Jay choked back a sob, realizing what she tried to do. She tried to take her wonderful life and end it.
"She tried to take her life," Jay choked back a sob. Voight had already figured this out by the first paragraph, but also figured out why she did it. It was because he forced her to keep Roy's death a secret and it was too much for her to take on. But Voight didn't tell Jay, and instead said, "I'll call you later," And hung up. Jay continued to search but found nothing else. Since he didn't have to worry about the apartment being a crime scene, he put the letter in his pocket. He called Will next.
"Hey, Jay," Will's voice sounded thick. Jay cleared his throat, "How's Hailey doing?"
"No changes yet. Probably no changes for another few hours. Anything else?"
"Yeah. If I come over to Med right now, can you lead me to Dr. Charles's office?"
"I mean, sure, but why?"
"I just need to talk to him for a few minutes," Jay didn't want to tell him the real reason and was going to stall as long as he could. Will was silent for a moment and then said, "All right, sure. Come'on over," Jay hung up and drove over to Med, making sure that he had the letter with him. He was intending to tell Dr. Charles about the letter, so Hailey could be kept on suicide watch when she woke up. When he got there, Will showed Jay to the psychiatrist's office and Jay knocked on the door after Jay left.
"Come in," A calm voice said. Jay opened the door and gave a tight smile, "Hey, Dr. Charles,"
"Jay, hello. Call me Daniel. What can I do for you?" Jay sat down and pulled out the letter, looking at it and the blood-trickled paper, "Hailey Upton,"
"Yes, I heard she was in the hospital. Is there something you would like to talk to me about?" Daniel's calm voice soothed Jay. Jay nodded and started talking, "I think Hailey needs to be put on suicide watch," He blurted.
"Oh?" Daniel's tone quickly changed, "And why is that?" He softly asked. Jay didn't necessarily want to hand him the letter, so he explained, "I was at Hailey's apartment after I visited her, and I found a suicide note. She was under a lot of pressure and felt that it was too much to handle for her. She's been acting different for weeks now, and I believe that she has been struggling with self-harm for weeks now,"
"That's…pretty serious, Jay," Daniel said.
"I know," Jay groaned, "But I wouldn't be here if I didn't believe that Hailey was in danger. I only want the best for her, and I can't lose her. S-She means the world to me, and I can't stand the thought of losing her,"
"I understand, Jay, I do. Hailey's not going to be awake for at least another day or two, so I'll talk to her when she is. See if I can get her to open up. Did the letter say exactly why she did it?"
"No, it didn't. It just said she was under a lot of pressure. She hasn't opened up to anyone, and speaking of which, she really hasn't been talking to anyone,"
"All right," Daniel nodded, "Well, thank you for stopping by," He stood up, shaking Jay's hand, "I have to do rounds now, but I'll give you a call later,"
"Thanks," Jay thanked Daniel as he left the office and left the hospital.
The night went slowly for Jay. His anxiety was growing at the fact that she might not make it, but the unit was trying to comfort him. He appreciated it, but it wasn't working. The anxiety he was feeling wasn't about to go away just because his team was telling him it was going to be all right. Hailey was in critical condition and there was nothing he could do about it. He paced in his apartment and wasn't able to sleep. By the time morning came around Jay was tired and grumpy, but he raced to the hospital.
As soon as Jay entered the doors, he saw Connor.
"Dr. Rhodes!" He called. The doctor turned around and smiled when he saw Jay.
"Hailey made it through the night and I'm hopeful she'll recover. She's not out of the woods yet, though. She lost a lot of blood, and we have her on blood transfusions to try to get more blood into her. Hailey is not awake yet and still intubated, but you can see her if you'd like. The nurses will try to kick you out at the end of visiting hours, but I'll try to tell them not to. You know, CPD and all that other stuff,"
"Thanks a lot, Dr. Rhodes. That means a lot to me," Jay thanked the doctor for all of his hard work. Dr. Rhodes left him be at Hailey's room door and Jay was frozen for a moment. It was his girlfriend lying there, intubated, huge bandage on the side of her neck, eyes closed. She looked peaceful, though. Like she was just sleeping. Jay went inside the room taking Hailey's hand and gently kissed it.
"I love you so much, Hails. You're so strong, you're gonna get past this because you're the bravest and strongest person I've ever met," Jay whispered. For the rest of the day, Jay refused to move from the chair next to Hailey's side. Kim brought food for him a couple times also wanting to see if there was an update, which there was not. Hailey's condition was thankfully staying stable, though. Dr. Rhodes stopped by a few times during rounds and was satisfied with how she was doing. Voight came to see how Jay was doing after a bit.
"How're you doing?" He asked. Jay shrugged, "I'd be better if she weren't in the hospital in the first place,"
"Fair enough," Voight nodded, "I talked with Platt. She'll let you take a couple days off unless we catch a case. Only thing on her mind right now is Hailey's wellbeing and her recovering. Keep us updated if anything changes, though,"
"Of course," Jay accepted the deal from Voight, "Any updates on Roy?" Jay didn't know where Roy was; the FBI was sorting that out.
"Nothing yet. There're no leads or evidence, so North's thinking of closing the case if nothing comes up within the next week," Voight replied. Voight nodded towards Hailey, "How's she doing?"
"She's stable. Dr. Rhodes is hopeful that she'll recover, but she lost a lot of blood. She's on blood transfusions," Jay told Voight what Rhodes had told him.
"All right," Voight placed a hand on Jay's shoulder, "I gotta run, but I'll be back later,"
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo
3 days passed and Hailey was awake and well, or as well as she could be. It wasn't until a few days after Hailey woke up until Jay pressed her about the letter.
"Hails? Can we talk?" Jay asked her. Hailey looked over at him the best she could, "What's up?"
"After you were brought into the hospital, I, um, I went over to your apartment. I went into your room, and, um-," He broke off when Hailey started to cry.
"I'm so sorry, Jay!" She cried. Jay held her close to his chest, stroking the back of her hair, "It's okay, Hails. I'm just glad you're okay," She cried into his shoulder, "I-I had no choice! I couldn't live with it!"
"Hailey, what couldn't you live with?" Jay pulled away, looking into her tear-stricken eyes.
"R-Roy…," Her breathing hitched. Jay frowned, "What about Roy?"
"H-h-he's dead! I-I-," Hailey couldn't finish her sentence.
"You what, Hails? Please, tell me. I won't be mad, I promise," Jay begged. Hailey swallowed, "I-I killed him,"
"Roy?" Jay asked, with a nod from Hailey. Once Hailey calmed down a bit, she explained further, "The night you and Kevin found Kim, Adam and I were doing knock and talks. Voight cherry-picked the leads, so I went to find him. He was beating up Roy. I convinced him to bring Roy in, and w-when Voight went to handcuff him, Roy reached for his gun. I-I shot him, and he died. Voight didn't let me call it in,"
"What happened to the body?" Jay pressed a bit. Hailey shrugged, "I-I don't know. He told me to leave afterwards. Please, Jay, I don't want to go to jail!"
"It's okay, babe, it's okay. I'm not gonna let that happen to you, I promise. I'll make sure of it," Jay kissed her forehead, "This is Voight's fault. He should've let you call it in. This is not your fault," Jay didn't say anything else; he only held his girlfriend she cried. When Dr. Rhodes came in during his rounds, he told Jay that Hailey should get some rest. After promising that he'd be back soon, Jay went to the 21st District to try and find Voight. He wasn't there, so Jay asked the rest of the team.
"Some abandoned warehouse," Kevin answered. Jay wanted to know the address, but the team didn't know. So, Jay sat down at his desk, pretending to do paperwork. He was pretending because he had way more important things on his mind.
He wanted to kill Voight. If he couldn't kill him, he at least wanted to hurt Voight. Badly. He wanted Voight to know just what he'd done to Jay's girlfriend. Voight had almost lost one of his detectives. In Jay's mind, Voight was the target. The target to take down. That's when Jay decided. He was going to get Sergeant Voight arrested.
Voight came up to Intelligence then, where Jay stood up, "Where the hell have you been?"
"None of your business. What do you want?"
"I need to talk with you. In private. Not in your office," Jay subtly hinted. Voight nodded, "Let's go downstairs," They both went downstairs and as soon as they did, Jay got to his point.
"How could you do this to Hailey?" He shouted. Voight tried to play it off, "I don't know what you're talking about,"
"You don't know what I'm saying, my ass!" Jay retorted, "Hailey told me everything. How you made her cover up Roy's death after she made a good shoot! How you made her keep such a huge secret that almost killed her! She saved your life that night!"
"You better watch your tone while talking to your Sergeant, Detective," Voight snarled.
"I don't care about my tone! Hell, I'll use this tone as much as I want! Nobody cares! All I care about is Hailey, which doesn't seem to concern you!"
Voight's face was madder than Jay had ever seen, "I'm not concerned about my officers? What, so you thought that I didn't care about Kim going missing? You being shot? Multiple times? Hailey and Kim being kidnapped? Huh? You don't think I care for my officers?"
"No! I don't! Every single time one of were hurt, sure, you helped. But those incidents, they never lasted as long as Hailey's been suffering from you! Yet, you never checked in on her! See if she was okay, what was going on!"
"I checked in on her!"
"Oh yeah? What, once?"
"She told me she was fine, so I didn't press,"
"God dammit, Voight, you're a cop! You know what to look out for!"
"You're her boyfriend, Halstead. It ain't my job to pry into her life. Last time I checked, you were the one who sleeps with her, aren't you?"
That was the breaking point for Jay. He raised his fist, punching Voight in the face. He had managed to shove Voight into a wall, punching him as hard as he could before Kevin had come down to intervene.
"Jay!" Kevin grunted as he pulled Jay away from his boss, "Jay, this isn't the way to do it!"
When Kevin managed to pull Jay off of Voight, Jay glared at Voight, "You know, you really are a son of a bitch!"
Voight walked out of the district, leaving Jay breathing heavily. Kevin finally released him and said, "You know, with you raising your voice a few notches, Burgess, Ruzek and I heard everything. While I'm not pleased with the situation, I understand it. Burgess and Ruzek are a little more pissed than anything, but it's Ruz that's gonna be difficult,"
"I've gotta explain," Jay said, pushing past Kevin and going back up. He was extremely tense and seeing his teammates faces didn't help.
"What in the actual hell, Jay?" Adam shouted. Jay didn't shout this time, "I just found out, Ruzek,'
"But seriously! You could've told us the moment you found out instead of pretending to do paperwork!"
"You know what? I'm not dealing with your childish behaviour right now. Tell Voight I'm with Hailey if he asks," Jay stormed out of the 21st and went to the hospital. Hailey was awake again when Jay got to the hospital, and he gently knocked on her door.
"Hey," Hailey smiled at him. Jay sat down beside her, "How're you feeling?"
"I'm all right,"
"That's good," Jay smiled, "So, uh, I talked to Voight,"
"Jay…," Hailey sighed. Jay nodded, "He didn't exactly deny that he was a part of this. Uh, things happened, and I don't think we're going to be on speaking terms for a while,"
"Jay, did you punch him?" Hailey knew Jay's track record, and it wasn't pretty.
"Yeah," Jay admitted, "Yeah, I did. I don't regret, either. If he had just let you call in the shoot, it would've been declared a good shoot and you would've been cleared,"
"I know,"
"Hailey," Jay took Hailey's hands, "I think we should take him down. Make him pay for what he did to you,"
"I don't know Jay. We didn't have body cameras on. It's gonna be all he said she said,"
"But we've gotta try. He was wrong to do what he did that night. If you don't want to, I'm not going to make you, but I think we need to try,"
Hailey didn't reply. The couple then sat in silence for the next little while before Hailey spoke up, "Okay. But one on condition,"
"Name it,"
"If we lose, you have to let it go as in it's done. It's over. Got it?"
"Got it. Oh, and, um, when I was talking to Voight, Burgess, Kev, and Ruzek heard everything,"
"Ugh, what'd they say?"
"Kev understands, but Ruzek's pissed. I didn't get a chance to talk to Burgess, Ruzek was yelling too much. But I'll talk to them, explain everything,"
"Okay,"
Jay changed the subject, "Dr. Rhodes come by recently?"
"Yeah. He's hoping that he can discharge me in the next week," Hailey said, "Someone would have to stay with me at all times, though,"
"I'd be happy to stay with you," Jay quickly said. Hailey shook her head, "No, you need to work. I can't ask you to do that,"
"You're not asking. I'm offering. Besides, I don't think I should be in the presence of Voight right now, considering what happened. Taking care of you is a benefit both ways,"
More silence followed. Hailey eventually agreed right before Kevin called Jay.
"Hey, man, what's up?" Jay asked.
"We caught a case. Voight wants to know if you're in or out,"
Jay looked at Hailey, who shrugged. Jay spoke, "Tell Voight that I have to tap out. I can't work with him right now,"
"That's cool, man. Give Hailey my best," Kevin hung up and Hailey turned to Jay, "Jay. I'm not gonna be discharged for around a week. Go work, help the team,"
"I think most of the team's mad at me. I punched Voight, Ruzek isn't impressed about Walton, and I think Burgess feels similar. The only person not ready to kill me is Kevin,"
"Okay. But you've gotta talk to them at some point," Hailey said with some order in her voice.
"I know, I know. I just can't deal with them right now. I'm gonna let the dust settle a bit," Jay agreed, knowing that it was the best thing to do. They both fell asleep a little while after that, Jay only waking up when Kevin came by to visit.
"Hey, man," Kevin pulled up a chair, sitting in it, "How's our girl doing?"
"She's doing good. What's up? I thought you guys caught a case, and shift's not over yet,"
"You're right, I just wanted to stop by. Voight let me take an hour off, though, and I came here,"
"Thanks," Jay nodded once, "Ruzek still fumed?"
"Yeah. Voight brought up your name, and he looked away from everyone. Honestly, I think it was a good idea that you backed out of the case. This way, someone's with Hails and Voight's got a team who don't have their teeth bared,"
"True," Jay looked over at Hailey, "She said that Dr. Rhodes might discharge her in the next week. I told her that I'd stay with her. You mind relaying to Voight?"
"Sure,"
"Thanks, man. I appreciate it. It's just hard, you know? I know that Voight's manipulative, but I never thought that it'd get so bad that one of his detectives would try to commit suicide,"
"Voight's got his ways of keeping people's mouths shut. Maybe they're not the greatest nor safest ways, but they work out in his favour. But only in his,"
"I know, but still," Jay looked at Hailey's sleeping form. She looked peaceful on the outside, but Jay knew just how much she was going through. She was going through hell and their boss put her through it. Kevin had to leave a while after, and Hailey woke up a little bit after he left.
"Hey, babe," Jay kissed her, making Hailey giggle, "How're you feeling?"
"It hasn't changed, Jay," Hailey chuckled, "I'll tell you if something changes, I promise,"
"Okay," Jay smiled.
"Jay?" Hailey asked, "How are we gonna even open up a case with pretty much no evidence? We don't even have proof that he's dead,"
"We'll find a way. I'll search and search for even the tiniest bit of evidence and use that against Voight. Don't worry. We're taking him down," Jay had determination in his eyes, and Hailey believed that if anyone could do it, he could.
"What happens if we can't take him down? I don't want to work with him," Hailey realized. Jay leaned towards her a bit more, "Hailey, if you don't want to, you never have to. If we lose, I won't say no if you would want to transfer to a different unit, like Robbery/Homicide. They always said that your spot was open if you wanted it, right?"
"Yeah. I just don't know what I'd want," Hailey sighed. Jay nodded, "I know. Let's just take it one step at a time, okay? One step at a time,"
Sorry this chapter's a little short, I'm hoping for a longer chapter next time, but I guess we'll see. As always, please review and tell me what you think!