Author Note: Thank you all for the wonderful reviews. I'm glad that everyone has a better understanding of what Erin was going through.

Chapter 7: Confrontation

Three days later Hank Voight woke up. Erin got the call first thing in the morning. As much as she wanted to run over there she couldn't. She was a mother now and that meant she had to think about her daughter and not just herself. When Nadia finally woke up she got her dressed, feed her breakfast and headed over to Chicago Med. When she arrives the nurse that he woke up fighting the ventilator, which was a good sign it meant that he was able to breath on his own.

As Erin headed to she peaked in and was happy to see that he was up. The first thing she notices that his face is still a little pale but he was starting to look better than he did when he first came out of surgery. He gives her a small smile as she enters with the little girl holding tightly to her hand.

"Hey." The sound of his raspy voice calling her name brings tears to her eyes.

"Hey dad."

Voight lets out a chuckle at the name. Erin sees a chair near the bed and heads over to it. She pulls the chair closer to his bed and pulls Nadia into her lap. "And who is this little girl."

Erin hugs her daughter and says, "Hank, I want you to formally meet your granddaughter, Nadia."

"Hi, Nadia."

"Hi." She says in a small voice.

Erin looks at her daughter, "This is someone very special to me, his name is Hank. Can you say hi?"

"Hi" She says shyly. She looks up at her mother and says, "Is this your daddy?"

"Yea, he and his wife took good care of me." She says with a smile on her face.

"So does that make him my poppa? Because there is a girl at school who's poppa picks her up from school and she calls him poppa. She says that he's her mommy's daddy" She looks at her mother with curiosity in her eyes.

Hank smiles at the little girl, "Would you like for me to be your Poppa?'

"I think I would like that." They both laugh at Nadia.

"Then you can call me Poppa."

They stay a little bit longer before Voight starts to get tired. Erin picks Nadia up so she can give him a kiss on the cheek. The two wave goodbye and leave so Hank could get some rest.

For the past two days Jay had been doing everything he could to avoid seeing Erin. If wanted to visit Voight he would call Will and find out if she was there. He knew eventually he would have to see her but he just wasn't for that ready yet. Then there was that whole thing about them having a kid together. He was trying to wrap his head around the fact that he was someone's father. He never really thought about kids before and now he suddenly has one. He wanted to know more about this little girl because even before he knew she was Erin's he felt a connection with her. But seeing Nadia meant seeing Erin. They needed to have a conversation before they could try and move forward.

He wanted to wait until Voight was out of the woods before they had that talk. When the unit got the call that Voight was awake he knew that is confrontation with Erin would be coming soon. Since they didn't have any active cases right now they all headed down to Chicago Med to see Voight. Everyone at district 21 had worked tirelessly to find the guys that shot Voight. They caught the suspects a day after Voight was shot.

When they arrived outside of Voight's room, jay breathed a sigh of relief that Erin wasn't there. It was still weird seeing their tough as nails boss looking so vulnerable. They Voight the good news that the offenders were in custody. After a little more small talk the visit was cut short as Hank was still recovering and wasn't able to stay awake for long periods of time.

He didn't expect for Erin to show at the district two days later with Nadia in tow. Platt walk up the steps to intelligence with a huge smile on her face. "Guess who finally showed up back at district 21 and she brought along her mini me."

Platt moved the side and revealed Erin and Nadia. Nadia let out a little giggle, "You're silly." Nadia noticed Kim and let go of Erin's hand. "Kim!" She said in excited tone as she runs over to hug the woman.

"Hey Nadia. How are you?"

"Good." Nadia pulls back from Kim and looks around the room. She notices Jay standing toward the back of the room and a huge smile comes on her face. She runs towards him as she yells his name, "Jay!"

Erin and the rest of the unit watches as her little girl runs toward her father. Their instant connection is still something that amazes Erin. It's like their souls knew they that they were father and daughter. She watches as Jay bends down to greet Nadia.

"Hey munchkin." He says with a smile on his face.

Hearing the nickname he has for her brings tears to her eyes. She knows that she will never be able to give him that time back to him but she will be damn sure that he will have more of it in the future. She walks over to the two of them hearing the tail end of their conversation.

"I made a picture for you but I forgot it, she says with a pout.

Jay smiles at the pout on her face that's so much like her mothers, "Maybe next time you see me you can bring it. How does that sound?"

She smiles and nods her head at him. He looks up finally acknowledging Erin's presence,

"Erin"

"Jay. Can I talk to you?" She says in the raspy voice that he missed hearing.

He nods his head at her not trusting his voice right now. Erin looks over at Kim and nods her head at Nadia, silently asking her to watch her. Kim nods her head at Erin in agreement. She bends down to Nadia level and says, " Can you sit with Kim for a minute I need to talk to Jay.

Nadia looks between her mother and Jay. She turns her face to Jay's and say, "Don't leave without saying goodbye."

"I promise." She takes him at his word and heads over to where Kim is.

Everyone is looking back and forth between the little girl and Erin and Jay as they head to the breakroom. Hailey's eyes stay longer than anyone else's on the closed door of the breakroom. She would give anything to be a fly on the wall in that room.

Jay closes the door and faces Erin. "You wanted to talk?"

"We can't keep avoiding each other. I know your mad at me…"

"Your damn right I'm mad at you" He yells.

Erin's eyes glance toward the door. She really didn't care if anybody else heard them arguing but she wanted to keep that away from Nadia.

"Keep your voice down." She replies in a tight raspy voice. "You can be mad at me all you want but she doesn't need to hear us yelling at each other."

Jay immediately deflates, "You're right."

Before either could say another word. There is a knock on the door and Hailey enters the room. "Sorry to interrupt but we just caught a lead on a case."

Jay nods at Hailey, "I'll be there in a minute." She reluctantly closed the door.

"This isn't about us anymore Jay and the only way to do this is if we get everything out in the open."

He nods his head, "We hash this out just the two of us."

"I agree."

"Can you come by my place later?"

"I'll see if Kim can watch her."

"Alright" He turns and heads for the door. Erin watches him from the break room as he says goodbye to Nadia and heads down the stairs with Hailey in tow. She misses being the one running down those steps with not just him but the unit. But that wasn't her life anymore.

She took a deep breath before she raised her hand and knocked on the door. It took a minute before Jay answered the door. He didn't greet her. He just moved aside and opened the door wider so she could enter.

Erin stans awkwardly in Jay's living room. She doesn't know how this going to go but she knows that they need to hash some things out from the past and more importantly the secret she kept from him. After Jay closed the door he took the moment to watch Erin as she glanced around his living room. She could tell that she was nervous because he was too. He really didn't know how this was going to go. He was still so angry with her but at the same time he missed her so damn much. He hadn't been the same since the night she left and now her she was with a kid correction their kid in tow. After several minutes of silence Jay decides to break the silence.

"I guess we should talk because I'm pretty sure neither one of us just wants to sit around awkwardly waiting for some speak."

Erin nods her head in agreement makes her way toward his couch. She takes on end and Jay takes the other.

"I know that you're angry with me and believe me I understand. I can't give you an exact reason on why kept her from you. But one thing is for sure it was never about your ability to be a father. I always knew that you were going to be a good dad but I had doubts about my ability to be a mother still do." Erin takes a breath before she continues. "When I first found out I was pregnant I wasn't even sure that I was going to keep they baby. I just started the job at the FBI and we weren't even together. It didn't make…"

Jay interrupts her, "I was going to propose" He says in whisper.

Erin looks at him stunned, "What?"

"The night you left. I was going to propose. Well I planned on doing it early that day when you stopped by the district but you left so fast."

"I didn't know." Erin says as she looks at him, "Why were you going to propose?"

"I wanted you to know that I made a mistake by leaving and I was serious about us."

"Jay. As sweet as that sounds we were nowhere near ready for marriage."

Jay stands with his hands on his hips, "How can you even say that? We were in love with each other. We were living together!"

"We loved each other there's no denying that." She says standing, "But there was still a lot of things we kept from one another." Erin began to raise her voice, "Jay you didn't even tell me that you were married and you were never going to tell me! I had to be the one to ask you about Abby."

"I know I should have to told you and I regret no doing that every day. But what you did was so much bigger." Jay replies matching Erin's tone.

Erin sighs and makes her way over to where Jay is standing while still keeping some distance between them, "I get it. I made a huge mistake and I can't do anything to take it back. Nothing I say will ever give you the years back that you lost with our daughter." She pauses, "Me bringing up the past was not for me to try and justify my actions. It's me showing you where my head was at when I left Chicago. Bunny had been sucking the life out of me for years and I let her." Erin says with tears in her eyes, "We weren't together we had so many cracks in our relationship. You couldn't trust me enough to let me and in and I was the way with you about a lot of things. We both were dealing with darkness of our past both two afraid to let the other one see. So we hide from each other and in the end we lost each other anyway."

"I agree that I hide a lot from you and I didn't want the things I done in the past to be put on you. But that time when spent apart made me realize that I wanted to try and be honest with you. Try and let you in a little. But you left just left without so much as a goodbye. I think I at least deserved that." Jay says in a broken voice.

"You did and I'm sorry for that. When Voight told me to leave and not look back and I took that to heart. I saw you calling the night I left and I knew that if I answered that phone or saw you I wouldn't leave and I had to get out."

"I called you. I texted. You never answered me. I went through some shit and I needed my partner. Hell! I needed my friend and you weren't there!" He yells with tears in his eyes.

Seeing this broken man in front of her brings tears to her eyes, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I wasn't there for you. You were there for me before and I'm sorry I couldn't do the same for you. I don't think I could have been there for you like you needed. We both were drowning just in different ways. When I left Chicago I just through myself into work. I didn't try to make friends. I was barely surviving." She lets out a humorless chuckle, "Then I find out that I was three months pregnant. I struggled with whether I was going to keep the baby or not. I mean… you and I weren't together and I was drowning in my own shit. It took an accident at work for me to even realize that I wanted this baby. And every month after I decided to give this a shot was a struggle for me. I constantly doubted myself. Then before I knew it she was here and I had someone who depended solely on me. The first two weeks all she did was cry and I felt like I was failing. I didn't have anybody. Voight didn't know I was pregnant and I couldn't tell you. So I called Sergeant Benson and she came by to help me. As soon as she got there I handed the baby off and took off."

Jay watched the emotions that played across her face. She was openly crying now and he wanted nothing more than to pull her into his arms. But he stayed where he was.

"I didn't get far. I didn't even leave the building. When I came back Olivia suggested that I might be suffering from Postpartum depression. I got help. Real help. Not just a couple of sessions with Dr. Charles. I started dealing with all the shit that I'd been burying for years. My therapist even tried to convince me to tell you. But I just couldn't I thought you deserved better than me. Someone without baggage, someone who could be honest with you. I know it doesn't make any sense but my head was in a bad place back then."

"So, if Voight didn't get shot would you have told me?"

Erin lets out a breath and moves closer to him. "My therapist was the one to finally convince me to tell you. I told her about Bunny lying to me about who my father was. And she basically told me I was doing the same thing to Nadia."

Jay stares at her blank face.

"Before Voight got shot I was already planning on moving back to Chicago and telling you about Nadia. I wanted my daughter to have what I didn't have as a child. The opportunity to know her father."

Jay takes a beat before he answers, "I can understand why you left. But I don't think I'll ever really understand why kept my daughter from me for so long."

Erin nods her head. "I get it. I just want us to be cordial around each other for the sake of Nadia."

"I can do that."

"I know that we aren't friends right now but I don't want to us to hate each other."

"I don't hate you Erin." He says in a whisper, "I'm just hurting right now. But I want to get to know my daughter. I want to be in her life."

"And you will be. She already loves. When she finds out that you're her dad she is going to be over the moon." She says with a smile.

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