When Hank and Deputy Superintendent Samantha Miller rolled up on scene where Miller's son was located they saw all the cops around and saw the upsetting and depressed looks on their faces. Hank bit his jaw. He felt his stomach bubbling with nervousness, he was getting a very bad feeling. One he was all too familiar with.
Samantha moved past everyone trying to get to her only son, suddenly she froze. No it couldn't be. The air was sucked from her lungs, her chest began tightening up. She Couldn't breathe. Her blood was running ice cold. She had felt her heart stop at the sight in front of her.
Two of the officers had dragged a young man from a dirt and muddy ditch. It had been her beloved son. Her only son. She had felt her knees go weak and crumble beneath her; she had tried to launch herself at the body of her beloved son only Hank had held her back. He was being brought back in time.
Hank and Erin had gone out searching for Hank's son, Justin, he had been in danger after trying to help a friend. Hank had his son's phone pinged and went to the location very cautiously. They approached Justin's car and when they opened it they both froze seeing him. Hank had immediately gone to his son's aid.
His oldest was shot in the back of the head and he was bound with barbed wire around his wrists and ankles. All Hank wanted to do was save his son. When the ambulance rolled up Hank never left his son's side. At the hospital Hank and Erin were following the stretcher that carried Justin. Intelligence had been there, Olive watched and crumbled to the floor as Antonio took Daniel.
His daughter, Jordan was watching with wide teary eyes. Her legs then jumped and she tried to run after him but her father had caught her and hugged her with all his might. Jordan had fought her father attempting to get out of his hold to go after her brother but Hank had held her tighter until she eventually gave up and she wrapped her arms around her father sobbing.
Justin had been in the ICU. They saw he'd been improving until the fateful day came, Sharon Goodwin went to the 21st and told Hank something that would forever be burned into his head.
"Hank, Justin's not coming back. The bullet caused a catastrophic brain injury, it's inoperable. He won't wake up. He wouldn't remember anything. He wouldn't remember his family. How to do things" She started off carefully, her voice gentle.
That had caused Hank's heart to stop. He wouldn't allow it to show but that had killed him. His son would never get better. He wouldn't wake up. A machine was breathing for him. Keeping his heart beating. He wouldn't want his son to live like that.
"What do we do?" Hank tried to keep his voice from cracking.
"I know it's going to be hard but the only choice is to withdraw life support"
The older man had rubbed a hand down his face. "What does Olive say?"
"She said to ask you, she couldn't make the decision. I'm so sorry Hank"
And it was just like that Hank felt his body go numb. He had to take his only son off life support. Hank just followed Sharon out and to the hospital. In Justin's room, Jordan sat beside her brother's bed holding and clutching his hand. Tears falling and streaming from her eyes.
Her brother was gonna wake up. She knew he would, he had to. They always said the Voight's were strong, tough. Nothing could ever take them down. The teen would often brush his brown hair back with her fingers.
"You'll get better, Justie, I know you will. Nothing will ever bring us down. Nobody ever brings a Voight down" She choked up.
She kissed her brother's forehead leaning her head against his, he had to get better he just had to. Her brother was her best friend. They had fights but in the end they loved each other. Justin had always protected his baby sister and that's how he'd always seen her. Jordan looked up to her older brother and tried to be like him after he straightened himself out. The teen couldn't lose her best friend. She just couldn't. It would kill her.
Looking outside the room she saw her father talking with Olive, Sharon and a doctor. The teen felt her heart breaking. They wouldn't be talking about letting him die. Would they? Her father wouldn't let her brother die. Not a chance in hell. If it was one thing about her father he wouldn't let his children just die. He wouldn't. You don't let your child die.
The door to the room opened and Hank stepped in, the tension in the room grew rapidly. It was so thick it could be cut like a hot knife cutting through butter. The teen looked at her father with teary glossy eyes, she could read her father like a book and she knew what he was going to say.
"Jo, sweetheart" Hank started off, his voice cracking. This never got easier.
"No" Jordan just about pleaded.
The older father went over and bent down to his daughter's level and wiped her tears away with his thumbs. She already had the same broken look in her eyes as he did. A lump formed in his throat.
"I'm sorry baby"
"No. Daddy no please"
"I'm sorry baby. Justin's not going to get better. He won't wake up"
"No daddy please" She cried. "He has to"
"I'm so sorry"
"Daddy no"
He pulled her into a hug and kissed her head. Jordan buried her face into his neck and cried. After letting his daughter cry he had gone to his son he gently grabbed his face and leaned down kissing his bandaged head and whispered ever so softly.
"You did good"
Before the small family knew it the doctor had come into the room and they gathered around him, Hank had hugged his daughter close to him knowing well in just a few minutes she was now about to be his only child. The small distraught family watched as the doctor took the tube from Justin and he took his final breath and turned the machines off.
Olive had hugged her son tightly as she sobbed, Jordan crumbled to her knees crying and screaming for her brother. Hank fell with his daughter holding her. A few minutes later, Justin Voight had died. And the family was never the same again.
Hank was so deep in thought he forgot momentarily where he was until he felt the Deputy Superintendent fighting his hold, crying and screaming for her son. He took her away from the scene so the others could work. When Samantha had gathered herself some, a look appeared in her eye. One Hank had been all too familiar with. She had a look of revenge. She was going to end the bastard who murdered her beloved son.
"Sam, whatever it is you're thinking about doing. Don't do it. It won't bring him back. Nothing you do won't bring him back. Believe me. I know" Hank told her.
As much as he wanted to help her end the bastard, the police had been getting a very bad reputation as of late and they were trying to be reformed. Samantha was trying to do that very thing. Until now.
"What would you do if it was your son?" She snipped, not realizing it.
Hank had swallowed hard. It hurt every time someone had mentioned his son. It had been rubbing salt in a wound, it stung and hurt every time. He now somewhat understood why his daughter lashed out at everything and everyone. To release her pain, the hurt, the anger. Grief had been a powerful emotion.
"I've been where you are Sam. I know it hurts, you'd do anything to have him back. Do anything to bring him back. I'd do anything to bring my son back, anything"
"What do you do? What do you do to fill this void?"
"I'm still doing it. The void will never go away. I try to bring others in this city justice.I try to give hope and faith to others. I try and do it for my little girl"
The distraught woman had looked wide eyed at him. What had he said? He had a daughter? Hank still didn't like telling people about his daughter, not that he had been ashamed of her but to protect her.
"You have a little girl?"
"I do. Her name's Jordan"
"Go be with her. That's an order"
Taking a moment Hank had wanted to debate and stay but after seeing this and remembering his son's death, all he wanted to do was go home and hold his little girl and hug her tightly, never letting her go.
Quietly he went over to his car and got in and he had taken a deep breath trying to gather his thoughts and calm himself from his own emotions. He was remembering his own son, his hands shaking as he tried to get them on the steering wheel.
He hated this feeling; it made him feel weak and powerless, the older man was never one to show his weak, vulnerable side. If he ever did it would be around people he trusted or the only person he could be himself with. His daughter.
At this point Jordan was the only thing that kept him sane, kept his head on straight, to keep him doing anything crazy or dramatic. The only thing that kept him human.
Whenever he felt himself attempting to cross another line, go to the dark side yet again. He forced himself to stop. He hadn't wanted to stop but his daughter came into his mind. If he did anything remotely crazy or crossing yet another line, anything to risk getting whisked away from her again. She would forever be truly alone.
Looking at his daughter and all that she lost, all her suffering. They had been the ones holding each other together. Being each other's rock. Voice of reason. They had kept each other's head on straight. Jordan had worked hard to get herself clean, sober, happy and in a good place. She worked too hard for him to snatch it away once again.
He couldn't take her happiness away, no matter how angry he'd get during cases he wouldn't cross that line of no return again. As much as he wanted to and as much as he was tempted, he held himself back from doing it.
After gathering his thoughts and his hands stopped shaking he pulled off going home. His daughter kept popping in his mind, she stayed on his mind the whole way home. Soon he arrived home and went inside.
Jordan had just finished dinner and was cleaning the kitchen, she heard the front door open and she went to see. She saw her father and the upsetting look on his face, she was concerned she had run over to him.
"Dad, what's wrong? Are you alright? Are the others ok?" Jordan asked, her voice full of worry and concern.
Hank felt his heart swell, his little girl was the best. She cared more for his and the other's safety and concern more than her own. Just the way Anna did. She hardly cared about her concern but cared more about everyone else. Jordan had been so much like her mother in more ways.
A single tear fell from his eye, Jordan had caught the small wet drop with her thumb and another had fallen from his eyes. All the while he stayed silent.
"Dad, you're freaking me out. What's wrong? Are you hurt? Are the others ok?"
Without a word Hank took a step forward and wrapped his daughter in a tight protective hug. He had kept one hand resting on her back and the other one on the back of her head. For a moment he took in the moment to hold his daughter, he knew that she could have easily been the one dead in the ditch and not Miller's son.
Any case involving a child or someone else's made him immediately think of his own and how easily it could be to lose his children. He'd already lost his first daughter when she was born and she had been still born. He watched his son die after Justin was shot in the back of the head. He watched Erin leave after taking a job with the FBI in New York.
The only child he had left was Jordan. She would be the only child he'd have left. Hank refused to let himself move on and be with any other woman. Anna's death had killed that part of him. He never let himself get close with any other woman. Not without the feeling of betraying Anna.
Jordan glanced up at her father. "Dad are you alright?"
"I am now" He choked out. "I love you Jo Jo. I love you so much"
The teen held her father just as tightly. "I love you too dad. Are you sure you're alright?"
"As long as I have you, I'll be fine. I'll always be fine"
He just held his baby girl in his arms, making a deep mental thought of it. Her being in his arms, him shielding her from the evils in the world. As if nothing could harm her, nothing could get to her. He was protecting and shielding her.
He knew, he also knew that after all his losses and all the grief life gave him. Part of him deep down thought he'd have been doomed; he'd cross a line again and wouldn't come back. But one thing he knew for sure, she could keep grounded and human.