Talk to me.
The phrase would have come out so simple, straight-forward even, falling from her lips with the gentle thud of a meek request, if it wasn't for the pleading tone that accompanied every syllable as they erupted from Hailey's tense chest...
But it wasn't a mere request, not by a long-shot. It was far more than that.
It was a choked plea begging to be released and answered, a helpless, yet unyielding plea to let her in now the way he never let anyone else in, past all the carefully constructed walls and defenses life forced him to put up and wear everyday...
An unnatural mask gradually becoming permanent...
One only she saw underneath.
She ached to be his exception…just like, in all the ways that mattered, he was hers.
"I…I can't." – he choked out, weakly, all semblance of whole in his voice simmering and breaking down into a faint whisper, much like he just did.
Shoulders slumped, neck bended over in her direction quizzically, almost begging her to see what he couldn't say out loud and Jay stepped back...
Hailey's face fell in response, features shifting through a roller-coaster of emotions rapidly, eventually settling on something akin to mournful...
"I can't…" - he repeated, shakier, trying to convince himself, if nothing else.
Convince himself that he hadn't just showed the entire world something that no one was supposed to know, something that needed to stay buried for the sake of everyone else but him…
Convince himself that he hadn't just completely lost his head, acted first then pondered after...
Convince himself that there was no reason for his violent outburst, no other reason aside from pure, unadulterated rage and a natural instinct to protect his partner...
Because Hailey was his partner...
It was simply what he did, it was his duty.
That's all there was to it.
"Shhh…" – Hailey reached out, every low rumble of her mezzo-soprano voice shattering all the same until no other words were spoken between them anymore…or simply lingered in the air, making it drip with a million waves of tension, fighting each other for dominance…
It was all she could let out through nearly sealed lips without breaking down right there...
Because she couldn't tell him what seeing him like that just did to her...
How it hurt and twisted and cut into every inch of her mind and body deeper than any suspect could ever wound her...
She'd take a blade or a twist of the arm or even a bullet over this any day…
She wanted him to know….and she wondered if he did, if he understood what wasn't being verbalized…
Then again, for half the time they've known each other, they didn't even need words…
And maybe Hailey had asked him to talk to her even if she failed to deliver that same courtesy…but much like she hasn't demanded anything from him or anyone else in her entire life, she wouldn't demand him to use his words, either…
Jay was already speaking now, perhaps more than he ever had…
All that lingered between them at the moment was a pair of trembling, slender fingers moving hesitantly, before inching upwards to slide across his cheek, comfortingly, following a route only they knew or perhaps a puzzle Hailey was dying to unravel and didn't even know how much until now...
Fingers belonging to her good arm, the same one she ached to tuck over his entire frame and never let go, keep him there with all the limited grip it could carry, safe and sound and away from all of this...
She's known Jay for years and she's never seen him like this.
If only she knew it was because of her. It was all because of her.
Her injuries didn't hurt. At all.
Only the sight before her did. And she didn't know how to put a stop to it, how to make it right again, how to pull a smile from that beautiful man before her now…
She had no clue how to chase away the conflict in every troubled shade of still so bright blue rapidly switching between her injured arm and that still visible cut on her lip...
She almost forgot it was even there, until she felt the faint taste of blood in her mouth, a cruel, bitter reminder of her own selfish actions…
Most of all, she despised that he had to see her like this...
That her recklessness caused it all...
"I'm okay, see?" – she whispered after a while, quietly, almost with a hint of a laughter dancing in her strained voice, before pointing to the elastic band adorning her still achy shoulder. She needed a cast, asap.
Sooner, rather than later, she also needed to stop ignoring the non-verbal signals from the nurse who kept urging her to get into the ambulance already.
She knew the medical professional was growing impatient – but dear Lord, she was this close to telling her to back the hell off, give her a minute, grant her a do-over, another chance to change it, flip it, take it back somehow…
To fix all of this.
She couldn't leave Jay, not now, not like this, lest they'd forcefully pull her hand from his face…
She couldn't move it away. Not when it seemed to belong there and nowhere else.
It wasn't much effort, it was such a simple, comforting and soul-crushingly fragile gesture. The weight of her hand resting against his cheek was nothing compared to the weight of everything he's done for her since the day they met…but somehow, she could tell it was mending, switching something in him…
Her touch…
Maybe it had an impact.
Because the more she watched, the more she took note of how it seemed to be calming him down, easing up that familiar, worried crease around his brow until it gradually settled his stiff posture into a fallen, but halfway stable one…
Even if, by all intents and purposes, he was still crumbling underneath...
His tough exterior was holding by a thread right now...it wasn't showing to anyone else but she could tell it was true.
Yet somehow…? It only made Jay stronger to her, not weaker...
His vulnerability that she was witnessing like a privileged witness only made him even more achingly beautiful, in all understandings of the word.
Maybe she was dreaming but she could have sworn she just heard Jay exhaling subtly in relief, breath hovering over the surface of her skin, sending tingles down her spine so effortlessly, like everything he did…
"I'm okay, Jay…."
She felt the need to say it again…
Or perhaps assumed he needed to hear it more than she needed to voice it…
She wasn't wrong.
She'd say it however many times it was needed if it got him to relax, to stop worrying…
Before she could ponder upon her conflicted thoughts racing against each other, much like the race against the clock she was always under with the man before her, with a careful, gentle touch, Jay stopped her, instead…
His hand came up to find hers against the scruff of his beard, eyes shut tight almost painfully, savoring the sensation yet subtly pulling from it all at once, bottom lip quivering and the faintest hint of a lone tear lingering in his eye…
She didn't need to see it…
She knew it was there, below the surface, controlled by years of suppression he's learned in the face of the world's most gruesome horrors…even when his eyelids covered that mass of endless blue she adored, she knew what it was underneath…
The mere thought destroyed her, ripped apart everything in her into tiny pieces, all in a New York minute...
Hailey never once could take it...least of all now.
Because she wasn't worthy.
Because Jay Halstead's pain was her pain...
And she caused it...
She hurt her partner.
"I need to go before that nurse breaks my other arm…"
With that pitiful attempt at a joke, Hailey choked, the last bit of forced laughter in her voice, meant as some form of hollow encouragement dying down, spark by spark...
Much like the spark in them both dimming, too...
Or maybe only now being set alight.
"….but you'll be okay over here, right?"
And perhaps Hailey wasn't good with words by design, she was no poet, no romantic, nothing but a fighter and a survivor...
But somehow, she's never said more than she did now…
It sounded a lot like I love you.
The one time she felt like they needed actual words between them, not subtext or gestures that hid so much more….her throat tightened against itself and they vanished, raining down in her mind like a thunderstorm instead, lightning breaking the sky apart, dark, threatening clouds crashing with an ear-splitting rumble…
Not even the worst night in Chicago, a city where crime governed every street corner, where police sirens blazed erratically even on a quiet day could ever hope to match that sound.
She couldn't even halfway block it out enough for her to think, least of all turn it off completely.
Jay nodded softly in reassurance, as if saying…
I am okay if you are.
As always, she said nothing else.
Nothing that mattered, anyway.
She simply got up on her tip toes, weakly, before lacing her good arm over his shoulder in a weak, one-arm hug...
Much like the red string of fate that had always connected them, one she was merely threading now...
And when callous hands, tore down by years of war, yet still so unbearably soft gently grazed her waist, too hesitant, as if he had no permission or even excuse to do it, she could have sworn something else broke in her.
Because she made him believe that….that he had no right to touch her like this...to touch her in any way, shape or form...
But she'd be lying if she said the feel of his broad, muscular frame against her petite one didn't feel like coming home, didn't feel like being engulfed in a protective cloak of comfort and solace when all you've known was pain and tragedy...
Wordlessly, he picked her fragile upper body up in his much stronger arms, maintaining that same caution, like he genuinely thought she was in need of protection, knowing at a glance what she needed and what she didn't even before she did...
As always...
I'd follow you anywhere, Hailey...
Of course I miss her, she's my partner.
Then again, Jay always seemed to be two steps ahead of her.
Then again, Jay always seemed to know.
If there was anyone I'd follow blind, I'd follow you...
And maybe, in her own way, so did she...
Maybe all this time, it was everything she's done - follow him around like a beacon of light, allow him to lead the way, lead her down the right path when all she knew before was the wrong...
"I…I have to go get this in a cast. But I'll be fine…"– she reassured against his jacket, not moving a single inch because she wasn't sure she could find the strength to, gently asking him to make that first step so she didn't have to. He was finding it equally hard to let go now, hands still hovering near her frame, so close to touching but not quite anymore, instead touching more of the air surrounding them. "Jay, I'm fine…"
Eventually,they did let go...
His grip loosened...
"You have to get checked up, too, okay?"
"Hailey…."
"Promise me…" – she added, leaning back just a little to see him better. Her partner was still looking down, defeteadly, evading every flicker of tortured blue blended with dimming grey questioning him. Because he had no answers. "Promise me, Jay…"
Gulping ever-so-slightly, he nodded, reluctantly letting her go completely…
And not just physically…
"Okay, I'll go…"
"You should talk to Voight, too…that looked serious. Whatever it was, you can patch it up, okay? You're like a son to him, you know that, don't you?"
Swallowing the lump in his throat, Jay nodded again, clearly not convinced…
But he'd do as she asked…
Now, more than ever, he'd do anything she asked…
Because he just saw his entire life flashing before his eyes, as if a sick, twisted director orchestrating everything had decided to play the worst case scenario of how today could've gone on loop, all traces of reason and sanity gone, blended into fine dust, sprinkled at his feet...
He saw it all...
He saw Hailey falling down without getting back up this time, overpowered by a much stronger assailant…he saw the scumbag finish the job, pull the last breath out of her with the touch of a trigger, he saw the paramedics failing to resuscitate her, he saw her flat-lining again and again and again in the ambulance…he could almost smell the sickly sweet traces of chorine in the air, see the contour of the familiar hospital walls closing in on him…
Walls he's seen too many times, walls he never wanted to see again…
Especially not around her.
He could almost picture Hailey's lifeless body on a gurney, being carried further and further away from him...
And he didn't know why all it took was for her to get wounded for his mind to go that far…or even what brought it on.
Why had he seen all of this? Where did it come from? And most importantly, why couldn't he get any of it out of his messed-up head?
It seemed so real…
Jay had never needed to be away from here more than now…
With another feather-light touch to her good shoulder, a brief squeeze if nothing else, he let her go, watching her get in the ambulance with a newfound sense of yearning, bubbling in his chest like sweet euphoria or bitter torture…
It showed all over his face like every micro-expression had been carefully crafted, brought to life by the most talented painter - gaze softening ever-so-slightly around the corners, lips curving into a weak smile he had only ever reserved for her, a hint of tragic hope blossoming in his chest, spreading a warmth that seemed to replace the numbness, shoot him back to life…
He couldn't remember feeling that for anyone in years, maybe forever…
Not since Erin…
Not since he thought she was the one....
As Hailey's frame eventually disappeared from his sight, his chest rumbled with something else now, akin to guilt, pulsating, urging him to act…if only he knew what action he needed to take.
With the visage of a broken child in dire need of being held and fixed, he sighed, before breezing past the quizzical, worried faces of his family, the Intelligence Team, all waiting on answers to so many questions...
What happened to you?
What was that all about?
Are you okay?
Adam, Kevin, Rojas, they all looked, one by one, helplessly, not saying anything even if they were all dying to…
The broken detective had no answers to offer...so he didn't.
Jay walked away…
Not even Voight's stern, but empathetic gaze inching into his back, yet somehow still reading into him from afar in a way few people could was enough to stop him, make him reconsider...
His steps were already ahead of his mind...
Without a word spoken to anyone, Jay walked away.
He'd go to the hospital, sometime…
When that image in his head ceased to taunt him, ceased to play itself all over again like his worst nightmare, once it began to fade enough to let him breathe...
Once it stopped hurting…
Enough for him not to feel every taunting sequence squeeze his heart until there was no blood left to pour out of it and splash all over the floor…
Right now he needed to be alone.
He needed to go home.
A/N: I'm so sorry I haven't updated this in forever, guys.
The quarantine has really messed with my writing but I'm back on track now, picking up on all of my abandoned ideas, hopefully. :)