A/N: I had the idea for this one shot so long ago but I've been struggling to finish it. Now I'm finally happy with how it turned out so here it is! Thank you everyone for so many lovely reviews and I hope you like this chapter too! Grab your popcorn cause it's a long one.
The day started like any other. Hailey made her way to work, where the first thing she did was grab a cup of coffee from the break room. Voight started introducing the case of the day; patrol officers had stopped someone who was carrying a load of guns in the back of their car. He'd given up his supplier and it was their job now to gather evidence and bust him in the act.
Kim, Vanessa, Kevin and Adam were tasked with hitting his house while Jay and Hailey remained behind to figure out an angle to go undercover.
Hailey got to her feet, grabbing her coffee mug to finish it before she left. That's when her phone rang. She frowned at the unknown number on the screen, but hit the reply button and held the phone to her ear. "Hello?"
"Hi, is this Detective Hailey Upton?" said an unknown female voice. The formality in her voice made Hailey feel uneasy.
"Yes, this is her," she said hoarsely, as her throat suddenly felt very dry.
The female introduced herself as a doctor at Chicago Med. And the next words that came out of her mouth chilled Hailey to the bone. She felt frozen, unable to move, to think.
Hailey flinched at a sudden crashing noise. Looking down in a daze, she registered her broken coffee cup on the floor.
"Hailey?"
She looked up, and saw Jay in front of her. He looked concerned, a deep frown on his face.
"Hailey, what's wrong?" he asked.
She opened her mouth to reply, but even thinking of uttering the words made her world come crashing down around her all over again. The room tilted and she felt her knees buckle beneath her. Jay's hands wrapped around her wrists, holding her up long enough to ease her into the chair at her desk.
"Hailey!" His voice sounded rough, worried. "Hailey, talk to me."
Jay's hands were on her knees as he crouched in front of her. She looked at him, and then she saw faces behind him; the rest of the team, but they were all blurry, and she couldn't see their expressions.
Hailey blinked rapidly, and as her eyes cleared, she understood that she had been unable to see because of tears building in her eyes.
Realizing that they were all waiting for her to answer, she swallowed and tried to collect her scattered thoughts.
"I—" Her voice broke, and she wiped away a tear that escaped from her eye. How could she utter the words? How could she even put into words what she hadn't thought to be possible? Something that she could not have imagined even in her wildest dreams?
"Not possible," she whispered, the words slipping out without her ever deciding to speak.
Someone was running a hand over her back reassuringly. "What is, Hailey?" a soft voice said.
She looked up to see Kim standing beside her, wearing a compassionate expression.
But it was Jay she looked to for comfort when she finally mustered the strength to speak.
"Garrett," she breathed. "He's alive."
xXxXx
The first thing that Hailey realized as she saw him was how different he looked. He was thinner, and his beard longer, sure, but there was also something different in his eyes. An emptiness, reflecting everything that he had been through since the day she thought he died.
Hailey suddenly felt immensely guilty. She'd stopped looking for him. And all this time, he'd been alive.
She saw him through the glass doors, before he could see her. He was sitting up in the hospital bed, talking to a doctor and a police officer in blue.
Hailey paused, pressing her hand to the wall for stability as she took a deep breath, trying to mentally prepare herself.
A hand landed on her shoulder. "I'll be right outside," Jay said firmly. His face was kind, compassionate, and he looked at her with an intensity that made her feel something unexplainable.
She nodded, and pulled the glass door open.
Garrett looked up at the sound, and his previously collected expression fell. For some reason, he looked absolutely destroyed at the sight of her.
"Hailey?" The word was but a broken whisper from his mouth.
She nodded as she slowly approached the bed. "Hey, Gar," she said in a low voice. "It's me."
Hailey's eyes swept across his disheveled face, watching for a reaction. She did not expect, nor feel deserving of the small smile that pulled on his dry and cracked lips.
Garrett held out his hand toward her, and she took it gently. He was looking down at their intertwining fingers as though he couldn't quite believe it was real.
"I thought he might have done something to you," he mumbled.
His concern for her felt like a punch to her stomach. She didn't have to ask to know whom he was referring to.
"He didn't," she reassured him, looking down at the thumb he swept across the back of her hand. "I'm fine, I..." She took a deep breath, trying to steady her quivering lip. "I thought you were dead, Gar. I'm so— I am so sorry."
Garrett just shook his head slightly. "I can't quite believe that I'm not dead," he said quietly. "Are you... are you really here?"
Hailey squeezed his hand, her heart aching for him. She feared for what he had been through. "Yes, this is real. You're safe now."
Garrett didn't say anything. He was still looking at her as though he was dreaming, his eyes roaming across her face, lingering on her eyes, her nose, her lips. His gaze brought up memories, painful because she had cherished them once, before they'd become reminders of what she had lost.
Hailey was surprised when he reached up and touched her cheek. His fingers came away glistening with her tears. "Don't cry," he said softly.
She frowned, hesitating as she willed herself to ask the question; while braving herself for the answer. "What... what happened to you, Gar?" Her voice broke as she spoke her nickname for him. "Was it— did Booth—" She couldn't make herself finish the sentence.
Garrett pulled away slightly then, his brows pulling down low as lines of pain showed around his eyes. "I don't know," he said finally. "I was just telling the officer—" He gestured toward the door, which was when Hailey first realized that the officer and doctor had both left them to be alone in the room, "— I never saw Booth there. There were two other guys; always the same guys." Garrett shook his head. "He might be behind it though. Wouldn't put it past him. He saw me as a threat, after... after that night." His eyes flared at the memory.
Hailey nodded to show that she understood. "I got him, Garrett," she said fiercely. "He's back in prison, and he's never getting out."
Garrett gave her a small smile. He looked almost proud, though his eyes conveyed an almost endless exhaustion. "He might still get out on parole, Hails. You know that."
She shook her head. "No, he already did. And we sent him right back. For good this time."
"He..." Garrett began, and he suddenly looked frightened. "Hailey, how long has it been?"
Her stomach sank. What kind of conditions had he been kept in for him to not know how much time had passed?
There was no easy way to put it, nothing to ease the blow, so she just said it. "It's... it's been five years, Gar," she said gently.
His eyes widened, and he sank back against the bed. "Five years," he echoed in a hollow voice. His expression, which had been carefully put together for most of their conversation, was slipping. She saw unveiled pain in his eyes, and a dread so deep that she almost had to look away.
"Oh god," he whispered, and his voice broke. He buried his face in his hands, and she could hear his breathing speed up. Hailey's heart felt like it was splitting into two.
"Garrett," she pleaded, hastily wiping away another tear before touching her hands to his wrists. "Hey, look at me. You're okay. You're here now, with me."
Slowly, he removed his hands, but the look that he gave her was so agonizing that she flinched away from him. "You should... you should go," he said shakily. "I'm not... I can't talk about... about this, right now." His eyes were flickering around the room as though he was having trouble focusing.
That's when the doctor entered again, throwing a glance at the heart monitor, which made was making rapid noises indicating that Garrett's heart was racing. Hailey winced, but after giving him a final glance, walked out of the room. And kept walking. She didn't know or see where she was headed; she just let her feet wander wherever they wanted. Her footsteps were quick and long, taking her as far away from there as fast as possible. She felt as though someone was sitting on her chest; she couldn't breathe. There were voices around her, but their words were muffled as though her head was under water. She pressed her shaking hands to her stomach as she walked, as though they could soothe the ache inside of her.
They couldn't.
Someone was tugging at her arm. Surprisingly, the sensation wasn't new; it must've been happening for a while. Her panicked mind just hadn't been able to register it until now. As she realized that, the drowned voices around her suddenly became clearer.
"... please, stop, Hailey. Just tell me what happened. Hailey?"
She stopped dead in her tracks. Jay, with his military reflexes, stopped in the same instant as she did.
"Are you okay?" he asked with emphasis, and there was a desperation in his voice that surprised her. His wide eyes were searching hers frantically.
She ran her fingers over her cheeks, surprised to find that there were no tears to wipe away. She assumed she was still too high on adrenaline to release her emotions properly.
"Hey, hey," Jay said soothingly, placing his hands on her shoulders. "Breathe, Hailey, come on. Take a deep breath."
She realized then that she was hyperventilating, and it was making it quite hard to think. Gasping, she bent over and placed her hands on her knees as she tried to calm her breathing. She became very aware, then, of Jay's hands running up and down her arms in a comforting manner. As she straightened, finally able to take deep breaths again, she found herself inches away from him.
"Hey," he whispered as she met his gaze. There was a small crease between his eyebrows. "I... I saw you with him, and I thought— I mean, it looked like everything was going well?"
She pressed her lips together to keep them from shaking. "He didn't know how long— that it had been five years," she whispered. "I can't even imagine..."
Jay must've seen the distress in her eyes, because he pulled her in and wrapped his arms around her. Hailey returned the hug, burying her face in the crook of his neck. "He'll be okay, Hailey. He didn't look... that bad," he said carefully. "I mean, injured. And mentally... he'll be okay. It'll take time, but it's possible."
And Hailey, recalling her partner's hardships - coming back from war, not to mention his recent kidnapping and getting shot - slowly allowed herself to believe him.
—-
Jay guided her back to his car, never once letting go of her arm, as though he was afraid that she would fall apart if he did.
Jay had offered to drive Hailey to Med as soon as she'd been able to tell him where Garrett was. Hailey hadn't thought much of his reaction then, but now — while her mind was racing as it imagined all of the possible scenarios of what her ex partner could've gone through — she wanted to distract herself. She needed to think about anything other than what Garrett had been through the past 5 years; and how she'd given up on him. So she thought about Jay instead. She thought about his expression as Hailey had told him that Garrett was alive. There had been shock, at first, written plainly across his features. He was just as surprised as she was. Then, she remembered seeing in his eyes the confusion that she too felt. For her, it was just hidden beneath the deep ache that had been squeezing her heart, buried by guilt and regret and broken love.
Jay had collected himself by then, and he was good at managing his expressions, but Hailey was better at seeing through him. There had been a hint of something like... sadness, replacing the other emotions in his eyes.
Was he sad for her sake? Or had it been something else?
Hailey didn't know. She could barely make sense of her own emotions — they were conflicted, to say the least.
She'd loved Garrett, that was all she knew for sure. She'd loved him and then she'd lost him. Moving on had been the only option, the only way to survive.
And now... she was pretty sure that she loved Jay. Almost losing him had made her realize that. There was no doubt in her mind; she couldn't imagine her life without Jay in it.
But seeing Garrett on that hospital bed... seeing him look at her like that and smile at her again... was it possible to love two people at once? Was it even possible that she still loved Garrett after all this time? And was it... Hailey swallowed at the thought. Was it even possible that he still loved her?
She snapped out of her thoughts as she felt something wet run down her cheek. Automatically, she wiped the tear away.
How had her whole world been turned upside down in only a couple of hours?
"Are you okay?" Jay suddenly asked her. His voice was low, concerned.
Hailey nodded, staring out the window at the road in front of them. "Yeah."
"Don't blame yourself," he said softly. "You couldn't have known."
Hailey shook her head. "I shouldn't have stopped looking. I gave up on him, Jay. I loved him and I gave up on him. What kind of person does that make me?"
"It makes you human." Jay glanced away from the road to give her a sharp look. "Come on, Hailey, you couldn't have known. All the evidence pointed to him being dead."
She bit her lip. "I should've gone with my gut. We never actually saw his body. That should've told me everything I needed to know."
Jay shook his head. "Hailey... there's no use in torturing yourself with all the what-if's. He's here now. All you can do..." He seemed to hesitate for a moment, "... is be there for him."
Hailey sighed. "You're right," she said, and pressed her lips together. "If he still wants anything to do with me."
Jay was quiet for a moment. "There's no way that he doesn't."
Hailey frowned. She wasn't sure what his words were supposed to mean. But then Jay pulled the car over in front of her house, and put it in park.
"Thanks for the ride," Hailey said, giving him a small smile, and moved to get out of the car.
His hand suddenly gripped hers, then, his long fingers intertwining with hers. "Hailey..."
She looked back at him. He looked surprisingly vulnerable, his eyes wide and earnest.
"If there's anything I can do for you..." Jay didn't finish the sentence, but his eyes conveyed the rest of message as they gazed intently into hers. In that moment, Hailey knew that he would do anything for her, just as she would do anything for him.
Jay opened his mouth as though he wanted to say something more, but then he closed it again. His eyes were still on hers, seeing into her soul, inexplicably intense as though there was a deeper meaning in them.
Hailey gave a nod, as though she understood, even though she didn't quite know what he had really been wanting to say then. "Thank you, Jay." She looked down at their linked hands and gave his a gentle squeeze. "I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"
Jay nodded, and slowly pulled back his hand. As she got out of the car, the skin on her hand where Jay had touched her seemed to ache with a cold longing for the warm touch that it was missing.
xXxXx
Hailey spent most of the following day pondering whether she should go see Garrett again. Her presence had seemed to upset him terribly last night, and she didn't want to put him through that again. But something inside of her wanted to see him again. She couldn't leave it the way it was between them now, could she?
"You okay?"
It was Jay. Hailey didn't have to look up to know.
She was sitting on one of the benches in the locker room, packing her bag to go home. She still hadn't decided what to do.
"Yeah," she said, pressing her lips together. "I just... I don't know what to do."
She heard his footsteps come closer, and looked up. His arms were folded, but his expression was sympathetic. "About Garrett?" he asked.
Hailey nodded slowly. "I'm scared to go see him again, because... maybe he still doesn't want me there. But, I..." She trailed off, unable the find words for the splitting thoughts in her mind.
"... want to?" Jay finished the sentence for her. A small crease had appeared between his eyebrows, while the rest of his expression remained unchanged.
She nodded hesitantly. "Yeah... I think so."
Jay sat down next to her on the bench, one leg on each side so that he was facing her. "Then... I think you should."
Hailey bit her lip, but didn't say anything for a while. She just looked at him as he looked at her, and wondered if he knew what her struggle was really about. Maybe he couldn't know, because she hadn't told him that day in the hospital. He couldn't know that the way she felt about Jay was part of the reason why she was questioning how she felt about Garrett. That her heart was splitting in two as she loved Jay, but could remember the way she'd loved Garrett, and desperately wanted to be there for him in the way that she hadn't been the last 5 years.
"Hailey." Jay's hand landed on her shoulder. He must've seen the hesitation in her eyes, because he looked at her with eyes full of encouragement. "You have the best instincts of anyone I know. You know that's the reason I'd follow you into any situation. So if anyone knows what is right to do here... it's you."
She couldn't help but give a small smile; his words touched her. She didn't think that they would mean as much coming from anybody but him. "Thanks, Jay," she mumbled, but then she sighed. "My instincts tell me that I need to be there for him, but... that's about all I know right know. I just can't seem to decipher what I feel about him." She shook her head frustratedly and looked down at her hands.
Jay was quiet for so long that Hailey eventually had to look up at him. His eyes were thoughtful and his eyebrows pulled low as he seemed to choose his words. "Hailey," he finally said, his voice low. "You're not gonna find out from here." He tilted his head and, as his frown deepened, he let his hand slide down her arm to take her hand, his fingers carefully intertwining with her. She felt herself shiver where his hand had touched her skin. There was a look upon his face as though something pained him as he looked down at their joined hands. "Hailey, I'm— I just..." Jay shook his head as though he couldn't find the right words.
Hailey felt like something was restricting her airway. Was this the right moment? Should she tell him this time? Or... was he going to say something?
She had no idea if she was reading the situation correctly. But there was no pushing down the way she felt about Jay, not in the long run, so maybe... maybe it was time to find out if he felt the same way.
"I think... maybe I can find out from here," Hailey said. She reached up with the hand that he wasn't holding and touched her fingers to his cheek, tracing them along his jaw line. His eyes flicked between hers, wide at her touch.
"I've been meaning to tell you, ever since that day in the hospital..." She swallowed harshly at the memory. "When I thought I might lose you, I realized that... I can't imagine my life without you." She gave him a small smile and a shrug, as though what she was saying was the simplest thing in the world. "I don't know when it happened, but this thing between us... is more than just partnership, or even friendship. And after Garrett—" Her voice broke as she spoke his name. "I promised myself I'd never fall for another partner, and that may be why I couldn't see it, or... couldn't admit it, until now. But above that, I didn't want to ruin what we have, and with Garrett coming back..." Hailey knew that she was rambling, but she couldn't stop herself. She'd been keeping it inside for too long and had to get it all out now that she was finally talking about it. "I realized that I can't hide it anymore. So even if you don't feel the same way, I need you to know—"
Jay interrupted her by pressing his lips to hers, effectively taking her breath away. Once the surprise wore off, Hailey closed her eyes and softened beneath his touch. Kissing him was more than she'd ever thought a kiss could be. She chalked it up to the feeling of safety that he always brought with him; a safety and comfort that she could only otherwise find in her home, and the absolute trust that they shared. Kissing him felt like a missing piece of her was falling into place. His lips were soft as they moved against hers, his fingers tangling in her hair as he gripped the side of her face. Hailey let her hand slide up the back of his neck, pulling him closer. When they finally broke apart, they were both breathless. Jay let his thumb caress her cheek as they both stayed silent, simply gazing into each other's eyes as they realized that their lives were about to change.
"Hailey?"
It wasn't Jay saying her name this time, but it was another familiar voice, one that didn't belong here.
Hailey and Jay broke apart as she turned abruptly on the bench, and saw the face that belonged to the voice standing right outside the door to the locker room. Garrett wore an unreadable expression which made Hailey wonder how much he had seen. She hoped he hadn't seen the kiss, fearing that it would hurt him deeply. But she knew for sure that he had seen how close they were.
"Garrett," she exclaimed in a whisper. "What are you doing here?"
"I... convinced your desk Sergeant to let me in. She seemed to know who I was." Even as he replied, Garrett looked distracted. "Can I talk to you for a moment?"
"Of course." Hailey got to her feet immediately, throwing an apologetic glance over her shoulder back at Jay. He was frowning, but gave her a nod as though he understood.
"Shouldn't you be in the hospital?" she asked worriedly as she joined Garrett in the hallway. She noticed then that he had washed and shaved since she last saw him; he looked a lot better, healthier. Like there was light in his eyes again.
"I left AMA," Garrett admitted. "I'm fine, though. No recent injuries, nothing they really need to treat me for."
Hailey knew what he left unsaid; that what he really would need help for was the psychological trauma.
"I was going to come see you," she promised, "I just wasn't sure—"
Garrett waved it away. "Don't worry about it, Hails. I can see that you've... moved on with your life, and... I'm happy for you."
Hailey didn't believe him— she could see the effort it took to say those words; she saw the hurt in his eyes that he was trying to conceal for her sake.
"I'm so sorry, Gar," she whispered. "For everything. For not finding you, for giving up on searching for you. If I had known—"
"You couldn't have known," he said, interrupting her apologies. "Please, Hailey, don't be sorry. Be happy. It's all I ever wanted for you; all I could hope for while I was held captive in there."
Hailey swallowed against the lump in her throat that formed at his words. "Can I... can I ask... how— how did you get out?"
Garrett's expression turned thoughtful, confused, as though he was pondering something inexplicable. "I didn't," he said in a low voice. "Well, that is, I didn't have to do anything. The two men who were always guarding me disappeared. I waited for days, to scared to do anything, and then I just... left. Walked out of there."
Hailey frowned. "They let you go?"
He tilted his head, looking at her curiously. "You put Booth back in prison right?"
She nodded.
"So, if we're still assuming that they held me under his orders... it makes sense that they'd scurry off and leave me behind when he got locked up again." Garrett gave her a small smile. "For good this time, as you say."
Hailey couldn't smile. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. It didn't make sense. "But you could ID them? Why would they just leave a loose end line that..."
Garrett placed a hand on her shoulder. "Hey," he said softly. "Don't worry about it. They probably just didn't want my blood on their hands— with Booth gone, they wouldn't get anything out of it." His hand squeezed her shoulder reassuringly. "It's alright to smile, Hails. I remember that seeing you smile... it never failed to brighten my day."
His words made something flutter in her stomach, but she couldn't make herself smile. There just wasn't anything about this situation worth smiling for.
She flinched as his fingers suddenly touched her cheek, by the corner of her mouth, his thumb skimming her lower lip. "Smile, Hailey," he whispered. "Smile because I'm back and I'm alright. Smile because Booth is rotting in jail, and... and smile because after all of this, I still haven't forgotten the way you spilled wine all over yourself on our first date." He tilted his head, smiling teasingly at her, and as she remembered that embarrassing first date and saw that he was smiling, that he could smile after everything, she felt her lips curl upward as she returned the smile.
"That's better," Garrett said, his thumb still on her chin, tilting her face up towards his. Before she could react, he leaned down and kissed her. His lips pressed against hers, and she felt the absence of his stubble and the calluses on his fingers as they brushed over her face. All in contrast to the last person who she'd kissed; Jay.
Though Jay didn't clean shave, Hailey didn't mind; he looked good with a stubble.
And Jay's fingers were hardened, sure, but not in this way. Not like he'd been slaving away for the past five years — Hailey's stomach turned at the thought. His fingers were soft and precise, perfectly poised to hold steady on the trigger of a gun.
With these thoughts cutting through her brain, she pulled away from Garrett; slowly, gently, to make it feel like the end of the kiss instead of the rejection that it was.
"I just had to do it one last time," he mumbled, and pushed her hair back behind her ear. "I'm going to Texas to stay with my brother for a while. I... I can't be in Chicago right now, I think you'll understand."
The thought of him leaving again made her feel sad, and Hailey wondered if she'd always e torn in two about her feelings for him. Despite this, she nodded. She couldn't even imagine what he was going through; after all the physical extortion he'd been put through, he'd returned to find that he'd missed out on five years, and that she'd given up on him. The memories they shared had been painful to Hailey after his disappearance, but she couldn't imagine what they would feel like to him now.
"Of course, I understand," she said in a broken voice. "I hope... I hope I'll see you again, some day?"
She phrased it like a question, and Garrett nodded slowly. "I think you will," he said in a low voice. "I'll see you, Hailey." And with a smile, he left her there, standing alone in the hallway.
Or, she thought she was, until she turned at saw that Jay was looking at her from where he still sat on the bench in the locker room. Her heart sank as she realized that he could've been able to see them this whole time if he'd wanted to. There was a hint of sadness in his eyes, like a hurt he was trying to bury beneath, but Hailey, as usual, could see through him. She knew that he'd seen, and that she'd hurt him.
"Jay," she sighed as she joined him in the bench again. "I'm sorry, I— he's leaving, and he said he had to kiss me one last time, and I—"
"Hailey." Jay quieted her with that one word, and shook his head slightly, giving her a small smile. "You don't have to explain yourself. It's okay. Whatever you're going through... it's okay. I'll be right here for you. I'll always be here."
The intensity of the look that he gave her; so determined and so meaningful; erased all and any doubts she might've had. It brought back the realization that she'd had that day in the basement when she thought she might've lost him. She loved Jay Halstead. And now, she thought that... maybe he loved her too.
