Always Here: A Jay Halstead fanfic

Chapter Seventy Seven

It had been one week. One week since the team had found her. One week since she had found out that those women had been raped and killed because of her. One week, without being able to numb the pain because she needed to find Roger. The doctor had just cleared her for active duty, but she wasn't sure if she should even go to work. How could the citizens of Chicago, the members of Intelligence, her partner, trust her to keep them safe when she couldn't keep Clarisse safe, when she had gotten all those women killed?

It hurt, those women were dead because of her, Clarisse was dead because of her. There was so much pain because of her, because they looked like her, if she had just let Roger have her, this would have never happened, if she had just watched her back and noticed Roger, this wouldn't have happened.

She needed the drugs. She needed the alcohol. She needed the momentarily relief. And that was all she was, wasn't she? She was an addict, like Savannah, she was bad news and she would always be bad news, nothing could change that. But she had to find Roger first, she had to make him pay, she couldn't let him keep doing this. She felt a hot, angry tear rolling down her cheek but she didn't fight it, she deserved it. She deserved to be pulled down into a deep, dark hole. She deserved to be alone.

She paced her room, getting ready for work. She needed to be back there, she needed to find Roger. She had barely talked to Jay the entire week, everyone was swamped with the case. Everyone was picking up her slack.

She was in the bullpen, finally. She caught a glimpse of her partner behind his desk, he looked tired, but she would be lying if she said he still wasn't as gorgeous. No, you don't need that right now, you can't do that, just get through the day goddamnit, the angry voice in her head cursed. He looked her over, offering her a small smile, she tried to offer him a smile back, but it was hard, because deep down, she knew that he wouldn't be smiling at her if he knew what she wanted, if he knew that she wanted to make Roger pay, if he knew that she was slipping and didn't even want to hold on, if he knew that she wanted, needed, the drugs and alcohol.

You wouldn't even have to deal with this if you had the drugs she heard Savannah's voice boom in her head. She took a deep breath, she couldn't give in to it now, she needed to find Roger, she needed to get him for what he did. She cared about Jay, she would do anything for him, but she was protecting him by doing this, right? She was protecting him from her, he didn't need this, he didn't need her. He deserved better than this, better than her.

Jay looked her over, he knew his partner so well, he knew she wasn't ready to be at work, but they needed all the help they could get to find Roger. And when they found that bastard, once she was safe, him and Harper would talk. But it was frustrating and it hurt that every time she put up a wall, he had to figure out how to break it without breaking both of them. He thought he had proved to her that she was worthy. He thought they had gotten past the self loathing and the self hate. He would do anything to bring the people back that she lost. But that wasn't happening, he just wished she could understand that it wasn't her fault. She hadn't gotten anyone killed. This wasn't on her. He wanted to have her back but she was pushing him away. He wanted to be there for her, they were connected in ways he couldn't even understand, he could practically feel her sadness, feel her self hatred, and she was pushing him away.

He had always promised himself he wouldn't meddle into her life. That was a platonic boundary he couldn't cross, she would have to come to him first, or he would have to convince her. But he didn't want to control her, he didn't want to force her to talk about things she didn't want to talk about, but deep down he knew that if she wasn't going to talk to him about it, she didn't plan on talking to anyone else about it. He just hoped that she wouldn't turn to drugs or alcohol, he hoped she wouldn't try to drown everything out, he hoped that she wouldn't slip. He didn't even want to go there, he didn't want to think about how bad things had gotten after Lily had died.