Chapter 10

The next time Tess pulled back Jay let her, silently following her downstairs and watching as she grabbed the kettle and put it on to boil; he didn't really want any tea and doubted that she did either but it was their ritual, partly because it allowed whoever was making it something else to focus on. And though she hid it well he knew Tess was nervous right now, knew she was trying to figure out the best way to start this next conversation, the explanation she thought she owed him. But the truth was he didn't need it. He wanted it of course, wanted to know what she'd been through and listen to her tell him how she'd overcome it but he didn't need to know, especially not when things were still so fresh. He could wait weeks if she wanted, months even.

Well, weeks.

Probably.

But that was his M.O, not hers. No, Tess dealt with things head on, diving straight into whatever plagued her. She'd always been like that and he'd always admired her for it. And since he could tell that was what she was preparing to do now he gave her some space and took a lap around the kitchen, familiarizing himself with where things were kept and investigating the little trinkets she had scattered about. She had three sets of salt and pepper shakers. One pair were clearly store bought while the other two were most definitely not, the first an obnoxiously red and purposefully tacky set of cartoonish lobsters and the other some kind of antique, bronze roughly engraved with waves and stars. They were his favourite. Slowly Jay made his way into the dining area and began to look at more of the photos she had up, eagerly taking each one in. There she was with Nysa, in Egypt judging by the pyramids in the background, and sitting in a cafe somewhere with a young East Indian girl. There was a hint of exasperation in her eyes, a look he knew well, but she was smiling just as broadly, holding the arm the girl had slung over her shoulders as she took the selfie. There was one with John and David, Michael and Coulson, Sam and Clara and Noah and Isiah, other people he didn't recognize but who she clearly considered family.

And there, centre place in the middle of the sideboard in a brand-new frame was a picture of their family. He and Tess and Mouse and Lydia, all squished together, smiling brightly and more than a little tipsily.

Jay remembered the moment like it was yesterday.

They'd been at Lydia's for dinner and since the women usually started drinking before they started cooking by the time dinner was over the four had shared half as many bottles, and since they'd known they were going to spend the night they decided to let loose and ended up sharing almost or slightly more than double that amount. And at some point, admittedly when was fuzzy, Lydia had demanded they take a family photo. She made Tess and Mouse set it up, it being several cookbooks atop a stool and a small iron statue on top of them which Tess's phone could rest against, and then they'd all piled on the sofa, Tess on his lap with her arm around Lydia and Mouse on the other side. In the picture she was a second post flicking him on the head, his friend just starting to wince while Tess beamed and he laughed, and there was Lydia right in the centre, somehow managing to have an arm around each of them.

They had been a family, her family, and they'd failed her.

He'd failed her.

"She loved you." Tess's voice startled him and he turned to find her staring at him softly. "Both of you. I know you know that but I needed to say it. She even included you in her will."

"She did?" Jay cursed the roughness in his voice as he walked back over, watching as she nodded, watching him even as she dropped a couple tea bags into the mugs she'd gotten out without him noticing, right next to the cream and sugar.

He should be paying more attention to her. It was her aunt they were speaking about, her blood, but... although there was pain in her eyes she didn't seem as wracked with it. Five years later it must be something she'd grown used to. She was even smiling slightly, though he realized why when she spoke again.

"Yeah. She left you all her cooking stuff."

The laugh was out before he knew it but Jay still rolled his eyes as that smile turned to a smirk. He'd never been the best cook, he told himself, and everyone else, that he just excelled at grilling, but the truth was he'd always struggled in the kitchen. It hadn't mattered how many times Lydia had showed him how to cook rice he burnt the bottom. Still did, though it wasn't as bad anymore.

God, his heart hurt thinking about her, so much he had to look away.

He'd loved Lydia. From the moment he'd met her she had welcomed him with open arms, fed him, cleaned for him, sometimes even clothed him. Mouse too. She'd said she hadn't wanted kids but she called them hers, treating them no different than Tess, even siding against her niece when she thought it was warranted. He had loved her and when she'd needed him he hadn't been there. And he should have been. Realistically he knew it wasn't fair to put that on himself, knew Lydia wouldn't want him to and that Tess wouldn't allow him to but he still felt responsible. He'd been herefor Christ's sake, had a whole team and a department at his disposal and yet he hadn't even known until a week after the fact. What had he been doing that week? That day? What had been so important he couldn't have taken the time to pop in and see her?

The sound of whistling brought him back to the present but it did nothing to stop the guilt that flooded him. "Did she suffer?" It hurt when Tess's eyes shuddered and she put the kettle down, the mugs left empty as she turned to him, but he couldn't stop himself from asking; this was something he did need to know.

She just stared for a moment, her brows pulling together to form that little crinkle, then nodded to the couch. "Come sit with me."

The breaths he took as he followed didn't steady him the way he wanted them to but when they sat and she scooted closer, one leg tucked under her as she angled towards him, that did and he found himself moving even closer, mirroring her position until his knees pressed against hers. Like her touch was the anchor that kept him grounded. And when Tess took her own breath, deeper than he'd expected given how composed she was, and reached out to take his hand Jay knew he was going to need one.

"There wasn't anything you could have done. There wasn't anything anyone could have done."

He knew she was trying to help but that wasn't what he wanted to hear. "What did they do?"

"They didn't have her for-"

"What did they do? "His voice may have been thick but the look he gave her was firm. He didn't want her to coddle him, didn't want to be told he wasn't responsible, he wanted to know what had been done to the woman he'd loved like a mother.

"They beat her. And when she didn't give them what they wanted they shot her in the back of the head."

Fuck.

All he could see was Lydia's face, her bright smile and warm eyes, so vividly it took his breath away. But he forced himself to focus on it, trying to banish the image of her lying in a pool of blood on the floor of the brownstone, her mouth slack, chocolate gaze empty. That it would've been fast didn't soothe him, that she wouldn't have seen it coming didn't lessen the pain and Jay didn't want it to. He wanted to feel it, to feel all of it. He deserved it. He'd failed her.

"She never told them anything. She let them think she knew where I was even though she didn't. And when I found the man responsible he said she was a bitch just like me. Apparently she kept telling them to fuck off and that her niece was going to kick their asses."

He laughed despite himself. Of course she would have. Strength ran in their family. But strength could only do so much against a bullet. Rage coursed through him at the thought, at the man who had taken her from them, so powerful he almost couldn't speak past it. "Who was he?"

"Keyon Akhone, a South African arms dealer. Six months before I had burned his warehouse and effectively his business to the ground. He wanted payback."

"What happened to him?"

When Tess didn't answer it took him a moment to pull himself out of his head, to realize the reason Lydia's face was so vivid was because he'd been staring at her photo, and when he did he realized the reason for her silence was that she was locked in her own. Suddenly the man he'd been picturing wasn't just some abstract focus of his rage he was a real person, someone she had fought, maybe killed, and instead of listening to her like he was supposed to be he'd been thinking about himself. Again. That rage rapidly turned inwards and he had to shove it down before it could overtake him, putting all his energy and attention on her.

She still wasn't saying anything, her face a perfect mask of composure as she stared at the room around them, like she wasn't relieving what had likely been one of the worst experiences of her life. It killed Jay that he couldn't do anything, that he was stuck sitting uselessly beside her. Tess didn't even react when he took her hand and he swore it was colder than normal, like the fire that burned through him ran cold through her. It worried him, scared him even but it wasn't enough to stop him from brushing his thumb along her skin, trying to warm and soothe her until she came back. It took a few minutes until she did, until her fingers flexed and she began to blink but she still didn't look at him and this time he knew it was out of fear; he could tell by the way her lips pursed ever so slightly and the way her breathing sped up just a touch, her eyes flicking in every direction except towards him.

She didn't want to tell him what had happened.

Maybe because she didn't think he would understand or because she didn't want him to see that side of her but either way she was afraid. She was afraid of him and she was afraid for him, for the guilt she knew he felt for not being there. He hated it. Hated that she was right, hated that she was still putting him before herself. But Tess didn't need his anger or his fear she needed his love and understanding and he had to give them to her. He had to give her his faith. And as she finally looked at him, those ocean eyes soft and sad but slowly getting stronger he prayed she could see it.

I'm here. I'm here, I'm here, I'm here and I will never leave again.

"He's serving a life sentence. But he was the just the first." She said it with a shrug, like her safety didn't matter, like her world being turned upside down didn't matter, and the more she spoke the more he realized that it didn't to her. She was used it. He hated that too. "There was a breach. Someone got through the agency's server and took a dozen personnel files; we still don't know who. But they sold them, to a middleman who sold them as fast as he could to whoever he could."

The tone of her voice never strayed from that quiet calm but he knew her well enough to sense the anger, the fury and wrath unlike any he had felt from her before. But he understood it, and felt it himself. One day she would find that person, of that he had no doubt, and Jay made a silent promise that when she did he would be beside her. However she chose to handle it. And then Tess took another breath and turned to look outside and he knew the worst was still coming, and though he tried to prepare himself he knew she was going to see right through him. She always did. He just prayed that she would be able to see past his initial reactions to the love that would never waver.

"I felt like I had lost everything. Not just Lydia but you and Mouse, everything I'd wanted for myself, for my future. So I went to war. Against the people who wanted me dead, against the agency when they tried to stop me. I tried to do it my way but I still killed to do it, and the way that I did..." His heart was a hammer that didn't stop as she paused, instead increasing its tempo until he thought it would jump out of his chest. "I didn't just expose myself. I turned my name into a weapon, into a target too dangerous to go after. Not that some people don't still try." She shrugged again but he could see the hurt, the weight that rested on her shoulders and the image he'd gotten of her last night with her head just above water came rushing back.

He knew she wasn't exaggerating when she said she'd gone to war. She had that look, the one he used to see on Bronson. Of someone who had seen and done things most people wouldn't, who made the calls no one else could and had more responsibility than anyone should have to bear. It was what had always scared him about command. Whether a soldier, an operative or a cop the job could hurt, swift and sudden and devastatingly but there was a safety net that came with following orders, a shield that was your superior. How many times had Voight been that for him? Chester had too. A pang hit him as he remembered his old Commander, the sacrifice the man had made so that he and the others could survive. Making that same sacrifice had never scared Jay but that badge and those stripes? They did. They'd scared Tess too, though not as deeply. The agency didn't have the same structure and she'd never been interested in climbing the ladder, she was already damn near the top, but she'd still understood the burden. To hear her say she had to fight the people who were meant to be that shield for her infuriated him but then they'd never held up their end of that promise had they?

I turned my name into a weapon.

That infuriated him too. Not what she'd done, he didn't need to know the details to know it didn't bother him, he had always and would always believe in her, but to hear what she'd been forced to do? To hear the self-loathing in her voice as she forced herself to tell him? To know that he'd been absent during the worst period of her life? It broke his heart in a way he knew would never fully heal.

"It took me a long time to work through that anger. To accept what I did." Tess still wasn't looking at him but he hadn't taken his eyes off of her, soaking in every detail of her face; he could see her pain more clearly now, because she let him or because she couldn't hide it he didn't know, but though it killed him he also saw the strength that lay beside it. The same resilience and fortitude he had seen the first time he watched her fight and he knew that as hard as this had been for her, as heavy the weight she carried was she was still fighting. "To stop blaming myself… stop hating myself for what I became but I did. For the most part."

"Good." She still wouldn't meet his gaze so he wrapped his other hand around hers, trying to get her to see for herself that she had nothing to be afraid of, that none of what she said mattered to him. All it did was made him love her more. It took a minute but he stayed patient and when she finally turned her eyes immediately filled with tears, in a look he knew better than any other. This was his Tess. The girl who loved him, who trusted him. The girl who believed in him, in how much he believed in her. "But if you thought any of that was going to change the way I feel about you you're stupid."

The laugh that burst out of her was the most beautiful thing Jay had ever heard.

"I always understood why you left Tess." He whispered, leaning in until he could rest his head against hers and run a hand down her hair. He wasn't naive enough to think one conversation was going to lift that weight but it was a start, and now that he knew how she felt he could figure out how to address it, to help her work through it. "I don't blame you for it, or for anything you did while you were gone, I-"

"You want to know why I didn't tell you." Her voice was steadier when she cut him off but she gave this nod, quiet and accepting and when she went to pull away again he decided he'd had enough.

No more walls.

Jay tugged her into him, pulling her legs over his lap until she rested against him and he could wrap his arms around her, waves of relief washing over him when she let out a sigh and nestled closer, her own arm slipping over his shoulder as her fingers slid into his hair. For a second the position was so familiar it hurt, like he could feel every moment of emptiness his arms had felt over the last five years but they weren't empty now so he pulled her even closer, resting his head against hers once more. "Nothing you say changes this. Nothing."

He couldn't help his shudder when Tess nodded and laced their fingers together, or when she pushed closer, pressing her head into his. "Nothing." She repeated softly.

He smiled and squeezed her fingers as she took another breath, doing his best to stay calm. There was so much she had to tell him, so much more than he'd thought, so much worse, he couldn't add to it by making her worry about him too.

"The obvious reason was that it kept you safe. My being gone didn't stop you from being targeted but it-"

"How many?" She froze and he squeezed her fingers again, giving her a dry look. You think I didn't know that was a possibility? An eventuality?

"Twice." She replied quietly, her eyes flicking over him as he took his own breath and nodded.

Given what she'd shared he'd started to wonder but this was something he could handle. "Thank you. For those times, and for all the others." Just in case you thought I didn't know about those either.

Tess flicked her eyes down as she nodded, her fingers still running tenderly through his hair, and Jay was kissing her cheek before he knew it, suddenly overwhelmed with gratitude, then watched as she flushed and shrugged it off. She hated being thanked. So he did it again, motioning for her to continue when she rolled her eyes, his delight growing as the pink tinge on her cheeks darkened.

"Reason one was that it kept you safe. Reason two… I was still an operative. And I don't just mean the job, being gone or being in the field; I drew a line, between myself and the agency and it was worth it but there were consequences. It was hard enough to put my team in the middle of that, I couldn't bear to do the same to you, to yours. Although you guys do seem to enjoy picking fights just as much."

He huffed a laugh but it did little to ease the pain gripping him. He hated the agency. More than he had ever hated anything he hated them. It hadn't always been that way. There'd been a time he couldn't understand Tess's contempt for her command, for the very system she worked under, the same system he worked under, but with time that changed. He began to see how the decisions being made by those at the top were leaving her and her team in danger, exposed well beyond what the job called for, and then... Vienna had happened. Jay would never forgive what had been done to her, how they had treated her. But Tess had. She'd chosen to let it go, to keep working for them because she loved the job, loved the difference she got to make. And because of him. She didn't need to say it for him to know the reason she hadn't gone completely off the reservation was because she'd wanted a life to come back to, the life they were starting now. What hadn't she done for them?

"But reason number three, the real reason I didn't tell you…" His eyes shot to hers and his heart started thundering as she took a breath, his own waiting tightly in his chest for her to look at him, and when she did he knew this was going to be the one that hurt the most. "You would have come with me. You and Mouse, you would have done whatever it took to keep me safe and I loved you for it but that wasn't the life you'd wanted. It wasn't the life you'd chosen."

He'd been right.

He'd been right but also so, so wrong. He had always thought that Tess hadn't wanted him to go with her, that she hadn't trusted his ability to keep up in that world, to keep up with her, but it turned out that couldn't have been further from the truth. The truth was she hadn't wanted to make him pick. Not because she didn't trust him but because she knew him, because she loved him and she wanted what was best for him even if that meant she had to hurt. She had loved him, protected him more than anyone else, more than he deserved, and what had he done?

"I left because I had to." Jay blinked and looked back at her, sinking into the feeling of her fingers trailing along his jaw; he hadn't even felt her move. "I stayed away because it wasn't fair for either of us to put our lives on hold. I knew I couldn't come back until I was ready but I promise I was always planning to, I did everything I could to-"

He cut her off by kissing her, sliding a hand into her hair to pull her closer, moving his lips against hers until she stopped speaking, until the apologies stopped coming. She didn't need to give them. Not anymore, not ever again. He pulled back only when his head was spinning from the lack of air but just enough so their breath mingled together as they caught it and he could keep his hands running down her hair and along her side, holding her flush against him. He would never let her go again. Never, ever, ever.

"I believe you." He whispered hoarsely, locking his eyes on hers as he repeated it, until he saw the tears that meant she believed him. "But from now on I'm with you okay? Whatever happens, whatever comes I'm going to be there. Every step of the way."

"Every step of the way." Tess breathed, and even though he could see how hard it was for her to make the promise she did, her lips pulling up in a smile brighter than the sun.

He couldn't help but kiss her again, pulling her into him until he was practically cradling her in his lap but it still wasn't enough, not for him and not for her. Tess held him just as tightly, her hands wrapped around his head, kissing him with just as much urgency and passion until slowly it began to cool, until their worries and fears faded to the background. But even then they didn't let go, just nestled closer and breathed each other in.

It was okay. Everything was going to be okay.

After a while Aelin jumped up next to them, daintily climbing into Tess's lap and nudging her head against his chest until he started to pet her and he soaked in the sound of Tess's laughter as he did, his free hand making the same motion along her side.

"What do we do now?" She asked softly.

Jay smiled with the question, with all the possibilities it offered, then pressed a kiss to her temple. "Whatever we want."