The Soldier and The Spy: Jay Halstead- Episode 7

Chapter 7

Fourteen Years Ago

She wasn't his.

She couldn't be his.

But she felt like she was. He wanted her to be, this brave, silly, shy, sweet, fiery girl who could so easily and so quickly take him from laughing to aching to wanting to smother her head in the sand.

Like now.

"It was just a joke."

"Well I take the separation of church and state very seriously."

Clearly.

All he'd said, all he'd joked, was that he should take her to see the bases chaplain to look into getting an exorcism since she was still, but much less frequently, getting flashes of one of her tormentors, the one she'd told him had liked to stare at her. The one who hadn't succeeded but who'd come really fucking close to raping her.

Jay's hands still shook every time he thought about it.

So he'd suggested seeing the chaplain as a way to make her smile and alleviate her fears, because as someone who'd grown up in while not a strict religious household in the very Catholic neighborhood of Canaryville that was what he knew. But boy had that been a mistake. Tess had gone on a thirty-minute rant about the Church, not just the crimes done in its name but a large number of its doctrines too which had gotten him very ruffled. He wasn't a staunch believer, he didn't even know if he did believe but when you spend every Sunday from the time you're born until you're nineteen in church stuff starts to stick. But every counterpoint he'd tried to come up with had been very quickly and only somewhat nicely shot down.

She knew what she was talking about, that was for sure.

And she didn't mind rubbing it in his face.

Like now.

She grinned victoriously before closing her eyes, tilting her head back to soak up as much sun as she could. Today was Saturday, five days since he'd first found her and the first day he'd had off in over a month. And he didn't want to spend it with anyone but her. Not that he'd spent much time away from her; just the mornings and afternoons when his duties demanded it but otherwise he was at her side, playing cards in her room or sitting out here on his hill. And in her bed. He knew it looked bad, not that anyone else had said anything but there was no way Lockridge and Hutchins and Bronson didn't know, and actually Katherine had pitched a fit when she found out but fuck her. So long as Tess wanted him he was going to stay. And when she didn't want him anymore...

"What is that?"

Her voice brought him out of his head and he looked over to find her nodding at him, at his necklace, the one he hadn't realized he'd grabbed.

"It's a necklace."

She gave him a deadpan look but she couldn't hide her smile and though he couldn't stop his hands from twitching as she slowly sat up she didn't need his help to do it- she was healing, all those bruises faded from black to brown and blue to green.

She was even prettier than he'd thought.

"What kind of necklace?" She asked again, something he didn't recognize in her eyes. "You play with it a lot."

Did he?

"It was my grandfathers- my grandmother gave it to him when he went to serve in World War II. My mom gave it to me when she realized I was serious about enlisting."