Jack woke to the sound of the alarm blaring in his ears. He sat up quickly and shut it off as Irina woke. "Who the hell turned the alarm on?" he asked.
"I did. I woke up to go to the bathroom and I realized we hadn't set the alarm. And since we have to finish our mission today, I thought we might need to get up at a decent time."
"Good thinking. Speaking of our mission, how are we going to go about it? We never found out for sure exactly where you had the artifact, just that it was in Tokyo."
She gave him a quick kiss before moving off the bed. "Why don't we get ready first and then go into details?"
"Irina."
"Jack." She rolled her eyes at him. "Can't we have the morning before we go into action mode?" She crawled back onto the bed, giving him her best puppy dog look.
He sighed. "Alright. But we need to discuss this. I'm not going into this without knowing everything."
"I know." She kissed his forehead. "But," she continued, kissing each of his cheeks. "Shouldn't we make sure that we give ourselves time to recover?" she asked, finally kissing his lips. She sucked on his bottom lip until he pulled away. "I mean, we were up late last night, talking, dancing, making love. I don't know about you, but I'm kind of tired. What do you think?"
"I think we should take a shower now. We need to get going." He stood and took her hand, pulling her with him to the bathroom. "It'll be faster if we go together." A mischievous smile played across his lips.
They moved into the bathroom and Jack started the water. Stepping in first, Irina waited for Jack, thinking about past showers together, much like Jack had done at the safe house. He followed her into the tub, immediately wrapping his arms around her. "Do you remember 'saving time' all those years ago?" he asked. He let go of her and reached for the shampoo.
She laughed and, taking the bottle from him, squeezed some into her palm. "Yes. When Sydney got older, 'saving time' was the only way we had time together. She was always coming into our room in the morning." She put her hands through Jack's hair, washing it. When she was done, he tipped his head back into the water, rinsing. After doing the same for her, Jack crushed his lips to hers as she rinsed her hair. Turning, he pressed her against the wall of the shower, the water hitting his back.
(A/N: Edited for content)
They finished with their shower, helping each other if needed.
Turning the water off, they stepped out of the tub. Jack wrapped a towel around Irina, then grabbed one for himself. Going back into the bedroom, they dressed and sat on the couch. "So, what's the plan for today?" he asked.
"Well, the artifact is in a bank vault downtown. We'll have to go there to get it, but the bank is very wary of being robbed. They will only let the owner of the vault in, no one else. Even the workers of the bank are not allowed in. I'll have to go in myself; you'll have to trust me to do that."
"Of course I trust you. We've gotten this far—do you think that would've happened if I didn't? And besides, I had Marshall make me a little something, just in case." He went to his bag, pulled out a box and handed it to her. "Put this on. I had a feeling something like this would happen, so I came prepared."
She opened the box to find a necklace with a large sapphire stone set in the center and matching earrings. "The stone on the necklace has both a camera and a microphone, so I will be able to see and hear everything. The earrings are for you to hear what I say." He took the chain out of the box, waited for her to pull her hair up and put it on her. He did the same with the earrings. Looking at his watch he said, "We should probably go, we need to meet our CIA contacts."
They finished getting ready, Irina drying her hair and doing her makeup. Then they were on their way.
If you noticed that one certain event is completely skipped over here, it's because the real Chapter 25 has been skipped over by me. It is basically all smut and I'm not sure how much I could post here, if any, without getting into trouble. But I'm sure I could find a link for you if you're interested.
So for future reference, this is really Chapter 26, but I don't think it makes that much of a difference.
