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He had called her.
He had been told to call the person he loved most and Voight had picked her.
In the moment Hailey didn’t really comprehend his actions, put any thought behind his decision, the phone call was merely a means to an end for her and the rest of the team and that’s exactly what it ended up being. They got Voight back, Matson was shot and killed and pronounced dead on scene. Voight bore some marks of visible injuries, they hadn’t managed to get to him before Matson had started to inflict some of the torture that he got off on. But he was alive and had been taken to Med. Telling Matson’s wife had been left to Kevin, he was always the best with loved ones and he had volunteered to break the news.
Afterwards the rest of the team had gone home in one piece.
But as she sat on her couch, curled underneath a blanket and staring at the blank TV, Voight’s actions were beginning to make her think.
He had been a cop for over 30 years, lived in this city his entire life, swore to protect it and almost lost his life for it more than once and the only person he had thought to call at that exact moment had been her.
She was the only person left in his life.
His wife was dead.
His son was dead.
His grandchild moved away.
His best friend was dead.
Hailey was all he had left.
As she looked down at her left hand, the ring finger still hauntingly empty, she released if she kept going the way she was, she was going to end up like him.
And not in a Sergeant of her own unit, a cop that people feared more than they respected, crossed lines without thinking of the consequences kind of way.
But in an alone kind of way.
If she kept throwing herself into work as hard as she was, isolating herself and failing to build on the friendships she had once treasured, she would end up alone like Voight.
And that thought terrified her.
Hailey had thought she would be fine on her own, and had spent many years of her life living up to that self imposed expectation. She worked hard, excelled at her job, kept people at arm's length and was happy for most iterations of the word.
And then she joined Intelligence and learnt it could be so much more.
She had joined Intelligence, reconnected with Trudy, met Jay, become a part of the unit, a part of something bigger than her and she was no longer alone.
She had a place, a purpose. She had people that would miss her if she was no longer around, that cared about her.
And she relished that feeling.
Somewhere along the murky lanes that had been her life for the past 15 months, she had gotten lost and forgotten how much she enjoyed those connections. How part of being something bigger, made her a better person. After Jay had left her, she had questioned everything, everything about herself and who she was and had come to the conclusion that the only solution was to lock herself away. Bottle up all her emotions and attempt to control them by running for miles on end and tiring herself out to the point of exhaustion.
But all she had done was ended up alone.
If she had been the one to be taken. If Matson had told her to call the person she loved most in this world, would she have had anybody to call?
She let out a shaky breath as she glanced at the phone sitting face down on the couch next to her.
She wouldn’t end up like Voight.
She couldn’t end up like him.
She still had so much to give in this world, so much of herself still to discover to end up being a person who had no one to call when the going got tough.
As Hailey reasoned it, she had three choices.
She could stay in Chicago, the city that had been her home for her entire life and she could truly make it a home. She could work on the connections she already had, accept the dinner invitations when they were offered, agree to the after work drinks and even attend dance recitals to support Makayla. She could go throw her net wider, find like minded people and truly feel at peace with her decision to stay here. She could find a running group and learn to love the exercise she did rather than viewing it as a punishment or a tool. She could be the Hailey Upton she always wanted to be in the city that she loved.
Or she could leave. The country was a big place, and any major city would have enough crime to keep her occupied as a seasoned cop with over a decade under her belt. She could go to Miami or Atlanta, Portland or Boston. Somewhere where nobody knew Hailey Upton. No one had links to the past she had tried to hide or the person who no longer felt like her. She could stay in Intelligence work or move across and try something new. She could use a fresh start and the possibilities were almost limitless.
Or she could answer her phone when it rang.
He had called her once a week, every Saturday evening for the past 4 months and she had never once answered. He didn’t leave a voicemail, didn’t send her a text, just called her like clockwork. And like clockwork she watched as his name flashed across her screen and then went blank.
She didn’t know what Jay wanted and if she was being honest with herself, she was terrified to find out.
They were divorced, he had returned the papers signed after she had sent him a text asking him to and she hadn’t spoken to him since. They were strangers now, two individuals with lives that didn’t interconnect or cross paths. And you didn’t pick up the phone to strangers.
Except, he wasn’t a stranger. Not truly. He was Jay.
He was the Jay who made her believe that she could love and be loved and it wasn’t a terrifying prospect. He was the Jay who made her waffles and told her that he loved her before showing her in every possible way. He was the Jay who had her back on the job and kept her safe.
He was the Jay who broke her heart.
Maybe he was calling to explain, to apologise.
She didn’t know if she wanted to hear it, if she could even accept his apology if he were to offer one. Too much had happened, too much they couldn’t take back.
So she ignored his calls.
But they kept coming.
Answering them was her third choice. Her final option. She could risk her heart again, risk losing a part of herself she had been trying desperately to regain all for the sake of not being alone again.
Because that was what life was right? That’s what human’s strived for. To find someone to share life with, to find someone to walk alongside you so you didn’t have to go through it alone. Someone to share the big moments with and the small, the life changing and the mundane. Someone to hold your hand and be on your side.
Hailey wasn’t certain of much anymore, everything she believed to be true had been warped one way or another but she knew she didn’t want to be alone. She knew she wouldn’t end up like Voight having nobody to call when the worst happened. She deserved more than that. She deserved to give herself a chance.
It was a Saturday night. Her phone would ring any minute.
She took a deep breath, her breath still shaky but her hands steady and flipped the phone over.
She had made her decision.