Trudy POV

"You are still coming over for dinner tomorrow night, right?" Trudy gave Voight her best glare from behind her desk.

"Wouldn't miss it Trudy." After a tough couple of years and with the loss of Olinsky still leaving an aching wound in all their hearts, Trudy liked to keep her friends, her family really, close.

"Good." She nodded, before handing Voight the paperwork he came downstairs to collect.

Voight had just turned to leave but Trudy couldn't let it go, she had to ask.

The rest of the Intelligence Unit had all clocked in an hour ago. But there were two noticeable absences.

"Hank…" She hesitated before he turned back to her, "Are Burgess and Halstead not in yet?"

She would have missed it if she hadn't known Hank Voight for as long as she did, but he glanced towards the doors and gave a twitch of his shoulder. It was bothering him too.

He cared about his unit more than even she did, and that was saying a lot.

"No. Not yet."

She just raised her eyebrows at him.

He tipped his head to the side, catching onto her unspoken explanation, "What are saying Trudy?"

The door of the district opened and Trudy looked over on instinct to catch Kim Burgess bursting in, two cups in his hands.

"Is that spare one for me Burgess?" She barked over at her.

She had barely looked over to the desk before Halstead rushed through the doors.

"…Hey Serge. Eh…afraid not." She said already handing the spare cup to Halstead.

"Morning." Halstead called to the two Sergeants, slightly out of breath before he looked at Kim and they both headed upstairs.

Voight looked at Trudy after the pair were out of earshot.

"I'm saying that they're still in last night's clothes." She clarified.

Trudy watched as Voight's eyebrows raised ever so slightly, "Huh."

Trudy sighed, leaning on her desk. "Just, I think it's serious, so just keep an eye on them okay?"

Kim POV

"Jay?" Kim followed the rest of the team into the 21st District, after a gruelling day and particularly tough case.

"Yeah Kim?" He stopped and turned back to look at her.

She wondered when she had started taking a liking to catching his blue eyes.

Jay held the door open for them.

She took a steadying breath, telling herself to just get it over with.

"The Detective exam." She stated in a rushed breath.

He waited for her to continue but she had been working up the courage to ask him the past few days and hadn't prepared a follow up statement.

"I…it's…" She fumbled with her words but he caught her, not letting her completely embarrass herself.

"Are you thinking of taking it?" He asked, his face softening.

"Yeah." She nodded, before letting out an embarrassingly panicked sigh.

He gazed at her for a split second before nodding, "Yeah that sounds right about how I felt about it at the time too."

"Good it's not just me then." She said, before gathering her courage again, "I know it's a lot to ask, but would you have any pointers? Or could I run a few questions by you some time, maybe?" She didn't want to overstep their current new level of friendship.

She was getting far too comfortable with it.

He just looked at her with an open expression, "I actually still have all my exam prep stuff back at my place if you want it?"

"Really?" She echoed in slight disbelief.

"Yeah of course. Kim, you're great police, you deserve your own detective badge." He shrugged a shoulder like it was the simplest thing in the world.

But it meant the world to her. She had worked so hard, first to get into the academy, then to get on patrol and then to finally make her way to Intelligence. It was nice that someone noticed her work.

"…Thank you." She didn't mean to sound so surprised.

"Are you two moving from my stairs or are you just going to block up the stairwell all night?" Trudy called from her desk without even looking up from the paperwork in front of her.

"Sorry Serge." Jay called back, smiling, before holding the door open for Kim to go up first, his hand ghosting on the small of her back as he closed the gate and followed her. "Tell you what, if you don't have anything to do tonight, you can come by and I run through some stuff if you want?"

"That would be great Jay, seriously, are you sure? I don't want to ruin your night or anything."

He scoffed, "Believe me Burgess, you'd be brightening it. But on the one condition that you bring that chocolate from the stakeout." He grinned, pointing a finger at her.

"You got yourself a deal Halstead." She smiled, bumping her shoulder into his as they made their way into the bullpen and got the rest of the night wrapped up.

She tried to ignore the sparks that seemed to fire under her skin when they touched.

Kim had never seen Jay Halstead quite like this.

She had seen him as countless different people on undercover operations, from clean cut in a suit to grimy a run down jacket for drug deals.

But there he stood in front of her, in sweatpants and t-shirt and a happy smile on his face.

"Hey Kim, come on in." He let her in the door to his apartment.

He had texted her directions when they both realised she didn't know where he lived. And she made a quick stop off by the store to grab some supplies of chocolate and candy.

She looked around the large room with interest, a kitchen, dining and living room. It was clean and tidy, not that she expected anything else from him. But it felt hollow, and lonely, like her own place.

No defining characteristics expect for his jackets hanging on the back of the door and a few framed pictures on a table beside the sofa.

"Make yourself at home." He said, leading her to the sofa where a box sat beside it. "Do you want anything to drink?"

"Yeah, sure."

He went about getting her a beer from the refrigerator and she took the chance to observe what Jay Halstead was like at home.

She liked what she saw.

The ever-present tension in his shoulders that he carried around in work had dissipated. His hair was slightly untidy which just framed his face and somehow made him even more handsome.

He handed her a beer and she took a quick sip, hoping the cold taste would shock her out of thinking such thoughts about him. She couldn't keep that he was handsome, it would just make life awkward.

There was nothing between them. No point letting her thoughts run away with themselves.

"I wish I could say the exam was easy. But I can't." Jay said, taking a seat on the sofa with her. "But I was looking though this and some of it should hopefully be useful." He rummaged in the box in front of him and pulled out some folders.

"Anything would be great." She admitted, "I'm doing my own study but it's nice to get a second opinion."

"I don't mean to overstep." He said, sitting back and throwing an arm along the back of the sofa, "But would you not want to ask Antonio about this? He is your partner and he's more senior than I am." He shrugged.

"I just…" She pulled her legs up under her and settled back too. "He's had so much to deal with, I don't want to add to that. He should be spending time with his family and himself not dealing with me panicking about some exam that pales in comparison to what he has going on."

Jay just listened to her.

It had been so long seen someone had listened to her.

"Plus, I figured you're more fun to hang out with than like Voight so…" She grinned and took a sip of her drink and enjoyed listening to the sound of his laugh.

"Wow you really shouldn't boost my ego so much." He deadpanned. "So, have you been thinking about taking the exam for long?"

The night and the very concept of time slipped away from her while they talked. They talked about everything from seriously discussing their careers to trying to catch their breath when joking about changing the paint colour on the walls in the district without telling Platt. How they meandered through topics, Kim didn't quite know, but it felt like the most natural thing in the world.

When they finally got to rifling through Jay's notes, after devouring the chocolate and candy she had bought along, he let her bounce questions off him while also regaling exam horror stories he had heard.

The last thing she remembered was trying to memorise the answers to the mock questions that Jay was going to test her on.

The first thing she saw when she opened her eyes was Jay Halstead.

Which was not a bad sight, at all.

But the room was flooded by sunlight.

Kim looked around, her body protesting at the movement from where she had curled up awkwardly on the sofa.

She nearly fell off the sofa in shock, processing the insane fact that they had fallen asleep and she had just spent the night at Jay's place. Her sudden movement caused Jay's eyes to shoot open from the opposite side of the sofa. He glanced around blearily, reaching to remove the open book that had rested on his chest.

"Kim…?"

"Jay, I think we fell asleep." She sat up, rubbing her face.

"I was only going to rest my eyes." He moaned, sitting up too. "Ugh what time is it?" He asked, reaching for his phone while stifling a yawn.

"Time to think that studying late at night is not that productive after all." She laughed lightly, still adjusting to her surroundings.

He stood up quickly. "We're late."

For two people who were just awake, years of police training kicked in and they were more alert in seconds.

Kim tried to tidy the mess they made, but Jay shooed her away.

"Don't worry about it Kim, you go ahead, I need to get changed anyway. I'll meet you are the station?"

"Yeah. Sure." She said, grabbing her own jacket and heading for the door, but not before catching a glimpse of Jay rushing to another room and peeling his t-shirt over his head.

She bit her lip and called goodbye, shutting his door firmly behind her, telling herself to get the image out of her head and focus on the day ahead.

Not to keep focusing on the fact that that wasn't the worst way to wake up and start the day.

As she got a head start and felt terrible about being the reason they were up late and therefore now late for work, she stopped off quickly to get them coffee.

Getting to the station, she grimaced as she clocked the time. She detested being late. And it wasn't like she was working a CI or had a plausible excuse.

Kim took the steps two at a time and ended up bursting through the main doors and being immediately caught by Platt. It shouldn't come as a surprise anymore that the Desk Sergeant knew every movement that happened inside her station. But it was worse when Voight caught her too.

Jay followed in quickly, and looked at her with a serious gaze before they ascended the stairs to Intelligence. "Busted." He said under his breath as he took his coffee with thanks.

"Hey Kim?" Jay said after he had opened the gate and they walked up. "Sorry about letting us fall asleep. This doesn't stop us studying some other time right?"

"No way. You're not getting rid of me that easily Halstead." She smiled, her stomach suddenly doing somersaults, he wanted to see her again.

She got to her desk, setting up for the day and tried to tell herself that it wasn't like that. He just wanted to help her study, but part of her was cheering that he wanted to spend time with her.

She sat down, after catching up on the case of the day, and glanced up just in time to see Jay do the same. Their eyes met across the room and Kim's heart fluttered in her chest.

He smiled at her and she quickly looked back at her computer screen.

This couldn't be happening.

She couldn't be falling for Halstead.

Could she?

Author's Note: Thank you so much for reading, I really hope you enjoyed this chapter! Any thoughts, let me know! I love knowing other people are aboard this ship :) I hope to do it justice!

I have no knowledge about the American police system so let's pretend everything about the detective exam makes sense okay?