Jack tossed and turned, no matter how much he drank, how he lay or how many times he closed his eyes, he couldn't sleep. This wasn't the first night, and he knew, no matter how many times he told himself to pull it together, it wouldn't be the last. He'd tried drowning himself with the bottle on his nightstand, hoping with would bring darkness.
Everytime his eyes closed, it wasn't darkness he saw, it was red.
Deep, seductive red, framing crisp white.
The red was moving, speaking to him, "I'm yours, Jack, kiss me." He groaned at himself, "Fool." It was Carter. Damnit, she wasn't that kind of girl, what the hell was doing fantasizing about her like that? Glancing at the clock, he groaned as he saw it was 5:30am. Might as well get up and start early, at least at this hour, he could focus, the office would be empty.
Jack had stopped for coffee on his way in, falling for the "Would you like two donuts with that for 25 cents?" line from the waitress, wondering what he was gonna do with two freaking donuts. As he passed her desk, he thought about depositing them there for Carter. She was a girl, they liked that stuff right? Just as his hand skimmed the surface of the one clean spot there, he heard a voice, "You'd best be depositing your garbage into the waste bin, Agent. I'd hate to think you'd gotten it confused with my desk." He froze, his voice not anywhere near as confident as he'd hoped, "Actually, Carter, I…Uh….I was….here." He thrust the bag at her, "I was trying to do something nice. Girls like pastries right?" Her eyes softened, but her face seemed not to change, "What do you want Agent Thompson?" The disbelief and frustration in her voice, he supposed, were deserved. There had certainly been no love lost between them, but he'd been trying to make amends of late. Maybe they'd been too subtle, "Nothing, honest. The girl caught me with the line and I ended up with donuts, and I don't want 'em." Peggy eyed him as she reached for the bag, tearing off a chunk of donut; watching Jack as she slipped it into her mouth, she closed her eyes and chewed slowly for a moment before swallowing.
Did she know? Did she have some idea of what that image did to him? Jack thought it may have been the longest ten seconds of his life, and was grateful he had a stack of files to cover his below belt reaction once her eyes opened, "Aren't you going to have one?' She looked at him, and pushed the bag back towards him, "I can't eat both." She smiled, "A lady has to watch her figure, you know?" She smirked as if she had her own private joke, then stood, taking some files from the top corner of her desk, "Thompson, stop standing there salivating onto my clean spot of floor, and eat your donut. There's a good boy." As she began to walk away, she called without looking back, "And just for future reference, if you're going to be talked into bringing extras, it's English Breakfast, no sugar, a spot of milk."
He barely saw her for the rest of the day, or the week, matter of fact. Nothing could get that image of those red lips parting delicately, of them closing around the bite of pastry, or the glorious look of satisfaction on her face with her eyes closed, before she'd swallowed. He wondered, momentarily, if she'd have that same look on her face with him one day. The thought was a dangerous one, and with it, he knew he was done sleeping any longer. It was 7am, a Saturday; he figured now was as good a time as any to head in and finish some paperwork. He might run into Sousa, but that was no distraction, and he was sure Peggy had said something about spending the day with a friend, so he was safe on that front too. He was grateful for his car when it started pouring rain on the way in, and he wondered for a moment if, wherever she was, Peggy was warm and dry. The thought of her wrapped up in his arms, beside him in his bed distracted him, and he almost ran down a guy collecting the garbage the block before the phone company. The guy swore a streak at him, Jack just gave him the finger and swerved round him. "Get your head in the game Thompson!" he scolded himself, and pulled into a spot outside.
After a couple hours, he was so deep into his paperwork, Jack didn't notice at first that he had company. He dismissed the original slam of a door down the hall as being his imagination. Nobody in their right mind would be here so early on a Saturday.
What snapped him back to reality again was the sound of something hitting the floor, and then a very unusual, feminine sounding "Bugger!" came from down the hall. He rose slowly, the cleaning staff were all Italian, he didn't even know if they could swear in English, and they didn't work weekends anyway. His hand automatically reached for his gun as he silently pushed the locker room door open, scanning as he made his way inside. There was a rustling noise, followed by a sneeze, and then silence. "Hello?" jack called out sternly, maybe it was just some kid, stumbled in by accident. He'd never have thought it possible before, but after the last few weeks, he figured nothing was off the table.
"Who's there?" He called as the someone sneezed again, and Jack rounded the corner to find Peggy Carter, barefoot and bare legged and looking like a drowned rat, wrapped in what looked like Sousa's shirt from Friday. "Oh, Jack! I didn't think anyone would be here. I hope Daniel doesn't mind, I just got caught in the downpour outside, and this was all I could find." She wrinkled her nose, "Not that he smells bad, but….this shirt is definitely not his spare." Jack relaxed his hand from his holster, 'Jesus, Carter. You look like you've been swimming in the Hudson. Here." Jack handed her a towel hanging from one of their lockers. "Didn't you have plans? Nobody's gonna wanna go anywhere with you now." Peggy leveled him with a glare, "Oh, you do know how to flatter a girl, don't you?" She squeezed some more water from her hair as he reached into his locker, handing her a clean shirt, still in the dry cleaning bag, "Here. Try this. You need anything else?" "I don't suppose anyone here has trousers which will fit me?"
He rummaged a minute more, then handed her a pair of sweatpants almost apologetically, to which she nodded, "I suppose, beggars can't be choosers. Thank you Jack." He stood there, watching, waiting, off in space, she looked at him with fire in her eyes, "You're incredible! Do you think you can just stand there while I change?" He snapped back to reality, countering a little more harshly than he'd meant to, "I'm not the girl who was in the field with the 107th for so long Carter. I find it hard to believe you never changed in front of a guy, especially since you seemed so cosy with 'em." "They turned their backs, which is the least a brute like you could do." She glared at him, and he sighed inside; he hadn't meant to be such a jerk. He shrugged, walking away.
A little later, Peggy appeared by his desk, looking slightly comical. It was all he could do to stifle a laugh, awkwardly turning instead into a smirk which was met with a frown. His shirt was miles too big for her, but she'd done her best, wrapping it across herself, and doubling it back into the ridiculously long sweatpants. She'd rolled the legs almost in half, and was barefoot. "Wait a second." He reached into his drawer, passing her a pair of socks he kept there. He didn't know why, he'd just supposed after the war, when he'd never ever had a dry pair, he liked the thought of them being there. If anyone ever bothered to look, there was a pair in his glove compartment too, and a whole deep drawer full at home. She raised an eyebrow at the offered item, but her face softened, and she accepted them with a quiet "Thanks."
He watched her as she took her seat, slipping on the socks and shivering. The office was a little cold, the heat hadn't quite been ramped up yet for Winter. "You okay Carter?" "I can tend to myself, yes, thankyou." There she was, that frustratingly cool façade had returned, and he sighed, pushing back from his desk. He needed a coffee, and to get away from her.
