Hi, so here is the second chapter and we are beginning to get a bit more into the plot now. As this story is based largely on one episode and then a few more in Season 2 maybe Season 3 the chapters will be a bit smaller and the episodes might be a bit burred. I kinda don't see this going past the first few episodes of Season 3 and it will be massively AU in terms of events that happen in Season 2.

Disclaimer-Nothing here is mine just the character of Bridget.

Please Read and Review.

And again massive TRIGGER WARNINGS for this chapter and for the story at large.


Stand And Unfold Yourself

Chapter 2-The Searchers

There's a fire and some photographs are found. Erin get's the shock of her life. Meanwhile in 2011 the fallout continues.


January 2011


When he was awake he wanted to sleep. In fact all day when he was awake all Hank Voight actually did want to do was sleep. He wanted to fall into bed and not wake up. He wanted to crawl into bed and just drop into nothingness all day. He wanted to rest his tired body and his exhausted mind and just fucking sleep.

Of course that was during the day, when it got to night time and all he wanted to do was to fall asleep in bed he didn't. He didn't sleep, in fact all that he did was try to stay awake.

It was bizarre but Hank was too past the point of caring, he slept when he had to and even then when his body forced him to sleep it was never for long. Every little hint of a noise and he was awake thinking that today…that night…that moment was when…

When Bridget was coming home.

It had been nearly a month now and still…still…

Still nothing.

Still absolutely nothing.

They had flooded half of Chicago with door to door searches, tracked down sex offenders, identified Jane Does pulled out of the river (and that was a nightmare that was going to keep him awake for a long time) and there was still nothing. The last image of his daughter had been of her heading down the bridge on the sidewalk her head held high and her backpack on her back like she was going to school, like it was any other day and not the day where it had all fallen apart.

In the days that had followed Justin had been with him, Erin too. They had locked down into this little unit where they were family and now as the days had turned into a month and Christmas had come and gone, Justin had begun to look at him again as if it was his fault. Erin was less so. She had made sure that the fridge was stocked and that they were eating and she had made sure that things were done. She had been the one who had found the note and when she had gone to bed exhaustion pulling at her on the third day he had gone up to find her curled in Bridget's chair in Bridget's bedroom.

If she grieved she did it privately but then that was Erin all over. When Justin felt he was loud and he was angry and he made no attempt to place the blame of Bridget's disappearance at anyone's door other than his. Which was fine really because Justin couldn't blame or hate Hank anymore than he blamed and hated himself. Not even Meredith, his wife's best friend who shot him a look that conveyed more disgust in her eyes than nations could do with armies could hate him more than he hated himself.

Because it was his fault. One stupid…stupid mistake…telling her to go and why had he done that? Why had he just not told her that it was fine! That it was Christmas. Why had he not just let her put up fucking decorations and then…and then…

The problem was that when you got into the bare bones of the statistics of missing children and more specifically missing girls the odds were stacked up against him and his own baby girl. As a career police officer he knew that as well. And now being in the situation himself he was never going to look down or judge or even suspect another parent of hurting their child ever again because when Fisher (because it had to be Fisher in his white shirt and not Al who knew him inside and out) had asked him with that look that told Hank that he really, really did not want to be the person who asked him this, if his row with Bridget had turned physical, if he maybe might have done something—all questions that he himself had asked over the years to other grieving, terrified, worried parents—he had thought that he was going to die right there and then.

And he did think like that sometimes. Because the thought of his baby girl of the baby that despite all the odds Camille had gotten pregnant with and had carried to terms despite the long look of the Doctors who had suggested politely that termination might be easier, then he was going to die himself. Sometimes he did feel like if he just laid down on the carpet and let the world take him then that might be enough. Because he was…Hank Voight and Bridget was the best part of him and his wife and the thought that he got to live when she got to die was enough to have his hands itching for the scotch bottle again.

"You know she's dead" Justin said one morning. Erin in her tatty jeans an her glitter splattered t-shirt gagged on her toast looking shocked but Justin had just sat there and looked at him with nothing but naked hatred in his eyes and Hank had not been able to find an answer for his son because to think it was one thing but to hear it out of the mouth of Bridget's brother was enough to make his empty stomach roll in protest.

"Justin" Erin said quietly.

"She's dead Dad. And it's all your fault"

And with that his son was gone and Erin her expression wide and her eyes filling with tears said nothing. She didn't go and follow him but she didn't try and comfort Hank either. Instead she simply sat there her eyes on the table while he silently fell apart.

But…but…


And in the In-Between.


Somehow you get on with it. How he didn't know but somehow…granted he had to hit rock bottom when that fucking firefighter came on the scene. He had lost one child he was sure as shit not going to lose another and then he went to prison for it.

When he came out he wasn't sure how he did it but he got his badge back and that first night he pulled out all the files on his daughter's disappearance and made it clear to Fisher that he was the only one to have access to them. He didn't know what this new Intelligence team was going to look like (though there was something about Halstead that reminded him of a young him and that was fucking worrying in itself) but he was not going to be the subject of pitying looks. He would solve Bridget's case one way or another and he would bring his daughter home to him. He'd vowed to himself in prison that he would do it and he was going to do it so help him.

Just please be alive he thought desperately the night that he reunited Antonio with his son, the night he stopped his worst enemy from the gut-churning agony that he had endured every day for the past four years when his baby went from little girl to teenager. Please be alive Bridget and I swear to God I will burn down the entire state of Chicago to get to you.

And then just like that, the nightmare stopped.

And then something even fucking worse happened.

Reality.


12th November 2014


Today was always a hard day.

It was hard for her so it was hell for Hank who to his credit had come into work like nothing had happened. It was only Erin, Justin and Al and possibly Antonio (thank you Peter-Fucking-Stone) who knew the hell that today was.

Shit she was fifteen.

She had been eleven when she had gone missing and today Erin's baby sister was turning fifteen and to cope off a perfectly shitty day Kelly had rang her and told her that they had responded to a fire and found a box of kiddy porn in the basement.

Hank had wanted to stay and Erin knew why but Al had suggested they go for a beer and Jay had offered to stay. Sweet Jay who was staying because he thought that it would be better for her if she had someone here when she went through the photos of the most disgusting crime imaginable. Even wearing the gloves used to keep her prints off the photo was enough for her stomach to turn inside and out.

And Al knew what day this was as well. Erin loved him for that as well because her thoughts today had been of Bridget. Twice she'd had to duck into the bathroom to blink away her tears (as she knew Trudy had as well) and she knew that Hank had a fucking present and a card waiting just in case tonight was the night that…

She took a shuddering breath and then flinched when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

"Hey it's just me"

Oh. Jay.

Christ she was such a terrible person, she had only just now remembered Jay and his blue eyes were kinder than she deserved. For she had known how much her baby sister was suffering and instead she had chosen to selfishly focus on herself and focusing on herself had been much like Hank. At the bottom of a bottle.

God there was nothing that she could say that could make her feel better.

Unlike Justin she had never tried.

"You okay?" Jay asked softly.

"No"

"I know it's rough looking at this"

"Yeah" Erin said softly. Let him think that was the reason that she was breaking on the inside and that it was showing on her face. It was easier than explaining the truth to him anyway.

"Erin listen…anytime you want me to take over I can"

"No" she said shaking her head and flipping over the next photo. "No Jay honestly. I'll look through them and—"

She stopped.

Because as she had been speaking she had looked down and then she had seen the girl on the next photo and suddenly it was like the world stopped turning.

Because she knew that girl.

She knew her.

She knew her.

Bridget.

Oh my God.

And suddenly she couldn't breathe.

She couldn't think or move or feel.

Because there she was. Four almost five years of nothingness, of thinking the absolute worst and then she was there staring up at her on a photo and Erin felt like she was going to puke because this was Bridget but this was not Bridget all the same. This was her sister but this was not her sister and it was the strangest thing that she could ever see staring up at her.

Because the Bridget that she knew, the Bridget that Erin had known and had clung to and had laughed and joked and who she had helped with make up and who she had welcomed her into the family a damn sight quicker than anyone else had was not the same girl as in this photo.

Gone was the light in her eyes and instead there was a kind of defiance that Erin knew too well came from men like Charlie or from having to do whatever and whoever you could to get the gas bill paid in time. She knew that, that was the defiance that came when you didn't break on the outside but on the inside you were breaking into pieces.

She was dressed in some black lace thing and she had dropped weight down to her bare bones, hell her collarbone was peaking out of her skin which was white like she'd stopped seeing sunlight a long time ago. There was a bruise around her neck that looked like handprints and Erin ripped off the glove and through back her chair startling Jay to the point where he almost fell of the desk in surprise.

"Erin?"

But she couldn't answer him because Bridget was staring back at her and she was older but so much older than the photo proved she was. She was alive but Erin knew that Justin had been right, the happy go-lucky girl that had loved Christmas and who had loved her mother and who had tried to love the whole world was dead and in it's place was…

"ERIN?"

It was Jay's shout that permeated the fog that had took over her mind and her brain and his hands came out and dragged her by the shoulders so that she was away from that photo, from the gloves, from the whole terrible ordeal and she was staring up at him, at his face and the expression that came across him that she knew came from just simply looking at her.

"Erin" he said simply and Erin didn't respond. She didn't think she could open her mouth.

"Erin what is it? Who is that?"

But Erin wasn't listening because at that moment she had bolted past him, pushed him into the radiator almost and had dashed for the locker room where she found the bin and threw up her entire breakfast, lunch and everything in between. She retched and she retched and she retched until there was nothing left and then she staggered her knees going out from under her until they hit the hard marble of the floor. She was crying she was sure of it but then she felt a hand pull her backwards. She pushed it back but she knew who it was. It was Jay, she could smell his aftershave and so she leaned back against him and suddenly she was sobbing as if she was a little girl again and Jay being Jay simply pushed the door closed and held her in his arms his kisses in her hair and Erin thought that no matter what blurry lines their relationship existed in, in this moment she had never loved him more.

"It's okay" Jay said softly. "It's okay Erin, you take your time, I'll be here when your ready and I promise you whatever it is we can fix it"

Erin didn't have the heart nor the lung capacity to tell him that he was wrong. There was nothing that could fix this.

Nothing.

But God help her she loved him for it all the same.


And there you go, now begin this story. I do start work back up again so please be aware of that when it comes to updates, as always your reading this story means the world to me and I will post the next chapter as soon as possible.

Next Chapter-Jay finds out the story about Bridget Voight and comes to a new understanding about his boss. Hank gets the shock of his life.