We survived week one of the hiatus! And we've made it to Chapter 16! This chapter is a bit of a rollercoaster, so buckle up!

It's all going fine until the day that it isn't.

The change in their relationship almost feels like someone flipped a switch, that is how fast it happens. He wakes up in bed with Hailey on a Tuesday where she is not going into work, about three and a half weeks since their second first kiss, feeling like he is on cloud nine. She groans when he peels himself from the bed, trying to convince him that he should play hookie and that she should skip her session with Dr. Charles and her physical therapy appointment and they should just relax all day.

Everything in him wants to say yes, but a small rational voice in his head tells him he can't be late. That does not stop him from stealing a few more kisses from her before he goes to get ready for the work day.

Things were so good that morning and looking back, he wishes he had listened and played hookie and just stayed in bed with her all day.

That night, like most nights, he has plans to go by her place and have dinner and hopefully stay the night. But with a little over an hour left in the work day, his phone pings and he sees a text from Hailey.

Hails: Hey, PT was intense today and I'm really tired. Mind taking a rain check on dinner?

His heart sinks, but he knows that some days, the physical therapy and sessions with Doc Charles can be exhausting, so he understands that she needs her space and her rest.

Of course. Let me know if you need anything. I'll pick you up tomorrow?

It does not take long for his phone to ding again and this text is the one that lets him know something is off.

Actually, I think I'm gonna drive myself in tomorrow. I'll see you at work. Goodnight.

He tries to not read much into it, but he finds it strange that now, after several weeks of being back at work, she is deciding she is going to drive herself. He has been driving her to work every day since she came back to work. Hell, he was driving her to work half the time before they even started dating.

And even if she is tired from the PT, why would that make her want to drive herself into work the next day instead of having him come pick her up?

He tries to slow his mind, which is now running a mile a minute, and tell himself that he is just overthinking, that things are fine. There have been difficult days in her recovery and clearly, this is just another rough one.

Tomorrow she will come into work and things will be back to normal. He just has to wait until then.

Only, when she comes to work the next day, things are far from normal. She looks tired and she is distant and no matter how many times he asks her if she is okay, she just tells him that she is fine. She does not make eye contact with him all day and she does not kick him under the desks like she normally does.

And any overthinking that he tried to stop from engaging in last night is in full force today. For the past three and a half weeks, things have been going well, amazing actually. Since that first kiss in the field, they have been taking things at their own pace and figuring things out on their own time

He thinks back to a week and a half ago, when he stayed the night for the first time and how he woke her up with a slow kiss that grew frenzied and how they spent all day in bed, with roaming hands and curious touches and breathy moans between kisses.

"Was it always that good?" She asks him in the quiet afterglow, her head on his bare chest.

He hums knowingly, hooking his leg with hers under the blankets. "We never had too many issues in that department."

"Must be muscle memory then," She murmurs as she kisses the underside of his jaw. "Thank goodness I didn't lose that."

"It would be a shame," He whispers, turning to catch her lips with his. "We would probably have to practice to get to where we used to be."

"You know?" She asks cheekily, throwing her leg over his side to straddle his waist. "We could always practice now...just to be safe."

"Have I ever told you how brilliant you are?"

And since then, it's been good, simple, slowly finding their way back to each other in so many ways. It's been stolen kisses in the truck and hidden glances in the bullpen and it's been frenzied kisses and roaming hands at home.

It's been countless mornings of waking up with her, of going to bed with her, of finding that old rhythm they knew so well.

Everything up until yesterday was just so good. He can't think of what could have happened yesterday that would make her withdraw.

When he left her apartment yesterday morning, she was so happy. He remembers the way she teased him about how she was going to stay in bed and how he had to go to work.

"I get to stay in bed and bed is waaay more fun than anything you are going to do at work today."

"Don't remind me."

"You sure? I could remind you tonight if you want."

"I always want."

He remembers how she just watched him get ready and how she feigned annoyance when he accused her of checking him out.

"You checking me out, Upton."

"You wish."

"Not the first time you've checked me out. It's okay if you find me hot."

"Once again, keep dreaming, Halstead."

"Pretty sure one of the first things you said when you woke up in the hospital was that you found me hot."

"Yeah, well, I just hit my head. I didn't know what I was talking about."

"Hmm, sure."

He remembers how she happily kissed him goodbye and whispered that she would see him that night.

"Dinner tonight?"

"You know it."

"Be safe out there, okay?"

"For you? Anything. I'll see you tonight, Hailey."

"See you tonight."

Then he left for work and his next interaction with her was the text telling him not to come over. So, something must have happened at the hospital.

Did something happen during her session with Doctor Charles? Did she have a setback in physical therapy? Did someone say something to her in the hallway?

It was not like Hailey to withdraw without a reason. She is not one to just ignore him purely for the sake of ignoring him. He can only think of a handful of times during their relationship that she's really shut him out like this, but she's always opened up eventually. And not once since losing her memories has she pushed him away like this.

He spends the work day a little too focused on what could possibly be going on with her. He runs through every possible scenario and explanation in his head and every time he comes up blank. He tells himself that he will talk to her the minute they are out of work, but alas, she had other plans.

Jay and Kim go out to interview a witness for a case they are working on a little after 4:30 in the afternoon. By the time they get back to the bullpen, not even an hour later, Kevin tells them that Hailey has gone home for the day.

The minute Voight lets them go for the night, he wastes no time in rushing to his truck and driving across town to Hailey's apartment. He has already lost so much with her, so he is not going to waste any more time. Whatever happened, whatever he did, he is going to fix it, or at the very least, he is going to damn well try.

By the look on her face when she opens her apartment door that night, Jay knows Hailey was expecting him. She silently opens the door to let him in, staring at the ground as he walks in. He comes to stand in the middle of the room and just stares at her, waiting for her to break the silence, but she doesn't.

"Hailey, did I do something?" He starts, uneasiness in his voice. "Or did something happen? Because I thought things were going well."

"They were," She says gently. "They are. I just...I just needed space and I should have said something. I'm sorry I worried you."

He can tell she is not exactly telling the truth. There is more to it than her just needing space. She has that look in her eye, the look she gets when things are starting to become too overwhelming and she is starting to pull away.

"What happened?" He repeats his question, softly.

She sighs and steps past where he is standing, pulling out one of the seats at her kitchen island and sitting on the edge of the tall chair. Jay takes a step to the left so he can see her better but remains standing.

"I finish PT soon. And my memories still haven't come back," She breathes out. "I thought they would come back by now.

He studies her face intently and something about her words does not sit well with him. She might be the one who has a sixth sense about reading people, but he has that same ability when it comes to her. He knows when she is lying and right now, she is lying.

"That's not it," He says, mindful to keep any semblance of judgment out of his voice. He is calm as he looks at her, watching as she nervously bites her bottom lip. "You've been saying how excited you are to not have to go to physical therapy for weeks. You couldn't wait to be done."

Hailey glances away from him, focusing her attention on the floor, and Jay can see tears start to form in her eyes. He takes a step forward, still leaving a healthy amount of space between them, and whispers, "Hailey, what's going on?"

She groans from frustration and hops out of her chair, walking past him into the living room to pick something up off of the coffee table. He stays firmly planted in his spot near the counter, watching as she comes back to him and pushes the object into his hands.

"I found that while I was cleaning yesterday." She says, a bite in her voice as she stands in front of him, waiting for him to inspect the piece of paper she handed to him.

Jay looks down at the small piece of white notepad paper and he knows immediately what it is. He recognizes his handwriting and realizes it is one of the many notes he has left for her since they started dating.

It was never something he did in previous relationships. He thought it was cheesy and lame and he was never good with verbalizing his feelings. But with Hailey, he wanted her to know how much he loved her. She deserved to know the depths of his feelings, so he took to writing her little notes. Because even if he could not always find the spoken words to tell her all that she meant to him, the words were still there and she deserved to know them.

He glances up at her but she just stares at the crumpled piece of paper in his hands. With a sigh, he raises the note and reads it to himself.

Morning Beautiful,

I looked at the calendar this morning and realized it's been a month since you got your FBI job offer. I'm sure I've mentioned it, but I'm really happy you didn't take it. Thanks for staying and thanks for the best month of my life (cheesy I know, but it's true.) You are by far the greatest thing that has ever happened to me.

Love you more every day - J

He does not remember everything going through his head when he wrote this note, but he thinks he was rushing out of the apartment because he got a call from a CI. It was one of the rare mornings he did not get to spend with Hailey and he vaguely remembers complaining later in the day while they were doing surveillance in his truck that he was grumpy because he did not get his morning kiss.

Most of the memory is blurry, but he vividly remembers the way she rolled her eyes at that comment. She told him she found his note and tried to suppress the huge grin growing on her face. His favorite part of the memory is how she just reached over the center console and grabbed his hand, whispering "You're the best thing that's happened to me too."

But today, when she reads those words, they do not make her smile uncontrollably, eyes dazzling with happiness. Today her eyes are watering, and she looks angry and sad, and confused.

"Hail-"

"We had been together for a month and that's how we were talking," Her voice is a harsh whisper and he can tell she is choking back tears. "A month."

"So?"

"Jay, it's almost been a month now!" She reasons. "A month is way too fast to be talking like that...to feel like that and…"

"Hailey, we had known each other for four years before that," He tells her calmly. "It wasn't just a month."

"I know, I know," Her breath hitches and she quickly rubs at her eyes in an attempt to stop the tears that are forming. "But that's just it. You have four years of memories and I don't and-"

"Hailey-"

"I lost all of my memories, Jay." She cuts him off angrily. "Every single damn memory from the past few years. I don't remember you and that's not fair. This great thing, this great guy comes into my life and things are finally going right and I am happy and I get some stupid injury and I forget everything. It's not fair."

It's like all of the emotions, the anger, the sadness, the pain from the past few weeks has been boiling up and now it's hitting its tipping point. She worked so hard to make a happy life for herself and after the childhood she had, she deserved that more than anything. And she got it, only to then lose all of her memories.

She forgot the life she worked so hard to have and it is not fair.

His heart breaks and he has no clue what to say. Her eyes are red and she is breathless and it looks like at any moment, she could cry again. He wants to reach out and hold her but knows not to, that she needs her space. Everything in him wishes he could take this pain, that he could reverse their roles because she does not deserve this.

"The way you look at me," She whispers. "It scares me sometimes. Because you look at me with all of this love and I just...I just want to remember how we got here."

For a good minute, it is almost silent, the only sound that fills the apartment the soft sound of her tears. He just watches her, soft eyes following her as she tries to collect herself, as she tries to make sense of everything that has happened during the past few weeks.

"I'm sure I've told you about my parents...about my dad," Hailey continues. "I just don't get how the hell I go from seeing all of that...to this?"

It's a question he knows she has asked a million times since they first got together. How did she make things work when all she has ever known about love is that it causes pain? He remembers, even when they fell into a relationship so simply and they knew so deeply that this was it for them, she was still scared out of her mind that things would fall apart, that she would not know how to do this, that he would run.

He told her the same thing every time those fears crept in: "I love you, I want you, I'm not going anywhere. We will figure this out together."

And now, he wants to tell her that more than anything, but without her memories, he is not quite sure she will believe him.

"Hailey-"

"I don't know how to do relationships, Jay," She continues. "I never learned. And I get that I obviously learned at some point, but I don't remember. I don't know how I did it and I don't know how to keep doing it. I'm at the same point I was seven years ago. Back then, I couldn't have a healthy relationship to save my life."

Her breathing starts to slow and she wipes at her tears with the back of her hand and everything just feels motionless for a minute as he waits for her to continue.

"I'm so scared of ruining this," She says in a small voice. "I'm so scared of getting hurt and I just...I don't know."

"Tell me what you need, Hailey," He takes a small step forward, thankful when she doesn't step away.

"I think I need some time," She breathes out, the words sounding like they are not even fully formed in her mind. "Everything is just happening so quickly and…"

"It's a lot," He finishes her thought gently.

She nods, tears starting to well in her eyes again. "It is not that I don't want this...but I think we need to be real with ourselves. The memories might not come back...and if they don't it's not like we can just pick up where we left off, you know?

He doesn't know how to respond, because some part of him, deep down, knows she is right. They can't keep banking on the memories coming back and they can't ignore the fact that she is missing so much of her life. She is still very much in a state where she does not know anything good about love. She does not have four years worth of memories where Jay showed her how much he cared, how many times he would choose her. She is missing the memories of the times she showed him that very same love, where she continued to put him first, where she proved to herself she was capable and deserving of a happy ending.

"Then we don't pick up where things left off," He says softly. "We do things at our own pace. We figure this out together."

She looks up at him with glassy eyes and he can tell that she wants to believe him, but she is not quite ready.

"And if I need things to slow down?"

He knows what she is really asking. What if she can't do this? What if she needs things to stop? What if the fears are too big and the pain is too real and she can't quite get back to where she used to be?

He does not want to believe that is true, but even if it is, he will still love her. He won't stop loving her and he won't stop waiting until she is ready.

"I'll follow you."

He remembers telling her that in a car after Cameron died and he remembers telling her that in this very apartment, just a few weeks ago when she asked if they could take this day by day and give her the chance to let her get to know him. Following her has never failed him before, so now, even if it might hurt, he will do it again.

However, this time when he tells her those words, there is a small look of hesitation on her face.

"It's not that I don't want this," She says again. "I just...I just have so much going on and there is so much to figure out and it's overwhelming and…" Her voice trails off.

"You don't have to apologize, Hailey. Not with me." He tells her. "I get it. I really do."

"You're not mad at me?"

He chuckles lightly, "Never."

There is the faintest hint of a smile on her face at his words. "Thank you, Jay."

They stand there in silence for a moment, both knowing what inevitably happens next. Jay needs to go home and Hailey has to figure out for herself what she wants and how she moves forward. She needs to do that without the pressures of a previous relationship and everyone telling her who she is.

"Just give me some time to think...to figure out everything that's going on," She says in a small voice. "I promise you, we'll talk, I just-"

She needs time. It hurts, but he gets it. He really does.

"Whenever you're ready," He says. "Take as much time as you need."

"Thank you," She says, pausing for a moment as she nervously shifts her weight on the balls of her feet. "It's getting late and I'm pretty tired. Long day, you know?"

"Yeah,"

There is another pause as they just look at each other, neither of them wanting to move before Jay finally breaks their trance and starts to move to the door.

"Jay?" She calls out, making him turn around.

"Yeah?"

"I really am sorry."

He just shakes his head with a sad smile. "We're good, Hailey. I promise."

He leaves her apartment that night more confused than he has been in weeks. He is not quite sure where they left things, other than her needing time and space to figure things out. He can't be mad at her, because he knows that this all must be so overwhelming. She is trying to build a new life while simultaneously trying to remember her old life.

She's told him in the past about her father. She's told him what he did and how it affected her. Even though he has told her so many memories of her life, the ones that still stick with her are her childhood. That pain, that fear, it does not go away no matter how many happy stories Jay tells her.

He sits alone in his truck for a while, not ready to go home. His apartment is quiet and empty and it's not really home because home is wherever Hailey is.

And for the first time since long before she kissed him in that field, he cries. Tears spill out of his eyes because he misses her because this is just not fair and it's not the way things were supposed to go, because he is scared that things might never get back to where they are supposed to be.

For the past few weeks, he has had so much faith that they could figure things out, that they could make this work like they make everything work, but right now, he just does not know how any of that is possible.

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