SECRETS

Timeline: Takes place after S4 E8 "Fire From the Sky"

A/N: So if you haven't read ScrewyDame's N/J fic "London After Midnight" and you exist in this fandom, you're missing out. I don't care that it was published in 2004, it's still one of my favourite fics and probably one of the best fanfics I've ever read, period.

It's amusing to me that this is my first published fic in... oh so many years. I've bounced between fandoms like an ADHD cocker-spaniel who got into a box of ground coffee. You'll have to excuse me...

The premise of this story (series of stories?) is that Nigel and Jordan are having a tentative affair and trying to figure out what it means, how they can keep it on the down low, etc etc. I do hope you enjoy; if Nigel/Jordan isn't your thing, please feel free to click away or, read and critique the writing NOT the pairing. Thank you!

- RumpaldiStardust

Knackered, Knickers

Jordan rubbed her tired eyes with one hand, stretching her legs out on the couch as she listened to the television play some kind of bland sitcom. She had just let her eyes drift shut when she heard a soft knock at the door. Letting out an exasperated sigh, she hoisted herself from the warmth of the couch and her blankets and padded sleepily to the door, glancing at the clock as she did so. Who was here at 4:30 in the morning?

"Who is it?" she called before she got to the door.

"S'me, love." Nigel's brogue replied.

For the first time in seventy-two hours, a smile twitched at the corner of her thin lips. She unlocked and opened the door to reveal Nigel leaning against the door-frame, a plastic bag of what smelled like Chinese food dangling nonchalantly from his left hand.

"I was wondering if you'd be by." she said.

Nigel closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the cool wooden door-frame. She noticed he was still wearing the over-sized and filthy bright yellow reflective jacket from the crash site.

"Mmm..." he replied noncommittally.

Jordan reached out and brushed a few strands of his ramrod straight hair out of his shadowed face. His hollow cheeks were smudged with soot and dirt.

"Did you come straight here?" she inquired gently.

He nodded silently, eyes still closed.

"Quit hovering in the doorway. Get in here." she scolded.

Nigel jerked suddenly, as if out of a dead sleep. Jordan guided the exhausted Brit in and shut and locked the door behind them. She tugged his jacket off his bony shoulder and long arms, noting the smell of smoke, death, and sweat that was coming off him in waves. To her credit, she only wrinkled her nose a bit.

He flopped down in the armchair he always inhabited when he was over, kicking off his boots and crossing one long leg over the other as he leaned his head back and rubbed his dirty face with an even dirtier fist. Jordan crossed to him, standing behind the chair and gazing down at him.

"Can we not talk about Devan?" he said flatly.

Jordan nodded in agreement, noticing how red his hazel eyes were and how puffy the skin around them was. She'd shed more than a few tears over the last two days; some of grief, some of regret, some of self pity. She felt empty of tears and had no desire herself to rehash the loss they had all suffered.

"That's fine with me." she leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to his smudged forehead, her fingers resting against his temples.

Nigel smiled for the first time since they'd discovered Devan's name on the passenger manifest.

"You will be taking a shower though." Jordan said firmly. "Especially if you think you're sleeping in my bed tonight. Or 'today', rather. Since it's almost five in the morning already."

The lanky Brit groaned in dismay but heaved himself to his feet.

"You'll have to help, then." he said with a characteristic lascivious smile. "I'm not sure my brain can quite work out how clothes or showers work at this particular juncture."

Jordan rolled her eyes but followed him into the bathroom, swatting him on the butt and raising a small cloud of dust and dirt.

"Jesus christ, Nige. What did you do? Roll in the mud?!"

"Something like that." he replied, turning around and stealing a small kiss as she closed the bathroom door.

"Don't go trying to start anything, I worked a double before the crash and at this point I don't know my ass from my elbow." she said, her fingers working the button of his jeans free.

"Not planning to, darling girl." Nigel mumbled as she unzipped his zipper and yanked his jeans down, accidentally taking his boxers with them. "Although both your ass and your elbow are as fine a set of body parts as ever I have seen. Come shower with me." he said, unfazed.

Jordan grunted, stepping out of her pajama pants and stripping off her tank top before turning on the shower and stepping underneath the hot water as it cascaded down from the shower head. Nigel divested himself of the rest of his clothes and joined her under the soothing spray.

"Christ that's hot." he swore.

"It's perfect." she grinned.

She felt him slide a skinny arm around her middle as his front aligned with her back. He rested his chin on her shoulder as he stroked her tummy with his thumb. They stayed like that for a few minutes, letting the heat of the scalding water boil away the aches and pains of having worked for nearly forty-eight hours solidly. Jordan eventually turned around, pressing a kiss against his adam's apple before reaching for a bottle of shampoo. She poured out a handful and began working it into Nigel's dirty hair. Nigel grunted in approval as she worked the shampoo into a mad frothy mass.

Ten minutes later they were toweling off. Nigel rubbed vigorously at his hair with a small towel while another was wrapped around his slim hips.

"Jim jams where they usually are?" he inquired, padding out of the bathroom and making his way to the bedroom.

"Yep."

She heard the bottom drawer of her dresser opening. That was his drawer now. It held a few changes of clothes, spare pajamas, a razor or two, and some of his favourite books in paperback. She'd deemed it a necessity after Bug had noticed Nigel coming into work in last night's clothes one too many times.

After years of what had been casual workplace flirting, dramatic relationship endings, and her and Woody's on-again-off-again non-relationship; Nigel had finally made a first, tentative move. Which she of course had turned down. When she had run into him later at her father's bar, staring melancholically into what was apparently his fourth Johnny Walker, the two had gotten royally smashed together and it had been Jordan who jumped his bones as soon as they'd managed to get the door to her apartment closed.

Neither was really sure what to call the thing they had. In fact, both steadfastly refused to name it. It worked. They worked. They fitted together in a way that was too perfect for labels or for thinking about. It had been a few months now, since after the last time she and Woody had attempted to make a go of it. That didn't matter now. All that mattered was he made her happy and she made him happy and it somehow worked.

Jordan finished drying off, grabbed their dirty clothes off the floor and tossed them in the laundry basked after rescuing Nigel's wallet and phone from his jeans pockets. Entering her bedroom, Nigel was tying the drawstring of his plaid pajama pants. She smiled, looking him up and down and enjoying immensely the view before stealing the t-shirt he had just been about to put on and putting it on herself. It just about covered her bum but it was all she needed.

"Suit yourself." he smirked, raising an eyebrow as he gazed appreciatively at her barely concealed posterior.

"Oh please. There's barely anything there." she rolled her eyes, smacking herself on the bum.

"Love, I am the president of tiny bottomed committee and sadly, you are not tiny bottomed enough to be accepted into our esteemed brethren." Nigel replied.

"Ooookaaaayyyyy then, Nige." she laughed, placing a hand in the middle of his chest and pushing him backwards so that he landed flat on his back on her bed. "Time for you to get some sleep, as you're making even less sense than usual."

He looked up at her through half hooded eyes that were bleary with exhaustion.

"Y'know," Nigel said. "watching Woody go through this... it makes one..."

Jordan knelt over him, pressing a finger against the Brit's thin, chapped lips.

"I know, Nige. I know."

Nigel kissed the finger resting against his lips.

"I'd just... I'd hate for something to happen to me and you not know-"

"Nige, I know. You don't need to say anything."

His eyes fluttered open once more and their gazes met.

"I don't?"

"Nah, I know."

"Ah."

"Nige?"

"Yes, Jordan?"

She leaned down and kissed him, stroking his hollow cheek and tangling her fingers in his soft, slightly damp hair.

"Me too." she murmured.

Nigel let out a happy but extremely sleepy sigh. Jordan climbed over him and pulled the blanket up over the two of them and wiggled herself backwards so that her bum was situated in his lap. Unconsciously, Nigel reached out and pulled her into him with one arm, burying his face in the nape of her neck.

Jordan covered his hand with her, interlacing their fingers before closing her eyes. She'd call Garrett as soon as she woke up to let him know that neither of them would be in today. For now, she needed sleep and so did Nigel.