"Welcome to the team," he waved a hand at one of the older officers, a dark haired man reclined in a seat in the corner. "O, make the introductions." His gaze switched back to Lana, "then I'll see you in my office."
He stepped back before she had a chance to react. Good thing too, Lana couldn't think of a single intelligible thing to say.
Jay and Attwater welcomed her with a friendly kind of ease. Olinski did his part but seemed bemused more than anything. Anotinio and Erin were out on a call. She'd meet them later. She didn't stick around for much more conversation.
She didn't know what was going to be waiting for her in that office.
She stepped in and let the door shut swing. Back straight, she faced the man behind the desk, wondering just how it was exactly that she had managed to find herself in this situation.
He looked different here, settled back in his chair, eyes just a fraction warmer. They were brown. She hadn't gotten a chance to notice last night and they were watching her like they were waiting for something.
"I got the call that they were transferring someone in a couple days ago. I didn't have time to review your file."
She read between the lines. He hadn't known who she was in that bar last night. Well he wasn't the only one.
Lana cleared her throat, "The details of my transfer were vague. I didn't know what team they would be placing me in."
It was simple enough truth, and he nodded, that same thoughtful rhythm he had done before walking out of her apartment. Lana looked away.
"Is this going to be a problem?"
Lana's gaze snapped back. That frank look was in his eye again. He wanted it straight, and Lana smoothed her expression. No way was she going to cause trouble on her first day.
"Is what going to be a problem, sir."
He smiled, just barely enough to even call it one, and nodded his head to the door. "Dismissed."
She walked out a little stunned. Lana was normally the type to bounce back quick but this, this had thrown her. Not him apparently. The matter was addressed and dealt with before she had really caught up to the fact that she had accidentally slept with her boss.
She hadn't been in this city for two days and she had already screwed it up.
Well he had accidentally slept with a subordinate. So if he wanted to play it like nothing had happened, then she was just fine with that.
She got settled in, familiarized herself with her station, answered the small talk from the others. Where she was from. Had she ever been to Chicago before? She answered just enough to keep that friendly vibe going.
They took her for a techy, all brains and no street action. If Voight hadn't even read her file they wouldn't know she had spent five years on the force. A single accident had been enough to take her out of action.
Her right hand had been damaged. Most days she didn't even notice it, but they wouldn't clear her to pull that trigger. They had said that was the only reason they had taken her out of the field, but she was aware that wasn't the whole truth. Now here she was, using that college degree her mother had insisted she get. Atleast she was still in law enforcement. Atleast she was still doing something.
Erin and Antonio came sauntering back. She liked Antonio instinctively. He had that bad boy edge Jay seemed to be trying for, but shook her hand with an upfront kind of respect. Erin nodded a hello, but looked more than a little surprised. Erin was stunning, the kind of woman that made Lana just wanna fade back a little so no one would even try to compare them. She stayed active, lived healthy, but for as good as shape she was in she still looked soft, weak.
Erin gave Jay a particularly friendly smile before crossing right to Voight's office. She didn't knock, a detail Lana took note of.
Voight glanced up as Erin stepped in, setting Lana Milani's folder down. Having last night's distraction come walking in to his unit was the last thing he had been expecting, and he needed to get himself familiarized with her file before he ran in to any more surprises.
"You got an update for me?" he asked, they were running down a lead and he was curious.
"Yeah, but first, what's with the new addition?"
Voight folded his fingers, "Brass sent her in."
Erin crossed her own arms with an amused scoff. "What happened to 'you choose this team?'"
Voight gave her a pointed look reserved for the times she acted like his mouthy daughter and not a subordinate but she didn't pay it any mind.
"We need someone on tech. We'll see how she does. If it doesn't work out," he shrugged, "it doesn't work out."
"uh-huh," Erin's hands went to her hips, expression entirely too calculating. She had been doing too much of that lately. Ever since Justin, any time he did something she wasn't expecting, anything she deemed out of character, she faced it down like it was the start of some downward spiral.
"Look," Voight stood, "she's not going into the field with you. I don't have to trust her to have your back, just to," he waved a hand, making it clear he didn't actually know what exaclty it was that tech crew did, "run addresses," he finished.
He watched her relax, satisfied it enough and she smiled, "well we got some info for you."
She headed out the door, just expecting him to follow so she and Antonio could bring him up to date on the case.
Lana fit into the job easier than she expected. Hardly any of them knew enough about computers to give her any actual directives, she just picked up what they needed from their conversations and ran it for them. Address searches, cell phone records. It was pretty simple stuff. A drug deal had gone sideways and they were hunting down those responsible before there was gang retaliation. All in all, it was a fairly easy catch, and they were wrapped up before the end of shift.
Fitting into the team was shaping up to be interesting. There was a strange dynamic here. There was this obvious grid of support where they would have eachother's backs through anything, and she got the feeling in some cases it literally meant anything. But at the same time there was this tranluscent breath of mistrust just hovering over the room. Like both respect and doubt shaped almost all of their relationships.
She didn't know how much she really wanted to get involved with any of that.
A job. That's what she was here to do. Not make friends. Not make connections. And not make mistakes.
Her gaze flicked to the office at the back and she sighed. Any more mistakes.
Her day finished and she walked out to cold rain. It felt good, in that fitting kind of way, like when she used to press her tongue against that loose tooth just to feel that pain. There was something satisfying about it.
The city ignored her. Too busy, too full to glance her way and she turned her collar up and let it pass by her.
She ate cold pizza for dinner, turned on an old movie and zoned out. It was past midnight before she fell asleep.
She had been at it for a week. The officers were in and out on calls, some days she spent most of the day alone. Voight issued orders and that was about it. Like he had just forgotten what their bodies had done.
And maybe he had. It would have been the sensible thing to do.
She wondered if she should be offended, if she should want him to remember everytime he looked at her. If she should be able to see the memories flashing in the back of his eye. But she knew that wasn't fair. They had used eachother, plain and simple. The fact that she could show up and work with the man without it being awkward was a relief. She was too tired to deal with anything else.
No, this was how she preferred it.
The team insisted on using that old dry erase board but Lana didn't mind. They used a ridiculous amount of ink printing everything they stuck up on that board but it gave her a break from staring at a screen all day.
It had been a calm week, relatively normal bloodshed, for Chicago anyway. It was strange. You didn't get used to it, staring at photos of the dead. But you learned what it looked like. There was something to it, being able to identify what had caused the damage gave you a way of dealing with it. A gun shot victim looked like a gun shot victim. A useless, senseless loss of life but knowing what did it helped somehow. Maybe it was the brain's way of compartmentalzing, she didn't know.
But some of them she hadn't learned. She knew this was a special unit, for those cases that needed that extra step, but the first time they put a child on that board, her brain had stopped working for a moment.
She didn't understand what she was looking at.
Voight dropped a book on her desk and told her to pay attention. They didn't need her slacking off while they were in the middle of trying to solve this thing. Her anger was cut short by the barely contained danger in his eye.
However they solved this thing she suddenly wasn't sure it would be entirely legal.
She had kept her head down all week. You would think it would be impossible not to hear gossip but it was if you tried hard enough. She knew Voight had a reputation. She purposefully stopped short of finding out what that was.
She didn't want to know. She wanted to do her job and go home.
But when she found the LKA of their suspect Voight faced down the room.
"If you're not comfortable, stay here."
It seemed an odd order, but he didn't have to explain it, and in the end, no one stayed.
Still she didn't miss the way Erin chased after Voight, tried to talk him down in a way that seemed entirely familiar.
Lana dismissed it. It wasn't any of her business.
She stayed on the comms, feeding every intel she could gather to the team in the field. Half way through, Voight's comms shut off. It wasn't the first time this had happened. He usually shrugged it off and blamed it on some faulty tech. She would offer to switch them out and he would nod. She would switch his comms and it would just keep happening.
But this time a man's scream came through Erin's comm, faint but it picked it up.
Erin cursed, started shouting for Voight to back off and Lana listened with that same empty pit in her stomach she got when she stood in that cold, cold rain.
Aching. Fitting.
They trudged back with confirmation of the arrest and Lana watched Erin clear the board. Voight stopped by her desk just long enough to drop his comms off before she could say a word.
10 pm and Voight heard a knock on his door. He downed his shot of whiskey and crossed the hall, gun ready. It was the kind of habit years on the job developed, and he took a cautious glance outside.
He swung the door open a moment later, regarding the young woman on his front porch with a fair amount of surprise.
"You need something?"
Lana's jacket was pulled tight around her, it was damp with the slight night rain, and he stepped back, letting her in. It was funny, there were times when she looked almost sweet, tucked over her work at her desk. He would catch a glimpse of full cheeks, long dark lashes against warm skin. She was curved in a way that looked soft. Seeing her like that he never would have been able to picture her, elbow resting on a scuffed bar, gaze direct and inviting. But when she faced him down like she was doing now, that was a different view entirely.
Those high cheeks met a sharp jaw. Narrowed, assessing eye. She was striking in her own way, with an edge to her expression that looked cold. Distant.
"Your comms," she stated, and he stood simply waiting for her to say more. "You don't have to keep dropping them off to me."
He smirked just enough for his lips to move. "Given up tryin to figure out what's wrong with them?" He moved towards the other room to offer her a drink, but she didn't follow.
"I know what's wrong with them."
Voight paused, then looked back at her. Her voice had an edge to it and he wondered exactly what stand she was about to take.
"But I don't think there's any fixing it."
Voight shrugged. "They get the job done."
Lana's lips thinned, "equipment that doesn't work correctly can be dangerous. To the whole team."
Voight's anger stirred. He was tired. Worn out from a too long day that barely ended well and now here was a brand new subordinate, in his home, trying to tell him how to do his job.
"I take care of my team," three long strides brought him face to face with her, "and that team only includes you if I say it does."
Her almond eyes flashed wide, she hadn't been expecting that, and he watched a flush form beneath her bronzed skin. For a second every word she wanted to sling at him flared behind her eyes before she took a slow breath.
"I didn't come here to argue, sir." She forced out the word with a bit of sarcasm, and he caught the scent of alcohol on her breath. Not drunk, just enough to be brazen. He saw her scoff and turn away.
His voice stopped her as she reached the door.
"Then why did you come here."
Lana straightened, turning back to face him with a simmering anger tinged with embarrassment. She met his gaze but didn't speak.
Yeah, she had shown up at his door late at night, with that daring curl to her lips. But reading in to these situations is what got people in trouble. He crossed his arms, jaw working with pent up impatience. "You can answer or you can leave, Milani. I'm not in to guessing games right now."
Her chin raised with that back bone he couldn't help but respect. "I want to forget what I saw today."
It wasn't a plea, or a wavering break in emotion. It was cold fact and Voight grunted, keeping her fixed in his gaze and let the silence stretch.
Then he dropped his arms and covered the distance between them.
He didn't pull them into his room, didn't lay her on his bed, tug her hair free of that sharp ponytail she wore in the office and let her dark hair fall wild against the warm tone of her skin. This wasn't that.
She pressed him into the couch and he let her go. Part of him wouldn't even look at her.
She wasn't silent this time. Let out a week of frustration with those sounds against his lips and he drowned in them.
Her kiss was hard and long. It wasn't searching, or deepening, and he let her do it. Two people connected with a need to feel but not feel together. It was a safe, all consuming relief and he grunted into her neck as he shuddered beneath her.
She rolled off of him, full hips slick with sweat and she dressed without looking at him.
"See you Monday, Sergeant." It was casual, like she was saying goodbye at the office, and Voight coughed out a wry laugh.
"Goodnight, Malina."
He said it to the sound of a closing front door.