Atwater’s Having Baby With Tasha Fox, LaRoyce Hawkins Reacts

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Chicago P.D. Season 13 Episode 11 “On the Way.”]

Chicago P.D. just dropped a major bombshell about Officer Kevin Atwater (LaRoyce Hawkins) in the Wednesday, January 28, episode: He’s going to be a father!

Atwater spent the episode trying to figure out a text to send Tasha Fox (Karen Obilom), an officer he connected with earlier in the season who moved to Miami and got him thinking about his future. But at the end of the episode, she showed up at his place. He apologized for not calling her sooner and said he had stuff to think about, including finding answers to what she’d asked. “What do you want?” she asked. “I want to see you. I want to get to know you better,” he said, and she kissed him. Then, she surprised him by revealing she’s pregnant!

“I should’ve told you before but I wanted to see what I wanted before I told you. And I thought a lot about it, and I want this baby,” Tasha told him. “Whether you’re in our lives or not, I want this baby, and that’s not going to change. But then you reached out, so I thought maybe … Kevin, you OK?” The episode ended with Atwater smiling.

Lori Allen/NBC

LaRoyce Hawkins was the guest on the Thursday, January 29, episode of the One Chicago Podcast, and he spoke with Brian Luce, a former Chicago police officer who is a Chicago P.D. producer and technical consultant, all about the big news.

“I’m very excited,” Hawkins shared before detailing how he’s thinking about what this means for his character going forward when it comes to cases. “I was like, ‘Chad [Saxton, executive producer], there’s a difference between a guy that’s solving crimes and saving lives and a guy that’s solving crimes and saving lives and he’s about to be a father soon. Chad is helping me navigate through the small things that I can think about that help. For example, if in the next episode, hypothetically, there’s a pedophile involved, once upon a time, nobody loves pedophiles, but it’s a different emotional connection to a pedophile or pedophilia textures when you have a kid on the way, when you have a kid or when you’re about to be a father.”

He continued, “Those are the adjustments that I’ve enjoyed trying to find and explore because you know how our show is, we’re not going to touch on it all the time. It’s really up to us as characters to hold on to those textures that they give us and see what happens. But I’m very excited.”

Hawkins also admitted that he’s “nervous,” recalling his nerves when it comes to his own son, who was born in the middle of a scene. And so he’s wondering when Atwater’s baby will be born, if it might be in the middle of a case.

He adds, “There’s a nature to being a father on crime shows where you hope everything works out. You know, I’m optimistic about everything working out. And you know, it’s hard to say. It’s not that up to me, but it’s just like fatherhood. It’s like, you don’t know what you’re gonna get.”

As for the text that Atwater sent, Hawkins revealed on the podcast, “You know what the text said? It took me a while to write it, but what I was trying to conceptualize how I would get her to come back. Atwater can be a little poetic sometimes.” Luce then confirmed that he wrote the text.

“Right, and so what took me so long with the text was really trying to get my words together,” Hawkins continued. “And so what I wrote was something like this: From the heart to the first responder. If you ask me what I want and what I really need, 390, full speed, bullet green. I just want to feel the power of my own dreams. Is there a manual for meeting moments? My issue is, I miss the way you saw things, like a soft kiss. You sure can make a vision visible and hard to miss. Pardon my tardiness, but hurry up and take your time because you started it. From the heart to the first responder.”

What do you think about Atwater becoming a father? Let us know in the comments section below.

Chicago P.D., Wednesdays, 10/9c, NBC