#Hailey Upton imagine

[uptonsgirl]

mad woman

summary: you and your girlfriend, hailey upton, get into a fight before a stakeout. what happens when the stakeout goes south while the two aren’t on good terms?

word count: 1230

warnings: being shot, angsty, happy ending, hospitals, arguments, swearing. not proof read !! first fic

27. That’s how many bricks went up the locker room wall, as you sat there, dissociating. Hailey, your girlfriend, and work partner had been getting on your nerves, and not in the fun way.

She would constantly only focus on work, spending long nights hunched over the laptop in the small apartment you shared together. Not only were you worried about her, but she’d been completely neglecting you as a girlfriend. Countless times you had tried to bring it up but were always met with a dismissive “I know babe, I’ll do better”, but she never did.

The locker room door swinging open brought you back to reality, as you saw the blonde you loved so dearly walk in… an angry look spread across her features. I really didn’t want to get into it with her right now, we had a stakeout in half an hour, but that didn’t stop her, clearly. “Babe? What’s wrong?”

Such a simple question triggered so many pent up emotions. She knew what was wrong. “Hailey are you for real right now? You know what’s wrong! You…” My voice shook a bit as I spoke, my voice raised. “You’ve been neglecting me completely the past few weeks!”

I saw her eyes widen in shock, I wasn’t the type to yell, ever. It seemed my outburst made her angry, she was always stubborn. “It’s not my fault you’re so fucking needy and work harder than you do!” She snapped; her tone sent a shiver down my spine. The moment the words came out of her mouth she knew she’d ventured too far. My face immediately dropped, as I didn’t respond, silently walking past her and out of the locker room, not hearing her faint voiced begging me to come back.

°.♡┈┈∘*┈୨୧┈*∘┈┈♡.°

We arrived at the stakeout location, and everyone felt the tension between Hailey and I. You could cut it with a knife. Jay and Adam glanced at each other, seeing if they were picking up the same vibes, which they were. Our attention quickly turned back to Voight as he explained what exactly we were doing.

I thanked anyone watching from above with Voight paired me with Adam, instead of Hailey. He was like a big brother to me, plus he made stakeouts a lot less boring. He grinned as we walked away together, to our designated spot, aka an old, unmarked car, with no heater, in the Chicago winter. Fun.

“Y/N, you good? Been watching you stare into space for the last 20 minutes.” The chirpy voice pulled me back down to earth. “Yeah, just Hailey… you know how stubborn she is.” I sighed, as Adam chuckled lightly under his breath, nodding his head as we fell into a comfortable silence. Occasional small talk about a movie was all that happened for the next few hours, just wanting to go home and cry.

It was around 7:30pm now, been here since 3:30. Out of the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of a man wearing all black, quickly radioing and signalling to Adam to slowly get out of the car. We crouched as we walked behind a fence, until I stepped on an empty chip packet. The crinkling sound alerting the man to our presence, as he spotted us and started running.

“Suspect is on foot heading down North of Main, officers following” I spoke into the radio, breathing heavily as Adam ran behind me, I had always been the fastest in the unit. We were running, and as I turned around a corner, I felt a red hot pain in my stomach, as I fell to the ground.

He was hiding behind the corner with a gun. Now, a bullet from that gun was in me. As I collapsed, Adam came around the bend, seeing blood seeping out of my vest, as he cursed to himself, before he dropped down and applied pressure, making me groan in pain. “50-21 Ida, officer down, roll an ambulance to my location immediately!”

Hailey was on the other side of the block, her heart stopping once she heard the call, jumping out of the car and sprinting to me, it felt like she was going to pass out when she finally made it. Tears grew in her eyes as she saw me, lying on the ground with blood around me, Adam holding my wound down. She kneeled next to me, holding my head in her hands as tears fell down her cheeks, Adam still trying to stop the bleeding.

“Hailey I’m- “My voice was weak as I spoke, and raspy from screaming. She saw that. “Shhh baby... don’t speak, okay? You’re going to be fine yeah? I’m sorry about everything, just hold on. Don’t close those beautiful eyes” Her voice was strained and shaky, trying to convince herself more than me, that I’ll be okay. We heard the ambulance sirens, music to everyone’s ears. Everyone was speaking, it felt like I was underwater. All I could feel was Hailey’s hand on mine, as I was lifted into the ambulance before I fell asleep.

°.♡┈┈∘*┈୨୧┈*∘┈┈♡.°

No one had ever seen Hailey like this before. Pacing back and forth in the hospital waiting room, the rest of Intelligence watching her. Many had tried approaching her to try and get her to stop, but nothing worked. Her eyes were bloodshot and puffy, what if she never saw me again?

Everyone shot up the moment Will walked through the doors. He looked tired, his hair messy and his eye bags dark. This was hard for him; I was very close with both Halstead’s.

“She’s had surgery to stop the internal bleeding, and the bullet has been removed. We lost her twice on the table… but we got her back. She’s in ICU, probably going to wake up soon. But she’s okay.”

The collective sigh of relief from everybody was immense. Especially Hailey. Everyone was here primarily just to know you were alive, so they let Hailey go and see you, while they went home for the night, promising to come back in the morning.

My eyes blinked open, wincing at the harsh hospital lights. I groaned as I looked over, seeing Hailey staring at me. She was a mess, her face was red and dirty, her hair was all tangled, almost looked like she was the one who was meant to be in the hospital bed. Mustering up all my strength as I started to speak. “You need a shower Hails.”

She chuckled, her face lighting up. I was okay. “God Y/N, I thought I’d lost you. I’m so sorry about everything… you were right, I’ve been neglecting you and it’ll never happen again. I’ve taken a month off to be at home with you and help you heal… I was so scared.”

My heart melted as she spoke, even in my dazed, high on painkillers state, I knew how much I loved her. “It’s fine Hails, I promise you that. I love you, and I’m sorry I got shot and scared the shit out of you”.

Hailey let out a breathy laugh, knowing how much I loved scaring her, but not usually like this. She got up and moved the chair closer to me, leaning down and giving me a long kiss, as she held my chin.

“I love you more. Never scare me like that again.”

[fangirlfrom-hell]

Swearing Jar || Upstead x daughter

Summary: Sophia is Hailey's and Jay's teenage daughter. She deffends Makayla from some bullys, now she has to pay the price.

*re-posting this because I'm stupid and accidentaly erased my other blog 🫠

This was the first fic I dared to post, I'm so glad I found it!

"Yeah, get out of here, you fucking asshole!"

Everyone at Molly's stood silent when they heard the screeming from outside the bar. The voice of the girl was unmistakable, everyone knew who she was. Hailey and Jay shared a concerned look.

"And don't you dare to even look at her again, you moron!"

It was defenitely Sophia. No doubt.

Hailey and Jay stood up in a hurry to go outside, followed by Adam and Kim, naturally Makayla was with her. From the other side of the bar, a concerned Severide also rushed to help.

"Or other wise you'll have to respond to me, you jerk! And I won't be any gentile!"

That last phrase made Hailey's and Jay's blood run cold. Everything happened so fast. Before they could reach the entrance door, it opened. Will Halstead was leading a furious Sophia and a crying Mckayla inside of the bar. Once the three of them were inside, and before the door closed, Lydia pocked her head out and yelled her last insult.

"Fucker!"

-"Sophia, please! That's enough!" Will took her from the shoulders and turned her inside of the bar.

Molly's was closed to the public that day, there was a party to celebrate Violet's and Gallo's engagement. So Sophia and Mckayla were able to be there along with their parents and friends. The place was full of firefighters, detectives and some doctors from The Med.

All of the guests were shocked looking at the girls, mostly looking at Sophia. They knew she was an impulsive girl, but their faces were showing confusion and concern.

Kim and Adam immediatly ran to hug their daughter. When Sophia raised her head she saw Hailey, Jay and Severaid in front of her, but also Platt, Hermann and Cruz had arrived to the scene. They were in a defensive position, ready to go out to defend the girls. Will raised his hands, saying that everything was ok.

Hailey walked to Sophia, Jay behind his wife. Both of them looking at their daughter straight to the eyes, asking for an explanation with a simple sight.

"-Mom, they were bullying her, ok? They were saying bad things to her and I wasn't going to let them! Not anymore!".

Jay was about to say something, when Kim interrupted without taking her eyes off Makayla.

"-Bullying? Who was bullying her?"

-"Some shitheads from school" -Sophia said right away.

-"Language!" Jay, Hailey and Will said unison, thought their first instinct was to laught.

Everyone at the bar was paying attention to the scene and they couldn't help to laugh a bit. Even Hank Voight smirked a little bit at the girl's reaction. That's when Sophia realized that this wasn't a private conversation.

"-Sorry", she muttered. "Look, I was trying to...protect her..."

-"At least she didn't hit anybody this time" -Mak said in a funny tone. She was feeling better now, surrounded by her loved ones.

-"Yes, because I happened to appear before she did something ~stupid". -Will completed Makayla's tought, which made her laugh.

-"That happened once and it was an accident. I thought we were over it?"

Jay rolled his eyes at her daughter's argument. "Ok. Let's leave this in here for now. We should go back to the party". -He said realizing the attention they were drawing.

-"Yeah, we should go back" Adam reafirmed, looking around.

Hailey hugged her daughter's shoulder and kissed her head, she couldn't deny she was proud of her daughter's grit.

Everyone went back to their seats. When Sophia passed by Severide, he strocked her head as a symbol of affection. He and Stella were very fond of her. Later that day, when Stella arrived from her shift, Kelly told her what happened with the girls and she bursted into laughs: "That girl has been a sassy pants since she was in diappers".

The party continued normally. Everybody seemed happy, having fun. Makayla was dancing and sharing laughts, as if nothing had happened before. Kim and Adam where isolated on a table having a serius conversation, those bully boys were not going to have it easy.

Sophia was seating between her parents at the same table as Will, Severaid and Stella. On the next table Voight, Platt and Mouch were part of the same conversation. Sophia told them how the boys were harrassing Makayla and how she felt the urge to defend her to make it stop. Hank suggested she had the gut to be a cop or maybe even a lawyer, Jay discarded both ideas. Trudy finished the conversation on the matter by saying "You've always been my favorite Halstead".

-"I'm a little bit hungry. Can I go get some pizza?"

-"Sure. Go get a slice and bring some more to me too. I can descount the favor from your new debt to the swearing jar" - Jay said teasing his daughter and then stood up to let her out. Sophia just rolled her eyes. He gave her a mocking smile.

Kim approached to the table in that exact moment, looking for Sophia.

-"Hey, Soph. I just wanted to thank you...I know this is not the first time that you stand for Mack like this, she has told us, so... just thank you. You've been a lot of help for her".

Sophia shrugged in shyness "She's my best friend", she stated reffering that the obvios thing to do was to stand for her friend, sister.

Hailey and Jay had their eyes on their daughter, they couldn't stop looking at her with a proud smile on their faces. The atmosphere was calm and full of love, when Will interrupted the feeling: "You still have to pay the swearing jar, you won't get rid of it".

Sophia abruptly pointed to Makayla and said as a joke: "You owe me like 10 dollars for this".

-"Are you kidding me?" -Jay stared- "You owe the jar like 50 dollars, kiddo".

-"Are you serius!?"

-"Yeah, I'm with your dad in this" -Hailey continued -"Those were really bad prohibited words, sweetie".

-"Yeah, and I only used them for a good reason".

-"Bad words are bad words, and you must follow the swearing jar law". Her father said raising an eyebrow and proceeded to drink from his beer.

Sophia crossed her arms and continued the funny argument "Really? How many criminals have you handcuff by talking to them politely?"

-"She's got a good point" -Trudy said.

-"I'm with her at this" -Voight followed.

They all laught at the silly debate. Those around who listened to the conversation shared some giggles, also because the family dynamic was adorable.

-"All right" -Hailey stood up- "If mom doesn't get the pizza, you two are going to starve, so excuse me".

Father and daughter sat down again, Jay hugging her by the shoulder "I love you, kiddo. I love you so much. You're still paying, though".

Sylvie approach to the table with a bright smile: "That won't be a problem. We all saw what you did, so Violet, Blake, Ritter and I collected some cash for you. Here you have".

-"Geez, thanks!"

-"Pay the jar, and don't you dare to curse ever again, or you'll leave us broke". -Violet yelled from her spot, next to Blake.

-"Straight to the jar" Severaid and Stella threatened.

Hailey came back to the table giving one slice of pizza to her daughter and another one for Jay: "This girl and her mouth...she's going to make us rich, I tell you".

[lcvesjj]

Figuring it out - Hailey Upton x Fem!Reader

Pairing : Hailey Upton x Fem!Reader 

Prompt : 

Summary : Y/n finds it hard to be vulnerable in front of people but after a hard case. Hailey insists on helping her and figuring it out together.

Warnings : angst, near death experiences, crying, mentions of nightmares,

A/n : This is set after Jay leaves but I modified it a bit (so Jay and Hailey were never married, they were just engaged). Thank you for the request @allivzs and I hope you like it <3 I may have missed some mistakes so I’m really sorry for any mistakes. :)

After Jay left to rejoin the army and broke of the engagement, Hailey was heartbroken. She felt betrayed and alone. But luckily you were there to help her through it, wiping away her tears and always offering to listen to her problems and help her out. 

Hailey admired you a lot, you always seemed so strong and never showed your vulnerability. In the years she had known you and been your partner she never saw you talk much about your feelings or emotions. 

It almost seemed like you never let your emotions get to you. All until one day it all went loose. 

The unit was trying to catch a bunch of criminals who were involved in illegal things and did some terrible things to many people. It was a really hard case for everyone, especially you. You took it the hardest. Feeling trapped and like you had failed those people who were relying on you and the unit was so suffocating. 

After the case was over and they caught the criminals. It was supposed to all be over now. But not for you, you kept on having nightmares about the case.

And one day you simply broke. You constantly felt like you weren’t fast enough to catch them on time. You just kept on blaming yourself. Hailey saw it, but she didn’t know how to help since she knew how much you hated being vulnerable in front of people. 

That was until Hailey found you sitting on the floor of the locker room sobbing so hard that your whole body was shaking. The blonde slowly approached her and sat down next to you. “Do you want a hug Y/n/n?” Hailey asked softly. You just nodded in response. Pulling you into her arms, she gently started rubbing your back to help you calm down. “Let me help Y/n/n. You don’t have to do this alone. I’m here alright? I’ll always be here.” She softly said gently wiping away the tears that were running down your cheeks. 

A few days later you had a really close call, you had nearly died. It was once again another hard case. Hailey saw how upset, sad and scared you looked during everything. She couldn’t stand the look on your face when you were sad or upset. 

It made her realise that she liked you more than a friend. And that terrified her, she was scared of losing yet another important person. It would shatter her if she had to lose you too, especially after Jay left. Hailey always knew she had you by her side, she was so used to it and she now realised how much she loved spending time with you. Laughing at your silly jokes or watching movies together or just sitting in silence together.

There was something so comforting about your presence and being around you. You always found a way to make Hailey laugh and smile. She always felt so comfortable around you, like she could tell you about everything. 

Some part of her wanted to ask you out on a date but she was way too scared to start another relationship right now. But because of that close call, Hailey had decided to simply say “f*ck it. I can’t keep hiding my feelings like this, I nearly lost Y/n today.” 

Following you to the locker room she sat down next to you leaning on the wall. 

“Hails can I have a hug please?” You asked quietly, looking down at your hands. You could feel the tears running down your cheeks.

 “Of course you can sweetheart. C’mere.” Hailey held out her arms and pulled you closer to her while also making sure she wasn’t holding you too tightly. “Are you comfy?” She asked, looking down at you with a smile. “Very.” You mumbled into her shirt while still crying. 

Hailey just nodded and started drawing small shapes on your back. “I really appreciate this Hails.” You said pulling away to look up at her. She smiled at you gently bringing you even closer to her. 

“I’m always going to be here for you. No matter what happens alright? You are my favourite person and I really appreciate you and how you’ve always been there for me no matter what.” She said softly, placing a kiss on your cheek. 

You were really tired from all the crying and events that happened today. 

“I love you so much Hails.” You whispered into her hair. “I love you so so much more than you can ever possibly imagine.” Hailey replied. 

“I’m a mess. I’m sorry.” You mumbled quietly.

“It’s okay to cry Y/n. I know being vulnerable is hard but sometimes we do have to let our guards down. And besides we are in this together alright? We will figure this out together. And I’ll always be by your side.” Hailey pulled away to look you into your eyes. You nodded and smiled at her. 

“Do you want to get some takeout and just spend some time together at my apartment? It’s okay if you don’t want to of course since I know you’re tired- Hailey didn’t even get to finish her sentence before you gently leaned in put your finger on her lips. Seeing her blush she pulled you in and kissed you softly. 

After a moment of shock you returned the kiss. You had been dreaming of this moment for ages. And that’s when Hailey realised she was so in love with you and she couldn’t even stand the thought of you being with someone else. Pulling away you looked at each other with wide eyes and flushed cheeks. 

“I’ve been wanting to do that for ages.” Hailey whispered, pulling you in for another kiss. 

“Me too. And I’d love to get some takeout and just spend some time together. But only if we can cuddle.” You said laughing a little. “Of course! But only if you agree for me to take you on a proper date.” Hailey joked. “So this whole takeout thing at your apartment isn’t a date Upton?” You asked, trying to keep a serious face so you wouldn’t burst out laughing. 

“It can be if you want it too.” She replied looking at your lips. Pulling her in for another kiss you smiled. “C’mon now let’s get you home.” Hailey said, helping you get up from the floor. 

After gathering all of your things the two of you walked out of the district hand in hand with big grins on your faces. Hailey wrapped her arm around your waist placing another kiss on your forehead. 

She knew you were both going to be alright. I mean after all you would figure it all out together.

[onegayastronaut]

Being Jay Halstead’s Sister and Dating Hailey Upton Would Include...

Requested by anon: Being Jay Halstead’s twin sister and dating Hailey Upton would include please?

Since you were always close with your brother, you can always be found visiting your brother at the precinct

Voight likes having you around, which he expresses by grunting whenever he sees you

Hailey wanted to get to know you better, so she would ask Jay questions about you

When he got suspicious about why she had so many questions, her excuse was that in order to get to know him better, she had to learn more about his family

Whenever you stop by, Haley finds an excuse to leave

Ruzek will tell her to make a move on you, but Hailey will always make an excuse not to

When you finally get to talk to her, she'll be a bit awkward and not know what to say

Ruzek and Kim make a plan to get you together, and will arrange for Hailey to have a "group dinner" at your place, only for them to bail at the last minute

Finding out that you like a lot of the same things, and spending more time with each other

It was only when your brother started asking why you were spending so much time with each other that you felt you wanted to be girlfriends with Hailey

She is very protective of you and will install security cameras all over your apartment

Always wants to cuddle with you and will often fall asleep on top of you

Soft dates at home as one of you makes dinner and the other does the dishes

Jay initially felt very awkward about you dating his work partner, but after a few weeks him and Hailey started trading blackmail information about your bad habits

Going out on dates around town and having her steal your food when you're not looking

[i-spaced-sorry]

Midwest Winter Freeze

I'm back with another story! The tempts here in the midwest are freezing (windchill is making it colder than Alaska), this story has been on my mind for a day or two now and just had to come out! So enjoy!

“Pat? The weather channel is saying that it’s supposed to be a windchill advisory for the next few days.” called out Mary Halstead. 

“What?” yelled Pat while running from the bedroom to the living room. 

Turning up the volume, they both listened, 

“Temperatures are supposed to reach -9 by tomorrow morning, but with the windchill it will feel like -35. Experts say to try to limit time outside, bundle up if you have to go outside, and check on the elderly. I’m Rhonda Rhymes and your watching ABC Chicago 7, we will be right back after these messages”

Lowering the tv, Mary looked at Pat, “we should probably drip the faucets tonight if it's supposed to drop that low by tomorrow morning.” she stated while getting up. 

“I’ll do the upstairs bathroom if you want to handle the kitchen and the bathroom down here” called Pat, while heading to the staircase.

After the faucets were dripping the two began getting the boys ready for bed. 5 year old Will already took a bath before dinner cause he was out in the snow playing with his friends from down the street. But 4yr old Jay was still in need of one. 

“You left the water on” observed Jay while sitting in the tub with his rubber duck. 

Looking up, Mary smiled, “it’s okay baby boy, we just don’t want the pipes to freeze”

“Okay” responded little Jay while dunking his rubber duck for the 5th time. 

Later that night after the boys were put to sleep and well after Mr. and Mrs. Halstead went to sleep, Will woke up with a start. Sitting up he looked around the room and saw his brother passed out in his toddler bed clutching his stuffed dog. He also noticed he was thirsty. So he quickly but quietly clamored out of bed and walked into the bathroom. Closing the door, he flipped on the light and grabbed his plastic Land Before Times cup and filled it with water from the sink. Once it was sufficiently filled, he shut the faucet and chugged the cup of water.

Once returning to his bed he took one more look at his brother and fell back asleep. 

“PAT!” shrieked Mary from downstairs. Both Will and Jay jumped awake at the noise, both sitting up and looking at each other in a ‘what is going on’ type of way. 

“Will?” asked Jay while wiping his eyes.

Shrugging Will just said, “it’s okay, do you want to go get some breakfast?”

Nodding, Jay slipped out of bed and quickly turned around to grab his stuffed dog. Waiting for Will to also slip out of bed, the two boys quickly walked downstairs to the kitchen.

“This is going to be so expensive, I’m going to have to pick up extra shifts at the hospital to even pay for it.” the boys heard once when they walked in the room. 

“Mama?” asked Will while cocking his head to the side, “what’s wrong?”

Turning from the kitchen sink, Mary smiled down at her boys, “nothings wrong, how did you boys sleep?” she asked while reaching out to pick up Jay. 

“Good” confirmed the boys. 

“Jay, did you touch the sink yesterday?” demanded Pat while walking over from the phone. 

Shaking his head, Jay whimpered. “Pat, you're scaring him.” she tightened her grip and ran a hand down his back. 

“What happened daddy?” asked Will while taking a seat at the kitchen table. 

“Our pipes froze! That’s what happened! And your brother must have done it!” snapped Pat while also taking a seat at the table. 

Will looked down at his hands before feeling his mom run her hands through his hair, “well that wasn’t good” lied Will. 

“Wait!” exclaimed Jay while sitting up in his chair. 

“What?” asked Will while taking a sip from his beer. 

“You're telling me that it was you all this time?”

“What are you talking about?”

Hailey watched as her husband and brother in law bickered. 

“Will, was it you who had turned off the faucet?” she asked finally. 

“Listen, no one told me that we were dripping water to keep the pipes from freezing. I didn’t even grasp that that was even a thing we were supposed to do until I was 6 and the temperatures dropped again.”

“But you let me take the blame! For something you knew I didn’t do!” exclaimed Jay while shutting his eyes, forcing himself to take a big deep breath and clench his hands tightly to release his anger in a healthy way. 

“You didn’t even get in that much trouble, you just weren’t allowed to be in any rooms unsupervised and if memory serves me right, you were still partially in pull ups at the time, so that wasn’t even a real issue half the time.”

Hailey just laughed, 

“Okay Hailey Anne, if you think that’s so funny. Did you or your brothers ever freeze your family’s pipes?” asked Jay while taking a sip of his own drink. 

“No, we were really careful about it because of my dad. I think maybe Eric did once when I was a baby but i’m not for certain, I just know that when I was of an age that I could grasp what was going on, he and Ryan pulled me aside and made it very clear that if mom and dad left the faucets dripping in the winter that I was to not mess with the sinks.”

“I’m sorry” replied Will. 

Shrugging, Hailey smiled, “it’s okay! I will say when I was in college at UIC, one of my roommates was from somewhere like California or maybe it was Texas, I don’t remember but the point was she had never experienced a midwestern winter growing up and it was a year where the temps were worse than Alaska and snow was really heavy. I had started dripping our faucets in our apartment and our landlord sent a text out to us reminding us why we should do this and this girl had the audacity to ignore the text and to turn the faucets off. Let’s just say she was so lucky I stayed up late every night and would flip them back on before calling it a night.”

Laughing, the three looked at each other and raised their cans, “to midwest winters.” stated Will. 

“To not having earthquakes” giggled Jay. 

"to not having hurricanes" giggled Will.

“To not having alligators” giggled Hailey and the three of them clinked their cans together.

[hotchstead]

Coming Out - Hailey Upton

Requested: no

Word count: 3002

Warning: lesbian!reader, questioning of sexuality?

A/n: I’ve been wanting to write something about Hailey coming to terms with her sexuality for a while so.. also this is probably gonna be a mini series of some sort

pt. 2?

“You look really pretty today,” Was something you told your coworker Hailey Upton daily. It was also unfortunately your crappy way of flirting. Listen, nobody taught you how to flirt. It's not like it was going to go as smooth as imagined. 

Your partner (regularly) made fun of you for it, knowing that your budding crush on the blonde had been festering since you first met her. How could it not have?

Genuinely, she comes in, starts shit talking your asshole of a superior and you’re not supposed to want her to push you up against the wall and make out with you?

Well you definitely failed in that department but the problem was, you didn’t even know if she liked girls like that. And after her short lived stint with Adam you didn’t know if it was worth trying. If you were wrong then you could mess up the really, really, good friendship you guys had. 

But things were starting to feel different. Just slightly. When you guys went undercover inside a bar and the way she had looked you over before you left felt… less restrained. More of the way you usually look at girls. 

But hey, maybe you were overthinking it. So you gave the same “You look really pretty,” and moved on. Letting the night progress, the case get worked and by the end of the week you were with everyone else getting a drink at Molly’s. 

Whilst there you tried to let go, keep an eye out for someone that wouldn’t mind coming home with you. Needing some sort of stress reliever after the way work had been going. 

And you could have sworn you saw Hailey let out a heavy sigh when you took the hand of a red haired girl you met not even ten minutes ago and stalked out of the bar. Her hand already on your ass. 

You must’ve been hallucinating. And she was out of your mind for the entirety of the ride to your house before she crept back in. You shouldn’t have been thinking of her while someone else (her name was Samantha) had her way with you. 

But you couldn’t help it. Your feelings fpr the blonde detective weren’t only sexual. No way. You wanted the everyday stuff with Hailey. All of it. But in that exact moment you did wish she was the one knuckles deep in you.

What could you do right?

So maybe work was weird Monday, and then again Tuesday. Even more so Wednesday when Voight ushered for you and Hailey to be partnered up, needing the double distraction at the forefront. 

Just clad in normal, casual clothes, you and Hailey worked the men up, having to fight the urge to hit them when one of them got a little too handsy. Knowing that acting harshly wouldn’t be much help. 

Back in her car on the way back though, she looked over at you. “Are you okay? I saw how Vincent grabbed you. If that had been me I would’ve broken his nose.” Hailey spoke as she brought the two of you back to the precinct. 

Simply you nodded, “Yeah, could’ve been worse. And besides, it would’ve done more harm than good. It’ll feel nice to get him behind bars though. That’s for sure.” You sighed out, leaning your head back against the headrest. 

Hailey nodded, turning her focus back to the road. She couldn’t figure out why seeing him do that made her feel so angry, so annoyed. 

She was just protective, is what she came up with. She didn’t want anyone getting touched or hurt badly. That had to be it. And you didn’t even realize how she looked after you as you exited the vehicle first. 

Didn’t notice her walking behind you and just trying to find what it was that was making her feel so off. So weird. 

That alone made the next couple of days feel wrong. Back with your usual partners, aside from the undercover part, the two of you were never in a room alone together. Whether it was on purpose and Hailey was avoiding you or completely coincidental, it was weird. 

But what were you going to do? Ask her about it? Then you’d have to explain why it hurt so much. Why you wanted to talk to her. So you ignored it and went about your days. 

It was difficult at Molly’s that Saturday. You were (as usual) one of the last ones there. Meaning Hailey and the others had already set up shop at a table, a seat open for you but you didn’t know if you would be making her uncomfortable. 

You thought for a second as you went up to the bar. Maybe she’s just been busy. With what though you were on the same damn case. Or, your eyes widened, maybe she picked up on your crush with her dumb detective skills and got creeped out.  

If that were true you couldn’t even bear joining them. You didn’t exactly get a choice, Jay coming over as you ordered and practically dragging you to the table. “Okay, settle this for us. We, as in me and Adam, think that Die Hard is a Christmas movie. I have always, always watched it as one.”

He paused, “But, Kev and Hailey think it isn’t. Kim’s never seen it so she’s out of the conversation.” Jay put his hand on your shoulder slightly, waiting for your response. 

“Jay you’re not going to like my answer,” you laughed softly, Kevin cheering instantly. 

“See? I told you she’d be with us. It is not a Christmas movie.” He spoke, smiling widely at you. “This is why we’re your favorites and you're my favorite.”

Adam looked up in fake offense, Kevin brushing him off. You laughed softly, looking over at Hailey. Her eyes almost instantly darted from yours, a sigh leaving your mouth. 

“Right, well, I’m gonna run to the bathroom before I start drinking so, yeah.” You stood, practically sprinting to the bathroom. All of your worries were at the top of your mind and there was no real way for you to get past them. 

Maybe you just had to come clean. Get it off your chest. Except that could be the final nail in the coffin. So what the hell were you meant to do? You couldn’t deal with Hailey ignoring you for the rest of your career as a police officer. 

You couldn’t — your thoughts were cut off when the door to the bathroom opened, Hailey poking her head in. “Hey, you ran off pretty fast I just uh, I just wanted to make sure you were alright.” She spoke with a light smile, stepping in when you nodded. 

“Oh, yeah I’m uh, I’m good. Thanks.” You bit your cheek, seeing Hailey’s eyes squint before she called out the most obvious lie because of course she did. 

Whether you were fully aware of it or not, Hailey knew you. How you acted when you were lying to someone you were close to. The way you always bit at the inside of your cheek or lip when you were holding something back. 

She just knew. And you hated it sometimes. 

Because why was she able to know you like that but you could barely get a window into her? Maybe you just didn’t let yourself. Too scared of the rejection you’d find in her. 

Or maybe she was making sure you couldn’t. Her own fears keeping her from letting you in. “Okay fine. I just,” you let out a heavy sigh. “Why have you been avoiding me?” You had to know. If it was something that you could fix you’d do it in a heartbeat. 

Her eyebrows just barely crinkled, the blonde girl taken aback just slightly, leaning against the door. “I’m not, well, I’m not trying to. I’m just, going through shit. I promise it isn’t you, y/n.” Hailey sighed out, running both of her hands over her face. 

Faintly you nodded, a silence falling between the two of you. “Oh, alright. I’m sorry I shouldn’t have assumed you were.” Your heart started racing, looking over at her. “Are you alright?”

She nodded, “Yeah, just trying to piece some things together. No biggie. Look I’ll get back out to them, you better join us when you get out of here.” Hailey grinned going to leave. 

“Hey Hails?”

“Yeah?”

“You look really pretty tonight.” You hadn’t been able to tell her recently so you had to take advantage of the opportunity. If the lighting had been better you would’ve sworn that this time a blush went across her face. 

But what did you know? “Thank you, I’ll see you out there.” She said, leaving the room and you to mentally smack yourself as many times you’d like. 

Thankfully though you went back out and joined the rest of the team, more debates over movies and shit still happening. A good half of the time though you just found yourself gazing over at Hailey. Hopeful nobody noticed. 

Except on the way out, you felt an arm go over your shoulder, “So, your crush on Upton, how longs that been going on?” Jay’s voice fully took you by surprise, nearly elbowing him in the side when he first touched you. 

“Jesus- Halstead you can’t just come up on a girl.” You grumbled, taking the chance now to elbow him back. “And I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He wasn’t able to see the way your jaw clenched as you looked down, still walking under his arm. 

Jay laughed, nodding, “Right, look, y/n, I’m just saying. I could see the way you looked at Hailey the same way I can see your car right now. Like it’s under a spotlight.”

You looked up, your car in fact under a streetlight. “She’s a friend Jay, you know what those are right?” Your eyebrow cocked up at the question, Jay nodding slightly. 

“Heard of them here and there. Alright fine, so if I asked Hailey out that wouldn’t bother you? Wouldn’t annoy you?” He was very obviously instigating. This time noting the way you rolled your jaw. “See! Don’t have a crush my ass!” 

Mentally Jay patted himself on the back, happy he got that right before he sighed, “Alright, teasing aside. You should go for it. Maybe it’ll pull her out of whatever mental haze she’s had this past week.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean she’s been weird all week. Won’t tell me why. Though it started after you guys went undercover together so maybe it just has something to do with that. Either way. You need to talk to her.” He stopped the two of you in front of your car, gesturing to it. “And I leave you at your chariot, goodnight.”

With a half-assed salute, the detective walked away,

Leaving you to get home for the night. And you sat with what he said the whole ride, and then some. 

You were thinking about it as you got to work Monday, ready to bring it up with Hailey but she wasn’t there, apparently she used a few personal days and wouldn’t be back until next week. 

Jay was working with Voight for the week and things were easy peasy. Except for the feeling that something was bothering Hailey and you were ignoring it. Like a voice in the back of your head was telling you to go check on her. 

A voice that went ignored until Thursday night when you finally decided to get over whatever fear was holding you back and go over to her apartment. 

You didn’t even know if she was home. You barely cared, you’d wait outside her apartment until she got home if you had to. 

You just couldn’t ignore the feeling in your chest anymore. So you knocked on her door, ready to be met with silence but it only took a few moments for the door to open and Hailey to look over you. “What are you doing here?” 

She didn’t sound mad but more so, shocked, surprised someone even checked on her. “Honestly? I’m not sure. I know you took a few personal days but, something felt… wrong? I guess? Like I should uh, should come and check in. How are you doing?”

You thought back to what she said about dealing with something and maybe you were overstepping. But you couldn’t help it. This team was your life. Most of them your family and you needed to be there when one of them needed it. 

Hailey didn’t reply, simply stepping out of the way and letting you in. Slowly you entered, glancing around. It was the first time you’d been to her new apartment, taking in the look of it. 

Under normal circumstances you would’ve commented on it but it felt wrong to do in the moment. Hailey shut the door softly behind you, silently heading into the kitchen. 

You felt compelled to follow, leaning onto the island counter when she stepped around it. “Do you want a drink?” She held up a bottle of whiskey before bringing a couple cups over. 

“Hails,” You asked softly, looking over her. She obviously hadn’t been sleeping much but you weren’t going to let her keep doing it alone. “Hailey.” Your voice more firm, making her look up. “What’s going on with you?”

She wasn’t like this. Hailey upton was put together. She could handle nearly anything thrown at her. Any criminal, any case. The girl had such a strong sense of who she was and what she believed in. That was why she was crumbling. 

Questioning everything she’d ever known about herself. The way she wanted to kiss her. Kiss you. Another girl. She wasn’t used to that kind of thought. And if she didn’t have some voice deep in her subconscious making her second guess everything then maybe she would have done it already. 

Maybe she would have done it the first time you ever called her pretty and she felt the way her chest fluttered. In the same way it had when Adam would wrap her into a hug. 

The second she realized she felt the same way she did with her exes as she did you it was like her stone walls had fell in on one another. 

Not out of shame. Or disappointment. Just out of utter change. Or more so the fear of it. Would this revelation change her as a person? Make her a different person? She didn’t know and that was what scared her. 

“I-“ Hailey started, shaking her head, “god this is pathetic. I’m sorry.” She paused the pouring of the drink, looking up at you. “How are you so good about it?”

Her question threw you off, tilting your head, “Good about what?”

“Being into girls. I just…” Hailey rested her elbows on the counter, hands going into her hair in distress. “I think I might be and it’s scaring the hell out of me.” There was an odd mix of silence in the room. 

Just because you were into girls didn’t automatically make you an expert in helping someone else understand themselves. But you couldn’t just ignore her question. 

Slowly you went around the island, leaning against it while facing her. “It’s difficult. Trust me. I mean, I realized I was into girls back when I was maybe 13? 14? But it’s not like it was accepted. I just had to live with that internally. I’m only good at it, which, is a stretch by the way, because I stopped letting other peoples thoughts influence mine.”

Hailey turned her head to you, nodding faintly, “I just, what if I’m wrong? And I waste y- someone’s time?” She looked away just as smoothly as she had looked towards you, shuffling faintly. 

“You wouldn’t be wasting anybody’s time. How are you supposed to know who or what you like if you don’t try you know? That’s how I found out I was in fact not into boys.” Your nose scrunched up with a shake of the head. 

Part of you wanted to offer yourself up as practice but you couldn’t handle the blow back if it went wrong. Things blowing up and possibly getting hurt in the process. 

The blonde’s head stayed low for a moment before she shifted again, as if something went through her mind. With her elbow leaning on the counter she looked up, “I just, I think I like this girl.” She started hesitantly. “Because, when I see her it makes my heart race. And it’s really, really similar to how I felt with Adam and I'm scared. What if I’m reading things wrong?”

It took everything in you to not frown at her words, because of course if she was into girls it would be someone else. Not you. Instead you swallowed thickly, “I think the only way to tell is to try things out. You know if she’s also into girls?”

“She definitely is.”

“Then I say go for it. Be up front about what you’re going through and most girls will be understanding. Worst that could happen is that you end up not having feelings for her. And if she knows-” You were cut off by the shorter girl stepping forward quickly, her hand pulling you down to her and pressing her lips to yours.

She wanted to do things smoother, ask first, but the racing of her heart and doubt in her stomach needed to be satisfied, relaxed and the only way she could think of was letting herself find you. Letting herself have the one thing she had wanted for months now.

Every small glance, every little compliment. All of it. Hailey Upton knew she had indefinitely fallen for you even if she wasn’t sure what that meant yet. And her lips were familiar. All it took was that one moment together for her to know. She did like girls. She did like you. And if she could, she’d kiss you forever.

JOIN HAILEY'S TAGLIST HERE!

tags: @sorry-i-spaced

[amsgrey]

Jumped

Request: I would love to see something Like IT’s Career day at school and Jay and Will come to teach about their jobs along with others. And Halstead's sister gets bullied. During the break of moving in between careers someone comes and beats her up in like the bathroom and leaves her there and no one notices her being gone untill the end of the day. (I kinda want like Fire, Med, and Pd to find her)

sorry if it doesn’t make much sense you can choose how to end it and stuff

I also LOVE your fics I can’t wait to see more❤️

Authors Note; Y’all really love the angst huh, gotta deliver,, and hopefully you enjoy this little drabble. Also, part of me really wanted to title this, 'big sister hugs' because I think that Hailey would be the best big sister and also give the best big sister advice.

warnings: private girls school (yes that's a warning), bullying, getting jumped (i guess?), hospital and injuries,, Jay and Will not knowing girl bullying and being stubborn, a very poorly written plot

High school was not always easy, but you were comfortable at your school with your friends. That was until there was a security issue and Jay’s information got leaked. Your apartment, school, Jay’s license plate, everything that could be used to track him ended up in the hands of the ‘bad guys’. Jay and Will had broken the news to you that they were pulling you from your current school, and moving to another school closer to Will’s. A private girls school, the ones with the fancy uniforms and stuck-up kids who thought the law didn’t apply to them because they had money. You hated it. You had begged Jay and Will to let you stay, but there was no changing their mind. 

The first week was hell, you knew no one. Starting in the middle of the year meant that everyone knew you were the new girl. You were enrolled under your mother's maiden name, for extra safety. It was weird not hearing your name followed by ‘Halstead’. After the first week was gone, you decided to stick it out until the problem with Jay blew over, by then, you could probably convince them to let you go back to your other school. Three weeks passed by and intelligence solved Jay’s leak. 

“So,” You began on Sunday family dinner, “Now that the whole leak in PD is over…” 

Jay and Will shared a look from across the table. 

You narrowed your eyes, “What?” 

Will ran a hand down his face, “Listen…” 

“You won't let me go back.” 

“It’s a better school-”

“Better?” You spat, “How is it better? I hate it there!”

“It’ll get better,” Jay said, “You just need more time to adjust.” 

“I don’t want to adjust-” 

“We’re not pulling you out,” Jay said, “I know you're struggling right now, but you’ll make some friends and-” 

“I can’t believe you.” You pulled away from the table, leaving your half-eaten dinner where it was and stomping off to your room. Jay stood to follow, ready to scold you for storming away and having such an attitude. 

“Jay,” Hailey grabbed his arm, “Let her cool down.” 

Jay and Will didn’t budge on your school. You had gone from begging to bargaining with no success. Now you were giving them both the silent treatment. You knew it was immature and frankly ridiculous, but you were too mad to think clearly. Jay had already scolded you for not talking to him for the last week. You had ignored him. 

Hailey was the only one you spoke too, because it wasn’t her fault that Jay was being stubborn. Even so, you didn’t tell her everything when she stopped by your room. Namely, the career day that was coming up. You knew telling her meant she would tell Jay. And Jay and Will had a terrible habit of embarrassing you at school. At your last school's career day, Will and Jay had come and talked for hours about their funniest stories. You knew if they came this time, your peers wouldn’t be as amused. 

When career day did roll around, your dean stood in front of the school in the auditorium, introducing students and their parents. Your school was much smaller than your last one - something about smaller class sizes being better for learning - so the auditorium wasn’t fully packed. 

Not everyone brought their parents, but the popular kids with parents who had good jobs came. Like the group of girls who hated you, who all brought at least one parent. Your dean invited students to the stage by class and then had the student introduce their parents. Your class was last, the biggest number of parents who had come. You were sat at the end of your class, mostly because you didn't have anyone to bring. Not that it bothered you.

“Next up, we have Olivia and her mom, Jen.” 

Jen was a dentist, she spent 10 minutes explaining how her job worked and then opened for questions. There weren’t many, mostly a few questions from seniors about collages and other stuff. 

Then it was Sophie, with her dad the Banker. 

By the time the girls who hated you were called up, you were ready to fall asleep. No one here had an interesting job, most of the jobs were boring well playing jobs that you could never see yourself doing. 

The main girl who didn’t like you was Madison. She wasn’t fond of how the teachers asked you for answers in class, not that you could do anything about that. Her friend group was made up of 5 or 6 girls who were seemingly lovely. All smiles and compliments around teachers but spread vicious rumors and lies when adults couldn’t hear. You had heard them speaking about you a few times, not that you cared. It wasn’t great to be the new girl with all the rumors, but you had banked on leaving the school before for long. Which, you knew now, wasn’t an option. So now you were stuck with the girls who all hated you for rumors or lies that you didn’t even know. 

Madison brought her mum and dad with her, real estate agents who worked together selling multi-billion dollar houses. The whole time she had a smug look on her face. When she sat back down in her row, she turned in her seat, looking back at you. 

“Didn’t bring anyone?” She asked. 

You didn’t bother replying. 

“Is it because your parents are coke addicts?” Her friend beside her pressed. 

How that rumor even started you didn’t know, it was so absurd.

“Or is it because they’re dead?” Madison pressed.

You gave her a bored look, “I’ll take my family over your fraud family any day.” 

Madison opened her mouth to bark something back, but was shushed by your teacher. She turned back to face the front, arms crossed over her chest. No doubt stewing in your words. 

“We now have some guests to speak to you,” The Dean said through the microphone, “We reached out to some of our first responders and invited them to come speak to you too. Everyone please welcome Dr Asher and Dr Halstead from Gaffney Chicago Med.”

Will and Hannah walked to the stage, both in their Med scrubs with doctors coats on. Will was looking for you, you could tell from the way his eyes scanned the faces in the audience. You slumped in your chair, avoiding looking at him at all. 

How did he find out? Did he and Jay find out somehow? Did your school contact them? 

You really wanted to disappear now, your face was no doubt bright red by how much it was burning. You prayed silently that Will hadn’t told Jay, but you knew it was a useless prayer. If Will was here Jay would be too. 

You got your answer when the dean explained that there were more guests outside on the fields. She ordered everyone to head that way, ushering students with promises of something ‘exciting’. 

Outside, firehouse 51 had parked their rigs on the grass. 51 had their ladder extended, Mouch standing at the controls grinning like a champion. Not far from Mouch was Trudy, flanked by two patrol cars and their officers. Looking across the gathered first responders it didn’t take long to spot Jay and Intelligence. Their own cars were parked on the grass, the lights on. Everyone but Voight had their vests on, adding to the dramatic atmosphere already created. 

Students huddled around, entranced by the cars and rigs which you had seen plenty of times. You tried to hide towards the back, but Kelly had spotted you and tried to usher you closer. You shrugged back at him, trying to make it look like you were stuck within the crowd. 

“Firstly, we would like to thank Sergeant Trudy Platt and Sergeant Hank Voight, as well as Chief Wallace Boden for coming today. We are hugely appreciative to hear from you,” The dean spoke into a microphone, “Secondly, I want to ask students to be respectful, as these hard working men and women have taken time out of their busy days to come and speak to us. So we are going to listen and show respect. There will be time for questions and demonstrations at the end. Please Welcome Sergeant Trudy Platt.” 

The crowd clapped as Trudy took the mic, but it wasn’t too enthusiastic. Trudy gave a similar speech to last year. Along the lines of what made district 21 special, intelligence and the hardworking patrol officers. She talked about fake calls and how breaking the law would wind you up in her cells etc. It was funny, a few quips earning laughs from teachers and parents. But you had heard it all before. You were dreading what the others would say. You didn’t want everyone knowing your brother was a cop, that would cause way too many issues. 

So instead, you slipped away from the crowd, heading back towards the school building to hide in the bathroom. 

You didn’t think anyone would notice, most people were paying attention to the speakers or interested in the rigs. You were wrong, of course, being followed almost immediately by Madison and a couple of her friends. 

You got to the lockers before they announced themselves. 

“What did you mean my parents were frauds, bitch?” 

You turned around in fright, not even hearing them sneak up on you.

“I didn’t mean it,” You replied, “I’m sorry.” 

You were, kind of. Mostly you were sorry that you had said it, because she genuinely seemed shocked. But this was Chicago, anyone with any money committed fraud, it was kind of the standard. 

“I don’t care if you're sorry,” Madison snarled, she was taller than you so when she stepped closer you couldn’t help feeling intimidated. “What did you mean?” 

“Madison-” 

One of her friends pushed you hard against the lockers with a forearm over your collar, “Answer the question.” 

You were by no means a confrontational person. Growing up, Jay always tried to teach you to talk out your issues, violence or fighting wasn’t a good solution. Will was the same, although both of them weren’t always the best at doing as they counseled. 

“I just meant that,” You were panicking under the glare of all three girls, “You know, this is chicago and-”

“And what? Everyone is a criminal like your addict parents?” Madison got in your face again. 

“My parents weren’t addicts,” You scoffed, now annoyed that she wouldn’t let that go. 

“No?” The girl who was holding you back moved her arm further up your neck, pressing against your throat, “Then where are they?” 

“If my parents were addicts, would you really think I'd be in a private school?” You pressed, “Use your brain for once, please.” 

You should have known that would piss Madison off. She let out an annoyed scoff then pulled back her fist and punched your square in the nose. The force slammed your head back into the lockers, the sound echoing through the empty halls. The punch wasn’t hard enough to break your nose, but you would feel the blood start to drip down your lip. Madison shook her hand like she had taken more damage than you had. 

“Want to say that again?” The third girl finally spoke up. 

It was like they were all gaining confidence in the security of the three of them. When one of them said something the others would laugh and smirk. 

“I don’t like bullies, you know,” Madison said. 

God, the irony. 

This time the punch came from the third girl, landing in your stomach. You didn't know her name, but she was on the volleyball team, so her punch was much stronger. Your body doubled over, arms crossing over your stomach as your lungs tried to fight your diaphragm for air. The arm holding you up was dropped, and your body fell to the ground as you tried to force yourself to take some deep breaths. 

“This is what you deserve,” A girl said, before another blow landed on your ribs. The wind was knocked out of you again, causing you to cough and choke. 

Madison crouched down to your level, “Bullies like you deserve to be put in their place.” 

You didn’t have time to appreciate the irony this time, because she was kicking your head, hard. 

Your body reacted on instinct, curling into itself to try to protect you from another blow that was sure to come. 

“Hey!” 

The three girls sprinted at the voice, running away from their actions. 

“Hey, kid,” A hand on your shoulder made you flinch, when your vision cleared you realized it was just Kelly. He held his hands out to show you he meant no harm, then gently helped you sit up. 

“You’re alright,” He said softly, steading you sitting against the lockers. You couldn’t even reply, focused solely on breathing through the pain in your head and side. 

“I found her,” Kelly said into his radio, “North Hallway, bring a jump bag.” 

Kelly gently touched the side of your face, tilting your head to look at the side you had been kicked. 

“You still got that med kit in your bag?” He asked, knowing Kidd had taught you that in girls on fire. 

“Yeah,” You said softly, your voice above a whisper. 

Kelly ripped open your bag, rummaging through it until he found the small first aid kit. He was only after gauze, once he secured it, he ripped the package open and pressed the gauze to your head. 

You winced, instinctively pulling away from him. 

“I know,” He said, sitting down next to you so he could hold the gauze in place, “Sorry kid. 

You both looked up as the sound of footsteps came running towards you. You might as well have been on fire, the entire house was rushing towards you. Jay and Intelligence were there too, Will and Asher running along beside everyone. 

“This is overkill,” You said to no one in particular. 

Kelly chuckled, shuffling so that Will could take his place next to you, “We’re all here for you, kid.” 

Will replaced Kelly’s hand with his own, when Kelly pulled away you could see blood on his hand. 

Jay croached on your other side, letting Will, Hannah and Brett take care of you. 

“What happened?” He asked, looking over your bloody nose, head injury and the way you were holding your side. 

You didn’t want to be known as a snitch, one glance behind your brother and you could see students being held back by teachers and 51. The school day was almost over, everyone would be gathering their things to leave. You hoped you weren’t in front of someone's locker who hated you, this would definitely make them hate you more. 

You looked back at Jay, his eyes filled with worry, “What happened, squirt?” 

“I, uh.. I fell.”

Will scoffed, “You fell?” 

“Yeah, I’m clumsy,” You said.

“You fell and hit your nose and the side of your head?” Hannah asked, voice soft, “Are you sure that's the story you want to tell?” 

Over her shoulder, Kelly was talking to Voight and Hailey. Hailey was pointing something out, a camera that was positioned above one of the classroom doors. 

“Yeah,” You didn’t sound confident at all. But right now, you wanted to be anywhere but here.

Jay looked pissed, but he didn’t say anything. He got to his feet and stood out of the way as Hannah and Will helped you stand. They lead you over to the stair chair, despite your very vocal argument that you were fine. 

Being wheeled through the crowd of students and their parents was the most embarrassing thing you had ever experienced. You passed by Madison at one point, who was leaning against her locker talking to her parents like nothing ever happened. You avoided looking her way, instead focusing on what Brett was saying about getting to the rig. 

Outside the building things were less stressful and crowded. You managed to convince the four hovering adults that you could stand on your own to get into the back of the ambulance, even if you didn’t really think you needed one. 

“I’m really fine,” You argued for probably the fifth time, “I think you're overreacting.” 

Will sighed, running a hand down his face, “You are too stubborn for your own good,” He muttered. 

Violet chuckled, “Just lay back, alright? You aren’t getting out of this, no matter how much you complain.” 

She was right, but that didn’t stop you from pouting the whole way to Med. 

At Med, Will hovered as Hannah stapled the laceration on your head. You weren’t too happy about the idea of being stabled back together, but Will had taken a photo of the laceration to prove you needed it. 

“That’s so gross,” You said, pushing the phone away from you. 

“That’s why you need staples,” Will explained, rolling his eyes.

Not long after Hannah had treated you and left you to rest, Jay, Hailey and Voight walked in. 

“Are you doing alright?” Jay asked, hesitant to start another argument. 

“I’m fine,” You repeated, “I don’t know why everyones making such a big deal.” 

“You were attacked at-” 

“I fell.” You interrupted. 

“Y/N-” 

“Jay.” You echoed in the same tone.

Jay's face flashed with irritation, he looked to Will for help. 

“We know that’s not true,” Will said, giving you his best parental disappointed look. 

“The whole thing was caught by the security cameras,” Hailey spoke softly, she was the only person in the room who knew what it was like to be a teenage girl in high school, “We just want to know what they said.” 

You tried to come up with some kind of explanation that wouldn’t get anyone in trouble, but you came up short. 

“It’s not that big of a deal,” You shrugged, avoiding eye contact with all of them. 

Will leaned forward, he looked wary, “Listen, squirt, we want to help, but we can’t unless you tell us the truth.” 

“That is the truth,” You argued back, crossing your arms definitely, “It’s not a big deal.” 

“You’re in the hospital!” Jay gestured around, “What about this is ‘not a big deal’.” 

You scowled, refusing to say anything else and just sitting silently. 

Voight squeezed Jay's shoulder, “We’ll let her rest, come back later?” 

Jay nodded, not bidding you goodbye as he stomped out of the room. You hadn’t seen him this mad in forever, you weren’t sure if this would blow over as easily as your other fights. Voight followed after Jay, he told you to get some rest then followed his detective to try to calm him down. 

Will got up to leave too, he told you to rest and said he would come back soon. When the three left, it was only Hailey who stayed behind. 

“I know you’ve been struggling at school,” She took a seat on the bed next to you, “I know what that’s like.” 

You fiddled with your fingers, not wanting to admit she was right. 

“You know what happened today wasn’t right,” Hailey continued, “Jay wants to press charges.” 

“What? No! That’ll just make it wor…” You stopped yourself.

“Make what worse?” Hailey pressed. 

You took a deep breath, trying not to get upset. 

“Whatever is going on, I can help,” Hailey promised. 

“You can’t get me out of that school,” You scowled. 

“I think after today, that might be possible.” 

You leaned back into the pillows. Dr Asher had given you some pain meds for your head, they removed the sharp pain and replaced it with a dull throb. You could feel it more as you got more upset. 

“There’s this stupid rumor that my parents are addicts,” you explained, “Madison is always taunting me with it, saying that's why no one ever comes to parent evenings or teacher interviews…” 

Hailey didn’t say anything, she just sat listening patiently. 

“Before you guys came, she asked why my parents weren’t here and I said that I would rather have my family over her fraud one.” 

Hailey nodded as she listened. 

“It was stupid and as soon as I said it, I regretted it. When we were outside I went inside to go to the bathroom and Madison and her friends followed me… They, uh… Madison wanted to know why I said it and I apologized but she didn’t- she, she didn’t care and…” 

Hailey got the cue, “Okay. It’s alright.” She pulled you into a gentle hug. “Everything’s going to be alright.”

[study-coffee-chicago]

Glasses (A Halstead Brothers + Halstead Sister Imagine)

A/N: Thank you so much for reading and for sticking around with my sporadic posting! Please don't forget to vote and comment! 

I start my second year of my doctoral program next week and have been working 60 hrs/wk these past few weeks to save up for when I have less time during the school year. I don't know when I will post next, but I have an idea that I want to write and I've also been trying to write 300 words/day, which is very helpful in getting writing done. 

Anyway, sorry for the long author's note! Enjoy!

"You gonna go see my teacher now?" you asked after you and Jay walked into your elementary school one spring evening.

"Yup," Jay answered while he led you over to the small table set up right outside the room. It was stocked with coloring pages, markers, crayons, and a couple of books. "And you're going to sit right here while I talk to her, okay? I'll be right inside."

"And then we get ice cream after?"

"What was our deal?"

You sighed. "If I get a good re- re--" you scrunched up your eyebrows as you tried to remember the grown-up word that Jay had used earlier. "What's that word?"

"Report."

"Oh, yeah! If I get a good report, then I get ice cream."

"That's right."

"Mr. Halstead?" your teacher said as she stepped out of your classroom.

"Hi, Miss H!" You waved. "Please tell Jay I was good because I get ice cream then!"

Jay chuckled. "You'll just have to wait and see, kiddo. Now, be good while I talk to Miss H, okay?"

"Okay!" Then, you started flipping through the coloring pages to try and find one that you wanted to color.

***

"So, tell me the truth, is she a troublemaker?" Jay asked as he sat down across from your teacher. "I know for a fact me and my brother were, so it wouldn't surprise me."

You teacher smiled. "Y/N is anything but that. She does her work as assigned, gets her planner signed at night, and stays on task very well. She struggles with math, but that's understandable. Some take longer to learn math than others. But, she excels at reading. She said that you read with her and do flashcards with her every night."

Jay nodded. "We're working through The Chronicles of Narnia right now. Me, my wife, Hailey, or my brother, Will, will read that to her before she goes to bed, depending on who's with her due to our schedules. Then, the next night, we'll have her try and read to us. She's working on Junie B. Jones."

"Well, it's working. And, she's making more progress in her mad minutes for math than she was a month ago. Do you work on flashcards every day?"

"We try to," Jay answered. "Those we try to do right after school and give her a snack with it. Some would call it bribery, but it works."

"Keep doing what you're doing. It's been working really well." She paused. "There is one thing that has been concerning me about, Y/N." Jay furrowed his eyebrows as he continued to listen. "When we move seats for groups during partner reading and other times during the day, I noticed that she struggles to read what's on the board. Sometimes she'll squint really hard and sometimes she'll walk up to the board to write in her planner at the end of the day. I've moved her to the front row for class, but when we move for groups and she's further away from the board, it seems that it's hard for her to see. Do you have the time and money to get her eyes checked? If not, we have vision testing coming to school in a month, which is free and required for all students," your teacher finished.

"My brother's a doctor, and we'll make sure to see her pediatrician about this. It's getting close to her yearly physical anyway. Thank you for telling me. Is there any other times that you notice this?"

"During library days, she always makes sure to sit in the front so she can she the pictures better. I'm sorry. I wish I had more information to give you."

"No, thank you for telling me this. I know you have a lot of other kids to look out for. Is there anything else I should know? Behavior wise, she's good, right?"

"Very well behaved. The only thing I was concerned about is her vision."

"Great. Thank you again for telling me."

"You're welcome. Is there anything else you needed to discuss regarding Y/N?"

"No," Jay answered. "I'll get out of your hair now then. You've probably got more parents to see."

"I do. Have a good night."

"You, too," Jay replied and then made his way to the door and out into the hallway.

Your head shot up the second you heard the door open. "I was good, right?" you asked.

"You weren't good-"

You dropped your head. No ice cream. "But-"

"You were great, kiddo!" Jay exclaimed.

"Ice cream!" you cheered.

Jay squatted down to your height and looked at the picture you were coloring. "That's really pretty and you're almost done. So, how about instead of going out for ice cream, I call Will and have him pick up ice cream sundae stuff and we can make them at home. That way, you can finish your picture at home."

"Can we watch a movie, too?"

Jay looked at his watch. 5:33. You'd have time to watch a Disney movie before bedtime. "If you start it right when we get home, then yes, you can watch a movie."

"Yay!"

"Now, stay here for a couple more minutes while I go call Will, okay? And, what's my rule?"

"If I have to go somewhere and can't tell you, tell a good adult." Jay had taught it to you as trusted adult, but you couldn't remember that word, so you always said good adult.

"That's right. I'll be right back."

Then, he made his way all the way down the hallway and turned the corner and continued walking until he was sure that you weren't within earshot to call Will.

He picked up on the first ring.

"If you need help disciplining her based on a bad report, that's all you, Jay. You're the disciplinarian and I'm the fun brother."

Jay rolled his eyes. "It's not that. She did great, but her teacher said that she might need glasses. She said she struggles to see the board. Think you could check her out tonight?"

"Jay, she needs to go to an optometrist for that."

"I know, but can't you just do some preliminary stuff? Also, she wants you to come over for ice cream sundaes and a movie, so you'd be there anyway."

"Who says I don't have plans?"

"C'mon, man. I know you."

"Fine, I'll be there in 30 minutes. You need me to pick anything up? Maybe a pizza? Can't just give the kid ice cream for dinner, but you know that."

"If you bring pizza, at least bring a salad with it," Jay bargained.

"Deal. See you in 30. And, I'll put in a call to her pediatrician on the way to your place."

"Perfect. Thanks, man. See you later."

Then, Jay hung up the phone and walked back over to you. "Ready to go?"

"Yes! Ice cream!"

"Ice cream is right. Let's go, kiddo."

Then, you two made your way to his truck and went to the store to buy everything you, Jay, Will, and Hailey would need for ice cream sundaes. And, Jay kept an eye on you to see if you were squinting. But, it was a bit difficult because he was making a mental checklist and checking everything off while you two were in the store. He figured he'd investigate more when you got home.

***

When you got back, you quickly put on your Tangled pajamas and told Jay that was the movie you wanted to watch.

Then, you grabbed your stool from under the sink while Jay was in the living room getting the movie pulled up. Your hand was on the handle to the freezer and you were just about to open it when Jay walked back in.

"And what do you think you're doing, missy?" You turned around to face him and it was like you were a deer in the headlights. "Were you trying to get ice cream before dinner?"

"Maybe..." you answered slowly.

"That's what I thought. Now, how about you get down and start your movie so that you can finish it before bedtime? Will will be here soon and then I'll bring your food to you."

"I get to eat in the living room?" Jay almost never let you eat in the living room! You always had to eat at the table!

"If you eat over your plate, you can eat in the living room. But, if you start being messy, it's right back to the table."

"Okay!" You jumped down from your stool, put it away, and then made your way to the couch in the living room. You grabbed your favorite fuzzy blanket from the back of the couch and then hit play on the remote.

Jay chuckled and reached into the cabinet where he hid the stickers for your sticker chart. Then, he placed one on the line next to the chore that said Clean up when asked - No arguing.

Even though he didn't ask you to put your step stool away, you still did it. And, maybe he was giving you this because he felt guilty about not noticing that you were struggling to see. Either way, you were one step closer to getting a prize.

Five minutes later, Will walked in with the pizza.

"Will!" you exclaimed and jumped up off the couch and ran up to him. "My teacher said I was really good!"

"I heard that! Now let me put this down and then I can give you a big hug. And I even got you your own pizza!"

"You did?"

"Yes, I did, silly!"

"Jay, did you hear that? Will got me my own pizza! That way I don't have to pick the gross onions and black olives off yours."

"I did! Now, let's let Will put down the pizza, hmm?" Jay said and grabbed your hand to gently pull you out of the way.

You moved out of the way, allowing Will to set the pizza boxes on the table. Then, he crouched down and gave you a bone-crushing hug.

"Stop! Too tight!" you laughed, making Will just squeeze you harder while Jay tried his best to contain his laughter at the two of you.

"Alright, you two, Let's eat before the pizza gets cold. Y/N, go wash your--"

Jay was cut off by the door opening and you squealing.

"Hailey!"

You wriggled out of Will's hold and ran up to her. "Guess what?! Guess what?! Guess what?!"

"Guess we know who her favorite is," Will muttered.

"What?" Hailey asked with a giant smile on her face. She was also holding a pink box that you noticed sort of smelled like cookies.

"I did really good at school so I get pizza and ice cream sundaes!"

"I know! Jay told me! So, I thought we could have brownie sundaes!"

She moved toward the table and set down the pink box. Then, she opened the box, revealing fresh, warm brownies from the bakery a block from the district.

You reached for one, but Jay quickly swatted your hand away. "Nuh-uh. Dinner first, missy."

Jay then put your personal pizza on a plate along with a breadstick, baby carrots, and some ranch for you to dip the carrots in. He handed you the plate along with some napkins.

"Go ahead and watch Tangled while you eat, okay? We'll be in there soon."

"Okay!"

The minute Jay heard the movie playing again, he was all business. "So, how are we doing this, Will?"

Jay didn't need to explain to Hailey what he was referring to here because he texted her that you had gotten a good report, but that your teacher also said that you needed glasses after he called Will when you were at school.

"I called her pediatrician and she can see her on Friday. She said that if she does need glasses, the optometrist should be able to get her on Monday."

"Perfect, great. Me and Hailey both work Monday, so you can take her, right?"

"I can take her," Will confirmed.

"Okay, good."

"So, in the meantime, what do we do?" Hailey asked.

"I'm just gonna watch to see if she squints at all during the movie. Maybe if you guys take her to the park tomorrow ask her to see things that are far away, like, Hey! Look at that cool bird! or something and see if she squints or not. Can't really do much until she goes to the optometrist," Will answered.

"You guys are missing Flynn get hit with a frying pan!" you yelled.

"I blame you for her love of violence, Jay," Will joked.

"Coming!" Jay yelled. "Just a sec, kiddo!"

Then, the adults filled their plates and made their way to the living room.

***

Monday afternoon

Will was going to kill his brother. When you got in the car, he asked if you were ready to go. To where, you had no idea. So, you had asked if you were going home.

"No, to the doctor, silly. To get your eyes looked at," Will answered.

"But I already did that! No more, please! Wanna go home!"

Will sighed but continued driving. "Why don't you want to go to the doctor, kiddo?"

"Because I don't want shots! I didn't get shots last time, so I gotta get shots now! Don't want 'em!" you cried.

"Oh, no, no, no," Will quickly soothed. "No shots. They're just going to look at your eyes. Then, you have to tell them which picture is easier to see and what letter you're looking at."

"Really? No shots?"

"No shots," Will confirmed.

"And I get French fries after?"

Will took a deep breath. Did he want to have an argument with you while driving and then end up either in an accident or late to your appointment because he had to pull over? No. Neither of those sounded particularly appealing. So, he went with the safest option.

"Yes, we can get French fries after."

***

"Y/N Halstead," the optometrist called after you had been sitting at the office for ten minutes.

You stood up and so did Will and you quickly grabbed his hand, letting him know that he would be coming into that room with you no matter what.

"I'm not going anywhere, kiddo."

"I just making sure," you told him, causing him to chuckle lightly.

You walked into an office with a weird thing hanging from the ceiling. There were lots of different circles and it was really big. There was a chair in front of it, too.

While the doctor started talking to you, he lowered the chair. "So, Y/N, I hear you're having a little trouble seeing the board at school, hmm?"

You shrugged. "A little. But only when I'm far away."

"And that's okay. What I'm going to do is help you see better. I'm going to lower down this machine--I know it looks big, but it's not scary, I promise--. Then, I'm going to have you read some letters to me."

"Like I did the other day at the doctor's?" you asked as you looked up at Will.

"Exactly like you did the other day," he confirmed. "Now you just look into special stuff so we know exactly what glasses you need." Then, he quickly turned to the optometrist. "Sorry. I'm Dr. Will Halstead, an ED doc at Chicago Med. Also her older brother."

"He said I gotta go to someone else for my eyes, but he's a doctor," you said to the optometrist.

The optometrist laughed and then shook your brother's hand. "Well, he's right." Then, he got down to your level and said in a stage whisper, "and between you and me, I probably know more about eyes than him."

"Really? I didn't think anyone was smarter than Will!"

"Really. Now let's take a look at those eyes." He moved over to his chair and then had you look into the glass circles. "Now, read me the smallest letter you can see."

***

"How'd it go?" Jay asked when you and Will walked into his apartment. Then, he spotted the McDonald's bag. "Seriously?"

"Only way she was gonna go. You sure she doesn't listen to your interrogations at the district? She had to have learned blackmail from somewhere."

"Haha, very funny. Did it go well, kiddo?"

"Yeah, I had to look at these pictures and tell the not Will doctor what one looked better," you answered.

Jay held back a laugh at your description of the doctor. "Did you pick out any glasses?"

"Yeah, I got purple. Can I eat my food now?"

"Go wash your hands and then you can."

You ran off to go wash your hands so that you could eat your chicken nuggets and fries and then Jay turned to Will.

"She been like this all day?" Jay asked.

"Doesn't help when she has no idea what's going and I have to tell her thirty minutes before the appointment, Jay," Will quipped.

"Fries and nuggies!" you yelled as you ran out of the bathroom after washing your hands, which effectively cut your brothers' conversation about your lack of excitement to see clearly short.

***

3 days later, Thursday.

"You ready to pick up your glasses, kiddo?" Jay asked as you got in his truck in the pickup line at school.

You simply shrugged. "Yeah," was all you answered.

Today at school, during soccer at recess, a boy's glasses fell off and then someone accidentally stepped on them and broke them when you were playing! What if that happened with your glasses? What if you couldn't play soccer anymore because you wore glasses?

You loved soccer ever since you had started playing it last year. And, you and Jay always practiced on Sunday mornings at the park. And, when it was nice out, you two would always have a picnic. It was always a Jay and Y/N date (sometimes Hailey would come along, but only if you agreed to it). That time was sacred for you and Jay because of his demanding job, but what if you didn't get to do that anymore all because you needed stupid glasses to see the stupid board at stupid school?

"How was school?" Jay asked. He knew by your demeanor that your mood was more sour than it had been this morning, and he'd prefer to discuss it now than have you blow up at home. One would be shocked at how much anger you could hole up and spew out from your little body.

"It was good. Same old, same old."

Jay rolled his eyes. You had definitely picked up that saying from Will. "Do anything fun?" he probed. "Was recess good?"

"I played soccer during first and second recess, but I didn't score at all. Stupid boys. They're always faster than me."

If you hadn't added the last part, then Jay would probably have told you that boys have cooties anyway and to stay away from them until you're thirty. But, you did say that last part, so he knew he had to be comforting.

"Well, you gotta remember, you like playing defense, so what do I always tell you?"

"I gotta outsmart 'em...and slide tackle."

Last Jay checked that was illegal in kids' soccer. "I don't think me or Will ever taught you about slide tackling. Where'd you learn about that, kiddo?"

"Adam taught me when he took me to the park when you had to talk to some bad guys yesterday."

"Of course he did," Jay muttered. "Just remember, you can only do that to me, Will, or Adam. Don't try and do that to other people, okay?"

He knew that he should probably tell you to never do that, but eh, he figured he'd let you have a little fun. And, it wasn't like he never got kicked out of games for doing a slide tackle...okay, maybe multiple slide tackles in a game with one leading to the other team's captain getting a concussion.

"Okay," you answered. "I'm not good at 'em anyway."

Jay chuckled. "And let's keep it that way."

***

Jay was both happy and frustrated when he watched you put on your glasses and see the world clearly for the first time in who knows how long. He was frustrated because how could he have not noticed this? Hell, how could Will not have noticed this? And, he was happy as he watched your mouth fall slightly agape and mutter whoa to yourself.

After you made sure that your glasses fit and the optometrist did all the necessary checks, you made your way back to Jay's truck.

"I gotta stop at the district to pick up some paperwork," Jay said as he began driving. "You ready to show off your glasses to everyone?"

"Yes!" you exclaimed. You loved the color of your glasses and everything was so pretty! Nothing was blurry anymore!

When you walked into the district, you were first met with Trudy, who didn't see you at first.

"Looking for this, Chuckles? You left it here earlier and you and me both know that Voight will have your—" And then she noticed you and quickly shut her mouth before she swore in front of you.

"Good catch, sarge," Jay said and took the manilla folder from her.

"Y/N, I didn't know you had glasses! They look so pretty! So much better than my old lady ones," Trudy complimented.

Then, you heard someone coming down the stairs.

"So if I call you old—"

"Shut it, Ruzek," she snapped as Adam strode over to you.

"And, she's back. Thanks, man," Jay complained.

"I was just telling Y/N here how pretty her glasses were before you ever so impolitely interrupted," Trudy said to Adam.

Then, Adam crouched down to your height. "My, my. They sure are pretty." Then, he held up three fingers. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

"Adam!" you laughed. "That's not how they work."

"But I thought that's how glasses worked. How about you tell me how they do work?"

"I just can't see far away. You gotta back up and do that."

He did so and then reached into his pocket.

"So, can you read this?"

"Oreos! I can read the words now!"

That stopped Jay in his tracks. "What do you mean by that, kiddo?"

"I can read the words from far away now and not just close by me. It's because I have my glasses now, duh."

Adam almost burst out laughing at your sass, but held back his laughter when he saw Jay's death stare directed right at him.

"Right, of course, silly me," Jay answered quickly. "Go get your Oreos from Adam and then we can go upstairs and show everyone else your glasses, how's that sound?"

"Okay!" you excitedly ran up to Adam and he handed you the Oreos. "Thank you!"

"You're very welcome!"

You started towards the stairs and Jay quickly whispered to Adam, "Boards flipped?"

"Did it before I walked down here since I heard her voice."

"Great, thanks."

"Jay! You gotta put your hand here to open it because I'm not special enough to put my hand here!" you exclaimed.

"Okay, okay, hold on a sec," he said and then gently pushed you to the side to put his hand on the palm scanner. The door beeped and then he pulled the door open. "Ladies first."

You walked in and immediately everyone's heads turned towards you.

"Y/N!" Hailey exclaimed "You got your glasses!"

"Yeah! Everything looks so much better and so pretty!" You took a moment to look around the bullpen. Despite being in this room with Jay and Hailey for two years now off and on since your dad died, you could finally see it clearly. You thought everything was always a little blurry around the edges.

"How many fingers am I holding up?" Voight asked from the back of the bullpen near his office.

"Three!" you yelled confidently.

"That's right! Wow, she counts faster than you, Ruzek."

Jay held back a laugh while Adam exclaimed, "Why you gotta be like that, Boss?"

"Because it's true. You got the paperwork, Halstead?"

"Right here. I'll get out of your hair now because it's my RDO and I do not want to be here on my day off. C'mon, Y/N, let's go home."

"But I didn't see Kevin or Kim yet!" you whined.

"They're out doing police work, kiddo. You can see them later, okay?"

"But I want to show them my glasses!"

Hailey quickly saw the temper tantrum that was about to erupt and stood up. "How about I take a picture of you with your glasses and send it to them? Then you can see what they say when I get home tonight. How does that sound, Y/N?"

You nodded and walked closer to her. "Yes!"

While Hailey was taking your picture, Jay mouthed thank you to his wife for avoiding a meltdown in the bullpen.

***

3 days later, Sunday

You did not sleep good at all. You tossed and turned all night thinking about your Jay and Y/N date in the morning. You loved them and you loved soccer! But you couldn't go now because what if your glasses fell off when you and Jay were passing the ball and practicing? And, if you took off your glasses before playing, what if he got mad at you? Jay and Will had told you that you had to wear them all the time! And you didn't want Jay Jay to be mad at you!

So, when you went into the kitchen in the morning (wearing your glasses of course) and saw Jay and Hailey sipping their cups of coffee, one could only imagine your relief when you looked out the window and saw the sky was covered with dark gray clouds.

"Morning, kiddo," Jay greeted. "Doesn't look like we can play soccer today." Then, Jay furrowed his eyebrows as he got a better look at you. You had dark circles under your eyes that looked like they should be for a college student cramming for finals instead of a first-grader on a Sunday morning. "You feeling okay?" Then, he walked up to you and placed the back of his hand on your forehead. "Hmm, you don't feel warm."

"Didn't sleep good," you mumbled.

"I didn't sleep good either," Hailey sympathized. "Must be the weather." She knew it was her insomnia acting up, but you had no idea what that was--and she hoped you never would have to know what that was like--, but she didn't feel like explaining it to a first grader this early in the morning while she was running on fumes herself.

"How about we have a lazy day," Jay suggested. "Movies and coloring sound good, Y/N?"

"Yeah. Can Will come, too? He always does the best coloring."

It was true. Because of how steady Will's hands were due to being a surgeon, he could color in all the small areas in the pictures, even in adult coloring books that Hailey had, that you, Jay, and Hailey would typically make a mess out of and at least color outside the lines a bit.

"I'll give him a call. I don't see why he wouldn't want a lazy day," Jay said.

"And, I think we have some chocolate chip cookie dough in the freezer to bake cookies," Hailey suggested.

Jay glared at his wife and then rolled his eyes. You've already gotten spoiled with treats and takeout more than enough this past week and a half. But, he knew as well Hailey knew herself that she had a sweet tooth and it only got worse when her insomnia was acting up.

"Before we do all that," Jay began, "let's get you some breakfast first. What sounds good, kiddo?"

"Can I have an omelet? With lots of cheese please?"

You were recently introduced to these a few months ago when you and Hailey were enjoying chocolate chip waffles at a diner and Jay had an omelet. You wanted some of his hash browns, but he said you had to try a bit of his omelet. You didn't really want to try this, but your want hash browns overpowered this. And, lo and behold, you liked it! So, now on Sundays when Jay wasn't working, you'd ask for an omelette. It has to be Jay who made them though because he made the best ones between him, Will, and Hailey.

"Omelet it is," Jay replied and then picked up a spatula. "How about you go get dressed while I make this, okay?"

"Okay!"

Then, you ran off to your room to put on some comfy clothes to spend the day in.

***

"Where's Y/N?" Will joked when he walked inside around 10:30 that morning.

"I'm right here!" you yelled while you sat at the table coloring. You had no idea how he couldn't see you when you were right there!

"Oh, I didn't recognize you with such pretty glasses."

You dropped your head. "You- You don't?"

Luckily Jay was behind you so that you didn't see him wipe his hand down his face. 

His brother, Jay thought. Thank god he didn't go into pediatrics.

"I was only kidding, silly! Of course, I recognize you! The only thing different about you is that you have glasses now. But, do you recognize me?"

"Yes! But your hair's really messy! Do you want to use my brush?"

Jay choked on his second cup of coffee at your comment and Hailey quickly hit him on the back.

He cleared his throat. "Sorry, went down the wrong pipe," he said and then coughed a couple more times.

Will smoothed down his hair. "Wind's pretty strong out there. Guess it messed it up a bit." Then, he walked over to the table and set a tray of drinks down. "Coffee for all three of us and hot chocolate for you." He handed you your drink. "Careful though. It might still be super hot. Now, what are we coloring?"

***

"She is totally out," Jay commented later that afternoon.

The four of you had started watching a movie and you had curled up next to Hailey under your favorite fuzzy blanket. Needless to say, after you struggled to sleep this past night, within thirty minutes of the movie, you were totally out with your head leaning against Hailey's chest.

Hailey smiled down at you. "She's so cute when she's sleeping."

"When she's awake she's a menace now apparently," Will joked.

"Just because she made one comment about your precious hair," Jay muttered. "Let the hair comment go, man. Let it go."

Will rolled his eyes. "So, how's she doing? She mention any headaches at all with her glasses?"

"Hasn't said anything to me," Jay answered. "She say anything to you, Hails?"

"Nothing," Hailey replied. "She also didn't say that kids were mean to her, so that's good, too."

"Yeah, I remember when Jay got his glasses. All the kids teased him about it," Will said.

"It wasn't all the kids. It was you! Just you! And, now they have more education for bullying and stuff, so maybe kids are nicer than when we were kids." Then, Jay changed the subject. "I'm just shocked she didn't throw a fit when I said we couldn't play soccer today because it was storming."

"But, she said she didn't sleep good last night," Hailey reminded him.

"Yeah, I know. But still, she loves Sundays. And, at the beginning of winter a few months ago, she threw a fit the first time there was too much snow on the ground to go."

"I would say consider it a good thing that she didn't fight with you this morning," Will began, "but you said she didn't sleep good. She say anything else to you? Her tummy or head hurt? I didn't notice anything off when I was here, but maybe she said something earlier."

Jay shook his head. "She seemed fine, other than her being tired."

"Okay, good. If she tells you anything else--especially if she's having headaches--let me know."

***

3 days later, Tuesday

You were usually so excited for Tuesday nights and soccer practice, but now, you were nervous. What if your glasses fell off and somebody broke them? You didn't want Jay or Will or Hailey to be mad at you!

So, when you were running at practice, you went exceptionally slow, which made Jay wonder if you were hurt. He watched you shake your head at your coach, so he must've asked you the same thing.

When you got in the car after practice, needless to say, Jay was slightly worried.

"You okay, kiddo? You didn't look like you were having fun out there."

"I was having fun," you answered, but that was only a half-truth. You only had fun when you were defending and didn't have to worry about running as much, and thus, your glasses falling off.

"Okay. You just didn't feel like it today then?" You shrugged. "That's okay. Everyone has days like that."

What he wasn't going to do was be like your dad and make it seem like you needed to be at 100% every single day. As long as you tried your best with what you had left in the tank, that was all that mattered.

You nodded and just looked out the window while Jay kept driving.

And once you got home, since you put your cleats away nicely without being asked, Jay added a sticker to your sticker chart. But, his detective senses were tingling.

Something was definitely off with you.

***

One week later

It had been a long week for both Hailey and Jay. They'd had their hands full at work trying to catch a serial rapist who ended up killing his last three victims.

During this time, you had spent most of your time with Will, except on Jay's RDO, and then Hailey's RDO when they each spent time with you instead. Even though each of them knew that the team would be a man down on each of their RDOs, they knew it would be difficult for Will to be the sole caretaker of you with his demanding job as well. So, even though they probably should've worked during their RDOs this week, they didn't.

But, they had been so mentally drained on their days off that neither of them remembered to check your backpack for important paperwork. And, both Jay and Hailey knew that Will always conveniently "forgot" to check this. (But, it was probably because he didn't feel like disciplining you if you got a bad report.)

Now, it was 8pm on Tuesday night, they had caught the guy, and both Jay and Hailey had quickly finished their paperwork so that they were home in time for bedtime.

Once Jay and Hailey had finished reading you a chapter of The Chronicles of Narnia, Jay did what he always did when he hadn't been able to see you on a couple of school days straight: he went through your backpack to see if he missed anything such as permission slips, notes from your teacher, and to ensure that Will had been making you do your homework.

When he went through your math folder, stuck between last week's homework assignments and this week's was a note written in cursive. Because it was written that way, he could only assume it was addressed to him or another adult.

Mr. Halstead, I'm writing you this to make sure that Y/N hasn't lost her glasses. I haven't seen her wearing them the past couple of days and wanted to make sure accommodations didn't need to be made. If she has lost them, please let me know and I will be sure to move her desk up to the front to help her see the board for the time being. If you have any questions, please call me at my office number or email me. I previously left a voicemail for you and emailed you, but I don't know if they went through. -Stephanie Harding.

Jay sighed, pulled out a chair at the kitchen table, and began scrolling through his phone. There, from Friday afternoon, was an email from your teacher as well as a phone call from yesterday morning. How could he have missed these?

"You okay?" Hailey asked as she walked into the kitchen, freshly showered. She grabbed two beers from the fridge, popped the cap off both, made her way to the table, and handed one to Jay. "We should be celebrating, not sulking."

"I know, and I'm glad that case is over and the guy's in prison because, you know, he's a monster, but look what I found in Y/N's backpack."

He slid her the note and she began reading.

When she finished, she looked up. "Don't talk to her tonight, Jay. You might dysregulate her so bad that she might go back to sleep because her routine got thrown off."

"I know, but when am I supposed to talk to her? I don't want her throwing a fit in the morning before school, and who knows what's going to come across our desks in terms of cases tomorrow."

Hailey grabbed one of Jay's hands. "Jay, we'll figure it out. And, if we need to wait for your RDO or the weekend when we both hopefully have off, then we'll do that, okay?"

"Okay." He gave his wife's hand a squeeze and then took a sip of his beer.

Thank god for Hailey Upton, he thought.

***

The next day, Wednesday

Once you and Jay got home after he picked you up from school, he made you a snack and you pulled out a chapter book to read to him to practice your reading skills like it was just any other day. He set the addition and subtraction flashcards next to him. You'd do those after you read to him.

But, when you took your first bite of your ants on a log (celery with peanut butter, topped with a few chocolate chips), he reached over and slid the book over to himself. Then, he set it down on the chair next to him so as not to distract you from the upcoming conversation.

"We're not reading?" you asked, furrowing your eyebrows at him.

"Listen, kiddo, we need to talk about why you are not wearing your glasses at school."

"I am!" you protested.

But, Jay saw how your eyes widened slightly when he first said it. He knew you were lying; now he just needed you to admit to it.

"Y/N, your teacher called me and told me that you aren't wearing them. You're not in trouble--"

"No!" you shouted and jumped off your chair. Then, you ran to your room and slammed your door.

Tears pricked your eyes as you threw yourself on your bed.

You couldn't play soccer when you were in high school if you had glasses! At all the games you went to, none of them had glasses! You couldn't give up soccer just to wear these stupid glasses! What did your brothers and your teacher know, anyway? None of them even wore glasses!

You were waiting for Jay to come yell at you for slamming your door, but he never came. And you were so tired from school and from the short conversation that you had with Jay, that you eventually just cried yourself to sleep.

As for Jay, the second he heard your door slam, he sighed and laid his head on the table. What the hell was he supposed to do?

***

You woke up to someone gently shaking your shoulder.

"Y/N, c'mon it's time for dinner, honey."

Hailey.

"No," you mumbled.

You didn't want to face Jay after everything!

"You need to eat, Y/N. You didn't even finish your snack earlier. Just c'mon out and eat dinner with me and Jay."

"Jay gonna be mad at me," you said quietly and rolled over so that you were facing the wall.

"He won't be mad; we just want you to eat something. He made your favorite, fettuccine alfredo, remember?"

That's right! You got to pick dinner once a week and told Jay last week that you wanted fettuccine! And today was Wednesday! It was your dinner day!

"Oh yeah! I forgetted!"

Then, you jumped out of bed and ran downstairs.

Hailey shook her head as she walked behind you. Kids and their moods.

When you got to the kitchen, your plate was set right where it usually was with fettuccine, broccoli, and garlic bread.

You eyed Jay suspiciously when you sat down.

Then, Jay noticed you weren't wearing your glasses. Hailey noticed the very slight tilt of his head, so she quickly jumped in.

"They're on her bedside table," she said. "She was sound asleep when I went up there."

"Mhm," you agreed and then took a bite of your pasta.

Jay figured it was better to let you eat almost all of your food before he started in on the glasses conversation again. He needed you to eat something because, at this point, you hadn't eaten anything except your one ant on a log since 11am at school, which was seven hours ago. He didn't know how you hadn't woken up and been hungry but hey, he knew as well as you did that tantrums made you utterly exhausted.

Once you only had half of your garlic bread left, Jay decided it was time to have another go at this.

"Y/N, me and Hailey were talking, and we thought that if you came home from school wearing glasses, you can get an extra sticker on your chore chart," Jay said. "How's that sound?"

You shrugged. "Okay." You had already been doing that. You'd put them on right when you got in the car. You didn't need them for up close stuff like talking with your friends anyway and you could see Jay, Hailey, and Will just fine without your glasses; they were just a little blurry around the edges.

"That means we need to see you wearing them when we pick you up," Jay continued. "You can't just put them on when you get inside the car." Your brother was nothing if not perceptive.

You could do that. You'd just put them on when you walked out of school for pickup. You couldn't wear them all the time because then what if someone said something about you not wearing them while playing soccer at recess? Then you'd have to wear them at recess and you couldn't play soccer with them on!

"Okay," you said.

"Okay, good," Jay replied.

But, he shot a glance at Hailey. That was way too quick for you to agree to this without a fight even with the added incentive of getting a sticker on your sticker chart.

Something was off and both he and Hailey knew it.

***

Two days later, Friday

Jay walked out of an interrogation, relayed the info to his team, and then sat down at his desk to do some digging into this guy's financials. But, his phone lit up, notifying him that he had a voicemail.

He saw it was from your teacher and his brow furrowed.

"Hi, Mr. Halstead. This is Stephanie Harding calling. I received your email a couple of days ago explaining how you talked with Y/N about wearing her glasses and she said that she'd wear them and that they are not lost. I just wanted to inform you that she hasn't worn her glasses at all throughout the school day, but will put them on for pickup.

I just wanted to inform you of this and please let me know if there's anything that I can do to help."

Jay clenched his jaw and sighed frustratedly after he finished listening. He thought he'd be dealing with this level of sneakiness when you were a teenager, not now!

"Nothing in the financials?" Hailey asked from across from him.

"Still working on that," Jay answered. "Y/N's teacher called. Said she still hasn't been wearing her glasses."

"What? She was wearing them yesterday when I picked her up."

"Her teacher said that she'll put them on at pickup but won't wear them at all during the rest of the day."

Hailey shook her head and rolled her eyes. "We are getting played by a first-grader, Halstead."

"Don't I know it. I'm gonna give Will a call and see if she wore her glasses at pickup. Maybe he can get to the bottom of it while she's at his house tonight."

***

"Alright, kiddo. Game plan today is homework, snack, and reading. Then we'll grab a quick dinner somewhere and go to the girls' soccer game. Sound good?" Will asked when you got inside and set your backpack down.

"Don't wanna do my math homework," you complained. "It's stupid."

"What are you working on?" Will probed. "Maybe I can help you."

"Subtraction. My friends say it's like adding, but the opposite, but it's not!"

"Okay, okay, calm down. I'll make you a snack and then we'll work through it together. How's an apple with peanut butter sound?"

"Do you still have the green apples?"

"I do. Green apple with peanut butter coming right up."

***

Will wasn't stupid. He knew why Jay probably couldn't get the answer from you about not wearing your glasses. And that was because he was asking at the wrong time and because he was the one who disciplined you. Will never had to do that except for taking away ice cream as a bedtime snack a couple of times when you mouthed off to him. You didn't have to worry about having to go to bed early or not being able to watch more tv because you had gotten in trouble with Will. And, you and Jay were very much alike; both of you bottled up your emotions and were stubborn to no end...which is probably why you argued more with Jay than you did Will and Hailey and why Jay couldn't get you to talk about your glasses.

So, Will didn't bring up the glasses at dinner. He didn't even bring them up when you were at the soccer game.

But now was the time for him to bring this up.

You were currently sitting down next to him on the pull-out couch with your teddy bear and your favorite blanket, all ready for a chapter of Narnia and then for bed. You were comfortable and there was nothing to overstimulate you. You had food in your system and the excitement from the day was over.

You were calm.

"Before we start reading, kiddo, I need to ask you a question," Will started.

"Okay, what is it? Is it about what happened in Narnia when me Jay and Hailey readed it last week? Because I can tell you so you're not con...con—" You scrunched up your eyebrows as you tried to remember the word. "So that you know what's happenin'," you said instead.

"It's not about Narnia, but you can tell me before we start reading if you want. But first, I want to know why you aren't wearing your glasses. Do they make your head hurt? Did someone laugh at you?" You shook your head. "Okay, then what is? What's going on, Y/N?"

"Soccer," you mumbled, but it was so quiet that Will couldn't even hear you.

"What was that?" Will asked softly. "It's okay. You can tell me. I won't be mad at you."

You looked up at Will's face. He didn't look mad. Maybe you could tell him. Maybe he wouldn't tell Jay either and then everything would be fine.

"I can't play soccer no more be-because I have glasses!"

At this, you started to cry. All of the nerves you had felt about lying to your brothers and Hailey and the sadness about not being able to play soccer anymore all came tumbling out of you. And, it didn't help that no one on the high school girls' soccer team that you just went and watched earlier wore glasses. That just proved your point!

Will sighed and held back a laugh. Leave it to a little kid to catastrophize from A to Z.

"Who told you that?" Will asked, now realizing that he needed to get to the root of the problem.

"No one did! But none of the big girls wear glasses when they play soccer! And one boy's fell off at school and they got smashed and I'm the only one on my team that has glasses and---"

"Hey, hey, slow down. Take a deep breath, okay?" He allowed you to take a few breaths before he placed a hand on your shoulder. "You can still play soccer."

You looked up at him and your eyebrows furrowed before your mouth fell slightly agape. "I can?

"Yes, silly! We just need to get a strap for the back of your glasses because then they'll stay on when you're running."

"And I can play soccer with Jay Jay on Sunday?!"

"And you can play soccer with Jay on Sunday, yes," Will confirmed.

"Yay!"

"Now what do you say you fill me in on Narnia before I start reading to you, hmm?"

***

"Tell me you got something out of her," was the first thing that Jay said when he answered Will's call later that night.

"Jay, this is our sister we're talking about, not a criminal investigation."

"I know that, smartass. Still...anything?"

"She thought she couldn't play soccer with her glasses."

"What? Where'd she get that idea?"

"Well, kids are very observant, Jay. Maybe more observant than you seeing as you didn't even catch this--"

"Neither did you!"

"Last I checked, my job doesn't involve me doing a stakeout or working undercover."

And then Will launched into a recap of the conversation he had with you.

"Come to think of it," Will began when he was done and had answered all of Jay's questions, "I'm shocked you didn't think to get one for her right away because you didn't get contacts until high school and wore your glasses with a strap when you played soccer all the way from elementary school to middle school. You know what? I think I still have some pictures of that from the family photo album I took from Dad's--"

"Don't you dare!" Jay threatened.

"Who's gonna stop me?"

"Name your price...within reason."

"Breakfast tomorrow, 9am before me and Y/N go pick out her glasses strap. And you're paying."

"Deal!"

And years later, once you got to high school, you never did get contacts because one, you thought you looked better with glasses than without, and two, you wanted all of the little kids that came and watched your games to know that they could play whatever sport they wanted regardless of whether or not they wore glasses.

A/N: Thank you for reading and don't forget to vote and comment! Also, fun fact, I didn't get my glasses until I was 21. I went to renew my driver's license and barely passed the eye exam, so now I wear glasses.

[uptondixon]

Upstead Foster Daughter

Did you ever wonder how Upstead would be as foster parents for a teenage girl? Like Hank and Erin, Hailey and Jay welcomed Olivia to their home when she was 16. Olivia holds a lot of grudges and is full of mischief, but she is also incredibly sweet and has a tremendous need to feel like she belongs. To her surprise, Hailey and Jay will give her exactly that.

Masterlist

[Chapter II] “You’re on your own, kid, you always have been”

No one expected to hear a stranger's voice through their radio, let alone saying that Jay was bleeding out on the pavement.

“Who the hell are you?” Voight’s surprised voice came through the radio.

“My name is Olivia Rivera, I'm with your officer Halstead and he's been shot! I'm sorry I couldn't call an ambulance but I don't have my phone with me,” Olivia said everything so fast they almost couldn't understand it.

“Shot? What the hell?” said Hailey in exasperation. She was driving with Voight after Jay left by himself.

The whole team was checking the crime scene from their current case when Jay got a call from a CI. Hailey was busy interrogating a witness when he got the call. She told him to wait for her but he was so eager for whatever information his CI had to give that he decided to go by himself. Turns out it was a trap. Hailey did not know the details yet, but she couldn’t help but think that this would have not happened if she had been with him.

“Wh-where are you?” Hailey asked, already feeling her heart start to beat out of her chest.

Olivia told her the address as slowly as possible in her state; after that, Hailey started bombarding her with questions she did not know how to answer.

While they talked, Voight rushed in passing the address to dispatch requesting an ambulance and some patrol cars. The rest of the team followed behind.

“Is he conscious?” Hailey asked.

Silence followed her question, leaving them both tense.

“Olivia! Is he conscious?” Hailey repeated.

“I- He- He was until now when I called you.”

“Does he still have a pulse, Olivia?” Hailey guided her to check.

“Yes, he does!”

“Okay, okay, keep putting pressure on the wound.”

“What's the ambulance ETA?” Voight's rough voice questioned dispatch.

“We're close, hang tight Olivia,” Hailey said, trying to calm the girl and herself down. He would make it, he always made it. This was not his first time being shot, but she surely hoped it was his last. She couldn't do this last time and she especially can't do it now.

“He'll be fine, Hailey,” Voight's voice invaded her thoughts. “Halstead’s strong, he'll get through this.”

Olivia didn't like hospitals. She felt trapped, unsafe, and overwhelmed. Probably because of the amount of people coming and going, the voices overlapping each other. There was too much going on and she shouldn't even be there in the first place.

After Jay's co-workers got to them everything happened in a blur. The ambulance got there seconds later, along with the other members of the team.

When Hailey and Voight arrived, Hailey came running in Jay and Olivia’s direction. She stared at the teenager with a mix of desperation and gratitude. Olivia stepped away as Hailey took her place. As others approached, Olivia stepped more and more away from the scene, ending up a little far away from it all.

She watched the scene unfold before her eyes in a trance. Jay was put into an ambulance and taken to the hospital, with several police cars following behind. Should she leave? She wants to know if he is going to be alright, of course. On the other hand, she feels like she was not supposed to be there.

“Hey! Olivia, isn't it?” a tall man appeared in her field of vision, his eyes were gentle and his voice calm.

“Yes,” Olivia answered.

“Name’s Kevin, Kevin Atwater. This is my friend, Kim Burgess,” he pointed to the woman beside him, and she smiled softly. Both officers looked shaken but they masked well, Olivia thought. Of course, this was not easy for them. Seeing a colleague hurt like that, almost lifeless.

“There's someone we can call for you? Your mom or dad?” Kim asked.

The girl didn’t answer. Kevin and Kim exchanged a look.

“Well, just come to the hospital with us then, okay?”

Voight watched them from afar, getting ready to enter the car and head to Med. Jay was the priority now, but they all were grateful for the girl, she saved Jay’s life after all. He made a mental note to thank her personally later.

Olivia debated for a moment. She decided it was better if she went with them and found a way to leave later without them noticing.

She nodded and followed them to the car.

“You can get cleaned up there,” Kim said after getting in the car.

Kevin started the drive to Med. Olivia didn’t answer the officer, suddenly feeling hyper-aware of all the blood on her. The adrenaline was wearing down.

“Are you okay, Olivia?” Kim asked softly.

“Yeah, sorry… I'm fine.”

“It’s okay, we will get to the hospital soon.”

Sitting in the doctors' room in Chicago Med a couple of hours later, Olivia was clean and waiting for a chance to leave. The really nice nurse called April who helped her clean up and gave her some food came by minutes ago and told her Jay would be alright. She left again when another nurse called for her so now was the perfect time for Olivia to leave.

She did not need to be discharged since she was neither a patient nor a suspect, right? Olivia got up and left the room, bringing some of the snacks the nurse gave her.

“Don’t worry Hails, we’re getting the bastard who shot Jay,” Kevin said firmly, looking at a very distressed-looking Hailey. Olivia got to the hospital’s lounge and saw Jay’s team reunited talking. They had their backs to the door she entered and could not see her.

They started to talk about the man who shot Jay and what they were doing to find him, most of which Olivia did not understand or did not care to try to understand. She stopped paying attention and started to plan how she would get out of there. There was only one way out and she could not leave without them seeing her.

Olivia was scared. She knew she wasn’t in trouble or anything but they were still police so she might as well be in trouble if they got to know more about her. Hell, they might as well already know.

“Stay with your husband Hailey, we’ll get him,” Voight's words drew Olivia's attention. Husband? That explained why Hailey was the most distressed of them all. The look on her face when she saw him lying on the pavement.

“Oh! Olivia, there you are,” said April, the nurse who helped Olivia earlier. Olivia's name caught the group's attention and five heads turned to look in her direction.

“Olivia!” Voight said, approaching the girl. “How are you? I need to properly thank you for helping my detective, I don’t know what could have happened if you weren’t there.”

“I… well, he was…” Olivia did not know what to say, so she came with a simple “You’re welcome” and a shy smile. She didn't expect to talk with anyone, let alone have all the attention on her.

“Well, I’m Sergeant Hank Voight and this is my team,” he went on introducing each of them. “You met Officer Kim Burgess and Officer Kevin Atwater. Detective Hailey Upton was the one you spoke with on the radio. And that is Officer Adam Ruzek.” he pointed to each one and they gave her a nod or a small smile.

After the introduction, he turned to look at her again. He spoke in a more serious tone, “We’re going to need your statement.”

Shit. That is exactly what she was trying to avoid. “I can’t!” was the first thing that came out of her mouth.

“It’s okay Olivia, we checked your file and we’re going to call your foster family on the way to the station,” Hank said.

So they know about her foster family, but they did not know she had run away yet. That was why she was in that alley, in that part of town, by herself.

Olivia thought about running but she could never get far with this many cops around. On their way to the district, she thought about jumping from the moving car but that was too stupid even for her. She laughed at the thought. Sitting in the car with Kim and Kevin again, she accepted her fate.

All her effort running away was for nothing. She was back to square one.

Slow, I know, but this is me trying guys. I love this OC so I hope I can keep writing her story even though I'm slow af. Thank you so much for the likes and reblogs on chapter one! ♡

[sevasey51]

The night before Jay goes back to work everyone’s joins at all Mollys to celebrate. Connor, Y/N, Will and intelligence. Y/N has been uneasy the whole night and Connor obviously notices but doesn’t say anything. Once they leave and head to the car she starts slowly letting the tears slip overwhelmed with anxiety. By the time they get to car she is sobbing and inconsolable with a panic attack. Connor can’t calm her down and is worried that she will send herself into a pots spiral. He rushes home and does whatever he can to calm buteven meds isn’t working. Finally he calls Jay hoping talking to him will call her.

Not Ready Yet

Summary: On the night everyone gathers at Molly’s to celebrate Jay returning to work, Y/N can’t shake the dread in her chest. She smiles. She laughs. She cheers for her brother like everyone else. But it’s all surface. And Connor sees it. Later, when they leave the bar, her anxiety finally breaks free. What begins as a few quiet tears turns into a full-blown panic attack, one Connor can’t soothe—not with words, not with meds. As she spirals into shallow breath and shaking limbs, Connor makes one desperate call to the only person who might reach her: Jay.

The whole night felt off.

To everyone else, it was a celebration. Jay was cleared for duty, and all of Intelligence showed up at Molly’s to raise a glass. Will brought drinks. Hailey stuck to his side, glowing with quiet pride. Stella and Kelly dropped by. The bar buzzed with laughter and stories and relief.

Y/N smiled. She hugged Jay so tightly he lifted her off the ground. She laughed when Trudy made some wildly inappropriate toast. She even took a few sips of champagne.

But Connor watched her too closely to miss the signs.

The way her hand trembled when she lifted her glass. The way she kept shifting in her seat. Her smile too wide, her eyes a little too glossy. Her legs bouncing beneath the table like she was bracing for something no one else could feel.

He didn’t press. Not there. Not with everyone watching.

But he never left her side.

When they finally stepped out into the cool night air, she let out a sharp breath and wrapped her arms around herself.

Connor unlocked the car, watching her out of the corner of his eye.

“Sweetheart?”

She didn’t answer.

Her steps slowed, and when they reached the car, she stopped altogether—standing on the sidewalk, shaking.

And then the tears started.

Not quiet ones.

Not controllable ones.

The kind that slipped out fast, unspoken and frantic, too quick for her to wipe away.

“Hey—hey.” He dropped the keys and turned toward her. “Look at me. What’s going on?”

But she couldn’t.

She shook her head, gasping, her breath catching between sobs that only grew louder.

“I can’t—I can’t—I don’t know what’s wrong—” Her hands gripped her hoodie like she was trying to hold herself together. “I’m happy for him but I’m terrified and I feel so stupid—”

“You’re not stupid,” Connor said instantly, trying to ground her. “You’re overwhelmed. And that’s okay.”

But her chest was rising too fast. Her knees buckled slightly.

“Okay—okay, no,” he said, catching her just in time. “We’re not doing this here. Come on.”

He helped her into the car, buckled her in, and started driving—not fast, but steady. One hand stayed tight around hers on the center console, even as she cried into her sleeve.

By the time they reached home, she was still hyperventilating—borderline incoherent.

Connor lifted her from the car and carried her straight into the apartment, setting her gently on the couch.

He moved like muscle memory—grabbing her emergency kit, placing a cold cloth on her neck, checking her heart rate.

Tachy. BP falling.

Shit.

He tried the fast-acting oral med. Nothing. He gave her the anti-anxiety dose they kept for situations like this. Still, her panic didn’t slow. Her body kept spiraling.

And for the first time in a long time, Connor felt helpless.

She wasn’t hearing him. His voice wasn’t reaching her.

So he pulled out his phone and hit the name he didn’t hesitate to call.

Jay.

He picked up almost immediately.

“Connor?”

“She’s panicking,” Connor said, his voice rough. “I’ve tried everything. Meds. Fluids. She’s not coming back down. I think it’s about you going back to work. She held it in all night, and now it’s just—she’s gone, Jay. I can’t reach her.”

Jay was quiet for half a second.

“Put me on speaker.”

Connor did, placing the phone gently near her ear as she curled into the couch, shaking and sobbing.

“Hey, kid,” Jay’s voice came through, soft but solid.

Her sobs caught. Her body jerked a little, like she wasn’t sure she’d heard right.

“Bug,” Jay said again. “It’s just me.”

She turned slowly toward the phone, her breath hitching.

“I’m okay,” Jay said. “I’m really okay. I’m ready to go back. I wouldn’t do it if I wasn’t. You know me.”

She clutched at the blanket Connor draped over her, her breathing still shallow, but her eyes finding the phone.

“You’re not losing me,” Jay said, softer now. “You never have to carry that fear alone. I’ve got me. Connor’s got you. And we’ve all got each other. Okay?”

Her sobs turned into hiccups. Her eyes squeezed shut—but she nodded.

Connor let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding.

“I love you,” Jay added. “Always. And you can call me anytime. Even from the bathroom floor. Especially from the bathroom floor.”

That got a half-laugh, half-sob from her—and finally, finally, her breathing started to slow.

Connor wiped the tears from her cheeks gently.

She whispered, “Sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Connor said, voice thick. “You were scared. You care. That’s not a weakness.”

After she fell asleep, curled in Connor’s arms with her body finally settling, he texted Jay.

Thank you.

Jay replied:

Anytime. I love her too.

Because sometimes the fear was too big to name.

Sometimes it needed a brother’s voice, a husband’s arms,

and the kind of love that didn’t ask her to be strong—

just let her fall

and caught her anyway.

[marvel-and-chicago-fan]

Break Through Au

Word Count: 1.6k

Summary: You go out ice skating on the lake with your brothers and Things don’t go as planned for you three

Warnings: CPR/Death, Falling through Ice, Hospitals, Yelling

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You were on the ice with your brothers Will and Jay, even though you weren’t allowed to, you guys still went regardless.

It was 10pm, no one would be out here to get in your way or yell at you to get off the ice.

“Cmon Y/n/n, it's better out here” Jay said while attempting to slide farther out to the lake. 

“I don’t know Jay, I kinda wanna stay over here. That way I get off easier than struggling to get off if I'm way over there.” you shrugged.

“Alright then, me and will be over there if you need us' ' He pointed towards the middle of the lake.

“Alright, I’m just gonna slide around.” You shivered. Maybe I should work more layers. You thought to yourself.

After a while you got bored and decided to go over to Will and Jay who were “fighting” over who got the better hockey stick.

Will pulled out his phone and checked the time. “Guys it’s 11 o'clock, she should head home now, if we all get a cold moms gonna know that we went outside without asking her, especially if Y/n gets sick”

“But I'm getting good at hockey,” you whined.

Will and Jay just have you that look. “Alright alright let’s go” You caved.

Because your brothers were better on ice than you were, they went up ahead of you. 

“GUYS! I'M NOT AS FAST AS YOU SLOW DO-“ Before you could finish your sentence a loud Crack interrupted you.

That made the two Halstead brothers come to a halt and turn around to you. “No,” Jay whispered. “Y/n don’t move, just stay still we’ll come to you”

Before you could say anything the Ice broke.

Jays pov:

“Y/N, SHIT NO” I screamed, my little sister just fell through the ice.

Me and Will immediately slide over to where she fell in and I immediately throw my whole arm in the freezing water to see if I can feel Y/n

“Give me your other arm so I can pull you once you get her!” Will shouts.

“Once I touch something that feels semi to a human arm I pull. I can tell it’s Y/n because once I pull I feel a bit of weight. 

“PULL WILL, PULL” 

Once we were towards the edge of the Lake I pick y/n up bridal style and rushed over to land.

“Put her down here.” Will says. 

“What the hell do we do?” I cry

“She’s not breathing, Jay, you need to run back to the house and call someone” Wills is studying medicine so he knows a couple of things about what to do in a life or death situation.

“WHO DO I CALL?” I shout

“I DO GIVE A FUCK, CALL 9-1-1 AND HURRY”

My body moves into autopilot as I’m running through the forest making sure I don’t trip on any rocks or roots. 

My legs are burning and I can’t breathe but I can’t stop, if I stop Y/ns gonna die and it’ll be all my fault.

As I reach the house I punch in the code to the door and run upstairs to my bedroom. 

I basically almost threw my  phone into the air while trying to pick it up.

“9-1-1 what’s your emergency?”

“It’s -it’s my sister, she fell into the lake and I don’t know if she’s breathing”

“Check if she has a pulse”

“My older brother is with her at the lake, he-he's studying medicine so he knows what he’s doing”

“What’s your name sweetheart?”

“Uhh jay, my names Jay”

“Alright Jay, How old is your sister and how long was she under water for?”

“I don’t- 5 minutes maybe, and her name is Y/n, but we all call her Y/n/n. I don't know what I’m gonna tell my mom, that my littler sister died because we didn’t listen to her?” I’m panicking.

“Jay, I’m gonna need you to take a deep breath, I have help coming on the way right now”

How did she get my location? I didn’t even tell her.

***

The paramedics arrived and Jay led them to the lake where Will was with you. 

Will did successfully get you back but you were still unconscious. 

Why didn’t we just listen?

***

“15 Year old Female Y/n Halstead, Hypothermia after falling through ice, Was unconscious on site and Has a history of Heart issues.” The paramedic listed off all the things

(Ik that Grey's anatomy is in Seattle but because the show is so old let’s just pretend that this happened with them, it’s been awhile since I’ve watched it so if I make mistakes Woops)

“Alright,on my count if we move her. 1…2…3”Alex said.

Alex looked you over and started telling Jo things to do. “I want a head Ct, Keep me updated on her temperature and get me Derek for a consult.” Jo nodded.

Jay and Will followed Dr. Karev outside. “Is she gonna be ok?” Jay asked.

“She’s not out of the woods yet, but we won’t know more until she wakes up which will be a couple of hours” 

***

“Jay Halstead and Will Halstead” A stern voice called to them that made them Gulp.

“What in the world happened, and why did the Atwater’s call me and say that something happened on the lake and I needed to come home?” Your Mom stoked with her hands on her hips.

Jay and Will glanced at each other and knew they had no way out of this so they just decided to tell the truth and get it over with.

“I have told you guys time and time again not to play on that lake during the winter,

If you want to go ice skating go to the bigger one. Y/n has been punished enough, and as for you too, just until we get home, me and your father Will real with you. Do you understand?”

“Yes mom,” The boys said together.

“Alright, either the Atwater’s or the Uptons are going to pick you guys up and take you home. I will stay here with your sister, your father should be at home by now”

“But mom-“ Jay said. “No buts, wait here”

***

It had been a couple of weeks since the incident and A lot had happened. 

You were on the News, people came to your school and spoke about Ice safety. Jay and Will were indeed grounded but only for two weeks. The lake was now closed off while they were still doing an investigation. Which you didn’t understand why because it’s not like anything else happened but it was whatever.

“Y/n hurry up you’re going to miss the bus!” Jay shouted from downstairs.

“HOLD ON IM COMING” You grabbed your backpack and ran down the stairs.

After getting all your stuff in your backpack you got all your stuff ready to walk to the bus stop.

“Alright, what’s the rules?” Will questioned you.

“No wandering off to the other lake, don’t take off my jackets unless I really need to and don’t get anything that will drop my body temperature” 

“Good.”

“Do you still have to put my hat and Jacket on for me? I’m 15 years old.”

“Because of recent events and mom being gone and I’m going to leave soon I need to make sure you're ok, plus your body temperature is still not to its normal temp yet so layers it is.” You rolled your eyes at what would be said.

“I will pick you up for your doctor's appointment maybe 30 minutes before school ends, and Jay will drop your lunch off at the front office” Will said as he started walking at the door. 

“Bye will see you later” 

Once Will was gone, you ate the last of your waffles and grabbed your hot chocolate or what Jays calls “Jay's famous Hot chocolate” but it tasted like any other drink.

***

“I miss having you out on the lake by the middle school” Your friend Ellie said.

“Me too, but ever since my mom died Will and Jay have been strict on what I can do since my dad won’t really do much and they're trying to get me to learn stuff before Will leaves for New York and Jay leaves to serve” You shrugged.

“But I did convince Jay to get you some fries and nuggets” You laughed 

“You are literally the best, I really didn’t feel like spending all my money in my account today” Yeah the school food was expensive but it’s because you guys had fast food restaurants in your cafeteria so I guess it made sense.

***

“Hey Nugget” Will greeted you as you got into the car.

“Hi Will, can we please get McDonald’s after my appointment?” 

“Sure, where’s Jay? I told him he could get out of school early since he has a free period this week.”

“He said he wanted to stay at school, so he’s probably just walking around the hallways or doing whatever Jay does” You shrugged.

You thought about it for a while, your life was somewhat falling apart. Will was leaving for New York. Jay was getting deployed so you weren’t gonna see him. And your mom was gone so all you had left was your Dad, and your dad wasn’t the best person now since your dad died.

“Hey Will?”You broke the silence 

“Yeah Nugget?” 

“I’m- I’m gonna miss you when you leave” Here comes the water works.

“Me too Y/n me too”

Life from now on was going to be way different for you , and everyone around you knew that. You were going to get through it and it was going to be Ok. Right?

Well that’s at least what you thought…

[witchygagirlwrites]

Them Losing You

First Christmas

[samantha-chicago]

Tag List

I have created a form for you to add yourself to my tag list.

You can select as many fandoms as you would like or as little.

HERE!

[i-spaced-sorry]

Burzek wedding One Chicago One Shot.

Hi y'all! Today at work it was slow and I saw this headline on my phone.

Obviously my first reaction was "The only logical way this would happen is if something happened to Kevin" I wrote some ideas on what it would look like in that scenario and then since it was slow at work I kept building on those ideas and it turned into a weird 2010 style fanfic. I feel like this might offend some people in this fandom if I didn't say it's suppose to be like a bad fanfic, so there's your warning.

This is my take on why Voight would officiate the wedding:

“Kev, what are you doing right now?” asked Voight when Kevin picked up the phone. 

“Uh, nothing really, just going over my officiate speech for the wedding tomorrow” replied Kev while moving his laptop aside and sliding towards the edge of the couch, ready to jump up the minute his boss told him so. 

“Alright, well, I need you to run to the 31st and pick up a packet that I need from them for our next case.” 

Kevin crinkled his eyebrows in confusion. “Sarge with all due respect, but why am I going and not you? Or better yet why are they not just dropping it off the next day we are at the district. It’s 11pm. And Burgess and Ruze are getting married tomorrow so we all aren’t in the office anyway.”

Kevin could hear his boss sigh and could envision him throwing a hand down his face. 

“I need you to go now, I’m stuck at the district doing last minute paperwork before we all take off tomorrow for as you said the Burgess’ wedding.”

Sighing, Kevin got up and replied, “Okay, I’m going now. But this packet better be worth the trip.”

“Thanks” and before he knew it  his boss was hanging up on him. 

As Kevin approached the 31st, he was reminded of Kim’s recent shift at the district and how there was a drive by. Praying that didn’t happen while he was inside, he got out of his car and walked towards the entrance past the migrants.

“Hi, I’m here to pick up a packet for the Intelligence unit out of the 21st” stated Kevin while walking up to the desk Sergeant. 

Confused, the desk Sergeant looked at Kevin and replied, “I wasn’t made aware of any packet, if you just wait here a minute I’ll go take a look.” 

“Uh yea sure” stated Kevin. 

While he waited he turned around and looked out the window at the migrants. That’s when he noticed something and sure enough heavy fire happened just like with Kim. But this time, all the migrants ran into the building and the doors got locked and barricaded before he could start a chase. Great, he was now stuck inside a different district the night before his friends were supposed to be married. 

“What do you mean he’s not here!” cried Kim into her phone. She was talking to Hailey about how she needed to go over something in her vows with Kevin before the ceremony. It was 9am, a little early for a traditional wedding. But this wasn’t just a traditional wedding, this was a miracle wedding between two people who had tried various times to get married. So to them a morning wedding was perfect. 

“He texted me saying he was stuck at the 31st. They had taken really bad fire late last night and the migrants came into the district and a guy who blended in with the migrants has now taken it upon himself to tie up every officer who was there and has taken over the district. Apparently the 1st shift officers got there around 7 this morning and are right now trying to negotiate with the man.” replied Hailey over the phone. She was on her way to the venue and wished she could drive faster to be there for her friend. 

“Ugh!” replied Kim before hanging up the phone and tossing it to the side and beginning to sob. 

“Darlin? Are you alright?”  called Adam. Kim looked up from her sobbing and turned her head towards the door. 

“No, you can’t come in here! It’s bad luck” sniffled Kim. 

“I know, but I wanted to let you know we will work this out.” soothed Adam from behind the door. 

“How? We only have the venue for 2hrs and Kevin’s not here! Who is going to officiate the wedding?”

Kim sobbed some more but could hear some rustling behind the door and then she heard, “Kim, I can officiate your wedding.”

“Voight, I don’t know, do you even have your license?” asked Kim hesitantly.

“Yes, I have my license. Let’s get the two of you married!”

“Are you okay with that darlin?” asked Adam, checking his soon to be wife was okay with it. 

“Yea, that’s okay.”

Hailey looked at the church room where her friends were about to get married and she smiled. It was an intimate enough space but also had exactly the vibes of her friends. It was perfect. As she walked down the aisle to her seat, she looked up and noticed her boss standing at the front with Adam. She was confused for a second but then realized that since Kevin was held up at the 31st, that he was filling in. ‘Even though my marriage fell apart, I at least knew not to get our boss involved in our wedding or marriage….Well at the beginning, he obviously snuck his way in later.” she thought to herself. 

Soon the wedding began and the bridal shower, which consisted of Adam’s cousin and Kim’s cousin and that was it, came down the aisle. Next was Mack in her flower dress. She threw the petals and smiled extra big at Hailey. And then finally, Kim herself came down the aisle in her beautiful wedding dress and redone makeup. 

On the other side of town, The negotiators were still at work trying to get the man inside to cooperate. “Come on man, just take the plea deal.” begged Kevin while checking his watch again. He was missing his best friends’ wedding for this shit. 

After 10 more minutes of back and forth the man finally agreed to the terms and opened the doors. Kevin ran out, hung onto a responding officer's arms and pleaded his reasoning to get his statement at a later date. The officer was sympathetic to the fellow officer in blue and allowed him to go. Kevin got in his car and sped off for the church. 

Back at the church, Adam had just finished his vows, when the chapel doors slammed open and Jay ran in, “No, I object to the wedding of these two!”

Kim and Adam stood there mouths agape. Hailey looked at her ex and exclaimed, “My guy! My brother from another mister, my ex husband who will forever be my best friend, what in God’s green Earth are you doing?” 

Jay shook his head and stated, “I don’t really, I’ve just always wanted to do that. Carry on.” and with that he walked to sit next to Hailey, who smacked him upside the head rightfully so. 

“Why is Voight officiating and not Kev?” stage whispered Jay to Hailey. 

“He got caught up at a district and is now in a lockdown, I don’t like Voight officiating either”

“He’s bad news.” stage whispered Jay again. 

Looking to her right, like in a sitcom, Hailey deadpanned, “You don’t say”

“Uh, guys?” coughed Adam from his spot at the front. 

Looking up, the two hummed. 

“Can we get back to getting married?”

“Sorry” replied the two while looking at their feet like lost puppies.

Whipping into a parking space, he shut the engine off, opened and slammed the door shut and ran up the church steps. Opening the door, he opened the second set of doors leading to the chapel and he heard the words, 

“....Burgess take Adam Ruzek to be your lawfully wedded husband?”

As he heard his best friend reply yes, he dropped to his knees and screamed “no, I missed my best friends getting married” and sobbed. 

Quickly when the small group turned his way, he got up and made his way into the pew behind Hailey and Jay.

The wedding finished up and the happy couple walked down the aisle. 

Later at the reception, after Kevin apologized to his friends, he walked up to his boss. 

“Sorry about what happened at the district” apologized Voight. 

Looking mad, Kevin stated, “Me too. Especially since after all that, the Desk Sergeant claimed you already picked up the packet early that day. 

Voight stared at his officer before responding, “hmm. I guess I did. Oh well, sorry for the trouble.” Then he shrugged and walked away leaving Kevin pissed.

[jayhalsteadsimp2019]

i have wips and ideas i just have no idea what to write.

would yall rather see halstead sister, upstead daughter au, halstead brother au or will halstead x ruzek sister? like idk

and i have two halstead sisters but they're kinda the same plot just a bit different

also I've started writing in 2nd person more, but the daughter au, the brother au, and one of the hasltead sisters are ocs. the other two are in 2nd person. all of them are basically wips except for the oc halstead sister

so yeah which would yall rather see?

[study-coffee-chicago]

You Got This, Kid (A Halstead Brothers + Halstead Sister Imagine)

A/N: I'm back! Please enjoy this imagine about what I've been going through with grad school applications and everything else these past few months. It's a long one (the longest I've ever written, clocking in at 23.7k words), so grab you might want to grab your snacks now. Finally, thank you for reading, and don't forget to reblog/like and comment!

Enjoy!

Okay, so maybe checking your email when you were out to lunch just trying to have a relaxing afternoon before taking a nap before work was a bad idea.

"Yeah?" Jay asked when he answered his phone.

"I'll know if I got into East Carolina by 6 pm today," you told him. You had been researching and applying to Ph.D. programs in clinical psychology since August and had decided to apply to five in total. It was currently January and you had yet to hear back from a single one. And, East Carolina University was your top choice.

"Oh, wow. Just take a couple deep breaths. I guess today was a bad day to have us get the new appliances put in, huh?"

"Yeah."

For Christmas, Hailey's Christmas present to herself and Jay's Christmas present to her were all new appliances in the apartment. You had no idea how they got around that since they were renting, but you had a suspicion that them both being cops had something to do with it.

"Well, the appliance people just left, so you can come home any time," Jay told you. "Think positive."

You rolled your eyes. "You know you're talking to the world's biggest pessimist, right?"

"It wouldn't kill you to be a bit more positive is all I'm saying."

"It's not like you're a ray of sunshine either, Jay."

"Fair point."

"Well, I've got two pages left of this chapter and then I'm coming home."

"Okay, drive safe," Jay told you and then you hung up the phone.

You knew you needed to get home soon because the more time you had to sleep before work tonight the better. And, you knew it would be hell falling asleep because you'd be counting down the minutes until you knew whether or not you got into ECU.

***

"This is fucking ridiculous," you muttered as you walked out of your room and into the kitchen.

"Language," Jay warned from his place at the kitchen table, case notes spread out in front of him.

"I'm 23, Jay."

"Fair point. What are you doing up anyway?"

"I can't sleep," you whined as you grabbed the kettle from the stove and began filling it with water. "And, why are you working when you're not at work?"

"I can't relax. You know that."

"Apparently I can't either," you muttered.

You felt like you were going to throw up from nerves. What if you didn't get into this Ph.D. program? And, if you didn't get into this one, what if you didn't get into the other four? If you didn't get into a Ph.D. program and a Ph.D. was required for your degree, then what were you going to do with your life?

You dug the fingernail of your pointer finger into your thumb to ground yourself. You knew it wasn't the healthiest coping/grounding mechanism, but hey, it worked.

The kettle was whistling, so you turned off the burner and grabbed a mug and a peppermint tea bag. Maybe the peppermint would help your nervous stomach settle. After all, Will told you peppermint tea was supposed to help with period cramps, so maybe it would help with this, too.

"You want some?" you offered. "I'm making peppermint."

"Sure, why not," Jay agreed.

Once your tea was finished you handed a mug to Jay. "I didn't put any milk or sugar in yours because you're a health nut."

"Now you sound like Hailey," he said and stood up to add a splash of milk to it.

"I'm gonna go read until I can't keep my eyes open," you told him. "The faster I fall asleep, the faster the time will go, so the sooner I'll know if I get in."

"Night, kid," he said.

Then, you made your way to your room and turned on a calming instrumental playlist on Spotify, turned on a lamp so that the lighting was dim, but enough that you could see, and then curled up in your bed with the book you were currently reading and your mug of hot, peppermint tea.

***

As it turns out, sleeping for a long period of time to make time go faster was easier said than done.

You tossed and turned for half an hour until your eyes were finally drooping while you were reading. And then, you woke every hour for the next three hours. The last time you woke up was 5:45 pm.

The email said you'd know your results by 6.

A knot formed in your stomach as you reached for your phone. You opened your flagged emails and located the one which had the link to the application portal. Then, with shaking hands, you clicked on it.

You took a deep breath and logged in.

You felt your heart beating out of your chest as you hit the tab that read application status.

You closed your eyes and took a deep breath and opened them.

Despite the contents of your application, we are a very competitive program...please don't let this deter you from applying to other or future programs...

Tears began to prick your eyes.

"Fuck," you muttered. "No, no, no, no."

You grit your teeth to keep the tears from falling and grabbed your phone and then left your room and walked out to the kitchen, where Jay was cooking dinner.

"Hey," you said quietly.

"Hey, you didn't sleep very long—" But then, Jay saw your face. "Oh no. ECU?"

"Denied," you told him as you continued to hold back tears.

"Hey, there's still what? Four other programs you applied to? And, you just emailed a school in Florida yesterday about how to check your application status, so maybe you got in there. Did they email you back yet?"

You shrugged, Jay was always the rational one though, so you opened your phone and once again navigated to your emails. Sure enough, University of Florida emailed you back with instructions on how to check your application status.

"They emailed me."

Jay nodded, but you didn't see because you were too busy hitting the link the school had sent you and then typing in your username and password.

When it loaded, your heart dropped.

There, in big, red, bold letters after application status, it read Denied.

"No," you choked out as tears began to stream down your face. "No, no, no no! If I didn't get into either of these, how am I gonna get into Wayne State because that's the best neuropsychology school in the country? And then I only have two left and—ugh!"

"C'mere, c'mere," Jay said softly and took a step towards you and wrapped his arms around you.

"I just- I worked so hard on the applications!" you sobbed as your tears began to soak his shirt.

"I know. I know you did, kid. It's their loss. There's a school out there for you."

"But what if there's not!"

"There is." He paused and then his parental/brotherly instincts kicked in. "Now, do you want to stay here and eat or go back to sleep?"

"Go back to sleep," you mumbled.

"Okay. I'll wake you up in two hours so you don't have to set an alarm. Sound good?"

"Okay," you muttered.

When you started to make your way to your way to your room, Jay said after you, "You go this, kid."

***

It had been two days since you learned you had gotten denied admission to East Carolina University and the University of Florida. You had thought about your plan and what you were going to do next. The only options you had come up with were (1) apply to PsyD programs (more clinical, less research, but also less funded) if you could find some with later deadlines that were still accepting, (2) go to school in Europe (but that might pose issues with licensing if you ever wanted to come back to the US and practice), or (3) take yet another gap year.

You had relayed these options to Will, Jay, and Hailey the night before when Will stopped over with some I'm sorry you got rejected from two Ph.D. programs so maybe this will make you feel better coffee from one of your favorite coffee shops before your shift last night.

"Morning," Jay said when you walked upstairs later that night. Despite it being 7 pm, since you worked night shift, this was technically your morning.

"Morning," you said, your voice monotone.

"You feeling okay?" Jay asked as you grabbed the container of cold brew from the fridge and then grabbed a glass.

"Physically, yeah. Emotionally...not so much."

"Good enough to figure out your next steps?"

Luckily, you had finished pouring your cold brew and put the cap back on the container or else you knew you would have spilled it everywhere at that question. "What? I'm trying to figure it out, Jay!"

Jay put his hands out in front of him in a calm-down gesture. "I know. I'm not saying you aren't, but well, I have access to tech at the district that you don't have that might make looking for more schools easier."

"Okay...and?"

Jay muttered something under his breath about having to spell everything out for you all the time...which luckily you didn't hear. "Me, you, and Will are going to the district to do some research on grad schools."

You cocked one eyebrow. "You're trusting Will to use state resources?"

"No. God, no. He's there to research on his own laptop and then read over some of your essays...if we get that far."

You nodded. This was all just so overwhelming that despite how grateful you were for both your brothers' help, that was all you could do.

"Leave in an hour?" Jay asked.

"Yeah, yeah, that's fine. Just, give me time to shower and eat something."

And by something, you meant a piece of fruit and maybe a granola bar. Seeing how riddled with anxiety and frustration and whatever other shitty feelings you had been feeling the past two days since you got denied from the only two schools you had heard from so far, your stomach hadn't been feeling that great and your appetitive was half as much as it was before you got your results...if you had an appetite to begin with. You felt like that last complete meal you had eaten was the night you had gotten those results and Jay had dinner for you. For the past two days, you had mostly eaten what you felt like you could stomach without feeling nauseous, which was mainly smoothies, fruit, protein shakes, and snack foods. You knew your appetite would come back eventually and your nausea would go away eventually, but for now, it was here and you just had to deal with it...much like you had to deal with the fact that you had to do even more work to get into grad school than you had previously thought.

***

"I brought pizza!" Hailey announced when she got upstairs and into the bullpen. You, Will, and Jay had been researching grad schools for three hours. Jay had found two that still had deadlines open and didn't require the GRE, so you were working on writing essays to get into those.

After you finished the first one, you emailed the essay to Will and he edited it. You figured he'd be the best one to edit these essays because he'd had to write them to get into med school.

While Will was editing and making notes in the margins of your essay on google docs, you opened the links to the other schools that Jay had sent you. And, you had added two more to your list (making the total you would currently apply to four at the moment) when Hailey walked in with the pizza.

"Thank God," Will said and quickly closed his laptop. (You thanked God that you were working in google docs and that everything automatically saved so that his edits wouldn't be lost.)

"You're literally just editing," you said and rolled your eyes at how overdramatic your oldest brother was being. "I'm the one who has to look over the programs, make sure they're a good fit for me, and actually write them, and then I have to email--" you cut yourself off as your eyes widened in realization. "Oh, God."

"What? What's wrong?" Jay asked as he entered the break room with Hailey since he had been out in the bullpen because he was using one of Intelligence's desktops.

"I have to email my profs and ask them if they'll write me more letters of recommendation."

You hated doing this part because it meant that the application process wasn't entirely in your control. One of the letters of rec might not be emailed to the right email address or the application system wouldn't let you put in a certain recommender and then you'd have to contact the school and--

"Y/N." You hadn't even realized Hailey had crouched down in front of you. "You need a break."

"But I can't! I--"

"Y/N, some of those schools don't have deadlines until March or April. You can take half an hour to eat," Jay told you.

But you couldn't; your stomach was in knots just thinking about all the work you had to do.

"I'm not hungry."

Will looked you up and down. Of course, your physical appearance hadn't changed in two days obviously, but he knew how stress held itself in the body, in a person's posture; in their facial expressions. But most of all, he knew how much stress he had gone through during his med school application process and how some of his classmates could barely eat without throwing up because they had been so stressed out.

"Y/N, we know you're stressed out. But, you have to eat something. You can't write great statements of purpose that are gonna get you into a program without food in you, kiddo."

You sighed. "But I feel like I'm gonna throw up."

"It's just nerves," Will reassured. "We just want you to eat something."

You looked at Jay, hoping for once he'd side with you and not Will. "One piece of pizza," Jay said. "And then, if you still don't want to eat, you don't have to. I'll even go get you a Sprite from the vending machine downstairs to help settle your stomach."

"And, we can talk about Outer Banks," Hailey bargained. "Me and Jay just finished the new season."

"I thought you guys had four more episodes to watch!"

"Just finished it yesterday," Jay said.

"We spent half of our RDO watching that," Hailey said.

Will just looked between the three of you. "I'll go get her the pop because I have no idea what you guys are talking about."

"It's a show on Netflix! It's really good! These kids are treasure hunting and--"

"Eat your pizza, Y/N, and then maybe you can convince me to watch it," Will told you.

You took a bite of your pizza while maintaining eye contact with Will, which made Jay burst out laughing and then Will stood up to go get your pop while muttering something about you being a creeper under his breath.

"I need a John B," you said after your second bite of pepperoni pizza. "The way he held Sarah's hand all the way up the mountain, just—ugh! I love it. At first, I thought I needed a JJ because of how he broke into Kitty Hawk for Kiara, but he's a little too crazy for me."

"Uh-huh, sure, that's why you chose John B," Jay said while rolling his eyes.

"What's that supposed the mean?"

Jay grabbed a piece of pizza and took a bite without even bothering to grab a plate. This caused Hailey to gently smack him on the arm and push a paper plate into his empty hand. He took another bite and then set the pizza on the plate. "I'm just saying, don't you like brown-haired guys more?"

"They're called brunettes, Jay. And, yes. But, how the hell did you even notice that?"

"Think of all the celebrity crushes you've had over the years, Y/N."

Of course, Will had chosen that exact moment to walk back into the break room with your pop. "Oooh, we're telling Hailey all about Y/N being a crazy teenager. I love this game."

"Like you didn't have a stash of PlayBoy magazines under your bed, Will!" you shot back.

"Did you..." Will trailed off as he looked at Jay.

You burst out laughing. "He never told me anything. But you just confirmed it! Ha!"

"Y/N's first celebrity crush was Zac Efron!" Will shouted.

"Technically, it was Troy Bolton," you corrected.

Hailey just shook her head and laughed at your banter.

"And then there was Bieber—"

"No, she liked Nick Jonas before him, remember?" Jay corrected.

"Oh, yeah," Will said. "There was Nick Jonas, then Bieber, then a couple hockey players, then 5 Seconds of Summer—"

"Specifically Luke Hemings," you butted in.

Jay laughed. "You really have no shame in this do you?"

"None at all. Continue, Will."

"And...I think that's it."

"And John B, from Outer Banks," Jay said. "That's her current one."

"Is he even a real person?" Will asked.

"Nope. Now, Hailey, if you were in Outer Banks, what character would you be?" you asked and then opened your Sprite and took another bite of pizza.

She thought for a moment. "Probably Sarah. Our dads are both pretty messed up."

She said it jokingly but also matter-of-fact. Despite this, Jay still gave her a sad look but quickly recovered to his neutral facial expression. (He knew how much Hailey hated people pitying her due to her past.)

"What about you?" you asked Jay. "Wait! You have to be John B because you have to marry Sarah and you and Hailey are married."

Jay let out a chuckle. "I mean, I guess, I was gonna pick him anyway."

"Why?" you asked.

He shrugged. "He's the leader of the group. He thinks things through more than JJ. And, I'm not as smart as Pope. Will would be Pope."

"Is that a good thing?" Will chimed in.

"Yeah," you told him. "Watch the show and you'll find out."

Will just rolled his eyes.

"Who would you be, Y/N?" Hailey asked.

"Me? Oh, I'd die in the first season. I'm not the kind of person to do crazy illegal shit."

"Oh, c'mon!" Jay groaned. "You gotta pick someone!"

"Fine. I'd be Wheezy. I'd still be helping, but not in like an illegal way."

"Fair enough."

The three of you continued talking about Outer Banks as you finished another piece of pizza and a breadstick, making the total you'd eaten while you were talking two pieces of pizza and one breadstick and, seeing as you hadn't technically had a meal since you learned about your first rejection, only snacks, you considered this a win.

You pulled your laptop back out and groaned. You didn't want to keep having to write essay after essay, but you knew you needed to because that was the only going to get into a school. Despite this, you still had that nagging thought in the back of your head that all of this was for naught and you were just going to continue to get rejection emails from all the schools you worked so hard to apply to.

You rummaged through your backpack, pretending to look for your chapstick, which you knew was there. Then, you groaned and stood up and walked to where Jay was once again seated at his desk in the bullpen.

"Jay, can I have your keys? I think I left my chapstick in your truck," you lied.

Jay fished them out of his pocket. "Here, but be quick. It's dark out."

You rolled your eyes. "You know if all of this works out, I'll be in a different state in less than eight months, right?"

"Don't remind me."

You just rolled your eyes again and made your way downstairs and out the back way to Jay's truck.

You quickly unlocked it and jumped in the backseat. You just sat there as your head spun with worry, each worry connecting to another like a spider connecting pieces of a web in your mind.

Will I have to stay at my job another year or God forbid forever because there's not much I can do with a BA in psychology?

If I don't get into a program this year, will I apply next year? And, will my profs even write me letters of recommendation next year because they won't have had me in class for two years at that point?

If I have to do this for another year, should I take a couple of classes next year so that I have other professors to write me letters of recommendation and so that I can show the schools I'm applying to that I'm still learning about the field I'm going into?

When should I start looking into schools and the process of going to school in Europe if I don't hear back from all the programs I'm working on applying to soon?

What am I going to do with my life if I can't get into a program?

You jumped when someone gently tapped on the window. Then, you scooched over so that they could open the door and come inside the truck.

"Jesus, Will!" you exclaimed when he was inside and had shut the door. "Don't do that!"

"Sorry, I would've texted you, but you left your phone inside. You find your chapstick?"

"Um...about that..." you trailed off and looked away. You knew that if you started telling him your worries, you'd break down and you really didn't have time for that as you just needed a few minutes alone and then you needed to get back inside to work on the stupid essays for these stupid applications because these other stupid schools didn't want you because you needed a stupid doctorate degree for you stupid career to make stupid money and have a stupid life.

Will nodded, quickly understanding that there hadn't been a lost tube of chapstick to begin with. "You know, I didn't match for a residency at first," he told you.

You turned to face him, even though you could barely see him because it was the middle of the night. "Really?"

"Yeah, and it was terrifying."

"But you're a doctor. You have to do a residency to be a doctor."

"Mhm," Will confirmed. "I had to do the SOAP process."

"What's that?"

"It's where all the kids who finished med school who didn't match to a residency try and apply for the ones that people didn't want or are left over."

"So, you got everyone's shitty leftovers?"

Will smiled and shook his head. "Basically. I never wanted to go into plastic surgery. It seemed so..." he trailed off while he searched for a good word to describe it. "Vain," he finally said. "Don't get me wrong, there are some people who need it because of accidents and things like that, but giving rich men's wives nose jobs, that's not what I wanted."

"So, what you're telling me is to go into another specialty if it's open? Even if I don't like it," you asked. If this is what he was getting at, his pep talk wasn't a very good one."

"Sort of," Will answered. "But, there's a bit more to the story. I always wanted to go into emergency medicine, so when a job opened up at Med, I jumped at it. So, even if there's roadblocks, you'll get the career you want; you just have to be patient. You need to be a doctor in clinical psychology for your specialty, right?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, and there's a lot of things you can do with a doctorate in clinical psych, right? You don't have to go specifically into neuropsych?"

"Yeah, I'll be a clinical psychologist with the doctorate so there's other stuff I can do," you confirmed.

"Okay. Then you get into a clinical psych program and you go from there. And, if you can't do your fellowship or whatever it's called--"

"Post-doc," you told him.

"Right. If you can't do your post-doc in neuropsych, then you can do it in another specialty. Once you make some money, you can always go back and do another post-doc, this time in neuropsych, okay? This whole process doesn't have to be linear to work out. And, honestly, the application part and getting in is harder than the degree itself."

"Really?"

"Really. Now, Hailey put on a pot of coffee when I came out here, so c'mon. Let's go drink some more coffee and look at more grad schools. Jay found some options in Arizona because we know you want to go where it's warm."

"Perfect." Will opened the door to get out and you scooted over to get out of Jay's truck next. "And, Will?" He turned back to look at you. "Thank you."

He smiled and gave your shoulder a squeeze. "Anytime, kiddo."

***

"You have actual food tonight, right?" Jay asked two days later, Sunday night, when you grabbed your lunch box from the fridge to go to work. "Not just snacks?"

You rolled your eyes. "Yes, Jay." Ever since your brother noticed you weren't eating full meals, he'd been on your ass about it. But, yesterday you ate like a normal person and so far today you have, too. "Shouldn't you be finishing the game and going to bed?"

"It's at intermission. It's—"

"Don't tell me! I'll watch it at work."

"Pretty sure those sites you use to watch it are illegal, but whatever."

"Shouldn't you know for sure if they're illegal or not?"

"Well, you're not on the dark web and you're not selling anything and you're not the one uploading the games, so I'm pretty sure I can't arrest you."

"Well, that's a good thing because if I get arrested, then I can't get into grad school...not that I'm sure I'll get in now, though."

"Hey, we found what? Six programs for you to apply to? You'll get into one. But, you better get going before you're late."

"Says the man who rushes to work every morning."

"Really, it's Hailey who holds me up in the morning."

"No, it's not!" Hailey yelled from the living room. "He's the one who hogs the shower!"

"Gotta go!" you said quickly and grabbed your keys from the hook by the door before you got in the middle of their arguing.

***

About half an hour into your shift, you got a phone call asking you to come over to another building to talk to a coworker.

"I have to go talk to Tia," you told your two other coworkers.

"Tia? What does she want?" your coworker, and also one of the veteran staff at your work, Tamara, asked.

"No idea. I haven't been over to that building since the beginning of last week, so if I did something wrong, I forgot about it."

"Okay, well, see you later."

"See you," you said.

Then, you slipped on your coat and buzzed yourself out of the current building, and made the quick and chilly walk to the other building.

"Hey, where's Tia?" you asked when you walked in and saw another one of your coworkers.

"Oh, hey, Y/N," she greeted. "She's in the office."

"Okay, thanks."

You made your way into the office where Tia was sitting at the computer.

"Hey, Tia. You wanted to talk to me?"

"Yeah. What's your problem with my schedule?" she asked you rudely.

You didn't have a problem with her schedule per se, you just had a problem with there not being enough coverage with her schedule. And, since you worked at every building, you'd have nights when you worked here alone—which you shouldn't be doing, but management didn't care—because she worked long shifts for eight days straight, and then the other six, it would usually just be you or someone else working here alone and you had brought this up to your supervisor when he asked if you'd come across anything you wanted to fix.

"I- I don't have a problem with your schedule. It's just that sometimes there's only one person here and it gets hard in the mornings." Since you worked with kids, sometimes when you were by yourself, you'd have to get them out to the bus stop and that made it hard to do because you couldn't leave all the other kids in the building alone while you went to do that, so you'd have to call other buildings to see if they had a staff available to come help you. Contrary to popular belief, you couldn't be in two places at once.

"Yeah. And that happens to me sometimes, too. But we do it. And now because of what you said, my schedule might get changed—"

"That wasn't my intention, it was just—"

"Can I finish?" You nodded. "And now my schedule might get changed and this is the schedule that works for me. You only pick up here, so if you don't like it, don't pick up shifts here."

Tears began to prick your eyes. "I get scheduled here. I don't pick up." You took a deep breath. "My intention was just to figure out a way to get coverage, not to have your schedule get changed."

"Well, maybe you need to tell your supervisor that you don't want to be scheduled here anymore if you don't like the way we do things over here."

At this, the dam broke. You frantically wiped at your eyes. "I'm sorry. It's- It's not this. I just got rejected from grad school and it's just everything. Sorry."

At this, she softened. "I'm sorry, sweetheart. Don't let anyone here make you cry, not even me. It's not worth it."

You nodded. "Yeah. Can I- can I go now?" You asked while trying to stop the tears from falling. You didn't feel like walking out of the office and having yet another one of your coworkers see you cry.

She nodded and you quickly wiped your eyes once more and walked out of the office, just willing your eyes to stay dry until you got outside.

You sniffled all the way until you got to one of the buildings the kids used for gym class during the day that you knew would be empty because they were all sleeping. You buzzed yourself in and then quickly made your way to the bathroom and locked yourself in a stall.

You leaned your head against the door. "Fuck," you muttered.

Everything about the past few days came flooding through you and you began to cry so hard that you could barely catch your breath. And, you weren't even an hour into your shift.

Your breath was coming out in short bursts as you pulled out your phone to text Tamara and tell her that you were in the gym bathrooms because you needed a minute and that you'd be back soon. Then, not caring that this was a bathroom, you slid down and leaned against the wall and pulled out a breathing app on your phone that you had for times like this. You hadn't had an anxiety attack or whatever the fuck this was that was prompting your frantic breathing in a year and a half, but you had kept the app because you knew you might need it one day. Today—well tonight—seemed to be that day.

You were focused on your breathing—breathe in through your nose, hold, breathe out through your mouth—for three minutes before your breathing returned to a semi-normal rate. Then, you continued the breathing exercise for two more minutes just to be safe.

When you closed the app, you saw that Tamara had texted you and asked if you were okay and if she needed to come over there. You told her you were on your way back to your building now.

Then, you pocketed your phone and splashed some water on your face, and dabbed it dry with some paper towel. Your eyes were still red, but at least you didn't have tear stains on your face. After taking one last deep breath, you left the bathroom and then the building and began your quick and cold walk back to the other building and the coworkers you actually enjoyed working with.

When you got back inside, you told your coworkers what had happened and then Tamara asked if you wanted a hug, which you gratefully accepted.

You knew a bigger breakdown over grad school rejection was going to happen eventually, you just didn't think it was going to happen at work.

And, if the first half of January was anything to go by, you were in for one hell of a month.

***

"Well, look who's finally awake," Will chirped when you walked into the kitchen after waking up for your day...which was everyone else's night.

"I went to bed at 10 am," you shot back. "And I don't like to talk to people when I first wake up, remember?"

"Oh, yeah, that's right. The one time of day when you're actually quiet."

You went to flip Will off when Jay quickly butted in. "Y/N, there's leftover pasta in the fridge for you to take to work."

"And there's loukoumades for you, too," Hailey added.

"Hailey's my favorite sibling!" you exclaimed and then began to make your coffee as you drowned out the noise of Will and Jay trying to argue about why they should be your favorite sibling...well, mostly Will because Jay knew Hailey was his better half by a long shot.

Once you made your coffee and a bowl of yogurt and fruit for breakfast, you made your way back upstairs to your room to read for a while before you started getting ready for work.

***

When you took a sip of your coffee, your lips puckered in disgust. It was way too bitter and...you had forgetter creamer.

"Ugh," you groaned and then stood up from your chair. You were so cozy with your robe and slippers on and a blanket covering your lap that you almost decided to forgo your coffee, but who were you kidding, you needed that caffeine.

You grabbed your mug of now lukewarm coffee and made your way out of your room. You started down the stairs as normal until your slipper caught the edge of one of the stairs.

***

Jay, Hailey, and Will were all still sitting at the table, each enjoying a cold beer when they heard a thump, thump, thump on the stairs above them.

Jay and Hailey's reflexes kicked in just a hair faster than Will's and they sprinted over to the steps to see you laying on the landing of the stairs with coffee spilled all over you and your head against the wall.

You swear you had never seen Jay run as fast as he did then. He cursed to himself as he bounded up the stairs two at a time and quickly crouched in front of you.

"Can you move your arm?" he asked. You hadn't noticed that your arm was placed between you and the wall. You lifted up your arm and nodded.

"My coffee," you cried.

"You can make more coffee, Y/N. Did you hit your head?"

You nodded tearfully and Jay looked back at Will. Your two brothers traded places and Jay picked up your empty coffee mug—thank God it hadn't broken—and then made his way downstairs to grab the first aid kit and some towels. Hailey followed him to give Will room to work if needed and made her way to the freezer to grab an ice pack.

"Where'd you hit it?" Will asked you and you leaned forward and put your fingers on the back of your head. Will nodded and you put your hand down and he felt around the area and looked for blood. "No blood, so that's good. There is a little bump, though. Any dizziness? Nausea?" You shook your head. "Okay, good. But, I'm still gonna have you stay home from work tonight because those symptoms can have a delayed onset, so I don't want to miss something and then have you have to be rushed to the hospital while at work. I'll write you a doctor's note if I have to."

You were about to protest because if you called out now since it was only three hours until your shift, you could get written up. But, you'd only used a single one of your sick days out of the five you had and they reset in April, so you figured you'd be fine if you explained the situation. "Fine," you agreed. "Can I go back to bed then?"

"Nope. I want you to stay up for a couple of hours. It's not good for you to go to sleep right after hitting your head even if you do feel fine. After that, you can sleep all you want. I just need to see if you puke or not."

"She good? No hospital?" Jay asked since he and Hailey had been waiting at the foot of the stairs with supplies.

"No hospital. Just stay home from work and ice her head. Doesn't look like the coffee was hot enough to burn her based on her skin and her not telling me, but if she says anything, give me a call."

"I'm right here you know!"

"Oh, we know," Will said. "But, you're still under Jay's health insurance."

You rolled your eyes and then held out a hand for Will to help you up. He did and you made your way back upstairs and to your room to quickly grab a different pair of pajamas and then head to the bathroom to take a shower to get all the coffee off of yourself.

Then, you made your way back downstairs—carefully this time—and saw that Hailey had made you a new cup of coffee and had a small plate of loukoumades sitting next to it.

"After you eat those, you need to ice your head," Hailey told you.

"Uh-huh."

"C'mon, the boys are getting the tv set up for us."

"What are we watching?"

"I may or may not have convinced them to put on Outer Banks since Will still hasn't started it."

You smiled. "Yay!"

Then, you picked up your coffee and plate of Greek donuts and made your way to the couch where Jay tried to steal one of your loukoumades, but Hailey quickly swatted his hand away.

"You already had yours. Now press play, Halstead."

***

"Y/N, hey, wake up," you heard as you felt someone shaking your shoulder. In your sleep-addled brain, it took you a moment to process that it was Jay waking you up. "Y/N, can you hear me?"

"Mhm," you answered. "Wanna sleep."

"You've slept for at least twelve hours."

This got you to roll over and check the time on your phone. 5:37 pm. You had slept for over twelve hours; Jay was right.

"What time did you go to bed?" You went to answer, but then Jay stopped you. "Wait, any dizziness? Nausea? Blurry vision? You feel like your head is going to explode?"

"I feel fine."

"Okay. So, what time did you end up going to bed?"

"I fell asleep on the couch until three, and then I woke up and went on Tik Tok until five and then I went back to sleep." You yawned. "I shouldn't be tired! What the hell?"

"Just, get up and get moving around and then you'll probably wake up more."

Then, Jay left your room, but not without turning your light on which then forced you to either get up or get up out of bed and turn off the light and go back to bed. You were already up anyway, so you figured you might as well have a slow morning before going into your shift, so you decided to just get up and go downstairs to get some food and coffee.

After making yourself breakfast and a cup of coffee, you went to the bathroom before heading back to your room and saw that you had gotten a surprise.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me," you mumbled and then grabbed a tampon from the cabinet under the sink. You had just gotten your period two weeks ago, you weren't supposed to get it again! But, at least the panic attack made sense now.

You left the bathroom to once again be met with Jay.

"You didn't puke in there, did you?" he asked. "You were in there for a while."

"Jesus Christ, let me guess? Will put you up to this?"

"Yup. He told me to monitor you closely since you slept so long."

"But you still went to work today and left me by myself," you said. "And for your information, I got my period. So now I have a reason why I had a panic attack at work the other night and I'm not just crazy."

You went to grab your food from the counter but were stopped from going up to your room by your brother.

"Whoa, you had a panic attack at work? Why didn't you tell me? Or Hailey? Or Will?"

Shit. You had forgotten that you just went straight to bed after that shift and didn't tell anyone.

You sighed and sat down at the table with your food and coffee instead of going upstairs. "Because I was tired after work and I went right to bed and then I just forgot to tell you. I journaled about it though."

"That's good. Do you still want to talk about it?" he asked.

So, you launched into the story of your night of being chewed out by Tia and then having a panic attack in the bathroom.

"She had no right to talk to you like that, you know," Jay said once you were finally finished.

"I know. And she's on my shit list for it." You would've said she's on my fucking shit list for it, but you knew Jay hated when you dropped the f-bomb. A year ago, he would've hated you swearing in any capacity, but now you thought that he was finally coming to terms with the fact that you were a grown woman and would swear whether he liked it or not and whether he heard you or not.

"I knew the mental breakdown from all this school stuff was gonna come sooner or later, but I didn't think it was gonna happen at work."

Jay nodded; he honestly had no idea what to say at this moment. Did he agree? Comfort you? Finally, he settled on a mixture between comfort and encouragement while you focused on blowing on your coffee to make sure that it wasn't too hot.

"Hey, you'll get through this, alright? Just keep applying. You didn't work your ass off in school for nothing. And, it's their loss if they don't want you."

You smiled. Jay was oblivious to some things, but he always knew just what to say when you needed a pick me up.

"Thanks, Jay."

"Anytime, kid."

***

You were going to lose your damn mind. You had all this stuff to do and submit and one of the people who said that they'd write you letters of recommendation for your PhD programs said that they're really busy and they might not be able to get to the ones for the PsyD programs you were applying to. And Jay and Will heard all your bitching about this. How fucking hard was it for her to change the date and the name of the school on the letter and send it in? Unbelievable.

You couldn't think of anyone and you were running out of time to get these in.

"Fuck," you muttered.

You heard a knock on your door. "Y/N? You still up in there?"

Shit. You forgot it was Jay and Hailey's RDO today.

"Yeah, why?"

It was only half an hour past the normal time you'd be sleeping anyway.

"Me and Hailey are going out for breakfast. You wanna come? Or we can bring something back for you."

"Bring something back," you said quickly. You were not in a state to be out right now because you knew the minute that you saw lots of people, you were going to have a full-fledged breakdown.

"Okay, I'll send the menu so you can tell me what you want. Goodnight."

"Night," you answered.

***

"I'm just gonna go check on her," Jay said when Hailey asked him why he was walking towards your room instead of their room once they'd gotten home from going out for breakfast. The two had planned on having a lazy day of watching tv on the couch along with a few beers. And, instead of going to change into comfy clothes right away, Jay decided to take a peek into your room.

The sight he saw when he cracked open your door broke his heart.

You were pacing your room and pulling at the roots of your hair while your breathing came out in short bursts.

"Hey, hey," Jay said quickly as he opened the door wider and made his way into your room.

You turned around at the sound of his voice. "I- I—"

"Don't try and talk. Let's just sit down, okay?"

You nodded and he gently placed his hand on your shoulder and helped lead to your bed.

You both sat down and Jay offered you his hand for you to squeeze. You took it.

"Breathing app," you told him through your rapid breathing. "On—" Breath. "—Phone." Breath.

"Say cheese," Jay said as he put the phone in front of you, screen-facing, so that he could open it. "What's it called?"

"Ti-ide," you said and grabbed his arm.

"Tide?" You nodded. "I gotcha, I gotcha," he said and then sat down next to you and held the phone between the two of you. "In," he narrated as you watched the circle on the app expand. "Hold..." Pause. "Exhale." The circle deflated.

"It's not--"

"Just keep breathing," Jay encouraged. "Think of a bubble, just like on the app."

You continued to hold on to his arm and continued to follow the breathing on the app for six more minutes.

Jay handed your phone back to you after he saw your breathing had evened out and you confirmed you were okay.

"Is this what happened at work the other night?" he asked gently.

You nodded. "I think I need to go to the doctor. I can't keep living like this, Jay!"

"I know you can't. And I'll do everything in my power to help you. But, don't you mean therapy?"

"No, a doctor. My period's being all weird and my anxiety's bad and maybe I need to be on Xanax or something. I can't keep doing this!"

"I know. Do you know why this happened? For my PTSD, there's always a trigger, was there one for you?"

"Just all this grad school stuff."

"Still can't think of anyone else to write you a letter?" You shook your head. "Could you use your supervisor at work?"

"Probably," you answered. "Maybe I'll use my old one from when I was on dayshift though because I like her better."

"Okay, send her an email. The worst she can say is no."

"And then I'll have to think of another person--"

"We'll cross that bridge when we get there. For now, just email her and then schedule a doctor's appointment. You should be able to do it online. And, me and Hailey got you some food so come out and grab it whenever you're ready. I'll put it in the fridge for you."

"Thanks, Jay."

He didn't know if you meant the help with the panic attack or the help with grad school or getting you food, but no matter which one you were thanking him for, the answer was still the same: "Anytime, kid."

***

"Okay, Y/N," Hannah said when you came to see her in the ED one day. (This was a planned appointment, but you knew she could possibly have to run out of the appointment if she is needed in the ED.) "So it says here in your online chart that you wanted to come in because of irregular periods and anxiety?"

"Yeah," you answered.

"And how long have your periods been irregular?"

"A month and a half, two months," you answered. "Around the time I started getting rejection letters for grad school."

"Yeah, Will's told me you've been applying. I bet that's really stressful."

"Yeah, it is. And now I have to apply to different degree programs because I didn't get into Ph.D. programs, so it's been a lot."

"Well, stress can play a big role in our cycle. So, what I'm gonna do is ask you some questions and then do the physical exam, see if there's anything I can find that could be causing this. I also want to run some labs just to check your blood work."

"Okay, but does it have to be fasted?" you asked. "Because I just came from work, so there's food in my system."

"I'd be concerned if there wasn't food in your system after working all night," Hannah joked. "But no, it doesn't have to be fasted. I mainly want to get your thyroid levels checked.

"Now, the anxiety, tell me about that. Is it more general? Is it panic attacks? When does the anxiety start? That kind of thing."

"Um, it's more general, I guess. I've only had two panic attacks, but I get like anxiety attacks when I see that there's gonna be a lot of people."

"A lot of people like what? Can you give me an example?"

"Like if I'm at the gym and there's a lot of people there, then I want to leave because I'm getting anxious."

"Okay, so in looking at your chart, I saw that you're on an antidepressant. So, based on what you just told me, there are two options. The first is that I can put you on hydroxyzine, which is an anti-anxiety medication that you can just take as needed. Or, I can increase your dosage of antidepressants and get you set up with one of our social workers here at the hospital who can teach you some coping skills or refer you to a therapist," Dr. Asher told you.

"Is there any way my body could constantly be PMS-ing? Because I used to get anxious around my period and now I'm having my period a lot more, so could that be it?" you asked.

"It definitely could be, which is why I want to have you get your labs done so we check your thyroid levels. But, if you don't want to do anything with your meds, we can always just have you meet with the social worker and see how that goes."

"What would you recommend? In terms of the hydroxyzine?" you asked.

"You've told me you've only had two panic attacks so far, so based on that, I think you could do either way with the medication. We could always increase your antidepressants and then when I follow up with you in a month, if nothing's changed, we can get you some hydroxyzine. It's completely up to you."

"Okay, let's just up my meds for now and if I need to go on the hydroxyzine later, I can."

"Okay, perfect, let me go get someone to get those labs done and then you're free to go."

"Thanks, Hannah."

***

3 days later

When you woke up, you saw that you had a voicemail and that it was from Hannah. You assumed it was regarding your labs.

"Hi, Y/N, it's Doctor Asher. I have some information I'd like to share with you concerning your test results from the blood panel that was done. These charts are also available in your online chart if you would like to see them. Please call me back when you get the chance. And if I don't answer your call, please leave a message with the best time that you can be reached. Have a good day."

You quickly logged into your chart to see the results yourself since you knew that your results would be there.

What you saw was something that you assumed might be the problem based on the research you had done on your own since you went to see Hannah a few days ago. (There was no way in hell you were talking to Will about this, and you had to beg and plead with Jay to convince him not to talk to Will about it. But, in the end, he agreed because you cited that he wouldn't be able to give you the check-up in the ED anyway since he was family, and by law, he couldn't do that. And, you also promised that if it was anything serious or if there was anything wrong at all, you would loop Will in yourself or that you would give Jay permission to loop him in.)

Your thyroid levels were slightly elevated, and in the notes, it said that during the physical exam, your thyroid did feel a bit enlarged. Because of this, Dr. Asher would recommend having an ultrasound of the thyroid...At least, that's what you gathered from all the medical jargon you read. And, because of said jargon, you assumed that this is why Hannah wanted you to call her back so that she could explain it to you.

You called her back.

"Hello, this is Dr. Asher," she greeted when she picked up.

"Hey, Hannah, it's Y/N Halstead. I'm calling because you told me you had my test results back."

"Yes, I do. Just give me one second to get it pulled up here..." There was a pause on the line and you could hear her typing away on the computer. "Here it is. Did you get a chance to look at your results from your online chart yet? If not, I can read the results to you over the phone."

"I looked at them," you told her.

"Okay, so what I'm going to do is just break down the results for you and then tell you the next step. Feel free to stop me at any time with any questions, okay, Y/N?"

"Okay, yeah."

She broke down the results for you and they were exactly what you had assumed from your online chart...and what was actually written in your online chart. But, you assumed that it was just standard protocol for her to have to break down the results to you over the phone or in person.

"So we just want to get an ultrasound of your thyroid to see if the thyroid is actually enlarged since your thyroid hormone levels were slightly elevated and your thyroid gland was slightly enlarged from what I gathered from the physical exam," Hannah finished.

"So, what happens now? Like, after the ultrasound?" you asked.

"If the thyroid isn't enlarged, then we just continue what we talked about, taking the increased dose of Zoloft and then meeting with the social worker and following up with me in a month about the anxiety and the irregular periods," she told you. "But, if the thyroid is enlarged, we'd put you on medication for that so that your levels can stabilize."

"Okay."

"Any more questions?"

"Nope," you answered.

"Alright, well, I'm gonna give you the number for scheduling so that we can get you scheduled for that ultrasound of the thyroid. But, feel free to call me or send me a message on your online chart if you have any other questions or concerns, okay?"

"Okay, thanks, Hannah."

"No problem, Y/N."

She gave you the number and told you to have a good day and then you said the same to her and ended the call.

You grabbed your book and started to walk upstairs to tell Jay when you thought of something: he might not even realize that you could get an ultrasound for other things besides being pregnant. Your other brother knew this, but you weren't sure if this one did.

These next few minutes were going to be really interesting.

***

At least, you thought it was going to be the next few minutes. Turns out, you had a few hours to talk to Jay because all he told you was a raid went sideways. Granted, it was mid-week, and for some reason, crime was slow during on Monday and Tuesday and ramped up a bit on Jay and Hailey's RDO, which was Wednesday, and they'd usually come back on Thursday to a full-fledged case. It was almost like criminals hated Mondays as much as the rest of the world did.

So, to calm your nerves about grad school and everything else that was a fucking mess in your life, you decided to make yourself—and Jay and Hailey—pasta salad with chicken for dinner.

You turned on one of the tv shows you had to catch up on and then started boiling the water for the pasta and took the veggies out of the fridge along with a cutting board from the cabinet and a knife from the knife block to start chopping up the veggies.

***

An hour later, you had let the chicken nuggets and the pasta cool in the fridge for half an hour and had just finished cutting up the chicken nuggets and were about to mix everything together when the door opened.

"Hey, I made pasta salad for dinner—" You turned. "Will? What are you doing here? I thought you were Jay or Hailey."

"Jay told me you had a doctor's appointment a couple days ago and I figured I'd come over and check you out, see what's the matter, and then start the Hawks game with you guys."

"And Jay knows you're coming over? Did he tell you to come over? Or just tell you I had a doctor's appointment?" you asked, stopping your stirring of the pasta salad so that you could give him your full attention...and to make sure you were making eye contact to try and figure out if he was lying to you or not.

"He just told me you had a doctor's appointment the other day and that he's worried about you. I told him I'd come and check you out, but that's all he told me." Will's phone buzzed. "Speak of the devil. It's Jay. Said he and Hailey are picking up Gino's on the way home." He glanced at the bowl in front of you. "But, it looks like you already made something, so..."

"I'll just save it for lunch for the next couple of days; I'm not passing up Gino's pizza." Will tapped his phone screen a few times. "What did you just tell him?" you asked and took the spoon from the pasta salad that you had begun to stir once again and pointed it at him.

"Just gave him a thumbs up. Now, tell me what's going on, and finish making your food so I can give you a check-up."

"Don't really wanna tell you," you mumbled.

"Hey, whatever it is, I promise you I've seen worse. Nothing will phase me. Unless you're pregnant. Then there might be some issues, more with Jay than with me, but still."

"It's the exact opposite of being pregnant."

"So, you're not pregnant?"

"No, I'm not pregnant, Will! Jesus."

"That's the same thing that Mary thought when she was pregnant with Jesus."

"Will!"

"Fine, fine. I won't push you. But, I can promise you that whatever it is, I've seen worse. Plus, If you don't tell me, I'll just convince Jay to tell me."

You sighed. Jay still didn't know that you needed an ultrasound for your thyroid, so maybe telling Will first would help so that Jay doesn't pop off on you when he hears the word ultrasound and his brain automatically goes to pregnancy.

"Just, let me stir this and cover it and put it in the fridge first."

Will nodded and sat down and you finished stirring the pesto into the pasta salad and then covered it with Saran Wrap and placed it on a shelf in the fridge.

Then, you sat down in your usual spot at the table.

"I've been getting my period a lot," you told him.

Will nodded, his eyebrows furrowing as you knew his brain was running through all the possible medical problems that have period issues as one of their symptoms. "How much is a lot? Like, constantly? And when did it start?"

So you went into the whole spiel you had already told Hannah, including the increased anxiety and what you and Hannah had decided to do about it.

"Does Jay know about this?" Will asked after you were finished.

"He knows about everything except the ultrasound. I just got those results a few hours ago."

"Do you have them on your online chart?" Will asked and you nodded. "Mind if I take a look?"

"Knock yourself out," you told him and then opened your phone and navigated to your test results on your online chart and then passed him your phone.

You sat in silence for a minute while Will looked over the results.

"So, you need an ultrasound of your thyroid?" he asked, even though he already knew that it was recommended from what he read on your chart, he didn't know if you had agreed to it.

"Yeah. I was gonna ask you to come with me though after I told Jay and Hailey tonight because I've never had an ultrasound done before," you said.

"Of course, I'll come. Just tell me the date and time and even if I'm working, I'm sure Maggie can cover for me after I explain what's going on. You want me to tell you what happens at an ultrasound?"

"I know what happens," you answered. "They put gel on me and then they put this wand thingy over top so that they can look at my insides."

Will stifled a laugh at how you described it, but he had to give it to you, you were right. "That's exactly what happens. Now, can I feel your neck so I can see if I can feel if your thyroid is enlarged?"

"On one condition." He cocked an eyebrow at you, silently urging you to continue. "You have to tell Jay that I'm getting an ultrasound because he'll flip out and think I'm pregnant if you say it."

"Deal."

***

"Anything from the doctor?" Jay asked as he put a slice of deep-dish pizza on your plate and then passed it to you.

"Which one?" you asked and looked at Will.

"I mean, did you tell him what's going on?"

"I did," you confirmed.

Now Jay's attention was wholly on Will. "So, what do you think is going on?" Jay asked Will.

"Well, I wasn't the one who examined her, but I did what I could here and read the results of her thyroid test."

"And what did they say?"

"I'm right here, guys!" you exclaimed, causing Hailey to laugh.

Jay turned to you. "Yeah, but you're not a doctor, so I want to hear it from someone who understands doctor language himself."

"Technically, it's medical terminology," you muttered and then began eating your pizza, curious as to how Will was going to reveal to your non-doctor brother that you were going to have an ultrasound and the reason for it was not because you were pregnant.

"She has to get an ultrasound," was what Will decided on.

"What?!" Jay exclaimed. "I thought you couldn't get your period when you're—"

"She's not pregnant, Jay! She needs an ultrasound of her thyroid," Will clarified.

Hailey was just laughing at how stupid her husband was while you just rolled your eyes. "I could've done that," you told Will.

"And I should've taken a video! That was priceless!" Hailey chimed in.

"And she needs an ultrasound because...?" Jay prompted Will.

And so Will launched into the details that he was better fit to explain than you were while you just ate your pizza.

"And you'll come to the ultrasound with me?" you asked Will once again, just to double-check. "I've never had one done before and what if something's really wrong with me?"

"First off, the worst case scenario is that you have to go on a medication for your thyroid," Will began. "And, yes, I'll go with you. Just tell me the time and date and I'll come and wait with you. I don't think I can go in, since the rooms are pretty small in radiology and you're not a minor, but I'll be in the waiting area the whole time."

"You promise?"

"I promise. And if it's a day I'm working, I'm sure Maggie could cover for me," he repeated.

"Okay."

"So, how's the applications coming?" Will asked.

You groaned. "Ugh, don't remind me. I've submitted all of them except I just have to resend my transcripts to one of them in Arizona because I sent it to the wrong email address."

"How do you send it to the wrong email address?" Jay asked.

"He wouldn't know because he didn't go to college," Will fake whispered to his sister-in-law who was sitting next to him. Jay just rolled his eyes.

"I sent it to the psych department, not the graduate admissions committee," you answered.

Jay nodded. "Any word from the school in Hawaii yet?"

"Nope. You'd know if there was."

"You just want to go to Hawaii, babe," Hailey said.

"Yeah, and? Beats winters in Chicago."

"And it's super expensive, so hopefully I'll get assistantships or scholarships," you said.

"What about the one in Chicago, Y/N?" Hailey asked. "I know that's bottom of your list because it's cold and because Jay would pressure you to stay at home—"

"I would not!"

"Yes, you would!" you, Will, and Hailey yelled, causing Jay's eyes to widen.

"Uh, that was freaky. How about you guys never do that again, okay?" Jay said. "I thought it was the beginning of February; not Halloween."

"Hailey, I don't know what you see in him," you told her, causing Jay's jaw to drop.

"Hey! For your information—"

"I didn't hear back from anyone yet," you said loudly, cutting Jay off before he said something that would discreetly hint at his sex life with Hailey. "And when I do, I'll tell you guys. Now, can we finish eating and watch the game? I really don't want to have to think about this more than I have to."

Hailey nodded in understanding, since she too suffered from anxiety and then she proceeded to tell the story of the antics that Adam and Kevin had been up to today in the bullpen while everyone had been listening to the wire for their latest case (which they now had a lead on and would be picking up tomorrow, hence Jay and Hailey getting home later than usual).

***

One week later

"So, Y/N, tell me about what's going on," the social worker, Marsha, asked you at 12:45 pm that afternoon as you sat in her office for your scheduled appointment on your day off (as in, you hadn't had to work the night before, but had to work tonight. Even Jay got confused with your schedule sometimes. Will, on the other hand, understood since he had worked many a night shift during his residency).

And so, you launched into the story about grad school and anxiety.

"So, I can definitely refer you to a therapist if you would like that," Marsha said. "Or, I can work with you and teach you skills to manage your anxiety."

You'd always had some anxiety, it had just increased in recent weeks because of the rejections you'd gotten and all the added stress of trying to find another program that still had open applications.

"I think I want to learn some skills," you answered. "Seems like this is just gonna be something I have to live with."

"Ok, so I want to tell you about anxiety and why it happens and how it's sometimes a good thing and then we can move on to some skills you've tried..."

***

"And I'm gonna give you some homework this week," Marsha said at the end of your session. She passed you a piece of paper. "All I want you to do is notice when you have anxiety and what the physical symptoms are. You don't have to write them on this piece of paper; it's just a list of possible physical symptoms and the anxiety pyramid that we talked about if you want to reference them if you want. All I want you to do is notice when your anxiety flares up. Then, we can figure out what to do in these types of situations."

"Okay, sounds good," you told her.

Then, she stood up and you followed her out of her office and back into the waiting room. "You know your way out from here?" she asked.

"Yup," you answered.

When in reality, you didn't. But, Will said he'd meet you outside the waiting room doors at 1:50 to go with you to your ultrasound appointment in the radiology wing, and it was currently 1:55.

"You're not in your scrubs," you said when you saw him right when you opened the doors to the hallway.

"Nope. Ms. Goodwin gave me a half day today, so we can get lunch after if you want."

"As long as we can get coffee for me to bring to work, sure." You noticed his backpack. "Can you put these in here?" you asked, holding the two pieces of paper out to him. "I only brought my lanyard with all my keys and stuff."

"Yup." He took the papers from you and put down his backpack and put the papers inside. "You ready?"

"Yeah. You promise it won't hurt?" you asked, slightly nervous.

"I promise. It might just feel a little cold at first."

***

"See? I told you it wouldn't be so bad," Will said once you were out of the ultrasound.

"Yeah. But I won't know the results for a few days so can you—"

"I'm not gonna look at your chart and tell you the results," Will stated as you exited the waiting room.

"But why not? I give you full permission so it's not against HIPAA."

"Technically, it is because I can't just go in there and look at a family member's chart. That, and I'm not a radiologist. When they send you the results, I can look them over if you let me see them. But, before then, I can't. And, I'd trust a radiologist's opinion on this more than mine."

"Fine. Now, how about IHOP for lunch?"

"Already a step ahead of you. It'll be ready for pickup in ten minutes."

"And you got me the pancakes I like?" you asked and narrowed your eyes at him.

"Yes, I got you the cinnamon roll ones."

You broke out into a smile. "You're my favorite brother...just don't tell Jay that. He thinks he's the favorite."

***

One week later, late February

You got your results back. After skimming them, you figured you'd understood them, but wanted to call Will just in case. And he confirmed it. There was nothing wrong with your thyroid.

"So it's all in my head?" you asked. "My body hates me because I'm stressed? God, I can't even do basic human functions right."

"Y/N, what did I tell you? It's normal to be stressed out like this. It's a big thing," Will said over the phone.

"Don't you think I know that?! This is my whole career here! My whole life!" You took a deep breath. "Sorry. I'm sorry. You didn't deserve that."

"It's okay," he said. "You're super stressed out. But, you'll get in somewhere."

"Yeah, that's what everyone keeps saying." Then, your phone vibrated. "Hang on. That might be a school."

"They're calling you? That's a good sign, Y/N."

"They're not calling me; I put their emails as important so it'll notify me. I'm putting you on speaker while I read this."

You quickly put Will on speaker and then navigated to your emails. "It's the one in Hawaii," you told him. You held your breath as you opened the email. You skimmed it. And you stayed silent.

"What? What's it say?"

"I didn't get in," you said quietly.

"Aw, man. I'm sorry, kiddo. But, you still have five more to hear back from."

"Yeah. I just...I really wanted to go to school in Hawaii," you lamented. "I know it was a long shot to get in because I missed their priority deadline because I was still waiting on my Ph.D. application results, but still."

"Hey, look at it this way," Will began, "when you're making bank as a world-renowned neuropsychologist, you'll have more than enough money to vacation there a few times a year. Just make sure you don't forget to bring your favorite brother with you."

You rolled your eyes. "I dunno about world-renowned."

"Fine. USA-renowned."

"Goodbye, Will," you laughed.

"Bye, kiddo. Have a good night at work. Maybe drink a glass of wine before going to work. Just... don't tell Jay I said that. You've got what, seven hours before your shift?"

"That's actually a good idea. I'll swipe some of Hailey's pink Moscato. She's fine with it. She barely drinks it anyway."

"Alright, just one glass," Will reiterated.

"Bye, Will."

***

Two weeks later, early March

You woke up and checked the time. 2 pm. You still had two hours to sleep until your alarm went off. But, as was customary for the past two months, you navigated to your emails.

There, at the top, was one from Southern Arizona University.

You felt like you couldn't breathe as you opened the email.

Hello,

We have reviewed your application, evaluated your credentials and letters of recommendation, and would like to invite you to interview in person for the Doctoral program (Psy. D.) in Clinical Psychology at the SAU campus.

Your jaw dropped as you continued reading the finer details such as the date, time, location, and how to RSVP.

Today was Wednesday, Jay and Hailey's RDO.

You ran out of your room.

"Jay! Jay! Jay!" you yelled.

He immediately woke up from where he had been dozing off on the couch with Hailey next to him who had been wide awake. She grabbed her phone while he jumped up.

"What? What's wrong? What hurts?" he asked as he quickly looked you over.

"No, no nothing's wrong! I got an interview with Southern Arizona! It's in person in two weeks!"

"That's great, Y/N!" Hailey said at the same time that Jay said, "See? I told you that you'd get in somewhere!"

"I didn't get in yet, Jay," you told him.

"I know, but you're still one step closer."

You pulled out your phone. "I know Will's working, but I gotta text him and tell him!"

Hailey groaned as she looked at her phone's calendar. "Shit, Jay. We have that mandatory training that week for our detective's recertification."

Jay threw his head back and groaned. "It's not even that important. Voight and Platt will let us out of it."

"You know this isn't their call. It's the Ivory Tower that schedules this one. And it's the last one of the quarter. We don't go to this one..."

"We can't work until mid-April at the earliest. We'll be suspended," Jay finished.

"Exactly."

"Will can come with me," you said. "I can't just not go and I'm not going to Arizona by myself."

"Yeah, even if Will has to work, we'd find someone to bring you," Jay said. "Maybe Kim as a backup. No way in hell are you going to Arizona by yourself, you're damn right about that."

"Listen, we'll figure out the logistics of everything later," Hailey said. "For now, you just go back to bed so you're not too tired at work and then focus on being prepared for your interview. Just forward the email to me and Jay so we have the right place and date and time and we'll get everything figured out, okay?"

You smiled. "Okay."

"Now go back to sleep. You're going to Arizona for that interview no matter what," she reassured you.

"And, you're gonna do great," Jay added.

"I haven't even prepped for this yet."

"Still, I know you," Jay started. "You're gonna practice and know everything and then you'll do great. Now try and get some sleep before you have to go in tonight."

You nodded and turned around, still with a giant smile plastered on your face.

***

Five days later, Monday

You rolled over and checked the time. Fifteen minutes until you planned to get up, so you knew you wouldn't be able to go back to sleep no matter how hard you tried.

You immediately navigated to your emails as you had done for the past two months.

There, at the top, was one from Kansas City Health College and University in Missouri.

Hi, Y/N!

We have reviewed your application, and the committee is interested in offering you an opportunity to interview. Are you available this week or next?

Your jaw dropped and you broke out into a smile.

Another school wanted you! You might have options now!

You knew Hailey and Jay were unlikely to be home right now, so you went to your text messages and opened the group chat between you, Jay, Hailey, and Will.

I got an interview for Kansas City! you wrote.

Not even fifteen seconds later, your phone rang.

"Did you get my text?" you asked when you answered Will's phone call.

"I did," Will confirmed. "Good job! But, is the interview in-person?"

"I don't know," you answered. "I'll email them."

"Okay, just let me know. They approved my PTO request to come to Arizona with you in a couple weeks, but I don't know if I can swing another vacation. Jay or Hailey might have to go with you to this one."

"Okay, and it's an eight-hour drive from here, so we don't have to fly there if the interview is in-person."

"It seems short now, but it won't feel that way when you're driving for that long."

You rolled your eyes. "Uh-huh. Did you look up flight tickets for Arizona yet?"

"That's what I was doing before I called you. Is it your weekend off before the interview or after the interview?"

"Before the interview," you told him.

"Okay. I work a shift on Saturday, so the earliest we could fly out is Sunday morning. Then we have all day Monday to look at Pheonix and apartments and stuff and Tuesday you have to interview and we could fly home Wednesday or Thursday. How long did you take off for?"

"I have to go back into work that Thursday night."

"Okay, so we'll fly back Wednesday night, then you can sleep all day Thursday because my next shift is on Friday."

"Okay. And, I can stay at your house the night before if it's an early flight, right? I am not driving to your house at 3 am. Or you can sleep on the couch here."

"If it's early, it's probably better that you stay over here because I won't get home from work until 8:30 and then I'll probably have last-minute stuff to do. You know how it is."

"Yeah."

"Okay, well I'm gonna go so you email them and I can keep looking up flights. I'll let you know everything when I figure it all out."

"Sounds good."

Then, the two of you said your goodbyes and you emailed the school and responded to Jay and Hailey's congratulations texts.

Even if it was only two interviews out of the eleven schools total you had applied to so far, you were getting somewhere.

***

Four days later, Friday, day of virtual Kansas City interview

You opened the fridge and grabbed a hard seltzer just when you heard someone clearing their throat. You turned around with a sheepish expression on your face to see Jay standing there.

"So, we're drinking at 7:30 in the morning now, are we?" he asked.

"Your 7:30 in the morning is my 7:30 at night," you told him. "And, I have my interview later. Need something to calm my nerves before I go to bed."

"You've practiced more than enough; you'll do great. You don't need alcohol to calm your nerves."

He was right of course, on both fronts, but you weren't going to tell him that. You had researched questions you might be asked during your interview and then wrote down your answers and quizzed yourself multiple times until you were confident that you knew everything. You even had your coworkers quiz you on them last night and had Jay quiz you on them Wednesday night so that you knew for a fact that you knew everything. There were obviously questions that could come up that you weren't prepared for, but you had prepared for it as best you could with the information you currently had.

"I know," you begrudgingly agreed. "But still, let me do this. It's not like you haven't drank to calm your nerves before."

"She's got a point, Jay," Hailey said, seemingly appearing out of nowhere and maneuvering around Jay to get to the counter and begin making herself a cup of coffee.

"Why are you always on her side?" he asked.

"Technically, I'm not taking sides, just stating a fact. Let her have the drink. It's not like she's gonna get drunk. She's too smart to get drunk hours before her interview anyway."

"Thanks, Hailey," you said and then walked past Jay, who made no move to argue with you.

"Just, remember to put the can in the recycling when you wake up. And good luck with the interview later. Don't miss your alarm," he told you.

"I won't. I set one for like every minute from when I need to wake up to ten minutes after," you reassured.

And, when you made your way to your room, you could've sworn you heard Jay whsiper something along the lines of You're gonna be the death of me? You know that, right? to Hailey.

***

You felt like the interview went well. There were only two questions you hadn't practiced answering: (1) tell me about working with people from diverse backgrounds and (2) tell me about a time you had too much on your plate. How did you go about handling that?

Not to toot your own horn, but you felt like you gave pretty good answers to those questions despite being under pressure and not having practiced those beforehand.

Now though, it was time to calm down and try to go back to sleep for a few more hours before work. You had only gotten five hours of sleep before the interview and wanted to get at least another three before having to wake up again, do your morning routine, and go back to work.

So, now you needed to calm down and fall asleep without taking melatonin. So, you decided to go take a nice hot shower.

You didn't take long, only about fifteen minutes, and the minute you went and sat down in your bed to read to try and get your adrenaline to go down a bit more, your phone rang.

Will.

"Hey," you answered.

"So, how'd it go?" he asked. Honestly, he seemed more excited to talk about this than you did.

It was at this moment that you actually grasped how well you might have actually done during the interview phase.

"It actually went really well! There were only two questions I didn't know the answer to."

And then, you talked to Will about what the questions were and the answers you gave so that you could be prepared for your interview with SAU in a little under two weeks.

"Well, I'm gonna let you go so you can get some sleep, okay?" he said.

"Yeah. Hopefully reading for a bit will make me tired. I already took a hot shower to calm down, and it's calmed me just a little bit."

"It's the nerves," Will began. "You've been trying to get to this point for so long and all your adrenaline just hit you. You'll crash soon and sleep hard, though. Go, I dunno, make some tea to drink while you read or something," he suggested.

"That's actually a good idea. Thanks, Will."

"Anytime, kiddo. Now try and get some sleep. Make sure to text Jay and Hailey that the interview went well too because they probably want to know even if they're out chasing criminals all over the place."

"Doubt they could get to their phone to see the text if they're chasing people," you pointed out.

"You know what I mean. Now get some sleep."

***

5 days later, Wednesday

You woke up to someone gently touching your shoulder and saying your name.

"Y/N, you okay?"

Jay.

You grumbled, "Mhm. Why?"

"It's ten o'clock at night," he answered.

You rolled over and touched your phone, causing the screen to illuminate. Lo and behold, Jay was right. 10:02 pm.

You had worked six days straight since it had been your weekend on, and normally after these long stretches, you did sleep like ten hours, but you had never slept twelve. Granted, you did go to bed at around 10 am instead of your usual 8:30 because you had a doctor's appointment to follow up on your irregular periods (which were getting back to normal finally) and then you woke up around 1 pm for about an hour, but still, it was weird that you had slept this long.

"Guess I was just tired," you said. "I'll get up soon."

"Don't sleep all night. That's gonna mess you up for your shift tomorrow night."

"I know, Jay. I've been on nights for eight months now; I think I know what I'm doing."

"Okay, well, there's dinner in the fridge if you want some."

"Thanks."

Then, he left your room and you turned on your bedside lamp and sat up in bed, and opened your phone.

As was normal for you now, you navigated to your emails to see if you had heard back from any schools.

A few emails down was one that made your breath catch in your throat and your hands begin to shake.

From: Kansas City Health College and University

Subject line: Update KCHCU Admissions

You opened it and there was what looked to be a scanned document with the school's logo on top and the very first word was bolded and in cursive.

Congratulations!

Your eyes widened and your jaw dropped. You felt your heart beating out of your chest.

We are pleased to inform you that you have been admitted *with a Conditional Acceptance* to our program of: Doctor of Clinical Psychology (PsyD) for the Academic Year 2023-2024.

We hope this is one of many achievements in your professional career as a result of your continuous efforts.

*Please be aware that this is not your official acceptance notification. Official acceptance letters will be sent out upon completion of the required documents. Please fill out the attached documents as soon as possible.*

Sincerely,

The Admissions Office at Kansas City Health College and University.

A huge smile formed on your face as you shot out of bed and ran to Jay and Hailey's bedroom.

You quickly knocked on the door. "Nobody better be naked in there because I'm coming in!"

Without waiting for a reply, you opened the door. And, luckily, the only piece of clothing Jay was missing was a shirt (and you could see this because he had quickly sat up in bed and turned on his bedside lamp just as you opened the door).

"Some of us have to work in the morning, you know," Jay said.

At this, Hailey walked out of the bathroom, clad in her pajama bottoms and a t-shirt with her hair wrapped in a towel.

"You probably laid down two seconds before she knocked on the door," Hailey said.

"Technically, it was ten seconds," Jay sassed.

"Yeah, yeah," you said dismissively. "But I checked my emails and I got into Kansas City!" you exclaimed.

Hailey gasped. "Yay! Congratulations!" Then she made her way over to you and gave you a hug.

"See, I told you you could do it," Jay said and stood up and hugged you, too. "But, your first pick is still Arizona, right?"

"Yup," you told him. "But at least I have a backup school now if I don't get into SAU."

"So, what do you have to do now?"

"Fill out some documents." You passed him your phone. "Here's the email."

Jay told you to make sure you send in the documents by the deadline, which caused you to roll your eyes.

"Don't you have to pay something to secure your spot?" he asked.

"I think so," you said. "But it shouldn't be a ton, so if I get into SAU and have to tell them I decided to go to another school, I shouldn't be losing out on too much."

"Okay, good. See, I told you you'd get in somewhere."

"And I still have another interview."

"And you better text Will before he gets mad he had to hear it from one of us," Hailey pointed out.

"Oh, yeah," Jay agreed. "You better do that."

"I'll do that right now. Get some sleep, you guys."

"Night, Y/N, I'm so proud of you," Hailey said and gave you another hug.

"Night, kid," Jay said and gave you another hug as well.

Then, you made your way out of their room and into the kitchen to make yourself some food and coffee. As you were waiting for your coffee to finish brewing though, you made sure to text Will to let him know that you had at least gotten into one school, even if you considered it your backup school.

***

4 days later, Sunday

Your alarm sounded at 3:30 am and you silently cursed Will for wanting to get out on the first flight available. You rolled over and groaned into your pillow, but then quickly decided to get up because you knew if you kept laying down, you'd fall back to sleep and then Will would have to wake you up and you'd have to rush or you'd end up missing your flight altogether.

You heard the shower running as you grabbed your overnight oats from the fridge and then popped a pod into the Keurig.

Ten minutes later, you were rubbing your eyes and trying to stay awake while finishing your coffee when Will came into the kitchen.

"Morning," he greeted.

You groaned in response, looked up, and took another sip of your coffee. "I only slept five hours."

"And, I only slept three."

"That's not healthy for you."

"Neither is five."

You glared at him and he just smiled.

"Do you have Dramamine?" you asked.

"In my backpack. You should probably take it when we get to the airport, though."

"As long as I can get more coffee at the airport."

"You and me both," Will agreed.

***

You were not happy, let's just put it that way. There were so many people at Midway (since Jay wasn't flying with you, you and Will could fly out of Midway. Jay basically had a phobia of this airport now because he was abducted from here years ago) even though it was a 6 am flight on Sunday, that you and Will couldn't get more coffee.

"I'm gonna go find a vending machine," you said. "Can I have your card?" you asked.

You had time before you needed to board your flight and by finding a vending machine, you wouldn't have to waste time waiting in line. And, Will had told you to only bring your ID and some cash because he didn't want your debit or credit card getting stolen.

So, you went and found a vending machine and got yourself a Starbucks bottled frappuccino, and grabbed Will a boring plain latte.

"Here you go," you said and handed the coffee and his credit card to him.

"I didn't ask you to get me anything."

"Well, one it's your money, and two, don't take this the wrong way, but you look like shit."

Will rolled his eyes. "Thanks. I'm so glad I'm spending money to put up with you for a couple of days."

"Nah, you love me...at least, I'm your favorite sibling out of me and Jay."

"That's debatable. But you getting me this definitely earned a couple of points in that category."

Your phone buzzed. "It's Jay," you said after reading the text. "He said to have a good flight." Why your other brother was up at 5 am on a Sunday baffled you, but you figured it had something to do with his need for a consistent schedule and structure from his army days.

"He text it to the group chat?" Will asked.

"Yeah, why?"

"I have my phone on silent and if he only texted you that, then I'd be offended."

"That would mean that I'm his favorite sibling then," you pointed out. "I'm both your favorite siblings."

"Oh, you're the favorite something alright," Will muttered under his breath. Then, he remembered something. He quickly unzipped a pocket in his backpack and handed you the packet of Dramamine. "You should probably take this now."

"And this is why you're the doctor because I probably would've forgotten."

Will just shook his head. "I know. And then you'd be miserable for the entire flight, which would make me miserable and it just wouldn't be a good time."

You just took the pill in response and handed the package back to him. "I get the window seat," you told him.

"I already planned on it," Will answered.

And fifteen minutes later, you were in line to board.

***

After waiting in line for an hour to get your rental car, you were finally out of the airport in Pheonix. Because of the time difference between Pheonix and Chicago, you got into Pheonix around 8 am, and it was currently a little past 9 am. And needless to say, you and Will were hungry.

"You sure you're good to drive?" you asked. "They said I could drive it, just that I can't be the main renter."

It shocked you that you could actually drive a rental car since you weren't 25 yet, which is the age that you could legally rent a car. But, turns out, you could be a driver, just not the one who was the primary renter.

"I was there, I know," Will said. "And, I'm good to drive. I've worked lots of 24-hour shifts running on little sleep, so I'll be fine."

"Okay. But if you need to switch drivers, let me know."

"I will. Now, what sounds good to eat?"

"I say IHOP."

"Pancakes and a pot of coffee it is then," Will agreed.

You put in the address for the nearest IHOP and made your way there.

And when you were at the restaurant, Will may or may not have taken a picture of you devouring your pancakes and sent it to the group chat that only contained him, Jay, and Hailey.

***

The next day, Monday

"I say we leave Jay home more often," you said when you woke up the next morning around 8.

Jay was always the one who was go, go, go while on vacation like he couldn't relax. He'd have had you running around Pheonix until midnight if he were here and he more than likely would've woke up at 6 to workout and then made a ton of noise rummaging around for his suitcase that he would've woken everyone else up in the hotel room, too.

"I would ask you if you slept well because you said that," Will began, "but I know you did because you were snoring. I should've smothered you with the pillow."

"I'm telling Jay if I come up dead in here that it was you," you said.

"And I'm telling him that you don't want him to come on vacation because he wakes you up early."

"He knows that! It's common knowledge!"

Will rolled his eyes. "Hurry up and get ready or do whatever you need to do so that we can go get some breakfast downstairs before all the good stuff's gone."

"Can we get coffee somewhere later? I looked up some coffee shops near here."

"Let's just get breakfast first and then we'll go from there."

***

The morning was spent looking at possible apartments, going to a bookshop that doubled as a coffeeshop (and buying a new book of course), and then going out for Mexican food for an early lunch (which had the best salsa you had ever tasted).

Then, you went back to the hotel and got ready to go to the pool.

"You can go down without me," Will said.

"You're not coming?" you asked.

"I gotta make a phone call. Work stuff," Will lied.

"Okay, see you down there," you said and grabbed a room key, and left to go to the pool.

Two minutes later, when Will was positive you were at least off the floor you were staying in, if not out to the pool by now, he pulled out his phone and dialed Jay's number.

"Everything okay?" Jay asked the minute he picked up.

"Yes, everything's okay."

"Well, if you're only calling me to brag about the chips and salsa you got, then it's in your best interest to hang up now." You had been sending pictures to the group chat between you, your brothers, and Hailey, and needless to say, Jay was jealous.

"Okay, fine," Will relented. "Everything's not okay. I don't know if I want Y/N staying here."

Now, Will had Jay's full attention. "Bad neighborhoods? What's it like? I can try and look into stuff for you, but I don't have jurisdiction there, so it might be hard to do."

"Dude, it's like Chicago, but it changes a bit faster here. You have wealthy people on one side of the street and then poverty on the other. The building her school is in is just down the street from a homeless encampment. And, she's a girl living by herself. I dunno about her living her, man."

"Well, all the schools she's applied to are in big cities, so she's gonna get that anywhere."

"I know, I know. It's just, the shit we see every day..."

"I get it," Jay agreed. "How did she react to the apartments? And the school?"

"Well, her face dropped when we saw the school. It was like in an industrial area and it's just a building. And, the apartments, the one she likes and the one she said would probably be safest would run her like $1800 a month just for the apartment, not including utilities, groceries, etc."

Jay whistled on the other end. "Shit. But, it's like that everywhere."

"I know. If she goes here, you're gonna need to fly out here and look at apartments with her because you might be able to figure some more stuff out."

"Yeah, if she gets in me and her will take some time to look at apartments out there. Maybe bring Hailey, too."

"Okay, good. And, I'm willing to pay a little bit of her rent if it means she'll be safe."

"Me too," Jay agreed. Then, he remembered something. "Hey, I think one of my old army buddies does construction for apartments out there. I'll see if he can give you some places to check out that he thinks are safer and text you if he tells me anything."

"That would be great, Jay. How's the training going?"

"Let's not talk about that when me and Hailey are on our lunch break, okay? It's a pain in the ass but I have to do it."

"Alright then. I'll let you wallow in your own pity while me and Y/N go chill at the pool. Bye, Jay."

"You're an ass," Jay laughed. "But have a good night. I'll text Y/N tomorrow before her interview and I'll talk to you guys tomorrow. I want to know how it goes." Will heard someone's voice on the other line, he assumed it was Hailey. "And Hailey wants to know how it goes, too." (Will was right.)

"I'll make sure to tell her. Have a good night you two."

Then, Will ended the call and changed, and headed down to the pool where you were soaking up the sun while reading a book on your iPad.

"Hey," Will said after he sat down next to you. "I talked to Jay. He's got an old army buddy that does apartment work around here. He's gonna talk to him and see if he can give us some apartments to look at."

"Okay, good," you said and then paused your reading timer. For the first ten minutes you were down here, you had began making a pros and cons list on your iPad. "Kansas City's looking pretty good after looking at rent prices and the cost of living over here."

"So, you're leaning towards Kansas City then?" Will asked. He'd be lying if he said he wasn't surprised. SAU had been your first choice since you had gotten the email saying that they wanted you to come for an interview.

You passed him your iPad. "You can look at my pros and cons list."

He took a minute to read it and then handed it back to you. "Kansas City has a study abroad program? You never told me that."

"Because I don't know if I'll be going or not. They have a campus in Spain and they saw that I minored in Spanish, so they said that if that's something I want to do, that it's an option. And, I had to miss my study abroad because of covid. It all depends on if I feel comfortable taking all my classes in Spanish though and how it will work out with my classes and my practicum schedule."

"That's great, Y/N! If you go to Kansas City, you should definitely look into it. And, I'm sure some of the students speak English and would be more than willing to help you if you needed it. The profs probably speak English too."

"I know. It's just, learning about the brain and psychology in my second language after not having learned much in undergrad even though I have my minor in it, is a little scary."

"Then you don't have to go. But, you have the option at least if you go to Kansas City. And, Kansas City doesn't have assistantships?" Will asked.

Assistantships are where a student does some kind of work for the university and, depending on how many hours you work, half or all of your tuition is paid for by the university and they'll give you a living stipend.

"No. But, SAU does. I just don't know if the assistantships are for the campus I'm going to or the main campus. It's more expensive here and if I don't get an assistantship, I don't know how I'm gonna be able to afford rent," you told him.

"What's the tuition cost for the programs?" Will asked.

"About the same," you answered.

"So, Kansas City: Spain, no assistantships, lower cost of living. And SAU: no Spain, possible assistantships, higher cost of living?" Will asked.

"Yeah," you answered. "Them having assistantships at that campus is gonna play a big part in if I go to school here or not."

"Let's just focus on the interview for now and make sure to ask them about that tomorrow. You got into one school for sure. Just focus on what you can control tomorrow and then decide. Okay?"

"Okay," you answered.

"I know it's hard to do right now, but just relax. Everything will work itself out eventually."

***

Tuesday, day of SAU interview

"You're gonna do great," Will reassured as you bobbed your leg up and down on the twenty-minute car ride from the hotel to SAU's south campus.

You went to open your coffee that Will bought you downstairs before you left (you weren't drinking nasty brewed coffee from the hotel and you cited the fact that you wouldn't have time to get coffee before the interview as the reason why you needed some now. Plus, you weren't going into arguably the most important interview of your entire life without caffeine in your system.) but you had to close your eyes and take a few deep breaths before you could actually open it because your hands were shaking.

"I don't know about that," you said after taking a sip of your coffee. "I could barely open my coffee."

"We practiced last night and you got all the answers right. You'll do just fine, Y/N. Did you and your social worker come up with strategies for this?"

"Mhm."

You and Marsha had talked about how to manage your nerves during your two interviews at your previous in-person session. Your plan was to remember that you had rehearsed these answers so much that you knew these answers. And to imagine yourself answering them at your desk at home with a candle and a cup of coffee in front of you like how you had actually practiced at home. Plus, the image was of a calming environment, so it might help slow your breathing and heart rate down. And, hey, you already got into one school, so why wouldn't you be able to get into this one?

"I just don't know what to expect in the group interview."

"Just be yourself while being professional. You'll be fine."

Your phone buzzed.

Jay.

You got this! You're gonna kill that interview!

Then another text came in.

Hailey.

Good luck, Y/N! You'll do great! Think positive thoughts (easier said than done, I know, haha). Love you!

You responded to each of them with a thank you and with Jay's, you added a smiley face emoji to the end, and to Hailey's, you added a heart to the end.

Fifteen minutes later, you pulled into the parking lot.

"Take a couple deep breaths," Will told you. You closed your eyes and did as he said. Then, you opened them and nodded. He squeezed your shoulder. "You practiced. Just remember that. Good luck."

And then, you stepped out of the car, grabbed your bag and your coffee, and walked into the place you hoped you'd be going to school at for the next five years.

***

Two hours later, 10:00 am

The group interview went fine. It felt just like a conversation more or less...which kind of made you nervous. Wasn't it supposed to feel like an interview? It was just sort of weird in your opinion. You basically just talked about how fucked the US mental health/foster care/social services system was and how each of you wanted to change that.

But now it was time for the part where you knew what to expect, and this part arguably had more riding it than the group interview: the individual interview.

You were interviewing with someone named Dr. Haldon.

She led you to her office and you sat down. She first asked you how you were doing and you said good, a little nervous, but good.

Then, she jumped right in.

"Your statement of purpose was a little confusing to tell you the truth," she said.

You furrowed your eyebrows. Your statement of purpose seemed pretty clear-cut and easily digestible to you. "It was?"

"Yes. You talked a lot about sports psychology, but why you want to go into neuropsychology and how you want to do more with the mental health side of things, but that you want more precision. So, explain that."

"Which part?" you asked. "The sports psych, neuropsych, mental health, or precision part?"

You swore she could hear your heart beating out of your chest.

"The precision part."

So, you went into it. You explained how you wanted to be a sports psychologist because you loved hockey and always wanted to do something with sports, but that you were also passionate about mental health. So, when you found sports psych, you thought it would be perfect for you.

But, then you took a class in sports psych and realized it was more behavior-based. Plus, it wasn't as precise as neuropsych where you'd be analyzing test results based on previous data and sometimes looking at brain scans.

You also explained how when you were little, you saw your brother becoming a doctor and, being the impressionable little girl you were, you wanted to be a doctor, too. But, then you realized you were scared of blood and weren't super good at hard sciences like chemistry.

So, when you found neuropsych after not wanting to go into sports psych, you knew this was what you wanted to do because it sort of married the two: you'd get to work in the psych field with more precision than sports psych and you'd get to work in a hospital and be on a treatment team without going to med school.

(This was all mentioned in your statement of purpose--minus the med school part--so you really didn't understand why she wanted you to repeat it all.)

"Define what you mean by precision," Dr. Haldon requested.

"Um, neuropsychologists get to look at brain scans and those are more precise than some psychological testing."

"Neuropsychologists don't look at brain scans," she told you.

"They don't? When I researched them, they did. I didn't get to take a neuropsych class though because the class was full when I decided I wanted to switch specialties."

"Well, they don't. That's the neurologist's job. And, sports psychologists get to work with mental health. Are you sure what you took was a sports psychology class?"

"Yes," you answered. It was a full-year class, not just one semester, so you knew the ins and outs of this class that you had taken your senior year of undergrad.

"Well, sports psychologists do still get to work with the mental health of the athlete."

"Oh. I was taught that they had to refer out since it would be a conflict of interest."

"No. I have my post-doc in sports psych, which is why I wanted to interview you."

There it is. That's why you weren't being interviewed by the faculty you said you wanted to work with in your statement of purpose. It was because she wanted to groom you into a sports psychologist...which made half as much as a neuropsychologist, but had the same of amount schooling required.

You just nodded.

"I think you close doors before you even open them all the way."

You just took a deep breath.

Then, she started asking you some questions, most of which you had not prepared for.

"Sorry," you started in response to one of the questions. "I'm thinking. I'm just nervous."

Without missing a beat, she asked, "So, how's your anxiety?"

You stared at her. "What?"

"Well, you've mentioned you were nervous several times."

Twice. You had mentioned your nerves twice. And, any sane person would be nervous during an interview!

You didn't know what to say, so you just blurted the truth out.

"I'm going to therapy," you answered.

"I see. So how is that going?"

You should have told her that your medical/mental health history was none of her damn business, but you wanted to go to this school, so you answered the question. At least, you thought you wanted to go to this school.

"It's going well. Helps a lot," you answered. Now you decided to take charge because, after the conversation you had with Will by the pool last night, you knew that your decision to go here would be riding on whether or not you could get an assistantship at this campus. "Do you have any assistantships available?"

"Oh, yes, I was going to ask you about that as well. We don't have assistantships available. I don't know where you found that information."

You furrowed your eyebrows. "But, on SAU's website, it said that there were assistantships available. Is that only for the main campus?"

"Yes, there are no assistantships for this campus, unfortunately."

"Oh."

There was a pause as if Dr. Haldon were waiting for you to comment further. When you didn't, she posed the question, "So, explain to me why you chose the PsyD route instead of the Ph.D. route."

"Well," you began. Did you tell her that you initially applied for PhDs and PsyDs were just the backup because you didn't get into any PhD programs?

Fuck it. She already knew you had anxiety, it couldn't really get that much worse.

"I applied to PhDs first because they're fully funded. But, since I didn't get into any of those, I applied for PsyDs. And, I like the clinical aspect more than the research aspect, so there's that," you answered.

"You were going to do research even though you don't like it? A Ph.D. is five years, that's a long time to do research if you don't like it. Why?"

"Because they're fully funded," you said quieter than you had answered all of her other questions but still loud enough that she could hear you.

"So you were going to do something you didn't like for that long because the program is fully funded?" You nodded. "I see."

You went through the rest of the questions she had been prepared to ask you and you asked her if she had any recommendations on where to live around here or where current students live, in case you got into the program.

But, during all of this, all you felt was defeat. Even if Dr. Haldon's behavior was making you want to go to Southern Arizona University even less, well you had just bombed your interview; even if you still wanted to go, there was no way they still wanted you.

***

"How'd it go?" Will asked with a smile when you got in the car.

You closed the door and scoffed and shook your head. "Shitty."

"What?" he quickly moved the car into a parking spot so that you two could talk. "Why?"

"I didn't even get to interview with the faculty I wanted to interview with! And the lady who interviewed me was bitch! She questioned my abilities and made it seem like I was supposed to know everything and- and- ugh!"

You blinked your eyes rapidly and fanned them so that you didn't cry and then have to wipe your face and smudge your mascara and foundation everywhere.

"Okay, calm down. Take a deep breath. What happened exactly?"

And so, you relayed the story of your individual interview with him.

"First off, she was wrong to question if you had anxiety or not. That was unprofessional. And secondly, if you knew everything, you wouldn't be here; you'd already be a neuropsychologist. She can't expect you to know everything. That's why you're going to school."

"Yeah, I guess," you agreed.

"And, at least you interviewed here. That way you saw this now instead of seeing it when you got in after deciding to come here. Remember, you're interviewing them as much as they're interviewing you."

You sniffled. "Thanks, Will. Sorry, I made you take time off work to just come down here and for me not to get into this school."

"Hey, no. It was a nice little vacation from the cold. And, you might still get in."

"Yeah, but I'm leaning towards Kansas City now even if I do get in."

"Okay. Wherever you want to go. It's your decision. I know you wanted somewhere warm, Y/N. But Kansas City might be the place for you."

"Yeah," you agreed quietly.

"I drove around and looked at some possible apartments for you, but now I think we should just go get some ice cream. What do you think?"

"I think that sounds like a great idea."

And then, instead of ice cream, you got the gooiest chocolate chip cookie of your life topped with caramel. It didn't fix everything, but it sure made it better.

And, when you called Jay in the car to explain to him everything that happened at your interview, he'd be lying if he said he wasn't a little relieved that you probably wouldn't be moving 25 hours away from him.

***

A month and a half later, early May

It was finally time for you to go to Kansas City to look at the school you would be attending and start apartment hunting. You had been apartment hunting as much as possible online, but it was really hard to know an area and know if you liked an apartment by looking online. So, you and Jay were driving down, and then Will was flying down after his shift later tonight so that he'd be with you to visit the school during the interview later morning tomorrow. (You figured he was the best bet to bring since he knew more of this stuff than Jay. And, you weren't gonna bring both brothers. You were in graduate school, not undergrad; bringing both of them would be overkill.)

You were a little over four hours into your drive and the sky had started to darken about half an hour ago. Since you were currently the passenger and Jay was driving (you planned on switching drivers when you got into Kansas City so that you could practice driving there with someone else in the car), he had you check the forecast to see when it was going to rain.

Your phone had told you in about two hours, and you hoped to be close to Kansas City by then.

And then, yours and Jay's phones went off at the same time, almost giving you a heart attack. You looked at the alert.

"There's a tornado warning near us," you told Jay.

"A watch or a warning?" he asked.

"Warning."

He cursed under his breath. "Hopefully we'll miss it. Keep an eye out for funnel clouds. How far away are we from where it was spotted?"

You went on your phone to start looking for more information, and not even two minutes later, it started hailing.

You grabbed your sweatshirt from the backseat so that in case the hail shattered your windshield, you'd have something to put over your face to protect your eyes.

The area beneath the overpasses quickly started to become full of cars and semis that were finding a place to hunker down for the time being. Jay reached down flip something and then cursed when he realized what he was looking for wasn't there.

"And, it's in your car. Great," he said.

"Why? You want a new truck if we were driving yours and the windshield breaks?" you asked as you continued to scroll through your phone for more information.

"No," he answered. "I could put on my lights and sirens and probably find us a police station to camp out at. And, I'd be able to listen to important stuff like where an accident is, from my scanner. And, my windshield and windows are bulletproof. The hail's small enough now that it shouldn't break your windshield, though."

You nodded. "And, that bulletproof glass isn't going to help much if we drive into a tornado."

"That is true," he agreed. "Can you text Will and Hailey and let them know what's going on?"

You did so and immediately got responses from both Will and Hailey.

Hailey: WHATTT???

Will: Go find somewhere to post-up.

You responded to the group, even though you were mainly responding to Will's question, by telling them that you were trying to find something to take cover underneath, but that the areas underneath the overpasses were all full, so you were gonna keep driving.

Then, Will and Hailey replied with some form of stay safe and Will told you to keep them updated. Hailey also said to tell Jay that she loved him.

"Hailey says she loves you," you told Jay.

Jay laughed. "This is arguably safer than us getting shot at every day. But tell her I love her, too. You can tell her the getting shot at thing, too, if you want."

"She'll probably send a middle finger emoji if I tell her that."

"Yeah, probably."

You texted and told Hailey that Jay said he loves her, too and Will responded asking if he's chopped liver. So, you told him that you and Jay loved him too, but that you should both be fine and that you'd stop driving once you found a place to hunker down at.

After driving for ten more minutes, the hail was coming down so hard that you and Jay could barely see, so he took the first exit he saw.

"Look for places with empty spots," he told you, referring to places with awnings over them so that you'd be covered.

You looked and there was a bank...full. A church with a small awning...full.

Then, Jay spotted a self-service car wash and did what was probably an illegal U-turn to turn into the parking lot.

There were three stalls and the last one on the right was empty. You both thanked your lucky stars and pulled inside.

Jay breathed a sigh of relief as he put the car in park. "Tell Will we're safe."

Then a thought came to mind. "You think Will's gonna be able to fly out tonight?"

Jay looked at the clock. It was almost 3 pm and Will's flight didn't leave until 11 pm. "His flight doesn't leave for another eight hours, so hopefully. If not, I'll just go tour the school with you."

"Okay."

"It's always an adventure with you, isn't it?"

You laughed and shook your head. "And we're not even to Kansas City yet."

After hunkering down for a bit, the hail had let up and you got back on the highway and continued driving. As it turns out, you had been driving the way the tornado was heading. Hail started up once more, but only kept up for five minutes. And, twenty minutes later, there were blue skies on the horizon.

You took a picture and texted it to Will and Hailey telling them you were safe and driving again and told Will to let you know if his flight got delayed or canceled.

***

The next day, Monday

The rest of the night went fine and Will's flight left as scheduled and you and Jay picked him up from the airport and then went for some late-night ice cream. The three of you got breakfast at the hotel and you bought a bottled latte from the market area—Jay and Will thought bitter and acidic hotel coffee tasted fine; you did not.-- Then, the three of you went back upstairs to your room and you and Will proceeded to get ready for the day while Jay got back into bed and proceeded to drink his coffee, call Hailey (who was on her into work), and watch highlights of last night's NHL playoff games.

You and Will went to Kansas City Health College and University and right off the bat, you already got better vibes than those at SAU. Everyone was friendlier, maybe that was just a Midwest thing, but either way, you'd take it.

You toured the school (well, it was more like a building) and you liked it better than SAU as well. They were all about their students here and it was obvious they cared about them and their success. There was a student area complete with a fridge where you could store your lunches for the day and a microwave to use, as well as some comfy chairs and a couch for students to study on and relax. There was a little bar area where students could eat or study. And, there were even two gaming consoles in front of a flat-screen tv, a foosball table, and a ping-pong table for students to use so that they can chill out and hang out with friends. The lady who was giving you a tour even said that last week, they even had a staff vs students ping-pong tournament.

Then, you went and looked at some of the classrooms along with the lab, which you would be using for your neuroanatomy lab and she went over some of the other things the school offered, such as counseling services.

Then, she gave you time to ask any questions you might have for her, you met with the program director and asked her program specific-questions, such as scheduling and the like, and then you met with the dean of students who just wanted to introduce herself and let her know that you could come to her with any concerns you might have.

The entire tour and meetings/question and answer sessions only lasted about two hours, but one thing was for sure: you had found the school for you.

(And, once you were completely finished, Will took a picture of you outside the school that you planned to post on your Instagram tonight.)

***

"How'd it go?" Jay asked when you and Will walked back into the hotel room. This time, Jay's hair was wet and you assumed he had gone to the gym and then taken a shower while you had been gone because you'd now been gone from the hotel for a total of three hours, and despite relaxing when you had left, you knew Jay couldn't sit still for three hours watching random sports highlights or shitty, unrealistic reality tv.

"She loves it," Will said before you could even answer the question.

"Really? Better than SAU, then?"

"Way better. They really care about their students." You then recapped everything you learned, including the student lounge area, how small the cohorts were, etc.

"I'm glad you like it. Ready to go look at apartments?"

That was what was next on your agenda, apartment hunting. You had used up the rest of your sick to take some time off in June to come back if you still needed to find an apartment, but you really didn't want to come back and look again if you didn't have to. You'd prefer to use that time to do things you needed to get done before moving such as going to the eye doctor to see if you needed new glasses and going to the dentist. And, not needing to use that time to come back down here to look at apartments meant that you could use those days for job interviews as well. That was another thing you needed to do after apartment hunting: job hunting.

"Just let me change first. I am not wearing dress pants to look at apartments. And, I'm putting my hair up," you told Jay.

After quickly changing into something more comfortable and putting your hair up, Will changed his clothes as well and the three of you went out to the car to start apartment hunting.

***

You had been looking at apartments online in a historic district called Regent's Circle. It looked very pretty in the photos, but they couldn't really do it justice. Once you parked and walked around, you knew this was where you wanted to live.

Since it was a historic district, it had old townhouses and cobblestone sidewalks, as well as a little coffee shop that Jay said you could go to after you looked at some apartments, a park right in the center of the area, and even a community garden.

It made you think of all the vintage cities you saw in photos and, since your grad school didn't have that old-timely Harvard/Yale feel, at least the place you were living would...if you could find an apartment here, that is.

You had three apartments you wanted to check out that you had found online, but if you found ones while walking around, you'd look at those as well.

The first one you looked at was nice, but it was really dimly lit and dark inside, which you didn't really like. You'd live there if that was the only thing available, but you didn't want to. (At least it was a loft and had exposed brick like you wanted. But, you had filtered for lofts. You wanted something like Kelly and Stella's apartment, but on a smaller scale...and something that you could afford.)

The second one you looked at, you absolutely fell in love with.

It was more expensive than the previous one, but it had a pool. And, something Jay liked was that the parking lot was gated and you needed a code to get in and you'd be on the second floor.

It was a one-bedroom and was a loft style, of course, so it was very open. There was a long marble island, so you wouldn't even need to buy a table, just a set of barstools. The main wall in the living/kitchen that faced the back of the building—as well as the dog park, so you could see cute puppies while watching tv—, was all exposed brick with some windows on it. There were also beams exposed in the ceiling.

The bathroom sink was separate from the shower/tub and the toilet, meaning someone could do their makeup while someone else was going to the bathroom if needed. But, this wasn't your favorite part about the bathroom. No, your favorite part was that it was a wide, circular bathtub/shower, a soaking tub if you will, which would come in handy for taking warm, relaxing baths after long days of classes, studying, and practicums.

And, something that Jay pointed out, the floor was concrete, so you didn't have to worry about spilling something on the carpet and staining it and getting charged for it. (You assumed Jay was speaking from experience during his bachelor pad days, but when you asked him, he said he was pleading the fifth.)

The apartment definitely gave you Stella and Kelly vibes and it was in a safe area.

Then, you finished the tour by looking at the fitness center and then gave the manager who had helped you your email address and phone number and he gave you a few pieces of paper with information as well as his business card.

"That's the one I want," you told Jay and Will when you were sitting outside at the little coffee shop a quarter mile away from the apartment you had just toured drinking a latte and eating a danish.

"It's a bit pricey," Jay pointed out.

"They're all like that if she wants it in a safe area," Will said.

"Would you rather have me be safe and live in a bit more expensive apartment? Or not be safe and live in a cheap apartment? Plus, there's an in-unit washer and dryer, which you know is a deal-breaker for me."

All the way back when you were in Arizona, you had told Will that having an in-unit washer and dryer was one of your non-negotiables for your apartment. You knew that being a busy grad student, you wouldn't have all day to spend at a laundromat or in a community laundry area in your apartment, so you needed an in-unit washer and dryer.

"She's got a point, Jay," Will agreed. "And, she's got some savings to pull from if she can't find a job right away."

"And it's five minutes away from school and I don't need to drive on the highway. I'm saving money in gas and time without all the traffic."

"And here I thought Will was the boujee sibling," Jay said, causing Will to roll his eyes.

You smiled. "I'll take that as your seal of approval."

And three days later, when you were back at work and had downtime during your shift, you applied for the apartment.

***

Two and a half months later, mid-July

Everything was in place. You secured the apartment you wanted in Regent's Circle in Kansas City, you had gotten an online tutoring job that was flexible where you could work from home, so you could work around your school and practicum schedules, and you were mostly packed up. (And you had gotten into SAU even after bombing the interview, but decided not to go because they—especially Dr. Haldon—absolutely did not pass the vibe check...and they got back to you two months later instead of two weeks like they had originally told you.) Your favorite coworkers had even thrown you a little surprise goodbye party complete with mini cupcakes and a few gifts, which included a card, two energy drinks, and a Starbucks gift card.

And now, you were leaving in two days, which was why you were very confused when Jay had made you stop doing laundry and packing up last-minute things and told you to get ready because you were going somewhere.

"Hailey, help me out here," you began, "where are we going?"

"Can't tell you that," she told you.

"Okay...how do I need to dress then?"

"Casual," she answered. "With a little bit of makeup."

You nodded. "Still didn't give me any hints. Rude."

And then you walked into your room to change and do your makeup with Jay and Hailey laughing in the background.

***

"Molly's? Really?" You asked when Jay parked on the street where Molly's Pub was located. "You couldn't have just told me that?"

"I'm just picking something up from Kelly," Jay answered. "And, I thought you might want to see Stella one more time before you leave and she's bartending tonight."

The three of you got out of Jay's truck—Hailey citing the fact that who knows how long Jay and Kelly would talk as her reasoning for not staying in the truck—and then walked into Molly's.

"Surprise!" was what you heard when you walked in.

You looked around with wide eyes to see a banner that said Farewell Y/N! and everyone from Intelligence, 51, and everyone you knew at Med. Even Voight was here and from snippets of conversation you had heard here and there, he was one step above being legally barred from entering Molly's.

You put your hand over your mouth as tears came to your eyes. "You guys."

"You didn't think we'd send you off without a party, did you?" Kelly asked.

"I wasn't expecting one, no."

Then Stella walked up to you. "Well, you got one. And all your drinks are on the house tonight." She handed you a drink. "Starting with this cherry vodka sour."

Stella knew that was your favorite.

A few minutes later, after everything had died down a bit, Voight came up to you while you were talking to Stella and Kelly at the bar.

"Congrats, kid," he said.

"Thank you," you replied.

"You've always been sort of like a daughter to me and to everyone in Intelligence for that matter, so I'm gonna keep it short." He handed you an envelope. A fat envelope at that. "For rent. And, there's the numbers of a sergeant and a couple of officers I know down there in case you run into any trouble."

"I can't accept this. It's too much." You hadn't even opened it, but by the thickness of the envelope, you knew it contained a lot of money.

"You can and you will. Justin never really used his college fund, and I wanted it to go to something worthwhile."

(This was in fact, a lie. This was money from Voight being Voight, but you didn't need to know that. And more importantly, Jay didn't need to know that...even though, after you counted out the bills, Jay would have his suspicions.)

You nodded. "Thank you."

"You're welcome. Stay out of trouble."

And then, he gave you a hug and left the bar because even though he was legally allowed to enter, he knew he still would never be accepted there. And, the less time he spent there, the better.

***

After talking and laughing with everyone for about an hour, Hermann yelled to be heard over the noise.

"Okay, everyone! Listen up!" The room quieted. "It's time to give Y/N her presents."

Then, Ritter came out one of the employees-only doors, pushing a food service cart containing multiple gift bags and boxes wrapped in colorful wrapping paper.

You were just about to say something when the door opened and you whirled your head around.

You jumped off your barstool and ran up to him.

"Casey!"

He pulled you into a hug. "You didn't think I'd miss my favorite kid's going away party, did you?"

"I thought you were in Oregon!"

"Just in time," Will said.

Then, you looked between your two brothers and at all of the firefighters in the bar. They didn't look surprised to see Casey at all.

"You knew about this?"

Jay laughed. "Who do you think told him?"

"Enough with the logistics," Casey yelled. "Get this kid a drink! On me!"

"Her drinks are already free tonight!" Kelly yelled. "Which you would've known if you got here on time."

"Nice to see you, too, Severide," Casey shot back.

There were a couple of chuckles heard throughout the bar and then Hermann spoke up again.

"Open the gifts so we can get this cart out of here, will you?"

You laughed and shook your head and then opened your gifts, thanking every single person as you went.

51 got you a fire extinguisher and a Slamigan, which Kelly explained was less about opening doors and more for whacking someone over the head if they tried to break into your apartment. All the doctors and nurses got together and made you the best first aid kit you had ever seen, complete with more stuff than even Jay had in the first aid kit at home and you thought his was the best at-home first aid kit around. And, Intelligence got you a master lock for your door just for some added security. Also, Kevin and Adam got you a Taser. (They had to specify that it was just from them because Jay vetoed it for the joint gift, so they got it for you themselves.) And, Gallo, Ritter, and Violet gave you a case of their lightest IPA and a 12-pack of grapefruit seltzer so that you Jay, Hailey, and Will would have something to drink while working on moving you into your apartment.

Then, they did something that was even more unexpected than giving you all these gifts: they started chanting speech.

"Here, take this," Stella handed you a shot of what you assumed was vodka. "Liquid courage."

You took it and then took a deep breath.

"I wasn't really prepared to give a speech—I wasn't prepared for any of this since it was a surprise—so it might not be the greatest," you began. You looked around the room at everyone who had come out to celebrate you tonight, of all people. "Thank you all for coming, it really means a lot. Stella, thank you for making my hair beautiful for all my dances senior year. Sylvie, thank you for helping me with my biology homework when Will was busy at work so he couldn't help me. Thank you to all of 51 for making me laugh when I had to spend days there when I was younger when Will and Jay were busy and couldn't stay with me. Kelly and Matt, thank you for teaching me how to use a fire extinguisher and how to change the batteries in a smoke detector.

"Everyone at Med, thank you for putting up with me when I went to Med to find Will even if I was pulling you away from your jobs. I'm also sorry about that." That got a couple of laughs from some people. "Hannah, thank you for all your help earlier this year. I would've been even more of a mess if it weren't for your help.

"Trudy, thank you for putting up with me when I'd run into the district looking for Jay and for always giving me money to go get a snack and a pop from the vending machines. Kim, thank you for helping me with my Spanish. Kevin, thank you for taking me for my very first ride in a cop car when you were on patrol and Kim was pulled up to Intelligence for the day. Sorry, Trudy." She glared at Kevin, but then laughed, so you knew it wasn't that serious. "Adam, thank you for teaching me how to pick locks because Jay told me that he'd never teach me that."

Now, you turned to face Hailey and your brothers and the tears started to fall.

"Hailey, thank you for coming into my brother's life and for loving him and during that time, for loving me as well. Thank you for becoming the closest thing to a mom that I've ever had."

Hailey put her hand over her mouth and blinked rapidly to hold back her tears, but then just gave up and let a few of them slide down her cheeks.

"And to Will and Jay, God I can't even put into words how much you two mean to me. You became like father figures to me. Your both have put your careers on the line whether that be to pick me up from school on time, or to leave a shift to come to one of my academic awards ceremonies. Thank you. And thank you for putting up with me for these past six months and for being there and helping me through this process. I couldn't have done it without you both."

By the end of your speech, there wasn't a dry eye in the house.

And, despite saying that you didn't really think you'd miss Chicago and would relish living on your own, by the end of the night, you knew that in two days, you'd feel pangs of homesickness when you drove away from all these people who had become like a family to you over the years.

***

4 days later

You looked around your apartment at all the hard work you, Jay, Will, and Hailey had put in during these past two days. The four of you had hauled ass the past two days to get you completely moved in by Sunday night so that Will, Jay, and Hailey could leave and be home at a decent time in the morning so that Will could make it to his 3 pm-3 am shift on time.

"We should probably get going," Will stated. He had said that an hour ago, but there had been a silent agreement between the four of you to prolong your brothers' and sister-in-law's stay as long as possible. Even though you said you were more excited than nervous, it didn't mean that you wouldn't miss them.

You were not going to cry because you knew if you started crying, you'd want to jump in Jay's truck and go home with them, and you knew you couldn't do that.

"One last picture," Hailey said and pulled out her phone, and handed it to Will, who was the tallest of the four of you.

You all crowded together while Will held Hailey's phone and took a selfie.

Now, it was time for goodbye.

Hailey was up first.

"I'm gonna miss you," she told you.

Tears sprang to your eyes. "I'm gonna miss you, too. Make sure Jay doesn't get shot, okay?"

"I'll do my best. You know he's a bullet magnet."

"Unfortunately."

Then, you gave her a big hug. She knew how much she meant to you and vice versa, so there wasn't a need for a long, drawn-out goodbye between you two.

Next up, was Will.

He pulled you into a hug and told you he'd love and miss you and then pulled away and put his hands on your shoulders.

"You call me if you need anything, okay? And I mean anything."

All you could do was nod because you knew if you said anything, you'd just start crying.

Last but certainly not least, was Jay.

He gave you a bone-crushing hug, during which you tried not to sob.

But, when he pulled away and you saw him trying his best to hold back tears, that's when the waterworks started.

"I'm gonna miss you, so much!"

Jay hugged you again. "And I'm gonna miss you, too. But I am so, so proud of you."

You nodded and wiped your tears. "I love you, Jay Jay."

"Love you, too, kiddo."

Jay took a deep breath to steady himself. "We need to go, but if you need anything at all, I'm only eight hours away, about five or six with lights and sirens."

"I know. Voight might kick your ass for using them all the way to Kansas City, though."

"That would probably be Platt, which is arguably scarier."

Then, you walked the three of them to your door and watched them leave.

Hailey sent you the picture and you posted some highlights of these two days including another picture in front of your school of the four of you that you had a passerby take and some funny videos you took while moving in, one of which was Jay and Will arguing over how to build a couch because Jay refused to read the directions.

Then, you posted all of these on your Instagram with the caption Onto the next adventure.

Jay and Hailey both reposted the post on their Instagram stories with Jay captioning it Not a dad, but I think this is what being a proud dad feels like with a heart emoji at the end, and Will posted the picture of the four of you in front of your school on his account with the caption Soon, there will be two Dr. Halsteads.

And, little did you know, Jay, Will, and Hailey did not have to be back tomorrow because Will had to work. That was a lie. They were getting a hotel room to make sure everything went okay on your first night alone in your apartment.

Because even though you were living on your own and would be a state away, they would do anything to help you succeed, whether that be helping you with applications, going with you to an ultrasound, or telling you a white lie so that they could make sure you were okay.

You wouldn't trade them for the world.

And, Jay had been right: you got this.

A/N: If you made it this far, congratulations! You finished my longest imagine ever! If you liked it, don't forget to reblog/like and comment because I love hearing what you guys think! As always, if you want to be added to my taglist, just tell me and I’ll add you!

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