The Soldier and The Spy: Jay Halstead- Episode 3

Chapter 6

Eleven Years Ago

That was the third most awkward meal he'd ever shared with Tess.

One and two had been yesterday and the day before, easily beating out the first times they'd had dinner with each other's families and the first time they'd had one together. Just over three years ago now; they'd been strangers then, but he'd never felt like it.

Not like he did now.

It wasn't that he didn't like having her here. Even if it wasn't how he'd wanted it to happen it still did something to him to see her playing on her phone across from him on the couch or reading her book beside him on the dock while he fished, falling asleep with her tucked against him and waking up with her sprawled on top. It made him feel better, less gut-wrenchingly alone. But it also made him... tense.

Jay loved her, more than he had ever loved anything and he was pretty sure more than he ever would but he could not stop being mad at her.

He tried, God did he fucking try. But he couldn't.

And he didn't know why.

It wasn't like he wanted to be, not like he had when Ben first died, when his rage had been a living, breathing beast inside him; to be honest it was only in the days since she'd arrived that he'd started to really feel like himself again. That he remembered all the reasons his anger was irrational or unjustified, not though knowing made it go away. He'd thought it had, but he'd been wrong. He was so tired of being angry- for almost a month his body had been tight with it, head pounding and stomach twisting and now that he'd finally had a chance to rest he was done with it.

So he was letting it go. Every time it crept up on him he took a breath, held it for as long as it took to separate it from himself, from what was important, and then he let it go. The only problem was he was doing that alone. Well, he didn't see it as a problem but he knew Tess did and just because she hadn't pushed him on it yet didn't mean she wasn't going to. Respecting his space was one thing but she wasn't the type to keep quiet when she knew someone was hurting, especially if that someone was him and she knew all the best buttons to push to get him to snap. But he didn't want to. Talking about this was only going to hurt her, which was just going to hurt him even more and what was the point if he was letting it go?

She might need to talk everything through but Jay didn't.

And he wasn't going to.

He also wasn't going to let her clean up for the third night in a row.

"Hey, I got those."

"It's okay, I got 'em."

"No it's fine, I got it." He made the mistake of moving his dishes out of Tess's reach and got pinned with a look for it, dry and teasing but firm, and not entirely able to hide their own sadness, and slowly brought them back to center.

"Jay. You caught and cooked. I can clean."

"You cooked too."

"I wouldn't call boiling rice cooking. It's pretty easy- for most of us anyway."

Jeez, a guy burns one pot and no one lets him forget it.

Alright, a couple.

Several.

She grinned her victory but even though they were speaking the same and acting the same things between them just felt so wrong that he quickly turned away, and as had become his habit went straight to the whiskey bottle.