Chapter Text
She doesn’t know what to do with her hands.
It’s the first time that they’ve stood this close to each other where she doesn’t know what to do with her hands.
She’d usually reach over and tangle their fingers together, letting the comfort of his close proximity ground her - steady her. It was always second nature for them to seek each other out and find ease in each other’s touch. If it wasn’t her tugging his hand into hers, it was him reaching over and seeking out her warmth. Especially at a time like this, when she knows he’s aware that her façade is wavering and the mask is close to cracking.
The hospital’s antiseptic smell lingers in the air and she hates how much it reminds her of her childhood - nights from when her father went too far and they’d spend the early hours of the morning cleaning bloodstains from the pristine hardwood floors with harsh chemicals. The only thing that reminds her she’s not stuck in her past is the buzzing flatline from the heart monitor just feet from them.
Her hands are clammy - anxiety and fear and regret pulsing out of her system from the disastrous day she’d been faced with. She feels like she’s lived three years in just a few hours; she finds it hard to believe that it was only that afternoon the explosion threw her twenty feet into the air and landed her in the back of an ambulance.
She wants to reach for his hand.
No, she thinks. No.
She wants him to reach for her hand.
She wants him to encase her shaking fingers with his, let his touch calm her and center her so she can stand on steady ground once more. She wants him to tangle her shaking fingers with his sturdy digits and let his warmth fill her soul so she can breathe easily again. She wants him to tell her that all of this is not her fault and she wants him to assure her that she made all the right calls and that every decision she made was exactly by the book. She wants him to whisper sweet nothings in her ear and she wants him to remind her that everything is going to be okay.
His presence, his touch - it’s usually the one thing that can center her when she feels like her world is spinning out of control.
But he doesn’t.
His arms stay rigid at his side and it only makes her second guess everything she’s done today.
It’s your fault, the voice in her head hums. It’s all your fault.
It’s Voight who shakes her out of her thoughts - she sees him before she hears him, muttering something about going home when he walks towards them - but she doesn’t hear exactly what he spits in their direction. The buzzing green line haunts her peripheral and the shrieking in her head sounds like the devil on her shoulder, so his voice sounds like distant echoes when he speaks.
Anna’s dead because of you, the nagging voice says.
She still finds herself thinking back to the events of today and how they cascaded around her like dominoes, how Jay seemed to be crossing all the lines he swore he’d never cross. She thinks back to Roy Walton and how Jay fought tooth and nail for her - for them - so they’d never have to be in a predicament like that again.
And yet here they were…seemingly right back where they started.
Crossing lines, covering up messes - it’s as if he’d learned nothing at all months ago.
“Hey,” he says softly beside her. “Let’s go home.”
“Jay,” she tries, but all the words seem to die on her tongue.
“I know,” he whispers, his green ocean boring directly into her eyes. “We’ll talk at home.”
She holds her hand out for him to take, but he’s walking away from her before he has a chance to notice.
“How are you feeling?”
They’d been home for about twenty minutes, but they’re the first words that fill the negative space.
If she tried hard enough, she’s certain she could convince herself everything between them was normal; that everything about this evening was just like any other. That they’d just got home from a long day at work and they were settling into their evening with a calm and comforting silence. She knows better though, and the events that transpired today follow her like a shadow and she knows normal is not even close to what she can call them right now.
She’s in the kitchen, trying to get a glass from the cupboard that’s always been just a smidge too high for her to reach. His hands come up to rest gently on her hips from behind her, thumbs digging into the bare skin that’s exposed from her tank-top rising up her sides. She’s on her tip-toes when she feels his lips press against her shoulder - soft, gentle and lingering with all the love she knows he feels for her.
“Is your head okay?”
“It’s fine,” she says softly, flat-footed once more - no glass cup occupying her grasp.
“You sure? You’ve been quiet tonight.”
“Wonder why,” she scoffs. It’s under her breath, but she knows he hears her, but by the way his fingers falter against her skin.
It’s weird to hear him refer to her as quiet, because the thoughts racing in her mind are anything but - they’re loud and menacing and she swears it sounds like nails on a chalkboard. Everything that transpired over the last twenty-four hours had sent her down a yellow brick road of memories that she wishes upon every star that she could forget. Voight, Roy Walton, Anna, and now Jay.
The relationship she thought she had with him, the relationship she thought she built with him seemed to be crumbling below her feet.
“Hailey,” he breathes.
She pushes her weight up onto her tip-toes again, once again trying to reach for that empty glass. His touch lingers against her side and his thumb digs into her waist, but he must notice her struggles, because for a split second his hand isn’t against her and he pulls the glass down for her with ease. His hand resumes their place against her waist once more, poking at her side with a tenderness that would usually make her head spin. Tonight, though, each brush of his thumb against her bare skin is a reminder of the choices her husband made today.
All she can see is Voight destroying evidence to cover up Anna’s actions, all she can hear is the way he threw evidence into a body of water and how the splash echoed in her ears. She tries to shake those devilish memories from her vision, but they come back stronger and with a vengeance - because now all she can see is her husband.
Jay.
Jay standing there - watching, helping - going along with Voight’s actions like they were no big deal.
Jay defending it - giving him reason, giving him cause to do it all.
“You’re absolutely certain you’re alright? Your head hit the concrete pretty hard earlier.”
She spins around to face him slowly and his hands immediately follow her movements and find their way to rest on her shoulders. She tries to let his touch soothe her in the way it usually does - the friction of their skin rubbing against one another can usually make her eyes flutter and force all of her demons to fade away. It only takes a moment for his hands to find their way to her face, palms cupping her cheeks with so much delicacy and ease. His left hand drags down her arm, tickling against her skin before he reaches out to take the empty glass in her palms and place it against the countertop. His hand finds her face again and it's when his thumb starts stroking her cheek that she can’t pretend that everything’s okay anymore.
“Jay, stop,” she snaps, pulling at his wrists while his hands drop from her face. “Stop. Stop, stop, stop.”
The silence that follows is deafening - thick tension fills the room like fog covering a small coastal town.
It’s an odd feeling - silence between them was always comfortable, calming, reassuring.
This?
This is anything but.
This is uncomfortable.
“What’s wrong?”
“I can’t —,” she starts, and she hates the way her emotions immediately get the best of her. “I can’t just sit here and pretend that everything that happened today didn’t.”
“Alright,” he hums. His arms float back up to her shoulders, but it’s much softer this time. It’s almost like he’s asking for permission to touch her, to comfort her. “Do you wanna talk about it? We can talk about it.”
“You tried to help him cover up a murder,” she murmurs. Her words come out so soft - so softly, that it takes her by surprise because she was certain her words would have come out angry and seething. It’s like the fight fades within her like the day turns to night, expected and effortless - her fury dissipating behind the horizon the same way the sun falls each night. “After everything I went through because of him. After everything he did to me. Covering up a murder, forcing me to go along with it.”
She pauses, the harrowing memories of that night in the warehouse taking over her, despite her fight to push them away. She knows they’re not going anywhere, knows that at the drop of a needle they’ll be the only images her mind can see - but the reality that she lived months ago is still something that has the ability to hold her hostage in her own head.
“We almost lost each other because of him,” she says with a sadness she’s been trying to keep at bay. “We almost lost each other and then you went and tried to help him do the very same thing that almost tore us apart.”
Jay stays silent, looking down at his feet and it almost feels like all those months ago when he pushed her away - the lack of them communicating being the thing that almost sliced them in two. She knows they’re not there anymore, she knows they’ve moved past that and that this isn’t going to be a repeat of their past. She won’t lie though, the idea of it ever happening to them again frightens her in a way she didn’t know was possible.
“I almost went to prison because of Voight’s choices,” she says. “You almost went to prison because of them, too.”
“I know.”
“Do you, Jay?” It’s louder than she wants it to be, more defensive than she wants it to come out - but she can’t help it. Not when he so nonchalantly allowed Voight to walk him down a road he might not be able to turn back from. “Because when you mentioned your deal with him in the first place, I thought you meant that you’d try to bring him down from crossing all these lines. The only thing I’ve seen from this deal the two of you made is you trying to help him cross these lines.”
“You’re right,” he says. “I messed up.”
“I can’t do this again,” she mutters and her head involuntarily begins to move from left to right. She knows she’s faced her demons from that night, but they always come out to haunt her when she least expects it - she knows they always will. “I can’t…”
“Hey, hey, hey,” he whispers softly. “It’s okay.”
“Please no more crossing lines,” she begs, desperation leaking from her lips. “Please.”
“No more crossing lines,” he affirms with a simple nod. “You have my word.”
“It’s just…,” she says, her words trailing off.
“It’s just what, Hails?”
She looks up at him and wonders where he is - where Jay is. She stares into his eyes and tries to make sense of the choices he made today. She’s still puzzled by it all. After all she’d been through - all they’d been through - crossing lines and covering things up, she thought he’d have known better.
She never thought he’d be the one on the other side of it all.
She looks up at him; his hazel-green eyes are still comforting, no matter how much anger bubbles in her veins. They’re soft and calm and god, he looks at her as if she’s the only person in the world. He looks at her with love she truly never thought she’d find, love she never thought she’d deserve.
She wants to talk to him, she does.
She wants to make sense of it all, and she knows she could stay up and sit here all night with him talking and questioning all of his choices and actions today but a yawn catches her before she even has a chance to gather enough coherent thoughts to respond.
She’s exhausted.
She’s drained and she knows as much as she wants to ask him all these things, she’s not in the frame of mind to do so tonight.
“I don’t know,” she says. “I think I’m gonna go to bed.”
She’s curled up beneath her sheets before he even has a chance to respond.
She wakes up in the morning and he’s already gone.
They drive home together.
It’s the first time they’ve driven home together from work since Anna’s death a few weeks ago.
Their hands stay idle by their sides and it drives her crazy.
He always would hold her hand when they were driving, or he would always rest his palm against her thigh to stay connected with her at all times.
But his hands stay firmly on the wheel while he remains focused on the road in front of him.
She wants to say something, wants to echo the conversation they tried having at the district before Voight interrupted them. It feels incomplete - it feels like so many words were left unsaid and that the words that were said were words they were only clinging on to. They were promises they swore would always be true between them even if they didn’t fully believe them themselves anymore. This time, it doesn’t feel like a promise as much as it feels like desperation to hold on to one another - to their relationship - no matter what.
She states at the empty road before them - it’s late, rush hour has long passed and the dark skies mean that most everyone has settled into their homes after the work day. She’s in her head and she hates it. She hates how easily her mind can take hold of her entire being and control her every thought, every action. She can’t shake it, though, the way she feels like he’s slipping away from her. The way she’s felt it for a while, the way she’s seen it for a while.
She just doesn’t know how to fix it.
She doesn’t know how to bring him back to her.
It’s not until she finally, finally, feels him slide his hand over her thigh that she feels like she can breathe again. He squeezes his hand against her jeans and it almost feels normal, almost feels like the last two weeks didn’t happen and everything between them is good and okay and not teetering on the edge of breaking. She rests her left hand on top of his, relishing in the way his touch immediately calms all the fears and insecurities buzzing in her brain. She doesn’t know why, but his touch gives her the courage to speak up and verbalize some of the thoughts buzzing in her brain.
“Jay?”
“Hmm?”
“Are you sure we’re okay?”
“Of course,” her husband says. He moves his hand from her thigh and blindly searches for her hand. He weaves their fingers together and rests their joined hands on her left thigh. “Of course we’re okay, Hailey.”
She nods, mostly to herself - she knows he can’t see her with his eyes focused on the road. “It just kind of feels like maybe we aren’t.”
“Hailey…” he hums, his thumb rubbing soft circles in the indent of her skin between her thumb and index finger.
“I know you want to help him and I know you want to help get him through this thing with Anna but Jay…” she trails off, words decreasing in volume with each word she speaks. “Jay, you can’t save him.”
“I know,” her husband sighs, taking the right turn on to their street. “I know I can’t.”
She lets her eyes wander down to their joined hands where he’s still rubbing small patterns against her soft skin. “Do you though?”
She watches as he pulls into their parking garage, pulling into one of their assigned parking spots before turning the engine off. He pulls his hand away from hers, only to put the car and park and shut his truck off properly, but he grabs her tiny hand once more before turning his body towards hers.
“Hails,” he breaths.
“I don’t want to fight, I really don’t,” she says. “I’m just worried.”
“You don’t need to be worried, Hailey,” he reaffirms. “We’re okay. We’re always going to be okay.”
She nods at his words, tries to let them sink it - tries to make herself believe them.
Easier said than done, though.
“You know, earlier today, I wasn’t,” she pauses. “I meant what I said to you in the van earlier.”
His brows furrow at her words. “About what?”
“Changing,” she says, looking down - looking anywhere but in his eyes.
“Hails,” he sighs.
“There will come a point when you won’t be able to manage him anymore without changing yourself,” she says. She feels the emotion already brimming in the corner of her eyes, salty tears trying to push themselves to the front of her retinas. She keeps her eyes focused on their hands, focused on his thumb that continuously rubs small patterns against her palm. She tries to focus on the feeling of his hand in hers, tries to not let the what if’s floating in her mind consume her. “And that scares me. It scares me that that day might come sooner rather than later.”
“Hailey,” he breathes her name out. It forces her to look up at him - she knows he sees the tears pooling in her blue eyes by the way his face falls when she finally catches his gaze. “You know I don’t want that, right? You know I’m…I’m just trying to get him through this right now. I know he’s grieving and he needs a little extra help. That’s all it is. I promise you. I have no intention of changing who I am.”
“It just feels like you already have.”
She stares at the message after she finishes her glass of wine.
It haunts her.
She finishes her food alone - she’d been accustomed to eating alone as of late - but she finds herself staring at his full container of noodles, wishing so desperately that he was here with her. with his arm wrapped around her. She craves for how they used to be after a case - eating takeout food on their sofa, curled up in each other's arms with a glass of red wine while they watched one of their favorite movies. She’d always fall asleep in the comfort of his arms, the cadence of his heartbeat filling her eardrums with steadiness. The night always ended with him stirring her awake, carrying her into bed and tucking her into their sheets.
It’s not until midnight that she forces herself to head to bed - Jay’s clearly not coming home anytime soon and she’s exhausted. She settles beneath her sheets hoping sleep will come easy, all while knowing full well she won’t be able to sleep without him next to her.
She must have drifted off to sleep, though, because she notices the 2AM timestamp on her clock when she jolts awake to the feeling of Jay sinking into the mattress beside her.
He doesn’t say anything.
He doesn’t even reach for her.
Jay always reaches for her in his sleep - always pulls her back against his chest and holds her tight against the warmth of his body.
It’s starting to feel like the man in her bed is a complete stranger and she hates it.
She just wants her husband back.
She listens to his breathing - she knows it’s too heavy for him to actually be asleep - so she flips over on her side and allows herself to sink into his arms. She rests her head against his chest, lets his heartbeat bring her some of the comfort she’s been seeking all day, lets herself relish in the way his arm settles against her waist.
“Hey,” he whispers. “Sorry I was so late tonight.”
“You’ve been late a lot lately,”
“I know.”
“Where were you tonight?”
“Just some stuff with Voight.”
She knew this - deep down, she knew that’s exactly who he was with but still it stings her heart. “Again?”
“I’m sorry.”
“I missed you,” she says. She lets her fingers draw little shapes against his bare chest and she feels him squeeze a little tighter against her hips when she does. “I do miss you. I feel like I barely see you anymore.”
“I know,” he sighs.
Silence lingers between them and she assumes the conversation is over. Her eyelids are heavy and start to flutter shut, the long exhausting day catching up to her. His thumb grazes against the bare skin on her hip and his touch immediately sends shivers through her veins. His head turns slightly on the pillow towards her and she feels his lips linger against the crown of her head.
For some reason, it gives her the courage to speak up again.
“You remember when I told you that if you go so far you won’t be able to recognize yourself?”
“Yeah,” he whispers and she feels his breath against her skin.
“It feels like we’re there,” she breathes out. “It feels like I can barely recognize you anymore.”
She’s about to text him and ask what he wants for dinner, but she knows his response will be that he’s going to be late.
She locks her phone without sending him a thing, tosses it onto her passenger seat, and drives.
Insomnia keeps her awake until morning.
It’s not like it comes as a surprise, she hadn’t been sleeping much lately.
She remembers dozing off a little in the early hours of the evening - Jay still hadn’t made it back home, though. She remembers a brief text about starting dinner without him and that he’d be home as soon as he could be. She’d made it until midnight before she slipped into their sheets, tossing and turning and tossing and turning - she’d never been able to sleep without him since that first night they’d spent together. The only thing she can remember is feeling the mattress dip on his side of the bed hours later. She’d looked at the clock and had seen it was well past three in the morning - the darkness fell over the room like a cloak and the only light she could see was from the dim nightlight she’d left on for him before heading to bed.
It’d been weeks of that.
It’d been weeks of Jay waking up and leaving for the district before she’s even opened her eyes.
It’d been weeks of Jay staying out so late she doesn’t even get to see him before her body gives into exhaustion and falls asleep in their bed.
This morning, though, she’s surprised to roll over and find her husband still asleep next to her. His arm snakes around her, pulling her closer - it’s instinctual at this point for them to pull each other closer in their sleep - and she happily lets her head fall against his chest as she uses him as her own personal pillow. She breathes him in, smelling the familiar scent of his cologne that still lingers from the day yesterday. His heartbeat is steady under her eardrum, the simple cadence would be enough to lull her back into a deep sleep if she let it.
It feels good, it feels normal.
It feels exactly like it used to be.
She wants to fall into the moment and let herself just be with him.
She knows though, that when he wakes up, it won’t be like this.
He won’t be her Jay when they wake up and get their day started.
He’ll be Jay, a shell of who he used to be - someone who she barely recognized anymore.
And suddenly her mind is wired and all of her anxieties are at the forefront of her mind threatening to consume her.
She thinks of who he used to be, how they used to be.
She needs to get out.
She needs to run, she thinks. She needs to push herself out of their bed and let herself go for a morning run and feel the morning air and wind on her face while she pushes all the negative thoughts out of her mind.
“Jay,” she shakes his shoulder, trying to stir him awake.
He stirs slowly, sleep still lingering in his voice when he speaks. “Hailey?”
“Yeah,” she smiles up at him. “It’s me.”
“You okay?” He blinks awake, fingers rubbing away the lingering sleep that’s settled in his retinas. “Everything okay?”
“I’m fine, everything’s fine.” she assures him. “I’m just gonna head out and go for a run.”
“Okay,” he hums, eyes already slowly closing once more. “Enjoy your run, be safe.”
“Will you be here when I get back?”
He yawns as he says, “Why wouldn’t I?”
“You haven’t been home much lately,” she whispers. “I’m asleep by the time you get home, you’re gone by the time I wake up.”
He’s silent and for a second she thinks he might have fallen back asleep on her, but his green eyes appear in front of her once more.
“I miss you,” she says softly. “I miss us.”
“I’m here, Hailey,” he says, reaching out to cup her cheek with his hand. “I’m right here.”
“You’ll be here?” She bites her lip as she asks. “You promise?”
“I’ll be here,” he says. “I promise.”
The run invigorates her.
It clears her mind and dulls the anxieties that threaten to consume her day. For an entire hour, she was able to drown herself in the music seeping into her ears and become oblivious to the sounds of Chicago busting to life at the early hour. She watches the sun rise above the skyscrapers as she jogs - pinks and blues and oranges bleeding together against the few clouds in the sky - and it fills her with a hope she hadn’t felt in weeks.
She realizes quickly that the illuminating sunrise, the hope that was swelling in her chest, the promise from her husband that he’d be here when she came back - it was all an illusion, because when she steps into their apartment she already knows she’s alone.
“Jay?”
She knows it’s futile, but she looks for him anyway.
She checks the bedroom, the bathroom, the balcony - they’re all empty and only confirms what she knew all along.
Jay left.
Jay’s gone.
She drops the bag of bagels she bought for them on the kitchen counter before sinking into their sofa, trying her damned hardest to not let the tears pooling in the corners of her eyes slip out of the corners. She isn’t sure why she held Jay’s words so close to her heart when she knew deep down they weren’t true. She isn’t sure why she let her mind convince her that this time would be different - that after weeks of agony and watching her husband become someone he swore he’d never become, that this was the beginning of their fall back into one another.
She knew that at the end of the day, she was waiting for Jay - her Jay - to come back to her.
And she didn’t know where that Jay was anymore.
She pulls her iPhone out of her jacket pocket and pulls him up in her messaging app. She doesn’t know what to say - she contemplates even sending him a message at all, because really, she’s certain she won’t like the response she’s going to get. She types a few variations of words, tries to gather her thoughts before she settles on a short sentence, finally letting her finger hover over the little blue arrow before pressing send.
She knew it was the answer she was going to get, but she still hates it.
She doesn’t know what to do anymore. She feels lost, hopeless - Jay is somewhere beneath the surface of the man he’s become, but she doesn’t know how to bring him back to her. She looks down at her phone once more, letting his words become stamped in her mind - she knows that they’re words that are going to haunt her for the entirety of the day, but she knows she can’t let them control her either.
She tosses her phone to the side when she notices the time, and goes about getting herself ready for her work day.
She turns on their coffee machine and starts brewing herself a pot - the aroma of caffeine starts to seep into the room. She lets the pot brew fully before pouring herself a mug - stirring in minimal amounts of sugar and cream before sipping on the beverage and letting the hot liquid warm her bones. She drinks the coffee in silence, nursing a few bites of the asiago bagel she bought and toasted for herself, but truth be told, she’s not that hungry anymore so it remains uneaten on the counter.
She hops in the shower, next. She washes her hair and shaves her legs before stepping out into the steamy bathroom to pull on the pair of washed jeans and her favorite red buffalo plaid flannel she picked out for the day. She pulls out the blow dryer next, drying her blond strands until she deems it good enough. She pulls her hair up into a high pony-tail before pulling the elastic band right out - deciding to let her blond curls fall against her shoulders today.
It’s all monotonous - this routine she’s got herself in. It’s been weeks of her getting ready alone, heading to work alone - she misses when they used to shower together in the morning. She misses when they used to get distracted under the shower-head by desperate touches and kisses, always having to fight the clock to make it to the district on time. She misses the way he’d bring her coffee in bed in the morning, she misses the way he’d kiss her neck to stir her awake, she misses the way she used to wake up curled against his chest.
She misses him.
She misses them.
She finds herself back in the kitchen, pouring herself a to-go cup of coffee she knew she was going to need to make it through the day before heading towards their front door. She steps into her favorite Adidas sneakers before grabbing her keys off the catchall, her bag, and to-go cup of coffee before swinging the front door open to really start her day.
Except when she goes to step into the hallway, she realizes she’s not alone.
There’s a man standing before her lurking, waiting.
She freezes in place - for all the years she’s had training as a police officer, it’s like all the instincts she’s been trained to have in the field are out the window.
Because this is different.
This isn’t being out in the field and being in someone else’s home or stumbling into something on a random Chicago street.
This is her home and all her basic instincts as a detective have seemingly vanished from her.
He’s wearing black pants, a black sweatshirt and a black ski-mask with the smallest slits in the eyes - so small she can’t even make out the color of them. He stands completely still and makes no movement towards her, and somehow that petrifies her more. He’s still in the hallway, and while she still feels frozen in place - she thinks she has enough time and space to slam the door back in his face.
She pushes the wooden door with all her might, but he’s faster - arm coming up and stopping the force before pushing his way into her home, - their home - the one place she’s supposed to feel safe in.
“Who are you?”
She steps back, intimidated - afraid.
He stays on her, stepping slowly towards her - inch by inch by inch.
“What do you want?”
She pulls her phone out of her back pocket and scrambles to unlock her phone.
She’ll call Jay, she’ll radio the team - they’ll get here quick and — but he knocks the phone out of her grasp and sends it flying across their hardwood flooring.
And that’s when she notices the knife in his hands.
Too little, too late.
She doesn’t even have a moment to plead with the masked assailant before she feels the sharp blade plunge into her chest.