"Yo, check this out," Rodney pulled out his phone, showing Ruzek a photo from last night. Alicia had asked for a picture with Erin and Burgess, but it was Lana, up against the bar in the background of the photo that had their attention.

Rodney zoomed in. "And I thought she was pretty at work. Dude, she looked incredible."

Ruzek went to respond when Voight's voice sounded behind them. "She know you took that photo?"

Ruzek jumped as Rodney looked up, embarrassed.

"Of course sir. The girls asked for the photo. Erin even posed for it."

They all knew how protective he was of Erin. It didn't even occur to them that he was talking about Lana.

Voight grunted, like finishing the conversation wasn't worth his time and passed by them.

"Why does that keep happening." Ruzek hissed, letting out a less than attractive squeak when Platt spoke directly in his ear.

"Because you morons keep stopping on the stairs. Now are you gonna get out of the way, I have work to do."

Rodney ducked out without much more than a see you, and Ruzek sheepishly turned forward.

"Here, let me get that for you." He opened the gate, and waved Platt by.

"Just so you can watch me walk up those stairs, I don't think so." She grabbed the gate and motioned him forward. "After you."

Platt waved Voight down, and pulled him to the side. Lana watched the conversation with interest. She liked the desk sergeant. She was a little rough, couldn't always tell when she was joking, but she was a solid officer.

A minute later Voight nodded goodbye to Platt and crossed back into the office.

"Milani. You're with me."

He didn't explain and he didn't wait for her to ask. Lana snatched up her coat, trying to catch up. Voight was already walking away.

"Platt wants us to check out a tech firm," He didn't speak until he was unlocking his car, then he eyed her over the top of the vehicle. "I figured I might need your help."

Milani slipped inside the car, wondering what on earth Sergeant Platt needed investigated at a tech firm, but she didn't ask. Lana figured Voight would fill her in on what she needed to know.

He was good at that, giving out necessary information. Even better at keeping the unnecessary information hidden so deep you would never find it.

She cleared her throat as he pulled out into the morning traffic.

"Erin and I went out last night."

It was a casual enough start to a conversation, except they didn't usually do small talk.

"It was fun, actually," Lana continued at his silence. "We went to a blue bar, called Molly's?"

Voight grunted in response. She was fishing for something and he wasn't biting. The image of her in that photo, leaned back against that bar in a top that fit her in all the right ways blazed through his mind.

Lana stared at Voight's profile. His lips had lifted in a tight little smile and she had no idea why. She was trying to find a way to bring up what she had learned about him, and she was getting nothing.

"While we were there we saw some-"

"Are you going to get to the point, Milani?" Voight interrupted, and that touch of a smile was still on his lips as he glanced her way.

She almost didn't want to do it. He looked so strangely relaxed that she didn't want to interrupt that. But she was in it now and she didn't want to lose her chance to ask.

"They said you don't go to that bar."

Voight sobered, turning back to the road in front of them. "I don't."

It was strange how quickly his face could turn cold.

"Why not."

He didn't answer, not at first. He flicked on his blinker and made a turn. Slid his hands along the wheel as he readjusted his grip.

"Seems like you know why."

Lana frowned, "So it's true. You were in prison."

His face held a bitter kind of sarcasm. "You been at this job how long and you're just learning this?"

"I don't do gossip." Lana answered immediately. She was pulled into this conversation with a depth of curiosity she hadn't been expecting but she wanted to know.

He chuckled once but there wasn't humor anywhere in it. "I did time. I made a deal to lead Intelligence, and I got out."

"Deal with who?"

Voight swallowed a curse. He had told his team before. The only reason she wasn't hip deep in all the sordid rumors that followed his career was she didn't bother to pay attention to them.

But having her ask him. Directly. Having to be the one to say it. He almost preferred she had listened to the office gossip even if half of it wasn't true.

"IA." he admitted, "But I never reported on a fellow officer. I bring in information off of the streets."

Lana was absorbing the information, sifting through it. Her brow furrowed. "Information you get by..."

And Voight had to face the point of it all. Admit simple fact to the first officer he had ever worked with that hadn't just known. Who didn't come at him with that wary look in their eye like they had to protect themselves against his own reputation.

Well it was nice while it lasted. He knew how he did his job, and he knew others didn't like it. Yeah, there were things he regretted but so many of them he didn't. The work got done. People got saved, and the ones that did the hurting got put away.

He knew how he did this job. And that's why he had to do it alone.

He answered Lana's question. "Being dirty."

There was an edge to his voice that had Lana looking at him, really looking.

His grip was knuckle white on the wheel, face set in hard, forcible lines. It reminded her, of the night she had met him in that bar. All cold shadows and angry touch.

He'd gone to prison for being a dirty cop. She had seen how he operated, the laws he stretched, but hadn't imagined it had gotten that bad. There was probably more to it. Whatever he had done, however he was mixed up with that fire fighter from the bar, she didn't know.

And she didn't want to ask.

He came to a stop outside a building. Put the car in park and didn't glance her way. His hand was on the door handle when Lana finally spoke.

"I'm sorry."

He froze, brow dipping in utter confusion and he couldn't help but look at her.

"You were a cop. In prison. That must have been hard."

Simple words that barely expressed anything. Milani wasn't stupid, she knew the kind of things that happened to officers in prison. Dirty or not he had put people away, people he probably was locked inside with.

It was all she could think of in that moment. The terrible things he must have gone through just to survive.

Voight's expression had halted, perplexed and unchanging. Then he cleared his throat."You do what you have to do."

Lana searched his gaze, calm and completely closed off, and she held back a sigh. "Thank you. For answering my questions."

Voight shook his head like now she was just wasting time, "Are you going to get out of the car."

"Alright, alright," Lana held her hands up and opened the door, stepping out into the Chicago wind.

They saw the receptionist inside, showed their badges when asked if they had an appointment. They weren't left waiting long.

Voight never really explained what she was there for. He left her in the hall when he went in to talk with the guy. Apparently he didn't need her because he finished the interview without her.

"Are you going to tell me what that was about?" she asked as she clicked on her seatbelt, and Voight turned the key.

"Favor for Platt."

No part of her expected him to continue his explanation, but as he pulled out on the street, he surprised her. "A friend thinks her spouse is cheating. Trudy would have gone but the husband knows her."

A laugh broke from Lana in surprise. "Seriously?"

Voight smiled. "A word of advice. If Platt asks you a favor, do it. She's a good one to have on your side and a bad one to have against you."

Lana agreed, but she couldn't help but wonder if Voight was aware of how well he had just described himself.

Being backed by an unstoppable force was a whole lot different than going toe to toe with one.

Voight was action, rough and not always clean cut. Not always predictable.

Like now. All trace of his earlier tension was gone. His hold on the wheel was easy, expression relaxed as he navigated busy streets. He didn't look happy, per se. His frown lines had settled too deeply for that. But he just looked... different.

Lana turned her face to the window, watched the city as it passed. Silence held in a oddly comfortable way. Her phone was on silent, and she didn't think about the text, her partner, or finding a woman on Voight's doorstep.

For the first time in days, nothing pressed on her thoughts. Voight drove as she stared out the window and they reached the precinct too soon.

"So why did you need me exactly?" Lana asked and Voight's shoulder lifted as he turned into the garage.

"Didn't know how many circles they'd talk me in trying to get in there. You may have been useful."

She smirked some at that. Useful. It could have sounded condescending, but the truth was, she liked being useful.

He set the car in park and his chest expanded as he breathed. She practically watched it settle back over him. That weight.

It was funny, you could see the dread in some people as they walked towards work. Every subtle body cue screaming "I don't want to be here."

She used to feel that way in highschool. Think of a thousand different scenarios as she walked to her bus that would result in class being cancelled for the day. Power outage. Burst water main. An unmanned aircraft crashing into the building resulting in complete destruction of the structure but miraculously no loss of life.

She knew what it looked like when you hated the thought of going where you had to go.

And this wasn't it. Voight loved his job. Lived for it. A man didn't put that much devotion into something if he didn't. But he wore it, the responsibility, the uncertainty. People's lives rested on his shoulders and she could see them setting in place again. This little break, a personal errand for Platt, was over. And it was back to work for him.

For the both of them. Lana got out of the car before he could accuse her of wasting time. He held the door for her as they reentered the building, walked the hall beside her. His hand touched her shoulder before he stepped away to speak to Platt.

It wasn't anything, brief casual touch but as she took the stairs up to Intelligence she did it was a tiny, thoughtful frown.

I'm sorry.

Hours later and he couldn't get it out of his head. He had laid out the truth to a subordinate who should have lost all respect for him in an instant and instead he had gotten that.

I'm sorry.

He didn't talk about it much, with the team or anyone. and they didn't ask. It was like his time in prison was a black spot they would all rather ignore. They didn't much consider what it had been like for him.

He didn't blame them, it wasn't their jobs. He looked out for his team, they weren't obligated to do it back.

Now Erin, the kid cared but she was angry at him. Didn't like the stupid things he had done, the deal he had made with IA. She had an odd habit of expecting the worst of him yet still acting like he should know better. Maybe she had learned that from him, all those years of watching him with Justin. The stupid mistakes that kid made, time and again. So angry and lost he couldn't seem to get anything right and Voight just hadn't known what to do with him. What to be with him.

Maybe he wasted time. Being tough. Buried in work because he couldn't face an empty house. If he had figured it out first, been the dad his son needed maybe Justin wouldn't have ended up, ended up-

Voight pushed to his feet, crossed to the closed office door and laid his head against the smooth wood.

They all cared that he lost his son. His team, the captain. Milani, in that fractured moment she had met him with those tears in her eyes. Even Lieutenant Casey had shaken his hand and told him he was sorry. Casey was a good man. Hell so was Antonio. And he had made their lives a living hell just to save his son from the consequences of his own actions. Truth was he had been crossing lines in the job for so long, he hadn't realized he started doing it in his own life until it was too late.

Maybe that's why no one cared about what he faced in prison. Because deep down they recognized that he deserved it.

But Lana. Minutes after learning her superior officer had been jailed for being a dirty cop, all she had focused on was what it must have been like for him on the inside.

He didn't get it.

Couldn't quite get past it.

Part of him didn't want to.

Lana couldn't focus. It didn't help that there wasn't much to focus on. Some of the officers were out on routine follow-ups. Voight was in his office. She didn't know what he was working on.

Attwater grew distracted by a sound, a rapid taptaptapping that had him hunting down whatever was doing it so he could break it, or do whatever it took just to get it to stop. His thoughts changed when he saw the pen in Lana's hand, ticking against the desk. Maybe not break it, maybe ask it nicely to stop.

"Hey Lana, could you... not?"

Lana looked up, tracking his gaze to her bouncing pen and stilled abruptly. "I'm so sorry. I didn't realize I was doing that. Must have been annoying." She gave an embarrassed laugh as she dropped the pen, and Attwater chuckled.

"A bit. What's got you all worked up?"

"Oh," Lana waved it off and stood, "too much caffeine probably. I didn't expect it to be so slow today."

"Yeah," Attwater threaded his hands behind his head and leaned back from the folder he had been reviewing. "Days like this are rare. I learned to appreciate them."

Lana smiled at him, stretching out a kink in her back before ducking in to the break room. Shift ended in an hour and it felt like she hadn't gotten a thing done. That was the thing about behind-the-scenes type of work. Days could be spent on necessary work that wouldn't feel nearly as productive as a single take down. It was the truth of the job, and she had always figured that what happened in the office was just as important as what went on on the street. Both helped keep the city a safer place.

But knowing she was stuck here, that she would never get to be back out there, it was enough to drive her insane sometimes. It wasn't that she solely missed the action, she missed the balance of it all.

She missed a lot of things. Her partner texting her had her thinking of home more than she wanted. The sunshine, the white line of the coast against the push of waves. That heavy sea air that moved on the breeze. She had just about had enough of cold dead rain.

Her iced tea was luke warm since she had forgotten to put it back in the fridge and she scowled at it.

Since when had she become such a miserable person? Everything felt off lately and she didn't like what it was doing to her. She never thought she was the type to complain and she didn't like finding out she was wrong.

A figure passed by the open door, and Lana set her iced tea down in a hurry.

"Voight."

He backed up, and stuck his head in. "You need something?"

The light from the window behind her caught his eyes, pulled out that ring of warm brown against the dark. He was looking at her expectantly, and Lana cleared his throat.

"So was he? The guy, This morning I mean." The words felt stupid coming out of her mouth, and his head turned in confusion.

"what, cheating?"

Lana shrugged, "Yeah."

He was looking at her, smile building like he couldn't believe she was asking hours later, and then he laughed. The sunlight caught that too.

He folded his arms, body dropping into a more relaxed position, "No," he shook his head, "Turns out he's planning a surprise vacation for their 20th anniversary. That's why he's been so secretive."

"Wow," that wasn't the outcome she was expecting. "I guess Platt's friend is gonna feel bad, doubting him for no reason."

Voight shrugged, "Maybe. Sometimes what we trust doesn't have much to do with the other person."

"Yeah, I guess that's true."

He watched her a second longer, before stepping back.

"I'm headed out. Won't be back by end of shift. You have a good night, Milani."

He nodded a goodbye and she returned it a moment too late, he had already walked away.

She snatched up her tepid iced tea, and left the breakroom, ready to finish up her day and just head home.