"What happened to your face?" Peggy asked when she first saw Jack's bruised and half closed eye while he was exiting the elevator on a Monday morning.
She didn't meant to say that out loud and almost slap herself for this outburst. Of course that made everybody in the room turn to look at them. Nobody said anything but Jack could already hear their minds racing trying to understand or have an explanation for what had happened to him.
Jack sighed internally, he wished so hard to go unnoticed this morning. He already wasn't in a good mood today and all the stares only made him even grimmer.
He hold back a growl and the want to shout at them and walked silently to his office without any further explanation or good morning to anybody. He shut the door loudly and didn't come out, not even for lunch which surprised Peggy since he was always the first to ask for food at eleven thirty in the morning.
As the day went by, The men of the S.S.R. curious, started to make bets on what could have happened to the Chief. Their school girl's behavior made Peggy roll her eyes in exasperation. The entire office was talking about that, coming up with the most unrealistic and impossible stories.
Agent O'Malley's hypothesis was that Jack had gotten punched by some guy for having being caught shagging his girlfriend. On the other hand Agent Graham was a little bit more imaginative, in his mind Jack was actually on a super secret mission last night and that's the reason he couldn't tell what had really happened. Most of their stories were either dumb or cliché and Peggy didn't know if she should wether laugh or roll her eyes at them. How come those suppose to be the best agents of the country would spend their workday make assumptions on what their boss did last night instead of working, Peggy wondered.
All this gossiping was getting on her nerves, she tried to make abstraction of it but she couldn't focus. Yet, she couldn't help herself but wonder what had happened to Jack. Had he been beaten up? Was he in trouble? What did this man got himself into? She fulminate against him.
She tried to convince herself that her worry had nothing to do with him. She was just being a good colleague. She would be in the same state if it was someone else. Yeah right, a small voice said inside her head.
She snapped out of her reverie as Daniel stopped by her desk at the end of the day.
"Hey Peggy." He greeted casually, with a shy smile.
"Daniel." She smiled back at him.
"So what's your opinion on the matter?" He asked curiously.
"I have no idea what happened to him, Daniel." She shrugged acting uninterested when she was quite the opposite. Though, she didn't want to him to know that.
"Not even curious?" He raised an eyebrow.
"Should I be?"
"Well, I am."
"Good for you." She said. Yet Daniel carried on.
"In my opinion. He got drunk at some bar and fought with a random guy making him wake up this morning with a black eye and a hell of hangover. That would explain why he's in a hell of a mood."
"Interesting theory." She said in a neutral face.
"Anyway, I'm done for the day. Are you?"
"I still have to finish some things. Have a good evening, Daniel." She smiled.
"Thanks. I'll let you work then. Don't stay up too late." He joked, going back to his own desk.
Gradually, the room started to empty as the day was touching its end. Peggy should've check out a long time ago but she was determined to finish her paperwork that she hadn't been able to get done during the day.
When she finally came to the end, the moon was already high in the sky and her stomach growling. All this work had made her hungry. She decided to ordered for food and giving Jack's closed office door, she figured he must be famish too so she ordered for food for two. She kept in mind that she was only being a good colleague and sharing dinner or food with him was perfectly normal.
Once the food arrived she walked to Jack's office, knocking on his door.
"Yes?" She heard his voice called out from the other side of the door. She took that as a permission to come in a opened the door.
"Chief, you busy?" At the sound of her voice, Jack lift his head.
"Nothing that can't wait. Why?"
"Since you didn't even came out for lunch today I deduced you were very busy." She explained. "So I decided to get your dinner this way you wouldn't starve to death." She said putting down the food on his desk. Jack took a look at it and then back at her.
"It's for me?" He raised an eyebrow, sounding surprised.
"Yeah." She nodded.
"Thank god, I'm starving." He quickly moved to open the bag of food, smelling the marvelous scent.
"Hum." He moaned "Marge I could kiss you." He said with closed eyes as he took a bite.
Peggy tried to suppress the feeling in her stomach at the sound of his voice and words.
"Wanna share dinner with me?" He asked before she'd done it herself.
"Why not." She sat down on the chair in front of his desk, opening her own bag of food.
"I love Joey's burger." Jack spoke again, taking another bite. Peggy tried to hide her smile, proud of her doing. "They are the best of the state." He continued.
"That's what I heard." She agreed knowing very well that he loved that restaurant.
It was nice to share diner with Jack, they shared a few laughs, talked about other stuff then work and Peggy got to know him from a new perspective. He could be a nice person when he wasn't be a jerk .
"So Carter." He spoke. "Tell me... What's your guess on what happened to my face?" He asked, finishing his burger.
"I beg your pardon, sir?" Peggy said in what she wanted to be a innocent voice.
"Carter I might be half blind with this eye of mine but I'm not stupid." He gave her a glare. "I bet all of you spent the day guessing what happened to my face." He draw his elbows closer to his desk, lacing his fingers in front of him. "So what's your guess?" His voice sounded like a tease and his smirk only made it more obvious.
Not to mention that his last remark made something switch inside her stomach and that smile of his wasn't helping. She stared at his blue eyes at lost for words. Incredible even all messed up he still had a handsome face, she thought.
"Really you think I have a Handsome face?" He tilt his head, a smirk appearing on his face.
Bloody hell! Had she said that out loud?
"You did." She heard him say, he was now displaying a wide smile on his face. She blinked at him and cleared her throat, trying to suppress the blush covering her face. Hating herself for letting him make her feel this way. With her chin up, she confronted him.
"I have no idea or desire to know what happened to you." She said.
"Come on, Carter. I know you're curious."
"I didn't say that I wasn't." She admitted. "I only said I have no theory."
"Well make something up." He teased. "Use your imagination." He smirked. She looked at him and rolled her eyes giving up.
"Okay, My guess is: you were home alone, thinking about life. You got drunk with your lovely friend called: bottle of Bourbon and you passed out on your couch."
"Why does it always implies alcohol with me?" He acted offended but his eyes said otherwise.
"Let me finish." She raised her finger, smiling. "At some point of the night you woke up and tried to stand but you lost your balance and fell. On your fall, you hit some furniture corner and ended up like that."
The room stayed silent for a moment, Jack hadn't said a word, only staring at her with a serious face. For a moment she thought she might have said something wrong.
"For your information," he started in a serious tone. "I know how to hold my drinks." He then smiled, joking. He didn't look that much hurt by her words, quite the opposite. He was holding back his laugh.
"Well…" She shrugged.
"So in your mind I'm just an alcoholic asshole, who gets drunk every other night crying himself to sleep, huh?" He said it more to himself than her.
"I didn't mention the crying part, but If you say so..." She shrugged one shoulder, smiling.
"Impressive how far from the truth you are, Marge." He said amused.
"I tried." She tilted her head.
Later that night as Jack was getting ready for bed he thought about his incident. He cracked a smile thinking about how much a fuss it had made at the office that day. He imagined all of them going crazy of curiosity. He couldn't blame them. Being curious was part of the job of a federal agent, of a detective. Though it was still funny to watch them suppose what the heck happened to his face. It almost made him forget about the pain.
However he came to wish that the team would never found out the true story behind his damaged face. He'd be forever ashamed if they came to discover that it was while helping his gam-gam a Sunday afternoon cutting the grass, that he was stung by a freaking huge wasp.
[The End.]