Moments


A/N: my Moments-verse version of Season 2 as told from Jack's point of view

Disclaimer: some lines are original to the series and not my own

Anywho, Enjoy!


Fiction Can Be Rewritten

2.1-3


"Jack, have a seat."

There was something in his friend's tone of voice that told him that this was not the kind of conversation where he could kick his feet up on the desk.

He sat as instructed and watched as Samuel switched on his office radio and then tap on the jammer that Samberly developed. If whoever his chief suspected was listening actually was, all they would hear would be the typical static that an interfering radio signal would make as well as the L.A. Dodgers' game.

"Vernon Masters has requested that I give you and your team the Lady of the Lake case."

"He's not happy with how she is conducting the investigation, or the fact that a woman is the lead on such a high profile case?" he theorized with a snort.

"Both, I would guess, actually." Jorgensen asserted dryly, as he came around his desk and sat in the chair next to his. "I declined his request on the basis that I wanted to appear fair and not show favoritism for my friend."

With his elbows on his knees, Sam leaned forward and shot straight with him. "Masters is part of an organization that has been interfering with SSR cases since this branch opened up out here, and the movers and the shakers of this town don't want Carter or anybody else looking into Isodyne any further. I suspect, Masters will come to you now, his old law school buddy's son, and ask you to keep tabs on the case and possibly more."

"And you're asking me not to?"

"No," Sam shook his head. "No, I am asking to know now what your decision is going to be when Masters comes calling and offers you the chance to be Chief again and more. I want to prepare myself, and I am hoping that our friendship will mean enough that you will be straight with me as I have been with you."

Jack eyed the decanter of brandy that was sitting on the credenza behind the chief's desk, and he cursed the fact that now was the time he had committed to cut back on his drinking.

A part of him would love to be the kind of guy that could readily say 'of course you can count on me' to his friend. Captain America was probably that kind of guy, but he just was not wired that way.

When he came back from the war, he had been a mess – only a small step above that bum that Sousa had first poorly interviewed all those months ago. His father had despised him and his mother had been in tears almost every day, grieving for her boy who had for all intents and purposes died in the war.

And then came Masters, his father's old college buddy, and he had offered him a job, a place to prove himself.

And he had. He moved up in the ranks, impressed Dooley, transferred to the SSR New York office, and the rest was history. He could look his father in the eyes again, if not always his own.

If Jorgensen was right, then Masters and his powerful connections could help him continue on that path – if he played ball with them. If he did not, then conversely they also had the power to ruin him and whatever chance he had to avoid seeing that look in his parents' eyes again.

He thought about the moment he had accepted the Navy Cross then, how empty and hollow he had felt, and he knew that he would never be able to make that kind of deal with the devil again. He would not betray his friend or Peggy in their quest for truth and justice.

"I am your man, Chief."

~A~

Jack was on hold with the D.A.'s assistant when he overheard Carter's heated discussion with the chief in his office.

"You 'fixed a couple of details' on my report?"

Ah, the sweet dulcet tones of an indignant Peggy Carter. How he did not envy Samuel.

After a brief pause, during which he can only assume Carter was reading over the amended report, she declared, "This is rubbish."

"This is standard C.Y.A., Carter. I'm not filing a report about you running around Hollywood with this guy. People might get the wrong idea."

"Which is what?"

"That you're a Communist," Samuel stated slowly, almost as if he couldn't believe he had to outline the political quagmire for his normally savvy agent.

"The only Communist I know is Dottie Underwood. Has New York gotten any information out of her yet?"

"Don't worry about things that don't concern you, Carter. In fact, shouldn't you and Sousa be investigating that plastic surgeon?"

Peggy ignored this and continued to argue her case, "She was stealing from the very organization that we are investigating."

Jack always suspected that when Peggy thought she was right, she would argue until she was blue in the face and then some.

"And that investigation is concluded. Your John Hancock, please," the Chief demanded, sounding tired. Jack wondered how long the man could keep up the charade of hindering Peggy, for the benefit of anyone else who might be watching on Vernon's behalf.

"I'm not signing that."

"Fine. You don't need to."

"You can't do that, Jorgensen." Oh look who finally decided to join the party. Sousa had only been standing there the whole time.

"That's Chief Jorgensen or sir to you, Agent Sousa," snapped his superior, "And might I remind you that you are on loan from the NY office? I'm sure if you don't like how I run things, you can ask to be reassigned to a case back there."

Over Sousa's mumbled 'No, sir', Peggy declared, "Isodyne is using Wilkes as a patsy! They found something so dangerous, it destroyed their own lab. Now they're pretending it never happened."

"If only you could prove that."

"Watch the Isodyne film. See for yourself what they're hiding."

There was a long ominous pause, and then Jorgensen was growling, "Drop. It. The case is closed."

As the Chief escorted the equally furious pair out of his office, his eyes met Jack's and gave him a nod.

Jack disconnected his call, deciding it would be faster to flirt with the D.A.'s clerk than talk with his assistant anyways.

But right now, he had his orders to have a cinematic experience.

~A~

"You know, it's a real shame that they didn't make your short time as Chief a more permanent thing. That Johnson is a brown-nosing idiot," Vernon Masters declared, as he signaled the bartender for one more round of shots.

"I couldn't agree with you more," Jack asserted as he clinked his glass against his self-appointed patron's.

Jorgensen had been on the money when he said that Masters would reach out to him. Not only had Masters asked that he get what information he could out of Peggy about her investigation, but he had asked him to hand over key evidence – the film reel that Dr. Wilkes had stolen from Isodyne before getting himself blown up.

After watching the film, Jack knew that Masters and his 'friends' would want it destroyed and would destroy it if they got their hands on it.

And after Masters had come to him and talked of impressing important people and throwing out words like 'national security', he knew that he would never earn Masters' trust and find out who his 'friends' were or their agenda, if he didn't hand it over.

He was stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Fortunately, he knew how to network, and he called up an old squid buddy of his, who owed him a favor still.

"So do you got it, son?" Masters asked.

"I do," Jack replied, reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out the film reel case that had 'Property of Isodyne' stamped across it. He shook it so that the FBI agent could hear its contents rattle in there, before sliding it across the bar towards the man.

"Did you watch it?" Masters asked, eyeing him like a hawk would a mouse.

"If Rita Hayworth's not in it, I'm not interested," he deadpanned.

After the FBI agent tried to feed him a whole bunch of shit about medals and doing his country a 'great service', the man left smug in his certainty that Jack was his man.

Jack stayed behind to nurse the last of his free scotch (he no longer had any at home), and smirked quietly to himself. It earned him a disconcerted look from the bartender, but he didn't care.

Vernon had left with the original Isodyne case, but not the original film reel. His old Marine buddy happened to be in the film industry and knew how to make stellar copies. The original was locked up in a train station locker that not even Sam knew about.

When the time came to bring these 'movers and shakers' to justice, Jack was going to be fully prepared.

~A~

"I am telling you, Jack, there is a conspiracy afoot. The Arena Club is fabricating the future just the way that they fabricated the story about Dr. Wilkes. The newspapers I found are proof. The headline read "Anderson ankles election'," Peggy urgently stated, looking at him expectantly.

It was the look that he had known would be coming and which he had been dreading. It was the look his partner gave him countless times before when she wanted him to back her theories up with Johnson or help her work around his bureaucratic orders.

It was the look that signaled that now was the moment, here in one of the interrogation observation rooms with Peggy and Daniel that he had to play his part in his and Samuel's scheme – he had to distance himself from Peggy and begin to prove to Masters that he wasn't wrapped around her fingers as the rumors were saying.

And she had to believe it. Jack needed to be able to tell Masters truthfully that Carter had iced him out. Their little betting war might not be enough to convince him that they were on the outs, especially if she was treating him like the partners that they once were.

"What part of 'this case is closed' do you not understand, Carter?"

"The same part where I do not understand why I cannot question Dottie Underwood about her interests with the Arena Club," she snapped.

"As I hear it, the Justice Department wants to question her for more important matters," he explained wryly.

"'As you hear it'? That source wouldn't happen to be Masters himself, would it?" Sousa challenged.

He accepted the challenge and snapped right back, "And is your 'source' a certain Rosy bird?"

Sousa clammed up at that, but Jack knew it to be truth. Upon watching Johnson roll over like a well-trained Poodle, Rose had in disgust applied to be transferred to L.A. for her 'health'. Jorgensen had approved it, after Jack had informed him what an underappreciated asset she was, except by Peggy and Sousa. Those two, when they did go rogue, would likely turn to her for assistance.

Out of curiosity, he asked, "Where are those newspapers?"

When Peggy informed him that she had to leave them behind, he wanted to bang his head against the wall.

He wanted to put his fist through the wall when he heard that Peggy had risked her life to plant bugs and it was all for nothing.

He was terrified for her – she was going up against men who could rig elections for Christ's sake! – and he was so frustrated at the fact that he could not be there to watch her back, that he went too far in his attempt to dissuade her from plowing ahead like a bull in a china shop and said something that he shouldn't have.

"God, you are so hell bent on clearing your pal Wilkes! I think your emotions are clouding your judgment."

The hurt in her eyes, the betrayal, it made him feel as if he had stabbed himself in the gut. But when she retaliated, it felt like she had pulled the knife out and shoved it right into his heart.

"You're being a coward! You are so afraid of ruffling powerful feathers that you're doing what you always do... Burying an ugly truth and hoping someone will pin a medal on you."

To keep from saying something that would be irreparable when all this was over, he pushed himself off the wall and strode for the door, declaring coldly, "We're done here."

~A~

"You're here late," Jack noted in surprise, as soon as his eyes alighted on Sousa rifling through the file cabinets.

He had no room to talk really. He had clocked out hours ago, but he was too keyed up to go back to his apartment, especially knowing that Carter was running about town doing God knows what. And after their little spat, he couldn't expect to be having any more friendly break room chats, at least not in the near future.

"Yeah, early bird's got nothing on the night owl," Daniel dryly commented.

There was something in his remark that was off – he was too casual, too polite. Sousa never passed up on opportunity to needle him, and he was avoiding eye contact.

"Let's see what you have here," he snatched the file from him like he would have from a younger brother, if he had a younger brother. "Agnes Cully, Broxton, Oklahoma... Sounds interesting."

"Almost." Daniel hastily explained, "She's a former nurse of the plastic surgeon's,"

Lie.

It was a Pinocchio-worthy falsehood. Jack instinctively knew it, and it didn't take much detective acumen to surmise that this woman was somehow connected to the 'closed' Isodyne investigation.

Jack didn't call him on it though, handing the file back disinterestedly. Probably with too much disinterest, as Sousa was eyeing him with suspicion.

So to throw him off the track, Jack got personal.

"You and Carter seem to have gotten… close… since coming out west."

"We're friends, Jack."

"Just friends?"

That question was supposed to be teasing, like an older brother would rib a younger one, but it came more across as intimidating, like a beau to a rival.

Daniel sensed it and laughed nervously, "I don't know where you get your ideas. As a matter of fact, I'm seeing someone."

That took him by surprise. The boy had taken ages to make a move on Carter, but he had been out here only a few weeks and was going steady with someone?

"You're kidding me. Really?"

"Yeah. She's a nurse at the rehab center I go to for physical therapy."

There were so many things he could say to that, like – 'oh, she likes to play nurse, does she?' or 'so that explains the shirts…she's trying to make a native out of you'. But he was genuinely happy for the man, so he simply said, "Yeah? Well, good for you."

"Thank you," Daniel stated awkwardly.

Jack could tell that the man wanted to get back to his research, so he said, "Maybe sometime, when you want to do what real night owls do, you'll come and have a drink with me and tell me all about her. Maybe we can try out that Frolic Room I've heard so much about."

It took all he had not to laugh at Sousa's 'I-would-rather-crawl-across-hot-coals-naked' expression as he haltingly agreed, "Uh, yeah, sure. We'll do that sometime."

He took pity on him though, and ended their conversation with, "Alright then, happy hunting, Sousa," and headed towards the door.

And though it was said nonchalantly, deep down he truly meant it.