A/N: Hey! Here with another oneshot, so I hope you enjoy! This one's for 9x07 because the interrogation room scene broke me. I never thought of writing about it before, but then this came and I couldn't wait to share. Talk soon!

Title from Thomas Rhett's "The Hill" because it's perfect for Season 9A Upstead.

They drove separately to work.

It wasn't because they were dating and trying to hide it. It was because they were bruised.

Hailey hated it. It started after Jay found out she'd killed Roy. After that night where she'd told him every single detail, things felt off.

At first, she'd felt relief. Her chest was lighter and her headaches stopped. She was grateful that the weight of this secret was no longer holding her down.

Nothing about Jay's attitude at the beginning worried her. He'd gotten upset that first night, and she didn't blame him. He never yelled or swore or raised a hand in her direction. He was calm and steady. He was Jay.

When his small talk continued, though, and he started keeping to himself, that's when she got worried.

She thought sharing the secret would help, but it didn't. It seemed like he'd taken the weight off of her and placed it on his own chest. He stopped sleeping, he avoided drive to work with her, he started getting his own headaches and feeling sick more often. It hurt her to watch.

She began to understand how he must have felt watching her disintegrate in front of him. Where he'd tried back-rubs and tea with melatonin, she tried cooking him his favorite meals and buying him vitamins for his nervous system. Nothing truly seemed to work. He didn't seem like himself anymore.

They weren't themselves.

The final straw was when she stepped in the shower with him one night after work, but instead of holding her close like they'd done in the past, he just gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and whispered goodnight on the way out of the steam.

It stung.

Two days later, he was snapping at Voight and taking his anger out at work, so she dragged him away. She couldn't stand his attitude anymore and didn't know what to do. Instead of offering her an explanation, he just said that what he'd been doing was the best he could do.

That stung too.

Ignoring her? Barely eating the food she made? Avoiding any form of intimacy? Bringing their problems into work for all to see?

That was his best attempt at moving forward?

No.

It wasn't good enough.

Upon getting home before him that night, she dropped all her clothes in a breadcrumb trail to the shower and sat bare on the blue tile with the too-hot water pelting her skin.

She cried into her knees. At first it was just a few tears, but then it was full-body sobs that pained her chest. She even breathed in some water that caused her to cough until bile formed in her throat. She scrambled to stand and reach for the shower door, but her hand slipped.

Coughing and gasping even harder, she breathed, "Jay. Jay. Help me."

She fought the water dripping in her eyes until she finally got her fingers on the handle and shoved the shower door open.

"Hailey?"

She cried harder on her way to the toilet. He hadn't said her name in so long. She missed how it felt when he'd whisper it against her skin.

"Hailey!"

She slipped to her knees just as she began throwing up into the toilet.

"Jesus, Hailey."

She knew his hands anywhere. They felt like an old safety blanket when they soothed over her back.

"Slow down, slow down," he said quietly as he gathered her soaking wet hair away from her face.

"Jay," she whimpered.

"I'm right here," he replied, "You're okay."

"I'm not, I'm not," she cried into the toilet.

Over the sound of her own tears, she heard him sniffle behind her. She then felt his chest against her back a second later, and it startled her.

He was as bare as her.

He flushed the toilet before pulling her into his lap away from any possible back-splash.

Months before, when Roy and her own crimes hadn't shadowed their relationship, silence wasn't common in their relationship. They were quiet together, but it was never deafening. Instead, it was comforting. They used to crave the quiet together after a long day at work. Their hands would wander over each other as they watched TV or laid together in bed. His fingers liked to tangle themselves in her hair while hers circled and traced any scars on his chest.

It all went away when the secret of Roy's death emerged. That once comforting calm turned into a harsh silence.

She got used to it, but she never accepted it. She didn't want it to become their new norm. She missed the lingering kisses and gently nudged against warm skin. This silence could not be what their forever sounded like.

To her relief, right now in Jay's arms on their bathroom floor, that silence seemed to fade into the familiar quietness they used to have as her shaking fingers found purchase on his thighs and his soothed gentle patterns into her aching back.

Her head dropped to the side onto his shoulder as her eyes closed. She could still feel Jay crying behind her - her own tears were falling down her cheeks too - but there was still comfort in where they were.

The last time his bare chest had been pressed into her back, they'd been laughing. It was three days after they'd moved into the apartment together and he'd declared they needed to bless their new home and consummate their success. She accused him of pretending to be religious and said that wasn't what the word 'consummate' was for. He then chased her around the apartment laughing until he had her pinned to their bed.

All blessings and thoughts of consummating their success fell aside as, (unknowingly during the moment) for the last time in months, they enjoyed each other. It went all night, and she never wanted it to end. When she was with him, all thoughts of Roy and Kim and Voight disappeared. Jay had felt strong underneath her, behind her, and above her. She needed his strength to survive her own fears and guilt.

That strength returned this night on their bathroom floor.

It calmed her down enough that she was able to tune into the water splashing the tile floor. She shakily stood before padding her way over to turn the shower off. Still without looking at him, she walked over to brush her teeth and steady herself against the counter until she had the strength to turn around.

Taking a deep breath, she then met Jay's eyes.

"Where are your clothes?"

She blushed at how stupid of a first question that was for her to ask. She shouldn't be worried right now about what he was or wasn't wearing. She needed to be focused on who he was and where they went from here.

But Jay just smiled and wiped his eyes.

"Um." He cleared his throat then pointed over his shoulder and said, "I heard you in the shower. I thought I could join you until…until I realized you were getting sick."

Hailey nodded and wiped at her own tears.

Together, they grabbed towels and tried drying the water off the floor. They silently worked in tandem until Jay wrapped a dry towel around Hailey's shoulders and nodded toward their bedroom.

Once he had pulled his boxers back on and passed her his black shirt that he'd worn to work, they sat on their bed and took a simultaneous deep breath.

Hailey weakly laughed and looked down at her picked over nails while pulling her feet up underneath her.

"So," Jay began quietly. He scratched the side of his thigh and cleared his throat.

Hailey nodded and opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out until she looked back up to meet his eyes. It was a quiet noise from the back of her throat quickly followed by more tears pricking her gaze.

"Do you love me?" she finally breathed.

"Hailey," he whispered in shock, "I…you know I do."

She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head.

"I do," Jay repeated.

"But you have every reason not to," she argued. Her eyes opened and more hot tears fell out as she said, "You don't even notice me anymore."

"Hailey," Jay began and sat up on his knees, "I still love you, and I do notice you."

"But these past few weeks?" she asked, "Like I said earlier, you don't talk to me and-and you said you're doing your best and that hurt. Doing your best doesn't feel like anything, and it hurts."

His face fell with every word that tumbled from her lips. The words had been fighting at her throat ever since he abandoned her in that interrogation room, and they were finally free for Jay to consider. She didn't regret saying them - she knew they needed to communicate - she just didn't expect the painful silence to return.

He seemed to gather himself for a moment as she stared with still-damp cheeks until he said, "You talked to your mom last week on the phone."

"What?" she breathed.

Jay cleared his throat then continued, "The bedroom door was closed. It was Tuesday. I heard you say 'I love you' in Greek, and I knew. Last Sunday, you drank red wine. You said you went out for groceries, but when you came home, your cheeks were flushed red and your eyes were sorta bright like you knew a joke that I didn't. You didn't bring home the bananas you said you were gonna get."

Hailey sniffled, but couldn't look away from him as he continued listing things off about her from the past few weeks.

"When you got your hair cut last week, you didn't get it dyed. It was probably two inches off. You told Kim you were saving money on the dye thing, but I know you just didn't want to close your eyes and risk falling asleep when they washed it out. Your last period was two days late, and you bought a pregnancy test, but didn't take it because it started the next day. I figured it was stress. You've been taking a longer way home each time we leave the district at the same time. I know you're not stopping anywhere, but it is a different way each night because you're rarely home at the same time twice in a row. You started eating peanut butter off a spoon again just like when you were eight and it was your favorite snack, and just like you did before all of this happened. You bought a new yoga mat because that instructor you've been watching online came out with a new series finally. You haven't worn my t-shirts to sleep in the last ten days and have been wearing an actual pajama set I only saw when I helped you unpack your clothes when we moved in. You started eating a snack, usually a granola bar but sometimes a red apple, at 10:05 every morning whether we're at home or at work. Those socks you bought last month must have been crap because you bought new ones yesterday when you said you were just picking up a coffee."

He took a deep breath, and the last words seemed to be stuck in his throat before he choked them out.

"And you've been waking up before me for the last two weeks…only you only think you have. Every morning, you've been waking up fifteen minutes before my own alarm and have been holding my hand or touching my face or playing with my hair as I 'sleep.' You didn't do it the past two days, and I know it's because I didn't stay in the shower with you. I know I hurt you that night and…and it makes me sick to think it could have implied I didn't love you or find you beautiful or-or don't want you."

He fell silent and looked down at his hands shaking against his legs. He clenched them into fists and settled back on the mattress to cross his feet underneath him. One fist came up to rub at his nose, but the other clenched into the navy fabric of his underwear.

Hailey didn't know what to say. All she could do was cry. The tears came hot and fast down her cheeks, and she wished they would stop. She'd cried too much that night, but maybe it was necessary. Thinking if it, she hadn't cried since she first told Jay about Roy.

It hadn't been full-body sobs like in the shower, but it was still jarring. At the time, Jay had held her to his shoulder and rubbed his hand over her back. He'd flattened his palm to his sweatshirt she was wearing and moved it in slow, clockwise circles right over her spine. She'd been able to feel his warmth even through the thick cotton.

So she pushed herself up and did the same to him right now. With his forehead resting on her shoulder and his hand now tangled in her hair, she rubbed her own palm in those slow, clockwise circles over his back. She could feel him breathing her in as she copied his movements.

It'd been so long since they'd last held each other, but it felt so familiar. She was glad that while they may have lost sight of their relationship, they didn't truly lose themselves.

Jay's arms were just as warm around her, and his hair was just as soft against her fingers. He still smelt like pine. He still had the bullet hole scar on his shoulder. He was still hers.

When she reluctantly let go of him, he followed and gripped even tighter to her. Shocked, she froze for a second as he pressed his lips to her temple.

"I love you," he whispered against her wet hair, "And I am sorry I have not been holding up my end of this relationship. I should have never made you feel like you weren't enough. I was scared to lose you…I still am."

"And I'm scared to lose you," she quietly interrupted. Pulling away from him, she continued, "This cannot be how our story ends."

"It's not," Jay quickly assured, "It's not the end." His hand came up to cup her face, and she leaned into it.

Studying him gently, she whispered, "You pay attention to everything, don't you?"

Jay weakly smiled and nodded. "Anything that involves you," he answered.

"I know this isn't going to be easy; in fact, I know it's going to get harder," Hailey began, "But we have to be on the same side. We have to be."

Jay swallowed hard and nodded. "I agree," he stated.

Before she could even move to hug him like she planned, he leaned forward to gather her in his arms. With his face buried in her damp hair, he took a deep breath and whispered, "I missed you."

She blinked quickly and whispered back, "I missed you too."

Together, they sat on the bed once more wrapped in each other's arms while their heartbeats slowly sank up again.

Like her shocking first question earlier, Jay broke the silence by quietly asking, "Why'd you change shampoo last Thursday?"

Her eyes widened and she countered, "What?"

"Last Thursday, you smelt different," he explained against her throat.

Hailey laughed softly and said, "I showered at work and had to borrow Kim's."

"Oh," Jay said quietly. He lightly squeezed the back of her neck then sat back. "Guess I didn't notice everything," he admitted.

She shook her head and brushed the backs of her fingers along his cheek. "You noticed enough," she said, "Thank you for telling me. It…it helped."

"I'm sorry," Jay said.

"Me too," she whispered.

Hesitantly, Jay moved forward and she knew what he wanted - what they needed.

Catching his lips in hers, she relaxed with her hand on his chest and her thumb brushing against the damned scar she'd grown to embrace.

They weren't okay. They weren't back to normal.

But they were together, and for that night, it's all that mattered.

So while they didn't have sex and only shared that one kiss, they still made their way under the covers together and let their hands wander while catching up on weeks of conversation.

It didn't cure their bruise and make it disappear, but it soothed it for the time being. Like an icepack that makes it possible to sleep.

Because, finally, they both slept through the night.

And Jay happily opened his eyes when Hailey woke up to trace senseless patterns on his chest in the morning.

A/N: Thoughts? :)