Chicago PD: Dani Ruzek

Chapter 8 - Takes A Village.

Dani was sitting against the foot of her bed throwing a tennis ball against the wall, when she heard a knock at her bedroom door.

"Dani, it's Jay can I come in?" Jay asked in a gentle tone from behind the door.

Dani didn't answer. "Dan I'm coming in." Jay said and slowly opened the door to see the girl looking run down and pale sitting on the floor.

"Hey." Dani said quietly as Jay came in.

"Hey. You know you really shouldn't be sitting on the floor, it's not good for your fractures." Jay said in response and she just shrugged. "It ok if I sit here?"

"Sure." Dani said and Jay moved to sit on the floor by Dani.

The teen stopped throwing the ball against the wall when he sat down and instead just held it in her hands.

"If my Dad called you to try and get you to convince me to go to therapy it's not gonna work. I'm not going back there." Dani assumed and leant her head back on the foot of her bed looking at the ceiling.

"That's not why I'm here. I'm here because you're family Dani and the rest of Intelligence and I care about you a lot. You look exhausted are you ok?" Jay said

"I don't wanna go to therapy Jay. I just can't do that, I don't wanna tell some person I've hardly even met all about my life and then fall to pieces in front of them." Dani said tearing up a little.

"Hey, you know when I came back from the war. I was a mess, just drinking all the time, getting into fights and god knows what else. I thought I could work it all out myself and I'd be damned if I'd talk to anyone about it." Jay said in response.

"Did it work?" Dani asked curiously.

"For a while, and then someone would slam a door or drop something in a restaurant and I'd jump like a bomb had just gone off. Then work happened, I had some problems but mostly used it as a distraction." Jay said.

"So what happened?" Dani continued.

"Erin left. And for the first time since I had come back from the war everything that had been figured out suddenly changed almost instantly. That sense of security was gone." Jay said.

"So what did you do?" Dani asked.

"Nothing I was sure there was nothing going on that I couldn't handle. Then Hailey came and after my Dad died I kind of went off of the rails. I was getting more nightmares. I nearly pulled the trigger of my gun a couple of times when I wasn't thinking straight at work. I was out of control and had lost my way. Hailey encouraged me to go to the therapy and I'm not lying now it actually did help." Jay reassured and Dani looked at him.

"Really?" She asked in a genuine tone.

"Yeah really, I wouldn't lie to you Dani I'm not your parent, I'm not lying to protect you, if from my personal experience I didn't think it would help I would be honest and tell you. I really think you should give it another go kid. If you don't feel a little better after trying it at least a few times I'll pick you up myself." Jay said and Dani smiled gratefully.

"Thanks Jay." Dani said leaning into his side and hugging the guy that was practically her Uncle. Jay hugged her back.

"Anytime, you're a good kid, you know that right?" Jay said putting an arm around her shoulders, returning the hug. He looked down to see that she had fallen asleep into his side a few seconds later.

Jay managed to carefully lift Dani up and lay her down on her bed, putting a blanket over her. He then quietly left the room and made his way back downstairs to tell Kim and Adam what Dani had decided.

That's the end of this chapter! Thanks for reading I hope you enjoyed it! I will update again soon.