Hi guys!
I decided to post the new chapter today because the next few days I'll be a little busy with an exam and I don't know if I'll have time.
Anyway, I know! We will have little Upstead moments in this chapter but I really want to convey Hailey's POV. And Hailey doesn't spend all her time with Jay, does she?
However, in the next updates there will be more Upstead moments of course! Don't hate me!
Hoping to hear from you soon, stay safe out there.
With love, H
Hailey jerked awake with a roar that brightened her bedroom.
She turned on her side seeing the torrential rain falling beyond the window. It had been raining unceasingly from two days and it seemed as if, instead of simple rain, real streams of water had been created along the city streets.
Fortunately for them, they hadn't had any special cases, so taking refuge in the heat of the district, filling out documents and simply resting seemed like a gift from heaven.
She ran a hand over her little baby bump, act which was becoming almost normal for her. A sort of relaxing thing. The bump beneath her shirt was still small, but there was. And Hailey, everyday, found every possible excuse to look in the mirror.
She remembered the morning that, almost two weeks before, looking herself in the mirror, she saw a small, tiny protuberance. She made the ride to the district so quickly that she really couldn't remember and waited for Jay in the parking lot.
The only day he had to arrive early, he was obviously late.
But then, he came out from around the corner and she almost cried with joy. She dragged him into the empty bathroom and, before he could understand what was going on, she had pulled off her shirt. And here it is, the little baby bump. Their small, tiny baby.
She wanted to jump for joy and cry from the terror that gripped her chest at the same time, but then his green eyes grounded her. They were beautiful, excited and kind.
And she wondered what the hell she had done in life to deserve such a man. Not that he was really hers. Although, she thought selfishly, after all he was a little hers. His child was growing inside her, so…
She wanted to feel selfish, not so much, just a little.
Another flash of lightning lit her room and, knowing well she would no longer fall asleep, she got up and walker silently down the corridor to go down to the kitchen.
The light snoring from the half-open door of Vanessa's room made her realize she didn't have too much problem sleeping with the storm.
She was sipping a cup of tea on the sofa when her mind lingered on thoughts.
Hiding her bump from her friends was becoming difficult. She didn't want it to be a secret for so long, but she never found the right opportunity to talk about it.
It was now halfway through the fourth month and time seemed to fly.
Her belly was still so small she could easily hide it under her flannel shirts, but it wouldn't stay that way much longer.
Voight was trying to keep her out of trouble as much as possibile. He hadn't put her behind the desk yet, but if there was a possibility they might have a sticky situation he could find a way to make her stay in the district or in a surveillance van.
Most importantly, when she was still on the field, she was with Jay. And nothing was more important to her than having his back. She trusted on the others, of course, but it was Jay she was talking about. And she knew him, knew what triggered him and knew how to ground him.
And Jay…Jay was Jay. Always the same Jay and so different at the same time.
He was Jay. Stubborn, smart, reliable Jay. The best man - partner, she corrected herself immediately - she could wish for. However…
She nibbled her lips with her gaze lost in the dark. She knew she had made the right choice. A painful but certainly right choice. If she thought about it enough she knew it was. The problem was that she wasn't always convinced.
She was not convinced when the only thing she wanted to do was embrace him, when she wanted to sleep on his sofa without seeing that reluctant and distraught expression at the same time.
Was it possible to love a person knowing that she could not love him?
Was it possible knowing that you had your person in front of you and had to give up because he meant too much for you?
She was convinced she had done the right thing when she heard him on the radio asking for backup because in danger or when she saw him arriving at the district with any injury.
She was sure she had done the right thing remembering when he had nearly bled to death in her hands.
She knew these were lies. Lying to herself had become simple. She only tried not to give him the chance to destroy her, to take away a piece of her in case he left.
'I'd follow you anywhere.'
His words rang in her mind almost like he was sitting next to her. She really believed him. But she couldn't afford to open up because if something happened to him, then she would fall, she would sink.
She remembered what she had gone through after Garrett's death. The problem was that if something happened to Jay, it would have been only much worse. Because Jay was her person, in every sense of the word.
And as much as she loved him, she felt it was only right that he should make a life. She would have understood it but would not have accepted it.
A flash of lightening lit her living room and suddenly Will's words from a week ago came back to her. Words that didn't make to shut her eyes the following night.
...
"You know, Hailey…", he started pushing her to move along the bench to make him seat, "I love you."
"What do you need you can't ask your brother about?", she stared at him with her eyes in two slits.
"I'll pretend I'm not offended and I'll go further. But really, you're practically the whole family my brother has, besides me. So, you're my family too, right?"
Hailey followed his gaze knowing it would fall on Jay sitting on the other side of Molly with a girl, Lydia. What a name…
"And just because I love you, I want to tell you that you don't need to be there eating your liver."
"Uh?", her head jumped at him. She expected anything but not that.
"You don't have to be jealous, Hailey."
"I'm not…jealous!", she spat out looking at him badly.
Will laughed, which made her punching his arm.
"I was sitting there, at that table", he said pointing to another table, "Until Vanessa came to call me because she thought you felt bad…"
"I'm very good!"
"Oh, I know well. I'm just saying you shouldn't be jealous!"
"Can you stop, please?"
Okay, she was finally getting impatient.
"Lydia is an old childhood friend of ours…and she's totally gay."
Hailey blinked back. Maybe Will might have believed this had knocked her out, but she was a cop and she damn well knew what he was trying to do.
So, she slowly took a sip of her sparkling water, before turning to him with a composed smile, "I don't know where you want to go, but thank you for keeping me company."
"Ah, you good, Detective. But I know something you don't know…"
Hailey clapped her foot nervously under the table without showing him any sign of impatience or curiosity.
Will stared at her for a few seconds with a mischievous smile on his lips - the same as Jay, she noticed amused - then took a sip of beer.
"I don't understand why being jealous, since my brother is hopelessly in love with you only, Hailey."
"Will", she gasped letting the glass slip from her fingers, "Don't. Don't…"
She didn't really know what to say, she lowered her head staring at his lap. In her mind the images of their week together overlapped with Will's words.
"I don't know what happened between you two, but if he did the jerk, I wouldn't be surprised… Even if, seeing how he behaves…I doubt it was on him… Am I wrong?"
"Will, really…"
"I don't want to know, it's not my business. Just…he's my little brother. And I love you as if you were my annoying, stubborn sister… So, it's difficult for me seeing how you two prepare to be super parents while your private lives are falling apart."
He smiled at her kindly and Hailey almost melted in front of him.
"Anyway, I'm going home. Have an early shift tomorrow. Was nice seeing you. If you need me, call me", he kissed her in the hair and before leaving he whispered chuckling, "Still hoping little Bean had red hair!"
...
She roused herself from her daydreams with the vibration of her phone next to her on the sofa.
'Two bodies found. Voight called me. I'm there in 10 min. If you don't text me back in 1 min I'm calling you.'
'Waiting for you.'
'Pouring down rain. Dress well.'
Grumbling annoyed, she got up from the sofa and went to her room. In exactly ten minutes she was ready waiting for him behind the door. She had put on her rain jacket and high plastic boots and had never felt like a gnome as much as she did now.
She ran in the rain literally jumping into his car to find a hot coffee waiting for her on the dashboard.
It was half past four in the morning and a long day was ahead, but the opportunity to drink her daily amount of coffee granted, before a crime scene under the flood, lightened her mood slightly.
"You cute", he laughed staring at her canary yellow jacket.
"Shut up", she poker her nose into the cup of coffee to hide the redness on her cheeks, "What we know?"
"Nothing good. Two women, bad condition. Found by a homeless in an abandoned warehouse."
They arrived at the crime scene but the rain didn't seem to have any intentions of slowing down. They trudged through the muddy ground untile they found shelter inside the warehouse, but the scene appeared in front of them led almost to regret the rain.
"Two bodied. White women, about twenty years. Beat ante mortem, the cause of death is undoubtedly the break skull."
"Sign of sexual assault?"
"Not seems, but I'll do other tests in the lab", said the coroner before venturing into the rain.
Jay turned to the couple of agents who had answered the call trying to figure out if anything was known about their identities. Meanwhile, Hailey crouched beside the first body looking for something could trace her identity. The black hair was stuck to the forehead by a large amount of dried blood, her face showed signs of purple bruises while her right arm had certainly been broken. It was precisely observing her hand that her gaze fell on the small piece of paper that emerged from the pocket of her blood-stained trousers.
She put on gloves to take the paper and a cell phone number appeared before her eyes.
"Jay", she called back, pointing to her hand. He handed her a rehearsal bag before helping her get up, "Well, we know where to start investigating at least."
They got back in the car after more than an hour. Hailey slipped her frozen hands under her thighs but twisted her nose noticing how her pants were already soaked.
"Come on, I'll take you to breakfast before going to the district. What do you want?"
"Waffle… No, crepes. Crepes with strawberry jam!", she contradicted herself after a moment.
"But no coffee!"
"Hey, not fair! You won't have one then either", she muttered annoyed.
"No way. I'll have a giant one, I had to get up in the middle of the night to see your sleepy face. Deserve it!"
She snorted a laugh by punching him on the arm.
"Hey you, smart ass, don't treat me badly! You know what's in here, don't you?", she smiled at him perfidiously, pointing to her stomach.
"Let's go get you a crepes with strawberry jam then", he said pretending to be exhausted and then turned to the first corner.
...
It seemed the passing of the hours brought the rain to slow down. The sky was still terribly black, but at least there was no risk of drowning when crossing the road.
It was already mid-afternoon when the silence in the bullpen was interrupted when Kevin called back Hailey, who had been alone in the office for a couple of hours, to attend Adam's interview.
The number written on the slip of paper she found had led them to another girl, Emily Clark. University student of Chicago and roommate of Brenda and Sharon, their two Jane Doe.
From her, they managed to find out how the two girls had suddenly become unfriendly and elusive about two weeks before, but the only really useful thing for them was to discover that around that time they had started to attend additional lessons of their advanced microbiology course, held by a certain Professor Barry. Talking to him was impossibile. He had been out of circulation for two days and nobody seemed to know where he was or how they could him to the murders. Even if every proof led to him.
Two students had seen Brenda and Sharon three nights before getting into a car that was found to be the same model and color of Barry's. And three other classmates had revealed it was already a week that he had seemed rather pressing towards the girls, inviting them several times to stop in the classroom at the end of the lessons.
The only thing Voight was making them focus on was his wife Nicole. She seemed to know more than she said, not that she said much in reality. And it was precisely for this reason that Kim and Adam had been locked in the interview room with her for about two hours.
"Hey", she greeted Jay and Kevin and joined them beyond the mirror glass, "Nothing?"
Kevin shook his head leaning on the shelf behind her.
But there was something made her suspicious. The more she stared at Nicole, the more she realized a bell ringing in her brain, but she couldn't understand what was due to it. She stared at her face, her expressions, how she twisted her hands, how she clutched her shirt at the height of her… And there was the bell rang in her brain!
She marched quickly to the door and a second later her head was sticking out inside, "Okay guys. Take a break, yeah?"
Then patiently waited for them to come out before sitting in front of her.
"Nicole, I'm Detective Upton. Hailey. I don't want to lie to you, your husband is in trouble. It's obvious. And the more we investigate, the deeper he goes."
Her voice was calm, peaceful. Her hands crossed on the table and her back resting against the chair. She watched the woman sitting across from her, her stiff posture clearly indicating how much uncomfortable she was.
"But there's one thing I really can't understand. You are and intelligent and charming woman and yet you're willing to stay here to protect a man who obviously doesn't love you enough…"
"What do you want to know?", she hissed with her eyes narrowed in two slits. She had leaned forward, pressing her hands against the table. Like a dog ready to attack.
"Well…he hasn't shown up yet. We're checking your phones", she added when she saw her open the mouth, "He's been gone for two days without worrying about you…"
They remained silent, Hailey stared at her carefully as she tapped her fingers on the table with a bored expression.
"And so I was there thinking…Why should an intelligent woman cover a man who has no respect for her? And here I understand. You don't want to abandon him because you don't want to be alone."
"Oh, yeah? And why, tell me!", she spat out with poison in her voice.
"Because you're pregnant, aren't you?"
"How do you…how do you know?"
Nicole had lost all boldness. Her face and voice had a note of vulnerability and uncertainty that led Hailey to feel in tune with her.
"I watched you…I understood it seeing how you put your hands on your stomach, as if you wanted to protect it. Nicole, your husband killed two girls. They were twenty-two, they were young, had a life ahead of them…", she spread the photos of the two girls in front of her. Their bodies swollen and covered with blood magnetized her gaze.
A tear fell on the table followed by another, "I…I can't. You cannot understand…"
"Oh, I can understand you very well instead", Hailey took a deep breath, fixing her gaze on the woman in front of her, "I'm pregnant, Nicole. I know what it means to be afraid of being alone, raising a child alone. I get it."
"You…your husband is not a murderer, Detective!", the woman jumped at her own words.
"I'm not married, I have no one, I'm alone. But if I had a husband and knew he was a murderer, I would do the right thing. For them", she concluded, pointing to the photos between them.
Heavy silence fell on them. Hailey's mind shook from the hope of having convinced her to speak to the awareness that beyond the glass her secret had been discovered.
"He… A close friend of him has a house in the North, in Lake Bluff…", it seemed the words cost her enormous effort, "I'm sure he's there. He…wanted the two girls to work on a virus he was studying. But they must have refused… It was something dangerous and lethal. I remember reading some documents once he was away from home…"
Hailey squeezed her abandoned hand on the table. The woman before her eyes had just handed over the father of the son she was carrying to the police. She could imagine the devastation she felt.
"You did the right thing. You really did. Even for your child."
Then she got up and slowly went out closing the door behind her.
Before turning the corner that would take her to the bullpen, where she would find the rest of the team, she stopped, taking a moment for herself.
The cat was out the bag now, what was the point of continuing to pretend? They would have been happy for her, wouldn't they? They were her friends, after all.
She turned the corner and the chatter stopped suddenly.
Kevin, who was obviously busy on the blackboard, turned to her, a movement everyone else followed.
If she had wanted to describe their looks, she probably would have said they showed a range of feelings that ranged from curiosity to disbelief.
She stared at Jay, sitting on her desk and he, after a shrug, nodded to her. She approached him placing the file on her desk, then turned to them.
"Well, then… We're having a baby!", she snapped placing a hand on Jay's thigh.
She felt him slightly stiffen at her touch, but her attention was entirely focused on the rest of the group.
In the silence felt on the bullpen, she could almost hear the wheels of their brain work frantically trying to process the news and, seeing Adam's confused face, probably would have taken another few minutes.
Kim blinked a few times with her mouth open, Vanessa dropped her cup out of hand which spilled on her desk while Kevin instead lost his balance by rolling away the blackboard.
"A child…together?", Adam gasped, his eyes still wide.
"Yeah…", Jay cleared his throat straightening on the desk.
"I didn't know you two were…", Kevin looked for the words looking around, "a thing…like being together…"
"Oh no, none of this! It was just something happened a few times, time ago…and now we're in this together but we're not together!"
Jay stood up and walked a few steps away from her. She knew they were the words they'd repeated a hundred times by now, but since they started coming from him they had magically become more painful.
"Don't be together…", Adam continued to stare at them as if they were two aliens who had just landed in front of him.
"No, but we're fine. We're finding a rhythm in all this…"
Too immersed in her thoughts, Hailey hadn't noticed Vanessa who had sprung against her squeezing her in her arms.
"Oh god, I can't believe it!", she started screaming, "I'll be an auntie! You kidding me! And you didn't tell me anything! I can't believe it!"
Her arms were soon replaced by Kim's more composed and delicate ones.
"I knew there was something different on you, you were much shinier…"
She found herself dragged around, the arms tightening around her changing so often she had lost count. She had recognized Kevin's sweet kiss on her head and Adam's deep voice in her hair.
But what she saw around her, what until a moment before had the blurred and frayed outlines of a group of friends, now had the appearance of a real family.
And, for a moment, Hailey's heart filled with gratitude and love.
Then she recognized the hand resting on her shoulder. It was a touch and a warmth she was practiced to recognized with closed eyes. It was the person who looked at her back every day. It was the only person she wanted behind her.
And in the confusion of their screaming friends, she looked up meeting Jay's gentle smile.
"You're not alone in this, you know that?"
And she knew exactly what his whisper was referring to: her interview.
A little firework of gratitude exploded inside her and, for a moment, just a tiny minute, she wanted to pretend to be a pregnant woman like all others, with a man who loved her. She blinked as felt the grip on her shoulder tighten.
"Yeah, I know. Thanks partner."
Jay smiled at her again and everything was going well.