A/N: SOOO sorry to all who couldn't read this because of all the markup. I uploaded on the fly and didn't get a chance to check. Have been really busy trying to win an election so here it is without any of that! -KT
Peggy managed to compartmentalise her discomfort for another full hour of poolside conversation before excusing herself to retire to her quarters. She blamed the nearly-healed wound in her side, which still ached terribly at times, and was now throbbing angrily.
As well, she was finding it increasingly difficult to keep Mr. Jarvis from becoming suspicious. Every time the crystal-blue of his eyes met hers, she found herself inadvertently and abruptly diverting her gaze from his, and instead suddenly finding random objects in the yard very interesting indeed.
She noticed a concerned frown had appeared on his face after a few of these incidents, and she was fairly certain she caught him glancing between Ana and herself, the wheels turning in his head. So she smiled at everyone, not wanting to cause any sort of incident, gave Daniel a peck on the cheek, and retreated back into the cool, dark house.
She took a deep breath the second the door closed behind her. Shaking her head as she walked, still completely befuddled by the turn the day had taken, she shuffled off to Howard's bathroom. There, she took two aspirin out of the medicine cabinet and swallowed them, hoping it would take the edge off the pounding pain in her left flank, not to mention the headache that was beginning to make itself known.
Ana was absolutely mad. She had to be. Why else would she have risked everything she had with her husband?
There was no way that Mr. Jarvis saw Peggy in that way. Of course, she supposed, as she entered her bedroom and collapsed upon the big, soft four-poster, that you could never really know what was hidden in another's heart. But clearly, to her anyways, Edwin Jarvis enjoyed her company simply because she just happened to get involved in very exciting, often very dangerous escapades, and he found those adventures very thrilling indeed. And, not to mention the fact that they were two foreigners in a foreign land, and it was nice to have someone to remind one of home. There was nothing more to it than that. They were friends, comrades.
She couldn't understand why Ana didn't see that. Perhaps it was due to the injury she'd suffered? Peggy could tell she'd been affected by the shooting, perhaps more than she was letting on. Did she feel she was inadequate to her husband now that she'd been rendered barren? Was she planning on leaving him, and wanted to know that there'd be someone to care for him once she left?
Oh, Peggy didn't know. She certainly hoped that wasn't the case. It would crush Mr. Jarvis to if his wife left, especially considering how close he had come to losing her forever. She huffed and turned over onto her back, staring up at the ceiling morosely.
She didn't want Ana to leave. But, at the same time, she didn't want her to be unhappy, either. And something about the way she had so cavalierly questioned Peggy's feelings, potentially creating a very unpleasant situation, was a rather reckless gesture. And Peggy had never known Ana to be particularly so.
She sighed deeply as she rolled back over onto her uninjured right side, thankful to find that the aspirin was starting to ease the pain considerably. She closed her eyes, hoping that sleep would come and she'd feel much less disoriented once she woke.
But in doing her very best not to think of Edwin Jarvis or his wife, she unfortunately found the image of him sprung to mind as soon as she'd closed her eyes. And suddenly all she could see was his long, lithe body, wiry muscles rippling rather pleasantly beneath his tanned skin as he'd walked past her earlier that afternoon. She shook her head and huffed again, opening her eyes.
She hadn't meant to gawk earlier, it was just that she'd just been rather surprised at how lovely a figure he cut. She'd never seen him in his trunks before, and seeing so much of a body that spent most of its time covered up entirely by a three-piece woolen suit had been fascinating to say the least.
She shifted to her front, shoving her face into the pillow, trying to push that image from her mind. But in doing so, she started to think about how dear the man in question had become to her. About the many, many times he'd come to her aid, unsolicited, and how he'd all but saved her life more times than she could count. She certainly didn't want to think about the way he'd grown over the past year, about how effective he was becoming in the field. The way he'd handled Dottie Underwood at Calvin Chadwick's fundraiser, and how he'd read Jack Thompson like a book and had given the usually slick younger man a dressing-down that had clearly left him bemused at the least.
But of course, it was the intensity in his blue eyes that came especially to mind, particularly when things became rather serious (as they were wont to) and she would find him looking at her like that.
Like she was the only woman in the world. Like he could see into the depths of her soul.
It had been a very long time since anyone had looked at her like that.
She groaned and closed her eyes tightly, trying to keep the images and thoughts at bay. She did not have any sort of romantic feelings for Edwin Jarvis! And he couldn't possibly have feelings for her, either. The entire idea was preposterous. He was married, for god's sake, and no matter what sort of thing his wife was trying to accomplish, she would respect their vows. Not that she had any plans of acting on any sort of feelings that she clearly did not have for Howard's butler!
She steadied her breathing, attempting to calm herself. She could still hear the muffled sounds of talking out by the pool, of her companions enjoying what was left of the afternoon. She tried to ignore it. Why on earth did Ana had to go and open her mouth like that she did not know. Peggy had been having a lovely day. The first in a very long line of decidedly non-lovely days. She'd finally found a man with whom she could see herself possibly having a future. And now she was questioning it all, stupidly, weakly. Ana's questions had thrown her, forced her to think about things that she had never thought of before.
I suppose that's your lot in life, she told herself. Things start to look up, and then everything goes to shit. She sighed deeply, finding that the cool, dark room was finally starting to have its desired effect on her. She could feel her body starting to calm as she lay on the bed, breathing steadily and doing her very best to think of nothing at all.
Eventually the drowsiness came, and she welcomed the oblivion, finally drifting off as the sounds of muffled laughter and chatter floated in from outside.
Ψ
A knock at her door nearly stopped her heart, violently pulling her out of blissful sleep and back into the land of the living. She groaned, trying to shake the drowsiness from her head. The nap she'd been taking had been dreamless and serene and she silently cursed whoever had had the indecency to wake her from it.
She sat up with some difficulty, her sided protesting stiffly as she swung her legs off the mattress. She pushed herself out of bed and onto her feet, swaying slightly before taking a few unsteady steps.
"Just a minute," she called to the door, after another knock startled her sleepy body and mind. She grabbed her robe and pulled it on, shuffling from her room and peeking around the corner to see Daniel standing outside the glass doors. She sighed in relief and stepped forward to open the door.
"You okay?" he asked. He had gotten a healthy tan today, she noticed, and it suited him, as his dark skin contrasted with the white of his cotton shirt and the loose slacks he wore over his bathing trunks, slung low on his hips.
She nodded, clearing her throat. She couldn't help but notice that only one of his shirt's buttons were fastened, and that his rather well-toned abdomen was on full display. She smiled and forced her gaze back up to his face, unsurprised to see concern evident in his round, dark eyes.
"I was just tired, Daniel," she told him. "Came in to take a nap."
He nodded, and smiled, and she found herself unable to resist smiling back at him. Then, without warning, he leaned forward and kissed her soundly on the lips. She was thrown by his actions, and it took a second or two before she could respond to the kiss in earnest, her hands fisting in the lapels of his shirt as her mouth softened against his. Her arms found themselves wending around his middle, pulling him toward her, over the threshold of the door.
She closed it behind him and he pulled away from her, leaving them both breathless, their mouths inches apart. His eyes met hers and she saw the unsaid question there. Are you sure?
Instead of answering, she pulled him flush against her and pressed her lips to his.
The feel of his erection against her leg jarred her, suddenly filling her with need for the first time in a very long time. She moaned into his mouth as he ground his hips against hers, the ache between her legs becoming almost uncomfortable. At once, she could think of nothing other than divesting Daniel Sousa of all of the garments he was currently wearing and throwing caution to the wind.
All the last vestiges of sleep left her as she closed the bedroom door behind them and she felt the cool wood of her bed bump up against the back of her legs.
It was then that she made up her mind.
So (as she would only realise later), in an admittedly impudent attempt to prove Ana Jarvis completely and totally wrong, Peggy Carter took Daniel Sousa to her bed.
Ψ
Jack Thompson woke from his coma two days later, but unfortunately had no memory of any of the events that had hospitalised him. He was still very disoriented and confused, though the doctors were encouraged by the fact that his memory was not affected, as he could recall some of the events of the days leading up to his shooting, and he recognised all of his colleagues and was able to remember their names.
And while Peggy was certain that Dottie Underwood was in some way responsible for Jack's current state, what she didn't understand was why the woman would have been so bold to shoot an unarmed SSR agent only to steal the redacted and seemingly falsified documents that Jack had acquired simply for the purposes of blackmailing Peggy. What use would they be to her?
While Jack's doctors assured them that his progress was promising, they stressed that he still had a long road of recovery ahead of him. And so they limited his visits, giving his fellow agents precious little time to extract any little bit of memory they could from Agent Thompson's head. They were only allowed short, supervised visits before the nurse would usher them out, explaining that he needed his rest.
So they were forced to head back to the drawing board, questioning the hotel employees again, scouring Jack's room for evidence again, and resigning themselves to the kind of boring police work that Peggy found rather especially tedious. So she left it to the men. They were better at it than her, anyway.
She was more curious to find out what exactly the lapel pin cum skeleton key Jack had given her was designed to open. She hadn't had much luck with it so far, but was planning to get out on the town and do some digging of her own. It was what she was best at, after all.
Of course, having managed to avoid both Ana Jarvis and her husband for the better part of a week, Peggy found herself having to take cabs around town, a rather awkward and expensive affair that left her wishing that her and Ana's strange poolside heart-to-heart had never happened. She still didn't understand why the woman seemed so intent on possibly jeopardising her seemingly blissful marriage. Encouraging the affections of the woman one believed to be romantically interested in one's own husband seemed rather a recipe for disaster to Peggy. And more to it, seemed incongruous with the Ana she knew and admired.
Peggy envied the Jarvises' marriage both for the romance and intrigue behind its origins, and for how committed and caring the two were with each other. They seemed happy. Peggy had found herself wishing she could some day be part of a union as blissful as theirs. Why Ana would ever want to change that…
Perhaps the shooting that had nearly claimed her life had changed her more than had been obvious to them? It was possible. Traumatic events affected people in a myriad of ways. Sometimes these effects were only obvious to others, and not to the person who they were affecting.
Above all, Peggy fervently hoped that Ana would forget about the whole thing, and never speak of it again. Then Peggy could erase it from her mind and things could go on as if it had never happened.
In the meantime, she kept busy with work, visits to Agent Thompson, and with Daniel, the latter of which brought a guilty smile to her face whenever she thought of him. Of how intimately they getting to know each other and each other's bodies, of how they'd spend afternoons just lying together as their sweat dried, sated and spent.
He was as sweet and giving as a man as he was a lover. Peggy had expected that. What she hadn't expected was how much fun she was having, being with a man again.
Before now, the sexual experiences she'd had had been few, fevered and hurried. With Steve, there had been precious little time to be together, the fear of being caught making each encounter a rather rushed and heated affair. And she remembered little of the subsequent, shameful, drunken affair she'd had with her closest friend amid the grief of Captain Rogers's death. It was such a regretful incident, Peggy had taken it upon herself to threaten Howard to never speak of it again, lest he wish to lose the member he so valued. Miraculously, or perhaps not, her friend had complied.
It was an open secret that women often enjoyed sex. But even among her fellow females it was frowned upon when one seemed to enjoy it too much.
But Peggy found herself unable to become concerned over how wonderfully freeing she found it to be allowed to spend so much time in the bedroom. She couldn't even muster up the decency to be embarrassed as she and Daniel spent hours with each other, learning what little things pleasured the other the most. Perfecting their routine and leaving both of them breathless, their bodies limp and sated, clinging to each other as their hearts beat wildly. She had to admit that she was really rather happy to have discovered finally what all the fuss was about. To learn that the act could be pleasurable for both parties, and could imbue her with a new kind of confidence as a woman that she'd never quite had before.
As well, it was a welcome distraction from work, which had become rather frustrating with the lack of any credible leads on the individual who'd shot Jack, and from the somewhat awkward situation Peggy found herself in, living in the same home as Edwin Jarvis and his wife.
She had gotten into the habit of leaving for work early, taking taxis and eschewing all conversation with either of the Jarvises. When she wasn't working late, she'd spend the evenings with Daniel, either at his house or out on the town. By the time he dropped her off, Mr. and Mrs. Jarvis were often in bed, and if they weren't, Peggy would avoid them at all costs and promptly retire to her room.
She knew she wouldn't be able to avoid contact with them forever, as Howard's home was large but certainly not that large. Eventually they were certain to cross paths. But she wasn't sure what else she was supposed to do. Ana's behaviour had left her wary of spending any time alone with the woman, and even more afraid of what might happen if Edwin happened join in the conversation.
Peggy wanted nothing more than to forget about the whole thing. She wanted things back the way they were, with her and Ana becoming friends, with Mr. Jarvis at her side while she dashed around Los Angeles, chasing after leads. She needed friends in her line of work, and she found herself longing for things to go back to the way they were before. She missed them both terribly, but she felt that keeping her distance was the solution. Maybe if she waited long enough, things could go back to normal. They certainly had to, right?
She had no idea how wrong she was.
