[A/N: Happy Friday folks! Hope everyone has been as safe and well as can be. Been a while, but I'm slowly resurfacing, or at least tried to before the season premiere. How about that finale though? Wow! I loved it. Can't believe I was on here last a week or so before HAILEY PROPOSED! I have no idea what to expect this season (aside from Kim living thankfully, hopefully and apparently) but I tied my take of what I'd love for Upstead in this prompt. Hope you enjoy and thanks for reading and letting me dust off the rust :) ]
Prompt #26: "You weren't supposed to laugh, I'm so embarrassed!"
Jay and Hailey had officially moved the last of their boxes into their new house a couple of hours ago. The movers had come and gone this morning and all they had left was bringing over some personal items and to start the process of unpacking. They had been practically living together already in Hailey's apartment and decided to take advantage of the market's insanely low interest rates while they could. The decision had started to become established about six months prior, the words that started it still ringing in Jay's ears; "I'm serious, let's get married!" Hailey had just got home from trying to find Roy, the guy who shot and had Kim kidnapped, with Voight. Her and Jay were supposed to head over to the hospital to check on Kim, but she seemed pretty shook up. To the average person, Hailey's sad anxiety and surprising proposal would be chalked up to her worrying over her friend fighting for her life in a hospital bed. But Jay wasn't the average person when it came to Hailey, he knew her better than anyone. The most he could do was pull her tighter to him, any response had been ripped away when his phone started ringing and it was Will with an update on Kim and wondering where they were.
When they had gotten back home later that night, relieved to see that Kim was fighting hard despite still being in critical condition, Jay broached the subject of the proposal and Hailey's mood. He got her to confess that she ended up killing Roy in order to prevent him from continuing to grab Hank's gun and kill him. She was traumatized not only because it was unlawfully off-book so Hank went to bury and burn the evidence, but because she was scared of how Jay would react. Despite all that, she was sincere about wanting to marry him. After a sleepless night assuring her that they would be okay, that she did what she had to do and it wasn't her fault, and that he DID want to marry her when the time was right... then another couple months of Kim making a miraculous recovery, the team banning together that they would all take what happened to Roy to the grave, and most importantly Hailey getting the therapy she needed to work through all the traumas and triggers that occurred over the past two years; Jay and Hailey made the decision that it was time for them to officially live together. They started to look at houses immediately, excited for something to be theirs, and to have an actual yard and basement to host their friends and plan for the future.
Which led them to today. They had bought a moderately-sized three-bedroom Colonial in the suburbs. They couldn't be happier and more excited. Even the process of unpacking, which would be tedious to most, was making them giddy. Hailey was in the kitchen organizing, while Jay was starting to tackle the bedroom stuff.
"Babe, you want me to hang my Hawks poster in the basement?" Jay yells out to Hailey.
She happily yells back, "No, put it up here somewhere, wherever you want, you won't get to see it much if you put it in the basement!"
"You sure?"
"Yeah, you love that thing."
Jay smiles to himself, always knowing Hailey was his person, but this just further proving it. He thinks maybe he'll place it in the bedroom somewhere with the couple of other expensive sports trinkets they have. He moves on to the next box which happens to be one of Hailey's. Not that it mattered since he basically knew where she kept and how she liked everything in her prior places. This particular box seemed to be a lot of random mementos and decorative items like picture frames and such. He's almost done digging through when something slips out of one of those manilla office folders. It's a group picture of the team at a game a few years ago, before him and Hailey had started dating. They had naturally been sitting next to each other of course, and the love could be felt through their poses, but that's not what stuck out to him. It was the fact that Hailey (or someone) had folded the picture into the shape of a heart, surrounding them and making just the two of them visible. It was adorable and Jay couldn't help but smile. He couldn't wait to tease her about this as he started to make his way to the kitchen with the photo in hand.
Hearing him approach, Hailey started instantly talking, not even bothering to look up from her task. "Do you think I should put the baking items in the pantry or the top cabinet? I'll feel more incentive to use them if they're in the pantry, but the reality is we both know I only get the time to bake like twice a year..." she pauses when she can hear the snickering of his smirk and looks up at him to see his eyes shining and his holding back laughter expression. "What's so funny?"
"You really did have a crush on me, huh?"
She starts to smile too, but looks at him confused. "What?"
"I found this in with all the rest of the photo frames and stuff, guess you kept it hidden away because I never saw it." He chuckles even more as he hands her the folded photo.
Her cheeks start to slightly tint pink. "Oh my God, of course you would come across this. I've unpacked at least ten more boxes than you, can't believe these odds!" She rolls her eyes.
He laughs even harder. "I'm so glad I did. So how many of these things do you have hidden away? You didn't like build mini replica dolls of me and you too, did you?"
She shakes her head at his amusement and punches his shoulder. "Firstly, you weren't supposed to see this without an explanation, secondly, you weren't supposed to laugh, I'm so embarrassed!" She puts her head in her hands, trying to control her amusement too.
He pulls her to him and into his arms, still grinning. "Oh c'mon, it's cute! Even cuter since this is from before we got together!"
"Yeah, well, you can thank Vanessa for that. As much as I would LOVE to feed your ego some more and say I made this, it was actually all her."
"Oh yeah? Yeah, she really had no shame with the hints."
"You don't know the half of it. She found this hilarious. I'm surprised she didn't buy me a heart-shaped picture frame with the two of us."
"Would you have hidden that to? Or actually display it with pride?"
She shrugs her shoulders nonchalantly. "Probably would have thrown it out!" She teases.
His mouth drops, gapping at her, then grabs her and pokes her sides where he knows she's ticklish.
"Okay, okay, I'll be honest. While Vanessa may have made this, I may have, maybe, a little bit, kept it under my pillow those first few weeks after you were shot. And brought it with me to New York..." she mumbles softly.
"Did you now?" He raises his eyebrows and grins.
"Alright, don't let it go to your head too much!"
"I'm just messing with you. I love that we loved each other so much for so long. If Vanessa made one for me, I'd have done the same."
She wraps her arms around his neck and gives him a quick kiss. "Yeah?"
"Yeah." He kisses her back and then pulls away to walk to the fridge. "And now that we are together, I think this should be hung properly." He says assuredly as he takes a magnet and puts the photo clear as day in the middle of the fridge.
"Jay Halstead, my big softie!" She beams at him.
"I'm just glad I unpacked one of your secret items instead of you unpacking mine!"
"Why? You actually have those replica dolls of us? Or you're an even bigger secret softie with a massive picture collage of me?"
He winks at her as he gives her a quick peck on her lips and starts making his way back to their bedroom to continue the unpacking. "Wouldn't you like to know!"
It's all he says, equally frustrating and amusing her. She gets back to her tasks and with the constant organizing at home as the weeks go by and the busy cases at work, she soon forgets about his comments, thinking he was messing with her anyway. That is until a month later when he reveals the secret item he meant... in the shape of a small, velvet black box. Turns out, the time was finally right... and unlike that traumatic night seven months ago, she had never responded "Yes" faster in her life!