I Don't Live in a Bubble part II

He hated what he was doing in setting Joey up. Taking advantage of an addicted and broken man, but there was no other way. Joe was collateral damage and there was no other choice in the matter, and instead of dwelling on regret he tried to be grateful that the opportunity of blackmail had presented itself. It would save them, whether they deserved it or not.

As he stumbled through the wasteland made up of the homeless and despondent, he tried to focus on his recent conversation with both Liam, who was with Will tonight, and Hailey who was back at the district. Liam had been surprisingly pleasant that morning when Hailey had taken him to school, and cooperative throughout the process of getting ready. Somehow, Liam always knew when the times were desperate enough that it was in everyone's best interest for him to comply with whatever was in front of him, and deal with any objections later. He sensed that what he had discovered last night and Jay's absence went hand-in-hand and now was not the time to make life any harder. Will had once told him that the reason Liam would act up around Jay was because father and son had such a good relationship. That he would hold everything in while he was at school and with caregivers, so when he was home it would all come out, simply because he knew Jay loved him enough to absorb it. That despite his misbehavior he would always be cherished. It showed Jay that he was the father, he had always strove to be. That Liam felt safe, stable and loved. Jay had to admit in the midst of North's threats and accusations, that thought of taking Liam and running had occurred to him; but only briefly. Clearly that wasn't a viable option. So now this was choice, he thought as he bummed a cigarette from Joe North and began the next phase of this ordeal.

Was this unethical? Yes. Did he hate doing it? Yes. Did he have choice? Yes. But his future as well his family's hinged on this immoral act, an act to protect the greater good, because life isn't black and white. Because collateral damage happens. Because sometimes you have to do the wrong thing for the right reason. Because Liam deserved his father, the city deserved to have Voight protect it, and Hailey deserved to get her life back. And, Jay reasoned, Walker North was only as powerful as he believed he was. He had no problem trampling on whatever was in front of him to get what he wanted and now Jay was doing the same thing. Sometimes you don't know where the line is, until you are crossing it. And, the bottom line, you don't fuck with Jay's kid. Thinking back at the fear in his son's eyes pushed him forward. The kid was terrified that he was in trouble for something that he had nothing to do with. And North was the one that had made him feel that way. It was going to stop, and it was going to stop now.

But despite his anger, Jay's pangs of guilt were immense as Joe took the bait over and over again, finally ending up just where they needed him to be. He didn't know how Voight was feeling, but Jay was feeling pretty shitty about his part in this performance of one oneupmanship with Walker North. He should be exhausted, but he wasn't, the adrenaline and fear were enough to banish any fatigue that dared to glance his way. He was as strung out as all the junkies that had surrounded him.

He just assume forget this particular chapter in his life. But it doesn't work that way, you can't skip over the bad parts. This event will be part of who he is and who he has become. The note was still in his pocket, Liam was on his screensaver and that had to be all that mattered right now. Or the next chapter in their lives would be drastically different and Jay didn't think he could live with that either. He had let his son down in many ways, but this wouldn't be one of them. He and Hank were almost there, not clean, not ethical, but on the road to success because it wasn't either of those things. And thankfully, Hailey, had no idea about any of it.

Jay knew that if she got a whiff of any of this, she would insist on turning herself in. The last thing she wanted was to put him in jeopardy. Or do anything that would negatively affect Liam. She knew Liam wasn't thrilled with her presence in his life and nothing seemed to be going well between them. Firstly, the move ended up in disaster. All the thrill he initially had with the new apartment had waned after the first week. Then the battle with her conscience hadn't gone unnoticed, and she definitely did not present her best self with her fatigue, despondency, and bouts of brief relationships with the bottle. Not a great look at all. Especially once Jay found out what she had been hiding and the tension was so taut it was nearly impenetrable. What a great addition she had made to this boys life. No wonder he had no use for her. She had wanted to make life better for him, add stability, but she had done anything but.

Liam, for the most part, simply ignored her. She'd ask him a question and he would shrug or give no notice whatsoever that he even heard her. If she offered to take him outside to do something, he gave the same response. If she tried to direct him in any way, he lashed out saying she had no right to tell him what to do. Of course when Jay was around he was slightly better, but not much. Last night was different, he not only acknowledged her, he was somewhat pleasant and helpful. Liam knew something, something that she didn't know and she didn't like it. Jay was hiding something and Liam had an idea what it was. But, he was just as good as his father at keeping secrets. So, she enjoyed their time that evening and went to bed with her mind racing of questions, mostly of why Jay wasn't next to her.

After Jay and Hank had spoken, knowing they finally had the upper hand. That there was a good chance that their blackmail tactic would work, they went back inside. Voight still upset with the fact that North had been tailing Liam. You never used children in your own war, that was so out of bounds, that Hank silently patted himself on the back for not just going out and dealing with the man himself. He wasn't sure what the agent's plan had been. Had he been working himself up into speaking with Liam, believing that the boy might give up some kind of useful tidbit in a casual conversation? Would he have used the kid to pass a message onto Jay, thinking it would be more powerful if it was delivered from his own son? He overreached, pushed too hard and it had pushed Jay to a dark place. Liam even knew what a big deal it was, causing him to initially lie and write the message out instead of telling his father.

Once back inside, Hailey was waiting for them and wasn't going to let Jay go until she found out exactly what was going on. "How can you keep this from me? I'll turn myself in Jay," Hailey said as they had found a secluded spot among the shelves of evidence.

"That's exactly why I didn't tell you," Jay stated. "That is not what I want or what you need to do."

"You can't risk this," Hailey began. "Jay, you are a single father with a child depending on you. You don't have the luxury of playing this game."

"Let me be the judge of that."

"I don't like it. I won't be responsible for anything happening to you."

"You're not. And it won't. This will work. We are a family and we will get through this together."

"Liam wouldn't see it that way. If you get in trouble because of me, he'll never forgive me. He's already not thrilled with my presence. Does he think something's going on? He was so good this morning that I was suspicious."

Jay debated about how much to tell her. He knew if he admitted that the agent had been following Liam, she would march right to him and admit her part in the whole thing. He thought that maybe Liam feared he was in trouble with the FBI for some reason and was trying to be on his best behavior. But Jay was forced to ad-lib. "He knew he'd be in big trouble if he wasn't anything but perfect," he said as he leaned over and kissed her. "This will be over soon. Don't worry."

But she was worried. Worried about so, so much.

Jay had tried to avoid this late conversation the next morning, but Voight wouldn't let him go. "Five minutes Jay. Just give me five minutes." Jay took several more steps ahead before he stopped and turned around.

"I have to go."

"Just five minutes. Please." Jay shrugged and looked at his boss.

"Turn me in. You have to turn me in."

"I'm doing this Hank. I don't want to, but here we are. I will do it, because I have to."

"But you don't. Turn me in. You won't be able to handle it. You'll regret doing this. I'll be fine if you turn me in."

"Oh, you'll be fine?" Jay asked.

"Yes. I'll be fine."

Jay shook his head. "Don't you get it? I'll have regrets if I turn you in and I'll have regrets if I don't. I have made my mind up, and I will handle it. I will handle it because there is no other choice. You don't think I know that this city needs you. That the unit needs you. I have worked with you for ten years and I have had issues with the way you do things. But I also believe in you and the results that you get. The greater good and all that."

"No Jay. I can't let you do this. I can't ask you do change who you are on my behalf."

"But I already have. Don't you see that?" Jay volleyed causing Voight to shudder. "I will be who I need to be. I will be the husband that Hailey needs me to be and I will be the father that Liam needs me to be."

"He was way out of line to involve Liam."

"Yeah, except he wasn't the only one out of line." Jay said and continued to his truck.

During the drive to the vacant lot Jay thought of so many things and most of them weren't good. This had to work, but what if North didn't take this deal? What if his need to take Voight down was greater than his own self preservation? But Jay didn't think it was. If shadows were cast on the agent nothing he did would gain any traction and nobody around him would have any confidence in what he had to offer. Plus his supervisors would intervene and look into the charges, which would prove to be true. No, there was no doubt North would back off—he simply had no choice.

Jay had gotten there first and took a moment to breathe deeply and gather himself. Exhaustion still hadn't set in, and he wondered when it would and what would happen when it did. He looked at his phone, the screen filled with a smiling Liam. He went to his pictures and found a picture of Hailey, shying away from the camera, but the tilt of a smile on her face. One day soon he would get both of them in the same picture.

That was the next project, to get his son to see Hailey as a positive addition to their lives and not an enemy. He knew that it was hard for Liam to get attached to anyone that Jay dated. Other than Erin, he had only been semi-serious with one other woman, and it didn't get too far, the job made sure of that. So this was all new to his son, and he wasn't quite grasping what he was supposed to do with it.

He got out of the truck and stretched his legs just as he heard a car pulling up. He saw North, a smile on his face, get out and walk his way. Jay pulled his courage from a place so deep he hadn't even known it existed.

As Jay brought up Joey, the smile vanished from the agent as he begged Jay not to fail him. "Don't do it this way." He had pushed. But Jay wasn't going to bend. He made it clear he hadn't wanted to do any of it, but then he laid it all out and didn't waver, not in the slightest. He simply couldn't afford to.

"So you have it all covered then," North said as he took the folder and scanned the suggested names of traffickers.

Jay didn't answer as he looked towards the water as the moments from the last thirty-six hours filtered through his brain. "I told you that I didn't want to do it this way—or any way. But you took it too far when you followed my son. He's just a kid, only eleven, but then you already knew that."

North looked as if he had been slapped. Jay took a moment and licked his lips. "He wouldn't lie. Not about this."

The agent took a minute before replying. "He didn't lie. "I—I just, I never approached him." He stammered. "I didn't think he even saw me."

"Well he did. More than once."

"I guess he really is your son then. As skilled as his old man in being aware."

"You dangled my child out in front of me and expected me to what? Ignore that? That it would turn me into whatever you needed me to be?"

A silence descended, but both men knew this meeting wasn't over yet. All of this upset Jay on multiple levels, but it was the thought of North knowing exactly where his son was and what he was doing, when even Jay didn't know, was what bothered him the most.

As if the agent could sense it, he shifted his weight and began to speak. "He looks around when he exits the school. Only puts one ear bud in—ever alert. Something I figure you taught him. He looks both ways before he crosses the street and usually crosses with the light. He makes sure he is at the bus stop in plenty of time and always gives up his seat if needed.

"When he gets to the library, he looks over towards the park, but never goes there. Once he opens the door and enters, he is immediately comfortable. He looks around as if he sees it all for the first time. Sometimes he looks at the books as if he wants to devour them. Other times it is as if he wants to take them all home and nurture them as if they were stray kittens." North pauses and looks at Jay whose face is rapt. "He's a thinker, stopping while reading or writing to absorb it, feast on it. And when he receives your evening text for pick-up, a complete calm comes over him."

Jay nodded, mashing his lips together; happy to know the things that North described and angry that he hadn't discovered these things for himself. He knew Liam loved the big library. He could walk to the Bucktown branch from his school, but it closed at six most nights. The Harold Washington branch on State street was the only one that stayed open until eight and gave Jay enough time to pick him up. But even that was tough to do sometimes.

"Some nights he wanders." North continued. "Up and down the escalators. He likes the cannons, stands with them and stares out at the same place that they do. He looks into the pools of water as if they hold some elusive answer. He likes the exhibits on the ninth floor and regularly checks to see if there are any events being held."

"Which are his favorite floors?" Jay asks after he clears his throat.

"All of them. He breezes through the second floor, the children's section and looks at the young adult section. The periodicals are on the third floor along with the computers. The eighth floor has music, art and architecture. He is always quiet and respectful."

"And it's a wonder that he spotted you?" Jay questioned, uncertain whether to be grateful for this trip into Liam's life or horrified that his son had been in this man's sites for so long. He suspected that when Liam had written he had only seen him at the library once, it had been a lie."

"I suppose not," North said with a sigh.

"What did you hope to accomplish? What was your plan? Following him."

Glancing at the ground, hands in his front pockets, North sighed again. "I don't guess I had one. I was looking at this well-adjusted kid, wondering how useful you could be to me. Believing that you, with everything you've been through; rough childhood, your mother's illness, time in the army, that you would be the one who came through. Seeing Liam, a good kid, raised alone, by a guy who had beat the odds, I guess I figured that you'd do whatever it took to protect him."

Jay looked up at North and squinted his eyes. "And that's exactly what I did."

As he drove, Jay thought about what had happened over the last thirty-six hours and how it would change him forever. How whenever he heard the rain falling and squeal of the L, he would think of Joe North and the betrayal he had issued the man. Of how he so quickly made the smile, along with his now squandered efforts disappear from Walker North's face and life. He thought of how he protected the people he loved and how much of his soul it had cost him. How he felt cloaked in darkness, it holding him tightly soothing him in its treachery. And how he had to go forward and pretend he was fine with it all. He could do it. He would do it. Simply because there was no other choice.

He knocked on Voight's door, the man clearly waiting as it opened instantly. "It's done. It worked. He won't bother us or with the case again. But you have to listen when I tell you that we are going to do things differently from now on. Too many people paid for your actions, so instead of us telling you the truth so that you can lie for us, you will come to me with the truth, and we will decide—together—what to do. No more deciding on your own. It's time to protect you from yourself."

Voight remained quiet and merely nodded his response as he looked at Jay. He could easily see the toll this had taken on Jay, and he deserved to get what he asked for. He was right—it was time. Time to let go and let others lead, or at least help him to lead.

As Jay turned he leave he hesitated and called out before Voight could close the door. "Thank you for respecting my wishes in not contacting Liam during this ordeal." Hank and Liam would generally text a couple of times a week. Liam sending a joke or funny meme and Voight, asking how school was going or just general questions about his well-being.

"Of course," Voight said as he held the door in his hand.

"I told him that you were having issues with your phone, so I wouldn't have to tell him any details."

"Okay. Good. I wouldn't want him to think that he had done anything wrong."

Jay shook his head. "No, he didn't do anything wrong."

"Right," Voight nodded. If Jay thought that he was okay with all of this he was wrong. This had nearly broken him. When he saw Hailey suffering it had kept him up at night, and when Jay pulled his GPS, he knew it would only get worse—and it did. Watching them pay for his indiscretion, being told that Kim was found, and saved by, as Jay reminded him, good police work, had hit him harder than he imagined. When he discovered that Liam had been affected, well it was a serious punch to the gut.

"Your phone is fixed," Jay said staring at something on the front of the house.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. But all he knows is that this was a complicated case. There were things we didn't agree on and I admitted to him that I was out of line when I hit you and I was wrong to do it. He doesn't know any details other than they found a body and that was because he saw it happen. I did what I did because there was no other choice, not for you, not for Hailey, not for me. But most of all not for Liam. I promised him it would be okay and I had to make good on that promise. I will do whatever it takes to protect my family. I'm sure you can appreciate that."

Voight nodded. "Of course I can. And I never discuss work or cases with him. Just as you don't. But if he hints around at anything, I will stick to what you said. I'm sorry all this affected you guys, especially Liam."

"That's why we are going to do things differently from now on." Jay reminded as he turned to leave.

"Hey Jay?"

"Yeah," he said pausing.

"Thank you." Jay didn't speak, using more of nondescript noise and head shake. "Um, the ice rink just opened up at Millennium Park." Hank continued.

"Let's just stick with the phone for right now. I'm not there yet. I need more time before you see him in person."

"Sure. Of course. Thank you." Voight said again as he watched Jay walk off, his head a little lower, his body sagging a little further than ever before. Despite what Jay had told him, assured him that he would be fine, he wasn't and wouldn't be. Nothing would be like it had been before, not completely.

Hank shut the door and passed by a small table where he put his keys when he got home. On it sat a small frame that held a picture that had been taken the previous month with him and Liam at a Chicago Fire soccer game. A friend of his had given him two tickets and though he had never been much of a soccer fan, he knew Liam would enjoy it.

Over the years Hank had stepped in occasionally and taken Liam on an outing to give Jay a break, as well as fill a void in his own life after losing his son and grandson. He would take him to the movies, a local playground, out to eat or just back to his house to watch a movie or play a board game.

He picked up the picture, Liam's face flushed with excitement, his Fire jersey wrinkled up from him tugging on it after a near goal. The woman in the row in front of them offered to take it for them, probably believing they were related somehow. He loved that kid. He loved that kids father. And he truly was struggling with what he had put everyone through. Jay was right, he needed to be saved from himself and he knew the man had the ability to do that, as well as protect the rest of the unit from ever going through anything like this again. It was time to relinquish part of the reins, allow a shift in power and to take a step back. Bearing the burden had finally worn him down to the point that he was ready to accept the offered help. He also didn't see any other way. He owed Jay at least that much.

To be continued...

Soundtrack:

No Worries by Amateur Blonde

Haters Don't Dance by Nicole Saboune