Always Here: A Jay Halstead fanfic

Chapter Sixty

It was raining hard, turning into a storm. Harper was driving home, it had been a long day but they had finally caught the offender, Marcus Taylor, who was murdering veterans. His trial was tomorrow and the whole unit had to attend it to give their statements.

Jay hadn't been home the last two days but Harper hoped Jay was back. He said he was only staying for a couple of days. "Fuck," she cursed when she flipped on the light switch and nothing came on, the storm was really bad. She sighed, walking to her room and setting the bag of takeout on the floor before lighting the small amount of candles she had so she could actually see.

She quickly changed but the only thing on her mind was if Jay was home. She sighed, going to his room and knocking on the door, "Jay?" she called out softly, opening it when she didn't get an answer. He was sitting on his bed, eyes burning holes into the wall, the sheets tangled around his sweatpant clad legs. He looked like he had been trying to sleep, he was shirtless but it was only 8.

He had an envelope in his hands, his cheeks were sunken in and he had dark circles under his eyes. "Jay, what's going on?" she asked, touching his bare shoulder, trying to bring him back to reality. "Nothing, I'm fine," Jay said, looking up at Harper and offering her a half-hearted, charming smile, he couldn't tell her.

Tears filled Harper's eyes, they didn't lie to each other, "Don't try to charm your way out of this," Harper spoke harshly, annoying Jay. He looked up at her about to yell, his seafoam eyes filled with anger, but closed his mouth when he noticed her teary eyed expression. Did she really care that much about him?

"I thought we weren't like that. We don't lie to each other Jay," she said her voice almost breaking as his expression softened, "You're right," he said softly, more guilt welling up inside of him, he wasn't going to lie to her about this. "Marcus knows what we did--it's bad," he said, gesturing to the envelope, still gripping it with a tight hold as her expression softened. What was he talking about?

She sat next to him, taking the envelope and putting it on his night stand, she was going to hear it from him first. "What we did--I--we did something horrible over there--we could be investigated for war crimes Harper--" he tried to talk. When it came to his time overseas, she never pretended to understand, she was just there for him.

"Whatever it is Jay, you can tell me... but-- if you don't want to that's okay as well... please just tell me how I can help you," she said, her voice barely above a whisper because there was one question that was eating her alive. Did he trust her enough to let her in?

He glanced up at her, sighing. He would never be able to tell a therapist about this but he could tell Harper. There's nothing he didn't want to share with her, nothing he wouldn't do to make her happy, he would tell her about what he did because he knew he could trust her, but what would she think of him after?

He looked up at her and the vulnerability in his eyes touched something deep within her. "Jay" she said softly, touching his face so he would look at her, they were so close together. It was almost like she could read his mind, it was rather startling how much of him she could see, how much of him she could read.

"Whatever it is, you can tell me, you're still going to be Jay to me," she said softly. She wanted to know more about his past, how someone this amazing was brought up. That was all he needed because he trusted what she said, so he took a deep breath and started, "Remember how I told you two guys, Nelson and Rodriguez, were kidnapped in my unit?" Jay asked, not waiting for her to answer as he continued, "What happened to them, I can't-- I've always asked myself how could a human do something like that? How could someone come up with something like that?" he said, Harper's hand resting on his bare shoulder as a show of support.