Linstead One Shots

Guilt

*they are not dating in this story*

It had been a long day, they've worked their most recent case for the past week after finally closing it about two hours ago. They had found the body of a seven year old girl washed up on the shore of the Chicago river, who had unfortunately been sexually abused for quite some time, and everyone was anxious to find the killer. This case had taken unusually long for them to close and near the end, tensions were running high in the unit, everyone was exhausted and frustrated.

Lead after lead had ended up no where, until the one Mouse had found after reviewing the newly discovered security footage. They caught the killer, and it had ended up being the girls uncle. It was always upsetting when it was someone close to the victim, especially when the little girl still had her whole life ahead of her.

Once Voight had told them to go home, the unit decided to go for drinks, to celebrate the life of our victim along with successfully closing the case. Erin hadn't really felt up to going, she told to have a good time but she was super tired and that she would just be turning in early, of course it wasn't true. She probably wouldn't be going to sleep for a while, if at all tonight. These particular cases, the ones involving sexual abuse, really got under her skin, especially when they involved children.

Jay had asked her if she wanted to just go back to one of their apartments and have a few beers alone, but she had turned it down. She did not want to be alone but at the same time she wanted no company at all. She told him to go to Molly's and have fun and that she would see them when they returned to work on Monday, as it was Friday night.

He wanted to make sure she was okay because he knew what these cases did to her. He knew she hated these ones, and he knew how upset they made her. Although he knew she didn't like them, he didn't know how she dealt with them, because recently they had been getting a few more rape cases then usual. He wanted to make sure she wasn't just burying it all down inside, and that she was in some way letting her anger and frustrations out. Of course every time he tried to ask her, she had put up her usual walls and shut him out. He didn't know how to get through to her, and after every time he's tried to in the past she would just get angry and tell him that she's fine. 'I'm fine', the infamous Erin Lindsay words.

Adam, Antonio, Kevin, Kim and Jay headed down the steps to their cars to drive to Molly's while Erin headed to her car on her way home.

"See you Monday," Jay said before getting in the drivers seat of his car. Erin smiled and nodded her head in response before getting in her own car.

Of course she wanted to go be with the team and not alone, but she had felt like she couldn't. Like at any moment she was going to break down, and she definitely didn't want her team seeing her in that state, let alone anyone at all. As she drove home, she turned up her music as loud as possible to try to drown out her thoughts. She didn't want to think about the case, or the little girls defiled body. She didn't want to think about how many other kids this was happening to at the moment. She honestly didn't want to think at all, all she wanted was to sleep, but she knew that was another task ahead of her.

After getting into her apartment she grabbed a beer and plopped down on her couch. She felt like crying, as if it was the only way to release some of the stress and anger built up inside. Nothing had come out though, as if she couldn't cry. She thought about Jay's offer from earlier that night.

"Hey, you want to go back to my place and have a few beers instead of Molly's?" he said placing a hand on her arm.

"Thank you, but I think I'm just going to go to bed, you have fun though. Don't let Ruzek get too drunk" she said chuckling at the end, while he smiled.