These last six days had dragged so much Jay felt like he was stuck in a time loop, reliving the same one over and over. It was only the slight variations that told him that wasn't what was happening, like how he would wake with Tess either lying beside him staring blankly up at the ceiling or how he'd find her sitting cross-legged on the couch, staring out the windows as she drank her cup of tea. Or how he would end each night staring at her face, unable to tell if she was really sleeping or just waiting for him to. She'd only been with Intelligence one of those days, claiming there was a project Cam needed her expertise on but while he doubted that, or at least doubted that she wasn't trying to avoid them he didn't push it. And he didn't ask Cas for the truth.
Tess would tell him, once she was ready.
He just had to patient.
That didn't mean he didn't feel like a failure every time she looked at him and then looked away, or every time she patted his arm consolingly, aware that she was hurting him but still not feeling comfortable enough to let him in. She'd lost the snark she'd had that first day and had reverted back to being quiet, not numb per say just… retreating. For as long as he'd known her she'd had periods where she would do this but they had never felt like this and if it hadn't been for Viv he might've lost it but when she'd told him that this was something she did often, had done often he understood better. Apparently four years ago, which would've been two after Lydia had died she'd spent an entire year like this and nothing her team or anyone else had done had pulled her out of it. But Tess had. Vivienne had said that one day she'd been acting like some kind of Stepford zombie and the next she'd told all of them that she'd enrolled in her Masters programs, throwing herself into her studies like they were a lifeline. And they both agreed they had been, just one that she'd thrown herself.
Jay prayed that was what she was doing now, trying to find something to cling to, to pull herself out of the darkness she felt lost in; it didn't seem real but he swore he could see it wrapping itself around her. As much a shroud as it was a shield. He just had to trust her. Trust her and give her space.
Space, space-
"Hey, you ready to- shit."
He spun around fast when he saw how Kevin had Vanessa pressed up against one of the lockers and beat a hasty retreat out of the locker room, holding his hand up when he saw Kim and Adam coming down the hall. "I'd wait a minute."
"The hell with that." Adam said with a grin as he barged in, probably looking to pay his friend back for all the times he'd interrupted them but Kim stayed in the hall with him, her amused smile quickly turning worried.
"Is Tess coming tonight?
"She said she would."
"I can talk to her again-"
"This isn't on you Kim." He told her gently but he could see it didn't alleviate her guilt.
"I made it worse." She said sadly and she didn't know it but the way she wrapped her arms around her middle, how easily she gave herself that comfort tore at him. "Adam was telling me on the way there to remember that Mak was fine and I knew that Tess would never do anything to endanger her-"
"It doesn't matter. You're her mom. Tess gets that. That's not… that's not what this is."
But she shook her head and this time he was torn between admiration and remorse. "It's part of it."
Yeah.
It was.
"It's not the big part." Jay said quietly and he didn't know why but the conversation he'd had with Kevin after she first came back played in his mind. "Coming home isn't easy."
Kim opened her mouth to respond but before she could the others came filing out of the locker room, their embarrassed and smirking faces, Kevin and Vanessa and Adam respectively, quickly fell as they looked them over. It didn't take a genius to figure out what they'd been talking about and not for the first time he was grateful for Tess pushing him to let them in. He just wished she'd let them do the same for her.
"Alright, no long faces." Adam said with a finger in his face that he quickly swatted away. "We're gonna go out and we're gonna have fun. All of us."
"Twenty bucks says he's the first one to get drunk." Vanessa said as she shook her head at him, Kim and Kevin quickly shaking their heads as they refused the bet.
Jay tried to let their banter settle him, and to a certain extent it did but nothing could get rid of the pit in his stomach as he drove to Molly's, the desire for everything to go back to normal warring with the knowledge that it wouldn't. That it shouldn't, not if Tess's normal was a depression she sunk in and out of. It made him feel like an ass but he had to steel himself to enter the bar, still trying to let his friends center him but when he couldn't spot Tess on his first scan that pit grew bigger. And when his second scan showed both Severide and Kidd staring at him, the former with a cautious but adamantly protective expression and the latter heavy with guilt he felt it swallow him up.
"What happened?" He asked hoarsely as soon as he made his way to the bar, his team fast behind him as they too recognized something was wrong.
"She-"
"You don't get to answer for me." Kidd told Severide, sharply enough it was clear they'd already had words over this.
Whatever this was and while he was pretty sure he already knew it still hurt to hear.
"It was my fault." The truck lieutenant stated firmly but not only did the face her boyfriend made tell him he didn't think it was, at least not entirely, he was sure Tess didn't either. "She-… she split her wine-"
"She broke the glass." Severide interrupted but Jay knew he wasn't trying to make him feel bad- he was a leader explaining the facts.
His girlfriend still gave him a hard look for it but her face softened when she turned back. "She went to run out and I followed her. I startled her and she grabbed my wrist. That's all, it didn't even hurt but she…"
She'd panicked.
Because she was supposed to be in control and she hadn't been. Because even if she hadn't hurt Stella she'd startled them both and that would be enough to make her feel like shit.
And this combined with the accident last week…
He was out of the bar before anyone could stop him, tuning out his friends worried voices as they tried to get more information on what had happened, feeling in a fugue state himself as he jumped back in his truck. "Cas?"
"She got back to the apartment a few minutes ago. Her hand is still injured, minimally but she took… a lot of gummies."
Of course she would've.
They were quite literally only thing that always worked to quiet her mind and after what had happened it must've been screaming at her. He drove back to the haven on autopilot, the pit he'd sunk into closing in around him as he made his way into the dark apartment; he could've asked Cas where she was but he didn't and she didn't offer the information, instead allowing him to look for her. Not in the living room or kitchen, not in their bedroom though he followed the soft light in the bathroom to find her there. It was never good when she chose the bathroom. She was laying on her back in the center of the tiles, holding her right wrist as she slowly twisted it this way and that, something about it having caught the attention of her high mind. Cas was right that she hadn't seen to her hand and even though it didn't look that bad, the bleeding had stopped and the blood dried there were still several gashes where the glass had dug in.
Stella hadn't said what had prompted it and given that the firefighters didn't know that meant it must've been something she was thinking. And given how little what was going on inside her head actually manifested in real life it must've been bad. Still for a minute all he could do was watch her stare at her wrist until the shadow by her head, Aelin, brought her attention to him.
"I don't know what to bring them." Tess said quietly, calmly, highly but still serious. Genuine. "What kind of baked good says I'm sorry for grabbing you like a startled animal?"
She was-
She was actually fucking asking.
Jay didn't know whether to cry or scream so he swallowed both urges, waiting until he'd grabbed the first aid kit and sat beside her to examine her hand before he spoke. "You are not an animal."
"I am." She replied simply, peacefully and again he had to shove down a shout.
"Tess-"
"Species: Homo Sapiens. Genus: Homo. Family: Hominidae."
Fucking hell.
All he could do was nod along as she went through each classification, relaxing a touch when he realized her hand wasn't as bad as he'd been picturing. "Okay. You are an animal. We are all animals."
"Just a bunch of animals." She said with a solemn nod, for the first time in days meeting his gaze squarely but she was too high for him to read much in it. But at least she was finally talking.
"Does a lion feel bad about killing a gazelle?"
"No." She answered with a shake of her head, watching as he started bandaging her hand but her calmness was making him wonder if she'd already talked herself down; talked herself into accepting something that wasn't true. "But some people try to make the lion feel bad because the gazelle is cute and helpless. And dolphins should feel bad because as much as I still love them they do a lot of fucked up shit."
It took him a minute to figure out what to say to that and he sent up a silent prayer he was on the right track. "If you still love dolphins can you still love yourself?"
Tess just smiled, rubbing her thumb against his hand like he was the one who needed comforting. "You're so good."
"You're good too."
"I'm a good monster."
"Tess-"
"I ripped a guy's throat out with my teeth."
Fuck.
He couldn't not picture it, maybe not every way it might have happened but enough of them and it made him sick, but not as much as her calm expression; how long had she been waiting to tell him this? How much had she been holding back?
How deeply did she think that one of these confessions was going to change things between them?
"That's what I was thinking of tonight." She continued quietly, half staring at him and half in her head. "The agency sent him to kill me, and he almost did, but at the last second I saw a chance and I took it. Like an animal. A monster. A thing."
The thing monsters have nightmares about.
Jay had thought he'd been helping when he said that but now he realized he'd been contributing to this mindset, this belief that whatever she was it was something less than human. Less deserving.
I'm a good monster.
What the fuck was he supposed to do with that?
He hadn't realized he'd been pulling her into his arms until one of her hands came up to cup his cheek, the brush of her thumb and her soft, sad smile bringing back the urges to scream and cry. "If anyone could fix me, it would be you."
This time the tears won but he had just enough time to rest her head on his shoulder before she saw, her quiet sound of contentment making his heart tug so sharply he nearly did scream but he swallowed it by bringing her closer, wrapping his arms around her as tightly as he dared. He didn't know what to do, how to make this right, if he even could but God as his witness he promised he would try. He would do whatever it took to show Tess that whatever she was, human, animal, monster, thing she was good. She was good and she was kind and she was his.
She was not alone.
