Archive of Our Own

Hailey woke up before Jay for once. She quietly slipped out of their bed, grabbed her cellphone from the nightstand, and headed downstairs to start making breakfast for them. When she reached the kitchen, she decided to put a Christmas playlist on her phone to fill the morning silence with some holiday cheer. Quickly gathering her utensils and ingredients, she got to work whipping up some Christmas eve pancakes as she hummed along to the festive songs until her favorite song came on, and she started to sing along.

Jay woke up to the smell of food and his stomach started growling. He sighed, “Guess it’s time to eat.” He was surprised at how late he actually slept in. He slowly got out of bed and headed down the hall. The closer he got to the stairs, he could start to hear Christmas music playing in the kitchen, and Hailey singing along. He smiled and slightly chuckled. It was enjoyable for him to see this side of her. They had managed to keep work and personal life separate at work for the most part, so it was nice for them to be married Hailey and Jay for the next 48 hours and not partners at work, professional Hailey and Jay. 

He slowly made his way down the stairs staying as quiet as possible as he peaked around the corner of the kitchen and just took the moment to watch his wife. Hailey had her back to him, and was just singing along to “Baby it’s Cold Outside” while flipping their pancakes. Jay was convinced that he fell in love with her all over again every time he looked at her. Whether that be at the bullpen when he looks up to find her stealing one of his pens, at the district or a scene where she’s being absolutely a badass as one of the most successful detectives he has ever seen, or simply at the comfort of their home flipping pancakes in the kitchen, Jay knew that Hailey Halstead would always be his favorite view.  

Hailey went to grab plates out of the cabinet and when she turned around, there he was. She jumped and almost dropped the plates on the floor. “Jay! You scared the crap out of me!”

“Sorry, I was just enjoying the view.” He smirked. He walked across the kitchen to grab some coffee, and took a seat at the counter.

“How long were you standing there?”

“Oh, just long enough to know it is really cold outside, babes.” He replies in a mocking singing voice.

Hailey scoffed. “Well, we will see next time you hear me sing around here again.” He motions her to come over to him. “What?” She says.

“I absolutely love when you sing.” He pecks a quick kiss on her lips and goes back to drinking coffee, giving Hailey the time to watch him this time.

“You know how you said you were enjoying the view. I am definitely enjoying this one.” She winks at him, taking in the view of him sitting at the counter, shirtless and in his grey sweats.

“Oh, really?” A playful smirk played on Jay’s lips. “So, I should not go get my shirt out of the laundry basket.” He asked, slowly getting up from the stool.

Hailey waved the spatula at him. “No, maybe later.” And with a playfully dismissive remark, she returned to making breakfast, leaving Jay to just watch her move around the kitchen, chuckling, thinking how lucky he was to have Hailey as his wife.

Once, they were seated down to eat breakfast, a pancake feast fitting for the holidays, Jay waited for Hailey to take a couple bites of food and sips of coffee before he asked, “So, what do you want to do today?” He watched Hailey finish the bite she was eating as she pondered a response.

“You know it’s not a quiz, right? There is no wrong answer.” 

“You might regret just saying that.” Hailey shot him a mock threatening look as she took another sip of her coffee. “But I have an idea, let’s build a snowman!” Jay laughed at his wife’s childish excitement at her own suggestion. Surely he could think of many, many other ways they could spend the day, preferably indoors.

“Wait, you are serious?” He asked when he realized Hailey was serious and actually waiting for his input. “You sure you don’t want to just enjoy a fire and watch movies all day. It is much warmer inside and we can, you know…” His voice got low as his last words trailed and he wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

“As tempting as that sounds, I’m serious! Let’s go build a snowman!” She rolled her eyes at Jay’s offer. The man was insatiable! “Come on! It snowed all night, and there is plenty of snow out there.” She pointed at the window overlooking the snow clad outdoors. “Please! I never got to really do that as a kid and then got too old.” She shortly reasoned, not wanting to bring sour memories of her childhood into a happy day. “Plus, if we enjoy it enough, we can maybe make it a new tradition for us.”

“Alright, well let us go get changed and go make a snowman, then!” Jay declared. He couldn’t say no to making new memories and creating new traditions for the two Halsteads.

Once, they were outside, they started by making the body of the snowman first, thankful for the packing wet snow that was making this activity a lot easier than the frozen snow they’d had to shovel out of their driveway only a day ago. When the body was as large to their liking, Hailey excused herself to go find stuff to make a face, buttons and arms for the snowman while Jay worked on the head. 

He was putting the snowman’s head onto the body, when suddenly he got a snowball to the back of the head. “Excuse me? What do you think you are doing?”

Hailey looked around with a sheepish grin. “What?” She tried acting all innocent but couldn’t suppress her laughter any longer under Jay’s gaze and started laughing as he lunged for her and she took away running as well. 

“Oh, so you think that was funny, huh?” Jay grabbed some snow and continued his chase after her. 

They ran around their backyard for a little before Jay finally caught up to her and gently tackled her down to the ground. “Do you surrender?” He asked once he was sure she couldn’t wriggle out of his embrace.

“Never!” 

“Oh really?” They shared a look before his hands moved to her sides and his fingers danced on her jacket clad skin, the tickles sending Hailey into fits of laughter. Oh how he absolutely just loved that laugh.

“Now do you surrender?” He asked, stopping his ticking, and Hailey shook her head no. “Still? So, what do you think I should do with this?” He asked, showing her the snowball he had set aside when he’d tackled her..

“Oh, no! Please don’t?” She responded with a slight plea in her giggly voice. She knew deep down, she was not going to get away that easy.

“Hmm, so I should let you get up, then.” Jay decided to act like he was going to let her off and be nice. He gave her his hand to help her up and even helped her dust off the copious amount of snow attached to her jacket, but Hailey knew better. She watched his every move closely, hesitated to accept his help. As much as she loved him and trusted him as a husband and partner, she knew he would get his revenge when it came to pranks, and snowball fights. And good thing she kept her guard up, because as soon as she was up and the snow was dusted off of her clothes, the snowball ended up in her face like a pie in a comedy.

“Okay, okay I surrender.” Hailey wiped at her face as Jay laughed. “Are you happy now?” She blinked away the snow in her eyes to see him just smiling back. She smiled back at him and started laughing along with him.

“I am happy,” Jay replied and moved in quickly to give her a quick kiss on the lips. Jay quickly turned around and went back to the snowman. He turned to look at her and smirked, “Well...let’s finish this, what do you say?”

Hailey looked over at the snowman. She replied, “We should probably decorate the snowman too, eh?”

Jay chuckled, “Well, of course! That’s part of making one silly!”

Jay went off and found some twigs for the arms and some stones for the face, while Hailey went inside to get a hat and scarf, and carrot for the nose.

They both worked together adding the last few touches and looked at each other and smiled. “Well, I think it’s done. Let’s head back inside” Jay said. He started walking back to the house. 

Hailey called out to him, “Wait!” He looked back confused. Hailey responded back, “I know we both hate taking photos, but can we do a selfie with it?”

Jay just smiled back and responded, “Absolutely!” As much as he hated taking photos. He would never not take one when his wonderful wife asked him. Not that he'd admit it out loud, but, those moments they did capture were his favorite. After they finished taking the photo, they walked back toward the house.

Once, back inside, they decided to go change out of their wet clothes and start a warm fire. Since neither Will nor Mouse were joining them this year for Christmas eve, they’d had no plans for a fancy family feast, so instead, they settled on ordering food and watching a movie. They decided to take a break halfway through the movie, and to their luck, paused the movie at the exact scene the characters were building snowmen of their own. Hailey looked at Jay. She started talking about their day. “So, today was a lot of fun spending the whole day with you not thinking about work and actually making some of our own Christmas traditions.”

“Yeah it was. I am glad we got a few days off work to spend together. Can you believe it’s Christmas tomorrow already?”

“I know, I can't believe how fast it’s going. Our first year of marriage is just flying by."

Jay just smiled back at her and pulled her into his chest. “I know, right? It’s been a great transition into married life together, though.”

Hailey got really soft with the next part and seemed kind of nervous. “So, you remember when I mentioned making this a tradition, making a snowman.” She pulled out the picture of their selfie and showed it to him as she reminded him of the fun they had just a couple hours ago.

“Yeah?” Jay looked at her confused

“Well, next year this picture will have another Halstead in it.”

“You know, we don’t have to wait for next year to build a snowman with Will. We can just do it again tomorrow when he comes over for dinner. Give Mr. Snowman outside a lady friend.” 

“I wasn’t talking about Will.” Hailey bit her lip and watched as she waited for Jay to make sense of her words.

“Wait… What?” His eyes moved from the phone to Hailey. “Hails, are you saying…” His voice trailed and the biggest and brightest smile broke out on his lips.

“I’m pregnant, Jay.” She nodded with a grin matching his, and neither needed more words as Jay’s lips crashed onto hers in a passionate celebratory kiss.

As the clock struck midnight, looking at Hailey cuddled up next him on the couch. He could not think of a better Christmas present.