⋆° დ ༄ UNTIL THERE WAS YOU
chapter twenty two. get back to even.

On a cold and snowy winter night, Sam stuffs her hands in her coat pockets, as she, Jay and Hank walk under some crime scene tape to their, well, crime scene, where they meet up with Antonio and Al.

"Truck driver?" Voight asks Dawson.

"Names Aaron Mclntire, he's in the wind. No eye witnesses. Don't count on anyone coming out of the woodwork down here"

"The Sedan came back stolen" Jay says.

"What, you've done this before?" Dawson asks, sarcastically.

As the five detectives keep walking and surveying the crime scene, a crime techie approaches them with an evidence bag in hand and hands it to Dawson. "Detective? Found these in the cab of the truck. Crystal meth, looks like"

"No. These are Jesus Malverde crystals" Dawson corrects the crime tech guy, "Patron Saint of Mexican drug dealers. They carry them to ward off evil. Could've fallen out of someone's pocket"

"Alright, so it's a truck jacking gone bad" Hank says, then looks at the techie, "You check the container?"

"Uh, we were waiting on you guys. There's a smugglers lock on the door"

"This kids in the database" Olinsky says, looking at his phone, "Darius Gifford. He's with the Gangster Disciples. I'm guessing his buddy is in it too"

"It's a long way from home. I mean, this is vice lord territory. You got a LKA?" Dawson asks.

"Yeah, public housing in Deuce"

"Alright, Sam and I will roll there. We'll notify the family" Jay says.

🌙🌙🌙

Sam and Jay get to the Gifford family home to notify them of Darius' death and they stand on either side of the door and Jay knocks.

"Who's there?" A child's voice calls out.

"Police, can you open up?"

A couple seconds later, the door opens and a little girl who looks about to be 14 stands before them. "Can I see a badge, please?"

"Yeah, sure" Sam says, showing her badge to the girl, "They're real, I promise"

"I'm Jay and this is Sam" Jay says, introducing them to the girl, "What's your name?"

"I'm Denise"

"Denise, is anybody home with you right now?" Sam asks and Denise shakes her head no.

"Does Darius Gifford live here?" Jay asks.

"Mhmhm. He's my brother"

"Can we look inside his room?"

"No, cause he said nobody's allowed in his room"

"We're allowed" Jay says, opening the door more to they can walk in and go straight for his room.

Once the two go in with Denise close behind them and they look around and see the room is a mess.

"Looks like our DOA came here to change out of anything identifiable" Jay says and Sam sighs, looking at the girl and asks. "Denise, was your brother here with a friend?"

"Yeah, with Andre and another boy I didn't know. They were yelling at him a lot, and Andre had a gun"

"Did your brother have a gun too?" Sam questions and Denise nods, "Who else lives here with you?"

"Just me and Darius. My mom is dead and my dad had to go to jail" Denise says and Sam's heart breaks.

"Alright, we're gonna take a ride then, okay?"

"Hey, we have a problem" Jay says, handing Sam a card with Hank's name on it from when he was in the gang unit and Sam looks up at Jay in surprise.

🌙🌙🌙

"Our two DOA's from the truck" Sam says, walking into Voight's office with Jay and Al behind her, "Darius Gifford and Andre Davis" then she shows him two photos, "Both up and comers with Gangster Disciples"

"They changed at Darius' apartment. Them and a third guy, who was kind enough to leave behind his wallet" Jay says.

"This came out of the wallet belonging to a Charles Gray" Sam says, handing Hank the card, "We think he was the third occupant of the car at the scene"

"Except Charles has no record" Olinsky says, as Hank plays with the card in his hand, "He's not in the gang database, unlike our victims slash offenders"

"The little girl, Denise, says they had a gun to him. So, sounds like he was coerced" Sam says.

"Well, lets find him and ask how this wound up there" Voight says, raising the card.

"Yeah. You got any ideas?" Jay asks.

"If I did, I would've shared 'em"

"Charles has an unknown father, his mother is Michelle Post, lives nearby" Al comments.

"Hmm.." Voight hums, looking down at the ground, "Alright, well somebody knew something about this truck. Ask Narcotics if they heard any chatter about a two million dollar shipment coming in" Hank continues, as he gets his coat off the coat rack and puts it on, "And I wanna know everything there is to know about this driver. Did he run or was he snatched ...I'll talk to Michelle Post"

Voight leaves his office and so does Sam who goes to sit at her desk, and places both her hands on her stomach.

"Hey, you okay?" Jay asks, his girlfriend, sitting on the edge of her desk.

"Yeah, I'm good. Just thinking about Denise. She has no family left"

"Platt is with her right now, waiting for her Aunt"

"Who she says is on drugs. She's never going to be able to take care of a 14 year old, a teenager"

"Platt will help her, you know that" Jay says, kissing Sam's temple.

~~~

Sam, Jay and Erin stand around the white board, looking at the crime scene photos when Hank walks onto the unit.

"Hey, you get anything from the mom?" Sam asks.

"Not really. Where are you guys at?" Hank says.

"Well, the truck has never been opened. It's a botched robbery" Erin says, "How does that happen? I think Charles and his friends were riding behind the truck, as security and they got hit by Mexican drug bangers"

"Which explains the Malverde crystals at the scene" Jay says, cutting in then Lindsay continues on. "Uh-huh. Kids go down defending their product. Charles knows the cops are coming, so he runs. He's either dead or he's hiding"

"No, Charles ain't caught up" Voight says.

"How do we know that?" Jay asks.

"Look, his friends are gangbangers, he isn't. We can't even place him at the scene. I wanna know where the truck was headed and whose drugs they were"

"That's cool. But, what I asked was, how do we know Charles isn't caught up?"

"Because I said so"

"Ruzek's trying to figure out where the drugs were headed" Sam says.

"Alright, where's the driver?" Hank questions.

"We got an alert out on him, nothing from state troopers yet. Olinsky's headed to his apartment to check it out"

"Move faster" Voight says, walking into his office.

🌙🌙🌙

Sam, Jay and Erin are in their car, waiting outside a warehouse, scoping out the place with Kevin and Adam on the opposite street in a van doing the same thing.

"We can't just move on the warehouse. There could be twenty guys in there" Sam says.

"Could be hiding Charles in there" Jay says.

"Why do you wanna find this kid?" Lindsay asks, "You trying to make a point to Voight?"

"He wants us to take the lead" Jay says, then a kid on a bike ride past, staring at the three detectives and Sam sighs.

"We're made" Sam says, into the walkie on her work phone, "This whole blocks on counter surveillance"

"Alright, we gonna try something different" Kevin says, as the three detectives watch the two officers talk with two teenagers and make their way inside the building and Sam, Jay and Erin follow after them.

As the two boys are yelling 'no', Ruzek and Atwater are telling them to stay against the wall.

"Guys!" Lindsay calls out and everyone turns around to see a ring of fire starting to form around the buckets of drugs, which starts an even bigger fire.

"We gotta get out of here!" Ruzek yells, then tries to open the door, but it won't budge, while Kevin tries the windows, and still no luck.

"What's wrong with the door?" Sam questions.

"It's locked from the outside"

"There's no other door" Erin says, running over to her co-workers.

Jay and Sam look at each other in panic, only caring about their unborn baby.

"This is 5021 IDA. Emergency, emgerency" Ruzek says, into his walkie, "10-1, we are locked down at 2200 Wabash. Roll fire. I repeat, roll fire. We are surrounded by flames, holding two offenders"

As everyone starts coughing their lungs out, Erin sees a built in wall fan and runs over to it to see if she can knock it out, but when she can't she calls over Kevin and Jay to help her while Sam helps Adam try to pry the door open.

Once Jay successfully kicks the fan in and gets out of the building, he runs around to the door to let everyone out.

Once everyone is out, Jay pulls his girlfriend into a tight hug.

"Everything is good, everything is good" Jay says, more to himself then Sam.

🌙🌙🌙

Back on the unit, after Adam and Kevin interrogate the two offenders from the warehouse. The team gathers around the white board.

"G-Ds put ten grand on the street for any information that IDs Charles" Adam informs the team.

"So, I looked into his social media, his facebook" Mouse says, "There's no overlap with the victims from the robbery. He must know 'em from the bad old days. So, so maybe he's safe"

"Guys, we missed this" Jay says, walking over to the white board and taping a picture up, "Charles has a class A license. He knew how to drive a tractor trailer"

"Alright, so he's a good kid with bad friends. He gets pulled into their robbery crew to be a getaway driver. They were gonna hijack their own truck" Sam says.

"The Mexican angle, what are we missing?" Kevin asks.

"Plenty. Without Charles, we don't have a witness" Jay answers, looking at Voight.

"So, the missing truck drivers our most likely murder suspect" Adam says, "Charles and his buddies roll up, driver starts blasting"

"Aaron Mclntire. Forty seven years old and according to his trucking company, a model employee" Al says, reading from a piece of paper, then hands it to Kevin, who says. "Yeah, a model employee registered with a forty caliber handgun. Same caliber as the victims at the scene"

"We checked his apartment, his car was still in the lot" Al says, as Antonio walks onto the unit, "We alerted drug interdiction agencies along the highway...nothing"

"I should be sitting across from this guy right now, okay? He's having drugs, might've killed two kids a mile from here" Voight says.

"He has two step sons from an ex wife. His son Keith, is local" Antonio says.

"Hit it, you and Al"

🌙🌙🌙

Sam stops into the 51 firehouse to have Sylvie or Peter check her out -because if she doesn't have to go to a hospital, she won't- and to see Kelly of course.

"Hey Peter" Sam says, walking past the fire trucks and over to the ambulance to see Peter Mills in the back of the truck.

"Sam, hey" Peter says, getting out of the truck and hugging the raven haired girl, "Congratulations on the baby"

"Thank you. Hey, I was wondering if you could check out my breathing or whatever"

"Is everything okay?"

"Oh yeah, we were just in a warehouse fire and I wanted to make sure everything was okay"

"Yeah, okay" Peter grabs a stethoscope and places it on Sam's heart, "Breathe in"

Sam breathes in.

"Breathe out"

Sam breathes out.

"Alright, that sounds good. Just lift your shirt up a bit, so I can listen to the baby" Peter says and Sam does as told and Peter puts the stethoscope on her belly and hears a heart beat.

"Everything sounds good on my end. But when you get a chance, go to the doctors, just to double check"

"I will. Thanks Peter. Hey, is Kelly here?"

"Yeah, I think he's in his office"

"Cool, thanks again" Sam says and walks inside the 51 firehouse and finds Kelly in his small office, sleeping and Sam knocks on the door.

"Hey, sleepy head"

Kelly slowly sits up on the bed and rubs his eyes with the palm of his hands and says, "Sammy, hey. What are you doing here?"

"Nothing to be worried about. Just checking up on ya. How are you feeling?" Sam asks, sitting on the edge of Kelly's desk.

"Good, good. Just tired"

"I bet"

"What about you? How's the baby?" Kelly asks his best friend and Sam places a hand on her stomach and looks at Kelly and smiles. "Good"

"I can't wait for him or her to be born. I'm gonna be the best uncle ever. I won't disappoint you"

"Or you could be the best godfather ever"

After a minute for Kelly to let what Sam just said register in his head, he looks up at her and smiles, "What?"

"Jay and I want you to be the baby's godfather"

"What!" Kelly says, getting up and pulling Sam into a tight hug, "I can't believe this. You have no idea how happy I am right now"

"We were gonna wait to tell you, but I thought you could use some good news right now"

"Thank you, Sammy. I promise you, I will not let anything happen to this baby"

Sam frowns and when Kelly notices this he frowns too and says, "I'm sorry Sammy. I-I didn't mean-"

"It's fine, Kells. It's my grandfather's fault. Not yours"

🌙🌙🌙

Sam walks into the precinct to see Platt talking with a woman, who looks strung out and Denise sitting at the Sergeant's desk with tears in her eyes, so Sam walks over to her.

"Hey, sweetie"

"Hi, Sam"

"DiDi, lets go!" The woman shouts and Sam could see the fear in Denise's eyes.

"It's gonna be okay, Denise, promise"

"Hey. Wow! You look good up there" Trudy says, walking over to the two.

"Doesn't she?" Sam smiles.

"Thanks for not making me go with my aunt Sherri"

"Sure"

"But where do I go now?"

"Hey, sweetheart. We're working on that, okay?"

Sam sees tears fall from Denise's eyes and it breaks her heart.

"Sarg, can I talk to you?" Sam asks and her and Trudy walk into the empty office, across from the desk, "I know you're gonna call DCFS. So, what if Jay and I took her?"

"Sam...you know you can't"

"Sarg, please. Putting her in foster care at this age? Come on. We can't give her a perfect life, but it's better than foster care and being with her drug addict aunt"

"Sam..." Trudy says, but Sam cuts her off. "Please, just talk to someone. Denise needs someone to love her and take care of her"

~~~

Back on the unit, the team stands around the white board.

"Truck driver ID'd this guy" Lindsay says, pointing to a picture on the board, "Octavio Ramirez is out gunman. He hit on both FBI and ICE databases"

"Wanted for multiple drug related murders in Durango, if it was his job to secure that shipment, you better believe he's looking for Charles Gray. He's gotta send a message" Sam says.

"This is good work. You put out an investigative alert" Antonio asks.

"And got the FBI to add him to Chicago's most wanted"

~~~

"She has to stay with DCFS, but you can talk with them within the month and see is she can be your foster child"

"Really?" Sam asks.

"Yeah"

Sam gives Trudy a hug then goes over to Denise who is standing by the Sergeant's desk and putting on her jacket and hat.

"Good news and bad news, kiddo" Sam says, handing Denise her backpack.

"What's the bad news?"

"You have to stay with the DCFS lady for a little bit" Sam says and Denise looks down at the ground, "But, with in the month, I can talk to them about me and Jay being your foster parents"

"Really? You'd do that?"

"Of course, sweetie. You're a great kid and you deserve a better life" Sam smiles and Denise gives her a hug. "Thank you, Sammy"

Sam smiles, thinking about how she might be a mom sooner than she thought.

🌙🌙🌙

Sam waits at her shared apartment for Jay and Will to get back from helping Charles Gray with Voight. Once Sam leaves her kitchen, she sees the door open and Jay and Will walking in.

"Finally" Sam says, giving her boyfriend a hug, "Are you two, okay?"

"Yeah, we're fine" Jay says.

"Go sit and I'll get you two a beer"

After giving two beers for the Halstead brothers, Sam sits down on the couch next to her boyfriend, who wraps an arm around her.

"So, how much of what went down tonight, you know..." Will asks.

"We're a specialized unit"

a/n;

This chapter is what started Denise's story line 💜💜