For every step forward Jay took it felt like he was getting shoved back two. At least. He was currently sitting in his car outside his precinct, thumping his forehead against the steering wheel hard enough that it felt like a sick form of penitence but not so much that Tess would notice any bumps or red marks when he made it home. When he made it home because he'd been off work for the past twenty minutes now yet he'd spent the last fifteen doing exactly this.
It had been a rough shift. Reports had come in around noon that some sick fuck had been flashing his dick at a group of preteen girls at a school ground and he and his partner had been sent to check it out but by the time they'd got there he'd been gone. Gone to a different fucking school where he'd done the same damn thing, six more fucking times before they finally got the okay to call in more units and were able to catch him. Maybe he wouldn't be so tense right now if he could have gotten some one-on-one time with the scumbag but unfortunately he hadn't been the one who found him. Which was probably a good thing because while the prick hadn't actually tried to touch any of those young girls the humiliation and fear he'd made them feel was something Jay very much wanted to give back to him. He always hated cases like these, even before what had happened with Ben Corson but now that he'd had the briefest glance into parenthood… He didn't know how Danny had managed to stop from killing Lonnie.
He didn't think he would.
And right now he was so close to the edge he didn't know if he could keep holding himself together. What he did know was that he definitely wouldn't be able to if he saw Tess. But not going to her felt like a betrayal, so much that he spent another five minutes beating his head against his steering wheel before he finally accepted that he wasn't going to be of any use to her in this state and headed for the gym. A gym because he didn't feel like being around any of his coworkers right now and he wasn't going to risk going to Duncan's and being a source of gossip for Tess's. So instead he googled a boxing gym outside the district's parameters that would still be open and quickly made his way there, grateful to find there were only a handful of other guys inside. He grabbed one of the punching bags in the back, taking the one in the corner so no one could surprise him, and so no one would think he wanted any interaction. And then he let loose.
He started off easy, hard but slow blows, right then left, right then left, right then left, each hit a little bit faster and a little bit harder. It wasn't as good a relief as a real fight, which was what he was craving but it would have to do. He'd thought about asking Mouse to go a few rounds but not only did he not want to leave Tess alone his friend, like her, was one of the sources of his tension; it had been a week since he'd realized Greg had been grieving Tess's unborn child just as deeply as he had, that he had thought it could have been his child. Jay still didn't know how he'd missed that and while Greg might have forgiven him for that oversight but he hadn't. He also hadn't been able to stop picturing that imaginary, impossible little kid. Somehow wondering what they would have been like was easy, kind, smart, funny, mischievous, adventurous, stubborn and sweet and perfect. But what they might have looked like… That was a mystery that felt like it was going to haunt him for the rest of his life.
Black hair and blue eyes, now both dark and light.
Red hair and green eyes.
Black hair and green eyes.
Red hair and blue eyes, light and dark.
Brown hair and blue or green or maybe even brown eyes.
His mom's eyes. Or Lydia's?
The weight of all those combinations felt like it was going to crush him except it wouldn't have been any of them because it wouldn't have been. Ectopic pregnancies were not viable. Their baby hadn't had a chance. Jay had to grit his teeth to hold back the noise he wanted to make, throwing punch after punch to the bag, and then a kick when that didn't feel like enough, gritting his teeth again when he felt multiple pairs of eyes flicking his way. Three weeks later and he still didn't know how he was supposed to grieve something he hadn't had, something he couldn't have. But he was trying. He had to, and not just because he knew this wasn't something he could ignore, not for long anyway and clearly not well but also because if he didn't he knew Tess would try to carry it all and he couldn't bear that.
This might be both their loss, all their loss but it had landed the hardest on her, it was her body that had taken the brunt of the abortion, an ache he could still see in her. And he'd thought taking care of her after an op gone wrong was hard. He would give anything to take her pain but that wasn't the way the world worked. As if women didn't have enough to deal with.
So what could he do?
He'd held her, fed her, clothed her, had bathed her a few times which left both of them in tears but it all felt… surface level. He knew it wasn't, she'd told him multiple times that he was the only thing keeping her together but listening to her was so much easier than believing her. Just like when she'd needed to believe him. What they both needed was to talk to each other, share this pain but that was also easier said than done. Six years since he'd met her and she'd done a hell of a job with him but putting his feelings into words was still difficult and this wasn't one of the times where he could show not tell. He was going to have to find the words. And soon.