This chapter is a wrap-up of season 4, more Upstead stuff will follow in the next chapters after this one. So bear with me, please. The next chapter will be published right away, to give you more original Upstead content

Chapter 7

When Hailey came to work in the morning, her first shift as a member of Intelligence – for the moment temporary member – started nicely. Kevin and Adam greeted her, enthusiastic about the food she brought – Greek loucomades – and so did Al.

The upbeat spirit was gone quickly, though.

Jay was in the break room with Erin right before work started. She showed him a bracelet her mother had given her earlier. Jay was suspicious immediately. He knew Bunny always had her own agenda, especially when she showed up suddenly being nice to Erin. It usually meant that she wanted something. But Erin didn't share his concerns or even want his opinion on this, she got angry at Jay right away. Both stormed out of the room.

Hailey watched the scene unfold before her eyes. Now, these two looked like fun.

Voight reacted directly, by deciding to finally split up Jay and Erin as partners, have Jay move to another desk, and instead partner Erin with Hailey.

What a great idea. Hailey would have preferred anybody over Erin, especially in her current foul mood, but she didn't have a say.

She briefly looked at Jay, feeling guilty, but he comforted her with a quick gesture. They were good. This had nothing to do with her.

Jay wasn't happy that his partnership with Erin was over, and he was especially not happy with Voight's reaction, when he complained. Why exactly should HE leave if he didn't like it? He was doing what Voight had asked him to do – he tried to look out for Erin. And he was the bad guy for it. Fine, for Voight he was exchangeable, Erin had priority. Good to know.

There was no time to think about this or get used to the new situation, as a new case suddenly was on their desks, which required immediate action. A man burned to death, and the whole procedure was live on the internet.

The unit was on the way to the location immediately but could only recover the lifeless body. A gory sight. It took a while to process that.

Jay and Al were out on the street soon again, following a lead.

When they walked to the car, Al looked at Jay.

"You know that thing with Voight up there?" he said.

"Yeah, what about it?"

"He should have done it a long time ago," Al continued. "You know there's a line, Jay, and it's there for a reason."

"Well, hold on," Jay protested. "My relationship with Erin never interfered with my job."

"You're not a good judge, man."

"You saying it did?" Jay didn't believe what he heard.

"It's only a matter of time, man. Every cop in the city would kill for your job. Why jeopardize that?"

"I blew it," Jay said, a bit dejected.

"No. You still got a job, you still got a desk." Al replied.

"No. I blew it with Erin."

Al just looked at him. That was probably true.

"So, Jay," Al continued when they were driving.

Jay flinched. "Yeah?"

"What's with Upton?"

"What about her?"

"Kid, don't play me!" Raised eyebrows.

Jay smirked. "No drama, Al. We've known each other three years ago, that's it."

"I know, Jay. Just be careful. Don't go for a repeat."

And the conversation was over.

Jay was still angry about what had happened earlier. Yes, he had blown it with Erin, and he knew it. But he was more annoyed with Voight, to be honest. Jay knew the relationship with Erin was over, the incident that morning was just kind of an aftershock. Yet Voight's reaction made Jay think even more about his job. Was he in the right place? Thank God for his colleagues. For Al. For Hailey. He needed to keep a low profile for a while, perhaps that would take the heat off him.

Right now, he had to worry about the case anyway. They drove to the owner of the car they found at the scene, the victim's aunt, and found out more about the young man.

Back in the office, Jay and Hailey collected all new findings on the whiteboard.

The victim was identified as Elijah Hendricks and traced back to Indiana, where he had been convicted as a sex offender, allegedly because he had had sex with his underage girlfriend, who was white, while he was black.

Voight decided that Hailey and Erin should drive to Crown Point, Indiana, to follow up on this.

Well, if that wasn't a perfect start, Hailey thought.

Once in the road, Hailey was pretty amazed by the car. Now that was a proper ride.

She decided to try and talk to Erin, make the ride a bit less awkward.

"So you and Halstead, you guys were partners for a while?" she casually asked Erin.

"Yeah," Erin just answered.

"I didn't mean to throw sand in the gears."

"No, don't worry about it," Erin shrugged it off. "It was probably time for a change anyway."

And that was the end of this discussion.

OK, Hailey thought, if she doesn't want to talk to me, fine. And if she thinks it was time for a change, also regarding their relationship, even better. Because if Erin ever finds out that Jay and I were a couple, things might get uncomfortable.

The rest of the way they didn't talk too much. However, once they were in Crown Point, Indiana, they worked well together. They had each other's back with the local police, the former girlfriend Beth Murphy, and especially her current boyfriend, Jake Harper, who clearly didn't think much of women in general, and female cops specifically. While Jake Harper clearly wasn't a suspect in the case, they got a lead from him, which led them back to Chicago.

So while these two clearly wouldn't become best friends anytime soon, Hailey now knew that Erin would still back her up, just like she would back Erin up while on the job.

Back in Chicago their new lead was another dead end, the guy who posted videos of alleged pedophiles on the internet was not the killer, but they could persuade him to help. Meanwhile a second man was killed, burned alive just like Elijah.

They created a fake perv hunter video with Al portraying a pedophile and then waited for something to happen.

While on stakeout, Jay once again tried to talk to Voight about the situation, but once again Voight shut him town, threatening him with losing his job if he continued this discussion. Before Jay could get himself into more trouble by trying to argue with his boss, someone approached the door to the house in which Al was sitting as a bait.

And now things got even scarier.

The new suspect for the murder of pedophiles, Jeremy Pettigrew, was most probably a pedophile too, and they found evidence that he held a boy hostage.

Now they needed results - fast.

And suddenly Erin flipped. She had interrogated the man with Hailey, and once she heard that there was a boy out there, she took her gun and threatened Pettigrew by putting it right into his mouth.

Hailey was watching, unsure of what to do. She couldn't hold Erin back, wasn't sure if she wanted to, because a boy's life was in danger, but she didn't want to risk her career either.

Erin's approach was successful, the man gave her the location of the abducted boy.

But they were too late. The rest of the unit found the car, in which the boy was held; yet they could only recover his lifeless body. Jay tried to resuscitate the child, but he didn't succeed. The boy was dead.

That was the day in just a few words. Everyone was devastated that they couldn't save the boy, especially Jay. And Erin was under investigation for the way she treated their suspect.

A lot for Hailey to process. Her new partner was called to a hearing for a serious offence, and she, Hailey, was part of this. She was new to the unit, so everyone was unsure of how and if she would back up Erin. And Hailey didn't know what that would mean for her job.

Even though Hailey was not completely in agreement with how Erin had handled the suspect, she made it clear to the team, in this case to Trudy Platt, that she would not incriminate Erin. She understood everyone's worry, but to herself it was the obvious thing to back up her team and her partner.

Nevertheless, Erin's actions were under investigation.

And the next case Intelligence was confronted with would turn out even worse, for the unit and especially for Erin.

It concerned Erin's mother.

Bunny had called Erin to her home one morning, because her boyfriend had been shot.

Surely Intelligence would take over this case, but Voight made it clear that Erin couldn't be involved. She was under investigation and her mother was a suspect – two good reasons to keep her out of it.

The following days were crazy – Erin's mom was very much involved in the murder of her boyfriend Johnny Martelli and in a drug deal, and a lot was done under the radar. Voight seemed to pull a lot of strings, work with a lot of people without telling the team what he was doing.

Jay tried to keep the balance between maintaining a low profile regarding Erin and being supportive to her, but failing miserably – or so he thought; while Hailey tried to make sense of it and keep her cool.

In the end the case was handed over to the FBI, and PD was out. This was not a satisfying ending, as they couldn't pursue the murder, but there was nothing else they could do.

The hearing was cut short, Hailey was interviewed only for a few minutes and couldn't make any sense of it. All further interviews were cancelled, she wouldn't face any disciplinary action. For her it was a good result, but it was still unclear what this meant for Erin or the unit.

She briefly talked to Trudy afterwards, confiding in her, but she felt as lost as Hailey. Things were very much unclear.

They all met at Molly's in the evening, to calm down, to wrap up the investigation, and both Jay and Hailey hoped to find out what would happen to Erin. They knew they wouldn't get any further information on the case, Voight had made that clear. Everything was with the FBI now, and that was it.

Jay was eager to talk to Erin, to find out about the hearing, about how she coped with it, and what had happened to her mother. They weren't a couple anymore, but he still wanted to be there for her.

However, when they were at Molly's, Erin didn't show up. Hailey noticed that Jay looked around, checked the door for her constantly, finally went outside to call her.

Even though Jay had said their relationship was over, Hailey could see that Jay was not over it, that he still cared for Erin, and that he was worried. She would have liked to help him, but she knew better and stayed inside. If he wanted her help, Jay would eventually ask for it – or so she hoped.