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 GOES AFTER WHAT IS CURRENTLY CHAPTER 33 — HIDDEN TRUTHS.
Jay sat back in his chair and gave Erin a small smile, finding her hand under the table to give it a squeeze on her lap. She returned it - and the smile.
Jay felt sated. And not just because of the meal. Though, that likely helped.
He'd definitely eaten. But that was technically why they were there. But it was more than that.
It'd been a meal. Like a real fucking meal. And something everyone sitting around that table had contributed to in some way. That it wasn't just Hank tossing the ribs on the grill with his little smoker box. It was the sauce he'd made up and slathered them in. That was fucking magic. So fucking magic he might allow himself to stoop to the level of asking for the recipe so he could slather it on barbecue of his own at home. It was the tray of deviled eggs that Olive had managed to whip up and bring over after getting an official invite. The ones that tasted so good, you knew that they'd been prepped long before she actually got that official go-ahead for coming over so the filling had absorbed all the flavors and seasonings that made you want to eat the whole fucking tray of them and pretty much blow your diet attempts out of the water. It was the coleslaw that Erin would've normally just dumped into a bowl out of a bag (or more likely grabbed an uncouth handful of a dropped it on a plate and called it a 'side' for whatever their dinner was). But she hadn't that day. She'd actually chopped cabbage and shredded carrots and broccoli and diced up chives into minuscule bits. And made an actual dressing to go on it – not just put oil and vinegar on the table beside the salt and pepper. It was Ethan setting out all his pickled everything – pickles, onions, olives, asparagus on a plate to actually share rather than hoarding it in the fridge and snapping at anyone who touched it. It was despite that kid being stoned out of his head and tremoring real bad that he'd managed to stand at the kitchen counter and slice tomatoes and cucumbers and red peppers to put out for them to crunch on when they weren't just packing away the sodium, oils and proteins of dinner.
And the underlying statement of it all was that it wasn't because it was just a decent Saturday spring afternoon and warranted some time in the yard and with food that made it feel more like summer. The repeated message was that it was because it was his birthday. And it wasn't even his birthday. Not anymore. Not that day.
And this just wasn't something he was that used to. Because even when he was a kid – when his mom had still be around while he was growing up – it'd never really felt like it was a special day that anyone wanted to celebrate even if it got a vague acknowledgement. At least from his mom. At breakfast with some colorful sprinkles on his peanut butter toast and a glass of chocolate milk to wash it down – when they didn't buy chocolate milk other weeks of the year. And in that chocolate cake he'd get at dinner. But that was always the extent of it. And it'd been nice. She'd made it nice for him. As nice as she could given the circumstances of their family's dynamic – given how his dad and his brother were.
But this was different. And it was nice too. In a different way. It was different in that it wasn't just those little moments that felt nice. It wasn't just his mom – and her efforts – that felt nice. That day – today – the whole day was nice and it just had him feeling kind of at ease. Sated.
And part of him knew that he shouldn't entirely feel that way. He almost felt guilty feeling that way. Because there were other things going on. In their lives. In his. That Erin was struggling with the shooting. That he'd had his own ups and downs the past several months. And so had he. That stuff was going on with Eth that had them worried. That both their families – on either side of them – were a fucking constant source of politics and stress. That they had money and mortgage and life as a couple and life as individuals and crap at work – and with their boss – issues. That they still had a whole fucking lot to do in … just working on their relationship. And figuring their lives out – or their life together – out.
But at the same time … the good days. The spectacularly less than shitty days, you needed to hold onto. Even when you were mucking through other shit – you still had to enjoy these days. And Jay had that day. He really fucking had. It'd been more than a decent day amid the muck.
Erin always talked about how dysfunctional her family was. And he wouldn't argue with her that it was. They had an interesting dynamic. And that was putting it politely. They were kind of fucked up. But they somehow made it work. Work in a way that Jay didn't think him and Will and his dad could ever manage. A way that Jay knew he'd never really be willing to manage at this point in his life.
He wasn't sure he was convinced it was worth it. Or that he wanted to try. And go through the stress of working on that area of his life. Or his past. His history. His family. That a lot of times didn't feel so much like family as some genetic legacy he was just trying to forget was attached to him.
Sometimes he felt bad that he felt that. Because he knew it'd likely hurt his mom. Maybe not so much that he had no relationship with his dad – but that him and Will still struggled so much. But they were getting better. They were trying. Jay had tried that hard. And so had Will. To varying degrees. But it was all still a bit of a mess.
And it was almost embarrassing. Because Hank had again told him he could – or should – invite Will (and by default Nina) over for dinner too. And even though he knew he didn't need to give Voight much of an explanation about how fucked up his own family was, he'd still felt like he'd be some fucking dunce and look like the dick if he didn't at least call Will. So he had. And again Will had decided it wasn't worth coming over for a couple hours. That grabbing a drink on his birthday was too much to ask for him. Sitting through a hockey game together wasn't something he wanted to do. That a post-birthday dinner was only possible with pub grub and made awkward with Nina and Natalie in attendance. And that he wasn't going to give him two hours on a Saturday either to have a barbecue and some cake with his fiancée's side of the family.
And that was the even more embarrassing part. Because these people had no real reason to bother doing anything for him. They didn't even need to acknowledge it was his birthday – or it had been that week. They didn't need to carve out time in their weekend for him. They didn't need to make a meal for him. They didn't need to bake a cake for him. They didn't need to have any sort of gifts or cards for him. That they weren't blood. That beyond Erin they really could've just acted like they didn't know. Or even if they did – they didn't have any reason to really care. But they fucking did. They did enough for Hank and Ethan and Olive and Henry to be sitting there – in Voight's fucking house sharing an evening together … because of him. For him. And his own brother – his own flesh and blood – couldn't show up.
He wanted to tell himself – or to buy Will's excuse – about his brother and Nina being at a bit of a crossroads in their relationship. That he needed to spend more of his time off with her and fix it a bit. But he also didn't buy it. Because the relationship had been a mess from the get-go. And Will never knew how to fix these things. He just fucking made them worse. The way he made them worse was just fully illustrated in the fact he thought it was a great idea to bring fucking Natalie to dinner the other day. Will excelled at making the awkward more awkward. Because he convinced himself if he pretended like it wasn't awkward than it wouldn't be. But that wasn't how the world worked.
And he'd again made shit awkward by not agreeing to come over for food and not having any sort of reasonable excuse he could give to Voight beyond just saying Will was busy. And all that had gotten was a knowing grunt from the guy. And Jay supposed at least he knew. But that was just fucking embarrassing too.
Because it just farther highlighted what a fucking mess his relationships with his remaining family was. With his brother. And with his dad.
And even if Jay decided he did want to work on any of that at any point in time, he couldn't see his relationship with his dad as being anything better than a bit of a mess. It wasn't even really worth trying. It never had been. His dad had never tried anyways either – and he was supposed to be the father, the parent, the man. He was supposed to raise a son. Sons. But instead he always seemed to put those duties – and that role – on a backburner. And sometimes Jay felt like he'd been completely shoved off the stove. Out of sight as much as possible. Forgotten on some counter. That fucking side dish that no one even wanted on their plate. Leftovers destined for the fucking trash.
It was like spending time with Erin – with her family had just driven that point home even more. It was days like that day that drove it home even more.
Days when he was at the Voights' house. When he saw what a fucking hard ass Voight could be with Eth but how fucking … just present for the kid he was when he was home too. How much he fucking loved that kid – his son, his youngest. Doted on him and consoled him even when he was at him about every little thing in getting him to grow up but not to get too fucking big for his shorts at the same time.
It was just how much of a fucking dad and a granddad Voight was. How he was sitting there at the opposite side of the table with Eth next to him – near leaning into him because even for how acrimonious the two of them could be, that whole still touch and comfort each other in some guy-like-manly way between father and son still existed – and Henry sitting on his lap. That as fucking usual, despite the cake in front of him – Voight seemed far more interested in picking the strawberries off the top and putting them over on Eth's plate. Saving only a couple to keep with him – but not for himself. They were getting cut up into smaller pieces to let Henry shove into his mouth. To let Henry keep stealing his fork licking the crumbs of cake and icing off it. Getting a mess of cake and icing and ice cream and strawberry goo all over his face and Voight seeming completely undisturbed by it despite his fucking neat-freak and organizational tendencies. That he was far more concerned with just letting the baby enjoy himself and letting everyone else smile at him and take pictures of the impending sugar rush and crash before bedtime.
And for a guy who beat the living shit out of people in the cage and rammed them up against walls in interrogation rooms and got within inches of their face on the scene and didn't have any qualms about pulling his gun or shoving it down someone's throat – Voight looked just as content and comfortable and perfectly in place sitting there being dad and grandpa.
There was a really fucking strange realization that Jay couldn't imagine his father wanting to be a grandfather. Maybe he hadn't really had to bother thinking about his dad that way until the last year or so. Maybe he'd never really imagined that he'd get to the point that he wanted to have kids of his own. Or even if he did that he'd be in the position – that he'd find someone who he wanted to make that kind of family with and would be willing to make the scarifies and changes in his life to be the kind of man who deserved to be a husband and father. Or maybe it was just that he'd always known that if he ever did get to the point he was having kids of his own, he wouldn't want his dad to be involved. Not in his life and not in his kids.
Not that it really mattered. Because Jay couldn't see his dad ever wanting to be involved in any grandchildren's lives – neither his or Will's. Fuck, Jay couldn't even really imagine telling his dad that there was a baby on the way – if … when … him and Erin got pregnant again.
But he already fucking knew what Hank looked like as a grandfather. What he was like as a grandfather. That he'd want to be involved. Like involved involved. That he'd be there on the day the baby was born. That he'd come over and see the kid when they got it home. That he'd help. That he'd run errands for them. That he'd take the kid if him and Erin needed a break or had something come up at work or just wanted to do something that didn't involve a baby or toddler or kid or whatever. And that he'd be fine. That he'd probably be more than fine. And that he'd probably spoil the grandkid – or at least give them a bit more leeway – than he'd ever allegedly given any of his own prodigies. And that Voight would likely more or less enjoy playing grandpa. The good and the bad of it. And the kid would be returned to them unscathed. Actually, if Henry was any indication, the kid might sort of prefer their grandpa over anyone else in the room. Or the family.
And part of Jay really wanted to be uncomfortable with that. Because he wanted to operate on the less he knew about Voight the better. But it wasn't like that anymore. And as much as there was this part of him that wanted to not think about or imagine or accept Voight – their boss - as being the grandfather to any of their kids in the future, there was something … nice about it. Not nice. Not the right word. But it just felt like … it felt fucking normal.
And maybe he wasn't used to things – especially with family – to ever feel that way. But for as fucking abnormal and fucked up as Erin's family situation felt – there were a lot of times that it sure fucking felt pretty normal to Jay. It felt like he knew how important having a relationship with his grandfather was for him growing up. How sometimes that felt like the only lifeline he had that had given him any sort of connection back to reality to sort of pull through. And Jay wanted his kids to have that. To have some kind of grandparent – someone more than him or Erin – in their lives. And it sure as fuck wasn't going to be his dad. And it sure as fuck wasn't going to be Bunny. But Voight – Hank – seemed like a decent option. He actually seemed like a pretty normal one. The sort of grandpa maybe you'd kind of hope your kid would have. One that actually wanted to be a part of the kids lives. One that actually wanted to help you out as parents in the whole … raising the kids thing.
And all of that felt normal. It felt like normal things he should want or be thinking about at the age he was at. It actually felt like … it was stuff like this. Things he was thinking about. Stuff him and Erin were talking about. The ways they were working forward – and what they were working toward – as a couple. How he was trying to move up in the world. That this shit. It was the stuff he was supposed to be doing to make him being one of the guys who got to come home be worth it. It was living his life with meaning. It was doing due honor and giving due respect to his friends – to all the soldiers – who didn't get to come home. The ones that didn't get to have this. Or had left their wives or girlfriends or kids – or fathers and brothers and sisters and little nieces and nephews – behind to do all this sort of shit without him.
But it'd taken him nearly a fucking decade to get to this spot. To be able to be working toward living with purpose and reason. To not just be treading water. To not just be acting like the only thing he could do of value was the job. That that was his duty and responsibility – and his sentence. Because it wasn't. This was. Making a family. Being a participating member of a family. Having a place and a spot and a reason. Real ones. Ones that had real fucking meaning. That meant something. Something so much more than the job or what he did or didn't do for the city and its citizenship. That was important. But this? This was what would matter in the end.
This was his why. It was what he should be living for. What he should've been working toward all those years. And it wasn't something he'd even realized that should be his final goal – his end game – until he'd met Erin. Maybe more accurately until he'd been allowed to see the family Erin had made – or found or established – for herself. And how much those fucking two years since Eth had come home and he'd somehow been allowed to play some part in that adjustment for all of them had changed him. And given him that reason and place and stability he'd at least been looking for since he'd spun out when he'd come home. Maybe more likely he'd been looking for since he was about fourteen. Or really his whole life – when he'd come to realize that he was a bit more than an afterthought in at least fifty percent of his family.
And for as fucking unstable or insane as the whole situation him and Erin were in. For all the shit that all of them were still working through – it felt … or maybe it was Jay who felt … like they were in a phase that felt good. He felt like he was in a good place these days. And he liked that. A whole fucking lot.
So even though Jay didn't know why or how Erin and Voight made it work. He also kind of knew exactly why they did. Because even if Erin didn't want to entirely admit it – she liked how it felt too. Just like he did now. The feeling over it. Somewhere in her. All of it just felt normal to her too. And he wanted to believe – from all the things they talked about lately … from all the shit they talked about that morning – that despite all the shit they had going on in their lives and all they still had to muck through, they were both kind of in a good spot. A good place.
So instead, he just watched the family's dynamic. A lot. Probably more than he wanted to admit. To pick up some sort of pointers. To pass his own judgment on their dynamic. And maybe on Voight as an individual – a man, a husband, a cop, a father.
And the reality was that Erin and Hank – her dad, his daughter - were pretty fucking normal no matter how fucked up they were.
They fought. They didn't get along. A lot. They bickered. He still treated her like a little girl. She still treated him like she was a snotty teenaged kid. At times. They got in each other's faces. They rubbed each other the wrong way. They went through periods where they clearly were more than displeased with each other. Where the other had fundamentally been hurt. But no matter how Erin cut it, it just came back to Hank being family. And somehow she seemed willing to put aside some of the hurt, rage, trauma and anger to have that.
And Jay thought that was understandable. Acceptable. No matter how unwilling he was to set aside his own hurt, rage, trauma and anger with his own father. But that was a different story. And different circumstances.
He wasn't sure if it was because Erin was a woman. And maybe father-daughter relationships were different. Or if when there wasn't the genetics, if the dynamic changed. Though, she was generally far more forgiving of Bunny than Jay was of his own father with the whole blood thing.
So maybe it had more to do that Voight had chosen her. Or she still felt on some level like she was always proving herself and like she needed to to still be a member of the family. Though, Jay wasn't sure that Voight or Ethan looked at it that way at all. Or Olive. Or Voight's wife. That maybe the only person who had ever decided to treat her that way was gone.
Though, Jay could still get that being picked – as a teenager – to be a member of a family, that it'd feel like it might've had conditions. And maybe it did. That maybe it'd always sort of feel like a conditional love. Though, Jay also wasn't sure it was. At this point. He saw how Voight treated Eth. And he saw how he treated Erin. He saw the guy he was with her at work and the guy he was with her at home. He saw how he was with Henry. And with Olive. And he saw how he mellowed and changed his tone when he was 'dad'. He saw the tiny touches of affection that he handed out not just to Henry or to Eth – but to Erin when she let him. And none of that seemed or felt like it carried any sort of conditions. No more than any other – normal – father-child relationship.
But Jay could appreciate that it must be heady. That it must make her connection to the family and the want and need to have a place in it different than he might ever fully be able to appreciate. Because it was different. It was unique. But that didn't make it abnormal. Or dysfunctional. Because they seemed to make it work. More than some families that were blood. More than their own blood ever had – his or hers.
So maybe it was just easier to boil it down to Erin trying. And Olive trying. And Voight trying. To there still being kids in the picture. That there was Ethan to think about. That there was now Henry to think about. And that they all clearly felt that those two kids deserved to grow up with something that kind of resembled a childhood. Even if it was a flawed one. But who's wasn't. At least they were going to know they had support and family amidst all the losses they'd gone through.
And all that counted for something.
But the dynamic was just weird. Or maybe a better word for it was foreign. But it was something Jay had sort of grown to like in a way. It wasn't like he dreaded spending a weekend evening over at Voight's anymore. They even didn't feel entirely awkward. Even if there were nights that they might be strained on given weeks. That night it wasn't, though. There were likely lots of reasons it could've been. But everyone just seemed to be in a live and let be mode.
Maybe that was the best birthday present of all.
AUTHOR NOTE:
OK. This chapter has more text and was initially going a ver different place than what it's become. I'm not sure if/when I'm going to take it to that conclusion. But I have posted this much of what is written for now.
That being said … I really don't know what I'm going to do with this story and AU from this point one. I've given it some thought but don't know.
I have thought about finishing out the arc here that I've started (with Ethan and pushing forward some aspects of Jay and Erin's relationship in the midst of it and just generally setting up Eth for high school and Jay/Erin for a more spouse-like relationship. Basically spinning things a bit to move forward).
I've thought about taking the finale and spinning it a different way (mainly with Erin just being gone for the summer — or less). And using that to explore some things about her and Jay's relationship and also to push forward aspects of Eth's growth and development as a teen too (and to dredge up some of his past trauma and abandonment issues and how he interacts with that as a now more teen-aged-like character). That that could still pull in the arc that I was planning on using within the Eth's health and bullying story. That it could become a bit of a turning point in Erin's decision-making process and where she placed her priorities and the direction and risk she ultimately decided to take.
I've thought about going back and working on chapters in Scenes and Aftermath (and even in here — So It Goes) of scenes that I ended up kind of dropping or skipping over. Just to not have to deal with the spin that the finale and Bush's departure provided.
Then I've thought about taking a break from CPD FF and feeding the SVU FF goat.
And I've also just thought about stopping writing FF for now.
The reality is — it's hard to write it when I no longer care for the series or am no longer watching it. That's part of the reason I no longer write SVU FF. And, really, I struggled getting through CPD in Season 4. I wasn't watching it weekly. And I suspect I will fall away from watching it even more in Season 5.
Beyond that I do have limited time for this right now and when I do have time for writing, I have projects that aren't FF that need my attention.
I have been asked for some perspective about Bush leaving. I really don't want to get into it because I feel that her decision was very much a personal one and I think how those chips fall — and what it means for her career and for the future of CPD — are still very much coming down. I'm thinking of it more from an industry and sales perspective. And from that perspective — I feel badly for the rest of the cast and the entire crew. I'm not expecting it to get beyond Season 5 and I won't be overly surprised if it's an augmented season and/or is cancelled mid-season. I feel their ad sales and their ratings and demos are going to be significantly affected with her departure. And no, given the circumstances and timing of her departure, I don't expect her to be doing any sort of guest appearances to wrap up any sort of story.
That's about all I'm going to say right now. Beyond I'm bummed for the show. But honestly, to me the show was at it's best in Season 1. Season 2 was OK. It started to slide in Season 3 and this season was just a mess. I had low hopes for it with the EP switch and the re-staffing of the writer's room and the cancellation of Justice and how to bring Dawson back. Basically, the writing staff and EP have been handed a bit of a mess and I'm not sure there's any way they can revive and spin the show for it to be something salvageable at this time. I think they made mistakes going back as far as Season 2 that now they are really paying for. The show had a lot of potential back in Season 1. Now it really doesn't from my perspective. And that's really too bad.
Any how…
You thoughts and feedback on the chapter are always appreciated.
I will see about maybe rounding out the rest of the scene that I have written to make it more chapter-like. But beyond that, I'm really not sure how I'm going to play this story and AU right now. The scenes and the arcs I want to work through don't feel as clear anymore and I definitely feel much less motivated to play with them and to be dedicating my writing time to other things that aren't FF.
But we'll see. I really don't know right now.