Thank you all so much for the amount of reviews on the last chapter! 28 reviews is crazy! I really appreciate it, and I'm glad to see that people are enjoying the story!

Sorry for the long wait for an update, I've been really busy lately! I hope you enjoy this chapter and let me know your thoughts!

O: Out of Time

*When a case goes wrong and Erin ends up in the hands of criminals, no one knows how to react when they find her in an abandoned building with a bomb strapped to her chest. Despite being told by Voight to leave, Jay refuses to leave her side.

The Intelligence Unit was lined up outside of a building, waiting for the order from their sergeant that would allow them to breach. They had been working this case for over a week now and they were all ready for it to come to a close. They were dealing with a man who was setting explosives all around Chicago.

They had figured out that this was a building owned by a man named Owen Reynolds, who was their biggest suspect in the case.

Al tested to see if the door was rigged, but it came back negative. "It says negative, but there's no way to be one hundred percent sure."

Ruzek leaned down to the bottom of the door and slid a small device with a camera attached under the doorway. He moved it inside so he could look around. "I don't see anything."

"Alright, let's breach." Voight ordered.

Everyone took a deep breath, knowing that this could be the end. Jay lifted up his foot and kicked the door in. "CHICAGO PD!" he shouted out. He felt a hand on his shoulder and knew that it was Erin. A quick look to his right showed Antonio and Atwater, and a look to his left revealed Al and Ruzek.

"EVERYBODY TAKE COVER!" Antonio shouted right before bullets began to fly past them. Jay moved quickly to the left behind a stack of boxes.

He looked next to him, but Erin wasn't there. He quickly scanned the room, but it was getting harder and harder to see due to the fact that these criminals had thrown a smoke bomb towards them. He heard the rest of his team coughing, except for Erin. Everyone was returning gun fire and as each target was hit, the amount of bullets coming back at them was decreasing.

"Atwater's been shot!" Antonio called out.

"How bad?" he heard Hank scream back.

"Left leg!"

The last shooter was taken down right as the smoke started to clear from the room. Everyone came out into the open area. Jay took note of how surprised they all looked, besides Atwater who just looked like he was in a lot of pain.

"Where's Lindsay?" Ruzek questioned.

"I don't know; I didn't see her after they started shooting." Jay answered. He started to look around, praying that she hadn't been shot and killed.

Paramedics came in to assist Atwater as the rest of the team fanned out to search the building for Erin. But no one was able to find anything. It was like she had vanished.

"I don't understand what's going on here." Ruzek said. "Where could she have possibly gone?"

"Maybe she ran out the back door?" Al suggested.

"No, she wouldn't leave the rest of us behind." Hank sighed. "I don't know."

Jay tried calling her for what felt like the fiftieth time, but there was still no answer. Somehow, they had managed to lose their only female detective.

LINSTEAD LINSTEAD LINSTEAD

"I'm trying to trace her phone, but I'm not getting a location." Mouse informed the team as he frantically typed on his computer. "Guys, I need a little space."

Jay realized he was hovering, and when he looked over, he saw everyone else was trying as hard as they could to get a look at the computer screen.

"Everyone, get back to your desks. I want to know everything there is to know about Owen Reynolds. I want you to dig deeper. Find out if he has family who could be helping him or if there are any known gang associations. I'm assuming they have Erin and we need to get her back as soon as possible." Voight ordered. Al came up the stairs. "How's Atwater?"

"Bullet missed anything major, but he's going to be out for a couple days. He's being kept overnight at Med."

Jay felt his phone vibrate right as he sat down at his desk. He almost died in relief when he saw it was his girlfriend. "Guys, it's Erin."

He answered the FaceTime request and saw that Erin was unconscious on a concrete floor somewhere.

"Poor Detective Lindsay." A voice from behind the camera said. It turned and he recognized Owen Reynolds. "You are Jay Halstead, correct? Her boyfriend?"

"You better not get near her." Jay practically growled. Voight signaled for Mouse to track the call as he moved to stand beside Jay.

"I think I'm the one in position to be giving orders here." Owen smiled. "Now, what would I like in exchange for Detective Lindsay's life?"

"You are going to return her to us without her being harmed, do you understand me?" Voight asked.

"But you see, I'm going to need some incentive first. I want five million dollars."

Voight shook his head. "That's not going to happen."

"It is going to happen or your detective here will be killed." Owen leaned down and ran a hand across Erin's face. "She is gorgeous, you know. I see why you chose to be with her, Detective Halstead."

"Get off of her." Jay said through clenched teeth.

Owen laughed. "Do you see how much control I have?" he leaned down and pressed a kiss to Erin's forehead. "I can do whatever I want to her."

"When do you want the money?" Hank demanded.

"I knew you would see it my way. I want five million by midnight tonight. I will send you the location later on." The call ended.

"Did you get a location?" Jay questioned Mouse.

"No, he hung up before I could finish."

"It's a little after 6pm right now. How are we going to get five million in less than six hours?" Antonio wondered.

"I'll handle that. All of you, keep looking into Owen Reynolds. We're not going in blind again."

LINSTEAD LINSTEAD LINSTEAD

"I just got an address!" Mouse called out to the team. It was 11:00pm and they were all anxiously waiting for information. "It's thirty minutes away."

"Alright, everyone get to the cars! We're going in there and getting Erin back!" Hank shouted to his team. "Everyone goes home tonight!"

Jay didn't have a good feeling about this. They were going in without Erin or Atwater, so their normal seven-person team was now down to five. There was a bigger chance that things would go wrong than that they would go right, and the whole team seemed to be feeling it.

"Calm down, Halstead. I can feel your anxiety from here." Voight ordered. The two men were in one car together, followed by another car that contained Antonio, Al, and Ruzek.

"Sorry."

"We'll get her back. No matter what we have to do in there, we'll get her back." Voight stated.

"She was so vulnerable. He could hurt her however he wanted to." Jay shook his head. "I want to kill this man with my bare hands."

"Don't think about that. Just worry about getting to Erin."

The team arrived at an abandoned warehouse at 11:36pm. The five men assembled their weapons and got to the door of the building. Ruzek went to kick it in, but Jay stopped him.

"Remember who we're dealing with here. He's big on explosives."

After determining that there weren't any explosives attached to the door, Ruzek rammed into it with his shoulder. Nothing could have prepared them for what they saw next.

Erin was passed out in a chair in the center of the room with a bomb attached to her chest. Jay ran to her as the other four men cleared the rest of the warehouse. The first thing he did was press his fingers to her neck; he was relieved to feel a strong, steady pulse.

She started to move around as she woke up. Jay kept his hands on her cheeks and tried to get her to stay as still as possible; he didn't know what would trigger the bomb and he couldn't risk it going off.

"Jay?" her eyes opened and she made eye contact with him. "What happened?"

"Baby, I need you to stay still, okay? You're safe. We're here now." He could hear Antonio on the phone with the bomb squad, but he tried to pretend that wasn't happening.

"Why?" she looked down and saw the bomb strapped to her. Erin's eyes widened and he could see the panic. "Jay…"

"It's okay. We're going to get it off of you, alright? I need you to stay calm and stay still."

"Bomb squad will be here in fifteen minutes." Antonio announced. "How you doing, Linds?"

She smiled nervously and then looked back towards Jay. "Does it have a timer?"

Jay looked down at the bomb and tried to pretend that it wasn't attached to his girlfriend's chest. It only took him a few seconds to find the timer; the bomb was set to go off in twelve minutes.

"Get bomb squad on the phone and tell them we need them here faster." Jay called out.

"How much time is there?" Erin started to panic.

"Just focus on staying calm, okay?" Jay stroked her hair gently. "We're not gonna let anything happen to you."

"Halstead, how much time?" Voight demanded.

"Eleven minutes." Jay noticed that Erin's ankles and wrists were tied to the chair. "Let's cut her out of these ropes."

"No." Voight vetoed. "We need you to stay as still as possible, so we're going to keep you tied up, Erin. But as soon as bomb squad gets this thing defused, we'll let you out."

"I'm scared." She admitted.

"Hey, it's gonna be alright." Jay moved back and Voight put his hand on Erin's cheek. "We'll get this taken care of."

"You don't know that." She bit her bottom lip and both men could see that she was fighting back tears.

"Yes I do because we're not giving up on you, Erin."

"Mouse is tracking Owen Reynolds' phone." Antonio stated. "I'm gonna get Burgess and Roman on it."

"Good." Voight kissed the top of Erin's head. "Stay calm, kid. Al, come look at this."

Alvin walked over. He smiled at Erin before looking at the bomb. "I've seen one like it before. It shouldn't take long to defuse."

"Think you can do it?" Voight wondered.

"No." Jay stepped in. "We're not trained to do this. We can't risk her life. We should wait for bomb squad."

"When I was about your age, I was overseas and one of my buddies got stuck in a room with a bomb on the door. I disabled it in less than a minute and he walked out of there alive. I've done it before, Halstead. It's not my specialty, but I've done it before." Alvin said.

"Sarge, please." Jay practically begged.

"Erin, what do you think?" Voight asked.

"You don't think bomb squad will get here in time." She realized. "That's why you want to do it." Voight nodded. "If it's the only option, then what choice do we have?"

"Antonio, call them again. See when they'll be here." Jay pleaded. The older man dialed the number.

"How far out are you…alright…" he held the phone away from his ear. "They're twelve minutes out."

"Bomb goes off in nine minutes." Voight reminded him. "Put them on speaker, Antonio, and then get out of here."

"What?"

"Ruzek, go with him. That's an order."

"We're not leaving, Sarge." Antonio refused.

"I don't know how this is going to go down. It's hard enough having Erin in this situation. The whole team isn't going down." Voight turned to Jay. "You should go."

"Hell no." Jay went over to Erin and kissed her forehead. "You're going to have to drag me out of here to get me to leave her."

"Al, you good to do this?" Voight asked. "I can listen to directions if you want to go."

"Erin's been like a daughter to me since she was fifteen. You'll be dragging me out with Halstead."

"Alright, then it's settled." Voight turned to Antonio. "I don't know what you're still doing here."

"We're a team. I'm not leaving without my team."

Ruzek voiced his agreement. "Lindsay wouldn't leave us. We're not going anywhere."

"Everybody be quiet." Voight took Antonio's phone to speak to the sergeant of bomb squad. "I'm going to need you to walk us through this because it's going to go off before you get here."

Jay tuned out the conversation that was going on. He stood next to Erin and stroked her hair. "Close your eyes."

"No." she objected.

"You're going to stress yourself out by watching. Just close your eyes."

She looked at him. "I don't want you to stay."

"That's too bad."

"If something happens to me…"

"If something happens to you then I might as well be dead anyway. I'm not leaving, Erin. Now close your eyes." She took a deep breath and then shut her eyes. "What's something that you've always wanted to do?"

A tear slid down Erin's cheek. "Go to a beach."

"You've never been to the beach before?" Jay asked in surprise.

"Bunny didn't have enough money to feed us, let alone take us on vacation. And by the time I moved in with Hank and Camille, they were more worried about keeping Justin and me out of trouble than going to a beach. I've always wondered what the beach is like. It looks so beautiful in pictures."

"The sand is always really hot, unless you go at night or early in the morning. It burns your feet when you walk on it, and it gets into everything. When you go in the water, it's so open. When you're a kid, you feel invincible when you run into it. As I got older, I started to realize how dangerous it was, but it still didn't stop me. My parents took us on vacation once to Florida, I think I was 12 and Will was 13. We took out our rafts as far as we could get them and sat down and waited for the waves to crash on us. My mom almost had a heart attack because she was terrified we would get eaten by sharks or the current would pull us away, but Will and I had never had so much fun. You had to hold onto the rafts as tight as you could so you wouldn't lose them, but you wanted to make sure you held your nose when you went under or you would get blasted in the face with salt water. We'll go to the beach one day and I'll show you how much fun it is."

Erin opened her eyes. "You promise?"

"Of course I do." He smiled at her. She started to turn her head to see what Al and Voight were doing, but Jay put his fingers over her eyes to gently close them. "Have you ever been camping?"

"A couple times. When I was 17, Hank packed us all up and said we were going camping for the weekend. Justin was ecstatic, but Camille and I weren't too happy. He dragged us to some campsite and taught us how to set up a tent and build a fire and all that. It was so hot; Camille kept fanning herself with a magazine and yelling at Hank for dragging her out there."

Jay heard Voight laugh quietly. "She wasn't a fan of the outdoors."

"No, she hated the woods. On the second night we were there, Camille and I heard a noise from our tent."

"You shared with Camille?" Jay asked.

"I was 17 and Justin was 14; Hank didn't trust us to be alone in our own tent, which was unreasonable. But anyway, Camille and I were terrified and we were convinced someone was there to kill us, but it was just Hank and Justin scaring us."

"Sarge, I can't imagine you walking around a tent at night just to scare someone." Ruzek chimed in from behind Erin.

Hank smiled. "It was worth it."

"Hey Erin, you know what we all should do together sometime?" Antonio said. "Skydiving."

"No thanks." She responded.

Jay was grateful everyone was getting involved because he was starting to lose focus on keeping her distracted. Alvin and Voight were starting to look more and more worried, and a glance at the timer told him there was only three minutes left until the bomb would go off.

"I don't see what you're talking about." Al said as soon as the group got quiet. Erin's eyes opened as she turned to look at Jay.

"Jay…"

"You're okay, baby." He held her hand tightly in his and leaned forward to kiss her cheek. "I can't wait until one day when all our kids can play together. Ours will be the most beautiful, obviously. Ruzek will man up and make things right with Burgess and they'll have their kids, and Antonio will bring Eva and Diego, and Atwater will find some unlucky girl to have a couple kids with and we'll have barbeques and picnics and campouts and all kinds of fun things. Our kids will grow up with a big family, even if they may not be biological."

Erin's tears started to fall a little faster. "If the bomb goes off…"

"The bomb isn't going to go off." Jay reassured her.

"But if it does, then I want you to know how much I love you. I want you to know how thankful I am for everything that you've done for me. I appreciate every time that you've had my back and listened to me rant and taken care of me. You're one of the best thing that's ever happened to me, Jay. I love you."

"I love you too." He leaned forward to kiss her lips. They held it for a few seconds, despite the fact that Jay knew everyone else was probably looking at them. When he pulled back, he kissed Erin's forehead and then moved back so he could see her face.

"Alright everyone, this is it." Al announced. He held the knife against one of the wires. The whole team stood around that chair, waiting to see what would happen. Jay squeezed Erin's hand as Al sliced through the wire.

The timer went off as the bomb was defused.

"Thank God." Voight sighed. "Let's get her out of this chair." He took the knife and cut the bomb from her first, then cut the ties around her wrists and ankles. As soon as she was free, Jay leaned forward and lifted her off of the chair. He hugged her as tight as he could. He felt the rest of the team patting his and Erin's shoulders, but all he could focus on was her.

He set Erin back on the ground and she hugged each member of the team and thanked them for staying by her. She went to Voight last and he kissed her forehead and promised he would never leave her, no matter what.

"You all should be proud of yourselves for putting your lives on the line for your partner. This unit is a family and I have never been happier to call myself your sergeant." Voight stated.

"Burgess and Roman got Reynolds." Antonio informed them as he looked at his phone.

"Let's make sure he knows we beat him." Voight led the way out of the warehouse.

Jay and Erin were the last to walk out. He grabbed her hand and stroked it gently with his thumb. "You okay?"

"Yeah." He could see how shaky he was, so he stopped her from walking any further. He wrapped both arms around her and rested his chin on top of her head.

"You're alright. I've got you." He kissed her temple. "I love you so much."

"I love you too." He felt her body stop shaking as she hugged him back. As terrified as he had been, Jay knew she would be okay.

Next up… P: Panic Switch