Hi, and here is another chapter, I hope you all enjoy this chapter and the end of the Season 2 arc and I will do my best to bring you the best of the Season 3. Anything in the past will be about Camille. In fact most of Season 3 is about Camille.

Please Read and Review.

Disclaimer-Nothing here is mine.

Also Erin and Jay are going through a rough patch here but I think it's the same as in the series. Bunny...Bunny...Bunny and a hell of a lot of guilt.

There will be a time jump between Season 2 and Season 3.

Also with this chapter we are now over halfway through this story.

And I will do maybe two more updates before I do my Christmas update which is multiple chapters.

And TRIGGER WARNINGS for Greg Yates


Born Under A Bad Sign

Chapter 15-I Fought The Law

Greg Yates Part 3 and an ending (depending) Jay wakes up in hospital, Erin is drowning in guilt, Will doesn't trust Hank and Hank is just trying to keep everything from imploding while not actually taking care of himself.


1st January 2000


"Jay?"

He knew that voice. Even though he had thrown himself of the bridge before he could remember that voice he knew it. That voice spoke of a comfort that he had never known before, not since his own mother. The comfort was so strong that all he wanted to do was sleep in that warm feeling.

God it had been so long since he had felt like this.

"Jay get up now"

Wasn't that?

Camille?

Oh shit if he could hear her he was really fucked.

Dead fucked.

The kind of fucked that came with being dead.

Hank was going to kill him.

"Jay?"

"Yeah" he responded because it was Camille and she was so Mom like that you really couldn't disobey her. Besides she was more than capable of standing outside his room knocking patiently until Hank just threated to shoot a hole through the wood.

He staggered out of bed and fell off the couch.

Shit. Had he fallen asleep drunk here or something.

He staggered to his feet.

"Camille?"

But she wasn't there.

He turned and then—

Then he woke up.


17th December 2015


Jay woke up with a bump.

That was what it felt like, a literal bump to reality, to life, to all of it. He had been unconscious many times before, the bottle, his father, the IED that he and his team had taken in Afghanistan and now this. Each time he woke up it felt the same.

"Hey kid" came a voice to his left and he turned as Will coming into the room with a wide eyed expression began to remove the tube that was choking him down. He reached out blindly and Hank took his hand as Jay finally removed that fucking awful thing and he could get air into his starving lungs.

"Wh—happened?" he asked sleepily.

Will and Hank shared a look between them. Jay might be out of it, might be in a hospital bed strung out on some of the nicest painkillers in the world but he still knew when people were hiding shit from him. And Will had never been able to lie even when they were kids.

Thank God his job demanded he tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Jay looked around for a second and then spoke. His throat felt like had swallowed razor blades. He could remember…enough…God knows he was never one of those lucky people who didn't remember what had happened to them. Yates was going to be the stuff of his nightmares for a very, very long time.

"Ya—"

"We got Yates son" Hank was saying and Jay nodded because he knew Hank would have gotten Yates, Hank who could catch anyone and anything and wouldn't let anyone fuck with his team or fuck with his city and get away with it. Hank who he had treated really poorly before he had been stabbed by a mad man, serial killer, rapist. Jay tried to get his throat to work and the water that Will gently let him sip from helped. He was so…so tired. So fucking tired. He couldn't speak for tiredness.

But he had to try.

There were still things he needed to know.

"Nadi—"

He trailed off because it hurt to talk and also because he saw the look on Hank's face.

He closed his eyes. Nadia was dead.

Hank and Will were speaking over him but Jay wasn't listing, because Nadia was dead.

Nadia who was the sweetest, kindest girl that he had ever known. Who had been like him and like Erin, living the hard life and kidding herself that she was in control when she wasn't. Looking after herself when someone should have been looking after her. And then she'd had Erin the same way he'd had Hank and now she was dead. She had been building her life from scratch and now she was dead.

Your fault the voice in his head that sounded like Pat supplied helpfully. Pathetic son, you call yourself a cop? You had the gun, you had the badge and you let yourself get overpowered and now that girl is dead and you can bet your bottom dollar he had his fun with her beforehand.

Oh God Jay was going to be sick.

He gestured to Will but Will was looking at Hank and then he was throwing up a little and it was a struggle to get him onto his side. He remembered doing this for Pat to.

God he was beyond pathetic wasn't he?

"Sos—"

"Not your fault for being sick Jay—"

"No. Nadia. My fault" he had to make Hank understand that this was his fault. He had been the one there, he had been supposed to protect his team and he had failed—

"NO" Hank said firmly and Jay didn't want to look at him but uncaring of who or what was in the room with him Hank reached out grabbed his sore jaw and forced him to look at him through the one good eye that he had.

"NO" Hank said again. "You do not get to blame yourself for this one Jay. This was all Greg Yates. And he is gonna spend the rest of his life in prison thinking about Nadia and what he did to her and he is never going to do it to any woman again. You did nothing wrong here and I am quite prepared to spend the next couple of days telling you so if that's what it's going to take to get it through your head"

And he would as well. Jay knew it, Will knew it. Everyone knew it.

Didn't stop it from being true though. Somewhere down the line Jay knew that the blame was on him. There had to be something or someone or someway that this came down on him. Because otherwise Nadia was just…dead. The sum total of a human life gone in a few seconds.

"Hank he's gonna need rest and to do that you've got to let go"

"Not until he understands"

"He's not—Jesus, Mary and—Jay will you just nod your head please before you and Hank combined set back your recovery by weeks"

Jay jerked his head a little. He told himself that it was because his jaw was going to ache soon. Hank's expression told him that he knew that Jay was chatting shit. Jay could envision a long talk coming and the thought made his head spin.

"Need more morphine Jay?"

He nodded because morphine sounded blissful right now and Jay would have happily given one of his legs just to not think.

But there was one more thing he had to do.

"Sorry" he began but he was rapidly becoming dizzy again and his speech was slurring as the drug took effect.

"You've got—"

"For Bens—Livia—what I said about you and her—"

And then he was gone.


3rd January 2016


"How you feeling?"

"Like I was beaten and stabbed Hank"

"Not funny Jay"

"Will seriously if you ask me once more how I feel—"

"Will just cares"

"Oh God I'm getting it from all sides now. I am just glad to be out of the hospital"

He collapsed on the couch under Will's careful gaze. Apparently his brother had decided that he was going to move in with him for his recovery which was at least three months before he could even think about light duties.

Jay was going to lose his mind he was sure.

Will flopped onto the couch next to him and Hank took a seat.

"You know there is something very disturbing about the two of you working together you know"

"It was decided you couldn't look after yourself"

"Where's the proof"

"Jay your fridge is a collection of take out menu's and beer"

"So's Hank's"

Hank shot Jay a look that would have flawed a lesser man.

"I mean…"

"You know Hank you do consume quite a bit of red meat and for a man—"

"Shut up the pair of you"

And just like that they both fell silent grinning at each other. This was new. Both of them winding up Hank like that. Usually it was Jay and Erin and that reminded him actually where the fuck was Erin? He turned to Hank and asked the question.

"She's not come to see you?"

"Not since Christmas"

Erin had turned up at Christmas looking like utter hell and had disappeared after five minutes. Jay had been still out of it but he had been aware of her. He was always hyper aware of Erin's presence and he had to swallow down his pain and try to force himself to look at her only she had been gone when he had managed to force his eye open again. Even now a week and a half later everything was still aching and bruised and swollen.

Hank said nothing to that damning statement and that was all Jay needed to know.

"Bunny?"

"Oh yeah. She's got her hooks in deep this time. She blames herself for Nadia. For you—"

"Thought you said Yates was the only person to blame for all that"

"I did" Hank said and his tone told Jay that he was still holding fire to that belief despite the fact that Jay and Erin had both assigned blame to themselves.

"Yeah well doesn't matter now does it. You know Bunny is going to use everything and anything that she can to get Erin back into that shitty tin pot bar of hers. Can't you pull her liquor licence"

"Sadly I used up all of my favours with the liquor board a long time ago. Came when I was pulling you out dive bars"

Jesus you get drunk one time.

"So what's going on" Will said interrupting the conversation. "Any new cases?"

"One. It involves Commander Parry. And it's going to be messy so do me a favour Jay, stay house mouse until it's over"

"Sure"

And then one of those random twists of fate happened and Will got a phone call. Judging by the smile on his face Jay suspected it was Connor Rhodes who had been one step behind his brother several times in the hospital and who was making Will smile like he was a teenager again.

It left Hank and Jay alone.

"I need to go to bed" Jay said finally. "Otherwise I will fall asleep on this couch and I don't want to do that"

"Come on" Hank said gently. "I'll help you"

"First time you've ever had to do this when it would be sober" Jay said and his grin faded when his foster father looked at him dead on.

"You had me real scared there for a while" Hank said quietly. "Really, really scared Jay"

"I should have protected her" Jay said and then it was like the words kept tumbling out of him. "I'm the trained Army Ranger. She saw him coming before I did and then…I tried to stay awake and I just…I let her down"

He was half in bed by that point and he was tired, he was so, so tired and he wanted to sleep and just never wake up.

Hank was silent for a long moment and then.

"Your alive Jay. That's enough. I just…don't you and Erin go backwards for me okay? Don't let him win"

Jay was already asleep. But he thought before he drifted off that he felt a hand carding through his hair in a gesture that was undeniably parental.

He didn't know if it was Hank but it was a nice thought.


7th January 2015


"Why are you calling me?"

"Because were partners, because I was stabbed and you've not seen me. Because a lunatic cop broke into your apartment and shot your friend? Pick a reason Erin, any reason and I promise you I can find an explanation"

Erin was silent for a second.

"I quit this morning"

Jay nearly dropped the phone.

"Why?"

"Why do you think?"

Carefully neither of them said the name that was floating around. Nadia had become this thing that you didn't speak of. Jay had tried not to think of her during the day because she haunted his dreams. Will was trying to take him of the strong painkillers but the truth of the matter was that he was seeing Nadia in his dreams and those dreams were rapidly becoming nightmares.

"I should have…I should have done more…"

"I was the one who brought Nadia into the shit show that was our lives" Erin said finally.

"And I was the one who let her die"

"Yes you were"

Jay sucked in a breath. It hurt more than he thought it would to hear it said out loud.

"Bunny says were not good for each other"

"Oh Bunny says does she? Glad to see she's such a guiding light in your life at this time"

"Yeah well…she accepts things. She knows me. She knows I was Born Into Bad News."

"Yeah?"

"And you were Born Under A Bad Sign"

Was it just him or could he hear the cap locks in that sentence.

"Goodbye Jay. Enjoy your life. God knows Nadia can't"

And then she hung up.

Jay stared down at the phone for a second struggling to breathe.

The rational part of his brain wanted to remind himself that she was hurt, she was angry, and Erin when she was hurt and angry did what she did best and that was to lash out at the people who cared about her. He wanted to tell himself that Bunny had gotten her hooks in deep and was manipulating her daughter to her own devices, grooming Erin to be the warning shot for Hank and Jay knew all of that because if he ever called Pat he was sure he would do the same thing.

Actually he wasn't—he hadn't spoken to Pat in nearly twenty years.

But he thought on some level it might be the same.

The other part of his brain knew that she was right. He had left Nadia to die. He was a solider, a cop, a trained killer and he had missed all the signs, so focused on Will and Olivia Benson that he had not seen what was right behind him and then he'd had the audacity to black out and let the girl screaming for him to wake up be killed.

Raped and killed.

What a disgusting failure he was.

Jay dropped the phone onto the couch. Will had left him his painkillers and some water but he forced himself to his feet his knee aching in agony, his ribs screaming and his face throbbing. He staggered to the cabinet and pulled out his old dusty bottle of vodka (old and dusty because he had not opened it in a while because he had trusted that things were going so well) and he poured himself a generous tumbler. He put the bottle away and reached with shaky hands for the glass. The first sip burned down his throat and he went back to the table grabbing the pills and he downed them and the vodka in one.

He put the glass down on the floor and managed to make it to bed just before the affects of the pain killers and the booze hit and he was out. He didn't think, didn't dream, didn't see.

"Self-medicating" Will would have said shaking his head.

"That's how it starts"

Jay didn't care. Erin was right, he was Born Under A Bad Sign with caps locks attached so what was the point?

When he blacked out, it was, once more with Nadia's scream echoing in his head and the feel of Greg Yates on top of him.

If fate had been kinder to Jay Halstead, then it might have just been easier to let him bleed to death on the floor.

Then again if fate had been kinder to Jay Halstead then he wouldn't be here now.

He still wasn't sure if this was a good thing or a bad thing.

But he knew that today was the first day of the last day, it was the beginning of his slippery slope down to rock bottom and though Jay didn't know how it was going to end just yet, he knew one thing…

There was a long way to go until he hit the bottom.


And there you are, I hope you enjoy I will update as soon as I can.

Next Chapter-Jay is back at work, Erin is a wreck, Hank is going to kill both of kids and ends up making a decision that affects their life. And in the past Camille comes to Jay with a question that will lead to Jay's life (and everyone else's) apart.