HEY THIS IS IMPORTANT- FOR THE RECORD
It's canon that Jay Halstead served in the Rangers. Okay? Okay.
In this story, I exercised my creative rights to say that actually he served in what's basically a secret government organization under the same name. Which means that the rules are different. So if last chapter y'all didn't know this and had knowledge of the military, and were reading what I wrote and went "what in the actual fuck is this girl talking about" - please reread the above statement until it makes sense.
The Reckoning Song - Sam Tucker
Jess's P.O.V.
The knife slides easily into the holster on my thigh, the special sheath sharpening the already impossibly sharp blade. It's a comforting weight and, oddly enough, it's a weapon every single Ranger will learn to use. It's like the signature gun holster a cop has and ironically, has become one of the (unfortunate, but luckily hard to spot) tells of a Ranger. Nobody else will be seen with a hand twitching towards the outside of their thigh for a weapon that isn't there.
But we will. I will.
Six fucking months. Six months of being back in western society, back where people don't think beyond selfies and Twitter, back where the hard working people aren't as easy to spot, for the same reason that good people are hard to find.
Not because they don't exist. But because they're hidden behind all this noise. The media and social expectations play on the human need to feel wanted and it stands up formidably against doing what's right. In fact it wins almost every time.
That's why I'm biased. We're all biased. We don't have to fit in. It's guaranteed for us to be accepted, because we work, live, and breath with our family, who, despite different opinion or mistakes, will always stand by our side.
It's why it's always so easy to break when one of us leaves.
I'm not mad at him. How could I be? I wanted Jay to leave. It was obvious he wasn't meant for what we do, although that wasn't really apparent till the end of our tour. No one really accepted that until our second tour, but then we weren't about to make him leave. We all wanted him next to us in that desert.
But we wanted him to be happy. And safe. And those things would never be true so long as he was in Afghanistan. So while by all rights he should have died on that mission, it was still a tiny blessing disgusted under a lot of blood and tears.
He went home. Went to his city. His new one anyway. I don't know how he feels about Miami, but he met Rachel there, so that's gotta count for something. He also grew up with a extremely abusive father, so maybe Miami isn't so important.
Still. He went home. We let him, in a way, but we didn't really have any say. The only reason he was honorably discharged (and its such an insult that there was even a question of him being honorably discharged) was Rachel, who screamed at the general for over a half an hour until the man was white in the face and ready to trade anything and anyone so that she wouldn't hurt him.
See, three weeks after nearly dying, he escaped the hospital, walked into the generals quarters, and took full responsibility for the biggest fuck up in Ranger history. Not only did our target escape (and murder another hundred people), but we thought 'hey let's walk a mile on an open road surrounded by mountains with no air support in one of the most hostile places in the world. Oh and let's ignore the nation's most talented strategic tactical specialist when he says it'll be a bad idea.'
One fifty caliber round later, and we're all the most guilt ridden people on the face of the planet, and it almost tore us apart. The best Ranger team in existence, put on leave because we're so fucked up.
'Go home' they said. 'Figure yourselves out.'
Do you realize how embarrassing that is? Our boss is the president of the United States and we got sent home because we can't handle ourselves. We stood in a tight line for over an hour being lectured and the only people we could get mad at was ourselves.
Like that oath we took was supposed to mean something. We were supposed to follow it, because when you didn't, people die.
'For the sake of those I protect...
He should've died.
...never will I be compromised by love or hate, or anything that relates to the concepts of emotion…'
He should be dead.
The concept is painful, despite the two year gap between the incident. It's why it's two in the morning, and of the twenty screens I have set up, only two are on. One is the Patriots game (because fuck you, thats why). The other is the extremely stalkerish camera(s) that are currently in Halstead's apartment.
"That's an interesting way of monitoring the streets." I don't startle, instead letting my hand fall from my chin and slap the spacebar in front of me, eyes never leaving the moniter I've been watching for hours now. All the other screens instantly come to life, showing every target area we currently have mapped out or are studying for mission purposes. A body drops next to me with a sigh, silently taking the beer I slide over.
"How's he doin?"
"Sleeping."
"I got that, smartass. I mean how is he doing." I pause, thinking on it.
Rachel, one the opposite hand, does not like Voight and the team. Most of the seven (well, six, technically) are extremely protective of him, and seeing as Voight not only left Jay out to dry when he was under investigation (way, way back when), but who also for a solid year wanted him out of his unit. The unit where if anyone else was in trouble, would rally to help them. But Jay gets accused of murder, and Ruzek talks shit about him in the bullpen, Dawson gives him a black eye after he left him out to dry, and Erin immediately assumed he did it.
Right yeah then, then, he goes on a nice roller coaster ride with Erin, who breaks up with him for a multiple of reasons (her job is more important than him, she feels bad about Nadia, a girl who he thinks is his fault but refuses to grieve). He tries to prevent Erin from going down a path he knows she'll regret. Fails. Believes he is to blame. Gets kidnapped. Tortured. Loses a friend who's right next to him at the time, because of a mistake Jay wouldn't have made but Terry did. He's accused of sleeping with a teenage girl. Abby comes back, he panics, asks Erin for a break, then she leaves him as he about to propose to her (and didn't that feel nice) which meant that, incidentally, the person he made his rock is now gone, so he's got nothing to hold him when he accidentally shoots a little girl. So the five years Mouse and us had worked to get him back to something resembling the person he was is gone in about the same amount of months thanks to this girl and that team.
Oh hey and did I mention the way he was attacked on social media as a racist because some asshat with a power complex was trying to establish a political career? (Or when a member of his own team - his colleague/friend/brother - handed a flash drive to IA and almost got his badge called into question. Again.)
Just a small list of grievances.
I smirk, thinking of Intelligence. They certainly have grown since the Rodiger thing, but damn can they be stupid sometimes.
Like they'd find the body if Jay killed someone.
That was, in their defense, a while ago. Voight especially, has changed. Erin left, and while I don't approve of his general attitude of "just get over it" he's proven that he actually wants Jay in his unit, and that he cares about him.
Which makes them okay in my book. Because they are now more protective of him as well, and while I doubt they'll ever get to 'placing cameras in his apartment because they're scared somebody's trying to kill him' level of paranoid protective, they've gotten pretty damn close.
Like when the whole team stayed at the hospital for three days while he was in surgery, or how at least two of them stayed in his room until he was released because Rachel decided to make a late night visit, and they're suspicious bastards.
Anyway. They learned. That's what's important to me. They've changed and therefore shown they can change. They're different.
That's not how everyone else sees it but, I'm try really hard to show them that Jay found something he wants, and we have little right to come back and tell me him he can't have it, because we're jealous.
"He's...he's doing good. Better. Went to therapy again today, as Voight mandated he do, but he also went to the doctors who said everything's healed and stayed healed, so that might have helped him talk shit out. Also, he almost got hit by a car, and was then smothered by his team of mother hens."
Rachel nods, her eyes and face carefully blank. Good. She knows better than to argue with me on this one. Partially because I'm right and she knows it but she's jealous and hurt that Jay has found a new family, and partially because I am perfectly capable of making her life hell.
"Intelligence?"
"Have hit a dead end on every lead they've managed to find, and I even covered the ones they didn't, so that case isn't going anywhere but into the unsolved pile."
This time she gives a small smile at my response.
"They aren't going to let this one go, you know that right? I can't watch them all the time and eventually they'll find a lead that I haven't covered." I reiterate, trying to show her not only my problem, but also the dedication of that team. She just stares at the screen in front of us, the one that shows Jay zonked out under a bundle of covers, a shock of dark hair that will be legendary bed head in the morning being the only part of him visible.
"Get some sleep Jess." She murmurs, dropping the beer in the trashcan beneath my bench.
"We got a long day tomorrow."
Olinksi's P.O.V.
"Remind me again why we're all meeting at Voight's house at three in the morning?" Adam mutters, yawning half way through the sentence. I flick on my blinker and roll my eyes. In hindsight, I don't know why I thought getting him up at two thirty to drive an hour out of the city would result in a coherent Ruzek. Working with that kid meant that I became very aware with his love to sleep.
"I said we were going to meet Voight, I didn't say we were going to his house. Did you text Kevin?" Adam nods and yawns again, pulling his coat tighter around him. We've been driving a while, but the car has yet to get warm on the inside.
"Why aren't we doing this at the precinct? And how come Kim and Upton aren't gonna be there?"
"Where they with Intelligence when Jay was shot?"
"No."
"Then they won't be having any conversations with us until we're sure about them." I reply, knowing that Burgess was almost included in this but Voight decided to wait a little longer. He only wants to have that conversation once, so we're waiting until we're sure Upton is trustworthy before bringing them in.
It shouldn't be long.
"You're not sure about Burgess?" Adam sputters, that protective streak he has coming through. I hit the brakes, stopping at deserted intersection and turning to look at him.
"We weren't sure about you." I growl, familiar anger and betrayal bubbling in my stomach as I think about the whole 'protege being a mole' thing. He goes quiet at that.
"Why'd you bring me then?" He says after a while.
"Because we found something, and believe it or not, I would prefer you not to be dead." He raises an eyebrow, but says nothing more, and we drive the rest of the way in silence.
It's an old motel, the kind you don't stay at unless you're running from something, but it's owned and managed by a man who's more loyal to Hank than he is to his life, so there's no worry about him telling anyone we're here.
Park a block away. Walk through the woods to the last room, and slip through the door covered in darkness. Everyone else is there because we left late, but most of the lights are off nonetheless.
"Hank." I nod to him where he sits across the room, Antonio next to him leaning against the wall, Atwater sitting on a cheap wooden desk chair.
"Al." He replies, just as calm.
"So...what are doing here exactly?" Atwater asks, and that seems to settle everyone in. Antonio shifts, arms crossed over his chest and I sit on the bed, putting my hands on my knees, absently trying to rub the aches out of them.
"You ever heard of the Rangers?" I respond with a question and naturally, Kevin answers with what he knows.
"Yeah, they're like...part of the Army." I shake my head, still in slight disbelief at what I'm about to say.
"No. Not the Rangers the government recognizes. The ones they don't."
"I'm sorry?" That's Adam, and the scepticism and surprise is pretty clear in his voice. Atwater echoes the sentiment, but Dawson stays silent.
"Tell 'em what you know Al." Hank mutters, and I sigh. Sure, make me do all the talking.
"When I was in Italy for my first tour, we heard...stories. Tales. Myths, memories, whatever we wanted to believe at the time. There was a team - a group - within the confines of the Army. They were not special ops, Navy SEALs, black groups, they were not known on any piece of paper, or any official log. They didn't exist. And they are extremely powerful. These guys are best of the best of the best, they're intelligent, they're strategists, they're good at everything you can think of and a bunch of stuff you can't. They go after the guys no one can find, they unearth the guys no one knew existed. They have to."
"Okay so there's a super secret...what, combat group? That are the cliche badass, dressed in black, can do whatever they want, A-Team group. What does that have to do with anything?" Kevin asks. I glance over at Hank, whose face gives nothing away in the pale moonlight as he nods.
"They exist as a response to a global threat network. What might have started as an anarchist group, has become something much, much larger. They have influence over everything. They do not care about politics, or police, or whatever hell the government promises they will rain down upon them, because they don't get caught. The stories we used to hear would tell us that they were around before the revolutionary war, that they work for the highest bidder or themselves. They don't care about how much publicity they get, how obvious their work is. If it pertains to their goals, they will do it.
"Now listen- these guys, they're the baddest of the bad. They're smarter than the guys who bombed Med, but they have the same ambition. They have more influence over the violence in Chicago than we do, and it isn't just here. New York, Miami, LA. Anywhere in America you go, they've been and they've either fought for it and won - cities like New Orleans or Detroit - or they've lost - Boston, San Jose - and the crime that happens in those cities are gonna reflect it."
"Okay, again….what does this have to do with us? Why are you telling us this? And why are we in the middle of nowhere at three thirty in the morning?" Adam pipes up, and I send a silent thank you because that's about where my information on the Rangers stops. If we're right however, then I'm sure Jay could tell us hell of a lot more.
Hank glances at me again. I stare right back, refusing to talk.
Hell no. I did the cute little background story. He can do the conjecture.
"Jay was in the Rangers. Right?" Antonio speaks for the first time. "That's what this is about. Will's death, him getting shot, everything that's happened to him - those were no accidents. And you dragged us out here to tell us this because there would be no chance of anyone listening."
"Yeah that's about right." Hanks mutters. Kevin swears under his breath, and Adam looks rapidly between the three of us, something he'll do whenever he's trying to think through an idea and can't figure it out.
"So- so what do we do? What the hell does this mean?"
"Right now? We drive back to Chicago in different cars, get to the precinct at different times. We act like everything's normal, like we don't know these people exist. As for what this means…" Hanks stands, flipping the keys around in his hands. "...it means someone's going after us. Going after our families. The people we care about are being targeted. We're going to find out who and why."
Jess's P.O.V. (again)
"Told you so!" I yell across the ready room, clicking though a few files on my computer to be as casual possible, but still sending a not so sly glance across the room to the rest of the team who wave filtered in after Rachel.
There's a pause and she squints at me.
"Told me what." I smirk and turn back to the computer screen, one hand pointing to the case file sitting on the table in front of her. There's a soft shuffling as she looks at it. Followed by a defeated sigh.
"Intelligence is one group of overprotective paranoid mother fuckers."
"I hate you, so, so damn much."
AKA - Jess is a little shit. It's not her fault her best friend is Jay. It's mine :)
Review my guys (and include anything you'd like to see, I'm still feeling this out.)
Also- I start college in less than a week, HAHA THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE UP THREE WEEKS AGO -so this story as well as my others are going to be thrown on hault for...that. Spring break might produce something, but no promise.
So this is depressing but...until May my friends. (Unless insp hits, in which case, catch you on the flip side.)
**Also, the bombing of Chicago Med I'm refering to is the crossover episode from season 1 with cf***