The Luzhin Defense
(not in anyway based on the book by Vladimir Nabokov)
by Aria
Disclaimer: I don't own them (loud gasps were heard from around the room, the chairman tapped his microphone, pushing his glasses back to the top of his nose before he spoke 'you mean you were playing with somebody else's toys?' he spoke with an English accent and deep bass voice. I sobbed and looked at my feet as I plucked up the courage to reply. 'yes')
Rating: PG-13, was going to go higher, but I get embarrassed writing smut!
Summary: That weekend in Santa Barbara. A little Jack-Nina-Teri story.
Author's note: This doesn't follow on from any other fic I've written. This story has no action in its plot, although it is designed to provide a little back-story. All of my fics are designed to tie up a few loose ends, like 'Blackened Armour' ties up some of how Tony now knows about the keycard and why he is apologetic to Jack an hour later. Shameless plug! 'Nobel Business' doesn't really tie up any plot, but whilst we're on the topic of shameless plugs....
"Hello I'd like to check that everything's in order for my reservation this weekend?" The desk clerk prompted her for her name and she gave it, tapping her pen on her desk as she watched the steam fuming out the top of her coffee mug.
The clerk came back with the information about her room, the number, dates of stay, and her booking information. She read it over the phone, and Nina nodded as she listened to the details, scribbling them down in the same code she used to take down all the phone messages. "Okay, thanks." Nina said and hung up the phone. She glanced up at Jack's office.
Through the green glass she could see him sitting at his desk, his back to the room below. He seemed to be on his own phone, and so she held back.
It was January 11th, and she'd planned a long weekend away for her and Jack. They were going to go down to Santa Barbara together, leaving tomorrow morning and returning late on Monday night. She'd rented a car, booked a hotel, made reservations for dinner for tomorrow night, and she was just waiting for Jack to get off the phone line to confirm what he was doing.
She'd honed her investigative skills with the unit for precisely this type of real life work. Nina had discovered many things since she'd begun sleeping with her superior but a large one of them was his love of chess.
The first time they'd slept together had been at his new apartment, one of his first nights there. The kitchen and bedroom had been unpacked, along with two lounge chairs. She'd woken several times during the night, each time next to him, each time only to be pulled back into the bed, except one. Sometime around five am, she'd woken alone. It was a few months ago, but still winter, and his apartment had been dark. Nina had made her way past the piles of boxes to find him in the kitchen, seated at his breakfast bar, poring over some papers from CTU, sipping a glass of scotch.
"Hey." She'd said, not startling him because he'd heard her footsteps, he looked over and smiled at her, so she advanced further, running a hand along his shoulder and down his arm, leaning over to look at his work.
Jack dropped his pen on the counter and wrapped his arm around her, pulling her closer until she perched herself on his leg, resting her head back on his shoulder. She'd sighed contentedly, it was incredibly domestic, but she wasn't worried, she was comforted, happy, even. Jack slid his arm under hers, drawing sliding a finger inside her shirt and drawing lazy circles on her stomach. Nina rewarded him, tilting her head and kissing his neck as he began to speak. "I was hoping to finish this and sneak back to bed before you woke up." He was apologising, rapidly reshuffling the papers with his free hand. He leaned into her. "There's a chess board over there, if you set it up, we can play when I'm finished with this page."
Nina had slid off his leg, choosing, instead to perch herself on the table to kiss him. She'd much rather have gone back to bed after he'd finished, but she'd wandered over to the box next to the armchair and taken the lid off, on the top of the box was a chess set, wooden, the board folded, thick wood, brass hinges. Inside were the pieces, carved from resin, still soft, and she'd put the box lid back, clutching the set in her arms and made her way back to the table.
She knew not to talk. Jack was reading the papers in front of him, not content with one page, he'd turned over Tony's report and was half way through the next page, making notes on a legal pad. Nina placed the chest board down on the table, setting it up in silence, there was enough space at the end of the bar for the set, and she unfolded the box, laying the pieces down carefully. She laid them out, rook, bishop, knight, king, queen, knight, bishop, rook. Letting the queen sit on her own colour, as the king would. A row of pawns, she examined each piece between her fingers, rolling the soft wood between her fingers, and then rubbing the layer of oil across her finger tips. She sniffed it, and when she still couldn't identify it, licked it. It was olive oil, from a recent polish.
Jack finished as Nina collected a glass from one of his cupboards. "You thirsty?" he asked, coming up behind her to wrap his arms around her waist.
"Yeah." She muttered, turning the cold tap on full blast and testing the water, not cold enough yet. "You got any ice?" she asked, arching her neck to give him better access as he kissed it.
Jack took her glass, moving over to the fridge and disappearing inside it for a few minutes. He returned with a glass of iced water and ice, passing it to her as she turned off the tap and wiped her hands on a nearby hand towel. He took a second glass from the cabinet and got himself a glass of the same, then led the way to the countertop where the chessboard was.
He swapped the knights and bishops on each side, and waited for her to sit down whilst he took a sip. "Have you played this recently?" he asked, as she slid onto the stool opposite him.
Nina looked at the pieces, glancing over at Jack. "Not in a few years." She admitted, crossing her legs under the table, brushing his as she did so. The bar was narrow, and their legs were touching underneath it. It was too thin for them to sit completely separate, where Jack's legs touched hers she felt warm, and slipped off her shoes, letting them drop to the floor beneath her feet. She moved her piece, a pawn and settled down taking a casual sip of her water. She was trying to play by gauging Jack's face as he made his move, but she lost in less than thirty moves, and was soon dragging Jack to his bedroom, where she was sure she'd win.
Ever since that night the chessboard had always been present in his apartment, in the corner, on the breakfast bar. She'd helped him unpack a large number of his boxes, and once it was organised he'd set up the chessboard on a table in the corner. Occasionally there'd be a game in progress, something he and Kim were playing, then he wouldn't ask to play, but Nina was a trained psychologist, and noticed the occasional glance over at the chess board, the way he avoided it. Jack was a huge chess fan.
And here she'd planned a weekend to feed his hobby. She watched as Jack got up from his chair and made his way across the room, finished with whatever he was doing, and got up from her desk, grabbing a folder she had to give him anyway, and making sure any agents who needed her could stop her before she walked upstairs, so they wouldn't be disturbed.
Jack's door was shut, which usually meant he didn't want to be disturbed. It always applied to the rest of his agents, but long before she'd started sleeping with him it had stopped applying to her. She opened the door and shut it behind her, locking out the hum of noise from downstairs.
"What's that?" he asked her, gesturing to the file in her hand.
Nina raised it and placed it on his desk. "From District about an hour ago, it's the budget." It was one of the heaviest files she'd had in her inbox, and the plastic had stopped bowing now it was gone. It landed on his desk with a thud, and Jack opened up the first page, shutting it as quickly as he saw the first column.
"Any problems?" he asked.
"No, they approved the extra money we asked for, for stun guns, Jamie's pay rise..." Nina told him, waiting for his face to light up.
And it did. He smiled. "She was on a pathetic salary." He said, folding his arms and smiling.
"It's not what we asked for, but it's something." Nina turned the folder round and flicked through it, she'd memorised the page number that gave them her pay rise, and showed it to him, running her finger above the line that mechanically approved the extra seven and a half thousand dollars a year.
He nodded, "With the number of hours she puts in..." He read the line she'd gestured to, "It's closer to what she deserves." Jack scratched his cheek as he read the amount, and bit his tongue when he realised the difference between their request and what they'd been given. It was a pretty large difference.
Nina wandered across the room and took a seat on his couch. You couldn't see that far into his office from the floor below, and she knew he felt more comfortable talking about them when he knew no one could see. Jack turned, perching himself on the back support of one of his chairs, "What's up?" he asked her.
"I've posted myself out and unreachable for the weekend." She told him.
"I posted Santa Barbara, I'm taking my cell." He replied. They'd agreed that Jack would be the one to be available, as head of the unit, he needed to be reachable, but obviously if he was called in, Nina would come in too. No one was going to know that Nina was with him this weekend. "You're still not going to tell me what we're doing this weekend?"
Nina shook her head. "Santa Barbara."
"Yes, but something tells me there's more to it, and you won't tell me where we're staying." Jack commented, he was smiling now.
"You don't like surprises?" She asked coyly, leaning back on the sofa and crossing her legs.
"In our line of work they're generally not good thing, Nina." Jack said, almost throwing himself off the chair to join her on the sofa. She merely smiled wider in response. "So you're not going to tell me?" he asked, once more, hoping for a different answer.
She shook her head. "I got a rental car for the weekend, I was going to come by and meet you at your place at four." Jack's mood changed suddenly, he became pensive. On the sofa he reached for her hand, watching it as he intertwined each of their fingers in turn, and stroked her thumb for a moment. Nina sat upright, sensing the change.
"Is everything okay?"
Jack nodded slowly, and then summoned the courage to look back up at her face. "Can we make that a bit later, say, six?" He stood and walked back over to his desk. His body language told Nina he was definitely disturbed.
"Yeah," she scowled, and stood, watching as he sat down at his desk, suddenly back to business. "I thought you were going to post out at three?" She queried.
"I am..." he paused long enough to check if Nina wanted him to continue. She did. "I've got something else to take care of."
Nina nodded, accepting his answer, and making her way to the door. If she wanted to enjoy herself this weekend she'd have to at least halfway empty her in-tray. She glanced at him as she left the room, but he was already deep into a file. As she pulled the door open Jack called her back. "I was going to give Jamey her raise tomorrow, what time's she in?"
Nina lifted her eyes to the ceiling as she recalled the shifts she'd signed off on earlier in the week. "Ten." She said eventually, just as she saw Jack's hand go for his computer to find out for himself. He pulled it back when she spoke, grabbing a pen.
"You want to come in for the meeting?" He asked.
Nina nodded at his thoughtfulness, they'd both campaigned with Walsh, Chappelle and Mason about how useful Jamey was, but she couldn't. "I said I'd be leaving tomorrow morning." She told him. Jack nodded, almost giving Nina permission to go, but knowing he'd never told her when to leave before and she's resent it he started, it wasn't an order, but Nina left anyway, anxious to get back to work.
-24-
"Jack." Greeted Michael Kenwood, Jack's family lawyer and a good friend. Although they rarely saw each other, they'd always had a good relationship. Teri insisted on inviting family business associates to Christmas parties, and it was at one of her parties four years ago that he had met his wife, one of Teri's workers at the museum.
Jack shook his hand, and smiled, nervous, although he didn't project it, at Michael. "How you been?" Michael asked, leaning over to his secretary as he waited for a response, he requested some files off of her, and she handed them over from one of the piles off of her desk.
"Good, good." Michael led him inside his office, Jack took a chair on the wrong side of the desk, and took a few minutes to make himself comfortable.
"I have to admit I was a little surprised by your call." Michael admitted as he straightened his suit to sit. "I didn't realise you and Teri were having problems." He leant forward over his desk, trying to minimise the distance between them.
"You didn't notice at the Christmas party?" Jack asked. Although he'd gone to his wife's Christmas party, it was the first time in years he'd actually brought a 'friend from work' he'd taken Nina, and although they had made a point to appear nothing more than friends, whilst Teri and he had appeared to be together still, it hadn't been comfortable for any of them, even though Teri had no idea Nina and he were seeing each other.
"Cara did say to me that she thought something was wrong, but I told her she was imagining things." Jack nodded. There was a tense moment, when neither one of them spoke. Michael felt out of place advising Jack on anything, and Jack didn't want to divulge to Michael he'd been seeing Nina. If Teri decided that this was what she wanted, and kicked up a fight, she could use that against him. He'd started worrying about his marriage the day that he'd started debating strategies. "Anyway, these are the papers, such as you asked me to draw up." He pushed the file he'd requested from his secretary across the desk. Jack opened the binder and read the first few lines.
"You get a third of your combined total assets, such as they were in June, and Teri keeps the house. Joint custody of Kim, although it doesn't specify numbers of days, given that she's fifteen and with your job..."
"Sixteen."
"I'm sorry?"
"She's sixteen, her birthday was a week ago." Jack said, melancholy. He turned a few more pages into the papers, and then shut the folder again. "Thank you, I'll give these to her tonight." He stood.
"Jack..." Michael called him back. Jack raised his eyebrows, to encourage him to continue but he didn't, swallowing what ever he had to say. "Never mind."
(not in anyway based on the book by Vladimir Nabokov)
by Aria
Disclaimer: I don't own them (loud gasps were heard from around the room, the chairman tapped his microphone, pushing his glasses back to the top of his nose before he spoke 'you mean you were playing with somebody else's toys?' he spoke with an English accent and deep bass voice. I sobbed and looked at my feet as I plucked up the courage to reply. 'yes')
Rating: PG-13, was going to go higher, but I get embarrassed writing smut!
Summary: That weekend in Santa Barbara. A little Jack-Nina-Teri story.
Author's note: This doesn't follow on from any other fic I've written. This story has no action in its plot, although it is designed to provide a little back-story. All of my fics are designed to tie up a few loose ends, like 'Blackened Armour' ties up some of how Tony now knows about the keycard and why he is apologetic to Jack an hour later. Shameless plug! 'Nobel Business' doesn't really tie up any plot, but whilst we're on the topic of shameless plugs....
"Hello I'd like to check that everything's in order for my reservation this weekend?" The desk clerk prompted her for her name and she gave it, tapping her pen on her desk as she watched the steam fuming out the top of her coffee mug.
The clerk came back with the information about her room, the number, dates of stay, and her booking information. She read it over the phone, and Nina nodded as she listened to the details, scribbling them down in the same code she used to take down all the phone messages. "Okay, thanks." Nina said and hung up the phone. She glanced up at Jack's office.
Through the green glass she could see him sitting at his desk, his back to the room below. He seemed to be on his own phone, and so she held back.
It was January 11th, and she'd planned a long weekend away for her and Jack. They were going to go down to Santa Barbara together, leaving tomorrow morning and returning late on Monday night. She'd rented a car, booked a hotel, made reservations for dinner for tomorrow night, and she was just waiting for Jack to get off the phone line to confirm what he was doing.
She'd honed her investigative skills with the unit for precisely this type of real life work. Nina had discovered many things since she'd begun sleeping with her superior but a large one of them was his love of chess.
The first time they'd slept together had been at his new apartment, one of his first nights there. The kitchen and bedroom had been unpacked, along with two lounge chairs. She'd woken several times during the night, each time next to him, each time only to be pulled back into the bed, except one. Sometime around five am, she'd woken alone. It was a few months ago, but still winter, and his apartment had been dark. Nina had made her way past the piles of boxes to find him in the kitchen, seated at his breakfast bar, poring over some papers from CTU, sipping a glass of scotch.
"Hey." She'd said, not startling him because he'd heard her footsteps, he looked over and smiled at her, so she advanced further, running a hand along his shoulder and down his arm, leaning over to look at his work.
Jack dropped his pen on the counter and wrapped his arm around her, pulling her closer until she perched herself on his leg, resting her head back on his shoulder. She'd sighed contentedly, it was incredibly domestic, but she wasn't worried, she was comforted, happy, even. Jack slid his arm under hers, drawing sliding a finger inside her shirt and drawing lazy circles on her stomach. Nina rewarded him, tilting her head and kissing his neck as he began to speak. "I was hoping to finish this and sneak back to bed before you woke up." He was apologising, rapidly reshuffling the papers with his free hand. He leaned into her. "There's a chess board over there, if you set it up, we can play when I'm finished with this page."
Nina had slid off his leg, choosing, instead to perch herself on the table to kiss him. She'd much rather have gone back to bed after he'd finished, but she'd wandered over to the box next to the armchair and taken the lid off, on the top of the box was a chess set, wooden, the board folded, thick wood, brass hinges. Inside were the pieces, carved from resin, still soft, and she'd put the box lid back, clutching the set in her arms and made her way back to the table.
She knew not to talk. Jack was reading the papers in front of him, not content with one page, he'd turned over Tony's report and was half way through the next page, making notes on a legal pad. Nina placed the chest board down on the table, setting it up in silence, there was enough space at the end of the bar for the set, and she unfolded the box, laying the pieces down carefully. She laid them out, rook, bishop, knight, king, queen, knight, bishop, rook. Letting the queen sit on her own colour, as the king would. A row of pawns, she examined each piece between her fingers, rolling the soft wood between her fingers, and then rubbing the layer of oil across her finger tips. She sniffed it, and when she still couldn't identify it, licked it. It was olive oil, from a recent polish.
Jack finished as Nina collected a glass from one of his cupboards. "You thirsty?" he asked, coming up behind her to wrap his arms around her waist.
"Yeah." She muttered, turning the cold tap on full blast and testing the water, not cold enough yet. "You got any ice?" she asked, arching her neck to give him better access as he kissed it.
Jack took her glass, moving over to the fridge and disappearing inside it for a few minutes. He returned with a glass of iced water and ice, passing it to her as she turned off the tap and wiped her hands on a nearby hand towel. He took a second glass from the cabinet and got himself a glass of the same, then led the way to the countertop where the chessboard was.
He swapped the knights and bishops on each side, and waited for her to sit down whilst he took a sip. "Have you played this recently?" he asked, as she slid onto the stool opposite him.
Nina looked at the pieces, glancing over at Jack. "Not in a few years." She admitted, crossing her legs under the table, brushing his as she did so. The bar was narrow, and their legs were touching underneath it. It was too thin for them to sit completely separate, where Jack's legs touched hers she felt warm, and slipped off her shoes, letting them drop to the floor beneath her feet. She moved her piece, a pawn and settled down taking a casual sip of her water. She was trying to play by gauging Jack's face as he made his move, but she lost in less than thirty moves, and was soon dragging Jack to his bedroom, where she was sure she'd win.
Ever since that night the chessboard had always been present in his apartment, in the corner, on the breakfast bar. She'd helped him unpack a large number of his boxes, and once it was organised he'd set up the chessboard on a table in the corner. Occasionally there'd be a game in progress, something he and Kim were playing, then he wouldn't ask to play, but Nina was a trained psychologist, and noticed the occasional glance over at the chess board, the way he avoided it. Jack was a huge chess fan.
And here she'd planned a weekend to feed his hobby. She watched as Jack got up from his chair and made his way across the room, finished with whatever he was doing, and got up from her desk, grabbing a folder she had to give him anyway, and making sure any agents who needed her could stop her before she walked upstairs, so they wouldn't be disturbed.
Jack's door was shut, which usually meant he didn't want to be disturbed. It always applied to the rest of his agents, but long before she'd started sleeping with him it had stopped applying to her. She opened the door and shut it behind her, locking out the hum of noise from downstairs.
"What's that?" he asked her, gesturing to the file in her hand.
Nina raised it and placed it on his desk. "From District about an hour ago, it's the budget." It was one of the heaviest files she'd had in her inbox, and the plastic had stopped bowing now it was gone. It landed on his desk with a thud, and Jack opened up the first page, shutting it as quickly as he saw the first column.
"Any problems?" he asked.
"No, they approved the extra money we asked for, for stun guns, Jamie's pay rise..." Nina told him, waiting for his face to light up.
And it did. He smiled. "She was on a pathetic salary." He said, folding his arms and smiling.
"It's not what we asked for, but it's something." Nina turned the folder round and flicked through it, she'd memorised the page number that gave them her pay rise, and showed it to him, running her finger above the line that mechanically approved the extra seven and a half thousand dollars a year.
He nodded, "With the number of hours she puts in..." He read the line she'd gestured to, "It's closer to what she deserves." Jack scratched his cheek as he read the amount, and bit his tongue when he realised the difference between their request and what they'd been given. It was a pretty large difference.
Nina wandered across the room and took a seat on his couch. You couldn't see that far into his office from the floor below, and she knew he felt more comfortable talking about them when he knew no one could see. Jack turned, perching himself on the back support of one of his chairs, "What's up?" he asked her.
"I've posted myself out and unreachable for the weekend." She told him.
"I posted Santa Barbara, I'm taking my cell." He replied. They'd agreed that Jack would be the one to be available, as head of the unit, he needed to be reachable, but obviously if he was called in, Nina would come in too. No one was going to know that Nina was with him this weekend. "You're still not going to tell me what we're doing this weekend?"
Nina shook her head. "Santa Barbara."
"Yes, but something tells me there's more to it, and you won't tell me where we're staying." Jack commented, he was smiling now.
"You don't like surprises?" She asked coyly, leaning back on the sofa and crossing her legs.
"In our line of work they're generally not good thing, Nina." Jack said, almost throwing himself off the chair to join her on the sofa. She merely smiled wider in response. "So you're not going to tell me?" he asked, once more, hoping for a different answer.
She shook her head. "I got a rental car for the weekend, I was going to come by and meet you at your place at four." Jack's mood changed suddenly, he became pensive. On the sofa he reached for her hand, watching it as he intertwined each of their fingers in turn, and stroked her thumb for a moment. Nina sat upright, sensing the change.
"Is everything okay?"
Jack nodded slowly, and then summoned the courage to look back up at her face. "Can we make that a bit later, say, six?" He stood and walked back over to his desk. His body language told Nina he was definitely disturbed.
"Yeah," she scowled, and stood, watching as he sat down at his desk, suddenly back to business. "I thought you were going to post out at three?" She queried.
"I am..." he paused long enough to check if Nina wanted him to continue. She did. "I've got something else to take care of."
Nina nodded, accepting his answer, and making her way to the door. If she wanted to enjoy herself this weekend she'd have to at least halfway empty her in-tray. She glanced at him as she left the room, but he was already deep into a file. As she pulled the door open Jack called her back. "I was going to give Jamey her raise tomorrow, what time's she in?"
Nina lifted her eyes to the ceiling as she recalled the shifts she'd signed off on earlier in the week. "Ten." She said eventually, just as she saw Jack's hand go for his computer to find out for himself. He pulled it back when she spoke, grabbing a pen.
"You want to come in for the meeting?" He asked.
Nina nodded at his thoughtfulness, they'd both campaigned with Walsh, Chappelle and Mason about how useful Jamey was, but she couldn't. "I said I'd be leaving tomorrow morning." She told him. Jack nodded, almost giving Nina permission to go, but knowing he'd never told her when to leave before and she's resent it he started, it wasn't an order, but Nina left anyway, anxious to get back to work.
-24-
"Jack." Greeted Michael Kenwood, Jack's family lawyer and a good friend. Although they rarely saw each other, they'd always had a good relationship. Teri insisted on inviting family business associates to Christmas parties, and it was at one of her parties four years ago that he had met his wife, one of Teri's workers at the museum.
Jack shook his hand, and smiled, nervous, although he didn't project it, at Michael. "How you been?" Michael asked, leaning over to his secretary as he waited for a response, he requested some files off of her, and she handed them over from one of the piles off of her desk.
"Good, good." Michael led him inside his office, Jack took a chair on the wrong side of the desk, and took a few minutes to make himself comfortable.
"I have to admit I was a little surprised by your call." Michael admitted as he straightened his suit to sit. "I didn't realise you and Teri were having problems." He leant forward over his desk, trying to minimise the distance between them.
"You didn't notice at the Christmas party?" Jack asked. Although he'd gone to his wife's Christmas party, it was the first time in years he'd actually brought a 'friend from work' he'd taken Nina, and although they had made a point to appear nothing more than friends, whilst Teri and he had appeared to be together still, it hadn't been comfortable for any of them, even though Teri had no idea Nina and he were seeing each other.
"Cara did say to me that she thought something was wrong, but I told her she was imagining things." Jack nodded. There was a tense moment, when neither one of them spoke. Michael felt out of place advising Jack on anything, and Jack didn't want to divulge to Michael he'd been seeing Nina. If Teri decided that this was what she wanted, and kicked up a fight, she could use that against him. He'd started worrying about his marriage the day that he'd started debating strategies. "Anyway, these are the papers, such as you asked me to draw up." He pushed the file he'd requested from his secretary across the desk. Jack opened the binder and read the first few lines.
"You get a third of your combined total assets, such as they were in June, and Teri keeps the house. Joint custody of Kim, although it doesn't specify numbers of days, given that she's fifteen and with your job..."
"Sixteen."
"I'm sorry?"
"She's sixteen, her birthday was a week ago." Jack said, melancholy. He turned a few more pages into the papers, and then shut the folder again. "Thank you, I'll give these to her tonight." He stood.
"Jack..." Michael called him back. Jack raised his eyebrows, to encourage him to continue but he didn't, swallowing what ever he had to say. "Never mind."