Chapter 2

Hailey finally laid down in her bed at almost midnight. After Jay had left she had gotten Ellie all settled and tucked into bed. Then she had returned to unpacking her suitcase before showering and blow drying her hair.

As she lay in bed her mind was reeling. She still felt unsettled with how she had left things with Jay. While he hadn't pushed anything, she could tell that he hadn't wanted to leave. He would have much preferred to find out the rest of the story. She had dropped quite the bombshell on him and he had taken it better than anything she had imagined. He hadn't seemed angry or upset or even disappointed. He had just been curious to find out the whole truth and she had sent him home before he could get it.

Deciding there was no way she would be able to sleep she reached over to her night stand and turned back on the light, picking up her phone.

You still up?

Jay's response was almost instantaneous, as though he had already had his phone in hand waiting for it. He didn't send a message however though, instead his response was her phone ringing, his name coming up on the screen.

"Hey," she answered quickly.

"You ok?" he asked.

"Yeah, I've just been thinking, I feel bad," Hailey said. "We were in the middle of kind of a big conversation and then you left."

He paused for a second. "I'm sorry I just figured you wanted me to so you could get Ellie settled and everything. I mean, it's her first night in the house with you," Jay explained. Of course his response was so considerate. She hadn't meant it to seem like she blamed him for leaving. She had been trying to say that she felt bad for not asking him to stay so they could finish their conversation.

"No, you're right," Hailey said. "I just meant that I feel bad that we didn't get to finish our conversation. I'm sure you still have a million questions."

"I'm all ears now if you're not too tired," Jay suggested.

"That seems like a cheat," Hailey replied. "Not being face to face."

There was a momentary pause and then her phone chirped. She pulled the phone away from her ear to look down at the screen to see that Jay had requested to switch the call to FaceTime. She smiled as she accepted and a few seconds later his face popped onto her screen.

"There, now we're face to face," Jay said, and she could see he was quite proud of his ingenuity.

She noticed quickly that Jay wasn't wearing a shirt. She could see the top of his bare chest on the bottom of the screen. It appeared he was also in bed. He was sitting up against his headboard and his hair looked slightly disheveled, as though he had been tossing and turning in an attempt to fall asleep.

She realized they had never FaceTimed each other before. They had talked on the phone daily while she had been in New York and had exchanged countless text messages, but never this. There was something so much more intimate about seeing his face on her screen like this, especially with them both in their beds. Hailey was glad she had been feeling a little chilly tonight and had pulled on a sweatshirt to sleep in.

"Ok, I guess this will work," Hailey said with a laugh. Deciding she didn't want to keep holding the phone up she leaned it against the lamp on her nightstand and sat cross legged, facing that side of her bed.

"So, I think you left off at finding out you were pregnant after the Booth case was over?" Jay reminded her.

"Yeah it was a couple of weeks after that," Hailey continued. "I wasn't in a very good place then. I was on leave from work. They gave me a six month furlough since I'd been under for so long and I needed it. Then when I found out I was pregnant, I don't know, I guess it seemed like it was meant to be. I knew I couldn't end the pregnancy because she was part of Garrett, but I also knew that I was in no shape to take care of a child. So I set up an adoption with a couple in New York."

"Hailey, does your family know?" Jay interjected, realization dawning on him. He could tell by Hailey's facial expression that they didn't.

"I hadn't talked to them since before I had gone under on the Booth case," she offered as a way of explanation. "And when I decided to give her up, it seemed easier not to tell them at all. It's not like we were very close."

"Did anyone know?" Jay asked.

Hailey shook her head. "I was on leave from work so no one really needed to," she said. "And I didn't want people giving me that look of pity. It was bad enough with how they looked at me after what happened to Garrett."

"So, you didn't have anyone to lean on at all?" Jay asked. He didn't like imagining Hailey pregnant and completely on her own.

Hailey scoffed. "Jay, I was having a baby. I wasn't a baby."

"You know what I mean," Jay said, his expression softening. "That's just a lot to deal with completely on your own."

Hailey smiled, touched by how much he cared. "It wasn't all that strange for me back then. Before you, and now Vanessa too, there really weren't people I ever let get very close to me. Even Garrett didn't know a lot about my family life growing up. He just thought my dad was a drinker."

"That's not much of a way to live, Hailey," Jay scolded.

"Well thankfully this annoying guy I work with pushed his way into my life and now knows more about me than anyone else I've ever met," Hailey teased, eliciting a smile from Jay.

"Alright, so if you gave her up for adoption, how'd she end up back with you now?" Jay asked after a moment's silence passed between them.

"Oh right," Hailey had almost forgotten that they still had more to discuss. She had been enjoying their jokey dynamic for a moment. "Well, the FBI did a background check on me before I could officially start there. They gave me the folder when I started there. I didn't even look at it until the end of the first week. I just kind of glanced through it and I saw a picture of her. Apparently she shows up on a background check since I gave birth to her. I wasn't going to read up on her, but then I saw a news clipping in the file. Apparently her birth parents died in a car accident a few months ago. So I got in touch with a social worker in New York and she tracked her down. She had been living in a group home since the accident. Her adoptive parents didn't have any other family to take her in."

"Wow, that's rough," Jay said sincerely. "It's a lot to deal with for someone her age. Any age really."

"Yeah," Hailey agreed. "Once I found out she was in a group home I knew I couldn't leave her there. I gave her up to give her a better situation than what I could give her. But now, I'm in a lot better place in my life than I was back then. I know it's gonna be hard because it's just me and our job is obviously very demanding, but I still think I can do better than a group home."

"She's lucky she has you," Jay said.

"Well, only time will tell with that," Hailey responded, unsure of herself. "I have a lot to figure out and it's not gonna be easy to balance everything."

"For what it's worth, I'm here. I don't really know anything about kids but I'm a pretty quick learner," Jay said. "I'll be there for whatever you need."

"That's very sweet," Hailey said honestly. "I can't ask you to do that though."

"Hey, we're partners right?" Jay said.

Hailey laughed. "This isn't a work case, Jay. It's a little girl. However great of a partner you may be, I think partnership draws the line there." Jay shrugged in response. "I appreciate it though, Jay."

"You are gonna stay in Intelligence right?" Jay asked, concern evident in his voice.

"Well I want to, but I have to talk to Voight," Hailey replied. "It's not like anybody else in the unit has gone through this before. No one has kids."

"Antonio did," came Jay's quick response.

"They were older," she replied. "And they had their mom, too."

"Antonio's partner Jules had young kids," Jay fired back. "They were around Ellie's age."

"Who?" Hailey asked. That had been long before her time.

"She was partners with Antonio when I first joined the unit," Jay answered. "Her husband Alec is an ER doctor at Lakeshore Hospital. He and Will were college roommates."

"Well regardless of if her kids were little, she still had her husband to help," Hailey said. "And even if I have help from you and Vanessa, we all do the same job. That means we work the same crazy schedules in a dangerous line of work."

"Ok, fair point," Jay conceded. He was silent for a moment. "What about a nanny?"

"A nanny?" Hailey asked.

"Yeah, I remember Will talking about how Natalie has a nanny that picks Owen up from school and takes him home on the days she works late," Jay explained. "It's either that or some kind of day care and I think nannies are probably a little more flexible and she would already be home then when you got home instead of still at school or some daycare place. It's a little more personal."

Hailey pondered that idea. "It's worth looking into," she finally said. "I wonder if Nat knows any other nannies. Maybe I'll text her tomorrow. I'd like to have some sort of plan before I tell Voight."

Jay seemed content with her reception of his idea. He stayed quiet for a moment as he saw Hailey was still lost in thought. They had been talking for nearly an hour and Jay was finally starting to get tired. He attempted to stifle a yawn but Hailey spotted it.

"It's late," Hailey said, seeing it was now one in the morning. "You should get to sleep."

"No, no," Jay argued. "I'm fine. I want to hear more about Ellie."

Hailey wasn't convinced, but she also didn't want to hang up quite yet. She was still wide awake. She felt like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders and now she just really missed talking to Jay.

"Ok I'll tell you more about her but you have to lay down," Hailey insisted. "I know you're tired. Vanessa told me you guys had a long day."

Jay obliged her, setting his phone down on his bedside table against his lamp just like she had. He slid down from his headboard so he was lying flat, rolling onto his side to face the phone. "Your turn," Jay said once he was settled on his pillow.

Hailey laughed, but climbed back under her covers and lay down mirroring Jay. She reached up and turned off her light as Jay did the same. The only light now came from their phone screens. Hailey could only just make out Jay's face in the darkness and she imagined it was the same for him.

It was very strange to lie here with Jay. She knew it should have felt uncomfortable; two coworkers FaceTiming each other from their beds and talking to each other until they fell asleep. She knew that was what was going to happen. Neither one of them wanted to hang up and in their current positions she knew one of them was bound to fall asleep.

Sure enough, twenty minutes later as Hailey was telling him about how Ellie liked sports, she noticed a change in his breathing. She looked closer at the screen and saw that his eyes were closed. She knew she should have ended the call then, but the sound of his soft breathing was soothing to her. So, instead, she left the call on, and fell asleep to the sounds of her partners light snores coming through the phone.

A/N: Thanks for the reviews on the first chapter. Keep them coming for this one and let me know if you think I should keep going.