Distance - Will Halstead x Reader
Trigger Warning: Mention of child death (case related)
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The question had been intentionally spiteful. Will remembered the wounded look in your eyes as he asked it. The conversation had taken a downward turn after that. In the end you’d sensed you were getting nowhere and abruptly hung up.
He didn’t bother calling you back. You wouldn’t answer until you’d both had time to calm down. You weren’t as hot headed as him. You knew the two of you would get into it and with all that distance between you, it could be the thing that destroyed your entire relationship.
He hated himself for asking that question, for intentionally riling you. Out of everybody in this world you were the one person he had complete faith in, and he knew that Reilly’s kiss had come as a complete shock to you. The problem was it hadn’t been for him.
“Reilly finally made a move on her.” Will forced himself to spit the words out before he took a slug of his beer and set it back on the bar.
Jay said nothing. The two of them had talked about this, a couple of weeks back. It had been hard for Will to express how he felt about your assignment in New York. He told people you were fine, the two of you keeping in contact, talking most nights but the truth was things were far more complicated.
When Jay had asked, Will hadn’t had the mental bandwidth to tell anymore lies. It had all come pouring out, the missed Skype calls, the ones you did make you looked absolutely exhausted. He was worried, more than worried but you refused to listen to him. You were fine, you told him. The two of you had been together long enough for Will to know when you were lying.
Jay hadn’t told Will he was being paranoid when he showed him the photographs that you had sent him, the ones taken with Detective Reilly outside of work hours. It was in the way the other man smiled at you, the way his hand always seemed to linger with a familiarity that Will missed. He had known as time went by that Reilly’s feelings had changed. Being in your proximity how could he not.
He had never told you; he had managed to keep the jealousy at bay during the months you had been away. He knew that you and he were entirely committed to one another and upon talking to Jay he realised that feeling he had had when he looked at those photographs hadn’t been jealousy at all, it was envy. He was envious that the other man was in your presence, that he had your attention, that he could actually reach out and touch you.
It was the powerlessness of the situation that had driven him to Molly’s today. Helplessness that had made him lash out with a sharp tongue when you’d told him Reilly had kissed you. He had been hurt by the revelation despite the fact he had known that it was coming.
“I miss her Jay.” Will found himself confiding. “I’m worried she’s losing herself, that she’s slipping away.”
“We both know how much Mika’s death messed her up.” Jay reminded him, tilting his head so he could read the profile of Will’s downcast features.
It was true, they had both seen the way that you had shut down after you found four-year-old Mika Collins tucked away in a chest freezer, in some pervert’s basement. You had held out hope for that child, he was the one you thought you could get to in time…
Instead, he had been brutalised so badly that he had died from his injuries and been left on ice until his ‘owner’ could decide what to do with him. It wasn’t the worst one they had come across during that case, but it had been the one that had broken you.
You hadn’t been able to sleep after that, you picked at your meals and spent long days and nights at the precinct putting everything you had into locating the man you deemed responsible for Mika’s death, the person who had orchestrated the whole thing The Broker.
When he had disappeared off your radar, it had devastated you and it was then that Will had suggested that you took the time to see a counsellor. It had been helping, he thought. You had started to take joy in the little things again, sleeping better, eating properly. He had seen the essence of you begin to reappear again…
And then Intelligence had found that website and you had fallen apart all over again. They’d traced it to an IP in New York, Bronx SVU was already on the case. They welcomed any insight they could get.
Will had known you would go, and he hadn’t tried to stop you. You were dogged, determined, you would have to see this case through to the very end. Over the past couple of weeks though he had seen your old habits creeping through. He knew you were having nightmares; he could see it in the dark circles that underlined your eyes. You had lost weight.
He could feel you slipping away from him all over again and it scared the living hell out of him. Back home, he could see those signs, reassure you and support you. They had a network of people to help including Jay and the rest of the team you worked with, people who had a vested interest in making sure you stayed healthy. In the New York you had no one.
“What happens if she doesn’t catch him this time?” Will found himself asking the question he’d been fighting to avoid confronting over the past two months. “Where does it end?”
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