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Chapter Text

Jay stood in the center of a brightly lit warehouse, gun pointed at a tearful bald man in a lab coat. His nametag read Dr. Richard Lyon, but Jay was well aware of what the scientist’s name was. 

Lyon held Hailey in a headlock, a syringe in his hand. Ten civilians on the other side of the room, none of whom Jay recognized, stood in what looked like some kind of airlock. A young man stood beside the door, his hand on a lever.

“We’re five minutes out from your location,” Voight’s voice came out of Jay’s radio, sounding almost deafening in the tense as it cut through the air. “Tell me where we’ll find you.”

“Don’t answer him!” Lyon shouted, his face turning a deep shade of red. “Give it to me.”

Jay hesitated, but obeyed when he saw Lyon’s hand tighten on the syringe in his hand. He set the radio down without taking his eyes or his gun off Lyon. “Just put the syringe down,” Jay pleaded. “Put it down, and we can make a deal.”

Inside, his mind whirled. Could he make the shot? Jay wanted to believe that his aim was good enough for that, but then his eyes fell on Hailey, standing on her tip toes in an attempt to prevent her air supply from being completely cut off, and he knew that he couldn’t risk hitting his partner.

“I don’t need a deal. I have you exactly where I want you.”

“Dr. Lyon, please. Let’s just talk about this.”

“You lost your chance to talk when you got my daughter killed.”

Jay closed his eyes. Lyon’s daughter, Alaina, had been a civilian casualty in a bank robbery case Intelligence worked on nearly two weeks ago. He knew her face well- he saw it every night in his dreams, along with the countless others he hadn’t been able to help over the years.

“What’s the point of all this?” Jay asked, motioning toward the trapped civilians. Some were crying- others seemed to accepted their fate, and were just sitting on the floor, staring at the showdown that was playing out in front of them. 

“The point? The point is that I’m about to expose you for the fraud that you really are, Detective Halstead. See that camera?” Lyon pointed over Jay’s shoulder, and he turned around despite himself to see a video camera pointed straight at him. “There are a thousand people watching. I say to them- a police officer’s job is to protect the innocent. And yet Detective Halstead here abandoned my daughter as she was bleeding out on the street to save his unit. So here and now we’re going to find out the truth, once and for all, that ”

“That’s not true, Dr. Lyon,” Jay insisted, edging closer to where Lyon and Hailey stood. 

“Don’t come closer!” Lyon shouted. Then a strange smile came across his face, his lips turning up in an almost inhuman smirk. “But please, prove me wrong. See those people over there? In just two minutes, if you don’t save them, a toxin of my own invention will release into that chamber and kill every person in there instantly.”

Jay stepped toward the room almost instinctively, freezing when Lyon spoke again. 

“I haven’t finished yet. If you pull that lever to save them, my son over there will not stop you. But know that in doing so, you will be killing dear little Detective Upton. In my hand here is another toxin that I have created. So you have a choice- save those ten innocent lives, or save your partner.”

With those words, it felt like a stone just dropped to the bottom of Jay’s chest. “What does she have to do with anything?” he managed. 

“You don’t see it, do you? You have a choice- save one person, or save many. But this time, the one person is someone you care about, and the many are people you have never seen before in your life.”

“Dr. Lyon, do you really think this is going to make you feel better?” Jay managed. “You’re going to prison, no matter what.”

“At least the world will know the truth about the people who are supposed to protect them,” Lyon said, jutting out his chin. “Forty-five seconds.”

Jay raised his gun. 

“Shooting won’t make your choice any different,” Lyon said, his voice emotionless now. Cold. And Jay realized he was right. 

He couldn’t fake his way through this. 

His eyes fell on his partner, standing there with Lyon’s arm wrapped tightly around her neck, and then toward the airlock. His eyes caught sight of a little boy, standing there clutching a blanket, and his heart constricted even more.

Jay looked back at Hailey. She met his gaze steadily, with no tears in her eyes, and gave him a nod.

He could almost hear her voice. And he knew what she was thinking. 

He reluctantly lowered his gun and ran to the airlock. To his surprise, Lyon’s son moved out of his way as he pulled the lever. The steady hum of the machinery faded, the doors slid open, and the people inside fell onto each other, hugging and laughing and crying. 

Jay wheeled around, his heart in his throat, his gun already raised, just in time to see Lyon plunge the needle into Hailey’s neck.

In one second she wheeled on the scientist, jamming her elbow into his face, pinning his arm behind his back. The scientist was no match for Hailey’s self-defense training, and she quickly got the better of him, knocking him to the floor so that he was face-down on the cool floor.

“Hailey!” Jay called. He wanted to run to her, to check that she was alright, but the people in the airlock probably needed medical attention, too. 

“I’m good,” she answered, and her voice was steady.

Chapter Text

Jay couldn’t look at his partner the day they returned to work. He hated himself for the decision he made, even though he knew there hadn’t really been a choice, even though he knew she would have made the same decision if she’d been in his shoes, and he would have told her to do it. 

They barely even got a chance to speak to each other, which didn’t make him feel any better. Did she hate him now, knowing that he chose to save the civilians over her? Did she still trust him? Would he still trust her, in that same position?

And strangely enough, Hailey seemed fine. All of the tests Will ran at the hospital came up blank. There was nothing to hint that she was injected with anything dangerous, so Jay couldn’t help but wonder. Had Lyon been lying about the toxins all along? If he had, what did it all mean? He had to have known that he would go to prison, all for what? To prove a point? He could have done that without the drama.

The longer the week progressed, the more it seemed that way. Hailey didn’t show any signs of illness, even though Jay kept watching her for any sign of faltering even as they ran down the streets of Chicago one day, and took up rooftop sniper positions together the next. She was just as alert and bright and witty as ever. 

Finally, five days after the warehouse incident, a surveillance mission gave them a chance to talk as they sat in one of their vans. 

“You’ve been staring at me,” Hailey commented, without taking her eyes off the house they were watching. “You’re not as subtle as you think, Halstead.”

“I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

“I feel good. More than good. You don’t have to worry about me, Jay, I’m fine. Lyon must have been lying about the toxin.”

Jay glanced at her. She really did look fine. Healthy. “I don’t want anything to happen to you. It’s my fault that you were put in that position in the first place.”

“It’s not your fault,” Hailey said, shaking her head, her ponytail brushing the top of her shoulders as she did so. “Lyon was twisted. Losing his daughter must’ve sent him over the edge. You can’t control that.”

“I let his little girl die, Hailey.”

“And you caught the guy who did it,” she countered, finally looking at him with those intense blue eyes of hers. “People like Lyon always look for someone to blame. You did your job exactly the way you were supposed to. He doesn’t know how all of this works. You do. You can’t let him make you second-guess everything.”

“He injected you with something, so pardon me if I’m not exactly thrilled about how this turned out.” Jay couldn’t stop his voice from getting louder. “I’m the reason you were in danger. You still are. Who knows what he did to you-”

Hailey reached out and grabbed Jay’s shoulders, forcing him to look straight at her. “Look at me, Jay. I’m here. I’m safe, I’m okay. He didn’t do anything. You made the right choice.”

“I chose to let him stick a needle in your neck.”

“There was no other choice. We both know that. You would never let all of those people die. You care about them, no matter what Lyon says-”

“Damn it, Hailey, I care about you more!” Jay slammed his hand down onto the steering wheel, and she flinched. He instantly regretted what he’d said, how he’d said it. “It’s just… I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

“It won’t,” she said softly. 

“You don’t know that,” he said, a lump forming in his throat as he turned back to watching the street. “You don’t know that.”

“It’s part of the job, Jay.”

Four days later, Jay came in to work and froze when he saw Hailey’s empty desk.

She was almost always the first person to come upstairs, along with Vanessa. If they weren’t there before him, the three of them usually reached the doors to the precinct at the same time. But he hadn’t seen either of the two women at the doors- he hadn’t even seen their car in the parking lot. 

When Vanessa finally arrived, without Hailey, Jay made a beeline over to her desk. “Where’s Hailey?” he demanded. 

“She stayed home, I think she has a cold,” Vanessa said. 

Instantly, Jay’s stomach plummeted. “Just a cold?”

“That’s what she told me. I didn’t want to leave her by herself, but she said she felt fine otherwise, and you know when Hailey insists on something…”

“Yeah.”

He definitely knew how stubborn his partner could be. But that didn’t make him feel any better about her staying home sick by herself, especially after the mystery injection she’d gotten from Lyon. Vanessa seemed to read his mind. “I know, I’m worried about her, too. I was thinking of checking on her at lunch, just to make sure, but you can if you want.”

“I don’t want to barge in on anything-”

“No, you’ve known her longer. I’ve never even seen her sick before, you probably know what to look for.”

Jay hadn’t either, but he didn’t argue. 

Lunchtime couldn’t come fast enough. As soon as they caught a break in the case, Jay took off to Hailey’s without even answering Ruzek’s invitation to go with him to get Chinese food. 

It seemed like an eternity before Jay pulled up to the street beside the house and hurried to the front steps, using the key Vanessa gave him to get inside. 

“Hailey? It’s Jay,” he called as he pushed the door open. No response. He took off his shoes before stepping further into the house, and spotted Hailey curled up in a ball on the couch, her head just visible above the thick blanket.

“Oh, Hails.”

Jay immediately went over and knelt by the couch, brushing hair out of her eyes automatically. Her skin felt clammy, her eyes feverish, and now that he was closer, he could see just how badly she was shaking despite the fluffy blanket draped over her body.

"Are you okay?" he asked worriedly, continuing to smooth her tangled hair from her forehead. "Talk to me."

"I don't feel good.” Her voice sounded weak, which unsettled him more than anything. 

"Has it been like this all morning?"

"Wasn’t this bad at first.”

"Okay. Can I get you anything? Water?" he asked, noticing that the mug on the coffee table was empty. 

Hailey just shook her head, staring up at him with unfocused, strangely bright eyes.

Jay was really starting to worry now. He didn't know how to help people who were sick. He had little to no experience with that. When he got sick, he stayed home and drank ginger ale until he felt better. Actually helping people was Will’s job. Jay just ran around like an idiot with a gun. 

"How are you feeling? Hot, cold?" Start with the basics, and work his way up. That was probably the best bet. 

"Cold."

“I’ll get a blanket," he said immediately, straightening up, his eyes scanning the room for one. 

"Can you just sit with me?"

Her voice sounded so small when she said it, like she was afraid he’d say no. 

There was no universe in which Jay would say no to a request like that, no matter how angry he was at her, or how many lines he felt like he was crossing. 

"I- yeah.”

And so he went back and sat gingerly on the couch, carefully adjusting Hailey so that she was mostly in his lap, but still covered by the blanket. She snuggled into his chest almost immediately, clinging to him like a kitten desperate for warmth, and the tension left her body almost instantly. Her skin temperature still felt off to Jay, but at least she seemed more comfortable.

Once he was sure she'd fallen asleep, he extracted his phone from his pocket and texted Will.

Hailey's sick and I'm worried it’s the
injection finally kicking in.

His brother replied almost instantly, which was a little surprising, but Jay was grateful.

Symptoms?

Her skin’s warm, she says she’s cold,
and her eyes look feverish. She’s
sleeping now.

Could be nothing, just a flu.
But bring her in tomorrow morning
if she gets worse, and in two days
if she’s the same. 

Thank you.

No problem. This isn’t something
to brush off. The fact that I don’t
know what he injected her with has
been eating at me this whole week.

Me too.

Hailey stirred a little in her sleep, letting out a huff of air, her forehead creased. Jay reached out and smoothed the lines with his thumb, impulsively, and after a moment, she settled again with a sigh, burrowing her face into the fabric of his shirt.

Jay hardly dared to move, even though he was probably needed at work. He was too worried about Hailey to leave her by herself. He kept feeling her forehead, and looking at her chest to make sure she was still breathing. 

He hated seeing her like this. In all their time as partners, he was usually the one who was injured, or struggling to cope. Jay realized now why Hailey sometimes got so protective over him- being the one on the other side was worse than being the one who was hurt.

Chapter Text

Hailey felt like she was burning, like there was fire running through her veins. Every breath she took was agonizing, her heart constricting more and more with every passing moment. 

It was all she could do to curl up in a ball and close her eyes and hope that everything would just stop.

She could barely think straight. People were asking her questions, about how she felt, if she could rate the pain on a scale of 1-10, about when the symptoms started, and what were they, but she couldn’t remember. The words refused to come to her, no matter how hard she tried to find them. 

“Can you open your eyes for me?” she heard someone ask. Their voice sounded like it was coming from underwater, and she turned toward it and obediently opened her eyes, but it hurt, and she couldn’t help but let out a little whimper. 

“What’s happening?”

She wondered vaguely if that was Jay. The voice sounded kind of like him, but it sounded strangled. Heavy. Not like the Jay she was used to at all. She reached out toward the voice, his voice, wanting to take some of that sadness away, and felt his hand in hers.

“Hailey, we need to know how you’re feeling.”

That voice sounded familiar, too. Was it Dr. Choi, or Will? Was she in the hospital? She couldn’t remember when she’d gotten there, but someone must have taken her there, because this voice was definitely not Jay, and not Vanessa, either. 

She tried to respond but found that she couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe, and the lights were getting blurry. Hailey turned toward the person holding her hand, and it was Jay, but his face was fuzzy around the edges. Her vision started tunneling and she realized that she was crying, the hot tears running down her cheeks, and she was so scared. 

“It’s going to be okay. You’re going to be okay, Hailey,” was all Jay kept saying, and her name on his lips was the last thing she heard before the blackness overcame her and she was floating, floating away.

For three days, Jay sat by Hailey’s side. Other members of the unit came and went, but he refused to go with them. She’d stayed for him when he was shot, and he wasn’t about to leave her by herself. 

At first, she was able to stay awake for hours at a time before going back under, but as her first day in the hospital turned into the second, the time she spent conscious became worse than when she was sleeping. Now when she did wake up, she woke up in tears and cried until the exhaustion overtook her again.

He knew his brother was working desperately with his friend from the CDC to find something to help Hailey, but that did nothing to ease her suffering now. And they were struggling, with almost nothing to go on but Hailey’s blood samples and results from tests that weren’t meant to diagnose ailments from toxins that never existed before.

He tried to soothe her as best he could, sometimes with warm blankets, other times with Jell-O that Ruzek brought in. But the more time passed, the less those things seemed to help.

Seeing her like this made him so angry. At himself, for choosing to save the civilians instead of her. Angry that he hadn’t taken her to the hospital sooner, angry at Lyon, for injecting her with whatever had been in that syringe-

The syringe.

Jay sat up straight in the hard plastic chair, fumbling in his pocket for his phone.

“This is Voight.”

“It’s Jay. Do you know where the evidence from the Lyon case is? Did we keep the syringe?” Jay asked, trying not to disturb Hailey, who’d finally fallen asleep after she spent almost a half-hour writhing in pain. 

“They would have it in the evidence lockers, maybe-”

“Bring it in. Maybe it can help.”

An hour later, Voight brought it in himself, handing it off to a grateful Will before ducking into Hailey’s room. Jay looked up when he entered. 

“How is she?” Voight asked, and his voice was strangely gentle.

“Not good,” Jay said, shaking his head. “They’ve given her every medication they can think of that would help her, but they don’t know what they’re dealing with.”

“She’ll be alright. She’s a fighter.”

“Will she?” Jay found himself asking, staring down at his partner in the bed. Hailey looked so fragile there, covered in blankets. Her skin was pale, almost white, and even in sleep there was a troubled expression on her face. “What if she doesn’t? It will have been my fault. I chose to let this happen to her.”

Voight grabbed Jay by the shoulders. “It is not your fault. Lyon was a powder keg about to explode- his daughter dying was just what set him off first. And we both know that you had no choice. She knew it, too. And that was a sacrifice she was willing to make.”

“I could have figured out another way-”

“Sometimes there is no other way. You need to accept that. There is nothing you can do about it now, but be there for her, and take every day one step at a time.”

It was late by the time that Will finally got a chance to stretch his legs after working on a treatment for Hailey for almost seven hours straight with Dr. Danover, the same doctor who he’d worked with during the infectious outbreak in the fall. 

He was exhausted. He hadn’t trained to deal with what went into actually formulating medical treatments. Trauma medicine wasn’t like that. In the ER, things were more ‘do what you can to save someone’s life in the moment’ and less of ‘what specific combination of drugs will reverse the effects of this long-lasting disease’. 

But both he and Dr. Danover knew that Richard Lyon had injected Hailey with something that wasn’t going to turn into a prolonged illness. It was going to kill her before it earned that distinction.

At best bet, Will guessed, Hailey had a week if they didn’t find something to stop Lyon’s toxin from destroying her body. It was already making a noticeable mark on her health, attacking her organs with an almost vicious intensity, which explained her trouble breathing, among other things Will had noticed when examining her. 

He stopped by her room to find both Hailey and Jay asleep, Jay still clutching her hand in his. 

Will took in the sight for a long minute, almost mesmerized by the heart monitor’s beeping, before he pulled himself out of his thoughts and headed back to the conference room, where Dr. Danover was waiting.

Chapter Text

The next time Hailey woke up, she felt like she was inhaling shards of glass. Every breath caught in her chest, sending pain like a lance shooting through her body. 

The lights above her were bright- too bright- and the machines were deafening to her ears. 

“Hey, hey, Hails, it’s okay.”

Jay’s face appeared in her line of vision, a little blurry, and she could feel his hand move the hair back from her face. She wanted to say something, anything, but she felt like she was suffocating. 

“You’re in the hospital. Will is finding something that’ll help you, so you just have to hold on, alright? Just hold on,” Jay continued. He sounded so devastated. 

“J-jay-” she managed, clinging onto his hand. His hand was wonderfully cool on her face, a welcome relief from the constant, fiery pain that was her neverending companion. “I want to go home.” 

Being in the hospital was disorienting, and made her feel as though she were a character in a movie that kept getting yanked out of one scene and into another without warning. Every time she opened her eyes there was a new doctor’s face floating above her, another cup to spit in, another IV stuck in her arm.

His face crumpled a little bit. “I know, Hails, but they want to be able to monitor you.”

She felt a tear fall down her cheeks unbidden, and wiped it away, the motion setting off another white-hot burst of pain through her body. Hailey tried not to make a sound but it hurt, everything did, and as much as she liked to pride herself on having a high tolerance for pain, she didn’t know if she could take any more days of living like this.

“I want it to stop,” she whispered.

“I’m so sorry, Hails,” he said, and his voice sounded strangled. “I’m sorry. This is my fault.”

She wanted to tell him no, it wasn’t his fault, but suddenly she felt like there was something clogging her chest, catching in her throat, and she tried to breathe in again but the air wouldn’t come in, no matter how hard she tried, and Jay was fading again, the edges of his jacket blurring into the wall behind him-

“Hailey!” Jay looked panicked now, his eyes wide.

If before it felt like there was broken glass in her chest, now it felt like someone had taken a knife and sliced her lungs open. The pain washed over her like a tidal wave, and before she could even begin to process the sheer force of it all, before she could cry out for Jay, her world crashed into blackness again.

Hailey’s lungs were too weak now to keep her alive, the doctors told Jay after that. They said something about the toxin destroying her cells, eating away at the healthy ones and producing new, vicious ones instead.

He didn’t know much about medicine, but even he knew that the fact that they wanted to hook her up to a ventilator didn’t bode well at all.

To make matters worse, in a strange twist of fate, it turned out that Hailey had put Jay as her emergency contact, which meant that he was the one who the doctors expected to make medical decisions for her. 

Why had she trusted him with this, when it was his choice that got her here in the first place? He didn’t want the responsibility. He didn’t want to have to call her brothers and tell them that his sister died because of his choices, he didn’t want to go to work everyday and know that he killed his partner.

But he knew this was something he had to do. In no universe would he pass this off to someone else, not even Voight, or Platt, or Kim. This was his burden to bear, even though the weight of his decisions kept piling up on his shoulders, heavier and heavier. 

Jay nodded before they even officially asked him if they were allowed to be put on a ventilator. He couldn’t stand the sight of her laying in the bed, her lips turning blue, the rise and fall of her chest so faint that it almost wasn’t there.

All of this just reminded him of how much he hated hospitals. 

“Jay?”

Voight’s voice jerked him out of his thoughts.

“Yeah?”

“Go home. Get some rest.”

Immediately Jay shook his head. “I’m not leaving her.”

“That’s an order, Halstead. Go home. We’ve got her,” Voight told him, laying a firm hand on Jay’s shoulder and pulling him up out of the chair. “Not optional.”

“But-”

“Go. Home. I don’t want to see your face for another twenty-four hours.”

Jay tried to protest, but then Atwater was guiding him from the room, and as much as he wanted to stay, he didn’t have enough energy to continue resisting. 

Forty minutes later, fresh out of the shower, Jay flopped on his couch and started scanning the TV channels for something, anything to occupy his mind. There was nothing terribly interesting- some cooking shows, the nightly news- and so he found himself scrolling aimlessly through his phone.

After perusing Twitter and checking up on his favorite sports teams, he unconsciously clicked open his camera roll. 

That was a mistake.

Image after image appeared of him and Hailey. Some were candids, mostly sent to him from Vanessa, of the two of them bent over their work, heads together. Others were silly ones, taken when they were bored out of their minds on surveillance missions. 

It was hard to see her so vibrant, so full of life, while she was fighting for her life over at Med. 

His breath caught when he opened one particular image, taken by Vanessa when she was just started getting obsessed with portrait mode on her phone. It was of Hailey at the airport, still in her fancy federal agent attire, looking toward the camera with a wide smile on her face, laughing at something Jay said. 

He’d forgotten about how much he loved that picture. But seeing it now put a bitter aftertaste in his mouth. It made his heart ache; he wished he could wipe away her pain and make her as happy as she’d been when the photo was taken. 

A part of him, a horrible part, wondered if he would ever get to hear her laugh again, or hear her voice. Jay wasn’t blind. He’d seen the doctors’ expressions every time they came into Hailey’s room, how they tiptoed around the both of them like they were afraid to speak. The bags under Will’s eyes kept growing, and he spent more and more time on conference call with Dr. Danover from the CDC. 

He knew things weren’t progressing the way the doctors wanted them to. He knew what they were saying, when they thought he wasn’t paying attention.

Hailey- his partner, his best friend, his everything- was dying. And there was nothing he could do about it.

Chapter Text

Three days passed almost uneventfully. Hailey kept getting worse, but the rate of her decline seemed to have slowed down a bit, which was a relief to everyone. Voight instituted a new rule for the entire unit- they could spend eight hours at work, then eight hours at the hospital, but after that they needed to get twelve hours of sleep. 

They figured out a rotation quicker than Jay would have thought. Kim spent a good part of an hour calculating their shift changes for an entire week, which everyone agreed to follow without argument. 

Voight instructed Kim to leave Jay off the work schedule, for which he was infinitely grateful for. 

He didn’t know what he’d do if he had to go into the precinct and solve cases when he knew what Hailey was going through. He definitely didn’t want to have to stare at her empty desk all the time. It had been bad enough when she was in New York and he knew she was going to come back.

This time, no one knew when she’d return. The longer she was in the hospital, the more Jay started to wonder if she was ever going to make it. 

At least now that she was on a ventilator, they kept her sedated, which was both a blessing and a curse. At least she didn’t wake up in pain like she had every day earlier in the week. But knowing that there was no chance she was going to open her eyes and talk to him was depressing in its own way. 

Even worse, there was nothing to stop Jay from replaying the showdown against Lyon in his mind, from wondering if there was something he could have done to prevent all of this. Could he have somehow made a shot that would have both stopped Lyon from injecting Hailey and stopped his son from pushing the button? Could he have offered himself in Hailey’s place?

He wished he had. 

“Jay?” Will’s voice cut through his thoughts, jolting him back to the hospital room. “I think I might have found something.”

Jay sat up straighter in his chair, shaking off the haze that seemed to be his constant companion lately. “Really?”

“Really. We’ve been working on it for a while now but we think it could help her fight the toxin. We just need you to sign off on it. I could give you the specifics, but I don’t think that they’ll really make a difference. Most simply put, it’ll fight alongside with her cells to tire out the toxin.”

Will held out a clipboard, which Jay took and scribbled his name without really even looking at it. “How quickly do you think it’ll work?” he asked, hardly daring to breathe.

“Not sure. Dr. Danover thinks we could see an improvement within twelve hours, depending. I don’t want you to get your hopes up, but this treatment looks good. If anything, it’ll give Hailey more time. And that’s what we need right now.”

“Thank you,” Jay told his brother. “This means a lot.”

“Anything for my favorite detective.”

“I’m your favorite detective?” 

“Who said that it was you?” Will said, straight-faced, before turning to leave the room. “I’ll bring the treatment around in a few minutes.”

When Will was gone, Jay turned to Hailey in the bed, and squeezed her hand. “Hear that, Hailey?” he whispered. “You’re going to be okay. You’re going to make it through.”

After much convincing, Adam and Kevin were able to convince Jay to get celebratory drinks with them. He didn’t want to leave Hailey alone, but at the same time, he also hated the hospital, and needed a break more than he wanted to admit.

So he agreed, rather unenthusiastically, to follow his friends to Molly’s.

“Well, look what the cat dragged in!” Hermann crowded, hoisting a bottle in the air when he saw the three of them walk in the door. “Everyone’s favorite police officers.”

“Could we get three beers, please?” Kevin asked. 

“Sure thing. Hey, how’s Upton doing?” the firefighter asked as he poured out their drinks. “Heard she’s been pretty sick. We’ve been thinking about all of you.”

Jay exchanged glances with Adam. “My brother and his friend at the CDC just put her on a new treatment. They’re hoping it’ll help her power through the toxin,” he said finally. “We’ll see.”

Hermann nodded slowly. “Sounds like things might be getting better, then. Good.”

“Yeah.”

“If there’s anything we can do on our end, let us know. We’ve got your backs.”

“Thanks, I appreciate it.”

“Now, have a seat, and enjoy some comfort food, on the house,” Hermann said, slapping Jay on the shoulder as he handed over the beers. “Let loose a little bit.”

That was easier said than done. The entire evening Jay kept checking his phone for any word from the hospital. Adam caught him staring into the distance a few times mid-round of Cards Against Humanity, but Jay shrugged off his concern.

“Just thinking of my next card combination to smoke you with,” he lied, laying down a random card on the stack.

He couldn’t help but think about the last time he’d come to Molly’s. They’d played Clue with some of the people from Firehouse 51, in teams because there was too many people to go individually. It ended up being Mouch and Trudy, Brett and Casey, Hailey and Jay, Kim and Cruz, and Vanessa and Emily. 

Of course he and Hailey won. In retrospect it probably wasn’t fair that they were the only team-up that had two police officers, especially since Hailey took note of the other teams’ expressions every time they looked at their cards.

He missed that. He missed sitting next to her and bumping elbows with her every time they both tried to write each other a message, and trying not to laugh along with her when Cruz tried (and failed) to act like a detective.

The next time he looked at his phone, there was a text from Vanessa, who had the evening shift with Hailey. He opened it with trepidation before reading the words on the screen.

Vitals are improving :)

He let out a sigh of relief before turning back to his cards, trying to keep his composure. Inside, his heart felt like it was going to leap out of his chest. 

“Everything good?” Kevin asked, without looking up from his own hand. 

“Yeah, Vanessa says Hailey’s vitals are getting better. Looks like the treatment is helping,” Jay said, unable to stop a smile from spreading across his face. 

Adam grinned. “See? She’ll be back soon. No need to worry about it. Will’s got her.”

For the first time in a long time, Jay believed it.

Chapter Text

Things finally started to look better for Hailey. She was in no means out of the clear yet- according to Will, her lungs and heart might not get back to full capacity for months- but the nurses stopped tiptoeing around her room, which Jay was thankful for. All of their whispering and side-glances were starting to grate on his nerves.

He spent as much time as he could with her. Sometimes he talked to her, even though he knew she couldn’t hear him. Other times he brought a book to read and let her heart monitor’s beeping fade into the background. 

Vanessa came in with him occasionally and they talked for hours, about everything and nothing. She really was a great cop, and an even better person, he realized. Jay could tell how close Vanessa was with Hailey and how much she looked up to the detective just by the way she talked about her.

Even though he tried to stay positive, Jay couldn’t help but feel a twinge of guilt every time he saw his partner laying in the bed, motionless, the ventilator tube down her throat. Hailey was getting better now, which was good, but she never should have had to go through this in the first place.

“Stop thinking whatever you’re thinking,” Vanessa told him, shoving him gently. “I can hear the wheels turning in your head.”

“Sorry.”

“Her stats are already higher than they were two days ago. She’s going to be okay, so you can stop wallowing and start smiling, okay?”

Jay rolled his eyes. “You’re pushy, you know that?”

Vanessa smirked. “Maybe. But someone’s gotta keep you in line while Hailey’s out, and as her roommate, I think that duty falls to me.”

“You’re doing well,” Jay told her, without taking his eyes of Hailey’s face. “Considering I’m not necessarily a willing subject. Instead of worrying about her I can worry about who’s going to get the final rose. Focus on the big issues.”

“You make fun of me now, but I bet when fall rolls around, you and I will be sitting on a couch watching it live together. Mark my words.”

“In your dreams, Rojas.”

Sand swirled around Jay, stinging his eyes and getting in his mouth. He could barely see past the end of his nose, and could barely think above the wind roaring past his ears.

In the distance he could hear shouting and the familiar popping sound of gunfire, and he turned, scanning for the source, but couldn’t find it.

He could hear voices shouting, calling his name.

“Halstead!”

The calls seemed to come from every direction, behind him, ahead of him, beside him… he saw a shadow move beside him and reached for the figure. 

Someone grabbed his arm and he pulled, and somebody fell against, almost knocking the breath from his lungs, and he just barely managed to catch himself before falling himself. He looked down at his feet and it was Atwater, chest soaked in blood, staring vacantly up at Jay.

“Kev?” he choked out, but the words barely left his mouth before Kevin’s body turned to dust before his eyes. 

Jay moved further into the storm, chasing the increasingly loud voices on the wind, but there was no one there, even though he could hear the machine guns rattling in the distance and the vague outlines of buildings just a few feet away.

His foot caught on something and he stumbled, landing on the ground with his face just inches away from a misshapen package.

He inched closer, almost afraid to breathe as he caught sight of the blinking red numbers staring back up at him from inside the dirty cardboard box.

“Jay?”

A new voice joined the cacophony shouting in his ears, but this one was different, this one was familiar, almost comforting, and he called out despite himself.

“Hailey!”

And then his mind caught up with his eyes, and his ears registered the beeping coming from the device that increased steadily in pace and urgency as the numbers ticked down. 

0:03.

A new figure emerged from the whirling sand, small and blonde, windswept-

0:02.

“Get out! Get out!” he shouted, running towards her.

0:01.

He reached for Hailey’s hand-

0:00.

The incessant beeping became one long tone, a tone that stretched into an eternity-

Jay jolted awake, gasping for air, squinting against the harsh fluorescent lights shining down on him. 

For a moment, he felt relieved, until he registered that the noise was still there, loud and jarring and nothing like the steady blips he’d grown accustomed to hearing, and it came from Hailey’s heart monitor-

“We need a crash cart in here now!” Suddenly there was a flurry of activity around him as nurses and doctors rushed into the room, and an alarm was going off, one he knew from his time in the hospital meant someone was dying.

He never paid it much thought before, but now...

As if from a long way away, he heard someone say “Jay, you need to get out of here,” felt them grab his shoulders, but his eyes were fixed on the chaos in the middle of the room, on the dirty blonde hair spread across the pillow and the blood on the sheet. He didn’t want to watch, but he couldn’t make himself look away, either. 

He felt like he was in another dream.

“Jay!” 

Maggie, her eyes dark with concern, kneeled beside him, her hand on his knee, but he barely registered it. 

“What’s happening?” he asked numbly.

“You can’t be in here, Jay, let me take you to the waiting room-”

“Push one of epi!”

“What’s going on?” He tried to catch sight of Hailey among all of the lab coats and scrubs, even as Maggie tugged him out of the chair with a strength he didn’t know she had. 

“It’s going to be alright, Jay, just step outside, okay?”

And then they were halfway down the hallway, away from the noise and the people, and everything hit Jay all at once, slamming into him with the force of a freight train.

He doubled over, bracing himself against the wall, feeling as though he might pass out, or throw up, or both, and he probably would have if not for Maggie’s hand on his shoulder.

“Just breathe,” she kept telling him, but every time he tried all he heard was that horrible, bone-chilling tone and then the world started spinning faster around him.

Chapter Text

Jay sat in the waiting room, his head in his hands, for what felt like an eternity, trying his hardest not to pay attention to the flurry of activity surrounding Hailey’s room. He was afraid to ask what was happening even though doctors kept hurrying past him. 

Part of him didn’t want to know, didn’t ever want to know.

Someone stopped the alarm.

The silence that followed was almost worse than the relentless honking sound that accompanied a code blue. 

What did it mean?

“Jay?”

His head jerked up, his eyes immediately searching Will’s face for something, anything. There was blood on his scrubs, blood that he was certain hadn’t been there before-

“I-is she---?” he stammered, hardly able to get the words out.

“She’s alive.”

Jay sensed a ‘but’. And sure enough, he was right.

“But the treatment wasn’t as successful as we thought. The antibodies we used were corrupted by the toxin. The damage is… extensive. We found blood in her lungs, which explains why she coded.”

“And?”

Will shifted his weight slightly, fixing him with a pitying look. “She was gone for almost two minutes, Jay. There’s only so many times we can bring someone back.”

“You say it like there’s going to be a next time,” he said, his voice flat.

His brother glanced away, unable to meet his stare, and he saw moisture in his eyes. “The treatment accelerated the timeline. I’ve consulted the other doctors and they think she has less than a week. You might want to tell your team it’s time to say goodbye.”

“No,” Jay said, shaking his head. “No.”

“I’m sorry. I’m going to call Dr. Danover, but… Jay, I don’t think there’s anything we can do.”

Jay suddenly felt like the room was pressing in on him, as if the walls were compressing together, like the ceiling was about to collapse, and he sprang to his feet. “I-I have to go,” he managed, before bolting out of the waiting room and into the crisp night air.

Outside, it was a perfect evening. The city seemed calm. Even the ambulance sirens were almost obsolete, and the air was pleasant, not hot, but not cold, either. 

Jay sat on one of the benches outside, close to the waiting room area. Compared to inside, here it was calm, and peaceful. There was no one else around, not even doctors or nurses on their breaks. It was quiet.

Uncomfortably quiet.

Will’s words kept running through Jay’s head.

You might want to tell your team it’s time to say goodbye, he’d said, with that suffocatingly sympathetic look on his face.

Hailey wasn’t going to die, he told himself. He refused to believe that. If she hadn’t died as a scared little kid, or from Booth beating her within an inch of her life, or bullets flying into their van, then she couldn’t now, right?

But then he remembered the line of green stretching across her monitor, and the tone, a tone he knew would be etched into his mind forever, and he started to think that maybe WIll was telling the truth.

He felt something drip onto his jeans and looked up, expecting rain, but there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and then he realized he was crying.

Crying because he was relieved that she hadn’t died tonight, crying because she probably would, but mostly crying for Hailey, his best friend.

He didn’t know what he would do if she didn’t make it.

Especially since it was his fault that she was in this situation in the first place. 

He never should have let her out of his sight in that warehouse. He never should have abandoned Lyon’s daughter on the sidewalk, he should have saved her. Somehow.

Jay furiously wiped at his tears, forcing himself to take deep breaths before heading back inside.

He very nearly turned around when he stepped inside Hailey’s room and saw her laying there, attached to even more wires and monitors than before. Her skin was ghostly white now, almost transparent. She seemed tiny, and so vulnerable.

Jay hardly dared to breathe as he approached her side and took a seat in the same hard plastic chair he’d slept in before. He reached out to hold her hand, but it was covered in sensors, and he pulled away.

He sat there a long time before he found the courage to speak, and when he did, he could barely get the words out. “God, Hailey,” he choked, holding back a sob. “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry. You don’t deserve any of this.”

Jay squeezed his eyes shut, sucking in a breath. “They think I should tell the others to say goodbye to you, that you have less than a week.”

Even that was hard to get out. Saying it out loud made it seem more real, somehow.

“I don’t want to believe them, Hails. I want to believe that we can make it through this, that everything will be okay. Part of me wants to shake you awake and demand that you fight back, but… I know that would be selfish.”

“This is my fault. You’re in this position because of me, and there’s nothing that will convince me otherwise, no matter how many times I say I’m sorry. And I am sorry. If I could go back and change my decision I would, even if it meant my career would end, because you mean so much more to me than my reputation or my badge.”

He was really crying now, the tears dripping on the floor. “I wish I could talk to you right now, I wish you could hear me, because as much as I want you to get through this, as much as I want us to run down the street together again, I don’t want it to happen if it means you’ll be in pain.”

“If you have to go, Hails, I’m not going to blame you. You’ve fought so hard. I won’t be angry. I’ll miss you, always, more than you know, but… don’t feel like you need to stay because of me. No matter the outcome of all of this, you’ll always be my best friend.”

Jay traced her hand with a feather-light touch, his fingertips just barely touching her skin before he looked back at her face, which looked serene, at peace. “And I love you, alright? You deserve to hear that. I should have told you before, but I love you, Hailey. Please don’t ever forget that.”

He stayed there for one more minute, drinking in her face, memorizing every little detail, every last freckle, before he got up and left the room.

Chapter Text

Jay knew that the team would still be at the district- Kim texted him earlier in the day telling him about a dead body someone found on the streets. Even so, the entire unit (minus Kevin, who was sitting with Hailey) seemed shocked when he ascended the stairs to Intelligence that night, even more so when they saw the deep bags under his eyes. 

“What happened?” Kim asked, breaking the heavy silence. “Did-”

“She coded just a few hours ago,” Jay said, his voice flat. “Will says she doesn’t have a lot of time left.” 

“What’re you doing here? You haven’t been up here in weeks,” Adam said, not unkindly. “Don’t you want to be with her?”

“They said there was nothing else that they could do.”

Voight and Adam exchanged glances. “Nothing?” Voight repeated, disbelief coloring his voice. “Isn’t there some medication or something they can give her?”

“They’ve tried everything. They don’t have enough information to help her. The treatment they gave her turned on her after a few days, and that was their only option.”

Kim crossed over to Jay to put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Will’s smart, he’ll figure something out.”

“I don’t think medical knowledge is getting us anywhere,” Jay said, shaking his head. 

The bullpen got quiet then, and several minutes passed where no one made eye contact with each other. Eventually, Voight threw his hands in the air. “Enough standing around and feeling sorry for ourselves. We’ve sat around and let the people at Med do their thing- now it’s time for us to do ours.”

“What do you mean?” Vanessa asked, crossing her arms. 

“I mean that we have Richard Lyon in Cook County Jail right now. If anyone knows how to fix this, it’ll be him.”

“I’m not trusting this with him,” Jay said immediately. “Are we forgetting that he was the one that injected Hailey in the first place?”

No one answered him. They all knew. 

“It might be the only lead we have left,” Adam said after a pause. “Voight’s right, we’ve put this off too long. Someone’s gotta talk to him, get some answers. I’ll do it.”

Jay shook his head. “If anyone’s going to do it, it’ll be me.”

“You just said you didn’t want to trust him with this!”

“I think someone more impartial should do it-” Kim began, but Voight cut her off. 

“Quiet, all of you. I’m not going to let this turn into some kind of pissing contest between all of you. I’m the ranking officer, I’ll be the one to speak with him.”

“Sarge, if you think I’m going to stand by while Hailey is in Med dying, you’re out of your mind,” Jay said. “She’s my partner, and I’m going to do everything I can to help her. Let me sit in with you.”

Voight stared at him with narrowed eyes for a tense moment before giving a slight nod. “Alright then. But if you show any- and I mean any- signs of losing control, you’re out, understand?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Grab your coat, and let’s go.”

It felt good to be doing something, for once, instead of waiting. At least it was better than sitting in Hailey’s hospital room and watching her heart monitor.

“How is she?” Voight asked, when they were only a few minutes away, without taking his eyes off the darkened road. 

“Not good.”

“If there’s anyone who can get through this, it’s her.”

And that was the end of their conversation, until they got inside the prison. 

“Don’t lose control,” Voight said as they walked toward the visitor phone booth area. “The man is repulsive, but if he sees that he has power over you, he will draw this out even longer.”

Jay didn’t respond. 

Once they were seated, a couple of uniformed guards ushered Richard Lyon into the space opposite them. The man looked even more haggard than he had all those days ago in the warehouse. His eyes were dull and his beard thin, and Jay couldn’t help but relish in the fact that prison was clearly not kind to him. 

“Well, look who’s come crawling back to me,” Lyon sneered. “My favorite detective. Did your precious partner finally kick the bucket?”

Jay immediately stiffened, and Voight gave him a sidelong glance before turning to the scientist. “We need more information on the serum. What was in it? How do we cure it?”

“So she hasn’t died,” Lyon said, sitting back in his chair, licking his lips. “Shame.”

“This is the life of a Chicago police detective we’re talking about. Capital murder if she dies,” Voight said. “You’re gonna want to start talking.”

“About what? There’s nothing to talk about.”

Jay could feel the anger churning in his stomach. The man sickened him. What kind of person smiled because someone was dying?

“The serum. Tell me about it,” Voight snarled.

Lyon leaned forward, his face inches from the glass in front of Jay. “The symptoms appear as the flu at first, mildly unpleasant. Then, one after the other, others appear- dizziness, nausea, problems breathing- as the toxin begins to wreak havoc on various organs within the body. The more time passes, the weaker the body gets, until it can no longer sustain itself, can no longer repair the damage that has been done.”

“We know that already,” Jay said through clenched teeth. “This isn’t the time for games, Lyon. How do we reverse its effects?”

“You can go to hell, just like the little blonde one will when she finally dies.”

Jay got even closer to the glass. “She didn’t deserve any of this. Your quarrel is with me, Lyon, and it always has been. She’s innocent”

“SHE IS NOT INNOCENT! MY DAUGHTER WAS INNOCENT!” Lyon’s face was turning red now. A bead of sweat dripped down his forehead. “The little detective deserved everything she got.”

“Stop. Stop trying to justify your actions. We’re not talking about test subjects here. She’s a real person. She’s a friend, a roommate, a partner, a sister, a daughter, just like Alaina.”

Lyon swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down, his eyes flickering to meet Jay’s for just a moment before he glanced away. “Bitch got what she deserved,” the scientist repeated, but his voice wavered a little. 

Jay slammed his fist on the table. “Her name is Hailey!” he shouted, and his words echoed in the nearly empty room. Lyon recoiled, pushing away from the table, but Voight remained motionless. He whipped his phone out of his pocket. 

It only took him a minute to find the picture he’d become all-to familiar with over the past week or so- the picture of Hailey standing in O’Hare, all smiles and bright blue eyes, impossibly beautiful and full of life.

He pressed the screen up against the glass. Lyon turned away. “Look at this,” Jay snarled. “Look at her! Look at her, and tell me again that she deserved it.”

Lyon kept staring at the table. 

“If you don’t listen to the detective, I swear to god I’ll bury you,” Voight said, speaking for the first time in minutes, a growl in his voice, each word weighted.

The scientist’s eyes flickered to the picture, and he crumpled; his shoulders slumped and thick tears started pouring down his face.

“Now, let’s start again.”

Chapter Text

The two of them emerged from the prison hours later with a formula written in green crayon on a sheet of notebook paper. 

It seemed impossible that such a little thing could mean so much, Jay thought as he stared at the letters and numbers. He didn’t know what any of the formula meant- he’d always been bad at science. Lyon tried to explain the process to him and Voight, but most of it went over their heads. They ended up recording it instead. 

When they reached Me, Jay almost ran inside, holding the paper tightly in his hand. “Where’s my brother?” he asked Maggie, trying to keep his composure, but failing. 

“He’s with Hailey, but now probably isn’t the best time.”

“What do you mean?” 

“Her vitals started tanking again. They’ve been trying to get them back up for almost twenty minutes now. If you wait, I can come get you when she’s stabilized.”

Jay could barely process what the nurse was saying. Just a few minutes ago he’d been elated. They did something that could help her, maybe even cure her, and now Maggie was telling him that she might not even make it that long.

“What’s the number of the CDC doctor he’s been working with?” Jay asked finally. 

Maggie gave it to him. “What’s this for?” she asked, a frown crossing her face.

“We went to Lyon. He gave us a formula, and Maggie, I think it could help.”

After calling Dr. Danover and sending her the formula and audio recording, Jay took up a seat in the waiting room. He kept glancing at the door for signs of his brother, and checking his phone to see if there were any updates. 

Other people came and went- a teenager with a broken arm, a screaming toddler with a skinned up knee- and Jay wondered if they knew how lucky they were, that it wasn’t something more serious. At least they knew bones and cuts could heal.

Hailey’s case was different.

Even if Lyon’s formula did work, there was still a chance that they were too late, that her body wouldn’t be able to come back. Or, even worse, there was a possibility that Lyon had lied to them, and whatever Dr. Danover was making would end up killing her.

Jay didn’t want to think about that, but even so, he couldn’t help but listen for the sound of the code blue alarm on the overhead system. 

His stomach plummeted when, not ten minutes after he spoke with Maggie, he heard it, and he knew that it was Hailey, knew it in his heart.  

He could feel his vision starting to gt fuzzy and the breaths catch in his throat, when a voice interrupted his quickly spiraling thoughts.

“Who are you here for?” 

Jay blinked, his eyes focusing on a middle-aged woman, her hair tied back in a ponytail. “Um, my partner,” he said, still trying to pull himself together. 

“I’m here for my father,” the woman said, with a small smile. “He’s been having some kidney problems lately. What’s your partner’s name?”

“Hailey.”

“That’s a pretty name. I would know- I named my daughter Hailey.”

“Oh?” Jay managed.

“Yeah. She’s three. The cutest, but she’s trouble, you know? Sometimes I can’t keep up with her,” the woman smiled fondly at the thought. “I’m Nicole, by the way.”

“Jay.”

“What’s your Hailey like?”

“Um,” Jay heistated. “Smart, strong. Brave, honest. She’s a better person than I am, that’s for sure. She deserves the world. I just wish I could help her through this more.”

“You’re doing enough by just being here for her. I’m sure she appreciates it. I know girls who would kill for a man like you.”

He didn’t have the heart to tell Nicole that Hailey wasn’t his, not in that way. “I hope you’re right.”

“Mrs. Hansell?” a doctor said, looking around the waiting room. Nicole stood up. 

“That’s me,“ she said. “Thanks for talking to me, hospitals make me anxious. Sorry if I was too intrusive.”

“No, it’s fine,” Jay reassured her, and he realized that he was telling the truth. “Good luck with your dad.”

“Same to you. I’ll be thinking of both of you,” Nicole said, then disappeared with the doctor. “She’ll get better. I know it.”

Jay watched her leave before turning back to his phone just in time to see Dr. Danover’s name show up. He answered the call immediately.

“Hello?”

“Detective Halstead. The treatment should be done within the hour. I’m currently in New York, I’ll be on the first flight out after that, I just need someone to pick me up from the airport-”

“Send me the details,” he said without hesitation. 

Five hours later, Jay found himself driving back from O’Hare with Dr. Danover in the passenger seat. He kept glancing at the briefcase in her lap, almost afraid it would disappear. 

“It’ll work,” she said, after she caught him looking. “Everything Lyon said in the recording, everything he gave you- it’s solid work. It’s not conventional medicine by any means, but he’s a scientist. They think differently.”

Jay let out a breath. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to doubt your research-”

“No offense taken, Detective. Believe me, I’m as invested in the outcome as you are. You’re not the only one who cares about Hailey.”

“I know, it’s just… after all that’s happened, it’s hard to believe that there’s hope.”

Dr. Danover smiled wryly. “When you work with death and disease day in and day out, you start to realize that there is always hope, even when it feels like there isn’t. Of course, there are no guarantees, but if there is anything I have learned from my time in Chicago is that you don’t give up without a fight.”

Damn right, Jay thought.

They pulled into the parking lot at Med, and for a second, neither of them moved to get out of the car. Jay checked his phone, which had lit up while they were on the road. 

Instantly, it was as if someone sucked all of the air out of his lungs.

“She crashed again. That’s the third time in the last twenty-four hours,” he said, hardly registering the words that came out of his mouth. 

“There’s no time to waste, then,” Dr. Danover said, and in one moment, they were both out of the car and running toward the doors of the hospital. 

Chapter Text

Things were still touch and go twelve hours after Dr. Danover administered the treatment, but she reassured both Jay and Will that it could take some time for the medicine to take effect. There was one moment where Hailey’s heart very nearly stopped again, saved only by some quick thinking from Will.

Jay didn’t know if he could handle any more of this uncertainty. 

Will sat with him once his shift ended, for which Jay was grateful. It made him feel a little more at ease, knowing that his brother was there, sitting next to him. Dr. Danover stayed, too, but she kept a respectable distance. 

“How are you holding up?” Will asked, breaking the solemn silence of the room. 

Jay shrugged, turning the empty cup of coffee over in his hands. “I don’t know, man,” he admitted. “I don’t know what to think any more. Every time I think things are going to get better, something happens that changes my mind.”

“I get that.”

“She has to wake up, Will. If she doesn’t-”

“We’re not going to think about that now, alright? She still has a chance, and a good one, this time. The science is good, Jay, really good.” 

Jay felt as though there were a weight sitting on his chest. “I can’t lose her,” he choked out. “I can’t.”

Saying that out loud felt as though he were baring his soul to the world, in a strange, unsettling way, and for a long moment, his brother didn’t answer. 

Will put a hand on Jay’s shoulder and gave a squeezer. “I know.”

There was nothing else to say after that. 

At some point, Jay fell asleep while using his jacket as a pillow, and his dreams were filled of explosions, and gunfire, and more sand, and screams, agonizing screams, Hailey’s screams, and he woke up drenched in sweat.

Will was gone, but in his place sat a ham sandwich from the cafeteria and a napkin with a smiley face drawn on it. 

Jay almost automatically checked the time. 

He’d slept for almost eight hours. 

The thought sent a jolt of panic through him. What had he missed in that time? What if something happened? What if she’d crashed? 

But then he looked toward the bed, and his heartbeat calmed slightly. Hailey hadn’t moved from where she’d been positioned when he fell asleep, and there was no additional blood spotting the sheets.

If anything, there was a little more color to her cheeks.

Jay scooted closer to her side and reached out, almost afraid to touch her. He settled on moving a strand of blonde hair away from her face before leaning back in his chair.

He knew he was still too wired from the dream to go to sleep again, even though he still felt exhausted, like he’d run a marathon. Instead, he turned to his phone, answering texts from the unit he hadn’t answered and checking up on the news.

It’s going to be okay, he told himself. 

The next two days passed much like the rest of Hailey’s illness had. Doctors came in and out of the room to run tests, including Dr. Danover, who checked in periodically to monitor the treatment. 

She seemed optimistic, and so did Will. Jay could see it in their faces that, like him, they were beginning to hope too. His brother even started talking about what would happen when Hailey woke up, which hadn’t even been in their realm of thinking a few days ago. 

But hope wasn’t everything, Jay kept reminding himself. There were still so many obstacles for Hailey- medication, tests, physical therapy…

“I’m going to be honest with you,” Will said on the third day since Dr. Danover administered the treatment. “The road to recovery isn’t going to be easy. Not in the slightest. Her lungs will never return to full capacity, and her heart will take a long time to recover its full strength. She’s going to be very weak for a long time.”

Jay could tell that there was something else that was on Will’s mind, just by the way that his brother’s eyes kept flickering over to Hailey’s bed. 

“I know you’re not going to want to hear this… but at minimum, we won’t be able to clear Hailey for desk duty for at least six months, and that’s a generous estimate. And I’ve spoken to the pulmonologist and cardiologist and they don’t expect her to ever clear the minimum benchmark tests for the field.”

Jay knew what was going to come next before Will even said it, but that didn’t make the words any easier to hear. Not in the slightest.

“I’m sorry, Jay, but we have to recommend that Voight find another person to fill her position in Intelligence.”

He wished he could stuff the words back in his brother’s mouth. 

“Isn’t there anything you can do?” Jay asked, his fists clenched together. 

“I don’t know. We’re in uncharted territory here in regard to her path moving forward. But there are markers we look at for other illnesses, other injuries… and her markers are not good. She’ll live, yes, but putting her in the line of duty would be a liability, for you, for her, for your team- it wouldn’t be safe.”

“She’s going to hate me.”

Will sat beside Jay, but didn’t make an attempt to touch him. “She won’t hate you,” he said gently, his professional doctor voice gone now. “She’ll understand.”

Somehow Jay had a hard time believing that. Being a detective was everything to Hailey. She loved it- he saw it in her eyes every time they went out on the streets, every time she got to put something on the whiteboard. 

And now, because of Jay, she wouldn’t even have that anymore. 

“How am I going to tell her?” he groaned, burying his face in his hands. 

“I can, if you want. It might be better if it comes from me. I could explain everything to her, so that she has reasons for why.”

But she’ll know why, Jay thought bitterly. No amount of medical gibberish was going to change that.

Chapter Text

The first thing that hit Hailey when she opened her eyes was the blinding pain coursing through her body. The second was the tube that was shoved down her throat, and the third was Jay’s face, a little fuzzy, staring down at her, and that he was crying.

And she was, too; she could feel the salty tears as they ran down her face, and she didn’t know why they were there.

She wanted to ask him what was wrong, but she felt like she was choking on the tube in her throat, like there was a massive weight sitting on her chest, and she started to panic.

“Take some deep breaths,” another voice said. It wasn’t Jay, but Will. “I know it’s uncomfortable, but the tube is there to help you, alright, Hailey?”

Nothing about this was alright. She hated it. She almost wished she could go back to sleep, back to that darkness, and forget that any of this was happening. Her whole body hurt, everything, her stomach, her arms, her eyes. 

“Can’t you take it out?” she heard Jay ask.

“We can’t, her lungs aren’t strong enough.”

Strong enough for what? Hailey tried to follow what they were talking about, but she was so tired, and confused, and there was so much pain.

Jay seemed to notice. She felt him wipe away her tears, and wished that she could tell him to keep his hand there- it was warm, and comforting, and nothing like the weirdly cold air filling her lungs and her nose.

“We’re just going to run some tests, if that’s okay,” Will said, and she realized he was talking to her, and she gave a tiny nod, even though all she wanted to do was sleep.

Then the room was crowded with people- a doctor she vaguely recognized as the one from the CDC, along with Maggie, and Dr. Marcel, and they were all speaking at once, and their voices were too loud, and she was getting tired. 

“Can you follow the light for me?” someone asked, and she did, despite the fact that the flashlight felt like it was burning her eyes.

“Rate your pain on a scale of 1-10, blink the number to me.”

Hailey blinked ten times.

“Which one of us is Dr. Halstead?”

That seemed like a stupid question, but she looked at Will anyway, and he smiled at her with eyes that reminded her of Jay, who had disappeared into the background when everyone else came in. 

They asked more questions, so many that all of them started to blend together, until mercifully Will spoke up again. 

“I think it’s time for us to let her sleep,” he said.

And then Jay was back by her side, and she wanted so much to talk to him, to ask him what happened, ask him why he looked so sad, but her eyes started to droop and she was asleep before she could even come up with a way to communicate with him. 

Hailey never knew what time it was. She just knew that every time she woke up, there was someone sitting beside her. At first it was always Jay, and then, the more days that went by, the more it started to vary. Sometimes it was Adam looking over at her, with a goofy smile on his face, or sometimes Kevin, who ‘played’ Mario Kart with her (which really meant that he tried to drive two cars at the same time), or Vanessa, who put on episodes of The Good Place, or Kim, who tried and failed to do the New York Times crossword.

She was grateful that they were there, she really was. They helped take her mind off the never ending pain that filled her body. 

But she could tell that there were things they weren’t telling her, things that they didn’t want to say or were too scared to, even though she asked, multiple times, by writing it down on a legal pad. 

They just shrugged and laughed and said they’d been worried about her.

After what felt like an eternity of waking up feeling like someone had just shoved a rod down her throat, Will finally took out the tube.

She was happy about it at first- she hated how the air from the ventilator felt, but breathing without it sucked in its own right. She felt like she could never get a full breath, like she was always on the verge of hyperventilating, but Will said that this was going to be her new normal. 

At least she could talk. 

It hurt a little, but she could talk.

When she fell asleep that day, the next time she woke up, Voight was sitting in the chair opposite her.

“Hey, Hailey,” he said. “How are you feeling?”

She shrugged. “Never better,” she rasped. He gave her a crooked smile. 

“I’m here because there are things you need to know,” he said, and Hailey’s heart sank. She guessed that something like this was coming. “And I want you to hear it from me before anyone else says something.”

“I held your spot in Intelligence for as long as I could,” he continued, and his voice was gentle, gentler than she’d ever heard it. She turned her head away, blinking back the tears that threatened to spill over. “But there’s only so long that I can hold off on these decisions.”

“I get it, Sarge,” she said, but inside, she felt like she was being torn apart, like everything she’d ever done was being stripped away from her. 

“There is always going to be a spot for you with us,” Voight said, leaning forward and holding her hand in his. “I want you to know that. No matter how long it takes or what anyone says, I will take you back in a heartbeat.”

She looked back at him, her eyes damp. “I think we both know that it can’t happen,” she whispered, and saying it out loud was so much worse than thinking it, but she knew that it was true, and from the look in Voight’s eyes, he knew it, too. 

When she joined the unit, she’d told herself that she would never let herself cry in front of Voight, but she was finding it hard not to now. 

“It’s okay to be upset, Hailey.”

“I know.”

“If there’s anything I can do, please, let me know. I’ve got your back. We all do.”

She wiped her face on her sleeve, ignoring the pain that the motion set off, before turning to her boss- no, her former boss- once again. “Please don’t let him blame himself,” she managed finally. “He doesn’t need that burden.”

“You have my word.”

Chapter Text

Jay came in later that day to find her sitting up and the ventilator machine missing from her room. He knew that the doctors were planning on taking the breathing tube out today, which he was thrilled about, but that didn’t mean he liked that he’d missed that milestone.

“Hey, Hails, I brought you some Jell-O,” he said, setting down the plastic bag he’d brought and digging out the box. “Will said you could try and eat something that wasn’t liquid today.”

“Thanks,” she said, taking the Jell-O cup he offered to her.

God, he’d missed her voice. 

“I had to search all over the store for this stuff because I had no idea where it was. I must have passed the same old lady in the aisles like five times because I couldn’t find it.”

She barely managed a smile at that. 

He frowned at her. Something was off. She seemed sad, when he thought she’d be thrilled to be off the ventilator, and she wasn’t meeting his gaze. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“It doesn’t seem like nothing,” Jay said, setting his own cup down on the table and scooting closer to her bed. “What’s bothering you? Do you need more pain meds?”

“I’m fine, Jay.”

“Come on, Hails, I know when you’re lying to me.”

“I said I’m fine.”

Jay could see she was starting to get upset now, and he backed off. “Okay. We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

Hailey seemed to relax at that, and dipped her spoon into the Jell-O. “How are you?” she asked finally.

Of course she was asking him how he was doing. She always did that- checked up on him even when she was the one who was hurting more. He loved her for that, but wished she wouldn’t all the time.

“Better, now that you’re back,” he told her honestly. “Rojas and I watched The Bachelor, and I can’t decide if I’m hooked or disgusted.”

Hailey lifted her gaze at that, smirking. “Hooked, I can tell.”

“I am definitely not.”

She just shook her head amusedly without answering. He could tell that talking wasn’t effortless yet, which was understandable. She’d been on the ventilator for a long time. 

They both continued eating the Jell-O in silence- red for her, green for him. He was never a huge fan of the stuff, and she wasn’t either, but Will told him that it was one of her only approved foods for the time being. 

“How long?” she asked after a pause, her voice just barely audible. 

Jay paused. He’d known questions like this were coming, and overall, this one was the easiest. “You’ve been here almost two weeks.”

The longest two weeks of his life, he thought, but he didn’t say it out loud. Hailey seemed to accept that. 

“How bad did it get?”

And that was the one he really didn’t want to have to answer. He swallowed before meeting her eyes. “Your heart stopped three times,” he said. “Almost four.”

Hailey looked down at the Jell-O in her hands, and neither of them said anything. Jay kept watching her, one, because he was worried about how she’d take the news, but also because a part of him still expected this all to be a dream.

And then he saw a tear fall from her eyes onto the bed. 

“Hailey-” he said, reaching out, to hold her, to comfort her, but she shook her head, wiping the dampness from her cheeks. 

“It’s okay.”

“It bothers you.”

“It’s fine, Jay.”

“But-”

She was getting anxious again- Jay could tell by the tension in her shoulders, and the way she held herself, like an animal poised to flee. He felt horribly that he was the reason for her agitation, but if there was one thing she’d ever taught him in their partnership, it was to not let things go.

“I’m not feeling well,” she said abruptly, and even with a weak voice, Jay felt force behind it. 

“Okay, I’ll go,” he said, taking the hint. Before he left, he set the rest of the Jell-O on the side table by her head, along with the fake flowers he’d bought (fake, because Will said real ones had all sorts of potential for contagions). “Call me if you need anything.”

Hailey just watched him go, still holding the Jell-O loosely in her hand. 

He felt terrible walking away from her, and almost turned around at the door to the hospital, but he knew that she needed her space. She’d always been a bit of an introvert, and she’d always hated when people doted on her.

And getting told that her heart stopped three times within the past two weeks probably didn’t help either.

Jay went in to work early the next day, per request from Voight. He expected a meeting of some sort, probably to talk about how the unit was going to help out Hailey. 

What he didn’t expect was for come up the stairs to Intelligence and see a rookie officer standing there with a boyish haircut and a wide smile on his face.

“Halstead,” Voight greeted him. “This is Officer Wesley Stamp. He’ll be joining us today in Intelligence.”

Jay shook hands with the kid- there really was no other name for him- before turning to Voight, trying to keep his cool. 

“Could I speak with you, Sarge?” he said stiffly.

Voight seemed to expect that, and pointed him into the office.

As soon he shut the door behind him, Jay wheeled on his boss. “What the hell?” he demanded, doing his best not to yell, but finding it increasingly more difficult. “What is this?!”

“It’s just a trial.”

“So that’s it, then? You’re just going to move on and forget that she was ever here? Not even that, but you’re replacing her with a kid who looks like he’s never shot a weapon in his life. Does she even know?” 

“I told her today.”

Jay threw his hands in the air. That was why she’d been so upset when he came in- and he’d only made it worse by poking at her more. “Of course you did.”

“We’ve been two men down for almost two weeks, and it shows. The unit needs closure, and this was the best way to do it.”

“Oh, really? By swapping a detective for a rookie cop? Yeah, that seems like a great idea.”

“We have enough seasoned members of this unit to make up the difference.”

“Keep telling yourself that,” Jay said bitterly. “Just as long as I don’t have to deal with that.”

Voight crossed his arms in front of his chest, almost appearing to stare right through him. “Stamp will be riding with you.”

“Sarge-”

“No buts. This is not a discussion.”

Voight held open the door for Jay, who was almost vibrating with rage. “So this is really how you’re doing this,” he said bitterly, as he stalked out of the room. “I thought you cared about her.”

Chapter Text

The next day, Jay stopped by the hospital after work to visit Hailey, hoping that seeing her would at least put him in a better mood after dealing with Stamp all day. The kid aggravated him. He put his feet up on his desk- Hailey’s desk- and used her mug as a cup for Gatorade, of all things. 

At this point, if someone told Jay that Stamp was sixteen years old, he wouldn’t be surprised. 

But at the same time, there really wasn’t a real reason to not like him. In two days, he’d already succeeded on making a difficult arrest and saving a civilian from harm’s way during a shootout. He was earnest, but naive. 

Deep down, Jay knew that the only reason why Stamp annoyed him was so much was that he was nothing like Hailey. 

He walked into Haley’s room to find Dr. Marcel listening to her heart, and very nearly turned around. 

“I’ll be done here in just a moment, don’t leave on my account,” Marcel said quickly. Hailey gave him a smile, albeit a tired one. 

Sure enough, it only took him a few more minutes before he folded up his stethoscope and went on his way.

“How are you feeling?” Jay asked, leaning against the doorframe. 

“Okay. Really tired.”

“I can go, if you want.” She really did look tired this time, and pale, compared to the day before. Will had said that there would be some days that were worse than others, so rationally Jay shouldn’t be worried, but he couldn’t help but be a little concerned.

“No, you can come in.”

That was the invitation Jay’d been waiting for. He walked further into the room, and pulled the plastic chair closer to the bed. “Anything fun happen today?”

“Kev stopped by at lunch and we played Mario Kart,” Hailey said. “And they tried a treatment to get some of the crap out of my lungs.”

“How did both of those things go?”

“He beat me by a lot, but our team won. And the treatment sucked. They basically made me cough until I couldn’t anymore.”

“Then maybe I should leave you alone, that sounds like a lot-” Jay got up, regretting that he’d bothered her in the first place.

Hailey caught his wrist before he could move away. “Stay. Please.”

The request took him back to all those days ago, when she’d just started getting sick and she’d asked him to sit with her. 

And so he stayed, and they watched the next episode of The Great British Baking Show on Netflix. Well, kind of. Hailey coughed miserably for the first twenty minutes before she fell asleep, too exhausted to even do that anymore.

Jay stopped the episode after that. He only watched the show with Hailey, ever since they started it after a particularly rough case.

He contented himself with playing chess against Adam on his phone for a while before looking over the report Stamp sent over on the shootout form the day before. 

Occasionally, he’d glance over and check on Hailey. She kept moving around, her nose scrunched up, which worried him, even though he knew that the lung treatment had been rough for her. 

She whimpered once, and, without thinking, he reached out and held her hand in his. That seemed to help a little- her forehead smoothed out and she let out a tiny sigh.

Victory.

Except now he couldn’t do any more work, since one of his hands was otherwise occupied.

Not like Jay was complaining.

And so he fell into a new routine- get up, go for a run, go to work, and then visit Hailey. She was slowly starting to get more of her strength back. Her voice sounded much better than it had when they initially took her off the ventilator, but, according to Will, her heart and lungs were still cause for some concern.

Jay could tell she was starting to get antsy. She was never someone who loved laying around all day- she needed the mental stimulation, needed the adrenaline.

Now the most excitement for her was her daily physical therapy sessions, which were starting to become more and more taxing as they continued to add more things for her to do.

The breathing exercises in particular were her least favorite. On the days that they did lung clearance, Jay learned to expect to watch something with her, since she was always too exhausted to do much else. Once they’d made her cough so much that she threw up the entire night afterward, which made Jay feel even guiltier. 

But there was hope.

Sometimes, when a doctor came in to tell her about some kind of medication or procedure, they’d mention to do ‘when you’re at home’. 

Every time that happened, Jay watched Hailey’s face brighten just a little bit before that same doctor added things like ‘You should expect to be in a great deal of pain while doing this’. Then it would fall again.

Jay tried his best to keep her mind off what was ahead of her.

He brought her more fake flowers- red roses, this time- which made her smile, a real one, not the fake one he’d been seeing a lot. And he made sure to check up on Vanessa once and a while, since he knew Hailey was worried about her roommate. 

One time, Stamp stopped him right as he was about to head over to the hospital.

“What?” Jay snapped, unable to stop the irritation from creeping into his tone. 

The young officer looked sheepish as he grabbed something out of Hailey’s- no his- desk drawer. “Um, well, I heard you talking about your partner the other day. Detective Upton. And I found this picture in my drawer that I think was hers. You should have it.”

And Stamp held out a picture of Hailey and Jay- a picture Jay knew well. It was of the two of them at the department holiday party, smiling at the camera. 

Jay took the photo without saying anything. 

Stamp shifted awkwardly on his feet before clearing his throat and turning his attention back to his computer.

“Hey, Stamp?” Jay spoke up after standing there for a moment,  and Stamp turned around again quickly, looking almost like an excited puppy. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Partner.”

A cautious grin spread across Stamp’s face at that, but Jay kept a straight face until he turned the corner on the first flight of stairs.

Then he, too, couldn’t help but smile, too. 

He had to admit- the kid was growing on him. 

Chapter Text

After what felt like an endless cycle of tests and therapy and treatments, three weeks after waking up, Hailey finally got to go home. She was still extremely weak, but Will said that her stats were looking well enough for her to at least sleep in her own bed. 

The entire unit came to an agreement that Jay would stay with Hailey. Even though Rojas was most certainly a responsible adult (she was in Intelligence, for god’s sake) she didn’t feel entirely confident in her caretaking skills. Jay was more willing to give it a shot. He knew Hailey better, and he had a direct line of contact to Will.

They swapped house keys and wardrobes around the night before Hailey was supposed to go home. Jay wasn’t worried about Vanessa staying in his apartment. She wouldn’t trash it, at least, and that was what mattered. And he didn’t even have house plants to water at his place.

Jay drove Hailey home with a folder full of instructions for how to help her and a bag full of medicine and inhalers to with that. Will had given him the crash course in nursing (at least for her) the day before, but he couldn’t help but feel a little nervous about having her life in his hands.

Because last time had gone so well.

By the time Jay pulled to a stop outside the house, Hailey was fast asleep, her head leaning against the window. He opened the door as carefully as he could before scooping her up in his arms, a little unsettled by how light she felt. 

He set her down on the couch before heading into the kitchen to brew some tea. While she’d been in the hospital, that was one of the only things that seemed to really help loosen up all of the gunk in her lungs and warm her up. 

Even though he made quite a racket in the kitchen, she barely stirred, but he could hear crackling in her chest every time she breathed, so he brought the mug over to her. “Hey, Hails,” he said gently, shaking her shoulder. “You’re home, and I made tea, if you want some.”

It took a second for her eyes to focus on him, but then she sat up slowly and took the proffered mug in her hands. “Thanks.”

“Your lungs seemed to be bothering you,” he said in explanation. 

“Maybe a little.”

He watched her sip her tea for a while before gathering the courage to speak again.

“Can I get you anything else? Water, toast?”

“A blanket?” Jay nodded, and located the fluffiest blanket he could find from the closet in the hall before passing it over to her.

They sat in the living room in silence for nearly an hour- Hailey on the couch, and Jay in the armchair next to her- before one of them spoke.

“Don’t you have to go to work?” she asked, looking at him over the rim of her mug. 

“Voight gave me the day off.”

Hailey raised her eyebrows. “He’s given you a lot of those recently.”

“Yeah, well, he wants to make sure that you’re taking care of yourself, so,” Jay said, shrugging. 

“You don’t have to do this.”

“Do what?”

“This. Sitting with me. You should be stopping criminals, not playing nurse.” 

There was a hint of bitterness to her tone that Jay didn’t miss. She’d always loved working, and now she didn’t even have that to keep her sane. 

“Of course I’m doing it. I’ve got your back."

“Well, you don’t have to. There’s nothing tying us together. Not anymore.”

“Hailey…”

“You know I’m right. Whatever force between us started to die the moment I got sick. We both know we’re never going to be partners again. So please, stop pretending that you still care, because it’s just making this worse.”

Jay shook his head. “That’s not true, Hails.”

“Stop calling me that,” she whispered, and he could see tears gathering in her blue eyes, but he kept going. 

“You’re always going to be my partner. Nothing is going to change that, ever. You more than anyone should understand that. How many times have you been there for me, even when it wasn’t in the job description? More times than I can count. So please, let me do this for you.”

“This isn’t the same thing. This is months, years, even. I’m never going to be able to do what I used to, and I don’t want you to sit around waiting for me to. You deserve to be happy, and free. You shouldn’t waste your time on me.”

“You make me happy. You’ve always made me happy,” Jay told her. “And I’m not going to give up on you. What kind of friend would I be if I gave up when things got hard?”

“A sensible one,” she returned, but there was a hint of affection in her eyes now. 

“Clearly I’m not sensible. How many times have you asked me what I was doing? A lot. And you love me for it, I know you do.”

He realized what he’d said right after he said it and froze, almost afraid of what she’d say to that, but she just smiled into her tea and said nothing.

Staying with Hailey was strangely domestic. Before this, they never really knew each other outside of work. Sure, they had drinks and went out for pizza occasionally, but that paled in comparison to actually staying in each other’s houses for days at a time.

For one thing, he very rarely saw her in anything but jeans, but now her outfits usually consisted of some kind of legging and a sweatshirt. She looked softer, somehow. 

And she was meticulous- she hated dirty dishes in the sink, and would clean them even when Jay insisted he could do them later- and she never left anything out that didn’t have a specific purpose. 

Jay could tell that she really wasn’t feeling well. She slept in late most days, which for her meant she got up after the sunrise instead of with it. He left for work before she got up, but he still tried to make sure that there was some kind of breakfast left on the counter, and usually got a thank you text around nine. 

Then, at lunchtime, he’d drive back to the house to check up on her and make sure she’d taken her medicine. Sometimes other members of the unit came with him, which helped cheer her up. She and Kevin were starting to get competitive with their weekly Mario Kart sessions, and she was making significant progress in Parks & Rec with Vanessa.

They never had any specific plans for dinner. Most of the time the only thing that didn’t upset Hailey’s stomach was soup, which meant that Jay was really starting to learn some good chicken noodle recipes. 

The worst part of the day was after dinner, when Hailey worked on improving her lungs. Most of the time, that involved breathing and coughing. On other occasions, the mucus build-up in her chest from the toxin worsened to the point that she had to use a vest to help loosen it.

On those nights, she spent most of the night entirely miserable. 

Jay wished he could help more, that he understood what was happening. From what his brother said, the toxin would most likely never completely leave her system. It was still turning her body against itself, wreaking havoc on her immune system and causing damage to her organs, but at a more controlled rate now.

He couldn’t help but wonder if all the treatment had done was turn her quick death into a slower, more painful one.

But there were other nights where she seemed healthy, and content, and they could both pretend that everything was back to normal. Sometimes they’d have paper football matches across the kitchen table, or play Ticket to Ride into late hours of the night, and she’d laugh, and he was reminded of why he so desperately wanted this to work.

Chapter Text

Jay came home five days after Hailey got out of the hospital to find her sitting on the floor of the kitchen, her head between her knees, gasping for breath. He dropped the bag full of soup he’d brought on the ground and hurried over to her. 

“You’re okay, you’re okay,” he told her, rubbing her back. She was trembling, almost violently, which scared him, but he tried not to key her into that fact. “I’m here.”

He tried to remember what Will had told him of what to do in this situation. 

If she starts to turn blue, has a high pulse, passes out, or can’t talk for an extended duration, then call 911. 

“Hailey, can you talk to me?”

She didn’t even seem to register his voice. 

“Okay,” he said, fumbling in his pocket for his phone. “I’m going to call 911, okay? You’re going to be okay. I’ve got you.”

It felt like an eternity before he heard the sirens, but as soon as he did, he scooped her up in his arms and carried her out to meet them. 

They gave her oxygen in the ambulance, which seemed to help her catch her breath, but she still looked terrified, and clung to Jay’s hand the entire drive.

Will, who Jay texted on their way to Med, met them at the door. “I’ll take it from here,” he told the paramedics. “How long was she like this?”

“I-I don’t know, I just got home, and she was sitting there-”

“You did good,” Will said to Jay before turning Hailey, whose breathing had calmed down slightly since they’d arrived. “I just want to make sure that everything’s looking okay. Can you talk to me about how you felt before it happened?”

Hailey swallowed. “I felt fine, and then I just felt like I was suffocating.”

Will nodded. “Can you describe it? Was it tightness, or pressure?”

“Pressure. Like something pushing the air back in my chest.”

“Okay. We’re going to take some x-rays of your chest, but I’m thinking that there’s been more fluid build-up in your lungs. How’s the chest therapy been going?” Will asked, directing his words more to Jay.

“We’ve done it every night. Last night was the worst, I think. She threw up a few times from coughing so much.” He felt a little guilty telling his brother that, with Hailey still in the room, but she seemed too tired to react.

“That would make sense. I’ve been talking with Dr. Danover about what the next steps could be, and we might need to move the chest PT to mornings and evenings, just to make sure your airways stay clear. She also recommended two options, which we can try and see what works best. First, more rest, which is hard with the night treatment, I know, but if you’re too tired to cough then that means that the mucus will stay in your lungs and make you feel like you did today.”

“The second option is to start slowly adding some exercise, which kind of contradicts the idea of rest, but if we plan it out, it’s possible to do both. I’d suggest you go on a short walk at least once a day, but not too long,” Will told Hailey. “We can talk over the details after we look at the x-rays, but I’m almost confident there’s not much we can do now. I’ll be back to take you up soon.”

Will left, leaving Jay and Hailey alone in the room.

“How are you feeling?” he asked cautiously. 

“Like shit.”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gone to get soup, I should have gotten home earlier-”

“It’s not your job to be home all the time. I’m just frustrated that I’m not getting better.”

Jay saw tears glistening on her cheeks and immediately went over and wrapped his arms around her. After a second, she melted into him, burying her head in his shoulder. “You are getting better, every day. I can see it, and everyone else can, too. We’ve just hit a bump in the road, and it’ll pass, and we’ll keep going, okay? Together.”

He felt her take a shuddering breath.

“Thank you,” he heard her say, her voice muffled.

“I wish I could do more.”

Will had Hailey stay overnight for observation before sending her home. Jay went back to the house to try and get some rest himself, but he ended up back downstairs again, unable to sleep, unable to stop thinking about what happened just hours ago.

What if he’d been too late? What if she’d died because she couldn’t get enough air and he was too busy doing something else? What if it happened again?

The thought terrified him. 

He had half the mind to call Voight and tell him that he couldn’t work for at least another month, but he knew that Hailey would never forgive him if he did. 

After stewing on the couch for far too long, Jay eventually got up, deciding that he might as well do something productive with his time.

Since he was staying in Rojas’s room, he’d been reluctant to put clothes into her drawers, but after today, he was almost certain that this arrangement would last long enough to justify organizing just a little bit better.

Once he’d done that, the room looked a lot better, more like how Vanessa left it. He had to admit- the neatness was soothing. 

Then he moved onto laundry, and spent an excessive amount of time standing outside Hailey’s room, debating if he should grab her stuff too. Eventually he decided he should, out of courtesy, and turned the doorknob.

Walking into the room instantly conjured an image of his blonde-haired partner. It exuded her personality from the pale blue walls, the matching sheets, the photos on the shelves, the color-coded books. It was so Hailey that it was almost overwhelming. 

The only reminders of how sick she was were the used mug, box of tissues, and medical folder that sat on her side table. The rest of the room was almost perfectly in order. 

Jay forced himself to stop snooping and turned around in the room for a few seconds before spotting her laundry hamper sitting in the corner. 

He couldn’t decide if going in there made him feel better or worse about the fact that she was back in the hospital. Knowing that it was only for one night was comforting, but only just.

Chapter Text

Hailey felt like every time she started feeling even just a little bit better, something happened that made her feel the completely opposite. The incident in the kitchen was by far the worst. Not only had she felt like she was suffocating, but she was told that she needed to do more work to clear her lungs.

God, she hated Will.

Not as a person. She just hated everything that came out of his mouth about her treatment, or her illness. Every time he talked felt like a slap in the face. 

And apparently she also needed glasses.

Somehow, that was almost worse than everything else that was going on. At least with the lung treatments and the migraines and the chronic pain she could at least try to pretend that everything was normal. But glasses- glasses were external. Public. 

When Will told her, she wanted to punch him in the face, but she knew that would get her nowhere. Instead, she forced a smile on her face and nodded before taking the folder full of treatment new instructions and following Maggie to the waiting room, where Platt was waiting to pick her up.

“Well well well, look who it is,” Platt said with her trademark smirk on her face. “Nice to see you’re still up and at it.”

“Barely,” Hailey returned, trying to mask the bitterness that threatened to creep into her tone.

“Where to?”

“Home.”

By now Platt had taken her to enough doctor’s appointments during the day to know where that was, and she also knew enough about to Hailey to tell that the blonde was not in a good headspace.

“I’ve been thinking about you a lot,” Platt said casually as she drove. “I know this is thinking down the road, and I don’t know if this is even a possibility… but have you considered working the desk?”

“Dr. Halstead said I wouldn’t be cleared for at least six months. A year if I’m lucky.”

“You can think about the future without knowing when it’ll happen. I know you, Hailey. You’re a cop through and through. You’re already having a hard time away from Intelligence. I get that.”

“Do you?” The question came out way harsher than she intended them to, but the words kept coming, like she’d opened the floodgates. “Do you know what it’s like to go to sleep one day and wake up and find out that you’ve been out for two weeks, and died three times in that time? Do you know how it feels to be told you can’t do your job anymore, or what it’s like to live every day knowing that your partner is out there in the world running through bullets without you to watch his six? I don’t think you do.”

“Maybe not.”

Hailey felt hot, and felt a jolt of fear at that, until she realized it wasn’t because she was feverish, but because she was angry.

“I worked so hard to get here, to Intelligence, to build trust with people that I care about, and now it’s gone, and I can’t do anything about it, because my body is trying to kill me, and I’m tired, and I can’t breathe, and nothing feels right anymore.”

And suddenly, the thought that had been creeping into the back of her mind came spilling out, before she could stop it. “Jay and Will should have let me die.”

Platt yanked the wheel to the side, screeching to a halt on the street curb, before turning to Hailey, a look of utter fury on her face. “Do. Not. Say. That. Don’t you dare. Don’t put this on someone else- not Jay, or Will, or Voight, or even Lyon. This is on you. You knew the risks. You had just as much control as Jay, and you chose this path. You need to remind yourself that what came after, however terrible it might be, came from that decision you made.”

Hailey had never seen Platt so serious or so stern before. “There is always a choice. You chose the injection, and you have a choice now. You can embrace this gift that they’ve given you and live as well as you can, or you can wallow in your own self-pity for the rest of your life, and waste their efforts. That’s up to you. No one is stopping you from doing anything now.”

A heavy silence filled the car after that. The road ahead of them was mostly empty, but Hailey could barely see that through the tears in her eyes. 

“It’s just so hard,” she managed, almost choking on the words. 

Suddenly, Hailey felt the older woman’s warmth as Platt wrapped her in a hug, and she couldn’t help but collapse into the embrace.

“I know,” Platt murmured. 

“I don’t know if I can do it.”

“You don’t have to know. No one knows anything for sure. All you can do is take it one day at a time.”

Jay got a text from Platt around lunchtime, which was unusual. 

This didn’t come from me, but
Hailey is really struggling with
everything. She could use
something to cheer her up today.

The message was cryptic, which was definitely more on-brand for the desk sergeant, and Jay texted back a simple ‘got it’ before turning back to his work.

Even so, his mind kept drifting to what Platt had said. 

What could he do to make Hailey happy? 

It took him almost the entire rest of the work day to come up with something. Inspiration struck when Stamp got up from his desk to get coffee (well, coffee with an extraordinary amount of sugar and creamer, since his Gatorade stash had mysteriously disappeared) and Jay saw the empty desk across from him.

For a second, he was pulled through his memories, to a time that felt like almost an entire other life, when he’d sat at this same desk staring at the empty chair, waiting for Hailey’s return from New York.

I miss the wind, she’d said. And you.

Well, she had him. More than she probably wanted, if he was being honest. But the wind- that was something she hadn’t really experienced in a long time. 

He fired off a text to her before returning to his work, finally able to focus now that he’d come up with a plan. 

When he got home, she was ready, but a little confused. “You said to dress warmly? What does that even mean?” she asked when she saw him.

“What you’re wearing is perfect,” he reassured her, after taking in her appearance, which included one of her trademark bomber jackets. “We’re going out today, if that’s alright with you.”

“I don’t know if I’ll be very good company.”

“That’s okay.”

He took her hand and pulled her out the door. Jay almost laughed when he noticed Hailey’s laser-like focus on the scenery as they drove; he knew she was trying to figure out where they were going. 

“A beach?” she asked, eyebrows raised as they pulled off the main street. “I’m not dressed for swimming. And it’s nighttime.”

“We’re not swimming. I brought sandwiches. My mom used to take me here, and it was always windy, and when you were in New York, you said you missed the wind, and I guess I thought this might cheer you up.”

Hailey didn’t say anything for a long time, so long that he started to worry that he’d done the wrong thing. “I can turn around if you want to go home.”

“No, it’s - this is nice.”

They got out of the car and Jay grabbed the bag of food he’d bought before coming home- two sandwiches, warm tea, grapes, and cookies- before they set off. 

The wind wasn’t terrible, Jay noted as they headed down the beach. It was strong enough that he noticed it at almost all times, but tame enough that it wasn’t aggravating. 

Neither of them spoke for a long time. Hailey sat facing the water, her face tilted upward, eyes closed, a blissful expression on her face, while Jay’s attention was more on burying his feet in sand. 

He looked over at her now and then to make sure she was still alright, and every time he did, he had a harder time pulling his eyes away.

She seemed peaceful. More peaceful than she ever was at the house or in the hospital, and he knew he’d made the right choice in bringing her here. 

“I should have taken you here sooner,” he found himself saying.

Hailey finally turned away from the water to frown at him. “What?”

“It makes you happy. The wind,” he said as an explanation.

“I’ve always loved how it feels. The freedom of it.”

“It suits you.”

Hailey seemed surprised at that, but didn’t answer. “Did you get the food for show, or are you going to eat it?”

Jay laughed. “We’re gonna eat it. I just didn’t want to ruin the moment.”

Chapter Text

Hailey’s glasses arrived the night she was supposed to go with Jay to Molly’s. She had to admit, they did make her see a lot better- since she’d gotten sick she’d noticed that she couldn’t read a lot of things she used to- but they felt strange on her face. Heavy, almost.

“You look great,” Jay reassured her as they walked toward the bar. “Plus, now you can see how awesome I look.”

“Shut up,” Hailey said, rolling her eyes.

They walked in and instantly the room exploded as people cheered. She couldn’t help but take a step back, but Jay took her hand and pulled her further into the room. 

Everyone from their unit was there- Adam, Kim, Vanessa, Kevin, Voight, Stamp- along with Will, Natalie, Brett, Casey, and Kidd.

“Welcome back,” Kidd said, giving Hailey a hug. “We missed you.”

“Thanks.”

Hailey felt more than a little overwhelmed at everyone who was there. She’d missed them all, but everything felt strange now. She was different now. She knew it, and they knew it, too. 

She sat at the booth with Intelligence, between Adam and Jay, which helped calm her pounding heart a little, having them there as a buffer. Jay noticed her anxiety and squeezed her hand. 

“Nice glasses,” Kevin told her with a wide grin as he returned from the bar with his hands full of beer bottles. “You’re stylin’.”

Hailey managed a smile. “I try.”

She declined the offered beer that he held out to her. With all of the medication she was on, Will had told her that it would not be advisable to consume alcohol. Instead, she settled for lemonade, which made her feel like the lone kid sitting a table with all adults. 

“Hailey, this is Stamp,” Jay said, motioning across the table to where Stamp sat. “Our newest addition.”

So this was his new partner.

Hailey gave Stamp a wave, which he returned. He looked like a nice kid- gelled hair, friendly smile, bright eyes. Smart, but naive. But she could tell that he cared a lot, by the way he hung on everyone’s words as they spoke. 

“Nice to meet you,” she told him. “I’ve heard a lot.”

“All good, I hope,” he said a little nervously.

“No, but don’t worry, I don’t ever hear all good things about the people in this unit. But you’re doing a good job. Just hang in there.”

“Thanks, detective, it means a lot.”

Hailey felt a pang at the title. “I’m afraid that title doesn’t really apply to me anymore.”

“Like hell it doesn’t,” Stamp answered confidently. “Just because you’re out doesn’t mean that what you’ve done is taken away from you. You’re always going to be one of the best detectives this city has ever had. You’re just not active right now.”

“Thanks, Stamp,” she said, and she meant it. 

“Anytime.”

Hailey and Jay didn’t stay long. She wasn’t in the habit of staying up late anymore, ever since she got sick. Even just going to Molly’s and sitting with her friends tired her out, even though that was pretty much the only thing she did that day.

“Thank you for taking me,” she said when they got home. “It was nice to see all of them, and meet Stamp.”

“I’m glad you had fun. They’ve missed you a lot.”

“I miss them.”

“What did you think about Stamp?” Jay asked. She could tell he was a little nervous about it by the way he tried to pretend that the question didn’t matter.

“He’s sweet. Really. I think he’s a great match for you. And he’ll learn a lot from you.”

“Not gonna lie, he’s growing on me. Even though he puts his feet up on your desk.”

“You can’t even criticize him for that. You sat on my desk more than you sat in your own chair. Your buttprints are probably all over it,” Hailey reminded him.

“Alright, alright, I’ll give you that much.”

He was just about to crack another joke when an alarm on Hailey’s phone went off- the one that signaled it was time for her lung therapy. After the scare a few days ago, Will had trained Jay how to do chest percussion, to help loosen the stuff in her lungs in addition to the forced coughing. 

While Jay was glad that it seemed to help her breathe better at night, he felt awful about having to do it, because it usually meant that she was miserable for at least a half-hour after.

“I guess it’s that time,” she said, with a sad little smile, turning toward her room, the lightness in her voice gone. They usually chose to do the therapy there because afterward she barely had enough energy to keep coughing, let alone walk up the stairs.

“Wait, Hails. Can we sit here for a few more minutes?” Jay asked.

She seemed confused at the request, but sat back down next to him on the couch. “What’s this about?”

“I just want to sit here a little longer with you, without feeling like a terrible person.”

It felt weirdly vulnerable to admit that to her. 

“You’re not a terrible person,” she said softly. “Why do you think that?”

“I know how much the chest therapy hurts you, and I know how much you hate it, and I hate doing it to you,” Jay said, not meeting her gaze. “And I think you deserve a few more minutes of being happy before I take that away from you.”

“It’s not your fault. You’re doing everything you can.”

Jay turned to her, taking her hands in his. “Nothing you say is going to change the fact that I feel horrible about all of this. You should be running around with everyone, not sitting here by yourself. You deserve so much more, and if I could trade places with you, I would in a heartbeat.”

“It’s not your fault,” she said again. “It wasn’t just you in that warehouse. I was there, too. I chose this.”

“You didn’t know.”

“I would have done the same thing again. Our job is to save people. Serve and protect. You did your job.”

“But I didn’t protect you.”

“I’m still here. We did a good thing, Jay. Those ten people- they’re alive because of you. You should be over the moon that you saved them, not grieving over me.”

“Don’t you get it, Hailey? It was never about them. You’re in this mess because of me. Because I didn’t save Lyon’s daughter. He set up the whole thing because he wanted to expose who I am to the whole world, that I can’t do my job-”

“But you did. You chose to save them.”

“I wouldn’t have!” Jay shouted, and Hailey flinched away from him, pulling her hands out of his grasp. “And he knew that I wouldn’t.”

“What do you mean?” she whispered, and there were tears in her eyes, and he hated himself for them. 

“Lyon picked you because he thought I would choose to save you.”

“How could he possibly have known that?” 

“Because-” 

Jay wanted to blurt out the words right there, but he looked at her and saw the pain and the hurt and the confusion in her eyes and he knew that this wasn’t the right time. “Because you’re my partner,” he finished lamely. “And my person. And I would never let anything bad happen to you if I could help it.”

“I know,” she said, getting up from the couch. “And Jay?”

“Yeah?”

“Having you here helps.”

Chapter Text

The morning four days after Hailey visited Molly’s with Jay, he didn’t get a thank you breakfast text from her. 

At first, when nine o’clock came and went without a word from her, Jay brushed it off as extra fatigue. She’d had an extensive round of tests at the hospital that day and had come home and almost immediately went to bed again. 

But then there was no text from her by eleven, or twelve, and he started to get worried. 

“What’s wrong?” Stamp asked, leaning around his computer monitor to stare at Jay. “You’ve been acting strange all morning.”

Jay almost didn’t tell the young officer what was going on, but then he remembered how considerate Stamp had been when he’d met Hailey, and how much he seemed to actually care. “Hailey hasn’t checked in yet. That’s all.”

“You should go,” Stamp said immediately. “If Voight asks, I’ll tell him where you are.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. That’s what partners do, right? Besides, it’s no big deal. Voight will be chill with it.”

Chill wasn’t exactly the word Jay would use, but part of him guessed that the sergeant wouldn’t tell him off for going to see Hailey, either. 

“Thanks, Stamp. I appreciate it.”

“Of course.”

Without wasting another minute, Jay grabbed his phone off the desk and headed down the stairs, ignoring the confused looks from the rest of his unit.

Once at the house, Jay had to stop himself from barging into Hailey’s room unannounced. He knocked on the door impatiently before his hand found the doorknob and stepped inside.

Hailey was still sleeping, nestled among the sheets on her bed, and her phone sat untouched on the nightstand beside her. Jay went around to her side and felt her forehead, but it felt normal, not feverish at all, and she stirred at his touch.

“Jay?” she asked, squinting up at him confusedly.

“Are you feeling alright?”

“I feel fine.”

“You weren’t answering your phone, and I thought-” Jay ran a hand through his hair, feeling stupid now for disrupting her sleep for a suspicion that he’d had, based on texts that they’d never even agreed on as a check-in thing. “Nevermind.”

Hailey sat up, combing a hand through her disheveled hair. “What time is it?” she asked, her voice hoarse from all the coughing she’d done the day before at the hospital. 

“Almost one.”

“Shit. I’m sorry, I usually hear the phone if it rings-”

“Don’t apologize, Hails, you were exhausted yesterday.”

“I didn’t mean to make you worry.”

Jay’s phone rang in his pocket, and both of them jumped. He took time to compose himself a little before he answered it. “Halstead. No, she’s alright.” 

Then- “Okay. I’ll be there as fast as I can.”

He hung up and turned to Hailey, feeling idiotic and guilty at the same time. “I have to go, armed robbery in progress-” he said, at the same time she said-

“You should go.”

“Okay. And I’m sorry,” he called as he bolted out of the room. 

He was out the door before he heard her answer.

The rest of Jay’s day was filled with gunshots and screaming and blood. So much blood, on the glass, on the walls, on the floor, on the street- and at first, it was hard to pinpoint exactly where it was coming from. Some of it came from the customers who’d been in the bank, the employees, and even the robbers. 

Jay heard another series of gunshots, and suddenly, Hailey’s frustration with Jay getting shot made so much sense as he turned around just in time to see his partner fall to the ground and the spray from the bullet leaving Stamp’s body. The worst part was that he couldn’t do anything but shoot at the offender who had fired the gun in the first place, couldn’t run over until the street was safe for him to do so. 

The kid’s eyes were wide with fear and pain as Jay slid to his knees beside him a few seconds later. 

“I’ve got you, Stamp,” Jay kept repeating, over and over again. “It’s going to be okay. You’re going to be okay.”

That’s what he’d told Hailey weeks ago, when he’d brought her into the hospital and she’d passed out for the first time. 

He was starting to doubt in the magic of those words. 

“50-21 George, we have an officer down, repeat, officer down, requesting immediate medical assistance!” he shouted into his radio, before tossing it aside and using both hands to continue putting pressure on Stamp’s leg. 

“I’m sorry,” Stamp gasped, gripping onto Jay’s arm. “I messed up, I shouldn’t have gone outside without notifying you-”

“You were just trying to save lives, Stamp. You did everything you could. I just didn’t have your six like I should have.”

“That’s not true.”

Jesus Christ. Arguing with Stamp was almost like arguing with Hailey. Maybe that was why Voight picked Stamp to join Intelligence- on that front, it was like Hailey never left. “Just stop arguing, kid,” Jay told him. “Just focus on breathing, alright? You’re going to be fine.”

“Does this mean I’m off Intelligence?” Stamp whispered, swallowing.

Jay almost laughed. “Oh, no, trust me, if you were kicked off Intelligence for making mistakes there would be no unit left. Me included.”

Stamp seemed to relax at that. Or maybe it was the sirens in the distance. Either way, he seemed calmer, less frantic about the whole ‘getting shot’ thing. 

“You know, the first time Detective Upton met everyone, she spilled coffee all over Platt?” Jay said finally, trying to keep Stamp’s mind off the sticky blood that kept coming out of his wound. “She also told Voight to leave her crime scene, straight to his face. Can’t get mistakes much worse than that. In fact, I don’t think there are any mistakes that are worse.”

“Really?”

“Really. And I still let her be my partner, so if you get through this, that means I’m going to make sure yo’re still stuck with me, too. How does that sound?”

“Sounds good to me.”

And, despite the pain, Stamp smiled at Jay, who couldn’t help but return it despite his lingering worry for his injured partner.

Chapter Text

Hailey was sitting on the couch when she heard the door open; she turned with a light smile on her face, only for her expression to turn into one of surprise as Jay immediately crossed over to her and lifted her into a tight hug.

“Jay?” she asked, bewildered. She felt him take a deep, shuddering breath, and knew immediately that something was wrong.

He pulled away after a long minute. 

“Sorry,” he said, flushing. “It’s just- Stamp got hurt today, and it just reminded me-”

“I’m okay ,” she reassured him immediately. 

“I know, but seeing him laying there, bleeding… it just hit a little close to home. I get it now. Why you hate it when I run off.”

“Yeah, well, maybe this’ll teach you not to,” Hailey said, trying to lighten the mood. “Is he alright? How bad was it?”

“He got shot in the leg. Will says it shouldn’t leave any lasting damage. He got lucky, it’ll just hurt for a while. But we’re down an Intelligence member again. It’s like we can’t catch a break anymore. First you, now Stamp. When will it end?”

Hailey sighed. “Maybe never. But that’s how the job is.”

Jay sank into his normal seat on the couch. “I know, it’s just been sucking recently.”

“Yeah.”

He shook his head, as if to clear it. “I’m sorry to put this all on you. First I woke you up, now I’m complaining…”

“Hey, don’t do that,” Hailey insisted, resting a hand on his shoulder. “I’ve done the same thing. Every day feels like it’s about me. I’m more than happy to share the sorrow.”

Jay laughed in spite of himself. “What did you do today? After I left?”

“I ate lunch, and then I finished some of the paperwork that I still have left over from Intelligence. It’s on the counter, if you could bring it in to Voight tomorrow.”

“Sure. Or you can come in with me. I’m sure everyone would be happy to see you. Plus, Stamp won’t be there, so you can even sit at your own desk.”

The idea was tempting. Hailey missed going in to work everyday and getting roasted by Platt, and chasing leads, and interrogating suspects. She missed Vanessa, and Kim, and Adam and Kevin, and even Voight. 

For a moment, she could almost picture herself there. And then the reality of her situation brought her back to the present. “As much as I’d love to, I actually have to go to the rheumatologist tomorrow.”

“You’re right, I almost forgot about that. How’s that going?”

Hailey shrugged. “Okay.”

That was a bit of an overstatement. Her body hurt almost all the time, and she’d started getting migraines, which she’d never had before. That, on top of having a hard time breathing, was making it nearly impossible to get a full night’s sleep. 

“Hailey.”

“I’ve been getting headaches recently. And I haven’t been sleeping well. That’s all.”

“Why didn’t you say something?” Jay asked, looking almost hurt. 

“You’ve got a lot on your mind, and it’s not like you can do anything about a migraine. I’m alright. This is just one more thing that you don’t need to worry about.”

“Of course I need to worry about it, Hailey, if you’re in pain I want to help.”

“Okay, okay. I’ll tell you next time it happens, if that makes you feel better. Now, can we move on from our double pity-party and do something else?”

Jay looked relieved at that. “Yeah. Want to go to Bartoli’s?”

“Sure, why not?”

That night, Jay couldn’t sleep. He kept replaying the image of Stamp getting shot over and over in his head, kept feeling the sticky blood on his hands even though he’d washed them multiple times. 

And just when he thought he’d managed to get over that, his mind turned to other memories, of Lyon stabbing Hailey with the syringe, of Hailey laying in the hospital bed, of Hailey’s heart stopping-

He threw off the covers and padded downstairs, trying to be quiet so that he didn’t wake her up, especially after she’d confessed to him that she hadn’t been sleeping well. 

For a while, he tried the Hailey method of trying to sleep- a mug of tea, a Netflix episode, and a warm blanket- but that didn’t seem to work. Every time he let his mind wander it kept bringing him back to all those days he’d spent in the hospital worrying about her.

He went back to the kitchen to refill his tea and accidentally poured water on himself, letting out an instinctual yelp of pain. Immediately he glanced up at the ceiling, hoping that Hailey hadn’t heard, but the odds were most likely against him, because her room was right above the kitchen.

Sure enough, a minute later, he heard her steps on the stairs. 

“Jay? What are you doing down here? Thinking about Stamp?”

“Yeah. How did you know?”

“We used to be partners, remember?” she said, crossing over to the kitchen and taking a seat at the island. “You’ve always had a good heart.”

“A fat lot of good that’s done me. Sorry I woke you up.”

“That’s okay. I got a lot of sleep this morning.”

She shivered a little bit and covered it well, but that didn’t stop Jay from noticing. Even though it was summer, she got cold easily, and sitting in the kitchen wearing just a t-shirt and shorts probably wasn’t helping. “Want some tea?” he asked, already getting out a second mug. 

“If there’s enough.”

“I can make more.”

Jay filled the kettle with more water before turning and leaning against the sink, facing her. “So tomorrow you have that appointment.”

“Yeah,” Hailey said, frowning.

“The Chicago Symphony’s doing this thing tomorrow night where they play the music for the movie as it shows onscreen, and I thought you might want to come with me. Kim and Adam are going, too, so it wouldn’t be just us.”

“I don’t know, Jay,” Hailey said, playing with the mug in front of her. “I don’t want you spending too much money on me.”

“Oh, we’re not spending anything. Our precinct just bought a bunch and gave a few to Intelligence,” he reassured her. “We don’t have to go. I know how your appointments can be sometimes, and I don’t want to pressure you. I think you’d like it, though. It’s Star Wars.”

“Well, if you’d led with that, I wouldn’t have argued. It’s a date, Jay Halstead.”

A thrill went through him at those words. Was that what this was? A date? Were they dating? It did seem like a very coupley thing to do, but this wasn’t what he’d meant it to be… but he wasn’t going to argue. 

“You should see the look on your face,” Hailey laughed. “Don’t overthink it too much. It’ll make your brain explode, and you’ve had a crazy enough day as it is. We’ll go as ourselves, and just that, and we’ll enjoy the music and the movie.”

“I’ll agree to that,” Jay said, and raised his now tea-filled mug to hers. “To Star Wars.”

“To Star Wars.”

Chapter Text

Jay could barely contain his excitement the whole day. He, like Hailey, loved Star Wars, and hadn’t really gotten the chance to go out and do something special for a while, ever since she’d gotten sick. But now they were going to the symphony with Adam and Kim. 

For the first time in a while, things felt normal. 

Well, as normal as they could get, with Stamp out from his leg injury and with Hailey gone because of her illness. 

His positive mood was contagious- soon the whole unit was dancing around the bullpen jamming to Star Wars as they worked on their most recent case. He knew they would look extremely nerdy to anyone who came up the stairs, but, lucky for them, no one did that day. 

Finally, after what felt like an eternity spent at the precinct, Jay could go home.

He opened the door with a wide smile on his face, and spotted Hailey sitting on the couch, her head propped up by one elbow on the armrest. “I’m so pumped,” he said as he took off his shoes and set them by the door. “What about you, are you-”

Jay broke off when he went around the couch and caught a flash of her expression before she plastered a smile on her face. “What’s wrong?”

“I think you should go without me.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, trying not to sound disappointed, but he couldn’t. He’d been so relieved yesterday that he’d found something that she could and wanted to do. She genuinely seemed excited about it, and now she just looked miserable. 

“I just think you should go with someone else. Take Vanessa, or something, she loves Star Wars, and I’m sure she wanted someone to hang out with after staying in your apartment alone for so long. She’s much better company than I am-” Hailey said, sounding almost like she rehearsed what she was going to say in her head. 

“You were so excited about this yesterday. What changed?”

“Nothing, I just-”

“Don’t lie. I can tell when something’s on your mind.”

Hailey stared down at her book, refusing to meet Jay’s eyes. “I’m fine,” she said. “I just think you should take Vanessa.”

“I know you, something’s up. Are you feeling alright?”

“You’re going to be late if you don’t start getting ready.”

“Come on, Hailey, don’t do this, don’t shut me out like this. If you don’t want to go with me, you can just tell me. I won’t be mad, I promise. But don’t push me away.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not,” he said gently. “Talk to me. Please, Hailey. I’m not going to leave until you tell me what’s going on with you.”

“What’s going on with me? I spent five hours in the hospital getting poked and prodded and put through machines today because my body hates me, and as much as I want to go to the symphony with you, it’s not going to happen, because everything hurts, and my head feels like it’s on fire. Is that enough to make you leave me alone and go to the damn concert?” 

Jay instantly felt horrible about pestering her. You should have realized, he thought bitterly. He had half a mind to go upstairs and do just what she said, to go to the symphony with Vanessa and Adam and Kim and let her rest in quiet.

But at the same time, he knew that even though she seemed pretty set on him going, saying something and meaning it were two very different things. 

“Come here,” he said instead. He gently tugged the book out of her hands and set it on the coffee table. 

“You said you’d leave,” she protested.

“Just trust me.”

And she did. She let him guide her so that her head was in his lap, and only pulled away when his hands moved to the back of her head. “What are you doing?”

“Trust me,” he repeated as he slid her hair tie out of her ponytail and started running his hands through her soft blonde hair. 

It took almost an entire minute for Hailey to relax into his touch, but eventually, she did with a sigh, closing her eyes, the constant motion of his hands providing an unexpected relief. “You said you’d go,” she whispered, moving her head to look up at him with her startlingly blue eyes.

“No, I said I wasn’t going to leave if you didn’t talk to me.”

“You’re insufferable.”

“And I’m not going anywhere,” he returned. 

She seemed to begrudgingly accept that, and adjusted her head again, so that he could better reach her hair. 

“Head still hurt?” he asked, after a few minutes.

“Yeah.”

“Can I try something?”

Hailey shrugged. “Sure.”

Someone in his unit in the Army had migraines occasionally, and she’d taught all of them the best ways to relieve the pressure. That was what Jay did now, carefully massaging first the back of Hailey’s neck, and then her forehead, between her eyes.

That seemed to help even more. He felt tension leave her shoulders, and let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “Better?”

She nodded. 

“Good.”

“Where did you learn all this?”

“A girl in my unit, back in Afghanistan.”

“Well, it’s nice, but you really should get going,” Hailey said, sitting up and fixing him with a steady gaze, frowning when he shook his head. “I’m serious, Jay. I want you to go.’

“I’m not going to leave when you don’t feel well.”

“You’re going to go, and you’re going to have fun, and you can tell me all about it when you get home, alright? You’ve sacrificed so much for me, Jay, and I’m not going to be the one who stops you from doing something you’re excited about. I’ll be okay.”

“Hailey-”

“If you stay, I’m never going to forgive you,” she said, and he could tell by the edge to her voice that she meant it. 

“Fine. I’ll go,” he relented, standing and heading toward the stairs, stopping when his foot landed on the first step, steeling himself for what he was about to say. “I was only really looking forward to it because you were going to be there, too.”

Hailey gave him a sad smile. “You hang out with me every day, I think you’re fully capable of enjoying the show yourself.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to stay?”

“I’m sure, Jay. Go and have fun. Don’t worry about me.”

But I always worry about you, he wanted to tell her, but instead, he continued up the stairs.

Chapter Text

They both ended up being right. Jay did have fun with Vanessa, Adam, and Kim- but he also missed her, a lot. He kept thinking about her when her favorite scenes came up, or when the orchestra had a particularly cool moment, but then he’d get sucked back into the performance again, if only for a minute or two. Then one of the characters would try to use the Force and he would think of her again, of the time that they spent the entire night pretending they were Jedi.

It was almost midnight by the time he got back and found her asleep on the couch, the TV still playing one of the Star Wars movies quietly in the background.

In spite of the overwhelming guilt in the pit of his stomach, Jay couldn’t help but smile at the sight, before he tiptoed around the couch and turned off the movie.

But he didn’t need to be quiet- Hailey didn’t even move when he slipped his arms under her and carried her upstairs, not even when he tucked the sheets around her. 

She must have been more tired than she let on earlier.

And now that he thought about it, he was tired, too. It had been a long couple of days, from Stamp getting injured to Hailey not feeling well to the symphony. Jay suddenly felt the weight of all of it fall on his shoulders, all at once, and it was all he could do to get out of his fancy evening attire and into more comfortable clothing before he flopped onto his bed and into darkness.

But not for long. 

He was standing in the waiting room at Med, but unlike the countless other times he’d frequented the room, there was no one there. No teenagers with broken arms, or parents holding crying children, no nurses trying to find their next patient.

Nothing.

He spun around in place a few times, trying to see someone, anyone, but no matter how many times he turned, there was still nothing there with him.

“Hello?” he called. His voice seemed too loud in stillness of the hospital, and echoed for what felt like an eternity before the sound died off. 

He made his way further into the hospital, glancing in every room, but still found no one. 

The silence felt suffocating- almost worse than other dreams, where gunfire and grenades exploded in his ears every few seconds. At least then he knew what was happening. But this- this emptiness was new.

Then, slowly, things began to change. Something was different, and he couldn’t put a finger on it, until he looked down and saw red speckled on the floor. 

His eyes traced the source, and suddenly it wasn’t just a few drops, but a tiny trickle, and then a fully-fledged river of red racing down the hallway, and it smelled sickening, almost coppery in his mouth.

And then he heard someone screaming.

Stamp.

Jay started running, his shoes splashing in the blood, spraying in his face, but his voice kept getting more and more desperate, more pained- 

His feet were on autopilot, and at first he didn’t know where he was going, and then he rounded the corner and there was his partner, and Stamp wasn’t screaming anymore, but choking on his own blood, and just as Jay went to hold pressure the kid’s eyes went blank, and his head fell back with a bone-chilling thud.

And then he heard that tone again, high-pitched and steady, and he turned around and saw Hailey laying on the floor in the hallway opposite, pale and still and lifeless, and he screamed her name, but she didn't answer- 

He woke up in a cold sweat, panting and disoriented, and at first his muddled brain couldn’t make sense of where he was, but then he remembered that he was in Vanessa’s room. 

His feet carried him out of bed and into Hailey’s room before he could even process the dream, or think about what was going on. For a long moment, he stood in the doorway, staring at her buried under the sheets, fighting to calm his breathing, trying to stifle the urge to call her name, but there was no need, because she stirred, lifting her head from the pillow. 

“Jay?”

“I’m sorry,” he choked out. “I didn’t mean to wake you up again-”

“It’s okay.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she insisted, and he smoothed the front of his shirt, sucking in a breath, his pulse stil roaring in his ears. “You’re shaking.”

“I’m fine, I just- I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Come here,” she said, he voice softening. 

He hesitated for a long moment before crossing to her bedside, hovering awkwardly there until she flipped open the covers. 

That was all the invitation he needed to crawl in beside her and gather her up in his arms, inhaling the warm, familiar smell that followed her everywhere. He buried his face in her shoulder, comforted by her light breaths on his neck as she settled into his arms. 

“I’m sorry,” he murmured again.

“You have nothing to be sorry for.”

He didn’t have the energy to protest, and felt exhaustion start to creep in again as she started running her hands through his hair, just like he had done for her that very same day. The motion was strangely soothing, and he couldn’t help but close his eyes at the touch. 

Before he knew it, he was asleep again, and this time, no nightmares came.

For the second time that day, Jay woke up and didn’t know where he was. The blue walls, the soft blankets- all of it was unfamiliar to him. 

And then the previous night’s dream came back to him, all at once, and he realized that this was Hailey’s room, Hailey’s bed, and he looked over and saw her sitting against the headboard, a mug cradled in her hands.

“Morning,” she said with a smile. 

Jay sat up and ran a hand through his hair, moving so that he was sitting beside her. “Morning.”

“I made tea, if you want some, but if you’re looking for coffee, you’re going to have to make it yourself.”

“That’s okay.”

“How are you feeling?” she asked, after a minute of quiet, tilting her head to the side. “You seemed a little out of it last night. The show couldn’t have been that bad.”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Hails.”

She sighed and set her mug down on the table. “Jay.”

“Don’t look at me like that.”

“Then stop avoiding my questions,” she returned. “I don’t know how to help if you don’t tell me what’s wrong. And I’m going to help. I want to help.”

“I’d prefer not to rehash last night.”

“We don’t have to. Just give me the broad strokes.”

“I- I had a dream. About Stamp, and you, and I just- I knew you were okay, but I needed to see you, to know, and I guess I was louder than I thought, and I’m sorry, because I’ve woken you up twice now within the last few days-”

Hailey shook her head. “How many times do I have to tell you? You don’t need to apologize. Not to me.”

“But I do. All of this-” he motioned at her- “you getting sick, Stamp getting hurt, everything- it’s because of me. Because I haven’t been doing my job. I’m supposed to keep you, both of you, safe, and here I am, without a partner again because I keep getting them hurt. I’m starting to wonder if I can do this anymore.”

And there it was- what had been in the back of his mind all along, ever since he saw Stamp laying on the street, bleeding out, and he felt unbelievably exposed there on Hailey’s bed.

Hailey slid closer, fixing him with eyes that felt like they could see right through him. “You are a good cop. I would know. You’ve saved so many lives, Jay. So many. And you do it right, always, no matter how hard it gets, which is one of the things that I-” she broke off. “That I admire you for. I could never do what you’ve done. There aren’t many people that can. What happened with Stamp was not your fault. And what happened with me certainly wasn’t your fault, either.”

“But I made the call.”

“No,” Hailey said firmly. “I made the call, and we both know it, and we both know that it was the only choice. In no universe were we going to let ten innocent people die. You need to stop blaming yourself, and let it go.”

“I could have saved you,” Jay whispered, feeling a lump grow in his throat. 

Hailey took his hands in hers and squeezed them. “You did,” she said, and there were tears in her own eyes. “I wouldn’t be sitting here today without you. And you need to remember that. Don’t blame yourself for what happened, don’t let this take away more than it already has.”

“I can’t let it go.”

“You have to. What’s done is done. I might not be at full health anymore, but I’m alive because of what you did. Not Voight, not Will, not Dr. Danover, but you, and your abilities. No one else would have been able to get the formula. I’m here because of you, because of how good of a cop you are, and hundreds of people could say the same thing.”

Jay took a deep, shuddering breath. 

“Hailey, I-”

“Let me get this out, before you interrupt, please.”

Jay swallowed.

Hailey put a hand on his chest, staring straight at him and he couldn’t help but shiver at the steel in her blue eyes. “You have such a good heart, Jay. Better than anyone else I know. You care so deeply for people, to the point where you get hurt because of how much it hurts. That’s what makes you such a good cop, and partner, and friend, and- and that’s what I love about you.”

“But this- this isn’t good for you. There’s only so much one person can carry. So please, listen to me when I say one more time that this is not your fault. What happened to Stamp is not your fault. And if that isn’t what you need to hear, then I forgive you for whatever you think happened in the warehouse, I forgive you for not choosing me, because it was the right choice, and we both need to let go of that.”

Chapter Text

Talking to Hailey, as always, made Jay feel better, but he kept replaying her words in his head. 

That’s what I love about you, she’d said. Did that mean what he hoped it meant? That she loved him? Or was she saying that she loved that aspect of him? Sometimes, even though they understood each other well, Jay could never figure out what she was thinking. 

She’d always been a bit of an enigma to him, ever since that first day in the bank when she’d had the guts to tell Voight to vacate her crime scene. 

They didn’t get another chance to really discuss what she’d said after that. Jay helped her with her chest therapy (which seemed better than it had been recently) and then took off when Voight called about a possible hostage situation.

The day went quickly after that; Jay didn’t have time to think about her while they were trying to calm the tensions in the building, or when he was setting up a sniper position. 

“Hey, Jay, I was thinking, I’d be happy to stay at the house for a few days,” Adam said that night once they’d wrapped up the case and the situation was neutralized.

“What?”

“You know, if you wanted a break from taking care of Hailey.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I meant- it seems like a lot of work, and I figured you’re getting sick of it by now, with all the complaining you do about hospitals-” Adam tried to explain, but it was too late.

“It’s not a job, Adam,” Jay snapped. “Not to me.”

“I never said-”

“She’s my-” he broke off, about to say partner. He kept forgetting that they weren’t, not anymore. “She’s my best friend, and I’m never going to give up on her, even if it means that it’s harder for me. She deserves so much more than that.”

“I know. I just- you deserve a break from it all. Both of you. And you’re not the only one who cares about Hailey- we all want her to get better, too. Don’t forget that. It’s not just the two of you against the world. It’s all of us. Just because she’s not in the unit anymore doesn’t mean she stopped being family.”

Jay sighed. “Yeah. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to lash out, but… lately I’ve felt like people expect me to stop caring about her, like I’ve been putting on this act and plan on dropping it at the first opportunity, and I hate that they think I’d do that.”

“They don’t know you, and they don’t know Hailey. They don’t know what kind of partnership you had. Don’t pay any attention to them. They’ll never get it. You keep doing what you’re doing,” Adam said, jaw set. “And if anyone says anything, feel free to give me their address.”

In spite of himself, Jay laughed. “I’ll be sure to do that.”

“But for real, man. I’m down to hang out with you, or with Hailey. Anytime. Just say the word.”

“Thanks.”

Jay didn’t plan on taking him up on that offer.

Little did he know...

Hailey struggled to beproductive after Jay left. Seeing him standing in her bedroom, shaking from head to toe had been concerning, to say the least. She knew about his nightmares from before, but she didn’t know that they were still happening.

She berated herself the entire morning for not noticing before. Through everything, Jay was there for her, and here she was, unable to see when he was struggling, too.

If only she could pass that off on needing glasses.

There had to be something she could do to start repaying him for everything he’d helped her with. She knew she wasn’t an easy patient. More days than not she was awful company; if it wasn’t her lung problems that were bothering her, it was a migraine, or just pain in general. 

And yet he was still so patient with her. He made her tea when she messed up her throat from coughing too much, and brought her soup, and let her sleep in his lap when nothing else worked.

What could she do to help him?

She checked her phone almost unconsciously and, out of the corner of her eye, caught the date on her phone. 

July 2. 

Suddenly, she was wide-awake. She knew how much the 4th of July affected Jay. He’d told her as much, without going into details, but they’d never spent the holiday together. 

Now they were, and she had the chance to make things easier for him.

Two days later, Hailey sat at the house, anxiously waiting for Jay to return from work after packing them both bags with a few day’s worth of clothes, along with a bag of groceries that Ruzek dropped off for them.

“Don’t take off your shoes,” she told him when he stepped inside. “We’re staying somewhere else tonight.”

Jay looked surprised, but followed her back out to his car. “What’s going on?” he asked, his forehead creased in confusion. 

“You drive, I’ll give you directions.”

“Hailey?”

But she didn’t answer, didn’t want him to shoot her idea down before it even started, so she told him nothing but the next street to turn onto. Soon enough, the city blocks became a highway, and then they left the highway and drove into a small town, and that small town became an almost deserted road, and then they turned off the road and onto a gravel driveway. 

Only then did she take her eyes off her phone and look at Jay, who still seemed bewildered at her strange behavior. 

“Are you gonna tell me what’s up with you?” he asked, feeling her attention shift toward him.

“Today’s the 4th of July.”

“Yeah.”

“You told me a long time ago that you really struggled with the fireworks,” she said, almost afraid to look at him as they pulled up to a cabin-esque house with wood siding and a bright red door. “And you’ve done so much for me- it’s only fair that I do something for you.”

“I asked off work for you for the next two days. I figured that we’d hang out here, and get away from Chicago for a little while. It’ll be quiet. No fireworks,” she continued, and when he didn’t say anything, she felt the need to keep talking, to explain. “If this is me overstepping, we can go home.”

“No,” Jay said quickly, reaching out and squeezing her hand. “I’m just- no one’s ever done something like this for me before.”

He gave her a smile before getting out of the car and grabbing their bags off the backseat. She followed him to the door, quickly locating the key before stepping inside the cozy interior. 

The atmosphere between them felt a little awkward as they moved around the house, exploring the bedrooms and the bathroom and reading the instructions the owners of the Airbnb had left them before ending up at the kitchen table with a deck of cards in front of them.

“So Voight is cool with this?” Jay asked as he dealt. “They’ll be down two people now.”

“He said it was fine. Some people from the FBI are joining the team this week. Part 2 of the inter-agency cooperation thing, I guess,” Hailey said with a shrug. 

“Is your FBI partner- what’s his name, OA- coming?”

“Yeah, OA will be there. We’ll be back in time for you to work with him, and I might go for coffee with him, depending on how I’m feeling.”

“That’s good.”

“Yeah.”

They played a few rounds of cards before Jay’s stomach started to growl. “There’s food in the bag,” Hailey said. “I wasn’t sure what you’d want, so there’s some generic camping stuff. We can make whatever you want, I had some soup earlier today so I’m not super hungry.”

“How about just sandwiches?”

“Sounds good.”

Chapter Text

After dinner, they debated starting a fire, but then they realized that the smoke probably wasn’t the best for Hailey’s lungs, so they just sat on the porch and didn’t say much for a long time. 

“Thank you for this,” Jay said after a long stretch of silence, where the only noises were the occasional car on the distant street and the cicadas in the trees. “This beats trying to drown out the fireworks with music any day.”

“I figured it would.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“Of course I did. We look out for each other.”

Jay didn’t know what to say after that, so he just held out his hand for her to take, and after a second, she did, and they went back to sitting there, staring up at the cloudless, clear sky. It was so quiet here, he thought. Peaceful. 

He wished they could stay here forever.

Hailey seemed to be thinking the same thing. “It’s beautiful out here,” she said softly. “It feels like a whole other world.”

“Yeah, it does.”

“I’ve been in cities so long I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be so far away from everyone else that you could probably scream and no one would report you to the police.”

“That’s one way to describe it,” Jay teased.

“Hey, I’m sure we were both the poor officers who had to answer those calls. Those were such a pain.”

“You’ve got that right.”

Hailey let out a deep sigh, her shoulders slumping. “I’d give anything to do it again,” she admitted. “To step onto a scene for the first time, or go undercover with you, or even just write tickets for a day. I miss all of it. It’s been so long, and every day I feel more empty inside.”

“We miss you.”

He didn’t tell her that they still hadn’t taken her name and call sign off the board after Stamp insisted they not. 

“Voight always said that ultimately it’s all just a job, but it’s so much more than that. I need it, Jay. I think I’ll always need it, and now that I don’t have it, I’m lost. What am I supposed to do with myself, if I can’t help people? I don’t know how to do anything else.”

“For now, just try and get better,” Jay offered, but it was a weak reassurance and he knew it. “And soon you’ll get cleared for work, and you can try a few things, and they might not work, but you’ll find something you love. I know it.”

“Like what? I’m a detective, Jay, not an artist or a cashier or a bank teller.”

“Have you talked to Voight about it?”

“I’m never going to get cleared for Intelligence again.”

“No, to see if he has something in mind for you. He probably does, or Trudy, knowing them. They have connections, people that need someone like you.”

After all, Voight arranged the FBI job for Erin- why not come up with something for Hailey to do, too? If she stayed in the CPD, that would be even easier than convincing another agency to take her. 

Hailey opened her mouth as if to say something, then closed it again, and then- “Trudy brought up being a desk officer to me a while ago.”

Jay’s eyebrows shot up. That was a possibility he hadn’t considered- but now that he thought about it, he could picture Hailey as a desk officer. “And?”

“I don’t know if I could do it- send officers out into the city and ask them to run into bullets without doing it myself. It seems… unfair, somehow. Like I’d be asking for more than I’m giving.”

“You gave everything, Hailey. They wouldn’t think that. They’d look up to you, just like they look up to Platt. And I think you would be great at it. We need people who are on top of their game. And you would still be in the thick of things, just from a different perspective.”

“I’m not so sure.”

“Well, think about it, okay? It’s an option, just like everything else. You don’t have commit to anything yet.”

The air between them felt heavy with emotion now. He couldn’t help but feel a little twinge of guilt as she talked- he couldn’t imagine being in her place, and being told that he would never work in Intelligence again. But he shook that off. 

“Anything… but maybe some dessert,” he said, forcing some brightness into his tone. Anything to lift her spirits, to take her mind off the many obstacles she still had to climb. “We can make s’mores over the stove.”

By the time they finished eating their s’mores (which were kind of disappointing not made by a fire, not that Jay was going to complain) he could tell that Hailey was exhausted. She almost faceplanted into her tea, but he moved the mug out of the way just in time.

“C’mon, buddy, it’s time for sleep,” he said, laughing as he scooped her up and carried her up the stairs to the bedroom she’d chosen. He set her down on the bed before helping her out of her sweatshirt. “I hate to be the annoying one, but we also gotta do chest PT…”

“Ugh,” she grumbled, but rolled over onto her stomach anyway, which just made Jay feel even worse about bothering her. 

He tried to do it as thoroughly and quickly as possible before giving her the all-clear and starting toward the door, pausing before stepping out. “Need anything before I go?”

“Are you gonna be okay tonight?” she asked, sitting up, her ponytail half-falling out. 

Jay shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “I hope so.”

Hailey huffed, blowing a stray strand of hair out of her face. “Then stay.”

That wasn’t what he’d expected her to say at all- and the surprise must have shown on his face, because she rolled her eyes at him.

“That way, you’ll sleep better, and if you do wake up, I’ll be right here, so you can check on me, and I can use you as a pillow instead of these crappy ones. The best of both worlds,” she said, as nonchalantly as possible. 

Jay hesitated. In the past, being around him on the 4th of July was… ill advised. He had no way of knowing what dreams would come, or what he’d do. What if he ended up scaring her, or hurting her? He wouldn’t be able to live with himself. She didn’t know what she was offering. Not really.

“I’m not sure if that’s a good idea-”

“Stop worrying and go get ready. I want to sleep. You won’t hurt me.”

So he went to his room, brushed his teeth, and changed into a loose pair of shorts and soft shirt before returning to Hailey’s room, where she’d already turned the lights off.

As soon as he climbed into bed, she moved over, resting her head on his chest with a sigh. His arm almost automatically went around her shoulders, pulling her closer, and she didn’t resist. The weight of her body was reassuring rather than suffocating, and for the first time on the 4th of July, Jay couldn’t feel his pulse racing in his chest. 

All he felt was calm, listening to her quiet breaths beside him as they started to even out. The noises that usually lingered in the back of his mind, of gunshots and grenades and shouting seemed far away now, like a distant memory.

And, as he slipped closer and closer into sleep, he was not afraid.

Chapter Text

The next day, they decided to go for a short run on an easier trail. At first, the thought made Jay a little anxious, but Hailey had been ramping up her activity per instruction from her cardiologist, so they went. 

It almost felt like old times as they set off down the road. Jay kept the pace at a moderate level, not wanting to push her too hard, but she kept pace with him. He could hear a slight catch in her breath toward the end, which made him look over at her to make sure she was okay, but she didn’t seem panicked, so he continued running, a little slower this time.

It had been forever since they’d gotten to run together, whether on-duty or off-duty. But this was nice. Almost normal. 

Afterward, they showered and made breakfast before going mini-golfing.

Of course Jay won, even though it was close between the two of them, which meant that he also had to pay for ice cream. 

Not that he was complaining too much about it.

Hailey picked a pretzel sundae while Jay chose double chocolate, and they sat on a bench and watched the other customers try and mini-golf, which was quite entertaining. Even though Hailey lost, she was definitely better than a lot of the people they saw go through the course.

And through all of that time, the holiday was far, far out of Jay’s frame of mind. Instead, he savored his time spent with Hailey, without having to think about Intelligence, or spent the entire work day worrying about her. 

Something changed in the air between them the night before. They weren’t together together, but now Jay felt like he and Hailey were finally on the same page about what happened with Lyon in the warehouse, and if he was being honest, it was a huge weight off his chest to know that she didn’t blame him.

He’d worried about that- if she only put up with him because she didn’t want to hurt his feelings, or if she actually still wanted him around.

Now he knew she did, and that was the best feeling in the world.

After minigolf, they went back to the cabin and sat around the fire pit, with no fire, and talked about anything and nothing, but staying away from talking about the heavy things. They’d done that last night- today felt lighter, somehow.

They discussed silly things now- bucket list vacations, favorite desserts, pet peeves, anything they could think of that they’d somehow skipped when they first met each other.

Her favorite color was blue. She loved dark chocolate, and winter, and but didn’t care for driving in it. If she could live anywhere in the world, she would live in the mountains, in a cozy cabin by a lake, with plenty of snow around.

“What would your ideal future be?” Jay asked her as it started to get dark. “If you got to choose.”

“I don’t know,” Hailey said. “I want my life to mean something. If I found someone who got me, really got me, I’d want to live with them, and we’d have a dog- not a small one, though. A medium sized one, or larger, with fluffy fur, and we’d go for long walks and stay in and watch movies and just be together. Be happy.”

“Would you want kids of your own?”

Her eyes flickered over to him for a second before returning to the fridge, where she’d started grabbing things to make dinner. “No,” she said, as her hand found the butter. “A responsibility like that- I don’t trust myself. I would never want to put a child through what I went through, and even if I wanted to...  I can't. Not anymore.”

“I’m sorry, Hails.”

“Don’t be. I promised myself a long time ago that I would do everything to protect kids from what happened to me, including not having them myself.”

“You would be a great mom.”

“Maybe. But probably not. And that’s okay.”

Jay wished he hadn’t brought it up- he’d clearly thrown a wrench in the lighthearted atmosphere, even though she didn’t seem offended about the question. Just sad. 

“What about you?” Hailey asked, leaning against the counter.

“I used to think so. Thought every perfect story ended with a wife and kids, you know? But now… who knows? I wouldn’t exactly call my life perfect. Part of me thinks I have too much baggage for it. I barely have my own shit together as it is.”

“The same applies to both of us, then,” Hailey told him, her eyes twinkling just a little bit as she looked over at him. “Where would you live?”

“Somewhere quiet, away from everything, but close enough to Chicago that I wouldn’t miss what’s going on. Games, crimes, food, friends, family. That kind of thing.”

As he said it, he realized he was talking about her- he was envisioning them together, going to the beach on weekends and sitting at Molly’s some nights, and Hailey seemed to pick up on a shift in his tone, too, because she tilted her head at him, the way she always did when something caught her attention. 

“No golf thrown in there?” she teased, and Jay rolled his eyes.

“Shut up.”

That night, their debate over whether or not Jay would join Hailey in her bedroom lasted no longer than a minute before Jay caved and climbed into bed beside her for the second time in two days. 

“Apparently we have sides,” he said, laughing when he realized that they’d defaulted to the same arrangement as before, with Hailey on the left and him on the right. 

“I sleep on the left almost always,” she protested, flipping her head on the pillow so that she was facing him. “Even when I’m by myself.”

“How come? Why not just sprawl? That’s what I do most times.”

“One pillow on a large bed looks awkward, so I have two, and I like to face the door when I’m at home, so the left side is where I sleep. When I’m away it’s less consistent, but given the choice…”

“You’ve always been a creature of habit.”

Hailey glared at him. “Speak for yourself.”

They talked for a few minutes, but already he could see her head starting to droop, the bright spark of energy slowly starting to fade from her eyes. Occasionally she’d cough, and they’d open again, just for a moment, before closing again.

He smiled to himself at the sight before turning off the lamp beside him. “Goodnight, Hails.”

“Night, Jay…”

Chapter Text

Jay woke up a few hours later as his brain registered the loss of Hailey’s warm presence beside him and he sat upright, the cop part of him automatically scanning the room for threats, for an intruder, but there was none. 

And then his attention fell on the bathroom, where golden light spilled into the bedroom, where he could hear Hailey, sounding like she was coughing up a lung. 

He threw back the covers and went to the door. “Hails?” It was unlocked, and so he pushed it open, gently, giving her enough time to tell him to leave, but she didn’t, and he found standing with her head over the sink, spitting up thick globs of mucus. 

“You okay?” 

She opened her mouth to answer but instead coughed again, her entire body convulsing as her lungs tried to expel the result of her body trying to fight the toxin. Her face was pale, and she looked completely miserable as she clung to the counter.

Jay tried to remember what he’d done the previous times she’d started coughing this badly. It usually meant that there was a lot of excess stuff in her lungs, which also meant she was having a hard time breathing. 

“How can I help?”

She managed a shrug before her legs buckled out from underneath her- Jay managed to catch her and lower her to the ground, remembering to put her in a position he knew was supposed to optimize the drainage.

“How bad? Should I call 911? Can you breathe well enough?” he said, leaning over so that she could see him. 

Thumbs up. 

“So just one of those nights?”

Thumbs up again. 

“Okay. Do you want anything? Tea? Inhaler?”

“Just… just stay, please,” she whispered hoarsely, before she took another shaky breath and started coughing again. 

Jay could feel her shivering, and pulled her to him as closely as he could as her body continued to suffer cough after cough after cough. With each one he prayed that it would be the last, that her lungs would finally clear, but it wasn’t, and she kept coughing, and he could tell that she was getting more and more exhausted. 

“I’m here, Hails, I’m here,” he whispered, over and over again, running a hand through her sweat-soaked hair. “It’ll be over soon.”

He hoped that were true.

They sat on that floor for a long time. For the first couple hours, Hailey’s coughing became more and more violent, shaking her entire body with each inhale. Jay pretended not to see the silvery tears tracking down her face, and instead took her hand in his and started tracing patterns on it- smiley faces and hearts and whatever he could think of in an attempt to take her mind off of the pain. 

The last few hours, she barely had the strength to cough, and just laid in Jay’s lap, occasionally managing to spit up some mucus. Eventually, she fell asleep there, still half-cradled in his arms, too tired to stay awake despite the rasp that lingered in her chest.

At least this time she was able to communicate with him- which was the only reason why he hadn’t called an ambulance. She hadn’t seemed scared, like she had that time he’d found her on the floor of the kitchen- just exhausted.

He held her loosely, not wanting to impede her breathing in any way, adjusting slowly so that he was leaning against the wall, and exhaled.

It wasn’t fair, he thought bitterly, how this kept happening to her. To them. Every time they took a few steps forward, something knocked them back again, whether it was illness or trauma or another random misfortune.

This was worse than when she’d been his partner. At least then he knew there was something he could do to protect her from the bullets and the punches. But in nights like these, the battle was hers, and hers alone.

Jay couldn’t sleep the rest of the night, lost in his own thoughts, wondering if Stamp was having a better night than they were, worrying about Hailey… 

If not for her warm weight in his lap, he most certainly would have spiraled. But she kept him grounded. He had to be there for her. The past two days had been some of the best days he’d ever had in his life, and lifted the weight Jay hadn’t realized he’d been carrying. 

In all honesty, this mini vacation probably saved his life, and he had Hailey to thank for that- and now she needed him, and he was going to be there, in every way he could.

So he settled in, and checked every now and then to see if she was still breathing, and watched the sunlight start to filter in the window. 

When his phone read 8:00, Jay reluctantly made a move. He picked Hailey up as gently as he could, trying not to groan as his limbs protested from being on the floor for so long. 

If it was up to him, they would have stayed there in the cabin forever. But check-out time was 11, and they had to get moving.

So he carried her back to the bedroom and tucked the covers around her shoulders before starting to pack their things, being as stealthy as he could. She’d always been kind of a light sleeper, but she barely moved, even when he accidentally dropped her hairbrush on the ground in the bathroom.

Jay fired off a text to Will as he sat at the kitchen table, eating the toast and eggs he’d made.

hailey had a coughing fit
last night, lasted a few hours.
anything I should do this
morning? PT, inhaler? she’s
sleeping now.

if you hear crackling/
wheezing, both, and try to
get her to drink something.

should i be worried?

we think for her this will
most likely happen 2-3
times a month.  if there’s ever
blood, or she can’t breathe,
then you should call 911,
or if she seems more
distressed than usual in
this situation.

Not reassuring, but Jay set down his toast and went back over to bedroom, kneeling beside Hailey’s side, hating himself as reached out to her and tucked a wayward blonde hair out of her face.

“Hails,” he whispered. “Hailey.”

She moved then, but didn’t wake up.

Impulsively, Jay leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her forehead, his lips just barely meeting skin before he pulled away, just in time to see her looking up at him with tired eyes. “I’m sorry, Hails, but we have to get going soon, and Will wants you to do PT before we get on the road.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice ragged from all of the coughing she’d done the night before.

“What are you apologizing for?”

“Ruining your happiness.”

Jay frowned at her, shaking his head. “No. Don’t apologize. You didn’t ruin anything. I’m happy to be hanging out with you, no matter what’s happening, okay?”

She didn’t have the energy to fight him, and just closed her eyes, leaning back into the pillow. “Okay.”

After PT, which made her cough even more, Jay put their things into the trunk of the car. As he checked the kitchen one last time, he froze when he saw the notebook on the counter- more specifically, the guest book.

They’d almost forgotten.

Jay glanced at the couch, where Hailey was curled up, already fading back into unconsciousness, and decided not to bother her.

Jay & Hailey, July 4-6. Thank you- our time here meant a lot.

Chapter Text

Hailey slept the entire way back to Chicago, curled up in the passenger seat, wearing a too-big sweatshirt Jay had pulled out of his bag for her when he’d noticed her shivering.

Not exactly the way they’d both thought this little getaway would end. 

Jay couldn’t help but glance over at her whenever he got the chance. She was starting to worry him a little bit- the hitch in her breathing was still there, and her coughs sounded wet. 

She woke up when Jay turned the car off. “We’re back,” he told her. “How are you feeling?”

“Not great.”

In Hailey-speak, that meant she felt terrible.

Jay gently reached over and felt her forehead, which was burning hot. “I think you should probably go in and see a doctor,” he said, knowing that she wasn’t going to like that idea.

“I’m fine.”

“Hailey, no offense, but you don’t look good at all. It’s better to be safe than sorry.”

“I felt fine yesterday.”

“You just spent five hours on the bathroom floor, coughing up your weight in gunk. I don’t think that usually means you’re okay. And you shivered the entire way here, and you might have a fever.”

She crossed her arms, trying (and failing) to appear more in control. Instead, the sweatshirt just seemed to swallow her, making her look extremely tiny. “At least call them before you bring me in. It could be nothing.”

“Hails-”

“ Please .”

Jay gave her a long look before picking her phone out from the cupholder between them and dialing her pulmonologist. He answered on the third ring, and Jay went over what happened the night before before the doctor asked to speak with Hailey.

She talked for a few minutes, mostly numbers, where Jay guessed she was rating her symptoms- before she passed the phone back to him.

“It’s hard to tell with Hailey,” the pulmonologist told Jay. “Her illness is nothing like others we’ve ever seen. That’s the danger of having a personalized toxin injected into your body- no one knows how to treat it. I doubt even Lyon would know, at this point. Since this is similar to what we’ve seen before, we’ll wait eight hours. If her symptoms don’t improve by then, or they start to worsen, bring her in.”

“Alright, thank you.”

Jay hung up. “If you don’t get better in eight hours, we’re going to the hospital.”

“Fine.”

For lunch, Jay made soup, which Hailey barely touched, as well as tea, which she also didn’t have much of. 

Eight hours was going to take forever- but he knew he’d never be able to convince her to go in earlier than that. She, like him, hated hospitals. And she had more of a right to than he did now- she spent at least six hours there every week, between physical therapy, check-ups, tests, and treatments.

Jay knew how hard it was for her to admit that she felt sick. As cops, they were supposed to be the strong ones, the invincible ones. Weakness was, well, weakness.

Over the course of the afternoon, they alternated from watching Star Wars to sitting in the bathroom, doing a repeat of the night before. On numerous occasions, Jay was tempted to just pick her up and take her to Med, but he knew she would never forgive him if he did that.

They’d agreed on eight hours, and so the second the alarm on his phone went off, they were leaving. He wasn’t going to let her convince him otherwise, no matter how many puppy-dog looks she gave him. 

Jay’s phone rang just as Hailey fell asleep. Voight. 

“This is Halstead.”

“How was the vacation?”

“Nice. But Hailey might have picked up something, I’m not sure. She’s not feeling well. I might be late tomorrow, if I end up having to drive her in.”

“Heard. Take the time you need to get her settled, whether it’s at the hospital or at home. Just wanted to check in and make sure everything went well.”

Now this was a side of Voight that Jay hadn’t really seen before- but then again, ever since Hailey got sick, his sergeant had definitely developed a soft spot for her. Sometimes he even stopped by the house after work to bring her loukoumades.

“Yeah. We talked some things out, she said she’d think about working the desk. I don’t think she’s super thrilled, but maybe we can make it work.”

“We can and we will. Best case scenario, she gets approved to consult in Intelligence. That way she can do interviews and work the cases, but she won’t be in the field. I’m already talking to some of my connections to see what we can spin for her.”

Jay raised his eyebrows. That didn’t sound bad at all- she’d practically have her old job back, just without the field part. Her favorite part.

“Another option is to work on training her to be a desk sergeant. The only downside of that would be that she would almost definitely be transferred to another district. The 21st doesn’t need a new desk sergeant. That’s a scenario I’d like to avoid- I want people here who she can trust, who know what she’s capable of and can keep an eye on her.”

“I agree.”

Voight was silent for a second. “I’m going to do everything within my power to get your partner back, Halstead.”

“But we can keep Stamp too, right?” Jay asked, remembering the kid’s bright smile and gelled hair and blue Gatorade. 

That earned him a chuckle from Voight. “Right.”

“He’s going to make a great cop.”

“He is. Listen, I’ve got to go. Caught a break.”

“See you tomorrow.”

“See you.”

Jay hung up the phone, and glanced back at Hailey before looking back at the movie. He did a double take before he could register the Death Star being blown up on the screen, and was scrambling across the room in an instant, a hand in front of her mouth.

Nothing.

He felt nothing.

She wasn’t breathing, and her lips were blue.

He panicked for just a second before the cop part of him took over, and scooped her off the couch, laid her flat on the floor, and started compressions.

Jay’s mind was working a mile a minute now. 

How had this happened so quickly? One second Hailey was fine, sleeping, and the other second she wasn’t, and now he literally held her life in his hands, and it was awful. He could hear her ribs starting to give out under the pressure of CPR- logically, he knew that could happen, but irrationally, he didn’t want to hurt her, even though he knew she was far, far away now.

Maybe even too far.

“Siri, call 911,” he said, through gritted teeth as he pounded on Hailey’s chest, still trying to keep the counts in his head, trying to think, clinging onto the training that had become oh-so familiar to him over his years as a cop, but struggling to ground his thoughts.

This couldn’t be happening.

Not like this.

How was this happening? Twenty-four hours ago she was happy. Healthy. 

And now she was dying. Again.

Chapter Text

Jay sat in Hailey’s room in the ICU,  listening to her pulmonologist talking, trying to pay attention to what he was saying, but he was having a hard time focusing. 

“In short, she had an infection from the excess fluid in her lungs, which was brought on by the toxin,” he told Jay. “I suspect she’s been fighting it for weeks without knowing it. There’s no way she or you would have known- symptoms often present themselves without warning. 

That was a relief. When the ambulance brought her in, he kept wondering- should he have noticed something sooner? She’d seemed find. 

“With all of the coughing she did today and last night, her lungs couldn’t function properly, and she wasn’t getting enough oxygen in her blood. You said she fell asleep?”

Jay nodded.

“That’s very common in cases of respiratory failure. You did nothing wrong. In fact, you did everything right, giving her CPR and getting her here so quickly. For now, we’re going to keep her on the ventilator while we administer antibiotics. We’re also going to get in touch with Dr. Danover and work on getting more of Lyon’s serum here, to see if that helps.”

“Is she going to wake up?”

“She’ll be out for a while- maybe a day or two- as her body recuperates. But we’re confident that she’ll recover completely within a week or two.”

Jay let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. She was going to be okay. 

“We’re hoping to avoid incidents like these in the future. My main focus is her respiratory function, but the cardiologist has made it clear that the more times we revive her, the more pressure it puts on her heart. And we don’t want to risk that more than necessary.”

“Yeah.”

The pulmonologist turned to leave, but paused in the doorway. “She’s very lucky to have someone like you with her, Mr. Halstead. She wouldn’t be alive today if it weren’t for you.”

That only made him feel marginally better, but Jay nodded as the doctor left the room. 

He looked back at Hailey in the bed, hooked up to a number of IV drips and monitors. 

This felt like deja-vu. How many times had he sat here, in this same chair, waiting, hoping that she’d wake up? How many times had doctors come in and told him that whatever was happening to her was probably going to happen again?

Too many times was the answer. 

Their vacation to the cabin seemed like a lifetime ago. Was it really just the day prior that they were mini-golfing and eating ice cream together? It felt longer than that.

A little under two days later, Hailey came out of sleep, gasping for breath, feeling like she was suffocating, like there was an enormous pressure pushing down on her chest. Every inhale hurt, and the air felt like it was trying to escape, and she tried to pull it back.

Machines started beeping, sounding almost deafening as she struggled to sit up, to take in more oxygen, and she felt herself on the verge of a panic attack, her vision starting to tunnel.

“Hey, hey, Hailey, you’re okay!” someone kept saying, and they were pushing her back down on the bed, and she wanted to scream. “You’re in the hospital. They put a vent in. Just let it do the work for you, okay?”

Her lungs were on fire, and she still couldn’t breathe.

Was this it? Was she dying?

It sure felt like it.

“Hailey, we’re going to give you a sedative. You need to calm down, or else you might injure yourself.”

She didn’t want to go to sleep. If she went to sleep she didn’t know if she would wake up again. She reached out to the bright white blob that she guessed was a doctor’s coat to stop them, to tell them no, but someone grabbed her hand. 

Jay.

“I know you’re scared,” he said, and suddenly he was there, sitting beside her and looking at her with those comforting green eyes of his, and she felt herself relax despite the adrenaline coursing through her body. “But it’s going to be okay.”

She shook her head, and there was moisture on her face. 

Was it raining?

That didn’t make sense, even to her muddled brain. Tears. These were tears. She was crying. 

“Hailey, it’s okay.”

It wasn’t okay. She wanted him to stop telling her that, because it wasn’t okay, and she wasn’t okay, but she couldn’t even talk to him. 

And she still couldn’t breathe, and the ventilator didn’t feel helpful, not at all, and she wanted it out.

“Hey. Look at me, okay?” Jay’s voice broke through again, and despite herself, she searched for those green eyes again. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere, alright?”

Another tear slipped down her cheek. She wanted to believe him, she really did, but he hated hospitals, and she could see that in his eyes, and she couldn’t blame him if he wanted to leave, and she turned away, willing herself to stop crying, shaking her head as she did so.

“You know why?”

She didn’t know. She didn’t have the energy to try and figure out why, either, so she just stared at him.

Jay shifted in his seat, swallowing before looking up at her. “When they told me you weren’t going to make it a few months ago I didn’t want to accept it. I didn’t want to imagine my life without you in it. I still can’t. And, um, I told you something, all that time ago, something I should have told you sooner, something you deserve to hear.”

He took a deep breath and took her hands in his. “I’m in love with you, Hailey. I have been for a while now. I’m not staying because we used to be partners, or because I don’t think you can handle yourself, or because I pity you. I’m staying because I love you, so, so much, and I want to be with you, every minute of every day.”

I love you, too, she wanted to say, but she couldn’t, so she just squeezed his hand three times, and hoped that that would be enough.

Jay smiled a watery smile. “I know, Hails.”

Chapter Text

The moment Jay got home, almost twenty-four hours later, his legs seemed to give out from under him, and he fell to his knees on the hardwood floor, overcome with everything that happened in the past day.

He wasn’t sure what he wanted to do more- cry or laugh.

Cry, because Hailey was sick, and with her immune system, any illness did not bode well. Cry, because just a few days ago, she’d been on the floor, dying under his hands. Cry, because he’d almost lost her.

But laugh, because he’d finally told her how he felt, and she told him that she loved him, too. He hadn’t been rejected, she hadn’t pushed him away. 

In that aspect, it felt like the weight of the world was off his shoulders. Now, they could finally start to move past the weird in-between stage they’d been sitting in. 

His phone chimed in his pocket and he pulled it out immediately, his heart plummeting to the bottom of his chest, only to see that it was a text from Will.

Heard about Hailey.

Can I come over?

yeah.

A few minutes later, there was a knock on the door, and Jay opened it to come face-to-face with his brother. Will held up a bottle of scotch.

“Figured you could use a drink.”

“You got that right.”

Jay led Will to the kitchen- he averted his eyes from the floor by the couch, afraid that if he looked, he would see Hailey laying lifeless on the ground.

Will narrowed his eyes at Jay as he poured the drinks out. “You seem… wired,” he commented, taking the offered glass. “And not in the way you usually are when she’s in the hospital.”

“It’s just been a crazy couple days.”

“No, this is different. You’re different, and I can’t decide if it’s a good thing or not.”

“To tell you the truth, I can’t decide, either,” Jay admitted, running a hand through his hair. “I can’t get the memory out of my head. Her lips were blue, Will.”

“I heard.”

“I thought I lost her.”

“But?” Will asked, sensing one coming.

“But things are good, between me and her. Maybe even better than good,” Jay said, unable to stop a smile from spreading across his face. “Will, I told her I loved her.”

His brother’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh?”

“And I think she feels the same.”

“It’s about damn time,” Will muttered into his glass, and Jay frowned. 

“What?”

“You’ve been dancing around each other for years. You kept waiting for the right time, she kept waiting for the right time... It’s about time you came to your senses and said something. Of all people, you guys should know that life isn’t a guarantee.”

“You knew?”

Will laughed. “Knew? Of course I knew. It’s been obvious for a while, Jay. For an elite detective, you sure are blind to some things. Important things.”

Jay blinked. Well then. 

“So?” Will asked, with a smirk. 

“So what?”

“What’re you thinking about all of this?”

Jay shrugged, taking a long sip of his drink before he answered. “I dunno. I’m scared of messing something up. She has so much on her plate right now, and I don’t want her to feel like I expect her to go on dates or look amazing all the time or make it back to work. That doesn’t matter to me. I just want her to be happy, and as healthy as possible.”

“That doesn’t sound like words of a man who will mess things up, Jay,” Will said softly. 

“I know, it’s just- I really want this to work with Hailey. She’s everything to me, man. I don’t want her to be just one more person I couldn’t hold on to.”

“I get that.”

“And maybe this is stupid. I can’t stop thinking about the warehouse. I keep wondering if there was something I could have done, something to stop Lyon from making that damn toxin, and I know I shouldn’t, and she said I shouldn’t, but I can’t stop myself from regretting that choice and every move I made afterward.”

Will shook his head. “You did everything right.”

“It doesn’t feel that way. She almost died the other day because I wasn’t paying attention.”

“She’s alive, isn’t she? She can hear you, and communicate with you. This- this is just an infection. She’s beaten worse. And yes, all of her medical issues are scary. I should know. I’ve seen the data, run the tests. But that doesn’t matter, not in the long run, because she’s still here, and you’re still here, and you love each other, and that should be mean something. Doesn’t it?”

Of course it did. It meant everything, and it must have read on Jay’s face, because Will gave him a knowing look.

“See? It’s going to be fine. If there’s anyone who can make it work, it’s you and Hailey.”

Jay went back to the hospital to see Hailey that morning before work.  She was awake, but clearly not feeling well, so he just sat with her and talked about everything he could think of to take her mind off the pian. 

She stared at him the entire time, her blue eyes fixed firmly on him, and he couldn’t help but almost lose himself in them. 

“When you get out of this place, we’re going to go on the most amazing adventures together, like you wouldn’t believe, Hails. I’ve always wanted to go to the Planetarium, ever since my mom took me there. I think you’ll like it.”

“And we’ll eat pizza by the river, and watch Star Wars movies until we can’t stay awake anymore, and anything else you want to do. That’s a promise. And we’ll be there for each other, through thick and thin. Cause we’re partners. Deal?”

Hailey squeezed his hand. 

Jay kept talking for a little longer before he noticed her eyes starting to droop, and he paused for a moment before speaking again.

“Now, I was thinking we could catch up on some of The Great British Baking Show. We haven’t watched it in a while, and I’m really desperate to know who wins.”

Sure enough, not long into the episode, he glanced back at her and saw that she was fast asleep, head still turned toward him. 

He stood and pressed a kiss to the top of her head before leaving the room and heading down to the precinct. 

And despite himself, he felt the faintest glimmer of hope rise in his chest as he stepped out into the bright morning sunlight.

Chapter Text

It took nearly four days for the doctors to decide that Hailey’s lungs were strong enough for her to be taken off the vent. As much as she hated to admit it, though, she was glad that they did. Her lungs hurt. She spent most of her time then just trying to ignore the pain, and breathe.

A few hours after they took the tube out of her mouth, there was a knock on the doorframe. In walked a familiar figure- tall, dark, brooding, bearded-

“Hey, Chicago,” OA said.

Jay stood up immediately, muttering an excuse about a case, before hurrying out of the room, and Hailey was grateful for that.

“Hey, New York,” she returned with a smile. “Didn’t know you were coming.”

“Well, you missed our coffee date, so I figured I’d visit you instead,” OA said, sitting in the chair that Jay had just vacated. He gave her a cursory look-over. “Wish I looked this good when I got sick.”

“You mean you wish you looked this good all the time,” Hailey joked, but she knew he was just being nice. She was a mess- frizzy hair, pale skin, glasses- and definitely not the detective that he’d known back in New York.

“Of course.”

“How’s your partner? Maggie?”

“Good. Really good. It’s nice to be able to know where she is, but kind of weird not to be here with her, you know?”

She did know.

OA’s face turned serious then. “I’m sorry about what Lyon did to you. Word got out over the channels that a CPD detective was sick and that they were looking for doctors. When we found out it was you, the unit started on it, but then we caught a terrorism case-”

“You don’t need to apologize.”

“I feel terrible about it. You saved my life in New York.”

Hailey rolled her eyes. “How many times do I have to tell you, it was nothing. Things like that happen all the time. If I kept tally of every time that happened to me I would owe too many favors to count.”

“Regardless. If you need anything, and I mean anything- you have friends at the FBI who will help in a heartbeat. I’ll make sure it gets done.”

“Thank you. It means a lot.”

“And Agent Castile told me to tell you this, but we could always use an analyst with your skill set. So if you’re ever looking for a job, say the word, and it’ll be yours.”

Hailey blinked. “What?”

“You impressed a lot of people, Chicago.”

She didn’t know what to say to that. Her, an analyst for the FBI? That was something she’d never thought would be a possibility. Hell, that wasn’t even something she’d even considered. Ever since she was a teenager, her goal had been to become a detective. 

Hailey found herself shaking her head. “I don’t know…”

“You don’t have to decide now. The offer’s always going to be open. We just wanted to make sure you knew you had options. Just because you can’t go into the field doesn’t mean your talents aren’t valued.”

“Well, I appreciate it. Thank you.”

OA stayed for a few more minutes before being called away on official duties. It was nice to see him, even though the atmosphere between them wasn’t the same as it had been before. The streets of New York City weren’t exactly the same as a hospital in Chicago.

Jay returned after OA left, taking up his normal spot again. “How was the visit?”

“Nice. Weird. He offered me a job.”

Instantly, Hailey felt the full force of Jay’s attention land on her. “In the FBI?”

“Apparently they’re in need of analysts, and Castile thinks I have the right skill set.”

“What did you say?”

“I said I’d think about it. But I don’t think I can accept it. Switching hospitals, and doctors, and organizations… that’s a lot more work than I want. And New York was fun, but it wasn’t home. Not even close. Less wind, worse pizza…”

“And?”

Hailey let out an amused huff. “I know what you’re trying to do.”

“Do you?” he asked, smirking ever so slightly. 

“And it doesn’t have you, alright?”

“I just wanted to hear you say it,” he said, full on grinning now. “I didn’t get to hear it on that phone call when you were there.”

“Well, don’t push your luck.”

In the end, Hailey spent a total of eleven days in the hospital before being discharged. She still felt a little under the weather, but no more than she did on most other days, which was a welcome relief from the agonizing pain that had accompanied her ever since their time in the cabin.

“What do you want to do?” Jay asked as they drove back toward the house. “I’m open to anything you want.”

“A movie?”

“Sure. Got something in mind?”

“Not really. Just not feeling up to going anywhere,” she admitted. 

Jay insisted on carrying her inside, which was a little embarrassing, but there was no one outside, so it didn’t matter that much. He set her on the couch before heading into the kitchen to get a bag of M&Ms from the cupboard before returning to the living room.

Hailey immediately scooted closer to him, tucking herself in his side as she kept scrolling through their options; they eventually decided on Beauty and the Beast.

“It’s nice to be home,” she commented, looking up at him as the movie started to play. “I’m really to understand why you hate hospitals so much.”

“Tell me about it.”

She straightened a little. “And what you said-”

“I meant it.”

That seemed to reassure her a little bit. “I meant it, too. I’ve wanted to tell you, for so long, but it just never felt like the right time. You kept getting hurt and I kept making bad decisions, and I’m sorry if I made you think you couldn’t tell me-”

“Shh,” he said, laughing a little at the worried crease to her forehead. “Let’s just agree we were both idiots.”

Hailey nodded, not trusting herself to say anything anymore.

“You’re still overthinking.”

“I can’t help it.”

“Maybe this will help.”

Jay slowly leaned forward, giving her enough time to pull away, but she didn’t, and then his lips were on hers, and kissing him was everything she’d ever imagined it being, soft and tender and passionate at the same time. 

She was the first to pull away, a little breathless. 

“Okay?” he asked, and now he was the one worrying- she could see it in his eyes.

“More than okay,” she told him, and closed the gap between them again, the movie forgotten on the screen.

Chapter Text

Life slowly started to return to normal over the next few months. Stamp came back to work at the district, just as spunky and youthful as ever, and just a bit more cautious. Jay hated to admit it, but he’d missed his partner. Even in such a short time, the kid had grown on him. 

There were still some days where Hailey felt so sick that she could barely move. Those days were the worst, for both of them. Jay hated seeing her hurting, and she hated not being able to do the things she normally could.

But there were other days when they were over-the-moon happy. With their feelings out in the open, they were finally free to be together, as in a relationship, not just a partnership, and it was even more fulfilling than Jay thought it would be.

And the longer they were together, the more he knew he grew certain that Hailey was the one. 

She was bright, and witty, and brave, and she understood him like no one else did. Even when she was struggling, she always made an effort to check up on him, which he appreciated, though it wasn’t necessary.

Early September, Vanessa approached Jay just as he was about to get in his truck and go home.

“Hey, wait up,” she called, jogging over, and Jay turned around, his keys still in his hand. “Listen, I was thinking… I loved rooming with Hailey. I really did. But we all know that this-” she motioned at Jay- “Is a permanent thing.”

“What?”

The Latina scoffed. “Come on, you think we all haven’t noticed your dopey grin lately? It’s so obvious that you and Hailey are a thing. And so, again, I was thinking- the doctors have made it pretty clear that her illness is like a chronic thing, and since we all know that you two are gonna get married, how about we make the apartment thing official?”

Jay couldn’t help but laugh. “Just to be clear, you’re the one initiating me and Hailey moving in together?”

“Please, you’ve been living together for months. This just means you can finally have all of your stuff in one place, and I don’t have to feel like I need to sneak in when I need clothes. We can work out the rent details…”

“I’ll talk to her about it first. But you’re right, it’s not like it’ll change much.”

“Cool. Just wanted to make sure that was on your radar,” Vanessa said, stepping away. “And Kev owes me twenty bucks.”

“For what?!”

“He thought if I brought up marriage you’d deny it as an option. But you didn’t.”

Jay didn’t even have time to formulate a response before Vanessa disappeared into the shadows of the parking lot, leaving him just a little bewildered, but amused despite himself.

For the first time in months, Hailey found herself standing in the entrance hall to the 21st District, her heart pounding in her chest.

She kept telling herself that these were her people, her friends. So why was she so nervous?

“Well, well, if it isn’t Detective Golidlocks.”

Apparently, even though it had been a long time since she’d been called that, she was still conditioned to respond to that name, because she found herself looking up almost automatically. 

“Sergeant Platt,” she greeted.

“Been cleared yet?”

Hailey shook her head. “Doctors said my lung capacity is still shit, so. Haven’t been given the green light for desk duty.”

“Shame. What brings you here, then?”

“Voight said something about wanting to take me out for lunch?”

The statement came out more like a question, but Platt gave her a knowing grin. “Ah. Yes. You can buzz yourself in. Unless you’ve forgotten how?”

“I think I can manage,” Hailey said, turning toward the stairs. 

“And Goldilocks? It’s good to see you up.”

Hailey flashed Platt a smile before heading up the stairs, relishing in the familiarity of scanning herself in and the creaky sixth step.

Kevin was the first to notice her standing on the top of the landing, and immediately he rushed over and swept her into a hug, lifting her up and swinging her around without any effort at all before passing her to Adam, who did the same thing.

“What’re you doing here?” Vanessa demanded, her eyes wide.

“Voight wanted to see me. And I missed you guys,” Hailey said, taking in all of their faces, her eyes falling on Stamp, who stood awkwardly off to the side. She went over to him and gave him a hug, barely able to reach around his shoulders, he was so tall. “Glad to see you looking healthy again.”

“You too, detective.”

“Where’s Jay?” she asked, pulling away. He knew she was coming down, but she hadn’t spotted him yet. 

“Processing. He’ll be back up soon.”

Just then, Voight emerged from his office. He wasn’t smiling- that would be too much- but he gave her a brief hug. “Ready?”

Hailey didn’t know if she’d ever be ready for whatever this lunch had in store, but she nodded anyway, and followed her former boss back down the stairs, unable to stop herself from taking another look at her friends before they turned the corner.

The last time she’d sat anywhere across from Voight, he sent her to New York. She remembered that day almost like it was yesterday. He’d seemed terribly calm at first, but quickly she found out he wasn’t. She remembered him sweeping all of his papers off his desk in one swift motion- and that was what terrified her the most. 

It had taken everything in her power not to flinch. She’d felt a tug on her heart there, threatening to pull her back through all of her memories about her father, how he’d be normal one moment and then up in her face the next. 

But so much had changed since then. They weren’t detective and sergeant, not anymore. The only thing tying them together was history. 

“How are you doing?” Voight asked, as they waited for their food.

“I’d be better if people stopped asking me that,” Hailey said, the answer slipping out before she could pull it back. “Jay I can understand, but you? I thought you were different.”

“I care about you.”

He said it so simply, so matter-of-fact that it gave her pause. 

“Which is why I wanted to talk to you, alone. I want you to come back to Intelligence.”

“You don’t need me, not anymore. Rojas is already shaping up to be an amazing cop. Stamp is as good, if not better, for Jay than I ever was, and Kim and Kevin and Adam are practically detectives at this point.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. You’re good police, Hailey, with great instincts. You could have run your own unit.”

“Could have. Sarge, I appreciate you trying to look out for me. I really do. But I’m not the same person you used to know. Not anymore. I’m never going to clear the field physical. I’ve accepted that, and you should, too. Focus on the people you can teach, not me.”

“I never said you were. Neither of us are here to play pretend. What I am here for is to offer you a consult job in Intelligence.”

Hailey set down her glass slowly, narrowing her eyes at Voight. “What?”

“You’ll have full access to whatever evidence we find. You would be able to interview suspects, track down footage, whatever is needed to solve the case. You just wouldn’t be going on raids, or visiting suspects, or anything that I’d deem too dangerous for you.”

“Are you serious?”

“I don’t make jokes.”

A few months ago, she would have said yes in a heartbeat, but now, Hailey could barely process what Voight was saying. She’d resigned herself to the fact that she was never going to get back into Intelligence. If she was lucky, she was thinking she’d try to become someone like Platt. But she’d never imagined returning to the 21st like this.

Almost like normal.

“Can I think about it?” she asked finally, almost afraid to look at him.

“Take all the time you need.”

Chapter Text

Jay came home to find Hailey sitting at the kitchen table, wearing her glasses, staring almost too intensely at a book that sat in front of her. She was so out of it that she didn’t even seem to register his presence until he came around behind her and started massaging her shoulders. Only then did she acknowledge that he was there.

“How was lunch?” he asked, even though he had an idea of what she’d met with Voight about. 

“Okay.”

Well, this was interesting. He’d thought she’d be over the moon about getting to rejoin Intelligence, and yet here she was, with an almost angry crease to her brows.

“Want to talk about it?”

She let out a sigh and flipped the book shut, turning to face him fully. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I don’t know what to think anymore.”

“How come?” Jay pulled out the chair next to her, not taking his eyes off her. 

Hailey shrugged, and her expression morphed into something not angry, but more sad. “I guess I’d just gotten so used to the idea of never working in CPD that he caught me off guard. That’s all.”

“I think that happens to everyone at some point. Giving up on something only to end up with it.”

“Yeah.”

Jay tilted his head when she didn’t say anything after that. He recognized the far-off look she wore from when Cameron died, when she’d started to spiral downhill. He recognized this face as her face when she didn’t know what to think, but thought too much at the same time.

He took her hands, gently, and her eyes slowly focused on him. “It’s going to be okay no matter what you decide. And I’ll continue to support you.”

“I know, it’s just- it’s hard.”

And he got it. He really did.

From the first time he met her, he could tell that she lived and breathed for being a police officer. She was in her element from the start, even as a detective from Robbery Homicide clashing heads with a sergeant from the department’s most elite unit. 

If someone told him then that Hailey Upton would ever stop being a cop he wouldn’t have believed them. It was such a huge part of her identity that he wouldn’t have been able to picture her doing anything else.

She loved the job. He saw it when she first walked through that bank door, and he saw it now, even as she sat before him, wrestling with her choice.

But Jay also knew how much she’d been through, how much she’d lost because of being a cop- her mentors, friends, informants, her health… 

He’d sat with her in the hospital a few days after Voight told her that he was replacing her. She’d cried for hours, deep, heart-wrenching sobs, so much that she’d thrown up. And he knew that out of all of the things she’d been through, losing her place in Intelligence had very nearly destroyed her.

Hailey’d always been cautious with the people and things she cared about. It wasn’t easy to get her to open up, for fear of getting hurt. She’d shut down any hopes of working at the 21st after that visit from Voight because of that. 

So it made sense that it was hard for her to suddenly switch tracks. He could see the conflict behind her blank stare, and could tell that she was spiralling, just a little bit.

“Hey,” he said gently, leaning forward. “Don’t do that to yourself.”

“Do what?” 

“Don’t torture yourself with things you could have done or what people might think or whatever else is worrying you. No one else has the right to judge you or make this choice for you. Me included.”

“I know.”

Jay saw a glimmer in her eye before she glanced away, wiping at her face with her sleeve, sniffling a little bit, even though she tried to stifle it. 

“I just… I want to come back. I think I’ve always wanted to. But I don’t know if I can live with watching you guys leave without me, and know that I can’t do anything more to help. Part of me thinks it’s just better to leave it all behind and move on. It’ll be easier to pretend that way.”

“But?”

“But every unsolved crime and victim that’s gone by makes me wonder what would have happened if I’d been up there with you, and I hate myself for not doing more.”

Jay shook his head. “You shouldn’t think that.”

“I do anyway.”

“You needed to focus on getting better. You can’t burden yourself with all of this, Hails. Not everything’s on you. You’ve told me that so many times. So here I am, telling you the same thing. Either way, you need to remember that sometimes it’s okay to step away.”

Hailey gave a watery laugh. “Just because I said it doesn’t mean I’m capable of doing it myself.”

“Yeah, it’s not easy.”

After a long pause, she straightened, taking a deep breath. “I’m going to tell Voight yes,” she said, and Jay knew by the conviction in her voice that this was a choice she felt confident in.

“I’m proud of you, Hails.”

“I know.”

They went to Bartoli’s that night for dinner to celebrate. Not only was the pizza fantastic, but Bartoli, the man who owned the place, knew them from when they first started out as partners. 

“How’s my favorite crimefighting duo doing?” he asked when they came in. 

“Not bad, you?” Jay answered.

“Better, now that you two are here,” Bartoli said warmly, giving them a smile. “What can I get you today? The usual?”

“Yeah, that would be great.”

They sat in their usual corner booth across from each other as they waited for their food. Jay couldn’t keep the smile off his face as they talked- they were going to finally get to work together again. 

“You’re awfully happy,” Hailey commented. 

“I can’t help it, I’m sorry. I know how hard all of this has been. I’m really, really proud of you.”

“We’re not there yet,” she reminded him. “I still haven’t been cleared for desk duty.”

“That’ll happen soon. Voight never would have offered if he didn’t think you’d be up to it for a while. He’s not that kind of person.”

“Will said a year was more likely than six months. It hasn’t even been that.”

Jay frowned at her. “Why are you putting yourself down like this? You should be celebrating.”

Hailey let out a long breath. “I know, it’s just- I don’t want to get my hopes up. There are still so many variables involved. My lungs, my heart, my head. Everything. And as much as I want to believe that I’ll be consulting in the near future, I can’t help but think that something’s going to get in the way of that.”

“You’re getting better,” he protested.

“Yeah. Getting there. I’m not healthy yet, and I will never be healthy, not like you or Stamp or Adam or Kim. There’s always something that ruins it for me.”

“Hails…”

She shook her head. “We came here to celebrate, and here I am, being negative. Let’s just move on and forget that that conversation ever happened, okay?”

“That’s not healthy.”

“Please, Jay.”

He held up his hands in surrender. “Okay. We won’t talk about it, not tonight at least.”

“Thank you.”

Bartoli came around with their pizza then and cracked a joke, almost like he knew that they needed something to break the tension. And it did- for the rest of dinner, they didn’t talk about Intelligence, or Hailey’s sickness. 

But Jay didn’t forget what she’d said, either.

Chapter Text

A few days later, Hailey stepped in the all-too familiar doors of Chicago Med. Unlike the times she’d visited before, she was alone- everyone in Intelligence, including Platt, was occupied with some terrorist threat case. 

She checked in and then took a seat in the waiting room, trying her best not to appear nervous, but she was- because today they were doing all of the tests that would allow her to attempt the physical for desk duty.

Twenty minutes later, Will appeared in the doorway. She stood as soon as she saw him; he gave her a smile when he spotted her. “Come on back, Hailey.”

In the exam room, she hopped onto the table, forcing her breaths to stay even while Will went over her chart. “Today’s a big day,” he commented. 

“Yeah.”

“Your pulmonologist, cardiologist, and rheumatologist will be arriving shortly. Unfortunately, with my area of expertise and your connection to my brother, I can’t perform any of the tests on you. My shift does end in thirty minutes.”

He left the statement hanging in the room, eyes on her, waiting for a response.

Jesus Christ, he reminded her of Jay sometimes. 

“I can come back,” he said finally. “If you want.”

The stubborn, proud part of her almost said no. But as much as she liked to pretend she didn’t need someone there with her, the other part of her desperately wanted him to stay. “I- yeah. Thanks.”

“Then I’ll see you in a half-hour.”

And then he left her alone, and the silence after was suffocating.

She spent the next hours getting poked, prodded, and examined. They pinched her nose shut and had her breath into a tube for two minutes, which made her head feel a little airy. Dr. Marcel ran an echocardiogram, which she was familiar with, but she still didn’t love the cold gel he put on her chest when he did it. 

They also had her do all kinds of stretches, most of which she was familiar with from physical therapy, but felt strange to do with so many sets of eyes on her. 

Every time she felt herself starting to panic, she looked back at Will, who smiled at her every time she did, and she felt a little better knowing that at least one Halstead was there with her, even though he wasn’t Jay.

Then they had her run around the entire hospital, which frankly sucked, because it was cold and windy and rainy, and she came back shivering, but she couldn’t put her jacket back on because the three doctors immediately came at her with their stethoscopes.

After checking a few more things, all three of them disappeared, leaving Will and Hailey by themselves. He wordlessly held her jacket open for her and she gratefully slipped her arms back into the sleeves. 

“How long will it take?” she asked, slumping into the seat beside him, her pulse still pounding from her run around the building.

“I don’t know.”

She let out a sigh. “I thought for sure I’d be able to tell what they were thinking, but… I can’t figure out how I did at all.”

“It could have been worse,” Will said, which didn’t make her feel better, but she swallowed and nodded anyway. “Listen, Hails-”

Of course he called her Hails, Jay called her that, too. It must run in the family.

“You need to remember that this was the best-case scenario. We thought six months at minimum, it’s been five. Even if you don’t pass today, this is a really, really good sign for the future.”

She didn’t reply. She’d told herself that, over and over, but ever since her lunch with Voight, she couldn’t get the image out of her head, of walking back into the precinct and heading back up the stairs and writing on the whiteboard. 

It felt like an eternity before Dr. Marcel came back in, alone this time, and gave one shake of his head. 

And just like that, it felt like the floor dropped out from under her. He was talking now, saying something about how her oxygen levels were far below average, and she tried to pay attention, to learn something, anything, but it felt as though she were underwater, and he were above her. 

Once Dr. Marcel left Hailey felt Will’s hand on her shoulder, felt him pull her closer to him, and she let him, even though it did nothing to quell the aching growing in her chest from knowing that, despite all of the therapy and treatments and exercise and medicine, she’d failed.

When Hailey got home, she immediately went upstairs and crawled into bed, not caring if Will stayed or left. She felt drained, emotionally and physically, but sleep eluded her despite the fatigue.

She resented that.

The door creaked open and the bed dipped from someone’s weight next to her. 

“Hailey.”

So Will hadn’t left.

“Leave me alone,” she said, not caring if she sounded like a petulant teenager. “Don’t you have something better to do with yourself?”

“Better than hang out with my favorite detective? Never.”

“I’m not in the mood, Will.”

But he didn’t leave. And even though she wasn’t looking at him, she could practically feel his gaze boring into her. “Stop looking at me like that,” she grumbled.

“Like what?”

She turned around, throwing the comforter away from her face and glaring at him. “Like you pity me.”

“Who said I pity you? I have patients who would kill to be as healthy as you. Toddlers who have their whole lives ahead of them but can’t get out of bed because of some illness. A mother who can’t drop her kid off at college because there are too many health risks. Believe it or not, Hailey, you’re in a good place.”

“Doesn’t feel like it.”

“Of course it doesn’t. Lyon didn’t design your toxin to feel good. But that pain, that hurt? That means you’re alive. You should remember that.”

“I know it sucks,” Will continued, his voice softening. “But you’re going to get there. You’re one of the strongest people I know. And those tests might seem like an impossible goal, but look how far you’ve come.”

She managed a weak smile, but not before a single tear slipped down her cheek. Will handed her a tissue without a word. She wiped it away and blew her nose, and when she looked back at him, there was an odd expression on his face. 

“What?” 

“Nothing. It’s just- Jay loves you a lot, you know? And I do, too, but definitely not as much as he does. You’re family. And we’ve got you, always and forever, thick and thin. No matter what.”

Chapter Text

Jay didn’t get home until two in the morning, after running around Chicago for almost thirty hours straight. He opened the door to find his brother slumped over in the armchair, mouth hanging open, the lamp beside him still on.

That didn’t bode well for the results of Hailey’s appointment. 

Will’s eyes slowly opened. “Jay,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “How did work go?”

“Fine. Thanks for staying with her. How did it go?”

Will shook his head. “Stats were still too low. According to her doctors, flexibility was fine, strength was fine, but her lungs are still a huge issue. She was way below where they want her to be to qualify.”

Jay sighed, running a hand through his hair. “How is she?”

“She took it hard.”

That wasn’t a surprise. Even though Hailey put on a tough show, Jay knew from being her partner that she took everything to heart. Cases, relationships… whenever she cared about something, she cared. 

And nothing mattered to her more than getting back to Intelligence, to her job. 

“Thanks again. Sorry I’m so late.”

“No problem. Any time, really.”

With that, Will gathered his things from where he’d put them by the door and headed out the door with a tired smile. 

Jay headed upstairs and got ready for bed as quietly as he could, changing into a pair of boxers and a soft shirt in his room before checking on Hailey.

She stirred almost as soon as he pulled back the covers, almost as if she hadn’t been asleep in the first place. 

“Hey, Hails,” he said softly as he settled in across from her. Even in the darkness of her room, he could see the silvery tracks her tears left on her cheeks. He reached out and wiped them away with his thumb. She closed her eyes at the touch, letting out a shuddering breath. 

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“What for?”

“For disappointing you.”

Jay shook his head at that instantly. “I’m not disappointed in you. I’m disappointed for you, but not at you. I know how much you want this. I want it, too. But I don’t want it to happen if you’re not ready, or if the doctors don’t think you’re ready.”

Hailey swallowed, and turned her head away, not saying anything, and he saw another tear make its way down her cheek.

“What can I do to help?”

“I don’t know.”

She sounded like she was very close to outright crying, even though he could tell that she was doing everything in her power not to. 

“We could watch something, or I could make tea, or we could bake-”

“None of that is going to change anything.”

Jay gave her a look. “Hailey…”

She let out a frustrated huff. “I know, I’m being a handful. I’m sorry. I’m just not in the right headspace to pretend that I’m having a good time.”

“I’d never ask you to.”

“Can we just sleep? Please?”

Jay couldn’t argue with that. He was whipped from all of the sprinting he’d done today, and the high stakes of the case, so he nodded, and pulled her closer. She resisted for a moment before relaxing into his embrace.

Before he closed his eyes, he pressed a kiss to her hair. “I love you, Hails, no matter what.”

“I love you, too,” he heard her say, her voice a little muffled.

Over the next week, Hailey went on more runs than she probably should have because she couldn’t bear sitting in the house by herself. For some reason, it felt emptier than usual without Jay there, and she had even less patience for watching movies and reading than ever before. 

She never should have gone into the hospital, she thought bitterly. All it did was get her hopes up for something that she shouldn’t have been hoping for. 

Running sucked, but it took her mind off of the official lab results that sat on her dresser, and at least gave her the appearance of doing something beneficial. Even though it felt like no matter how much exercise she got, her lungs still couldn’t keep up. 

Someone from the precinct occasionally stopped by with lunch- usually Jay, but sometimes one of the others. Hailey and Kevin had an intense Mario Kart rivalry going, after playing it almost every week since she’d gotten sick.

She found herself getting closer to Will, too. He more than anyone knew what she was going through- he understood the science of it, and had tips to help her cope with the chronic pain that lingered no matter how many times she stretched or did breathing exercises or cardio.

Hailey was just so tired of it all. She hated the never ending cycle of chest therapy and pain medication and mandatory physical therapy sessions. She just wanted one week, or even one day, where she didn’t have the specter of her illness looming over her head.

But apparently today wasn’t that day.

She woke up when Jay’s alarm went off for work to a splitting headache- worse than the migraine she’d had before. She buried her face in the pillow, wincing involuntarily. Immediately, she felt Jay’s hand on her shoulder.

“You good?”

“Migraine.”

“Want me to stay?”

“No, go. I’ll be fine.”

Jay didn’t seem thrilled, but he headed out of the room anyway to get a change of clothes. He returned a few moments later with a cup of water in his hands, along with an Advil. “Here, take this,” he said, helping her sit up.

The motion alone made her dizzy, and he had to steady her. 

“Are you sure you don’t want me to stay?” he asked, as he felt her forehead, frowning. “You don’t have a fever.”

“It’s fine.”

Truth be told, she didn’t want him around. He spent so much time caring for her that it made her feel guilty sometimes, since she very rarely found opportunities to do the same for him. 

“Need anything before I go?”

“Another blanket?” 

She was freezing, which always happened when she got migraines. Jay pulled one off his bed and tucked it around her shoulders. “I’m going to call Will and have him stay with you, okay?”

“I’m fine. I’ve gotten stress headaches before.”

“Still. I don’t want you to be here by yourself. He’s off work today, anyway.”

Great. Not only was she disruptive to Jay working, she was now ruining Will’s days off, too.

With that, Jay leaned down and kissed her ever so lightly before turning off the lamp on the side table and heading out the door. 

Chapter Text

Will arrived about an hour later- he knocked his signature knock before she heard him unlock the door and start up the stairs. 

A few seconds after that, she heard the bedroom door creak open. “Twice in one week? Clearly you’re finally coming to your senses and falling for the right Halstead now.”

“Don’t press your luck,” Hailey grumbled into her pillow. “Jay was the one who thought you should come over, not me. You deserve a day off.”

“And miss seeing you? Never.”

“Oh, please, you definitely have spunkier, more attractive companions that you could be hanging out with instead of me.”

“I don’t know, Hailey, you’re kinda pretty too.”

Usually she was up to bantering with Will, but today it just exhausted her, and her pain-riddled brain couldn’t formulate a good comeback, so she just didn’t answer. 

“That bad, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Have you kept hydrated? Eaten anything?” Will asked, doctor mode kicking in. He felt her forehead, just like his brother did, but a little more authoritatively. “You aren’t running a temperature, and-” he listened to her breathing- “your lungs sound average. You haven’t been overdoing it, have you?”

Hailey didn’t reply to that. 

“Hailey. What was it, running? Jay mentioned something about a river trail?”

“Yeah,” she admitted.

“And I’m guessing you’ve felt overly fatigued because of that.”

Her second nonresponse was all the answer he needed. 

“You need to pay attention to things like this, Hailey. It’s your body telling you it needs a break, not more work and more stress. It’s probably why you have a migraine now.”

“Spare me the lecture, Will, I get enough of it from Jay.”

“I’m not going to spare you the lecture. This is important. You need to take care of your health. Not just because it might lead to headaches and fatigue and whatever side effects you’ve gotten over the past few months, but because if you don’t, your body might give out before you even get to desk duty. Your entire system is wrecked because of the toxin, and pressuring it to work to full capacity when it can’t isn’t just stupid, it’s dangerous, and could ruin your chances at improvement,” Will told her.

He’d never spoken to her with this tone of voice, with intense eyes and furrowed brows. 

“I get it.”

“I’m not so sure if you do. The last time you got a lung infection your lungs gave out from working too hard. They were pushed too hard too quickly. The same thing could happen if you don’t manage what you’re doing properly. And you don’t want that. I know you don’t.”

“How do you know?” she challenged, anger suddenly rising in her chest. She sat up, pushing her hair out of her face. “How do you know what I think?”

Will met her gaze steadily, without flinching. “You’ve fought every second to get healthy. I don’t think you’re about to ruin those chances now, not when you’re so close.”

“Maybe I don’t want to fight anymore.”

And just like that, the words were out in the open. They hung in the air, angry and bitter and dark and vicious all at the same time, for so long that she started to think she’d imagined saying them, because Will barely flinched.

“You don’t mean that.”

She didn’t. Not really. But there was a tiny part of her that did, wholeheartedly, unabashedly.

“I’m in pain every day. I can’t breathe, I can’t think, I can’t run without being reminded of the fact that I will spend the rest of my life living like this, like an invalid. Why wouldn’t I mean it?” she demanded, her words like ice. 

“Because you love my brother too much,” Will said simply.

He was right.

And she hated that he was right.

“Love has nothing to do with it.”

“It has everything to do with it, and you know it, Hailey. You let yourself get injected because you loved him too much to let him carry the burden of killing ten innocent people. He spent weeks chasing a cure to save your life even when everyone, including me, thought you were a lost cause because he loves you. And you kept fighting through pain and illness, and he stayed with you and cared for you, all because you love each other.”

“And you’re not going to give up, because you know and he knows and I know that you two are meant to be together, and nothing, not Angela Nelson or Richard Lyon or any other person will ever be able to stand in the way of that.”

Will’s words stuck in Hailey’s mind long after he headed downstairs, which didn’t help her rest at all. She kept dwelling on that one word-

Love. 

Such a weird, strange, dangerous thing. Her mother spent countless years suffering in an abusive relationship for it. Hailey knew cops who died for it. 

And she was almost one of them. 

As much as she hated to admit it, Will was right about all of it. 

She would go to the ends of the earth to protect Jay, and she knew he would do the same thing for her. Had done for her. 

He’d saved her so many times. 

The first time she could remember was when McGrady died, when everyone, including Voight, blamed her for not getting on the scene quicker. Everyone except Jay, who asked her if she was good, whose comforting touch pulled her out of her guilty spiral and allowed her to do her job.

From there, things got muddier. Of course there was the operation against Booth, where he constantly checked up on her, and went out of his way to understand what the case meant to her, and talked her down from killing the man in that stairwell.

And then there was that time in the van, where she’d been too slow to clock the source of the gunshots until the bullets were ripping through metal, where he’d tackled to her to the ground, wrapping his arms around her, protecting her even though he was the one who was the most exposed.

It was almost overwhelming how much he’d done for her. 

She knew with almost complete certainty that if it wasn’t for Jay, she would have died a long time ago, whether by the hands of some random offender or Richard Lyon or even herself. 

The thought was reassuring and terrifying at the same time.

She’d never been this close to someone before. Not her brothers, her mother, Garrett, Ruzek… no one. She learned quickly when she was little that caring meant that you’d walk into school the next day with a black eye and too many explanations that didn’t quite make sense. 

She let Garrett in and he ended up dead.

Adam didn’t count. She’d never intended for their fling to turn into anything. And even though she did love him, in a way, their relationship had never been viable.

Because all that time she’d been protecting herself from all of the mistakes she’d made in the past in regard to romance, she left other doors wide open, just waiting for someone to come in. And he did, slowly, over years, with his charming smile and warm eyes and contagious laugh, over whiskey and pizza and taps on the shoulder during raids and cups of coffee in the mornings.

And she wouldn’t trade that for the world. Even if it meant twenty, thirty, forty more years of agonizing and camping over the Fourth of July.

Because it was worth it, if she just had Jay.

Chapter Text

Hailey seemed different after the day she had the migraine, Jay thought. Something changed, and he couldn’t figure out what it was. She was lighter, somehow- but not carefree. He knew she would never be, not with everything that was going on. 

But he was glad to see the new life to her step. He’d been worried about her, ever since her test results came back, but he wasn’t anymore.

For once, he could say with almost certainty that she was going to be okay.

Of course he wished she could return to Intelligence. Everyone did. But now it felt less like she needed it to keep going, and more like she wanted it, that she was choosing it.

He came home one day to find her sitting on the steps by the door, wearing one of his button-down shirts, of all things- an olive green one, with the sleeves rolled up. She sprang up when she saw him, and stood on her tiptoes to place a feather-light kiss to his lips.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” he said, a little bewildered, but happy to see her nonetheless. “How was your day?”

“Not bad. How was Intelligence?”

“The usual.”

He held her at arm’s length, tugging on the fabric of her shirt. “This looks familiar,” he commented, his eyes twinkling. 

She glanced down. “It was in my stuff,” she said, raising her eyebrows. “Pretty sure it’s mine.”

“It’s definitely mine, it’s way too big on you.”

“Agree to disagree. That’s what we get for having similar clothing choices,” she replied. He laughed- that he couldn’t argue about. There were definitely days in the past where they’d showed up to work in almost the same outfit. 

He set his bag down by the door and made his way into the kitchen, Hailey following. “What do you want for dinner?”

“I was thinking we could go somewhere.”

Jay turned, eyebrows slightly raised. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. Bowling?”

“Bowling? That’s not exactly a place to eat.”

“We can get food before, or something, I just feel like doing something fun. Like a date.”

That caught his attention. “Is this you asking me out?” 

Hailey shrugged, trying to hide the pink that crept up her cheeks. “Maybe I am,” she said, and he caught a hint of nervousness in her voice that wasn’t there before. “Does that change anything?”

“Not with you,” he said, stepping around the counter and pulling her in for another kiss, this one deeper than the last, leaving both of them a little out of breath by the time they separated.

“Can I ask what brought this on?” he asked, as they headed to the door and Hailey put on her shoes. 

“You said at the cabin you wanted your future to have games, food, and family,” she said simply. “And it’s about time I did something for you.”

“It’s not a competition, Hails.”

“Maybe not, but this bowling session is going to be, so get moving, Halstead.”

Bowling was indeed competitive. Hailey was way better at it than she was at mini-golfing, which meant that they were fairly well matched through every game they played. In the end, they played three games, with Jay winning one and Hailey winning two after she got three strikes in a row in the last game.

It was fun to get out of the house and hang out with her in a different setting. And he wouldn’t admit it, but his shirt looked good on her, maybe even better on her than him. Yes, they had similar styles, but there was something endearing about the way that the shirt enveloped her small frame.

And for the hundredth time, he wondered how he’d managed to get someone like Hailey for a partner, a best friend, and girlfriend, even though they never labelled it that. Somehow the title didn’t fit her, even thought that’s what they were- boyfriend and girlfriend.

After bowling, they stopped by their favorite cafe- one that had outdoor seating- and people watched in contented silence. Hailey sipped some chamomile tea, which was her go-to ever since the toxin, since she wasn’t allowed to have coffee- while Jay chose the mystery drink option, which looked a lot like unicorn vomit.

It didn’t taste horrible though. It was almost like drinking a funfetti cake. 

“Hey, Hails?” he asked, after a long lull in their conversation.

“Yeah?”

“I think I’m in love with you." 

Her cheeks immediately turned pink again, and she gave him a look. “You’re a sap, Jay Halstead.”

“No, but really. I’m really in love with you,” he said, meeting her gaze steadily, joking, but utterly serious at the same time. “And I think I want to marry you.”

“Jay, what-”

Immediately he realized what he’d said, and the context of it, and shook his head. “I’m not asking you now. I don’t think we’re there yet. I just- I’m bad at this whole feelings thing. I don’t always know the right thing to say or when to say it but I’m telling you now that I’m in love with you, and no matter what the future holds, no matter if we fight sometime or if you get sick again or if I get hurt or the fates decide to twist our threads in some strange way again, you deserve to hear that. And I want to ask you to marry me someday, somewhere, somehow, but I don’t know when, and I want you to know that.”

Hailey was speechless at that, and ducked her head, glancing at the mug in her hands. She took a deep breath before she looked up at him, and he was startled by the clarity in them. “You know I love you,” she said finally, and he relaxed a little. He’d been afraid that he’d said the wrong thing. “And you’re right. We’re not ready. There is still so much we don’t have a handle on. But.”

Jay never liked that word. ‘But’, when girls said it, usually meant that he was about to get dumped.

“But I want you to know that I would say yes. Someday.”

Chapter Text

They sat there at the cafe for a long time after that, neither of them willing to break the serenity that hung in the air. Jay didn’t know how to describe the feeling, other than pure contentedness, at the feeling of Hailey’s hand in his, at the sight of her smiling back at him every time he looked at her.

It felt almost like they were in a movie, in one of the scenes with a warm golden filter over it. If he closed his eyes, he could almost imagine the sweeping shot of the quiet street and the soft piano music in the background- a thought that made him laugh a little.

Hailey gave him a curious look.

“It’s just- if you told eighteen year-old Jay that he’d be one of those couples that hold hands while sitting at the cafe tables he would have thought you were joking. And yet here I am, with you.”

“I would’ve thought the same thing,” she admitted. She paused, toying with the rim of her now empty teacup. “These past few months have been so surreal. So much has happened. So many terrible things, surprising things, wonderful things. Sometimes I feel like I’m dreaming.”

“Me, too.”

“But I’m glad, you know? I’m glad it all happened. Even though it might not be fun all the time, it gave me so much.”

“Yeah, a turkey in bowling.”

That made her smile; a thrill ran through him at the sight of her dimples. “Yes, a turkey in bowling. Among other things. Like you. And that... that is something I am endlessly thankful for.”

He wanted to reach out and kiss her right then and there, but he could tell that she still had more to say, judging by the far-off look in her eyes, so he just kept listening. 

“When we were partners, I always trusted you. Even from the beginning. I knew you’d have my back, and you have. I’m not going to lie, but I struggled in Intelligence for that first year, but you- you grounded me, even if you didn’t know it.”

“Literally and figuratively, from the time McGrady got shot to the toxin and everything in between, you’ve been there for me” she said. There was moisture pooling in her eyes, but it didn’t fall. She paused, inhaling sharply before meeting his gaze. “Intelligence or no Intelligence, partners or not, you never fail me, and I… I can’t express how much that means to me. I wouldn’t be alive without you, Jay.”

“I think you’d have made it out without me,” he said gently.

She shook her head. “No. I wouldn’t. I know I’m capable of doing a lot of things, but this past year has showed me what I should have known all along- I couldn’t survive without you. You saved me, from myself, from the toxin, and from everything afterward, and not enough thanks in the world can ever make up for that.”

“What if you finally stop feeling the need to keep score?” he asked. 

“I’m not-”

“You are. You talk about needing to thank me, to do things for me, and as much as I enjoy going on dates like this with you and talking with you, I didn’t do it because I expect all of that. I did it because I love you, and just that. Nothing else. I don’t need gratitude, or fancy vacations. You’re here and that’s enough to make me the happiest man in the world,” he said, squeezing her hands. “Okay?”

Hailey sniffed a little, looking down at their interlocked fingers before nodding. “Okay.”

They drove back home after that. Hailey fell asleep immediately after they did her chest therapy, tucked in Jay’s arms, but he stayed awake for a long time after that, just watching her chest rise and fall with every breath.

Marriage.

He hadn’t expected that topic to come up today, and certainly not how it happened, with him blurting the idea out without warning. 

Apparently he’d been thinking about it more than he realized.

Was it too soon to say something about it? They’d only been together for a few months, and she’d only gotten to moderate health levels in the past two. Some people waited years to get engaged. 

But he and Hailey were different. They’d known each other as friends long before they started dating. Not only that, but they had to trusted one another with their life. If anything, that allowed them to skip a few ‘get to know you’ steps in their relationship.

In fact, they’d gone straight from not dating at all to their first kiss. And it all felt natural. Normal, even comfortable for both of them. 

There were very little lines they hadn’t crossed by now. Marriage was one of them. Sex was another.

He wasn’t afraid of it, it just… it never felt necessary, like they needed it to sustain their relationship, whereas some couples’ bond seemed to rely on that. And it never felt like the right time, either- Jay was often caught up in cases and Hailey often didn’t feel well. And he didn’t want to impose that pressure on her. 

That wasn’t what mattered to him.

Hailey started coughing in her sleep, her nose scrunched up, which Jay jolted out of his thoughts. He reached out and started rubbing her back, tracing patterns on the fabric of her shirt, and she calmed a little, letting out a lighter cough before snuggling even closer to him.

He was perfectly content here, now, knowing that she was beside him, knowing that she loved him. 

Whatever happened next would happen, and they’d face it together. Whatever that might be.

But he did have to figure out what to do about a ring.

Even though they weren’t ready to get engaged now, he wanted to do it soon. He didn’t want to keep her hanging for too long, and he needed to pick a time that made sense for them. Jay worried that asking her after she got cleared would make it seem like he didn’t want to commit to her unless she was healthy, which wasn’t true.

So that meant he should ask her before, or at least make sure she knew that he wasn’t just waiting for her to get better.

He had a lot of planning to do. He had to decide what to do about a ring first, which was an interesting variable, because the ring he would have used was also one that he intended to propose to Erin with.

And that didn’t seem right. 

Jay loved the ring. It was his mother’s. But both he and Will failed with that ring, and even though it was stupid to think it was cursed, part of him wanted to start over, with something new, without all of those memories attached.

Chapter Text

Hailey fell into a new normal. She went for a run early in the morning with Jay before he went to work, then she’d do some yoga, shower, eat breakfast, watch an episode of a show, do some physical therapy, make lunch, attempt to solve old case files (a few of which she did get a few leads on), clean occasionally, and walk to the grocery store for dinner materials. Then Jay would come home and they’d make dinner together, and then curl up on the couch with him. 

Overall it was extremely boring. 

She might not have as much energy as she used to- her body used a lot of it up trying to keep her healthy, according to Will- but she was still very high-strung. She hated not being productive, and missed running around with her friends. And with Jay.

This felt so mundane. Simple. As if she were a housewife waiting for her husband to come home from work. And not once had Hailey ever wanted that role in life.

The Jay part wasn’t so bad. At least when he was home, she thought about something other than the lingering tightness in her lungs and the numbers on the clock that seemed to exist only to taunt her.

He made all of that go away.

But when he left, she started wondering. Would she pass the next test? Were her lungs strong enough now? What about everything else? Nothing was guaranteed, ever, and there were still some days when she barely had enough strength to go to the bathroom and get a drink of water.

On those days, Jay lingered at the house for as long as possible. He brought her a massive glass of water, some fruit, and some soup in a Thermos, and sat by her side until the alarm on his phone reminded him that he had to go to work.

Those were the days where Hailey was endlessly grateful that he was there. If she’d been living alone, or even with Vanessa, she’d struggle. Those days were incredibly isolating, and she hated them with a passion.

One week, Will called her into the hospital, which was a little out of the ordinary, but she figured that there was some kind of test that they wanted to run.

“Hey, Hailey,” he said with a warm grin, giving her a quick hug. “How’s today?”

That was always how he asked her. How’s today. He’d started texting her every day, whether it was morning or night, but it never felt intrusive. He was so friendly about it, and usually followed it up with a joke, and she knew that it was just his way of making sure that she was okay. And how he asked it was somehow better than how are you feeling. At least she had the choice to talk about something other than her illness.

“Not bad. Jay and I ran some of the lake path this morning.”

“That’s a nice one. So, I’m not going to drag this out any longer for you. Dr. Danover has been studying Lyon’s toxin over the past few months and been trying to figure out a cure for you,” Will said, his face turning serious now. “To help in the long run.”

“A cure.”

“Something that would wipe out the toxin completely,” Will said, nodding. “She ran into a problem. Well, several. The thing is, the toxin corrupted some of your cells to produce it themselves. That’s why your immune system is so low, and why your energy levels have a lower peak. Your body is constantly making the stuff itself, and the other cells in your body are trying to fight it. You’re pretty much sick 24/7, the symptoms just show up when the cells start losing.”

Hailey knew all of this. She didn’t know why Will was saying it again.

“There are two options for you moving forward. We can continue treating you like we have been, which is pretty much symptom management and strengthening your body as much as possible. Or, we can attempt to eradicate the toxin outright.”

“There’s a but.”

Will swallowed. “In order to do that, the treatment would proceed almost as if you were to undergo chemotherapy, but with adjusted formulas, in an attempt to kill your corrupted cells.”

She stared at him, her mind whirling. “So what you’re saying is I can either keep dealing with this as is and never be free from it, or I double the amount of harmful toxins in my body and hope that they cancel each other out.”

“Yes.”

She wanted to be frustrated, but Will looked devastated as he said it. 

“I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to make a decision now, but your team recommends that you choose before being tested to return to Intelligence again. If you do pick the cure route, that will mean that you won’t be able to work for at least a year. Maybe more. It makes the most sense to decide now, so that you have as smooth of a transition as possible.”

Hailey felt enormously overwhelmed. This was not what she’d expected when Will called her in. 

“I- this is a lot.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

She stood up, and Will did, too, staring at her in concern. “I have to go,” she managed. “I’ll call you, I guess, or something, I don’t know-”

“It’s going to be okay, Hailey,” he said softly.

She couldn’t look at him. She was afraid that if she did she would cry, or scream, because it felt like the world was crashing down on her shoulders again with the weight of this new choice in front of her. 

Instead, she turned and almost bolted out the door, through the halls before sliding into the car where Kim was waiting.

“How did it go?” Kim asked, with a hopeful look on her face. 

Hailey couldn’t bring herself to say the words out loud. She didn’t even know how to talk about it, or what to say. It’s not like she could exactly say “hey, I either have to live with a chronic illness or undergo treatment for a year.”

So she just swallowed the sinking feeling in her chest and the bitter taste in her mouth. “Fine. It went fine.”

“What did Will want?”

“Just a check-up.”

She was pretty sure Kim didn’t believe her, but the brunette didn’t push further as she drove Hailey back to the house.

Chapter Text

Hailey sat at the kitchen counter for a long time after Kim dropped her off, her mind spinning. 

A cure.

There was a cure. Rather, a potential one. That thought was thrilling and terrifying all at the same time. 

She wanted to be rid of the lingering effects of the toxin, she really did. She hated feeling under the weather even before she’d gotten injected, but now, it was starting to become a normal thing. And losing that independence, even just a little, irked her. 

But judging from what Will said, choosing to take the ‘cure’ didn’t necessarily mean it would work. Cancer treatments, which he’d compared to what she would go through, could be unpredictable. They got rid of the corrupted cells, yes, but sometimes at the cost of normal, healthy ones. 

If that happened, Hailey knew she would die. 

There was no question about that. She’d heard tones of it in Will’s voice, warning her that if she chose that path, there were no shades of grey. She either came out of it without the toxin in her system or she died, and suffered the entire way. And with her immune system, with how weak her lungs and heart were already, Hailey guessed that her chances weren’t great.

She was so sick of being sick. Right now, both options made her nauseous to even think about. 

Spending her whole life managing her symptoms did not sound appealing- but neither did spending another year in and out of the hospital. 

And she had Jay to think about, too.

What was worse for him- worrying about her every day for the rest of his life, or dealing with her being in the hospital again?

Her phone lit up with a notification that Will had forwarded her an email from Dr. Danover, detailing the approximate process they would go through if she chose to pursue the cure. Against her better judgement, Hailey clicked it open, and started scrolling.

Side effects: nausea, hair loss, fever, fatigue, hair loss, nerve pain, weight loss…

Hailey lost herself in the email. Every time she thought it was over she scrolled and there was more to read- more side effects, conditional statements, disclaimers… it was almost overwhelming how questionable it all seemed. But that was how these treatments were. Do questionable things to your body and hope that you can live longer.

Chance of success: 14%.

She set her phone on the counter and let out a breath.

This was impossible.

The door opened then, and in walked Jay, who came around after putting his keys away, and stood behind Hailey, rubbing her shoulders. “You seem tense,” he commented, when she didn’t relax into his touch like she usually did. 

“Rough day.”

“Was it the appointment with Will?”

Hailey held up her phone for him, and he took it.

There was a long silence as he read the email- such a long silence that she almost turned around to see what he was thinking. 

“Is this what you’re doing?”

“I don’t know. Will wants me to decide within the next few weeks. Says I won’t go back to Intelligence if I start the treatment.”

Jay sat on the stool beside her, head tilted to he could see her expression. “Have you decided?”

His voice was so gentle, and Hailey almost wished he’d be more opinionated about it. But she knew he would never tell her what she should or shouldn’t do. “I don’t know,” she whispered, turning her phone over in her hands, needing something to do other than look at him.

“Whatever you decide… I’ll be there.”

“I know you will.”

Having him there was calming. She hadn’t realized it, but without him there, she’d started to spiral, her thoughts chasing her down the trap of ‘what ifs’. At least now there was someone to stop her from doing that, someone to stop her from falling.

“What’re you thinking, Hails?”

“That I don’t want to be sick anymore.”

His gaze softened, and he squeezed her hands.

“No matter what I pick, I’m going to lose, aren’t I?” she whispered, and now the tears that she’d been holding back were threatening to spill over. 

Jay had no answer to that, he just gave her that look, the look that always somehow broke down all of her walls, the look that made her say things she’d never told anyone, and the fear that lingered in her mind since the beginning fell from her lips without letting her question saying it out loud.

“I don’t want to die.”

“Oh, Hailey.”

“It seems obvious, right? I should try for the cure,” she continued, a strange tone to her voice now, as she forced herself to continue. 

“I can’t help but think of what it would mean. I could finally breathe again, and not worry so much about getting sick, or tiring myself out… and you wouldn’t have to spend all day wondering if I’m not feeling well.”

“I should want to be free of all of this mess. But it scares me, now more than ever, because after everything, if I try and do this I don’t think I’ll survive. This is bad, yes, but.... I’d rather spend a lifetime like this with you than die trying to reach something that might not even be possible anymore.”

“It’s okay to be afraid,” Jay reminded her.

She sighed, and ran a hand over her ponytail. “I don’t know what to do.”

He was silent for a moment. “I think you do.”

As soon as he said it, she knew that he was right, that she’d made up her mind a long time before this conversation. But knowing it and committing to it were two different things. She was almost afraid to say it out loud, because doing so would make it true.

Hailey dropped her head into her hands, squeezing her eyes shut. “You’re right,” she said, a sob rising in her throat. “I just hate this so much.”

Then, finally, Jay reached out to her, turning her to face him before drawing her into a massive hug, his arms wrapping around her shoulders. “I know it’s hard. But I know you, and I know that you have a hard time letting things go. Hell, I do, too, but don’t beat yourself up over this.”

“Is it stupid to not want it?” she whispered, pulling away to look up at him, tears glistening in her deep blue eyes. 

He shook his head. 

“It’s just- all this time I thought I wanted to be cured. To be done with all of this. I told myself I wouldn’t let Lyon destroy me, and yet here I am, about to turn it down, because I’m afraid of it, because I’m a coward.”

“That’s not true. You are the bravest person I’ve ever known, and nothing’s going to change that. It’s okay to want different things. It’s okay to be afraid. But that doesn’t make you a coward.”

Hailey wiped at her eyes. “How are you okay with this? I’m basically condemning both of us to a lifetime visiting the hospital and physical therapy and tests. You deserve more than that.”

Jay’s expression seemed to harden at that, and for a moment, she didn’t know what he was thinking. Usually she could read him, but this- this was a new look. “Of course I’m okay with it,” he said firmly, taking one of her hands again. “Remember what I said earlier? I love you. And if that means that we have to work around you getting sick, that’s fine. Even if it happens every day, I’ll be there. And that’s a promise.”

Chapter Text

What happiness Hailey’d found within the past weeks disappeared after that. There was a defeated slump to her shoulders now, even when she was feeling well, one that Jay recognized from before.

There were a few nights where she silently cried herself to sleep in his arms, the salty tears leaving silvery tracks on her cheeks no matter how hard he tried to cheer her up. 

He felt like he should do something to take some of the burden away, to lighten the load and take her mind off the implications of what she’d just turned down. 

One Wednesday night after work, he stopped by the house to pick Hailey up before driving her to Molly’s. She gave him a look when she realized where they were heading, but let him guide her inside, with one hand resting reassuringly on the small of her back.

“Hailey!”

Vanessa bounded over, a wide grin on her face, and threw her arms around her former roommate. “I miss you,” she slurred, clearly already a few drinks in. “You make good cookies.”

Jay was relieved when Hailey smiled at that, even though it didn’t fully reach her eyes. “You’re welcome to come back and bake with me, any time.”

“Maybe I will. And Jay!” Vanessa turned to Jay, giving him an almost blatant once-over. “That shirt really matches your eyes, makes them shiny.”

“Um, thanks, Rojas,” Jay said, laughing. “Where’s the group?”

Vanessa pointed to the back corner, where the rest of the unit sat nursing beers. “Waiting for you,” she said, tugging on Hailey’s hand and dragging her over to the table.

After the greetings were over, Hailey and Jay took a seat, with Hailey sitting between Kevin and Jay. Adam pulled out his worn Clue game and set it on the table. “Now it’s time to really see who’s the best detective out of the bunch,” he said with a gleam to his eye. We’re gonna have to have teams, since there’s more than six players.”

“We have an odd one out,” Jay pointed out- everyone from the unit, including him and Hailey, Adam and Kim, Kevin and Vanessa, and Stamp were there. 

“Hey, Kidd!” Kim called across the room, and the firefighter turned around. “Care to join a game of Clue?”

“Yeah. I’m down,” Kidd said. She passed off the towel she’d been using to Hermann before coming around the bar and sliding in beside Jay. 

“Teams by who’s sitting next to each other. Stella and Jay, Hailey and Kev, Vanessa and I, and Kim and Stamp,” Adam decided, pointing to each pair in turn.

Jay had to admit, he was a little bitter that he and Hailey were split up, but judging by the fact that Kevin and Hailey immediately started whispering to each other, she was coping well. So he turned to Stella and to do a little strategizing of his own.

In the end, with so many elite police officers at one game, they all solved the murder at about the same time, which resulted in a sprint to the cellar to make the guess.

Kevin and Hailey won, mostly due to some lucky dice rolls and some well-played cards, but seeing the genuine smile on her face as she high-fiver her partner was worth the pain of defeat.

“Maybe Voight should have tested you two as partners,” Jay joked. 

“Yeah, think of all the crimes we could have solved with those skills,” Hailey said, rolling her eyes. “Clue is definitely exactly like real police work.”

The group teased each other a little more before starting a new round, where Stamp and Kim won. 

All the while, Jay kept one eye on Hailey. She seemed okay- not her usual spunky self, but definitely engaged. She and Kevin seemed to be enjoying working out a secret messaging system, at least. They kept whispering and laughing, which soothed Jay’s concerns a little bit. 

By eleven o’clock, they were four rounds of Clue in, and Hailey was quiet now, her eyes fixed on her glass as everyone else carried on about Adam and Vanessa’s most recent attempt at cheating, her contributions to the conversation minimal.

“Want to go home after this?” he asked her quietly, while the others were otherwise occupied.

She nodded.

They went home and straight upstairs to get ready for bed. Jay could tell that she was tired- she barely said anything, just sat against the headboard watching him move around the room. 

“Thank you for tonight,” she said at last, when he was settled in his usual spot beside her. “I needed that.”

“Anytime.”

“I’ve tried not to let it bother me, you know? But it has. I can’t stop thinking about it, and I don’t really know why- I know it was a good decision, but knowing that I’m going to spend the rest of my life like this… I guess it’s harder to stomach than I thought it would be.”

“Well, you’re still perfect to me,” he said lightly, bumping her shoulder with his. 

She smiled a little at that. “You’re a flatterer.”

“I’m just telling the truth.”

After spending almost twenty minutes without talking, Hailey adjusted so that her head was pillowed on his lap and let out a sigh. At that, Jay immediately started threading his hand through her hair, trying to comfort her in whatever was bothering her.

“What’re you thinking about, Hails?” he asked, looking down at her. He couldn’t see her whole face- her eyes were trained on the opposite wall, not on him.

She shrugged, the movement jostling him for a moment. “I don’t know. Game night. The hospital. The future. It’s all ricocheting around in there, and I can’t make it stop.”

“What about it’s worrying you?”

“Just- the road seems so long.”

Jay instantly knew what she meant. When he’d gotten shot, the path to recovery seemed to stretch into eternity. It felt like he’d be on desk duty forever. But he knew that the pain would end, and his wound would heal, whereas Hailey didn’t. The end of her illness wasn’t in sight. It probably never would be.

“And I worry, that I don’t have enough to give you.”

Jay opened his mouth to protest, but she gave him a look and he closed it. She pushed herself off his lap, and faced him, pulling her knees up to her chest and staring at him with an almost sad gaze.

“I know what you’ll say. You’ll remind me that you want to marry me, that you’ll always be there. And that means a lot to me, it really does. And I want that to. But there’s so much you’re losing here, Jay, more than you know, more than I know. There’s no way of knowing how sick I’ll be in five, ten, twenty years. No one knows how much of this we have left. The next step could be me living off of a ventilator.”

“That doesn’t matter to me.”

“But it will. I see how much it hurts you to see me sick, and that pain- you already carry so much. And I don’t want to contribute to that. You’ve lost so many people, and I don’t want you to have to lose me, too.”

“Remember everything we said to each other at the cabin? You said you might want kids, a family of your own. And I don’t think you understand that marrying me- that future will be gone. I can’t have kids, Jay. If they survived, I wouldn’t. And not only that- if something happened to them because I was too sick or weak to take care of them- I would never forgive myself.”

“Committing to this, to us, is so much more than asking me to marry you. It’s years and years of hospitals and late-night therapy and sick days and I worry that I’m going to hold you back. And I don’t want you to feel like you have to stay for all of that, just because you’re engaged or married or ex-partners with me.”

She wasn’t crying. Her tears were dry, but he could see her hands shaking. 

“Hailey…” Jay said, shaking his head. “Whatever happens, we’ll meet it head-on. Together. I don’t want kids. I never really did, I think. I used to think they were a necessary part of marriage, but now- now I know that they don’t make a family. Love does. And I have you. I think that’s more than enough to qualify, don’t you?”

“I believe you. I really do. But I’m so tired, and broken, and you’ve been through so much. You deserve a break, not more pain and suffering and heartbreak.”

There was so much pain in her voice, so much weight, and behind it: the weight of everything she’d ever gone through, from her father to losing Garrett to being injected with the toxin, and he wanted so desperately to be able to lift it form her shoulders.

Instead, he reached out to her, pausing when she flinched away from him, but eventually, she let him pull her close, almost collapsing into his arms, clinging to him. 

“You are anything but broken, Hailey,” he whispered, holding to her tightly. “And I stand by what I said before- everything. One day, I’m going to ask you to marry me.

Chapter Text

Over the next few days, Jay’s mind kept drifting to what he’d told Hailey.

One day, I’m going to ask you to marry me.

He wasn’t lying when he said that. He wanted to marry her. The question was, when, and how, and where. He hated seeing her doubt herself, and their relationship, even though he knew that her concerns weren’t because she didn’t love him. If anything, the fears she’d voiced only solidified in his mind that she did, so much that she beat herself up over it.

Jay came home early from work one day, knowing that she was at a doctor’s appointment, needing to collect his thoughts, and check a few things.

Firstly, he headed upstairs to Hailey’s bedroom, where she kept her jewelry in the top drawer of her dresser. There was barely anything in there. She had a black cord necklace when he first met her, but she’d lost it somewhere along the line, most likely in a chase of some sort. There was a ragged friendship bracelet that she couldn’t wear because the threads were too thin- a gift, sent to her by the girl she’d met during the bacterial outbreak. Jay had found it on the floor of the bullpen after she hung it on her bag for almost five months.

And there was one ring, that he saw her wear only a handful of times, when she was pretending to be engaged.

Jay picked it up and turned it over in his hand, catching the faint etchings on the inside.

always. - d, b, j.

Danny, Ben, Jason. Her three brothers.

The reminder came as almost a shock. It was easy to forget that Hailey had siblings. She barely talked about them, and he never pressed her to. It was clear that talking about them made her uncomfortable, for one reason or another. 

But suddenly, he was curious about them. Who were they? Where were they? Why didn’t they come when she got sick? Had she wanted them to? Should he have called them?

Jay shook his head, and quickly measured out the ring before putting it back. He would ask her about them sometime soon. 

Step one complete.

Now that he had her ring size, he just had to find one that suited Hailey. 

Jay’s busy schedule prevented him from really looking for a ring for at least another week, even though he thought about it almost every day. 

Nothing fancy, he knew. She liked things simple. Classy, sure, but simple. None of the bling that so many women were about lately. 

He agonized over what to do for a long time. Should he go to a jeweler? Should he order one online? Should he take her with him, like some people did? That didn’t seem romantic, but how romantic were they really? 

“Halstead!” 

Trudy’s voice cut through his stupor and he glanced up.

“What’s filling your head with clouds?” she asked, with her trademark frown. “I said your name five times.”

“Just thinking.”

“Always a dangerous pastime, especially for knuckleheads like you. But seriously, what is it? Hailey doing okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, she’s okay. Getting a little better, she was down lately.”

“Good. I’m glad she’s perking up.”

She gave him a long look then, scanning him with those too-perceptive eyes of hers, and Jay could feel the tension mounting between them.

“Have any ring advice?” he found himself asking, the words tumbling out of his mouth.

“Ring advice.”

“I want to propose to her, and I can’t figure out what to do about a ring. You seem like you’d know. Or at least know someone who knows.”

Trudy paused for a moment, turning his question over in her mind. “Yeah, I might know a few people who could hook you up with something nice. One guy even does custom stuff, and with a little convincing, I bet he’d give you a sweet deal. He owes me a favor, or ten.”

“You serious?”

“Am I ever not?” she returned, tilting her head at him.

“You’re right.”

“Of course I’m right. I’ll get you his card.”

Not two days later, Jay found himself sitting at a cafe, across from a tall, buff, tattooed guy, talking about engagement rings over pancakes and bacon.

He had some doubts about this guy- but he believed in Trudy’s capabilities. If she said he made good rings, Jay trusted that he made good rings.

“I have to say, it’s not often that Trudy Platt rings me up to tell me she has someone who I have to service,” the guy, Bennett, said, as he cut up one of his pancakes. “You must be someone special to her.”

Jay didn’t know what to say to that.

“So, I was thinking-”

Bennett held up a hand. “Nope. I don’t want to hear your ideas right now. Tell me about the girl. Or the guy. Whoever this ring is for.”

Jay froze, taken aback. 

“Her name is Hailey,” he said slowly, watching Bennett drench his pancake in maple syrup. “She is- was my partner for almost three years. She got… hurt, on the job, back in May. Got so sick she almost died. But she pulled through, and she’s doing a lot better. A lot’s happened to her. Rough childhood, bad undercover cases, and now this. But she’s still caring, and compassionate, and witty, and fun, no matter what. She’s been working hard to get back to desk duty, to consult at the 21st even though she can’t go in the field anymore.”

Bennett kept chewing.

“She’s quick to discount herself. I don’t think she realizes how much she means to me, or everyone else in her life. I think she struggles a lot with believing in herself, but she doesn’t see what I see. That she’s worth all of the hospital trips and sick days and hurt.”

“Got a picture?”

Jay nodded, and pulled out his phone.

He didn’t show Bennett the one he’d shown Lyon. That seemed too weird.

So he settled on a picture of Hailey, standing in the hospital, thumbs up after finishing a round of Dr. Danover’s treatment serum. 

Bennett nodded and didn’t say anything, until his pancakes were gone and there wasn’t a speck of syrup left on his beard. Only then did he lean forward, across the table. “Alright. Just a few more questions, and then we’ll be good to go. Are you looking more traditional, or modern?”

“I don’t know-”

“Want colors in it? What color’s her favorite?”

“Blue.”

Bennett laughed a deep belly laugh. “Of course. She practically bleeds being a cop.”

Jay couldn’t argue that.

“Does she wear a lot of jewelry?”

“No, not much. A necklace or two, that’s it.”

Bennett didn’t seem surprised at that, either. Then he stood, dusting his hands off. “We’re good, Detective. I’ll have your ring in one week. Ring size six sound right to you?”

“Yeah, actually, that’s what I measured.”

“Figured. See you around, Halstead.”

And with that, Bennett tossed a ten on the table and left, leaving Jay feeling a little more than bewildered at what had just happened. That encounter felt more like a fever dream and less like a ring planning session, but he kept reminding himself- Trudy likes him. 

Chapter Text

If Hailey thought Jay was acting suspicious, she didn’t comment on it.

Logically he knew that she was an elite detective, and that she probably knew what he was up to, but he was grateful for her silence either way. He didn’t want to clue her in any more than necessary. Just because she was scarily intelligent didn’t mean that the day he proposed couldn’t come as a surprise for her.

But there were still a few things he needed to figure out, which he couldn’t without talking to her about it.

Namely, who he should ask for permission.

He knew Hailey’s relationship with her dad was… strained. In the few times she’d talked about him, there was an air of displeasure in her voice, even though he also caught an occasional hint of fondness there, too.

And the same thing was true for her mother. Even though she hadn’t participated in the beatings herself, from his conversation with Hailey in the bar, he could tell that she wasn’t altogether happy with her, either.

But Jay also knew that he didn’t know everything. He might never know everything- Hailey was intensely private, even to him, which he was okay with. He knew she had reasons for not talking about things- in the same way that he didn’t talk about Afghanistan.

One day at dinner, over grilled cheese and tomato soup, Jay cautiously broached the subject of her family. “Hey, Hails?”

“Yeah?”

“You ever think about talking to your family about all of this?”

Hailey slowly set down her spoon, with a confused tilt to her head. “Why?”

“Just… I get that we’re your family. But sometimes actual family helps, too. And I was wondering if I made a mistake, when you got sick, by not calling someone.”

“No… you didn’t.”

Her words made her relationships with all of them sound cold, but Jay knew the ring in her drawer said otherwise. Not many siblings would get their sister a ring with ‘always’ written on the inside.

“Not even your brothers?”

“What’s this all about, Jay?”

“Nothing. It’s just- you don’t talk about them. But I know if Will got sick, I’d want to know about it. I’d want to be there for him. And I was wondering if they would do the same.”

Hailey seemed to relax a little at that. 

“I didn’t call them because I knew they’d come back to Chicago for me,” she confessed, after staring into her soup for nearly two minutes. “And I didn’t want that. I didn’t want them to uproot their lives to take care of their kid sister who couldn’t handle herself in the field. They did so much for me, more than you’ll ever know, and I just- I can’t put them through another thing.”

“Don’t you think they’d want to know?”

“I know they would. And I know it sounds stupid. But all of them- Danny, Ben, Jason- they felt just as trapped by our dad as I did. Maybe more. Because I was the youngest, and I didn’t know any better, not for a long time, and they protected me. Danny would pick me up when mom and dad started fighting and carry me to the park and we’d sit on the swings until it got dark. Ben made excuses for me when I got home late because of track practice, even though he knew Dad didn’t want me on the team, and Jason baked me cake on my birthday because my mom was in the hospital because my dad beat her up so badly. So yes, I know they care.”

“But I didn’t call them because they already look at me like I’m their little sister who needs to be protected. I don’t want them to look at me like I’m an invalid, too.”

Jay almost couldn’t find the words to reply to that.

She’d painted the broad strokes of her childhood to him before. He knew about the diner, and her father’s alcohol issues, and her mother’s attempts at protecting the four siblings. But now there were more details, little splashes of color to fill in the gaps.

He could almost picture a tiny blonde-headed girl sitting on the swing, pushed by a sandy-haired boy, and smell the cake baking in the oven, and hear the front door of her house closing with a quiet ‘click’. 

“What about now? Would you want them to see you now?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. I miss them. They’re probably wondering why I haven’t been in touch as much recently.”

“Do they have kids?”

“Danny does, two girls. And Jason has a boy, and his wife is expecting another in a few months.”

“They sound like amazing brothers.”

Hailey smiled softly. “They were.”

“I’d like to meet them one day. If it’s okay with you.”

“Ben lives in Chicago. Danny and Jason both live in Indiana. But maybe some day, you will. And probably my parents, too, but that’s a different discussion altogether.”

“So you’re closer to your brothers than your mom and dad?”

“Yeah. Sixteen years of sneaking around a house together will do that,” Hailey said, with a touch of sadness to her voice. “They got me a ring, you know that? When Jason left for college. Said they wanted to make sure that they knew they were there for me, even though we were all separated.”

She looked up at Jay and took a deep breath. “But that was a long time ago.”

“I’m not so sure, Hails. That kind of love doesn’t go away. It might help if you called.”

“I don’t want things to change.”

“The worst it could do would be pushing them away, and then you’d be in the same place you started. But that’s not gonna happen if you do. But it’s up to you. I just wanted to make sure.”

He really hoped he wasn’t pushing her. 

But if there was anything she’d taught him was that it was okay to be vulnerable in front of family. Whether by blood or otherwise. 

Either way, he’d gotten his answer.

Even if she didn’t, he now had a phone call to make. Or three.

Chapter Text

Jay went and picked up the ring a few days later, in an underpass that made the exchange feel more like a drug deal than him picking up something he’d propose to his girlfriend with. But the box was certainly nothing like a bag full of cocaine.

It was made up of smooth, polished wood- dark and near-flawless. Bennett seemed almost nervous as Jay flipped the lid open to reveal a beautiful ring of twisting silver, accented with a stone of the palest blue.

“Good?”

Jay didn’t know what to say. He’d been apprehensive about seeing it for the first time. What if it didn’t fit Hailey’s personality? What if it was too simple, or too elaborate? But this… this was beyond what he could have hoped for. 

“It’s perfect, Bennett.”

“I knew it would be.”

“How much do I owe you?” Jay asked, digging his wallet out of his pocket, fully prepared for a price that fit the clear craftsmanship of the ring. 

“A hundred.”

“Bennett.”

“If Trudy Platt calls you up and says a guy needs a ring, you do what she says. She saved my life a while back. I was into some deep gang stuff and she pulled me out, enlisted me as one of her CIs. Kept it up until I had enough money to start a jewelery business. I owe her a lot.”

Jay handed him two hundred. “You do good work. Thank you.”

“I can’t take this.”

“Please. You’re already saving me a lot of money. And if what you’re saying is true- I admire you all the more for it. Stay with it, alright?”

Bennett took in the bills in his hands and nodded confidently. “I will. Thanks, Detective. And if you ever need a tip in the neighborhood, consider me a friend.”

“Heard.”

Jay dropped by the district to put the ring in his locker and thank Trudy before picking up some deep-dish and heading home.

He found Hailey sitting on the couch, an opened letter in front of her, her expression hovering somewhere between shell-shocked and devastated.

Crap. 

She’d had her second attempt at clearing the physical today. 

And judging by the look on her face, things hadn’t gone well. 

Jay put the pizza on the counter before sitting gingerly beside her. “You doing okay?” he asked.

Hailey blinked, coming out of the trance she’d been in, and shook her head as if to clear it. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m good, it’s just- I felt good about this one, you know? But it still wasn’t enough.”

“Soon.”

Jay gave her a little smile, which she returned, a little weakly. 

“I brought Bartoli’s home, if you want some.”

“I’m not hungry. Not in the mood, I guess.”

“That’s okay. What are you in the mood for? Movies, a walk, Mario Kart? We could even learn something new… I’ve been seeing cool origami videos on Twitter…”

“I just want today to be over,” she whispered.

Jay got it. He knew the feeling, when a day was so tiring and so disheartening that it felt like it would never end, that the pain wouldn’t stop. He’d had those days a lot before he met Hailey, before she started helping him.

“C’mere.”

That was all the invitation she needed to snuggle closer, tucking her head against his chest. It took almost twenty minutes for the tension in her body to fade away, for her to relax, but finally he saw her eyes start to close, and her breaths evened out. 

Part of him wished he’d brought the ring home, permission from her brothers be damned. She deserved something happy in her life, something to look forward to among all of this stress and illness and pain.

But the other part of him knew that it wasn’t the right time. He wanted to do it right, not rush through it. 

Jay managed to get all three brothers’s contact information from Hailey’s phone when she showered the next day, after successfully guessing her password, which was her birthday.

He was just thankful that she wasn’t one of those people who put emojis and random nicknames as her contacts. 

She seemed better at breakfast. Brighter. He could tell that she was still heartbroken over not being cleared, but at least she’d figured out a healthier way to deal with the disappointment than the first time.

Jay gave her a kiss on his way out the door, wishing he could stay, but knowing that she was going to be okay made it easier to leave.

At the precinct, Jay couldn’t stop checking in his drawer to see if the ring was still there. 

“You okay?” Stamp asked, peering over at Jay, freezing when he spotted the ring box in his hands. “Wow, Halstead, I’m honored, but we’ve only been partners for a few months-”

“Shut up, Stamp,” Jay said, rolling his eyes at the mischievous look in the kid’s eye. 

The younger officer turned serious then, turning completely in his chair to face Jay. “So you’re gonna do it, then. Propose to Detective Upton.”

“Yeah.”

“Can I see it? The ring?”

Jay slid the box over, surprised at how willing he was to let Stamp look at it. A few months ago, he couldn’t imagine being partners with anyone other than Hailey. But it was almost natural to relinquish it to the kid- he trusted him now, almost as much as he trusted Hailey.

“It’s beautiful. Suits her, and you.”

Jay managed a nod.

“What’re you nervous for?” Stamp asked, leaning forward slightly, head tilted to the side. 

Nothing got past him lately. He was going to make a great detective. But that meant it was getting harder and harder for Jay to hide any of his feelings from Stamp.

“I’m calling her brothers for permission today.”

“Word of advice? As an older brother? They just want to make sure she’s safe. Happy. That this isn’t out of greed, or desperation, or some other weird life circumstance. If you just tell them how you feel about her, they’ll be cool with it.”

“This is different. I’m not asking her father, at all.”

“What I said still applies. Just be honest, don’t hide anything.”

Chapter Text

Jay told Hailey he was going to be late coming home, that there was a case they needed to wrap up. Instead, he drove to a quiet spot in his favorite park, sat on a bench, and pulled up Danny Upton’s contact.

He started at it a long time before gathering the courage to press call, praying that he’d pick up, even though his number wouldn’t be one that Danny would recognize.

The first thing Danny said when he picked up was “Is my sister okay?”

Right. Hailey was a police officer- and Danny, like many other family members of police officers, probably learned to answer the phone from any Chicago area code. 

“Yeah. She’s okay.”

“Good. Who is this?”

“This is Jay Halstead.”

“The partner, Jay Halstead? What’s this about?”

He could hear the confusion in Danny’s voice at that, and took a deep breath, closing his eyes before he took the plunge.

“I’m calling because I’m in love with your sister, and I want to propose to her. You’re the first of three calls on my list.”

There was a long silence on the other end before Danny spoke again. “Hailey doesn’t need anyone’s permission to get married.”

“I know that. But I just want to make sure that you know that she’s everything to me. And I will do everything to keep her safe, and that I’m always going to be there for her.”

“You drink, Jay Halstead?”

“Some.”

“Then you better watch yourself.”

“I would never hurt her. Not like that. I couldn’t live with myself if I did.”

Another long pause. “Okay.”

“Just like that?”

Danny laughed then. “No, not just like that. I’m just the first of three calls. You still have two more. Good luck, you’re gonna need it.”

“But that’s really all you want to know?”

“I’m not ignorant, Halstead. I follow the news in Chicago. And I know when Hailey’s happy, and when she’s not. And she’s never been happier than when she’s been partners with you. That’s more than enough for me. But if you hurt her, ever, I will come for you, understand?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.”

Ben Upton must have had Jay’s number saved, or Danny must have called him, because before Jay could even introduce himself, he was talking.

“So you’re finally fessing up to being in love with my little sister?”

Jay, taken aback, took a second to compose himself. “Um, yeah, that’s right.”

Ben laughed, a genuine laugh that reminded him of Hailey’s laugh. Contagious. “And I bet you’re calling to make sure you’re good to go. Well, Jay Halstead, you’re good. With me, anyway.”

He thought it would be harder than this. From both Danny and Ben.

“I’m not blind, or stupid. You two have been circling this drain for years.”

“Um, okay. Thank you. I appreciate it. But I just want you to know- I’ll do anything to make her happy. She means everything to me.”

“I know. But I’m gonna have to meet you at some point. Can’t go my whole life without meeting the guy who finally caught my sister’s heart, so- dinner, you and me.”

Jay got the impression that he really didn’t have a choice. But if he was being honest, between Danny and Ben, Ben seemed less confrontational and more happy-go-lucky. Freer. Maybe it was middle-brother syndrome, or maybe it was just his personality.

“Sure. Where to?”

“You pick.”

Interesting. Jay considered his options. He guessed that there was more weight behind this decision than Ben was letting on- and that this dinner meant more than a casual ‘get to know you’ type situation, too. “Okay. You know where Molly’s is?”

“Yeah.”

“Wednesday, 6 pm.”

That was in two days. 

“Sure. See you then.”

Jay’s last call was to Jason, the third brother, only two years older than Hailey. The ringtone almost went out before someone picked up the phone.

“You’ve reached the Upton residence, this is Oliver speaking, how may I help you?”

It was a little boy, barely five years old, by the sound of it. “Hi, Oliver, this is Jay. May I speak to your dad?”

“DAD! THERE’S A BIRD CALLING YOU ON THE PHONE!” he heard Oliver shout, presumably to someone in the house, and he couldn’t help but smile at that. 

A few seconds, later, there was a new voice on the line. “This is Jason.”

“Do you have a moment?”

“What’s this about?”

“I want to propose to your sister, and I want to make sure that you, and all of your brothers, know my intentions before I do so.”

Jason let out an audible breath, that Jay could hear even though the phone. “I have to say, every time an unknown number calls, I worry that I’m about to be informed that my sister is dead. But this is even more of a surprise. A welcome one, but a surprise nonetheless.”

“If this is a bad time-”

“It’s not. Listen, Jay. I’ve heard about your partnership with Hailey. You seem like a great guy- better for her than a lot of the other partners she’s had. I’m not going to tell you what you can and can’t do- that’s not my place. She’d never forgive me if she thought I was controlling her life. We had enough of that as kids.”

“Yeah, she told me.”

Jason seemed surprised at that. “Well, then, I don’t need to tell you much. Just- it wasn’t easy, growing up in our house. Hailey used to take everything to heart, you know? She used to want to be a professional soccer player. But our dad didn’t get that. He wanted her to learn how to manage the diner and become something boring. And he ruined every chance she got, until she just stopped taking them. So she built up her walls, and stopped letting him, or anyone else, in.”

“I guess what I’m saying is- don’t make her regret opening up to you. Being vulnerable with you. I know you guys are close. She talks about you a lot. But by her letting you in the way she has, you need to know that you’re the one who can hurt her the most.”

Jay swallowed, looking out across the park. “I know.”

“So don’t violate that trust. She doesn’t give it to everyone. She especially doesn’t give everyone her heart. But I can see that she has yours, and you have hers. Don’t mess it up.”

“I won’t.”

“Good.”

“Thank you, Jason. I appreciate this.”

“Take care of my sister.”

“I will.”

Chapter Text

Molly’s was only a little busy the night Jay was supposed to meet Hailey’s brother. Hermann, who was working the bar, gave him a smile and a nod when the detective walked in.

“Here alone?” he asked, as he wiped down the counter.

“Meeting someone.”

Hermann’s eyebrows shot up. “Like?”

“Just a friend.”

At least, he hoped Ben Upton was going to be a friend. That he wouldn’t burn this bridge for him, or for Hailey. 

He found a seat by the door, and waited.

Ben showed up a few minutes later, in a crisp white button down and dark navy pants. He was handsome, with curly hair the same shade of Hailey’s.  He spotted Jay immediately and hurried over, his hand outstretched.

“It’s nice to finally meet you,” he said.

“Likewise.”

They sat across from each other. Ben set aside his satchel, looking intently at Jay the entire time. “You know,” he said, stirring the ice around in his glass of water. “For the longest time, Hailey only ever dated the bad boys. The ones who would come into school with bruises around their eyes and would skip class every other day. Probably because there wasn’t much of a choice, not for her. That happens with your father beats you up on the weekends. But they were never right for her. They didn’t understand her.”

“You know why?” 

Jay stayed quiet, guessing that the question was rhetorical.

“She’s a bleeding heart. Wears it on her sleeve. People don’t think she does but they just don’t know where to look. She cares with every fibre of her being, and it kills her when she can’t protect people. That’s why it never woked with them. She always wanted to help them, always saw the best in them when they didn’t want to see it in themselves.”

“You’re right.”

Ben smiled. “Yeah, well, that’s Hailey for you. Always trying to be better. To do better.”

He leaned forward a little- not too close, but closer. “So, Jay Halstead, what do you want in life? What are you trying to accomplish?”

Jay exhaled. “With Hailey?”

“With Hailey. With your job. WIth your life. Where do you want to end up? Where do you see yourself going?”

He didn’t know. He hadn’t thought about it, hadn’t even thought to think about it. “I guess I just want to change something. To mean something, to someone. Whether it’s a victim or family or CI or a friend. I want to make this world better.”

“Is that why you became a cop?”

Jay shrugged. “In part. In some ways I don’t think I knew why I joined. Same as joining the Army. I was an angry teenager trying to figure out my place in the world. Trying to figure out what was happening. So I picked the thing that I thought would show me more of it.”

How was he doing this? Getting him to talk? For some reason, Jay was saying more to Ben Upton than he’d ever told a therapist.

But if it meant that he could propose, so be it.

Ben considered that, with the same head tilt that Hailey often did when she was thinking.

“Did you find what you were looking for?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. I found friends, a family, a purpose. I found Hailey. And it showed me that yes, the world sucks, but there’s something I can do about it, and people I can do it with I might not have everything figured out but I do have that.”

“Okay,” Ben said simply. “Now that we’ve established that you’re not a douchebag, let’s talk about some more pressing matters. Firstly- Hailey. What does she mean to you?”

“Everything.”

“Everything?” Ben repeated.

“Yeah, man. She’s my best friend, my partner. She helped me through a a lot of stuff, bad stuff. Memories of the war, accidentally shooting a kid- she was there every step of the way. She never gave up on me, even when it would have been a whole lot easier for her to just give up and ask for a new partner.”

“I owe her my life.”

Saying that, he realized it was true. She might think it was the opposite, that he saved her, but he knew that they both saved each other. In their own ways. 

“So why now? Why talk to us now?”

Jay stared at the table for a moment, gathering his thoughts. “She’s had a rough go of it. I know. And she thinks that she doesn’t deserve to be happy, that it’s all going to go away somehow. And I don’t want her to think that anymore. She deserves to know what she means to me.”

“Hailey’s not exactly a normal girl.”

“I’m not a normal guy,” Jay countered. “She and I have been through a lot together. I know her. I’m not afraid, not in the slightest.”

Ben gave a little smile. “I’m glad.”

Jay swallowed. “I’ll do everything in my power to make sure she’s okay.”

“No. That’s not what I meant. You don’t need to promise me that she’s going to be okay. You don’t need to make sure she’s happy. You need to make sure you’re there for her. That’s all I care about. If you are, then you don’t need to try for anything else. It’ll come.”

“You’re an intelligent guy, Ben.”

“What, surprised? You know my sister.”

Chapter Text

Hailey was so, so close to getting cleared. She knew it, and her doctors knew it. But not yet. Apparently she still had too many days of debilitating sickness, and her lungs were still a little weak, and they wanted to give it time to see if they got stronger.

She dreaded to know what would happen if they didn’t get stronger.

Even so, she finally felt like she was starting to get closer to her old normal. Sure, there were nights where Jay had to shake her awake and give her chest therapy because she started suffocating on the accumulating mucus in her lungs. There were still days where she had an unexplainable, persistent fever. 

But those days were less frequent now.

It helped having Jay there. He made her feel like a human being, and not like an alien in her own body. He grounded her when she couldn’t breathe, when she felt like she was drowning, and supported her through everything, even when she was in a terrible mood.

He was so, so good to her. 

If not for the toxin, the past few months would have felt almost like a fairytale. Jay practically swept her off her feet with all of his charms. He was pretty much a real-life prince, if she thought like that, but she didn’t. 

Teenage Hailey would never have believed that she’d find someone like him, someone so handsome and kind and brave and loyal and funny as Jay was. Teenage Hailey didn’t think those people existed- she didn’t even believe in romance. Not really.

Even adult Hailey hadn’t really thought love was real.

Not until she met Jay.

And now she knew he was going to propose, at some point. He’d even told her as much, which had come as a shock, but hadn’t scared her away like it might have a few months ago.

She was ready for this. For him. Ultimately Hailey knew there was never going to be anyone who understood her and trusted her like Jay did. 

Hailey wanted desperately to get back to work, if not to just see him more. He’d been so busy lately with work, staying late and leaving early, and she missed him. She missed lazy mornings drinking tea and trying to figure out the crossword with him. She missed eating dinner and trying to make each other spit out their beverages.

If there was anything she wanted to take back from the toxin, it was all the time she missed with him. Time spent normally. She’d spent so many days sick, unable to do much of anything but crawl into his arms and sleep, but it was the days running around the city and joking around in the surveillance van that she missed the most.

Not her lung capacity or her muscle strength or her endurance. Those things were just things that allowed her to spend time with him, things that united them in the first place. Things that gave her a partner, a best friend.

And now they were what was holding her back.

So she didn’t give up. She kept running, and stretching, and breathing, and eating healthy, and hoped that someday soon, she could get back to Intelligence.

Two weeks later, Dr. Marcel walked into the hospital room, holding a stack of papers. Hailey looked up when she heard his footsteps, her face draining of color when she saw his grave expression. Her heart plummeted. 

Not enough.

Again.

“They wanted me to break the news to you,” Dr. Marcel said, his eyes fixed on her, almost unreadable. 

Doctors should really play poker more often, she thought wildly, almost laughing despite the weight that dropped suddenly back onto her shoulders at his expression.

“The tests came back, and… guess you better brush up those detective skills, because you made it. You’re cleared for desk duty.”

Will, who was sitting beside Hailey, let out a loud whoop and picked her up, swinging her around a few times before setting her down. “I knew you could do it!” he cheered, with a wide grin on his face.

“Are you serious?” she breathed, hardly daring to hope.

“Dead serious. Congratulations. Your hard work finally paid off,” Dr. Marcel said, smiling at her.

“Thank you,” Hailey said, still shell-shocked.

She had some paperwork to sign and some updated treatment information before she was allowed to leave. 

Once they were in the car, Will turn to her. “Does it feel awesome?” he asked, a hopeful, puppy-dog look to his face. 

“More surreal than anything, but yeah, it’s awesome,” she said, unable to keep herself from breaking into a smile now that she was out of the stark hospital room, away from the monitors and memories.

Here, in the sunlight, it felt real.

He turned the keys in the ignition- but to her surprise, he didn’t take her back to the house.

“Where are we going?” she asked, frowning when he missed the turn they usually took.

“To get ice cream. We gotta celebrate your accomplishments.”

“You don’t have to do this.”

“Come on, Hailey, by now you’ve gotta realize that I’m family, and I don’t have to do anything. I want to do it, and I want ice cream. So I’m going whether you like it or not.”

Will’s energy was infectious.

“Alright. Ice cream it is.”

The woman at the register seemed to recognize Will. She took one look at him and started shoving chocolate peanut butter ice cream in a cone without even needing to ask for his order, but gave Hailey a friendly look when she stepped up to the counter.

They ate their ice creams in the outside seating, enjoying the crisp fall afternoon. Hailey listened to Will talk about some of his most interesting cases- which sounded gruesome but oddly fascinating at the same time. 

“Ready to go?” he asked, almost thirty minutes later, their cones long gone.

Hailey looked around the street, taking in the familiar sight with new eyes. She was cleared- healthy, at least according to department standards. Soon she would get to walk up those stairs and sit at her desk and write on the whiteboard again. Soon she would be home.

“Yeah.”

Chapter Text

For the second time that day, Will missed the turn-off for her house. 

“Where are you going?” Hailey asked, even more wary this time. 

“I just need to drop something off, if that’s okay. It’s kind of important,” he said. Hailey leaned back in her seat.

She didn’t have anything to do.

Besides, she liked Will. He was goofy and interesting and almost as good as hanging out with Jay.

Almost being the key word there.

She figured out where they were going a split second before Will pulled off the main street and onto a less traveled mpath. She recognized the sign from the last time she’d been here, so many months ago.

“Will. What is this?”

He didn’t respond, and instead pulled into a parking spot. Only then did he turn to her, with a suddenly serious expression on his face. “Hailey… you’re like a little sister to me. Kind of. As much as you could be without it being weird. If you trust me, even a little bit, get out of the car.”

Hailey’s hand immediately went to her seatbelt clip, despite herself. “You’re scaring me,” she admitted.

“Don’t be afraid.”

“That’s something a serial killer would say.”

Will cracked a smile at that. “And you would know, Miss Consultant to the Chicago PD.”

She moved to open the door.

“Do you want me to stay?” he asked softly, just as she was about to pull the handle.

Hailey paused, almost tempted to ask ‘What for?’.

But she knew what for. She’d known the moment they’d turned off the main street, what he was doing, what was about to happen. 

“No.”

“I love ya, Hails. You’re still my favorite detective.”

“And you’re my favorite Halstead,” she returned. And then she got out of the car.

The sand was soft under Hailey’s sneakers as she walked out of the cover of the trees toward the beach, and the wind, as calming as ever, tousled her hair as she approached the water.

I miss the wind. And you.

It felt like an eternity ago that she’d said those words- a whole other lifetime. She remembered the aching hole in her chest that accompanied her in New York, the emptiness that hurt so badly it felt physical, not just emotional. She remembered running down the street of New York shouting FBI while under a spray of bullets and wondering if she was going to die here, alone, among strangers instead of beside friends.

Without Jay.

And yet there he was, standing at the water’s edge in a dark suit, holding a bouquet of deep red roses out for her.

Just like that, the pain of missing him faded.

If she hadn’t been a 100% sure what this was about before, now she was absolutely certain. 

She took the flowers, realizing with a jolt that she wasn’t nervous. Not at all. 

“I-” she started, knowing that he would want to know how the test went.

But Jay shook his head, cutting her off. “Don’t tell me how it went. I want to say this now, before you tell me.”

“Hailey,” he said, taking her free hand. “You changed my life. From the first time we met to now, you’ve pushed be to become a better person. To change. You taught me how empathize, and trust, and laugh again. In every aspect of my life, you’ve been there for me. Every day, every case, you’ve been by my side. Even when you got sick.”

“If there’s anything I’ve learned from being your partner, it’s that I should embrace what life throws my way. PTSD, illness, injury, distance. Because even though those things felt terrible in the moment, they did one thing right- they brought me closer to you.”

“And I can’t imagine my life without you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want to make you laugh and bake cookies, solve cases together and grow old together. Because you- you mean everything to me.”

“You are my anchor. I know I can lean on you, because through everything, you’ve been there for me. And I want to be there for you, in everything that life throws at you. Every flaw, every burden, I want to share with you, because I love you, Hailey. Plain and simple.”

Hailey’s heart felt like it was in her throat. If she were the crying type, she most certainly would have cried, but instead she just kept looking at him, almost drowning in his clear green eyes.

And then he knelt.

“I once told you that someday I’d ask you to marry me. I wasn’t ready then. But now I am. And so, I’m asking you-”

“Hailey, will you marry me?”