The representative who had shown up from Child Services was a blonde woman in her forties by the name of Heather Cranley. Somewhat to Jay and Erin's surprise, she had proven to be very understanding of the awful circumstances in which they were meeting, and receptive when she learned of their previous plans to adopt. Erin had exaggerated about how close they had been to applying, but for good reason.
After talking to the two of them, Heather had asked to speak to Clementine alone. Erin had offered up her office for the purpose.
Heather and Clementine had been in there nearly half an hour by the time Heather came back out, leaving Clementine in there. It had been a long, tense half hour for Jay and Erin, awaiting whatever verdict was going to come their way. Now was the time for them to find out.
After closing the office door to prevent Clementine listening in to the conversation, Heather walked over to Jay and Erin, who rose from their chairs to speak to her.
"Clementine is deeply traumatised by what she's been through. Of course we all knew that. She's also terrified of having nowhere to go, and she feels a strong attachment to you, Erin, as the first responder who rescued her. Her clear desire is to stay with you, and on a temporary basis I see no reason not to allow that to happen. I'm going to recommend that she stays with you for a month initially. There will be a process to go through if all three of you decide you wish to make the arrangement permanent."
"Oh, thank you. Thank you so much," Erin said in great relief and happiness. "It's the best thing for her, and we'll take excellent care of her."
"Yes, we will," Jay promised sincerely.
"Anything else you can tell us, or advice you can give us?" Erin asked.
Jay found it a very intelligent question. Any help they could get would be most welcome.
"Given the circumstances, it was tough to get much out of her. But I can say that she's quite mature for her age. As for advice? The main things you need to do are make her feel safe, make her feel cared for, and be there for her whenever the pain of losing her parents and what she's been through tonight hits her. I know you both work here in Intelligence, so having a nanny is going to be necessary at least some of the time. Make sure you choose that person well because the last thing Clementine needs is more upset."
"I hear you," Erin said. "In the mean time, my foster father will be happy to help out. He's retired now, so has plenty of free time."
"Okay, well here is my card," Heather said, producing it and handing it to Erin. "If you need anything, please call me."
Elsewhere, all of the other members of the Intelligence team had been affected to various extents by the mass shooting.
Burgess, and by association Ruzek, had the worst of it of course, although she was at least currently medicated to prevent the shock overwhelming her. As if the mental trauma of what she had been through wasn't bad enough, when Ruzek had driven them home, he had noticed some media people gathering in the street near their house.
"Scum," he had said, turning the car around before they got close enough to be noticed.
The media hacks didn't care about the human aspect of what had unfolded, or how Kim's part in it would affect her. All they wanted was footage, maybe even a chance to ask questions, of the heroine of the day. Well they could think again, he thought. Kim likely wouldn't want that kind of publicity at all. She certainly wouldn't want it less than a couple of hours after the shooting. In truth, let alone wanting it, right now she probably couldn't handle it.
"What's happening?" Kim asked.
"I saw media gathering near the house. We're going to stay with your parents instead."
"Where's Alex?"
"He's with Purrazzo and Brett," Adam said, showing no impatience at repeating something he had already told her at the hospital. He knew her mind was scrambled by shock and by medication. It was a time to be nothing but supportive.
"I want him," she said, sounding distressed.
Adam reached over and gave her hand a squeeze, pretty much all he could do while driving. "We'll pick him up in the morning. He's fine there for tonight. What we need to do is get you somewhere safe and quiet so you can sleep."
"Sleep. Yes, sleep sounds good."
Twenty minutes later, Adam was tucking her into bed in a guest bedroom at her parents' house. By then, she was on the verge of passing out.
"Sleep well. I love you," he said, kissing her gently on the forehead. Please be okay tomorrow, he added silently. In truth he knew that okay was going to take longer than that.
"How is the little guy?" Deonna Purrazzo asked her girlfriend Sylvie Brett. The question referred to one year old Alex Ruzek, who was set up for the night in the guest room at Brett's apartment.
"He's sound asleep, which is a pleasant surprise," Brett said, sitting back down on the couch.
Purrazzo looked at her. "A surprise? You mean because he's never been here before?"
"That, and because he's in the bassinet. He's too old for one really, but it won't be a problem for one night."
"I'm glad you understand this stuff, Sylvie. I wouldn't have a clue."
"We bring different things to the table, that's why we work so well together."
Purrazzo gave her girl an affectionate kiss. "Yes, no doubt about that. You know, I can't stop thinking about Kim. That was some Marine shit she pulled tonight. In fact it was even more courageous than that, given the circumstances. Can't wait to see her and tell her how much I respect her bravery."
While Purrazzo perhaps inevitably looked at Burgess' actions from the point of view of a Marine, Brett 's perspective was that of a professional in the medical field. "Your respect will mean a lot to her I'm sure. But the main thing she's going to need is support. Think what it must have been like in that mall. Innocent people dead and dying. Men, women, possibly children. Also, her own life may have been in direct danger while she was dealing with the shooters. We don't know. She's going to need help mentally, I would assume. What I'm saying is, make sure you're there for her if she needs anything."
Taking that in, Purrazzo nodded seriously. "Yes, I will do. I'm sure everyone on the team will."
After parting ways with Burgess and Ruzek at Chicago Med, Kevin Atwater had gone to the mall, where he knew he would find Violet Mikami. Technically off duty, he had felt confident she would nonetheless go straight to the scene to help out, and upon leaving the hospital and checking his messages he had learned she had done just that. He had decided to go and join her.
Locating Violet had proven to be a challenge with so many people in and around the mall. Eventually he found her outside, near one of the entrances close to the foot court, the scene of the first of the two mass shootings. She had just finished helping paramedics load an injured person on a stretcher into an ambulance.
"Violet, hey," Atwater said in greeting as he approached her.
"Oh, hey," she replied, turning to look at her. Her gloved hands were covered in blood, he saw.
"Thought I'd come see what I can do to help. Are you okay?"
"I'm alright, but it's a real mess in there. Those evil sons of bitches... I don't know what else to say."
"I hear you," he said as the ambulance pulled away. "Was at the hospital with Kim when you messaged me. She's in shock. Dr Halstead doped her up with something."
"Bless her. We'd be bringing out even more dead if she hadn't been here. They should give her a medal or something."
"Totally agree with the sentiment, but I know Kim would say she didn't do it for any kind of award."
Violet nodded. "I'm sure she didn't. But she deserves one anyway. Come on, let's get in there and find someone to help. There's a station set up just inside where I can clean up a bit and you can glove up."
With that, they got to work.
"I feel like I should be there. Not that I'd even be able to get in if I was," Zelina Vega said. Unlike the rest of the Intelligence team, she didn't have police credentials, not yet, so she wouldn't have made it through the cordon at the mall.
"Well, I'm glad you're here," Raquel Gonzalez said. They were cuddled up on the couch at the safe house, where they had been for most of the night since she had gotten home. "One thing that always gets to me is terrorism. Innocent people being slaughtered while simply going about their business is a special type of wrong."
"We don't know if it is terrorism yet," Vega pointed out. The media knew the identity of Kim Burgess, the heroine of the night, but as yet there was nothing concrete regarding the perpetrators or their motives.
"Terrorism, school shootings, anything like that. You know what I mean. It's one thing to kill someone in combat or in revenge for them killing someone. But slaughtering innocents? They'll burn in hell for that."
Vega shifted position, sitting up so that she could look her lover in the eyes. "The way you said that. Sounded like you've killed someone in revenge?"
This conversation had to happen at some point, Gonzalez reasoned. It might as well be now, when the moment for it was about as right as it could get. Also, if her past was going to scare Z away from being in a relationship with her, it was probably best to find out sooner rather than later.
"There are things you don't know about me, Z," she said gently. "I'm going to tell you what happened. All I ask is you listen with an open mind and try to see things from my point of view."
"Of course," Vega said openly.
"I found it easier telling Sergeant Lindsay," Gonzalez said, feeling nervous. That most definitely wasn't something she was used to.
Vega took her hand and held it in her lap. "Just talk to me, Raquel."
Gonzalez trusted the openness that her lover continued to show. "Okay. Some years ago, my sister, Reina, will killed, caught in crossfire between two drug dealers. One of them was her boyfriend."
"I'm so sorry," Vega said.
"Thank you. The cops didn't give a damn about her death. They barely did anything to investigate it, so I decided to do my own investigating. Posing as someone getting into doing a bit of dealing, I arranged a meet with Reina's boyfriend, who I hadn't met before she died. When he showed, I jumped him and had a knife to his throat before he knew what was going on. Made him tell me exactly what happened that night. He told me it was the other guy who shot Reina, but admitted to running away without trying to help her, or even calling 911."
"Piece of shit," was Vega's verdict.
"Exactly what I thought. So I made him tell me the name and address of the guy who shot Reina. You might not like the next part. After he told me, I strangled him to death."
"You've killed someone," Vega said with understandable surprise, unable to correlate that with her not only not being in prison, but being a police officer.
"I killed both of them. After I strangled the first guy, I put his body in my trunk, drove to the address I had for the second guy, broke into his house and got a confession out of him at gun point. Then I shot him."
"So, how are you working for CPD? I mean, I'm glad you're not, but I'd have thought you'd be in jail for that."
"I expected to be. The next thing I did was take both bodies to a police station, hand myself in, and make a full confession. Naturally, I was arrested for murder. Then, out of nowhere I got a visit from someone from a specialist police unit. They were impressed by how skilfully I had done what I'd done that they wanted me to join them. I was offered a chance to do that in exchange for immunity on the two murders. Didn't take much of a decision for me to accept that. I proved to be very good at undercover work, which is why Lindsay ended up approaching me. So, that's my story. If you're uncomfortable, I understand. I'm not proud of what I did to those two guys, it just needed doing. Those bastards had to pay for what they did to my sister."
"I'm not uncomfortable," Vega said without hesitation. "I've never been more comfortable with someone than I am with you. That hasn't changed. In a way, I admire what you did. The guts it took as much as anything else. You're a total badass, mami, and I love you."
In most circumstances, it would have been ludicrously early for those three words. But Gonzalez felt exactly the same way. "I love you too, muñequita. You've given me what I lacked most in life: a reason to exist other than work. After this job with the MC is done, I'll speak to Sergeant Lindsay about taking a step back from undercover work so that I can be with you."
Vega kissed her affectionately. "You don't have to do that. I'm happy to play Thea Trinidad as often as I need to. In fact, I want you to take me to the bar with you some time. Makes sense for the MC to see us together anyway."
"Now that is seriously hot." Gonzalez started kissing her, and that ended conversation for the foreseeable future.
A/N: I wanted to show how everyone on the team was affected by the mass shooting, to various extents. What did you make of it all?
Next time, Clementine arrives at her new home. How will it go for the brand new family?