@exhaustedpirate and i were talking about tommy yesterday and then this happened. enjoy, i guess :]
"Tommy, I do like you, you should know that.” Hen says, holding the cup of coffee in her hand, watching over to where Karen and Buck are playing with the kids. She can feel the way his body is tense next to her, and it reminds her of a younger Tommy a long, long time ago.
The tension never really left him, back then. Hen always attributed it to something else.
“I just never thought you liked me all that much,” she adds, looking at him from the corner of her eye.
His shoulders fall, but the tension remains.
"Hen, I…” his voice is quiet, soft in the way it wasn't back then. “I admired you from the second you walked into the firehouse. I just. God, I was so jealous, too.”
Hen can't help the scoff that builds in her throat at the words. “You. Were jealous of me?” She says it like it's crazy, because it is. She was the dirt beneath their feet under Gerrard, she would have gladly changed with anyone. She was in no position to be jealous of. It's absurd, is what it is.
“You came into the firehouse and you stood your ground. You never pretended to be anyone else other than yourself. And we treated you like shit for it, I know. Believe me, I do.” There's a pause there that feels significant, so Hen doesn't interrupt.
“I know you can't exactly hide it. But you could've made yourself smaller. Changed. And you didn't. You… god, Hen, you were so loud about who you were. Unapologetic and with both feet on the ground, immovable. Solid.”
Hen turns to look at him, wondering where this is all coming from. He's fidgeting with the mug in his hands, eyes trained on Buck in the other room.
“And every day I saw you,” his voice is even quieter now, “I thought: please stop being so loud. Stop showing me what I should be, because I can't. I hated that I couldn't be like you. I hated that I hid, that I was so terrified. I wasn't uncomfortable with you for any of the reasons everyone thought I was. I was uncomfortable because it's like someone gave me a mirror and said: look, this is who you would be if you were better, if you weren't such a coward. And I never learned how to deal with that while I was at the 118.”
There's a thousand conflicting emotions in her heart, but Hen knocks their shoulders together anyway.
"That's why you transferred?” She asks, because she has a hunch about it. "So you could be better?”
“Yeah,” he admits, leaning against her shoulder with his own, “I had a really good teacher, you know.”
