AN: I wish I could reply to your guest reviews another way, but here it is: THANK YOU ALL so much!

Can't believe I've already written 60 chapters of this story, it's been an interesting journey so far. Thanks to everyone who came along until now, can't even tell you how much this means!

Chapter Title "Dream" by Imagine Dragons

DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the Chicago PD, Fire or Med characters, only my OCs!

"Paola di Varese!" The woman extended a small, slightly wrinkled hand to him which he took a little distractedly. Her fingers were boney, but her grip strong around his.

"Detective Jay Halstead," he said, calling himself an idiot immediately for including his rank in the introduction.

What was that all about? Not even in front of Rianne's real mother had he felt the need to say that. Paola's shrewd eyes stayed with him for an uncomfortable while, then she let him be abruptly.

"I shood geteback home, cara! Stai bene?" Paola turned around to Rianne, who still hadn't moved from the couch.

Jay thought she really must not be feeling well to not have gotten up the minute he had walked into this awkward situation.

"Can I… give you a lift?" Jay offered, although he hoped the woman would say no.

He honestly had no desire to spend a long drive to Berwyn with a woman he felt, by the hint of sorrow evident in her stoic expression, he had robbed of her daughter-in-law somehow. But of course his polite side had gotten the better of him.

"No, non necessario. I will take ze L, thank you," the Italian accent to her English was really heavy.

Paola nodded gracefully at him, sly eyes wryly running over his frame once more. Then she took her purse that had been abandoned on the coffee table until now.

"At least let me give you money so that you can take an uber. È il minimo che posso fare!" Rianne made a weak attempt to get up, attention focused solely on her guest, but the older woman summoned her back into the furniture using a simple hand gesture.

With a determined aura about her that didn't leave any room for discussion, the woman pressed a kiss to Rianne's forehead and said something Jay didn't understand. He however noticed Rianne nodding with a teary-eyed expression and squeezing the tiny person's arm in deep affection, too choked up to respond verbally. His head was slightly spinning trying to evaluate what exactly was going on here.
Paola di Varese nodded curtly at Jay before putting on her coat and walked towards the front door, authority in her step like she'd been here multiple times.

"Care to explain?" Jay said warily when he had closed the door behind their surprise guest.

At least Andrea's mother showing up had been a surprise to him. How Rianne was involved in this, he wasn't so sure. In general he wasn't sure how he should react and what to feel. What this visit meant or why on earth was she looking so terribly sick, when she had claimed to be fine all day?
Right now he was caught in a war between worried, frightened, a little angry and certainly confused.
In the meantime Rianne had gotten up and gone to make herself some more tea.
Jay cornered her in the kitchen, noticing her slow movements and getting himself worked up, when she still didn't answer him after a minute of silence.
Before he could raise his voice and demand answers more pressingly, she finally turned around and sighed:

"I'm sorry! This is certainly not how I wanted you two to meet for the first time."

Judging from the look on her face he wasn't sure if she had wanted them to meet ever. Her voice sounded normal, but it seemed she had shed all her summer skin within the last 48 hours. Rianne's face was so ashen that he could see the blue of the veins under her eyes and on her temples shine through her skin. Jay subconsciously clenched his fists by his sides:

"Why would you lie to me?"

"I… didn't…" Rianne's brows drew together in lack of understanding.

"Come on, so when I asked you this afternoon if you were okay, you actually were?" His eyes were pleading with hers to not give him any more half-truths.

His days were stressful enough without him having to worry about her giving him false affirmations.

"I was, but then…," he noticed her hands shaking around her fresh cup of tea, expression contrite.

"I met Paola for coffee and when we left the place I sort of… fainted? So she insisted on taking me home!"

"You sort of fainted?" Jay's eyes almost bugged out of their sockets and the sinking feeling in his stomach got discomfortingly stronger with this new piece of information.

Rianne closed her eyes shortly and wished she didn't have to explain this to him right now, but it seemed coincidences helped along honesty sometimes.

Crazy as it seemed she hadn't had a face-to-face contact with her mother-in-law since she'd been over to their family home last September with Nate. After that events had come tumbling down on her and the timing had never felt right to have a heart-to-heart with the woman who had been some sort of surrogate mother to her for so many years. A woman who had taken her in, into her family, no questions asked, the minute Andrea had taken her home with him after only three weeks of dating. But still a woman that was the mother of another man than she was currently living and very much in love with.

Yes, they had still talked on the phone, wished each other 'Merry Christmas' and 'a happy New Year' by text. Rianne knew that everyone was aware she was in a new relationship, because Guilia had spread the news, but apart from Andrea's other siblings, more or less, she hadn't discussed this with his parents. Not that she wanted to discuss this with his father necessarily. Massimo was a little bit like her own: Not interested in other people's drama very much and keeping to himself in this loud family. She had always felt that their relationship towards each other was more neutral than with Andrea's mother, who she had come to adore. To clear the air with Paola had become more and more of an issue Rianne knew she couldn't avoid any longer. At least not without a lousy feeling every time she sent her a text or they exchanged news and explicitly talked around the topic that Rianne had left their family for good to be with another man. Because this was a fact, something that had become clearer and clearer to her: She couldn't live in both worlds anymore. She couldn't attend family gatherings at the di Vareses and keep this close to them. Neither with nor without Jay! To her it just didn't feel right. Even though everyone had claimed that they loved having her around and she was irrevocably a part of this family, even with Andrea gone, she knew that she also was a constant reminder of what they had lost: A son, a grand-son, a future. Because it was like that for her the other way around. She had known that even before Jay. To find balance between not losing them completely and yet distancing herself had proven to be harder than she wanted it to be.

So one of Rianne's New Year's resolutions had been to tackle this as soon as possible.

All this talking about the future and the confrontation with her own family, combined with the first steps to build a new life with Jay, had led to the conviction that she needed something like closure with her old 'family' first. Closure to be able to move on further than she already had. Clear the air and put some old ghosts to rest, possibly for good.
Rianne had thought about talking to Jay about it, but then decided not to. Not that she thought he wouldn't understand or would talk her out of it, but somehow this was something she needed to do on her own and tell him afterwards.
That had not gone well, she mused, blaming the lingering feeling of sickness and pounding headache that had increased throughout the day and had let to a circulatory collapse in front of the café where she and Paola had met. Being the fussy mother hen she always had been, Paola of course hadn't let Rianne go home alone after that. If only she had been able to make Paola leave her alone then, but that woman was as diehard as they got, adamant to make sure someone was looking after her.

"So, why didn't you tell me you were going to see her?" Jay had sensed that she was still unsteady on her feet and had steered her back to the couch after she had told him how her afternoon and evening had gone.

Rianne didn't like to admit it, but she was actually grateful for the steady structure in her back and to put her feet up on Jay's lap when he sat down next to her.
She sighed and shrugged at the same time:

"I don't know. I thought about it, but then… I guess I was freaking out about how it would go enough on my own. Didn't want to put this on you."

"When you fainted you should have called me you know? I would have picked you up!"

Crap! That gleam of disappointment in his eyes? She really hated it, but she guessed the damage was already done.

"Yeah, but I knew you were in the middle of that new case and I just wanted you to be able to do your job!"

She knew that she was projecting some relationship patterns and character flaws she was very well accustomed to. But Jay was not Andrea. Even when he was busy with his own stuff and work he could help take care of her issues too. Always wanted to.

"The best way I can do my fucking job is if I don't have to worry about you lying to me about things or being somehow afraid to call me because you think you're bothering me! I wanna know these things and you know that!"

If he hadn't still been running his fingers over her face and arm, she would have thought he was seriously pissed now, judging by his agitated tone, his secret message being 'I wanna know you! Don't shut me out!'

"I'm truly sorry. And I'm sorry about Paola too by the way. She usually is much nicer. But I guess coming here and seeing how real this is… I think she needs some time."

They all did. Earlier, when looking from Jay's confused stare and his desperate attempt to not let that confusion show, to the equally desperate attempt of her mother-in-law to keep a straight and unfazed expression while standing in front of the 'not even so new man' in her life, Rianne had known this was absolutely not what she had wanted to happen. Even in her dizzy brain she had known that.

"It's fine, I certainly didn't expect her to give me a warm welcoming hug," Jay smirked a little, making her heart melt and ache for him.

She knew this was hurting him at least to some extend.

"You mad?"

He seemed to think about it for a while before he said:

"No, not mad. Just wished you would have told me you felt that way," his soulful eyes on her causing a slight pinch in her gut.

And still he had the greatness and patience to not press for details of that meeting, which she was incredibly thankful for, because she herself hadn't even begun to process it. Rianne reached for his hand and ran her thumb over his knuckles:

"I… can we talk more about this, when I'm feeling better?"

His concerned gaze ran over her for a long minute, before he carefully uttered:

"So you admit this, you not feeling well, is not you getting your period?"

"No, yes… I mean…"

"Babe, I've been living with you for the past months, remember? You get moody, you sometimes have a restless night or two or are really tired and a little confused, you eat all the ice-cream we have, but you don't look like a ghost of yourself and faint."

Why wasn't she surprised that he knew all about her habits when it was that special time of the months without ever saying anything about it?

"You sure you don't have a psych degree?"

"No, but you tend to forget that I have to question people for a living, so I know when I'm being lied to most of the time."

Sometimes Rianne loved that he knew her that well, that Jay silently payed attention to things. And sometimes she felt a little cornered and trapped by it, like she couldn't do anything out of the ordinary without him noticing or getting suspicious.

"You sure I shouldn't call Will to check in on you?" Jay probed when she didn't answer him.

"No! Look, I've had these flus and stomach bugs before, after traveling. I'm sure it's the climate change, the different food. Maybe I'm allergic to being back at work…"

A little part of her even felt that the meeting with Paola had been so emotionally draining that this would explain her continuing physical weakness. She knew Jay didn't believe this for a second judging by his eyebrow-game and the more prominent lines on his forehead, but he let it go for now.

"Anyway, you should call in sick tomorrow!"

"I don't think it'll be necessary, I just need to sleep…"

No way he would decide this for her and no way this would last another day! It just couldn't.

"Why does every good advise you would give me if the roles were reversed not apply to you, hm?"

Now he was frustrated with her and got up from the couch, so she tried to sound more upbeat than she felt and reminded him of what he had wanted to tell her when he came home from work:

"Why don't you tell me about the flower-incident with Trudy to cheer me up?"

She lay awake for most parts of the night, trying to keep as still as possible to make sure Jay would get some sleep. He couldn't afford to be restless, worrying about her. Rianne needed him to be fully prepared to do his job the next day, no matter what he said. Her suggestion to stay on the couch for the night in case this was something contagious had been denied. Jay would have none of it, saying he needed to keep an eye on her and that he probably was contaminated by now anyway.

Besides from trying to persuade her body to put itself back together by pure willpower and swallow down the waves of nausea and lingering slight fever chills, Rianne's mind kept wandering back to her encounter with her mother-in-law today and the strange revelations that meeting had brought on.

She had expected anything to happen, when seeing her for the first time in months. From Paola being really mad at her despite the friendly conversations they had been having over the phone, to the conversation being awkward because none of them would find the right moment to touch the obvious elephant in the room or really anything else. What Rianne hadn't expected was that she would start crying the moment she saw Paola sitting in their usual booth at the usual place where they always met to have dinner outside of the di Varese home. Rianne had been really glad that it hadn't been at the house. A house with too many memories, too many distractions, a house that also reminded her painfully of Nate and their shared past.
Normally this first meeting of the year would have entailed a big 'coming home' party from her family-in-law, mostly the following weekend after she came back from Argentina, at least that was how it had been the last two years. Nate would also have been there. Somehow Rianne felt awful for robbing them of their surrogate son too, after everything that had happened.

This year everything was different, everything was new.

Having chosen a more neutral place Rianne hadn't expected to start crying like all the sadness of the world was crashing down on her, sinking in, the moment she hugged that tiny but sturdy woman to her chest. She neither had expected to not be able to stop for a whole while nor that Paola would cry too.
That they would both let out all their tears: Tears for the secrets, for what they both had lost and were still mourning, tears of lingering traces of guilt, for the end of something between them, tears for the knowledge that things would never return to being the same again and that they hadn't been the same for a long time.
Certainly Rianne wouldn't have expected their exchange after that to be all hard truths and no-nonsense. She hadn't expected to talk about Andrea like they were finally talking about the real person and not some hero-version of him that had been created after his death. Even some truths that were never spoken, topics never touched when they had been together came to light.
Never had she heard that Paola thought Rianne had saved Andrea from himself many times. From more evil than she knew. That his mother thought he would have turned a very different corner earlier on in life if it hadn't been for Rianne. But had she really saved him?

"How did you know?"

"Believe me cara, a mother always knows… You were always a little too good for him!"

It had felt cleansing and it had also felt a little like a break-up. And Rianne was wondering what else Paola had known all along and kept to herself all these years.

"I can't stay home. Today is the last course on my trauma education and in two weeks I'll have to take an exam to get qualified. So… I can't miss that!"

"Promise me you will call Will and ask him what he thinks this is!"

"Yeah, I will!"

"Don't just say yes so I will get off your back, please just do it!"

"Ay, Sir!"

Replaying their morning conversation in his head Jay was mildly furious when he ran into his brother on a work-related trip to Med the next morning and Will told him that Rianne hadn't contacted him about her mixed symptoms.

Why was she not taking this seriously? Like he had said to her in the very beginning: Sometimes he found her rather frustrating. And even though it was just the natural course of a relationship to peel back layers and layers and get to know new sides and angles to one another over time, he could have done without feeling that they were hitting another obstacle. Like that on every new level of intimacy and growing together there was another hurdle, a villain waving a flag saying:

"But there is always gonna be some part of her that doesn't belong to you!"

"I'm really sick of stubborn women today! We better get her to cooperate," he fumed while Hailey gave him a curious stare that he then waved off, before storming into the interrogation room back at the district with her for the second time today.

In the morning they had brought in Michelle Sullivan, wife of one of the men they suspected to be involved in the armed robbery they were still trying to solve. But she had not been very forthcoming, claiming she had nothing to do with it and neither had her husband.
With the new found evidence that she seemed to be a victim of continued domestic violence, they hoped they could get her to change her mind. Jay very early on had suspected that something wasn't right when he had watched the interaction of the couple at the flower shop yesterday.
Words couldn't even begin to describe how much he hated men who beat up women. Seeing pictures of how severe Michelle's injuries had been a few years ago, Jay felt sick to his stomach and pure hate rise up inside of him. He had to seriously reign in his feelings and pace himself, because he knew he was getting impatient for justice again. No way he wanted to make the same mistakes and hasty decisions based on too little evidence, but it was really tough to keep his cool.
As usual in their partnerly dynamic he was glad that Hailey kept his cool for him throughout.
He'd always known there was something more to her story, something she hadn't shared until now. Something that explained why she was so great at handling victims of abuse, why she always had an angle to play. It turned out growing up in an abusive household not so much unlike the Sullivan's, minus the criminal history that was, did that to you. Her skills certainly convinced Michelle to wear a wire when going back to her husband, possibly get him to admit to being involved in the armed robbery or find out what they were planning next. And with her experience Hailey also managed to talk Jay down while they were doing observation on the Sullivan's and loud arguing started. His gut feeling had been to just swoop in and arrest Shane's yelling ass on the spot, pull Michelle and get her to safety.

Of course Hailey had a point: "We're cops, so we also have to think about the family of the guy who got murdered!"

At least at the end of the day they had another lead and could bring in another suspect, a suspect who turned out to be almost innocent or at least driven by desperation, exploited for having a weak point: Money issues and a sick mother with high medical bills he couldn't pay on his own. Another human being struggling… Jay had seen enough of these torn souls.
A torn soul that would now help them to set up a trap for the now confirmed robbery crew.

Still reeling with the developments of this day Jay found Rianne already asleep when he got home. Her cheeks were a little too hot for his liking and her forehead clammy, sweaty strands of hair clinging to her neck, when he brushed them behind her ear.
She didn't wake up when he touched her overly warm skin, cringing for her sake. Little did he know that she had actually crawled into bed directly after coming home from her seminar, feeling like absolute crap. Her body temperature constantly changing from too hot, to too cold, sweating through two shirts in the first two hours of rolling around in the sheets restlessly before taking some of his Tylenol to be able to get some healing sleep. The only info he had gotten all day was that she had arrived home safely in the afternoon, assuring him she'd rest up now, apologizing for not calling Will claiming to have been too busy and that it would surely resolve itself.

Right now she looked absolutely exhausted yet peaceful. Jay's heart clenched almost painfully at the sight of her like that and fear tapped him lightly on the shoulder. He knew he wasn't an easy patient when sick either, but Jay truly hoped this was only a flu thing and nothing serious.
He climbed in beside her as soon as he had taken a hot shower to wash off the day and the image of Michelle's pained eyes staring back at him in the interrogation room. It was a hard one to shake and he really hoped they could help at least her and her daughter in the end. Jay was thankful that a semi-efficient slumber engulfed him pretty quickly, due to pure physical exhaustion.

A few hours later though he awoke to the sound of violent retching coming from the bathroom. Alarmed he ran to go see to Rianne obviously puking her guts out and help, but as sick as she seemed there still was a piece of resistance in her to let someone take care of her.
Before he could slump down on the floor, possibly hold up her hair while she was having a heated conversation with the toilet, Rianne warned him off:

"Go back to bed Jay! I can manage to vomit on my own!"

Of course this didn't make him walk back. Snorting at her demeanor he took a step closer, only to be scowled at out of teary and bloodshot eyes in between more nasty sounds of heaving.

"I'm good…"

"Are you kidding me?"

He took another step and squatted down, reaching out a hand to put it on her back only to have it swatted away.

"Please Jay, this is… so disgusting and humiliating… I… I can't have you watch…."

Another wave of nausea hit her, although by now only remnants of bile and spit were coming out. Her very obvious physical distress still didn't hinder her from trying to keep him at arms length.

"And I certainly don't need a lecture on self-care!"

His heart was beating faster, furious at her stubbornness and flooding him with pity at the same time:

"I wasn't going to lecture you! But are you seriously expecting me to go back to bed while you're obviously sick and miserable like this? Come on!"

Her next remark was erased by another gagging sound, before Rianne reached up to flush and sank down on the floor, leaning against the bathtub wall, closing her eyes for a second. When she wiped at her face and the tears of physical exhaustion, Jay noticed how much her hands were shaking. She was a complete mess and he had enough of this.
Jay knew he was pushing his luck, but he couldn't sit around and do nothing, so he got a cold washcloth to put in her neck, and a towel to wipe her sweaty face with, hopefully soothing her a little in the process and refused to leave her side.

Jay was actually the sweetest person while she was completely grossed out by herself. A few tears of pain and embarrassment escaped her lashes. When he cradled her into his side she didn't have the strength to push him away anymore. Knowing his tenaciousness by now it wouldn't have worked anyway.
Because Rianne was afraid to leave her safe place in front of the toilet, even after the first nausea attack was over, Jay got them some blankets and pillows so they wouldn't get too cold on the bathroom floor, changed her sweaty clothes for her like one would do for a helpless child and got her to take some Dramamine to help with her sickness, so that maybe she could go back to sleep and get better.

"You gotta let me help you!" she heard him whisper into her hair, while he continued to hold her close.

Another Jay mantra she sometimes found hard to accept because she wasn't used to having someone notoriously looking out for the well-being of others by her side.

Rianne must have fallen asleep at some point, Jay's warm hands on her shivering body lulling her into a heavy slumber, the feeling of his closeness and calm breathing distracting her from the limb pain and the chills. When she woke up she found herself back in bed, a towel spread over her propped up pillows, just the way she liked them when she had a headache, bucket by her side on the floor. If she wasn't mistaken he had even made her a leg compress to bring down her temperature.

She really didn't deserve him.

"This an apology?"

Jay thought for a second, but then he shook his head and braced his hands on the seat in front of Voight's desk:

"No, I would do it again!"

A signature grunt followed and he was almost prepared for the lecture he expected, maybe some yelling, but it never came. Instead his boss told him:

"Look Jay, I know how you're wired: Through the heart! Someone's in trouble, you just go. Part of what makes you, you. I made peace with it. I don't think you could be any other way."

Thank God for small mercies. Jay definitely would have expected a serious talking down for his earlier move from Voight.

Hailey and his morning observation of the Sullivan house hadn't gone quite as planned. Being a witness to Michelle flipping and keeping her husband to join the robbery crew for the heist they didn't know was a set-up and would lead to their arrest, another argument and crashing sounds over the wire had led to Jay loosing his intend to keep cool and don't intervene. Messing up the trap in the process but not able to knowingly endanger that woman any longer, he'd gone in and arrested Shane for domestic assault, bringing him into the station. Now the only thing they could charge him with was unfortunately just that: Domestic assault! He wouldn't flip on his crew members and they had not enough evidence to tie him to the crime committed two days ago. Jay's only hope was that Michelle didn't back out now and at least made a statement in front of the family court.

Hailey also backing him up and assuring him that they didn't have another choice, even though he knew she felt differently, at least got Jay feeling he wasn't fighting ten battles at once today. And he was really thankful that no one seemed to notice or at least not mention the bags and dark shadows under his eyes, caused by a night of too little sleep and too much fussing over his sick girl, mostly spent on his bathroom floor.
Torn between desperately wanting to find another angle to solve the case and going home as fast as he could to check on Rianne, Jay found himself getting into his truck in the evening with mixed emotions.

He hadn't come very far, when he got a call from Hailey. Maybe it was that he felt he owed his team one, or at least his partner, who maybe would have done things differently than he had today, but when Hailey told him that Shane had been released, because no complainant had turned up in family court, he found himself changing directions and driving to the Sullivan house as fast as he could.

Rianne braced herself when she saw Jay's called ID and was glad that her phone was already in her lap. Right now every movement seemed too straining and exhausting. And she really didn't feel like arguing with him again. This morning he had been pretty relentless and adamant that she stayed home, making her call her superiors in his presence. In addition to this he had called on the cavalry of their friends, making them check in on her throughout the day.

"Hey," Rianne could hear a lot of commotion in the background of his call.

"Hey, you okay?" His voice sounded a little out of breath.

She noticed the slight distraction whenever his head was deep in a recent crime investigation, which she was well accustomed to by now.

"Yeah, you?"

"Just as okay as when you called me two hours ago Jay!"

Which was a lie, as she still had a fever and was plagued with stomach pains every now and then. Actually she had felt her nausea increasing again over the past half hour.

"Listen, I know I said I would be home by now, but things took a turn and…" She really hated that he felt so obligated to take care of her on top of a job like that:

"Jay, it's okay. Do whatever you have to do."

"So you're okay a little while longer on your own? It's just… I need to go see Hailey and wrap things up with her!"

'Wrap things up' normally meant they needed to wrap their heads around things, tie up loose ends of a case, talk about it and process their shared experiences, possibly horrible things they had seen. Rianne would have lied claiming that she wasn't the least bit jealous that Jay's favorite person to do that with was his female partner, but she was reasonable enough to know he needed this.

"I'll be fine! I just need to sleep and some tea and biscuits. You go see Hailey!"

Just thinking about biscuits made her stomach rumble in rebellion, but she tried to breathe through the pain.

"I won't go, if you're not feeling well and you need me!" He sounded doubtful.

Could he see her through the phone?

"Please Jay? Just … I will be sleeping anyway and honestly I hate being sick and as you know by now I can be pretty miserable and moody when I am, so do yourself a favor and get some distance. Besides Will said he'd be checking on me before his night-shift at Med. So maybe you can rest assured that someone's babysitting me!"

Hailey had already ordered him a double whiskey when he arrived at the bar they were supposed to meet at. She had been anxiously waiting to see him, see that he was fine and unharmed. She felt so bad that she had sent him on his own to see if Michelle was fine after her husband had been released from lock-up, which had ended in Jay beating up Shane, who had attacked his wife beforehand. Apart from the bruises starting to form on Jay's knuckles and the adrenaline still oozing out of him he thankfully was in one piece.

"Thanks!" Jay let out a deep breath when slumping down opposite her on a chair and took a long drag of the amber liquid.

He told her that he had made sure Michelle was on a plane to Phoenix with her daughter after patrol had arrested her husband for another domestic assault, hopefully able to charge him this time.
Hailey found herself opening up to things about her childhood she hadn't told many people to make him see that he had made the right move. To explain to him why Michelle would maybe still go back to her abusive husband after this. She told him she wished that someone would have come in and put her dad in his place like he had just done with Shane.

"You did a good thing Jay!" Hailey added for good measure, because she saw that doubt was still riddling his strained features.

She wanted to take away his self-doubt about his heat-of-the-moment decision so badly and wished she could manage to convince him throughout their talk and maybe another glass of whiskey, when suddenly Jay's phone went off.

Listening to the one-sided conversation and seeing his face fall more and more was agonizing. Even before he had ended the call Jay was out of his seat, grabbing his jacket, only slowly registering her questioning stare:

"That was Will…"

"What's up?"

"He's…. he's taken Rianne to the hospital…"

"Oh my god Jay, I'm so sorry… what happened? Come one, I'll give you a ride!" Hailey was halfway out of her seat, but he waved her off.

"No, thanks. I'll go by myself… sorry to cut this short Hailey, but…" he wanted to put money on the table for his drink, but she grabbed his hand to stop him, letting her eyes rest a long second on his bruised knuckles on hands that were fidgeting around nervously.

She knew it was in vain to argue with him:

"Just… go Jay! I got this!"

It seemed her partner wasn't allowed to catch a break and her heart went out to him, wishing she could do more than pay for his drink.