A/N: Hi! Happy Monday :) Not gonna lie, this is a pretty heavy chapter, but I hope I did it justice. Try to enjoy? :)

Settling next to Jay on the couch, Hailey took a deep breath as she grabbed his right hand. "I'm nervous," she quietly admitted.

Jay let out a quiet laugh and said, "Honestly, me too."

"But…why?" she replied, "Why is this so scary? It's us. I…I don't want to divorce you; that's not my intention with all of this, and I don't think it's yours either."

"No, no, hey, of course not," Jay quickly said, "Never." He slipped his hand from hers to place it against her cheek and said, "I want to always be married to you. Nothing you say today could change that."

Hailey frowned and squeezed his knee between them. "Promise?"

Jay raised an eyebrow and quietly asked, "Did you cheat on me while I was gone?"

Hailey couldn't help but suck in a breath as she said, "Of course not."

Jay shrugged and said, "Then our marriage is sticking. Promise."

She weakly laughed while looking in his calm eyes that were slightly crinkled from his own laughter. They'd been everything she dreamed about while he was gone. They were everything that could always ground her even if they were rimmed in red from tears. They were everything she wanted for her coming future.

Nodding to herself, she said, "Okay," and tried relaxing there on the couch.

Jay brushed his thumb over her cheek then murmured, "Come here." He gently pulled her into a tight hug, burying his face within her hair. "Together forever," he whispered.

"Always," she replied while closing her eyes and breathing him in.

In his arms, she felt safe and secure. He settled the nerves within her stomach that made her feel like getting sick. He was the calm within this hell of a storm she'd been living in for the last six months, and that was what made this all hurt even more.

Not only was he the thing that calmed her, but he was the thing that made her feel those stormy feelings in the first place. He'd abandoned her. He'd set their marriage to the side and focused on himself by leaving her. He moved to Bolivia.

That harsh memory made her stiffen and her blood run cold. She hated thinking of all that he'd done to her.

That Jay didn't feel like the one who was currently in her arms.

And yet maybe that proved that his distance had healed him in a way all while breaking him: he was starting to be Her Jay again. Her Jay, her man, had come home.

Finally.

She rubbed her hand over his back then sat back with a deep breath.

Jay sat back as well and said quietly, "It's time, huh?"

She nodded and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "I think so."

Scooting back from her, Jay nodded with her.

She wished she could feel his comfort again, but suspected the distance was best for now. They needed to begin on their own with honesty at the forefront. If she was holding his hand or feeling his breath against her cheek, she felt like she'd soften the words she needed to tell him, and that wouldn't be fair to her.

"I love you," she began.

Jay's lips tipped up, and he replied, "I love you too."

The words killed her. She needed to hear them, but she also felt like they made her next sentence even more painful.

"But I really didn't feel like you did back in October."

To her surprise, Jay barely reacted. It was like he'd expected the words to come from her. All he could do was nod and breathe in slowly.

"You left me," she continued quietly, "I loved you so much and believed in you, I believed in us, and I felt like you didn't feel that way at all. You'd stepped away from our relationship by building this…this thing with Voight. You did exactly what I told you not to do and tried changing him or something. That wasn't you, it wasn't the man I married, and that…that bothered me, Jay. It still does. I still look at him and think 'you're the guy who took my husband from me.' It's upsetting, and it pisses me off."

Jay nodded again and visibly swallowed.

"Can we start with that?" she asked, "Can you explain to me what that all was?"

Jay chewed his lip then looked down at his hand on his lap. There seemed to be a solid minute of Hailey just staring at him waiting for an answer when he finally whispered, "I did feel bad for him and what had happened with Anna. That's not me saying I blamed you, but that I knew part of him blamed himself and he knew he should have done better. We've all been there, we've all made mistakes with a case. That's how it started, anyways."

Hailey nodded slowly then asked, "And so you kept spending all your time with him because…"

"I don't know," Jay sighed and looked up at her, "I don't know, Hailey. It wasn't me. I knew it wasn't. It was pity and-and feeling bad for myself. I figured if I had maybe been nicer to her or-"

"Hey, wait, stop," Hailey interrupted, putting a hand up, "Why did you feel bad for yourself?"

Jay tilted his head to the side slightly and said, "Because I was to blame for her death too. If I had stepped up sooner and didn't participate with him in trying to hide her, I don't think she would have died. Don't you think so too?"

"I…I don't know," she admitted, "I never considered that. I mostly put the blame on myself: I pulled the trigger. I literally killed her, Jay, that was me."

"But I led you there," he said quietly, "I drove the car. I was the reason we were even there. I let Voight try and do things on his own the way he wanted. It wasn't right. It never worked before and always ended in disaster. I should have seen it, and I didn't. I made a mistake."

Hailey slowly nodded then said, "But then why didn't you try to fix it with me? If the mistake was me killing Anna, then why didn't you talk with me? You spent all your time with Voight after that."

Jay frowned and replied, "I know."

Hailey let out a breath and looked toward the window. It was endless days of wishing Jay would come home. Sitting and waiting for him to eat dinner with her. Waking up alone. Wondering where he was. She wasn't okay with any of it then, and she certainly wasn't okay with any of it now.

"I missed you," she said, "I just wanted you here with me. I was going through things dealing with what had happened and trying to be better for you, and you abandoned me."

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Jay wince.

"I didn't-"

"You did."

"Let me finish."

Hailey blinked her eyes quickly and turned to look at him.

"I didn't mean to abandon you," he said, "I recognize that I did, especially once I left for Bolivia, but that was not my original intention. I was trying to right my wrongs."

"By doing what?" she asked without thinking, an anger starting to grow within her, "By spending all your time with our boss? Because that's what he is, Jay, our boss. You don't leave your wife alone for hours wondering where you are to spend time with your boss."

"He's more than a boss and you know that," Jay replied easily.

Hailey shook her head and turned back to the window. Staring at the sky, she knew he was partly right. Voight had been a part of their lives – Jay's life – for a long time. There was something about a work family that stuck with you whether you liked it or not. Whether you liked everyone's decisions or not.

Voight was not one to give out birthday gifts or spring for lunch in the bullpen every Friday, but he would do anything for them. He'd lie and work extra hours and even kill for any person that crossed that floor. Each of them had a little piece of their heart that would defend him if it came down to it. Those little pieces had been getting smaller and smaller as time went on, but he really did mean something to each of them.

However-

"He doesn't have to be more than your wife," she whispered dangerously, "He shouldn't be. You can never change who he is, Jay. Why couldn't you walk away from him to be with me?"

He remained silent.

She let her eyes flicker over to him. He said nothing if he noticed. If anything, his face grew pale, making the bruising around his left eye stand out even more.

She swallowed a lump in her throat and shifted on the couch. Waiting.

Still, he didn't say anything.

So she asked again.

"Why couldn't you walk away from him, Jay? Why couldn't you be with me instead?"

He still stayed silent.

His eyes didn't even move this time to look at her. He looked like he could get sick. His lips gaped for a second and then he shook his head and glanced down at his lap.

"I don't know," he murmured, "I…well, I know, but…"

"Tell me," she whispered.

Jay squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head.

"Tell me," Hailey repeated, "I want to know."

"It'll hurt you."

She pursed her lips, but also felt stuck. He was holding back from telling her the truth because he didn't want to hurt her. Just like she was doing with him.

And it made her realize how much it bothered her.

It didn't matter how much she thought it'd hurt Jay, she realized she needed to tell him the truth about her feelings because she would want to know herself. She did want to know.

She needed to know.

"Please."

Jay visibly fell defeated in his seat and let his head drop to the side. "I…"

Hailey watched him struggle to find the exact words he was holding back from her. She no longer felt angry, but she did feel sad. She hated that they were both put in this impossible situation where they were trying to save each other from the one thing that was never supposed to harm them: their love for each other.

"We'll be okay," she said softly, "Remember? I can take it. Just tell me the truth."

"You…Hailey."

Jay looked up at her, and the tears she'd seen earlier had returned. He shook his head slightly, and she was half-convinced he'd again refuse to say what was on his mind.

But then he whispered, "I love you."

She swallowed a sudden fear in her throat and replied, "I love you too."

Jay wiped his eyes and took a deep breath. "I wanted that," he said quietly, "I wanted that…that power Voight has. I wanted to feel like I could do anything and control things. Not necessarily that I could just break all the laws like him or just-just shoot someone and bring out some form of justice by burying them at the silos or whatever. I wanted to feel like I could make a difference, and I got sucked into feeling sorry for him and ended up trying to make a difference the wrong way."

The air got caught in her lungs, but her stomach didn't drop.

She recognized that feeling.

She'd once wanted to right wrongs and had been led down the wrong path.

She could clearly remember walking into a bar and telling several men the wrongdoings of Darius Walker only to be called hours later about his death in that same bar.

Perhaps that was why she was so disappointed in her husband.

She had never expected him to want that same feeling.

When she'd first met him, he'd always been ethical and moral. He'd been a good man. Someone she looked up to as a detective and as a person. He had a good head on his shoulders.

It wasn't easy hearing that he'd recently been debating all of that and turning toward darkness. Toward Voight. Toward everything he'd been working against for years.

And yet maybe that wasn't what it was.

He'd wanted to make a difference in the world from the moment she met him. He wanted Chicago to be a better place. He'd told her long ago of wanting revenge on a boy for murdering his girlfriend's brother. She'd completely understood why he would feel that way. It was a disgusting, horrible way to die at the hands of a pedophile. Anyone would want to bring justice to that case.

She remembered that Jay had said the boy's father had killed him himself, so she supposed justice had been served. Jay had accepted the justice.

He had drawn a line in the sand, though, at that moment. He had decided he would not kill for others or break the law to do what he thought was right.

And then a year later, he'd watched a man die instead of rendering aid for his gunshot wound all because he'd murdered a girl and created a case Jay had never been able to solve with conviction. Part of her supposed he'd changed that day – or at least that his need for justice and righting wrongs however that may look was ignited.

It hadn't been lit enough that he could completely stop her when she'd gone and gotten Darius Walker killed, but it was there within him. Perhaps it calmed over time, but it never went away. Her involvement with Roy's death made that incredibly clear.

Jay's line in the sand washed away as he'd worked to keep her out of prison. His morals were pushed to the side as he learned how to cross lines and hide the evidence whereas her morals were solidified and returned to where they'd been.

It was a hard pill to swallow, but she knew she needed to: her killing Roy had nudged Jay down this path. Maybe it would have happened no matter what, but she had to admit that the two of them hiding the murder with Voight and working against North had at least accelerated it.

Jay needed to protect her; he didn't care about the cost. It'd upset him and wasn't easy for him to do, but he still did it. He still went undercover and worked against North and did things he normally wouldn't have all because he loved her.

In a way, she could see that Jay still here in front of her. He would still do anything for her because of that love and because of their marriage. Right now, he was having a tough conversation and being vulnerable in front of her about mistakes he'd admittedly made. He loved her, so he would do something hard for her.

He loved her, so he went to Bolivia for her.

He'd recognized what he'd done to their marriage and himself by following Voight around Chicago and doing things he shouldn't have. He hadn't liked what he'd seen when he looked in the mirror. He'd wanted to fix it.

He went back to his roots.

He went to Bolivia.

Her hand shakily reached out to his and squeezed it tightly. Staring at him, she couldn't think of any words. She could understand his side on why he ran – why he went to Bolivia. She needed to focus on that acceptance right now because if she focused on the other half of it, she didn't know how strong she could remain.

He looked in her eyes and whispered, "I'm sorry."

She nodded and searched for the words she needed to say.

"I know."

A ghost of a smile crossed Jay's face before he looked down at their joined hands. He rubbed his thumb over her knuckles and breathed, "Thank you." After a moment, he brought her hand up to his lips and pressed a soft kiss to the side of her pinky.

She stretched her fingers out to brush along his jaw. She watched his eyes flutter close as he leaned into her touch.

She would give him this moment before she'd break it again. He let out something she knew was bothering him; he needed to feel some sort of comfort before she took it all away.

She gave him a minute.

And then she gently pulled her hand back into her lap and took in another breath. She met Jay's eyes and raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah," he breathed in response, "I'm ready."

She smiled slightly and nodded. "Okay," she whispered, "Um, I…what I need to know before I tell you how I felt is why: why didn't you ask me or tell me about what you were feeling? Why didn't you give us a chance to fix it together?"

His shoulders almost shrugged and his mouth opened for just a second before he sighed and said, "Because I knew we couldn't do it. I was too broken."

"You-"

"I was."

Staring at him, she felt in her gut that he was right. Both literally and emotionally, he had been broken that last night they spent together in bed. She'd had to wipe blood from his face and tend to the bruises and cuts along his arms and back before guiding him into bed and holding him all night as he struggled with his thoughts. He hadn't said anything through the dark, and she supposed that was when he was thinking through all the decisions he would be making the following morning.

Maybe she should have spoken up while they were in bed and coaxed him into talking. Maybe that would have helped him think through everything and actually stay in Chicago.

It was something that had haunted her over the past five months.

Then again, if he was truly broken like he said he was, talking through the night might have kept him home for a little longer, but it wouldn't have been a guarantee that he would have stayed forever. It would have been a band-aid for the time being.

It seemed to be what he thought it would have been anyways.

"Why couldn't we have done it?" she asked quietly, "Why didn't you believe in us?"

"It's not that," he said softly, "I believe in us. I didn't believe in myself. Hailey, I'd just spent weeks off on my own breaking down who I was as a person. I did that to myself. You had nothing to do with my downfall, I promise you. You can connect yourself to any of the dots you want to, but you are not the person who figuratively pulled the trigger. That was all me and my own past and my issues – not yours. I needed to fix it myself, and I couldn't drag you down with me. It wouldn't have been fair."

"But we're married," she said, hating herself for her voice cracking on the word, "We're married now, and we were married then. How could you just make that decision without me? We promised forever."

She felt like she was whining, and there really was no point to it. She could whine all she wanted right now, and it wouldn't change what had happened. This conversation wasn't meant to change the past, but to give light to it and explain all that had haunted her for months. There was no reason to whine.

And yet she couldn't fight it.

Here she was, sitting in front of her husband, begging him to tell her why he'd set her aside for months of his life. Why he hadn't talked to her about such a big decision before making it. Why he'd done it so easily.

Supposedly.

She really didn't know if he'd done it easily. She never decided if he had or not. Some days she thought it'd been an impulse and was half-convinced he'd be back within a month, apologizing for what he'd done and begging for her forgiveness. Other days, she wondered if he'd ever actually fallen asleep that night and had spent all seven hours they'd spent in bed together debating what to do. In that scenario, the pain she felt was even more intense because it meant he'd assumed she would just accept what had happened and let him go.

Which ended up being what had happened.

He'd called her the love of his life and told her she needed to let him go.

It'd felt like a speech he'd prepared all night.

Watching tears form once more in his eyes months after the fact, she knew in her heart that the decision had not been easy. He had to have beaten himself up over it for more than just that one night. It could not have been something that he just did and said over the course of ten minutes. It'd eaten at him.

She imagined him in the car both to and from his meeting with the chief of police and then on the plane to Bolivia. It made her heart ache. She hated imagining him in pain.

What made it all even worse was knowing how much pain she'd been in during those exact same moments. Waking up without him. Wondering where he was. Hoping he was going to survive all while wondering if she could even survive it herself.

They'd both been in tremendous pain, and they'd had to tackle it on their own.

It was unnecessarily cruel that they couldn't go through it together even if they were in a way.

She hated it.

Jay seemed to hate it as well.

"I needed to," he said, his face crumbling as he spoke, "I needed to make a decision for myself. It was selfish and wrong, but I needed to do it for me – hell, I needed to do it for us. If we talked about it, maybe I would have resigned, but then I would have been stuck here in Chicago just searching for something I couldn't find. I needed to leave, it was the only option."

She stared at him and slowly shook her head. That was wrong.

He was wrong.

There was no way he couldn't have learned some sort of lesson here in Chicago. He could have. They could have done it together. She would have helped him return to his roots if he needed; she was sure of that.

"I needed to," he repeated quietly, "Hailey, I needed to go back to black and white to set the world right again. I was spinning out, and it was not going to end well. I was already making stupid choices, you have to admit that."

He had been.

Anna.

Voight.

That last case with the armed robberies and damn veterans who seemed to convince Jay he needed to return to their world.

They were all dumb choices he'd made.

Like anything in life, turning it off then back on would make sense. He needed a hard reset, and she absolutely hated that that reset needed to happen without her.

It didn't seem worth it in her mind.

But maybe that was her own selfish thoughts coming through. She was only thinking of her own pain and need for Jay without considering his own wants and needs.

She'd needed to let him go which was exactly what he'd asked for months before. He needed her to do that for him to get better. He had asked for a favor from her, and she'd complied no matter how painful it was.

Looking back, she couldn't have fought against him. If she had, he would have been miserable stuck in their apartment trying to get better on his own. The truth of the matter was that he'd needed people that were like him to wake him up and get him through the dark patch he'd found himself in. She wouldn't have been able to reach him in the same way they had no matter how much she hated that fact.

She was his wife, but she'd never been in the military. She couldn't exactly relate to him on that level.

It killed her.

Just like his absence had.

"I know," she finally croaked, "It just…Jay, it hurt. Being without you, I could barely handle it. Even with talking to you every couple days, I needed you here. I needed my husband and my partner."

Jay nodded quickly and wiped his fist under his nose. "Tell me," he said quietly, "Talk me through what you were going through. I want to know. I need to know. And be honest."

She blinked against the tears in her eyes and sucked in a shaky breath. "Um, I…"

It was her chance and the one thing she knew she'd been needing to do. She knew she'd been looking forward to this moment so that she could let a weight off her chest.

She was just worried about watching Jay's face when she expressed all her pain. It was going to feel like a knife to the gut, but it'd be a necessary pain. There was no avoiding this hurdle that she needed to overcome.

"I cried a lot," she admitted first and instantly felt silly.

He'd known she cried. He'd seen it here in their apartment and then again when she'd dropped him off at the airport. She'd barely been able to drive out of the parking lot because she'd been crying so hard.

It felt like a waste of a sentence.

And yet Jay nodded.

He didn't judge her or say he knew that. He just nodded while looking at her, waiting to hear what else she had to say.

So she took one more calming breath and continued.

"It felt like my life was over. Like I was living in some nightmare that couldn't end. I tried ignoring it all by working constantly. Trudy wasn't happy about that. Pretty sure I was breaking some rule or something. But then Sean happened and I realized I needed to be there. I finally had something to fight for."

Jay nodded again. There'd been many nights during Sean's case where she'd called him and left long messages of just her talking through what she was thinking. She never texted him much about the case besides saying she was tired or had slept in the car again if he asked. She was worried something would be found out about what she was doing. Voicemails felt safer even if Jay never replied to them.

"It kind of tired me out. I'd come home and just pass out every night. When he was arrested, a part of me felt better, but then I remembered you weren't here to celebrate with me, and I was miserable all over again. Everyone's pity was annoying. They just all felt sorry for me constantly and were offering me meals. I should have taken them up on it more. It wasn't fair for myself to ignore them. Looking back, it was like I was making myself miserable. I shouldn't have done that. You'd tell me to lean on them, and I just couldn't do it. I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize," Jay interrupted quickly, "You were trying to survive. I cannot judge you for anything you did when I'm the one who up and left you. I was trying to survive in my own way too. It looks like we both isolated ourselves when we probably should have leaned on others, huh?"

Hailey sniffled and nodded. "Probably," she whispered while wiping her eyes.

For a moment, she watched as he seemed to gather himself in front of her, and she again gave it to him. For as many moments that she needed silence to grasp what he'd told her, she knew he needed just as many to wrap his mind around what she'd just said.

She wanted to comfort him, but she knew they needed to stay apart for just a little longer. She needed that space to stay between them as they simply listened to each other talk.

She just really needed to hold him in that moment, and she really needed him to hold her as well. It meant this felt like a cruel representation of their last six months, especially that last month before he came home: they needed each other, but were too stubborn to actually do anything about it.

She just needed to know if it was all worth it. It was the last thing she needed to hear.

"Did it work?"

Jay glanced over at her as the words floated toward him. He tried to smile then shrugged and looked away again.

"Maybe," he quietly admitted, "I think there were definitely times where I felt like myself – especially around December to February. It was like I hit this high where things were good. I'd had three successful operations in a row. I was doing what I'd set out to do and doing it well all while leading this group of guys and teaching them everything good that I knew. That's not even mentioning that you and I had had a couple letters, your case was over, I felt like you'd accept me coming back home. I felt confident in myself. I was sort of happy."

Hailey let a small smile cross her own face as she breathed, "That's great."

"Don't talk yet," Jay sighed, "I…you're not…they asked if I'd stay, and that's when…Hailey, I-"

Just as quickly as she'd felt happy for him, her heart sank.

She knew exactly what he was going to say: "You accepted."

Jay finally met her eyes as he said, "Yeah."

Eight months or more.

The damn phrase that had haunted her the month before.

She'd known then that something was wrong – or, at least, off. He was trying to ease her into accepting the fact that he was going to be gone longer than planned, and then, like some cruel joke, it all exploded in his face.

Literally.

It was ironic.

She couldn't stay sitting on the couch any longer. Seconds before, she'd needed to be in his arms as he held her and they reflected on how they'd survived this dark moment of their lives. Now, she wanted nothing to do with him.

Pushing off the cushions, she walked over to the window and crossed her arms as she stared out at the water.

"Hailey."

"I need a minute," she whispered.

He didn't reply, and she really didn't want to. She needed the silence to process what he'd just said.

She stared out at the water and wished she could be there right now. She didn't even need that exact body of water; she just needed fresh air.

A choice to go even longer than eight months without her.

She'd just wrapped her mind around the fact that he'd needed to leave for Bolivia in the first place. She'd just accepted that she couldn't have done anything to stop him from going off on his own.

Now she was expected to accept that he'd seemed to be improving and was happy and picturing coming home to her where she'd be excited to see him and still said that he'd stay down there for even longer.

It disgusted her even more than she'd felt when Jay said he'd wanted to be like Voight.

In no world would she have ever imagined Jay leaving her after they got married, but then it happened. She had about five months to process that. She didn't do great at it, but at least she attempted to accept it without being happy about it. She got through that.

How was she supposed to get over the fact that her husband had decided he was going to extend his leave and stay away from her even longer?

It didn't even matter that he'd come home soon after because of a medical discharge. He'd made another conscious choice to stay away from her.

That stung.

She blinked past hot, angry tears in her eyes and dug her nails into her arms. Before looking back at him and returning to the couch, she needed to let out her anger on her own. She needed to figure out how to process a second betrayal on top of his first leaving.

As her bottom lip began shaking, she felt a quiet sob bubble up in her throat.

She didn't know how she was going to survive any of this. In the span of the last six months, her husband had left her for Bolivia, she'd discovered a serial rapist and killer and brought justice to his victims, her marriage had struggled through the long distance, her husband had been medically discharged from the army, leading them to spending over a week in a hospital together as he healed, they spent almost another week at home barely talking to each other trying to return to a new normal, and then she found out her husband had wanted to stay away from her even longer.

She felt like she could throw up.

It was too much for one single person to take in a lifetime – let alone in six months.

She was only so strong.

"Oh my god," she whispered, squeezing her eyes shut and digging her nails even further into her arms, feeling the skin break beneath them, "Oh my god."

It felt like when Jay left all over again.

Only now, he was sitting on her couch and wouldn't be leaving her within the hour. He was going to be staying and literally not leaving for who knows how long. He was stuck here in this apartment as he healed from what had happened to him.

It was like whiplash and made her feel dizzy.

Her head told her that she needed to get over it because Jay wasn't leaving her. It was over. She'd woken up from the nightmare that had haunted her life, even if the ones that had kept her awake during the night still existed. Part of their issues had come to an end.

She just couldn't quite accept that yet.

She wanted to, but she didn't know how she could. Jay was going to leave her again without telling her about it again.

He sucked.

Opening her eyes, she could see a glimpse of him in the reflection of the window, and she felt anger. It was like he'd learned nothing about their relationship when he'd first left or even while he was gone. He should have known she wouldn't have liked the idea of him staying longer than he'd originally said.

But that was the sick fact of the situation: he had said back in October that it could be more than eight months.

She'd just never believed him or even thought that he'd be the reason he stayed longer. If anything were to happen with his time in Bolivia, she always thought that he'd stay longer because he was asked. Maybe he would be doing such a good job that they'd ask him to train the next squad leader. Or maybe he'd be in the middle of an operation and need to stay a little longer to finish it off. She figured she could accept either of those options.

She never considered they'd just ask him to stay and he'd be okay with it.

It was a mess that she could think through over and over and over again when the truth of the matter was that it was over. How long could she hold onto this anger toward him?

In the reflection, she could see him shift around on the couch, and she sighed.

Like earlier, that anger she felt was still within her and she didn't expect it to go away, but the love she felt toward him was even stronger.

He was her husband.

But, first, he was her partner and her best friend.

He was her everything.

He made mistakes, and their lives had taken a sharp turn toward a future they had never expected for themselves, but she still loved him endlessly.

She'd meant it when she said she didn't want to divorce him. This was not meant to be an end everything conversation. It was meant to gain insight into what they'd been going through both before he left and after.

So she made her way back to the couch next to him and remained a couple cushions away. As angry as she was, she couldn't just end the conversation. It needed to be finished even if it was the most painful thing she'd experienced in months – even the phone call she'd gotten that Jay was at Walter Reed hurt less than this because at least it meant he was back in the United States. This all just brought back all their problems to the surface, and they were extremely hard to swallow. It was not an easy conversation to have just like they'd expected.

Once she had sat down and settled against the throw pillows, Jay let out a breath and tilted his head to the side as he looked at her. His face fell again and he shook his head, quickly turning away from her.

"What?" she whispered, the one word shaking as it crossed her lips.

He cleared his throat and murmured, "I feel terrible for what I did to you. Watching you right now, it breaks my heart. I can't believe I did that to you, the single most beautiful person I've ever had the privilege of even speaking to – let alone love or spend time with. I needed to do something to fix myself, Hailey, but I didn't need to hurt you in the process. I regret that the most. I don't care that I'm…burnt and broken. I care that I hurt you, and that's something I'll have to live with for the rest of my life. I don't know how I'll do it, but I'm going to try. I swear to you."

She had nothing to say to that: she was speechless.

He did mess up, and he did hurt her. He needed to recognize that. She couldn't minimize it by telling him it was okay or saying he shouldn't feel that way. He needed to feel that way.

If she had needed to accept that he'd left her for the good of himself and her, he needed to accept that there were more consequences than just his physical pain for his actions.

He did that, and it made her want to cry even more.

He may have hurt emotionally hurt her more than anyone else ever had in her life, but he also loved her more than anyone ever had.

It wasn't what she'd ever wanted for herself, and yet it was everything she needed. He loved her unconditionally and wanted to be better for her in ways no one ever had even attempted before.

It meant everything to her.

So she settled on whispering, "Thank you."

And she felt like she could breathe instantly.

Jay looked at her like she was crazy, but realization soon spread across her face. All she needed, all she had needed for the last six months, was to hear Jay admit aloud that he messed up. Even then, what he'd said wasn't exactly that, but he was saying he hurt her and telling her how he felt about it. She needed to hear it.

She needed to feel like he still cared and loved her through it all. Regret and guilt led to that.

Growing up, her parents would apologize for the screaming and yelling and hitting and abuse, but there was never a 'I feel bad that happened.' It was always 'I'm sorry I hit you, it won't happen again,' or 'I'm sorry for losing my temper yesterday. Please forgive me because I really do love you.' They never took any of the blame or told her how it made them feel.

This strange part of her always wondered if they'd liked hurting her and yelling at her. They never said they felt bad for doing it or that they shouldn't have done it. It was always just an apology and an empty promise that it wouldn't happen again. It probably led to her anxiety around thinking that the words 'I love you' were cursed. No one who loved her ever seemed to have any regret for causing her pain.

Jay seemed different.

He was sitting in front of her with tears in his eyes, and she believed that he truly felt terrible for what had happened.

It was all thirteen year-old Hailey ever wanted to hear and see.

So she breathed in shakily and let a few more tears fall before finally scooting over to Jay and hugging him tightly. She buried her face in his neck and mumbled, "I love you. Thank you. Thank you for loving me."

She heard him hold back tears himself as he whispered, "I love you too. So much."

She nodded into his neck and said, "Forever."

Jay gripped her back and turned to press his lips to the top of her head. "Always."

Things were not perfect.

Hailey hadn't told him about all the nightmares she had and how she'd felt when he began mentioning staying for more than eight months. She didn't know what exactly Jay had gone through during his time in Bolivia or even if he found the closure he needed since he came home so soon.

But for now, today after his first doctor appointment and after one week of him being home, it felt good enough.

They'd gotten some of their anger out earlier and had finally let each other in their hearts. She understood a little better about why he needed to leave without consulting her, and he heard what exactly that choice had done to her.

Most importantly, he acknowledged that he felt bad for what she'd gone through. That was what she'd needed most.

So she held onto that as she hugged him tightly there on the couch. They'd cleared the air so they could at least breathe as they entered this next period of their lives with her returning to work and him starting to heal.

They were going to be okay.

It was all she wanted to hope for.

A/N: I worked really hard on the chapter, so I hope you can recognize it and did like it. Talk to you soon?