Disclaimer: I own nothing just borrowing a few characters.
AN: Thanks to everyone for the reviews, favourites and follows.
Hope you enjoy the chapter! I apologise for any mistakes made.
Song: No Light, No Light by Florence and The Machine
Chapter Five
With the tablet clutched tight in her hand, Erin made a beeline for Hank's office, opening the door and entering the office without bothering to knock. Expecting to see him sitting at his desk, she was slightly surprised to see him looking out the window in his office, down to the street below, hands on his hips.
"How long?" Hank asked without turning to look at her.
"How long what?" Erin wondered still distracted with watching Jay being bashed and abducted over and over again.
"How long has this thing been going on with you and Halstead?"
"There's nothing going on with me and Jay." Erin said with a shake of her head.
"So you're just going to stand there and lie to my face for the second time today?" Hank snarled, finally turning to look at her, a leveling her with a withering glare.
"What do you want me to say Hank?" Erin asked. "Do you want me to tell you that Jay and I were together. That we were talking about a future together? That we were happy together. Well we were. But you made it abundantly clear that we would loose our jobs if we were together. Is that what you want to hear Hank?
"Erin –" Hank started but Erin wasn't interested in anything he had to say at that moment.
"Or maybe you want to hear about how I was the happiest that I've ever been with Jay, that I think I could be in love with him. But because I didn't want to loose my job or your respect I ended things. I managed to fuck up the best thing that's ever happened to me and in the process hurt the most important person in my life."
"Erin–" Hank tried again.
"Is that what you want me to tell you Hank? Because right now the only thing that should matter is finding Jay and bringing him home alive. Because anything less than that and I will never forgive myself." Erin finished on a sob, chest heaving she turned around and walked out of the office, slamming the door shut so hard it was a miracle that the glass didn't shatter.
Swiping at the tears running down her face Erin dropped the tablet on her desk then rushed through the empty bullpen and down the corridor and into the locker room, which too was thankfully empty.
Erin paced back and forth in in the locker room she found herself stopping in front of her locker, the place where they decided to cool their relationship. And she lost it. She stood there gasping for breath, tears running down her face. Swinging her arm back she punched her locker, welcoming the burn of pain that radiated up her arm. So she did it again. And again. Until her knuckles were spit and her hand was as numb as she wished her heart was.
Erin sank down to the floor in front of her locker, pulling her legs up to her chest and resting her head on her knees.
She wasn't sure how long she sat there, but eventually she was pulled from her reverie by the sound of the locker room door opening and closing.
"Erin." She heard Hank's gravelly voice from somewhere above her, but didn't acknowledge him.
She heard him sigh loudly as he settled himself down next to her on the floor.
"Erin I need you to pull yourself together. Because Halstead is gonna need you when we bring him home." Hank told her.
"What if it's too late? What if we're too late? And what if he can't forgive me?" Erin voiced her deepest fears out loud.
"What if he can." He told her. "Come on kid lets get you cleaned up."
Hank lead her over to sink, worried by her bloodshot eyes and pale face. He ran cold water and handed her a damp wad of paper.
He grasped her hand when he saw the pulpy, bloody mess that was her knuckles.
"You need to get that hand looked at." Hank told her.
"It's fine." Erin told him snatching her hand from his grasp, and was thankful when his phone rang distracting him. He answered the call, shooting her a stern look then walked back out of the locker room, leaving her alone with her thoughts once more.
Erin took a couple more minutes to get herself under control before she headed back through the bullpen, picking up the tablet from her desk intending to go downstairs to see Mouse, when she spotted a dazed looking Will Halstead walking up the stairs towards her.
"Hey I just saw Sargent Platt downstairs, she tried to call up, but no one answered so she buzzed me up." Will explained.
"Yeah sorry. I'm not sure where Nadia is, and everyone else is out. Come on up." Erin told him and led him into the break room and waved him into a chair and poured them both a much needed coffee.
"Please tell me you know something?" Will asked her hopefully.
"We found Jay's phone." Erin told him, not sure how much of what they had found out she should tell him.
"And?"
"And we were able to pull some footage from a pod near where we found Jay's phone." Erin continued.
"So you know what happened to Jay?"
"Yeah."
"I need to know Erin." Will pleaded.
Erin looked down at the cup on coffee in front of her, trying to decide what to tell him.
"Please —"
"Jay was jumped by two guys and tossed into the back of a car." Erin told him in rush of words, as if the quicker she could say them, it would somehow lessen the impact.
"I want to see the footage." Will told her.
"Will I don't think that's a good idea." Erin said with a shake of her head.
"Erin he's my brother I have a right to know what happened to him."
"Will –"
"Erin I'm watching that footage." Will was adamant.
"It's pretty brutal Will." Erin tried to explain.
"I don't care." Will told her, and she reluctantly handed him the tablet.
"What happened to your hand?" Will asked her.
"Nothing. It's fine." Erin told him and hid her hand behind her back and out of his sight. She leaned over and tapped the screen and the footage started to play.
Erin didn't watch the footage again, instead watching Will closely.
She could tell the moment the moment Jay was hit and fell to the ground, Will gasped and the color leeching out of his face. When the footage finished he gripped the tablet his knuckles white.
"Fuck. You weren't wrong." Will said rubbing an unsteady hand over his face.
"We are doing everything we possibly can to find him. I promise you that." Erin told him.
"Yeah but its been over twelve hours now since he was taken. If he has a head injury or –"
"We're going to find him." Erin said squeezing his hand, and praying she was right.
Will tapped at the screen so he could watch the footage again.
"Hey Erin, uh Will." Mouse said walking into the break room with a laptop in his hands.
"Hey Mouse." Will said looking up at his brother's Army buddy.
"Erin do you have a minute." Mouse asked.
"What's up."
"I was able to find some more vision of Jay being taken from a private security camera." Mouse said.
"How did you manage to get that?" Erin asked.
"You probably don't want to know." Mouse said with a wry grin. "But you definitely need to see it." He continued placing the laptop on the table in front of her.
They watched the new footage that was from a slightly different angle than the first, this one showing clearly what Erin thought she had seen before.
A second car pulling up just after the first, but on the other side of the road. They watch two men get out of the first car, the two talk briefly to Jay, which from the audio Erin knew, was when they said Jay's name. One of the men looks straight at the second car, which must be when they heard 'it's him.' Then Jay is hit first by one then the second guy and when he is obviously unconscious, tossed into the car. The two men jump into the car and tear away from the curb heading north. Then they see the second car make a u-turn and follow behind the first car
"So I wasn't seeing things then." Erin said almost to herself, she'd thought, she'd seen another car after watching the other clip for about the tenth time, but couldn't get a good enough angle to be absolutely certain.
"No."
"I need to show Hank this." Erin said ready to jump to her feet.
"Show me what?" Hank said from the doorway.
"I, ah –" Mouse started.
"Mouse found some more footage you need to see." Erin told Hank then showed him the new vision.
"I want this second car found." Hank told them.
"I um, was able to track it three blocks north to where they torched the first car. Then the second car heads west for three blocks and then it just disappears." Mouse explained.
"How can it just disappear?" Will asked.
"Thats not necessarily a bad thing." Hank said.
"How's that?" Will asked incredulously.
"It means that we have an area to start searching in." Erin said.
Mouse took off muttering about narrowing the search area down and finding blueprints of buildings in the area.
Hank grabbed his phone and called Atwater and Ruzek telling them to get back to the precinct.
"Will can you take a look at Erin's hand." Hank demanded before he walked back out into the bullpen.
"Where's the First Aid kit?" Will asked.
"It's fine don't worry about it." Erin said after Will gently pushed her back into the chair she had vacated.
"And disobey a direct order from a scary guy with a gun? No way. You might have a death wish. But I don't." Will said, "So where's the First Aid kit Erin."
"Under the sink." Erin said rolling her eyes at him. It seemed that both Halstead brothers had a flair for the dramatic.
Will cleaned her hand up, telling her she was lucky she didn't need any stitches.
"Ouch." Erin said and jerked her hand out of his grasp when he probed the knuckle of her middle finger.
"I'm guessing there's no way I can get you to come down to Chicago Med with me so I can x-ray your hand?" Will asked with a raised eyebrow.
"No way." Erin agreed.
"I think you might have cracked your knuckle." Will told her.
"It'll be fine, so long as I don't have to punch anyone."
When Will was satisfied he'd done enough to avoid Hank's wrath, he and Erin walked into the bullpen to the sound of the phone ringing madly on Nadia's desk.
"Where the hell is she?" Erin muttered, waving Will to sit at Jay's vacant desk as she walked over to her MIA flatmates desk and picked up the phone.
Time ceased to exist for Jay as he drifted in and out of the darkness, the only thing that was consistent besides the blinding pain was the freezing temperature of the basement.
When the darkness lifted Jay was no longer sure how long he'd been there on the freezing concrete floor. It could have been minutes, hours or even days.
Sometimes when the darkness lifted Jay thought he was back in Afghanistan, other times his mother was there with him placing a cool hand on his burning forehead, comforting him like she had when he'd been sick as a child.
Then there were the times he could hear her screaming. Those times were the worst.
"No." Jay mumbled as he fought invisible hands that tried to hold him down, when he needed to get to her.
He could hear her screaming for him. He had to save her. He couldn't let them hurt her.
He fought harder, desperate in his need to get to where she was.
Jay was too far gone to recognize that the hands that he fought weren't really there.
Some time later Jay drifted out of the darkness once again again, blinking his eyes open as much as the swelling would allow to see vacant hazel eyes staring at him, her hair falling across her face.
"No. Erin." Jay cried out, moving to crawl over to where she lay across the room from him in a pool of blood.
With a muttered curse Erin picked up the phone only to hear static and white noise on the other end of the line and then the call dropped out completely causing Erin to once again curse and then question where the hell Nadia had gotten to. Of all the times for her to go missing, she had to choose the worst possible day to go MIA.
Will walked out of the break room and Erin waved him to sit at Jay's vacant desk.
Fishing her broken phone out of her pocket Erin warned Will to stay put and was about to head down stairs to see if Mouse could track Nadia's phone for her when hurried footsteps sounded on the stairs then Alvin and Antonio burst into the bullpen with a sullen looking Maddie.
It took every bit of self restraint Erin possessed not to go over a slap the lying bitch. If she had of told her and Will the truth last night they might have been able to work out that something had happened to Jay last night rather than this morning.
Antonio shot her a glare in warning, as if he could read her mind, as they led the brunette bartender through the bullpen and down the hallway into one of the interview rooms.
Erin waited a couple of seconds before she followed and let herself into the viewing room, pressing the button that would allow her to hear everything being said in the interview room. Hank walked in to join her moments later.
"I'm not sure why you had to bring me here. I have no idea where Jay Halstead is, like I told you back at the bar." Maddie said to Antonio.
"So when Detective Lindsay and Will Halstead asked you if Jay Halstead had been in your bar last night, that was the truth?" Antonio asked as Alvin leaned against the wall arms folded saying nothing.
"Yes." Maddie said looking down at her clasped hands resting on the table in front of her.
"Funny thing is we know for a fact that Jay stopped in at O'Shay's last night." Antonio added.
"So you want to try that question again." Al said from his spot against the wall.
"Not sure why it matters but yes Jay did come in last night. But not for long. He didn't even finish his drink." Maddie told them.
"It matters because after Detective Halstead left your bar last night he went missing."
"What do you mean he went missing?"
"I mean that ten minutes after he walked out of your bar last night Jay was abducted." Antonio said angrily, quickly loosing his patience with the brunette.
"So take us though every minute from the time he walked into the bar, to the minute he walked out. Anything strange stand out, any unfamiliar faces. We need to know everything." Alvin added.
"It was busy last night, I didn't see Jay come in, but he came up to the bar and ordered a whisky." Maddie explained.
"Anyone take any special interest in Detective Halstead?" Antonio wanted to know.
"Not that I noticed. As I said before Jay didn't stay long. I gave him his drink. He sat there looking at it for a few minutes. I asked him if everything was ok. It was obvious something was wrong." Maddie said.
"Did he tell you what the problem was?" Antonio asked her.
"Look if you want to know what Jay's problem was I suggest you ask Erin Lindsay. He didn't tell me and then left a couple of minutes later." Maddie said sullenly.
"And you didn't notice anyone following him? No one showing any interest in him?"
"Like I said it was busy last night."
Knowing they weren't going to get any more information out of her they ended the interview and led Maddie out of the interrogation room.
Erin threw open the door of the viewing room ready to confront Maddie about her lies.
"Twelve hours. That's hong long your lies last night have cost us. Twelve hours we didn't know Jay was missing." Erin yelled as Maddie walked down the hallway ahead of her, causing the bar tender to turn around.
"Don't try and put this on me Detective. If you want to blame anyone have a look in the mirror. You're the one who had Jay messed up the last couple of weeks." Maddie spat back at Erin.
"You better pray that Jay is ok, or I'm gonna make sure you get slapped with obstruction charges."
"You bitch –" Maddie yelled moving to launch herself at Erin when Antonio grabbed her.
"Erin take a walk and cool off." Hank ordered her forcing her back into the viewing room closing the door.
"Antonio get Maddie out of here and down to Sargent Platt before I make those charges a reality." Hank warned and let himself back into the room where Erin was pacing up and down the room.
"Erin if you can't get yourself under control I'm sending you home." Hank told her.
"Hank she cost us twelve hours. Twelve hours that Jay might not have –"
"Well then we better work fast to find out who has him and where he is." Hank said opening the door and motioning her out of the room.
Alvin was in the bullpen talking quietly to Mouse, along with Adam and Kevin who were obviously back from checking out the burned out car and Will still sat at Jay's desk.
"Ok where are we at?" Hank asked the team and Erin sat at her desk. "And where the hell is Nadia?" He added when he noticed her empty desk.
"I haven't seen her today." Erin told him with a shrug.
Erin was about to pick up the phone on her desk to see if Platt knew where her flatmate was when the phone started ringing.
"Intelligence Unit." Erin said picking up the phone.
"Is this Detective Lindsay?" A male voice with a slight accent asked on the other end of the line.
"Yes this is Detective Lindsay." Erin confirmed.
"Detective Erin Lindsay?" He asked again, something in the tone of his voice causing her to sit up straighter at her desk.
"Yes how can I help you?" Erin asked.
"Oh you can't help me. But I can help you. I believe I have something that belongs to you. Or should I say someone."
Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Let me know what you thought.
Can't believe its only 8 days until season 3! Finally! Hope this next week goes fast!