The Soldier and The Spy: Jay Halstead- Episode 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 8

He could feel her eyes boring into him across the room, making it very difficult for him to focus on what Knox was telling him.

Vivienne Shane.

Tess's teammate and best friend, the exact kind he'd imagined her having, someone who took no shit and gave a ton. And he was her next target. Which was fair- her friend had been kidnapped and presumed dead and when they finally found her two weeks later she was shacked up with a strange man. They weren't actually, everyone knew that, they just... didn't know what they were. He and Tess didn't even know, they just knew there was something between them and that they liked that thing. And a best friend's duty, especially a girl best friend was to make sure the guy was good enough not just by the friend's standards but their own. Which was why when he felt her finally start making her way towards him after twenty minutes of intense staring he turned to meet her, determined to get her stamp of approval.

"What's up Halstud?"

He just blinked as Knox let out a startled laugh, Vivienne likewise grinning cheekily. Jay had been given a lot of nicknames in his twenty-five years but he'd never heard that one.

"How the fuck did we not come up with that?" Knox asked, still laughing which the redhead seemed to appreciate.

"What do you call him?"

"Ricky."

She raised her brows, her lips quirking at the face he couldn't stop himself from making- it wasn't that it was a bad nickname, it just felt like bragging when he had to explain it. "It's short for Ricochet. I... made a good shot once."

Vivienne snorted but he swore he saw a flash of approval. "How good?"

"He hit a guy outside the wire by bouncing a round off an armoured HUM-V." Knox answered for him, respectfully looking the woman up and down to which she just winked before looking back at Jay.

"How far?"

"Four hundred yards."

Her brows raised again but when she opened her mouth the bright, glittering laugh that filled the room didn't come from her. All their heads whipped to where Tess was sitting with Mouse, where they were supposed to be compiling satellite images to try and narrow down where Selim's compound might be. But Jay didn't give a fuck what they were supposed to be doing because she was laughing. A big, bright, real laugh. He couldn't help feeling jealous that he hadn't been the one to pull it out of her but she looked so happy, and Greg so proud that even though he had imagined it happening differently he knew this was perfect. And then she looked at him. Those big, beautiful blue eyes locked on his and even though her face softened nothing could dim that light- he wouldn't let it.

And someone else wouldn't either.

"You know that if you hurt her they will never find your body."

"I'd tell you before she did."

Vivienne looked him over slowly, and thoroughly, and much like with Tess there was something in her gaze he recognized but didn't understand, the look of an operative, but there was also something Tess didn't have, something he did understand. The look of a soldier. Vivienne had been Air Force before she'd been recruited into the agency, a different branch of the military but a soldier was a soldier and there was only one thing that drove them in the field.

Not for kings, not for glory, but for the ones next to them.

Tess was the one beside her in their fights, and Vivienne was beside her, just like Nysa and Michael and John, and Coulson, each of them also having turned at the sound of her laugh and each watching him now, giving the same subtle but effective message. But he meant what he'd said. Jay didn't think he could ever hurt Tess, intentionally or otherwise but if he did he'd be the first to line up to get his ass kicked for it.