Lana woke with a groan, face smushed into her pillow, light streaming through a poorly closed shade. Her hair had come lose and her top knot lay like a wet sock across her face.
She growled at it, pushed herself up and blinked at the sunlight that someone needed to turn off.
Panic hit her a moment later.
She was late.
Lana collapsed back in bed as another realization followed.
It was Saturday.
She rolled off of the comforter, watching the room wobble as she stood up. Normally she held her alcohol just fine. But she hadn't eaten before hitting the bar with Antonio, drowned her thoughts a little too fast and she was paying for it now.
She shuffled to the door, entire body feeling like it was getting pulled into the floor.
The coffee pot sputtered, dishes in the sink watching her and she pretended not to notice them. She wasn't in the mood to tidy up.
She poured a cup and downed half of it black, her face screwing up at the taste. A knock at her door had peering through the peephole. The uniformed back of a delivery guy walking away was all she saw and Lana tugged the door open.
A package lay in the hall. Odd, considering she hadn't ordered anything. She carried it in, setting her coffee down on the table by the door.
The return address read Sunset Cafe. A tiny little bakery near her old apartment in Miami. She would stop in before shift every morning. Grab a coffee and a pastry that Eric never approved of. Sugar, apparently, was not a breakfast item. But he would meet her there anyway. Order a coffee with the sandwich he had gotten down the street. They would walk to the precinct and start shift together.
She opened it slowly, inhaling that warm scent of vanilla. A card lay on top. A "thinking of you" note from the sender.
Hope they're as good as you remember. Try to wait until at least lunch.
It wasn't signed. It didn't need to be.
Eric had sent her her favorite pastry. A literal taste of home and Lana blinked at it uncomprehendingly. What in the actual-
"You aware you left your door open?"
Lana jerked, and uttered a word that would have had her mother taking off her sandal. Voight stood in her doorway, and his lips quirked at her outburst.
"Bad time?"
Lana pinched the bridge of her nose. There was a dull thud happening repeatedly in the back of her skull and she couldn't think.
"Why, uh, why are you here?"
Voight's arms folded, "After last night," his shoulders lifted. "We should talk."
Last night?... it was painfully difficult to understand what he was talking about.
Lana's hand dropped as she remembered.
Last night. She had told him everything. Eric. The accident. The pills.
She didn't remember him leaving, anything else she may have said. That had come after, after she had exhausted herself with the kind of tears you wished no one ever had to see. After he had held her. That she remembered. The sheer relief of having it out there. A secret fermented by how long she had kept it inside.
But now she was facing the consequences of that, and she had no idea what they were going to be.
Lana's brows tented, hands fingering the sides of her long t-shirt. It was the same one she had been wearing, the night he had showed up at her door. When she had learned about Justin. When Voight had shut down any ounce of compassion she wanted to show.
She looked uncertain. Vulnerable. Voight didn't know how he was going to do it, to keep his distance after stepping close. After facing her tears last night.
Something had changed. Voight had felt it, as he detangled her fingers from his shirt and told her to get some rest. As he stepped out of her apartment with every word of her confession filing itself in his mind. He had spent weeks wanting what he couldn't have. Been bitter, jealous. Knew what he felt was unrequited and tried to pretend he never cared in the first place.
But it didn't matter anymore. He was a fool for ever letting himself get this far, but he was in it now. And he had never been a man that was very willing to lie to himself.
The truth was it didn't matter if she cared. If she wanted him. It wouldn't change that he cared for her. Not just for her touch and the relief it brought, but everything that went behind it.
Lana didn't want that from him. He understood that. Would respect that. That didn't mean he wouldn't do what he could for her. Be what he could for her. He didn't need her to care for that.
"What do we need to talk about?" Lana trudged to her kitchen, dropped the box on the table, waved a hand that said help yourself, and went for another cup of coffee.
Voight took a seat, nodding as she held the coffee pot out to him and took the cup she offered.
"I need to know what you're planning to do about this."
"About what." Lana plopped into the seat across from him, poured an uncomfortable amount of sugar into her coffee and stared down the pastries in the box like they were the source of a great internal debate.
She was a mess, hair falling loose, cheek still flushed from being smushed against her pillow. Voight hid a smile behind his coffee, swallowing down the warmth in his chest. He cleared his throat and set his hands on the table.
"What you told me about your partner..." He chose his words, "You have a habit of digging into things, Milani. Is this something you're going to be able to leave be?"
"Should it be?" It was somehow both accusatory and a very real question, and Voight considered her a moment.
"You have to consider the situation here, Milani. You feel guilty about what might have happened. You have no proof. It would be your word against his months after the fact."
He was vocalizing the debate that had turned in circles through her mind for months, and Lana leaned forward, eager to have something other than the inside of her own skull to argue against.
"But doesn't her family deserve to know? Shouldn't there be consequences? He was using on the job."
"And you knew about it, Lana," Voight interrupted, firm but not angry, and he held her gaze. "You knew and you lied for him. There would be consequences for that too. You could lose your badge just as much as he could. Is that something you're willing to see happen."
Lana's lips moved but she had nothing for them. That was the question, wasn't it. The ultimate reason behind it all. Telling on Eric told on herself.
"I'd be weak if I didn't."
Voight laughed, "You don't know how to be weak, Milani. If you were the only person you were protecting you would have come forward a long time ago. You believed him when he said he was getting clean. You still do. You don't want to mess that up for him."
He knew it was true. Only a heart that big would feel that guilty, and would still try to protect. She was torn by loyalty on both sides. To her partner, this man she had loved, and to what she felt was justice. It was eating her from the inside out, and she needed to balance herself out. Voight didn't know what that was going to look like. But he wouldn't see her lose her badge over something her ex-partner had done.
He pushed off from the table. "Look, I told you before, Milani, I protect my team. I understand what you did, but it stays between us. We don't have to mention it again."
Lana's stare was dense with her hangover, and she blinked heavily. Just like that, it was over and settled. The hardest decisions made with such stern confidence it broke her anxiety in half.
She watched him shrugging into his jacket, suddenly not ready for him to leave quite yet.
"Thought the team only included me if you say it does."
He stopped, faced her with an unreadable look in her eye. It felt calm.
"It does."
She was still sitting, long after he left, staring at the box and thinking over two simple words.
Then she stood, and shoved the pastries in the freezer.
"Can you work from this?"
Lana looked up from her screen. Shift had barely started Monday morning and Voight was standing over her desk, a newly issue tablet in his hands.
"What." It wasn't the most intelligent response, and there was a moment where he looked like he was just going to walk away.
She hadn't seen him since he stepped out of her apartment Saturday morning. Since she had admitted she had lied to the badge they served under. Since he had told her he understood, and that would be the end of it.
There wasn't an ounce of judgement anywhere in his eyes.
Some people were trustworthy by nature, generally honorable just because of who they were. Voight was different. There was something so entirely intentional about the way Voight did this job. About the choices he made. Lies, mistakes, any fumble of his team they came to him with wasn't an issue because he chose for it not to be. They called him dirty without ever seeing how much he did to keep their badges clean.
"Can you do that," he gestured at her desk in general, "from this?"
"Well, yes." Of course she could, she just didn't know why she should with a perfectly good computer in front of her.
"Good. Then let's go. We got a call. "
It took her longer than she should have to catch up. Antonio smirked at her around the lollipop he had popped into his mouth as he grabbed his jacket and followed them out. She had a feeling he had something to do with Voight getting his hands on that tablet.
Voight stopped just before they reached the car, faced her in the garage.
"I'm thinking you can be of more use not stuck in that office. But there's ground rules if you're gonna be out with us. You don't have a weapon, you aren't cleared for active work. So you do the work you're cleared for. You don't get involved."
He handed her the tablet, holding on to it as she went to take it.
"That clear?"
Lana nodded. "Yes sir."
"Good," he released the small black device, and nodded to the car. "Get in."
"Ooo, pastries," Ruzek rubbed his hands together excitedly, flipped the box open and saw nothing but crumbs. "Oh, come on!"
Attwater laughed, almost choking on the last pastry he had just stuffed in his mouth. Jay had come in just behind Ruzek and he eyed the box dejectedly. Lana watched Erin catch his attention, slip a napkin towards him across her desk. She had saved him half of hers, and the look of utter devotion on Jay's face had Antonio rolling his eyes.
Lana was glad someone had enjoyed the pastries. She had had them in her freezer for a week and hadn't touched them.
Voight stuck his head out of his office. "Got a hit on that missing persons. Jay, Erin, stay behind with the witness. Milani, let's go."
A CEO had been under investigation for embezzlement when he had gone missing. It was assumed he had run until a witness came forward about an abduction. Lana had been digging through his financials and what had began as embezzlement now looked like a blackmail payment. When they froze his accounts he couldn't pay, and now he and his family were missing.
Nothing was ever simple here.
Lana grabbed her tablet, followed Voight down and slid into the passenger seat.
A man matching the suspect's description had been seen at a gas station out of town. Lana was searching for properties in the area, abandoned or isolated. She narrowed the search and directed Voight down a long drive.
"Stay here," Voight commanded, undoing his seatbelt. He fit his comm into his ear, waving his team forward as they arrived.
Lana was running the owner of the old building, known associates, one ear on the comms. The owner had priors, suspected arson, and she fed the info to the team.
A commotion came over the radio, shots fired. The back door of the structure banged open and a girl ran out. She was young, hands bound, likely the missing daughter and Lana darted out of the car as a man came out after the girl.
She was closer to the kid than the man and she pulled the girl down as the man fired. Antonio appeared, put two shots into his chest as Lana tugged the girl up, checked her over.
The girl was fine, just shaken, and she clung to Lana like she wouldn't let go.
Two assailants down, two in custody. The father had some bruising but the rest of the family was unharmed. She had forgotten what it felt like, seeing a family saved firsthand, just all in a day's work.
"Nice save," Voight joined her as she watched the paramedics check the mother and daughter. "I was particularly impressed with how you managed to do it from the car."
Lana bit back a smile, "Thank you, sir."
Voight cocked his head at her. He was taking a risk, bringing her into the field. One he hadn't put on any one else. When she was out she rode with him.
And it was working. She was on top of the team, real information and real responses. Their take-downs were more concise. Safer. But this wasn't the first time she had taken action. It was always necessary, always done to save a life when she was the only option.
But he wondered, with every report they handed in that kept her name off of it, if it would ever get to her. The casual lies. He was letting her do her job the only way he knew how, but Milani had always been an honest cop. He had her bending lines since the minute she walked in, and he worried that one day it would be too much. He wanted her here but worried it would change her. She had a good heart. A clean soul. She was a good cop.
That wasn't always how they did things around here.
"Another?" Lana muttered to herself, she couldn't believe it. An investigation had them chasing down a string of petty robberies at local shops. They had gotten hit twelve times in the past month, always over something stupid. Until their serial shop lifter graduated to full time murderer.
Voight stepped out of the shop where he was interviewing the owner, slid into the driver's seat and tossed a kitkat bar onto the seat next to her. "Here."
Lana brightened. "Thanks." She tore it open, offered him a piece, but he waved her off.
"Owner wasn't helpful at all. You find anything?"
"Yeash," Lana mumbled around the candy in her mouth, "Sorry." She took a drink of her water. "Yes. Another report came in, same MO for the robbery. No bodies though."
She gave him the address and Voight pulled out.
There was something deliberate about his silence. They would go on calls and he would give and take information, strictly professional. It gave her room to focus on doing her job while being in the field.
It was a strange thing to be grateful for. After all their heated moments, her anger and his regrets. Touches that had turned into something she couldn't handle before they had cut out all together. After all of that. The way he was somehow still there but simply let her be.
It felt safe.
Maybe he wouldn't understand it. She didn't much understand it herself. But she would wake up looking forward to it every day now.
Lana felt good. She drilled another jab into the punching bag, bounced back on her toes, centering her gravity. Another week had passed, another shift had ended and she had hit the gym, working off the energy of a good day. The kind when she accomplished something and wanted to keep that focus going.
Antonio passed her coming out of the showers. "Still here?"
"You're one to talk." She pulled her hair back into a ponytail, and he laughed.
"Catching a little over time. I'm off in twenty if you want a ride. It's windy out."
"I'm good, but thanks," She was looking forward to the walk, even in the wind.
Antonio held up his hands, "offer stands." He side stepped her, and Lana tugged her bag strap over her shoulder. She had forgotten her water bottle at her desk and detoured up the stairs for it.
Voight's light was still on, door standing open, and Lana paused, hands wrapped around the strap to her bag. She had already said goodbye after shift. Didn't have any real reason she needed to talk to him.
Her feet carried her forward anyway.
"Hey," she spoke softly from the doorway, not wanting to startle him, and he looked up from the report he was reading.
"Milani. You need something?"
"No, I just," she held up her water bottle. "Came back for this."
Voight set his folder down and rubbed his eyes. He hadn't realize how much time had passed since shift ended.
Milani tucked her bottle under her arm, "You headed out soon? You look tired."
Voight gave a half laugh, "Yeah, maybe." He stood, pulled his jacket from the back of his chair.
They walked down together, didn't really talk but she passed beneath his arm as he held the door, glanced up at him with a small smile that he felt more than he had any right to. She turned to the main door, windows dark, outline of trees bent against the force of the wind, and Voight called her back.
"You walking in that?"
She looked back over her shoulder, lifting it in a short shrug. "It's not too far."
Voight found himself shaking his head. "I'll give you a ride."
Her deliberation lasted only a moment, then that lip curved in a slight smile.
"Sure."
"What were you working on?"
"Hmm?" Voight looked her way as he pulled out of the garage. He had gotten too used to her there, relaxed back in his passenger seat every day.
"What case were you going over just now?"
As far as she knew they didn't have a pressing active case, and Voight cleared his throat.
Some nights there was more than enough work to be done.
Other nights there was nothing more than an empty house to avoid going home to.
His phone rang, and Voight fished it out of pocket, looked down at the number beneath the red glow of the traffic light.
"It's Benson," he said, surprised, and with a glance at Lana, he answered the call.
"Hank, how are you." Olivia's voice came through the car, Voight only then realizing his bluetooth was connected.
"I've been good, yourself?" The light changed and he pulled forward, debated taking the call off bluetooth but decided to just let it be.
"Oh I've been good, busier than ever it seems. How's the team doing, is Milani still working out?"
He could feel Lana looking at him, questioning why on earth she would ever be a subject of conversation between them.
"She's a good officer."
Olivia was distracted or she would have caught his hesitation, would have pushed. She had taken an interest in the officer she had helped get stationed there and at any other moment Voight wouldn't have minded, talking about Officer Milani, her additions to his team.
But not with her sitting there looking at him.
"Good. Well the reason I called is I'm hoping you might have some information for me. We're searching for a man named Timony Marcos, he's involved in a case, and I saw in his record that he served time same time you did."
Voight cleared his throat. Benson didn't usually bring up his time in prison. "Yeah, I knew him. What's he doing in New York?"
"I was hoping you could tell me."
Voight tried to think. They hadn't exactly been friends but he had heard things none the less. "He talked about a cousin. Don't think they were blood but they grew up together. Said he would see him if he ever got out. Name of Tony C."
There was a pause as Olivia wrote that down. "Alright I'll look into it. Thank you, Hank. Tell Erin hello for me."
Voight told her goodnight and ended the call.
Lana reached forward, pushing one of the vents away from blowing directly on her, the sound of rain against the wipers filling the car.
"You make a good team, you and Olivia."
Her comment was simple enough, but Voight's hands flexed on the wheel. Lana had assumed before, that there was something between him and Olivia. Held it as a reason to keep away and he respected that. But Lana had self admittedly never been one to listen to gossip. How had she been so certain he and Olivia were together?
"I have a lot of respect for her."
They were almost there, to her apartment. Voight could just let the silence stretch. But he was curious. He asked, blunt, a little hurried.
Lana tensed. She wasn't prepared for that question. They never talked about it, anything that had happened between them outside of work, and even the slightest reference caught her off-gaurd.
She didn't have to answer. She knew that. She didn't have to admit anything.
So why did she find her mouth opening?
"I saw you, together."
"Where?"
Lana felt her heartbeat thickening. Nerves or embarrassment, she didn't know which, but she felt shy.
"Leaving your place. The morning we started our case with her."
Voight frowned. If Milani had seen her, had been there... She would have been looking for him and found a woman on his doorstep instead.
"Benson had checked in to get me up to speed on the case."
Lana was staring straight ahead. "Yes, I understand that now." Her tone was so reasonable it was almost comical.
"You could have asked me." Voight pointed out, something gentle about the way he spoke.
Lana puffed out a laugh. "It wasn't my business."
"But you were bothered by it, thinking I would do that to Olivia. Make you a part of it."
"I was," she acknowledged.
Voight came to a stop outside her apartment, shifted into park and faced her there. Her fingers laced and her hands dropped into her lap.
"It wasn't just that." Her eyes were on the rivulets of rain connecting and diverging along the window. Like it was less of an admittance if she wasn't looking at him.
"Then what was it."
Voight's voice was too low, left too much room for her to fill with her answers and Lana stared at the rain and pretended this conversation just didn't count.
It happened under storm clouds. They didn't listen like the sun.
"I knew what we weren't, Hank. We got what we wanted without strings. But after seeing Olivia leaving. I guess, I dunno. I felt like a cheap substitute."
Voight's hand tightened on the gear shift.
"Milani." His voice was sharper, louder, and it brought her eyes to him in surprise. "You aren't cheap. I never meant to make you feel that way."
She shrugged at him, an it's-not-a-big-deal smile that was ready to dismiss all of this, and Voight wanted her to listen. To understand.
That their moments had helped him more than she ever knew. That she had laid stepping stones in the dark when he wasn't ready to turn on the light.
She had been exactly what he needed and what he didn't know he wanted and there wasn't a way to thank her for that without saying too much.
"I should go." She sighed, but didn't move.
not yet. It stayed on the edge of his tongue, ready to fall.
Voight looked forward. "Have a goodnight, Milani."
She stepped out into the rain.