Chapter 9 - Awards and Stories
Jay folds his arms over his chest. "What can we help you with Deputy?" He asks, staring over at Miller with a quizzical look.
Miller moves her gaze to Hailey. "How are you doing, Detective?" She questions, earning a nod from Hailey in return.
"I'm doing just fine, thank you." She responds and Miller sends her a smile.
"I'm glad to hear it."
Jay jumps in, asking the Deputy Superintendent again what he and Hailey can help her with, wondering why exactly they had been called into the office to have a word with her.
Miller takes her hands out of her pockets and places one down on the corner of Jay's desk and she looks at Hailey again. "Does the name David Rogers mean anything to you?"
Hailey's head bobs slowly. "He was the civilian that got injured in the bank robbery case last week."
"Yes," Miller responds. "He wrote to me about the events of that day, spoke very highly about the way you jumped into action to take down the offender's weapon, an act that meant his injuries were not more severe. He asked you be recognized for your action that day and upon reading Intelligence's reports and his account I couldn't agree more. Which is why you're being presented with a Lifesaving Award."
Hailey's eyes widen and she feels her breath catch at the back of her throat. She felt Jay place his hand on the middle of her back and she swallows, feeling her head shake. "What?"
"The ceremony is next Saturday." Miller adds.
Everything seems to stop as Hailey stares at the Deputy Superintendent. She feels her chin fall forward and her jaw drop slightly. "Wow, that soon."
Miller lets out a breathless chuckle. "Yes. Look I understand this might be a bit of a shock so I won't keep bombarding you, I'll send you over all the information about the ceremony in an email and I'll let you both get back to work," she then extends her hand out toward Hailey, offering a handshake. "Congratulations, Detective."
Hailey takes the superior's hand, shaking it with a smirk. "Thank you."
Miller then takes her hand back, thanks Jay for allowing her into his office before she turns to the side and takes off out of the room.
Both the sergeant and detective watch her leave before Jay taps Hailey's shoulder.
"That's amazing, a Lifesaving Award, you deserve that." He says, making Hailey looks up and meet his gaze. She still looked shocked and it makes him smile.
"I can't believe it."
"You need a minute before you head back out there?" Jay asks, keeping his hand where he held it.
She pauses for a beat, seeming to be genuinely considering his offer to stay put in the office a moment longer to gather her thoughts before she slowly shakes her head. "No, no I'm okay, I'm okay," she says before pointing over her shoulder. "So I'm gonna get back to work."
Jay doesn't say anything more, just watches as his wife steps toward the door, not looking where she was going and she almost stumbles into the doorframe. She catches herself just before and steers herself away, and Jay feels the smirk pull up on his lips further when she spins her head around to tell him she was fine before she heads out to the bullpen. Jay keeps his eye on her until she had sat down before he lets out a single quiet laugh and follows behind Hailey.
He leans against the wood of the doorframe and looks out to the bullpen. "So, who's putting the coffee pot on?" He asks, darting his eyes around the room.
All the officers look at each other before meet their sergeant's gaze. They're about to call out that it was way overdue for Jay to make the coffee when the phone in his office rings and he shrugs his shoulders.
"Duty calls instead." He says as he steps backwards into his office, picking up the phone and placing it against his ear, greeting the person on the other end.
A minute later he returns, this time the smirk is gone and there's a much more serious look on his face. "There's been a stabbing, West Randolph, two are critically injured, one victim and the other's the offender."
Adam leans back in his chair. "Sounds pretty open and shut, why are we being called in?"
"Because they found a brick of heroin on the offender."
With that, the officers quickly stood up and threw on their jackets - the warm weather from the day before had faded and fall had seemed to have officially begun, showers that morning with a thunderstorm scheduled for the evening that would finally level out the temperatures. Because it had only been four days since the shooting, Hailey was still required to ride the desk until her ribs healed, and her annoyance over that fact was well known of.
So it didn't take five minutes after the rest of the unit bid their farewells before Hailey had got up from her desk and made her way downstairs, being greeted by the desk sergeant before she could even get through the gate.
Trudy grinned up at her. "And there she is! The detective of the hour!"
Hailey stepped through the gate with a dip in her eyebrows. "What?" She asks as she let go of the fence and allowed it to shut behind her as she continued her way down the last set of stairs.
"Your award." Trudy replies, placing her palms flat on the desk.
"How did you know about that?" Hailey wonders, coming to stop directly in front of the sergeant.
"Voices travel in here," Platt returned. "And I saw Miller on her way out of here, and I can be very persuasive."
Hailey can't help the way she smirks, knowing exactly what that must have meant and she can picture the scene that must have unfolded as Miller left a few minutes prior.
Trudy cuts back in again, bringing it up before Hailey can change the subject. The sergeant seems to lean in for this one, drawing herself a little closer. "And I've already spoke to Randy, who's already spoken to Christopher, and after party at Molly's Saturday night, we're getting you drunk to celebrate."
Hailey nods slowly. "Oh yeah just the celebration I want, spending Sunday with my head in a bowl," she says quickly. "You do realize my two kids are gonna be there too?"
Trudy shrugged her shoulders. "That's what your husband is for, right?" She asks, only getting an eye roll from Hailey in return. "Speaking of lover boy, where'd he and his posse go off to?"
Hailey sighs. "They got a case."
Platt's eyebrow hooks up. "And you're here because you're bored?" She guessed.
"Very," Hailey replied before placing her arms up on the desk, folding her arms over one another. "Can you give me something to do?"
Trudy looks around her before spotting one of the uniforms standing behind the desk, looking very confused down at the stack of paper in front of him. Platt turns back to the detective and gives her a nod in the direction. "You could help Byrd over there with Inventory."
Hailey's face fell at the idea of spending the day counting everything in the district and the sergeant picked up on instantly, trying to hide the smirk on her face.
"You asked for a job."
Hailey's lips pulled into a line. "Thanks, Sarge."
"Anything for you, Goldie," Platt then turned her head behind her, calling the officer's name, making him look up quickly. "This is Detective Upton, she's gonna help with the Inventory," she said before briefly looking back at Hailey. "Have fun."
"So you got shot?" Byrd asked not a minute after Hailey stepped over to him. It made Hailey hum slightly and lift her gaze up from the large inventory list sat on the top of the desk.
She nods once. "In a way, yeah."
This seems to perk the officer's interests up even more. "How did it happen?" He wonders.
Hailey pauses for a beat, confused as to why he was asking. She tried not to make the change on her face obvious but by the way Byrd's face shifts, he clearly picks up that it probably wasn't appropriate to be asking for the details.
So the officer shakes his head. "Never mind, we should probably get back to the inventory, before Sarge notices." He says, picking up the stack of paper and leading Hailey through the door behind the main desk and down a corridor to a line of shelves. "How do you want to do this?" He asks.
Hailey points to the bundle of paper the officer had in hand. "We'll take half each, that way there's not as much, sound good?"
The officer nods, splitting the stack in half and handing it over to Hailey, who takes it with a smile and starts working her way down the list.
She tried not to do it too fast, knowing that Platt would either only make her check it or would give her another menial task to do - granted yes she did ask the sergeant for something to do and she was very much regretting that decision now - but at the same time it was impossible to perform this task quickly. She had a stack of at least fifty pieces of paper in her arm and each piece had at least fifteen items on it, and by the end of the first piece it was already feeling as repetitive as it could get.
By the time the rest of the unit got back an hour later, she had made her way through around ten sheets and she was just about ready to hand her leftover paper back to the officer and let him get on with it, but she was knee deep in it now and she knew there was no way she was getting out of it.
She tried to resist the urge to flip off Adam when he passed the front desk on his way back upstairs and found Hailey cataloguing and sent the detective a laugh and a point that said sucks to be you.
And when Trudy caught her taking a break waiting for the hand cramp to disappear, the sergeant leaned her elbows against the desk.
"So what kind of party decorations are we thinking for Molly's?" Platt asks.
Hailey looks up from rereading over what she had wrote and lets out a quiet sigh. "Sarge, this is not that big of a deal, there doesn't need to be a party."
Trudy edges her chin forward. "There always needs to be a party, Goldie, and it is the very opposite of not a big deal, so what do you want?"
Hailey slowly shrugs her shoulders. "I don't know."
"You're great help," Trudy says, standing up straight again. "We'll just surprise you." She adds before walking away, leaving the detective with her task at hand.
"I heard about this party that's in the works." Jay said later that same night after the two got back home from work.
Hailey sighs as she sits down on the mattress. "Why is she doing this?" She intended to mumble under her breath, but apparently it's loud enough for Jay to hear.
His eyebrows knit together deeply. "Okay, I wasn't expecting that kind of reaction, what's going on?" He asks, leaning up against the dresser opposite the foot of the bed.
Hailey shakes her head, putting one leg onto the bed and turning so she was facing her husband better. "It's just I don't know why I'm actually getting this award," she replies and Jay's face doesn't shift, telling her all she needs to elaborate on her point further. "I didn't do anything that heroic, it's not like I pulled someone from a burning building, I did what we do on a daily basis, I did what every other cop does in a situation like that, I maybe even acted out of line, so why is it me?"
Jay turns his head to one side, letting his shoulders raise and fall back down again. "Maybe because the CPD's been under heat lately and they wanted to shine a light on something positive... or maybe it's because you saved a guy's life."
"I acted recklessly and impulsively and I could have very well got that guy killed instead. The incident should be under investigation, I shouldn't be being praised for it."
Jay's arms fold over his chest. "Hailey, where is this coming from?" He questions.
This time she's not so fast to come out with a response, having to think about her answer for a minute. She looks down to the bed and fiddles with the sheet for a moment before back up at her husband with a small shrug.
"I don't know, I think the news sunk in and then I started thinking about it properly." She replies.
He takes an unconscious step closer toward her, continuing to move forward as he speaks. "Hey, maybe your actions that day weren't the most thought through, hell you got yourself shot because of it, but because of your quick thinking you saved a guy's life," he takes a seat beside her and reaches his hand out, placing it on her knee. "Who knows what the offender would have done, but what we do know is if he had pulled the trigger, he would have killed an innocent civilian, and you stopped that from happening, and that deserves to be recognized."
One corner of her lips pull up into a small smile as he squeezes her knee, but they both get cut off from saying anything when their bedroom door cracks open slightly, a messy blonde poking her head through the gap and into the room.
Hailey addresses their daughter first. "Mae, what are you still doing awake?" She questions.
Macie steps into the room fully. "I couldn't sleep.. can you tell me a bedtime story?" She asks quietly.
"Uncle Will read you two bedtimes stories an hour ago and you've got school in the morning." Hailey says and before she can ask the five-year-old if she would prefer her or Jay to take her back to bed, Macie beats her to the punch.
"But I want you to tell me a story. Please? It doesn't have to be a long one." Mae asks, bringing the puppy dog eyes in to effect knowing that they worked with Jay every time - he'd come home and say it was impossible to say no to her, especially when she shone her baby blues - and it takes a beat longer to work with Hailey before she gives in, deciding one short one would only help in the long-term.
"Okay, like what?"
Macie looks up into the corner of her eye, reaching for an idea before there's a smile that appears on her face. "When you and Daddy met."
Jay cuts in. "Mace that is a long one."
She shrugs her shoulders. "Oh well." She says, taking a run up on the bed and throwing herself on to the mattress as Jay and Hailey look at each other, both in somewhat shock as they watched their daughter get herself comfortable under the sheet.
They both can't help the smirk that pulls up on their lips as their daughter had found a work around, and if they were able to hide it before they certainly couldn't when the cheeky smile that appeared on Macie's face as she figured out she had won.
Hailey and Jay remained where they were sat for a beat longer before they both moved, sitting either side of their daughter, Jay leaning his shoulder against the headboard as he took Hailey's cue to go on, it was his start of the story after all.
"I got a call while I was working one day about some bad guys in a bank trying to steal money-"
Macie grins and she bounces in her spot. "Like Evil Mr Porkchop?" She cuts in, earning nods and chuckles from both of her parents.
"Exactly like Evil Mr Porkchop," he says with another laugh before he steered the conversation back to what he had started. "And me and my old partner went to try and stop them, but by the time we got there they had gotten away. Then a little bit later me and your Uncle Hank were talking to another police officer and that's when your Momma came in."
Jay takes a brief moment just to take in a breath before he continues, but he notes the way Macie's eyes light up at the mention of her mother and he feels his chest squeeze slightly. Macie loved a lot of things, but her love for her parents trumped all of that, especially that love for Hailey. People would comment how Macie was always attached to her father's hip, say that was was a very big 'Daddy's girl' and that she was, there was no doubt about it, but there was something special between Hailey and Mae, a unique type of bond that the two shared.
"And she tried to steal the crime scene, told me to leave but your Uncle Hank said we were gonna catch those bad guys anyway, even if Momma said we weren't allowed and then your Momma came to work with us anyway just for that one case, then after we caught the bad guys, Uncle Hank asked Momma if she wanted to stay on the unit and she said yes. Then my old friend left and Uncle Hank put me and Momma together. The end."
Macie tilted her head to one side, almost resting her cheek on her shoulder. "That wasn't long."
In the corner of his eye, Jay could catch Hailey shaking her head with a smirk before he turns his gaze back on to Mae.
"Well what else do you wanna hear?" He wonders.
Macie thinks about her answer for a beat. "What about when you knew that you loved Momma?" She asks, looking up at Jay.
Jay takes in a sharp breath and lets his head slowly shake from side to side. "I don't know, Mace. I can't remember when it changed, it just had one day."
"Well what day was that?" Macie quickly asks.
Jay shrugs slightly. He takes a minute to think of a response, his last was completely honest - he had no idea when it all started to change - but he knew Mae wouldn't accept that as an answer. Sat directly next to him Hailey's face changes, a curious glint in her eye as she waits to hear his answer.
When he's been quiet for too long, Macie taps at his arm to remind him she was still waiting and Jay can't help the small laugh that rises up from his chest when she does that.
"Okay, okay, um... there were little moments before this day that made me think about it, but if I had to put a specific day on it, I think it would be when your Momma told me she had a boyfriend and she was scared I would be mad at her for not telling me before. And it made me sad seeing her sad."
Macie smiled. Jay notes the way that Hailey seemed to be bracing herself and sure enough Mae then turned her head to her mother.
"What about you, Momma?"
Hailey cut in with a small shake of her head. "I knew that was coming," she mumbled, earning a chuckle from her husband before she looked down at her daughter. She already had her answer ready, having thought about it when Macie asked Jay, because she knew the question would be turned back around on her. "It was when Daddy got hurt-"
"Which time?" Jay jumps in, making Hailey tilt her head to one side.
"The fact you have to ask that question should be alarming to you," Hailey says and Jay purses his lips, silently telling her to just carry on. "The first time," she clarified and watched as Jay's face drops subtly as he seems to remember the time she was referring to. "Daddy wasn't listening to your uncle Hank and because of that he was chasing a bad guy when he wasn't supposed to and he was on his own, and the bad guy hurt him. Me and your uncle Adam found Daddy on the floor and before I got over to him, I thought Daddy was dead.. and that really scared me. And later I figured out that the reason that thought scared me so much wasn't just because he was my friend, it was because I loved him."
Macie smiled. "When did you tell Daddy you loved him?"
Hailey can't help but chuckle at that and she needs to ignore the ping in her side when she does because she doesn't want to alarm her daughter. "Oh not for a very long time after, and that's a completely different story for a completely different time because you need to go to bed."
The girl groans. "Oh come on! Please? Just a little bit more?"
Hailey softly shakes her head. "Mae, it is way past your bedtime and you've got school in the morning, maybe we'll tell you more tomorrow."
Macie doesn't seem overly impressed about that at first but after a beat she sighs and nods, accepting that that was the end of it.
Jay then knits his eyebrow together. "You want me or Momma to take you back to bed?"
Hailey's not sure why Jay even bothered answering, she knew what her daughter would respond with and the question hadn't fully brewed in her head yet. As soon as it did, Macie looked up and pointed at her father.
"You, Daddy." She responds.
With that, Jay gets to his feet and puts his hands out for Macie to walk into. She walked along the mattress and into his chest, Jay wrapping his arms around her and picking her up on to his hip. He nudged his chin to the side.
"Say goodnight."
"Goodnight, Momma." She repeated, raising her hand up to her lips and blowing Hailey a kiss.
He walked out with her still attached in his arms and Hailey can hear him talking to her as he takes her down the stairs. While he's out of the room, Hailey gets up off the bed and makes her way to the dresser, pulling out a t-shirt and a pair of shorts. When she pulled her shirt up over her head, she caught a glimpse in the mirror of the dark purple, almost black, bruise in the centre of her chest. She can feel herself suck in a sharp breath, only for a stab to crawl its way along her ribs, causing a wince to come across her face as she grits through her teeth. She stares at the bruise a moment longer before turning away from the mirror, disregarding the old shirt in the hamper and putting on the new one.
She finished changing and made her way back over to the bed, grimacing slightly as she climbed back into bed, sitting herself up against the headboard. She grabbed her phone and scrolled through it until Jay returned a few minutes later.
"She's out," he says, leaning himself against the doorframe into the bedroom. He earns a nod from Hailey and she's about to say something before he cut her off, bringing up the conversation from before. "Look, Hailey, you deserve that award. If that bullet had gone any higher, the vest wouldn't have caught it and you probably would have died right there and despite that you still took the risk to take the gun off an offender who had already killed someone and because you took that risk you saved the life of an innocent civillian. So you can say it's not right, it doesn't make sense or that you don't deserve it, but you do, and I will stand by that until the day I die."
an abrupt ending there, but i wasn't sure how to wrap it up. and just to remind you updates to this might be a bit far and few between for the next few weeks as i am prioritising "macie's story" to try and get it finished. i don't want to rush chapters or force them to get out just for the sake of keeping up with the schedule, if this is my last upstead fic i want to love all of it, enjoy every bit of writing it, not stressing about getting chapters up :)