It's impossible, keeping Jay off his feet for a week. That morning after breakfast Mouse had checked his watch, sighing mournfully at the time.

"We gotta get to work," he told Erin, glancing at Jay. Jay had made a show of shoving them out the door with their things, telling them to leave him with the dishes. He'd be fine, go do their jobs. That evening Mouse had returned to Jay sprawled in the living room, half a dozen discarded books around him and the TV tuned to re-runs of Say Yes to the Dress.

"You can't make me stay here for a week Mouse. I will go out of my fucking mind," he'd said. Mouse pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing, and called Will. Will insisted on at least one more day of bedrest, but agreed to let Jay go back to work, at the desk only, after that, as long as he promised to stay there. Jay scowled, but agreed. Mouse stayed that night too, although Erin never came – she was under house arrest at Voight's to recover from her… sabbatical. The two of them played Mario Cart until it was late enough for sleep. Jay woke from muddled nightmares of Keyes jabbing at him with the taser and firefights and explosions – but not the Humvee dream – to find Mouse caught in the claws of his own nightmares. It was Mouse's turn to be woken with murmured assurances and a gentle touch, gasping awake, shaking. They sat hunched over on the bed, Jay holding Mouse until the trembling stopped, until they could both breathe properly again, and Mouse swiped at the tears with Jay's forehead resting against his temple.

Jay survived his second day alone, Mouse calling frequently to check in when he had time. Erin came with Mouse to Jay's apartment that night, carrying grocery bags, and the three of them made dinner – chicken and potatoes, nothing fancy. But it tasted better for the company, and the bruises on Jay's face were fading to greenish-yellow hues they could almost forget about. They told Jay about the case they were working, a string of home invasions that got bumped up to the unit. They were due back in first thing in the morning, but Voight had called it for the night and sent everyone to get some rest because their leads had all gone cold. Erin couldn't stay – Voight's rules – so she squeezed Jay's hand, clapped Mouse on the shoulder and they waved her out the door. They didn't play Mario Cart – Mouse had brought the book he was reading, and Jay pulled out one of the ones he had discarded the day before, and they lay silently reading until Mouse started to drift off and Jay pulled the book out of his hands and clicked off the light. It wasn't peaceful, but neither woke in the night.

They drive into work together, interrupted on their way upstairs by Platt – "Hey Chuckle Brothers! What's Chuckle no. 1 doing here?" – and catching stares, from the officers who heard mangled versions of the story, and civilians trailing the colours around Jay's eye with their own. For most of the day, the rest of the team are out chasing leads on foot, re-interviewing witnesses, canvassing, checking in with CIs. That leaves Jay and Mouse alone in upstairs, Mouse clacking keys chasing paper trails, looking for connections or patterns with Jay hanging over his shoulder tossing out suggestions or questions. It's when Erin calls back in with an update from one of her interviews that they find a thread to pull – a discrepancy in witness stories. And then the two of them are off, bouncing off each other, Mouse's fingers flying over the keys and it's not until they cry out triumphant, the story laid out plain as day in front of them that they realize Erin's still on the line, filling the room with barely audible white noise and her stunned silence.

"…Wow," she says, and they can hear the suppressed laughter in her voice. "Call Voight and the rest of the team, fill 'em in and have them meet us at that address." Mouse and Jay grin.

"Will do Erin, be safe," Jay says, Mouse already picking up the other phone to dial Voight.

"Always."

They listen over the coms when the team makes the breach. Mouse leans back, absentmindedly chewing on the end of his pen. He's used to this part, and it doesn't stop him from having to deliberately slow his pulse every time but he's stopped digging his fingernails into his skin. Jay, on the other hand, is perched on the edge of his seat, gripping the table and staring the phone down like an uncooperative suspect. Mouse can see Jay holding his breath when gunshots echo over the line, not relaxing until he hears the team calling out the all clear. One suspect dead, two injured, all four in custody. The team loads the injured into ambos, the one unharmed into a squad car and cut the coms. Jay leans back, shaking out his fingers.

"Is it always like that?" Jay asks. "The waiting, being here while we're out there?" Mouse dips his head.

"Yeah. It's always like that," he says, meeting Jay's eyes, unable to avoid focusing on the mottled green of the bruise. "It doesn't get easier, per se, but you get used to it." Jay stares back at him, examining his reaction.

"You can get used to almost anything, doesn't mean you should." Mouse smiles a little.

"I knew what I was getting into Jay, and I told you, the job is good for me." Jay nods.

"I know. But it scares me sometimes, knowing I brought you back into this."

"I never left it really, it's just that now I'm back on the right side of it." Mouse pats Jay's thigh, and grabs the phone, calling down to update Platt on the situation. He can feel Jay's eyes lingering on him.

They settle into a rhythm, the two of them. When the team is there Jay stays mostly at his own desk, operating as usual. When the team heads out on the street to check out a crime scene or track down a lead, Jay shuffles over to sit by Mouse, bringing his paperwork. They pass work between the two of them, Jay answering the phone if Mouse is in the midst of something on the computer, Mouse taking over Jay's searches when he's calling around with his CIs or other connections. Jay still gets fidgety, catching himself from automatically getting up when the team heads out. He stops clenching the desk with white fingers when they're listening in on the team's coms, but he's still stiff and uncomfortable.

Mouse stays over the third night, but the fourth he goes home to his own apartment. It's cold, because he hasn't spent more than a few minutes there in days, and the air feels stiff. Despite the faint thumping bass he can hear through the walls from his neighbors, it feels dreadfully quiet, and he clicks on the TV to the news just to have the sound. His own fridge is fairly bare, not much to work with, and he makes a can of soup and a grilled cheese for dinner, which he eats in front of the TV.

He sleeps in fits and starts, waking and waking again to the cold air and the whir of his useless clunking heater. It's 3 o'clock when the phone rings, jerking Mouse back out of the scrambled nightmares once again.

"Mouse?" Jay's voice croaks through the line, the kind of croak that comes as the result of screaming oneself awake, and Mouse throws off the covers, recoiling when his toes meet the freezing wood floors.

"I'm on my way," Mouse says, already grabbing clothes and his backpack.

"Okay," Jay sighs quietly, before they both hang up, Mouse zipping around his apartment in the dark before slipping out the door.

He both loves and hates driving at night. The glow of the lights contrasted with the night reminds him of his computer screens, the dark quiet is peaceful and it's one kind of silence (not really silence with the hum of the engine, the click of his turn signal) that he likes. The lights and the streets and the buildings are so different from the desert roads, or the desert where there were no roads at all. But at night, there are shadows everywhere. A million hollows and niches for snipers to hide unseen, discarded trash or leaves or dips in the road all indistinguishable and his pulse jumps driving over them waiting for the blast. It's not a long drive to Jay's apartment though, and soon enough he is leaving the cocoon of his rusty second-hand car and clicking his key in the lock.

Jay cranes his head over the back of the couch as Mouse walks in, thrown into wonky lights and shadows by the flickering of the TV. Mouse recognizes March of the Penguins immediately, the shambling gait of the black and white birds. Documentaries are Jay's companion for nightmare induced insomnia, like Mouse's computers are for him. Maybe because they play on multiple channels reliably all night, all kinds of them. Maybe because they're full of concrete information, real and not real at the same time, or maybe it's the hypnotic voices of the narrators. Whatever it is, Jay can spout the most bizarre and eclectic facts gathered from this myriad of shows, but March of the Penguins is his favorite. Mouse drops his bag and flops onto the couch next to Jay. They don't speak, just watching the waddling journey of the penguins.

Erin surprises them with take-out the next night, and Mouse can't pin-point what he feels when she shows up with food for three. They make up plates and take them into the living room. Mouse isn't quite sure how it happens, except that it's with laughter, but they end up all three of them slightly squished on the couch, Jay in the middle, bumping elbows and shoulders with Mouse, while Erin lays sideways, knees across Jay's lap, her ankles stuck in between Mouse and Jay's legs with her toes tucked under Mouse. They flip through the TV channels to the Blackhawks game. Jay uses Erin's knees to hold his plate, and they call and boo at the screen. Erin stays later this time, but not the night, still back to Voight's, and the evening is punctuated by texts from Voight, checking in.

And this is how the next week and a half goes – Mouse and Jay work in increasingly flawless tandem during the day, Mouse barely goes back to his own apartment, instead heading home with Jay where they make dinner, joined by Erin more often than not, and they watch TV, play games, or lounge around doing their own things. Erin stays late, but not too late, then heads home to Voight, and Jay and Mouse are only occasionally woken in the night by bad dreams. They don't talk about serious things except half-lucid exchanges in the middle of the night between Mouse and Jay when the nightmares are bad. Mouse sometimes catches Erin staring, calculating, examining – are you in love with him? yes – but she doesn't bring it up again, even when they catch the odd moment alone. Mouse can feel it hanging in the air sometimes – are you? yes – and it's heavy like a blanket of snow, but not like rubble.

Will insists on a final examination when Jay's two weeks rest and desk duty are up, but even though Jay's skin is still tinged from the bruises and the cuts aren't all healed, he can't find a good reason to keep Jay out of the field. The team welcomes him back with cheers and hollers, and they catch a case kicked up from narcotics, heading out. Mouse waves them off down the stairs, starting his compilation and search of all relevant information. It's quiet, so suddenly quiet, on the floor, and lonely – are you in love with him? yes.

Mouse goes back to his own apartment that night, skipping out on drinks at Molly's to celebrate a quick end to the case and a successful first day back on the job for Jay. It's cold, and quiet, and lonely, and he wakes again and again. Jay doesn't call – are you in love with him? yes.

Weeks pass, and the physical traces of what Keyes did disappear. Mouse has a habit of making up a cup of coffee for Jay whenever he gets his own, and he absentmindedly starts adding a cup for Erin too. He's surprised to find that she starts doing the same for him, and while Jay has always brought back lunch for Mouse whenever he picks something up for himself, Erin starts doing it of her own volition. Mouse and Erin head over to Jay's and the three of them make dinner once or twice a week, but Mouse gets used to being alone again, and stops waiting for Jay to call in the night. He worries when Burgess finds the kid and it looks like it's spinning towards a child rape/murder, and then worries when Jay's the one who takes the shot, but they go out for drinks that night with most of the unit, and they leave laughing. Jay doesn't call.

AN: As always, reviews give me life. Seriously, even if it's just a few words it will make me ridiculously happy