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Her hand shook as her eyes zeroed in on the two pink lines that stared her in the face.
She shouldn’t be surprised really, because when she missed her appointment to get her birth control shot she knew this could happen. Deep down had wanted it to happen.
Looking at the positive pregnancy test she wondered what she’d been thinking.
Even though she had skipped her shot, this hadn’t been planned. Not really.
It had started out with Ava trying to convince her that they should plan to get pregnant at the same time so their babies could be close in age. Hailey had scoffed at this idea because while she and Jay wanted kids, she didn’t think it was a good time to which Ava had oh so helpfully pointed out that it was never a ‘good time’ to have babies.
Ava had continued to heavily drop hints that they should try and coincide getting pregnant for several months. Hailey had just rolled her eyes in response until one day when Ava told her she and Connor were going to start trying the next month to which Hailey responded that that was more than she needed to know.
Ava had only given her a pointed look, telling her she should talk to Jay about it and left her with her thoughts.
She really had toyed with the idea of bringing the subject of babies up to Jay because she did want them. Sometimes she found herself wanting them so bad it scared her, especially in the past few months after Ava had planted the image in her head.
But the thought of Jay finding out that Ava had been trying to literally plan both of them conceiving a child around the same time made Hailey cringe, not sure how Jay would feel about that, so she’d taken matters into her own hands.
But she didn’t think she’d actually get pregnant.
When she missed her shot which actually had been an accident, she figured it would take months to work the birth control out of her system seeing as how she’d been on it for such a long time. In fact, she was so convinced that she wouldn’t get pregnant quickly that she hadn’t even thought of that possibility when she’d missed her period a couple of months ago but then it had happened again, and she’d started noticing the symptoms.
So yeah, she was pregnant and if her calculations were correct, she was probably around three months along with a baby Jay didn’t even know they were trying for.
Hell, she didn’t even know if she had been trying. Because missing her birth control shot really had been a fluke thing (the morning she’d had her appointment Voight had ordered a raid) and she really had been meaning to reschedule but she kept forgetting. It wasn’t her fault that her schedule was so wacky and so unpredictable that it made it hard to make an appointment to anything.
Hailey blew out a slow breath, forcing herself not to freak out as she slid the used test back into its plastic wrapper to shove into her jean pocket. She managed to stop her hands from shaking as she opened the bathroom stall, grateful that the room was still empty as she went to the sink to try and fortify herself.
How could she be so stupid? Not that she didn’t think Jay wouldn’t be okay with a baby but the fact that she hadn’t told him she wasn’t on any birth control felt a little irresponsible of her and she couldn’t help but wonder in the back of her mind if he would be upset with her.
Turning on the faucet, she washed her hands and splashed some water on her face trying to shake those thoughts from her mind. Jay loved her and yeah, this pregnancy wasn’t really planned but she knew they would make it work, together. Like they did everything.
And now that the shock was starting to wear off, she could feel excited nerves start to bubble in her belly.
Holy crap. She was going to be a mother.
There was a baby inside of her right at this moment.
Hailey stared at herself in the mirror and a disbelieved laugh escaped from her throat. So, she and Ava managed to be pregnant at the same time after all. The surgeon had informed her that she was pregnant a week ago and that was when the thought that she might also be pregnant had entered her mind.
She’d lived in denial for a few days until she’d finally bought a few pregnancy tests which sat hidden in her locker until she’d had enough courage to just find out whether or not all of her freaking out was warranted.
Well, it was because she is and now, she’s got to find a way to tell Jay.
She was simultaneously nervous and excited to see the look on his face when he found out. Should she just go out there and tell it to him straight? Should she keep it to herself to get comfortable with the idea before letting anyone else know?
Hailey quickly dismissed that thought; she probably wouldn’t be totally comfortable with becoming a mother for at least a few months and she couldn’t keep it from him. That wouldn’t be fair to him or to her and besides, she would need to go on light duty soon because she was pretty sure she was already pretty far along.
But she also didn’t really want to just say it. She had a real and rare opportunity to surprise Jay with this news and she wasn’t sure if she wanted to pass it up.
Biting her lip, Hailey glanced around to double check that she was still alone before placing a hesitant hand on her lower abdomen where she now knew her baby rested. Swallowing, she licked her lips and tentatively whispered, “We gotta find a way to tell your daddy about you, don’t we baby?”
What were these words coming out of her mouth right now? Daddy?
Jay was going to be someone’s dad. And she was going to be someone’s mom.
She was going to be one of those people who referred to herself as mommy and her husband as daddy. So, in other words, they were going to be parents.
It surprised and honestly kind of scared her at how strongly connected she already felt towards this little person she’d only just found out about. How much love she already felt for her baby and she knew in that moment that she would do anything for the child that was growing inside of her no matter what.
The buzz of her phone vibrating in her back jean pocket brought her out of her thoughts. She quickly shook herself out of it and slid her phone out.
It was Jay asking where she was. She looked at the time, surprised to find that she’d been the bathroom close to half an hour. Coming up with an excuse that would explain her long absence without raising suspicion, she took one more big breath before exiting the restroom a totally different person than when she’d entered a mere thirty minutes ago.
If Hailey had hoped to sneak back to her desk unobserved, her plans were quickly ruined.
She’s not proud of it but she couldn’t help the slight startle she gave when she barely got out the doorway and was faced with the one person she was hoping to avoid at all costs: Trudy Platt.
The desk sergeant was leaning against the doorframe, her arms crossed and her face in an impassive expression, her brows slightly raised.
Hailey considered ducking back into the bathroom but decided against it as she didn’t think it would be advisable to jump out a two-story window to escape the woman in her current condition.
“Sergeant,” She’s happy to report that her voice held no indication of the major shock she’d just received and sounded like her normal cool and collected self.
But Platt just stared at her with that all too knowing gaze and Hailey wondered if she somehow knew about the positive pregnancy test that was currently burning a hole in her pocket.
Trudy’s brows rose impassively, “Detective,” Her eyes flicked down the hallway, “Your husband’s looking for you. He felt the need to send out a search party.”
Hailey got the distinct feeling that she didn’t appreciate being assigned the role as she watched the Sargent push herself off of the wall and made her way down the hallway without saying another word.
Taking a deep breath, Hailey briefly touched her stomach, trying to shake off whatever that was before making her own way down the hallway in the opposite direction of Trudy.
She still felt like a jittery mess, carrying around this monumental secret and she wasn’t quite sure what to make of the feeling.
This wasn’t like her. To be nervous, and about a secret no less.
She was trained to keep secrets and not give them away. How many times had she been undercover, relying on her constitution to keep secrets and spew lies?
How was this any different?
But it was. Because this was her real life. Not a fake one, not a quick undercover stint. It was a real baby with a real man.
A man who loved her and who married her and had no idea that she was pregnant.
Hailey was so deep in thought that she almost ran right into the man himself.
“Hailey!” Jay’s hands came out to grab her upper arms as she jumped back, barely avoiding a crash into his hard, muscular chest.
She must have looked as startled as she felt because there was an immediate look of concern on his face, “Hailey, are you okay?”
She managed to force out a laugh.
She winced at how un-natural it sounded.
“I’m fine,” She smiled, “Why wouldn’t I be?”
Jay was looking at her as if he didn’t entirely believe her, slowly responding, “Well, you disappeared for half an hour and you look like you’re a million miles away.”
He squinted and she tried not to fidget under his stare, “And you look a little pale too.”
Hailey blinked, doing her best to put on a blank face to act as if she had no idea what he was talking about, “What are you talking about?”
Brushing past him, she headed for her desk in hopes that he would just drop it as she busied herself with finding a pen to fill out a couple of reports that were sitting on her desk.
She could practically feel his eyes narrow in suspicion as he headed to his own desk and she was ninety-nine percent sure that he was going to question her further if it wasn’t for Voight bustling out of his office to announce that they were wanted at a crime scene.
She mentally thanked her boss for his impeccable timing.
The day went as normally as it ever did, and Hailey managed to carry on with her job like usual but the knowledge that she was pregnant never left the back of her mind.
It was a steady, present thought that lingered in her head when pulling on her vest, busting through a door, running after a suspect, handcuffing a perp--It was always there, reminding her to be overly cautious in everything she did.
It was funny how quickly mindsets could change with knowledge. Yesterday she was pregnant even though she didn’t know it, but she still did everything she normally did without second thought.
Today, she was still pregnant and yet everything had changed because she knew she was carrying a life inside her.
Her hesitance to jump out windows and leap over moving cars didn’t go unnoticed. Kim had given her a strange look when she’d slowed up to let a car pass before booking it across the street to chase down an offender and Jay seemed confused when she opted to run down two flights of stairs instead of following their suspect by jumping out a window onto a ledge a few feet down and then to the grassy ground.
Needless to say, she needed to find a way to tell Jay about their impending parenthood sooner rather than later before she got into a situation that could possibly put her team in danger because it was too risky for her to go in now that she had a baby on board.
Not that she particularly wanted to go on desk duty, but she would never forgive herself if something happened because she’d went into something without the necessary backup to keep her safe and by extension, her child safe. It wasn’t smart to keep operating with only her knowing this vital piece of information.
But as the next few days passed, Hailey could never find the right moment to tell the person who needed and deserved to know first. Or maybe it wasn’t so much the right moment as it was getting up enough courage to tell him.
One morning she’d woken up well before the sun was up and she’d managed to sneak to the bathroom to sit on the cold tiles, leaning her flushed face against the toilet bowl without waking Jay.
For the most part, she’d managed to hide that symptom from him pretty well especially considering he was a fairly light sleeper and he usually was up at the crack of dawn which incidentally was about the time she woke up feeling sick.
The times he had caught her rushing to the bathroom she was able to pass her nausea off as food poisoning or a slight stomach bug. He’d seemed a little suspicious after the second time she used the food poisoning excuse, but it didn’t last for long as the morning sickness thankfully left her alone for nearly a week and when it did come back, she was able to deal with it without waking him.
Now that she knew for sure that the morning sickness she was experiencing was because she was carrying a baby, she half wondered what she would do if Jay woke up and questioned her. Would she tell him the truth she had been trying to tell him for the past several days or would she come up with another excuse?
She honestly wasn’t sure. She knew she needed to tell him, and she wanted it to be special but when it came right down to it, would she still keep the truth from him if he found her desperately trying not to puke her guts out?
Hailey quietly slipped back into the bedroom she shared with Jay, thankful that the nausea had subsided with little effort as she crept to her side of the bed. As she got closer, her eyes raked over her husband’s peacefully slumbering form.
He was laying on his stomach, his head turned towards her side of the bed, taking deep, steady breaths that told her all was well in his dreams. His arms were raised above his head, his hands shoved underneath his pillow and she marveled at the clear view of his bare, strong muscles in his shoulders and back; the sheets gathered down by his hips.
Biting her lip, Hailey couldn’t seem to stop herself from going to her nightstand, digging for the pregnancy test she’d hidden there. Not the best spot she knew, but that’s where she’d stashed it and Jay seemingly hadn’t found it yet.
The sun was barely peaking over the horizon as she stared at the positive pregnancy test in her hand before turning her gaze to the sleeping man in front of her who had no idea that he was about to become a father.
She briefly debated waking him up and just simply showing him the test, waiting until he understood what the two pink lines meant.
Just them, cocooned in the safety of their bedroom with only the early morning sun as a witness.
Hailey had eventually decided against it, shoving the test back into its poorly hidden spot before carefully climbing back into her warm place next to her husband, knowing she wouldn’t be going back to sleep.
“Hailey Upton Halstead!”
Adam’s exasperated voice brought her out of her thoughts of a few mornings ago. She blinked, turning to give him a disgruntled look, “What?” She snapped grumpily, “You don’t have to yell. I’m not hard of hearing.”
His eyebrows rose, opening his mouth but he seemed to think better of it because he mumbled a ‘never mind’ and gave Kim and Kevin a look she didn’t understand and wasn’t entirely comfortable with.
But before she could question it, Jay came bounding up the steps with two pizza boxes fresh from Bartoli’s. Her pick, and since she frequently craved her favorite pizza when she wasn’t pregnant, no one had questioned this particular request until she took the top box and had scarfed down half the pizza before anyone had managed to get a slice from the other box.
Kim, Adam and Kevin once again passed around that look that was becoming increasingly too knowing for her comfort level and Jay just looked at her in slight disbelief. Sighing, she reluctantly unhanded the third to last piece of pizza she was about to grab and shut the box, pushing it away from her so she wouldn’t be tempted.
She had to tell Jay. And soon, for all their sake’s.
The inspiration came to her the next day, laying in her bed at four in the morning when she had the passing thought of what if he just happened to find the test and then she wouldn’t actually have to tell him.
It was a simple yet memorable way of telling him and she was honestly a little proud of herself for having the thought. Her only concern was what his reaction would be when he found the test because she wasn’t hiding it in the most private of places, but she had faith that he would be calm about it like he was in every situation.
At least, that’s what she told herself a few hours later as she quickly scribbled a note on the positive test and placed it in Jay’s desk drawer before the workday started.
It wouldn’t be the end of the world if the others inadvertently found out when Jay figured out what that white stick in his desk meant. She didn’t mind them knowing because obviously her hiding place was risky but she hoped that Jay would keep quiet about it so they could keep the news to themselves for at least a little while.
However it played out now would be left up to fate or destiny or whatever it was that people put stock in.
There wasn’t much time to dwell on it as the rest of the team came bounding up the steps, Jay coming in from the locker room and the day was quickly thrown into action with a new case that had kicked off in the early morning hours.
In fact, they were so busy Hailey managed to temporarily forget that she’d put the test in Jay’s drawer early that morning and it wasn’t until she was walking into the bullpen from the backroom, a folder in hand intent on running some plates when Jay caught her gaze from across the room that she remembered.
Hailey stopped dead in her tracks at his wide-eyed gaze, his face as white as she’d ever seen it, his fist clenching something tight under his desk.
His voice was firm, only a slight tremor running through his words shot through the bullpen, “Hailey. We need to talk.”
When Jay woke up that morning, he’d had no idea what the day held for him.
His days were fairly routine in the fact that he knew there was a good chance he would be shot at and there would probably be a good deal of running around on the streets of Chicago.
It was routine in the fact that his team was a well-oiled machine, and it was routine that Hailey would be by his side every second of the day, watching his six and loving him unconditionally.
These were things he expected to happen, and it wasn’t often that he was thrown for a loop even if something unexpected happened. Because in his line of work, the unexpected was a regular occurrence.
But what he wasn’t expecting was his life to change with the opening of his desk drawer.
He’d been working on some paperwork and went to grab a pen that he knew probably wouldn’t be in its pencil holder because Hailey liked to borrow his without giving them back, but he’d hidden some in his desk for such an occasion.
A pen wasn’t what he found though because as soon as he opened the drawer his eyes were drawn to a peculiar white stick that he’d never seen before. Furrowing his eyebrows, he picked it up to look at more closely, turning it around in his hand and that’s when he realized it was a positive pregnancy test. The words, “Hey dad” written on it in Hailey’s familiar handwriting standing out against the white next to the two pink lines.
His heart felt like it had stopped in his chest as he swallowed hard, forcing his arm down to swiftly hide the test under the desk before his colleagues noticed it in his hand.
Blinking, he snuck a peek at the test again. He felt cold shock roll over him as it started to hit him of what this meant.
A pregnancy test. A positive one in his desk drawer. And positive pregnancy tests meant babies.
All of this coupled with the words of ‘Hey dad’ in Hailey’s writing brought him to the conclusion that Hailey must be pregnant, and this was how she was telling him.
Hailey. Pregnant. With his baby.
A baby.
He made a weird choking sound and all at once he found three pairs of eyes looking at him in various degrees of concern and suspicion.
“You okay?” Adam asked with a hint of skepticism in his voice.
Jay was proud that he managed to get out a ‘yeah, I’m fine’ in what must have been a somewhat convincing manner because he was left alone, his friends all turning back to what they were doing.
His eyes scanned the room because where the hell was Hailey?
It suddenly all clicked into place. Her bouts of sickness, her increased appetite over the last few weeks, her moodiness, the caution she’d suddenly been exhibiting while they worked, her somewhat odd behavior around him these last few days.
They were having a baby.
He needed to talk to Hailey right away.
Jay was about to spring to his feet to seek her out when his gaze caught her figure striding out of the back room. His eyes zeroed in on her presence.
“Hailey. We need to talk.”
He was up out of his seat before she, or anyone else for that matter, could protest. The positive pregnancy test tucked under his long-sleeve shirt to hide it from view as he placed a firm hand on the small of Hailey’s back, steering her rapidly towards the locker room.
He quickly checked the room to make sure they were alone as Hailey stood in the center, nervously waiting for him to finish his inspection before he came to stand in front of her.
She was quiet, meeting his gaze as his eyes roved over her face, searching for the truth of what they both knew rested inside of her.
His hands were trembling as he let the pregnancy test fall from his sleeve, casting his eyes downward to look at it again. She tracked his movements as they both looked at the proof their lives were about to change.
Jay slowly raised the test, looking at it for a long time before looking at her, “Hailey? Is this—” He croaked out brokenly, “Is this for real?”
She bit her lip, tears springing in her eyes at the poorly concealed awe she heard in his voice. She didn’t have the words, so she just nodded.
“For real?” He whispered shakily, looking deeply into her eyes as his hands came up to frame her face.
Hailey nodded again, tears running down her face.
Jay’s thumb swiped away her tears as he bent slightly to catch her downward gaze, “You’re pregnant?” He finally managed to whisper the words out loud.
She chuckled, finding her voice, “Yeah.” Blinking a few times to clear the tears from her eyes, she continued, “I took like ten tests and they were all positive so I’m pretty sure.”
“Oh Hailey,” Jay breathed before capturing her lips in a searing kiss letting the pregnancy test drop out of hand and clatter on the floor, forgotten.
He pulled away when they both needed air, but he kept close, resting his forehead against hers. Hailey hummed lightly, her eyes closed as she savored the warmth of his outpouring love, “So, I take it your happy then?”
“Hailey,” Jay rumbled back, giving the skin below her eyes soft kisses, “Happy doesn’t even begin to describe what I’m feeling.”
“Why would you even ask that?” He murmured in her ear.
“Well,” She began sheepishly, “We didn’t exactly plan on having a baby and the only reason why I’m in this condition in the first place is because I missed my birth control shot which I should have told you about, so you at least knew that there was a chance of getting me pregnant. Because that’s a big thing and what if you didn’t want a baby then we really would be in a mess and I should have just told you what was going on from the beginning and—"
She was cut off with an ‘ummph’ as Jay kissed her again, effectively shutting her up.
“Hailey, none of that matters. We’re having a baby and I would never be mad or upset about something like that.” She watched as Jay sank down onto his knees, his hands shaking as he tentatively placed them on her still flat stomach.
Visibly swallowing, he gave her low belly a feather light kiss and she could just barely feel his lips forming words, murmuring to their unborn child.
Catching words and phrases like ‘I’m your daddy’ and ‘your mama and I’ and ‘we love you so much’ and ‘I’ll always protect you’ made her start crying in earnest once again as he whispered assurances and promises to the tiny baby growing within her.
Sinking onto her own knees, she met Jay’s mouth in a messy kiss wet with their mingled tears, “I love you Jay.”
“I love you too, Hailey,” He smiled joyfully, “And I love our baby.”
Hailey clutched his hands, matching his smile as she echoed his words in awe, “Our baby.”
Jay nipped at her lips through his smile, “So when can we expect this addition to our family?”
“Well, I’m not one-hundred percent sure but if my calculations are correct, I’m about three months along which means baby Halstead should make his or her appearance sometime in September,” She told him, her eyes shining brightly.
“Baby Halstead,” Jay breathed in wonder, “I can’t wait.”
When they told their friends the next day, none of them looked surprised as Trudy held out her hand; Kim, Kevin and Adam grudgingly digging out money to give to the Desk Sergeant.
She had a self-satisfied smirk on her face, “Told ya.”