SHE REMEMBERS! The excitement and reception to the last chapter is so incredibly appreciated! Chapter 21 is one of my personal favorites, so I hope you enjoy!
The rest of the phone call, leaving the station, the drive over to the hospital, it's all a blur. Jay loses his ability to focus after the words "she remembers" fall from Will's lips. His mind can't think about anything. He does not think about the past three months, and he can't think about what this means for the future. All he can think about is getting across town and finding Hailey.
He must look like a mad man as he runs through the hospital, desperately weaving in between people on his quest to make it to the third floor where Will told him he would be. If it were not for the fact that he is a cop and most of the hospital staff knows him, he probably would have gotten himself kicked out with his behavior, but he can't find it in himself to care.
Jay practically tackles his brother when he sees him, not even noticing that he is in the middle of a conversation with Doc Charles. The older man seems slightly amused, but Jay does not even process it, hyper-focused on his mission.
"Where's Hailey?"
"Jay, breathe," Will tells him, putting a hand on his brother's arm to ground him.
"Where is she?" He repeats frantically.
"Detective," Doctor Charles cuts in with a calm, soothing voice. "It might be good to take a breath before you go see her. I know you are excited, but it has been a pretty emotionally taxing day for her."
Jay takes a step back, Will's hand falling from his arm, and he does as the doctor suggests, taking a few deep breaths to calm himself down. "What happened? How did she...when-"
He can't string together a coherent sentence, but Doctor Charles still somehow gets the gist of what he is asking.
"We had a session this morning. We were talking about work and how she wanted to go back into the field. She was saying that she wanted to be your partner again."
The man shoots Jay a reassuring smile when he says the last part and Jay feels his body relax, just a little.
"She said something about having your six? And then she just kept repeating it. Got your six. Got your six" Doc Charles repeats the phrase. "Does that mean something to you?"
Jay lets out a breath, mouth slightly agape as he looks up at Doc Charles with wide eyes. "Got your six. It means 'got your back.' It's what we say to each other when we go out into the field."
Doctor Charles hums with this information. "She kept repeating it for a good minute. It was very different from how she normally acts in our sessions, so I started asking her some questions. Thought something might have gotten shaken loose in her head."
Got your six. It's what he has said to her countless times in the field when he has needed her to know that he had her back and that he always would. It's what was written on the back of the picture he gave Hailey to prove to her that she did figure out the whole relationship thing and that she could do it again.
And now, it's the thing that brought her back to him, that made her remember her life and their relationship and him.
"So, it all came back then?" Jay asks in disbelief.
"Not quite." The older man says with a chuckle. "I sat with Hailey for close to six hours, just talking. The more we talked, the more that came back. I only slipped out a half hour ago because it seemed like Hailey needed a break."
"I didn't know what was happening," Will pipes in. "The nurses weren't sure what was going on either, but they told me that Hailey had been in there for a while. I would have called you earlier if I knew."
Jay silently waves his hand at his brother. He doesn't care about any of that right now. He does not care about anything besides the fact that she remembers him.
"So, how much of it is back?" Jay asks in a quiet voice. He's waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the doctor to say that she doesn't remember the big things or that she doesn't remember him.
But for the first time in three months, the other shoe doesn't drop.
"Enough of it." The psychiatrist answers simply. "She remembers you and her time in Intelligence and all of her team members. She was able to recall several specific autobiographical memories, which was promising. There still might be some memories that are gone, but they should come back with time. The major memories are back though."
The major memories are back
She remembers you
Selfishly, the rest of the doctor's explanation goes in one ear and out the other. Jay can think about that all later, but right now, he is obsessed with the fact that she remembers him.
She knows who he is.
She remembers how they met. How they fell in love. That they are in love.
She remembers it all.
"Can I see her?" He asks, the impatience clear in his voice.
"Yes," Doc Charles says with a smile. "She was asking for you. I do have to warn you, though. It has been a long day for her. So, go slow."
Jay nods wildly, following his brother and the doctor to a nearby small conference room that the hospital sometimes uses to talk to patient's families. The blinds are closed and the door is left slightly ajar. Doc Charles moves to the side, opening the door for Jay and smiling at him before he closes it to give the two detectives some privacy.
For a moment, Jay can't say anything. He just stares at her. She is sitting at the other end of the table, in a blue flannel with her long hair down, such a normal Hailey look, but he swears she has never looked more beautiful. He knows her memories being back cannot actually change her physical appearance but knowing that she remembers again after all of these weeks, it makes her more breathtaking than he can even explain.
"You going to come say hi or...?" Her sarcastic voice breaks him from his trance, and he can't help but smile.
"The doctors said to go slow."
"Oh, so now you're gonna start listening to the doctors?"
By the way she smiles and the way she teases him, he knows that what he is about to do next is more than welcome. She is barely out of her seat by the time he has made his way across the room, and he is wrapping his arms around her waist, spinning her around in circles. Her happy laughter fills the room as she throws her hands around his neck to steady herself. He lets a hand cup the back of her head, getting lost in her blonde locks and he soaks up the feeling that is her, the way she laughs, and the way her body radiates against his.
It feels like years have passed by the time he puts her down. He runs his hands down her arms, inspecting her as if at any second, she is going to disappear. Hailey just chuckles, a warm smile on her face, clearly amused by his behavior.
"You remember?" He asks quietly, nervous that if he says it out loud, he will wake up and this will all be a dream.
A scrunchy face smile grows on her face, her dimples popping out in the way he loves. "I do."
"What do you remember?" It comes out as a breathless question as he takes a step closer to her, his hands still holding her arms.
"You. Intelligence, the team, Robbery-Homicide. All of it."
"Really?"
"Yeah," Hailey nods.
"What happened?" He asks and Hailey shakes her head lightly.
"Couldn't tell you," She replies with a chuckle. "One minute I'm complaining about how Voight won't let me back out into the field and the next, I'm blabbering like an idiot."
"Got your six." He voices her thoughts, making her smile.
"Got your six," She repeats quietly. "I don't know why that knocked something loose, but it did. I kept saying that over and over and then I started remembering some of the times we said it to each other. I remembered different cases we worked together, and I remembered saying that the morning of the accident."
It was the last thing they said to each other before the bomb went off, the last words that fell from his lips before he was yelling her name, praying that she was alive. But now, when the words come out, they aren't followed by disaster. This time, she is still okay.
"Then what did you remember?" He asks and she chuckles at his enthusiasm. She removes his hands from her arms and grasps them in her hands.
"Doc Charles figured out what was going on at that point, so he started asking questions. He asked who I would go on these cases with and what I remembered about them."
"What did you tell him?" Jay asks quietly.
"I told him that you were my partner, and we would go into all those dangerous situations together. I remembered how you had my back. I remembered how we worked together. And I remembered how after work, we would do our thing."
"Then what happened?"
"He asked me to tell him a story about you that you didn't tell me after the accident. I think he was worried that I was just reciting a bunch of old stories you had told me after my memory loss," Hailey explains, looking up at him with hopeful eyes. "It took me a minute because all of my thoughts were super scrambled at that point. I couldn't figure out which memories were stories you told me and what I was actually remembering."
"What did you end up telling him?"
"I told him about the case with Latrell. It was the first thing I remembered that I knew you had not told me. I couldn't remember us ever talking about it, but I knew what happened with the case. I told him how I remembered being really worried about you."
That entire case, Jay was on edge. It was clear to Hailey that the case was bringing up some unresolved feelings he had about his own history with his father. Jay remembers how she supported him through that case, consistently checking in on him and making sure he was not spiraling.
"And then what?" Jay asks.
Hailey lets out a light sigh. "He just kept asking for more stories. He wanted to see how far back I could remember, so he kept asking for stories that were a little bit older. So, I told him about when you picked me up from the airport after I got back from New York and then I told him about when we got shot at in the surveillance van...and then I told him about the Booth case and the first time we did our thing."
He thinks back to all those memories, stories from their past that he somehow did not end up telling Hailey throughout the past few weeks and he can't help but smile at each one of them, thinking how each played such an important part in their story.
"After that, he started asking me questions about other people besides you," She continues, a teasing smirk on her face that he desperately wants to kiss away, but he needs to hear the rest of her story. "So, I started telling him things I remembered about the team. I told him about living with Vanessa and hanging out with Kim and Makayla. I even told him one or two memories I have from when I was with Adam because I knew there was no way that those were stories you told me-"
He laughs at her lame attempt at a joke, and she smiles wildly at him. "I mean, that was most of the day. He just kept asking me more questions, wanted to see how many different people I could remember and how many specific details and all that."
"Sounds exhausting," Jay comments.
"It was," She tells him. "But at the same time...it was nice remembering something. It wasn't just a story someone was telling me. I actually remembered all of these things."
"Did you tell him about us?" Jay asks, in a hopeful whisper, watching as Hailey's smile grows.
"Are you asking if I told him or if I remember?" She asks him in a low tone and Jay shrugs, nonchalantly, making Hailey laugh.
"I told him about us being partners. Figured the rest of it he didn't really need to know." She pauses, looking up at him with a flirtatious look before slowly saying "But I do remember all of that."
It's the way that she emphasizes the last word, the way she bites her lip to keep from laughing that gets him to smile, a dopey grin that spreads across his face. "Yeah?"
"Yup," She pops the "p", looking up at him with a large smile. "All the important things."
"Probably should tell me about them," Jay murmurs in a low tone. "Just to make sure the memories are really back."
"Okay," Hailey hums. For a moment, she pretends to think, cocking her head to the side before she looks back at him with a fake "aha" face. "I remember stealing your pens."
He rolls his eyes at her, but he can't suppress his amusement."Anything more important than that?"
She inches closer, even though there is barely any space between them to begin with. "I remember when you kissed me at Cork and Kerry. I spent the whole night thinking neither of us was going to make a move. And then the first thing I said after you kissed me was 'finally.'"
He smiles, remembering back to how he laughed at her little comment, and then, he was tugging on her hand, pulling her out of the bar, feeling ecstatic that finally finally happened.
"And I remember the first time we woke up together," Hailey continues. "We wanted to play hooky that day. I remember the first time we said 'I love you' and we danced in the kitchen. And I remember that we were going to move in together."
"That's a lot," Jay murmurs softly. "Remember anything else?"
Her smile grows, the corners of her lips reaching up towards her ear. "I remember that you love cuddling, but you don't want anyone to know it because it will ruin your tough-guy reputation. And you're secretly like the biggest dork ever. And you pretend to hate when I call you adorable, but I'm pretty sure you secretly love it."
Jay laughs, shaking his head at her never-ending humor, but all of her memories are correct. Because he normally is a tough guy, but with her, he can't help but always want to hold her tight. And maybe he's pretty serious, but there's something about her that makes him act like a fool. And in the past, the word adorable might be annoying to him, but when the word falls from her lips, it makes him smile.
"I remember the morning I got hurt," She continues, lowering her voice. "I remember waking up together and how you tried to convince me that we had enough time to shower together. And I remember how we drove to work together even though we normally take separate cars because you were successful in convincing me we had enough time to shower together."
"But I was wrong," Jay chuckles, remembering that was exactly what Hailey said when they got out of the shower and noticed the time on the clock.
Hailey shrugs with a soft laugh. "In hindsight, I guess being late wasn't such a big deal."
Silence lulls over them as her laughter fades and Jay just looks at Hailey. She's here. She's real. She remembers. He feels like at any moment, he could wake up because it all feels too good to be true for it not to be a dream. It's what he has been wanting and waiting to happen for weeks now and finally, it's here.
"What's it like?" He asks, squeezing her hand. "Remembering after three months?
"Amazing," She says with a breathy laugh. "Super overwhelming, not gonna lie. But...I've wanted so much to remember, and I honestly did not know if it was going to happen. I'm relieved. I get my life back. I get-" She pauses and looks up at him with a shy smile. "I get this back."
"I mean, you would have had this without your memories," He jokes, and she lets go of his hand to lightly swat his shoulder.
"You know what I mean."
"Yeah, I do," He smiles at her, grabbing her hand again. "I would have been okay no matter what happened, but I'm not gonna lie and say I'm not happy that you remember me."
She remembers him. After all of this time, she remembers him. She knows more than just his name and what he does for work. She remembers when they first met, how awkward and hard it was those first few months. She remembers the first time they did their thing and how that was such a bittersweet moment, such a turning point for them and their partnership.
She remembers growing closer and starting to develop feelings for him and being wildly confused about what those feelings meant and how she was going to navigate them. She remembers him being shot and her going to New York and every moment in between.
He smiles when he thinks about how she remembers him kissing her in the bar and he hopes she remembers the butterflies they both felt that night and the way he looked at her as they slipped out of that bar.
There are so many memories after that first kiss that she lost that he knows she now has back. That first morning, their first date, their first "I love you." She remembers the big things, like celebrating their six-month anniversary and all of the quiet moments, like slow lazy weekends. She remembers it all.
"Of course I remember you," She fills the silence, smiling up at him. "I love you."
He stares at her intently, soaking up her words, the way they roll off her lips sounding so familiar. It's been three months since she said those three little words to him and hearing them again feels like a drink of water after suffering from thirst in the hot desert. Her words make him feel whole again.
"Say it again," He breathes out.
After all of this time, he needs to hear it again. He needs to know it's real.
"I love you."
She loves him. She remembers him and she loves him.
Every time he imagined this moment, he knew he would be overjoyed when she remembered, but he could not even imagine how good this moment would truly feel. Knowing that she loves him, that she once again understands the true depth of his feelings for her, of the connection that they have formed, it is overwhelming in the most wonderful of ways.
Hearing those three little words again after three long months leaves him speechless, so he just snakes his arm around her and leans down to kiss her. He pours every ounce of what he is feeling into the kiss, letting his free hand cup her cheek to hold her close. She pushes herself up on her toes and traces his lower lip with her tongue, hungry for more after all they have been through.
Her right hand is clenching the hem of his shirt while her left traces its way down his chest and she lets out a small, breathy moan. He can't help but smile against her kiss because they are full-on making out in a hospital conference room, but he does not care. He can't even begin to explain the way that kissing her right now, knowing that she remembers him and that she loves him, invigorates his soul in a way he did not know was possible.
When they separate, they are both breathless and wild-eyed. It almost feels like that first kiss back in the bar, with both of them knowing that this kiss is the first step of the next chapter in their story.
He pulls her close, pressing a long, soft kiss to her forehead as she wraps her arms around his waist tightly. He lets his arms envelop her body, holding her close against him and he whispers, "I love you."
He does not know how long they stand there, wrapped up in their own little world of each other, both whispering "I love you" against the other's skin. Jay is incredibly thankful that the blinds are shut and the doors are closed as he relishes in her embrace, his hands rubbing her back as she nuzzles her head deeper into the space between his chin and shoulder.
After a long while, she slightly leans back in his embrace, just enough that he can see her face. "Wanna go home?"
Jay nods, pressing another quick kiss to her lips. As they untangle themselves from each other, he instinctively grabs her hand, not even caring that they are about to walk through a hospital of people who know them and will probably say something later. They stop and talk with Will and Doc Charles for a minute, the latter telling Hailey that he will call Hailey later in the week to schedule a follow-up session to see how she is doing. Will tells them to enjoy their night, shooting his brother a knowing look, but Jay can't find it in himself to be phased by his brother's teasing.
They walk out of the hospital, hand in hand, both of them smiling like idiots. The minute they are out the door, the brisk Chicago air hits their faces and it makes him realize that this is not a dream. She actually remembers and things are actually going to be okay.
"Feels very different than every other time we left this hospital," She says with a chuckle, swinging their intertwined hands gently as they walk to his truck.
"Yeah, and why's that?"
She smiles at him, knowing that he knows exactly what she is getting at, but he just wants to hear it. "Well, when you got shot, I didn't tell you about my feelings. And then, when I left the hospital a few months ago, I didn't remember you. But this time, we both know about each other's feelings and actually remember them."
He laughs a little at the way she explains it, but it's true. This is the first time he is not leaving this hospital disappointed. The first time, after he got shot and she almost confessed her feelings in his hospital room, he left disappointed because he was an idiot. Something deep in him knew what she was about to say, and he ruined their moment. And, three months ago when they left the hospital after the bombing, he was disappointed because her memories still had not come back.
But today, he is anything but disappointed.
He tugs on her hand, stopping their movement and gently pulling her towards him on the sidewalk. Releasing his grip on her hand, he cups her face, tilting her chin up so she can look at him. "I loved you when I got shot and I loved you when you got released from the hospital," He tells her in a quiet, but sure voice. "Now, the only difference is I somehow love you more than I did back then."
"I love you too, Jay," She smiles up at him. "Always have and I always will."
She is only a few inches from his, looking up at him with that signature smile and those dazzling blue eyes. It amazes him how strong this woman is. He thinks of all she has survived, all she has accomplished, and his heart beats wildly with pride.
He looks at her and he knows that she is it for him. She is his world, his everything. Seeing her here on this sidewalk, knowing she remembers him, he can't help but see their future. A happy life filled with a house and kids and being disgustingly happy for the rest of their lives.
The same thoughts must be going on in her head because she takes a step closer and wraps her hand around his neck, pulling him down to kiss her on the sidewalk. It's short and it's sweet and he can feel her smile against his kiss as he pulls her close yet again. As she pulls away, he lets his lips chase after hers, catching one more kiss before she leans back to look at him.
"Always," He whispers.
"Always." She repeats softly, grabbing his hand and holding it tight in hers. "I like the sound of that."
He tugs on her hand gently, leading her the rest of the way to the truck, never letting go of her hand in the process. Jay opens the passenger door for her, but before she can hop in, he turns her around, brushing a strand of hair out of her face and just gazing at her.
"What?" She questions softly, but he shakes his head, too overwhelmed to find the words to voice his thoughts.
She's alive and she's here and she remembers, and he thinks there will never be a time where any of those things do not make him want to cry with joy.
He kisses her forehead before resting his forehead against hers, cradling her head in his hand as he whispers, "Just a happy memory."
She smiles, large and wild, and he can tell happy tears are beginning to form in her eyes.
"A really happy memory," she breathes out.
He can't help but kiss her again, and this time, he doesn't think about all of the memories or the past twelve weeks. This time, he does not think at all, he just feels. He feels her lips against his and her hand against his chest, right over his heart, and he feels her love for him. The fact that she knows she loves him and she understands how deeply he loves her.
It's the greatest feeling he has ever experienced.
Reviews?
See you next week for Chapter 22!