Hi guys! Here is another chapter.

Hope you like it!

Loving your support and your opinions.

H.

A few hours had passed and Hailey was making some photocopies for Platt massaging the aching belly.

"Come on, honey, please. Give me a break, just a little… Sleep a little, please…", she sang with a note of suffering in her voice.

It wasn't really painful, it was more maddening than anything else. She felt him moving and moving and moving and in all this movement he hit everything he could between ribs and kidneys.

She sat down slowly, hearing her phone ring.

"Hailey, where are you?", Vanessa's voice shook her slightly from the haze of the thousand pages photocopied in a few hours.

"At Platt desk, need something?"

"Where's your radio?"

She looked around confused and, not finding it, realized she had left it on her desk upstairs.

"In Intelligence, why?"

The silence that followed her question made her hair stand on the beck of her neck.

"Hailey, you should come to Med."

"How bad?"

The voice came to her ears didn't even seem hers.

"No need to run, okay?"

"Who?"

"Kim and Jay…"

"Okay, on my way."

She got up and went upstairs to fetch her jacket. Getting in the car and leaving the parking lot was an automatic gesture. On the way, she imagined she would have thought, a thousand scenarios would have to crowd in her head, a thousand images.

Instead, her head simply did not think. She flowed through Chicago's traffic like any other day, but instead of going home, she was going to Med. She tried to shake the haze in her mind but it was impossibile. She didn't think, didn't remember, didn't imagine.

She parked and, as soon as entered the ER doors, Vanessa crashed into her. She saw her moving her mouth at incredible speed, but didn't catch anything of what she said. She was gesturing in front of her, speaking, moving but Hailey was only able to stare at her.

"Vanessa, calm down", managed to say after a few moments.

"I…they're fine, Hailey. He's fine, at least I think. He has been shot, I…I'm really sorry…"

Behind her, she saw Kevin and Adam coming, but her attention was entirely on the woman who was desperate.

"Hey, look at me. Don't worry, everything will be fine, okay?", she shrugged her shoulders smiling. She just wanted her to stop making all that noise, she wanted some silence so could stop thinking.

"It seems Kim started chasing a third man… You know, she had taken this case badly. She was without backup because we were bringing the other two to the cars and Jay followed her."

Of course he had, she thought with a mixture of pride and bitterness. He would always do it, she knew it well.

Hailey nodded a few times to show Adam she was following his speech, then dragged Vanessa onto a chair in the corner and sank beside her.

"How can you be like this?", her voice roused her after a few moments of longed silence. She stared at her with confused eyes, not understanding where she was going.

"So calm. That is, even the other time he was shot, it was more serious, yeah…but you were completely out of your head and yet always calm. Today you are almost disturbing…"

"You know…", she passed a hand over her belly absently, "It's difficult watching you all go out onto the field and knowing that I have to stay behind. I guess, right now, my mind is making me feel like crap for not being with you…"

She shrugged indifferently before getting up and looking out the window. It had started raining and large drops of water was crashing against the glass with force. The trees across the street were bent by the wind and the bushes with the first spring buds were already soaked with water.

"Come on, sweetheart, please, I need you to stop…", she moved uncomfortably on her feet, massaging the last rib hit on her right side, "I know what you want, but you can't now, so please…"

She moaned in relief when, after a few moments, she finally heard him stop.

Almost an hour had passed when Will, the ever-present Will, came out of the ER to update them. He was immediately been surrounded by all of them and Hailey admitted that perhaps they could actually be slightly intimidating.

"They're fine. Starting with Jay, two bullets hit two different ribs. Our lucky was the vest, of course. We made X-ray and they're not broken, so he's just in a lot of pain. Kim has a head injury, I would like to keep her here for at least 12 hours, but I'm confident everything will be fine. If you follow me, I'll take you to them."

Then he turned and disappeared behind the doors. The relief snaked between them was palpable.

Hailey squeezed Vanessa's shoulder, "See, I told you it was going to be all right", then followed Kevin down the Med corridor.

"Okay, I'm going to see Kim," he muttered looking around.

"Yeah, I'm going to check Jay isn't looking for a way to escape from here."

And just as she had imagined, found him intent on detaching the sensors of the electrocardiogram still in operation with one foot already on the ground.

"You know you still can't leave, do you?"

He jumped at the sound of her voice, then turned his head towards her like a child who had been found by the teacher making trouble.

"How's Kim? Will didn't tell me anything!"

"She's fine. Head injury and they kept her here, but she's fine. Now you go back there and finish the exam."

"But…"

"Sit down, Jay."

Evidently, her cold tone convinced him because slowly and touching his ribs, he returned sitting on the stretcher. She reattached the two sensor while he was watching her annoyed.

Hailey sat down on the chair with her arms crossed, "Okay, now tell me what happened."

After a moment of stubborn silence, Jay started talking. He explained what had happened, how he had run after Kim and how, having turned the corner, he had found her unconscious on the ground.

But Hailey wasn't really focused on what she said because the bruises on his chest had already taken on a creepy purple color. She could see how breathing caused him pain, he was pale and his lips were white. The bruise in the center of his chest had already taken the size of a creepy purple tennis ball.

"You listening to me?"

She jerked her head up, realizing she actually had no idea what he was saying.

But then, a smirk tensed on his aching features, "I know what you're trying to do. It didn't give you truce, did it? Come here", he added seeing her shaking her head.

Hailey climbed onto the stretcher and sat down beside him. It seemed to her a scene lived centuries before: he shirtless with bruises for a bullet to his vest.

"I couldn't have done otherwise, Hailey. You know. Kim had run away and…"

"No, I know. It's just…it's hard not to be on the field with you, I can't get myself used to it", she muttered shrugging her shoulders.

She met his tired eyes and they remained silent for an infinite time. What was there to say? What could she add? Between them, that type of communication, the silence, has always worked best.

It was strange how time always ran so slowly in the hospital, as if it were freezed. When the rest of the unit arrived, Hailey went checking on Kim and only after another hour she went out the ER doors to go home. Jay was a few steps ahead of her, always so excited to get out to Med, he couldn't stop himself from running away.

Adam had gone to Med with Jay's car, so Hailey just followed him through the Chicago traffic to his house.

Gesture that evidently he did not expect because, when he saw her parking and getting out the car with her night bag, he looked at her with a confused expression.

"I'm not really in the mood for company, Hails. I'd be fine alone…"

"Yeah, well, that's not gonna happen", she passed him with indifference and then stopped to look at him in front of his door, "Come on, I'm hungry!"

With a resigned sigh, he preceded her along the corridor making her way inside the house.

"Make yourself at home, your favorite ice cream is in the freezer. I'm taking a shower."

When she saw him disappear into his bedroom, she left her bag in the living room before going to rummage in the freezer.

He had been hit again. He had been shot again.

Her hand twitched around the ice cream tub. The cold penetrated her skin but her mind, until then paralyzed, had begun to swirl dangerously around the image of his bruises.

She closed the freezer suddenly and made her way to the bathroom. The sound of running water increased when he opened the door and closed it behind her.

She saw his profile behind the shower curtain, but without announcing her presence she sat up on the cabinet next the sink and, losing her sense of time, waited for him to finish.

"What…? You crazy? What are you doing here?", he yelled, clutching the towel around his hips when saw her sitting there.

"Shit, I'm having an heart attack… Hailey, we need spaces, privacy. You can't just sneak into the bathroom while I shower and staying there in silence. Damn…", he continued muttering out of the shower.

"You have to stop it, Jay…"

"No, really you're the one who slipped into my bathroom!", he grumbled with his head in a cabinet. But when he realized her silence, his eyes came out from behind the door and looked at her worried.

"What happened? You fine?", he took a step towards her, still sitting on the forniture.

"You can't keep doing that. You had been shot today, you would have died if…", she looked up staring him in the eyes, "You can't keep doing this. I can't see you go out and don't know if…"

She grabbed his arms desperately.

"Hailey…"

A sorry smile hung over his lips. He couldn't promise it, of course he couldn't. She knew it well too, but a remote part of her mind would have liked that promise.

"Can you just…stay with me tonight? I…You had been shot…", with a finger she lightly touched the bruise on the center of his chest. Now the purple stood out clearly on his fair skin.

"Hailey, I'm fine."

"I know. Just…just tonight, please…", she reached out and slid a hand on his cheek.

He was so little far away that Hailey could have stretched her neck and kissed him, she really could have.

But then, he whispered her name again and his arms were around her.

And as if it were the most natural thing in the world, Hailey wrapped her arms around his torso, carefully avoiding bruises. He was standing stuck between her legs, it could have been an embarrassing moment, instead it was simple, it was what it had to be.

The sensation of his warm skin, of his heart beating rhythmically against her ear and his breathing in her hair almost destroyed her.

"Go to bed, Hailey. I get dressed and come too."

She quickly changed and slipped under the covers. Closed her eyes savoring the softness of the sheet and his smell all around her.

She was already half sleep when felt him slipping into the bed next to her.

Despite the painkillers he had taken, when he laid down grumbled with pain and, in the silence of the room, she could clearly perceive his short and muffled breaths.

"Have you ever thought about having children before?", she asked staring into the dark.

Initially, she thought he hadn't heard her, or that maybe she had just thought of asking him. But then the deeper, and decidedly more painful, breath on her left made her guess he had heard her.

"When I was with Erin…God, no. I was too messed up…and she maybe more than me. Spending my life with her? Yeah, I thought about it, even though Will advised me against it. But having children? I've no idea how we could have raised a child as we were… And you?"

Hailey quickly processed his words. Still talking about Erin wasn't easy for him. Not even for her, if she was to be honest. They had worked little together, hadn't had time to know her, but honestly it had been enough for her seeing how Jay was after she was gone.

"I've never had anyone stable enough to think of having children. Hell, even now most of the time I'm terrified because I have no idea how to raise a child, but I think that…well, we are a good team, the two of us, we can do it…"

She couldn't see him, but from the way he snorted a light laugh, she thought he agreed with her. Then, before she could stop herself, opened her mouth again.

"I never thought of having a child now and immediately, that's true. And when I found I was pregnant, I almost went crazy. But then, after saying it to you, in me was born that extreme curiosity to know how our features will combine on a tiny human being. Here, I didn't want a child, but now I can't stop imagining what Bean will be like, if he'll look more like me or you, if he'll be silent like you or suspicious like me, if he'll have your eyes and my nose, or…"

She took a breath, her gaze still lost in the dark.

"I mean, I never thought I wanted to, but now I can't stop thinking about how a small human being is growing inside me and how he's a perfect binds of our genetic stories."

The silence that descended into the room lasted for a few minutes then, slowly, Hailey felt Jay's hand slip towards her under the blanket.

"You're right, we're a good team, we can certainly do it."

She moved imperceptibly towards him, her foot touched his calf and, when he didn't move, she left it there.

"Hoping Bean become beautiful and smart like me."

"Especially modest like you!", she laughed shaking her head.

His laugh was followed by a groan of pain that made him squirm for a few seconds.

"Okay, no laughter. Annotated", Hailey said, turning her head towards him.

"What about the name?"

Hailey felt the nod of his head even in the dark.

"I don't want to give Bean the name of someone who's gone…as my mom or Al, for example. I want it to be his only name, I want him or her to be totally disconnected from any event of my past. But I don't know what you think about that…"

"The names I thought of are not related to anyone. The people we lost will always be important to us, we don't need to remember them by their name…"

Then she slowly weighed her ideas and, tapping her fingers on the sheet, stared at him embarrassed, "Maybe you don't like them, but I had thought of Logan or Addison… Actually I always liked William too…"

"Don't even think about it! Then, if Bean also will has red hair, I'll be condemned to endure my brother boasting for all my life!", he laughed as far as his ribs allowed him.

"No William then. What about you?"

"Ethan and Chloe. But who knows, we'll understand only when meet Bean, won't we?"

She nodded before realizing he probably wouldn't be able to see her. The silence in which they fell was relaxing and Hailey felt her eyes begin to close with exhaustion.

"I really hope Bean has your eyes, Hails."

Her heart fluttered in her chest and she almost laughed thinking she had been wishing for his eyes for months.

She crawled towards him, stopping only when felt the contact with his arm. Turning on her side, one hand on her belly and her forehead resting against his bare shoulder, she slowly felt the stress of the day slipping away.

And as if she could do it every night, she closed her eyes surrounded by his smell.