Chapter 21

The following week returned to their usual schedules, with Jay and Hailey back at the district by day and spending time at Hailey's house with Ellie by night. Jay and Hailey had finally agreed that Ellie slept soundly enough for them to not be so strict about only sleeping on the nights Jay slept over. He still left every morning before Ellie woke up though. Or at least, he had been leaving before she woke up.

Friday morning, Jay's alarm went off at 6am, as usual. This typically gave Jay and Hailey plenty of time to snuggle a little bit longer in bed before Jay got up and left the house to head home for his morning routine before work. This particular morning, as per usual, they were lying side by side in Hailey's bed facing each other, still groggy but making the most of the limited private time they had left together, sneaking kisses and just otherwise chatting as they always had. Jay was running his hand up and down her side, smiling as she was telling him a random story that had popped into her head about her patrol days, when suddenly they heard the patter of feet coming down the hall. Before they had any time to react, Hailey's bedroom door burst open and Ellie came running over to the bed. Hailey spun quickly to face the little girl, sitting up in time to catch the five year old as she jumped up onto the bed.

"Mama, I had a bad dream," Ellie said as soon as she was in her mother's arms. The girl was still sleepy-eyed, her hair a mess as she cuddled against her mom's chest.

"It's okay, why don't you tell me what happened," Hailey said, rubbing Ellie's back soothingly as she held her. As Ellie started to talk about her dream, Hailey glanced over her shoulder at Jay. He was lying stock still in the bed, the covers pulled up to his nose, trying to hide himself. Hailey almost laughed at the sight but she kept it together, gesturing for him to go while Ellie was distracted and snuggled into her.

Jay slid delicately out of the bed, picking his jeans up off the floor and pulling them on over his boxers. He gathered the rest of his clothes and started creeping towards the door, deciding he could get dressed the rest of the way downstairs. He made it to the threshold of the door before he was caught, Ellie's words suddenly changing from finishing telling her mom about her dream.

"Jay, where are you going?" Ellie's little voice suddenly asked. Jay's head snapped around to see she was still cuddled against her mother but her eyes were open and watching him in the doorway.

"Ugh, I've gotta go home, squirt," Jay replied, glancing up at Hailey. He knew they were in it now. They couldn't brush this off like he hadn't just been caught in Hailey's room. "I've got to get ready for work."

"Did you and Mama have another sleepover?" Ellie asked innocently.

"Uh, mm-hmm," Jay replied, not knowing what else to say.

"Are you going to sleep over again tonight?" Ellie asked.

"I don't know, Ellie," Jay said, wishing Hailey would jump in. She seemed equally as unsure of how to handle this situation.

"Why, baby?" Hailey finally asked the little girl.

"We haven't made a fort yet," Ellie said quietly, and Jay was suddenly reminded of their conversation around the fourth of July when he had promised the girl that could have a fort sleepover in the living room. Endeared by the shyness of the little girl, Jay strode back over towards the bed, squatting down in front of his two favorite blondes.

"Tell you what, how about tonight after mommy and I are done with work, we pick up a pizza, build a huge fort in the living room, and watch whatever movie you want?" Jay asked her. "As long as mommy's okay with that."

"Can we, Mama?" Ellie asked, excitedly, sitting up and turning to look at Hailey.

"Sure, baby," Hailey said, smiling down at her daughter's excitement.

"And can we all have a sleepover in the fort?" Ellie continued, her face glowing.

"Absolutely," Jay replied, always so willing to give her everything she asked for.

Ellie clapped and grinned, kissing her mother on the cheek before sliding down off the bed, kissing Jay, and then running out of the room saying something about drawing what the fort would look like. Hailey shook her head, heaving a happy sigh at her daughter's retreating back before looking back down at Jay.

"You spoil her," Hailey scolded him, though she couldn't rid the smile from her face.

"What can I say? I've got a weakness for blondes, especially of the Upton variety," Jay said with a smirk as he stood back up.

Hailey laughed, running a hand through her messy blonde curls and watched as he pulled his shirt on over his head. Once he was fully dressed, he clicked the screen on his phone to check the time before shoving it into his pocket.

"I should go," Jay said. "The team will definitely suspect something if I'm late."

"No offense, but I'm pretty sure it's too late for that," Hailey replied, and it was true. Neither Jay or Hailey's behavior had changed at work, except for maybe a subtle glance here or there, but Hailey couldn't help but notice that Kim, Kevin, and Adam seemed to be studying to two of them every time they interacted. It was like they were looking for some sort of confirmation of their suspicions that the two of them were more than just partners. Ordinarily Hailey would have been adamant that they not find out, and while she still had no plans to come out and tell the team that she and Jay were an item, she found herself not really caring if they ultimately found out.

"Ehh, you're probably right, but it's kind of amusing to keep them guessing," Jay said, voicing Hailey's own thoughts on the matter despite the fact that they had never discussed it. Hailey laughed again as Jay stooped to kiss her one more time before they would have to spend the next ten to twelve hours as professional partners. "See you at work."

"I'll bring coffee," Hailey offered, and Jay smiled at the promise as he left the room.

All things considered, their workday was not terrible. They caught a drug case so they were forced to take their coffee and muffins on the go, eating in the truck as they drove to a scene. From that point on, the day was pretty much go go go, spent talking to CIs, gathering information, and trying to line up a buy bust. A meeting that a CI had lined up with a dealer ultimately fell through, so Voight dismissed them for the day around seven o'clock, all of them aware that they would be coming in to work again the next day to continue the case. They were all grateful that they had at least had the entire previous weekend off since it looked like they would be working straight through this one.

Despite the exhaustion of the day and another long day hanging over their heads, Jay and Hailey knew their night was not over. So when they left the district, Jay headed to pick up the pizza while Hailey headed to pick up Ellie, meeting thirty minutes later back at the house. Ellie greeted Jay eagerly at the door, gushing about how she had already gathered all the blankets from all over the house for them to use to build their fort. Ellie was typically a decent eater, but tonight it was a struggle to get her to eat two pieces of pizza. She was too excited for what was to come to focus on food, and Hailey was too tired from the week to fight with her about it, so she gave up, knowing she could try again in a little while once the fort was built.

Hailey was quite glad that Jay was there to help as Hailey had never in her life built a blanket fort before, her childhood obviously drastically different from most. Jay knew all the tricks for how to tuck the blankets tightly so the blankets wouldn't fall down, even tying some of the blanket edges together to stretch the fort so it was not only covering the couch, but the entire area rug of the living room. Once the fort was erected, they gathered the extra blankets and pillows and set them all up under the blanket canopy on the ground in preparation for the movie. Ellie was beside herself with glee as she lay on the ground next to Jay, babbling about how this was the biggest fort she had ever seen and how Owen was going to be so jealous when he saw it the next day.

"Come on, Mama, come sit with us," Ellie called to Hailey who was still standing outside the fort. She was gathering the remote and popcorn for the movie.

"Okay, hang on," Hailey replied, handing the popcorn bowl to Jay as she crawled into the fort. She cuddled into the blankets next to Ellie, Jay on the girl's other side. She pressed play on the chosen movie, tonight it was a Disney classic, The Little Mermaid. Ellie sang along to most of the songs, engrossed from the second the movie started. Hailey was surprised to even see Jay's head bopping along to some of the classics like "Under the Sea" while he munched on popcorn. At some point Hailey found herself getting really hooked into the movie she hadn't seen since her own childhood, so by the time the credits were rolling and she looked over at Jay, she had no idea how long he had been asleep. But asleep he was, cuddled into the blankets on his side, a hand poking out under the pillow Ellie had her head on next to him.

Ellie seemed to have already been aware that Jay was asleep, as she looked up at her mother and made a shushing motion with her finger. Hailey nodded in response, shutting off the tv and tossing the spilled popcorn into the nearly empty bowl before setting it aside. She glanced at her phone, making sure she had an alarm set for the morning before also putting that to the side.

"Do you want to go put your pajamas on?" Hailey whispered to the little girl.

"Can we sleep down here with Jay?" Ellie whispered back.

Hailey nodded, knowing this sleepover aspect had been the part Ellie had been looking forward to the most. Her smile told her all she needed to know. Very quietly, Ellie and Hailey crawled out of the fort and hurried up the stairs to change into pajamas. Hailey quickly swapped her jeans and flannel for her standard t-shirt and soffe shorts before heading down to Ellie's room to make sure she hadn't gotten distracted. She was already mostly changed, her clothes from the day strewn across the floor. Hailey scooped them up and put them in the laundry basket, knowing she needed to work on getting Ellie to do that but knowing tonight would not be that night.

"Mama, Jay doesn't have his pajamas on," Ellie said sweetly when she had finished changing.

"That's okay, honey, we don't want to wake him for that," Hailey told her. "You know me and Jay have to work in the morning."

"Yeah," Ellie responded sadly. She didn't like weekends when Intelligence had to work. Hailey always felt bad about the lack of free time she had to spend with the little girl, especially when she looked as depressed about it as she did now.

"I'm sorry, baby," Hailey apologized. "At least you have this cool fort now to play with Owen in. And we get to sleep in it tonight so that's pretty cool."

"Mama, can we keep the fort forever?" Ellie asked, her previous sadness quickly fading.

"Well, at some point we'll need our living room back, but you can at least keep it up for the weekend," Hailey agreed, which seemed to be enough for Ellie. "Come on, we better get back to Jay so he doesn't get lonely."

"Yeah, he might get scared," Ellie agreed, and hurried from the room. Hailey followed behind her, turning off the lights as she went. When they got downstairs, Ellie quickly crawled into the fort while Hailey took a few extra minutes to get rid of the popcorn bowl and put the leftover pizza in the fridge. After everything was sufficiently tidied up for the night, Hailey returned to the fort to find Ellie had cuddled herself ridiculously close into Jay's side, so close that Hailey was surprised he hadn't woken up. He was a light sleeper in her limited experience. As Hailey cuddled in on the little girl's other side, she was proven correct in her assumption when she saw Jay's eyes crack open to look at her. He didn't say anything, just stared for a moment with a sleepy smile on his face, before extending the arm that was slightly draped over Ellie to now drape over both the little girl and her mother. It was in that position that the three of them fell asleep.

When Hailey woke up to her alarm the next morning, she rolled over to find a different site than what she remembered falling asleep to. While Hailey had shifted away from Jay in her sleep, her daughter had done quite the opposite. Jay was now lying on his back, and Ellie had climbed up onto him, so her head was on his chest and her feet reached to just below his knees. Hailey was sure she should have rolled off, but Jay's hand on her back kept her in place. Her eyes moved up from her daughter's face to her partner's to find he was already awake. He was smiling as he looked over at her, his hand on Ellie's back running absentmindedly through the ends of her blonde curls.

"Successful fort sleepover?" Hailey asked, returning his smile and reaching out a hand towards the two of them.

"The best," he said in response, and Hailey couldn't help but agree.

A/N: Short and fluffy with some much needed family time that you guys seemed to want. I probably won't get a chance to post again until late next week or maybe longer so I hope this tides you over until then. Please send me your reviews and ideas. They're the only way for me to know that you guys like this story enough for me to keep writing it. Happy reading!