Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue.
This takes place before "Last Rites" in season 6
Enclosed
When you're a spy you get used to the idea of a gun being pointed at your head, it never becomes exactly comfortable, but do it often enough and you learn to come to peace with it.
Although this particular incident of gun-to-head holding was starting to seriously test Agent Pearce's calm. "Jesse." The CIA Agent had her hands raised and was wearily surveying the several young, muscled and tattooed young men in front of her.
"Yeah?"
"I just want you to know." Their captors yelled something in Spanish and a car engine started up. "I think this in entirely your fault."
"What?" standing next to her Jesse Porter managed to look both offended and surprised at the same time.
Pearce made sure to look at him as their captives relieved her of her holstered gun and pressed the muzzle of a .45 against Jesse's chest. "You just had to rope me into your band of do-gooders. I was perfectly happy doing unfulfilling work for the government." A white beater car that needed new back tires and a few less bullet holes was parked hastily in font of them and their captors backed up, gun's still raised.
Jesse gave her a disbelieving look as he was shoved forward. "What, you've never been held at gunpoint on a CIA mission?" he asked sarcastically.
"Yes." Pearce replied, wincing as she got a gun in the back, she managed a dark look for the perpetrator before finishing her sentence. "Which is why I try to run the Op's now." Another order shouted in Mexican and the trunk to the car was popped with a metal groan. "You know so it's the pawns that get themselves thrown into trunks at gunpoint and not me."
Jesse was grabbed by two burly guys with their weapons stashed in the front of their jeans and barreled into the back of the car. "If you wanna blame anyone, blame Mike."
"Why?" Pearce asked doubtfully as she did her best not to hurt Jesse as she was pushed in after him, the trunk lid bumping the back of her head painfully as it was slammed shut.
"Because otherwise it'll be one very awkward car ride," Jesse answered as he tried to find the best place to put his hands. The sound of the car engine burst to life and they were on the move. "And he's not here to defend himself that always helps."
About twenty minutes later in was getting very uncomfortable in the back of an anonymous car headed for the Everglades. Pearce was trying not to think of what lay ahead for them at the end of their car ride while Jesse was trying to pass the time with as little awkwardness as possible.
"I hate secrets." Pearce whispered after some time. It wasn't really necessary to speak any louder in such a confined space. The old trunk had certainly not been designed to have two people stuffed into the back of it and Pearce found herself a lot closer to Jesse Porter then she would have ever expected, she was doing her best not to lie on top of him directly, but there wasn't exactly a lot of wriggle room, she could feel every movement he made and vice versa.
"You're a spy."
"Refrain from pointing out the hypocrisy please, I know Michael has his own agenda and you all are in on it, I don't want any more surprises that end with you and Sam gate-crashing my armed convoy…again."
Jesse shifted awkwardly before stopping, realizing that moving in such an enclosed space was likely to make things more awkward. "It's for your own protection, keeping you in the dark gives you deniability, and then there are some things you just plain don't want to know, trust me."
"Like why you felt the need to trash my laptop a few weeks ago? That was expensive you know, the CIA is in a recession too."
"Did you burn it after like I instructed?" Jesse asked seriously. The last thing they needed was Pearce finding out what had almost happened to her—what Mike had almost done to her—before Fi turned herself in.
"It's currently at the bottom of the Miami canal if you must know and nice job avoiding the question."
"Thank you." There was a pause and Jesse sighed. "You know I can feel you glaring at me."
It was hot, typical Miami heat was seeping into the car by now, Jesse and Pearce could hear the whine of the aged air conditioning through the back of the car.
Jesse managed to raise his hand to wipe the sweat from his brow, he could feel something cool pressing against his collar bone and it took him a moment to realize it was the metal of Pearce's necklace. "Where'd you get it?"
"Get what?" She asked.
"That necklace you always wear."
"It was a gift." Jesse could actually feel the muscles of her body tense against him at the question and he was considering dropping the whole conversation before he remembered that they were locked in a trunk together and the last thing he wanted was to make the drive any more uncomfortable.
"Mine too." He answered softly.
"My fiancé." She added after a moment and Jesse was surprised at how easily he could hear the emotions in her voice. She's wasn't an easy woman to read and he'd seen less emotion in her when she'd been pointing a gun at him.
"My mom."
"Is she gone too?"
Jesse nodded, his chin bumping softly against the top of her head. "A long time. Him?"
"Eight years, three months, fourteen days."
"Lucky guy." He answered honestly
"Because he's dead?" she scoffed at him.
"Because he had someone who'd count the days he was gone."
Jesse had always wanted that.
"Austria."
"Australia."
"Afghanistan."
"Belarus."
"Belgium."
"Britain."
"Britain isn't a country it's a whole lot of countries and if anything its Great Britain."
"You really are a stickler for rules Pearce, Bangladesh then."
"Much better and I take my word games very seriously."
"Remind me to never play Scrabble with you."
"You should see me playing Scattergory, they still tell stories about it."
"Okay see now, that is why we cannot die today, I have just added it to my bucket list."
"What's wrong?" Jesse winced, not answering the question right away as he tried to straighten out his leg in the enclosed space. His foot hit the side of the car and his grimaced again as pain shot up his calf.
"Cramp." He whispered, "In my leg."
"Not much a threshold for pain there Porter." Did she actually sound smug about that?
"I tried to get a tattoo once, it wasn't for me." He didn't know why he was telling her that but as the pain in his leg receded it seemed like a useful topic of conversation. "You don't seem like the tattoo kind of girl?"
She didn't answer and then Jesse was the one laughing at her. "Seriously? Where?"
"That's classified." She answered sarcastically.
He laughed again. And there was an angry voice from the backseat telling them to shut-up. "Well, how many?"
Agent Pearce sighed and Jesse could feel her breath against his neck. "Five." She answered reluctantly.
"Five?"
"Mine was a miss-spent youth Mr Porter."
Jesse laughed, loudly; Pearce could hear the sound harshly in her ear and also feel the rumble of his chest beneath her. She found herself smiling as well; there were worse ways to spend an afternoon locked in a trunk.
"I hate cats." She said suddenly, breaking the silence.
Jesse frowned in thought for a moment. "Why?"
"Their…cats."
"Makes sense."
She was glaring at him again.
"My Aunt used to have a cat, it liked to claw the hell outta my leg, dog's are less painful."
"But more work, I thought spies didn't really keep pets? You move around too much." Jesse rolled his shoulders as a sharp left turn left them pressed against the side of the trunk, he pushed against the edge and slid Pearce and himself back into comfortable territory. Finally deciding to just put his arms around her to save space.
They hit another large bump in the road and after Pearce was finished rubbing the back of her head painfully she answered. "I have a friendly neighbor but yeah technically your right. I'd just never have a cat even if I could. Their evil."
There was silence for a few moments before,
"What about a Parrot?"
"Worst ever?" The boys in the front seat were starting to get more exited and were moving around in the car, they would soon be upon their destination apparently. Jesse was trying to calm his nerves by talking and he repeated Pearce's question back to her.
"Yup."
Jesse thought for a moment before finally answering. "I had a girl in Seattle my first year out of training, I'd met her at a coffee shop and got a yes on my first try so of course I was very proud of my self." Pearce laughed at his tone of voice. "I dress up nice, buy flowers and all that, take her to the nicest restaurant in town, she orders a lobster, everything is going well until just after dinner she goes to the bathroom and never comes back."
"Was she kidnapped?"
"Not quite. When I go to pay for the two hundred dollar dinner I find that my wallet is missing."
"No way."
"Way." Jesse was smiling himself now, "she'd lifted my wallet, I go to call the number she gave me and I get an escort service, with a very detailed answering machine message."
"You got conned, I actually respect that a little."
"All my spy mojo, gone in an instant. I had to pay the bill by working the dishes shift for the rest of the night; I think the owner understood though, he let me come pay the rest the day after."
"We should recruit that woman." Pearce mused.
"You? What was your worst date ever?"
"Oh easy, I was in Portugal in 98', guy, very cute by the way, turns out to be a terrorist plant."
"Oh I'm sure that ended well."
"He shot me."
"What?"
"In the leg, to be fair, I stabbed him with a fork first. Spent a month on crutches and nearly as long trying to explain to my handler what exactly had provoked a near international incident."
Jesse snickered. "Okay, you win. Yours is worse."
"Yeah, but at least I didn't have to do dish washer duty."
"If I don't have a concussion by the end of today it'll be a miracle." Pearce complained as the back of her skull was again subject to bruising as their ride crossed over another large bump. "Where do you suppose their taking us?" she whispered. In the dark she couldn't see all of Jesse's face but she suspected her would be shrugging if she could.
"Dunno, but I think we must be off road, there's no place in Miami that's got so many potholes." As if on cue Pearce cursed as they ran over another bump the jolt shaking the whole car. "Wherever it is, it can't be good, when we stop we're going have to mount some kind of attack, I suspect our friends are doing lots to see who gets to kill us first when we stop."
"Which is a problem since they took my gun and yours." Pearce pressed her elbow against the trunk floor and tried to roll her body to the left, managing only to knock Jesse painfully in the ribs.
"What are you doing?" Jesse asked nervously, blowing some wisps of her hair out of his face. Pearce shifted some more before a metallic thunk made her stop.
"Ow." Her elbow was smarting from its collision with the wall, "Okay I can't get it. You're going to have to."
"Get what?"
"Can you reach my belt?"
"Not much of a weapon against angry Mexicans with guns Pearce." He suspected she was rolling her eyes at him. Again.
"No but the knife hidden in the buckle might be of use."
There was a pause as the sound of bad Miami radio drifted through to them. "Really?"
"Porter—"
"In the buckle?"
"I am a secret agent you know." she answered sarcastically.
"That is awesome. Very Agent 99. Do you also have a telephone in your shoe?"
"Wouldn't you like to know?"
"There should be a catch along the top." After much maneuvering they'd managed to find a position that afforded them enough room to complete the task leaving Pearce holding the majority of her weight on her forearms the metal lid of the truck digging into her back as she tried to put some space between Jesse and herself.
"This isn't going to stab me is it?" he asked.
"Only if you're not careful."
"That's comforting." Jesse gritted his teeth moving his fingers slowly along the metal of Pearce's belt buckle till he felt the rough edge; he gently hooked his nail under it and pushed. There was an inaudible click and the piece of metal detached and fell into his hand, pressing the catch again revealed a small yet sharp blade protruding from the end. Jesse grinned in triumph and Pearce let out a breath of relief, letting her aching arms rest, leaning against Jesse's body again.
"Very tricky Agent Pearce, do you think we hide it for the right opportunity or go for the surprise attack when they open the trunk?"
Pearce tilted her head listening, "I think we better decide quick, their slowing down."
It was true, the old engine gave a wine as it shifted gear and they heard the crunch of tires on gravel as the car pulled to a stop. There were loud voices, yelling in Spanish. Jesse tensed his cramped muscles but frowned as the sound of doors slamming was followed by silence.
After a few minutes of this he whispered urgently, "What are they doing?"
"I've got a bad feeling about this." There was a metal creak that sounded suspiciously like a hand break being disengaged. "A really bad feeling."
And the car started rolling forwards ominously.
There were several loud and painful crashes before a splash and a literal sinking feeling. Jesse swore as Pearce awkwardly twisted her body to kick at the trunk lid but crappy car or no, the lock held firm. "Start cutting Mr Porter."
Luckily for them the blade was sharp, unluckily it was small and the work was arduous. Water had started splashing in from the backseat, it stank and was murky and Pearce suspected they were somewhere in the Everglades. The perfect place to dump a body, or two as the case may be.
After a few minutes Jesse had made a large enough tear and started pulling at the material with his hands reefing it away to make a bigger gap between the trunk and the backseat, by the time it was big enough for them to fit through the trunk was almost full with muddy water, Pearce took a few last breaths of air before nodding to Jesse, he wriggled through the gap in the material on the threadbare backseat and Pearce followed.
The water was murky and filled with reeds, Pearce could barely see but a sudden thud that shook the car told them that the car had hit the muddy bottom, she felt Jesse next to her, his hand taking hers and pulling her. He must have broken the window with the knife or perhaps they'd been left down for the next moment Jesse and Pearce were swimming up and out, sunlight the best guide to the surface.
The first sound she could hear was spluttering and coughing as they broke the surface, Jesse shook the murky water out of his face, droplets dripping from his nose and chin.
And he was smiling.
She paused only to glare at him before splashing water in his face.
"This is all your fault Porter."
"Well at least we're drying out." Jesse said happily as he and Pearce walked along the dusty pot-hole ridden road that had led them to their current position. There was a cool breeze and few clouds, perfect weather for a stroll.
"You're a very up person aren't you?" Pearce asked, she ran a hand threw her wet hair removing more leaves before tucking it behind her ears.
"Hey we didn't die today when odds were…so you know, I call that a win."
"What are your bad days like?"
Jesse laughed as he rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, the sun above was beating down and they had at least a few hours walking ahead of them. Finally he was getting to work on his tan in Miami.
"Do those buckle knifes come standard by the way?" Jesse asked curiously.
Pearce seemed to consider the question and he almost expected her to tell him it was classified, before. "Not exactly, there was this guy in Brazil who used one to hijack a plane, it didn't save his life but I thought it was a nifty trick."
"We never got any of that stuff in counter intelligence." Jesse joked. "Just hand-me-downs."
"From what I read you didn't really need gadgets."
Jesse looked at her closely, "You put way to much stock into what people's files say about them, you should try meeting people before you judge them."
Pearce smirked, she couldn't resist teasing him. "I have met you Mr Porter and I still don't think you need gadgets."
"Jesse."
"What?"
"Jesse, you can call me Jesse, you do some times and then some times you don't, you can just stick to Jesse if you want 'Mr Porter' makes me sound old."
"And what does 'Agent Pearce' make me sound like?"
"Well," Jesse leaned over to her to whisper. "I hear you're a secret agent."
Another hour down the road and Pearce was starting to recognize large pot-holes that had caused a huge bump on her head, "We should take a break." Jesse spied a large over hanging tree that was bent and angled over the road giving shade from the sun he sat down gingerly on the grass and sighed in relief, at least all the walking had worked out the cramps from his legs. Being stuffed in a trunk was worse then a night on a lumpy couch.
Pearce sat next to him slipping off her shoes and laying them in the sun to dry some more. She was covered with mud as was he and Jesse did his best not to laugh he doubted she'd find the situation as hilarious as he did.
"Do you reckon Michael and the other will have noticed we're missing?"
Jesse nodded to the question, "No doubt, I just hope they don't blow things with Santos, now I especially want to take that bastard down. I take trying to kill me personally." He slipped his necklace from around his neck and started rubbing the muck out of the surface; once again it had brought him luck. "Here."
Jesse smiled as he held the small silver necklace out to her; Pearce took it gently and peered at the face for a moment. "Saint Christopher." She said curiously.
"You know him?"
"Not personally." Jesse grinned, "but I remember most of them, does it keep you safe?" she wiped the necklace with the corner of her shirt some more before handing it back to him.
Jesse shrugged as he slipped it back over his neck. "Probably not, but it can't hurt can it?" he smiled
Pearce looked at him for just a moment, actually thinking about the question as she watched him; her voice was soft when she answered. "I guess not."
Jesse got to his feet, stretching his arms, before offering her a hand. "Danielle."
Pearce snorted, she seemed to find that funny as she let him pull her to her feet. "Only my mother calls me that."
Finally back to civilization they received their fair share of odd looks, from the people about in the late afternoon, one car honked at them prompting Jesse to wave sarcastically.
Luckily a pay phone wasn't too far off and after Madeline accepted the collect call, it was Sam's surprised voice that greeted them.
"You're alive?"
Jesse looked at Pearce curiously, who shrugged. "Um…yes, what kind of question is that?"
There was laughter from the other end and then the voice faded as if Sam was talking to someone else in the room. "Maddie crack out the scotch, the good stuff, I've got great news. Tell Mike to stop plotting his high-risk-low-reward rescue plan!"
Able to hear this Pearce frowned. "Okay, that concerns me."
Half an hour later Sam rolled in to pick them up, before taking a look at their appearance and detouring to a grocery store to buy some plastic to line the seats with.
Forty-five minutes after that they were situated at Madeline's dinning room table recounting the events of the day and drinking coffee.
"So what happened with Santos?" Jesse asked.
Awkward looks were shared before Michael answered in a very Michael Westen tone. "Oh, we won't be hearing from him again."
There was a silence punctuated by the sound of Sam cracking open another beer, all eyes turned to him. "What?" he shrugged. "I'm celebrating."
"So," Madeline started, she was sitting comfortably at the table watching Pearce and Jesse curiously, cigarette in hand. "Tell me again how you managed to get caught by these gun wielding guys and locked in a trunk."
Pearce shared a look with Jesse before answering.
"Really, it was entirely his fault."
And she pointed at Michael.