The Soldier and The Spy: Tess Danvers- Episode 4

Chapter 10

Present Day

They'd had it.

It'd been a good bath.

Had more than made up for the incident at Molly's, even though they both insisted neither actually needed to apologize. Well, she did. Jay insisted, unusually fiercely, that she was the only one who was blameless in the whole situation which, honestly, was kind of true. She'd still rather all of them move on instead of pointing fingers but if that was the only way this team was going to air their grievances then so be it.

Despite having worked together for so long, inching towards a decade for most of them, everyone but Hailey and Vanessa actually, their communication skills were sorely lacking and pretty soon that was going to go from just annoying to genuinely frustrating.

Then again maybe that was starting to change. It hadn't even been a full half hour after they'd left the bar that they'd both received apology texts from Kevin, Adam and Kim, which had been entirely unnecessary considering none of them had done anything wrong but which was kind nonetheless. And Jay had clearly appreciated his teammates reaching out, not just to him but to her as well, though it was also clear that the tension between him, Hailey and Vanessa was going to take a lot more before it could be resolved; apparently the latter had grabbed him during their next shift to apologize for 'asking so many questions', and while Tess couldn't imagine he'd been pleased about that he'd told her he'd accepted it. He hadn't told her much more about his conversation with Hailey, just that she too had apologized and that he'd made it clear that any problems anyone had were with him, not her. Which definitely wasn't true but it was still such a sore spot for him that as tempted as she'd been she hadn't pushed him on it. She'd yet to see the two women herself, Jay had called a temporary moratorium on Molly's but considering their last few cases had been back-to-back it wasn't like he'd had a lot of free time anyway. Of course that was going to change now. Not his amount of free time, that was just part of the job, but her seeing everyone.

Because tonight Tess had something she wanted to bring them in on.

She'd gotten a call a little while ago from Alexei, the information he'd promised after the 'unfortunate' situation with Ivan and Igor. Apparently the Triad outfit here in Chicago recently brought in some girls they'd smuggled from China, girls whose families had paid heavily in order to get them here and who were now about to be sold into various sex trafficking rings instead. It was exactly the kind of information he knew she'd be interested in, and of course if one of his competitors took a hit that was a win for him too, which by the sound of it was enough for him to get over basically being ordered to give it to her.

She should probably do something for him soon though, just to make things easier the next time something 'unfortunate' happened.

Actually getting in someone else's good graces was why she'd decided to bring Intelligence into this.

Normally it would be something she'd take of herself, she didn't know the head of the outfit here, Anh Feng very well but she knew his bosses and they'd given him strict orders to play nice with her, but just waltzing into his office and demanding he give her the girls was a tad more confrontational than she'd like to make this. And more importantly, she'd promised Voight that she was going to work with his unit, to bring things exactly like this to their attention, not only to avoid any accidental crossovers but because the best way for them all to get used to each other, to get used to her, was by working together. And the more cooperative they saw her as the better that would go. Still was going to take a while judging by the single raised brow Platt gave her when she spotted Tess walking up to her desk, but they'd get there.

Eventually.

"Hey Trudy. How's your night so far?"

"Riveting." The Sergeant answered dryly, clearly wondering if she was here to make that a reality, and yet...

There was a softness to the way she looked at her that hadn't been there the last time they'd seen each other, not necessarily a lack of wariness but an acceptance, an understanding that Tess couldn't pinpoint the source of until the other woman's piercing gaze flicked ever so briefly to her abdomen.

She'd talked to Kim.

Rather Kim had talked to her, not that it really mattered who'd started the conversation when she knew what the topic had been. It didn't bother her that Trudy knew, she'd been expecting the story would spread and it looked like it'd had the result Kim had likely intended by sharing it but her gut gave a slow clench anyway, one she ignored to smile at the other woman.

"Can I get buzzed upstairs? I've got something I'd like to run by the team."

"Yeah, go ahead."

Oh yeah, she was definitely trying to be nicer.

The Desk Sergeant smiled and waved her towards the gate, her lack of curiosity making Tess think she also knew about Molly's but she just smiled back and headed up, her good mood shattering as she caught a snippet of the conversation happening in the bullpen above her.

"I make the calls and I take the hits because this is my unit. You want to run your own unit Jay? You want to know what that's like? Earn yourself a few more stripes and-"

"I wouldn't finish that sentence if I were you."

Seven heads whipped towards her but she kept her eyes locked firmly on the man who stood at the front of the room, the one who's already hard stare turned glacial when it met hers. Whatever good will she'd been wanting to foster with Voight had just gone out the fucking window because she would be damned if she let him speak to Jay that way.

To the man who knew exactly what it was to lead, in ways his boss wouldn't ever understand.

But was sure as fuck going to learn how to respect.