Okay, so first off let me make something painfully clear-

the last chapter should have been two. It was enormous compared to all my other chapters, and is probably going the only one like it. I mean...it was basically a one shot. So while I'm sure many of you enjoyed it, unfortunately, this chapter, nor the ones following it, will be as long.

Cut the Rope- Charlotte OC

MUST READ-

The beginning of this one is set at the same time as the prologue, so Jay is seven again HOWEVER-this is Rachel's P.O.V.

Warning: dark themes, suicide triggers

If you are super sad right now, this may not be the best thing to read.

Shout out for real guys. Keep breathing. Keep living. You aren't worthless. Just keep moving. It gets better. I promise.

For Taylor. You are the reason I can still smile.

Rachel's P.O.V.

"Who's that?" My hand tenses on my knife, the hilt comforting in my palm. Odd how a ten year old girl takes comfort in a blade. I pause halfway through the door to the second room of the house.

"This is Jay." I watch out of the corner of my eye as Alani and shy exchange surprised looks. I don't think I've ever answered them before. At least not with a name. Normally it's just 'a friend' and that's the end of it. Of course, normally, the people I bring home with me are gone by the morning, so i find there to be no real need for names.

I ask them anyway. But only when I think they feel safe sitting in the same room as me.

I guess normal parents would have an issue with their daughter bringing home random strange children. But instead of asking if he's okay, (his nose is still bleeding) shy simply says

"Don't get pregnant. Dare's bringing home dinner at nine." I nod at the information, making a mental note to keep my door closed as they resume their talk of street politics.

"C'mon." I whisper, pulling the dark haired boy into my designated room and flicking the lights on, locking the door before sitting on my ground floor mattress that serves as my bed. Shuffling the mounds of blankets I have sitting on top of it I make a small space next to me.

"Sit."

"I'm okay." I stare at him incredulously as he sways on his feet, the beating he took earlier obviously taking its toll on his small frail body. Of course, I'm sure it didn't help that I dragged him all the way across Miami.

I knew he couldn't go back. I've been watching this kid for a long time, and for him to go home without any smack was for him to walk to his death. It would of been a smart move, getting his dad hooked on coke, except there was no way a seven year old kid could get a constant supply for long. It's amazing the way he got it in the first place and still didn't get killed. Marano is no weak player in the drug business, and if he ever found out it was a seven year old kid taking his product, Jay would become just another unsolved murder in the city of girls.

Needless to say, I had to half drag the kid from West Little River all the way to south Miami. By the time I got him to the little Mexican cafe that serves as my home, he was almost shaking from shock and exhaustion.

"Fine. I'll stand." Getting up the boy just stares at me incredulously before I grab him and gently push him onto my fluffy mound of comforters. My room isn't anything fancy, but it's mine and that says a lot for my situation.

"Parent's?" He asks, unconsciously nestling further into the blankets.

"Mom was killed out of punishment for my dad not paying his debt to local drug dealer, dad was killed in jail after taking the fall for her murder." I jerk my head toward the other room we entered in.

"Shy is Alani's sister, Dare is short for Darien, Alani's husband and the only man in the picture. His brother is the one who killed my Dad. Had a soft spot for kids so they took me in when I was six after my mother died. " I swallow hard, emotion suddenly making it hard to talk.

"We're tight." He nods again. I still can't read him. There is absolutely zero emotion on his face, something quite rare for a seven year old. I tell myself it's a defense strategy, and that I did the same thing when my father was beating me. Still, annoyance at my inability to fully judge him makes me snippy.

"What about you?" I ask, sitting on my rickety bureau and tossing him a random juice box, which he barely catches but eagerly opens and starts to consume.

"Dunno." Comes a rasping reply.

"Where's your mother?"

"Left a while ago I think. Dad's all I really know." I nod knowingly, watching as he carefully sets the now empty container on the floor before re-cocooning himself in the fluffy layers. There's a small pause of silence. Then he asks the inevitable question.

"Why'd you save me?"

Most of my rescues ask the same thing, all in varying words, and I'm ready for it. This kid though. The way he asks it, is like someone helping him, even just the tiniest bit, isn't even a possibility. Like someone saying hi to him would make his world. I just saved his life, gave him food and a warm place to rest. I just became god.

The raw anguish in his voice takes my breath straight from my lungs, making it hard to swallow for the second time in five minutes. What is it with this kid. My heart makes me answer honestly.

"Because."

"Because why."

"Because your different Jay. You defy the odds."

Erin's P.O.V.

This is not something I can do. I think I have excepted that by now. Maybe it was when he almost died the first time. Maybe it was the second, or the third, when I really believed he was dead. I couldn't tell you at when it happened, but my heart and sanity have clearly established the fact I can not lose Jay Halstead.

It's painfully annoying sometimes, how I care about him, but at the same, (as this is part of being in love) it's something that has saved his life more than once.

I shouldn't have left. I should have stayed right next to him while he cleared that floor. Antonio didn't need my help. By the time I got down stairs, we had already lost communication with Halstead. Voight was screaming at us to get to his floor, so I never even made it onto the third before rendezvousing with Dawson. We stopped on the stairs for a split second, quickly relaying information to each other before Ruzek joined us, Al and Hank further down the stairs.

It became apparent they knew we were coming. Even for a large building, it normally (at least according to the C.I.'s) never held a lot of people, they moved in shifts, so if the police ever raided, only a handful of insurgents would be caught.

Each pair was met with a floor full of masked men aiming semi-automatics. It took a while, but eventually, everyone on the first and second floor was either dead or in cuffs. Antonio, however was only about halfway through his floor when we were ordered to fall back, and he hadn't met a soul.

Voight and Al finally join us.

"You alright?" Voight asks, and I'm about to scream at him, that no, I'm not because my partner is doing the impossible right now, when a single gunshot echoes above us. There's a moment pause, before more follow, one right after the other, a mark of a semi-auto. We do hesitate, the three younger members of intelligence sprinting up the next flight of stairs. The burst of shots stop as we burst across the threshold. I'm about two steps into the left side of hallway, when a yell sounds, followed closely by a loud banging of metal.

It initiates a faced paced walk, though my feet so desperately want to run. Al is on my right shoulder, Atwater on my left, as we move down the hall. I reach the end of the hall, a crumpled heap of clothing lying on the side of the passageway, right before it turns a corner.

"Body." I whisper into the com, keeping my gun raised as Al checks for a pulse, a quick shake of his head confirming that the gunshot wound to the man's head killed him.

"Is it him?" My throat closes slightly at Hank's words. Does he really think Jay's dead? Should I really be thinking he's not?!

"No. But this guy is from eastern Europe, definitely not Russian." There is a silent sigh of relief felt by everyone at the senior detectives words. I heft my gun again, moving forward and around the corner to see Voight and Ruzek standing at the opposite end of a long but slightly narrow hallway. In between us? About five bodies, none of them showing any signs of life.

Grimacing as I step in a small puddle of blood, I force myself forward, finding no pulse on the first body, Hank and Atwater being the only ones who find people who are alive.

There is one problem, however apparent when we all ensure that we've checked every corner of this floor.

Jay isn't here.

I'm about to scream or break down and cry or something stupid when he decides to make one of his timely appearances.

"Hello?" A scratchy voice sounds over the team's coms and I find myself giving a large gasp of relief, although it is slightly odd, seeing as we found his ear radio on the floor next to the dead guy. Well, the first dead guy. The thought is dissolved however when I remember Antonio scooping it up to replace his lost one.

The voice quickly comes again, repeating its message and following it with a question demanding a conscious response. Somewhere in me I wonder why he thinks none of us would be able to answer his call.

"Jay?" My voice is packed with emotion, I can tell, but no one gives notice to it as I continue to talk to him, reassuring him of our safety. Antonio catches what I'm missing and interrupts before I can continue to hog Halstead's attention.

"What about you? You good?" He asks, and then repeats it again when the reply is hesitant.

"Not so much." Those three words slice into my heart, filling my body with pulse pounding worry and fear.

"Jay-Where are you?" I ask urgently, praying he doesn't slip into unconsciousness before we can locate him. Unfortunately, his mumbled reply confirms that he's losing the battle.

"Halstead, where are you?!" Just about screaming the words this time, we are all tense, staring fearfully at each other for a moment before he whispers a response. In the same instant, Ruzek pushes open an old metal door that wasn't fully closes due to its broken lock.

I am running, sprinting, flying down these stairs, taking no time to acknowledge the bloody body at the bottom of them. Al is next to me as we slam through the door, easily following the trail of bodies towards the end of the hallway where there is blood splatter all over the white walls. The trail of dead guys end there, but once again it is not hard to follow the obvious trail of destruction to him. Actually is more like the trail of smeared blood leading to a single limp person at the end of it.

His head is resting on his right arm, facing away from me, although even from the rapidly closing distance, I can see the holes in his back adding blood to the too large pool spreading from his torso.

I want to puke. I'm actually convinced I will, because my breathing is ragged and completely out of control, and it's making my nausea grow at an astounding rate. The only thing that keeps me from having a panic attack is Olinski's hand on my arm.

"He needs you Erin. Just remember that." Painfully gasping in another breath I slid to my knees next to him, two fingers instantly on his carotid. My pulse is too fast and I can't discern if he even has one because my heart is beating to fast in my fingers. I stare horrified at Al who stares back, until Antonio pushes my own fingers out of the way to feel for himself.

"He's still alive. Pulse is faint, but it's still there." He says in a hard voice, clearly trying to hide his emotions. I feel as though I should do the same, but there is this hard knot of panic and terror in my chest that seems to prevent my brain from forming coherent thoughts.

I watch, stupefied as Voight yells at the two younger members of our team. Ruzek and Atwater go sprinting off to get help as Hank kneels and places my hands over one of the soaked holes in his sweat shirt, just below his vest, but left of his spine. I lean forward automatically, putting most of my weight on the gunshot wound. Antonio and Voight out pressure on the other two gsw's, both of which I note are close to his spine, but not so close that I think they actually hit it. Of course, if any of the bullets were to shift...I squeeze my eyes shut at the thought, breathing through my mouth.

'God if he's paralyzed-'

"Erin, you can go with him in the ambulance but you need to let go right now or he's not going to make it to the hospital." My eyes snap open to see Brett from 51 staring at me evenly. Quickly I let go and scramble back, glancing around, trying to orientate myself with the present. Clearly, that wasn't the first time I had been asked, and they certainly didn't just appear from nowhere.

Hank helps me to my feet as the rest of the guys help move Jay to the backboard. Carefully but with a sense of urgency do we descend the stairs to the ground floor. During the trip down, I'd like to say something happened, that I went numb or something. Never happened. If anything the knot of emotion inside me got bigger. Still I had yet to start bawling, so points for Lindsay.

Outside there is a enormous amount of police activity. Multiple ambulances pull up, although after seeing Jay's war path, they're gonna need more. A armored police van roles up for the transport of multiple criminals, quickly followed by patrol cars and our swat that we needed twenty minutes ago. Everyones shouting orders and yelling between each that I barely hear Hank telling me how they'll meet me at the hospital.

The ride is quiet, partially because I think the pressure and tension in the cab is too high for simple reassurances. The girl working on him (I think her name is like Chillz or something) mutters something as I help take his vest off and she doesn't find any exit wound, although two of the bullets are close to the surface of his skin. Still, all the blood is exiting his body from his back, so she is forced to keep him lying on his stomach, despite the fact that he is barely breathing.

Luckily there is no time for me to dwell on what I'm doing as I press my hands on some gauze covering one of the unplanned hole in his body. We reach the hospital in near record time, my hand staying pressed on his back as doctors reach out to receive the gurney. I am allowed to stay with him until they transfer him to the bed in a trauma room.

A nurse gently pulls me behind the glass section that encloses the room. Now that Jay isn't being worked on in a moving car, they are able to turn him on his side. Instantly a tube is pushed down his throat, machines hooked up to his bare chest (they cut his shirt off in the ambulance.) The doctors yell things at each other, saying things fluid in his lungs and heart. A bullet must have travelled they say. Surgery now. Need to move. Not much time.

When they leave with him, it's like they take my awareness with him. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know what to do. A dark skinned nurse takes my hands and gently tugs me toward the bathrooms.

'lucky' I think as she helps me wash the blood off my hands and arms. I would have just keep standing there staring at an empty room for eternity had she not showed me what a normal person would be doing. Eventually the water running off my hands is clear and I walk numbly to a seat in the designated sitting area for 'family and friends of loved one who's dying'. My fingers play with a dog tag that hang around my neck. His. Halstead gave it to me a while ago during one particularly painful drunken outburst of mine when I told him how worried I was about him.

I choke on my sobs and wait.

Jay's P.O.V. (Miami)

This time the punches don't stop. They don't stop and the knowledge that they aren't going to stop is something new to me. Normally, what keeps me sane during these beatings is the fact that at some point, my father gets tired or bored or his rage fades slightly and he leaves me bleeding and bruised somewhere.

This time I really think he's going to kill me. I'm eight years old and I'm going to die at my own father's hands.

I shouldn't have said it. I never should have yelled back. I usually don't. Defending myself during one of his rage episodes always ends up with a harsher beating. I suppose all the time with Rachel has given me a bit of rebellious streak.

I came home later than normal, almost four in the morning. He was sitting in our dark kitchen waiting. Asked where I was.

"A friends house."

"Friends?" The darkness does nothing to hide the hideous sneer on his face.

"No one would ever want to come within ten feet of you, never mind be friends with a weak, pathetic, filthy bitch like you!"

"At least she fucking cares about me!" I know. Naughty words for a kid under ten. Apparently he thinks so too. Because that's when he jumped up and threw me across the room. I slammed hard into the floor and he just started kicking and punching and screaming at me.

Annoying.

Ugly.

It's all I hear. It's feels like it's all I've ever heard. All I'll ever hear. This is my fault. Everything is my fault.

I didn't want to fight with Rachel. I never wanted to make her mad or hurt her. I know I did. When I told her I didn't care about Alani or Shy or Dare. When I told her she was an idiot. When I called her a piece of shit. When I told her to die.

Worthless.

Stupid.

Dirty.

Nothing.

I was angry. So angry. I didn't want her to care for me. I don't see why she wants to. When I ran around the city, trying to remember how to get to that place where she lives. Where she first took me a sixth months ago when we met. She should have just let me die. Let me drown in the Styx. Instead she had to take my anger. He had beat me while drunk, hitting a particularly sore rib so hard. I was crying. The one thing I used to pride myself on. I never cry.

But I was. Three hours ago I left the house bawling my eyes out it hurt so bad. Then she found me. And I was mad. I was so mad. How dare she? What gave her the right to see me so broken so-

Nothing.

'What am I doing?' I had asked myself. Why am I letting myself get close to her? Why is she letting me? I'm not worth her time.

Another kick. Something in me breaks, just as the door is slammed down. She is here. There's a gun in her hand. My father turn and they scream at each other. The gun goes off.

Nothing.

Hands lift me. I'm just barely aware that the person carrying me is running. There's the screeching of tires. A car door opens and I'm placed gently onto a soft seat.

I am nothing.

Fingers run through my hair and a soft voice lulls me quietly into unconsciousness, echoing into past memories of my life.

"Be different Jay."

"Defy the odds."

Well that ended up being completely different than expected. The last part was...yeah. Sorry for any grammer mistakes, I'm unbelievably exhausted. Plus I'm on painkillers from my most recent hospital adventure that made typing an issue. oh well. Hope you guys liked it. Good new is next chapter we get to find out what happens to Jay. In both scenarios. I think I can manage that one.

If you hate my version of Jay's childhood, or wanna see more of it, just let me know. Drop a review on your way out. :)