Chapter Title "Hurricanes" by Dido

DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the Chicago PD, Fire or Med characters, only my OCs!

February 17th, 28 hours earlier:

Even though anyone else probably couldn't hear the difference, Hank Voight at least felt the echo of his grunt more deeply than on other days, when he got out of his Jeep with Hailey Upton, and laid eyes on his distressed detective on the other side of the street. Days like these never got any easier and sometimes he asked himself why they were all still doing this. Was it worth it? All the sacrifices they had had to make over the years? Living in constant fear that something like this could happen to any of them?

Every once in a while things got very personal, affecting and involving not just the unit, but their loved ones, their families. They had experienced it before, more than once. Hank's own son had been a victim, Al's family a target, as well as Antonio's children, the list went on. And now Halstead's wife?

It seemed like the kid couldn't catch a break, or rather that his recent luck was sadly more fragile than anyone would have wished on him. The man didn't deserve this, when he'd recently just begun to become more mellow and balanced than Voight had seen him in years, having found someone who grounded him immensely and had brought a lot of light into his life.

Looking at the tall figure on the other side of the road, wrapped in a dark cloud of anxiety and shock, while already working the scene, Hank felt the need to protect one of his own, like a papa bear. He guessed he'd especially have to protect his detective from himself. Otherwise, knowing Jay and his need to take action and get to the bottom of this kidnapping, in combination with his famous disregard for his own safety and well-being, this was bound to end very badly.

As soon as Halstead's eyes met his, the younger man came striding over, his features set in stone, and immediately addressed him:

"Sarge, I wanna work! I can work! You're not benching me! Don't even think about it!"

Voight hadn't even said a word to him. He couldn't pretend though that the thought to do exactly that, hadn't crossed his mind. Of course Halstead was too close to this, he should have been considered a family member, take a step back and let them do their jobs. But benching Jay was probably even more dangerous and unpredictable than letting him indeed work the case. Hank had done that once or twice before and Jay had gone off on his own, despite his boss's explicit order not to, endangering himself and others. So maybe it was better to keep him close and under observation.

"Sarge…"

Voight just looked at him, knowing that Halstead was struggling to come up with the right words, but Hank knew there weren't any. Everything Jay wanted to express, his sergeant could very plainly see in his troubled and glassy eyes anyway.

"Hank, she's…" was the only thing he was able to croak out, while desperately trying to suppress a quiver of his upper lip.

That the other man was calling him by his first name was so unusual that Jay didn't need to say anything else to underline how helpless and lost he felt, how scared he was.

'She's everything to you, and more," Hank thought, finishing Jay's sentence, and for a second his hand landed on the younger man's shoulder and squeezed it tightly:

"I know! We'll find her Jay, everything's gonna be fine!"

He tried his best to believe that too.

When the unit gathered around him to exchange all the information they had until now, Hank felt that the pressure of this task, to take the lead and do it the right way, weighed at least two tons.
Although the whole team had tried comforting Jay with a few words or little gestures of consolation while keeping up their professional armor, they all looked pretty shocked and forlorn. They didn't know what to say, how to relieve Jay of this pain and the pressure, how to make it better, how to think straight to establish a game-plan.
And Voight knew it was to no small part because Rianne Halstead wasn't a stranger, or 'just' their colleague's wife, which alone would have been pretty damn terrible. It was because most of them had a personal relationship with her, and because she was well liked and respected amongst his people.

Hank tried to stand up very straight, even though an icy wind was forcing them all to keep their heads down, and not let his own shock defuse any of the sharpness and rigorousness he was well-known for.

Burgess brought everyone up to speed, quoting some witness statements back at them. By now they had confirmation that Rianne had never even made it into work. They still had no plates on the van that had been spotted, so they would have to go through and search for more pod footage back at the station.

"Okay, we're handling this like any other case! This feels personal. Any beef Rianne had with clients? Did she tell you about anyone harassing her at work? Jay, any cases you can think of where you personally received threats? Open court dates? Anything that makes you subject to blackmail? Or us? Who would have a reason to kidnap a family member of ours? What do they want with her? Or do we have knowledge of any crews picking up random women from off the streets?"

Which would be his least favorite option. Because that meant the kidnappers wouldn't necessarily want to exchange their hostage for a ransom. They'd probably rather sell her, rape her, kill her for no reason at all. Voight didn't need to say that out loud, they all knew what some people were capable of.

There was silence around his team members, but he noticed Ruzek and Halstead exchange a look that Hank couldn't really interpret, and Adam awkwardly shuffling his feet.

"What is it Ruzek?"

There was no time to beat around the bushes. They needed answers, fast.

"Go on Adam! Tell him!" Halstead snarled and Atwater took a step towards his fellow officer, as if to protect him from Jay's obvious wrath.

"I think it's a little far fetched, but… My cousin Nate was released yesterday. Seems Halstead thinks he could have something to do with this."

"And? Could he have indeed? Something to do with this?" Hailey questioned.

"Like I said, I think it's a little far fetched. What motives would he have to do such a thing?"

"Well, maybe he wants revenge for being locked up in a psychiatric unit for over a year? Ever thought about that?"

"But why would he hurt Rianne? She's not the one who put him in cuffs. And he's just been released yesterday. So how could he have planned a kidnapping in such a short amount of time?"

"Because he's a crazy son of a bitch, who probably couldn't wait to get his hands on her," Halstead growled and Voight could see that Ruzek was getting upset too and readying himself for a kickback, so the sergeant had to intervene:

"Right, enough! Ruzek why don't you pay your cousin a friendly visit? Take Upton with you! The rest of us will head back to the district, go through pods and pending cases, get intact with Rianne's colleagues. I want to know what she was working on, the usual! I wanna to know everything!"

Witnessing the deadly glare Jay bestowed on his colleague and friend as Ruzek trudged off through the snow, Upton in pursuit, Voight felt an uneasiness creep up his neck. This might be even tougher than he'd thought.

"Don't let me regret this!" he mumbled in the direction of his most experienced team member, willing him with his eyes to understand that fighting personal feuds, or playing a lone hand was absolutely forbidden.

They had a case to solve.

This certainly didn't feel like a prank.

Squinting against a ray of winter sun creeping in through high and filthy looking crown glass windows, Rianne tried to make out her surroundings. As far as she could see, she was in an almost empty warehouse, only equipped with some steel racks and rows of packing cases. How had she gotten here and for how long had she been lying on this cold and damp floor like that? Bound at hands and knees?

She wasn't sure, but she could definitely hear cars rushing by outside, so at least she couldn't be in the middle of nowhere. Otherwise there was no sound besides some mysterious rustling in a far away corner. Rianne hoped against hope that it weren't mice or rats. It was definitely droughty and rundown enough in here to attract these kinds of animals.

No one had bothered to clean up a puddle of vomit next to her. It was disgusting. She couldn't really remember, but it seemed likely that it was hers, and it smelled so terribly that Rianne was close to throwing up again. The after-effect of whatever they had drugged her with still made her nauseous and dizzy and she definitely had a pounding headache. She tried to scoot away from it a little, which was an arduous task, considering she was laced up like a parcel.

Rianne desperately needed her hands free rather sooner than later to be able to check, if everything was okay. If she was really okay. She didn't know how to do that though, because her limbs were bound with some pretty tight cable-ties, already cutting deep into her wrists and legs.

At least it also seemed a side-effect of the narcotic still circling her bloodstream, that she felt surprisingly calm and numb. Rational even. Whereas she would have expected a full-blown panic attack in a situation like this. Maybe it was adrenaline or some kind of self-preservation instinct. Forming any coherent thoughts was a little difficult though.

Why did they keep her here? What had she done? Where was everyone? Who were they and what did they want to do to her?

She didn't know why, but her surroundings made her think back to the last time she'd puked in an abandoned warehouse….

November 17th 2020:

"You alright?" She didn't need to turn around to know that Jay was coming up behind her.

The one she had called and had wanted to see. Rianne had only hoped she wouldn't have been quite so miserable, when he finally arrived.

"I'll be fine. I just need a…"

'A minute' she had wanted to say, but her words were lost to a heavy gagging she couldn't control. Rianne didn't even have the strength to be embarrassed. And though she hated to feel this lousy, and especially hated that Jay of all people saw her like that: Him immediately rushing to her side and putting his hand on her back, steadying her, and his soft voice mumbling that it would be okay, that he was here now, helped.

"Have you been inside?" Rianne whispered after she was sure there was nothing left in her stomach she could regurgitate.

Jay led her back to his truck and handed her a bottle of water and some wet wipes. Thankfully he also had some chewing gum on him. It made her feel a little better, although she was careful to just take little sips. She couldn't take another round of throwing up, her stomach was hurting enough as it was.

"Yeah… It's horrible…" Jay was watching her with concern in his eyes, but also looking around.

There was pretty much police around now, putting up crime scene tapes and the crime lab had rolled in as well.

"I… I know I should've just gone through the proper channels, but… I was so shocked, I…"

She could feel the panic she'd experienced when stumbling upon this especially gruesome crime scene rise up again. Jay caught up on that breathless hitch in her voice:

"Hey, hey! No need to apologize! You did the right thing!"

He pulled her into his side and with her face buried into the crook of his neck, Rianne finally let those tears fall that had been waiting to be released.
She didn't know, if it had been the right thing to directly call the Intelligence unit, just because she had her husband on speed dial, instead of calling 911, like every other person. But in this case…

"I thought you wanted to call in sick today though, cause you hadn't slept last night," Jay wondered.

"Yeah, but I thought I could work from home a little and then this girl I've been helping, called me and said I needed to come here urgently…"

Thinking back to what she had found 'here' almost made her lose her composure again. It felt like her stomach was starting to rebel afresh.
Out of the corner of her eye she could see people in protective suits carry several body bags out of the warehouse. It were a lot of very small body bags. Not made for grown-ups, but for children and teenagers. She knew how some of their faces inside the wrapping looked: tortured, unseeing eyes. Another shiver ran over her back and she tried not look too closely.

"You got any idea what happened here?" she asked, her voice still sounding very unlike herself.

"Not yet! Doesn't necessarily seem gang related, but we're checking that possibility too. Could be mobster business, people recruiting youngsters for drug distribution. If they get caught they can't get charged as adults… Lesser traces back to the bosses, easier to replace."

"D'you think this was a stash house?"

"Stash house, hiding place, reloading point… we're gonna find out. And we're gonna find who's responsible. I promise! I'm gonna need that girl's contact information though, please!"

"I'm not sure if she's gonna talk to you, Jay! She was really scared and I got a feeling that she's involved somehow…"

"Well, it's worth a try. Maybe she told you to go take a look what is happening here, because she secretly wants out…"

Rianne decided not to argue with him and just give Jay her source's name and number. She didn't have the physical strength today to get into an argument or get further involved. She knew he was just doing his job, and that Intelligence would do anything in their power to keep that girl safe, if they found her. All she cared about was to make sure that whoever was responsible for killing several children and teens got what they deserved.

"You sure you're okay? You still look pretty pale…" Jay gently touched her cheek.

Rianne found that she couldn't really answer that question, so in the end Jay insisted that someone drove her home, instead of letting her go by herself.

February 17th, 27 hours earlier:

"It doesn't matter, because I just want you for the rest of my life…."

He'd said that, when he'd had proposed to her and it was still so true: Rianne was all he wanted for the rest of his life. Their life! It had only just begun.

Jay didn't even know what to feel, because there was so much going through his head and maybe he was still in shock. It certainly had been a long time since his heart had felt this heavy. Burgess, Atwater and him had been staring at pod-footage since they'd come back to the station, but although he desperately needed to stay sharp and focused to be of any use, to do anything in his power to end this nightmare, the images on his computer kept blurring before Jay's eyes. What if this was all in vain? What if Rianne wasn't even alive anymore? Shouldn't they have received a ransom demand by now? What other possibilities than Nate Ruzek taking his revenge could he think of? His brain frustratingly came up with nothing that made sense. It almost felt as if all his logical senses had left his body and he was just existing of one big lump in his throat.

He constantly kept checking the top of the staircase.

Any minute now Jay expected Rianne to call him or just come waltzing into the bullpen, saying it had all been a misunderstanding, a joke, some kind of mix-up. Telling him he was a fool for worrying, that she could look out for herself and yell at him for getting so worked up. God what he wouldn't give to have her back here yelling at him:

December 14th 2020:

"¡Maldita sea! Jay Halstead!" The called on detective almost choked on his breakfast sandwich that he'd just taken a bite of, when he felt and heard the fury his wife emanated, before he even saw her. Rianne had stormed up the stairs to the bullpen, followed by a helpless looking Trudy Platt, who had for once lost her authority, so it seemed.

"I tried to keep her out, but…" the desk sergeant mumbled, shrugging her shoulders.

With a dismissive gesture Jay tried to reassure Platt that it was okay, before she left them alone with the intruder storming into the break room.

He could handle his wife, whatever serious business she obviously had with him. Jay couldn't remember doing anything wrong, at least not on purpose, but one could never know these days.

Rianne didn't leave him in the dark for too long, before coming at him full force, not caring that Adam was in there with them as well and her voice could be heard through all the adjoining rooms, because she was so enraged:

"You just arrested one of my kids!"

Her curls were all over the place, although a glittery headband attempted to tame them.

"Who?" They had done two arrests with kids involved today, so he couldn't be sure which one she meant. Also he refused to rise to the challenge, because he already knew it was in vain to try and argue with Rianne, when she was this upset.

"Zac Hudson!" She complained, her cheeks already adorably flushed with fury, bangles on her arm chiming constantly because she was gesticulating that much.

"Oh yeah, right. Well, he committed armed robbery with a deadly weapon, a knife to be exact, so of course I arrested him!"

"But he's a minor and I'm pretty sure it wasn't his idea. He's…"

"There was no one but him at the scene and he hasn't told on any other kids involved, so we took him in!" Business as usual. Rianne knew how they worked, how the justice system worked, so he still didn't get her point. But instead it seemed that his answer had only riled her up some more:

"Fucking great! And now he's sitting there alone, in lock up, with no one advocating for him!"

"Seems like you came to do just that…" Although this technically should have been the job of a public defender. Only Jay thought it was a little insane to point that out now. Also he knew it was useless to keep his wife from doing something she had set her mind on.

"Yeah, that was the plan!" She huffed with an unhappy laugh: "But when I tried talking to him just now to offer some help, he told me to go, and I quote, 'fuck myself', because I am obviously married to the prick that busted him in the first place!"

"Sorry babe, that's…" 'unfortunate' Jay wanted to say, but Rianne was right up in his face, pupils sparking dangerously:

"Don't 'babe' me!"

Despite knowing that it was dangerous, he couldn't totally suppress a little smug smile. She was absolutely unaware how cute she looked right now:

"Well, what can I say? The law is the law."

"The law is the law!" Rianne mimicked, making a talking gesture with her hand. In his peripheral vision Jay could see Ruzek practically stuffing his face with pickles behind the fridge, just to keep from interfering or burst out laughing. He wasn't sure which one it was. There was only some grunting to be heard from the other man, which could be either.

Suddenly ending their staring match, Rianne snatched the sandwich out of his hand and began munching it, which completely took him by surprise. So much so that Jay kept gaping at her open-mouthed for a second, before reacting:

"I…was eating that!"

"Well, good for you!" she grunted through bites of pastrami on rye.

Now he definitely heard Ruzek chuckling, which turned Rianne's attention to his colleague as well:

"Don't you dare laugh at me! I'm serious!"

"Maybe you should calm down a little, this can't be…"

"Don't!" Her forefinger was immediately back in Jay's face: "Don't you dare say it!"

Jay backed up a few steps, holding up his hands up high to show he wouldn't finish his sentence.

"This is all seriously fucked up! Shame on all of you!" Rianne cursed, before obviously deciding that her mission here was accomplished, whatever she had accomplished with her tantrum. She turned on her heels and left Jay standing there.

A little befuddled he watched Rianne stalk away, the rest of his sandwich in tow, and because Jay couldn't resist to call after her: "Maybe you should watch your language a little, Mrs. Halstead!" she actually flipped him off without looking back at him.

"She certainly is a little more irritable than usual…" Ruzek fluted in his back.

"If you need a place to crash tonight, Halstead…" Kevin joked from his desk, barely holding in his laughter.
Of course the heated argument had been a welcome lunch break amusement for the entire unit.

Only Jay's whole body was buzzing now and his jeans suddenly felt a little too tight to be comfortable. He let out a whistling sound through his teeth and scratched the back of his neck:

"I'm married to a freaking hurricane!" he sighed.

"Don't tell me this didn't just turn you on like hell!" Adam said in a stage-whisper and patted Jay's shoulder in passing, still smiling to himself.

"Yep,…" he stressed the last letter and made an extra popping sound, slowly releasing an agitated breath.

He guessed they'd continue this argument on how being married to him affected her work and the reasons behind her extra crabbiness at home, later tonight. Jay found he actually couldn't wait…

Instead of Rianne, the next time Jay looked towards the staircase, his eyes burning dangerously, Adam and Hailey walked up. With Nate Ruzek in tow!

"Why isn't he in cuffs?" Jay instantly got up from behind his desk, immediate anger churning in his gut.

"Because he's cooperating and he came on his own volition!" Hailey gave him a definite look to 'back the hell off!', when she walked past him to bring Nate into the interrogation room, but Jay didn't think he could.
Too many memories roared up inside of him, when he looked at that man.

A man who's obsession with Rianne and their history had almost cost them so much.

AN: Thank you for reading! As always, reviews are very appreciated!