Chapter two is here for you guys! I'm not that happy with this chapter either, and it gets kinda cheesy in the middle. I've rewritten this so many times that I'm just going to post this chapter and hope you all like it! Thank you all for your patience, as I know I'm not the quickest updater;)

He headed home and went straight to bed. He needed an escape from the constant replaying of his words that ran through his head; he wanted to forget every syllable that escaped his lips. And for a few hours, he did.

He silenced his racing mind under the seclusion of the thick duvet and attempted to force himself into a deep sleep.

A knocking at the door woke him hours later, tearing him from the time of bliss he had managed to savour. Jay tore his body from the comfort of his bed and made his way to the front door, where the relentless knocking refused to subside. While rubbing his eyes and yawning, Jay opened the door, immediately stopping in his tracks at the sight of his partner.

He gulped before she even started talking. He knew her well enough to know that he wasn't going to be subject to a friendly conversation. "What the hell is the matter with you?" Erin spat with a snarled lip. She attempted to maintain composure, but Jay still took note of her softened eyes.

He couldn't think of anything to say. He tried thinking of what Erin would want him to say, but came to the conclusion that Erin would want him to stand there and shut up while she yelled.

"I just..." She started shaking her head, disbelief still painted across her face. "I don't understand what was going through your head."

"I-"

"You get that I'm happy, right? Severide makes me happy." It was like a blow to the chest. It wasn't anything he didn't already know, though. "And I deserve that. I've been through a lot, I deserve to be happy." He felt his throat constrict under the force of her words.

"I know," He was flustered for words as he attempted to somehow explain how he felt. "I want you to be happy, I do, but-"

"So then why did you say all that?" The redness of her eyes deepened with each passing second, and Jay felt a cold silence set in. "Why did you leave it until now to say? Where was all this two months ago?" He desperately wanted to give her an answer, a viable answer.

"I told you, I was an idiot." He tried to create a more imaginative response, but his idiocy was the only thing running through his mind.

"No, tonight you were an idiot." She corrected him, pointing at his chest. "I mean, telling me you don't want to keep it professional, what the hell am I supposed to do with that?" Although Jay heard it rhetorically, Erin was begging for an answer. She was silently pleading for some direction in what to do. She wanted a reason; an explanation as to why when she uttered the words 'It's probably better we just keep it professional, right?', he didn't tell her everything he did earlier that night.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"Kelly's good for me." Jay wondered whether Erin was telling him or herself. "He's a man, you know. He knows what he wants and he takes it." She paused for a second, letting the words settle in Jay's head. "And he doesn't wear the same black hoodie to work everyday. And he doesn't beat up guys on the street for no good reason. And he doesn't infuriate Voight. And he hasn't been accused of murder any time recently." She spat the words, fully aware of their cruelty. She didn't want to tear Jay down, but her mind pulsed inside of her, screaming for reasons of why Kelly was a better man than Jay.

Jay felt his fuse shorten with each passing reason and finally snapped. "So why are you here then, Erin?" She didn't expect him to push back at her, and steadies her face as he does. "Huh?"

"Because!" She nearly screamed, her voice broken and hoarse. Jay watched as she blinked back tears in her reddened eyes, her lips quivering ever so softly. "Because he's not you!"

Erin felt inexplicably exhausted with each passing second, as though all the strength she had managed to muster was evaporating. She hated that she didn't look at Kelly the same way she looked at Jay. She hated that she didn't crave that single look from her boyfriend, the glance she ached for from her partner, that made her world make sense, even if just for a second.

Jay felt his lips part and his eyes steady. It was probably the last thing he expected her to say. Her eyes pleaded with his, but he couldn't find the words.

"Because I don't have to physically turn away when Kelly talks to another girl. Because I don't smell his cologne on my skin when I go to bed, and feel safe because of it. Because he doesn't own nice suits." Jay felt the corner of his mouth twitch, threatening to expose a smile at her last reason. "He's not you. He's not you and I hate that."

She wanted to scream in his face with all her might. She wanted him to pull her close and whisper that everything would be alright; that it didn't matter that they were partners or best friends or practically doomed from the beginning. She wanted to yell into his shoulder that she broke up with The Fireman twelve minutes after he'd left. She wanted to hit him for leading her to break up with an amazing guy.

She didn't even realise she was crying until her partner wrapped his arms around her and she was held against his bare torso, her tears smearing across his shoulder. She felt her body shake against his, and his arms round her back.

"I'm sorry." He mumbled soft and slow into her hair.

"Stop saying sorry."

But considering everything, Jay wasn't sorry. He didn't regret what he's said. He just regretted leaving it so late. But regardless of his bad timing, Jay smiled sadly into the tangled hair of his parter, knowing that he could hold her as close as possible, bone to bone, and she still wouldn't be close enough. And while a nagging part of Halstead told him anything between the two young, naive detectives wouldn't and couldn't last, he held on regardless. He held her through the shaking and crying and fears of their inevitability. He held her through the blind hope that if anything were to happen, he'd give it his best damn shot.

He heard Burgess' words run through his mind one last time. 'She was never yours to begin with'. And he wanted to laugh at how wrong that sequence of words was. She's always been his, like he's always been hers. And while his chest was lighter with the weight of his words flung out and between them, he was just as grounded as he always was.

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