Got your back

Chapter 16

Author's note: contains brief mentions of/references to abuse and sexual assault

Hailey sat on her sofa, one leg curled under her, the other hugged to her chest. She had the TV remote in hand, and she was staring at the screen. Only the screen was blank, not even turned on, and her eyes were unfocused. She'd been sitting like that ever since she'd gotten home, however long ago that was. Her mind was anywhere but there, running in overdrive, replaying conversation after conversation, memory after memory, the kinds she wished she could forget. But the more she tried to forget, to push away the dark thoughts, the faster her brain replaced them with more, each worse than the last.

"Upton. Anything you want to tell me?"

She sat there, fighting the urge to flee out of his office. She didn't know what to say. There wasn't anything she wanted to tell him. She didn't want to have to be having this conversation, to have been assaulted. So she sat there not sure what to say, subconsciously waiting for the yelling to start.

"What the heck do you think you're doing?"

"Making us look realistic."

"Were you ever going to tell me?"

"Get off of her!" She couldn't see who was speaking, but she knew that voice. Even with her eye swollen half shut and consciousness threatening to slip away from her, she knew who it was. She heard a fist hit flesh- hard- and she flinched, waiting to feel the pain that went with the sound. But it didn't come and she was already in too much pain to question it. She knew what was coming next though and as much as she didn't want to be, she was terrified. More than she'd ever been.

But instead of what she was expecting, there was that voice again. "Kelly, are you okay?" Kelly? Who was Kelly? She was slipping and the voice was beginning to sound farther away. "Stay with me. Hey, you're gonna be okay, okay?" She felt something soft around her, covering up the cold she felt from where her clothes were ripped. She faded out, his caring arms supporting her, for the last time.

"This is all your fault!"

"You're really gonna listen to this lying bi-"

"You lying little bi-"

"Dad, she didn't know any better!" Her brother interrupted, placing his own small frame between her and the monster from her nightmares.

"You stay out of this!" She could still smell the alcohol on his breath and hear the way his words slurred. "This is between me and your sister." She heard her eight-year-old self shriek and felt the sting of his hand across her face. Decades later, alone in her living room, she flinched.

A soft thud at her front door made her jump again, bringing her back to reality. The sound repeated a couple more times, and Hailey stood up, warily eyeing the door. The sound wasn't loud enough or sharp enough to be a knock. No, it was almost as if... someone was lightly kicking at the door? She started to walk over to see who or what it was but hesitated slightly, considering going to get her service weapon out of its safe. She shook her head to herself, deciding against it, at least not yet anyway. Looking through the peephole, she let out a breath that she didn't know she'd been holding and opened the door.

"Jay." Not quite a greeting, but her brain was still running overtime from everything else, this current interaction barely earning a sliver of its focus. And that small amount was mostly taken up by observing the interesting sight that was her partner.

Jay was precariously balancing a container of ice cream on top of a pizza box that itself was perched rather unsteadily on the bent elbow of his arm that was also holding a six pack of beer. His other arm was inexplicably behind his back, obscured from Hailey's sight, an arrangement that Jay seemed more concerned with maintaining than he was with balancing the other items.

Hailey raised an eyebrow at him. The only thing her brain had decided to process thus far was that apparently the sound at her door had, in fact, been kicking.

"Hey Hails," Jay said cheerily.

"Jay," she said again because her brain really didn't seem to want to cooperate. She shouldn't have been surprised to see him there. It had been a bad day, one of the worst in- well, excluding earlier this week- one of the worst in a very long time. And this was their thing. No matter what happened, no matter how much they pushed the other away, they'd always be right there. She didn't know why she had thought he wouldn't come today. But the fact that he was there at her door anyway, meant the world.

"Were you planning on kicking down my door? You know they invented cellphones for a reason." She was doing her best to hide the storm of dark thoughts that had been battering her mind. She had a hint of a smirk on her face, and the sight made Jay's heart swell. He could see through her facade, but it was still perhaps the closest thing to a real smile that he'd seen from her all day, maybe even all week.

"Now where's the fun in that?" He replied, making his way into her apartment, careful to keep his non-pizza-carrying arm behind his back and out of her sight. She grabbed the ice cream and beer from him and headed to put them away so they'd stay cold. Jay followed her into the kitchen and put the pizza on the counter.

"See, I was driving home with this delicious deep dish, and it occurred to me that it would be a shame to have to eat all this food by myself." The hint of a smile was still there, and Jay decided to have some fun. Maybe, if he was lucky, he would even be able to make her laugh. "So naturally, I thought, 'hmm, who would I want to share this with?' But Will's working the night shift, so that failed. Then I guess Adam, Kev, and Kim all had better plans. And Voight's apparently screening my calls- I was real disappointed about that one." That earned a soft chuckle from Hailey. "So then I was left wracking my brain for anyone else I knew in Chicago. And then it hit me- Platt." Hailey laughed again, making Jay smile. "But nah, she was too busy. So I was back to square one. But then as I was driving back to my apartment, resigned to spend the evening all by my lonesome, it occurred to me that I knew a certain detective who wasn't half bad company. So here we are," he finished with a grin.

"Wow, real nice, Halstead. Way to make a girl feel wanted," Hailey replied, a hint of laughter in her voice as she scrunched her face in fake annoyance.

Jay shrugged, a satisfied smirk on his face. "What can I say, it's a gift."

Hailey rolled her eyes, not able to hide her amusement.

Jay smiled and continued, his voice still playful but no longer kidding. "But I'm glad I'm here 'cause I would hate to have to give these to anyone but you," he said, moving his hand from behind his back, allowing Hailey to finally see what he'd been holding. In his hand were a dozen red roses.

Hailey broke out into her signature grin, the one Jay had so missed seeing. Red roses were the first type of flowers Jay had ever gotten her, and ever since they'd been her favorite. Sure, they'd been undercover at the time and it had been a dark case, but the memory still held a special place in her heart.

"What a guy," she replied, just as she had then. She walked over to take the flowers from him, and he pulled her into a hug. She laughed, wrapping her arms around him in return. She felt him kiss her head, and she smiled into his shirt, closing her eyes to fight back the tears that were threatening to fall. She always felt safest in his arms, and this was no different.

She knew at some point they would have to talk about everything. But for now she was content to stay there in his arms, for as long as she possibly could. She wanted to thank him- for the pizza, for the flowers, for cheering her up, for everything he had done for her- but she couldn't quite find the words. But she knew he knew, and that was all that mattered.