When he gets the call from Jay, he knows right away what it's about; he just finished looking through the preliminary info that Med sent over for the case. His breath had caught when he read the words chemo overdose, no cancer, and he has her file pulled up before the phone rings. It hurts his heart to look at it, Elizabeth Halstead in messy doctor's scribe at the top of the scanned document.
"What's this asshole's name?" Mouse says as he answers the phone, skipping right past the hello.
"Reybold. Dean Reybold." Jay's voice says stiffly through the phone. Mouse's fingers fly over the keys, checking the file before he sighs in relief.
"No. He was never anywhere near her."
Mouse hears Jay blow out a breath and he imagines tension shaking loose from Jay's shoulders. There's a pause.
"What? What is it?" Mouse asks, tensing again. A beat of silence, and Mouse imagines the hesitation on Jay's face wherever he is on the other end of the line.
"He treated Voight's wife." A stone drops into Mouse's stomach.
"Shit." Mouse slumps back in his chair. "You guys watch out for each other on this one."
"Yeah, you got it. Thanks Mouse, see you later."
That night, when Mouse lets himself into Jay's apartment, Jay is alone. Erin was still at the district when he left with no indication that she would be joining them that night. Jay is sitting on the couch with an open beer and the photo album on his lap.
"Hey," Mouse says softly, sliding onto the couch next to him.
"Hey," Jay sighs, thumb brushing over a picture of Elizabeth ("Call me Liz hun") hugging a small grinning Jay from behind in a park with summer-green grass. Mouse squeezes Jay's arm, then pushes up off the couch to the kitchen where he sets to work on some dinner. After they eat, he and Jay sit on the couch flipping through the pictures, quietly remembering, and mourning, until it's late. Erin never arrives, and Mouse crawls into bed with Jay, and they sleep, and they wake, and they get back to work.
Mouse keeps an eye on Jay and Erin when he can as they work the case. Jay got most of his resurging grief out of his system the night before, so mostly, Mouse can see, he stays in the present, in control. Erin and Voight watch each other with pained eyes, and Jay watches Erin, and Erin doesn't watch Jay. Unbidden, the memory rises in his mind of a quiet hockey game, the smell of spaghetti, and a battered boy asleep on the couch, of Erin's voice – "I'm going to do better."
He doesn't want to feel disappointed. Doesn't want to feel the stirrings of bitterness and resentment, but he does. It's not the same, he knows. Not really. But this case is affecting Jay too, not just Erin, not just Voight. It's personal for Jay too. And once again, Erin doesn't see it. He tries to shake the thought away, but it festers in his mind.
It's a relief when the case is over, when after the turbulence, Reybold is convicted and escorted from the courtroom, and Mouse can try to start putting it out of his head. He shuffles out of the courthouse, tugging on his suit – he hasn't worn one in a while. Erin and Jay are standing on the steps, and Mouse knows from their posture immediately that Jay is comforting Erin, and the thought rears its head again – "I'm going to do better." Mouse shakes his head angrily, and Erin looks up and meets his eyes, her brow furrowing in confusion. He jerks away, striding down the steps towards where he parked. He needs to go home and get the anger out of his system.
"Mouse!" Erin's voice cuts through the air, but he doesn't turn. "Hey, Mouse."
A hand falls on his shoulder lightly, and he turns, and she's there. Jay isn't.
"Hey, you okay?" She says curiously.
"Am I okay," Mouse repeats flatly. Erin's lips purse with concern. Mouse exhales sharply through his nose. "You're asking the wrong person."
"I – what?" Erin draws back slightly, confused.
"Jay, Erin. You're doing it again. Did it even occur to you once to check how Jay is with this case?"
Erin's lips part as she tries to sort through his meaning. He can see the moment she realizes, the way her eyes widen, the pinch of pain at their corners.
"Oh…" she breathes, lips contorting in a grimace of self-disgust, a visage with which Mouse is intimately familiar with, and he feels the pang in his chest that comes with knowing he's hurt her. Again. Erin takes a step back, and turns to leave, head drooping, and Mouse grabs her hand, stopping her.
"Erin," he says, but she cuts him off.
"No, you're right. It's my fault, it's fine Mouse." Her voice is tired, already resigned to adding another thing to the list of her mistakes.
"No, it's not," the force in his voice surprises even Mouse, and Erin looks up at him, slightly bewildered.
"Mouse?"
"It's not fine. It's not the same; yes, Jay was affected by the case, but it's not the same," he presses on with conviction. "Reybold wasn't one of his mom's doctors. He was one of Camille's. Of course you're going to be…" He waves a hand vaguely. "Jay wanted to be there for you, you didn't do anything wrong. And it's not okay that I got mad at you." He shakes his head, looking away.
"Mouse…" Erin says softly, twisting their hands so that she is holding his comfortingly. "It's okay. You're human too remember? And maybe… maybe I didn't do anything wrong, but you're still right that I should have thought. It didn't occur to me to check on Jay, and it should have. That's what you do with people you… people you love. You take care of them." Erin squeezes his hand, and Mouse finds a lump in his throat as he swallows. There's a pause, as Erin searches his face.
"I was there," he says, "when she died. I was there, holding Jay's hand. She didn't deserve to die, Jay didn't deserve it." He closes his eyes, pained, remembering the bright smile on her face when Jay introduced them the first time. "She was so kind."
"It's okay," Erin repeats, pulling him towards her, and suddenly her arms are around him. His own wrap tentatively around her, and they stand for a moment together before she pulls away with suspiciously bright eyes that he's sure match his own, and she takes his arm.
"Let's go find Jay."
