Jay pulled the curtain in the living room of Erin's apartment open and stared out of the window into the dark night that was only enlightened by the lights of the Chicago skyline. It was a typical windy, wet fall evening. Heavy clouds covered the sky, the rain was pouring down and fog trekked through the streets and surrounded the skyscrapers. For hours already he's been waiting for Erin to come home but he hasn't heard from her since the afternoon when she had sent him a text that she was on her way home. Ever since then she hasn't texted him, hasn't tried to call him and when he tried to call her he was directly led to her voicemail.
At this point, he was so worried about her, he couldn't sit still anymore and paced up and down in her living room, checked his phone every ten seconds and looked down to the street every thirty seconds, anxiously waiting that her car would finally appear in front of the building.
He dialed her number again but just as the ten times before he was led to her voicemail again and once again he left a message for her, begging her to call him back or to get in touch with him somehow different asap.
Jay sat down on the couch and tried to calm himself down. Maybe her phone has died because she used it as GPS. He knew she hasn't taken her charger with her because it was still in the bedroom. Maybe she was stuck in a traffic jam but couldn't call him because her phone simply ran out of battery. There were so many possibilities why he hasn't heard from her in hours but yet he had a really bad feeling regarding all of this.
He rubbed his aching temples and his tired eyes and turned the TV on to get some distraction. He didn't really pay attention but the flickering of the TV, the murmur of the voices and the dimmed light in the living room made him even more tired and as he hadn't slept for even one minute the night prior he allowed himself to close his eyes for only one second...
XxXxXxXxXxXxX
A loud knocking on the door let him wake up with a start what felt like five minutes later. He checked his clock and realized that he had slept for an hour. He yawned and got up while the knocking didn't stop. For a moment he thought it maybe was Erin but why would she knock on the door instead of simply using her key?
He opened the door, somehow hoped that it was Erin anyway who was knocking for whatever reason, but instead he found his boss standing in front of the door and when he saw Hank's face, any color fell from his own face and his heart dropped to his knees. Something bad had happened, he knew it.
″What's up?″ Jay asked and his voice was shaky, barely there.
″There was an accident,″ Hank answered without beating around the bush and Jay watched how he had to inhale deeply before he was able to continue. ″It seems like a truck-driver fell asleep behind the wheel on the highway that leads into Chicago.″
Within one second Jay felt his world breaking into pieces, felt like he was drowning, suffocating because he wasn't able to breathe. He pressed his hand against his forehead and tried to stay as calm as possible while he was about to break down in front of Hank any moment.
″Where is she?″
″They brought her to Med with the helicopter as they have the best trauma surgeons there,″ Hank answered and Jay nodded in response.
″So she is alive?″
″Barely,″ he said and although Jay felt all fuzzy-headed, he saw how Hank had to swallow hard.
″And the baby?″
″I don't know,″ he said but slightly shook his head. ″Halstead, they called me first because they found her badge in her car and I stopped at the scene for a moment on my way here and saw her car, or what's left of it and...″ His voice broke as he looked into the young detective's eyes but after taking a deep breath he was able to continue. ″You shouldn't get your hopes up too high.″
