explosion (jay halstead / one chicago)

chapter 23

jay's pov

I knocked two times before I opened the door. Then I leaned in the doorway, one hand in my pocket. Looking between Liz and Hugo, I sent them an apologetic smile. "Hate to interrupt this." I faced Hugo. "But we should get going so you'll catch that flight to Madrid." The guy nodded. Liz grinned at him. "Since Vince won't be a problem anymore, give me a call some time, okay?" she asked. Hugo nodded. "You bet." The two of them hugged tightly. When they pulled away, Liz let out an amused laugh. "Well, fuck the circumstances – It was good seeing you." Hugo chuckled. "You too, sis." Liz turned to leave but stopped for another moment. "I'll be at Molly's with some of 51," she told me. "See you there?" I nodded. "Yeah, see you there." She patted my back among passing, then turned around one last time. "Get home safe, Hugo."

Once Liz was gone, I turned to her friend, studying him intensely while grabbing the handcuffs I had taken off his wrists earlier from the table. "Listen, I don't want to do this," I told him. He gave me a sympathetic look. "Will you get in trouble if you don't?" I shrugged. To be honest, Intelligence rarely did things by the book, and oftentimes I couldn't care less, but I had to hand Hugo over to airport security. "I might," I answered honestly. Hugo nodded in understanding. "Then do it, it's fine." He let me put the handcuffs on him and we walked to my car. "Wouldn't you usually have patrol officers do something like this?" Hugo questioned when I had closed the passenger door and gotten in on the driver's side. I turned to face him before I started the engine. "Yeah, but this isn't usually. They would treat you like a criminal who's being escorted to the airport. So, I'll rather do it myself." Hugo nodded. "I appreciate it."

After a few minutes of silence, he spoke up again. "You know, there is one thing I don't get about all of this." I briefly glanced over at him while I stopped at a red light. "What's that?" He spent a moment searching for the right words before he answered. "Elisa... I mean Liz is afraid of cops more than anything, and that is since she was fourteen. How the hell did you get her to trust you?"

I took some time to think about his question. I remembered how I first met Liz the day of the explosion, at Molly's, in midst of smoke and fire. Her face was the last thing I saw before I blacked out that evening, and although I was rarely conscious, I could tell she was there calling out my name on the ambulance as I was rushed to Med. When I woke up after, all I wanted was to see her, and I could recall the tingling sensation of pure happiness when Will brought her to my room a few days later. Today, I still felt the same about her. Of course, it was hard at times. I knew she struggled with me being a cop, but it always worked out somehow. Maybe that was because we wanted it to work out. I knew how she panicked when Antonio and I first walked into Firehouse 51, and how she panicked after our first kiss. It seemed like our relationship was destined to be a challenge, but from the start we had also felt destined to make it work.

I shrugged. I felt like Hugo deserved a proper explanation but with everything I had learned about Liz's past in the recent days and weeks it was hard to make sense of one. "It just happened," I finally answered. "The circumstances under which we met were kind of special, and since then I guess it worked because we both try. Liz makes an effort to open up, and I make an effort to understand. The most important thing is to give her all the time and space she needs, and to make her see that nothing is wrong about feeling the way she does, encourage her to talk." I sighed as memories flashed up again. "When Liz first saw me with a badge on, she panicked. But instead of running, she told me it made her uncomfortable. I hid my badge, no questions asked. Then I told her to take all the time she needed, and we talked. There is always a way." Hugo nodded next to me. "To be honest," he said, "I would never have thought that was possible. Everyone knowing the girl that left Madrid a few months ago would tell you the same. No one would believe she'd ever even talk to a cop. Trust me, you two got something good going there."