AN: "decade:(noun) 1. a period of ten years; 2. a group, set or series of ten." Thanks for all the feedback so far, and thanks to the guest reviewers too! As before, if you have any suggestions or guesses as to who should/is coming up in the next chapters, let me know! Please do review, it's great to know these fics are being enjoyed!
Tommy is in the kitchen when the phone rings. He and Annie are clearing up the things from their late dinner that he'd made, spaghetti bolognese, Annie's favourite. She'd handed in a big project at school today and he'd wanted to treat her a little. Now he was finishing drying up their plates and putting them away as Annie spooned scoops of ice cream into bowls for dessert. Annie nods at him to where the phone sits on the counter and drying his hands quickly in the towel beside him, he picks up the phone.
"Hello?" he says. Who'd be calling at this time, he wonders.
"Tommy?"
"Teresa, yeah it's me. What's up?"
On hearing her aunt's name, Annie spins around from where she'd been so carefully weighing spoonfuls of ice cream against one another. She throws down the spoon and approaches her father, clearly eager to speak to her favourite aunt. Tommy chuckles at his daughter's reaction and then zones back in to what his sister is saying, but is distracted again by Annabeth.
"Please, Dad," Annie is whining. "Let me talk to her... I want to tell he-"
Annie trails off as her father puts a finger to his lip. She's a good girl, he knows. He's been very lucky with her. And she loves her aunt.
"Reese," he says, not realising he's cutting across his elder sister's attempts to talk to him, to tell him something. "There's someone here wants to say hello!"
Tommy gives Annie the phone and watches her talk animatedly into the phone, all stories and laughs and hands up in the air. Teresa is so good for Annie, he couldn't be more sure of it. It's only moments later, still watching Annie talk into the mouthpiece non-stop that he sees her face suddenly fall.
"Sure," Annie says, face fallen, sullen and disappointed, a little confused. "I'll put you back on to him. Bye. Bye."
Annie looks up at her father and shrugs, handing him the phone back. Tommy wonders what's going on. She's probably just in a rush. His sister, always a thousand things to be done before now. He takes back the phone and raises it to his ear.
"Teresa?" he asks.
"Tommy," he hears her say, voice a little breathy. "Can you talk?"
"Yeah, sis, what's up?" He ignores the growing sense of worry in the pit of his stomach and covers the mouthpiece with his hand and gestures to Annie.
"Take your ice cream on in, I'll be in in a moment," he says, feigning a smile and gesturing to the door.
Annie nods and leaves the kitchen with a smile, full bowl of ice cream in hand, shutting the door behind her. When she's gone, Tommy speaks quietly into the phone.
"What is it, Reese, what's happened?"
A pause, and then a sigh.
"It's all gone to hell, Tommy. I don't know what to do."
Tommy is scared.
Already, he's never heard his sister talk like this, behave like this. She's always the level-headed, dependable one, always in control no matter what the situation.
"What the hell's happened, Teresa? What's wrong? Are you ok-"
"I'm fine," she says. "Or else, I will be."
Another pause.
"Jane killed Red John today."
Tommy feels a whoosh in the very depths of his stomach.
"Holy-" Tommy says, but manages to cut in on himself "-Is he okay? Are you okay? What happened?"
"He realised Red John's identity, ran off and killed him. Oh, God," she says, sounding as if the realisation of the day's events are just hitting her. "I haven't heard from him since," she says quietly.
A strange, frightening laugh escapes her.
"Tommy, I was arrested today."
"What the hell?!" Tommy exclaims. "Fat lot of good that'll do the CBI, arresting their own agents! Did they think you'd something to do with Jane?"
Tommy's head is spinning with the thought of his sister going through all this alone.
"If only," she says, and Tommy can hear her voice catching in her throat. "The CBI has been shut down, Tommy. The FBI shut us down."
He thinks she might have started to cry, everything suddenly on top of her.
"Come home," Tommy says, the words out of his mouth before he has even thought of them. "Come home, Reese. Come here, stay with us. Get away from all that. Please, Reese, for once, just come home and let us look after you. Please. Please. For me"
She lets out a shaky laugh at his words.
"Oh Tommy," she says. "Alright. Alright."
Tommy stays with her on the phone a long time, his ice cream standing alone on the counter, slowly depressing into a bowl of gloopy liquid mess.
Two days later, Teresa shows up on their doorstep, a little teary eyed, a little dazed, but positive as always. Tommy can't quite believe all that's happened, but most of all he can't believe she's actually come home. That alone lets him know just how damn much it's all getting to her. He's delighted though that she's here, and to have the chance to do something for her. She's taken care of him for so long, it's time to return the favour.
Annie knows something is up, but she doesn't say anything. Tommy is sure she's never seen her aunt like this before, because it's been a long, long time since he saw his sister in this state. She is holding it together, though, but Tommy knows this break away was probably the best thing for her. Teresa is attentive to Annie, but Tommy can see that Annie is worried. She's not used to seeing her aunt like this.
"You okay?" Tommy hears her ask her aunt one evening, their two voices floating in from the living room to where he stands in the kitchen. He cringes.
He hears his sister laugh, false and forced, half-convincing.
"Of course, Annie. I'm fine. Don't you be worrying about me!"
The next day, Tommy pulls Annie to the side.
"Even adults have rough patches, kid. Aunt Reese will be fine, she's just going through a tough time. It'll be fine. Wait till you see."
Annie nods and she seems happier after that. He can tell too that Teresa is making a bigger effort. She's smiling more now, is more attentive, for Annie's sake.
It's only at night, after Annie has gone to bed that Tommy dares talk to his sister. He wants to help her, but doesn't want to push her. She's always been the one to give help, not so quick to receive it. In the dark of night in a city miles and miles away however, she confides in Tommy her darkest fears about Patrick and how he will cope. How she will cope. What is to be done.
Tommy is mad that this is affecting her so much, he's mad that she and Patrick Jane got so close. He'd always wondered about Jane, he'd seemed like such a messer, but she had seemed happy enough, seemed to think he was worth it. Now, Tommy wasn't so sure.
"You don't love him, do you?" Tommy asks one night.
"What?!" Teresa sounds scandalised.
Tommy says nothing, and Teresa's face falls.
"I don't know," she says. "Christ," she says, knees on her elbows, her head in her hands, on the verge of laughter, on the verge of tears. "I don't even know that."
She rolls her eyes at herself.
"Probably," she mutters.
"D'you think he loves you?" Tommy asks.
Teresa looks up from her hands and raises her eyebrows pointedly at her youngest brother.
"What?" Tommy asks. "I'm just looking out for my big sister. I want you happy," he says, putting his arm around her shoulders. "And if he doesn't want that for you then he's no good, Reese. No one looks after you like you. Someone wise told me that, sis."
"Me," she smiles.
He nods.
"You always looked out for us."
She reaches her hand to her brother's forehead and smoothes his hair back, like she used to when he was her baby.
"Someone had to," she says.
"But you didn't," he insists. "You were only a child, too."
They are quiet for a while.
Tommy can sense the evening's conversation is coming to its close.
"Make sure and look after yourself now," he says.
She nods.
"I will," she says.
She leaves for home the next day.