A surprise Saturday update?! What!? Sometimes real life happens and I knew I would not be able to get the chapter posted tomorrow so I wanted to get it up today instead of making you all wait a few extra days! Hope you enjoy it (especially after the chaos of that last chapter oof)

Enjoy!

Will we remember to take our time 'cause our enemy is brevity?

-My Poor Heart by Andrew Belle

(February 2008)

Technically, he survives the war. Although, Jay would argue that survives is a bit gracious of a word.

If his first tour affected him, his second tour is a whole other story.

Just like the last time he came home to Chicago, he comes home with Mouse. Only this time, he is not coming back just to see the snow. He comes back to the cold bitter air because he has been medically discharged and there is no home for him in Afghanistan anymore.

However, it does not really feel like there is a home for him here either.

Will picks him up from the airport and thankfully, he keeps his mouth quiet about the new scars on his brother's face and the sling that cradles his left arm.

"How about Bartoli's?" Will suggests once they are in Will's beat-up chevy. "I haven't had proper pizza in months, and you only need one hand to eat it."

Jay chuckles at his brother's sad attempt at a joke and nods. He didn't miss much while he was overseas, with the exception of his brother and a few other things, but deep dish is definitely high on that list.

After they order, Will asks him stories about his time overseas, but Jay still isn't really up for talking about it all. The two of them have barely talked since before Jay went overseas again, tensions high due to Will's decision to stay in New York during their mom's final months, but Jay figured Will picking him up was better than having to deal with his father alone. Jay tells him a few watered-down stories to get his brother off of his back before he turns the tables and asks him about med school.

"It's hard," Will tells him. "I feel like all I do is study. These three days in Chicago to see you feel like a literal vacation because I think it's the longest I've gone without studying in years."

"Well, you always have been a bit of a nerd," Jay says between slow sips of his water.

They hit Bartoli's in the middle of their lunchtime rush, leading to a bit of a wait for their meal, but Jay does not mind. The familiar buzz of the restaurant is almost comforting in a strange way, like it's a little piece of his old life.

"You gonna stay with dad now that you're back?" Will asks, but the way Jay raises his eyebrow in challenge makes the redhead laugh and he just shakes his head knowingly.

"For now," Jay hums. "Not exactly my ideal plan. But I'll give it a week or two while I try to find somewhere else to stay."

"Got it," Will says. "You know, you could always come to New York with me? A fresh start wouldn't be the worst thing."

Jay just shakes his head. "New York isn't me. You know that."

"Yeah, I know," Will murmurs. "Offer is always open if you want it though."

Jay nods and he is thankful that their waiter chooses that moment to come back with their lunch. He loves his brother, he really does, and he appreciates that he is trying to help, but he just got off a plane a few hours ago. Right now, the last thing he wants to think about is figuring out what he does next.

Jay practically inhales his first slice, much to Will's amusement, and he blames it on the less than desirable food he has been living off of for the past few years. He is working on a second slice and is halfway through listening to one of Will's stories about a terrifying professor he had last semester when he almost drops his pizza back on his plate out of shock because of who he sees sitting a few tables away.

And it's not so much who it is that surprises him, but rather, who she is with. Because the familiar blonde with those bright blue eyes he hasn't been able to get out of his mind? That would be one thing, but seeing her holding a child in her lap, maybe a little over a year old, that throws his whole world for a loop.

She doesn't seem to notice him, too distracted with the baby in her lap, and she looks genuinely happy, oohing and awing over the child as if it were second nature. It makes him smile for a moment and then reality hits him, memories of a night together and whispered goodbyes filling his head. He can't see the child, but Jay wonders if the baby has blue eyes or green, if the baby has freckles that litter their face and if there are streaks of red in the child's hair.

He wonders if the baby is his.

He's never really thought about having children but suddenly he sees a life that he never imagined flash before his eyes. A life of her and children and a house and happiness.

He blinks a few times to make sure he is seeing things clearly and it is not until Will starts waving in his face that Jay comes back to earth.

"Jay...Jay!" Will snaps his finger to get his brother's attention. "Where did you go?"

"Sorry," Jay mumbles, not even bothering to look at his brother, and Will turns around to see what, or rather who, has caught his brother's attention.

"Do you know her?" Will asks as he turns back around.

Does he know her? It's a bit of a silly question because honestly, he does not know her. Not anymore. He does not know anything about her life right now.

But he knows her. He knows her secrets and her fears. He knows the way her body looks under paper-thin sheets and the way she looks first thing in the morning.

He knows Hailey and the fact that she is one of the first things he sees when he gets back to Chicago is either divine intervention or cruel irony, but he can't decide which.

Because he's dreamed about running into her again. Her face and her laugh are the things that filled his head almost every day while he was overseas. But it's not supposed to be like this. He's not supposed to be broken when he finds her again.

"You remember Mr. Donovan?" Jay asks, trying to focus on his brother, but struggling to. "She was one of his kids."

"Really?" Will turns around again to glance at Hailey. "I don't remember her."

"Summer before your senior year," Jay explains once Will turns around to face him again. "I think that was the summer you spent every day in the library studying for your SATs."

"That sounds about right," Will chuckles. "She's the one you spent like all your free time with? You used to go out with her like every night."

"That would be her," Jay confirms. "We used to go to the park to talk."

"To talk? That's what you're calling it?"

Jay rolls his eyes at his brother's assumption. "Yes, just to talk."

Even after all these years, Jay remembers the teasing he got from his brother that summer. The constant questions of if Hailey was his girlfriend and the asking why he couldn't meet her. His older brother seemed happy at her presence though, appreciating the fact that Jay finally had a friend as special as her.

Will was the first one to find out that Hailey left. They were never brothers who sat and talked about their feelings but that night, Will sat quietly beside him for a while.

"When was the last time you saw her?" Will asks.

"Um…" Jay pauses for a moment. "My last leave, like a couple of months into my second tour. I ran into her at a diner, we talked for a little bit."

That time, they did far more than talk. They made up for lost time and too many goodbyes and for a future of unknowns, but those things seem better kept a secret.

Jay's hand instinctively reaches towards his left wrist, the spot where her red bracelet should be. But instead of the familiar string, he feels the stiff sling that serves as a reminder of everything that went wrong. Over the latter half of his second tour, he held onto that bracelet even tighter than he did when she first gave it to him. It's that damn bracelet and the memories of her that got him through everything, especially the medical discharge. Currently, it's sitting in a small envelope with his military dog tags, tucked safely inside one of his bags in Will's car, and as silly as it sounds, he would do anything to hold it between his fingers right now.

"You gonna go say hi?"

Jay peers over to Hailey again and watches as she bounces the child in her lap. She looks happy, content, and he wonders if him saying hi would make her smile or if it would throw a wrench in her happy life. And before he can think about it further, a man comes up behind her, smiling down at Hailey and the baby, reaching out for the child with open arms. Hailey smiles as she hands off the laughing baby and the man sits down in the empty seat next to Hailey, settling the child in his lap as he carries on a conversation with her.

"Maybe later. She seems like she is in the middle of something."

It seems like she's moved on, like she's with someone new, and maybe it's not right for him to ruin that for her.

And it's only fair. He's the one who didn't write her letters when he said he would. Seeing her now, part of him regrets it. But when he was over there, Jay told himself he was doing the right thing by shielding her from the horrors he was enduring every day. When he kissed her goodbye, he had every intention of writing her letters, but the minute he got back, he knew he couldn't do that to her. Not when she worked so hard to make something of her life. He couldn't be the thing that brought her down.

And it's the same thing now. He wants to get up and go say hi but he remains glued in place. He hasn't even been back stateside for twenty-four hours, he's got no job and no plans. She deserves more. She deserves everything.

Even after Will accepts his answer and continues telling him about his medical school adventures, Jay's eyes can't help but dart between his brother, the girl that got away, and the child in her lap.

Hailey likes to think of herself as a sensible person, but this is probably one of the least sensible things she has done.

She thought she saw a ghost when she saw Jay in Bartoli's the other day, but she would know that face anywhere. It's that face that makes her think of swings and safety and stolen kisses before he slipped away for good.

He never wrote her a letter and at first, it hurt. Hailey remembers waiting and waiting for weeks for the first letter to come before she finally gave up hope, praying that it did not mean that something bad had happened to him. She continued to tell herself that man was too stubborn to die, and he cared about her enough to make sure she would be one of the first people notified if something did happen.

Hailey thinks she gets it, though. She remembers when she would go to a new foster home, how it was easier to cut off all ties from her previous life in an attempt to protect herself and others. There were some horrors that were too hard to talk about and to let others into, so she just didn't. She assumes that was what he did.

And Hailey made peace with that, the fact that what they had was just a simple moment in time. But then she saw him in that restaurant and all those memories and feelings came rushing back and all of the sudden, the little bit of reason was leaving her mind.

She put two and two together and figured he was having lunch with his brother, which meant that he wasn't home on leave, but rather he was home for good. And judging by the sling on his arm, the reason behind his coming home was probably complicated. And with him in the same city, hell, the same continent, she knows she needs to see him.

It's how she finds herself in her junker of a car driving down that old familiar street one, two, three times. Mr. Donovan's house looks different, and she can tell that someone new must have moved in and done some much needed renovations. But Jay's house? It looks the same.

It's the same old porch he was sitting on when they met and the same old sidewalk they wandered down every day on their way to the park.

The first time she drives by, it's the afternoon she sees him in Bartoli's. There are no cars in the driveway, and she can't bring herself to walk up to the front door.

The second time, it's a few days later and she catches a glimpse of who she assumes to be his father getting the mail and she really does not want to talk to the old man, so she keeps on driving.

The third time she drives by, though, it's been two weeks and she catches a glimpse of Jay outside, clad in a white t-shirt and jeans, the sling that his arm was in the last time she saw him gone. He's bent over the hood of an old car in the driveway, seemingly distracted with whatever he is tinkering with. She circles the block and parks a few houses down as she tries to tell herself that this is crazy, that she should just drive away and let him live his life. But the feelings are stronger than the reason, so she gets out of her car and starts walking.

"You finally become a mechanic?" She calls out to him, and when he looks up from his project, he looks surprised, like he saw a ghost.

She knows the feeling.

"Hailey-" he says, dropping his wrench on the ground with a loud thud and reaching for the towel he has hanging on the open hood.

"I seem to remember you saying you were going to become a mechanic when we moved to Tallahassee," she continues with a knowing smile. "So, is this you prepping or what?"

He seems so shocked to see her that he does not even process her joke. He takes a step out from behind the car, and she lets out a low breath because damn, he looks different.

He had bulked up the last time she saw him, but now? Now, he's all muscles and a buzzcut and green eyes that are much more piercing than she remembers. She scans him and she can't help but think about the way he looked in her bed, the way his strong arms held her close, the way those green eyes watched her fall apart.

"What are you doing here?" He says in a small whisper.

"If I tell you, do you promise to not have me arrested for stalking?"

He nods with a small chuckle, throwing the used towel back over the hood as he waits for her to continue.

"I saw you in Bartoli's the other week and I figured that you were home. So, I took a chance and came over here."

Jay hums. "Why didn't you say hi then?"

"I was going to," she says honestly. "But you left before I got a chance."

Jay nods, but something seems off. He bites his lip and looks up at her, nervously. "And the kid?"

Hailey cocks her head to the right and scoffs lightly. "You saw me?"

"Maybe."

She shakes her head at him, mainly out of amusement, but as she smiles, she notices that his face still reeks of worry. She starts to piece it all together and lets out a small laugh.

"He's my nephew," she says quickly, and she watches as Jay lets out what feels like a relieved sigh. "That guy was Thomas."

'I thought-"

"You thought he was yours?"

Jay nods but doesn't say anything, still clearly processing everything.

"If you thought he was yours, why didn't you come over?" Hailey tries to keep any judgment out of her voice, but she hates the idea that he wouldn't want it, that he would see their child and run away.

But the way his face changes, straight from nervousness to that soft comforting look she knows so well, she knows that's not it at all.

"I got off a plane that morning," he tells her. "Wasn't exactly in the greatest headspace. If he was my kid, I wanted to do it right. Get a job, help support you both, you know? I was going to reach out when I was a little more settled."

"Oh, so that's why you're becoming a mechanic," Hailey teases and for the first time during the whole conversation, Jay smiles.

Wow, she missed that smile.

"Look, Hailey, it's not that I am not thrilled to see you. Because I am...I always am. But I'm currently disgusting," he says, gesturing down to his shirt that is streaked with oil and dirt. "But maybe you want to grab a drink one night? Catch up."

Her lips instinctively curl up at the offer. "Make it dinner and you got a deal."

"Dinner?"

Hailey sees the little bit of hope light up in his eyes. It's a look she has not seen in forever, at least not in real life. She's seen those happy green eyes when she closes her own, the last thought she has before she falls asleep always being those eyes and a prayer that he was alright.

"Dinner between friends...maybe. We'll see."

Jay's rolling his eyes and smirking at her, and it feels so familiar, so good, and suddenly, she does not care about how he didn't write her letters and how long they were separated because he is here and he is whole. Her wish came true, and he survived the war, and none of that other stuff matters anymore.

"You got a phone number?" He asks. "Or do I just have to bank on the universe letting us run into each other again?"

She throws her head back in laughter at that and while she trusts the universe to let them find each other again, she's not taking any chances this time.

"Give me your phone."

He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out his phone, flipping it open and pulling up his contacts setting before handing it over to her.

She quickly taps away at the buttons, plugging in her number before flipping his phone shut and handing it back to him.

"I'll call you. Sound good?" He asks and she nods happily.

She only makes it a few steps away before she turns around and smiles at him warmly. "And Jay?"

"Hmm?"

"Welcome home."

Jay has no idea if this is actually dinner between friends or if it's a date, but either way, he is incredibly nervous.

He likes to think that he is normally pretty smooth with girls, but when it comes to Hailey, any game he has goes out the window. He calls her just a half-hour after she leaves his house and they set up dinner for Friday night, just four days away.

And all week, he's nervous and his mind runs a million miles an hour thinking of the past and thinking of her and thinking of the what if's of the future.

He barely thought about the future during his second tour and if he's very honest, it's because he didn't think he had a future, at least not one in Chicago. He assumed he would either reenlist after his second tour or he would die overseas. He didn't anticipate the medical discharge.

He's angry about it. It threw a wrench in his plans and now he's got no plans, no job, no nothing. He's living with his dad who he hates and everything about his life right now just sucks. But the idea of Hailey? She makes it all suck a little less.

They meet outside of Bartoli's at 7 pm on Friday and no matter how anxious he is feeling or how angry he is with every other aspect of his life, he smiles when he sees her. She always makes him smile, and it's one of those ridiculously large, takes up your whole face, uncontrollable smiles.

They order a small pizza to split and two beers and let the awkward silence fall over them after the waiter leaves.

"So," Hailey tentatively starts. "You're back."

"I am," he hums. "And you're still in Chicago."

"Don't know where else I would be."

"I don't know," Jay says with a chuckle. "New York, LA...Tallahassee?"

"You still on that?" She shakes her head with a laugh, leaning back in her seat and crossing her arms in amusement.

He's always going to be on that, on the idea of running away, of having a better life, but he bites his tongue and plays it cool.

"You gonna tell me what trouble you've been getting into for the past year and a half?"

"I'm becoming a cop."

His eyes widen at her words and she just blushes, a small nervous smile playing at her lips.

"Or, I'm trying to become a cop," she explains. "I'm taking some college courses to get my associate's degree so I can apply."

"That's great, Hails," he smiles at her. "Really."

She scrunches her nose and looks down and it makes him smile because she still has the same tells that she is nervous as she did when she was fourteen. She looks so much older, so much more beautiful, but at the same time, she is exactly the same.

"Yeah, well, it definitely makes me wish I paid a bit more attention in high school," she rolls her eyes at him. "Because some of these classes are rough."

"You know," he leans forward, resting his elbow on the table with a suggestive smirk. "I could always tutor you."

She lets out a belly laugh, and they get a few stares from the table next to them, causing Jay to snicker as well. Once their neighbors return to their meal and Hailey has come down from the embarrassment, she just shakes her head in amusement.

"You do remember that I'm the reason you passed eleventh grade English, correct?"

"I feel like I could have passed without you," Jay remarks playfully and Hailey just raises an eyebrow at him.

"Oh, really?" She challenges. "Then why did you read every damn word of Animal Farm to me?"

Jay just shrugs. "Maybe I wanted something pretty to look at while I was reading."

He takes pride in the way he catches her off guard, watching as she struggles to come up with a response. Her lips move, but no words come out, and the red in her cheeks starts to rise.

"Well, hate to break it to you, Halstead," she says at last. "But I'm not keeping you around just because you're pretty."

"But you are keeping me around?"

She's speechless for the second time in thirty seconds, but he should know better than to challenge her, because she leans forward and rests her elbow on the table, copying his body language, and cocks her head to the side.

"Depends. You gonna tell me why you didn't write me any letters while you were overseas?"

If she was trying to render him speechless, it worked. It almost feels like he got kicked in the stomach and all the air he had in his chest left him in one foul swoop. He leans back in his seat and tries to think of something coherent enough to say to make up for the past year and a half.

"Hailey, I was going to-"

"I'm messing with you, Jay." She cuts him off lightly. "I wasn't expecting any letters."

He knows it's her way of letting him off the hook, but by the look in her eyes, she wants, maybe even needs, the truth. Sitting across from her, for the first time he is not sure if he would make the same decision that he did. A part of him has no regrets because he knows he spared her pain but in the same breath, he caused her pain too. Maybe things would have turned out differently if he even just sent her one letter, but now, he'll never know.

"I was going to," he says in a small voice. "It's just...the war was awful, Hails. And I knew how much you had been through, and it felt like your life was starting to really turn around and I just didn't want you to have to deal with all the bad stuff."

She hums at his answer and gives a small nod but does not respond. He is about to say something, maybe apologize or explain more, but the waiter comes up with their pizza and wishes them a good meal, giving Hailey just enough time to gather her thoughts.

"That's kinda what I figured," she murmurs. "Was it bad this time?"

"Wasn't great."

"Did you get hurt?"

He throws a confused look her way as he starts to cut their pizza and she looks flustered all over again.

"You had a sling on when you were at Bartoli's."

He didn't realize she had seen that and honestly, he wishes she hadn't. The humvee accident that led to his medical discharge still is fresh in his mind, but he would like to leave it there and not share all the horrors he endured with the girl sitting across from him. It's bad enough he still sees the explosion when he closes his eyes and still feels the poking and prodding of needles throughout the day. The last thing she needs is to have to experience that all with him.

"Medical discharge," he answers vaguely. "About nine weeks ago. Spent some time in a hospital in Germany before coming back here. I'm all good now though."

It's obvious she has more questions, but she bites her lip and just focuses on her dinner instead.

The first few bites of their meal are silent and he wonders if he should ask her more about her life or if he should tell her more about his. It feels so strange, sitting across from her and knowing there is not an expiration date on this conversation. They could take all the time in the world if they wanted to and that is such a foreign feeling when it comes to her.

And watching her, even in the awkward silence, he thinks that he wants to take all that time. He wants to get to know her in the way that their past encounters have not allowed and he wants to make her more permanent than someone he runs into every few months.

"What are your plans now?" She asks, pulling him out of his thoughts. "Or is that question gonna stress you out as much as it did when we were kids?"

He smirks at her, but he can't hold the expression for long, because once she is smiling, so is he.

"I don't know," he tells her. "Really didn't plan on getting discharged so I don't exactly have a plan. I'm pretty resourceful, so I'm sure I'll find something for work."

"And you're staying with your dad?"

"For now," he hums, almost suggestively, and he watches the way she just rolls her eyes at him.

"You're something, have I ever told you that Halstead?"

"Probably once or twice."

She smiles into her bite of pizza and for the first time, he truly is not angry that he's back in Chicago.

"So, what about us, huh?"

She says it so simply that Jay does not process the meaning of her words right away and when he does, he almost chokes on his pizza. She chuckles in amusement as she hands him a napkin, continuing her thought as he composes himself.

"I just mean, we've run into each other a lot, but this is the first time we're not being kept apart by the foster system or a literal war," she says with a nervous little laugh. "And the last time we saw each other was-"

"Good?"

She blushes but doesn't correct him. "Just wondering where this all leaves us, I guess."

"Well," he leans forward again with a smile. "Not gonna lie and say I wouldn't mind having you in my life again."

"Oh really?" She whispers, a sad attempt at a challenge, the hopefulness evident in her voice.

"Really," Jay hums. "You're really the only person I know in the city, and I feel like I could kinda use a friend right now."

"A friend," she mulls over the thought. "I can do that."

There's a dangerous look in her eye, like she is thinking what he is thinking, that they probably won't stay friends for long and that years of wanting and waiting and being separated will inevitably lead to more, but it does not seem like either of them will mind. He almost has half a mind to ask her if she is seeing anyone right now, but it feels a little quick with him just getting off a plane a few weeks ago. The guilt he still bears from not writing her letters only adds to his decision to take this slow, do things right by her.

They finish their meal, conversation filled with teasing and laughter and reminiscing about times before the war and pain. As the night goes on, it starts to feel easier, more like them, and while the memories of the hard months don't completely go away, for the night, they are quiet.

When they finish their meal, he walks her out to her car, even though she tells him countless times that he does not need to.

"I'm trying to be a gentleman, Hailey. Let me have this one."

"Jay Halstead? A gentleman?" She teases, bumping against his side lightly. "Help us all."

"You know, friends are sometimes nice to each other."

She turns around and leans against the driver's side door, glancing right up at him. "Well, you're out of luck then."

"Whatever," he just rolls his eyes. "I'll see you around?"

She nods happily. "Call me."

He smiles as she gets into her car and watches her drive off before he makes his way back over to his car to drive home. Jay feels something resembling hope because for once, their night does not end with goodbye. This time, it ends with him calling Hailey before he even puts the keys in the ignition.

She picks up on the second ring and asks what took him so long.

Did I succeed in not making you all sad for once?

Anyway, I'll see you on next Sunday for our normal updates!