This one came to me on a run. I'm not sure how it's going to turn out since I really haven't seen seasons 5 and beyond but I thought I'd give it a go since folks said they'd be into it and I keep my promises!

Takes place roughly a year after the end of season 4-ish

"Clear!" Detective Jay Halstead shouted to the rest of the Intelligence Unit as they proceeded with the raid of a local stash house that was potentially connected to a network of Chicago-based drug dealers. They'd received a tip from one of Adam Ruzek's CI's that a large volume of product was about to be moved, and that they needed to act quickly.

Jay had been establishing himself as a leader within the unit, particularly after his former partner and ex-girlfriend, Erin Lindsay, had left him for a job in New York. He'd needed something to distract from the pain and heartbreak that wasn't booze or random girls, and so he threw himself into his work. He was the first to come in and often the last to leave, dedicating every ounce of energy into the job. Sure, he'd have the one off flings with women he'd meet at Molly's, but there was nobody who'd ever come close to Erin.

Intelligence's current case involved a large network of dealers, all of whom were running scared after the higher ups in their organization had warned of the CPD's interest. It wasn't easy to track down the heavy hitters, but Jay was determined. He'd been working crazy hours for the past week with no intention of slowing down until the brains behind the operation were apprehended. Their product had killed over a dozen teenagers across the city.

"Upstairs is empty," Detective Hailey Upton confirmed to her partner, lowering her weapon, "Looks like Evelyn and Tyler Marsh are in the wind."

"Fuck," Jay exhaled as he tromped down the steps. Today was just not his day. "Anything down here?"

"Kitchen and living room are clear," Ruzek confirmed, "There's one closet door that we can't get open. Atwater's grabbing the crowbar."

"Probably where they're storing the drugs," Upton mused, her hands tucked in the top of her bullet proof vest, "Based on the floor plan, it's a big closet."

Jay grunted in response, the exhaustion catching up with him. He'd been having trouble sleeping for the past few nights, but if he was being honest, the past year. He'd become accustomed to sleeping beside Erin, and even with a new bed and new apartment, he just missed her presence. He was trying to get better – attending veteran's support meetings, actually speaking with a therapist, but there was something missing and it kept him up at night. "You okay, man?" Officer Kevin Atwater asked, emerging through the front door with a crowbar, "You look distracted."

"I'm fine," he bit back, shaking his head, "Just get the door open. Please."

Atwater nodded and inserted the crowbar into the door. "There's someone in there," he said, "I can hear something."

Immediately Jay drew his weapon and indicated for Atwater to continue the tug. "Chicago PD," he said sternly, "We're going to get you out of there."

A loud crack echoed through the building and the door splintered to reveal the quivering form of a young girl. "Please don't shoot me," she begged, holding up her shaking hands in front of her, eyes screwed shut, "I-I didn't do anything, I swear."

Jay immediately lowered his weapon and Atwater backed away to inform the rest of the unit that someone had been found within the house, "It's okay," he started, leaning down to put his gun on the floor, "My name is Jay, alright, and I'm a detective with the Chicago Police. I'm not going to hurt you."

She nodded, her lower lip trembling. Her eyes were still squeezed closed and her breath emerged from her lips in short, frightened wheezes. "Can you tell me your name?" Jay asked gently, "Or where your parents might be?"

"I-I don't have any parents," she replied quickly, backing further into the closet wall, "Never met 'em."

"Okay," Jay nodded in understanding. This kid wasn't supposed to be here. "Can you tell me your name?"

"I don't want to," she whispered, shaking her head, "I don't know you."

"That's alright," he continued, glancing over his shoulder to see where the rest of the unit was. He was doing his best to remain calm, but the anxiety of the child in front of him was palpable and contagious. "I have a partner, Hailey, maybe you'd rather talk to her?"

"No!" The little girl yelped, "I-I don't want to talk to anyone else."

"Okay," he repeated, searching his brain in an attempt to connect with the frightened child in front of him. He came up short and stifled a sigh in frustration with himself. "Can you tell me how old you are?"

She paused and shook her head again, "I-I don't want to tell you." She swallowed, "I-I haven't been here very long, they-they just left me here."

Jay grimaced and quickly sized up the child in front of him. At his best guess, he thought she was around seven, maybe eight years old. "That's alright. My name is Jay, but I think I already told you that. My coworkers here are looking for someone named Tyler Marsh. Have you heard that name before?"

The child managed a slight nod and finally opened her eyes to meet Jay's. Immediately he sucked in a breath. He could recognize those green eyes from a mile away. Those were Erin's eyes.

"Am-am I coming back here?" the little girl asked softly, arms folded tightly across her chest as the rest of the unit bustled in and out of the house, heeding the advice from Atwater to keep their distance of the frightened child who appeared to only trust Jay.

Jay didn't know how to respond exactly. He didn't know the girl's name, or what she was doing in the house in the first place. There was no history of a child on the Marsh's records that the CPD had access to. "I don't think so," he said honestly in an exhale, relived when her face relaxed ever so slightly, "You said you hadn't been here long?"

She shrugged, "I got here just after I woke up. But I couldn't see outside." She glanced to the window, "It's still daytime?"

Jay nodded, figuring that the child hadn't been in the closet for more than a few hours. "Do you remember anything about where you were before?"

Again, the little girl shrugged, "I move around a lot. Are we still in Chicago?" She swallowed when Jay nodded, "They said they were going to come back for me. After the deal in Chicago." Her breath hitched, "You-you can't be here when they get back."

"We won't be, kiddo," Jay sunk to his knees in front of her, "We're going to get out of here, and we're going to get you out of here too, somewhere safe."

"How can I trust you?" She asked, narrowing her green eyes, "How do I know you're not just going to give me back to them?"

"I promise, I will never, ever lie to you," Jay assured her, "Ask me anything, and I'll tell you the truth." He offered a smile, "Go ahead, try me."

She thought for a moment, "How did you get that scar on your hand?" she asked, gesturing to a two inch healed scar between his thumb and index finger.

Jay glanced down at the scar and smiled wistfully. He remembered that scar. He and Erin had been chasing a gun runner down an alleyway when the offender attempted to launch himself over a barbed wire fence. The offender was unsuccessful, and when Jay pulled him off the fence, a barb caught his hand. Erin had wrapped an oversized scrunchie from their glove compartment around his hand to stop the bleeding and claimed it was a secret Santa present she never wanted. He later learned she wore those scrunchies when she took long baths after a long day, and for Christmas the following year, he bought her a pack of three as a replacement.

"You're observant," Jay praised, "I got this not too far from here actually. I was running down an alley to catch a guy, and I got caught on some barbed wire."

"How come you smiled when you saw it then? If it was you getting hurt?"

Observant and smart, Jay thought. "It made me think of my old partner. We had some fun times together."

"Okay," the little girl let out a breath, "I can tell you're not lying." She glanced around the empty living room, "C-can we go now?"

"Absolutely," Jay stood, "We're going to take you to where I work, but first, we need to make a quick pit stop at the hospital to do a quick check up on you, make sure everything's okay. There's an ambulance outside we can go in, or we can go in my car-"

"I-I don't need the hospital." The little girl froze in terror, "I don't want to go."

"I know you don't kiddo, but we just gotta do it as a formality. It'll be super quick." Jay wracked his brain trying to come up with a better reason to convince the child to leave with him, "We need to document everything in order to catch the guys who locked you in here, and that means making sure that you're okay."

She narrowed her eyes but eventually nodded. "I don't want to go in the ambulance," she whispered, "If I go to the hospital, will you stay with me?"

"Absolutely," Jay promised, "I'll be there the whole time."

"Okay," she took a step forward as Jay moved toward the door, "My name is Piper."

"It didn't look like a kid lived there," Ruzek informed the team as the reconvened at the 21st district, "I mean, there was a mattress on the floor in one of the rooms, but we didn't find any clothes or anything that would indicate there was a kid in the house."

"Well, clearly this kid came from somewhere," Atwater replied, "She's probably what, six, seven years old?"

"She's nine," Hailey announced, stomping up the steps into the bullpen, "Halstead's at the hospital with her now. Said her name is Piper."

"Kid's real small for being nine," Ruzek mused, "Did she give him anything?"

"Not much," Hailey dropped a file on her desk, "But DCFS handed over a file that matched the name Piper and her description, and it looks like she's been in foster care pretty much her whole life. Last known guardians are Ernie and Betsy Davis who died a year ago in a house fire that CFD thought was arson but couldn't prove. Halstead's still trying to get information, and will bring her back here to keep her in protective custody."

"Huh," Sergeant Hank Voight picked up the file and flipped through, "No birth certificate?"

"We're tracking one down," Officer Kim Burgess piped up, "I put in a call with a contact at DCFS."

"Sarge? Everything okay?" Atwater asked, taking note of how the gruff older sergeant had paused at the photo of the child from a few years back. She was small like Ruzek had said, but Hank knew those eyes.

"Yeah," he cleared this throat, "I'm going to make a few calls on my end. Let me know when Halstead's on his way back."

Jay had convinced Piper to allow Dr. Natalie Manning to examine her, with the caveat that he'd stand right outside the exam room so she could see the back of his head through the small window. On the car ride, Piper told Jay that she'd lived with a few different families growing up, and moved around a lot. She most recently remembered Tyler and Evelyn Marsh as the people who kept her back from school and locked in various rooms in their houses. Jay had relayed any information from the little girl to his partner Hailey, who was attempting to work with DCFS to understand who the child was and how she got caught in the crossfire of the investigation. Hailey had confirmed that they found a file to match the name Piper and her description, but the file had her age listed as nine. In the brief conversations Jay had with her, he was having a difficult time believing the mature little girl was still elementary school aged. She had the mannerisms and attitude of someone far older.

"Does anything hurt, Piper?" Natalie asked gently, carefully examining the small child in front of her.

Piper shook her head as Natalie gently lifted her arms and pressed her gloved hands against her skin. "What's going to happen to me?" she asked quietly, glancing down at her hands, "Been a while since I last did this."

Natalie let out a breath at the child's honesty. "Well, Jay and the police are going to have a few questions for you, and about the people you were living with-"

"They're not going to make me go back there, right?" Piper interrupted, gripping the hospital bed sheets between her fists, "I-I don't want to."

The doctor swallowed, "They'll talk to the department of children and family services to determine the best course of action for you. But you'll be safe, and taken care of. Jay's one of my good friends."

"C-can he come back in here?" Piper asked, eyes swimming with tears that had yet to make their way down her cheeks, "Please?"

"Sure," Natalie nodded and swiveled her stool to the door, "Hey, Jay?"

"Hey," Jay turned and gave a smile, "You doing alright, kiddo?"

Piper nodded, her eyes clearing as Jay returned, "I-I told her I don't want to go back."

"That's okay," Jay assured her, "It's my job to keep you safe, and that's what I'm going to do."

"L-last time DCFS said I'd be safe," Piper scoffed, "I know that for kids like me, that isn't a possibility."

Jay furrowed his brow, "What do you mean, kids like you?"

"Street kids. Kids without parents." She spat out the word parents like it was a curse, "I've been a foster kid pretty much my whole life. Heard rumors that I had a mom, but she never tried to find me, or get me back or anything. The Davis's were the last family I was with 'til they got mixed up with drug dealers and got burned to a crisp."

Jay swallowed, still unable to believe that the small but incredibly mature child in front of him was only nine years old. She may be small, but she was smart and incredibly perceptive. "Do you remember how you got to the house where we found you?"

Piper shook her head, "I-I bounced around. There was some guy, Donny, who probably was the one to set the fire at the Davis's. He got me from their house and I lived with him and his drugged up wife for a bit. I-I don't know for how long though." She look down at her hands again, "He wasn't a great guy. He gave me to the Marsh's so I'd learn to behave."

"Did they hurt you? Donny and Tyler and Evelyn Marsh?" Jay asked slowly. His heart broke as the child nodded solemnly. "We're going to get them," he confirmed, "They're not coming near you, ever again."

"But where will I go?" she asked, piercing his gaze with her green eyes, "I don't have a family."

"Well to start, we're going to bring you into protective custody, which means you're going to come with me to the district. And we'll figure out next steps then, okay?"

Piper nodded, setting her jaw to prevent the tears that were building behind her eyes from cascading down her cheeks. Jay sucked in a breath at her behavior, overwhelmed with a sense of déjà vu. Erin did the same thing when she was upset but was holding it all inside. He let out a shaky exhale. There was no way this kid was Erin's daughter. She'd have told him, and she wouldn't have abandoned a child, knowingly at least. It wasn't possible, yet almost everything about the little girl in front of him reminded him of his ex-girlfriend.

"Are you okay to come with me now?" Jay cleared his throat, wanting to provide the child with as much sense of control as he possibly could. "I was thinking we could pick up some lunch on the way back."

Piper nodded again. "What do you like to eat?" he asked in an attempt to make conversation, "We could do burgers, pizza, sandwiches?"

She shrugged, "I'm not really picky. I just don't really like pickles."

"We can work with that." Jay offered a smile, "We good here, Nat?"

"Yep. Lovely to meet you, Piper." Nat gave a warm smile and shed her plastic gloves.

"How long am I going to be in protective custody?" Piper asked from the backseat of the Sierra. Jay figured that a child of her size was too small for the front, and he wasn't about to take any chances. She had been relatively quiet after leaving the hospital and didn't say anything about the backseat.

"Hopefully not too long," Jay replied noncommittally, "We've got a great team working to track down Tyler Marsh."

"You might want to grab up his buddies too," Piper said, staring out the window as the streets of Chicago passed by, "They're all drug dealers."

Jay raised his eyebrows and glanced in the rearview mirror, "Yeah?"

She nodded, "Heroin, cocaine, pills, everything really. I-I overheard a few of their meetings. They don't like to talk over the phone or anything because they're afraid of people ratting them out. They used to meet in this house a couple blocks over from where you found me."

Jay slowed to a stop at a red light. A nine year old knowing what drug dealers and heroin and cocaine was? "Do you think you'd recognize the house if you saw it?"

Piper nodded again, "Yeah. I lived there for a few months probably. I-I walked to school from there, back when I was allowed to go to school." She glanced out the window, "It's close to here, actually. I can show you."

"That would be great," Jay smiled to her reflection, "Then I promise we'll grab some lunch. You must be starving."

Piper gave a shy smile, "Okay, turn left up here, then right at the intersection."

Jay followed the young girl's instructions as she guided him through a residential neighborhood. "It's the grey one with blue shutters, right up on the left," she said. "Wait, can they see me through these windows?"

"No, no," Jay promised, "They can't. You did so great, Piper. Really. How about we get you some lunch, sound good?"

"Halstead's on his way back with the kid," Upton informed her sergeant with a knock on his office door, "Said he'd bring her through the roll up."

"Thanks," Voight replied, standing up from his desk. He needed to see the child for himself to confirm his suspicions.

"Okay, kiddo, so this is the 21st district," Jay explained as he parked the Sierra, "I work here, along with a group of people in an intelligence unit."

"Fancy," Piper mused, unbuckling her seatbelt, "So I'm stayin' here until you get Tyler and those guys?"

"That's right," Jay confirmed, pulling open her door and offering a hand to disembark from the vehicle. Piper climbed out herself, still unsure about making contact with the strange man. "It shouldn't be long. My sergeant also put in a call to DCFS, so once everything is squared away, we'll find you a good place to stay. And he's got a ton of connections, and will make sure it's a good one."

Piper nodded and folded her thin arms across her chest as Jay pointed to the entrance of the building. "Hey, Sarge," he greeted his superior, "This is Piper. She helped us narrow down the location where Tyler Marsh and his dealers convene, and we've already got a covert sitting on it."

"Hi Piper," Voight said, his typical gruff voice replaced by a tone he exclusively reserved for kids, "My name is Sergeant Voight."

Piper instinctively moved closer to Jay in the presence of the new man. "Hi," she whispered, lifting her gaze to meet his eyes.

When Voight made eye contact, he had to stifle a gasp. Those were definitely Erin's eyes.

Told ya there would be a twist! Let me know if you like it and I'll get the next chapter up ASAP. Thanks for joining me again!