"West path clear."

"East is good." Antonio answered Jay's report. "Anything at the play area?"

There was silence and Voight's voice came through. "You got anything, Milani?"

More silence followed, and Antonio frowned. "Anyone got eyes on Milani?"

"Negative." Olinsky responded.

"Keep looking. I'll double back. Eyes open everyone." Voight commanded, and Antonio turned forward with a shrug.

Voight tried her again, getting nothing back. It could just be faulty tech but he didn't like this. He scanned the playground, spotted the buildings to the side and headed towards them, retracing her likely search.

He reached the back of the buildings and felt a chill go through him. Milani was there, paused on the path to the ball courts. Her back was to a man who approached her, her focus on anything but the knife in his hand.

There wasn't thought, just reaction. Years of experience pulled his weapon, trained it on the man who lunged for Lana and Voight took the shot.

Lana lurched around, staring at the body as the shot rang in her ears.

It echoed, across the open field and someone screamed. She could imagine, parents grabbing their children, the panic and fear following the sound.

Lana kicked the knife away from a lifeless hand, it registering that this man had tried to use it on her but it didn't quite sink in. Her own training carried her through the motions of securing the scene.

She was calm until Voight reached her, jerked her around to face him. Anger clouded his face, the red kind of fury and a spike of adrenaline went through her heart.

"What the hell was that, Milani!" His finger jabbed at the man on the ground, "Where was your head at, huh?!"

He couldn't stand there and look at her. She had almost taken a knife to the back. Could be lying dead where that man lay instead. It filled his mind, an image he couldn't get out.

She went to answer and he cut her off.

"Go get in the car."

She blinked, dumbfounded.

"GET IN THE CAR!"

One step back, then another, Voight's angry shout echoing like that shot in her mind.

Erin was shouting through the comms, and Voight finally heard it. He winced away, snapping out enough details to get her to be quiet.

"Where's Lana," Antonio came sprinting up, taking in the man on the ground, eyes sweeping the scene.

"The car. I'll deal with her later," he jerked his head at the man he had shot, "Call it in."

"Is she alright?" Antonio demanded, and Voight sent him a painfully calm look Antonio recognized too well.

She wouldn't be once Voight was done with her. They had just taken down a guy in a city park. This was going to a bureaucratic nightmare.

Antonio resisted the urge to try and pull Voight back. They had all faced Voight after a particularly stupid mistake, if this was Lana's? Well. She could handle it.

He got to work securing the scene, and just hoped this didn't give her more ammunition to take that job in Miami.

Her hands were shaking.

It wasn't the first shooting she had seen. Not by a long shot. Wasn't the first time she had brushed death either. She had made plenty of mistakes as a rookie, owed her life to the officers around her. Considered it a friendly debt repaid when some of them ended up owing her back.

But this time...

The door opened and she jumped, cursed under her breath before peering up at Erin.

"Are you alright, come here." Erin tugged her out and gave her a hug, a move so unexpected Lana practically stuttered.

"Mad at myself is all."

"What happened?" There was real concern in Erin's eyes, a little frown around her lips as she looked at Lana.

"I, uh, approached a man, gave him a description of the suspect." Her stomach turned at the pathetic shake to her voice. Lana cleared her throat, gaze zeroing in over Erin's shoulder at Voight, headed their way.

"Yeah, and then what?" Erin prompted, and Lana shook her head.

"He pointed me towards the lower courts. I fed the intel into the comms when no one responded. I was trying to fix them when..." she trailed off. "I didn't notice him behind me. Voight took him out."

Erin would have responded but Voight didn't give her the chance. Brushed past her like she wasn't there and stepped face to face with Lana.

"You wanna explain yourself, Milani."

He was not an overly large man but he crowded the air people needed to breathe when he was looking for answers. She had seem him go toe to toe with enough suspects to know the pressure just his presence could give and her chest felt tight.

"Woah," Erin interjected, shooting Voight an annoyed look. "The guy didn't seem like a threat, Voight. It happens."

"You aren't in this, Lindsey. When I want your opinion I'll ask for your report."

Abject dismissal. Erin's lip curled but she backed off. Going against Voight when he was like this was one even she couldn't win.

He faced down Lana, noticing everything. The small shake to her breath as she inhaled, fingers that thread around eachother before her hands disappeared behind her back. It gutted his simmering anger, but there was only more to replace it.

If he hadn't gotten there, hadn't seen the blade in the time... Voight swore.

"I messed up."

"That's obvious, Milani. Missing a threat is a rookie mistake. You should be dead."

She winced as he said it, and his stomach dropped like empty weight. He didn't want to be doing this, shouting her down when the only thing he needed was to be sure she was okay. But that wasn't his job and it wasn't his place and right now she was still his officer who needed to explain herself.

"I didn't miss it."

Voight scoffed. "You telling me that that's what you look like when you're defending yourself?"

She didn't react. Took a calming breath that he watched rise and fall. Too calm. Where was her anger, her defense? That fire his needed to keep burning against?

Voight couldn't rail against stone.

"I mean I recognized he was a threat." Cool, and clear, she shook out her shoulders and raised her head, "And I dismissed it."

Lana had sensed that man was somehow off and thought it was her own stupid distractions. Years on the job and she had turned her back on a threat. It was difficult, to fail that hard, but she had managed.

And now she got to witness it, the moment he realized what kind of cop she was.

Distracted. Weak.

He stepped back, anger gone. Replaced with what, disappointment?

"Wait here."

Lana obeyed.

It was a silent drive back. The others had canvassed the surrounding area, never found the original suspect. Voight? He had calmed into something worse than anger.

It was like she wasn't even there.

There was work to do. ID the man that was killed. Find a connection, a reason. Her day wasn't over yet but it felt like weeks had passed since last night.

Voight entered the precinct ahead of her, held the door for her to grab it and didn't look her way.

The captain flagged him down in the lobby, and Lana slipped up the stairs.

"I hear Officer Milani has been in the field."

There was very little preamble, and Voight's brow popped. "And? She's a useful asset."

"Who isn't cleared for field work," the captain's voice stressed the obvious and Voight glanced away in irritation. This wasn't worth even dealing with right now. How the captain hadn't caught wind of the shooting in the park yet, he had no idea, but he shrugged at the woman.

"She's inactive. Just surveillance."

A lie. But he didn't back down.

"She isn't cleared," The captain reiterated, her tone meant to end the discussion but one look at Voight said that wasn't happening.

"This is my precinct, Sergeant. And she is my officer. If she can't follow the restrictions of her position then she does not have a place here. Am I understood?"

Voight nodded once. "Anything else, Captain?" He was leaving this conversation regardless of her answer.

Her frown was subtle, but it was blatant in her eyes.

"Dismissed."

Trudy waved him down before he made the stairs. Voight pressed a hand to his forehead before crossing over. How on earth could there be something else he had to listen to right now.

"I heard what that Eric was up to," she leaned in, and Voight sent a glance at the captain's door. He had forgotten seeing Eric here. How could that have only been a few hours ago? The captain's concern with Milani being in the field now made an irritating amount of sense.

"Yeah, I think I figured that one out." He went to leave, but turned back. "Do me a favor."

She raised a brow like she was considering it, but when she met his gaze her haughty expression dropped.

She hadn't seen Voight like this in a long time. Worn to the point he was numb.

"Yeah, name it."

"If Detective Watts shows up, don't let him up."

Trudy smoothed her hands over the counter, "You got it."

She watched the man walk away that she had known for decades, and shook her head.

What in heaven's name was happening in her precinct?

Voight stopped by Lana's desk. She was scanning the screen in front of her, focused. Working. Harder than any of them sometimes it seemed. She didn't deserve this. The captain could be a piece of work but she didn't make empty threats.

"Lana."

The others weren't back yet, and her head came up. He could see it in her eyes, faint bracing to be yelled at again.

His voice was quiet. "You're out of the field."

There was a soft sound, like pained surprise.

"Voight..." she didn't seem to know what to say, how to argue. And Voight shook his head.

"You're either out of the field or you're out of my unit." He shrugged once, empty, "Up to you."

She found a name. The man Voight had shot was Olin Zchawski. Known associates, Melvin Ringman. Melvin fit every description, the witness confirmed it. They had the identity of their guy.

Finding the connections. The hows. The whys. That would take time.

But they would do it. She didn't doubt that for a moment. An innocent man was jailed for something he hadn't done. The true offender was walking free. It was the kind of wrong this unit was built to right.

She had been a part of it. Had tried to earn a place here in the job. In the team.

They had given it. Voight had given that.

And she had messed that up.

Shift ended quietly. The others had filtered out as the end of the day neared, wrapping up the hour out of the office.

Voight's door was closed and she didn't care. Her report from earlier was only half finished.

Yeah, she had owned up to her mistake, told Voight. But somehow writing it down, signing it. She couldn't stomach it.

She clicked off the light as she left. Walked home under a beautiful sky.

It could have been a perfect day.

And now it couldn't get much worse.

It got worse.

Eric was waiting for her at her door, hurried forward as she stepped off of the stairs.

"My word, Lani, are you alright? I heard what happened."

She opened her mouth to tell him to get lost in the strongest vocabulary she could possibly manage when he held up a white paper bag, "I grabbed some take out, wanted to make sure you were okay."

Of course he had, the one thing that would make her even consider dealing with a conversation with him right now. Lana was starving.

She unlocked her door, snatched the carryout bag and went inside. She didn't invite him in but he followed anyway.

"I'm surprised Antonio isn't here with you," Eric commented, casually fishing and Lana glared at him as she stuffed a piece of buttered roll in her mouth.

"Why are you here."

Eric drew in an expanding breath, visually preparing to say something important and Lana chewed loudly while she waited, not caring if it would irritate him.

"I have to return home soon, Lani. I'm going to need your answer by tomorrow."

Lana set her bread down. She looked at him, pressed collar of his shirt laying neatly against his tan skin, white enough to match the flash of his smile. It would never be dark, slightly rumpled, with buttons that gave way beneath her fingers, with blood on the collar as she pushed it away and left it crumpled on her bathroom floor...

"Come on, Lani," Eric's voice had her blinking back, a little surprised with herself for getting distracted by a shirt.

"What?" Lana picked up her bread again.

"Come home," Eric stepped forward, eyes so full of invitation, "Come home and-"

"And what? Be your assistant? File reports? I can't go in the field, Eric."

Why did it feel like she was reliving it all over again? After her last doctor's visit, hearing the verdict, that she was being taken from active field work. That ache. That loss. She turned away angrily and Eric held up his hands.

"I know, Lani. But you can't do that here, either. So why don't you come home?"

But she had done that here. For weeks she had gotten a chance to be out there again. Now she had lost it all due to a bad call and she couldn't even blame Voight for pulling her.

Eric was waiting for an answer, and Lana gave the most basic answer she could find. "This is a good unit, Eric. We do good work."

He stepped forward, pressing, "You can't work for a man like Voight, Lani. You can't trust him." He saw her indignant reply and headed off her argument. "How long until he asks you to do something that compromises yourself, or your job?"

He could see it, in the way her words sparked and died. He knew it was true and so did she. Voight had probably already gotten her to do things she never would have agreed to back home, and a piece of her would never be okay with that.

"You mean like you did?" He wasn't expecting the ice, brittle calm in her eyes, "And now you want me to work for you?"

Eric back pedaled. "That was different." He sighed, voice deceptively gentle, "Are you really going to let one past mistake of mine stop you from working for me, and ignore his constant bad decisions? You're not a hypocrite, Lani."

Lana felt the heat of anger like it was suffocated in her chest. "It was different, Eric. What you did was selfish. Voight does what he does to help people. To protect people. You had me lie so you could get a promotion, and even after what happened you still didn't own up."

Eric suppressed an eye roll. "I told you that the car accident wasn't my fault, Lani."

It was like the acid curdled in Lana's stomach. Even if he hadn't been high, a girl had still died, how could he be so dismissive like that?

"I wasn't talking about the accident. I lost active duty because of what I did for you."

Eric scoffed, "You lost active duty because of your arm."

"My arm's fine, Eric." Lana snapped back, "it was punishment for the accident. A demotion without the bad press."

"Well, we can change that, " The way he accepted it, moved on without even questioning like he had known the truth all along. "I can submit for another medical review. We can get you reinstated, be a full, active agent again."

She'd be lying if she said something inside of her didn't start listening at those words. Didn't want to hear more, to think about the possibility of what he was offering.

"Come on, Lani, I know I messed up, I know that. I want to make it right." He looked around at the sparse furnishings, the not fully unpacked boxes. "You obviously haven't fully settled in here. Come home. Come back to the job that you love, where you belong."

Lana stared. He was here, pretending he could make it better. That everything between them could just get swept beneath a pretty little rug.

And there wasn't a tiny, single, drop of herself that wanted that.

He could see the stubbornness building, that his pushing was making her shut down, and he relented before he lost this argument once and for all.

"Just, promise to think about it, okay?"

Lana nodded once, arms folding she looked away. She'd agree to think about it if it got him to leave. And it did. A warm smile, a small squeeze to her arm, and Eric left.

Lana leaned against the counter and sighed. It was a relief, to breathe without him watching her. He could be relentless, a trait that often worked out well for him, but being on the other side of it was exhausting.

He was leaving tomorrow, going back to run his own little unit, and she realized with refreshing clarity that she would not be going with him. She hoped he would do well. Maybe he would even be good at it. But she didn't want to be a part of it.

She wanted to be a part of here. Even if she had screwed it up, it was worth sticking around and trying to fix it.

It was worth trying to make it right. Lana pulled her phone, scrolling until Voight's number filled the screen. She might as well start now.