Three Years Ago

He didn't want to go to sleep. Partly because if he did Jay knew he was just going to dream about his dad again, stuck in the loop of that day, the fear of not knowing where he was and the panic that he might lose him too, no matter how many times he'd said it wouldn't bother him. He hadn't ever really liked his dad, but he hadn't wanted to be without him either. He hoped he had been able to see his relief when 51 had pulled him out of that building fire but considering how unobservant he was probably not.

You thankless old prick.

That was the last thing he had ever said to his father. He hadn't felt bad about it, he was thankless and he was old and he was a fucking prick. It was great that his brother had gotten to have a moment with their dad where he'd felt his love, and at least a bit of his remorse for his shitty parenting, an apology that had of course happened silently. Jay was genuinely happy for his brother. But he hadn't gotten that. He could have, he'd been in the hospital room after his dad's bypass, had waited by his bedside and driven him home once he was cleared, cleaned up the house, moved him into that new apartment when they realized he could no longer take care of their childhood home, a decision he now regretted deeply. He'd regretted it at the time, wondered if he was being a bad son, and had told himself it was okay if he was because his dad had been a bad father.

His whole life they'd just never clicked. Not that he'd gotten along much better with Will but he had so clearly been their mothers son that his dad had always been more lenient with him, that and he was the oldest. But with Jay…

His mom had said the reason they clashed so much was because they were so similar, and he hadn't wanted to admit it but he'd seen what she meant.

But that didn't make it any easier.

And it didn't make him any less mad. His father had had a lifetime of opportunities to clear the air with him, to apologize for his mistakes and to try to make things better, and he hadn't taken a single one of them, no matter who had urged him to. And yeah, he hadn't either but that wasn't a conversation he felt was his to start. He was the dad. It was supposed to be his responsibility to fix things. At least until the alarms in his room had started going off and Jay began to realize that those might've been the last words he'd ever said to him. And after he knew they had been, that he couldn't ever take them back or follow them up with something different, something that showed all his anger came from hurt, that despite it all he really did love him… They were all he could think about. Those words and wondering just how seriously his father had taken them. Knowing their relationship he would have believed him.

So he couldn't sleep because if he did he would be haunted by those words, by that whole fucking day even more fiercely than he already was. At least when he was awake he could snap himself out of it but when he was sleeping, when his mind kept torturing him with what ifs… It was better that he didn't sleep. It was just about keeping his mind occupied, keeping it protected. It had nothing at all to do with waiting to see if someone would show up.

If a promise was going to be kept or broken.

Again.

If Will knew that was why he waited alone at the cemetery, at the plot where his father would be buried right on top of his mother, hours before the funeral was meant to begin, he didn't say anything. And if Carol knew that was why he kept looking around, well surprisingly she didn't say anything either. Maybe because her own head was on a swivel, looking for a woman she also hadn't gotten to say goodbye too. One she missed dearly and didn't know if she would see again, everything she conveyed with a pointed look and a tight hug. Old age had really tamed her. How much longer did she have left? How much longer until he was entirely alone?

Not as soon as he might think if the figure standing beside a tree ten rows back was any indication. His heart had lifted when he'd first spotted them out of the corner of his eye and then sank when he realized who it was, although he was touched he'd come. His Sergeant might've read him the riot act after he'd gone against his orders to find Daniel Mendoza, the man who'd started the fire that had taken so many lives, but Voight knew the pain of losing a father. He also probably knew that if he hadn't taken Jay off the case he never would've gone rogue and ended up taking a couple bullets, the burn of which he still felt, though not as sharply as this loss. Not as deeply as knowing he had to deal with it alone.

His team had offered to come, Antonio had tried hard to insist on it but he'd shut them down, saying it was a small ceremony, just for family. Implying that they weren't, but outside of the job, were they? Did any of them really care about him? Voight always kept everyone at arm's length, especially now Al was gone and while Hailey was a great partner she already seemed sick of his bullshit, Antonio had his own crap to deal with and Kim, Kevin and Adam were their own trio. Yeah they would probably welcome him if he tried to join them but whenever he saw them he got such a sharp pang of longing for his own triangle that he sometimes went out of his way to avoid them. Aside from his brother who spent the majority of the funeral and wake at Natalie's side, which he didn't begrudge him no matter how the sight of her shoved the knife deeper in, there was only one person Jay wanted here.

And she wasn't coming.

He was the last to leave the wake because he kept hoping she would show up, late was far better than never but when he finally dragged himself into a cab and found a box full of Kit-Kats at his front door he knew she wasn't coming. Whatever was keeping Tess away, danger or her own guilt, she was breaking this promise. And he knew she'd feel bad about it, aside from his brother she'd had the most complicated relationship with his dad, had once joked that maybe he could walk her down the aisle. Another dream dead.

All Jay could hope was that she'd keep her first promise, the one he really cared about.

To whatever end.