Hi friends! Thanks so much for taking the time to read this – it's my first attempt at an Upstead fic. It's already up on Tumblr and AO3, but I thought I'd post it here too, so you'll be getting the first few chapters all at once. Please feel free to share any thoughts you may have :) Hope you enjoy.
"I can't show up looking like this. Not without giving her any warning."
Hailey waved her hand around, referencing her face as she spoke. The entire left side of it was destroyed: bruised, bloodied, and butterfly bandaged. There was a chance that the sight would be too much for even the strongest, yet still unsuspecting nine year old — let alone a whole school full of elementary-aged kids.
This was maybe one of the hardest parts about being both a Chicago cop and a mom, Hailey thought, as she slumped down in the chair at her desk. There were a number of injuries she endured on the job that she could conceal from her kid. Unfortunately, there seemed to be a hell of a lot more that she could not.
In addition to that, she hated lying — refused to 99.99% of the time. Sure, there were things that were inappropriate and/or quite literally too terrifying about her job for a little girl to know. Hailey had to be careful in how she chose to word her explanations most of the time. But protecting her daughter could be done without lying to her, and lying didn't always equate to protecting. Their bond was built on love and truth. She'd tell her what happened today, in time and in her own way, but the truth wasn't always a simple thing to break. Especially when half of it was quite literally written all over your face.
"I'll go then," Jay shrugged, watching as Hailey carefully covered her face with her hands, then almost immediately uncovered it.
"I can't ask you to do that, Jay."
"You're not." His smile started in his eyes before making its way to the rest of his face. "I'm offering."
Hailey softened, tilting her head to the side as she looked at him; a momentary, reflective pause.
"Go home – shower. We'll pick up a pizza or something on the way back."
"Are you sure?" Hailey asked, serious. She wasn't one to outright ask favors of people, especially not when it came to her kid. She'd managed as an eighteen year old how to make life work as a single mom on her own; she managed now just as fine. Most of the time.
"Positive." Jay told her in response. And he was.
"Thank you," Hailey said, genuine, blowing out a heavy sigh. Jay grabbed his coat and his keys, preparing to leave. "Remember, she's allerg—"
"Allergic to mushrooms and pineapples," Jay interjected, still grinning. "I know. And I've got the password up here," he added, pointing to his forehead.
"Right, you know," Hailey echoed, a hint of a smile gracing her own features as she watched him go.
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A nine year old in a Chicago Police Department sweatshirt had to be one of the cutest sights that Jay had ever seen. The big white letters against dark blue fabric made his partner's daughter stand out like a sore thumb amongst the sea of kids she was with — five year olds, six year olds, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven… The amount and various ages of tiny humans that stood before Jay was almost enough to make his head spin. The fact that his no-nonsense partner interacted with one of them on a daily basis made her seem kind of like a superhero, the way he saw it.
It wasn't that he wasn't good with kids; he was relatively great with them, actually. But there was something about Hailey having one that gave him a new perspective. At the end of the day, he went home to an empty house. His parter went home to a little girl who worshiped the ground she walked on; his partner was a small somebody's hero. A small somebody who's company he really happened to enjoy in the somewhat rare moments he got to spend with it. All of it made policing with Hailey feel… different. Jay felt a need to care for them both in a way that was almost stronger than anything he'd felt towards his previous partners. Like a bit of a gravitational pull he couldn't fully put into words.
"Who are you here for?" The sound of a fifty-something year old woman's voice broke Jay's train of thought, his eyes finding hers initially.
"Jordan Upton," he answered, watching as the woman who he presumed was some sort of aide or teacher do her due diligence of flipping through a binder of files until she landed on Jordan's. "I doubt I'm in there, her mom probably called—"
"I'll need your name and ID." She said, cutting him off.
"Jay Halstead," he said, flashing the card in his wallet.
The woman glanced at it before shutting the binder, handing him a pen, and directing him to clipboard. "Actually, you're her emergency contact. You can sign her out here."
Jay's eyes widened in surprise. Her emergency contact? That seemed to be a minor detail Hailey'd withheld, as it certainly wasn't one he'd forget. But he didn't question it, and instead filled out the paper on the table in front of him.
"Jordan," the woman called out, turning over her shoulder. "Jay's here to take you home."
Jordan twisted her torso in the small blue chair she was seated in about fifty feet away. Her eyebrows scrunched together in the center of her forehead as she automatically questioned, "Who?" Moments later, her eyes landed on him near the doorway: Jay, her mother's partner. "Oh," she added, indifferently, then turned back to the table and put a cap on the purple marker in her hand. Jay was here to pick her up, not her mom. The gears were already turning in her head.
It didn't take Jordan long to say bye to her friends and gather her belongings. As she made her way over to Jay, she stopped short of the sign-out table he was standing on the other side of. "Where's my mom?" She asked, scanning him from head to toe as if that'd give her a clue.
Jay stuffed his hands in his pockets casually. "She's meeting us at home."
Weird, Jordan thought, although not completely unusual. Sometimes her babysitter would pick her up, but most of the time Hailey'd give her warning. "Why?" She asked next, skeptical.
Jay inhaled a slow breath. "How about I tell you about it on the way?" He held a hand out for her backpack.
A flicker of a frown crossed Jordan's face as she glanced to his hand, then nodded, but remained standing where she was a moment longer. "Password first."
Jay hesitated again, but this time, out of slight, impending embarrassment. "Αλεξίσφαιρος," he attempted, in a low voice and very poorly. He watched Jordan raise her eyebrows at him, an expression that was pure Hailey, before breaking out into toothy grin.
"Your Greek is terrible," she commented, handing her backpack over finally.
"C'monnnn," Jay rolled his eyes playfully as Jordan walked towards him, ruffling her hair and following her lead out.
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"We have pizza, and we're almost home," Jordan prompted from the backseat of Jay's car. "Can you please tell me why my mom couldn't pick me up yet?"
Jay didn't have to glance in the rearview mirror in order to feel the small blonde's eyes on the back of his head. While he couldn't blame her for wanting an answer to what should be a fairly simple question, he kept his eyes fixed on the road as he turned down their street and came to a stop at the curb in front of their house. Questions like this rarely had simple answers when it came to his and Hailey's line of work, and he never wanted to overstep or say something Hailey might not want him to.
Shutting off the car, Jay twisted around in his seat to face Jordan. He could see right through the brave face she had on, the worry evident in her hazel-colored eyes. They didn't match her mother's, but Jay still always felt like he was staring into a smaller, more fragile version of Hailey's whenever he looked into them.
"Did she get hurt?" Jordan asked, right as Jay was opening his mouth to answer her first question.
"Yes," Jay answered honestly. "But she's gonna be totally fine. I promise."
Jordan considered this for a moment. Him promising held a lot of weight. "What kind of hurt?" She hesitated in between questions. "Like… shot?"
"No," Jay's response was quick and reassuring, as was the shake of his head. "Not that kind of hurt. You'll see some bruises and cuts on her face. It looks worse than it is—"
"I can handle whatever it is," Jordan said, this time reassuring him. It made Jay crack half a smile. "Αλεξίσφαιρος…" she whispered, repeating the password and clocking the way Jay studied her as she did. "Do you know what our family password means?" She asked after a few seconds of shared silence.
"No," he admitted. He'd always wondered, but quite honestly didn't know how to spell it, let alone barely speak it.
"Bulletproof," she told him.
That hadn't been what'd he expected. However, Jay kept his face straight as he asked, "Why bulletproof?"
Jordan broke eye contact long enough to push the button on her seatbelt to unbuckle it and reach for her backpack across the seat. Before opening the door to climb out she looked at Jay again, and as if it was nothing, answered, "Because we've had to be."