89. Push The Pain Away

89. Push The Pain Away

The OB/GYN on call at Chicago Med was the first to speak the word out loud. The word that shattered their world, that let the universe collide above them, that trapped the air in their lungs and made breathing unbelievably hard, that let a lump build up in their throats which threatened to choke them. A word that confirmed what they'd already known deep down inside: miscarriage. One simple word, yet a synoym for shattered dreams, broken hearts and an unimaginable amount of pain. They'd lost someone they'd never met, someone they'd never gotten the chance to meet, and yet the grief threatened to swallow them whole and this loss hurt in every fiber of their bodies. The baby that had been supposed to join them around Thanksgiving was gone. Forever. And all they had left was a picture from their first ultrasound and almost four weeks of bliss, anticipation, picturing a life with two under two and falling in love with the idea of expanding their family by this little human they created.

Erin had to tell the doctor what had happened but so far she was far from being able to understand it herself. She'd been fine all the way along, had never had one single cramp or any bleeding or anything else that indicated that something was wrong. Everything had gone smoothly. She'd taken care of herself, had avoided anything that could bring their baby's life in jeopardy. And then, while taking a shower, one cramp had hit her out of nowhere, one that had almost felt like a contraction, one that had made her double over and the next thing she'd seen while inhaling a couple of deep breaths was the blood running down her thighs. In this moment she'd already known that her body had rejected their baby for a reason they might never know.

Then the doctor talked about how one in five women went through this, how 15 to 20% of pregnancies ended in miscarriages without women doing anything wrong and that there was nothing Erin had to blame herself for, that it hadn't been her fault. It almost sounded like she had to tell women this every single day – and probably her job required her to do exactly this on a daily basis – but for Jay and Erin it just felt all sorts of insensitive to come up with statistics in an attempt to make them understand that this was a part of life. In the same sentence she also talked about that a miscarriage at 11 weeks was a rare thing but that it unfortunately happened, sometimes without any reason and even when everything looked perfectly fine at the first appointment. So here they were again, trying to understand, to make sense with what had happened and why but still struggling with getting any answers.

Neither Erin nor Jay really listened to what else they were told, only nodded their heads mechanically, hoping that they soon could go home, away from all the people who tried to comfort them with words they didn't want to hear, to hide in their bedroom and cry for the whole damn night. Cry about this little baby that had just slipped away under the shower earlier. Cry about this little person they hadn't known but had still loved with all their heart. Cry about losing a family member they'd never met in person but had still been a part of them.

In a final step, the doctor talked about a D&C Erin had to undergo, this twenty minute procedure being done under monitored anesthesia care, the doctor recommending Erin to stay for the night afterwards but she denied, only said that she wanted it to be done and go home as soon as possible, even if that meant she had to discharge herself. Jay didn't even argue. Not tonight.

He didn't want to leave her side, wanted to be there even though nothing could comfort her right now, but he wasn't allowed to hold her hand while the procedure was done and so he waited in the room they would bring her into afterwards, when everything was done and nothing from her pregnancy was left other than those memories of joy. For him, those twenty minutes felt like twenty hours and as he went to the restroom to throw some water in his face, his mind was processing how they went from being genuinely happy in the park this afternoon to losing their baby only a couple of hours later and he decided that all of this had to be one sick nightmare someone finally had to get him out of because he had the feeling he was falling. And that he would never stop.

The cold water didn't make things better, not that he'd really expected it to, and gazing at his own reflection in the mirror, he couldn't keep his tears at bay anymore as some sobs escaped from his trembling lips, the thought that there was no baby making them a family of four in November only settling now, a mixture of anger and grief and sadness and anguish and simply feeling lost making him punch his fist directly into the middle of the mirror, the glass shattering into a hundred pieces and ripping the skin on his knuckles open that caused a burning pain, blood dripping into the sink which made those pictures from earlier come up again. Those pictures of Erin standing in the shower with blood running down her thighs that would forever be burned in his head.

He reached for a paper towel to cover the wounds, the deep red blood leaking through instantly, and seeing his gaze in the broken mirror he yelled: ″Why?″ It was a question he would most probably never get an answer for.

″Why?″ he yelled once more before he slid down against the wall until he reached the floor, his arms wrapped around his knees and his head resting against them as he tried to cry the pain away. As heartwrenching sobs filled the silence of the restroom, those sobs making his whole body shake, and he let it all out so he could be strong for Erin later, could be her rock in the hours, days and weeks to come.

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Jay was back by Erin's side when she woke up from the sedative cocktail they'd put her on and he covered her hand with his own to give her at least some kind of comfort even though this little gesture wasn't more than showing her that he was there. He wasn't sure whether she didn't see the cuts and the fresh blood on his knuckles or whether she simply ignored them as she didn't feel like asking but she didn't say anything about it. She didn't say anything in fact and neither did he. Because he knew that there were no words that could make her feel better. This time he couldn't fix this with words. Or with being there, by her side. Or with anything at all. There were no sweet gestures of comfort and love that could make this okay. Because it would never be okay. Not for her and not for him either.

He excused himself to the restroom when he suddenly realized that he hasn't called Hank so far and that not only Erin's father-figure was waiting for his call but that he also rather wanted to tell him over the phone than later in person, when Erin would stand next to him. In this moment he wished they would live on a lonely island where they didn't have to face anyone for days. Weeks even. Where they just could hide and mourn their loss for as long as they felt like it.

″Jay,″ Hank answered after only a couple of seconds.

″Hank...,″ he breathed out and inhaled deeply as if it could give him the courage to speak it out loud for the first time. It didn't. ″She had a m...-″ There it was but he wasn't able to let the word slip past his lips. ″They had to do...″ His voice broke again and in this moment he wasn't sure whether he would ever be able to talk about it.

″It's okay, Jay,″ Hank answered and his voice sounded almost soothing. Yet, he could hear the sadness and devastation in it anyway because of course Hank had lost this child as well, this child that should've been his fourth grandchild. ″Does she have to stay?″

″Uhm...no...she...we will come home soon,″ he stammered, running his hand through his hair and biting his lip to keep the tears back that threatened to fall again.

″Alright. I will be in the living room, so you can bring her upstairs and you don't have to see me if you don't feel like it,″ he said and then added: ″Jay, I know what you're going through right now, so if you ever need me, don't hesitate.″

Only now it clicked. That Hank had been there as well, at this exact same point he was at right now. Only that his father-in-law had been there several times because Camille Voight had lost more than one baby. The man on the other end of the phone knew exactly what he was going through right now, how helpless he felt witnessing a beloved person going through the most terrible experience a woman could endure. How he just wanted to yell, to scream and to cry to make the pain go away. Hank Voight knew all of that and somehow, beyond all the grief and anger and sadness he was thankful for that.

″Thank you,″ Jay said quietly, hoping that his boss could hear how much he meant it.

He hung up after that and going back to the sparse hospital room, he found Erin crying silently, her hands resting on her stomach that was no longer the home of Halstead number two and when their eyes met he was sure they had the saddest, most devastating expression he's ever seen.

″I'm sorry,″ she whispered almost inaudible and swallowed down a sob and for a second Jay was uncertain what she's apologizing for. Was she apologizing for crying or for losing the baby?

″There's nothing you have to be sorry for,″ Jay said immediately, no matter what she meant because there was no reason for her to apologize as none of this was her fault, and he rushed to her side to wrap his arms around her fragile frame. He expected her sob uncontrolledly, a monsoon of tears to let it all out, to somehow break down like he earlier had but if anything, the crying only faded.

″I just want to have our baby back,″ she whispered. For the second time today he knew how it felt when the heart stopped beating, or when it was breaking, or both at the same time, and it took everything for him not to start crying by her words. Instead, he pulled her closer and burried his face in her hair to hide the tears that were looming in his eyes.

″Me too,″ he murmured, not being sure whether his words had been loud enough for her to hear and only a couple of seconds later she pulled out of his embrace as if him holding her was suddenly burning her skin.

″I want to go home,″ she said and Jay took this as an explanation for the sudden end of finding comfort in each other's arms.

Little did he know that this had been the closest he would get to her for a while.

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Arriving at their house in Beverly, Jay instantly guided Erin up the stairs and without saying anything or changing from her leggins and shirt into her pajamas, she crawled into their bed and pulled the comforter all the way over her head as if she was shielding herself from everything around her, including him.

Jay of course accepted it, he felt like hiding himself as well, and then went downstairs to exchange a couple of words with his father-in-law and thank him for coming over. They didn't exactly talk about what had happened as there was no need to speak any of those cruel words out loud, and Jay only said that Erin was on medical leave until she felt mentally up for work again though she should avoid any physical exertion for the next couple of days. Hank, who was shortly eyeing the nasty wounds on his hand but didn't say anything about it as he obviously came to his own conclusions how this must've happened, made sure to tell him that they should only come back to the bullpen when they both felt ready for it and that although he knew any kind of distraction was appreciated, Jay needed to stay home with Erin tomorrow. Not that Jay had ever even played with the thought of leaving his wife alone at home on the following day and telling Hank exactly this, the older man pulled him into a hug, telling him that he hadn't expected anything else. He'd just wanted to make sure because he knew that soon enough the prospect of going to work and distracting himself with some chases and busts and firing his weapon would be more appealing than waiting for the walls to close in around him, the grief to eat him up and watching his wife suffer without being able to help her.

But Jay knew exactly where he needed to be. By Erin's side. Even though he realized she didn't want him to be close once he joined her in the bedroom as she was purposefully lying on the very edge of their bed, as far away from him as possible and no matter that he wanted nothing more than holding her close to his body, he accepted her silent request for space because he knew everyone handled grief differently. Unfortunately though, Erin has never been someone to handle grief well, has always been someone who walled herself off and retreated into her shell to deal with everything on her own, in a way that has seldomly been ideal, and as he lay down on his side of the bed, with this odd and unknown space between them, not only his grief and sadness threatened to swallow him but also the feeling that they'd lost more than their baby tonight.

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Her side of the bed was abandoned and cold when Jay woke up on the following morning and it honestly didn't surprise him. His night had consisted of tossing and turning before he at some point had fallen into that kind of sleep that was characterized by nightmares and because of waking up quite often due to those cruel pictures that haunted him in his dreams, he knew Erin's night had consisted of not tossing and turning so the space between them would stay the same and he wouldn't have the chance to pull her close.

It was her way of pushing the pain away and with it, she also pushed him away. Because it would hurt more if she allowed the pain to come close, if she allowed him to come close so they could cry about their baby together and so she protected herself by pushing everything away that would make her face the reality, that would make all the pain breaking through. Only that Jay knew for a fact that at some point the pain would break through anyway, the impact of that being one he didn't want to picture in his head as it made his stomach turn and he promised himself that he would give everthing to not let that happen.

It was something so much easier said than done.

With a sigh he swung his legs over the edge of the bed and before making his way downstairs, he checked on Emmy and Luke who were both still sleeping. Since it wasn't time for Luke to get up yet and there still was more than enough time until he had to be at preschool, he decided to let them both be in this dreamland of blissful unawareness for a little while longer and he wished that he could join them in their perfect little world that was only colorful and never black-and-white, could only for one minute be as unaware of all the drama and heartbreak as they were.

Jay found Erin in the kitchen, a huge knife in her hand as she cut fruits and eyeing the full bowl of fruit pieces next to the cutting board, he figured she's been doing this for a while, cutting every single banana, apple, strawberry, pear and peach their kitchen provided.

″Hey,″ he said carefully, not wanting to startle her when she worked with such a keen knife.

″Hey,″ she answered but neither did she turn around to face him nor did she set her knife aside, her gaze focussed on the fruit on the cutting board and the knife in her hand.

″What are you doing?″ he asked and closed the gap between them, being careful to leave a bit of space between them though because he didn't know how close she allowed him to come.

″Making fruit salad for breakfast,″ she shrugged and reached for the next pear although the amount of fruit salad was already ensuring that they didn't have to eat anything else than that in the next couple of days.

The knife slid through the fruit forcefully and cut it in little pieces, Jay watching Erin sternly but silently because right now he felt more lost than ever before, because he didn't know what to say and how to behave around her, and only when she reached for another peach, he found his voice again.

″That's enough, don't you think?″ he asked quietly but she ignored his remark completely, a gesture that made him feel even more helpless than he already was.

″Er,″ he whispered and closed the gap between them. He wrapped his hand around her wrist to make her set the knife aside and when he touched her skin, she startled like he was leaving brand marks on it.

″Fine,″ she breathed out without looking at him and pulled her hand back instantly so he couldn't touch her any longer. She set the knife aside and put the remaining uncut fruits back into the fruit bowl and Jay could see how desperately she tried to busy herself so she didn't have look at him or to talk with him, the coffee machine being the next target that could distract her from him. And everything else.

″I've been thinking,″ Jay said into the silence, finally finding the courage to talk about it, because he didn't want to ignore it, because pretending that it never happened and pushing it away like Erin did would only lead to them never coming to terms with it. They had to face the pain. Together. Or it would at some point break them even more.

Once again Erin didn't react to his statement, was now rummaging through the cupboard to look for her favorite mug and so he blurted out what he's been dealing with since waking up from his last nightmare. ″I thought we could go to the garden shop today and buy a little tree that we plant in the garden to remember the b-″

″I'm going to work today,″ she stated before he could speak the word out loud that would hurt them both: baby. And although it shouldn't surprise him, this statement caught him off-guard.

″What?″ he uttered visibly confused.

″I'm going to work,″ she repeated her words. ″It's a normal Monday, Luke goes to preschool, Emmy goes to Carol's daycare and I go to work. It's not like there's anything that's holding me back from doing my job, right?″ There was challenge in her voice and he knew exactly what she was referring to. That no baby settled her behind a desk anymore.

″Erin,″ he sighed and approached her from behind. ″We have to face this and I thought planting a tree could help us to come to terms with it...sort of,″ he said ever so soft, placing his hands on her shoulders and kissing the back of her head.

″Don't,″ she whispered and stepped away from him as if she couldn't bear the closeness.

″I know that we will ask ourselves about the why forever and that it just fucking hurts but there's nothing we can do to push the pain away and-″

″Exactly,″ she interrupted him. ″There's nothing we can do. So I sure as hell don't want to plant a stupid tree!″ She threw those words at him and they hurt and when she looked at him for the first time, he saw the tears looming in her eyes. Tears she didn't let fall. Because she skillfully pushed the pain away until it would come back and haunt her, hit her with full force, at some point. He just wanted to pull her close to his body and hold her until she wouldn't be able to hold her tears back any longer, so she would finally really break but she stormed out of the kitchen before he could do so and the next thing he heard was how she closed the door from the outside.

She was running away.

Again.

And this time he couldn't make her stay.

The realization that he'd probably pushed her too hard only settled then.

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How did you tell a five-year-old that the baby, you'd just yesterday happily talked about, was gone? This was the question that was swirling through Jay's head when he walked into Luke's room to wake him up. He didn't actually want to tell him but he had to because he couldn't risk Luke saying anything about the baby during breakfast or at any other time while everything was still as fragile and painful as it was right now.

He pulled the curtains back to let some light into the room and then sat down on the edge of Luke's bed. ″Hey Lukey, wake up,″ he said and stroked over the boy's head lovingly.

His eyes slowly fluttered open and his hands wandered to his eyes to rub the sleep out of them. ″I want to sleep,″ he yawned and sat up.

″I know you do,″ Jay answered and tried to smile.

Luke tilted his head to the side and for a moment Jay had the feeling that the young boy could look right through him, right into his soul. ″You look sad.″

His heart dropped to his knees and he had to swallow a sudden lump in his throat by this statement and exhaled deeply before he could even answer anything. ″You know Luke, I am,″ he admitted.

″Why?″ Luke asked.

″You remember how you were super sad when Ty went to heaven so he can look down and protect you from above?″

″Yes,″ he nodded. ″He's my guardian angel now.″

″He is,″ Jay agreed. ″Last night, the baby Erin and I were expecting went to heaven as well and that's why I'm sad.″

″So it is a guardian angel now as well?″ Luke asked, his voice softer than usual and his innocent voice combined with his choice of words pulled on his heartstrings in a way that he wasn't sure whether he could hold his tears back this time as well.

″Yes Luke, the baby is a guardian angel now as well, looking down on us from above and making sure that nothing happens to us. It had to serve a bigger purpose,″ he told him, his voice cracking and his heart breaking into even more pieces. ″But we're of course sad because we wanted to have the baby here with us. And Erin is probably even sadder than I am because the baby isn't in her tummy anymore, so we all have to be super nice and super supporting, okay Luke?″

″Okay,″ he nodded.

″Good,″ Jay said and tried to smile once more. ″And you have to promise me one more thing, please. Don't mention the baby in front of Erin within the next couple of days.″

″Pinky promise,″ Luke said without hesitation and offered him his pinky finger.

″Pinky promise,″ Jay echoed and pulled the little boy into a hug, Luke wrapping his hand around Jay's waist and hiding his head against his chest. ″Thank you.″

″Jay,″ Luke whispered. ″You don't have to be sad. The baby is with Ty now and it will have a lot of fun with him because Ty has the best jokes. He takes care of the baby now.″

And that's when the tears came.

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Telling Luke had been easy compared to telling Emmy because other than the five-year-old, the 15-month-old didn't understand what he was talking about and so he couldn't tell her that she should stop using the word baby all the time. Eventually it would happen anyway, that she would use the word when Erin was around. This was something he couldn't protect his wife from and he could only hope that Emmy would stop using the word because they stopped using it now as well.

″Mama,″ Emilia said when Jay picked her up from the crib and pressed her against his body, holding onto the baby they already had and inhaling her unique, soothing scent while still mourning the loss the of the baby they would never meet.

″Mommy's not here, Emmy and I don't actually know where she is,″ he sighed and pressed a kiss against her head.

″Mommy no?″ Emilia asked.

″Yes, Mommy's not here. But she will be back soon and until then you have to bear with me, okay?″ he asked and let her fly over his head, her hearty laughters being pure heart-balm, those joyous noises from his daughter bringing pieces of his shattered heart back together again and for the first time in hours he felt slightly better. Maybe this little sunshine was all they needed. At least for starters what they already had, this beautiful, perfect little girl, could maybe help to console them for what they've lost.

He brought her down into his arms again and kissed her rosy cheeks. ″Daddy loves you.″

″Dada luv,″ Emilia smiled at her father with this dimpled smile she'd inherrited from her mother. This smile he right now more than ever feared to not see on Erin's face again for a very long time.

He changed Emilia's diaper and changed her outfit into some leggins, socks and a shirt as well, and then checked on Luke to see whether he's already changed into his clothes for preschool all by himself. Once he'd helped Luke with his struggles to pull his shirt over his head the right way around, they went downstairs to eat Erin's fruit salad for breakfast, these usual morning routines giving the day a little bit of normality.

While Luke was eating his fruit salad and sipping on his mug with milk and Emmy was making a mess with the fruits on her tray after starting to eat with a spoon but then getting impatient and switching to her fingers, Jay typed a quick text to all the people who'd known about Erin's pregnancy, like Teddy, Susan and Michael, Liv, Izzie, Nick, Will and Natalie, Rylie and Robert, to inform them that they'd lost the baby yesterday. Pressing send was one of the hardest things to do, and his thumb hesitated over the button for minutes, but texting them was easier than calling them, having to chat with them and getting words of consolation. He couldn't take this, hearing the hearts of all their beloved people breaking for them.

By the time he had to bring Luke to preschool, Erin still hasn't returned from wherever she'd run off to and an uneasy feeling settled in his stomach when he thought about all the possible places where she could be. Those places that provided the stuff that helped to push the pain away like nothing else. He'd never thought they would come close to this point again. To that point where he had to fear that she drowned her feelings in alcohol because it made her numb to everything. But right now he couldn't fight this thought, of Erin sitting in some shabby bar and pouring one shot after the other, from creeping into his head. And damn made it him feel bad and guilty to even consider something like that, to suspect her of doing something she hasn't done in years and she under normal circumstances would never do. Unfortunately were their current circumstances far from being normal.

When he returned home after dropping Luke off, he found out pretty fast that all his worries were for nothing as he found Erin sleeping in their bedroom, all cocooned up into her blanket. Of course this didn't mean she hadn't been at some dark place and was now sleeping the aftermath off but at least she was neither at work nor any other place she shouldn't be today. She was home where she was safe and where he could keep an eye on her, where he could be there for her. If only she let him.

Jay found solace in spending time with Emilia, in building sand castles with her, in seesawing together, in running after her and swirling her through the air, in playing with lego bricks and stuffed animlas and in listening to her babbling when she tried to tell him a story. He found solace in watching her and Crispin play while he prepared lunch, this inseparable duo letting his lips curve into a smile because even though he still felt completely broken and lost, these two could always make him smile by simply being darn adorable. And he found solace when suddenly his brother stood in front of the door.

″I'm so sorry, Jay,″ Will said, his features absolutely devastated, and he pulled his little brother into a hug that Jay hadn't known he needed. He held onto Will's shirt frantically as if it could make the pain go away and let the tears fall, his sobs being the most heartbreaking sounds Will has ever heard.

They stood there in the hallway, neither saying a word until Jay's crying faded and he pulled out of Will's embrace. ″Thank you,″ he said quietly, looking at his older brother with tear-stained eyes.

″For what?″ Will asked, his expression softer than ever.

″Being here,″ he shrugged. ″I didn't think I needed anyone here but I'm glad you stopped by.″

″Whenever you need me, Jay,″ Will answered, giving him a pat on the back.

″I appreciate it,″ Jay said and tried to smile but smiling still didn't come easily. ″You wanna stay for lunch? I made some risotto.″

″Thanks for the offer but I don't think I should,″ Will declined. ″You and Erin are probably not ready to have anyone here.″

″Erin's not here, so come on,″ Jay said, avoiding his brother's gaze and pushing him into the direction of the kitchen before Will could argue.

″Where's she?″ he frowned, watching his brother taking another plate from the cupboard.

″I...I don't know,″ he admitted quietly and with a bit of embarrasment in his voice. ″She left like an hour ago without saying anything.″ He didn't tell his brother that Erin hadn't even said goodbye, that he'd only discovered that she was gone because he'd wanted to check on her, had wanted to make another attempt to make them face their loss or at least to motivate her to spend some healing time with Emmy. But she'd sneaked out of the house while he'd been in the backyard with Emmy and she hadn't left a single note where she was off to or when she would come back.

″Where do you think she is?″

″Huh,″ Jay only shrugged his shoulders once more. ″What I hope? Camille's grave. What I fear?″ He looked at his brother but didn't speak his fears out loud.

Will understood the unspoken anyway. ″She wouldn't go back down that rabbit hole,″ he said emphatically.

″That's what I hope,″ Jay said quietly and set the plate on the table, his eyes then travelling to Emilia and Crispin in the living room and somehow watching his daughter and their dog playing together innocently and peacefully made him open up to his brother a little more. ″You know Will, I could cry about it all the time because it just simply hurts so much. But Erin...other than this short moment last night in the hospital, she hasn't cried. She plays strong and pushes everything away that has to do with it. The pain. And me.″

″Jay, what she went through...women handle it differently...some can talk about it and some find comfort in Isolation... so maybe she just needs time,″ Will said, trying to explain his sister-in-law's behavior. ″Grief and loss are weird things and everyone has a different way to deal with it.″

″This might be true. I probably pushed her too hard this morning,″ Jay admitted, finally speaking the concerns, that have worried him since this morning, out loud. ″But the last time she acted exactly like this was after Nadia died and back then she went down such a dark path that I thought I'd lost her forever.″

This time, there was nothing Will could say and Jay's statement hovered above them like a big, dark cloud.

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Suddenly, time didn't seem to fly anymore and every day went by agonizingly slow, as if whoever was in charge for time wanted to torture them even more. After this first day at home, when Erin returned home in the early evening and Jay with relief didn't recognize any smell of alcohol coming from her breath or saw any other indications that she'd distracted herself with other things that could take the pain away, they both went back to work and the days that followed passed by in slow-motion with everything being far from normal. There was a new normal in fact. A normal that consisted of Erin avoiding Jay, almost as if they lived two seperate lives now and the only thing they seemed to have in common were Emilia and Luke, the latter only days away from moving back in with his mother.

They barely ever talked, and Erin skillfully blocked every attempt of Jay trying to have a conversation about something else than the kids or work by leaving the room or cutting him off. She was shutting their communication lines down whenever Jay thought it was a good time to talk about their feelings and emotions. She kept on dealing with everything on her own, like she was the only one suffering. She still slept on the very edge of the bed every night and Jay literally waited for the day she would sleep in the guest room downstairs rather than sharing a bed with him. At some point he didn't know anymore when was the last time he'd touched her or kissed her. Or had seen her smile. Her famous smile was gone, razed out from her face and Jay's scared that the woman he loved more than anything else was gone, too.

She walled herself off in every possible way and even Rylie or Kim, her best friends, couldn't come close to her. It was like she was living in her own world. A world where she didn't communicate unless she had to, didn't attend the zumba class anymore because she rather hid in their bedroom to isolate herself and did barely ever eat. A world where she was beyond all that still a loving mother to her daughter and her foster-son and a badass cop. These were about the only things that still gave Jay hope that someday, everything would be fine again, that he'd not completely lost her and she was still there somehow.

All he wanted to do was helping her, being there for her but she kept on pushing him away, living in this new normality of isolation like it's always been like this, like they'd never lived in a normality close to perfection.

In the bullpen, everyone was walking around on eggshells and of course fate wanted to stab the knife even deeper in their hearts when they were faced with a case that provided them a pregnant suspect around four weeks after Erin's pregnancy had ended suddenly. It was the end of May, a month with spring at its peak, a month that should've been about their romantic trip to Mackinac Island and about the Halstead-Taylor family welcoming a new member and celebrating the arrival of Hannah Rose Taylor, Nick's and Lydia's second baby. Jay had been happy when he received the message with a couple of photos but he couldn't help but feel like he was getting stabbed in the heart by seeing the photos of the newborn girl and by Mylo proudly holding his new baby sister as his stupid brain automatically pictured Emmy with her new sibling. Her brother or sister that had slipped away under the shower four weeks back and that she wouldn't get this coming November. And probably never.

″Erin, you shouldn't do this interrogation,″ Antonio mentioned on said day, when their suspect turned out to be a 7-months pregnant woman.

″Why not?″ she asked back, stopping in her tracks on the way to the interrogation room, challenge in her voice and fire in her eyes that could easily burn down the entire precinct.

″Come on Linds, you know why,″ Kevin said calmly.

They all just wanted to protect her. And it was sweet. But Jay knew it was the complete wrong thing to do although he also didn't think that Erin doing the interrogation was a brilliant idea.

″Because she's pregnant?″ she asked and Jay could see her flinch by speaking the word out loud. She'd flinched and quickly turned her head away when he'd shown her the pictures of Hannah. On the rare occasions they'd been grocery shopping together in the last few weeks, he'd recognized the change in her behavior every time they saw a pregnant woman or a woman with a newborn. He knew it hurt her, seeing other women pregnant and glowing or happy with their new baby. Yet, she still hasn't lost one single word about it. Their baby.

″Let me and Antonio do-,″ Adam suggested but it was too late to save the situation and he couldn't even finish his sentence before Erin errupted like some volcano.

″Stop walking on fucking eggshells around me!″ she yelled and Jay was sure Platt downstairs could hear it. ″Yes, she's pregnant! Who cares? Yes, I'm not pregnant anymore! So what? Life goes on!″ Every word that left her mouth hurt in every fiber of Jay's body. ″Just let me do my fucking job!″

With these words she grabbed the file and stormed towards the interrogation room. The fact that she actually lost it in there didn't surprise anyone and after successfully pulling her out before things would escalate to a point of no repair, Hank sent her home to cool off.

″Jay, my office,″ Hank grunted after they'd all watched Erin storming out of the bullpen to clear her head.

He felt like a teenager who was ordered in the headmaster's office for messing up when he closed the door of Hank's office from the inside and sat down on one of the chairs.

″How are you doing?″ he asked softly and it was about the last question Jay'd expected. He'd expected Hank to yell at him for not being there for Erin, for letting stuff like this happen, for failing from keeping her going down some dark path that has turned her into a different person. But in the end of the day Hank Voight knew Erin almost as well as he did, and so this behavior wasn't one he hasn't expected.

″I'm...″ he hesitated for a moment because how was he feeling? There were a zillion words that could describe his current state of mind, yet none of them could really do his feelings justice. ″I'm lost,″ he finally breathed out. ″I don't know what to do anymore. She's been pushing me away ever since we lost the baby. She flinches when I touch her and she avoids me whenever she can. In the last few weeks, I read every single page that Google provided about losing a pregnancy and it helped me to realize that she probably just needs time and that I pushed her too hard in the beginning. So I respected her silent request for space and was sensitive to her needs and feelings because everyone copes differently but...-″ he quickly told him about all the things that were going on and then he even went one step further and told the man in front of him about his biggest fear. ″I'm scared to lose her, Hank.″

His voice was barely a whisper and his ocean blue eyes looked completely lost as those words left his lips and although Hank wasn't a man of big emotions, his heart broke for his son-in-law because all he saw right now was a man who was scared to lose the reason he lived for.

″You have to talk to her, Jay,″ Hank said.

″You know, I stopped counting how many times I've carefully tried to break through to her in the last few weeks,″ Jay answered.

″We both know Erin and we both know she's a pro when it comes to pushing the pain away. That's what she's always done and she knows how to wall herself off and not let anything, or anyone for that matter, come close to her. But just as much as she pushes you away, you have to push her to talk,″ Hank told him.

″I'm scared that when I really push her, I push her to a point where I can only lose her,″ Jay admitted.

″One minute ago you told be you're scared to lose her because of the distance she puts between you, because she doesn't let you come close in any way and she seems to slip away. So as far as I see it, you have to stop protecting her by giving her time and make her face the pain or otherwise you've already lost her.″

Jay was instantly silenced by the truth that lay in this statement.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX

He'd left the bullpen immediately after his conversation with Hank to make things right, hoping that it wasn't too late already, and coming home and looking for Erin, he only found her after a couple of minutes. She wasn't in the living room, where Emmy was playing in her playpen – Luke staying with his mother for the next two days until he would completely move back in with her next week - but in the basement, where they had a dresser with all of Emilia's baby clothes that didn't fit her anymore.

″Hey,″ he said and watched her putting the clothes into big plastic bags.

″Hey,″ she said shortly without giving him any attention.

″What are you doing?″ he asked, this conversation starting in the same way almost all of their conversations were starting these days.

″Sorting Emmy's baby clothes out,″ she answered as if it was no big deal but Jay could hear her voice cracking and see her lip trembling.

″You don't have to do that,″ Jay said and closed the distance between them.

″It's not like we will need them anymore,″ she snapped through gritted teeth and threw another onesie into the bag. ″So there's no reason to keep them.″

″Erin.″ Jay's voice was quiet and calm and absolutely broken and he placed his hand on her lower arm to make her stop throwing more of the clothes into the bag. And then he spoke them out, the words that made everything a hundred times worse but they somehow just slipped from his lips before he could think about them. ″We can always have another baby.″

Her head snapped around by his words and the moment she looked at him he realized it had been the complete wrong thing to say. ″I wanted to have this baby,″ she whispered, tears looming in her eyes, her gaze incredulous, broken and sad but also somehow cold. With these words she pulled away from him and stormed towards the stairs to get away from him as fast as possible. But this time he was prepared.

″Erin wait!″ he called and reached for her arm to hold her back.

″Let me go!″ she called back.

″Only after you heard me out.″

″Let me go,″ she repeated her request and her voice was rising dangerously.

″No,″ he shook his head. ″Erin, these last few weeks, that's not us. You wall yourself off and not once have we talked about what happened! I accepted it because I love you and know you and just wanted to give you time but for weeks you've been pushing the pain away. I've waited for the day you realize that you can't push the pain away and that you finally allow yourself to grief and let me be there for you! I've given you all the time in the world because I know you, Erin, but instead you only slipped away further, you only pushed me away further.″ His voice was loud and clear, characterized by heartbreak and helplessness nonetheless. ″Stop pushing me away, Erin,″ he pleaded quietly and suddenly he was almost whispering. ″Let me be there for you. Or just tell me what I can do for you. Please.″

″What you can do for me?″ she asked and the challenge in her voice already told him that she was about to ignore most of what he'd said. ″Let me go, Jay.″ She threw those words at him with a glance at his hand that was still wrapped around her arm.

″Let me go!″ she yelled again before adding almost inaudible: ″You hurt me.″

Those were the words that pushed him over the edge and although he knew that she probably meant his words and him pushing her to face the pain hurt her and not him holding her back, his grip around her arm loosened almost automatically in the moment those words left her lips. He'd never wanted to hurt her. In any way. He'd never wanted to be the reason for her to have to endure even more pain. And so he let her go. He was surrendering. Giving up. Because in this very moment, for the first time in forever, he didn't feel like fighting.

He didn't know for how long he's been standing in their basement, staring at some spot on the wall with empty eyes, the broken pieces of their together life dancing in front of his eyes, and trying to process that his wife, the love of his life, the mother of his child, his best friend, had just walked out on him, before he was able to move again. It might have been minutes. Or hours. Or days. He didn't know. And he didn't care.

It wasn't until he was able to set one foot in front of the other again and climb those stairs to their living room that he realized that not only Erin was gone but Emmy as well.

He went to get his phone, that was still in the pocket of his jacket from work, to give her a quick call because after all it was his right to know where his daughter was and of course he just wanted to make sure that they both were alright. When he pressed the button and the screen lit up, he saw that there was no reason for him to call her since there was a text message already.

I need space. We're at Hank's. Will stay the night.

He should've been relieved that she at least texted him where they were, that she regardless their fight still seemed to care as much to inform him before he would go crazy, but all of this couldn't drown the devastating feeling that this text somehow felt like the beginning of the end...