Theoretically, Alicia knew that keeping Wes' appearance to herself, was wrong. Still, she was so flooded with emotions, that she got scared of telling anyone. For now, Nadia was the only one. Alicia had to promise her to come up with a plan soon, and since she was living in the same house with her, she could understand that her roommate was concerned. And because she was close with Erin, it was clear that she had someone she could easily inform.

Alicia just had no idea why Wes was in Chicago.

When her brother called, she was glad for a distraction. When he asked her how she was, she told him everything is fine and swiftly got to another topic. Months in a toxic relationship and growing up in changing environment made her good at pretending, even though she knew that wasn't something to be proud of.

"Actually, I've been meaning to call you", she told him, while sitting over a cup of coffee in the main room of the firehouse, "because I wanted to ask when you're free for a coffee or dinner. I know I've been away a while and … I don't know, I wanna spend more time with my folks."

"Mom would be so happy to hear that. Why don't you have dinner with us tonight? She wanted to cook one of her specials."

Alicia sighed. If there was one good thing in this world, it was Erica's cooking. There were three meals that were even better than amazing, that she would cook once a week, and at some point, she and Mike started to refer to them as her specials. "Count me in man, just tell me when and I'll be there."

She heard him laugh. "I see, some things don't change. Wanna lure her home, just have good food. – But honestly it's good to have you back in t-"

He was interrupted by a strange woman staggering into the room. "I need help", she mumbled before collapsing to the floor. For a split second, the whole house was dead silent.

"I gotta go, Mike."

"Okay, I'll text you later."

She thanked him before hanging up and throwing her phone on the table and rushing to the woman, who turned out to be a kid, not older than fifteen. She kneeled next to Sylvie, asking Cruz to bring them their bags from the ambo. Sylvie laid her down straight, while Alicia searched her for superficial injuries. She had bruises and little cuts all over her body, but the most concerning was the trail of blood running down on the inside of her thighs. When she searched for a wallet or an ID, she found a little plastic bag with unlabelled pills. Oh, hell no, not again.

They called it in and drove her to Med, as fast as possible.

When Alicia signed her report, she was surprised to see Erin, Jay, Hank Voight and Antonio walk in the hospital, immediately going to Dr Halstead, who was treating the girl she just brought in.

Alicia took her time to type in the details to wait for Jay. She didn't want to interrupt, but she wanted to know if the cases were connected. Or why else they were here. As far as she knew, Intelligence didn't deal with cases like that. After a few minutes, he indeed came over, while Erin and Voight went into the girl's room.

"Hey", he greeted her, touching her shoulder while he gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. "Hey", she responded.

"Did you bring the girl in?"

"Yeah. She came to the fire house and collapsed in our common room. Poor thing, she's just a kid."

Jay sighed. "Looks like she was drugged, then sexually abused. You're alright, though? You look worried. You didn't answer my message this morning."

Alicia winced. "That's right. I'm sorry, Jay, I forgot." She smiled at him. "Then let me tell you now, I'm also very glad you talked to me, and yes, I would indeed like to see you again soon."

"Good", Jay quickly leaned forward and kissed her, this time on the lips. "Because I really think we need another dinner, this time without any confessions or deep conversations."

Alicia placed her hand on his upper arm and gave him a ambiguous smile. "Well, what else would we do then, huh?"

Jay swallowed hard. "I have a few suggestions. – But seriously, you good?"

Alicia playfully rolled her eyes. "Since when am I an open book?" She hesitated, still unsure whether to tell him or deal with the Wes-problem on her own. She knew the hesitation wouldn't help with the impression that everything was sunshine.

"Actually, I have something on my mind. My ex, I told you about? He's in town."

Jay furrowed his eyebrows. "What? In Chicago? Why?"

Alicia shrugged. If she only knew the answer to those questions, she had asked herself several times.

"I don't know. We didn't really talk. He tried to call me several times. I cut off the call every time. After we broke up, he tried to get back several times. But it's been years since I've seen him."

She didn't even know herself why she kept it from him that he showed up at her house. Seems like the fear of telling someone something and then being yelled at was already burned into her brain. It takes time to unlearn certain behaviours.

Jay gave her a concerned look. "Do you think he's gonna get violent?"

The pressure behind her eyes came so suddenly, that it was almost impossible for her to hold back tears. After pushing the urge to cry away for days, they all came at once, it seemed. "I honestly don't know."

"Hey", Jay said, gently cupping her face with his hands. "I didn't mean to upset you. I just wanna know. I'm worried."

"Me, too."

He let go of her and reached into his jacket, to grab a pen and a small notebook. "Just tell me his name, I'll have a look at him, okay? Just so I know who he is, what he looks like, et cetera." He laid his hand on her shoulder. "We got this Allie, I promise. We'll figure it out. And if he ever calls again, or you see him somewhere, you call me."

She nodded, wiping the tears of her cheeks. "Um, okay, so. His name is Wes. Well, it's a nickname because he hated his real one. His name is Carl Weslowski. His friends called him Wesley. I was allowed to call him Wes." How weird that sounded, coming out of her mouth. Back then, she was proud of that.

The look on Jay's face threw her off. "Son of a bitch", he hissed.

"What?"

"Allie. I need you to come with us to the district. Carl Weslowski is one of our main suspects right now, and we need to find him."