After a good night's sleep, everyone was up early to begin planning.

"Monday I should know exactly when the courier is coming," Jess told Clay.

He nodded. "Aisha and I will be with you at the bank. Jensen and Cougar will be at a remote location, waiting for the password to access Max's bank. Pooch will be waiting outside the bank in case we need a quick getaway. Work with Jensen, figure out what you both need to get that password and get in."

"Yes, sir," she replied, making her way across the hotel suite to where Jensen was lounging on the couch. "It's you and me, Jake. Time to get to work."

"I like the sound of that," he said roguishly, jumping up and leading her to the suite's small office that he had commandeered for his own purposes. Jensen's work area was two desks shoved together with a veritable mountain of computer equipment. Jess wasn't even sure if it was all even plugged in. It was a mess.

"Don't touch anything," Jensen commanded as he took his seat. He motioned to a single chair shoved in to the furthest corner. "Well, I suppose you can touch that one chair. Pull up a seat."

Jess rolled her eyes as she moved the chair. "I won't break anything."

"This is very delicate equipment," Jensen said with a grin to take the bite out of his words. "Not that it matters, to be honest. I don't have the power here to pull this off. Once we get the password, I predict that I'll have mere minutes to get as much information as possible before I get flagged and booted. And I don't want to do it from here, way too easy to trace. A hotel in the middle of busy London is not a fun place for a stand-off or a quick getaway."

Nodding along with him, Jess asked, "Where, then? What do you need?"

"Oh, will the CIA be providing everything then?" he asked with a laugh. "Just teasing. I know you're off-grid now. Lucky for you, I know the perfect place!" He pulled up a map on his computer, which appeared to be showing mostly ocean. He pointed to a tiny dot off the coast of England. "This, right here, is the sovereign Kingdom of Seadonia!"

His proclamation was so ridiculous that she couldn't help but laugh. "What the hell does that even mean?"

"Well, some guy named Dave here bought this abandoned artillery platform. He realized it was in international waters, moved out there, and declared himself King! Fuck the Monarchy and all that! But pretty quickly he realized it's hard to make any money when you live in a country of one, so he got some techie guys to set up a massive internet hub. They mainly host gambling sites and porn, and they're way underutilizing their power. Isolated, poorly guarded, and powerful, exactly what I need!"

"Seems perfect," Jess had to agree. "What about King Dave though?"

"Me an' Coug won't hurt him, don't worry," Jensen said with another wink.

Jess felt that familiar lurch in her stomach. Stop being ridiculous, she scolded herself. Focus on the mission.

"I trust you," she finally managed to respond.

Jake raised an eyebrow in surprise. "That seems like a mistake, all things considered."

This time, Jess winked at him. "Well then, let's hope that I don't regret it."

Jess was angry. Beyond angry, really. She was pacing back and forth in the room that Jensen had claimed for his computers with an ice pack held to the side of her face with one hand and furiously gesticulating with the other hand as she raged about the spectacle that had been the mission that day. "It was fine. Everything was fine. And then Clay started throwing his weight around assuming he knows best! And he decided that he should take the case in to the courier, and it turned out the courier was Roque, which I have some fucking questions about, by the way-"

Jake shrugged easily from his relaxed position in his computer chair. "Roque fucked us in Texas and joined up with Max. We thought we killed him. Obviously, we were wrong."

"Obviously," Jess hissed through gritted teeth. "Thank you for your stunningly helpful insights, Jensen."

"Hey, don't be an asshole! I did my job perfectly if you'll remember!"

"Yes, fine, you did. Anyway, Roque takes Clay hostage and boots it down the elevator, Aisha is punching security guards to get a weapon, and I'm running down the stairs after them. We catch him coming out of the elevator and I have a perfectly clear shot until that bitch Aisha pulls a gun on me because she doesn't want Clay at risk. Um, are you fucking kidding me?"

"Well in her defense we don't know how good of a shot you are," Jensen smirked.

Jess shot him a look that she briefly hoped would actually set him on fire. "Shots fired everywhere, Clay breaks free in the confusion, and Roque is gone. Oh, except apparently, he almost killed Pooch on his way out of the building as well. And I'm trying to tell Clay about the tracer in the briefcase because him and Aisha are up and ready to give chase when that bitch-"

"You already called her that."

"- sucker punches me for not telling them earlier! Okay maybe I could have told you all but I wasn't gonna put all my eggs in one basket, okay? Sue me." Jess paused for breath and noticed that Jensen was still smirking at her. "What?" she snapped.

"You're super cute acting all tough and angry with an ice pack on your face."

Jess really wasn't sure how to react to that statement. "It hurts," she finally spit out.

Jensen stood up and came around his desk to where she had finally stopped pacing. "Aisha does look like she could fuck some shit up. Here, let me see," he said as he put his hand over hers and forced the ice pack away from her face. "You're probably gonna have a shiner. At least she didn't split the skin." She was hyper aware of his hand over hers, the proximity of his body to hers, the gentlest movement of his breath near her face. He released her hand and gently brushed his knuckles over the red mark, his piercing blue eyes moving from her cheek to meet her gaze.

Then, faster than she could blink, he was moving away, back around his computer desk. "Want a distraction?" He didn't wait for her to answer, which was probably a good thing because Jess wasn't entirely sure whether or not she was breathing properly. "Come see what I got out of Max's accounts!" He bounced out of his seat again and quickly pulled the second chair over, gesturing for her to sit. "Come on, it's exciting!"

Fuck, he said inwardly. He felt jittery, amped up. It wasn't just the fact that his part in the mission had gone well, that always gave him a shot of adrenaline, it was her. Just being there, watching her rant, and then making that stupid comment about her being cute. He'd almost kissed her. He'd almost convinced himself that she would want him to kiss her.

Jensen tried to pretend that every fibre of his being wasn't completely tuned to her presence as she settled in the chair beside him. Her hand holding the ice pack blocked his view of her face. She probably just thinks you're weird or creepy, he chastised himself. "Here, look," he said, pointing at the rows of data on the screen.

Jess leaned in, forgetting the pain in her face momentarily as she lowered the ice pack in order to focus better. "What is that?" she said excitedly, pointing at one group of transactions in particular.

Jake couldn't help his wide grin; "That, my girl, is the fucking jackpot."

Despite the earlier confrontation, Jess was confident entering the pub. She knew her decision to keep the briefcase tracker a secret had been justified, especially now that they had solid leads. And, as she made her way through the pub with Jensen and approached the rest of the Losers, she was pretty sure that Pooch and Cougar were actually smiling at her. Progress was definitely being made.

"Boys," she greeted the table. "Aisha."

Aisha stared at the bruise starting to appear under Jess' eye, the corner of her mouth lifting in a smile. "Jessica. I hope your eye does not hurt too badly."

Jess smiled back at the dark woman as she took a seat, aware that the Losers were hanging on to every word, probably expecting some drama. "Oh, not at all, thank you. Very kind of you to ask."

"You can take a punch like a man. Better than some, in fact."

Wow, colour me shocked, Jess thought. Aisha might have actually decided to not hate me. "Thank you," she said again. "Now," she moved on, directing her words to the whole table. "Jensen has already taken some time to go through the data that he mined, and we have some pretty big news. Jensen, you want to explain?"

"Gladly," he grinned, unable to help puffing out his chest a bit. This was his victory, too. "Okay, class, this gets a bit complicated so everyone pay attention to Professor Jensen, take lots of notes, and save your questions until the end."

Clay gave a long-suffering sigh. "Just get on with it, Jensen."

"Okay, okay, okay. So, here's the deal. Max has a metric fuck-ton of money. Where is it all coming from? What is it for? Those are the two questions we're dealing with, and question one we definitely have an answer for. His initial start-up was obviously from laundering the heroin money, but over the last several years he's been making a killing on the stock market. How, you ask? Well, it goes back to P2OG in Qatar." He directed the next part to Jess. "We went there after we got Hashimoto's work out of Montserrat. The political advisor to the Qatari Royal Family, Sheik Abdul Aziz Ibn-Al-Walid, said he'd give us info about the oil rig and Max if we did him one tiny favour. See, P2OG is a CIA operation in the Middle East. Home base is in Qatar as a relatively stable and sympathetic country, but their operations are all over that godforsaken desert. The Proactive Pre-emptive Operations Group uses their resources to draw terrorists out of hiding by provoking them to attack. Then the terrorists are out in the open and the US Government retaliates. But there are extremist sympathizers in Qatar, and they've found out where P2OG has their headquarters, and the Sheik has reliable intel on an imminent attack. The Sheik can't afford to openly defend the Americans, but if Americans die in his country then they're left open to American retribution."

"So, he wanted you to stop the attack?"

"Exactly. Bunch of rogue operatives with no connections and nothing to lose? Just what he needs, conveniently. So, we save the day, as per usual, but we find some interesting intel at P2OG. Apparently, they get most of their orders from a CIA handler that goes by the name of Max."

Jess' stomach lurched. "What the ever-loving shit…?"

"Yeah. Fucked, right? So, what does all of that have to do with Max's bank account, you ask?"

"Wait, wait," Jess interrupted, "What did the Sheik tell you about Max?"

"Oh, right. Bunch of bullshit, mostly. Spook stories about how he's been around since the fifties, how he's unkillable, how he's been seen in two places on opposite sides of the world at the same time. Most of it didn't make any goddamn sense, but he did point us to the bank here in London at least."

"Bunch of bullshit, indeed. Okay, so back to P2OG and Max's bank account."

"Yeah, okay." He addressed the rest of the Losers now. "So, most of Max's money was invested in the stock market. Turns out, he's been using a system developed way back in the eighties called PAM- the Policy Analysis Market. Supposedly the Department of Defense shit-canned it back in '93, which is when I'm assuming Max took control of it. Anyway, it's a program designed to read stock market fluctuations as a way of predicting terrorist attacks and regime changes and civil wars in the Middle East."

"Changes in the stock market are usually a good indication of what's happening on the ground," Jess elaborated.

"Right," Jensen continued, "Except that you can also use the program backwards, betting money on the stock market changes that would most likely happen if certain events took place."

"Shit," Clay said, running his hands through his hair in exasperation. "On one hand he's provoking terrorist attacks with P2OG, and on the other hand he's profiting from it."

"To the tune of billions of dollars," Jensen said grimly.

"What the fuck does all of this mean? We still have no answers," Pooch said angrily. "We're no closer to getting our lives back. No closer to stopping whatever Max is planning. Where the hell do we go from here?"

"Yes, there's a million pieces of the puzzle," Jess said calmly, "and I don't have any more answers than you. But we do have our next step. The tracker in the briefcase went live four hours after it had been picked up. We're following it, and when it stops we'll be going after it."

"And face down Roque again? Thanks, but no thanks," Pooch said with disgust. "He got the drop on me today outside the bank and I almost didn't make it out of there. And in Montserrat, I almost got fucked there too. We're still two steps behind, and nothing that we've done has made a difference." He stopped, looking at the group expectantly. Nobody said a word.

Finally, Clay sat up. "I told you before, Pooch, if you don't like how I do things then there's the door."

Pooch stood up, looked around the table slowly, and then shook his head and left the pub without another word. Jess expected some sort of uproar or protest from the other members of the group, but nobody said or did anything.

"Keep an eye on the tracker. As soon as we have a final location then we move out," Clay said. He stood and took his beer over to the dart boards and started playing, although it was clear from his taut expression and the force with which he hurled the darts that he wasn't happy. A moment later, Aisha joined him, leaving Jess with Jensen and Cougar at the table.

"Should we go talk to Pooch or something?" Jess asked helplessly.

Cougar shook his head and Jensen said, "Nah. He's pissed but he wouldn't really leave without saying bye. He's probably just going to call Jolene and the girls." They both still looked concerned though.

"Beer?" Cougar finally asked. Jess and Jensen both agreed, and he went to get them.

"What happened to Pooch in Montserrat?" Jess asked Jensen.

He shifted uncomfortably. "We got to Montserrat, find out the villa is buried under a volcano, and see Par-Sec is all over the place excavating. So, we wait, let them dig out whatever Max is after, and then go in to steal it. But there's a lot of guys there, and it doesn't go great. And, of course, the moment we set foot on an active volcano it decides to blow its' top because we have pretty much the shittiest luck of all time. Anyway, during all this chaos Pooch crashes the plane and gets trapped inside. Clay went back and got him out but it was hairy. We steal the safe they were digging up, get the hell out of there, spend hours cracking the damn thing, and it's full of useless paper. All of Hashimoto's geological surveys and reports on tectonic plate shifts and a bunch of shit that don't mean shit to us. I mean yeah, it led us to the oil rig which led us here, but Pooch nearly died for a bunch of paper that might as well have been Max's baseball card collection."

"Pooch doesn't see the point anymore."

"I mean, he's still here," Jake pointed out as Cougar returned with their drinks. "But like we talked about before, old habits die hard. If things don't start turning around for us, then I don't know what Pooch will do." He took a swig of beer and nudged Cougar. "Hey, Coug?"

Cougar nodded, then raised his beer in a cheers motion in the direction of the bar. Jess twisted around in her seat and saw two women sitting there, giggling and waving at Cougar. He stood and rapped his knuckles on the table. "Duty calls, amigos. Buenos noches." He tipped his hat to Jess and walked over to the women.

Jess watched him go in disbelief. "What in the world was that?"

Jensen laughed. "That's Coug. The ladies find him irresistible. Look at him. Thirty seconds in, he probably hasn't said a word, and he's got one on each arm. If they don't tear each other apart with jealousy, I guarantee he'll be waking up with both of 'em in the morning."

"That's absolutely insane," Jess laughed. She looked around the bar and realized that Clay and Aisha must have left at some point as well, leaving her and Jensen alone.

"How are you doing," Jensen asked. "Need another drink?"

"Yeah, in a minute. After the next one I should head back to the hotel though. I need more painkillers before bed. I can't believe that one punch hurts so damn much," she said, rubbing her cheek ruefully. "Where did she even come from? How did she get mixed up with you guys?"

"Honestly? I don't know," Jake shrugged. "After we were presumed dead, we were all just staying low and trying to get some cash to try and get back stateside. Then, a while later, Clay suddenly calls us all up. He says he has new intel on Max, and he comes back with this chick Aisha. He says she's after Max for personal reasons, but apparently those reasons and her background are on a strictly need-to-know basis, and Clay doesn't think the rest of us need-to-know."

Jess could sense the resentment. "He's changed from before, hasn't he? You were all a team for years. You were loyal to him, you followed him through fire, but now he's different."

He looked surprised at her insight. "Yeah. We thought we were going to get our lives back, but every day it seems more and more like this is Clay and Aisha's personal revenge story and the rest of us don't matter."

"You matter," she said softly, feeling the butterflies come back even as she said it. He smiled faintly, and took his last sip of beer. She wondered again what she was doing. She'd always been able to keep the cold, bitchy front when it came to work. Even if it wasn't always how she felt on the inside, she'd never acted outwardly like anything other than a calculating CIA agent. Why, suddenly, could she not seem to help flip-flopping between acting like some love-sick teenager and a cold-hearted bitch? No amount of self-reflection seemed to be helping, so after a moment, she finished her beer and got up. "Okay, I'm ready for another." Waiting for the bartender to bring her order, she looked at Cougar and couldn't help grinning at him. He grinned back and tilted his beer at her ever so slightly, and one of the women hanging off of him glared at Jess, making her laugh.

"What's so funny?" Jensen asked as she returned with his drink and took her seat again.

She motioned to the bar. "Just Cougar and his defensive ladies. Thought one of them was gonna take my head off just for looking at him."

"Yeah, he has that effect on women. Blows my mind, too, really. I'm much more charming."

Jess almost choked on her beer. "Fuck off, Jensen, don't make me laugh when I'm drinking."

"Hey," he said, offended, and Jess couldn't tell if he was joking or not. "You better watch it. I've been keeping my charming ways to myself because I didn't want to distract you from the mission here, but I'll turn it on just to prove a point. Don't test me."

"Go for it," she challenged, the drinks and the high of a mission well done making her daring. "Charm my pants right off." Nice choice of words.

He seemed to study her levelly for a moment, his stare pinning her as he took a slow sip of beer. It gave her goosebumps on her arms, a chill down her spine. Then he broke the spell, laughing. "Ah, give it up, Jess. You almost done? You really should go and get that aspirin." Inside though, Jake was screaming at himself to not encourage her to leave. He really liked her, in the most ridiculous way.

"Yeah, I should," she said, rubbing her cheek gently below the bruise. "Thanks for the beer. And the ice pack earlier. And… everything," she finished lamely, standing and slowly putting on her coat.

Jensen looked at the bar and saw that at some point, Cougar had disappeared with his lady friends. Not surprised, he shrugged at Jess and said, "Well I'm not staying here and drinking alone, so I'll walk back with you."

"Great," she said with a smile. Her smile always gave him a tight feeling in his chest. It was part of the reason he was always such an idiot around her, he'd do anything to make her smile as often as possible.

Aisha had a dangerous edge and a wildness that he supposed would appeal to someone like Clay, but Jess was something else. She had a pretty smile and soft brown eyes that made her look more delicate than she was. Her long, straight brown hair was normally pulled back in a ponytail, which Jensen was grateful for because otherwise it was constantly getting in her face and he always had urges to push it back for her. He liked that she was a bit on the tall side, more of a match for his own six-foot frame. She had long fingers and a gracefulness that often took him by surprise. And, of course, her ass looked amazing in the slacks that she usually wore.

She also swore like a sailor, laughed at his jokes, and had taken everything head on, without visible fear, and he admired that about her. She wasn't afraid to go toe-to-toe with Clay, either, and that was something that most men couldn't even say. He couldn't get her out of his head at all. If Clay hadn't ordered him to look in to her, he would have looked her up anyway.

And now, walking along the busy early evening streets, he found himself using the crowds as an excuse to walk as close to her as possible and settle his hand on her lower back again. He wondered if she resented the gesture; he knew some women saw it as a misogynist move, like a woman couldn't be trusted to find her own way, but really he just wanted an excuse to be closer to her. Surely, being so outspoken, she would say something if she didn't like it?

The walk back to the hotel was over too quickly. They rode the elevator in a comfortable, companionable silence. Then, at her door, she hesitated.

"Do you want to come in for a bit?" she asked, chewing her lip in a way that made him think about kissing her.

"Yeah, sure, let's clean out the minibar," he joked. That smile again, making his chest constrict. He followed her in, trying his hardest not to stare as she took off her shoes. What are you doing, dumbass? "I'll get some ice, yeah?" He didn't wait for her to answer, but left to fill the ice bucket from the machine down the hall. When she let him back in, she'd changed into a t-shirt and a pair of tiny gym shorts that only accentuated how long her legs were. He tried to not think about her legs, and instead busied himself pouring them a couple of drinks. When he turned to present her with a glass, she was sitting on her bed with those long, distracting legs curled under her, still anxiously chewing her lip, and he was alarmed to see that she looked like she was trying her best not to cry. "Hey, you okay?" he asked as he set the drinks down on the side table.

"Not really," she shook her head. "It's just all catching up to me. The CIA was my life. Sanderson was my mentor and now he's probably dead.

Jensen crawled into the bed beside her and put an arm around her shoulders, all distracting thoughts momentarily banished. "Yeah, it's pretty fucking insane. Have I told you how amazing I think you are?"

She gave a short laugh that was somehow also a snort and a sob. "No."

"Well you are. Even in Texas I was impressed. When I read up on you and found out you'd been out of the field for two years, I couldn't believe it. You didn't flinch once."

"I nearly fucking fainted, Jensen."

"It was hot," he shrugged, "I don't fault you for it. You jumped in that chopper after, didn't you?"

"Yes," she said slowly, still embarrassed. "How did you know?"

"I could just tell you're that kind of person. And then, here in London… Like, shit has been hectic. But you're still here and you're kicking ass."

She sniffed, then laughed. "And now I'm a mess." She reached out a hand and Jensen remembered the drinks, now sweaty with condensation. He passed one over and she sat up and took several large swallows, downing most of it in one go. "I should probably be taking those painkillers instead of chugging whatever this is," she waved the glass at him. He took it back and put it on the table for her as she got up to hunt down her pills. Jensen put his own drink down again, untouched, and got out of the bed. He felt suddenly ill-at-ease, out of place.

"I should get out of here. Go check on the briefcase tracker, see where it's headed."

Jess' expression was inscrutable. "Yeah, okay." He was halfway out the door before she caught up to him. "Hey, Jake, wait a second," she said softly, conscious of other hotel guests that might be sleeping.

He turned halfway back, unable to fully meet her eyes. He hadn't been kidding, he was amazed by her. She was tough and sweet all at once, the type of person he probably would have called his dream girl. He'd quickly realized that although he wanted to kiss her, that it was most likely a terrible idea. He hadn't exactly been a Casanova in school. He'd been too tall, too nerdy, too weird. He'd been teased mercilessly, which had quickly extended to any girl dumb enough to even be seen talking to him, and he was sure that not much had changed since. The fact that Jess had been nice to him just meant that she was nice, not that she was interested. He didn't want to embarrass her by continuing this fantasy of his that she might be attracted to him. And that meant getting the hell out of there and putting as much distance between them as possible.

But she'd caught him at the door, and she took his hand, and when he looked at her in surprise she was smiling softly at him. "Thank you, Jake." He didn't trust himself to answer. She opened her mouth to say something else, then shook her head and changed her mind. Instead, she pulled his arm towards her, went up on her tiptoes, and kissed his mouth lightly. "Good-night." She was still smiling as he stepped into the hall and she let the door close behind him.

Now Jake didn't know what the hell to think.

A/N: updated chapters 1, 2, 3, & 4! As always, feel free to leave some constructive criticism or feedback! Thank you :)