Jay and Hailey stood underneath the 17th Street bridge, watching Detective Danny Waldron walk away. They stood stunned, realizing what happened in that enlightening conversation. Danny was a Narcotics Detective, and someone who Hailey had known for a long time. They had come through the ranks of the CPD together and often kept in touch. Danny had been undercover for CPD for 13 months in a drug ring. And everything was just wrapping up when a state prosecutor had wound up dead, three blocks from the courthouse. And the trial she was prosecuting? A drug case. And everything was pointing straight to the drug ring Danny was involved in.
Both CPD Detectives were freezing cold but not willing to move from their current location. Jay held a surveillance photo of Danny kissing a woman in his hand. "We gotta pull him. This is bad."
"We can't pull him! This is exactly why we can't pull him!" Hailey exclaimed.
Jay shook his head. "He's in way too deep, he's emotionally compromised and good Lord knows what else he's involved in."
Hailey glared at her partner as she paced. "We can't pull him, Jay. He's this far in. These things happen while undercover."
Jay ran his hands through his hair. "I know that all too well. But this case? No, we need to get him out."
"And blow the best chance at bringing down a huge pipeline that runs drugs from Mexico to Chicago and who killed Carlson? She's a state prosecutor! We can't let that go answered so we gotta turn a blind eye on Danny."
"He's involved with one of the suspects!" Jay almost raised his voice and then remembered they were in public.
"Like you haven't been," Hailey retorted. "Sorry, that was a low blow."
Jay just rolled his eyes. "The reason I have been involved with a suspect is the exact reason we need to pull him."
Hailey shook her head vehemently. "No. We pull him, that gets out and that jams him up. I don't want to jam up a good cop."
"Why are you protecting him so badly?" Jay asked.
She sighed. "Because he's a friend. We've all been there undercover and had the lines blurred a little."
"He's covering for her, Hailey! Big difference. This isn't some lines being blurred! He's full on completely covering for her! She's not innocent!"
Hailey was about to fire something back when they heard voices in their earwigs. They completely forgot they could be heard. Thankfully it was only Antonio. "I was going to let you two fight it out, but I'm putting a stop to it. Voice your concerns to Voight and then figure out how to deal with your crap somewhere else."
Back at the precinct in Voight's office with the door closed, and the blinds shut, it was round number two with Hailey in favor of keeping Danny under and Jay wanting to protect the integrity of the case by pulling him. Voices were raised and accusations were also thrown across the office at each other, similar to the previous conversation, this time with Voight watching behind his desk.
"You two done?" Voight asked.
"Yes," Jay answered.
Hailey glared at him. "No."
Voight scratched his head. "Not that I enjoy you two yelling at each other and hurling low blows, but I do find it odd that Jay is taking the moral high ground on this one."
Hailey just looked at her boss. "He's a friend."
"So this time you're willing to bend the law a little to help a friend out of a bad situation?"
She shrugged as her only answer.
Voight snickered. "Glad you're finally starting to see the light. Let me think on this. Both of you have made compelling arguments but neither of you have the final say on this. Am I clear?"
"Yes," both of them answered, simultaneously.
"Get out and work out whatever problems you have," Voight ordered. "I will not be happy if this becomes a regular occurrence."
As it turned out, Voight sided with Jay. And so did the FBI who got involved when they realized how big the case really was. And it was Voight who made the call to the FBI to loop them in. Hailey wasn't too happy when she learned that, because that meant Danny was done for.
And when they raided the dive bar where Danny and the crew hung out, Hailey was the one to put the cuffs on him. They did have to put cuffs on him to make it look like it was legitimate but both Danny and Hailey knew those cuffs were for real, not just to show the crew.
"I'll try everything I can," Hailey said as they sat in the back of a squad car.
Danny sighed. "I should have known better."
She sighed. "I get it, I really do. I'll do my best to try and get you not jammed up." She had gotten Jay off on getting jammed up in getting involved with a suspect but she highly doubted it would be this easy this time, not with the FBI involved. This wasn't a simple undercover assignment that stayed in Intelligence, this was all over CPD and now a federal agency was involved.
Danny just smiled weakly back. They both knew what they were up against on getting him off scot-free. Next to impossible. He got involved with a suspect undercover and he covered for her. He crossed that imaginary line and there was repercussions to pay for that.
Hailey handed Danny to the FBI agent at the bottom of the stairs and Jay watched from the top. She climbed the stairs into Intelligence and grabbed her things. She was angry, it was way past quitting time at 10 pm and she just wanted to be alone.
"You okay?" Jay asked as she grabbed her coat, angrily.
She shot him a glare. "Do I look okay?"
He sighed. "Do you want to talk about it?"
She shook her head and descended down the stairs, leaving Jay watching her. He'd leave her be for awhile. But they did need to talk about it. They did have their difference of opinions before in their partnerships but they hadn't had a blow up or a fight like this in awhile and he was still surprised that Hailey wasn't "taking the moral high ground."
Around 11 30 pm, she finally decided she had enough of sulking and being alone and decided to go over to Jay's. She tentatively knocked on the door, knowing it was pretty late at night. She wasn't completely sure what was she was doing, but she did need to talk about today and their fight.
"About time you showed up," Jay said as he opened the door to her.
Hailey held out a bottle of whiskey and he took it. "Were you really planning on me showing up this late?"
He shrugged as he made his way to the kitchen to grab some glasses. "It was either that or you were calling me to come down to Molly's to drown your sorrows with you."
"Am I that predictable?" Hailey asked as he poured her a glass.
Jay looked at his partner in the eye. "No. I just know when something is bugging you and this whole case bugged you."
"I thought I could get it to go away like I got your little indiscretion to go away."
Jay handed her the glass. "Camilla Vega was a little more than an indiscretion of mine."
"I made it go away didn't I?" Hailey asked.
Jay sat down on his couch while Hailey paced. "So you thought you could pull a Voight and make Danny's little indiscretion go away too? I'm not condoning what I did but you know the differences."
She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I guess I thought I could pull a Voight and make a second stupid undercover mistake go away."
"For starters, I'm still thankful for what you did for me. You didn't have to do that back then but you did. But the second point is, Danny made a stupid mistake and even if you managed to somehow get this to go away, the girl he was involved with was no Camilla Vega. She wasn't protecting him worth shit."
Hailey stopped pacing. "I know," she said softly. "Danny's a good guy who made a stupid, stupid mistake. And I think they are going to file charges on him."
Jay was silent for a minute, realizing how close he was to having charges filed on him and how close he was to losing his job with Camilla. He owed his career to Hailey. "That really sucks. How long have you known him?"
"First day at the Academy."
"I owe you my career over Camilla. We good now?"
Hailey shrugged as she finished the glass of whiskey and made her way to the door. "Yeah, thanks for the drink."
"It's your bottle of whiskey."
She shrugged again. "Keep it. Never know when I might need a drink with my partner at 11:30 pm on a Wednesday."
Jay stood up as she opened the door. "I'll be here."
AN: Told ya I'd be back with some Upstead one shots ;)
