A/N: I really don't have an explanation for this.
When Scott heard the knock at his hotel room door in the middle of the night, he assumed it was Stonebridge. Without muting the TV, he turned to look at his watch, cursing under his breath when he saw how late it was. Twenty to midnight was no time to talk strategy, or to talk about anything for that matter. He closed his eyes and he dropped his head back against the pillow and he thought about pretending that he'd fallen asleep in front of the TV so he wouldn't have to answer the door.
He thought about it for all of two seconds, but then, as it always did, duty won out.
He opened his eyes and picked his head up and muted the TV, finally managing to haul himself to his feet. He hadn't even taken a step by the time the knocking sounded again, louder this time, and more insistent.
"Jesus," he muttered under his breath, grabbing his pants off the floor and throwing on a shirt. "Patience, Mikey."
But when he got to the door and yanked it open, it wasn't his partner waiting on the other side. It wasn't even anyone from Section 20, nor the hotel staff.
It was Jane.
He frowned at the sight of her, rubbing a quick hand over his eyes to test if he was seeing things. He'd been staring blindly at the TV for hours; maybe that had fried his brain a little. But no, she was still there when he dropped his hand. She was wearing the same beat-up pair of jeans she'd had on earlier when their teams had rendezvoused at the Bureau, though she'd since added a leather jacket to the ensemble. Thinking of the June heat outside, suffocating even after dark, he wondered why in the world she was dressed like that, until he saw a flash of that bird tattoo on her neck and he remembered.
He didn't understand how she walked around with all that ink. From the bare-bones briefing his team had received upon arrival in the States, it didn't seem like she had much of a choice in the matter, but still. If it were him, he would've removed those suckers day one, cost be damned.
"The Bureau need us?" he asked, glancing over her shoulder to see if Stonebridge was already ready and waiting. But he was nowhere to be seen; his door was closed and the Do Not Disturb sign was hanging in place as ever. He frowned, looking back at her. "You already talk to Mikey? I never got a call…" He waited for her to explain, and when she failed to, he prodded, "Look, tell me what's going on here. You guys get a hit on that database of yours? I have a hard time believing your intel's so good I need to be pulled out of bed at a quarter to midnight."
"You were asleep? Really?"
There was a dubious note in her voice that he couldn't quite place, as if she were accusing him of lying.
"What does it matter to you?" he asked, suddenly defensive.
She didn't seem to hear. She was staring past him, her eyes locked on something behind his back. Reflexively, he glanced over his shoulder, as if there might be someone lurking back there, ready to kill him. But there was nothing there, as expected. He faced her again, angry now. He hated giving in to fear, if only momentarily.
"What are you staring at?" he demanded. "There's nothing back there." He waved a hand in front of her face. "Hello! You still haven't told me why you're here. If the Bureau found something, I have a right to know. Otherwise, I'm going to bed." When she still didn't respond, he blew out an annoyed sigh, reaching to shut the door in her face as he began to turn away.
"Aren't you going to invite me inside?"
The question caught him off-guard, and he turned around, catching the door at the last second before it slammed shut. Before he pulled it open again, he saw her staring at him through the crack in the door. It was the first time she'd actually looked him in the eye all day.
"Inside?" he echoed, not understanding, his mind still focused on the mission. "Why would I…?"
He broke off as it all clicked together.
The lack of a call ahead. The late hour. Her presence, alone, outside his hotel room and no one else's.
Out of habit, he glanced either way down the hallway, conscious of onlookers. The hallway was clear, but that hardly meant anything—their entire conversation was being recorded by security cameras. He wondered idly if the FBI had access to this feed, and he knew before he even finished the thought that they did. They had to. The Section was as much a liability to them as it was an asset; they would want to keep tabs.
And he would bet his life he only needed one guess to deduce who reviewed the footage for abnormalities.
The thought made him smile. "You want to come inside?" He stepped back and held the door wide open for her. "Then by all means, sweetheart, come inside."
He'd be lying if he said he'd never thought about fucking her. Of course he'd thought about it. What surprised him—what actually sent his mind spinning as he shut the door behind her—was that she had apparently thought about it too.
He could not imagine when or how or why she'd come to this decision. They hadn't exchanged more than twenty words in the week and a half since they'd met, and yet, here she was, showing up at his hotel room at midnight on a Thursday.
He wondered briefly if she was drunk, but quickly tossed aside the thought. She didn't smell the least bit like alcohol and she seemed very much in control of her motor skills. Then again, he thought, trailing slowly behind her as she walked into his room, she did look like she could use a drink.
"What are you watching?"
He turned his attention from her backside to the TV she was staring at, realizing belatedly that while he'd muted the TV, he hadn't turned it off. On screen, a woman was chopping a red pepper into smaller and smaller pieces.
"Cooking channel," he answered. At a look from her, he shrugged. "It relaxes me."
"I hate cooking."
He smiled. "Me too."
She turned back to the TV and for a few seconds he watched her watching it, wondering what was going through her head. Despite the madness she'd wreaked on her skin, she seemed relatively level-headed and, in the short time he'd known her, quite reserved. She didn't seem like the type to proposition strangers in the middle of the night, and he could feel himself hungering for answers from her. He wanted answers about everything: about why she was here, about her tattoos, about her whole cryptic history. He decided to start with the most immediate.
He shut off the TV, and when she turned around, he caught her eye.
"Are you going to tell me why you're here?"
"Isn't it obvious?"
"Well, yeah, but…" He tipped his chin at her. "Humor me."
She chewed the inside of her cheek for a moment, looking away as she thought. He gave her time. He wanted the truth, and he knew that wouldn't come if he rushed her. So he stood and he waited, his curiosity growing.
After a minute, she finally met his eye again. He found himself holding his breath, waiting, knowing he had literally no idea what she was going to say.
And she didn't say anything.
She just reached up, unzipped the front of her leather jacket, and dropped it to floor.
Then she pulled off her shirt, kicked off her shoes, and unzipped her jeans.
It wasn't sexy, exactly. All the motions were there, all the bare skin was there, but there wasn't any excitement behind it, only determination to get the job done. It was the same determination he was used to seeing on her face within the FBI, or out in the field, but now it was here, in his hotel room, and it didn't feel right. Usually a woman's determination turned him on—there was nothing better than a woman who knew what she wanted in bed—but hers was different. He had sensed it from the moment he met her; there was something off with her. Something lurking beneath the surface.
She was using him to plug a hole and he didn't know why it had taken him this long to realize exactly which one. He sighed, tired suddenly, and no longer looking forward to this.
"Look," he began, as she stepped out out of her jeans, "if you're going to get all weepy about the boyfriend in the middle of this, I'd prefer we didn't even bother—"
"I don't have a boyfriend," she interrupted, kicking her jeans off loudly.
"Congratulations on the breakup. But as I said, if you start crying all over the place—"
"I don't cry over men," she said flatly.
He couldn't help but smile at that. "You and I have that in common."
"Apart from hating cooking, I imagine it's the only thing we do have in common."
There was a bite in her voice and it made him cross his arms. He watched her for a moment, discerning. When she finished peeling off her socks, she straightened up and stared back, defiant. She still had her bra on, and her underwear. So there was some modesty in there, he thought, despite all the tattoo artists who had seen her naked.
"Why me?" he asked finally.
"Because I know you won't run your mouth about it tomorrow."
"Ha!" he barked out a laugh, rocking back on his heels. "Jesus, what in the world gave you that idea?"
"Jillian and Vero." At the blank look on his face, she continued, "You've slept with both of them inside a week and the only reason I know that is because they were talking about it in the bathroom the other day. But you never said a word. You don't even look twice at them at work."
"Maybe because they weren't good in bed."
"From what I heard, you're the one who finished too fast."
"Fuck off," he snapped.
She shrugged. "Just what they said."
"What else did they say, huh?" He took a step towards her. "What made you come knock on my door?"
She shrugged again, idly scratching a spot on her collarbone.
"You really not going to tell me? I'm being used here and I don't even get to know why?"
"Do you always ask women this many questions before you sleep with them?"
"No."
"Then why am I different?"
"You know why."
She sighed, turning away for a moment, her hands on her hips. He watched her back, watched the name that was branded there ripple as her shoulders moved. Scott wondered where the man was, what he was doing. If he was thinking of her. Or if he was with someone else too.
"What if I tell him?" he wondered aloud, unable to keep the thought inside.
"What if you do?" She turned back around, her usually bright eyes dark in the half-lit room. "Go ahead and tell him. I don't care. Besides—" She gestured between them with a hand. "—it isn't as if he'll believe you anyway."
"That's true," Scott admitted. But he grinned anyway. He liked the idea of such an outlandish open secret. And as always, he loved the thrill of finding the biggest bear around and poking it with the sharpest stick he could wield.
He reached for the zipper of his pants.
A/N: Thank you for reading! Would love to hear your thoughts on this crack!ship. ;)