Hi guys! How are you doing? Thanks for all the reviews.
Warning: mention of past child abuse and bullying.
Previous on chapter 2
"Sergeant Jay Halstead?" A new voice called out his Army's rank and his entire name after three years of not hearing, making him shiver all his body hair. They couldn't have found him in the middle of a Chicago hospital with a letter asking him to return to Afghanistan, could they? Fear. He looks around and finds who called him and is surprised. Matthew Trenton.
"Shit!" Trenton yelled as David began screaming, having caught a bullet in his abdomen.
"Hey man. How are you?" They hug each other tightly?
"I'm fine too, thanks, you?" Nod. "Outside there you can call me Jay, you know it, right? I just don't want anything related to the Army in the middle of civilian in a hospital, my PTSD can be triggered here." He whispers as low as he can, ashamed.
"Yes, sorry." He looks at the woman, the kid, and the former colleague. "Do you have a wife and son already, Jay?"
"No, they aren't my wife and my son. Trenton, this is Natalie Manning and Owen Manning. Guys, this is Matthew Trenton, we were overseas together."
"Wait...Manning...Jeff Manning's family?" Nods. "Oh shit...Sorry for your loss, ma'am and kid." The mother nods and looks at the kid, checking his clothes to go away, still listening to the conversation. Matthew, speechless, returns immediately at Jay with tears in his eyes. "Man, he was blown up right in front of you. It must've been really hard for you."
"What the hell, Jay?"
"What the hell what?" Jay is cursing himself. He should have predicted Trenton was going to bring up the topic, the elephant in the room, but it should have been made in privacy, just the two of them while drinking. Away from the curious crowd. Away from Helen who seemed to return early than expected. Away from Natalie. Away from Owen. Natalie's face is red from fury like he had never seen before her face while the little boy's face is red, but from tears streaming down his face, the profound words tearing his little and innocent heart apart so young.
"Don't play the fool, Halstead, you know exactly what I'm talking about." She stoops and goes blink, realizing the new information. "What happened to Jeff? You never told me how he died!"
"Owen, come here with my grandma, let them talk in privacy." Helen intervenes suddenly. The boy runs to her arms and hides his crying face in his grandma's neck, sobbing quietly as they walk away. Trenton does the same. The couple goes to the parking lot to avoid the visitors hearing the commotion that is about blow.
"What happened with my husband, Jay?" Natalie and he breathe deeply, the woman to calm down and the man to initiate the telling of his nightmare's source.
"Jeff had just told me that you were pregnant and both of us were so happy but then we were designed to guard the most recent abandoned city, Alvaiázere, eight kilometers near our base. Everything was going well until we listened to the other battalions' call to Manning get his men out of there. We just realized it was an ambush when bullets started flying." Inhale and exhale. "David was hit so he and Trenton had to be covered by the other returning to the humvee. Just I and Manning were ahead fighting back." Inhale and exhale. "I run to behind a wall to cover myself better and shoot back adequately, giving backup to Jeff who was running and shooting." Inhale and exhale. "He kept ordering me to return on my own and don't wait for him, I kept insisting on coming together with him. I realized something was strange on the ground he was running but the adrenaline of shooting was bigger so I didn't care. I didn't care until I heard a click, a click from the bomb. The bomb's glow. I was sent to the ground by the explosion as well as everything around flying into the air." Fuck inhaling and exhaling. Tears streams down his face. "I never told you before, Natalie, because I promised him to look after you and the baby if something happened to him. I thought hiding from you was a tactic to keep you safe and sound because...you don't know how horrible is seeing your best friend die in front of you. Don't you think I blame myself since? I'm sorry, I'm so fucking sorry!" Tears and sobs are uncontrolled streaming down his face.
"Do you know how it is losing the father of your children?" Shaking head. "Do you know how it is losing the love of your life?" Shaking head. "No, you don't know. And yes, I know what it's like to see your best friend die in front of you. Yes, I know what it's like to blame yourself for the rest of your life. But at least I tried to save them, what have you done? You sensed something was off and didn't tell anything to your commander. You were with him the entire time! This is a grave mistake, rightful soldier and cop! Oh sorry, useless detective. A mistake that cost a life. Not yours, Jeff's life. Nemo resideo! None man is left behind. You left him behind, shit! And you still dare to come back and act normally, friendly, innocently to his family like you are the cause of his death!!! You do realize you have your brother's blood in your hand! Do not approach me, Owen, or his mother ever again! Why didn't you save him?" She screams at the top of her lungs?
"I don't know either...I'm sorry." He whispers audibly and goes away, crying, the words seemed knives tearing his heart into million pieces. Natalie sits on the sidewalk, crying and cursing, under Helen's watchful eye, who witnessed all the argument. She decides to leave the female doctor alone, calming herself down and putting herself together, before having a necessary conversation.
He goes away, crying, the words uttered by Natalie seemed knives tearing his heart into million pieces. He sees his car from distance despite the clouds blocking his vision and feels his pockets for his keys, the immediate urge to escape from the horrible location. He hasn't been a hospital's lover - instead, he can nominate himself as a hospital's hater - and, year after year, his criticism and fear, memories of his many hospitalizations or loved ones, the majority never did home, hunt him, of the establishment where sick people are treated make him sick. No one likes going to a hospital, no one goes for a good reason, to the same extent, no one goes for a good reason to a police station, and year after year, accidents or people make his fear worse.
He enters his car in the driver seat, shaking entirely, face red and wet, his anxiety taking place in his mind and actions. He has the notion it's dangerous for himself and others that he drives in this currently psychological commonwealth, he should call a cab, but doesn't want to bother. He squeezes the steering wheel and breathes like learned at Ranger's school.
Screw academy.
Screw supermarket.
He turns on the car and walks away from the parking lot as fast as possible. He needs a drink. He deserves the words uttered and to concrete it, he needs a drink. He needs to get drunk. Not in Molly's, where everyone can make questions and get him insane. An unknown and random bar somewhere so he can be left in peace, unquestioned, and high drugged to forget the shit he has done. As always.
"Natalie?" Helen approaches the young female doctor, who is sitting down on the sidewalk and calm.
"Helen...is Owen asking for me? I'm going." She gets up quickly and wipes her tears with the back of her hands, pretending with a smile the argument never happened two hours ago. "I was just...uhm...thinking."
"I heard your and Jay's argument, don't need to fake it anymore." The old woman says simply and watches as the smile fades away to a disappointed and annoyed frown.
"How could he fool me? Fool my son? Fool you. The fault is mine, I should have insisted and obliged to him tell me the truth but I was dumb enough to believe in a friend and keep my son with him, and look what he has done." Natalie says, rage and sadness fulfilling her face and body. Helen doesn't say anything, stays stoically while sitting on the sidewalk even behind her feeling is a bit of disappointment and sadness towards her former daughter-in-law.
"I have to tell you something." She says. "Sit down." She orders gently. Reluctantly, the doctor obeys. "Jay and Jeff are more than friends. They were like brothers of different mothers." She chuckles sadly, memories of the two young boys running and playing together invading her mind. "Everything started in school. Jeff, as you knew, was super intelligent and studious. You know the ones considered 'nerd'?" The former wife nods. "He was considered it."
"Did he suffer bullying?"
"In the beginning, he didn't mind being called like that because they were just jealous kids with insignificant behavior and he would shut them off studying. Unfortunately, however, as time passed, the bully grew with him. From verbal to physical, he was never beaten up badly as far as I know but it was a punch here, a kick there, a slap. Neither I nor my husband knew what to do and the school didn't act. Until one day, Jeff got mad and tried to fight back, the youths got mad, and started to beat him up worse than ever on the bathroom's floor. Suddenly, he heard a voice of a young boy, younger than him, screaming at them to stop. They laughed and continued but the stubborn kid threw something on one of the bullies' heads, gaining their attention. He looked at the boy and he murmured 'escape and tell somebody now' as the bullies advanced on him. He obeyed as soon as possible because he knew what was happening in the bathroom. He told the director who followed him to the bathroom and saw in the act the beat. The boy was a mess. That day the tormentors were suspended. Jeff went to thank the beaten boy and said he didn't have to do that, he said he needed because he was kind of used to that and didn't want to any more kids suffer from bullying. He didn't believe in his words and started to be a friend of Jay." Helen finishes her story with tears in her eyes. "That's how they met and became friends: Jay saved Jeff."
"Wait, what do you mean Jay was used to that?" Natalie asks, hating she might be suspicious of the answer.
"Jay's dad used to beat him up at home without Will and his mom's presence. Our house became Jay's safe place and our family became his family because it wasn't for us, he would be dead in his father's hands. We tried to make him denounce but Jay would argue that the police wouldn't care, the hospital didn't pay attention to his injuries to identify child abuse, Will didn't care and was always out, his father beat him up while drunk, and his mother" she sighs "was the light of the messy family they were, he said he couldn't break her innocent heart this way as long as the old man didn't touch her. When my husband died, I and Jeff were shattered and Jay was as well. He made a promise that day to always look out for Jeff. He always did. He promised Jeff to look out after the most important thing in his life, you and Owen, and he is doing it."
"Oh my God, what the hell I have done?" The young woman hides her head in her hands and cries. "He was trying to save and protect us…"
"Like he always did to Jeff." The mother completes.
"Helen, thanks." She hugs her. Look out for Owen, please?" She asks and his grandma nods vehemently. "I have to find Jay and fix things up."
"Where in hell you got in, Halstead?" She says to herself while driving for approximately one hour around the city in search of Jay.
She returned to his apartment to check if he was there but his car wasn't and the porter said he hasn't come back since 8:40 with a young boy in his car.
She went to the district just to know none Intelligence Unit's members are working today, including the searched tearful detective. After too much talking to convince the alerted officers who were suspecting the major and threatening fact she asked them to track a Chicago detective's location, the location was a bar on the outskirts of the city.
"At least I didn't waste my time driving to Molly's." She says, starting her vehicle with a paper that has the address written down. She is right, it would be a waste of precious time if she went to Molly's because they are close at that time, the owners are working. After twenty minutes of driving, she stops at the bar's address and finds Jay's car parked on the lateral street. "He is still here." She is relieved. She parks her car right behind his, heads to the front door of the wooden painted a worn-out yellow building and when she is about to enter, a commentary of a smoker man gets her attention.
"Did you see the armed badged man inside there? Seems like his girlfriend broke up with him of how badly he is and how much he wants to get drunk. The night is just starting for him!" She curses herself hearing the comment, knowing the man is Jay and she is the cause of the drunkenness.
She opens the door and enters into the dark space. She wonders how Jay knows a pub with such a bad, awkward, terrifying, chilling atmosphere or it was just coincidentally he found the place while driving melancholy around the city. Her eyes didn't take long, however, to achieve the person of her interest, and the conditions the smoker said outside was a pure euphemism. Jay is at the end of the table bar leaning against it with his arms crossed and head in the gap between his biceps; hair messed up; gun and badge on the holster; his face is red, his ocean blue eyes swollen for the tears that already fall and the current ones; in front of him six empty beers and the seventh beer on his right diagonal, on the right angle to move his arms, drink and return to the original position while crying the Atlantic Ocean into the outskirts' bar. Her brown eyes water of tears catching sight of her unbreakable friend so break because the knives she had thrown as words are returning like a boomerang to her heart. She needs to get him out of here. She approaches him, refusing the bartender offering beer, and sits down on the stool beside.
"Jay…" he looks scared at her like a five-year-old child as more tears form when his numb confused miserable mind recognizes the woman.
"Please...don't again...you should be with Owen and not waste your time with trash and disgrace like me. I don't deserve this." With the knowledge of his childhood, she can be replaced by his father and him with his old self before a beating, she curses herself even more to cause the impression she was going to mistreat him like his father used to do.
"You aren't trash neither a disgrace nor a waste of time, Jay. You deserve the world."
"Not what my father used to say...he prefers me dead." He murmurs under his breath and curses when he realizes the woman had heard. "I blame myself every day since his death. I revive the day and thought about what I could do to save him. I preferred it was me blowing up instead of him, I don't have anything but he had…"
"I'm sorry, Jay. Forget everything what I have said. I know you tried to save him and you had saved him many times while growing up." He frowns his eyebrows at her. "Helen said how you two met." She makes eye contact with the broken man. "Jay, I'm truly sorry for what I said. Everything was bullshit, emotional overcome rational, I was in the heat of the moment and I spilled on you without thinking. If someone of the Army and one of Jeff's old friends, I'm pleased Jeff confide in you the task of taking care of us and you are doing it exceptionally during these three years and can do forever."
"Can I see you, his mother, and Owen again?" He asks innocently, hopefully, purely.
"Yes, of course. You make us happy and comfortable. Owen loves you. All I want is to see my son happy; if you around is making him happy, I want it to continue."
"I adore him too." She can say it's true by the way his eyes shine talking about her son, like the way you say when you are in love. "I forgive you. Thanks, Natalie."
"It's me who has to thank you." She looks around while seeing him picking his car's keys and struggling to get on his feet unsuccessfully. "What the hell are you doing? You aren't driving this way. Come on, you will stay with us to get better and sober."
"I'm wonderful and sober."
"The smell of beer in your breath is proof of the opposite." They laugh.
"What about my car?"
"Tomorrow I grab your car for you. Let's go home." She says, getting up and helping him stable his body and out in the direction of her car. As soon as they both are inside, Jay fell asleep.
The other day, Natalie talks with Jay, who had asked for a day off because he was hungover, more comfortably, her sharing her stories about him at the beginning of their date until his proposal and him sharing stories about him at school, funny ones while overseas and got deeply in his relationship with the fallen soldier while growing up. They eat breakfast with Owen's eyes glowing up when he sees Uncle Jay is there in his house and it will be for the rest of the day, they do the supermarket for both, go to the shopping, and at night, eat pizza. Natalie and Jay reconcile and are very well together, every day are progressing with the grief over their loved one's death, her ex-husband and his ex-brother.
That's it for Brotherhood! It was a privilege to write this, thanks so much everything_grey21 for this plot. I hope everyone liked this. See you soon!!
