Jay feels his phone vibrating in his pocket. Knowing it could only be a handful of people following up a lead he pulled it out. A small smile crept up on his face seeing Erin's picture staring back at him.
"Hey whatchya got?" His smile slowly faded when he didn't hear anything. "Erin. Are you there?" He heard her take in a shaky breath.
"Yeah. Yeah I'm right here." He could hear her trying to get her breathing steady.
"What's going on Erin?" Jay could tell something was wrong. They were in the middle of a case, she wouldn't call unless she has a lead or if something had happened. She was talking to him so he knew that she wasn't hurt. And Voight's with him so he knows that nothing happened to him. "Erin, come on. You gotta talk to me here. You're freaking me out."
"Did I make the right choice Jay? I mean it's a great opportunity for me. But it feels like I was thrown in the deep end and I'm in way too over my head." Jay knew that she could scare herself enough to have a panic attack. But without being with her in person, he didn't know how he could help her.
"Okay Erin. You have to listen to me." Jay waited until he heard her breathing slow down to a steady rate. "You're the most determined, ambitious, driven, caring person that I know. Nobody, not me or any of the guys, deserve this more than you do. You take the case to heart and make sure the job gets done. And God damn it Erin it does and you do a hell of a job doing it."
"Jay." He heard the sharp inhale through the ear piece. Then he heard a barely audible whisper. "She has a kid. A little girl. No dad. And if I don't get her back that little girl is going to be all alone." He heard the rattled intake of air, and then her voice. "She's going to be like me Jay." He could hear her voice crack and he could knew she was close to breaking.
"Hey you have to calm down. Erin, you're going to do fine. Kylie's going to be fine and that little girl is going to get her mom back." He tried to calm her down the best that he could without being with her. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Voight walk into the bullpen giving him a cautious eye. Jay shook his head, disregarding the glare thrown at him. He got up and made his way to the locker room, he opened her old locker to find a picture she left in there, of him and her with Jules and Antonio. He stood leaning against the locker, waiting for her to calm down. "What can I do Erin? How can I help you out here?"
"Uhm. Just talk to me. About anything, but something happy." He could tell how shaky she was and if she didn't get it under control, well who knows what the task force would think about finding their newest agent panicking in the bathroom. He tried to think what happy memory he had, but he started to come up blank. He definitely couldn't talk about Ben or being in the Rangers, he didn't want to talk about Ally or work.
"I have a sister, but I don't think any of the guys know that. Her name's A.J for Addison Jacqueline and she's six years older than me. She's married to a good guy, lives up north just outside of the city." He paused to think about her. "You may not know this, but I didn't have the greatest childhood either. My dad, he wasn't the greatest. My mom left us right before I turned five. I always blamed myself for her leaving. But AJ, she made growing up better. I always loved the way she looked out for me growing up, walking me home from the bus stop, making sure I didn't forget my lunch. We always got along great, and before I shipped out for my first tour she dropped me off at the airport. She told me that if she ever had kids, she would want them to be just like us growing up." Through the line he could hear her breathing easier. So he thought to continue with the story.
"So going into my first tour, I had just turned 19 and she was 25. She had gotten married a month before I shipped out because she knew I would be gone for atleast 14 months and she wanted me there. 7 months into the tour, the squad took a hit. I got two bullets in the leg, sent to a military hospital in Germany and I was over nighted back home. A.J met me at the hospital and when I woke up I remember her sitting there just crying and I said to her 'hey, tough guys don't cry.'"
On the other end of the line, Erin was sitting on the bathroom sink. She had her head leaning against the cool wall. Hearing his voice just made a warmth grow inside of her. It just made her feel like home.
"Erin? You're still here right?"
"Yeah," she huffed out. "Yeah I'm right here."
"Good. This is where it gets better." A smile grew on her face at the thought that he wanted her to hear this. That he was opening up about something and she was the first to hear it.
"So we were just talking. And I asked her what was new and she got all serious on me. So I started to get scared, wondering if something happened to her or her husband or anyone. And then she just started laughing and put something on my lap. I looked down and it was an ultrasound picture. She took my hand and put it on her huge stomach that I had failed to see and said 'say hi to your niece, Uncle Jay.'" Jay could picture his niece now, seven almost eight years old. She was a spitting image of her mother at that age.
"Two weeks go by. I was released from the hospital to live with A.J and start physical therapy. And it was about 1:30 in the morning when Evan, my brother in law, was screaming down the hallway to me. Apparently A.J's water had broken and Evan wasn't too prepared for it. Five hours later I held baby Lydia in my arms and I never felt happiness like that. Knowing that I held this little tiny human in my arms who barely knew the world. A tiny person who had made no mistakes and had a clean slate. That the purest thing I've ever known."
Erin could picture him in hospital scrubs holding a little baby girl with a pink hat on. She could imagine him sitting in a chair thinking that no one was paying attention to them, and she could practically hear him promising this baby he would protect them with his life.
"Thank you Jay. This means a lot to me, you telling me about your family."
"Anything to help you. Now, as much as I love talking to you, we really have to get back to work."
"Yeah, you're right." She lingered on for a little bit longer to see if he had anything else.
"Call me when you get out. Maybe you'll want to get a drink with us little local cops." Erin could hear the smirk on his face through the phone.
"Yeah I'll let you know. Lang said he might want me in on the press conference."
The day went on, but not how either expected it to. She had to call them in on the case, and he told her their rules didn't count anymore. When she didn't respond to him, he figured he had missed his chance. At the end of the day, she went back to the Feds and he skipped drinks and when straight to his apartment, turning on the press conference. Agent Lang had just began talking, when there was a knock on Jay's door. He was reluctant to answer it, incase he missed Erin's first tv appearance. But he was more than surprised to find her on the other side of that door rather than on his tv.
"Thank you, for today." She walked into his apartment and straight into his arms, taking Jay slightly by surprise.
"We're partners. That's were supposed to do, Erin." He pressed a kiss down on the top of her head and felt her take a deep breath in.
"Can I stay here?" Erin pulled back to look at him. She noticed how he didn't answer right away and thought she made a mistake. "Never mind. Forget I even asked it was a stu-"
Her rambling was stopped when he pressed his lips against hers. Jay felt her relax against him when he finally pulled away. "You can always come here."