Chapter Text
Hailey looked dreadful, her skin was pale and waxy, the bags under her eyes told Kim that she still wasn’t sleeping, she flinched when anyone got close to her and seemed to be teetering on the brink. The brink of what, Kim wasn’t sure but she didn’t want to find out.
She had watched her friend deteriorate in the last 12 months and had been powerless to stop it. She had tried, but as strong as Hailey was, a piece of her was missing since her husband had walked out the door. Initially Kim had tried to give her space knowing that to crowd Hailey would just make her more likely to retreat into her shell, but she had needed no such persuasion. She had isolated herself and become more self-reliant without needing or wanting to lean on her friends.
Getting close to Hailey had always been tricky, from what little Kim knew about her life before she strolled into the bullpen she could understand why. Still, she viewed the blonde as a friend. And when her friend was hurting so visibly and so clearly, she wanted to help.
She had thought at first it would just be a settling period, a time of getting used to Jay’s absence. From what Voight had told the team the day after he had left, he had handed in his badge to the Ivory Tower so would not be returning to Intelligence after his 8 month stint in Bolivia, but it was only 8 months. He’d return to Chicago and to his wife once the time had passed and the life would be breathed back into Hailey again.
Somewhere along the road, that plan had seemingly changed.
Kim didn’t know what triggered it, but one day that little black band that had taken up residence on her friend's ring finger, vanished.
The team wasn’t blind, nor were they stupid. They knew someone didn’t take off their wedding ring if everything was still sunshine and daisies. Someone didn’t take it off if things were just a little bumpy either. Something had happened.
‘Did you see?’ Kevin asked in hushed tones when Kim joined him in the breakroom, her caffeine supply dangerously low.
‘That she’s taken off her ring?’ Kim responded, eyebrows raising as she held out her empty mug for Kevin to fill. ‘Spotted it this morning. Or lack of it.’
‘Did something happen?’ Kevin asked, his eyes darting out to the bullpen to check Hailey was still focused on her work. She wouldn’t thank them for gossiping about her even if they were doing it because they cared.
‘Dunno,’ Kim shrugged, although it pained her to do so. She should have known if something had happened, she saw Hailey almost every day. Her kid called her Auntie Hailey and yet she didn’t know why she had taken off her wedding ring. ‘I tried to visit her at Med last night but Maggie said she had checked herself out.’
‘That sounds like Upton,’ Kevin said flatly. They both knew that to be true. Jay was the only reason that Hailey had ever listened to the paramedics on scene or docs in the ED, she looked after herself for him. Without him, it seemed like she was falling into bad habits.
‘I’ll try and check on her in a bit,’ Kim suggested. ‘She’ll probably tell me she’s fine but at least she’ll know we care.’
‘She knows Burgess. Her knowing isn’t the problem.’
They both fell into silence, the air thick of worry for their friend and for the anguish of knowing that whatever help they offered would be turned down. Hailey Upton wasn’t one to accept help even when it was given freely and willingly - it was a weakness and she refused to be weak.
Kim had tried, they all had. Invited her out to Molly’s, for family dinners, even brought her coffee and doughnuts on chilly mornings. But the invites were turned down, places set remained empty at the table and the coffees would go cold, the bags containing the pastries dumped unceremoniously in the trash.
Hailey was telling them loudly she was fine and she didn’t want their help.
So Kim left alone.
She watched from a distance as the life ebbed from her friend, her care for things around her melting away as surely as her desire to continue to be who she was. She was sitting hunched over her desk in the bullpen when Kim walked in in the morning, and she was in the same position when she exited. The only time they heard her talk was when cases required her input but instead of the normally cool and composed Detective Upton the team trusted and respected, they were joined by a hot-heated Hailey who was bending rules and discarding the guidelines.
‘Sarge there’s no time-’ Hailey started, the anger bubbling off of her and visible to everyone in the room. Kim was perched on the corner of Adam’s desk, Adam sat in his chair with Kevin standing behind, his arms folded squarely over his chest. Torres was on furlough so his absence was explained. None of them wanted to jump in and interrupt Hailey but Voight seemed to have no such reservations.
‘Upton, no,’ Voight barked gruffly. ‘We do this by the book or we don’t do it at all.’
Kim risked a glance out the corner of her eye to see Hailey open her mouth to respond but clearly think better of it. ‘Atwater, you take the lead on this,’ Voight said, offering a nod of confirmation to Kevin who responded in kind. ‘Burgess and Ruzek, I want you in the van, we need this bust on tape. Upton, you’re on foot, close to Kevin but don’t blow his cover unless needed.’
They all nodded in agreement but before they could turn to Kevin for a rundown on the play, Hailey had slammed her chair into her desk loudly and stormed off down the back staircase.
‘We can brief on route,’ Kevin said, nodding towards the door. ‘Let’s go.’
What Kevin wasn’t saying was what they were all thinking, they needed to get to the location before Hailey or she would go in hot and get the case thrown out or herself hurt in the process.
This wasn’t the first time she had barrelled out without waiting for the agreement from the team. For the past few weeks her fuse seemed to be getting shorter and shorter and her patience for teamwork just as short.
She was the only remaining Detective in the unit so they looked to her for guidance and leadership but her attitude was so far removed from that currently, if they did follow her every movement, they would be running head first into danger with her.
Kevin and Adam had climbed into the passenger seat of her Jeep more than once to keep an eye on her. It was unspoken and unagreed but Hailey could no longer be trusted to go into a scene alone. If she had noticed what the pair were doing, she hadn’t said anything but from the speed she had sprinted out of the bullpen, their plan may have been foiled.
Once again their actions were out of care, but to Hailey, Kim knew it would be seen as a betrayal of trust.
Kim and Adam drove to the scene in silence - Hailey had been long gone by the time they got down to the rollup so Kevin had leapt into his car to see if he could track her down and Kim had climbed into Adam’s passenger seat.
‘I don’t know what we do with her now,’ Kim said quietly, pulling at a loose thread on her coat, the button it was attached to wiggling at her ministrations.
‘Not sure there’s much else we can do,’ Adam huffed out. ‘We can only keep an eye on her and hope it’s enough.’
‘And if it’s not enough?’ Kim asked, not wanting to know the answer.
‘I don’t know darlin’, I don’t know,’ Adam murmured as he sped through an intersection, his blue lights granting him permission not to stop.
When she and Adam pulled up next to Kevin’s car, he was standing next to it, talking, or more accurately yelling, into his radio. Kim spotted Hailey’s car, empty, a few metres away. She suddenly knew the cause of Kevin’s anger - Hailey had gone into the warehouse without backup and without cover.
They didn’t know what was waiting for them inside.
‘Upton, check in,’ Kevin was saying loudly, his shoulders tense and his voice hoarse. ‘Upton, do you copy?’
The line was silent.
Kim would bet her life insurance policy that Hailey’s radio was talking to itself from the footwell of her car. She wouldn’t have taken it in with her.
‘She went in?’ Adam said, running a trembling hand through his hair.
‘Yep,’ Kevin said, taking in a deep breath to calm himself.
‘We have to go in,’ Kim said, her hand falling to her gun.
‘Then what?’ Kevin anguished. ‘We’re going in blind Burgess, there could be anything in there.’
‘We know for certain Hailey is in there,’ Kim implored. ‘We can’t leave her.’
‘She left us,’ Adam murmured. He groaned at the wack Kim landed on his side.
‘Not the time,’ she said firmly. ‘We go in, we stick together, we sweep until we find her.’
‘And when we find her,’ Kevin’s eyebrow raised questioningly.
‘We figure that one out when we get there,’ Kim said.
The trio went room by room in the warehouse, Adam’s hand tight on Kim’s shoulder and Kim’s hand resting on the back of Kevin’s vest. They scoured quickly but effectively, staying silent for any hint of where their colleague was. And more importantly, what state she was in.
It was an unspoken concern that when they found Hailey, she might have a bullet in her, or worse. It was the reason they were moving faster than protocol dictated. They still had a job to do, but she was their new target.
‘Clear,’ Kevin whispered with a matching hand signal as they entered another room. The warehouse was a maze, each room larger and darker than the last. They had been given a tip that the drug ring they were trying to bust was using local teenagers to cut their product somewhere in the building, but so far their investigations hadn’t pointed to anything that would indicate the tip had been factual.
Kim felt Adam’s grip tighten slightly on her shoulder as they edged round the wall and came to a stop before a door. She felt suddenly guilty at the comfort his warmth was bringing her. Hailey had walked through here alone, no comforting hand to provide her comfort or strength. Just like she was now walking through everyday - alone.
Kevin opened the door slowly but then shoved it open, revealing Hailey standing over two men lying on their fronts, their hands linked behind their heads.
‘Took you long enough,’ snarled Hailey, a dribble of blood leaking from a visible cut on her lip.
The three of them shared a look but no one said anything, this wasn’t the time or place for this conversation.
Adam moved forward to cuff the suspects whilst Kim walked over to Hailey, who lowered her gun as she approached.
‘You good?’ Kim asked, knowing she was only getting one answer.
‘Fine,’ Hailey said, sliding her gun into her holster.
Kim nodded but let her eyes roam over her body. Her shirt sleeve was torn revealing a nasty cut to her upper arm. The knees of her jeans were dirted and muddied and Kim was sure she could see the dark red shade of blood seeping through it on her right one. Her knuckles were equally bloodied, clearly whatever had happened before they had got here had been hand to hand combat. Hailey was a good fighter, that much was clear from the evidence that she was standing and the two men were prone on the ground. But she hadn’t gotten away injury free.
‘I’ll call an ambo,’ Kim said, reaching for her radio.
‘I said I’m fine Burgess,’ Hailey spat but Kim saw her flinch as the shout pulled at the wound on her lip. She also noticed that she was favouring her left side when the group exited the warehouse but apart from dragging her to Med, there was nothing to be done.
Kim had tried to leave some painkillers and some antiseptic wipes on Hailey’s desk when they returned to the office but at the end of the day she spotted they had reappeared in her top desk drawer. No matter what help she offered, Hailey didn’t want it.
She knew she should probably give her space, let her work things out on her own time, at her own pace and come to terms with her new normal, but a feeling deep inside Kim’s stomach told her that would only lead to more pain.
‘Where are we going Mom?’ Makayla asked as she walked hand in hand with her mother down the sidewalk. Kim had picked her up from school today and decided to play a little dirty. Hailey had a soft spot for Makayla as much as anyone in the unit did, she had been over to their house to help her with her English and Science homework on multiple occasions - both being Hailey’s speciality. But she hadn’t been over since before Jay had left.
So Kim had decided to take Mak and her school work directly to her instead.
They were currently just a block away from Hailey and Jay’s apartment, a decidedly nicer part of the city than Hailey used to live in. Clearly getting a mortgage with two detective’s salaries wasn’t too difficult.
‘We’re going to pay Auntie Hailey a visit,’ Kim said, giving her daughter’s hand a gentle squeeze.
‘Yay!’ Mak smiled, jumping into a skip. ‘I haven’t seen her in ages.’
‘I know,’ Kim agreed, smiling warmly down at her. ‘She’s been very busy but I thought she might like to see you.’
Kim knew it was sneaky but if she turned up alone, there was a good chance Hailey wouldn’t answer the door, or even if she did she would make up some excuse and close it just as quickly as she had opened it. But she wouldn’t shut the door in Mak’s face. No matter what mood she was in, that much Kim was sure of.
They took the elevator up to the 3rd floor, Kim hadn’t been here since the house warming dinner that Jay and Hailey had hosted a couple of weeks after they had moved in but she remembered the way.
‘Why don’t you knock,’ Kim said when the pair reached the door.
‘Okay,’ Mak grinned, hitting her little fist against the door a couple of times before stepping back so she was in clear view of the peephole.
Kim smiled to herself as she heard the lock turn on the other side of the door - clearly her plan had worked. But when the door opened and a gentleman in his early 50’s looked at them quizzically she stuttered.
‘Sorry,’ Kim said. ‘Must have the wrong door.’
‘It’s no problem,’ the man said with a kind smile. ‘I only moved in last month so I wasn’t expecting any callers.’
Last month - the meaning behind those words lodged in Kim’s throat.
‘Sorry to disturb you,’ she apologised and pulling Makayla by the hand, led them back to the elevator.
‘Where’s Auntie Hailey?’ Mak asked, her questioning bouncing around the metal box as they descended back to the lobby.
‘She must have forgotten to give us her new address,’ Kim said with a forced smile. ‘I’ll check with her tomorrow and maybe we can visit next week.’
‘Okay,’ Makayla shrugged, accepting the answer easily. Oh to be a child again, Kim thought.
Hailey had moved.
She had moved out of her and Jay’s apartment.
She had taken off her ring.
And she hadn’t told them.
Kim let her head droop as she and Mak walked back down the street. Some friend she was if she didn’t even know where Hailey lived anymore.
Kim hadn’t asked Hailey about it the next day, she had felt both embarrassed and a little betrayed. She knew it wasn’t Hailey’s duty or responsibility to let her know she had moved house - but Kim would have hoped she had wanted to. When she and Jay had moved into their new place, there had been smiles and cheers as they had popped the champagne and you could practically feel the love they had for each other oozing off of the walls.
Maybe that was the problem, thought Kim. Maybe without Jay it was too difficult to live there.
But he was coming back.
Wasn’t he?
She knew the initial assignment had been for 8 months and that deadline had been and gone, but it was Jay. He loved Hailey more than anything else. He would and had stood in front of bullets for her.
And she had taken her ring off.
A dreadful thought suddenly came to Kim, one that she had refused to acknowledge before now, maybe they had divorced.
She didn’t think it was possible, didn’t want to think it was possible. For she had watched them fall in love, the whole team had, even when they thought they were being sneaky and covert about it - it was obvious to anyone with eyes. And surely a love like that could withstand the distance that Bolivia and the army brought them. Because if a love like that didn’t survive, what hope did the rest of them have.
But then came the next issue - how did you ask your friend if she was divorced?
You couldn’t.
It wasn’t something that you blurted out over coffee.
‘Hey Hailey, want some creamer with that? Oh and by the way, did you get a divorce?’
She supposed she could ask Platt, that woman knew every little thing that went on inside her house and she was closer to Hailey than anyone. But again that felt like an invasion of privacy. It was Hailey and Jay’s marriage, it was their business if it no longer existed.
But Kim was worried about her.
Increasingly so.
But as she racked her brains, she couldn’t think of what to do.
So she did nothing, and as each day passed, she hated herself more and more as she watched Hailey seem to struggle to keep her head above water and still she didn’t throw her the life belt she so desperately needed.
Because if she did, she knew Hailey would throw it back and sink under the water anyway.
It was a small thing that made Kim decide to face the wrath of Hailey and actually confront her.
But sometimes a small thing was all it took.
She came into the breakroom one morning, Hailey being the only other person in who was making herself a coffee. Hailey’s back was to her but as Kim approached she noticed the splashing of water onto the floor. Hailey was completely stationary, her eyes fixed firmly on a non-existent object in the distance, seeming not to notice the water that was pooling at her feet.
Kim hurried round and her eyes flew open as she realised it was the boiling hot water from the coffee machine that had filled the mug Hailey was holding underneath it and was now cascading down over the sides and over her hand.
Boiling water. Over her bare skin.
And Hailey hadn’t flinched or moved a muscle.
‘Hailey!’ Kim exclaimed, grabbing a nearby dishcloth and wrapping it around the overflowing mug from her hand, chucking it into the sink.
Hailey awoke from her trance, her eyes dropping to her hand, her skin burned red from the water, the front of her shirt also sporting a wet mark.
‘Oh,’ Hailey said blankly. ‘I’ll go change.’
And she turned on her heel and walked out of the breakroom as emotionless and monotonous as she had been when Kim interrupted her.
Kim stood in shock, how had she not felt the burning water down her hand? Kim had felt it through the dishcloth and she had barely touched it. Hailey must have stood there for at least a minute for as much water to be on the floor as there was.
All the hair on the back of Kim’s neck stood on end - something wasn’t right. Something hadn’t been right with Hailey for months, but this was the final straw.
Wiping her hands quickly on another cloth Kim stormed out of the room and followed Hailey into the locker room.
She slammed the door behind her and rounded the corner, taking in a deep breath preparing to give Hailey an earful, force her to admit what was wrong so Kim could at least try to help. But what she saw made her blood run cold.
Hailey had her back to her, her shirt sitting on the bench across from them. She had seen her friends bareback before, that wasn’t what stopped her in her tracks. It was the black and purple mottled markings that covered the pale skin. It was the protruding spinal bones and rib cage that she could see. It was the little cuts that littered the skin like sprinkles on a grotesque cupcake.
‘Hailey,’ Kim said no louder than a whisper, her jaw falling open in shock and horror.
Hailey spun around, grabbing for her shirt to cover herself but not quick enough for Kim to not notice the bruises and blemishes were not just limited to her back, her front was equally covered and there were marks that looked suspiciously like hand prints on her arms too.
It wasn’t just the bruises, Hailey was far slimmer than Kim had ever seen her, and she had never been particularly large. The winter months had meant baggy sweatshirts and hoodies so Kim hadn’t noticed the additional weight that had slid off her bones. She had noticed she wasn’t eating any of the snacks that the team brought in but Kim had put that down to her not indulging her sweet tooth and thought nothing else of it. She wished she had.
‘Hailey,’ she said again, not knowing where to start.
‘Hazards of the job,’ Hailey said flatly, tugging on a new shirt over her head and covering up the worst of the marks. ‘You know how it is.’
Kim did know how it was, they worked a dangerous job and she had come home with more than her fair share of injuries but she had no idea how Hailey had gotten any of these, they hadn’t had to enter into a fight with a suspect in weeks, they had been working on a high level target so it had been mainly interrogations and gathering intel. You didn’t get marks like that from making notes inside a car.
‘But-’ she started.
‘Leave it Kim,’ Hailey said flatly. ‘Suspect just got the upperhand is all.’
‘But whe-’ Kim tried again but Hailey was done having the conversation.
‘I was daydreaming when the hot water spilt and I just bruise easily is all,’ she recited the line like she had practised it in front of the mirror. ‘No harm no foul.’
‘But you are harmed,’ Kim said quietly, her worry coursing through her.
‘And I said it’s nothing,’ Hailey said slowly, closing her locker behind her, not dropping Kim’s line of sight once. ‘Let’s go back to work.’
‘But Hailey-’
‘Don’t make me pull rank Kim. I said I’m fine. Leave it,’ and she stormed out of the breakroom leaving Kim more concerned than she had been this morning.
She needed to make a call and she needed to make it now.