The Soldier and The Spy: Tess Danvers- Episode 3

Chapter 5

Present Day

It didn't take long after she left for Tess to finally quiet her mind, to push all those little voices back into the depths where they belonged. It was normal for them to pop out, normal for her to think about what might happen and to try to prepare for it but the intensity of them had still caught her off guard, had been able to because she'd been off her guard. She hadn't expected to feel so at ease at the 21st, so connected to his team but then it made sense. She'd been looking out for them for years now, knew more about them than could ever be called reasonable so of course she would feel a closeness with them, even if they didn't with her.

Except they were starting to.

She had not expected to have that conversation with Kim. Nothing that personal, certainly not that topic but when she'd seen the other woman's pain she hadn't been able to stop herself. Hadn't wanted to anyway. And it had gone well, really well, even if it did make her gut twist to think about how that information was going to slowly make its way through the team. First to Adam which she understood but then he or Kim, hell, likely both of them would confide in Kevin who would tell Vanessa, in an attempt to be helpful Tess was sure but then she'd tell Hailey which was only going to deepen the divide between her and Jay, not to mention between the detective and herself. Then Platt would get looped in somewhere along the way and after what Tess was certain would be a lengthy internal debate would likely tell Voight, once again in an effort to help him better understand 'the outsider.'

It was a lot.

A lot to think about, a lot to let settle.

She just had to give it time. Give herself time.

She'd earned it.

She also had to get rid of those flowers. They were starting to wilt, unlike the ones further down the counter which were still in full bloom, the vibrant pinks and purples complimenting the dark blue and grey of the house nicely. There were a lot of them too. Those two plus one on the kitchen island and one on the dining table, another three on the desk, coffee table, and sideboard not to mention the ones upstairs. She hadn't noticed them building up, though she'd definitely noticed every time Jay brought them home; he always presented them with a flourish and a kiss, often popping by during his shift whenever he was 'in the neighbourhood'. On the few occasions she'd been out he'd left notes, usually just a line or two about how he loved her and hoped she was having a good day, once or twice with a poorly drawn but still explicit rendering of what he wanted to do when he got home. One of which had actually included said blossoms.

Tess liked those notes. She liked the flowers even more. He'd always gone out of his way to get them for her, right from the beginning, and she'd had to put a conscious effort in the last few years to buy them for herself. A reminder not just that she should savour the little things but that she was allowed to. But getting them from him now, getting them again... that wasn't little.

Not in the slightest.

Her eyes lifted to a spot on the wall across the room, flicking between two more of Jay's contributions to his new home.

The knife he had shot out of her hands and the rope he'd shot through.

They were just laying side by side on a shelf for now but she was going to display them properly once she got them where she wanted them, which unfortunately wasn't here. Something so precious deserved to be somewhere more secure. Somewhere there wasn't a risk of sinking.

And didn't that open up a whole other line of thinking.

She sighed and shook her head, grabbing her green from her desk before she padded into the sunroom and settled back against the cushions. She needed to calm the rapid flow of thoughts in her mind but even as that began to happen, as one bowl turned into two and then three her eyes never stopped drifting back to that shelf. Looking at them, the veritable proof of where she and Jay had started and how far they'd come... that wasn't little either. That was big. Really big.