Work Text:
For the first couple of weeks that Hailey had been out in New York to work with the FBI, her and Jay had FaceTimed religiously. In the morning on the way to work, whenever they could both catch a break at the same time, and on their drives home, most importantly though, once they were both home and settled. It was as close to 'their thing' they could get after a long day of work while separated by hundreds of miles.
After about 14 days, Jay was starting to notice something different about Hailey, they were calling less, even her texting game was off. She was starting to be busy more frequently in the evenings and her texts had become rare, short and sweet.
On the Wednesday evening of her third week away, Jay decided to bring it up while they were on FaceTime.
"Hey what's been going on over there?" he questioned "I feel like we haven't talked in ages"
Hailey's brows furrowed a little as she struggled to think of what to say, anything to say to avoid Jay finding out about Liam, she wasn't ready to tell him and definitely not over the phone when she wasn't even sure how serious things were.
"Yeah, sorry about that, we've had lots of tough cases, I've been working late" she said.
Her partner knew she wasn't telling the truth, he could always tell. However, he didn't want to push, it wasn't worth it after the long day that he'd had and he knew that Hailey would tell him whatever it was when she wanted to so he settled on saying:
"Don't work yourself too hard" with a chuckle.
The two spoke for a little bit longer after that, Jay telling Hailey about all the weird things Kev and Adam have been up to and Hailey realising how much she misses her Intelligence family, not that she would ever tell Jay that.
A few days passed and all the interaction that the detectives had had with one another was through text, but when Saturday came around Jay needed to change that.
It was around 10:30pm when he shot her a text:
'Hey, I know it's late but I just got home from a tough case and was wondering if you're free to call?'
Luckily for him, Hailey replied to Jay's text only a few minutes later by calling him.
"Hey how are you?" she said when she saw that her partner had connected to the call.
"I'm ok, just needed to do our thing i guess" the emphasis Jay put on the 'our thing' was slight, but it was there. "How are y-" he paused.
"What?"
"You're wearing make-up, you never wear make-up, am I interrupting something? A date?" Jay teased.
Without thinking, Hailey replied with "As a matter of fact, you texted me just before dessert so it was actually perfect timing"
Jay froze, trying to process that words that he just heard. It's not like he thought that Hailey wasn't allowed to go on dates, he didn't own her. But he was jealous, a lot more jealous that he would care to admit. Deep down he knew that it was his fault, he'd had feelings for Hailey for a long time and didn't do anything about it because 'nothing good comes out of a workplace romance' or whatever bullshit he had told himself.
"Was it not going well? If you wanted to get out of there before dessert I mean" he clarified.
"No, no, it was going great. I just meant it made an ok place to stop so I could check on you" she responded.
"I'm sorry, you shouldn't have left, if I had known I wouldn't have texted" Jay said, in an attempt to clear the air. Their conversation had become quite stale and neither of them were willing to accept that it was just awkward.
"Jay, stop" Hailey said, causing her partner to crack a small smile. "If you need to talk to me after a bad case, that's the only place I want to be. I'm always here for you, even when we're this far away" the last part was delivered with a bit of scorn.
"Thanks Hailey, and you too" he said, lifting a little bit of weight off both of their shoulders as they began to flow back into normal conversation.
Another week had passed and Hailey had told Jay a little more about Liam, but only if it came up in conversation so currently all he knew was his name and his job and what his coffee order is (he'd heard Hailey getting it for him while they were on FaceTime). She quickly realised that Jay didn't enjoy listening to her talk about him so she tried to keep it lowkey.
During her last few days in New York, Hailey and Liam came to the mutual decision that they wouldn't take the relationship any further. They had a lot of fun while it lasted but they both knew that long distance relationships were a lot of effort and with the jobs they had, it would just but impractical.
While she was waiting in the airport for her flight back to Chicago, Hailey found herself saddened by the fact that her and Jay hadn't texted or called for a couple of days so she opened her phone, pulled up Jay's contact and called it.
No answer, so she texted.
'About to board my plane, just wanted to check in'
Jay sent a response quickly.
'Sorry, deep in a case. Have a safe flight, text me when you land'
She decided to shrug it off but Hailey knew something wasn't right.
The journey felt like years but after her flight and a taxi ride home, Hailey was finally back in her own apartment in Chicago. It was 2am when she arrived so when she reached her bedroom she quickly changed and got straight into bed, falling asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.
The next morning she got up, easily slipping back into her normal routine and went to work. Voight had had offered for her to take a few days to get settled back into Chicago and sleep off the jet lag but she politely declined as she just wanted her normal back.
The day went pretty slowly, no major cases, but Jay was acting different and Hailey knew it. When she first showed up at work she got warm welcomes from Trudy and the whole unit but nothing from Jay, they barely said two words to each other all day that weren't work-related and it was making Hailey a little upset.
Since they had spent most of the day doing paperwork, the team got sent home at a reasonable time. Adam and Kim left together closely followed by Kevin as Voight silently worked in his office.
Hailey entered the locker room where she knew she would find Jay, and she was right.
As she hesitantly walked through the doorway, Hailey spoke. "Can we talk?"
Jay wasn't facing the door when his partner walked in but, upon hearing her voice, he quickly adjusted his positioning on the bench he had planted himself on to grab his stuff from his locker so he was looking at her.
"Sure" he replied softly, pretty confident he knew what she wanted to talk about.
"Come over to mine in about half an hour?" Hailey asked.
Jay nodded in response and they both grabbed their things and walked to the parking lot together.
They walked in silence but it wasn't their usual, comfortable, silence. The air around the two was stiff. Either way, it wasn't long before they reached their cars and headed their separate ways.
Almost exactly half an hour later, Hailey heard a knock at her door. She got up from her position on her couch and went to answer the door, knowing it would be her partner on the other side.
"Hey" Jay said with a weak smile as Hailey opened the door and he walked inside.
He set his jacket on one of the hooks by the door as he always did when he was at her apartment and made his way to her couch.
Sitting in silence on opposite ends of the furniture both detectives waited for the other to talk first and after a few uncomfortable seconds, Hailey decided that it was probably fair for her to talk first seeing as she was the one who wanted to talk to him and she invited him over.
"What is going on with you?" she asked, not wanting to beat around the bush, just getting straight to the point.
"What are you talking about?"
"Oh come on Jay, don't give me that crap. You haven't spoken to me at all since I got back from New York so I'm sorry for assuming my best friend would have more to say after I left for 4 weeks" Hailey rebuked at Jay's easy response.
"I guess I figured you'd wanna catch up with the team rather than talk to me seeing as we spoke to each other so much while you were over there" he said but Hailey knew that wasn't the truth.
She started to get angrier but did her best not to show it and kept her cool.
"Well that's a load of bull" she snapped. "We both know that over the second half of my trip we barely spoke, compared to the first two weeks anyway"
"Oh and thats my fault?" Jay jabbed back, beginning to feel anger rise in himself. Still, they both sat in the same spots on the couch and neither raised their voice.
"Well is it mine?" Hailey replied.
"More like your boyfriend's" Jay murmered without thinking.
Hailey couldn't believe what he had just said.
"Is that why you've been weird for these past weeks?" She asked "You're jealous of Liam?"
That word 'jealous' played with his head but Jay didn't reply, still regretting even bringing it up.
"Not that its any of your business, but he wasn't my boyfriend" Hailey hissed and moved her body to a much more upright position, but keeping their eye contact. "It was a two-week fling, it didn't mean anything" she continued with a quizzical look on her face.
"Wait so you guys aren't together anymore?" Jay asked, a little taken aback by what his partner had just said.
"No, we ended things the day before I left because we agreed it was just a bit of fun and neither of us had the want to try a long distance relationship." she said while relaxing back into the couch again.
Silence fell in the room for a moment as Hailey waited for Jay to say something but instead he just stayed where he was and his brows furrowed.
"Is that really why you've been acting weird?" she finally asked when she realised Jay had no intention of speaking.
Still not saying a word, Jay shrugged his shoulders a little embarrassed that he had even made this into a thing, it's not like he could control who Hailey was dating.
"Oh my god will you please say something or I'm abut to get really mad" she exclaimed with a little more volume.
Jay had no idea what he could say without confessing his feelings right there in the middle of her living room so he kept his mouth shut which really pushed Hailey over the edge.
"Jay" she scoffed "for fuck's sake what are you doing? You're in no place to act like this because of a guy I dated for like a minute, last time I checked this partnership wasn't an exclusive relationship and I can date whoever the hell I want" she began to stand up and continued "Just because you're not looking for someone doesn't mean I can't be"
In reality, both of them knew exactly who they really wanted to date and it was none other than the person right in front of them at that very moment but neither were ready to admit that. Or so they thought, Jay's mind had other plans.
"Who says a haven't already found them?" Jay whispered, loud enough for Hailey to hear.
That was the second time this evening that Jay had said something that was meant to be kept in his head. 'God I really need to think more before I speak' he thought.
"What?" Hailey asked, sitting back down.
"I didn't mean-" Jay began.
"So you are seeing someone" Hailey cut in.
"What?" his forehead creased "no, I'm not seeing anyone" he said truthfully.
"But you just said you found-"
"You, Hailey" and he did it again, Jay spoke before he could stop himself. However, this time, it proved to work in his favour, as a large smile appeared on his partner's face.
For Chicago's best detectives, both Jay and Hailey looked pretty stupid right now. But not stupid in a bad way, stupid in a huge-smile-on-your-face-don't-know-what-to-say way.
For a second, they both remained still, not entirely sure what had just happened and where to go from there. Then Hailey made a spur of the moment decision and launched herself at Jay.
First she put a hand on his cheek and that was quickly followed by her placing her lips to his and pulling her leg over his knees so she was sitting in his lap and they were face to face.
Without ever breaking the kiss, Jay's hands momentarily explored Hailey's body, mainly moving up and down her torso, whereas Hailey kept both hands on his cheeks or gently around his neck, softly touching the hair on the back of his head.
Both were very content as it felt like the whole world was slipping away and they were all that existed. Hailey could feel a huge smile on Jay's face as they kissed and it only made hers grow wider as their tongues intertwined and they bit at each other's lips.
Though they had exchanged no words further than Jay implying that Hailey was all he was looking for, neither of them felt it was necessary.
Since they day they had met, the two had gone from strangers, to partners, to best friends, to admitting they trust each other more than anyone else and would follow each other blind. But they had always been Hailey and Jay, and thats exactly what they were that night, nothing had changed between them apart from the enormous weight that was their unspoken love for each other was lifted off their shoulders and they were just Hailey and Jay.