Our Scars

Wild Dog

42

Wild Dog (Title by Animor)

Although she had half a mind to let Jay take off by himself because she didn't like to be ordered around and she wasn't on board with this in general, Rianne couldn't let him drive alone.

Too deep was the shock of having been a witness to his heart stopping, to seeing his lifeless figure in the snow, to fearing that once again she was about to loose someone that meant so much to her without getting to say goodbye, without really having the chance to experience everything life had to offer with that person. They had only just begun to think about the future together.

So she'd taken her place in the passenger seat, she knew she didn't stand a chance to stop him from driving, sending her best glare in his direction, which she was sure he didn't care about.

At least Jay really tried his best to not take off like a maniac and navigated them to the precinct at a relatively moderate pace through a still thick layer of snow. Not wanting to get into a fight again while driving she kept her mouth shut. Jay was in his own world and didn't say anything at all. But when he pulled to a stop in front of the 21st and went to jump straight out of the car, Rianne held him back, grabbing his arm.

"At least let me take that out first! You don't need to catch some kind of infection on top of it all!" She looked at his hand that still had the IV needle, secured by a medical strip, poking out of it.

Jay slightly cringed at the prospect but let her get the first aid kit. Carefully she extracted the needle and pressed a band aid to the puncture wound, while Jay intentionally kept looking the other way. If there hadn't been this tension in the air, maybe she would have joked about his irrational fear of needles. It really struck her as odd seeing as he handled every other injury so cooly. He'd take a punch or a bullet over a needle every time she mused.

Was it even worse then that he seemed to repeatedly have gotten "hit" with a needle last night? She couldn't imagine how he must feel and she was at a loss at how to help and get through to him. Rianne feared anything she would say might make him pitch a fit right now. There still was this wild stare in his eyes whenever she caught his gaze.

Maybe she applied more pressure to the wound than was needed, maybe she held his hand in hers longer than necessary, but she knew the minute she let go and they left the car, Jay would go full detective mode on her and disappear from their world. Their own bubble had long burst anyway, it already felt like he was a million miles away in his head.

Jay reluctantly took her up to the bullpen with him. She'd be damned if she just went home at this point.

The team, minus Ruzek and Atwater, was surprised at Jay walking in and at the same time it was clear that his unit hadn't expected anything less.

Even Voight was a little nonchalant about seeing his detective back at work. It seemed stupid that she'd felt bad  for not having kept Jay in check longer and apologize for that to his boss when Voight dismissed her:

"It's okay. You actually made him stay longer than anyone would have bet on." Not exactly her doing, but Rianne let it go as it was a redundant discussion.

Witnessing sympathetic nods and pats for Jay all around, Rianne caught Hailey looking at him apprehensively, then watch her out of the corner of her eyes. Like she wanted to say: 'Told you from the start you couldn't take care of him!'

Maybe she read more into it and this were her own thoughts and her feeling responsible about being the reason Jay probably was in this situation in the first place.

Rianne didn't like that he kept his distance ever since they had entered the precinct. She wasn't sure how to handle him and wanted to be there, but at the same time she got the feeling that Jay couldn't and didn't want to deal with her right now. He didn't even look at her.