Present Day

He was used to this.

Jay had been watching Tess go off to fight on her own for years, almost a decade and a half so he was very familiar with the sight of her turned back. And with the way it made him feel. Even after all this time it still stung, but he understood just as well now as he had the first time. He trusted her and just as if not more importantly he was proud of her. But if the last few months had taught him anything it was that he hadn't realized just how different it would be to watch her walk away knowing she wasn't going to another country or continent but just to the other side of the city. He hadn't anticipated how much more that would hurt. Because now he could fight beside her.

She just didn't want him to.

And he even understood that, he didn't have the training she had, the experience or the connections and that had been his choice. But he wanted to choose something different now. It wasn't realistic to assume he could always be by her side but there had to be a world where he was more a part of her fights than he was now.

These fights because she might be leading the charge but they were not just hers.

He would not let them be.

His eyes flicked back to his phone, tracking the little dot that marked her progress back to him, relieved yet also anxious to see she was just a few minutes away. Twenty-one minutes ago, just fifty-four after Tess had walked out with the triad member who'd been about to kill them she'd texted him, I'm safe and I'm on my way to you, then shared her location, no doubt wanting to ease the panic she knew he would be feeling. That they all were. He couldn't remember the last time the bullpen had been this tense, probably because despite all the chaos their unit had been through they'd never been in a situation like this before. The only person any of them were used to taking shots for them was Voight and he'd never done anything like this. And his somber silence in his office was putting even Jay on edge. That and the fact that Tess hadn't told him she was okay. She'd said safe which meant there was no more threat, at least no immediate one but if she'd been uninjured then she would have said that because she'd know he'd be thinking it. But she hadn't. Which meant that however it had happened, however bad it was or wasn't, she was hurt.

There were too many scenarios for him to properly process them all but that didn't mean his brain didn't run through them anyway, so fervently he wondered, not for the first time, if this was what it was like inside her head. He imagined her being led back to triad headquarters where she was forced in various ways to fight her way out, or maybe she'd been taken to some secluded location where she'd had to do the same. Worse were the thoughts that she had let them hurt her, or hurt herself. She'd told him about how the Bratva used blood debts and it wouldn't surprise him if other organizations had similar codes. The only thing that calmed him was knowing if any of that had happened they would have to worry about retaliation, which her text had seemed to indicate wasn't the case. At least not imminently anyway. But while she had a lot of high-ranking friends in the triad going up against an organization like that was still going to have ramifications and they all knew it.

But who was going to pay them?

Who could?

It wasn't as though any of them could match her. Tonight had proved that. Even their fearless leader, a man he had never seen cow to anyone had followed her orders.

It said something about the trust he had in her that Jay was more disheartened than he was worried by that, a feeling that quickly grew when he heard the soft buzz of the gate. Everyone else did too and immediately straightened and though he didn't look away from the stairs he heard Voight coming out of his office. He also heard all the quiet intakes of breath as they took in the bandage wrapped around her right forearm that had not been there an hour ago. That it was visible at all told him it was hurting her enough she'd chosen not to put more pressure on it by covering it, though she certainly didn't look fazed.

She smiled at them.

"Okay, so I know that was intense-"

"What did they do to you?" Voight demanded and though her eyes briefly flicked to him Jay stayed quiet.

This wasn't just his fight.

"It's fine." She said with a flap of her hand, her left hand, giving another of those easy smiles and he knew it hurt her when she shot it around the room and saw everyone's hurt and hard stares. He knew that.

He just didn't know if she knew how much it hurt them.

Probably, she was a genius after all. But would she care enough to change anything?

"I know that was intense but everything is fine." Tess continued, so calmly he wondered how many times she'd had conversations like this with her own team, and made a mental note to ask Vivienne. "I'll give you all a rundown but right now-"

"Right now I want to know what they did to you." His Sergeant demanded again and this time she straightened in response.

For someone who wasn't a soldier she sure had the stance of a commander down to a t.

"It's fine. More importantly, I found the dealers you were looking for and no one will get in your way this time. They're holed up in-"

"What did they do to you?" Voight shouted and even though they'd all been expecting it everyone startled.

Everyone but Tess.

She froze, her eyes locked firmly on the older man and Jay watched as she realized this was so much more serious than she had thought. And then he watched her face go soft, so much softer than it had any right to be. "It's just a burn."

A burn.

Except it wasn't.

It could have been, there were any number of ways they could have accidentally caught her with something but the way she'd said it… it wasn't just a burn.

It was a brand.

She had let herself be branded.

For them.

"Two-fifty west, twenty-second place. Six men, minimum fire power."

Jay slowly pulled his eyes away from that bandage to find hers. There was a part of him that wanted to start shouting too, it wasn't okay for her to be so relaxed about this but as scared as he'd been and hurt as he was she didn't deserve to be yelled at for protecting them.

She deserved that in return.

So he stood, a little soothed by the gratitude in her eyes, a little more by the trust but as he turned to his team he knew it wasn't enough. Not even close but it was going to have to be for now. They had work to do.

"Let's go." He said evenly, looking to Hailey and Kevin before he made his way down the hall.

It took a second for everyone to follow but they did, without even so much as a mumbled comment from Adam, although he did catch the face he made when they all distantly heard Tess tell Voight that it was rude to yell at someone who'd just risked life and limb for them. She'd just been fucking branded, in addition to the panic and fear he knew she must have felt knowing they were in danger, but she could still make a joke. As for how genuine it was… He didn't doubt that she meant it, that she had any feelings of regret or animosity towards what she'd done, towards them anyway but he still didn't like how nonchalant she was. How she didn't seem to expect never mind desire any form of thanks or appreciation. Or reciprocation. And yet when Adam's astonished and angered gaze found his Jay just gave him a cool look back. He was surprised to see it had the desired effect of making him look away in chagrin but he was glad to see it, to see that it was mirrored by everyone else. Right now they had a job to do but once it was done… something needed to changed. He just wasn't sure what. He wasn't sure how.

But he would have to figure it out.