The following Monday, Hank made sure to be the first member of Intelligence to arrive for work. The early start made little difference to him. He rarely slept well these days. Dreams, or rather nightmares, about Anna Avalos came almost every night. He saw her being shot by Hailey Upton over and over again. Saw her dying right in front of him over and over again. Anna was gone, just like everyone else.

He vigorously shook his head to clear it as he heard someone walking up the stairs to the bullpen. It was time to focus on work. The one thing that kept him going. He heard Kim and Adam talking in the bullpen. They were the first arrivals of the day. Adam and Kim who had a relationship and a child. Adam and Kim who were happy. Hank was jealous, if he allowed himself to think about it. He hadn't felt like that until Anna died, but now he was. Anna's death had changed him. Broken him somehow. A tipping point.

For the second time, Hank shook his head to clear it. This time it worked. Work mode was activated. "Morning!" he called out, letting Adam and Kim know that he was in his office. The blinds were closed, so they wouldn't have known without looking in his doorway.

"Oh, hey, boss," Adam said, appearing in the doorway as Kim called out a greeting from her desk. "Coffee? I'm going to make a pot."

"Sure," Hank said.

Over the next ten minutes, he heard the bullpen filling up with his team, coming in early for the same reason he had. They wanted to be there when their new colleague arrived. Hailey's was the only voice he hadn't heard. There was an undertone of slight nervousness about the chatter. Meeting a new team member naturally had that effect, but Hank was more than confident that Kalinda would fit in quickly.

"Here you go, boss," Adam said, returning at last with the coffee.

Hank nodded his thanks. At that moment his phone rang. An internal call from the front desk.

"Voight."

Trudy Platt's voice came on the line. "Hank, I've got Detective Rai here."

"I'll come down." He ended the call, got up and walked out of his office. He wasn't sure why he had said that. Usually he would have asked Trudy to show a new starter how to gain access to Intelligence and bring them up to the bullpen.

"Detective Rai is here," he told the team on his way through the bullpen. With the coffee and morning greetings dealt with, they were at their desks starting work, even though the shift hadn't yet begun.

When Hank reached the stairs, he encountered Hailey coming the other way. She looked like she hadn't slept well, and barely looked at him as she mumbled, "Sarge."

Jay abruptly bailing overseas and leaving her behind had messed her up. Understandably so, but she had to get over it, at least while she was working. It was a problem Hank was going to have to resolve at some point. Right now, he had something more immediate and more pleasant to deal with.

He went down the stairs and approached Kalinda, who smiled warmly when she saw him. She had her hair in the tight bun again, but the suit was gone. She was dressed in a simple outfit of a white top and black pants. The notable part was the knee-high black leather boots. They had no heels, so they wouldn't stop her running if she needed to. Even so, they were quite striking footwear for a detective. She also had a backpack with her. Some things for her locker.

Smiling wasn't his thing, but he did his best to put some warmth in his voice. It didn't really work. "Hi, Kalinda. Welcome to the 21st." They shook hands. Hers was soft and cool, the way it had been the first time.

"Hank, good to see you. I'm excited to make a start."

"Come with me. I'll introduce you to the team. We even have fresh coffee."

"You know the way to my heart," she said cheerfully.

As he turned to follow Kalinda up the stairs, Hank noticed Trudy look away from him, but he caught some kind of weird grin on her face. He had no idea what her problem was.

He showed Kalinda how to get through the security door to Intelligence, and they walked up the stairs together. There was silence in the bullpen apart from keyboards being tapped and mouse buttons being clicked. Hank decided that taking Kalinda around the desks would be easiest, since everyone was sitting.

He stepped up to the first pair of back to back desks. "Okay, I'm going to introduce you all to Detective Kalinda Rai. She's joining us effective immediately, as you know. We're lucky to have her. Kalinda, this is Kevin Atwater, and this is Dante Torres."

Kevin had the good manners to stand up before shaking her hand. "Good to meet you, ma'am," he said politely.

"You too, Kevin," she replied, shaking hands. "But please don't call me ma'am. It's Kalinda, or if you must, KR works."

"I'd call you ma'am if you were fourteen or 40," he grinned. "But I like KR."

"If only I fitted into that age range," she quipped, and Kevin laughed.

Dante followed Kevin's example and stood to shake hands. "Welcome," was all he said. He wasn't dismissive, he was just a man of few words.

"Thank you," Kalinda said.

Hank went over to the next pair of desks, where Kim and Adam had already stood up. "Kim Burgess. Adam Ruzek."

"Looking forward to working with you," Kim said, shaking hands.

"You too, Kim. I've heard your name somewhere. Can't quite remember where, but I know you're good."

"Oh, thank you," Kim said in genuine, pleasant surprise.

Kalinda moved on to shake Adam's hand. "Adam. Good to meet you."

"You too, KR," Adam said with a smile. Hank imagined he used the nickname to make her feel more welcome. Either way, it was catching on already. "How do you work undercover with that accent?"

"I don't work undercover with that accent," Kalinda said, seamlessly switching to near-perfect Chicago.

"Nice," Adam said with a laugh.

Last came Hailey, who seemed quite distant as she shook hands and welcomed Kalinda. Hank figured he would explain later about the tough time Hailey was going through so that Kalinda didn't take it personally.

"Kim, show Kalinda around, find her a locker, then bring her up to speed on the case. Start by showing her where the coffee is," he ordered.

"Sarge," Kim acknowledged.

Hank went back to his office, with the team's current case now on his mind. Several people had died after bad reactions to some new Molly pills that were doing the rounds. The team had been given a name by a hooker who had been busted with a couple of the pills in her possession, trading the name for being released without charge. A Russian-sounding guy who called himself Vulcan was the information they had. Today's job was to find out who he was, and where he was.

He gave Kim some time to give Kalinda the tour and bring her up to speed, then it was time to get to work. The first order of business was to issue Kalinda with her CPD badge, gun, phone and call sign. He had her items on his desk. "Kalinda!" he called out.

She appeared in the doorway within seconds. "Sarge?"

"I have your things here. Badge, gun, phone. All the numbers you need are in it."

"Oh, thank you." She came forward and picked the items up, immediately securing her badge to the left side of her belt.

"I also had your caller ID assigned. I got you 5021 Lincoln. When you call in that you're attending an active crime scene, always remember to announce plain clothes officer responding. We don't want you getting dropped by our own side."

"5021 Lincoln. Plain clothes officer responding. Got it."

"Alright, let's get to work."

He followed her out into the bullpen.

"Okay, coffee time is over," he announced. "We've got the name Vulcan and we know the area where these people have been dying. I want him found and off the streets today. We know he's selling to hookers. Adam, Kim, Hailey, get names and addresses of working girls and start knocking doors. Put pressure on them. Find out who they're buying from."

"Sarge, I got a CI who's a small time pimp down there," Kevin said. "I'd like go speak to him. He might know the guy, or at least have heard something."

"Do that. Kalinda and I will come with you. Dante, you stay here. Look into anyone with an eastern European nationality with drug busts against them. That girl said Russian based on the way he spoke, but it could be any one of a dozen other accents that she mistook for Russian. And look into Vulcan and any other similar names or aliases you can think of."

Dante nodded, disappointed to be left out of the 'real' action. But that was the hand that rookies got dealt sometimes.

Shortly, Hank was behind the wheel of his Dodge SUV, with Kalinda alongside. He followed Kevin out of the lot, who would be on the phone arranging an immediate meet with his CI. Hank could follow him to wherever the arranged location ended up being.

"The team seem like good people. Is Hailey okay though? She looks like she's been burning the candle at both ends."

"Her husband was on the team until recently. He had a brush with death on a case and it messed with his head. He quit the same day, then left for Bolivia. Or Bulgaria. One of those places. Point is, he upped and left Hailey. Blindsided her. It was very strange, and hard on her of course."

"Christ," Kalinda muttered. "And I've just swept in and taken his spot. You could have told me, Hank."

He glanced at her. "Hailey's not going to hold a grudge. She's a pro and she's good police. This is just a rough time for her. We've all been there."

"I hear that," she said, quietly again. He wondered what baggage she was carrying. A divorce, that much he knew from her file.

"You manage to get that room with your friends?" he asked, speeding up to follow Kevin through an intersection as the light threatened to change.

"Yes. And I've got a couple of leads on apartments. I'll be viewing them this week. Glad to back in Chicago. Like it more than Milwaukee."

"What brought you here in the first place? Your first posting in America was in Chicago."

"That's right. My husband got a job over here. The company he worked senior sales for opened an American office and chose to put it in Chicago. So we moved here."

"Do you miss England?" he asked, avoiding talking about her marriage.

She nodded. "Yes. But I like America, too. I have no plans to go back now. Nothing to go back for. My parents and my brother are dead, and it's been eighteen years now since I left. My friends there are all different people now than they were then. Living different lives. I'm hardly in contact with any of them to be honest. So this is my home now. How about you? Wife? Kids?"

"No. My wife died," was all he could make himself say. He couldn't get into his son being killed, his foster daughter leaving town and never calling him, or never getting to see his grandkids. It was too painful. And then there was Anna. Kalinda just wouldn't understand if he went into that. And in any case, he couldn't. It hurt too much.

"I'm sorry, Hank." Kalinda looked at him at the same moment he looked at her. Their eyes met, and he could tell that she meant it. Really meant it. She cared. It felt strange having someone look at him that way. It had been a long time, which in itself was sad. He snapped out of it and got his mind on the job. They were at work.

"This guy we're looking for is a nasty piece of work, continuing to sell Molly that he knows is killing people. I can't wait to get cuffs on him."

Kalinda nodded. "Yes, I've nicked a few like him in my time. Utter scumbags. Always good to get one of the streets."

"Nicked?" he said, glancing at her again.

"Sorry, arrested. The English slang words still come out sometimes."

"Don't apologise," he said.

They drove on in silence, following Kevin on the morning's first mission. Somehow, Hank found it a pleasant silence. He wasn't sure why.

They ended up in a run down neighbourhood, where Kevin pulled up in front of a house. Hank parked behind him, somewhat surprised that the CI wanted to meet at his house.

"Kalinda, you and Kevin can lead this one. I'll see what you can do," he decided before they got out of the car.

"Okay," she said comfortably.

They got out, meeting Kevin on the sidewalk.

"Called him. No answer. Probably still asleep," Kevin explained.

Hank was now all business. "Then let's go wake him up."

A/N: Kalinda is officially on the team. What do you make of her first day so far?