⋆° დ ༄ UNTIL THERE WAS FOREVER
chapter five. a war zone.

Sam and Jay walk into Chicago Med, being called in by Will Halstead to come down.

"Hey, thanks for coming in" Will says, as soon as he sees the couple.

"Yeah, no sweat. We were doing a prep at 26th and Cal. What's going on?" Jay asks, as they follow his brother down the hall.

"There's been a rash of OD's. They're coming in, in waves. Third one today just coded."

"Heroin?"

"Yeah, but definitely laced. Probably fentanyl. I haven't seen anything like this since...ever."

"I'll put a call into narcotics. See what they know."

"Can we get the CFD paperwork? I want to see where the paramedic calls are originating from" Sam asks, as they stop at the other side of the nurses station.

"They're coming from all over the city." Will states.

"I've got another one. Narcans wearing off" a nurse yells.

"Give him another two of narcan, slow IV push." Will yells, then faces back to the couple and sighs, "alright, I'll pull together a detailed list when I can. I got to go."

"Thanks man" Jay says.

"And tell Gracie her uncle Will misses her and I can't wait for her birthday tomorrow"

"We will" Sam says, then sighs when she sees an older couple crying outside of a room, "oh man"

Jay looks at his phone and says, "we gotta roll"

🌙🌙🌙

Sam and Jay get to the crime scene, Adam had texted Jay about and as they cross over the crime scene tape, Sam asks, "what do we got?"

"A call came in. Suspicious package by the lake. Family was setting up for their kids birthday party. Roger and Ashley Basinski over here" Adam says, leading the couple to wear the crime scene is, "the mother found a backpack in what she believed to be covered in blood. Recovered right over here"

"She open it?" Jay asks.

"Yeah, found a surprise inside" Adam says, then looks at Sam, "Erin's talking to them, if you wanna join"

"Yeah" Sam says, as she joins Erin, in interviewing the couple who found the bag.

Then a couple minutes in, they hear a girl scream, so the team races to the girl and they see a body floating in the water. Jay and Adam grab the body and bring him onto the land, as Erin tells a patrol officer to get the girl out of here.

As Jay and Adam bring him ashore, they flip him over and his face looks dissolved and beaten in.

"Oh god" Sam says, placing her hand in her stomach.

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Jay and Sam follow the M.E through the coroners office and sees at least 20 bodies due from all the heroin/fentanyl overdoses and the M.E says, "back in '06, we had freezer trucks parked out back filled with stiffs from all the heat related deaths. We actually ran out of toe tags."

"All these are from fentanyl?" Sam questions.

"Last two weeks have been insane. Dealers get the cut wrong, your heart stops instantly." The M.E says, as they stop at the metal table where the male body they found was laying, "okay. Cause of death on your DOA is blunt head trauma." then she pulls down the sheet from over his head, "abrasions on both shoulders match the width of the backpack recovered at the scene."

"You find any drugs in his system?" Jay asks.

"Toxicology report came back clean. But you may be able to run with this. His skin was bloated from the time in the water, ballparking at 7 hours." The M.E says, moving the sheet down more to reveal a tattoo on his right arm of a woman's face with her initials, a date and R.I.P, "clear as day now that he's dried out" and Sam takes a picture of it.

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"This woman outlived both her kids" Al says, replacing Tyler's picture on the whiteboard.

"Tyler's new best friend was Tony Chin." Antonio says, taping Tony's picture onto the board, "20. Junior at central Chicago U. No criminal record, but the last few weeks, he suddenly appears all Tyler's social media profile."

"Mouse, you dumped his phone records?" Voight asks.

"Yeah, there's dozens of calls between Tyler and Tony Chin, all less than two minutes in duration and at all sorts of crazy hours" Mouse says, disinterested in this whole thing.

"Have Atwater and Ruzek take a run at this guy."

Mouse walks over to Jay who is leaning against Sam's desk, next to his fiancée and shows him a file, saying, "ya know, Tyler...he was 2nd battalion, 7th Marine"

"When?" Jay asks.

"'08. He was spitting distance from us in Kandahar."

"Alright, well, they saw some action"

Mouse smirks and says, "Yeah, they did" then walks over to his desk.

Jay looks over at Sam and sighs. Sam rubs his back, then goes to sit back at her desk.

~~~

Sam opens the door to the break room, where Jay and Mouse are having a heated discussion about Jay not wanting Mouse to re enlist in the military.

Sam clears her throat and says, "Jay, your guy from Narcotics, Martinez, he called back. They got a line on the dealer, who changed his cut from Lactose to Fentanyl"

"Thanks" Jay says, kissing Sam's cheek before going over to his desk. Sam looks at Mouse and says, "Mouse, come on"

"No, Sam. I've made my decision" Mouse says, leaving the break room, making the brunette sigh.

🌙🌙🌙

As the team goes undercover, doing a surveillance on a dealer. Sam and Jay are in an apartment with Martinez, watching said dealer.

"Black ball cap, black hoodie, white sneakers." Martinez says, hanging the binoculars to Sam, who looks through it and says. "Heavy set guy?"

"Yeah, didn't dig the nickname 'Chunk', so he took a tire iron to some guys dome. Goes by 'red' now. Quite the entrepreneur. Been working double shifts. Managing a spot during the day and handling the cut at night."

"Meaning he knows the source of the supply." Jay says.

"Yup. You're uh, detective Miller right? Grace Miller's daughter?"

Sam clears her throat and says, "Yeah"

"She was a legend. I'm sorry about her passing, I know it's been 14 years but...I'm glad you found the guys who did it. It's the talk all over the station"

"Yeah" Sam says, as Jay puts his hands on Sam's shoulders to calm her down.

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Sam and Adam drive up to Lawrence to a gas station there, to make sure 'Red's' story is true. Once the store manager shows them the video tape of Red and how he would like to describe the guy as 'a really white dude with lumberjack flannels', Sam asks, "this is from two weeks ago?"

"Yeah. That black dude, never seen him before. That other guy, he comes in here every other week looking for White Owl Cigars and rolling papers. He loves those blunts. And you wouldn't believe how much fuel he burns in that boat of his, either."

"Where can we find him?" Adam asks.

"What'd he do, huh?" The manager asks, smiling. Adam looks at Sam then back at the man and says, "parking tickets"

"Okay. I got you" the manager chuckles, "I don't know where he lives. Uh, but he's got a boat at the marina. Uh, just a few days ago I had to take some propane tanks to him. They were having some kind of rager. Yeah, I could show you where the slip is at."

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Sam and Adam walk down the docks at the marine and Ruzek says, "'Whiplash'. Well, there she is"

"With a gash in the hull." Sam says.

"What if this wasn't a murder at all, just a high speed accident?" Adam asks.

"Either way, we're after a fentanyl ring." Sam says, kneeling next to the boat, looking at the gash on the side. Adam takes the GPS to look at the last known coordinates and says, "waypoints for Blind River, Ontario, Mackinaw City, Michigan and Chicago"

🌙🌙🌙

"Hey, Will" Sam says, as she looks up from the phone to see her almost brother-in law walking onto the unit.

"Hey"

As soon as Will leaves, after talking with Jay, Sam gets off the phone and walks towards Voights office and says, "Sarg, the boats owned by John and Christie Fitzgerald. They're a well connected Chicago couple who made a good chunk of change in construction"

"I just checked with customs. As of three days ago, they've been on vacation in Italy." Erin states.

"Any border crossing to Canada?" Voight asks.

"None"

"But their son, Scott, attends central Chicago U. Goes by 'Scoot'. He and Tony Chin were in Chem 1 together." Al says, going over to the board to tape his picture up.

"Alright, Mouse, get me a nexus on the phone records for him, Tony Chin and Tyler. And have patrol pick this scoot up and bring him in here. I want to talk to that guy" Voight orders and Mouse just sits at his desk, looking at his phone, ignoring Hank, and everyone just looks at him, "you not wanting to be here isn't gonna work either, Mouse."

"I'll talk to him" Jay says.

"I'm not talking to you" Hank says to Jay then looks back at mouse, "you want to stay, then do your job. You don't wanna stay, that's a separate conversation."

Mouse throws his phone on the desk and says, "I've done my job. I've down my job since the day I got here." then he stands up from his desk, "busted my ass for you. I never once asked for OT. and all I'm asking for is a favor. A favor so that maybe I can live my life the way I'd like to."

"Don't go out like this, Mouse. You've come to far" Voight says, before going back to his office.

~~~

Sam opens the door to the break room where Jay and Mouse are having another heated discussion and says, "Hey guys, stop. Alright? We're on a case. Mouse go back to your desk."

"Yeah" Mouse whispers, then leaves the room.

"I'm-Im- I'm gonna get through to him. And he's gonna be alright." Jay says.

"Listen. What you two went through and what you carry is real." Sam says, placing her hand over his heart, "and you know that if you ever need my help carrying it, you just have to ask me. Why are you not listening to him?"

"Because going back is not the right move for him."

"For you. Him not going back is not the right move for you. But if it was...if you were the one that wanted to go, would you let anybody stand in your way?" Sam says, placing her right hand on Jays cheek and rubs her thumb across his stubble and leans in for a kiss, "Come on"

~~~

"Walter Ng. Hardcore crime boss in Chinatown. Alleged to be in everything from prostitution to high stakes gambling" Antonio says, standing in front of the whiteboard with the team surrounding it.

"He's been identified as the source of the fentanyl coming into Chicago, so he is responsible by coercion for Tyler's death." Voight states.

"His operations slick. The modified fentanyl originated in China and gets shipped to Ng's connect in Blind River, Ontario." Dawson says, pointing to a map on the other board, "and our boy Scoot, he zips up from the marina. Tony Chin brings a couple of college kids to mule it down."

"Marine unit says they put oxygen tanks and a GPS in weighted backpacks along with the dope. If the coast guard rolls up, dump the bag, come back later that night, press a button and boom. Floats to the surface." Adam says.

"Then from Canada, they head here, south of Mackinaw City, Michigan. They stop to refuel at Rowleys bay, then down into Chicago."

"Where Scoot gives the drugs to Red and several other scumbag dealers, and they sell it to kids on the street." Jay says.

"We can't touch Ng, because he's modifying the chemistry of the fentanyl." Erin states.

"Yeah, but as soon as he processes it here in Chicago, we can hit him with calculated criminal drug conspiracy and accessory to murder." Voight says.

"Any word on why he allows himself to be called Scoot?" Adam asks and everyone looks at him and Hank says. "None yet"

Atwater walks onto the unit and says, "Yo Sarg. You got to see this. Scoot made contact"

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After moving in on the warehouse where the fentanyl was being processed and where Ng was supposed to be, but wasn't. The team cuffs all the willing participants in the warehouse.

"Tony Chin" Hank says, then looks at Miller and Atwater, "stand him up" which Kevin and Sam do, "where's your uncle? He's supposed to be here"

"I don't know what you're talking about" Chin says.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah"

"Well kid, guess what. You got caught holding the bag. Murder, calculated criminal drug conspiracy. Haul him in" Hank says, and Kevin leads him out of the warehouse.

Everyone looks around the lab and Al spots the money bag on the table.

🌙🌙🌙

While going out to get Gracie's birthday cake and an extra cake, she runs into an old friend from high school, who says, "Sam Miller?"

Sam turns around and says, "oh, my god. Asher?" then she pulls him into a hug, "hey, how are you? I haven't seen you since, you know"

"Emma's funeral? Yeah. I just had to get away, ya know" Asher Montgomery says, stuffing his hands into his front pockets.

"I get it. You look great though, how's life?"

"It's great, actually. I own a construction company and I'm married" Asher smiles, holding up his left hand to show off his ring.

"Wow, Asher Montgomery, married. That's awesome. I'm happy for you"

"Thanks" Ash says, then his gaze falls onto the birthday cakes in Sam's cart, "who's birthday?"

"Oh, Uhm, my daughters. She's turning 1 tomorrow"

"Wow, congratulations"

"Thanks" Sam half smiles. Asher sighs and says, "I heard about Justin. I'm sorry"

Sam clears her throat and says, "It's alright, thanks though. Why didn't you come to the funeral, you two were best friends in high school"

"my uh, grandma passed away the week before. I guess, I couldn't handle it" Asher says, looking down at the ground.

"Hey" Sam says, placing her hand on the man's arm, "I get it. And I'm sorry for your loss too. Your grandma was a good lady"

"She was. Thanks." Asher says, looking at his watch, "well, I should get going. But it was great to see you again, Sam"

"You too, Asher" Sam says, before the man walks away.

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The next day...

"Happy birthday to Gracie" everyone sings -everyone including the 51 firehouse, the intelligence unit, along with Platt and Kim and Wyatt and Denise- to now 1 year old Gracie Halstead who is smiling at her cake, "happy birthday to you!"

Jay and Sam help Gracie blow out her candle that was a number 1 and everyone cheers. Gracie then stuffs her hands directly into the cake and takes a handful and stuffs it into her mouth as everyone laughs.

"Thank you guys for coming over to celebrate Gracies 1st birthday. She might seem only interested in the cake right now, but I promise she loves you guys" Sam annonces.

"To Gracie Halstead" Kelly says, lifting up his cup, "the newest member to our Chicago family"

"Here, here" everyone says, lifting up their glasses.

"And there's food and another cake in the kitchen, so everyone dig in, have fun and Gracie will open presents later on" Jay says.

Sam walks over to her finaceé, who pulls her into a side hug and gives her a kiss on the top of her head and says, "I can't believe she's one already"

"I know. She's growing up so fast. We have an amazing family and I'd do anything for you guys"

Flash forward to
April 20th, 2017

"Hank, what is it? Tell me. Why am I in here?"

Hank sighs and says, "it's not good, Sam. But I'm going to do everything I can to get you out of this. The whole team is on it"

Tears start to gather in the brunettes eyes and asks, "Where's Jay? Where are my kids?!"

Before Hank could answer, a detective walks in and Sam immediately recognizes him and says, "you!"

a/n:

another flash forward? 🤭
but a happy first birthday to grace halstead!🥳