A/N: So, I thought I'd elaborate a little further on what this whole thing is. Basically, this thing (if I take it further) will be a collection of drabbles regarding the life of one SSR Agent, Mr Jack Thompson, and his wife, Clara Elizabeth Cauley. She's an OC, and I...am basically a giant fangirl at heart, and I have had a thing for Jack Thompson the moment he appeared on screen even if he was chauvinistic and douchey at first. I really like Peggy and Sousa together, and it seemed slightly unfair to me that Jack didn't have anyone of his own, so that's why I dreamed up Clara. And, yeah, none of the stories will be in chronological order - so each story will jump backwards and forwards in time, from when Jack was in the Navy to the timeline of Agent Carter and also to the future, when he's Chief.

At times, some of the one-shots might be plotless, but that's normally just 'cause they're fluff. And, I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoy writing it. Please leave your reviews, good or bad. Constructive criticism is always welcomed. Thank you!

No one ever called him on his personal line. No one had the number. Or, at the very least, he didn't think that anyone had the number. Had he given it to Clara? She was the only one who knew, wasn't she? She had to know. She was his wife. And if anything were to happen to him, Dooley would have to tell her. "He's been shot," Chief would say. Surely that was the only way to put it? So she had to know. How else could anyone explain that an executive at a telephone company had been shot?

No, of course she knew. In fact, he probably told her himself. He'd been recruited two months after the war. They'd been married for all of a year then. He remembered everything now, every little detail – how she'd sat on the edge of the bed, her hands clasped together. "What about architecture?" she'd asked. Wasn't it his dream to have one of his buildings as part of the New York skyline? He'd had his interview with Parker & Beauregard, and hadn't it all gone well? He was going to be an architect, just as he'd planned to at nineteen.

He didn't remember exactly how he'd argued the merits of working with the SSR. No doubt he'd said something about being able to help people and making a change and all that. And anyway, they both knew he wasn't exactly cut out for civilian life. All he really remembered was that tiny apartment they were living in. The kitchen was practically in the bathroom – or should that be the other way around? The living room should've been more aptly called a corridor, albeit a larger one, and their bedroom was…well, it was tiny. You could fit a bed in there and that was all. And it was a small bed, too. She had to snuggle right up next to him to be able to fit in the bed. That wasn't necessarily a bad thing; especially considering the heating in the apartment was abysmal. But that wasn't what he'd wanted for her. Marrying her in the spring of '44, he'd thought he could give her the world, once the war was over. He'd work at an architecture firm, he'd get paid a hell of a lot more than what the navy was giving him. They'd probably still live in an apartment, but it would have been a lovely apartment. She could've had the fresh cut flowers she wanted in each room. They'd have a piano and a violin and he could listen to her play.

But all this was getting to be quite beside the point. The point was that no one ever called his personal line. Ever. And certainly, no one ever called his personal line twice, and in rapid succession. He left Dooley's office, even as Peggy was in the middle of saying something, without a single world. What had his wife called it? A 'French exit'? Leaving without excusing yourself.

The telephone on his desk was ringing. His telephone. It never rang.

"Hello?" he said into the receiver. There was static coming from the other end, as if there was no one on the phone. "Hello?" he said again, hearing static. "Hello?" That would be the final 'hello', he decided. If no one replied, he'd put the phone down. Hang up.

Then there was a crash, something falling off a table. He heard breathing, slow and controlled. Then, very quietly, "Jack?" Clara.

"Baby?" he said, his tone strangely calm, nothing to denote the furious pounding of his heart. It was not nearly the whisper her voice was, but he wasn't screaming. That was something. "Baby, what's wrong?"

More static. Something else crashed. "There's someone in the house."

Vaguely, he wondered why she was calling him instead of the police. The nearest police station was less than a ten-minute drive away. But it was only vaguely that he thought that, a small voice in his head. The larger part of him was panicked. If his heart had been beating furiously before, he was now in danger of having a heart attack. "Don't hang up. I'm coming."

Briefly, his eyes flitted to the clock on the wall. Five-past-five. Rush hour. It'd take an hour to make it back to his apartment. His mind was racing, trying to figure out the fastest route home, how much time his wife would have before the intruder found her if he hadn't already, how much trouble she would be in. He had all these numbers in his head, and map routes – it was actual genius stuff, as if he was seeing everything floating around in the empty spaces of the office. Then Krzeminski was at his side. He was saying something. Jack? That was all he ever seemed to say to him. Well, he also spouted sheer stupidity, but he was pretty sure that he was saying Jack.

He barely heard himself saying that someone had broken into his house, hardly registered the alarm on Krzeminski's face. Was he giving instructions now? Yes, he was. He was telling Ray to stay by his phone. Clara was still on the line. If anything happened, she'd need to tell someone. And then he was running. Christ almighty, why was he running? When had he decided to run? The elevator came into view. It was still on the first floor. They were six stories up. He could run down the stairs faster than the elevator could get up. And if he had to stand there, waiting, he was sure he'd explode. Spontaneously combust, then explode. Didn't Clara say something about humans having methane gas in them? He would probably explode.

Outside the building now, it would seem that he'd decided to run all the way home. He could probably be there in twenty, twenty-five minutes. Much faster than being in a car during rush hour in the city. Had something happened? It'd been four, maybe five minutes since he left the office. Had the home invaders found her? Did Krzeminski hear her screaming into the phone?

His heart was pounding, both from the exertion and the fear. He really could have a heart attack, drop dead then and there.

He burst through the door. Or rather, he would have, if the door weren't already wide open. It took him all of eighteen minutes to get back to his apartment. It seemed that even he had underestimated how fast he could run when under duress. He'd never even run that fast during the war. He thought that his lungs were going to break his ribs.

She was sitting on the floor, knife in hand, surrounded by carnage. Half of him had expected to see blood on the blade and a dead body at her side, but no. The blade of the knife gleamed silver in the light of the setting sun, and there was no body, only broken things. A lot of broken things. Picture frames, upended furniture, torn open cushions, flowers on the floor – the only flowers she could afford to put in their home. She looked up at him, at the gun he held in his hands, then into his eyes.

"They took the jewellery box," she said.

Ah, the jewellery box. Her jewellery box. It'd always seemed out of place to him in their tiny apartment. All the gold and diamonds and sapphires probably cost more than this whole building – a remnant from her old life as an English aristocrat, before she'd married him. Their first fight had been about that jewellery box, he recalled now, sitting down next to her. She'd wanted to pawn some of her jewellery off. They'd have extra money. She said she didn't mind. She didn't want them anyway. And he…well, he'd felt insulted. There'd been a fair amount of screaming that night, probably too much of it really. He didn't remember how the issue had been resolved. Had he apologised? He probably had. She was everything to him. And it felt strange, sleeping next to her when she was seething. And then she'd apologised, too.

Truth be told, he wasn't surprised that they took the jewellery box. It was really the only thing of value in this shithole. Maybe he shouldn't call it a shithole. The apartment wasn't all that bad. It was tiny, so much so that it was illogical for anyone other than a lonely bachelor to live here, but it wasn't a shithole. Perhaps it was only a shithole because it wasn't what he'd wanted, for himself, for her, for them.

He took her hand in his. She was shaking. "Did they hurt you?" he asked. He found that his voice was soft, something he reserved only for her.

Clara shook her head. "They couldn't find me. I was hiding under the sink."

At that, he chuckled. How she managed to fit herself in the cabinet under the sink was beyond him. He brought her hand up to his lips, kissing her knuckles, then rested it on his lap, patting it as his other hand reached for the knife she was still holding.

Maybe she found the thought of her wielding a knife ridiculous, but she let loose a little laugh – shaky and nervous, wanting to alleviate the fear and tension inside her. "I think I would've stabbed him if he'd found me."

"I'm sure you would have," he said in reply. He put the knife down next to him, and then began to trace his fingers along the back of her hand. "Baby, if anything like this happens again, you need to call the police. Not me."

"I know," she said immediately. "I know. I'm not daft." He began to protest, to cut in with, "I never said that," but she cut him off. "It's just that I was calling you to see if you would be coming home for dinner and then I heard the door being kicked open and I knew that it couldn't possibly be anything good, so I crawled under the sink. I was too afraid to get out and dial for the police, so I figured my best chance was to wait for you to pick up."

He sighed. Of course. He felt stupid for even thinking that she wouldn't know to call the police. He pulled her into his arms. She was still shaking. She leaned against him, and for the first time since his ship docked in a port in England and he knew he was safe and the war was well and truly over, Jack felt pure, genuine relief. She was leaning against him, her body soft against his, and the weight of her, pressed into him was so reassuring. She was okay. She was all right. He hadn't lost her. All of her was in tact. There was not a scratch on her.

"Oh, baby," he whispered into her hair. "I thought I was going to have a heart attack. When I heard the crash and then your voice, I thought I was going to have a heart attack." He kissed the top of her head. Repeatedly. He could cry now, sure as day, but he wouldn't. "I'm so glad you're okay."

A strangled laugh escaped her throat and her arms wrapped themselves around him. He looked around their ruined apartment. Just as well, he supposed. Well, the bit about someone breaking into his home and scaring the very life out of his wife wasn't good, but this was as good a reason as any to move. He'd been meaning to talk to Clara about moving anyway. This way, she wouldn't protest. He had enough money saved up to get them a nice little place just outside the city, far enough to be safe from the hazards of desperate drug addicts and the homeless that seemed to be a constant in Manhattan, but close enough that it wouldn't be much of an inconvenience to drive to work. He'll talk more about it with Clara once the shock of this whole situation had subsided, he thought.

"Why don't you get some rest, darlin'?" he said to her, dropping the g as only a Southerner could.

In true Clara form, she protested. "I have to clean up."

He pulled her away from him, both hands cupping either side of her face. "You don't have to do anything. We'll clean up tomorrow." Her mouth opened, no doubt to protest some more. She would protest a nurse trying to stitch her up if there was someone else who needed help, he was sure. "No," he said. His tone was firm, as if to say, "That's the end of that. No more from you, Clara." And then he got up, and pulled her up along with him, guiding her to their bedroom.

He shrugged out of his jacket, loosened up his tie and undid the first two buttons of his shirt, then helped Clara unzip herself and slid her dress down the length of her body. She climbed into bed in nothing but her thin, milk white chemise. And the heating was still abysmal in their tiny apartment, so he pulled the covers up over her, kicking off his shoes as he slid into bed with her.

No more obscenely cold rooms, he decided. No more tiny bed in a tiny room with no flowers, and certainly no more home invasions.

He woke up at some time between nine and ten o'clock in the evening. Clara was sound asleep next to him, the covers pulled all the way up to her chin in an effort to ward off the cold. Slipping out of bed as quietly as he could, not wanting to wake her, Jack exited their bedroom and padded across the living room, careful not to step on bits of broken glass that he could pick out from the low light of the moon. He grabbed a chair from the floor and jammed it under the doorknob, against the front door. He'd be damned if there was a second break in today.

He walked to the kitchen and pulled open the refrigerator door before sighing in evident disappointment. Damn bastard took my beer, he thought to himself, cursing the intruder up and down in his mind, because it wasn't enough to take a man's wife's jewellery, apparently. The man's case of beer had to be taken as well.

He dialed the number of the police station. Someone picked up on the third ring. He recognized the voice immediately. "Hey, Stan. It's Jack. My apartment's been broken into."

"Hell's bells, Jack," the voice on the other end said, accompanied by the sound of static. "Is everything okay? I'll send a couple of uniforms down."

"No. Not tonight. It's late and Clara's asleep. She was home when it happened."

"Christ. Is she okay?"

Stan sounded genuinely concerned. Jack had to smile at that. But of course Stan was concerned. He and Clara had had dinner with Stan's family a couple of weeks back, and they'd loved her. "Yeah, she's fine. Just tired and shocked. But send the uniforms tomorrow? I've got to go to work and I sure as hell don't want to leave her alone."

"Sure thing, Jack," he said. "They'll get a more detailed statement tomorrow, but I think I'll just get everything in motion first. Was anything stolen?"

"My wife's jewellery." This was followed by a wince from Stan. "All my beer." At this, an even bigger wince. "I think that's a…" He stopped mid sentence, a thought suddenly occurring to him. "Hold on a minute there, Stan. I need to take a look at something." He placed the telephone onto the counter, heading for the armoire in the living room. He checked the little box inside.

"God damn it," he bit off. "God damn sons of bitches."

Of course they took his wedding band!