Present Day
"I distinctly recall you promising not to push me."
"Hey, I waited three months! If anything you should be admiring my restraint."
She gave Cam a dry look but he just grinned back, more comfortable with her than he had ever been but she supposed the truth did that.
A lot had changed in the last three months.
And all of it had been good.
That was what was throwing her the most, Tess was well acquainted with chaos, they were besties but it had been a long time since things had been going her way, not just once or twice but consistently. Maybe that wasn't even true, she'd kept her team the last five years, had added to it and had even found more people to call family, much as that terrified her. And that was the crux of it. Life, and herself, had conditioned her to be wary of happiness, what Brené Brown called foreboding joy, where anything good was immediately followed by intense feelings of worry and dread. She'd hoped that being able to name it would make it easier to deal with and sure it helped but it didn't stop those feelings from coming up. And pushing them back…
Some days were better than others and it was slow going but those days were starting to outnumber the bad ones. She'd been sure that finding out Samantha Miller's son was trying to save a group of underage girls being trafficked, on his own, was going to blow up in all of their faces but instead they'd come together, specifically Miller and Voight. There were definitely flirty vibes there, which she'd teased both of them about but otherwise was trying to stay out of it, keeping to the 'not her circus, not her monkeys' mentality. Her biggest concern was that the army dentist who'd let Selim know of the upcoming attack on Hutchins had been found, as dead as she'd expected but what she hadn't anticipated was that she'd be finding jack shit on what had happened to him. That had led to more than a few late nights, and nightmares but even the worst of them hadn't stood a chance against Jay. He understood why she was so afraid and while it had made her panic a little more to be told she wasn't overreacting she appreciated that he agreed with her that something big was coming.
And Tess appreciated even more that he thought the best way to prepare, aside from logistically, was to fill their lives up with as much good as they could in the meantime. Like the Christmas cards she'd sent out with all the guys' faces from when they'd tried her period simulator.
Like the fact they'd had Christmas together.
"Earth to-"
"I hear you Cam." She said with another dry look at her friend, co-worker, business partner if he had it his way. "I just don't think it's a good idea."
"But you said yourself you had plans for projects you could do internationally and domestically, the only reason you haven't is because big investments like that require a public profile. If we do it together you have that! Plus all my investors. Think of all the good we could do!" He said earnestly, so much that it tugged at her heartstrings but she still shook her head, grateful he at least had the sense to keep these conversations to his office.
His now much more secure office.
"But you don't need me for that. I'll give you my plans and you can be the face of it."
By the way the younger man drew himself up that was a suggestion he took offense to. "Despite what some of my competitors may claim, I do not take credit for other people's work. These are your ideas Tess. And they're good ones. I just… I don't get it. You've been working here for months now and everything's been going great. Right?"
"Yeah, it has." She answered with a small sigh, more than she'd thought it would though she didn't say that. Mostly because she didn't need to.
Cam had watched her come out of her shell the last few months, in ways she hadn't expected herself to, because she'd never experienced work in the public sector, and had not been shy about how he'd been right.
But that didn't make taking the next step easy.
"Would having your face out there be such a bad thing?" He asked quietly, such genuine care it made her resolve waver. "You told me you're already known and I get that this could put a bigger target on you but it would also show why going after you is a bad idea. Plus, it wouldn't be the first time someone's identity has been declassified."
No, it wasn't.
It was the same argument Jay made whenever she talked to him about this, along with his insistence that she wasn't going to change the world hiding in the shadows.
But that didn't make stepping into the light any easier.
"I'm thinking about it, okay? I really am, I'm just… I'm not there yet."
"Okay." He said with a nod but his kind smile couldn't hide his disappointment.
Just like she couldn't hide her spark of panic when her ring gave a firm vibration and she whipped out her phone to see Andrew Clark stepping out of a black car in front of the 21st precinct.
Fucking tinted windows.
Without them she would've known he was going there when he was still blocks away but the apprehensive way he surveyed the building before heading up the steps did nothing to calm her nerves.
"Tess-"
"I need to go."
"Is everything okay?" Cam asked, standing with her and grabbing her arm as she went to go but how did she tell him that the fear they'd just been discussing was about to play out in real time?
By the way his face tightened she didn't have to so she just gave his hand a quick squeeze. "I'll text you later."
Later.
Once she'd figured out what the hell Clark wanted and why the fuck he'd thought it was a good idea to go to the 21st to get it. Cas had already let Intelligence know what was happening but she still shot Jay a text to let him know she was on her way, again unsoothed by his reply that they had it handled; she was sure he did, Trudy was already giving Clark a hell of a glare but that didn't mean she liked this. She actually fucking hated it.
And Tess didn't know what she thought was worse, the fact that Clark was at the precinct or that she wasn't. Or maybe the worst thing was that she had a live feed of their conversation, complete with audio that was making her heart drop into her stomach because it was one thing to know that she had once stabbed him in the neck for insinuating that someone might go after Jay and another thing entirely to watch him tell Jay that. To watch him show him. To listen to Jay threaten to do worse if he hurt her and then to Clark as he clapped back that he didn't think he had the stomach for torture. To listen to Voight step in and tell him that he did, a line she knew the older man was comfortable with but had no desire to see him cross, for anyone let alone her. But as much as that hurt Jay's response as what really killed her.
That's because all you know is the cop. You got no idea what the Ranger is capable of.
It was true.
Clark didn't, and no one else did either. Not even her. She had ideas of course, she knew the lines he'd crossed in the military, on the force, and the ones he'd come close to but he'd never be put in the position where he was crossing a line for her. And she didn't ever want him to be. It was hypocritical as all shit but she didn't want to know what he would do for her, the ways he might debase himself, might taint the heart that had guided her when her own was broken.
This was all exactly what she hadn't wanted.
And exactly what she'd put herself in the position to expect.
