A/N: Inspired by Hailey's explanation of why she became a cop on episode 4.21 "Fagin."


"What did I tell you about sweeping that floor?" Nico Upton barked as he counted the till. Hailey was unenthusiastically pushing a dust mop around the diner floor. "Go get the actual broom."

"What's the point of having this thing if I can't use it?" Hailey groaned, dragging the dust mop and her feet as she went to the back room to find the broom.

"I know I didn't just hear you back talk me," Nico said in a low tone, never looking up from the money in his hands. Hailey walked faster. She knew what that tone meant and she wasn't about to get a slap to the face if she could help it.

In the back room, she shoved the dust mop into the corner, making more noise than necessary as she let the wooden handle fall against the cinder block wall with a loud clack, where it bounced and ended up landing on the floor. Just as she picked up the broom, she heard glass shatter the dining room.

"What the hell!" She heard her father holler.

"Papa?" She called out quietly, taking a tentative step toward the door that led back to the dining room. He hadn't seemed that mad at her sass back, but sometimes it was hard to tell how far she could really push. She should have known better after the slow day they'd had. There probably was not much money in the register and that always pissed him off.

Then she heard another man talking and she realized he was not yelling at her.

"Hailey! Run and call the police!" Her father shouted before she heard the sound of a scuffle and a wet thud. Her heart began to race. He sounded scared and that freaked her out. There was not much that scared Nico Upton. He was bigger than most men she knew and could punch a hole through a wall with one swing. "Run Hailey!"

Her father sounded winded now and his speech slurred. She tightened her grip on the broom handle and began backing away until she tripped over the dust mop handle and nearly fell into a rack of cleaning supplies. Just as she caught herself, two more thumps came from the front room, then something heavy landed on the floor.

"I know you're back there. Hailey, right? Come out here," a man called out.

She dropped the broom and ran.

To get to the back door, she would have to run past the door to the dining room, but the office door was just a few feet away off the kitchen and she sprinted toward it. Slipping inside, she shut it as quietly as she could.

It didn't lock. Her father always grumbled about it on slow weekdays when Hailey would come bug him while she was supposed to be watching the counter after school. Shoving a chair under the handle, she spun to look for the cordless phone under the stacks of receipts and invoices on her father's desk. Finding it on top of a box of new menus, she shakily pressed in 9-1-1.

"9-1-1, what is your emergency?" A calm male voice answered.

"A man broke into our diner," she told him, her voice wavering. The only place to hide was the small space between the filing cabinet and the wall and she jammed herself in, snagging her sleeve on the corner of the drawer that did not line up quite right anymore after her father had kicked it one day. "I think-I think he hurt my dad. He sounded scared and he told me to run, then I heard something big fall down and-and I think-I think it might have been him."

Tears started welling up in her eyes and she wrapped her arm around her knees to make herself into a small ball. That is what she did sometimes when her father was mad at one of her brothers and she did not want him to notice her. It usually worked.

"Okay, what is your name?" The man on the phone asked, voice still low and calm.

"Hailey An-ann Upt-ton," she told him, unable to stop the tremors of fear now running through her body. "Are you-are you sending the police?"

"Okay, Hailey, my name is Randall. I am sending the police, Hailey, but I need you to answer a few questions for me okay? Can you do that?" He asked, voice calm.

"Ye-yeah." She replied, taking a long slow breath trying to stop herself from hyperventilating.

"That's good. Are you at 800 Adams Street?" He asked.

She nodded as she said. "Yes. It's Nico's Diner on the corner of Adams and Halsted. We're in Greektown."

"All right. You're doing great Hailey," the dispatcher told her, his voice encouraging and she tried to cut her sniffles off so that he couldn't hear her crying. "Are you somewhere safe?"

"No, I'm in the office. That's where we keep the phone. But the door doesn't lock," she told him, her quivering voice quieting as she heard footsteps on the gritty tile floor in the kitchen. She whispered to the dispatcher, "I hear him."

"Can you get to somewhere safer without him seeing you?" He asked, voice suddenly less calm.

She shook her head and closed her eyes. Voice barely audible, she told him with a sob, "No."

With a loud bang, the door slammed open and the chair under the handle broke into pieces and went ricocheting off the walls. Hailey screamed and dropped the phone as a man in a green flannel shirt stomped toward her. She could hear the tinny voice of the dispatcher calling her name through the phone as she scrambled in the corner, unable to go anywhere.

She knew better than to put herself in a corner. It meant there was nowhere to run. She should have picked a better spot.

The man loomed over her and she looked up at his blurry form, blinking away the tears still in her eyes. Reaching for her, he grabbed onto her hair and dragged her out of her hiding spot and through the kitchen as she kicked and screamed and clawed at his hand.

As they rounded the doorway to the dining room, she went limp when she saw her father laying on the floor. She saw his feet first, just behind the counter. Then his white apron, stained with red blood. Finally, she saw his face. His left eye was swollen and bruised and large gashes were dripping blood down his face and forming a puddle under his right cheek.

The man threw her toward the register and she had to stumble and fall to her knees to avoid stepping on her father. She crawled up to his head and raised a shaking hand to his face.

"Papa?" She cried. She could see his chest moving, but he didn't stir when she wiped at the blood on the unmarked side of his face.

The man stood over her again. "Get up, you little shit."

Before she could do what he said, he pulled her up by the back of her shirt, making the collar of her T-shirt dig into her neck.

"You know how to open this?" He pushed her in front of the register. It had been open when she left the room earlier since her father was counting the money inside. She guessed he must have closed it before the man could get to it.

"There's a key," she told him. He let her go with a push and she had to catch herself on the counter before she smashed face first into the register.

"Where?" He demanded, shifting around restlessly.

Hailey swallowed hard. She knew where the key should be because she used it everyday. At that moment though, she didn't know where it was. Her father had used it to open the till. Which meant it could be in the cup they kept it in on a shelf under the counter or her father's pocket or even inside the register because he usually tossed it in the slot for the twenties while he counted at the end of the day. She had a feeling this guy wouldn't like it if she gave him the wrong answer.

"It should be under the counter," she told him, hoping that was where it actually was.

"Well, get it. I don't have all day here."

She reached under the counter for the battered styrofoam cup that held pens and paper clips and any small office supply that ended up by the register. On slow days like earlier today, Hailey would use one of the pens to doodle on the cup, so it was covered in blue and black drawings and had her name featured prominently on one side near the top. The man snatched it from her and dumped the contents out on the counter, crushing holes into the sides of the cup in the process.

"I don't see a key," he growled and his hand dipped behind his back. Then a gun was in her face. "Where is it really? Last chance."

Hailey couldn't say anything. She couldn't think. There was a gun in her face.

"Where is it?" He yelled, his face starting to turn red. She noticed blood dripping from the butt of the gun. Her stomach heaved a little when she realized it had to be her father's.

"I don't know," she cried. "He had it earlier."

"Fucking find it. Now." He waggled the gun in her face. When she didn't move, he cocked the hammer.

Kneeling down beside her father again, she dug into the pocket of his apron, hoping the key was there and not in the register itself. She was relieved when her fingers bumped the plastic key chain they kept it on. Hand still shaking, she held it out to him.

He waved the gun toward the register. "Unlock it."

Standing quickly, she got the drawer open and stepped back. She looked down at her father, who still had not moved. Hopefully an ambulance was coming, too. She didn't know if they would come since she did not ask for one. Maybe Randall would send one because she told him she thought this man hurt her dad.

"That's it?" The man snapped, pulling the few hundred dollars in ones and fives out of the drawer. "Where's the rest?"

Earlier, when they got to the diner after school, her brother Nick had been sent to the store with about three hundred dollars to buy cups, soap for the bathroom, and a small grocery list of ingredients that her father only bought from the spice lady's store farther up Halsted. She was suddenly glad Nick had left early to study with friends for an upcoming test after he got back with the supplies. Between him and Marco, Nick liked to fight back the most. It got him popped across the jaw a lot. She thought this guy would do more than that.

"It-it was slo-slow today," she stuttered as the gun was thrust back into her face.

"Bullshit. Where is the safe?" A wild look came into his green eyes as he looked around the diner. "Is it in that office?"

She shook her head. Her father did not trust that the diner would not be broken into at night and the safe stolen. He took all of the cash home at the end of the night and brought it back every morning. Their house was only about three blocks away and nobody usually messed with a man like him.

"Then where is it?" He screamed at her and she noticed he was missing a tooth. It was not obvious, but when he yelled at her, she could see the tooth behind his front left canine was gone.

"There isn't one," she told him, her voice hoarse from the knot of fear in her chest. "We don't have a safe."

"Don't have a-" the man cut himself off as blue and red lights reflected off the shiny chrome of the fixtures. A moment later, they could hear the sirens approaching down Adams. "Fuck."

He stuffed the cash and coins into his pockets and bolted for the back door. Hailey stood unable to move next to the counter as she watched him go and flinched at the bang of the door closing behind him when he left. She didn't know what she was supposed to do next.

A female voice yelled from outside, "Chicago Police Department!"

Hailey looked up to see a tall woman in a black pantsuit and white blouse haloed by the lights of the police car on the curb behind her. She stepped through the broken glass of the front door holding her weapon aloft and scanning the dining room. When she saw Hailey, she lowered her gun.

"Are they still here?" She asked Hailey, keeping her weapon down, but ducking her head into the back room to look around.

"He went out the back door," Hailey told her, dropping down next to her father. The puddle of blood had gotten larger and was now soaking into the right knee of her blue jeans. "I think he hit him with his gun. Th-there was blo-blood on it."

"Jesus Christ." The cop holstered her weapon and unclipped the radio from her belt. Keeping a vigilant eye on the back door, she radioed in, "5012 James, I have a suspect fleeing on foot from the 800 block of Adams. He is armed. One victim down. I need an ambo to my location now."

"He's-he's blonde and about six feet ta-tall I think because he is taller than Marco, but shorter than Nick and-and wearing a green shirt and black boots," Hailey told her, trying to remember everything she had noticed about him when he was waving the gun in her face.

The cop relayed the information, then knelt low so that she was closer to Hailey's height. "That was very observant of you. Are you Hailey?"

Hailey nodded, then uncontrollably burst into tears. "He-he broke in when I was getting the broom and my dad said to run and-and I did, but there wasn't anywhere to go in the office and I had to call the police and he pulled my hair and made me open the drawer and I was really sca-scared."

"Hey, hey, hey," the cop said quietly, holding a hand out toward Hailey. "You were so brave. Okay, kiddo? So brave. Are you hurt at all?"

Hailey shook her head and sniffled, rubbing her nose with her sleeve. "No."

"Good. That's good," the cop said, pulling a handkerchief out of her pocket and handing it to Hailey. "My name is Trudy. Officer Trudy Platt. I am going to take a look at your dad now, okay? There's an ambulance on the way to help him."

"Oh-okay." Hailey wiped her face down with the handkerchief, then blew her running nose. "He had a gun, but I didn't hear him shoot it."

"That's good to know," Trudy said. She looked over Hailey's father, then asked her, "Do you keep clean towels nearby?"

Turning, Hailey opened the cabinet behind the counter where they kept the fresh cleaning rags they used to bus tables. She handed several to Trudy.

"Perfect. I am going to hold these to his head to help it stop bleeding until paramedics get here," she told Hailey in a calm voice.

Hailey could not believe she hadn't thought of that herself. "How bad is he hurt?"

Trudy looked at her, then down at her father, and back up at Hailey.

"I want to know," Hailey insisted, trying to sound braver than she felt.

Trudy frowned, but eventually said plaintively, "He's hurt pretty bad, kid. I'm no doctor, but I think that guy may have broken his eye socket."

"They can fix that, right? With surgery? Doctors can fix it?" She didn't know anything about eye sockets, but it was part of the skull and she knew any damage to your skull was bad. Nick had gotten a skull fracture once last year right before they moved to Greektown. He had to have emergency surgery and had not been allowed to play sports for months. Her parents had blamed it on an accident at practice, but Nick had been grounded at the time and was not allowed out of the house.

The officer shook her head. "I don't know. They will try and they will do their very best."

A fresh wave of tears welled up behind Hailey's eyes and she tried to stop them. Her dad would be so pissed if he saw her crying. He did not like when she cried.

"Do you have family I can call?" Trudy asked.

"My mom is in St. Louis visiting my aunt. Her number is on the fridge at my house," Hailey told her, scrubbing her face. "Nick and Marco aren't home tonight and Nick probably won't answer his cell phone anyway, but Marco might."

Hailey was not even sure Marco still had his phone. She overheard him tell Nick it was broken during a fight with their dad the week before and she was not sure if it was fixed or if it even could be. Nick just never remembered to charge his.

"Who are Nick and Marco?" Trudy asked as she lifted the rags up slightly to check the bleeding, then quickly pressed them back down.

"My brothers. They are older than me and Papa let's them leave early. I have to wait and walk home with him," she said. Now that her tears were drying up and the fear that had been racing through her since her dad yelled for her to run started to go away, she just felt really tired. She leaned back against the counter and watched Trudy discreetly place a hand on her father's neck to check his pulse. "He's still breathing. I can see his chest moving."

"I know. I just wanted to check how strong it was. It still feels pretty strong. That's a good sign," Trudy told her with an encouraging nod.

Hailey relaxed a bit. Trudy looked like she knew what she was talking about. She tensed up again when she heard the crunch of glass by the front door.

"Platt? Where are you?" A man called out.

"Terrance? Where the hell have you been?" Trudy called out over the counter.

The other officer huffed and came around the counter. "Chasing that guy. I was coming around the building just in time to see him come out the back, but I lost him when he ran into an alley and jumped the fence."

"Is he going to come back?" Hailey asked.

Trudy shook her head, her long gray and black braid swinging slightly. "No, kiddo. I'm going to stay right here with you and my partner Terrance here is going to watch the doors until the ambulance gets here. Some detectives I work with should be on their way soon. Then you are going to come with me until I can get in touch with your mom or brothers. He's not coming anywhere near you."

"But what about my dad?" Hailey had been in the hospital alone before when they had a lady sit with her so a man could talk to her mom and dad. The lady was kind of nosy and it had made Hailey nervous because her dad told her people did not need to know their family business. She did not want her dad to be alone.

"We should be able to call the hospital for updates," Trudy said, craning her neck to check the front. "Terrance, can you check on that ambo for me?"

Her partner went to the front door and leaned out. He turned back and called out, "It's here."

He went out to meet the paramedics and Hailey heard them wheel a gurney through the glass not long after.

"What are we looking at here?" The paramedic asked as she rounded the counter and sat her bag on the ground next to Hailey's father.

"Pistol whipped," Trudy explained as she moved out of the way for the male paramedic. "Bleeding a lot. Pulse has gotten weaker over the last few minutes."

"You didn't tell me that," Hailey said, panicking. "You said it was strong."

Trudy laid a hand on Hailey's shoulder and moved her aside so that the paramedics had more room. "It's still strong, kid. Just not as strong as it was. But he's in good hands now, okay? These guys are going to get him to the hospital and they will take care of him there."

Hailey watched the two paramedics work on her father, then haul him onto a gurney. His large hands lay limply on the mattress of the gurney as they moved carefully around the tables and out the front door. She was so used to seeing his hands always moving, counting money, making a fist, slicing the lamb for gyros, that the strange way they flopped and swayed as the gurney bumped along made her stomach sink. Despite what Trudy said, she was scared for him. She watched them load him into the back of the ambulance from behind the counter by the cash register as the room around her flashed red and blue from all of the cop cars on the street. She thought it was just Trudy and Terrance, but there were six other cars and a handful of officers just outside talking to Terrance. Two men in suits broke away from the small group and stepped inside.

"Trudy, Terrance said you have a witness?" One asked.

An hour later, after Hailey had walked through the break-in with the two detectives, Hailey sat at her kitchen table in a fresh change of clothes since the leg of her pants had been soaked in blood, flipping through the address book her mom kept to find Marco's cell phone number. Trudy had already tried to call her mom and gotten the answering machine. She'd left a message and the direct line to her desk phone at the district where they were heading next.

"How old are your brothers?" Trudy asked, sitting in the chair next to her at the table.

"Nick just turned sixteen and Marco turns eighteen next month," Hailey told her, then pushed the book over to her. "That's his number. I couldn't remember if the last number was a five or a two. Nick's phone is plugged up in his bedroom. I checked when I went to change clothes."

Trudy pulled out a notebook and jotted down the number. "I'll call from the district. I already left a message with your mom that we would be there and I want to get back as soon as possible."

"Can we call the hospital?" Hailey asked as she locked the front door and they walked back to the squad car.

"When we get back to my desk," Trudy told her. The cop waited for her to buckle her seatbelt and then asked, "Want to go full lights and sirens? Fastest way to get through Chicago."

Hailey knew she was only asking to cheer her up. She was twelve, not stupid, but she couldn't help but grinning anyway.

"Yeah," she said.

"Hold on, then," Trudy told her as she turned the siren on.

They flew across the city. They were not going as fast as the L-train, but watching the road open up before them and buildings blur by, Hailey thought maybe it would be exciting to be able to do this everyday like Trudy did.

The room the Robbery/Homicide unit was in had three rows of desks and Trudy led her to one near the middle. It was neatly organized and had only a phone, notepad, and a small stack of file folders.

"Have a seat and we will call your brother, then the hospital."

Trudy sat behind the desk and Hailey sat on the chair next to it. Marco did not answer.

"I think his phone might be broken," Hailey told Trudy.

"Let's try the hospital then. See if they have an update for us." Pulling out Rolodex, Trudy located the number she was looking for and dialed the phone. After a few minutes of being redirected, she finally seemed to get someone on the phone and Hailey listened to the one-sided conversation.

"This is Officer Trudy Platt with Robbery/Homicide." She rattled off a series of credentials and spent several minutes giving one word answers to whatever the other person on the line said. Finally, she gave them her direct line. "Call back if anything changes. I have his kid here with me and she is very worried."

Hailey thought she had done a good job of hiding her worry and fear for her dad, but apparently not.

"Don't worry, kiddo. They call back faster if they know someone is waiting for news besides just me. They are prepping him for surgery to repair his eye socket. I'm betting he's a tough guy. He'll do just fine. You thirsty? Come on." She didn't wait to see if Hailey would follow and strode toward a break room. Pulling two mugs out of the cabinet, she filled one with milk and the other with coffee. At the last moment, she added a small amount of the coffee to the mug with milk. "I think you've earned a dash of the good stuff. You better not go bouncing off my desk if you drink caffeine."

"I drink my mom's all the time." Really, it was only on Sundays and she did not like it that much, but it made her feel more mature.

"Uh-huh." Trudy gave her a suspicious look and went back to her desk. "Listen, protocol is that I have DHFS take you until your family can pick you up, but I called when Detective Gordon was talking to you and they couldn't get anyone out here for awhile and I couldn't get ahold of your mom. No one answered at the number you had for your aunt, but I left a message to call me back."

"Why can't I stay with you?" Hailey sat her milk down on Trudy's desk as her hands started shaking. "I want to stay with you. I want to help you catch him."

It was not just that she wanted to help. From the time Trudy had entered her father's diner, Hailey had felt safe. With the burglar still out there somewhere with a gun, she really, really wanted to feel safe.

"Kid, I'm going to be on the phone most of the night. I might have to leave if we find out someone has security footage and I can't take you with me."

Hailey crossed her arms. "Why not?"

Trudy frowned at her. "Because my Captain would have my head. How old are you?"

"Twelve," Hailey told her, jutting her chin out defiantly.

"Right. Taking a twelve-year-old out to collect evidence is a good way to lose my badge." Trudy's phone began to ring and she held out her finger to Hailey to pause their conversation and answered it. "This is Platt. What do you need?"

Hailey had a small amount of hope that it was one of her brothers, but that was squashed when Trudy began writing down details about a car.

"Someone saw our suspect driving away from the area my partner lost him in," Trudy told her when she hung up. "Terrance stayed on the scene with our detectives, so he's going to go check out the area he was spotted. Might be able to find someone with cameras in the area to help us. I'm going to run the plate number our witness gave."

Hailey pointedly took a seat in the chair beside her desk again.

"There's a couch in that break room if you want to sleep. It's getting late." Trudy started flipping through her cards in the Rolodex again for a phone number.

Hailey picked up her mug of milk again and settled back into the chair. She was only moving away from this desk if Trudy did.

"Alright, then," Trudy said, smirking as she picked up the receiver on her phone.

Hailey watched what little activity there was in the room while Trudy called several people and, when she stepped away to use one of the fax machines on the desks by the wall, Hailey followed her.

"I tracked down the guy who owns the car and he has a record. So I am having my friend Berta send it over," she told Hailey. Once the sheets had printed, Trudy held them out to Hailey. On the front piece, a man's picture took up the majority of the paper.

Hailey shook her head. "That isn't him. It looks kind of like him, but the guy who robbed us had green eyes, not brown. And he's missing a tooth."

"Let's see if we can figure out why our suspect was in his car then, huh?" Trudy flipped through the papers, then walked back to her desk with Hailey following.

"Platt." Detective Kazenski, the other detective who had been at the diner earlier, walked in. "Any leads on that car?"

"Identified the owner and he has a record, but Hailey said it wasn't him," Trudy told him.

He looked over at Hailey. "You're sure?"

"Yes," she told him. Hailey was pretty sure she would never forget the man's face.

"What else do we have?" He asked.

"Nothing. Hailey is our only witness and no luck on security footage so far."

Hailey squirmed in her chair. If they did not find this guy, he could come back. Their house was not too far from the diner; he could find out where they lived.

"What happens if you don't find him?" She asked in a small voice.

"We're going to find him. Don't you worry." Trudy's tone left no argument, but Hailey couldn't help the nagging fear the man would be waiting for them when they got home one day.

"I got a security camera from a convenience store up Adams that has our car driving past five minutes after he fled," Detective Gordon announced as he and Terry entered the room. He held out a disk to Trudy and she put it in the DVD player for them to watch the footage.

When the driver came into view, Trudy paused the tape. "Is this him, Hailey?"

"Yes." Hailey was absolutely sure of it.

"He does look a lot like the owner of the car," Trudy mused as she flipped through the papers they had on the owner of the car. She smacked her hand down on it. "He has a brother. I'll get Berta to check for a record on him. A…Phillip Martin."

"Do that. In the meantime, we will go talk to the brother who owned the car. Can I have his file?" Gordon asked. He took the file from Trudy when she held it out to him. "Good work, you two. Get that girl a badge, Trudy, she's going to be a great detective."

He winked at Hailey, then nodded for the other detective to follow him out. Trudy picked up the phone to call Berta again. Hailey couldn't take her eyes off the image of the man frozen on the screen.

She remembered him pointing the gun at her.

She remembered him dragging her through the kitchen by her hair.

She remembered the wet whack-whack-whack sound as he hit her dad after he told her to run.

She did not realize she was crying until Trudy handed her a tissue and laid a small plastic-wrapped pack of them beside her on the desk.

"I'm sorry," she said in a small, watery voice.

Trudy gave her a funny look and shook her head. "Never. Never apologize for crying after the day you've had."

Hailey thought her dad might have something different to say about that, but she nodded. "Okay."

Blowing her nose and wiping off her face, she really wished Marco or Nick were there. The hospital hadn't called back and her mom hadn't called Trudy's desk line even though Trudy left a message.

She was just glad Trudy had forgotten that she was supposed to call DHS to pick Hailey up.

"Berta is sending over Phillip Martin's file," Trudy told her. "Hey, why don't we call the hospital, then we can go down to the vending machine and get a midnight snack. They just started stocking Oreos."

"Yes, please," Hailey said. She wasn't really hungry because her stomach felt all tied up, but she definitely wanted to know what was happening at the hospital.

Trudy called the hospital and Hailey watched her face intently for any sign that something might be going wrong. After a few minutes, the officer hung up.

"He's still in surgery, but they said he is stable and doing well. It might be a few more hours before they are done," Trudy told her as she rifled through the top drawer of her desk for quarters. After finding a handful, she nodded for Hailey to follow her. "Now, you are in luck, because we have the best vending machine selection of all the districts."

Hailey grinned and rolled her eyes. She was just happy to hear that they thought her dad was doing okay. Now if they could just catch the bugler, she would feel a lot better.

After choosing a bag of chips, a chocolate bar, and a root beer, Hailey followed Trudy back up to the room with all of the desks.

"Why are there so many desks in here?" She asked Trudy, popping a handful of chips in her mouth.

"It's a pretty big unit. We don't all work on the same cases at the same time." Trudy took a bite of a powdered donut and dropped the rest of the pack into her desk drawer. "Can't get caught eating these or someone will make a cop joke."

The fax machine made a noise and Trudy walked over to it to see what was coming through. After the papers were printed, she came back to the desk and held them out to Hailey.

"That's him," Hailey said.

Trudy called her the detectives and relayed the news.

"Are they going to catch him now?" She asked Trudy.

"Hopefully they can find him," Trudy told her. "And if they can't, I'll go looking for him myself. "

Hailey smiled at Trudy. "Thank you."

"It's my job, kiddo," Trudy smiled back.

Hailey thought it was a pretty cool job. Catching bad guys. Keeping people safe. Driving a car full speed with lights and sirens through the streets of Chicago.

She would like to have a job like that one day.

Trudy pulled out a deck of cards from her desk and they played Gin Rummy until Trudy's phone rang again.

"Officer Trudy Platt, Robbery/Homicide." Trudy's eyes widened and she held the phone a little ways from her ear when the person on the other end of the line began to speak. "Ma'am, calm down. Hailey? Yes, she's here with me."

Hailey perked up. It had to be her mom.

"Yes. Your husband is at Lakeshore. He was in surgery the last time I spoke to them. He was injured during a robbery. Yes, Hailey was there. No, she was not hurt." Trudy answered all her mom's questions calmly, then, after answering several more, handed Hailey the phone.

"Mom?" She said, holding the receiver to her ear.

"Hailey? Hailey, are you okay? Where are Marco and Nick?" Her mom asked.

"I'm fine. He pulled my hair and pointed a gun at me, but I'm safe with Trudy now. He hit Papa really hard with his gun and broke his eye socket. Nick and Marco weren't there. They left early to go to a friend's house, but I'm not sure which one," Hailey told her mother. She was very proud of herself for not crying again. "Why didn't you answer the phone when Trudy called earlier?"

"Your aunt and I went to Lake of the Ozarks for the day and just got back. Oh, honey, I'm so sorry I wasn't there," her mom said and she could hear the tears in her mother's voice.

"It's okay. I'm here with Trudy. She got a lead and her partner and the detective are going to find the burglar. They're going to bring him in," Hailey told her confidently. "She also put the sirens on after we left the house. It was really cool."

"I'm glad Trudy was there then. I'm getting on the road as soon as I hang up. I'll be there by morning. Can you put Trudy back on the line?"

Hailey handed the phone back to Trudy and waited as Trudy spoke with her mother for several more minutes, mostly listening, occasionally writing something down, and, finally, relaying the phone number for the hospital.

"Alright, kid. Your mom said she's on her way. And-"

Trudy's radio crackled to life. "We have the suspect in custody. Bringing him in now. Twenty minutes out."

Hailey gasped. "They caught him? He's going to jail now?"

"Not quite yet. They are going to bring him here and put him in a room. Then we will do a line up and you will identify him. I just asked your mom and she gave us permission for you to do one before she gets here. After that, they will question him and hopefully he gives us a confession because it helps things a bit. If they have enough, we'll put him in a cell and he'll go before a judge and all of that," Trudy explained, retrieving the pack of donuts from her desk drawer. "I think we can have a bit of an early celebration with a donut though. Want one?"

Hailey eagerly took a donut and bit into it. "How do I do a line-up?"

"We'll get together a group of men that have a similar look to our suspect and then you will pick out that man you remember from the robbery. You pick the right one, we book him."

"What if I pick the wrong guy?" Hailey asked anxiously.

"You already identified him on the security footage and his mug shot from his file. You will do just fine," Trudy assured her.

"Will he be able to see me?"

Trudy shook her head. "Not even for a second. And I will be right there the whole time."

That made Hailey feel a lot better, but she was still nervous that she might pick the wrong guy and then the real bugler would still be out there and know who she was and where their diner was.

Several tense minutes ticked by with Trudy doing paperwork and Hailey kicking her heels against the chair legs. She jumped when Trudy's phone rang.

"Platt, Robbery/Homicide," she answered.

Hailey strained to hear what the other person was saying, but could not hear more than a murmur.

"Alright, I'll bring her down," Trudy told the person on the other end. "Okay, kiddo, you're on deck."

"I'm scared." Hailey remained glued to her chair. She knew they would take his gun and any other weapon he had. But he could still yell at her. She was used to being yelled at, but this guy had beaten her dad's face in and probably would have hurt her too if Trudy had not gotten there in time. He was terrifying.

"Remember what I said? I will be right beside you the whole time and he will never see you. Scout's honor." Trudy held her hand up in a salute. "Come on. After we are done with the line up, I'll show you around the district."

Hailey followed Trudy down the stairs to a room with a giant window. The detectives working the case and another woman were waiting.

"Daria. They have you pulling night duty now?" Trudy asked, steering Hailey into the room by the shoulders. She heard Trudy introduce the woman, but she did not hear who she was because now that she was in the room, she could see him.

There were five other men in flannel shirts and jeans standing against the wall, but the guy who robbed them would have stood out even if there were a hundred other men all dressed exactly like him.

"That's him. The third one from the left," Hailey said confidently.

"Let the record show the witness has identified the suspect, Phillip Martin," Daria stated. "Good to see you again, Truds."

"Did she just call you Truds?" Detective Gordon asked as they walked back to the big room upstairs.

Trudy gave him a scathing look. "She can. You can't unless you want to find yourself working a footbeat again. I have connections like you wouldn't believe."

The detective held up his hands. "Officer Trudy Platt it is."

"And don't you forget it, Chuckles," Trudy said, leading Hailey back to her desk. "Now that we got the tough part out of the way. I believe I promised you a tour of the district."

"What if the hospital calls? Or Marco?" Hailey asked. It had been a few hours since their last update on her dad.

"Good point." Trudy turned to Detective Gordon, who had just settled at his desk. "Gordy, could keep an ear out for my phone? We are expecting some very important phone calls."

"Aw, come on, Trudy. If I can't call you Truds, you can't call me that," he groused.

Trudy raised an eyebrow at him and Hailey giggled.

The detective rolled his eyes. "Fine. I'll come get you if someone calls."

"Too right you will," Trudy remarked, giving Hailey a grin and wink that Gordon could not see. "We'll be downstairs."

Their first stop was the Captain's office. He was out, but Trudy told Hailey to be lookout while she slipped inside. A few minutes later, she came back out with a shiny badge that looked similar to the one Trudy wore around her neck.

"Got to stop by and see the Desk Sergeant next."

Rounding the corner, they stopped in front of the big counter that they had passed earlier when they came into the building. There were a few patrol officers dressed in blue milling around and an older man dressed in white behind the desk talking to one of them.

"Move over, Bob. I have a very important person coming through," Trudy said, bumping the patrolman aside to usher Hailey up to the desk. "What are you doing over here anyway?"

"Adam's at his mom's this week so I'm picking up a few extra shifts on patrol. Got to bring home that bacon. The boy's trying to eat me out of house and home," Bob told her, then looked down at Hailey. "Who do we have here?"

"This is Hailey. She has been an excellent help and an absolute assest to Chicago Police Department," Trudy handed the badge over the the man behind the desk. "Sergeant, if you would do the honors."

"One night on the job and you are already getting promoted." The man took the badge and smiled at Hailey. "I'm Sergeant Taylor and it is very, very nice to meet you, Miss Hailey."

Hailey shook his hand when he offered it to her and she looked between all of them. "Nice to meet you too. What promotion?"

"Why, to junior detective! You have performed a valuable service for the CPD." Sergeant Taylor came around the desk and knelt on one knee before Hailey. "Alright, stand up straight and hold out your hand."

Hailey did, trying not to smile. They were just trying to cheer her up, and she knew that, but it was also awfully fun to play around at a real police district.

The sergeant held the badge in the air and, in loud voice said,"I, Sergeant Taylor, of the Chicago Police Department, do hereby by bestow upon you, Hailey, the rank of Junior Detective for meritorious service to the city of Chicago in aid of the apprehension of a vile criminal and assistance in making this city safer for every citizen."

Sergeant Taylor handed Hailey the badge.

"Thank you, Sergeant," Folding her fingers around the cool metal of the fake badge, she stared at it for a moment. She thought of Trudy bursting through the broken door of their diner and of flying through the streets in a cop car and the crackle of the radio when they radioed in that they got the guy who robbed them and hurt her dad. Most of all, she thought of how safe she felt sitting next to Trudy at her desk while they searched for the burgler and waited for news about her dad. Looking back up at the sergeant she said, "I'm going to get a real one of these one day."

"I have no doubt. I hear you are a very brave little girl." The sergeant smiled warmly at her. "Now, I got all the way down here and my bum knee won't let me get up. How about you and Trudy help me?"

Laughing, she and Trudy each grabbed one of his hands and pulled him to his feet.

"You have the future of the CPD with you right there, Trudy." The sergeant patted Hailey on the head and took his place once again behind the desk. "Where are you headed now?"

"I was thinking we might swing by the Gang unit downstairs to see what excitement they are up to. They always have someone in the office," Trudy told him.

"Not tonight. Voight and Olinsky got a big bust and pulled the whole unit in. Brought Voight's old crew with Vice in on it and everything. I got half my patrol assisting them right now," the sergeant told Trudy. "Everybody's pretty happy with the OT."

"Well, there goes that idea," Trudy said, looking at Hailey with a frown. "Showing a twelve-year-old our seized weapons locker would be right up there with bringing one along to collect evidence. How about we-"

"Hey, Truds, you got a call at your desk," Detective Gordon told Trudy as he took the stairs down to the lobby two at a time, then beelined for the front door. As he left, he shouted over his shoulder. "Left the message on your desk!"

"Footbeat, Gordy! For life!" Trudy shouted after him. To Hailey, she said, in a much calmer voice, "I bet that was the hospital. Let's go see how your dad's doing, kiddo."

Hailey nervously followed her up the stairs. The hospital calling Trudy meant it was probably good news, she thought. If it were bad, they would wait for her mom to tell her.

Trudy called the hospital back, referencing Gordon's note for the direct line. She stayed on for a few minutes listening to the nurse on the other end, nodding along.

"Got it. Thanks. Call us if anything changes." Trudy hung up and smiled at Hailey. "Good news. Your father is out of surgery. He's not awake yet because they are keeping him under for a few hours, but they think everything looks good right now."

With the bad guy caught and now her father out of surgery, Hailey felt all of the weight that had been pressing down on her all night lift.

"Am I able to go to the hospital to see him?" Hailey asked. She liked hanging out here with Trudy, but she really wanted to see her dad for herself.

"Actually, I bet your mom isn't more than an hour or so out from getting here." Trudy looked down at the watch on her left wrist. "And it is almost four in the morning. You could try to get some shut eye. You've had what I would call a long night."

As if on cue, Hailey suddenly yawned. Now that Trudy mentioned it, she realized she did feel exhausted.

"Come on, I'll get you set up on the couch in the break room."

She followed Trudy to the break room and took the blanket she pulled out from a cabinet.

"We keep weird hours. Someone almost always needs a nap," the officer said by way of explanation as she fluffed the lone throw pillow. "Light on or off?"

"Um, on?" She was not afraid of the dark, but she was afraid of what she could not see in the dark and, even though Trudy would stop him, Phillip Martin could possibly escape and try to find Hailey. "Please?"

"On it is. Night, kiddo." Trudy left, leaving the door cracked slightly.

Hailey settled down and sleep pulled in her almost immediately. Her eyes grew heavy, but she heard someone come up the stairs and they snapped back open.

"Have you seen Gordon?" She heard Detective Kazenski ask.

"Yeah, he was running away last I saw," Trudy answered him.

"From who?"

"Me," Trudy answered. "Martin confess?"

"Yep. Minute we told him he had already been identified. Can you believe that guy? Beats a man half to death and then threatens a kid. All for a measly two hundred and seventy-two dollars and fifty-seven cents. Still had it in his pockets when we caught up with him,"

Hailey knew it would not be much, but she wondered if they would get it back now. Her dad was going to be so mad already without losing a whole day's receipts.

"And his gun wasn't even loaded. Must have been why he hit Nico Upton with it," the detective told Trudy with a scoff. "Crime techs are working on it now, but he hadn't had a chance to wipe it off. It was still covered in blood. This is a slam dunk case if I ever saw one."

Hailey pulled the blanket up tighter around her. It was terrifying to hear the details, but it sounded like Phillip Martin was definitely going to jail. Knowing she was completely safe from him and knowing she would not be woken up by her dad shouting at her mom for once, she fell asleep between one breath and the next.

Her mom shook her away some time later. It was so hard to wake up that she felt like she had been asleep for days.

"Hey, sweetheart. Time to go, okay?" Her mom said, pushing Hailey's hair out of her face and behind her ear.

"Mom?" Hailey sat up groggily. "Have you seen dad yet?"

"Yep, I called when I stopped for gas and Officer Platt told me you were asleep. I thought you might need a bit of rest after last night," her mom told her. "So I went to check on Dad. They haven't woken him up from sedation yet."

"We tried to call Marco, but he didn't answer."

Her mom nodded. "I called his friend's mom. He's going to get Nick and meet us at the hospital in Dad's car."

"Okay. Let's go then. I want to see Dad." Hailey rose from the couch and started to leave the room to say goodbye to Trudy, but her mother caught her by the wrist.

Leaning close, her mother whispered, "You didn't say anything to that cop about how mad your dad gets, did you? Because you know you aren't supposed to say anything about that to anybody."

It had never crossed Hailey's mind to tell Trudy about her dad. She had a feeling that, if she did, Trudy would be pretty angry. She did not seem like the type of person who would put up with her dad's constant yelling. But they had made it very clear over the years that she would probably get taken away if she did and never see her family again and she loved them all too much for that to happen.

"No. I didn't," Hailey whispered back.

"Good, because you know what happens if you ever did," her mom said in a low voice.

"I didn't," Hailey insisted, feeling upset.

She pulled away from her mom and stomped into the bull pen where Trudy was leaning against her desk talking to the detectives. Without a word, she wrapped her arms around Trudy's waist.

"Whoa. Hey, kiddo." Trudy patted her on the back. "You ready to go see your dad?"

Hailey nodded. She saw her mom leave the break room holding her jacket. For a split second, she wanted to say something to Trudy about how she had to sleep with a pillow over her head just to drown out her parents fighting and that Nick's head injury last year was not from soccer practice. She imagined walking into the room with the one-way window and identifying her father as the bad guy.

She did not though.

Because her dad was not always the bad guy.

She let go of Trudy and turned to the detectives. She held out her hand, like a grown up would. "Thank you."

"Just doing our job, kid," Detective Gordon said, giving her hand a shake.

"We need to go, Hails," her mom said, laying a hand on her shoulder.

"Bye, Trudy," Hailey said to the officer.

"Bye, kiddo," Trudy said warmly. "Keep that badge shiny."

"I will," Hailey promised, touching the badge she had pinned to her shirt.

Outside, when they were almost to her mom's car, Hailey told her mom, "I'm going to be a cop like Trudy one day."

"Oh, yeah?" Her mom asked, unlocking the car. "Why's that?"

"Because she kept me safe," she said as she settled down into the front seat of the car and turned the heater up. "I want to do that too."


A/N: Trudy with kids is always just the best. Let me know what you think! Thanks for reading.