reason why her husband was dead, when she learned that a cop was the reason why her little Bobby would grow up without a father, he was prepared to face the consequences.

Baa-bump.

Hailey arrived after he stabbed the second man holding him and Angela hostage. He heard his partner ask if he was okay. And after all that's happened, he couldn't look her in her eyes.

"I've got to go help Angela," he'd told Hailey. That was the truth. He couldn't leave her like that.

Even with his mistakes, his sins, hanging over his head, Jay knew helping Angela was the right thing to do. He told the woman she didn't deserve to die, even after she told the cop he did. His own injuries be damned, he pushed through the pounding pain in his head, he walked uneasily down the stone steps with the aid of the railing, and stepped back into the room he'd been held prisoner in for God knows how long.

Ba-bump.

Part of him was expecting Angela to be mad at him when he went back. Part of him was expecting her to have passed out from blood loss. Because of this, Jay was not expecting to see the woman pointing a gun at his chest, weak and feeble she may have been. He didn't even have time to question how she got her hands on the weapon.

Ba-bump.

"You're safe,"

The men responsible were either dead or in custody. Medical care was minutes away. Angela lowered the gun, the tip of it rested on the ground.

Baa-bump.

"It's over."

And it was. But at the same time it wasn't. It was far from being over. Some would say, it was just beginning.

Ba… bump...

Angela had paused, just for a second. And in that second, Jay believed that things would finally be okay.

Ba...

Then she raised the gun and pulled the trigger.

...bump.

This wasn't the first time Jay had been shot. He, unfortunately, was very familiar with the feeling. He recognized the sensation of being forced backward. He felt it all.

The bullet hitting his chest. Him hitting the wall. Falling to the ground. He felt his heart speed up, all the while that babump babump babump echoed in his ears like a train. Jay painfully gasped for air, fought for his next breath as if it were his last. Because it could very well be.

His eyes drifted shut. When he had the strength to open them, all he could see was a desert. The sun was shining high above him, heating up the sand covered ground he stood on. There was a breeze. It brushed his dry, cracked skin, teased him. And just as quickly as it had arrived, it was gone.

Next thing he knew, he was flat on his back, gasping for air. There was chaos around him, dust was kicked up, and without warning he was being pulled backward. Only after the shade covered him, and after a pair of hands none too gently worked their way across his body, did the air finally return to his lungs.

"You're good, Hal. You're alright," a shadow leaned over him and a familiar voice spoke. Jay found himself reaching out toward the person… just to make sure they were real. "It's just in your plate."

"JT-" was all he could get out before the figure was gone and darkness washed over him.

When Jay opened his eyes, the sun was gone. The dry desert air, too. Both were replaced with a dark and damp room. And the shadow person?

"10-1! 10-1, officer down!" someone yelled. They sounded familiar, but so far away. "Jay! 5021 Henry, officer down, I repeat officer down! Get me a bus here, now!"

Hailey? Jay wanted to speak, but all that came out of his mouth was a pained gasp that reverberated throughout his body. It slowed, and so did his breathing.

"Jay, stay with me. Stay with me, Jay."

Everything that happened was fuzzy. Every time he blinked, the scene before him changed. A paramedic slipped a mask over his mouth and nose. Jay saw Voight, felt the weightlessness of being picked up and placed on a gurney. Kim was there at one point. And Hailey never left his side.

Then he was out in the open.

The dry air returned. This time, he was kneeling over someone, his hands pressed to their chest, their side. Something wet and sticky pooled between his fingers and around his hands, the smell of copper strong. He felt the wind on his back, heard the shouts of gunfire and men yelling. He knew something was happening around him, but he couldn't turn away.

"JT, hang on, okay? Just hang on, help is coming," Jay said. He fumbled for more gauze, pressed his hands against the shadow's body. They screamed. "Hang on."

"Hal?" The voice was soft, broken. Jay would say the shadow was a child, if he didn't know better. But he did.

"I'm right here, JT. I'm right here,"

"Jay… Jay, I'm-"

"No. No no no, Tyler. Don't talk. Don't-" A bullet whizzed by his head. Jay ducked down. When he saw the combatant running toward his location, he raised his weapon and fired two shots center mass. The enemy fell, dead.

"JT?" Jay asked, looking down. He pressed his hands back against the wounds, attempting to stop the bleeding. "Jasmine Tyler Park, you keep your eyes open. You hear me? Keep them on me."

You're not my CO. Jay would later swear he heard the words as if Jasmine actually spoke them. In all of the time that he's spent in country, few people understood Jay the way JT did. She wasn't even a Ranger. But they became close and he'd want her watching his six any day.

Which is exactly what made this moment much worse.

Jay will never forget the moment he realized what he had done, even if killing the enemy saved their lives at that moment. The truth was, those two seconds may have cost him another friend. Soon, the shadows faded away right as the night was lit up by headlights from multiple humvees. Soldiers charged into the battlefield, but all he could see was his friend, dying.

There was the puddle of blood he knelt in. Jay felt it as it soaked his pants and stained his legs. He knew it also stained his shirt and gear from him dragging her behind cover. It caked his hands. Blood trickled out of JT's parted mouth. He was sure she died right there, and he was sure it was his fault.

"His vitals are still dropping."

"We've got her," someone said as they pulled him away. "We've got her."

"He's lost too much blood."

The image of JT being worked on is replaced by Hailey leaning over him. The dark desert is replaced with the ceiling of an ambulance. The pain has returned, but has lessened ever so slightly. Through cracked eyes, Jay can see his partner's worried face looking down at him. He wants to tell her he's sorry. That he screwed up. But he can't.

#

Jay must've blacked out because the next time he opened his eyes, the ambulance had been replaced with Med. He had a fleeting thought, that Will was going to be pissed at him, and then darkness threatened to take hold again.

The last year was hard for the Halstead brothers. After the apartment fire killed their father, Jay had spiraled. Intelligence kept him under control for the most part, but once Jay found the man responsible, all he could see was red.

He wasn't looking forward to Will finding out he got shot in the process of catching the man who killed their dad. He objected to going to Med. After his talk with Voight about the matter, he found himself at home, ready to down a case of beer to mute his sorrows.

That's when Will all but broke in.

Granted, his younger brother had a key to his apartment, but that didn't matter. Somehow, through the grapevine, Will found out that Jay got shot and refused medical care and decided to show up.

To say the doctor was pissed off would be an understatement.

Will stitched up his brother on the couch. His personal medical kit lay strewn about, items spread here and there as he slowly closed the wound. He wasn't gentle about it, either.

"How could you be so stupid?" mutter Will.

Jay, laying on his couch with one arm slung over his eyes, scoffed at Will's question. "He killed dad. I did what I had to."

And that was true. Whether it be for his family, for his brothers and sisters in the Army, or for Intelligence, Jay had a habit of doing what needed to be done, when it needed to be done, consequences be damned. This moment was no different.

"You could've died," said Will as he taped gauze in place.

"I didn't,"

"But you could have!"

Jay remembered this conversation like it happened only moments ago. He could see how red Will's face turned, threatening to match his red hair. But it was the way his brother spoke that sent chills down his spine.

"You could have died, Jay. I get your job is dangerous, I get that, I do. I made peace with that when you joined the Army and I made peace with it when you joined CPD. But," Will stopped, brought his shaking hand down the stubble on his face. "How do you think I'd feel if I lost my father and my brother so close together? Did you ever consider that?"

Will left Jay there on the couch. He didn't come back. The next time they saw each other was when they went to clean out their father's apartment. Words weren't spoken, but both men knew.

I've got you, brother.

#

Jay remained semi-conscious for the entire ride to Med. Hailey continued to talk to him, begged him to stay awake, to hang on. He listened, but damn it was so hard. Every single time he zoned out, every single time he nearly found himself back in that desert, he was brought back to Chicago. The words the medic spoke were jumbled, but Hailey's were clear.

"Hang on," and "you're gonna be fine," and "we're almost there," and "stay with me," danced around his aching head. His breathing was slower, he realized, even with the oxygen mask over his face. It was supposed to help him, but it appeared to make breathing that much harder. His attempts resembled a shudder, and for the first time, Jay realized how cold he was.

"JT?"

He coughed, not sure if the name left his mouth. Pain racked his body. First in his head, then his chest, followed by the rest of whatever injuries he sustained. Jay let his eyes slip shut, just for a moment. And in that moment, he saw JT. He saw buddies from his Ranger days, from his early days as an officer for the Chicago Police Department. People who have helped him become the man he was. A son, brother, soldier, cop.

He saw it all.

They say your life flashes before your eyes when you're about to die. Jay has come close to death a few times, but he doesn't remember this happening before. He was always in the moment, whether it be lying in the dusty mountains of a hostile country, or on the streets of Chicago.

This? This was different.

"Stay with me,"

JT?

No.

Hailey.

"Hai-"

Hailey… I can't.

That's what he wanted to say. Even as he felt the world slow, even as he was wheeled out of the ambulance and into Med, even as he fought and fought and fought to hang on, he just couldn't. Not any more.

Maybe this was it. Maybe this was how it ended for him

Jay only wished he could tell Hailey he tried. He wanted her to know that he tried to make things right, even after he made so many wrongs. There was so much he wanted to say, so much he wanted to do. Could she ever forgive him?

Darkness encroached around his vision, the act of staying awake becoming too hard for him to fight any longer. For a moment, he swore he heard Will's voice too, barely breaking through the black. Dear God... his younger brother. Jay hoped Will would understand. Surely the team would be there for him. Hailey and Will's paths hardly crossed, so maybe this would be what brings them together?

It's okay.

That's what he wants them to know. It was going to be okay, even when it wasn't.