Road Back to Love

Chapter 10

1 month later- ERIN'S POV

My life has been much better over the last 2 months since I fell into my habits. I am still going to therapy, running, hanging out with Kelsey more after work which is nice to have a friend in NY and I've started to FaceTime with Kim again. Agent Spencer fired Greenville and I filed charges. Thank god I don't have to testify due to the video footage we have as evidence. Work is going well now that he is taken care of and I'm succeeding in cases. On the hard days, the tough cases, I find myself talking to Camille more than I ever have.

E- Hey babe, are you coming up this weekend? Hank said you guys have a few days off after this big case?

J- Hey beautiful. The case was so tough, kids you know? I had a nightmare last night and I'm just afraid-

E- Jay- we talked about this. You said you weren't going to run and we were gonna talk about your PTSD and dreams. I wanna be there for you

J- Erin, what if I hurt you? This case reminded me of this mission back then and I'm afraid it triggered something

E- I can handle it, just please come here so we can be together through this.

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Jay showed up with yellow daisies in one hand and Thai in the other. "I'd say I could kiss you right now, but it's already a done deal!" He emptied his hands and I melted into his arms. He picked me up and sat me on the counter without breaking the kiss, which lasted several minutes. My hands running through his trimmed hair landing on the back of his neck, I pulled him in and whispered "I'm so glad you're here" in his ear, in the most gentle, and caring way.

We finished eating then snuggled up to watch re-runs of Friend's when Jay then seemed to get anxious. "You should know that I had to turn Hailey down about a month ago. I'm sorry I didn't tell you about it, but nothing happened" She looked up at me confused. "Yeah you told me, when she was flirting with you in the bullpen?" I shook my head and pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. "No, that night I went out to Molly's with all them she approached me outside. She wanted to leave together, grab pizza, but I think she had something else in mind. She started saying she wanted to see what was "underneath our partnership" and then she tried to kiss me but I moved out of the way." Erin was laying on my chest and I could hear her thinking. "I'm glad nothing happened. I get why you didn't tell me then, but I'm ok now. So we tell each other everything, ok? We can't go back to secret relationship and holding in feelings." I completely agreed with her, and if we wanted our relationship to work this time we had to do just that.

"Jay, what happened with the case? What did it make you remember?" I was hesitant to ask but we needed to start somewhere. "We had a case- drugs and gangs the typical scene- so we bust a deal in this warehouse and it becomes a shootout. There were probably 30 people in there and 18 died. We were clearing rooms and I came across this kid, he was so scared. He was holding a gun in his hands, must of picked it up from the floor, but was aiming it at us like we were the bad guys, thought we were going to hurt him. I zoned out for a minute and went right back to the dessert. Tony was yelling at me which brought me back and I talked to the kid and was able to get him out of there."

I took in everything he said, but needed the flashback to make sense of the PTSD. "I'm so happy you're ok, he could've pulled the trigger out of fear." He nodded. "What happened over there that was similar to that? Or what made you think of that?"

"We were out on a mission one day, I was on guard in the village. There were some security threats but nothing big until all of a sudden a bomb hit the east village. We got to the area and there were bodies everywhere, but I heard a child crying. I went into one of the covered areas still intact and saw a child holding a machete. He was also so scared, it took me a while to convince him to drop it and reunite him with a nearby family. I remember feeling so sad for those kids that had to live in fear all the time, I didn't know what a gun was at their age, let alone a machete! I guess seeing that boy brought me back to that moment."

"That's a lot Jay. You have the right to feel what you're feeling, but just remember that your thoughts are safe and so are you. You're not going back there." He grabbed my hand and nodded. "Did you also find a family member for the boy from the case to go with?" I wanted to make a point. "Yeah, his aunt picked him up since his mother didn't make it." I rolled over to swing my leg over his lap so I was sitting on him. "It worked out, just like the boy overseas. You save people babe, those boys are lucky you found them. They are going to go on to live better lives because of you." I kissed him and we went to bed. I laid on Jay's chest all night and he was nightmare-free.