Disclaimer: See chapter one

A/N: So here's chapter seven there was a whole blurb here before, but it's been rewritten so there's not telling how accurate that really is. Anyway, I hope that you all enjoy what I do with it.

Chapter Seven: Discovery


Daniel woke to a soft knocking on his door, and groaned when he saw the clock. Who was waking him up at five thirty in the morning? He waited a moment to see if the knocking would stop, but it didn't, and so he threw back the covers and headed to the door, not bothering to put a shirt on along the way. If it was an emergency they would wait, if it wasn't, then they'd just have to deal. Whoever it was had woken him up a full hour before he should be up, and a full two before he had to be up. Under the circumstances, putting a shirt on just wasn't the first of his priorities, no his first priority was to shut up that damned knocking. Combined with the early hour, it was making his head ache.

The face on the other side of the door didn't help much, though the sounds coming from her stomach made it very clear why she'd come. He considered shutting the door in her face, after all, if she'd just eaten dinner last night, she wouldn't have been starving at five thirty in the morning. He was just about to do so when her realized that she wasn't looking at him, and her face had turned quite red. It took him a moment longer to make out her low babbling.

"...Thought you'd be awake. I'll just ask one of my guards to show me where to eat. You should go back to sleep." She cut her self off then, and moved to dart away, he shot a hand out, and she froze.

"Just give me twenty minutes," He mumbled, that should be enough time for a quick shower and a shave. Jack wouldn't forgive him if he slept through her escape after all, and Jack was very good at making people sorry. Her stomach gave a plaintive growl, and he closed his eyes for a moment. "Actually, shower can wait. I'll just be a minute." He left the door open for her, should she chose to wait inside, and grabbed a clean shirt, and pulled on socks and boots. When he turned back around, she was nowhere to be seen, and the door was closed.

Not sure what to think, he opened the door, and there she was, right where he'd left her. She was still refusing to look at him, and Daniel felt a moment of wicked glee when he realized that the sight of a naked male torso had made her flee. That there was now another even more confusing piece of the puzzle to deal with, he completely ignored, seeing her so uncomfortable and off kilter was fully worth losing an hours worth of sleep. When they started walking, and her eyes never rose above his boots, however, it was more than a little annoying. "Was the view really that horrible?" He demanded, hoping to keep her off guard long enough for his sleep fogged mind to catch up with the opportunity it could create.

"No," She blurted, then picked up her pace so that she was slightly ahead of him.

A sense of victory, that he had her so off balance, so flustered. All he knew was that he had her in a position where she was vulnerable. If he handled it properly, he could find out more about her. "Then why won't you look at me?"

"You're behind me," She threw over her shoulder.

He stepped around in front of her, and stopped. Still her eyes didn't raise above his boots as she ducked around him. He caught her wrist lightly, and she flinched from his grip, face bright red, eyes wide. She looked thoroughly embarrassed, and more than a little uncertain. Daniel heaved a sigh, "Have you had a life, at all?" He asked, letting her pull away.

"My life, is none of your business," She whispered, there was that shield again, that thorny wall that tried so desperately to keep people away. That facade that it was becoming easier and easier to see through. Unless it was all just a ploy to make herself appear harmless, so that they'd let down their guard and she could escape. That wasn't going to happen though. Something was being hidden, there was some lie going on here. They were going to get to the bottom of it.

"This would go more quickly if you didn't keep thinking that way."

"How am I supposed to think Dr. Jackson?" She demanded, eyes looking on the verge of dampening. "Apparently, you know so much more about me than I do. So -so tell me how I'm supposed to think. W-what words you want to hear from my mouth."

"Daniel," he said simply, though he wasn't entirely sure if he was correcting her form of address, or answering her question. One thing was for sure though, the less he gave her to throw between them, the easier getting information from her would be. "my name is Daniel, and you know you still haven't told any of us yours."

"McAllister," she spit out as they got onto the elevator, and he pushed the button for level 21.

"Is there a first name that goes along with that?" He growled right back.


"You tell me," she challenged. Feeling her blood heat, at the challenge.

"Nope, I'm gonna need you to. So which is it, Leigh or Deirdra?" Dr. Jackson's question caught her so off guard that she nearly gaped at him.

"You already know the answer to that," She replied. How had they found out? Then she nearly groaned, it had been her own fault, she'd mentioned NYU after all. They would have both showed up there, in the records. Luckily their classes had mirrored each others at least as far as the official paperwork went. They'd done that for a reason. By that point in time, they were nearly interchangeable, their own people with their own strengths it was true, but while Leigh had realized the importance of remaining anonymous in their line of work, Deirdra had seemed to court discovery.

The issue had then become with her nature, Deirdra frightened people, so they refused, at times, to work with her. Leigh had wanted to disappear, get as far from the killing as possible, and so it had been Deirdra's idea. She made her sister disappear, and into being came her public face, the meet and greet girl who talked with the people that looked to hire them, set up and carried out deals. No one, outside of a select few, knew exactly who she was. Given their grasp of science, a few people had even thought that they were making deals with an extremely lifelike robot. Leigh had liked it that way, Deirdra had liked the field, the wanton destruction that sometimes came with it. Though she was partial to a harmless explosion or two, Leigh had preferred the intelligence side of things. They made the perfect team really. The elevator door opened, and Leigh realized that she'd been off in her own head the entire ride, and Dr Jackson was looking at her funny.

"What?" She asked, ducking her head, the image of his torso was still in her head. She couldn't imagine why, it wasn't the first time she'd seen one. She'd even seen nicer looking ones, hard as that was to remember at this moment, so close to him, to know that that trim, firm muscle was right beside her was making her nervous. You could take him. She reminded herself, not at all sure what was going on with her today.

"I asked if there was anything you wanted to share, you were off in your own little world there for a bit."

She just shook her head, suddenly having trouble finding the air to speak. It was because they were a step closer to finding out the deception that was going on under their noses, that was it, it had to be. She could think of no other reason to be feeling... well, it wasn't nerves exactly, but that was the closest thing she could think of, What about that time in New York, that sword dealer? Her mental voice reminded her. I was a kid. she reminded it, and she'd stayed out of situations that may have made her feel that way again. It had been uncomfortable, humiliating. She never felt this way with clients, or other agents, never feared tripping over her own tongue. So what was happening to her now?


He knew he wasn't imagining it this time, not with the scent of coffee bringing his senses back up to speed. The slight blush on her cheeks, the way she just barely didn't meet his eyes. The flush that reddened her ears whenever her eyes fell on the vicinity of his upper body. She was shy. Somewhere under all those layers of agents calm, and professionalism that she constantly seemed to hide behind was a shy young woman who had no clue how to handle what was going on around her. He could use that, he hoped, shy he knew how to handle.

A/N: I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and look forward to reviews.