Title: So It Goes
Author: ZombieJazz
Fandom: Chicago PD
Disclaimer: I don't own them. Chicago PD and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The character of Ethan has been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.
Summary: Hank Voight and his family try to cope with their struggles at home and work — and the dynamics those conflicting circumstances creat for their blended family in a time of transition. The series focuses on Voight, his sick and disabled son — and what's left of his family and their strained relationships, particularly that with Erin Lindsay and Jay Halstead as they work at establishing their own lives as a young couple.
This is a collection of one-shots/scenes using the characters as represented in the AU established in Interesting Dynamics. The chapters currently represent scenes happening in approximately S04 of the series or early 2017.
As I continue to update, they'll just provide one-shot snap shots into the characters' lives and likely some recasts of scenes from the show.
This is not a linear narrative with a beginning-middle-end. It's just scenes. It is generally set so it begins around the mid-point of Season 4 (or about January/February 2017) and may occasionally draw reference to (and have SPOILERS) from the series.
A notification is provided at the beginning of each chapter about where it happens in relation to the other chapters, if they are out of sequence. Chapters will be re-ordered semi-regularly (i.e. if you're reading this weeks or months after the chapter was originally posted, it's likely now in the right place, so just ignore the notification).
SPOILER ALERT: There are MAJOR spoilers in this collection from Interesting Dynamics, So This is Christmas, Scenes and Aftermath. This series also contains SPOILERS related to the finale of Season 3 of Chicago PD and will have occasionally spoilers from Season 4 of the show.
THIS CHAPTER WOULD GO IMMEDIATELY AFTER WHAT IS CURRENTLY CHAPTER 11 — WANTS AND NEEDS.
Hank came in the back door of the house, giving his boots a stomp while he shucked off his jacket to hang up.
"Hi Dad …" he heard a little weakly from just inside the breezeway door. Clear indication that Magoo was likely sitting at the little table – hopefully doing his homework. Or maybe working on getting some food ready for the two of them based on the smell of the house, the telltale clicks he could hear coming out of their dated oven's element.
Just grunted at his boy, though. Long day. Real long fucking day. Long night. Just a long fucking case. All were. But they hit you even more sideways when the family of one of your crew is involved. Always seemed to fucking stab into him even more when they got cases like this.
Rapes. Sexual assault. Of women. Of little kids. Just really couldn't stand them. Couldn't stand the men – the fucking animals – that committed those kinds of crimes. Kind of thing that went to people's core in a whole other way. Kind of thing they never fucking recovered from. The kind of thing he didn't want to exist in his city. The kind of people who didn't deserve to fucking breath the same air as the rest of humanity. Because they weren't fucking human. Animals. Didn't even deserve to call them that. Did a disservice to the real animals. A whole lot of animals – species – better than those fucking monsters.
So a grunt was all E got. For the moment. As he stooped to unlace his boots. To kick them off. Because he hadn't been expecting him to be sitting right inside the door. Had come in through the back breezeway specifically because he'd figured his boy would be working on his homework in the dining room or flaked out in the front room trying to stretch the limits of his screen-time with having the house to himself for a bit that evening. Had wanted to get in the door without having to instantly go into his father mode. The fucking evening routine mode. Had just wanted to have a few more minutes to decompress a bit from the night. The fucking day. The fucking case. To ease back into his job as a father and away from the job. To pour himself a fucking drink.
The funny thing with Magoo was that he so fucking knew that his boy being home – being sick, needing him, being a single father – it'd really fucking stabilized. Really had. Had in ways that Hank wasn't even sure he'd fully appreciated he needed until his son got expelled, until they got that diagnosis and until he'd been forced in a whole new way to not just care for – love – his boy as his son, but to actually really get to know him. To know the brain-damaged kid he'd brought home those years ago rather than clinging to the memories of Cami's baby boy that she'd waited for for so long. And he was a different kid.
But what kid at one versus at seven versus at thirteen isn't fucking different? Maybe not this different.
But there was still a lot of sameness in Magoo. The glimpses of Cami's baby boy were still there. His looks. His ticks. But for all the parts of E that weren't his mom's previous little brainiac oddball, he'd really grown to like – to love – the kid he did have now. Even though he was tough.
It was really fucking hard raising him alone – without his wife and without his mother. It was really fucking hard trying to understand and relate to some of his interests. And the fucking generation gap with E? Just so fucking different. Different than J's. So fucking different than Erin's.
Just showed how much technology and society had changed in the sixteen-seventeen years that separated his daughter from his little boy. Made him a little sad. Not just for his boy. For kids these days. What they were growing up in. How they were going up. It was all just real different. And sometimes that was just real fucking hard to wrap his head around too.
And society these days – a kid like Magoo – you couldn't just go with the "I'm your father" route. You had to try to relate to them in a whole different way. Needed to be a part of their lives in a whole different way. You really did. Too many fucking banana peels for them anymore. Whole new fucking ways for them to get in trouble. Whole different kind of predators trying to lure them and hurt them in whole new ways.
Fucking new terminology – fucking catch phrases – around frat bullshit of "no, means yes." Turning it all into a fucking game – and selling it as that. Trying to convince people that women are just some pawns there for your pleasure. A way to score points. "Artificial resistance". "Desired state of consent." He couldn't remotely relate to who any of the assholes in that full showroom could relate to – or want to relate to, or fucking internalize – that bullshit. They'd paid their five-hundred bucks entrance fee and bought right into it. Like none of these men had grown up with mothers or sisters. Like none of them had had daughters. Like their five-hundred bucks now entailed them to get whatever women they fucking set their eyes on and decided they wanted. Not taking a good look at themselves and thinking about if they fucking deserved to be with anyone. And Voight didn't need to look at them too hard to know that anyone setting down the cash for that seminar didn't deserve to be near anyone in the human species – man or woman.
And this "pretending to resist"? Fucking new catch phrase around a woman playing hard to get. Cock-teasing. Never liked those phrases either. The fucking notion that they existed outside of a consensual relationship either. This fucking suggestion that even after you were in a consensual relationship that your girlfriend or wife or spouse or whatever somehow owed you a fuck? That "no" didn't exist in a previously established "consensual relationships"? That your significant other wasn't allowed to – or you allowed yourself – to get going and then decide you weren't going to get to seal the deal?
He didn't know what planet guys who felt that way lived on. But twenty-some years of marriage – with a girl he'd known since before he started having episodes where he thought with his dick – had more then taught him that wasn't the way it worked. Had heard a whole lot of no. Had a whole lot of false starts. And if having a spouse hadn't been enough of a reality check about that – having a mother smacking him up the side of the head as a teenager had driven it home. And raising a teenaged girl had pretty much driven a stake in it. Consent was consent. It's not a fucking grey area. And no is no. A fucking two-letter, one syllable word. Not hard to understand. And it sure as fuck didn't need to be a verbal exclamation of it to get the fucking point either.
Then roll into it these assholes – hitting on, fucking – girls young enough to be their daughters? Daughters – girls, women – they should be fucking protecting. Setting a fucking example for them. Teaching them. Taking care of them. Making the world and society a fucking better place for them. Not making it more fucking unsafe than life already was.
Thing with cases like this – they didn't just fucking eat at you on a work-front. On this kind of shit going on in your city front. It bugged you as a man. But it eat at you as a father too. It makes you think a fucking lot about he women in your life. The shit they have to deal with from some of these fucking pigs. Admit that it made him think of Cami. Even made him think about his own mom. Had a lot of years of living after his dad was gone and a lot of years out working in male-heavy environments. That just made him of Olive.
But also just made him think of his girl. Keep eyes on her – and Burgess. But think too much about some of the shit Erin had been put through by these fucking monsters when she was still just a kid. And the ways as a man – as a father – he could still se her carrying some of it now. Had spent all the years raising her – watching how she interacted with men and boys and relationships and even how she saw herself and held herself and the fronts she put on for other people – seeing how it'd fucked her up. And it never went away. And that hurt more too.
Made him hurt real hard for Kim and her sister and that little niece of hers at home too. Because that sort of thing just trickles and impacts the whole family in a whole lot of ways. And it just fucking shifts how all the women in that family – even how all the decent men in that family – would see the rest of the males of the species for the rest of their lives too. A whole lot of distrust and anger and fear and anxiety eating them up forever – which just manifests itself in all kinds of ways. Thoughts and actions that might be what need to be done but may not lead to the best outcome for any of them in the end.
He knew that from experience too. But sometimes you did what you had to do in the fucking moment.
It'd all just sent him back to thinking about Magoo. Thinking about the things they did and didn't talk about. And even for all the things they did touch on – even though he knew how he felt about women and respect and equality, even though he knew that E had his sister and had grown up with little girl friends – he also knew that E didn't have a relationship on display for him at home. He didn't have a mom there in his daily life. He'd spent two fucking years at a boys' boarding school. He was at a Catholic school that didn't do a whole lot of talking along the lines of sex ed – and consent and boundaries. And he was surrounded by a lot of kids with their hormones kicking in. He'd already been hurt by some little girls who just were mean. Because kids could be really fucking cruel – just like a whole lot of adults.
But it got him thinking about if he was doing enough, saying enough. If the kid was getting enough of an example. If having a sister was enough. Erin having a relationship was enough. If him talking to Eth about his mom was enough and making sure the kid knew how much he loved and respected Cami – not just as a woman but as a person. As a really smart, capable, stubborn, giving, caring and independent person. A person he probably needed a whole fucking lot more than she needed him. But that she'd decided – made her own fucking choice without much coercion because he was sure far from being a fucking romantic – she was going to make a life and family with him.
Just these … fucking rape seminars, in his fucking city. These fucking losers – not even old men, young guys – thinking that … women fucking owed them something. That they could take. That how what they were doing was remotely OK. How they'd fucking convinced themselves of that? Bought into it? What kind of families did these fucking assholes grow up in? What kind of fucking examples were they getting that they thought this was OK? That they fucking had chips on their shoulder so big that they thought that they should be God's gift to women? That women had to fucking care they existed? That they'd want to let them into their space and life?
He'd sent the types over and over again in his career. He knew them when he was a kid himself. He'd dealt with domestics and assaults at homes and parties and bars over and over again as a young cop. He'd dealt with rape cases. He'd interacted with the vics and the perps. But these fucking seminars and online fucking "coaches" and "tutors" was just a whole new fucking dynamic of assholes finding more assholes. To convince themselves that they were the normal ones. That they were in the ones in the right.
It wasn't new. These animals always existed. But they were just finding new ways to peddle their wares. To legitimatize their existence. And to find their fucking prey. And they were trying to confuse the picture and press their belief structure onto the unsuspecting as gospel. And there were too many impressionable minds being exposed to it. Lived too much in a society that bombarded the impressionable with images and sound bites and false arguments presented as fact to try to make this shit the acceptable reality. Had a fucking president of the country telling society that this was an OK way to be treating women. How do you compete against that shit. The internet. Television. Media. Chat forums. Twitter. Instagram. All this stream of crap hitting at you from every direction.
And you've got a thirteen-year-old kid at home? A boy? How the fuck do you make sure they've got their head on straight?
You want to think example is enough. But what example did E have? Hank wanted to think E knew this shit. That they talked about this shit. But the more he thought about it, the more he wondered when he was fighting that kind of uphill battle if talk was enough. If they'd even fucking talked about enough. He talked to the kid about the birds and the bees. He was trying to keep an open dialogue about it. Trying to make sure the kid had a healthy dose of self-respect and respect for who ever he was with. That he was safe and smart and responsible when he reached that milestone in his life. But as much as he felt he'd talked about it and as much as he felt the kid got it – did he really get it?
Society – the wrong fucking parts of society – seemed to want to muddle up what consent was. Voight wanted to think it was a simple concept. He wanted to think that E knew understood it. He wanted to think that his son respected women. That he saw women – the little girls in his life – as equals. That it was all just a given to his boy. That that was the way he was raised. That it was the example he was getting.
But shit like this just made him think that maybe it wasn't enough. Maybe it would've been enough if his mom was still around. If he was living in a house that had a mom and a dad and a stable, loving relationship. A marriage. A little nuclear family.
But that wasn't what they were anymore. And maybe he was royally fucking this up too.
And as much as he loved his boy. As much as he loved being a father. As much as he loved his family. It just had been one of those fucking days where he had wanted some time out. For himself. To get his head on straight. To decompress. To go to the Social Club. To play a few hands of cards. To have a couple drinks. To likely shoot the shit with some guys who probably said some shit about women and affairs and mistresses and girlfriends and wives and daughters that still probably would've rubbed him the wrong way after this case. But it would've been different than coming home. It would've been a reprieve from weighing what he was doing right and what he was doing wrong. And trying to figure out how to get it to fucking balance so that a few years down the road – which was charging up on him way too quickly – he'd be sending a quality man out into the world. One he'd be proud of how he lived his life and conducted himself. One for all the shit he fucking worried about with Magoo – him being a fucking misogynist, rapist or plain old male pig at least wouldn't be on the list.
Reality was, though, he was a father. And he understood the responsibilities that came with it. And he'd paid for it other times he'd taken his eyes off his kids. Even when he felt like he needed the fucking alone time, when he wanted to be that loner or fucking lone wolf he often was. Even when he thought he needed time to get his head on straight. Truth was that you didn't get that luxury a lot as a parent. Just had to keep going forward and making the decisions best you knew how in the moment. So you went back to your responsibilities. You were there for them. And you fucking hoped that eventually that would balance out to being enough.
So rather than check-out on Magoo for another hour or two – he'd gone home. Where he was wanted. Needed. Where he was supposed to be. Where he needed to be too – for himself. But he'd at least hoped that day he'd get in the door and get started on a drink. Like most things in life, though. Wasn't going to quite work out that way.
He stepped into the kitchen, and his boy was sitting right at the table – closest to the door. His damn mutt – who'd at least had enough sense to let him get his coat and boots off without barging into him – had decided now was the time to get up from where he was slumped at E's feet and ram his nose right into his thigh. But Hank took it, scruffing roughly between Bear's ears.
Magoo gave him a glance. Couldn't see the kid's face or eyes. Had his fucking ball cap on. And that was a no-go. He reached and knocked the brim up, catching E's eyes and then pulling the hat off his head, setting it on the table next to his kid.
"No hats inside," he put to him flatly. Kid knew the rule. But had the thing on so much, forgot half the time it was even on his head.
Kid just looked at him, though. No comment. No argument. Just stared straight up at him – his neck craned back to meet his eyes. And, as usual, it was Camille's eyes staring right at him. No matter how used he was to seeing his wife's eyes in his boy's sockets – there were still some days where there was more to that look. That it wasn't just Magoo who was looking at him. That Cami was still there and boring into his soul somehow when she had something to say to him. Something she wanted him or needed him to know. Or just when he needed to be told off some and take a bit of a kick in the ass.
E, though, just gave him a quiet little smile and Hank stroked his thumb across his forehead as he tired to get a reading on what those eyes meant that evening. What they should be meaning to him or saying to him. Or if it was just a quiet message to again get his head on straight. To again let E be that stabilizing force in his life. To fucking accept that E surviving on one of the worst days of his life had launched the little boy farther into being one of the best things that ever happened. To fucking accept that as a gift his wife had left behind for him. Another way she took care of all of them. Still did.
"Sure smells good in here, Magoo," Hank provided.
The quiet smile got a little shyer and his boy shrugged. "It's just the lemon herb chicken bake you showed me."
Hank allowed him his own quiet smile. "Like that one."
"I think Erin does too," E said. "She makes it all the time. 'Cuz it's easy."
"Hmm," he grunted. "Know who taught her that one?"
"You …," E allowed dismissively.
Hank shook his head, rubbing his thumb down his boy's forehead. "Your mom."
The little smile flickered on Magoo's face agin. "I made four," he said. "Because I thought Erin and Jay might come too. But she never answered my text."
He grunted again. "Likely sleeping," he allowed. "Real long night for your sister."
E gave him some quiet scrutiny. "You look pretty tired too, Dad."
Hank allowed a thin smile and moved his hand, swishing his son's thin, short, tuffy wisps of bangs back and stooped just briefly to put a kiss against his forehead. Just touched his lips there and raised, using his hand to give his boy's hair a small tug and his head a little shake.
"Never too tired for you," he said, keeping his boy's eyes for a moment and then letting him go. Going to the counter and the cupboard – getting a mug. Because he'd do coffee rather than rye. And he'd do homework rather than play Pinochle.
And he'd recognize he already had a good boy. And he'd forego sleep – and a whole lot of other things – to make sure he was giving Chicago … society, the world … a good man.
AUTHOR NOTE: So this chapter was meant to be a Hank and Ethan conversation but turned into something else. I might do a Part 2 of this scene that's more of the conversation. Or I might end up just touching on it again later. Not sure yet.
I have the Star Wars Florida Day chapter about 1/3rd written. It might appear next. Or I might pick at some of the other scenes that I want to be doing. I have a handful that aren't related to Florida. Some heavy and some not.
This chapter would've been set before the Florida trip. It will be re-ordered later.
A Hank/Al chapter was posted in this story. And a Hank/Erin chapter was posted a week or so ago over in Aftermath.
There is a small possibility that I MIGHT be posting a new story that would only be a handful of chapters (not sure how many but likely not more than 12). It'd use the characters and their backstories as depicted in this AU. But it'd be set … maybe 2-3-ish years into the future. So it'd be sort of a divergence in that these scenes would continue to be vaguely inspired and influenced by some of the events and stories in the TV series cannon. So basically the stories/characters/arcs might not completely jive. If that makes sense. Basically it'd be a standalone story within the AU. Like a fanfic of the fanfic? That likely doesn't make sense. … Hmm. Basically these scenes aren't working toward the goal/action/plot that would appear in the standalone?
Anyway. Since that's probably confusing, I'm actually now thinking that it might be too confusing to write and/or post that. Especially without people wanting me to start making So It Goes working toward the goalpost depicted in that story. Which is not the intention of So It Goes.
Anyway, the feedback, comments and reviews on this chapter of So It Goes is appreciated. know that it's spring break and easter and end-of-term stuff for a lot of people. And just spring being a crazy busy time of year, so my readership and number of reviews have really dropped off. While, I seriously don't expect people to review every chapter, I do find getting a nice handful of reviews each chapter as a form of motivation to continue writing. And also, when I don't get them I often feel like it really must've sucked bad. And/or I just feel that it's not really worth the time.
I know there's a group of you who really like that the Florida chapters are "light". And I do still intend to pick at finishing the last few. But they just ended up taking longer to do than expected and I do have other ideas that I want to explore too.