Hey guys!

In honor of Paddy's birthday and due to the massive frustration I'm feeling regarding the next episode's promo (I still wanna cry when I remember it, why are they doing this to us???), I've decided to post this new little project.

I'm not very far into it yet, but I'm having some fun exploring it and trying to fulfill my Burzek needs.

Let me know what you think! It would be really helpful to write the upcoming chapters.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

Happy reading!

Xo,

Nina

Disclaimer: I own nothing except my imagination. The title comes from Taylor Swift's song.


The lack of activity in the bullpen was not helping the fact that he was falling asleep, this is not at all what he needed right now. He read all the emails, updated files and went over the same phone records like ten times just to find something to do and stay awake.

The light creeping in through the window right next to his desk combined with the glare coming from his computer's screen were stabbing his eyeballs and his magical combination of coffee and aspirin did not cut it today. This hangover was massive.

"So… are you gonna tell me what happened after I left?" His friend asked just to annoy him, he had a pretty good idea of how things could go when his best friend started to shamelessly hit on a pretty girl in a bar.

Both of them were a chick magnet, they were smooth talkers, funny, true gentlemen and let's face it, they were both hot as hell. To be honest, the three younger men of intelligence were incredibly good looking, but Jay was off the market and that only left Kevin and Adam loose in the nights of Chicago.

Kevin laughed when he saw the look Adam was giving him. Yeah, his suspicion was right, Ruzek probably had a wild night yesterday.

"Or are you gonna tell me that gentlemen don't kiss and tell?"

"Well Kev, it's true. We don't kiss and tell. But to be honest there's nothing much to tell, I mean we had fun. We got super drunk, hence the hangover, we made out like high school kids and that was it."

"Are you for real? She didn't fall for your Ruzek charm?"

"I'd like to think she did, but the fact that her friend was about to puke in the middle of the bar made her leave."

"Uuhhh, she pulled that card?"

"Come on bro, she wasn't bluffing." He stood up and headed towards the break room to get a refill of his coffee mug. "I literally saw her friend tumbling."

"Ok. So, are you seeing her again?" The big man followed his friend to get a coffee for himself.

"I hope so. Apparently she doesn't usually go out and last night was just a crazy thing or something."

"Call her then." Kevin suggested as if stating the obvious.

"Can't."

"Why?"

"Don't have her number." Atwater was hysterically laughing right now.

"You didn't get her number?! You're totally losing your game or that girl is Ruzek immune."

"Shut up, that was part of the fun, you know? No names, no numbers." Kevin's laughter was even louder now.

"Fun? Ok, man. You keep telling yourself that."

"Whatever." The discomfort due to the excess of alcohol was now becoming a serious bad mood thanks to his friend's dissing.

"What's wrong Ruzek? We could hear your whining all the way from the roll up." Hailey's voice echoed in the half empty bullpen.

"He just won't admit that he might be losing the Ruzek charm." Kev answered amused by the situation and Hailey just laughed.

"What are you laughing about? I remember you falling for it." Yup, there was history between those two. They went out for a couple of months, it was nice but it wasn't meant to bed. They were just not in the same syntony.

"Easy there cowboy." Jay said as he ran up the stairs catching up with his partner Hailey Upton.

"I know you hate to be reminded of that. But it happened bro." Now it was Adam the one who was having fun, the tables had turned a bit. Although Jay and Adam were amazing colleagues and very good friends, and he was well aware that everyone has a history; Halstead sometimes preferred to ignore the fact that his fiancée was once involved with Ruzek. Yeah, those two were engaged now. But that never changed the bond and companionship they had built in the unit.

"I believe everyone was talking about you though." Halstead put the conversation right back on track. "What happened?"

"Nothing." Adam replied with the same bad mood he had 5 minutes ago.

"He made out with this totally hot chick and she gave him nothing. No name, no number. Nada." Kev joked. "Don't worry bro. It'll be alright."

"Come on Ruzek. You have to leave something for the other single dudes out there." Halstead quickly jumped in to Kevin's dissing and Hailey looked at the whole situation from her desk as she turned on the computer.

"Why don't you learn from Upton and get to work? I'm gonna get some coffee." He stood up and went straight to the break room. He was a fun guy, he loved joking around and he was ok when he was the target. But today it felt differently. Not really because of this girl, I mean she was hot and they had apparently hit it off, but everything around him was changing and the only thing he could always count on was being a lady's man and blowing off some steam. It seemed that his lucky strike had come to an end, and right now he really needed it back to keep him sane.

As soon as he stepped back in the bullpen, he heard his boss calling him.

"Ruzek, mind stepping into my office for a second?"

"Sure boss." He walked in and closed the door behind him.

"We still have no news. You're going to need to be patient." Ruzek just nodded. "We won't give up. We are going to solve this."

"I know we will, boss. It's just a little overwhelming right now."

"I can only imagine. If you need any help with Grace just say the word. We're here to back you up."

"Thank you Sarge."

"How is Gracie doing?" The thought of Grace put an involuntary smile on his face.

"She's a champion, super patient with me and having a blast with whatever we do."

"That 's nice." Voight smiled too. He was a tough guy, but he had a soft spot for children, especially if those children were part of his intelligence family.

"I just hope it lasts." Adam looked down for a second and spoke again. "Sarge, speaking of Grace, I'm going to need to leave early tomorrow. I have a meeting with her school, so I can give an update on her current situation and also to see how she's doing there."

"Don't worry about it Adam. Go and do what you have to do."

"Thanks boss."

"No problem at all. Now, I need you to check with your CI to see if he was able to find out anything about the drug dealing case we caught yesterday."

"On it."

And just like that he left his boss' office and went with Atwater to check on his CI.

Adam Ruzek loved to work on hard cases, he enjoyed getting involved in every level possible. Interview suspects, chasing leads, going undercover, you name it the guy did it, loved it and excelled at it. But right now he was thankful that things were pretty quiet down at the station. He had a little girl under his care, and he really wanted to devote all the time he possibly had to make sure Grace was hanging in there.

"So, how was school today?" Adam had just picked up Grace from his pops' house and was now getting her ready for dinner.

"It was good. We learned about butterflies. Did you know that they are caterpillars first? And they they spin a cartoon around them."

"Mmm, do you maybe mean cocoon?"

"Yeah that. Is nasty." She said with a fully expressive face scrunching up her cute little nose and narrowing her eyes.

"Well yeah, but sometimes we need the nasty thing before we get to be a beautiful butterfly." He walked closer to her on his tip toes and pretending his arms were wings, just as he handed Gracie her dinner. She was delighted and the only thing she could do was giggle.

"You're silly." Her toothy smile was one of the things that was keeping him grounded. She still had all her baby teeth, she was anxious to start losing them and hopefully meet the tooth fairy.

"So are you." He replied as he lightly touched the tip of her nose with his index finger, making her smile even more. "Now tell me Miss Grace Ruzek, who did those beauty braids on your hair?" He really did like them, they were much better than the crooked pig tails he did for her in the morning, however he felt bad that other adults were seeing the difference. Not because of him, he could handle it, but because of Gracie. He didn't want her to feel any more pain, he didn't want her to notice that things were not like they were before, he didn't want her to feel that void.

"My teacher did. I can ask her to show you how to do them, I'm sure she will say yes."

"I'd love that. Or maybe she just wants to keep doing it, she does a great job." He said as he inspected the little girl's head. He didn't mind learning, but a part of him was terrified that he wasn't fit to do this, that he wasn't able to care for Grace. So putting his weaknesses out there so that people could judge him was not very high on his priority list. "And I'm sure she loves it."

"She does. She says I have great hair."

"Of course you do. You are a Ruzek and all Ruzeks have great hair." He ran a hand through that crazy flock of hair at the top of his head making Gracie laugh again.

"Even grandpa Bob?"

"Yes, even grandpa Bob." Now it was Adam the one who was laughing. He sat next to her as he watched her eat her macaroni and cheese, without a double her most favorite dish ever. "Honey, I'm going to your school tomorrow."

"Why? It's not career day." Adam chuckled at her innocence.

"No, it's not. I'm just going to talk and tell them how you're living with me now. Is that ok?"

"Ok." That's all she said. She didn't say a word about

What had happened and he wasn't really sure how to handle the situation. Her counselor had told him to let Grace process everything, so that's what he was doing, although patience wasn't his thing at all and it was quite a lot to process when you're only six years old.