A little bit of filling the gaps at the very end of 7x09 and the start of 7x10 (I may do Will's perspective too cause I find myself wondering a lot what happened)

If she'd had to, Hailey would've crawled through mud, the sharpest of barbed wire and suffered a hundred and one electric shocks to get into the building. To get to Jay.

As it happened, she didn't need to, she knows he's here in this building, can feel him, closer and closer until she finds him.

His face and sweater coated in blood. Looking at her through one open eye. The other shut from the beating he's clearly taken. Alive though and she thinks right now she's never been more grateful.

Hailey tells herself that the way she feels is normal as she reaches out to him, as she touches his back her intention first and foremost is the hope that he feels some comfort from it except there's no sign of relief in him and he doesn't answer her when she asks if he's okay.

Second of all, she realizes it's as much to convince herself that it's really him, that he's not going to disappear in a cloud of smoke, that she won't wake up from this dream that's filled with such relief and that they'll still be looking for him.

All her hopes even at rest chased down by so many fears. Central to them right now, Jay Halstead. And all these feelings, they're so normal and she'd feel the same about anyone in Intelligence, she would.

These feelings that run alongside every other feeling she's had from the moment she'd followed Jay to where he'd been with Bobby and the second he'd walked from the crime scene, icy tendrils of fear and apprehension running through her veins. They should be easing now, right?

They're not.

Jay tells her to stay put and she wants to stop him, keep from going down the stairs or failing that she wants to go with him, not let him out of her sight again but even in his beaten and probable concussed state he's right, someone has to stay with the offender and Angela needs help. Jay wouldn't go down there if there was a risk, right?

There are maybe twenty seconds if that of crouching next to the offender at first as she called for ambulances, of standing up as she hears the footfall of her colleagues, of starting to explain where Jay was as she stood up and turned away from the offender to walk toward the stairs.

Then she hears the bang, they all do. There's no moment of questioning if they misheard, they all know.

It feels like a punch to her stomach, it steals her breath but still, she moves.

"Jay!" she shouts as she takes two steps at a time, hell she would have jumped down them all to get to the bottom and adrenaline would've meant it would've all been okay.

If only she could say the same for Jay and as she steps through the doorway, she sees him on the floor.

She spares a momentary glance toward Angela, sees the gun next to her on the ground, sees another body in the corner of the room but she's also aware of other voices that follow her into the room so she falls to her knees beside Jay, sees the entry wound, sees the fear in the eye he can open, hears the way he's trying to breathe and when she presses down on the upper side of his chest, she hears him try to take a shuddering breath and sees the panic.

It's such an unfamiliar sight, it throws her for a second. It's not just panic either, it's fear too, fear that she can feel as much as if it was her who'd been shot, fear that she feels so deeply because Jay's been shot. Fear that she pushes down to try to comfort Jay.

"Jay, stay with me, it's Hailey, you're fine, it's going to be fine."

His good eye follows her voice for a second but flutters shut before there's another voice.

"Where the hell is that ambo?"

Voight.

More panic in Jay's eyes, more gasping as he attempts to breathe and both eyes are closed now.

"No Jay, Jay!" she shouts his name louder and his good eye opens once more and Hailey tries a smile then more soothingly, she continues, "It's okay Jay, it's coming, it'll be here soon, you'll be fine." I need you to be fine goes unsaid.

She repeats soothing words over and over. She wonders how much Jay's aware of and realizes it's as much more for her as it is Jay.

"Hailey, you want me to take over for a minute?" Burgess asks, the tone of her voice like she's talking to a victim.

Hailey doesn't look up, just shakes her head and focuses on Jay, refusing to move until help is here then it comes and she tries not to leave Jay's side, she tries to be the person he can focus on even as they work on him.

Even when the gravity of the situation and his condition becomes clear as if the blood that covers Hailey's hands doesn't make this obvious enough and the controlled actions of the paramedics become more urgent. Even when a mask covers his face and she can see how labored his breathing is.

Hailey keeps urging, imploring, begging, every single variation of a word that means she desperately wants him to listen, she needs him to listen and she needs him to stay with her, them, she means them, all of them of course.

And there's no way this ends with Jay's death. It can't.

They leave the building and she and the paramedic are taking turns to apply pressure where the bullet had entered his body. They're already on the second or third gauze pad that's been coated with Jay's blood. Hailey tries not to look at how much blood there is, she tries not to look at his head injuries or the blood that coats the top half of his sweater.

The daylight makes it impossible not to take it in though and she feels sick, it occurs to her that she's felt like this since they realized Jay was gone. She'd just hoped that it would be different once they found him.

They put him into the ambulance and she shouts that she's going with him, her tone brokering no argument and jumps onto the back of the bus taking over from the paramedic again for a moment, her hand pressing down while the paramedic does what she needs to do.

Hailey's so caught up with it all that she doesn't notice the door shut, she's only vaguely aware of the ambulance starting to move.

The paramedic, she thinks she said her name's Claudia, works around her. Calling out to her partner. Hailey hears 'artery, losing blood too fast, vitals are dropping further'. Hailey doesn't think it's her imagination that the ambulance gains speed.

She glances at the machine that Jay's now hooked up to. The noise to her almost reassuring, anything other than the tone that's so final is reassuring though Hailey realizes.

Jay's eye stays closed more than it opens now. He doesn't respond at all to her voice mostly and when Claudia takes over the pressure on the wound with another fresh gauze pad and Hailey shifts slightly reaching for his hand instead, hoping that when she squeezes it he'll squeeze back but he doesn't.

"Come on Jay, please?"

Nothing. Hailey looks at Claudia but Claudia's too focused on treating Jay to give her reassurance.

"Halstead," Hailey barks it out, tries to sound firm but her voice trembles, "Jay, Jay Halstead, come on."

Still nothing. Her hopes feel like a distant memory, all she feels now is the reality that is all her fears wrapped up in Jay's too still, too quiet, too injured body.

The ambulance slows to a stop and the doors open and Hailey jumps down, running alongside Jay as he's wheeled into Med, calling his name, reminding him she's here even amid the noise, the controlled chaos, even amid the talking around them, still trying to be some comfort to him because if he wakes now, if he wakes here and he thinks he's alone?

Hailey doesn't want that for him not when she can be here for him, now that she can be here for him.

Everyone's talking around her, shouting, she hears Georgia updating them on Jay's condition, hears one of the doctors tell them to move him into Baghdad and no one seems panicked, it's all so controlled, it's all so reassuring. Except Jay's on that gurney.

"Hailey?"

It's a superhuman effort or it feels like it is to look in the direction of the voice until she matches the face to the voice.

"Will," she manages then she tries to find words, some words of reassurance for Will. Did they even tell Will? Someone must've surely warned him, right? Will who only has Jay left as his close family, she can find words enough to comfort him surely, can't she?

When she opens her mouth nothing comes out though and instead Will takes a step nearer and his hand touches her shoulder.

"He's going to be okay, he'll be okay Hailey."

Hailey wants to ask him if that's the voice he uses for his patient's families when he knows they won't be okay, wants to ask him if he's saying that to convince himself as much as he tries to convince Hailey.

Hailey doesn't ask him that though, instead, she nods, "Yeah, I know, he will be," she agrees even though she doesn't meet his eyes and even when she does look at them, she realizes he looks like he's on the verge of tears and perhaps that's all the answers to the questions she's too afraid to ask and now wishes she hadn't thought of them.

She hears him say, "Sharon," and within a moment or two she feels a hand around her shoulders and Sharon Goodwin is leading her away.

Hailey looks behind her, tries to protest but then she sees Dr. Marcel appear and she sees him in conversation with Will and perhaps it's not her place to be there now.

All Hailey is is Jay's partner, right? That's what all these feelings are, right? This is just how anyone would feel for their partner and also someone as good as Jay doesn't deserve this even though Hailey's job is a litany of 'he/she/they didn't deserve this' stories, Jay's still different and that's all this is.

Sharon opens a door to the restroom and gently urges Hailey forward

"This one's just for staff so we shouldn't get interrupted," Sharon explains and then turns on a tap, "You should wash off that blood."

Hailey looks down and her hands start to tremble, she thinks for a moment she'll be sick but instead, she continues to stare down at the blood, his blood.

"It's okay Hailey, I can help," Sharon says it so kindly that it almost undoes Hailey, it's like years when she was a kid and she'd fight with her brothers and sometimes it'd go too far and her mom would take her into the bathroom and bathe the cuts, her touch soft, nurturing. Sharon's touch is gentle like her mom's once was as she holds Hailey's hands under the tap and then moves them underneath the soap dispenser and back under the water.

The water runs red into the basin as it mixes with Jay's blood till it's clear again.

Sharon talks Hailey through it all and Hailey wordlessly follows everything she says, wiping her hands on a paper towel before she places it into the trash can.

"Jay hates hospitals, I should be with him, I don't want him to wake up alone," her voice is small but there's more than a trace of pleading as she says it.

"They'll be taking him to surgery Hailey," that tone again. Like Kim's before it's the tone Hailey's used a hundred and one times before then she continues "You can wait and we'll tell you the moment we have news."

Hailey's aware, so aware that Sharon doesn't assure her that Jay's going to be fine, still she nods and follows Sharon to the waiting area, sitting down and shaking her head when shes offered a drink and then she's left alone.

Alone with her thoughts, the hope she tries to revive even though she's as aware as it's possible to be, as weary of the world as she can ever be that life simply isn't fair sometimes, scarred by life and so many instances and examples of life never working out how she'd thought it would.

She stares down at her hands again and then shuts her eyes but all she can see, all she feels is the fear and the blood, all she hears is the bang and Jay's labored breathing.

Tears threaten and absent-mindedly she swipes at them but then she hears voices, feels herself stand up though her legs don't feel like they can hold her upright and there's a barrage of questions, most of which she can't answer.

Someone, Adam she thinks, pulls her in and she wants so badly to give in to the comfort, accept it but instead, she pulls away and mumbles an apology before she sits down once more, alternately looking at her hands and through the open doors.

Then a coffee cup is placed in her hand, she hears "Here you go," and looks up to see Rojas, the warmth against her fingers is welcome though she's uncertain that she can stomach anything right now much less hold the cup for longer than a second, her hands still trembling so she places the coffee cup on the floor in front of her, feels Vanessa's hand across her back for a moment.

And then Will appears and she thinks of the weight on him just for a moment as she stands then all she thinks of is Jay once more because nothing and no one else matters more than him, she's vaguely aware of everyone else flanking her and too aware that Will's face isn't lit up with relief, too aware of the barely concealed fear that's written all over him.

Hailey knows Jay's still alive, she does. She feels it but also she feels the fear mocking her, mocking her for hoping, mocking her for caring enough that the next few seconds matter more to her than anything she can recall for the longest time and that's when Will says, "Hey everybody," and she hopes fear will lose for once.

For her.

Except no, not for her, not for anyone, only Jay.