Beautiful Crime

Hurricanes

3 Hurricanes (Title by Dido)

***

February 17th, 28 hours earlier:

Even though anyone else probably couldn't hear the difference, Hank Voight at least felt the echo of his grunt more deeply than on other days, when he got out of his Jeep with Hailey Upton, and laid eyes on his distressed detective on the other side of the street. Days like these never got any easier and sometimes he asked himself why they were all still doing this. Was it worth it? All the sacrifices they had had to make over the years? Living in constant fear that something like this could happen to any of them?

Every once in a while things got very personal, affecting and involving not just the unit, but their loved ones, their families. They had experienced it before, more than once. Hank's own son had been a victim, Al's family a target, as well as Antonio's children, the list went on. And now Halstead's wife?

It seemed like the kid couldn't catch a break, or rather that his recent luck was sadly more fragile than anyone would have wished on him. The man didn't deserve this, when he'd recently just begun to become more mellow and balanced than Voight had seen him in years, having found someone who grounded him immensely and had brought a lot of light into his life.

Looking at the tall figure on the other side of the road, wrapped in a dark cloud of anxiety and shock, while already working the scene, Hank felt the need to protect one of his own, like a papa bear. He guessed he'd especially have to protect his detective from himself. Otherwise, knowing Jay and his need to take action and get to the bottom of this kidnapping, in combination with his famous disregard for his own safety and well-being, this was bound to end very badly.

As soon as Halstead's eyes met his, the younger man came striding over, his features set in stone, and immediately addressed him:

"Sarge, I wanna work! I can work! You're not benching me! Don't even think about it!" Voight hadn't even said a word to him. He couldn't pretend though that the thought to do exactly that, hadn't crossed his mind. Of course Halstead was too close to this, he should have been considered a family member, take a step back and let them do their jobs. But benching Jay was probably even more dangerous and unpredictable than letting him indeed work the case. Hank had done that once or twice before and Jay had gone off on his own, despite his boss's explicit order not to, endangering himself and others. So maybe it was better to keep him close and under observation.

"Sarge..."

Voight just looked at him, knowing that Halstead was struggling to come up with the right words, but Hank knew there weren't any. Everything Jay wanted to express, his sergeant could very plainly see in his troubled and glassy eyes anyway.

"Hank, she's..." was the only thing he was able to croak out, while desperately trying to suppress a quiver of his upper lip. That the other man was calling him by his first name was so unusual that Jay didn't need to say anything else to underline how helpless and lost he felt, how scared he was.

'She's everything to you, and more," Hank thought, finishing Jay's sentence, and for a second his hand landed on the younger man's shoulder and squeezed it tightly:

"I know! We'll find her Jay, everything's gonna be fine!" He tried his best to believe that too.

When the unit gathered around him to exchange all the information they had until now, Hank felt that the pressure of this task, to take the lead and do it the right way, weighed at least two tons.