Sparks, Flames, Embers

Chapter 11: The Internship

Sometime in late spring …

"We need to talk."

Jack saved his paper, pushed away from his desk, and turned to face her, knowing with those four little words that this was no time to try to multitask.

If those four words hadn't clued him in, then her body language certainly would have. Her feet were in a classic fighter's stance – left foot forward, right foot back, canted slightly to the side to present a slimmer profile. Her fists were clenched, but her arms were crossed at her middle as if she was hugging herself.

Her face though was blank of any kind of emotion. She usually wore this kind of expression when he was the one on the offensive, when she was protecting her secrets and herself. Whatever this was about, she felt the need to protect herself from his answers. This was going to be bad, whatever this was.

When she still didn't say anything, he gamely cleared his throat and prompted, "Alright. What's up?"

Peggy's eyes narrowed as she scrutinized him for his sincerity. She must have been satisfied, or at least satisfied enough, because she forced herself to relax just enough to lean against his bedroom door, as if settling in for the long haul and finally blurted, "Something's wrong."

"I can see that," he agreed nodding at her screaming nonverbal cues, "But with what in particular?"

His tone had been intentionally on the condescending side he had to admit, but it was the best way he knew how to provoke Peggy past her mental mouth filter. 'Better out than in' is what his Gam-Gam always said (when it came to emotions, not bodily functions, for his grandmother was a lady after all). And boy did Carter let it out.

"With us!" she exclaimed frustratedly, propelling herself away from the door to start pacing, her arms gesticulating wildly as she listed her grievances. "With you. You have been acting weird lately. Becoming distant. Not texting as much. Letting my calls go to voicemail. Taking longer to return them. Coming up with excuses not to see me."

"They're not excuses. They're legitimate reasons," he argued logically, if somewhat defensively, and then because he had been raised that the 'best defense was a good offense' and because he was a pathological jackass, he had to take it one step too far and hit below the belt, archly asking, "And aren't you being a bit paranoid?"

Oh yes, he did. He just insinuated that his girlfriend, Peggy Carter, the Badass, was acting the stereotypical hysterical female, to her face. He was a dead man.

As soon as the words escaped his mouth, she stopped her pacing to fix him with a Look, and he could see his death in her icy glare.

"I am not being paranoid. Nor am I being a jealous girlfriend," she retorted frostily. "Because that's just it. I don't think there is another girl or that you are using finals, exam papers, or meetings with your advisor or that Sigma Sigma Rho alumnus mentor you have as a way to fade me out or anything."

"But, Jack," and here her shoulders slumped and the fight seemed to go out of her, as she admitted, "After each and every one of those meetings and the closer we get to the end of the semester, you do seem to avoid me."

Luckily for him, she didn't wait for him to defend himself, but after what she said next, he thought the excruciating discomfort of awkward silence would have been far more bearable. For with big sad, begging brown eyes and a forlorn sigh, she admitted:

"And I can't help but think that all of that just reminds you that they're going to decide soon who to send to the internship. And you're working up the nerve to end it – to end us."

~A~

A few weeks ago…

"Jack, my boy, we need to talk."

"Ominous words, sir. But if you're about to tell me that there is another, I won't be too heartbroken. I never thought we were going steady," he asserted dryly. (He did not say 'well, gee, and here I thought you summoned me down to your ostentatious gentlemen's country club to contemplate the universe in silence'. The old man might appreciate cheek. He did not appreciate 'impertinent lip'.)

Masters predictably smirked and chuckled a little, declaring, "That's why I like you, Thompson. You remind me of your grandfather. He had a twisted sense of humor just like that."

Jack accepted the glass of scotch that the man ordered for him with a nod of thanks, while asking sardonically, "But not like my father though?"

"No, not like your father. How he turned out to be such a stick in the mud, I'll never know," he acknowledged, but then hastened to add, "No disrespect to your old man. He is good at what he does. And I admire him for it."

Jack said nothing, just sipped the scotch and waited for his benefactor to start calling in his IOUs, for that is what this impromptu meeting certainly had to be about.

He didn't have to wait long. Masters did his own scotch sipping, smacked his lips in satisfaction a few times, and then asserted, "But I didn't come to talk to you about your family or their sense of humor or lack thereof." Fixing Jack with a Look, the kind that always reminded Jack of six-foot holes and funeral dirges, or one that promised you that a shit-ton of bricks was about to fall on your head, the man proclaimed, "Son, I have been hearing some disconcerting news about your latest dalliance."

"'Dalliance'?"

He tried to sound amused at the man's word choice, but he had no idea if he was at all successful. His mind was too busy racing hundreds of miles per minute to focus on that kind of insignificant detail. No, it had much more important matters – like who the fuck was he going to kill for gossiping about his love life with his department of justice benefactor and long-time family friend?

Vega and Blackwell came to mind. They hadn't liked the fact that he turned on them in The Game.

Or maybe it had been Flynn, the current Sigma Sigma Rho president. He had led the charge more against Peggy in the beginning. The misogynist pig had laid the groundwork, which, sadly, Jack had latched onto when he had felt his status of prof favorite threatened. Flynn was an even more insecure bastard than Jack was, and he had never liked Jack's popularity within the fraternity. He would have relished the chance to bring Jack's 'fling' to his benefactor's attention.

"Yes, with Margaret Carter." Masters swirled the remainders of his scotch at the bottom of his glass, as he shared, "I would have been the first to congratulate you for using romance to turn the girl's head so that she is distracted from the prize as it were, but it seems that even if that ever was your intent, she has turned the tables on you."

The bottom dropped out of Jack's stomach. He was losing his chance at the internship. If Masters was concerned that his prized racehorse was in danger of losing, then Carter being chosen over him was no longer a theoretical problem. Everything that he had been working so hard for…

He cleared his throat, eventually rasping out, "You think that they're going to give it to Peggy?"

"It's a strong possibility, unless…"

"Unless what?"

Masters downed the last of his scotch, rose up and collected his things, and only after he had made sure that the bartender saw his cash did he turn to Jack and say:

"You end it."

~A~

Present day…

This time it was he who was skyrocketing around the room in agitation. At her words, he was out of his chair and protesting as vehemently as he could:

"End it? End us? Hell no, Carter! If I wanted to do that, I wouldn't need to 'work up the nerve' and play phasing out games with you. You would know."

Peggy took a step back both literally and figuratively, as she amended, "Alright. Poor choice of words. But you have been thinking about it, haven't you?"

"Again, woman – hell no," he growled. These past few weeks would have been so much easier if had, but he hadn't. He had barely contemplated it as an option, and probably never would have if Masters hadn't brought it up. But if she was thinking that he had, did that mean that she had been entertaining the idea as a viable possibility for herself?

He had to know, so with far more bitter accusation than he intended he snapped, "Have you?"

"No!"

"Then what the fuck is this?!" he cried out in what he thought was justifiable frustration.

"This is me telling you that I know there is something that you aren't telling me!" she fired back.

"Damn right, I am not telling you! I shouldn't have to!" he bellowed in outrage. He wanted to shake her, to pick her up and shake her. She should just know what it was already. She was the empathetic, intuitive one of them. How was it that she wasn't able to see his side of things? If he shook her, then maybe that would jolt those empathy synapses of hers.

As this wasn't a reasonable expectation and she couldn't seem to trust him, he wanted to leave. He wanted this conversation over. He wasn't ready to tell her.

But as she was standing between him and the door and he didn't really want to lay a hand on her in anger, all he could do was stand across his room and glare at her, as she bellowed back, "Shouldn't have to what?!"

This time he didn't just hear the anger and the accusations, he heard her pain. So he let go of some of his righteous indignation and confessed softly, "I shouldn't have to tell you that I want to have my cake and eat it too."

Peggy stared at him, blinking in confusion, before growling in aggravation, "What does that mean?"

~A~

A week ago…

"He told you to end it?"

"Yeah," Jack admitted with a disgusted huff.

Professor Dooley leaned back in his desk chair, rubbing his tired face with his hand, before eventually asking exasperatedly, "What purpose does that serve exactly? You're gonna have to help me out with this one."

Jack grimaced. One of the reasons he liked his academic advisor so much was that he was a straight shooter, a former law enforcement officer who was 'not into all those bullshit political games' that was rife in federal justice agencies. The man knew how to network, or clearly he never would have gotten to be Lehigh University's Criminal Justice department head, but the political sniping that Masters had asked Jack to do wasn't second nature to him. But Masters had known, and now apparently Dooley did too, that he was capable of it.

"He thinks it will show certain influential people my ability to be ruthless – you know that I am willing to purge myself of distractions, whatever they maybe to get the job done, and that I am willing to break her heart so that she would do poorly in her finals etc etc etc.," he explained disdainfully.

After he had gotten over his initial panic from finding out that the internship and his plans for his future were in jeopardy, he had been filled with roiling, stomach-turning disgust at Vernon's solution to his dilemma. He was still reeling from the wave of self-loathing that hit him like a tsunami that the man thought him capable of hurting Carter like that.

Dooley kindly didn't focus on that aspect, but rather on the stupidity of the powers-that-be, crowing, "Hah! They don't know your girl then, do they?"

Jack grinned, "No, they don't."

"So other than to tell me that Masters is meddling with the lives of my students again and being right manipulative bastard about it, why come tell me?"

Jack rubbed his jaw in thought, but not really knowing how else to phrase it, he admitted, "Well, it got me thinking, sir…does it only have to be one person that gets the internship?"

"Yes," Dooley confirmed regretfully, "the program allots only so many spaces, one each for the top ten criminal justice programs."

Jack's shoulders sagged in defeat. He was an ambitious bastard, but he didn't want to kill Peggy's dreams to get there. But neither did he want to abort his hopes and dreams for his career. He didn't want to do grunt work forever. He wanted to one day be able to lead men, to call the shots, to be a mover and a shaker. An internship would help to start that networking. An internship would…

Wait. An internship. It didn't have to be this internship, did it? It wouldn't have to be his dreams or hers, would it?

He leaned forward, asking eagerly, "Well, is the F.B.I. the only one that offers such a program?"

Dooley's eyes light up along with his sly canny grin, as he thoughtfully replied, "Now that you mention it, I don't think so. Let me look into it."

"Thanks, sir," he sighed both in surprise and relief.

His professor eyed the picture of his wife on his desk, slid in the direction of his couch, back to the picture and then finally to Jack, as he advised, "From my experience, Jack, a life's not worth living if all it is is 'the job' and being at the beck and call of people who look down upon you if you think otherwise".

Jack cleared his throat and studiously looked away from the couch that had shown signs of being slept on far too often, before asking, "When will you know, sir?"

"Give me a week."

~A~

Present day…

Jack ignored her question, or at least he didn't answer it directly. She had after all not been willing for him to mentally prepare a more dignified and succinct explanation.

"I hadn't wanted to tell you anything, because I didn't want to get your hopes up. But I think I managed it so that not only can I have my cake and eat it too, but so can you," he stated cryptically, but now that he was sharing this, he couldn't help but grin like a maniac and bounce on the balls of his feet like an over-excited schoolboy. "Dooley's been working on it, but I think he can get me into the U.S. Marshall internship that way you can get the F.B.I. one. You're really the only other choice, if I don't go."

Peggy stared at him flabbergasted. Clearly she was no longer lost in his cake-eating metaphor.

He was mentally counting the seconds that he had rendered her speechless ('21 Mississippi, 22, 23…'), when she finally managed to croak out, "Why?"

"Because I love you, and I could see that this really meant a lot to you. More than that specific internship did me. And while some might think that stunt you pulled – having me meet the Rogers' unit buddies – was more than just introducing me to your family like you said but as a way to guilt trip me into stepping aside, I know you," he admitted with a shaky breath, but finding that he couldn't stop, now that he had started, he rambled on, floundering in his attempt to explain himself. "And while you might be a sneaky chit, you're not that manip–"

Peggy threw herself at him, effectively saving him from himself.

They crashed against his dresser, knocking several things to the floor, before they eventually tumbled onto his bed, which she seemed to have been aiming for.

In between kisses – kisses on his mouth, his jaw, his eyelids, his Adam's apple, his collar bones, his sternum – Jack managed to gasp out inanely, "You owe me a lamp – again. It's like the third one that we have killed."

Peggy stopped kissing her way down his body, just long enough to growl out, "Jack, I love you too. Now shut up."

He tried. He really did. But with the things that woman could do, it was no wonder she wasn't the only screamer in their relationship.

~A~

One week later...

Peggy woke – not in a state of utter bliss – but pretty damn near it. She felt as if she might have reached Nirvana. Never before had she been this supremely content. She wanted to wake up every morning like this.

For the past seven days, she had.

Jack was wrapped around her, enveloping her in his warmth. His arm was wrapped around her middle, holding her close to him. His legs were entangled with hers. His chest pressed to her back. His head tucked into her neck. His lips softly caressed her skin with each rise and fall of their chests.

Eventually, he would roll over and sprawl out. She didn't mind his snuggling (she was shocked, truth be told), and she wouldn't become upset at its loss either. She just loved his warm comforting presence in the bed next to her. She had missed it in those few weeks that he had grown distant with her.

She knew that she would miss it when she went to D.C. for her internship. (Hells yeah, she got the internship. Jack had gotten his too. Dooley had announced both last night at the awards dinner, and boy, had they celebrated – chocolate, champagne, and sex, messy saucy sex that necessitated a few more rounds in the shower too. Fuck, yes.)

And she knew that she would miss these mornings, even more so than the amazing orgasm-filled rounds of sex.

This could only mean one thing – she genuinely and truly loved him.

And for the first time ever, that did not terrify her.