Chapter Text
Michaela felt tense the moment she turned her body to look Jared Vasquez in the eyes. Her soulmate that wasn’t truly for her, at least not anymore.
“You’re back.” His voice was relieved, and his eyes pored over her to make sure she was alright. He was always doing that, searching for ways to help protect her without being overly obvious about it. “Yeah.” she murmured, “I needed a few days to clear my head, get some clarity.” she admitted, and he nodded his head, tilting to find her eyes again. “And did you find what you were looking for?” There was a strange hope in his eyes that seemed distinctive enough to identify but she averted her eyes once more, not wanting to look any more lest she put the name to the feeling she knew that it was.
“I can’t get over what we did.” she squeezes her eyes shut for a moment and clears her throat quietly, “It was wrong.” The middle of the precinct was not really the place to be having this conversation, but Jared seemed intent on it.
“We’re supposed to be together, Mick.” It seemed there was at least one thing they could be in complete agreement about.
“Supposed to be or not, we’re-” she licked her lips, “we’re not together. You’re with Lourdes. I’m not gonna take you away from her.” her voice nearly cracked and with one glimpse she could see that he heard it. “I won’t do that.”
“You’re not taking me.” he insisted in a low and tantalizing voice that never failed to send shivers down her spine.
“But I am though, how can you not see that?” she angrily whispered back to him. How could he possibly not see what everyone else could? “That is exactly what is happening here Jared and I will not do it. I will not.” Her voice cracked and her eyes welled up with tears that threatened to fall the second they appeared.
It would be just her luck that the captain stepped into their conversation right at that moment. She wiped her eyes and pretended to yawn and wipe leep from her eyes instead of tears.
“I need one of you to go down to the waterfront.” He started, and she found a good string of luck in that only one of them needed to be by the waterfront at a time to babysit the people searching for the van.
“Well, how about Detective Vasquez going down for the dayshift so he can be with his wife at night and I’ll take the night shift.” she spit out the idea immediately, a sure way to keep them away in two separate places.
It was a burning feeling, the look of betrayal in his eyes that made her emotions battle. Part of her felt relief to not suffer through spending the day inches away from Jared and be unable to even do the barest minimum of holding his hand, while the other part of her felt disappointment that she couldn’t have even a few minutes working with him in peace today.
Each minute that went by her feelings continued to fluctuate. She was on her third cup of coffee that morning when Lourdes all but stomped up to her, an air of disappointed rage seeping out around her as she demanded to talk.
The ensuing fight drained Michaela even more.
Lourdes didn’t show up to the hanger and have the decency to tell her to her face that she had swooped in and married Michaela’s soulmate right after she disappeared. Didn’t have the guts to tell her the truth. She refused to acknowledge what she had done when she decided to marry a man whose fiancé disappeared. Now she was angry and upset when the very thing she knew could happen actually did happen. She knew that Jared only truly had eyes for Michaela, it was a well-known fact. It was only a matter of time before they collided once more, and they had.
Michaela had finally admitted to Lourdes that she was going to marry Jared Vasquez, that her intent was to say yes to his marriage proposal. In her timeline of events, it had only been one month for her even if it had been five years for the rest of them. One month was not enough to quell these feelings in her or sever that connection she had to him. Her heart hurt at all the pain she was causing simply by existing.