A/N
BeMeanToJayDay comes a little early. OMG! It's going to be a wacky week for me, so I had to set this chapter free a little early. Hope you like it.
And thank you all so much for the comments and kudos and all of the yelling I can hear all the way over here in LA. FanFiction cranky really carries and I absolutely love it cuz it's what I was shooting for. I'll put my earplugs in now because, you know…Voight!
Sections in Italics are other people's thoughts, texts or their side of the conversation with Jay.
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The next morning
Scanning the group but not really making eye contact with anyone, Jay stood at the top of the steps with Trudy, hand's in his pockets, shoulders relaxed, not knowing what was to come but too miserable to be nervous about it.
Trudy had texted him late the night before with orders to show up this morning at 8:00 sharp and made a point of telling him to arrive in street clothes, 'not your goddamn blues!'
When he got the text, he had been puking his guts out, trying to convince himself he didn't have a concussion but was just taking too many ibuprofen and his body was rejecting them. Both equally bad and both probably true. There wasn't a damn thing he could do about a concussion save ride it out but the ibuprofen he could begrudgingly cut back on.
X
They'd all seen the bruises that littered his body the other day, so they knew Jay had to be in pain, but his countenance, painted with a bruised and split lip, black eye, and scrapes to his chin and forehead, was stoic, and his overall demeanor should have been screaming 'pain' but instead it read quiet indifference.
Trudy'd had enough of the bullshit and graced Voight with her most lethal stink eye when he came out of his office and crossed his arms.
"Enough's enough. You two need to kiss and make up."
She gave Voight a pointed look to convey he was the asshole here. Halstead had been working the case just short of 24/7 and should have been pulled off the bench after the initial set down. He needed to be with the team, needed their support, his mistake was eating him up inside and they all needed to let it go for now and deal with it as a team later. Shunning him was doing no one any good.
She stormed back down the steps leaving the bullpen in an uncomfortable silence and hoping Hank would pull his head out of his ass.
Voight's fiery glare would normally have the recipient of it running for the hills, but not Jay, never Jay, "I let you up here, you gunna start following orders?"
Jay sighed, pulled his hands out of his pockets and planted them on his hips. He was sick of everything, sick of being doubted, sick of fighting Voight on every break he'd brought them, sick of feeling like shit.
He would work the case with or without the unit, and at this point without was probably the best option. He'd come to a hard truth last night that as much as he wanted to be back in the bullpen with them, he would more than likely be a distraction, so given that, he would say his piece. He had no shits to give.
"I went against your first order but not by choice, there was a kid in danger…" he saw the minute reactions of the team to that statement and the double down of contempt on Voight's face.
Two could play that game so he doubled down on the truth in a cold and unrelenting tone, "…there was a kid…and he was in danger. I went against your subsequent orders out of necessity - to not let leads slip through our…my, fingers so we could nail Spencer. So it depends, Sarge, you gunna start giving orders worth following?"
This wasn't quite the showdown they were expecting when Jay arrived unannounced. They thought he would cave, but he came back swinging harder than Voight.
Jay stood there in defiance and let Voight make the next move. He wasn't moving from the spot he was firmly planted until he was told where to go, his desk or hell.
"Guess you won't be around to find out."
Hell then.
After Voight walked into his office, Jay stood there another moment with the unit. He knew they were all worried about him based on the sudden onslaught of texts he received the day before, but their concern for his wellbeing didn't matter, didn't make him feel better. He was too wrapped up in the fact that even though they were worried about him, none of them fought for him to stay.
With that punch in the gut, he gave them his standard line, "I'm fine. If I get anything I'll let you know." Then, refusing to use the hand rail, walked back down the steps to find out from Platt if he was suspended, demoted or fired.
X
She had just slammed the phone down on Voight bringing their idiotic conversation to an abrupt halt when Jay walked down the steps in the process of tucking away the physical and emotional pain behind a mask of cuts and bruises.
"Halstead."
He had a good idea what was coming but wasn't going to give away his feelings on it come hell or high water.
"Demotion, suspension or fired?"
"No decision. Just keep doing what you're doing Jay. I'll let you know."
He was surprised by the no decision, but had a feeling it had already been made and Voight was just waiting for the case to wrap up to drop the hammer. All hands on deck.
"Got it. Thanks Sarge."
Squinting her eyes at his back as he walked out the door, she flipped over to the flop for the first time since the botched bust and wondered if Jay, still not copping to a lie so he'd be pulled off the bench, was telling the truth - there really was a kid and they were the assholes in the situation for not believing him.
Hank still had his head firmly up his ass and had actually suspended Jay but that didn't fly with her so she told Jay it was a no decision. She would hold off filing the paperwork until she was forced to do so by the Ivory Tower…not Hank. The last thing she wanted to do was officially jam the kid up when they were already doing such a stellar job of it unofficially.
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Two hours later they heard the buzz of the gate and saw Trudy, looking like she had just eaten a barrel of sour grapes, walk slowly up the stairs with an older woman.
"Hank," she sighed, "this is Hazel Jacobson. She has information on the case…the little boy Halstead saw…go ahead Ma'am."
That statement knocked the air out of the room. Adam couldn't even catch enough air to exhale a 'what the fuck?' before the woman started talking.
"I found a card telling me to call but I came here instead. I was at the market when you came by. I don't use the front door much, I park in the back, so I use the door in the kitchen. I only use the front door with visitors, haven't had any until today."
It was hard for Trudy to not lash out at the woman. This whole fiasco could have been avoided if the woman used her goddamn front door. The timing was nothing short of ridiculous.
Hank wanted her to get to the information but understood most people weren't very good at talking to cops even if they weren't the ones in trouble.
"Mrs. Jacobson, can you tell Sergeant Voight what you just told me?"
She blushed when she realized she had been rambling.
"The day when all the craziness happened, I saw a little boy run out of a yard…I was driving down the alley that ends at Pearson to go to the market. The child had ducked into the bushes at the side of the house, popped out again ten or so feet closer to the alley and ran by me as I started to drive in the opposite direction.
"I had stopped for a moment, wanting to see if he was okay, but he ducked in the backyard of another house and disappeared."
"Can you tell us what the boy looked like?"
"He was a skinny little white kid…dirty, like kids get when they've been playing outside all day. He had on jeans…blue jeans and a green shirt…I didn't notice anything else…young, not more than ten I think."
Voight was just about to ask a question when she added to her statement.
"He looked scared. That's why I stopped."
"Pearson's just inside the perimeter boss…kid didn't show up on the pods."
An eyewitness didn't jive with what the pods said…unless…
"What time was this ma'am?"
They all looked at Kevin, confused about where he was going with this until the penny dropped less than a moment later. They were afraid of the answer.
"About four o'clock…four…maybe five o'clock."
They all exchanged mirrored looks as they realized their fuck up with Jay. That was six hours after the bust. They checked pods before, during and immediately after the bust. The kid, there was a kid, laid low…
Kevin scanned the room then got back on his computer to check the time frame on the pods, "Little dude waited…smart…"
Voight sighed and was barely able to keep the edge out his tone. The woman had done nothing wrong but who would have thought not using a front door could cause such a shitstorm.
"Would you mind stepping into our lunch room. Officer Burgess can take your statement…Kim…"
Kim grabbed her notebook and led the woman into the break room and shut the door, mind spinning about how she…they treated Jay.
"Damn…"
All eyes focused on Kevin again, "What?"
He blew out a frustrated breath through his nose and looked at his teammates.
"Jay was running a search with an extended time frame, got a hit at 5:07 and another at 5:12."
He turned the screen around so they could all see the little kid matching the witness and Jay's description to a T. The kid was caught on one pod two blocks out from the house ducking under a fence. The pods caught him four blocks south hightailing it across the street five minutes later.
"Probably snuck out the back when Jay was taking his trip down the steps."
That thought didn't make them feel any better. Jay thought the kid ran out the side and they just stopped there when the side door was locked. They should have realized the kid could have easily snuck out the back but they were all so wrapped up in losing Spencer didn't think of it…then didn't think of it later because they were too busy being assholes to Jay.
"Run facial rec on the kid…might be in the missing persons data base. He may have the information we need and at the very least, he's in danger and we need to find him before Spencer does."
They knew there was a good chance Spencer already had the kid and the fact Jay said the asshole was holding a gun under the kid's chin, the little guy was probably dead.
Trudy was kicking herself for her stupidity, for not trusting Jay when he had never done anything in the past to warrant losing her trust here, their trust. Emotions run rampant because of a shit case was no excuse.
"I'll call Halstead tell him to get his ass back here. We've got a buffet of crow to eat."
"No."
All heads whipped to Voight, but before they could even think of saying something, Platt came at him with a fiery growl.
"There was a kid Hank."
Not to be cowed by anyone, even an angry, hard assed Trudy Platt, he shook his head and locked his jaw for a moment before spelling it out for his unit and reminding Trudy where she knew he stood with this kind of shit.
"Jay wasn't lying and his initial insubordination couldn't've been helped, we know that now, but there's no excuse for the multiple instances of insubordination that followed. That shit doesn't fly with me. Insubordination gets people killed. I'm not pulling the kid back in."
They couldn't believe that not only did their boss not care about how wrong he was, how wrong they all were, but he was keeping Jay on the bench.
"You think benching Jay is going to keep him from working the case? He's…"
"No. I don't and I know he is. You think I don't know you gave him a department laptop? That he's using your access code? All hands on deck. Halstead was insubordinate. If I thought he wasn't going to work the case, I would have waited until it was solved to suspend him, I suspended him Trudy, but this way I don't have to have him in my bullpen."
"It's my precinct."
"My unit."
"In my precinct."
They were all stunned Voight took benching Jay a step further and suspended him but not really surprised Voight would still 'let' Jay work the case from home. That was the kind of underhandedness Voight was known for. They just didn't think they would see him play that card with a member of his own unit, with Jay.
After a minute that felt like a suffocating ten, the stare down to see who would burst into flames first ended in a draw.
Trudy looked at her long time friend and scowled. Hank was giving her whiplash with his parental 'the kid,' friendlier 'Jay,' and the utter disdain with which he called him 'Halstead' but whiplash or not, she'd be damned if she let Hank use the kid to solve the case then cut him loose.
"You try to fire that kid Hank, I'll take it up the chain. I won't let you demote him either. There are plenty of other units that would snatch him up in a heartbeat.
"You don't want him in your unit, that's your loss…" she pointed to the rest of the team, "…their loss. Don't mess with me on this one Hank. You've got a lot of pull with the Ivory Tower, but I have more…and they don't think I'm a dirty cop. You remember that."
She walked down the stairs hoping she didn't just make things worse for Jay. She had called Hank out on his ego in front of the team, but if he wasn't going to pull his head out of his ass he could just keep it there. She wasn't going to back down from this.
X
Almost three hours after he left the 21st, more than likely for the last time, Jay got an angry text from Platt. The anger wasn't directed at him but he could tell it was typed in anger because half the words were spelled wrong and the punctuation was scarce, but he got the gist of what she was saying; a witness came forward and his search backed her up…there was a kid.
A calmer text came in a minute later.
There's no excuse. I'm so sorry Jay.
…
…
Thanks. Running facial rec?
Ya. No hits so far.
…
…
She waited for something else to come back from him, then waited a few moments longer.
…
I'll let you know if I get anything.
She felt like an idiot when she realized he was more than likely waiting for more from her. Waiting for her to tell him he'd been pulled off the bench, and goddamn Hank Voight, she couldn't tell the kid that.
X
Shortly after Trudy's text came in he got numerous texts from the unit with heartfelt apologies and promises to talk later, which he appreciated, but proof he wasn't lying about the kid didn't close the case and he just wanted to close the fucking case. So he didn't address the apologies beyond a 'thanks' and that was only because he wanted them focusing on the case not his lack of response.
Getting nothing from Voight didn't surprise him in the least. He knew Voight would keep him off the case and the text exchange with Trudy confirmed it.
It was never about the 'fake kid' or at least not all of it with Voight, but more the insubordination that followed, and true to character, his boss wasn't about to let that go.
The hypocrisy of it hurt, felt like even more of a punishment. Voight had been insubordinate with the Ivory Tower over and over again to get the job done and hadn't thought twice about it.
Voight had backed him into a corner at every turn leaving him no choice but to go against him. He'd brought them lead after lead but that didn't matter. This was ego. Voight could dish it out but couldn't take it.
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Okey dokey! Chapter 6 is in the wind. I hope you liked it. I'll see you on Thursday the 18th.
Stay safe peeps! Big smooch!