43. A Glance Is Worth A Thousand Words

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43. A Glance Is Worth A Thousand Words

Later in the afternoon of this chilly Sunday, after eating apple pie with vanilla ice cream, Noah begged Jay to go to the playground with him and of course Jay couldn't say no to this request. Hank suggested to come with them with the condition that he was allowed to take Emilia with him so he could be the proud grandfather who pushed his granddaughter's stroller through the neighborhood and without thinking too much about it, Erin of course agreed to it. Having time to chitchat with just Liv was quite nice and Hank's and Jay's relationship was as good that she didn't have to worry that they would kill each other and only one of the two men would make it back.

″Two men, a toddler and a baby. I'm not sure whether this is a good idea,″ Liv laughed after they'd left and the two women have sat down on the couch with two mugs of tea.

″Yeah, when they're not back in two hours we should maybe go and look for them,″ Erin chuckled.

″Give them three. They will forget time anyway,″ Liv winked.

″Oh no, they won't. Emmy will make sure of that, no worries. In no more than two hours they will walk in here with a crying, hungry baby.″

″Guess this is not such a wrong assumption.″

″Uh-huh,″ Erin grinned before she became pensive. ″This is the first time that we're seperated for more than twenty minutes, that she's not close to me but some place else. It feels strange not having her here and knowing that she's not in the room next door either.″

″Shall we call them to come back?″ Liv asked.

″No, I think it'll be nice to have a baby-free hour. I just need to get used to it I guess,″ Erin answered. ″Plus, we can talk undisturbed without any baby cries or Noah goofing around here, so that's nice too.″

″Yeah, really nice,″ Liv smiled.

″I still can't believe you're here,″ Erin grinned and slightly shook her head.

″And I still can't believe you didn't recognize I was at Hank's place when we skyped yesterday in the late afternoon,″ Liv laughed.

″Uhm...well...I'm a sleep-deprived young mother, I didn't pay attention on any background details,″ she chuckled. ″Despite, weren't you and Noah simply sitting in front of a yellow wall? This could've been everywhere.″

″You could be right about that,″ Liv winked. ″But now let's talk about the important stuff: how is it? Being a mother.″

″It's...great. It fullfills myself in a way I didn't think it would,″ Erin admitted smilingly and bit her lower lip, for a moment thinking about whether she should tell Liv more than just that she really enjoyed motherhood.

″You know, I was a fucked up person, always good at destroying my own life. Or the lives of others. And my whole life I cleaned up behind the mess I'd left myself and put the pieces of my life back together...to somehow make it work again,″ Erin said all pensive. ″But since Emilia was born, for the first time in my life I feel like I'm doing something right from the very beginning,″ she added and made a short pause. She hadn't spoken these thoughts out loud before.

″I mean, it's only been five days and I still have at least eighteen years to screw this up but right now I just feel so at peace with myself like never before. I have the feeling because of all the shit I had to go through in the past, because of all the people who had a bad influence on me and of course because of the amazing people who made me the person I am today, I know exactly how I want to do this, you know?″

″Yeah,″ Live confirmed. ″The things we had to go through in the past made and make us the persons we are today, influence our decisions, our behavior, everything. Sometimes we have to go through a lot of shit until we find the sun. But eventually it all turns out just fine. And there's nothing that teaches you better what really matters in life than having a child.″

″Yeah,″ Erin nodded thoughtful. ″I found the sun when I met Jay. He's lightened my life up in so many ways and now Emmy is our little sun and she brings us so much joy. And you're right, having a baby helps to bring things into perspective somehow. Every time when I look at Emilia I feel a flutter in my stomach because I can't believe she's mine. Ours. She's a little miracle and it's so unreal that we did this. She's the best thing that has ever happened to us, she completes us and she's our priority now and at the moment there's nothing I would rather want to be than being her mom,″ she smiled.

″I'm so glad you're happy Erin, you deserve all the happiness and I tell you something: I know you won't screw anything up,″ Liv smiled back.

″I will work hard not to.″

″You won't, believe me,″ Liv assured her and a grin formed on her lips by the next topic she wanted to adress and was super curious about.

″Now that we talked about how it is to be a mother, how about you tell me about this beautiful ring on your finger,″ she said and pointed to the sparkling diamond ring. Erin's smile grew big when she glanced down to it, too, remembering every word of the night where Jay had asked her to become his wife.

″Well...″ she smirked, ″he asked me on New Year's Eve in Wisconsin and it was the most beautiful and most perfect proposal you can imagine. And I said yes.″

″What happened to: I don't need a white dress and a ring to prove that I love him?″ Liv mimicked her words from November and raised her eyebrows.

″I still don't need it. But I want it. I want to tell the world that he's my husband and I want us to be something real. A real family. Like the ones I used to dream about when I was a kid. Like the ones I never had,″ Erin admitted. ″I thought a lot about marriage after you asked me about it in November, whether this is something I want. And I needed some time to admit it to myself because it scared me, but it is. So I didn't even have to think about my answer when he popped the question because there was only this one word in my head,″ she smiled.

″I knew this would happen,″ Liv smirked. ″You maybe didn't think much about marriage before we talked about it but somehow I was so sure Jay had. The way this guy's always been looking at you I knew it was around the corner. Sometimes a glance is worth a thousand words, you know?″ she winked.

″Uh-huh,″ Erin grinned.

″When's the big day?″

″Either the weekend of the 22nd of July or the weekend of the 29th of July. Depends on how booked out the locations already are. We really have to get into this now but at the moment we're busy with handling our new life and the thought of organizing a wedding now kinda freaks me out,″ she sighed.

″Hey, things will get easier and then you'll find the time to think about the wedding, I'm sure,″ Liv said and gave the younger woman an encouraging smile.

″It's not that it's particularly complicated. It just hard because we're exhausted all the time, so at the moment we sleep when Emilia's sleeping,″ Erin said and decided to tell Liv a little more about their new life. ″The second night at home with her was really bad. She was so unsettled and wouldn't stop crying, so we walked through the apartment for hours, rocked her, talked with her but nothing helped and we felt quite helpless. We figured out she might has a colic, so we rubbed and massaged her belly and finally the crying stopped somewhen between three and four in the morning and she fell asleep on my chest after I had laid down on the couch out of pure exhaustion and I fell asleep with her. We then put her in her bassinet and went to bed as well and half an hour later it all started again. Was a rough night,″ she sighed, hoping that they wouldn't experience this in such an extremity so soon again but at the same time knowing that they most probably would.

″When does Jay have to go back to work? Tomorrow?″

″Thank God not,″ she answered and shook her head. ″He'll stay another week at home and at the moment I can't imagine doing it all without him. Spending my days without him, maybe even the nights when he has to work the all-nighters. And I don't want him to go to work all tired in the morning because he needs to be concentrated but he won't get that much sleep for the next couple of weeks, maybe months, so we'll see how this works.″

″It gets easier Erin. Especially the nights. She'll sleep more and be awake less, I promise,″ Liv winked.

″Yeah, I know. She's only five days old and we still have to get used to all of it,″ she said and a smile spread across her face by these words.

″What' up?″ Liv asked.

″I just had to grin because I said she's only five days old when my head always freaks out and tells me she's already five days old. It's fascinating to think about that one week ago she was still inside of me and we waited for her to finally come,″ Erin said and looked down to her still slightly swollen stomach. ″I miss feeling her kicks and the other day I caught myself how I had my hand on my stomach and I had to remember myself: hey, you're not pregnant anymore, there's no reason for you to place your hand there,″ she laughed.

″This was your way of communcating with each other and you did that for the last couple of months, so I think it's normal that you miss it.″

″Uh-huh,″ Erin grinned. ″But I didn't remember how great it is to sleep like a normal human being, without having any feet in my ribs or my organs getting punched all the time. It's seriously incredible. Although I don't get much sleep at the moment, it's the best feeling to finally be able to sleep again how I wanna sleep. And just this morning I had my first small cup of coffee in ages. Well, it was more milk than coffee I think, but damn, this taste made me so happy.″

″I can imagine that,″ Liv laughed.

″But you know, the moment the midwife placed her on my chest seconds after her birth I forgot about all the things I sacrificed during the last nine months. Pregnancy isn't just sunshine and roses. It's a tough job to grow a baby and you have to deal with a lot of stuff during your pregnancy and even after it, because the after pains I had the first two days after her birth also really sucked and were almost as painful as real labor. But it was all so, so, so worth it,″ Erin smiled overjoyed.

″As a woman you for sure have to do a hell of a job before your baby is finally here and you still have to when your baby is finally earthside,″ Liv agreed. ″Since I never gave birth myself and will never do, I have to admit, I'm a little curious about her birth...but I can of course totally understand when you don't want to talk about it,″ she added and her cheeks blushed a little.

″Liv, you're one of my closest friends what makes you one of the few people I can tell about it,″ Erin said and smiled faintly. She wasn't eager to share her birth experience with too many people as it was quite an intimate thing, but she had absolutely no problem with telling Liv about these fifteen intense hours. She was also sure she had to tell Kim about it as soon as they had time for another girl's evening again and of course she would also tell her. But that was it.

″Wow...uhm, now I feel honored,″ Liv smiled.

″Do you?″ Erin asked rhetorically in response and a raspy laughter escaped from her lips. ″So, where to start?″

″The beginning? How was it?″

″Overwhelming,″ Erin sighed, but that special smile still surrounded her lips.

″Positive or negative?″ Liv asked.

″Both,″ she answered promptly. ″It was without a doubt the hardest thing I ever did in my life, the most intense fifteen hours. But when you see your baby, touch your baby, hold your baby for the first time, you forget about it instantly,″ she smiled.

″Was Jay with you?″

″Every single second. Well, almost, because he was at work when I had the first contractions and then rushed home to be with me. But I couldn't have done that without him. I'm sure he'll get arthrosis in his fingers one day because he massaged my back for more or less twelve hours in a row,″ she chuckled.

"Poor guy," Liv laughed.

"Yeah totally," Erin also laughed. "And then I almost broke his already damaged hand with my grasp and he had to listen to me complaining all the time. I don't know how many times I said 'I can't do this anymore' and how many many more times I thought it but didn't speak it out loud. But in the end I did it. When you give birth you develop a strength you never, never thought is possible...," she said and continued to tell Liv about the day and the night which changed her life, the night that was the hardest and most painful but at the same time the most beautiful and impressive night of her life and remembering and talking about the moment when Katy had placed a squishy Emilia on her chest and all the pain was gone and forgotten in a heartbeat still sent chills down her spine. She showed Liv all of the photos Jay had taken directly after the birth and during the first hours in the hospital and also showed her the professional ones the the hospital photographer had taken before they'd left Med.

When she was finished with telling Liv Emilia's birth story and Hank and Jay were still not back from the playground she decided to ask Liv about her version of her current relationship status with Hank, trying to figure out whether it was only Hank who was still hesitating or whether Liv felt the same about whatever it was they had.

″Can I ask you something now?″ Erin asked and bit her lip. Usually she wasn't someone who cared about other people's private lives. But she cared about Hank and she cared about Liv and so she cared about their personal lives.

″Sure,″ Liv nodded, already sensing what this was about.

″You and Hank...what's going on there?″ The question came a little shy and Erin's cheeks blushed in the slightest way.

″I don't know,″ she shrugged in response. ″I think I can't deny that there is something between us. But at the moment we're just friends and we will take one step after another and see where it goes. Taking it easy, giving us time, trying out where it could go, whether it could work. It's not easy but I like spending time with him and I think the same applies for him. Noah likes him. Not as much as he likes you and Jay, because seriously, he adores you guys, but they're getting along well,″ she smirked.

″I honestly wish you and Noah would live around here. I'd love to spend more time with this little munchkin and I'd love to spend more time with you, like I could just come over in the evening for a glass of wine. I have the feeling I can talk about everything with you and usually I'm not an open person...except for Jay. But he's my special person in so many ways, so he's an exception anyway,″ she smirked.

″I wish you and Jay and Emmy would live in New York. We could take turns with babysitting and Noah would be something like a big brother,″ Liv said and her voice came thoughtful. ″But seeing us every few weeks or months makes it even more special and the time we spend together more precious,″ she smiled.

″That's true,″ Erin also smiled and in this moment they heard how someone locked up the front door and a couple of seconds later the silence was over when they heard Noah's excited voice babbling in the hall and Emilia's well-known screams resounding from there as well.

″Told you so,″ Erin laughed to Liv and got up from the couch to check on her two main men, her favorite little boy and her baby girl.

XxXxXxXxXxXxX

″Hey,″ Jay grinned when he joined Erin in Daniel's room where she was nursing Emilia again.

″Hey,″ she smiled back, looking up from her baby girl to him. He crossed the room and sat down on the armrest of the armchair she was sitting in.

″Is she hungry?″

″Oh yeah,″ Erin sighed. ″Told you she has that Halstead-gene when it comes to eating.″

″Ey, a girl gotta eat,″ he winked. Teasing her with phrases she'd once used against him was one of his favorite things to do.

″Uh-huh,″ Erin grinned by this statement of her adorable dork. Though, it always made her feel special when he did this because it showed her how important she always had been for him even when they'd just been partners, remembering mostly every random conversation they ever had. ″How was it at the playground?″

″Great! Was a lot of fun.″

″Who had more fun, you or Noah?″ she laughed.

″Uhm, no comment,″ he smirked. ″But I had to behave and couldn't climb on the monkey bars this time because I wasn't sure what my boss or father-in-law would think about it. So we just seesawed together and I helped Noah to climb up wherever he wanted to climb up.″

″Bet he was happy about that and had a blast,″ she chuckled.

″He had,″ Jay confirmed. ″He was giggling and laughing and babbling all the time. He's different than in November. He talks more and is not as shy anymore.″

″Well, he's almost three. Not to forget that he lived with us for more than two weeks, so he knows us pretty well. And the time in November was an exceptional situation for him in general,″ she said pensively. Thinking back to this kinda frightening time in November when they were so close to another catastrophe with Liv's life being in jeopardy and with herself almost having preterm labor and therefore a preterm baby still let her shiver and she was beyond grateful that everything had turned out the way it has.

″That's true,″ he nodded and stroked her thigh supportingly. ″You know, actually I wanted to ask you something but somehow I forget what it was.″

She looked up to him, raised her eyebrows but couldn't hide a cheeky smirk. ″You're getting old, huh?″ she grinned.

″Please, I'm just sleep-deprived not old, okay?″ he asked and grimaced by the word old. This was for sure something he didn't want to hear although he knew Erin was just teasing him.

″Just for once,″ she twinkled. ″Was it something important?″

″I think so,″ he said and gazed around in the room, hoping that his eyes would find anything that would help him to remember. When his eyes fell on a poster of the Chicago Bears on the wall across from the crib, he knew why he'd joined her in first place.

″Ha, that's it,″ he laughed, earning a skeptical glance from Erin in response. He knew she was curious now so he didn't keep her on the tenterhooks any longer. ″Will and Mouse asked whether they can check by this evening so we can watch the Superbowl together.″

″Is it already that day of the year again?″ she yawned. Of course she'd watched lots of this season's games with Jay but in the last few weeks she's had other things to do than thinking about the Superbowl.

″Yep,″ Jay grinned. ″So what do you think? Can I tell them they can come?″

″I don't know Jay,″ she sighed and her face also told him that she was anything but excited about it. ″Our apartment is a complete mess, we are super tired and I can't wait for our couch and my yoga pants and today was enough hustle and bustle already, don't you think?″

″They don't care about a messy kitchen or you wearing yoga pants and a hoodie. They just want to watch the game, eat nachos and drink some beers,″ he said.

″Why don't you just simply go to Will's place to watch it?″ Erin suggested.

″I told them I will not leave you alone for half of the night, so I said I will ask you whether you're down with them coming to our place or not. But it's okay, if you don't want it I'll tell them to watch it some place else,″ he said and gave her a little smile, trying to show her that he was absolutely not mad at her but could rather understand her.

″Just Will and Mouse, right? Not all of the dorks?″ she asked. She loved all of her colleagues, but having their apartment full with all of their friends was simply something she didn't want at the moment because she didn't want all the hustle and bustle. And for Emmy she wanted it to be as quiet as possible in the apartment during the evening and night so that she would maybe learn that this was the time where she was supposed to sleep. Just like she'd read in a baby book. Because she'd read them, too. Not only Jay.

″Just the four of us plus Emmy,″ he winked.

″Well, it's the Superbowl. It's only once a year...and maybe they can prove whether they're good babysitters,″ she agreed and chuckled slightly.

″That was a fast change of mind,″ he laughed.

″I just thought...without Emmy we would do it. It wouldn't even be a question for us. Of course we have to consider her now with every decision we make...but I don't want to give our old life up completely. So let's try it and see how it works,″ she smiled.

″Alright,″ he answered, placed a kiss on the top of her head and pulled his phone out of his pocket to text his brother and his best friend that they could plan to spend the evening with him, Erin and Emilia.

XxXxXxXxXxXxX

The rest of the afternoon went by fast and after Erin had played with Noah for a little while, building towers and houses once again while Liv kept Emmy entertained, it was time to say goodbye as they needed to go home and Liv and Noah needed to catch their flight back to New York. Needless to say that saying goodbye was quite hard for all of them. Erin considered Noah and Liv her family and so did Jay, so of course the farewell didn't come easy as they all didn't know when they would see each other again and would have the chance to spend this kind of quality time with each other again. They shortly talked about that it would maybe be the wedding in July but Jay also said that they would maybe try to come to New York in spring since they wanted to visit his aunt and uncle anyway, depending on how eager they were to take a flight with a three to four months old baby.

Back home at their apartment, Jay took care of Emilia and made her ready for the night and when he walked into the bedroom to lie her in her bassinet he had to give his best to suppress a laughter. Erin was lying flat on the bed and seemed to be in a deep sleep while the light was still on. Changing into yoga pants, a hoodie and cozy socks has obviously turned in her hitting the cushions in pure exhaustion and literally falling over onto the bed. He tried to be as quiet as possible with putting Emilia to bed and then also placed a cozy blanket over Erin's body lovingly. He turned the light off, went to the kitchen to put the dirty plates and other stuff from breakfast into the dishwasher and prepared some little bowls with different kinds of snacks. After finishing these preparations, he went to the bathroom to start with laundring their dirty clothes and when the first load of laundry was in the washing machine he used the time he still had until Will and Mouse would show up to take a quick shower.

Even before he walked into the bedroom to slip into some fresh clothes afterwards he heard Emmy's unpleased mewling so there was no doubt that Erin's little nap had been short-lived.

″Little monster woke you up, huh?″ he grinned when he crossed the room towards the dresser.

″Yeah, she's somewhat grumpy at the moment,″ she answered, rocking Emmy gently in her arms as an attempt to soothe her.

″Hungry, diaper?″ he asked, unwrapped his towel and slipped into his boxers.

″No, I tried to nurse her but she wouldn't want and I already changed her diaper. I guess it's attention or general dissatisfaction. I told you she's too spoiled,″ Erin grinned.

″You can't spoil a baby too much,″ Jay chuckled, put his sweatpants and a black v-neck on and sat down on the edge of the bed next to Erin.

″Come to daddy baby girl,″ he soothed and reached out to take her from Erin. He pressed her tiny body against his chest, covered her head with his hand and stroked over her fuzzy hair with his thumb.

″Is this better Emmy?″ he whispered and placed a kiss on the top of her head. It didn't even take a minute and the mewling stopped and she became all calm, even her facial expression looked completely satisfied now.

″Seriously Emmy?″ Erin chuckled and slightly shook her head. ″So I guess this kind of noise is her way of showing that she needs her daddy to comfort her, huh?″

″Looks like,″ Jay grinned.

″I slowly but steady have the suspicion that she's daddy's girl,″ she noticed.

″Of course she is,″ he winked.

″I can't complain because you two together is the cutest thing,″ she smiled, looking at him with heart-eyes. Her whole world sat right in front of her and being blessed was an understatement when she searched for words to describe how she felt.

″You and Emmy together are not bad either,″ he murmured and leaned down to press his lips against hers. In the same moment there was a knock on the door, the sign the calm part of the evening was over.

″Oh dang, they're here already and we have nothing prepared,″ Erin sighed, ″we're for sure the worst Superbowl-hosts around the globe this evening.″

″We're not,″ Jay smirked. ″I prepared some snacks, the kitchen is clean and I started doing the laundry. There's nothing that indicates that we're living in a chaos at the moment.″

″When did you do all that?″ she frowned and there was this really stunned undertone in her voice.

″While you took your little nap,″ he winked and got up to open the door and not let Mouse and Will wait outside for too long.

″Wow...uhm...you work fast,″ she laughed. ″House husband, huh?″

″Soon,″ he smirked and left her alone. Erin watched him disappear in the living room and before the voices of Mouse and Will broke the silence in the apartment she once again felt how her heart got warm and started fluttering by the thought how blessed she was to have Jay in her life, to call him her partner for life, father of her daughter, soon-to-be husband. He was everything she never thought a man could be. Caring, loving, protective, gentle, attentive, always listening, always giving his best to make her happy, to make her smile, to make her feel like she was the only diamond in the world. And he had the unique gift to use and show all these attitudes at the same time. 24 hours a day. 365 days a year. Jay Halstead would rob the stars from the sky for her for sure. In fact this was what he was doing on a daily basis.

XxXxXxXxXxXxX

″Do you have it?″ Mouse whispered to Will who was sitting in the armchair across him.

″I have it in black and white,″ Will chuckled quietly and leaned forward to show him the picture he'd taken with his phone.

″I can't believe they both fell asleep before the last quarter,″ Mouse grinned and looked to the couple that dozed on the couch. Or more accurate: was dead asleep.

″My brother fell asleep during the Superbowl. I'm going to tell this story for the rest of my life and I will rag him with this forever,″ Will said and suppressed a loud laughter. ″Whenever something comes up where I need to tease him I will go like: You remember the Superbowl 2017...oh wait you can't.″

″Yep, I think I will use this against him at some point, too,″ Mouse smirked. ″Although it's mean because they have the baby and they're clearly super exhausted.″

″But falling asleep during the Superbowl, Mouse. The Superbowl. That's a crime, seriously,″ Will chuckled.

″It is,″ Mouse agreed. ″But somehow it looks cute how they half sit, half lie there, completely out, don't you think?″

″I wouldn't say my brother looks cute,″ Will joked. ″But yeah, the both of them together look kinda cute right now.″

″Only right now?″ Mouse asked. ″Man, have you earlier seen how they look at each other? Talk about heart-eyes right there. It's like they're each other's whole world.″

″They are,″ Will nodded and this time his voice came all serious. ″I hope that one day Nat-...a woman looks at me the way Erin looks at Jay. And I hope that I can give that woman the same look back that Jay gives Erin.″

″Me too,″ Mouse said pensively.

″They don't need to tell the world that they're in love,″ Will said and looked to his brother and his sister-in-law again, maybe a little jealousy for what they had reflecting from his eyes. ″Everyone can see the deep connection they have because sometimes glances are worth a thousand words...″

Thanks for reading! Please leave a review and tell me your thoughts :) From now on there will be some smaller time jumps and the next chapter is called "Dance With Me Tonight".