Hi, so here is another chapter, I hope you like this one and I will do my best to bring you the next one as soon as possible, Thank you all so much for your positive encouragement so far.

There will be quite a few flashbacks in this story so please keep that in mind as well.

Disclaimer-Nothing is mine

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And any more notes can be found at the bottom of this chapter.

Born Under A Bad Sign.

Chapter 2-Kill Thy Neighbour

In 2000, Jay wakes up to a new world, a new family and something that might be a new opportunity. Years later Intelligence finally comes together as a unit as they suffer a loss and try to rescue Antonio's son.

2nd January 2000

When Jay woke up his was aware that his whole body felt like it was on fire. But his head…oh his head…his head was beating a different kind of drum entirely. His head felt like there was still a New Years celebration going on in his head and he felt like he was going to throw up.

He didn't care that Pat was going to be pissed with him only…

But…

The second he thought of Pat he remembered. He'd had a plan last night and yet somehow despite it all he was still alive. He was in a bedroom that he didn't know, a bed that he didn't know and he was going to…

Shit…

He bolted into the side room and was relieved to find a bathroom. It was only a little one, a toilet, a sink and a small, small shower but he threw up nonetheless in the toilet retching again until he was sure that there was nothing left in his stomach before he collapsed leaning against the back of the wall breathing in and breathing out.

Shit.

He had gotten drunk, gone on that bridge and then had been talked down by a cop and had somehow ended up spending the night at his house. In terms of the crazy shit that Jay had done this was not the craziest but it had to be up there somewhere.

Eventually he had to move even though he was sure it was a case of his kingdom for the warm bed that he had flung himself out of. He staggered upwards for the sink, did his best that he could do with his teeth, flushed the toilet and found his shoes by the side of the bed. He pulled them on and staggered out into the landing and down the stairs towards the front door hoping against hope that he could make a quick get away before Hank noticed he was gone but as his feet touched the welcome mat—seriously a fucking welcome mat?—someone called his name.

"Jay? You want breakfast?"

Shit.

"Err…no…I'm good."

Considering he'd thrown up in the man's bathroom he figured it was only polite to show his face and so he turned on his heel and plodded too the kitchen.

He had been expecting Hank, what he had not been expecting was the cookie-cutter breakfast that you saw on the Lifetime channel.

It was Hank, two kids about Jay's age and a woman who was spooning what looked like eggs and bacon onto a plate. His stomach which had been on a vodka infused diet for two days gave a grumble the traitorous bastard that it was.

"Jay?" he snapped his gaze from his shoes to Hank was who smiling again.

"You want breakfast?"

"Yeah" Jay said finally because he didn't know what else to say. And also because he was desperately hungry.

"Come and sit down Jay"

That was the woman and there was something about her and her smile that reminded him of his Mom and his feet were moving of his own accord. The boy shot him a look like he was sizing up a rival. Clearly it was Hank's son because the similarity was too similar between them but the girl…the girl looked like neither of them and as Jay sat down he shot a look at her. She had dark hair that was wild and loose and she had dark eyes and it was the look she gave him that told him in ways that he couldn't explain that she was like him. From a crappy background and with a parent that didn't give a shit weather you lived or died.

"Thanks" he said tearing his eyes away from her when the woman put down a plate of food in front of him, it had sausage and bacon and eggs and toast and he was torn between wanting to go to the bathroom again and shovelling the food in his mouth.

"Here honey"

And then low and behold not only coffee but a glass of water and two aspirin.

She patted him on the shoulder and Jay looked at her with an expression he was sure one would meet when they met an angel from heaven.

"This is Justin and Erin" Hank said and he tore his eyes away from the woman to stare at him.

"And that's my wife. Camille. Everyone this is Jay"

Jay just stabbed at his eggs.

"Jay sweetie I heard upstairs did you make the bathroom?"

"Err…yeah" he said chewing on the eggs which were fucking fantastic. He and Pat existed off microwave meals and stuff you just added water too. This was better than that times one hundred thousand. And he wanted to think about the food and not the endearment that she had used that made him think of his Mom.

"Oh good"

Jesus what the fuck was he supposed to say to this?

But before he could say anything the girl Erin leaned over and gripped his leg.

"Don't worry" she whispered. "You'll get used to it"

But he wasn't sure he wanted to.

"I should be getting home" he said finally after he had ate—for some reason the woman kept giving him extra and for some reason Jay kept eating them.

"I should…you don't have to do anything for me" he said looking at Hank in the eye.

"And if I let you walk out that door?"

He didn't care if anyone overheard this. He was reckoning looking by the way the two of them looked at each other that there was no way in hell that Hank had not told his wife word for word what had happened the night before. What surprised him was that he didn't care. Or maybe that was just the apathy creeping in. It had been a long time since he'd felt something sober anyway.

"If I was going to kill myself I would have done it before you talked me off the bridge. Besides…my Dad…my Dad's my problem not yours. I can take care of myself"

He carefully chose that moment to eat the bacon in front of him and not look anywhere else. He didn't know weather or not he could say what he was thinking in this cookie-cutter world that these people seemed to exist in. Even if this Erin girl seemed to give the impression that she understood exactly what he was going through.

Shit—he was going to do—something with those dark eyes tonight if he ever got enough vodka down him and if he ever got a moment alone without Pat banging on the door.

"You don't have to Jay" the woma—no Camille said and that was enough for Jay to stand up wiping his palms on his jeans and wishing he could crawl out of his skin.

"No I…this is enough I don't…this is enough really I just don't…"

"Alright" that was Hank in that soft almost menacing voice and Jay struggled not to shiver a little. Bizarrely Hank didn't frighten him in fact there was something about him or maybe even something about Jay that made him trust him. Which was odd because Jay could count the amount of people he trusted on one hand and that one hand only had one finger and that was Will.

"Here" he said and Jay realised that he was holding out a card and he took it shoving it into his back pocket.

"Call me Jay, anytime, day or night just…just call me and I'll be there"

Jay nodded and he walked to the front door and away from the life that once upon a time he thought he might have had.

He didn't think he'd be back.

He didn't think he'd use the card.

He was wrong.

But that's a story for another day.

9th January 2014.

"Hey"

"Hey"

It was Adam Ruzek who looked for all the world a boy scout who ducked his head around his locker and watched Jay with a forlorn expression.

"Can I ask…was Antonio right? Did I screw up that drop"

"No" Jay said spraying his aftershave under his arms, God he hated the cases that turned into three day jobs.

"Halstead—"

"Jay. Seriously dude my name's Jay and you didn't. Look, Antonio…he's thinking of his son and his son only. You did the right thing, you get a sense that something is going south then you go with it because if you don't your head is being blown off and were carrying your coffin and were gonna have to do that with Jules so…don't…if you get a feeling that something is wrong then you get a feeling that something is wrong and you get the fuck away"

Adam nodded and then he stuck out his hand. Jay took it.

"So…can I ask?"

"What?"

"The card…Voight's card. The one you've got on your locker door?"

"Yeah."

"Well…I heard Lindsey has the same thing"

"She does"

"And…and is it like a code or something or—"

Jay shut his locker.

"He saved my life. He saved Erin's life. He saved us from shit that you couldn't understand but he saved us. And that means that despite the fact that he makes you want to whack your head into your desk until it's bleeding and bloodied…it means that we love him."

"Enough if this goes to shit?"

Jay opened his mouth and then closed it again. Because he was not Erin and he could not promise to blindly follow a man into battle ever again and he was not going to. And Hank knew that. But there were still moments, many of them in fact that made him wonder if he should learn from this man or run away from him. Hank the cop and Hank the father were two entirely different things.

"It won't" he said and that was it.

He and Erin were sent to draw up maps of a potential trade when they had Pulpo in custody. Jay sat on the bonnet of the car and watched as Erin sketched.

"You alright?"

"A kid is missing and Jules is dead so what do you think?"

"I didn't know her that well"

Erin said nothing and then when she spoke her voice was filled with bitterness.

"I hate that this makes me like him"

Jay smiled.

"You never got over Antonio sending Hank to prison did you?"

"Did you?"

"No. But his partner is dead and his son is missing so I suppose he's suffered enough. Besides Hank keeps telling us to be nice to him and at some point we've got to listen."

"Fan-fucking-tastic. Since when did you listen to Hank anyway?"

"Your all heart Erin"

"I know"

There was a pause and then he asked the question.

"You wanna go for a drink when all of this is over?"

"I was supposed to go with Jules but yeah"

"Sorry"

"Not your fault. Besides if there was ever a night to get off my face this is it"

"Yeah. You know everytime I go out Hank calls me to make sure I'm not drunk. You know he thinks that I have a problem?"

"Yeah. But then again Jay the first time you met him you were out of your mind on booze and sat on a bridge"

Jay shrugged his shoulders. What was there to say? She was right of course but it didn't matter did it? There was a job to do and it was right in front of them and because of that he had to take an interest rather than watching Erin. He'd watched Erin when he was fifteen, nineteen and twenty four and all three times had ended with his heart broken and him finding solace at the bottom of a bottle.

"I don't have a problem" he said finally.

Erin shot him a look over her shoulder and her smile was the same darkly amused smile she had shot him that first time he had met her in Hank and Camille's kitchen.

"Sure you don't honey. Sure you don't. Now let's go find Antonio's son"

"Your calling him Antonio now?"

"Don't worry, he's still the snake in my mind"

Jay laughed.

Erin could always no matter what their relationship was, make him laugh.

"I used to think that cops under Voight were invincible, and then Jules died. I was holding her hand. As a soldier, how did you deal with it?"

He looked away. How he thought about it didn't matter. What he did didn't matter, and it wasn't when he was in uniform. Erin knew about Lennie…hell…she'd been there with him. Hence how he had lost his—

Well…that was another story for another time.

"Generally...take it out on those who didn't deserve it."

Erin smart woman that she was didn't press which was good because Jay couldn't talk about the war without being so pissed that he couldn't stand straight.

Which is what he wanted to be right now.

But Voight was wrong. He didn't have a problem. Jay would know. Pat was a distant memory and Jay would know and Voight was wrong and Jules was dead and here he and Erin stood trying to help a man that this morning they were both very comfortably in hating.

Of all the rotten luck.

Breathe in, breathe out.

"Jay you got this?"

"Yes Hank"

And he did have this, this was a kill shot and Jay was good at kill shots. He'd made a career out of kill shots and this was easy. All it would take was the gentlest nudge from the bus that Adam had just set in motion—he had seen what Adam was doing with the skill of the sniper that he was—and then…

And then the kid was in Erin's arms and Antonio was there and the shot that Jay was struggling with was over and he sighed because if he'd gotten a chance to make the shot then he would have done and it would have been fucking spectacular.

He slid out of his nest, gave Al his gun and went to Erin's side. Her hands were in her pockets and Jay noticed that her hands were shaking. Hank's arms were around her shoulder and then one hand came to the small of Jay's back.

"Proud of both of you" he said finally and Jay resisted the urge to lean into the touch. Hugs between him and Hank were few and far between and he knew that it wasn't over.

There was still a funeral to go to.

Jules's funeral had been a painful experience. Jay had gone to funerals as a cop and funerals as a Ranger and funerals as a boy but this was painful. There was something about watching her two children sit there with her husband, a family shattered, a family who had one morning been whole and were now having to rebuild with something missing. There was no words that would be used as comfort and no words that could be said that would fill the hole in their lives. Jay who thought about his mother every single day could understand and sympathise and it was that alone that made his salute crisp and perfect. The fact that Jules had been a fantastic cop was just pain upon pain. The fact that Intelligence had lost her was a great loss not just to the unit but to the entire Chicago Police Department.

But Hank was speaking to them afterwards.

"I've been given the go-ahead to run Intelligence-the way I want to run it. No interference. This is our unit now. You do things my way, our way, you'll unclip your badge at night knowing you did right. The police standing next to you are your family. And me there's nothing more important. And you tell me the truth, you always tell me the truth so I can lie for you"

Jay caught Erin's eye and looked away almost at once. Her early question about how you dealt with death was sill on his mind and he didn't want to think of it. He wanted to get pissed. He was supposed to call Will…they had a thing where if a cop died they were supposed to call each other but he couldn't face it tonight.

Erin offered to buy the first round and Jay stood his head round the door.

"You want to come Hank?"

"Nah you too go ahead and Jay…"

Jay sighed. He could hear the reprimand in his voice. Honestly…you get pissed…many, many times and…

But he didn't want to think about that right now. He didn't want to think about anything right now.

He didn't want to think.

"Good work today"

He caught Hank's eyes waiting for the other shoe to drop but it didn't and so he smiled at his foster father.

"Thanks Hank. See you tomorrow"

"I think we've got a unit working" Erin said as she walked him to his door.

"I know…and I think it's going to work"

"Don't take this as some kind of liking of Antonio"

"Wouldn't dream of it darling"

Erin looked at him for a long moment and it might be the whiskey in his veins but he had a sense that if he asked her in right now her panties would be off before he made it to the bed. But Erin knew that and Erin gave a slow, long smile and then she was gone down the steps and he fumbled with his keys locking the door behind him and switching the light on.

He would have tried to get to sleep but sleep never seemed to come to Jay and when it did it was always mixed with nightmares so instead he cracked open a bottle of dusty old red wine that he was sure he had once stolen from his mother and he drank in the dimly lit living room thinking upon death, how much he had seen and that look in Erin's eyes when she had told him that she had thought that all cops under their foster father were invincible and the sheer amount of blue that had come out for Jules and when he went to bed that night he knew that he was waking up to a hangover and that there was nothing that he could do about it.

I hope you like this chapter, this does have trigger warnings for drinking but I don't plan to have Jay spiral just yet. The reasons why he is the way he is and his relationship with the bottle will be explained in the upcoming flashbacks.

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-In 2000, Jay and Pat have a deadly confrontation that sees Hank pick up the pieces and in 2014, Justin is released from prison.