Summary: Post season three finale. Erin has a hard time dealing with what she witnessed. She needs to blame someone, she needs to hate someone and she finds her target among those closest to her. The integrity of the Intelligence Unit is threatened as a result of her ill-placed anger. Can she overcome her irrational feelings in time to prevent another tragedy?

A/N: I'm not sure I know where I'm going with this. Testing waters here, so to speak.

Family is like music. Some high notes, some low notes, but...

always a beautiful song

Being the only one who knew what really happened was heavy. Erin's life wasn't easy, she'd been through stuff, she'd seen a lot, had felt like getting up in the morning was too much of an effort.

But this?

There was a lot of confusion when she got back to the district.

"There was no one there."

"The house was empty, for fuck's sake!"

"Where did you disappear to? Erin? Erin, what's going on, where's Voight?"

"I don't know," she lied. "I went to..." where, damn it, where would she go? "The hospital," was first that came to her mind. "I thought... he wasn't picking up his phone, I had no idea where he could have gone to but to his son, you know?" She looked straight into Jay's eyes and she lied. "But he wasn't there."

Jay touched her arm. It was like a bolt of lightning through her skin. Olinsky just looked. He knew. He didn't say a word.

They waited for Voight to show up late into the night. His phone was off, GPS in his car disabled. He knew exactly what means they would use to find him and he knew how to make it impossible. It was past midnight when Dawson finally said they should all go home, come back in the morning. They had no leads. In the morning they came back in – all of them, save for Voight, again, and Olinsky.

And they still had nothing.

"Bingham must have fled town," Erin said. She willed herself to believe it. "Maybe Hank caught the whiff off him, but he doesn't want us to be involved, doesn't want to pull us down with him." She felt tears in her eyes.

Jay came to her from behind, gave her nape a light squeeze and all she wanted was to lean into his embrace and fall apart. Fall into tiny little pieces that she held together with a sheer force of will. But she couldn't, not yet.

"He would have told us, if he wanted our help."

"You think he told Al?" Ruzek asked.

Damn Ruzek. Erin remembered that he was the one who accused Justin of being the part of the robbery crew and right now she wanted to rip his eyes out. She turned to him and her rage must have shown on her face, because Jay was blocking her way and Ruzek took a step back, hands raised palms up, his brow furrowed in a silent question.

Erin took a deep breath, reined herself in.

"I want you out of here," she seethed.

"I think that's not any of your decision," Ruzek defied her.

Jay lay a hand on her arm, grounded her.

They were right. They were probably right, she was not in charge, Voight wasn't here, they were all in limbo and scared and uncertain, but...

"Can I talk to you, Erin?" Antonio Dawson came up to her – between her and Ruzek – and he spoke silently, like to a startled animal or to a child. "Can we talk in Voight's office?"

She went with him and he said what she thought but didn't want to think.

"We are still a team, aren't we?"

She didn't know. She didn't say it out loud but the moisture in her eyes finally spilled onto her cheeks.

"You're mad at Adam for what he said about Justin, aren't you? I get that. I get that you believe it was unjust, but Adam was only doing his job and he was looking at the situation unbiased. As he would at any other crime. He didn't know Justin personally. How often are we wrong in our assesments of suspects?"

Erin sat on the couch and hid her face in her palms. Antonio was right, of course, they were all too involved, that's why there were rules in place, for non-involvement in personal cases. Justin was her almos brother, he was Voight's son. There was no closer relationship. They couldn't see the case objectively, they couldn't make unbiased judgements, that's why Hank...

A sob escaped her.

She couldn't let it out, she couldn't let Antonio know. She covered her mouth with her hand as if the physical act could stop the words from spilling out. The truth.

But Antonio was thinking about something else entirely.

"I want to keep this team together." He crouched in front of her, put his hands on her knees. "And I can't do it without your help Erin. If you can't handle Ruzek, he'll go. But if he does, it may all fall apart, the whole unit. It will be over. I don't want that, do you?"

Honestly? She wasn't sure if she cared. She didn't want to see Ruzek's face and she didn't care if she was fair in this or not. He hurt her, he hurt Hank. She was allowed to hate him for it, wasn't she? She needed to hate someone, so why not Ruzek? Bungham was dead, she couldn't hate him anymore.

But Jay? Antonio, hell, even Atwater? – they didn't deserve to have their team dismantled, because of Ruzek. They didn't deserve to find themselves looking for new jobs, new teams. And Hank, if he returned, Olinsky. They needed a place to return to, this found family that they had.

She would help keep it together. If being in the same room as Adam Ruzek was the price to pay for that, then so be it. She would take it. She would help Antonio keep their family together, at least while she still could.

So. Do you think this is something that could be continued? A team fic most of all, not much focused on shipping? Would you read that?