A/N: It gets a little off track towards the end, and I didn't actually intend it to be a romance, but I enjoyed writing this one a lot.

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Agathism:

AG-ah-thiz-im

The doctrine that all things tend towards ultimate good, as distinguished from optimism which holds that all things are now for the best.

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Jackson didn't know if she'd come. He simply waited at the table, one that was sticky with the residue of coffees all the Starbucks residents before him had spilt, and sipped at his latte. He'd contacted her simply by the phone. One of the perks of his job was a cell phone that couldn't be traced. She hadn't said a word, and all he'd said is that he wanted to explain things.

It had been surprisingly easy to get out of prison, he'd simply taken advantage of the traffic, the handcuffs, the fact there was only one policeman in the car with him - apparently partially healed wounds lowered his danger value - and the flexibility he'd gained over his time working in the company. A car had been tailing them but Jackson had always been abnormally good at hide and seek. He'd stayed low for a few months. There was always an unspoken agreement in the company - if you're caught, don't try and find us, and we won't try and find you. He knew the only reason they hadn't come after them is he had never mentioned them.

Then he'd called Lisa. He hadn't been able to stop thinking about it. She'd been scarred by a monster before, and he wanted her to understand. He didn't want there to be more monsters in her life than there had to be. It wasn't that he thought she needed to know, but he needed her to know.

So he sat, sipping his latte, and watching everyone walking past the café. Then he saw her, wearing her white work dress, with a jacket over the top, looking pale and frightened. He saw her eyes land on him before she went into the shop, emerging several minutes later with a coffee. She sat down opposite him, eyes on her lap.

"I guess your going to steal me now?"

He laughed a little. "No. That was just to rub your face in your mistake, actually. If you thought that was what I was trying to do, why did you come?"

Shr glanced at him briefly, before lowering her eyes back to her skirt. "I thought I could face you. Or I wanted to see if I could."

He cocked his head. "You seem to be doing okay so far. Though you do realise if I was a threat, staring at your lap would not be the best choice."

She shook her head, as if to clear it, and managed to look him in the eyes for a few seconds, before looking out to the side, then at her coffee. "I think I should go. Will you let me?"

He let what she had sent sink in. "I'm not stopping you. Why do you feel the need to ask?"

She looked at him, jaw hanging ajar, for almost thirty seconds, before snapping back to attention, and closing her mouth, but still with her eyes locked on his. "I stabbed you in the throat with a pen, and then me and my dad both shot you with a nail gun. What are you here for if not revenge?"

His fingers flew automatically to the patch of smooth pink skin at the base of his throat. He shook his head slightly, and he could feel his eyebrows knitting together. "I wouldn't need to meet you like this if I wanted revenge. Besides, I hit your head, and slammed you into a wall. Everything in the house was spur of the moment, I was still on the job then."

She finally looked away, then caught his eye again. "So when you said you were finishing the job… That was completely true."

He smiled slightly. "I never lied to you. I told you that in the bathroom, it's still true. I invited you here to explain."

She cocked her head slightly, and he could feel a smile tugging at his lips at the gesture that had become familiar in the eight weeks preceding the red eye. "Explain."

Jackson leaned across the table, letting his intellectual side take control. "Have you ever heard of the idea of Agathism?" He barely waited for her to shake her head before continuing. "It's the idea that all things happen for the greater good."

"So, like Optimism? Why didn't you just say that."

He shook his head. "No, optimism is the belief that everything will turn out well. There's a difference. If you were an optimist you would believe that… The event in the parking lot was unfortunate, but you'd be able to get over it, because everything will turn out in the end. Agathism is the belief that it happened for the greater good, perhaps it gave you the strength to fight against me, perhaps something else. But the greater good is completely different from your own well being."

She had flinched when he mentioned the parking lot, but seemed to think about what he'd said. "So what does that have to do with us?"

"How well do you know Keefe?" He leaned further towards her, arms crossed on the table, eyes intent.

"He stays at the Lux whenever he's in Miami, which is about once every two and a half months usually. I deal with him a lot because as manager I work with his security, and help keep his rooms private. He's always been polite, and good to his family. Like I said on the plane, he's a good man."

Jackson nodded. "But then, you've only seen him like that." He didn't give her time to answer before continuing. "I know a different Keefe. I worked closely with my customer. If I had the choice I wouldn't have included the family, but it's the customer who makes the final decision. I have no qualms about killing Keefe. I happen to know it's going to happen soon anyway, the same customer hired others in my company. This time, however, he's not willing to wait until Keefe takes his family with him."

He sighed, leaning back into the chair, and taking a sip of his latte. "The Keefe I know blew up a town in southern Iraq just as a warning to anyone who could possibly be thinking of attacking us. A town that had no known connections to any terrorist organisation. It's very rare that people want other people dead without a very good reason, Leese."

Her mouth hung open. "Oh." She shook her head lightly again. "What does that have to do with Agathism?"

He took a deep breath. "The first Keefe assassination didn't work. If you subscribe to Agathism, as I do, then there still has to be a reason for what happened." Her eyebrows began to knit together as if she knew what he was about to say.

"I have to tell you that I've never invested myself in a job as much as I invested myself in that one. Tailing in a thing that usually only happens for a little over a month max. Two is a ridiculously long time, but in my periphery scopes I found myself wanting to see you. So two months it was. I.." He looked at his hands, taking another deep breath, before looking up again, and the earnestness in his eyes shocked her. It was nothing like the Jackson on the plane had been. It was nothing like the Jackson in the Tex-Mex had been. Yet somehow she knew it was honest.

"I think we were meant to meet each other, Leese. I think we were meant to keep knowing each other."

She did nothing to resist as he took her hand across the table, or as he leaned over towards her, and she realised, as his lips hit hers, the more she thought about it, the more it made sense.