Chapter 13
Erin turned off her shredder in the awkward silence of Voight's arrival. It was as if everyone had frozen in time. "Hi, Sargent," Erin said quietly, sitting back down in her chair and trying to refocus on her paperwork. She looked up quickly as Jay and Antonio sat back down and Voight walked up to Jay's desk.
"Where's the transfer form?" Voight asked Jay insistently. Jay smiled lightly up at Voight, showing that his desk didn't have a transfer form on it. "Where is it?" Voight asked, louder now.
"I shredded it," Jay heard Erin say from the other side of the aisle.
Voight turned around in surprise. "What did you say?" He started getting closer to Erin's desk, and Erin stood up to be on the same level as her boss. "Like I said, I shredded it," Erin replied, crossing her arms. As Jay stood up, he noticed that Erin was starting to show. Antonio instinctively stood up and stood next to Jay as Voight yelled, "What the heck?" in Erin's face.
Despite all that had happened the past couple of months, Erin remained composed. "You can't make Jay and I switch partners. Both partners have to sign the transfer form - not just the boss."
"How did you know about it?" Voight yelled.
"Because I was there last night!" Erin yelled in reply, the words just coming out of her mouth. When Voight did a double take, she elaborated (as Jay came over next to her), "You showed up at Jay's apartment and basically left him on the floor, and I was in the back room. You didn't know that I was there, but I ran out of the back room after I heard him moaning in pain. And he told me everything."
Erin's eyes were filling with tears as the rest of the Intelligence Unit just stood frozen in disbelief. Erin moved between Jay and Voight when she realized that Voight might try to punch Jay again. "No," she said as she stopped between her adopted father and her lover, "Don't you dare hurt him again. Because when you hurt him, you hurt me. And you promised that you would never hurt me."
"Erin, he's negatively impacted your life!" Voight said, agitated.
"He hasn't negatively impacted my life!" Erin insisted. "I love him, and you can't force us apart." Tears began to roll down Erin's face as she concluded, "Right now I have so little respect left for you that you better keep your distance from me and Jay for a while. Because if I lose all of it, I might just quit."
Jay gasped at Erin's comments, still standing behind her. Voight sighed, looked out the window behind Erin and Jay, and stormed into his office and slammed the door. Without even turning around to face Jay, Erin grabbed her coat from the back of her chair and left the room. As everyone quickly sat back down, Jay ran out the room after Erin.
"Erin! Erin!" Jay called, spotting her as she walked out to their car in the precinct lot. As he got closer, she got in the driver's seat of the car, but didn't buckle up or drive off. Jay dived into the passenger seat next to her, and when he looked at Erin, she was on the verge of sobbing, tears falling down her cheeks.
"Erin," Jay said calmly, grabbing hold of her right hand. Before he could say anything else, Erin said, looking out the windshield, "After all the support he's given me, I thought he would just continue to support me through this. And he's done the exact opposite."
"Erin," Jay said again.
"Seriously," Erin said, turning to Jay, "First he lies to me that he's supportive, then he beats you up, and then he tries to split us up! He's unbelievable." Jay embraced Erin in a tight hug as she began to sob into his jacket. He just held her for a few minutes, rubbing his right hand against her back as she let out all her emotions.
As he looked out into the lot, he saw Antonio and Ruzek just rounding the corner. Antonio made eye contact with Jay, and he immediately understood that they should leave Erin and Jay alone. After they quickly disappeared, Jay kissed Erin's head. He could feel tears swelling up in his eyes as he remembered when someone who had previously been there for him had decided to not fulfill that duty anymore.
His older sister.
She had left right after high school with her then-prom-date-and-boyfriend, leaving a young Jay who was about to enter high school. He had never been able to get advice from her about how to get through it, and he now longer had his buddy for ranting and talking about school. She had just left. And he hadn't seen her since that day she left over thirteen years ago.
Erin pulled away from their embrace, wiping her eyes with the edge of her jacket. Jay leaned back against the passenger seat, still looking at Erin. He had grabbed Erin's right hand again, and he said to her, "I know right now things seem like crap, but it's going to be okay."
"You sure? Because I might have just gotten myself fired," Erin replied.
"I'm sure," Jay reassured her, "If he doesn't want to hurt you, he won't fire you. He knows how much he helped you out."
"Thanks," Erin said, leaning over to kiss Jay. After that, she buckled up her seatbelt and turned on the ignition. "What are you doing?" Jay asked quickly.
"I don't know about you, but I don't feel like going back in there today," Erin replied as she put the car into drive and removed the parking brake. "Buckle up. It's time I shared more about my past."
Jay sat looking at a drug rehab clinic on Houston that Lindsay had parked a block away from. "How did you get in there?" he asked.
"When Voight took me in, I was hooked on dope. Really bad," Erin replied, putting her hand through her hair. "While he was making arrangements for where I was going to go to school, he got me into rehab. By doing that, he saved me. I had really wanted a second chance, and I had just been given one, so I was committed to it. I was clean in two months."
"Wow," Jay replied, smiling, "That's amazing."
"Yeah. It's amazing what you can put your mind to when you're desperate."
Jay sighed, his memories of his sister leaving when he was 15 flowing back into his mind. As tears filled his eyes, Erin looked over and said, "Jay? What's wrong?"
With tears in his eyes, Jay turned to Erin and said, "I had an older sister growing up. She was so supportive of me. She got me, if you know what I mean. She helped me get dates with popular girls and get into some of the popular guys groups. She really helped me get through those awkward middle school years with all her advice and her willingness to listen to my day.
"And then, in her senior year of high school, when I was in 8th grade, she met this guy named Leonard, but everyone called him Leo for short. He was this super popular football player, and she fell hard for him. She ditched all her college plans to run off with him right after her high school graduation. She didn't even come to my middle school graduation ceremony."
"Oh my god," Erin said, squeezing Jay's hand, "I'm so sorry."
"She just left. She didn't even bother to offer me any advice for high school before I left. She basically left me to find my way through high school on my own.
"And that's why I ended up joining the army. Everyone in my small town in Maine went to the college in the next town over. And I didn't want to be stuck with everybody I'd been in high school with. I wasn't even thinking straight. I just wanted to get out.
"Of course, I ended up doing damage to myself in Afghanistan. Even after being back for five years, I still get nightmares. Of my friends dying." By this point, tears were running down Jay's cheeks too. "Maybe that's why our personalities fit together so well."
"What do you mean?" Erin asked, handing Jay a tissue.
"I mean, we've both suffered huge losses in our lives and had bad times. We both know how that feels. But…that said, that's not why I love you."
"Why do you, then?"
"Because you're fearless, Erin Lindsay," Jay said. "You're honest with everyone, so they know where they stand. And you're beautiful, just to top it all off."
Erin laughed lightly, making Jay smile. He suddenly had an idea. "Okay, so if we're going to be parents…"
"What?"
"Why don't we move in together? I mean, we'd have to find a new place, but I want to raise our kid right."
"I agree," Erin said, smiling, "But will you help me move? By the time I'm all packed up I'm going to have too big of a bump to carry anything heavy."
"Of course," Jay said, and he leaned in for a kiss.