Jay stares at the girls while Hailey tries to soothe Vanessa's cries. He needs to be doing something with himself, he actually should not be staring, Vanessa's was pretty much naked, much of her breasts were bare...He looks around and sees a tartan plaid on the couch and goes to grab it to cover her. He hands it to Hailey who murmurs:" Honey, I'm gonna put this on you ok, you're freezing", she can feel the brunette nod into her arms, she proceeds to put the cover on her shoulders, then " Ok now do you think you can walk?" Vanessa nods again, " Ok let's go sit on the couch alright? Jay is calling an ambulance they're gonna check you out" but before she's finished her sentence Vanessa cuts her "No, no, no, no, fuck no! No ambulance please, do not call anyone!" she is now looking a Hailey with urgency, her eyes puffy and red, traces of panic showing again in them.

Hailey looks at Jay, and Vanessa does the same, imploring with her eyes. Jay looks back at Hailey, and in a silent agreement decides to stash away his phone.
"For now we can just... wait for a bit", Hailey continues, "Let's try and get you on that couch first". But it turns out Vanessa couldn't really manage to stand up, let alone walk the small distance to the couch, after a failed attempt at standing up she falls back down, Hailey tries to catch her, just to fall in concert with her.

This looks like it was going to break the younger cop down again, and before she can even find the resolve to try again Jay swoops in and says " I'm gonna help you stand ok ?" Now it's his turn to plead with his eyes, she stares back and nods a little bit, but says " Can you help me upstairs, please? ...Bathroom..." again Hailey and Jay shoot a look at one another, they want to say no because... well it's gonna be an evidence mess, whatever happened here it was bad, they will have to call the team in, and the EMS and the forensics, and sooner rather than later.
Trying to think about how to manage Vanessa's refusal, they each help her stand and start walking slowly to the stairs, she is struggling to stay on her feet and she is leaning heavily on Hailey's arm, trying to minimize contact with Jay.
Finally making it to the steps, she breathes through the lump in her throat, each step sends a pang of pain all over her body, mostly on her lower abdomen, she feels like fainting.
Focusing as hard as she can on her steps, she can block out the hands helping her stand through the soft fabric of the plaid.
They are only a couple of steps in when she hears Jay with a hesitant voice " I could... if you want... I could lift you up there? If that's OK with you ?" He looks at her like he is afraid she is going to crumble or scream or disappear into thin air, and she wants to scream No! Fuck off! Don't touch me! Don't even look at me! , but she doesn't say anything, she just cowers a little bit onto Hailey, so he understands, and he doesn't lift her, and they keep on climbing the stairs very so slowly.
By the time they make it to the 1st floor, she is panting like she had run a sprint, her eyes are burning with repressed tears, she whispers a barely audible Thank you not looking at either of them, and stumbles in the bathroom that was still open from Hailey's check earlier.

She closes the door behind her.

Hailey and Jay stay looking at the closed door for a few seconds before they walk a few steps to put some distance between them and her and immediatly Jay start whispering " This is serious, we need to call in the team, right now! She needs medical attention." While going through his phone to dial-up Voight's number. But Hailey mindlessly put her hand on his phone thinking hard. "Hailey?! " he calls out blinking hard, "What..." very slowly she cuts him, "I don't know Jay, I mean yes she needs a medic, but let's give her a second... I need to think... let me at least warn her they are coming " in her head she was parsing through hundreds of scenarios, she was fighting away unwanted memories, which were coming back in little flashes, memories of her own battered and bloodied face and body.
She wanted to give Vanessa a minute to realize what was going to happen now.
But she couldn't focus on a single plan, how are things going to unfold from now on? All she knew is that whatever is going to happen now for her young partner is going to be incredibly painful and she would feel exposed and...
Jay's touch startled her " Sorry," he said letting go of her shoulder, "Hailey, I'm sorry, I don't even understand what you are saying. I'm calling it in, she needs help. Your flat is a crime scene, we can't just do nothing!" He was drumming in each of his sentences, wishing them to sound final. He wasn't going to argue for common sense.
Still, not totally hearing him, the blonde replied "Give me a minute, I need to tell her first, she needs to know that this is happening, she needs to be prepared... " again her eyes were unfocused, she passed her hands through her hair, then her eyes trailed back to the bathroom door. And then something alarmed her, water, the shower was running.
" Vanessa! Vanessa, Honey, I'm coming in!", no answer, she looks to Jay and opens the door.

"Vanessa you can't be showering, oh Hon..." Vanessa is sitting in the shower tub, water raining on her.
Hailey runs in and tries to stop the water, but Vanessa blocks her and pleads with a broken voice " Please Hailey, I'm not doing it, I'm not, I can't. I have to make this go away, I can't, I can't..." her voice breaks completely but Hailey could still read on her lips that she still repeating endlessly I can't like a litany.
And Hailey understands and realizes at that moment that she is the best person to be here with her... and the worst at the same time.
She knows, she understands what all of this entails. Vanessa was also a cop, they knew, and they wouldn't wish it on anyone.
But at the same time, she couldn't let whoever did this get away with it, and they needed evidence for that.
To bury him.

So she grabs Vanessa's hands and cups them between hers and look her straight into her eyes, and after a moment, "I know you don't want to, trust me, I know, but we need to call the ambulance, we need to call Voight, we need you to get checked out at Med and taken care of, I know this is all so unfair and I know it's painful but we have to do this."
"Please, please, please, don't make me do it, don't make me say it, please, you don't understand, I can't tell anyone!" now Vanessa was fully crying again, this time not trying to stop her tears, she was pleading for a bit of agency, even just a little crumb, to make her feel back in control, he had warned her and he had been crystal clear.

Hailey tries to think fast, very fast, for she cannot endure the crying, she was empathetic to her roommate's pleading, yet at the same time there was no way she would forgive herself if Vanessa ever wanted to pursue this and couldn't because of her actions in these first minutes, so she tries "Hear me out, let's make a deal ok? I won't tell anyone, at least no one on the team, not now, but you have to stop showering now, and I will take you to Med to get checked ok? You won't have to do anything you don't want, but you can't wash away all the evidence now, but we can make it our secret for now".
For a second or maybe a whole minute they could only hear the shower still raining on them, now even Hailey was partially wet, but still, she hangged onto Vanessa's hands.
The brunette was still shaking her head no, but the fight was gone from her, she didn't have enough energy anymore to stand against push back.
So she barely nods yes, and Hailey rushes in and turns the water off, and one second later grabs a towel and helps her friend get out of the tub.
They sit down side by side on the fluffy green carpet and stay silent for a moment. Both knowing what needed to come out now.
"Who did this to you, Vanessa?"
At the question, Vanessa's eyes shot wide open, and then she started shaking her head no, screwing up her face as not to cry anymore. She grabs the towel and bites it hard so she doesn't have to tell. The panicked reaction to her question left a very sour taste on Hailey's throat, for she couldn't yet substantiate anything, but her gut was saying Vanessa knew her attacker.
She didn't like it. This was going to be fucking tough.

"Ok, ok that's alright babe, for now you just sit here, I'm gonna tell Jay not to tell anything to anyone ok? We're gonna say you were in the shower when you heard someone downstairs, you hurried down but before you could reach your gun, the intruder pushed you, you fell and got into a fight with him, after a little while, he knocks you out and then ran away." She is making this up as she goes. It sounds stupid but so simple it could at least buy them tonight. Her only goal was to protect Vanessa's best interest now. By any means necessary.

"I'm gonna be right back ok? I'll be just out with Jay ok?

"How is she?" Jay presses her as soon as she is out the door, " I called the team and an ambo they're 10 minutes out."
Hailey grabs his arm and pushes him further on the corridor and whispers harshly " What did you tell them ?"
" What the fuck Hailey, the truth! We came in and found Vanessa hurt after what looks like a brutal assault."

Hailey breathes a little more easily " What else? Did you describe her injuries? What exactly did you say?" Now Jay was starting to look very irritated, and retorts " Exactly what I just told you ?!" He exhales and adds "What are you saying, Hailey?"
" Nothing, just..." she looks for her words... how can she make him understand? Jay was one of the most righteous and stubborn people she's ever met, he will never go for it. "I'll explain later but just don't say anything about how we actually found her ok?" she put a lot of emphasis on how; she hoped he understood that she meant not to tell everyone she was very bloodied and pretty much naked.

Jay looks at her completely bewildered like she wasn't even speaking english.
"What? Why?"
"Look, I found her showering..." Hailey was massaging her temples. "She doesn't want to do the whole assault thing so I left her an out, for now."
Now Jay looks at her as if she had completely lost her mind, and this time he is the one who grabs her and leads her even further away from the bathroom and nearly shouts "And why the fuck would you do that? Are you even thinking? She needs to tell us what happened SO we can help her! That's our job! Literally our jobs, we are the police! We can't lie about assaults!"

" WE, are not lying about the assault, she just can't do this right now, so we are going to help her deal with it the best way we can right now ok?"
Jay let go of her and looks at her with something like a mix of fear and anger and says "She's not you, you know? She can't be you, there has to be a better way."

But just as she was about to spit out her answer, even though she had no comeback for what he's just told her, they heard some noise downstairs followed by a voice she would recognize anywhere in the world.
She shot a killer look at Jay and outruns him downstairs to meet with the rest of their team.

" Upton?!" Voight is standing by the stairs while Kim, Kevin, and Adam are clearing the floor.

"Sarge", she simply answers, and Jay right behind her salute their sergeant the same way, "Are you alright?"
"Yes we are", and without looking at Jay, while Kim and Kevin were also greeting them, she continues, "Halstead and I arrived at my place around 00:30 and found the door open, we divided the search, I went in from the front and went to clear the first floor, and Jay went in from the back door onto the kitchen, we could see clear signs of struggles and then Jay found Vanessa hurt on the floor, after what seemed to be a struggle with an unknown offender, she is hurt and shaken but she will be alright, she is upstairs resting right now."

She shot out the answer like she had rehearsed it when she hadn't, it all came out naturally, she knew this was the right version to tell, it was basically the truth.
" How is he ? Where is the ambo ?"
" Honestly I thought they would beat you to it, Sarge." Jay answers.

" Ok I need to talk to Vanessa before they check her, anything she can give us will give us an edge to look for that bastard who thought it was clever to come into this home today."

"I'll get her" she replied quickly, afraid someone else would volunteer, she needed to go and prepare her and soften the blow of seeing everyone at once in the house.
While she's about to climb back upstairs, she looks furtively in Jay's direction, their eyes meet for a second, she can see the hesitation there but after a long second, he doesn't add anything.

When she arrives up she can see that the bathroom is now empty and finds Vanessa in her bedroom, dressed with a black hoodie and a mismatching pair of sweatpants, barefooted sitting on her bed and looking in the void, afraid to startle her she whispers softly " Hey girl, the team, they're here ok? Voight wants to talk to you."

Vanessa turns her head slowly and looks at her and nods, she goes to help her stand up, and adds " I told them what I said we would say, an unknown offender was in the house, you fought him and he got away" waiting for Vanessa to approve she gives the girl a second to nod, then adds "But the ambo is gonna be here soon too; You have to know that whatever we say, they will drive you to the hospital, so the best is not to fight it, we will go, but ill stay with you ok?" She was talking to her roommate as if she was a twelve years old victim at one of their crime scenes, but Vanessa wasn't very combattant anymore, she just nods to everything, lost in her own trail of thoughts, and follows Hailey's lead back to the world downstairs.

A weird silence is echoing in Vanessa's mind. She is starting to realize that whatever the future holds for her, it's starting now, after this there will be no way back to life before, whatever happens. She dries her tears one last time and think to herself : Time to put on a show, girl.

What happens next, she won't ever exactly remember.
The team fretting over her, Kim hugging her with one arm, and getting her wet hair out of her face, she smiles at Kevin and Adam, they wince at her bruised face, while she tries not to look at Jay, she can hear them talk but doesn't understand what they're saying, she needs to concentrate on her lie, and the more she volunteers to say, the less they will have to ask and the less chance for her to just break down in a thousand pieces.
Pieces of truth too.

So when the others start to divide between them the evidence collection, she lets her Sergeant lead her to a quiet spot near the tv set, Hailey feigns to leave them some space but follows closely.
"How are you kid? Alright?" she winces, he gave her a question with an answer, so all she has to say is " Yes Sarge, I'm alright, just a bit stunned, and bruised."
" Upton says they found you after what appears to be a struggle right?" Again she exhales, another question with an answer.
But she needed to be careful, she has seen Voight being a master at interrogating people, at making them contradict themselves with offering answers people were relieved to agree with. She needed to be more careful, she needed to craft her own answers or he will see right through her.
" Yes, so I came back home around 11 something, I was beat so I just stored away my gun in the safe and went straight for a shower, while I'm upstairs I can hear some noise downstairs, I call out to Hailey thinking she was home, but getting no answers, I decide to go and check and then a hooded man jumps me, I try to get away to retrieve my gun, but he was fucking fast and wouldn't let go of me, we fought on the floor over there", she points in the direction of the kitchen, but doesn't look herself," and after a few minutes of struggle, he punches me on the face and I lose consciousness for less than a second, he takes his chance and runs to leave through the front door. " She stops her tale and tries to steady her voice, and studies Voights face, she can't say if he believes her, then she looks to Hailey who was standing just a foot behind him and adds "Humm... After a while, I don't know exactly how much, Hailey and Jay come in, Jay is the first to find me and then he called the team in," she concludes trying to look resolved and final.
" Did you see his face? Anything recognizable?"
" No", she answers slowly, pretending to think but the answers come out too fast anyway,
" Did he have a getaway car? Or an accomplice? "
" I don't know, I mean sure he had a car I think, I heard a car racing away a few minutes after he knocked me down."
"Did he say something? What did he want? "
"No, nothing, I think it was just a burglary, and maybe the guy had no idea we were police and he bolted when he saw someone was home."
"You mean first he attacked you."

Vanessa could hardly swallow, or think, or breathe or see.
Her vision was starting to blur and she tried to find Hailey to find something to focus on.

Voight looks to her and follows her eyes going to Hailey every few seconds, he can see something is going on but for now, can't put his finger on it.
Of course, something in this story rings false. And he didn't like it one bit, whatever the reason, she was lying about something, still, someone out there was feeling ballsy enough to attack off-duty officers in their own home.
That was as bad as it gets.

"Yes, he bolted after we had the fight."

" We could maybe now starts to have a look at you ?" Brett soft voice popped their little interrogation bubble, just when it was starting to be impossible for her to breathe.
The first responder was looking at her as if she was going to break, and not waiting for Voights approval, she added "You look very pale, we should take your tension and have you checked out for a concussion ok?"

"Please take good care of her", the Sergeant answered with a kind smile, "She's been through it today".

And all of a sudden it all came back to Vanessa, she had shot a man nearly to death just a few hours prior, that's what got her in this position in the first place.
She couldn't breathe, she was going to puke again, or maybe her heart is just going to stop here and now, but as she was feeling like she was falling, Brett and Foster's steady but soothing hands caught her before her knees gave in.

"Let's walk you back to the ambo first, we'll check your tension, heartbeat, and lungs and look for any worrying wounds ok?" Foster listed the next steps to her while gently leading them outside.

The whole team started to follow to see her off, Voight right behind them, wanting to make sure his newest recruit was getting the best care.

"Are you out of your fucking mind? How is she going to take this back" Jay was pissed beyond words, he was walking just a few steps behind Hailey and whispering to her " Voight is gonna make your life a living hell for having lied to him, Hailey there's still time to fix it. Now!" This time she wasn't gonna let him talk to her like that, she shot a quick glance around her, and stopped walking abruptly making Jay nearly bump into her and turned back and said "You have no idea what you're talking about, I don't care about this job being done right, I care about my friend not having to go through hell once again." Then she said under her breath, "Just give her some time, we're gonna fix this, all of it." Only, of course, she had no idea how this could ever be fixed.
"Trying to convince me or yourself?" he shot at her before he rushed outside too, and this is when her eyes met with Kim's who was hidden by Jay's frame the whole time, she tried to half-smile at her not sure what her colleague had heard, and both of them followed the rest of the team out.

"One last question before I let you drive her, why do you presume the intruder thought the house was empty? How do you know he wasn't here for you? Or Hailey?"
Vanessa was exhausted over words, she had no idea what even was the question, how would one know when a house is empty, how do people usually know?
" My car... my car wasn't on the driveway, when I came home I just went up and didn't even bother getting the lights, I think... yes I think that's why he wouldn't know someone was home from outside." She wanted to high five herself, but before she could linger on her small victory, Voight added "Then, how did you get home?"
The thought of the ride home came back crashing to her as if she was watching tv, a neat 2D image, as if it was someone else in that car, so long ago.
Her mouth had completely dried when she tried for an elusive lie, " Someone from HQ drove me home after my statement."

That gave pause to Voight, that was not something that happened every day.
Yet he doesn't say anything, after a while he says, "We will follow you to the hospital, make sure you're golden kid", and before Hailey can squeeze herself between her colleague's bodies to climb in the ambo, Voight adds without even turning to face her "Hailey you ride with me." The blonde cop is totally taken aback, she doesn't even take time to compose herself and nearly shouts her reply " But Sarge she is my partner! My roommate !", He cuts her dryly, "Can't remember asking you a question Upton, you ride with me." Hailey shots a glance at Vanessa, trying to convey sorry with her eyes, then turns to Jay thinking he was going to climb up with her, but its Kim who actually jumps on the window and says " I'm gonna ride with her ok ?" she presses softly Hailey's arm as they cross path.

Hailey inhales, she needs to worry about herself right now, she wasn't estranged to Voight's interrogation tactics. He was highly suspicious of volunteered details, he liked to fight for answers, in his mind they were more trustworthy.
One could say he was generally not prone to believe anyone, even his own people.

If she can weather this, then maybe she had a chance to make it to tomorrow and strategize with a clear mind.