It had been years since Jay had been to New York. While he looked out the tiny window of the airplane and viewed the lit up skyline belonging to the city that never sleeps, a plethora of memories came rushing through his brain. He tried to imagine what Erin had felt when she'd returned here for the first time. He was sure images of Nadia's lifeless body protruded from deep within her mind. He frowned, wondering how Erin dealt with her move to New York. He hated that he had no idea what she'd gone through since moving here. For their entire partnership and relationship he was her rock, and she was here, having to go through everything alone. Voight had always been so short on the subject of Erin after she'd left that Jay wasn't even sure if her relationship with him was as strong as it was when Jay first joined intelligence. Their relationship was already pretty rocky when it came to the end of Erin's time in Chicago. She was finally beginning to doubt Voight and his unethical ways.

He stepped off the plane into JFK and found his way to baggage claim. He'd packed light, only bringing essentials and enough clothes for about a week. Once he grabbed his bag, Jay caught a cab and gave the driver the address to Erin's apartment in Chelsea. Jay had done a lot of thinking about what he was going to say to Erin when she opened her door on his short flight from O'Hare to JFK, yet still had no clue what words would come out of his mouth when he would look into her hazel eyes. He was fairly certain she wouldn't be pleased to see him, but he had to give it a shot. He had about thirty more minutes as he sat in the back of the cab to come up with something, although at this point he'd accepted that the perfect words didn't exist.

Grabbing his bags from the cab driver, Jay gave him a generous tip for the trouble of driving to Chelsea and checked out his surroundings. The neighborhood was nice, definitely a place he could see Erin living. He noticed Erin's building had a buzzer, and admitting he didn't want his first interaction with her to be through a speaker, he waited for someone to either enter or exit the building so he could sneak inside. He sat on the curb for about twenty minutes before a middle aged man and a toddler came trickling out. Jay held the door for the man as he struggled to carry the young boy and the diaper bag that was slightly falling off his shoulder. The stranger thanked him and went about his evening as Jay used the open door to his advantage. He looked at the piece of paper with Erin's address on it again, double checking which floor she was on before getting onto an available elevator. "714" he muttered to himself. He took the elevator up to the seventh floor and walked the halls, looking for Erin's apartment number.

Jay closed his eyes and took a deep breath, gently knocking. He made note that Erin's door didn't have a peephole, and was slightly grateful that she wouldn't know it was him on the other side of her door. He only waited maybe ten seconds before the door swung open, "I knew you'd forget someth-, Jay?"

Erin blinked in confusion, not believing Jay Halstead was standing at the front door of New York City apartment. "Expecting someone else?" Jay joked.

"Uhm, no.. not exactly. Wh-What are you doing here?" She questioned.

Jay looked down, unable to make eye contact with her in his current state of vulnerability, "I'm not exactly sure. I just really needed to see you."

"You could have called ya know?"

He let out a small chuckled, "No, actually. I had to know that you were okay, that can't be done over the phone. So, you gonna let me in?"

Still shocked, Erin stood mouth agape; barely comprehending what was happening, "Um, yeah. Just a second," She closed the door in his face and leaned against it, using her hand to comb her hair back out of her face. She looked around her apartment and made a half-hearted attempt at cleaning it up so it would look slightly more presentable for the man she once loved.

Jay took a minute to look at his phone while Erin did whatever she was doing inside. Intelligence had just caught a major lead on the crew that got him shot. While it had been almost two months since the shooting, the team had hit a wall with the case. The guy that shot Jay got away and there hadn't been any new evidence come through.

A few moments later, the door opened to reveal Erin slightly out of breath, "Okay, you can come in now."

The pair walked inside, the vibe in the room being quite awkward. Jay looked around the apartment, her style hadn't changed at all, but it was much less organized than their apartment in Chicago.

"So why are you here, Jay?" He didn't answer, his eyes continued to roam the apartment as he chewed on his bottom lip in nervousness. "Halstead?" She called again. Her eyes followed his to find out what he was staring at, and she instantly knew where his mind had gone. "Jay I-" she started, but Jay cut her off.

Jay's eyes didn't turn from the toybox sitting in the corner of the room, "You have a kid? Is it," he couldn't bring himself to ask the question circling around his brain, he already knew the answer.

Erin shook her head, "No, Jay, he's not."

In short, Jay was hurt. He'd always had this idea that he and Erin would grow old together and have generations of Halsteads living out some kind of legacy. He was crushed.

"I think I'm gonna go," he choked out, the words barely escaping the lump that was in his throat. As he made his way to the door, he felt Erin tug at his arm.

"Jay, wait; you came all this way. You can't walk out this door without explaining to me why you showed up here in the first place!"

"You've clearly moved on, I have nothing to say anymore."

Erin rolled her eyes, "Will you quit being so stubborn and talk to me? It seems we both have some things that need to be talked about."

Jay finally turned around and dropped his bag by the front door. As he stood in front of her, it was the first time since he'd shown up that Erin really got a chance to look at him. It was obvious he wasn't the same man she'd left in Chicago six years ago. His eyes weren't as bright, as they once were, he'd grown out his scruff in a way she barely recognized, and his body didn't seem as toned as it did the last time she saw him. He looked like he'd lost what happiness felt like.

"Coffee?" Jay asked, he knew they were going to be here a while.

Erin walked to the kitchen and started a pot of coffee for the two of them. While the coffee brewed, they sat in an uncomfortable silence, the only sound in the room coming from the coffee dripping into the pot. Once the coffee finished, Erin prepared a cup for each of them, hoping the way he took his coffee hadn't changed.

She handed him the cup of joe and grinned when he took a sip, noticing the timid smile form on his lips. "So, where do we start?"

"Why'd you leave?" She wasn't expecting him to dive right into the deep stuff. She was hoping they'd start with her present day life and slowly tread into the past, but clearly Jay had other ideas.

"You know why, Jay. Everything with Bunny and-"

"No I mean, why'd you leave the way you did? You turned your back on Chicago- on me, and never looked back."

"Leaving you without saying goodbye was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. I know that if I'd seen you before I left, I wouldn't have been able to do it. And I don't regret it, either. I wanted you to move on, Jay. Chicago is where you belong, you would have wanted to come with me and I couldn't do that to you. Intelligence is your dream."

"Erin there are other units. And for the record, I never moved on. I wanted to, and I even thought I did at one point." He considered telling her about his mom's ring, how the night she left he was planning on proposing. Telling her the ring still sat in a box in the back of his closet with other mementos he'd kept from their relationship. Yet he decided against it, it wasn't the right time for her to know that information yet.

There was a slight pause, as neither of them knew what to say next, "I guess I thought you would eventually come back to me, that if I waited long enough, you'd realize you couldn't move on either. But by the looks of it, I waited too long."

Erin's lips turned up into a timid smile, "It's not exactly that. My son, Miloh, was the result of a one night stand. After I left Chicago and we broke up, I stopped my birth control; I mean, I really didn't need it. When I came here I wasn't interested in anyone for years. It took me a very long time to even look at another man after the way I ended things with you. I know it was my doing, but not having any closure messed me up too, Jay. I think about you all the time."

Jay's features softened as Erin's explanation began to make more sense to him. It gave him some sort of solstice knowing it wasn't easy for Erin either. When he learned about Erin's son, he'd figured she'd made a whole new life for herself without a second thought.

"So, Miloh's dad," He started, waiting for her to dismiss the subject, but she nodded, encouraging him to go on, "did you know who he was? Is he involved?"

"Yeah, thankfully he'd given me his number before we parted ways, so finding him was easy. Although in the beginning, I wasn't sure if I even wanted to keep the baby. Having kids was never on my agenda until I met you, and even when we were together I wasn't sure. We have split custody. Patrick has him every other weekend, and is always there anytime I need to work late."

"Well that's good."

Erin could sense the sadness in voice. Another long pause, before Erin cleared her throat, "You ready to tell me why you're here?"

Finally, Jay explained how he'd been shot, and what he'd been feeling the last few weeks. Erin laughed when he told her about Ashley, knowing how much her actions would have driven Jay crazy. She even made a lighthearted joke about how he'd been shot twice since she'd been gone.

"I guess what I'm saying is, I love you, Erin. I have never and will never feel what I feel for anyone what I feel for you. And I don't know what coming here means for us, but I couldn't go another minute without letting you know how I feel."