"Jay, Jay, stay with me. Stay with me, Jay."
She moved her hands to his chest, one to keep her balance and the other one to cover the bullet hole. A muffled groan came from his lips as her hands pressed to the wound, "I know that's hurt, but you have to stay awake, Jay."
Blood dripped from her fingers and, for a moment, Hailey wondered if it was really possible to lose all that blood in such a short time.
"Hailey… Fuck! We're down here! Send an ambo!", Hailey felt Adam rushing to her, moving her hands and putting pressure on the wound.
She fixed her gaze on the man's face, the freckles stood out on the diaphanous skin. She saw him closing his eyes and reopen them more and more slowly. He mumbled her name with difficulty, the rapid breathing and a grimace of pain that crossed his forehead.
"Stay with me, Jay! Do it for me, please!", her voice was firm but she knew Jay could sense her panic. She saw him slowly move his hand and put it on her thigh, she felt the warmth of his hand and his soft squeeze through her jeans. His way of saying it wasn't slipping away yet.
"I'm sorry…Hailey…really sorry…", his panting grunt almost made her collapse, but the blood around him brought her back to reality.
"It's all right, Jay, it's all right", she slid her hand down to his face, holding his cheek as she slowly ran a hand through his blood-stained hair.
She was moved away from Jay by two arms that surrounded her and dragged her to a corner. A part of her mind realized this was the only way that rescuers had to get to him, but the feeling of cold on her thigh, where his hand was before, left her dazed. Her attention was focused on the man on the ground, each of his sob and all his breathlessness made her wiggle to go back to her place, as if the only way to make him feel better was her presence.
...
"Hey, hot coffee for you!", Vanessa's voice made her look up to meet her cheerful face, "And I took a change of clothes from your apartment…"
She took the duffel bag that Vanessa was stretching and smiled tightly, just out od kindness. Just for reciprocate the affection she was receiving in those small gestures. But in reality, her only desire was to stay alone, lost in her mind. Reliving every moment, from finding Jay to the shoot. From finding him lying on the ground suffocating in his blood to seeing him fade behind the doors of the emergency room. Reliving the warm touch of his hand in the ambulance, he was still alive. Serious and almost bled, but still alive.
She remembered Vanessa's presence beside her when she heard her move in the chair.
"He's gonna freak out when he wakes up. The man hates needles…", Hailey let out a bitter, almost incredible, laugh, "I can't figure him out. He's the first one to the door. A war vet. And he'd rather take a bullet than get the flu shot."
"Hailey, I know how hard this must be for you…"
"It's always hard when something like this happens."
"It's hard because you love him", Vanessa said with calm and Hailey turned to look at her, her brain took a few seconds to realize her sentence, to understand what to answer. At that moment, she didn't even know who she was, how she knew what to answer to that?
"Of course I love him, he's my partner."
He's my partner. He's my partner.
The phrase kept repeating in her mind. It was simple, it was just like that, Jay was her partner. But it wasn't just that and by the look Vanessa gave her, it was clear no one thought about it.
...
"Hailey? Hailey?"
A voice woke her from the haze of her thoughts. She focused her attention on the crouching figure in front of her and realized Kevin's puzzled expression.
"I'm fine", she repeated it for hours like a mantra. She didn't know what they asked, but she automatically answered 'I'm fine', as if the others could believe her.
"Is there any news?"
She shook her head straightening up in the chair.
"So, Vanessa brought you some clothes, maybe you should go change…", Kevin pointed to her blood-soaked sleeves. She had washed her hands, had rubbed until bleeding but continued to feel the sensation of blood on them.
Irrationally she didn't want to change her clothes, she wanted to be covered in blood. It was Jay's blood and, at the moment, it was the only thing she had of him. She knew it was a meaningless thought, yet he could not give it up.
"…And maybe even your jeans…", both looked down at her thigh and there they saw the bloody imprint of a hand that stood out clearly against the blue of her jeans.
"I'm fine, Kev."
Kevin sighed heavily, shaking his head in defeat towards the rest of the group a few chairs away.
...
It may have been an hour or ten, but Hailey saw everything in slow motion. Time marked by the blink of an eye.
…one blink, two blinks, three blinks…
Someone who was going to talk to her, but she didn't even remember about what, she probably hadn't even listened.
People came and went. Some other cops who told her to stand up for solidarity, Brett and Foster who had come to see how she was going, Platt had tried to keep her company…but she just wasn't there. She was nowhere, she simply waited.
The coffee that Vanessa had brought her hours ago was, now cold, still between her feet, resting next to the bag with her change of clothes.
She had sat there, motionless, for hours. She watched people walk past her, without really seeing them. Nurses, surgeons, patients, husbands, sisters, parents, … and in which category was she in? What was she? She looked around realizing that it was now night and from the wet raincoat of the man who had just passed her, she deduced that outside was raining.
...
"Hey", Kim sat down next to her, "I fancy a lousy coffee, you coming?"
She pointed to the coffee machine on the other side of the room and, before Hailey could decline the invitation, she pulled her to her feet, "Come on Hailey, staying there won't help you!"
She was sipping the hot tea that Kim had convinced her to drink when, leaning against the wall, she felt something in the back of her jeans.
In the exact moment she touched the cold metaled with the fingers, she understood what she would find.
"Shit…", she fixed her gaze on the badge in her left hand, feeling her heart hammering in her ears.
"What? Hailey, you are trembling…"
"It's Jay's badge, we found it this morning in his car, outside Angela Nelson's house. I forgot I kept it!"
"Hey, are you good?"
She shook her head furiously, the anger boiling in her stomach, "I hate him, you know?"
"What?", Kim's incredulous laugh made her head bump up.
"I'm mad at him, Kim! I'm her partner, my job is to keep him safe, but he makes it impossible for me! Sometimes it almost seems like he had a death wish, so yes! I'm furious!", she tightly squeezed the badge before handing it to Kim.
"Oh no", she pushed her hand back shaking her head in amusement, "He's your partner, not mine. Hailey, it's Jay we're talking about, he has no instinct for self-preservation, we all know that…"
"Yeah but…", she stifled the following words in a sip of tea trying to mantain a sort of self control, "I'm her partner…he can't do this to me every time, I can't…I really can't…"
"Then tell him..."
"I hate him…", Hailey continued to mutter into Kim's arms.
"Yeah, I know, I know", she sighed pushing her towards the chairs.
...
Hailey had lost count of the times someone had shaken her trying to get her attention since she was in the hospital, and like every other time she slowly looked up ready to face the next wave of questions about how she was, if there were any news, if she wanted something. But when she focused on the disordered mass of red hair, she jumped up almost losing her balance.
"Will!"
The exhaustion shadows on the man's face made her want to hug him, because until then she was struggling with the fear of losing her partner, but the man in front of her had his brother in surgery with a bullet hole in the chest.
"He's fine, Hailey", Will squeezed her shoulder before lowering his head against his chest, an exhausted breath slipped between his lips, "He's out of surgery, he'll wake up slowly within the next two hours. He has lost a lot of blood and will be weak for a while, sore for the wound, but he will be fine."
Hailey stared at him for a moment holding her breath, her brain now destroyed by stress took longer than usual to process his words. In front of her eyes still floated the images of a bloody Jay on the floor of that warehouse, he suffocating in his own blood and pronouncing her name. Images that were slowly replaced by Will's tired face.
A weight on her chest made her gasp in search of air, she looked around for the exit doors like a lifeline. She stumbled hearing Will calling her name, but only when she was outdoor did she realize she could breathe again.
She lifted her face to the dark sky and let the rain slip down on her. Irrationally she hoped the rain could washed all the day from her, how she could open her eyes and realize that it hadn't really happened, that she hadn't let her partner go to the slaughterhouse with her doing nothing, that he wasn't almost died and that she hadn't been crazy at the idea of a world without Jay Halstead.
"Hailey?", she slowly turned to Will and his worried face made her laugh. A hoarse laugh was soon replaced by big tears, "I'm sorry, Will…I…" "You are tired, it's normal. Go back inside and go change your clothes, come on."
...
"Shit, that's hurts…"
"I know, I'll give you other painkillers, okay?"
Hailey jumped up from her chair and took a few seconds to realize what was going on.
"You're awake!"
"Gosh, you look terrible…"
"Yeah, thank you…", she chuckled snorting and sitting down again. With her elbows on her knee, she took her face in the hands trying to wake up.
"Sorry Hailey, I didn't wake you up because you was passed out…"
She waved a hand indifferently in Will's direction and staggered towards the bathroom of the room. After closing the door, she slumped against the sink. All her emotions amplified by fatigue were crushing her and she had no intention of losing control.
She checked her watch realizing she had slept about two hours, after having watched over Jay's sleeping figure for four whole hours. She had noticed how the silence on that floor of the hospital was almost relaxing, the hours marked by the hum of the machinery and the constant beat of his heart.
She waited to hear Will's footsteps go away, then she washed her face and bravely opened the door. Jay had his eyes closed and she hoped he had fallen asleep again, still not ready to face him.
"I thought you ran away from the window… Is there a window?", he muttered, his eyes closed and his voice hoarse.
Of course he wasn't asleep, Hailey snorted internally.
"No window", she said before approaching the edge of the bed, "How are you feeling?"
"A crap, but seeing your faces maybe I feel better than you two…", he murmured, reaching out for her hand, "I'm sorry, Hails, I know you're pissed. And I'm so sorry, I didn't want you to go through all this…"
She ignored his outstretched hand, sitting down and squeezing his knee, "You have been shot, I'm fine and I'm glad you're fine…"
"Hailey…"
For a moment, she thought she was going to collapse. Her name whispered by him had always been the only thing that made her completely return in her, in any situation. But she couldn't allow it to happen now, so she closed her eyes pulling back the tears she knew otherwise she would never be able to stop, "I'm fine, Jay, I'm really fine…"
He sighed and Hailey watched him fight against sleep, "Can you just take my hand? I'm destroyed, but I need you to sleep too, so please Hailey, move the chair closer and sleep, please."
And she did just that, she dragged the chair next to the bed and, after taking his hand between hers, she leaned her head against the mattress and accompanied by the beat of his heart, she let her eyes close to rest, finally knowing he was alive.
...
A week had passed since Jay had been shot. Hailey had spent as much time as possibile at the hospital, during the lunch break she and Vanessa often ran there to eat with him and at the end of the day, after a shower, she went to spend the rest of the evening with him. Being two cops was an advantage because nurses left them free to break schedules more than others.
Like every evening, she was crossing the threshold of his room with takeaway food and yet another case stories when her gaze fell on his empty bed. In her head, the worst images overlapped, from him still bleeding in the warehouse to him in the morgue after a surgery's complication. She did not have time to panic because she heard his voice calling her from the corridor.
She turned and almost her heart skipped a beat when she saw him standing up for the first time since the shooting. His face had regained color and, despite the shoulder pain still plagued him everyday, he had improved a lot.
She approached him smiling, "You're on your feet!"
"Yeah, Will said I can go home tomorrow!", he had a childly smile on his lips. He had exhausted her asking everyday to take him home and finally had the opportunity to leave that hospital room.
"Well, it's nice to see you standing up!"
"Now that you have company, Detective, I can go back taking care of other less stubborn and persistent patients", the nurse looked at him puffing and slowly detached his arm from her shoulder, then turned to Hailey, "Come here, honey."
Jay put his weight on Hailey's small figure and slowly returned to bed.
"So, honey", he began lying down and sighing with relief, "will you come and get me tomorrow?"
Hailey smiled again, unable to hold back since he woke up, "Yeah sure, lunch break? I can come a little earlier, I will warn Voight! Will your brother live with you?"
Jay stared at her with narrowed eyes, "No, actually he has night shift tomorrow. But that's not a problem, I already have an idea of how I'll spend the first days: painkillers, bed and sleep", he muttered, closing his eyes.
She stretched her legs on the side of the bed opening a portion of Chinese takeaway, "So, do you want to know about Adam and how he spilled coffee on Platt's desk?"
"Oh please, I live for these moments!"
Hi guys!
On the idea of one of you, I decided to write this short story! It consist of only two chapters and the next will arrive in the next few hours!
Thank you all, see you soon.
H.