His pen ticked spastically against the keyboard, his blue orbs dashing everywhere except where they should be - the whiteboard and the scribbled leads, the mug shots of some dope dealer and his lively crew, the faces about to go down in a bust later the afternoon at his own hand. Hank's voice rattled through his eardrums, his head back in her New York apartment and her ridiculous amount of pillows, the soft scent of vanilla and coconut wafting off of her skin somewhere far out of his reach.

It'd been a month since his near breakdown, his snap from reality and descent into his own personal hell, dulled only by her kisses drifting across the bare skin of his abdomen or the scratches of her fingernails as she called out his name.

And he honestly wished he could say he was doing better - that the therapy down in the humid and sticky and nauseous church basement was making a dent in his insanity, that her occasional calls or messages checking in or on rare occasions a few brief and glorious minutes of a glimpse of his favorite dimples over a facetime call before slumber overtook the both of them were enough. But he knew somewhere in the pit of his stomach that they were only fooling themselves, that he wasn't getting any better and she wasn't getting any closer and add on the fact that he lied every single damn time he opened his mouth, that he pretended to be okay after his stray bullet had ended the life of that sweet and precious little girl it was a wonder he hadn't drank himself numb.

"Halstead, you ready?"

It was Adam, his eyes questioning and perhaps a little bit wary, their brawl at Molly's long forgotten by the both of them yet still somehow always lingering, always there. Both of them were dealing with shit way too heavy for the bullpen and perhaps that they were both too afraid to voice, to admit that they couldn't deal when they should have it handled. That maybe losing the girl hit harder than expected.

He gave a nod then, the pen tossed somewhere on his desk, his jacket swung over the henley that he swore still smelled like her though he'd put it through the wash more times than he could count, his badge looped on his belt buckle and his head back in the game or at least as far as he could get it, Hank's eyes flashing to him from across the room in a silent assessment and he was aware enough to give a nod of acknowledgement, a nod that signified he had his shit together, at least for the time being.

Still, sliding in driver's seat and not the passenger side stung more than it should've, Upton's terse smile of greeting a drastic change from Erin's usual snide remark, another reminder that things were slipping and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

X

He was better now, in that very moment, the buzz of alcohol running through his veins, the face of the mother as he handed over the tiny girl's necklace distant, not at the forefront of his head, running through like a sick highlight reel, over and over and over again. He jolted at the smack of a hand clasping his shoulder, fought to plaster a shaky grin on his lips under the jarring and inquisitive stare of Hermann, the purse of his lips to signify he was fine, that he had it under control, grinning along with Atwater's reenactment of some backyard basketball tournament with his younger brother though his focus was on the inhale of his breath. Steady breathing. Stay controlled. Don't lose your shit, man.

He felt his phone buzz somewhere in his back pocket and even though it was probably her, his eyes wandering over to the clock signifying the hour she usually hailed a cab back to her place, back to its silence and nearly empty refrigerator, he couldn't bring himself to care. She was slipping and so was he in more ways than one, the promise of when they would get to see the other again dwindling somewhere and then fading back to nothing because there wasn't a shot in hell that they could swing it. That he wouldn't feel like absolute hell boarding a plane to fly away from her again, leaving her behind in anxious and distraught tears, droplets of his own sliding down his freckle-dusted cheeks.

But then his self-loathing dissipated, swallowed up whole by the flashing red banner across the tv screen up on his left, a guttural scream forming somewhere in the pit of his stomach as he watched the explosion of a bomb some reporter had been ballsy enough to catch, the scrambling of people and the mass of destruction somewhere across the ocean in a country he refused to ever step foot in again, the same fraction of the world that had stolen pieces of him and pieces of his soul that he would never get back, that had stolen brothers and comrades and spit them back out like they were the scum of the earth - bloodied and battered and drained of life. His fingers tightened on his glass of whiskey before he realized what was really happening, the shattering of glass between his fingertips alerting Antonio's attention as well as the rest of the team, their eyes following his to the words 'terrorist attack on US soldiers', their jaws dropping and fists clenching though somewhere in the back of his head he knew their eyes had stubbornly trailed back to him, to their own broken blue-eyed soldier.

And there were Will's arms, enveloping him whole, scooping him up almost and ushering him through the throngs of people and out the door, the crisp fall air hitting his lungs and causing him to gasp, not realizing he hadn't been breathing, not realizing his hands were still stubbornly and ferociously shaking.

"Jay -"

"Will, I - I can't. Hang on." His eyes squeezed shut, his hands clenched again into fists, trying to slow his heartbeat down, trying to talk himself out of a panic attack, out of one of his weakest and most vulnerable states. Not here, not now.

His phone vibrated again, this time incessantly, this time long enough to piss him off. And so he slid his finger across the screen, bracing himself for whoever's voice would come from the other end, knowing whatever it was wasn't going to be the exchanging of pleasantries.

"Jay?!" She was breathless, choked up, but it was her. His stomach lurched, dropped to somewhere near the toes of his shoes, his grip tightening on the device near his ear as he waited in a dreaded silence.

"Jay, he's dead. Mouse is dead."

The phone hit the concrete before his body did, shattering just like every single piece of his heart.