Saudade

The first thing Erin saw when she forced her eyes open were the clouds.

They were orange, dyed by the setting sun. Behind them, the sky was a darkening blue, pink and purple, and as she let out a choked breath, fog floated from her mouth, grey smoke mingled with the air.

The second thing she saw were the people surrounding her. They seemed rushed, kneeling in the red snow as if the cold didn't bother them. It wasn't really bothering her; she felt numb, like all her senses were dulled. But she knew there were shards of glass draped all over her and there was something wet trickling down her forehead. Her mind was moving sluggishly slow as she tried to figure out what was happening — but everything was blank. She couldn't conjure a single thought to her head, and she lay there, not moving, trying to breathe and choking on air.

Something was quickly placed over her mouth and nose, and oxygen rushed to her lungs. The people surrounding her were talking, but she could barely hear what they were saying — all she heard was a violent ringing in her ears, constant and never-ending.

As she stared at them, watching their mouths and bodies moving above her, her eyes began to slide shut, suddenly too heavy to keep open. She didn't fight the urge, and let it overtake her, until there was nothing left but darkness.

When Erin woke up, she had no idea where she was. She could barely creak her eyes open, letting them flutter just long enough for her to see a plain white ceiling above her before they snapped shut again.

There was a dull pain pounding in her head, and her chest felt like it had been torn apart and sewn back together. The ringing was gone from her ears, but it was like someone had covered her right ear, blocking any noise from entering it. She didn't understand what had happened or what was going on, and the confusion of it all just made her want to go back to sleep.

But while she laid there, letting the pain wash over her, a pair of voices started talking quietly close by. She could only make out a few snatches of words, none of which made any sense to her.

"... head on collision ... flipped seven times ... I'm sorry ..."

"... the other driver was sleeping at the wheel ... we tried everything we could ..."

"... permanent ... possible ... windshield ..."

Erin couldn't hear anything else that was said after that, so she just let the darkness slowly come back to her, enveloping her just as a door somewhere opened, and a set of footsteps walked in.

The room was dark now, the only light coming from somewhere outside the glass door. Erin's vision was fuzzy and kept dancing in and out of the dark, and her mind could barely comprehend what was going on. There was some sort of tube shoved in her mouth, held in place by straps wrapped around her head, and she could hear the sounds of different machines beeping and whirring beside her. She could feel a faint, dull ache pounding through her body, though there was no extreme pain; she felt almost weightless, like she was floating through the air instead of lying in a hospital bed.

Off to the side, someone moved, and Erin realised there was a hand on her arm, very light and gentle and warm. The person shifted so that they were hovering over her, their face shifting in and out of focus and she couldn't make out any of their features.

"Erin," they whispered, and their voice was hoarse, just barely audible in her left ear. "Erin ... It's going to be okay. I promise that everything is going to be okay, no matter what happens. You're the most amazing person I've ever met, and you're so, so strong. I ... I know you're going to have to fight hard to make it out of this, but please ... please, try as hard as you can. I know you have it in you. But ... you don't have to stay. If it's too hard for you, you don't have to. You can't win every battle you fight, and maybe this is one you lose."

They paused, sniffing loudly and wiping their face; they were crying, she realised.

"But just know that I love you," they continued, gripping her hand tightly in their own. "Everyone loves you, Erin, but you don't have to stay if you can't. Don't worry about us ... And Jay ... he loved you very much."

Erin blinked, blackness creeping up in the corners of her eyes. She could hardly process what they were saying, most of their words bounced off her mind like they were nothing. Everything around her was beginning to quiet, and her eyes slowly slid shut, darkness enveloping her as soon as they did.

She could just faintly, faintly, hear the person crying.

This time as she wakes up, her brain is much less blurred and incoherent and it's much easier to open her eyes, though it still took several blinks for her to clear her vision enough to make anything out.

She frowns, squints, trying to get the world to come into focus, but it won't. She tries to bring her hand up to push her hair away but it won't move.

It's only then that she notices her arm is in a cast.

Her left arm is littered with small scrapes, cuts and bruises. Trailing her eyes up, she sees that she's stuck through with IVs, and she slowly followed the tubes up to a pair of drip bags, hanging just to the side of her bed.

What the hell happened?

She wants to call for someone but no sound comes out when she tries. Where am I? She wants to ask. What happened? And most importantly: Where's Jay?

And only then do her memories start splintering back, brief flashes of bright lights coming out of nowhere and screaming tires and shattering glass as she hit the windshield and horrendous pain and somebody — Jay, Jay, help, oh God, somebody help. She's alone now, and all she can hear is the steady beeping of machines around her, whirring in a way that slowly started to get on her nerves.

Furrowing her eyebrows slightly, she lets her head sink deeper into the pillow, wincing slightly as a sharp pain suddenly runs through it. Slowly, she lifts her hand and runs her shaking fingers along her forehead, only to find a bunch of gauze and bandages there, crusty with dried blood. The pain only intensifies when she touches her head, however, and she moves her hand to cover her eyes, blocking out the light seeping into the room. She pauses when her fingers suddenly brushes against some sort of plastic tubing, and she reaches out to it again, tracing it all across her face, from one ear to below his nose to the other ear, and realises with a bit of surprise that it is a nasal cannula.

As she sits there, wondering how she hadn't notice it earlier, there is a sudden rustle beside her, and Erin freezes, letting her good hand fall back to her lap and turning her gaze to the source of the noise.

To her shock, there she is; Kim. She is curled up in a chair off to the left, sound asleep.

Lying there, staring at her friend with what little energy and strength she has left in her body, she slowly feels drowsiness creeping up on her. Despite trying her best to stay awake, determined to ask someone questions about Jay and what the hell happened, she quickly fell asleep, unable to keep her eyes open any longer.

An hour later, a nurse comes in and behind her, Voight. He sits, clutches her good hand tight enough to hurt, eyes shut against the image in front of him, his daughter hooked up to machines, weak and pale and wrapped in bandages.

"Where's Jay?" she has to ask.

He doesn't say anything.

She finds out a week later, staring down at a fresh headstone.

She also finds out that she has completely lost her hearing in her right ear. Something about her hitting the windshield and traumatic brain trauma and ruptured eardrum. And It's funny how it sounded so much like it was all her fault.

She's surrounded by people, near-strangers that keep coming up and clutching her tight, whispering, "I'm so sorry," like they don't know what else to say.

There are headstones all around her, rows and rows of them, and she shuts her eyes like if she doesn't see the grave marked 'Jay Halstead' it isn't real.

She's in black (she's always somewhat in black, anyway) and so is everyone else, and she doesn't even care about the gasps and murmurs of worry as she kneels down and presses her forehead against the cool stone.

Two tours in Afghanistan, five years in Intelligence and a bullet isn't what killed him.

After what seems like years, she can hear the soft footsteps as people shuffle away, leaving her pressed against Jay's grave. Distantly, she can feel rain falling, and she doesn't even care that she's getting soaked to the skin.

That isn't why she's shivering, anyway.

"Did you seriously think you could get rid of me that easily?"

The voice is heartbreakingly familiar and Erin's heart skips a beat. She doesn't want to open her eyes and find out it's not real.

"Come on, Er, get up. You'll get sick."

She lets her eyes open, slow, and looks behind her. Jay is standing there, a hand out for her, looking like he doesn't care that he's staring at his own grave.

Erin gets up so fast her knees almost give out.

"I knew they were lying."

Jay smiles, slow and sad. "Yeah."

Erin reaches out to hug him and gets nothing but air, and Jay is still smiling in that funny way, looking down at the ground.

"You suck at hugs, Halstead. Seriously," she mumbles, voice choked.

Jay just nods.

"Yeah, I know. Sorry."

He reaches out and wraps his arms around her, and maybe she is imagining it, but she can feel the warmth around her.

"Don't leave, okay?"

"I won't. You know that."

No one says anything when Erin insists on setting out a place for Jay every day. Voight moves in with her for a couple of weeks, just until she gets back on her feet - well, until she's able to use both arms again. Jay never comes to eat with them, but it doesn't matter.

"You're not hungry?" she asks every time, and Jay just shakes his head, smiles up at her and goes back to sketching. He makes hundreds of sketches. She has never seen him draw once before, but it isn't all stick figures and bubble clouds and square houses (that's her extent of knowledge in drawing) Erin is proud of him, she really is, because Jay is getting back into his normal routines even though she herself can't.

When Erin tries to hang one up, tack it to the wall, like she's showing it to the world (even though no one but her will ever see it), the ink bleeds off the page, dripping downwards until it's just a blank sheet again and she screams and screams because it's red and viscous and smells so much like iron and all she hears is the crunching of metal and shattering glass. Because it's like someone's yanked her heart right out of her chest.

Jay tries to calm her down, tries to wrap his arms around her, but still, she wouldn't stop screaming and the tears follows. When she doesn't stop and just pushes him away, he sits next to her.

Erin notices that Jay isn't sleeping. He props himself up on one elbow and just watches as she breathes. If she was awake to see it, she would notice that his chest doesn't ever rise and fall.

She never is.

When she wakes up and sees Jay in the same position, she tries to hug him tight again (still nothing but air, air and a faint lingering warmth).

"Aren't you tired?" she asks, eyebrows scrunching in worry. Jay doesn't look tired, but, she knows how Jay gets sometimes.

"I'll get you some coffee."

Before Jay can say anything she's up, heading towards the kitchen to grab two mugs and pouring them both a cup. She sips her own on the way back to their room, clutching Jay's tight to make sure she doesn't spill any.

"I don't want any," Jay says as soon as it's offered, shaking his head with the sad, tiny smile Erin is starting to find familiar.

"Come on, drink it." she thrusts the mug forward, and coffee sloshes over the edge, onto Jay. She looks down and it's staining the sheets instead, dark against the white.

"Jay?" her stomach lurches and she has to close her eyes against the sight, force herself not to think about the way she can't see stains on Jay.

"I don't want any. It's fine."

Erin's hands are shaking so badly when she tries to set Jay's cup down beside her own that she drops it and it shatters, bright white ceramic against the darkness of the hardwood floor.

"Are you okay?" Jay leans over, staring at the shards on the floor and Erin's face, gone white.

"Y—Yeah."

She isn't.

Jay doesn't smoke anymore. Not since he was a Ranger. But Erin gets him an entire carton anyway. He shakes his head, turns it down. He doesn't do anything anymore, except watch her sleep and draw and watch movies with her, sitting too far apart on the couch. But he laughs at all of her jokes and she is still determined that Jay isn't broken. Even if he doesn't leave for work anymore. Erin isn't going to judge, and if staying home (home with her) makes Jay happy, then so be it.

She takes out a pack, smokes it herself just to have the familiar smell, one after the other until she makes herself sick.

"It's not healthy," Jay tells her, eyes sad, fingers stroking her arm and feeling like nothing at all.

"I know." She doesn't look at Jay as she lights another one, hands shaking.

"I don't want you following me too soon, Erin. Stop. Please."

"What do you mean following you? You're right here."

Jay says nothing, just grits his teeth like it hurts to hear.

"Can you give Jay a job?" Erin asks Voight one day. She hates to have to do this, to have to do this, but Jay won't leave the house for anything and she doesn't want to be alone for the long hours she has to spend at work.

She isn't allowed in the field anymore, not since she's failed her hearing test the last three times (she isn't optimistic; it's not like her hearing could ever come back), so she mostly stay in the bullpen.

It's selfish, she knows it's selfish, but she knows he can do it.

Voight gives her a strange look and says, "Erin, you know he's ... I'll see what I can do," wandering off into his office to pretend to think.

The thing is, he's known Erin for over fifteen years, ever since she was fifteen, and she's a tough cookie but with Jay's passing almost a year ago she's been losing herself. He knows that she is; he's seen her talk to herself like there's somebody there ... but she looks happy, like her old self and it's not hurting anybody to pretend for a while.

"Yeah, sure, I can get him a job," he says, coming back, and starts to genuinely worry when Erin's face lights up. Like she really believes it.

Jay doesn't drive. Erin goes to the cinema and brings him along, but Jay always climbs into the passenger seat before she can say anything. Every time, someone would ask if she's sure she wants to go alone. But she isn't alone, she's never alone. They're just joking around.

They stand at the back of the crowd — Jay doesn't want to get lost in the crowds, doesn't like the crush of people at the front — and at one point, she turns to him, eyes shining. "Let's start a family. I mean it this time."

"Yeah." Jay doesn't smile, but he moves closer.

"No, I mean it. I've been thinking. I've got a good baby name — a few, actually —"

"Erin." Jay sighs, and maybe not sleeping is getting to him, because he looks tired, eyes sad.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"So?"

"Sure."

Erin kisses his cheek, then the delicate skin just below his ear and ignores the fact that there is no real warmth there.

"Sing something." she holds her phone up to him. They're sitting on the bed, and it's barely noon, but it's Sunday and she has the day off. "Please? For me. I've always loved your voice."

"Okay."

Erin hits the record button and Jay begins to sing, soft and hesitant at first but gaining strength as he goes. It's an old song, the kind they hear on the radio but don't know the name to, and something in the way Jay is singing, it sends a shiver down her spine. His voice is raw, untrained, and it breaks as he hits a high note but it's the most haunting thing Erin has ever heard.

And she has it on her phone, which means she can play it anytime she wants.

She clicks play.

All she can hear is silence, silence and her own ragged breathing in the quiet of the room.

Hits stop. Rewind. Her heart is pounding. There has to be something. Maybe if she just listens more carefully —

She presses the button again.

Click. Click.

Click.

Nothing.

His eyes are wide and sad as he watches her. "How many times will it take before you believe it, Erin?"

There isn't an answer to that question. One more time. Never. She doesn't know. "Please," she says, her voice faltering, desperate.

There are words humans get hung up on, declarations they need and demand and bleed over and there's none for her, for them.

They fought. That night, they were fighting. He wanted to start a family and she wasn't ready. He said some things, and she did too, much much worse because he just looked at her with that hurt and disappointed look that she knows all too well and when he walked away, she followed him out to the car, and now, they're broken and ruined and its all her fault

She's too late.

He takes her hands in his, head tilted to the side as he brushed her hair out of her face. "I forgive you, Erin."

For a moment there's light inside her again, something bright and alive filling that dark pit where her soul would be, where grace and hope had once lived before it withered and died and left her with nothing more than an empty ache. He kisses her gently, reverently, his fingertips trailing along her cheek as she clings to the feeling of being whole for however long it will last.

Finally, he sighs and shifts beside her, brushing his lips against her forehead like a benediction. "Do you feel it?"

She does. She would say it's like dying except she's felt that and knows this is so much worse. She tightens her arms around him. "Please don't."

She would have as much luck begging the sea not to drown her. He kneels above her, cradling her face in both hands. "Be stronger than you are, Erin," he says, his voice steady and sure and desperate all at once. "All right? Be that for me."

Erin closes her eyes. She doesn't know that she can follow that order. "Jay ..." she says, reaching back for him.

There's nothing but air. She opens her eyes and sees she's alone; she presses her hands to her face as she struggles just to breathe. She wonders if maybe it would be better if she stopped.