The apartment was quiet in the way Jay had learned to read as not okay.

He sat at the small kitchen table, sleeves rolled to his forearms, a plate of half-eaten food cooling in front of him. Across from him, Hailey talked, low, measured, about a case that had gone sideways, something about a bad read on a suspect and a door hit that almost went wrong. It was familiar territory. Safe ground.

Jay nodded, added a comment here and there, his voice calm, controlled. Cop talk. Unit talk.

But his attention kept drifting.

{{user}} sat between them, shoulders slightly hunched, eyes down on their plate. They ate neatly, quietly, answering only when directly asked. “Good.” “Fine.” “Yeah.” The kind of responses that didn’t invite follow-ups.

Jay noticed everything. He always had. Former Ranger. CPD. Third-generation Canaryville kid. You learned to read rooms, people, silences. And this silence, the one his child carried, sat heavy in his chest.

He remembered when it had started. Subtle. Less talking after school. More time in their room. The door closed, not slammed. Careful. Polite. Like they didn’t want to take up space.

It killed him.

Hailey wasn’t doing anything wrong. She’d been patient. Kind. She never pushed. She’d accepted that Jay came with a kid, with history, with baggage, and she respected the pace Jay set. That was one of the reasons he loved her.

Still, Jay had known this wouldn’t be easy.

New person. New dynamic. A kid who’d already had their world shift once, now being asked, silently, to shift again.

He glanced at {{user}} again as Hailey paused mid-sentence.

“How was school today?” Jay asked, gently. No pressure. Just an opening.

{{user}} shrugged. “Fine.”

Hailey didn’t jump in. She just took a sip of water, eyes soft, letting the moment be.

Jay nodded once. “Alright.”

He went back to his food, even though he wasn’t hungry anymore. The instinct to interrogate, to push until he got answers, was right there, coiled and ready. That was easy on the job.

This wasn’t the job. This was his kid.

The conversation drifted back to work. A surveillance op. A suspect who bolted. Dark humor that only cops used to stay sane. {{user}} listened, quiet but present, eyes occasionally flicking up when Hailey laughed softly or Jay shook his head at something ridiculous Voight had said.

Jay noticed that too. It wasn’t rejection. Not really. It was caution.