Erin looks at Mouse and notices concern on his face. Its unusual for him to show emotion when they are dealing with a case. He is good at hiding his feelings, like Jay, who's face is devoid of emotion right now. But Erin knows Jay too well so she knows he's affected by all this.
A six years old kid shot in the head, execution style, is too much for everyone. She is struggling to keep cool herself but she can't wait to close the case. Just get those responsible and go home and cuddle in Jay's lap and fall asleep close to him. She, as always, doesn't need to talk about her crappy day. She just needs his embrace, that will heal her pain, the pain of seeing this small kid in that ally and the despair of that mother. Yes all she needs is to close this quickly and go home with him.
Erin gets back to work. Atwater found a lead they could work on. She looks again at Mouse and has a feeling that he maybe is more disturb with all this than she first thought. He was in the military but now he is a civilian without police training, probably all this is harder for him than for all of them; he is not just a tech guy.
She gets up from her desk and reaches for him. "Hey Mouse… is everything ok?"
"What?" Mouse says still staring at the monitor.
"Is everything ok? With you, I mean, you seem more concerned than usually."
"Oh yes, I'm ok… all this with a kid so small you know… it's hard and I assume all this is getting to me, but don't worry… I'm ok I guess…" Mouse feels someone staring at him and sees Jay looking at him with doubt on his face. Mouse knows what he is thinking. Jay is just afraid that Mouse might tell to Erin something about their earlier conversation. Jay doesn't want to talk about that day. The day they decide to trust the wrong man.
"Hey Mouse are you listen to me?" Erin says, snapping her fingers in front of him. She looks in the direction he was staring. She sees Jay looking at them, he seems upset too, this situation is getting to all of them.
"Yes… sorry… really don't worry with me… I will be ok… let's just solve this case…"
"Look Mouse if you need to talk I'm here and I'm sure Jay is here for you too."
"Yes I know, thank you Erin… I… I will if I need to... and about Jay… he… he is like me, just needs to close this case and go home."
Erin nods and leaves Mouse's desk with a strange felling, like he is trying to say something to her, but without saying it. If she finds time she will reach out to him again.
"Hey is everything ok?" Jay asks catching her on her way to her desk.
"Yes… Why?" Erin answered.
"You have a concerned look on your face. Was it something Mouse said?"
"You have that look too you know? I guess this case is affecting all of us more than we want to show… don't you think?" Erin said waiting for a reaction from Jay… but she gets nothing, he just nods and goes to the break room, grabs a cup of cold coffee and comes back to his desk, when he takes a sip he gets a look of horror on his face, gets up again and throw out the coffee a way.
She is staring at him again. He is beat, she notices, but there is something more and Mouse know what it is. The two of them keep exchanging looks.
Atwater says something about another CI who has information to share and leaves with Al and Ruzek. Jay is talking to Antonio. Voight sends Mouse to the tech room to try to find some footage from the street were the kid was shot. Erin sees an opportunity to leave and go keep Mouse company.
She enters the room and Mouse jumps, he wasn't expecting visitors. "Hi… can we talk?" Erin asks pulling up a chair.
"Hum… yes I guess… about what?" Mouse answers but keeps looking at the monitors.
"Tell me what is bothering you. I know there is something about this case and Jay knows about it… but you two seem to be having some conversation difficulties." Mouse doesn't answer, he just keeps looking at the monitors. He uses that as a refuge. "Mouse I know that something is up… come on… You look haunted or something"
"It's just… I don't know… all this with such a small kid… it make me travel back in time you know?" Mouse says, with that haunted look on his face that Erin had noticed since they started working on this case.
"I notice this is affecting you like any other case hasn't in a long time. Where do you travel back to?" Erin asks.
"To Kandahar, second tour, me and Jay… we trusted the wrong guy and…"
"Hi! Mouse, Voight wants to talk to you" Antonio says, entering the room catching the two of them by surprise. "Did I interrupt something?"
"No, no, I will be right there" Mouse says and leaves the room with Antonio leaving Erin behind and alone in there.
What a hell happened with those two, Erin thinks to herself. She is certain that it was something really bad. Jay never wants to talk about that period of his life. Every time she mentions it he closes himself in a shell and she can feel his pain… and that makes her feel worthless.
She really would like to help him get through all that trauma, like he helped her by not giving up on her. It was the most beautiful thing anyone has done for her. When she quit he didn't give up on her, she was a bitch to him and he kept trying to get through to her and it was huge in helping her get out of the rabbit hole where she was hiding.
Jay always seems confident and brave and made of steel or something. For her he's invincible and unbreakable. But every time they have cases with kids he gets unstable and fragile. She understands, kids make her heart melt too and she suffers deeply when a kid is involved. Life isn't fair, she knows, but kids don't deserve to die like this or be hurt. Jay today, like Mouse, looks haunted.
Finally they solve the case. The entire unit is filling out paperwork and closing the case. They decide to all go to the memorial that night.
"I'm going home to take a shower and then go to the memorial." Jay says, approaching Erin's desk. "Are you in?"
Erin nods, "I will meet you there, got something to finish here first."
"Ok" Jay agrees. He grabs his jacket and leaves.
Ten minutes later, Erin looks up from her pile of paper and notices everyone else has left. She decides it's time for her to go too. She goes to the locker room to grab her stuff and bumps into Mouse on the way.
"Hey… sorry" Mouse says, looking up from his phone. It's incredible how this guy always hides himself behind monitors, Erin thinks.
"Hey mouse… so the case is all closed. You can go home now and rest, you look like you need it." Erin says, putting a hand on his shoulder.
"Yes finally… I'll probably pass by the memorial later."
"Ok I will see you there then" Erin says entering the locker room.
"Yeah" Mouse says, leaving but then stops and turns back. He enters the locker room and sits on one of the benches. "What we were talking about early… I… I really could use someone to talk to. I just feel like I'm betraying Jay though. He doesn't want to talk about that day but all this is making me sink to that place that I was before Jay brought me to the unit. I feel like I can go down again really quickly and I'm afraid of what that could do to me."
"Mouse I'm here," Erin says, sitting next to him. "I'm really here, just talk to me… I will not tell Jay that you told me, it's between me and you ok?"
Mouse nods and is quiet for a while, facing the floor and rubbing his hands. After a bit he raises his head and starts talking. "It was awful… the kid lying on the ground, that man saying that we did this to him… it was awful, dreadful… I felt like the world was falling apart and I was the one causing it… and Jay… he just stayed over the boy doing CPR, trying to bring him back… but the boy was dead and we had kill him."
"What? What boy and what man?" Erin asks, with a sad look on her face. She can see that Mouse is devastated, tears are falling down his face. She makes a great effort to not starting crying too. Instead she hugs him. Its strange that hug, they are not close but it feels like the right thing to do.
"We trusted a local man that told us that he knew about some massive arms stash in the village… we decide to try to find it because that day we had suffered two ambushes already. So me and Jay follow the man to the village, but …. Long story short it was another ambush and we find ourselves trapped in a house full of locals with guns pointed on us… we manage to get rid of them and we escape to another house, but when we were securing the room we saw a shadow of someone with a gun pointing on us. We kick the door open and some dust starts floating in the air and we see the gun again and we just shoot… the two of us just fire our guns and wait… when the dust calmed down, we see the boy lying on the ground… It was just a boy Erin and we shot him…" Mouse's face is now covered in tears and Erin just hugs him again.
"Mouse, the boy was probably going to shoot you…" Erin tries to reassure him, to ease some of his guilt.
"It doesn't matter Erin. It was a boy, an innocent… And we killed him… I need to go home" Mouse said, abruptly getting up and cleaning his face. "I just need to… well I need to pull my shit together… I'll meet you all at the memorial."
"Are you gonna be ok Mouse? Is there more?"
"There's always more but never mind and yes, I'm going to be fine… don't worry Erin… I just needed to get this off my chest and you helped a lot… just don't tell Jay that I told… but now you know why he is so affected by this."
Erin nods, with a said smile. "Don't worry… this conversation never happen."
Mouse leaves the locker room and Erin stays there just processing everything Mouse told her.
When she gets to the memorial she just needs to find Jay. When she sees him a pain starts growing in her chest. She pushes past all the people to get to him. Not carrying about who is looking, she hugs him tight and then looks in his eyes grabbing his hands and says, "I'm here Jay… it's ok"
Jay stares at her for a bit and nods. "I know… and thank you."
For a minute they stay there holding hands, just feeling each other. He knows she knows and it is ok. One day he will have the courage to talk with her about all that happened in that evil land.