What I Need- a Hank Voight Chicago PD fanfiction

Halt

Voight took a sip of his coffee, watching Lana pour packets of sugar into hers. It was a dead give away that she was still frustrated. She used the three in front of her and scowled, until Voight plucked a couple from his side of the table and held them out to her.

"Thanks." she muttered, tearing those open too. She went to take a drink and stopped, set her coffee down with a thud.

"He said he wasn't using." It blurted out of her, and Voight's brow raised.

"Your partner?"

Her fingers pinched the bridge of her nose, "Yeah," she dropped her hand. "He swears the day of the accident he was clean. That he never used on shift."

Voight frowned, "Do you believe him?"

Her jaw moved as she swallowed, eyes fixed out the window, "I don't know," one shoulder twirled in a shrug, "I mean, I trusted him. Right up until I found those stupid pills. But now I found out all this time I could have been blaming him for something he never even did. How could I be wrong about him twice."

"You made a mistake, Milani," his voice had her looking back at him, expectant. "You just don't know what was it yet. If he's telling the truth, you doubted him when he didn't deserve it. If he's lying, you never should have trusted him in the first place. That's on you."

She gave a bitter laugh, "You're saying this is my mess."

"I'm saying it's your call." He leaned forward, morning light from the window slanting across his face. It was warm. Calming. She was in an instant glad a drunken confession had given him the truth, that he was here to talk to.

"Look, Lana," he continued, "You have good instincts. But they won't do anyone any good if you don't listen to them. I don't know Eric. I don't know if you can trust him. But you can trust yourself. And you need to. Or you'll never be able to do this job."

Trust herself? Her instincts. Like she had done with Martin, tried to dredge up dirt on an innocent cop? Like she had done with Eric?

If he was telling the truth, it would mean months of guilt, of anger, was just... useless.

But if he was lying, even now, after everything? She didn't even recognize the person that would make him.

She wanted it to be true. That she had been wrong and he had been clean. She wanted to believe him.

Their food came and Voight let the conversation drop, let Lana sort through all those thoughts behind her eyes. She was confused. Frustrated. Hell who wouldn't be. To learn that the guilt you had carried for months might be empty. That all that broken trust may not have been so broken after all. To not know.

She didn't mention the job offer, didn't seem willing to even deal with that subject right now, and he didn't ask.

Yesterday the man who had shown up with an offer to take Milani away had been the same one who had hurt her, cost her her job. He was the orchestrator of her biggest regrets and she would never go back to that.

Now, now Voight couldn't be sure. Eric was also her partner. The man she had loved. Who may have just removed every reason she had to say no.

With no reason not to go, he couldn't think of a single reason she had to stay. 

**********

Erin set her coffee down on her desk, and sent Lana a lengthy look. She seemed... dull. She was normally focused, active. Even when she wasn't talkative she was still alert. Not this morning she wasn't. The girl was so distracted she missed Erin's hello and Erin lifted her untouched latte off of her desk and placed it on Lana's.