AN: This is a series of unrelated scene changes/rewrites or episode tags, almost entirely non-canon, and all shippy. Most are Jack and Sue, a few are Bobby and Tara, and there may be another couple joining in for a chapter or two if I can get it to work out right.

Most of these are already written so hopefully I'll be posting new chapters fairly quickly, as I edit them and get them up. Please be aware as you read them:

1. At the top of each chapter, I'll notate which episode it goes with and where it picks up, whether after a specific scene in the episode or whether it picks up after the episode is done.

2. Most of them are entirely unrelated, so as you start each one, assume it's picking up from where the show is at that time, not from where the story in the "chapter" before it left off. The only exception (as of the time that I'm posting this first chapter) will be noted at the top with a specification of exactly which story it connects back to.

3. I am not a fan of UST. If you want UST, the entire show is already full of that. Each of these is definitely fully resolved and frankly, most of them are pretty fluffy.

4. I am not prone to fully ignoring the "agents on the same team can't date" thing, but I don't always fully explain how they make it happen. My favorite explanations tend to be that they get an exemption, or that the rule was never there/never as strict as agents are led to believe. If I don't address it in one of them, assume one of those explanations probably applies because I just don't feel like always writing it out in all of them.

5. Many of these have many many different ways they could go. If you don't agree with how I wrote it, write your own version and let me know where to find it! I'd love to read your variation.

Alright, enjoy, and let me know what you think!

Scene rewrite for 1.1 "Pilot," in which, when Jack and Sue leave Bobby's party to be able to better communicate, they find much better ways to communicate . . . eventually.

~0~

"Ohhh," Jack sighed, as he and Sue stepped out of the chaos of Bobby's birthday party. "This is more like it." He smiled at Sue, lost for a moment in her beauty, even under the unflattering luminance of street lamps. The breeze gently teased a few tendrils of her hair and he only just refrained from reaching out to brush it behind her ear.

Instead, he took another slow, deep breath and resumed the communication they hadn't been able to have inside, where it was too dark for her to see and too loud for him to hear. "Anyway, what I was saying was that, uh, I didn't like the way I handled things yesterday."

"I won't ever do it again," she said remorsefully.

"No, I-I know," he quickly stuttered out. "I just . . . didn't have to be such a jerk about it."

They stood smiling in mutual understanding for a moment, until he took a deep breath and bent to greet Levi, mostly as a means of distracting himself because he was becoming quite certain he could get lost in her eyes forever.

They started walking slowly down the sidewalk, though neither had any real destination in mind. After a moment, Sue said, "I really can't believe I'm here, doing what I'm doing. And I know it's because of you."

"Wha—no, no," Jack said, stopping and turning to her to make sure she caught all his words. "No, it's because of you. You seem to be having a little bit of a tough time believing that."

Sue contemplated a moment. "Yeah. Maybe." She didn't sound entirely certain.

And just like that, he was getting lost in her eyes all over again.

After a moment, he said, "I . . . find myself somewhat conflicted."

"About what?"

"I really want you on my team permanently. I think you'd be an amazing asset." He paused and swallowed down his nervousness. "But I also . . . find you very compelling. Personally. And I really want to ask you out on a date, but even if you were interested, teammates aren't allowed to date."

She smiled a hesitant smile, lowering her head bashfully but glancing her eyes up toward him. It was absolutely adorable and endearing. "Well," she said hesitantly. "Technically, even though I've been approved to join your team, I'm not officially part of the team until I get through Quantico, right?"

His own smile widened. "You make a good point. Sue, would you do me the honor of going to din–"

"There you are!" a voice interrupted him, and down the sidewalk came someone he had hoped never to see again. She marched right up and kissed him, though he turned his head so she mostly hit the corner of his mouth and a bit of his cheek.

"I . . . what are you doing here?" he asked her, trying to extract himself from her clutches. It was no use. Short of actually pushing her or making a full scene in the middle of the sidewalk, he was not going to get her to release his arm or remove her other hand from where she'd rested it possessively on his chest.

"I took the early flight back so I wouldn't miss being at your friend's party with you, of course!"

"No, I mean why—" He realized he was being slightly rude with Sue standing right there somewhat awkwardly, but with his brain fritzing out on several counts he could think of nothing but to revert to ingrained etiquette. "Uh . . . Rhonda, Sue. Uh, Sue Thomas, Rhonda Walter. Sue's been helping us with a few cases."

"Oh, that's great," Rhonda said, giving a very patronizing look, as though Sue were a child the team had allowed to help file some papers for them or something. That was the final straw, Jack had had enough.

"Why are you even here? I told—"

"I'm sorry," Sue burst out, "I have to head home, uh, Levi hasn't eaten yet. It was nice to meet you Rhonda." She quickly turned and walked away before Jack or Rhonda could respond. Jack wasn't certain, but thought he might have seen a tear in her eye as she turned.

"No, wait, Sue," he started to call, but Rhonda was clutching his arm tightly. Levi tried to turn back toward Jack and let Sue know she was being called, but she kept urging him forward.

Jack turned back to Rhonda. "Let go of me," he hissed. "How dare you?"

"How dare I? You're cheating on me with some blonde bimbo?"

Unbelievable! He all but growled out his response. "A, she is anything but a bimbo; B, talking to a woman could hardly constitute cheating by any reasonable definition; and C, I certainly can't be cheating on you since we're not even together anymore!" He glared at her. "I don't care how well your underhanded tactics may serve you in the courtroom, though I expect that will backfire eventually too, but they do not work with me. You disgust me."

Now he did, in fact, physically shove her off of him, but she reached back out and gripped his sleeve. "You'll come crawling back. They always do."

"Then go for some of them that do. That sounds more your speed. But if you ever try to contact me again, so help me, I will get a restraining order slapped on you so fast your head will spin. Good bye."

He twisted his arm out of her grasp and stormed away, hoping against hope that he would find Sue, but when he finally got back to Bobby's party, Lucy told him Sue had walked home. When he started to head that direction, Lucy said, "Hey, Jackson." He turned back.

"Yeah?"

"I saw you getting rid of the floozy. Couldn't hear all the words but I'm guessing from how you reacted that she thinks you're more than you actually are."

He snorted. "You could say that."

"Good. Because so help me, you may be the one who carries a gun, but if you hurt Sue I'll find one to shoot you with."

He smiled, knowing that behind the jesting tone was a serious concern for her friend. "It's a good thing I have no intention of hurting her, because threatening an FBI agent is a federal offense."

"Yeah, well, I'm pretty sure I know one or two other FBI agents who would back me over you on that one."

"I might be one of them," he admitted, then turned and headed as fast as he could toward Sue's apartment.

~0~

When knocking at her apartment proved futile, he wondered if she was avoiding answering the door. He didn't hear Levi trying to alert Sue, though, so it was probable she wasn't home. Thinking about some other possibilities, he started wandering all the reasonable areas within walking distance. If he were new to D.C. and needed to walk to clear his head, where would he—

Well, he would go the same place he would still go now: the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. He headed there, taking the paths along the way that seemed most likely to inspire pensive contemplation—mostly parks and such—keeping his eyes open for Sue or Levi everywhere he went. Not seeing them by the reflecting pool, he continued wandering the other nearby sites until he finally spotted them sitting at a fountain in a park. As he approached, he heard her speaking to Levi, whose head was resting in her lap. Perhaps he shouldn't have, but he stopped to listen.

"Yeah, I love you too," she said, petting him. After a moment, she added, "You don't have a secret girlfriend hidden away someplace do you?" She sighed. "If I do something stupid again, jump up and knock me down."

Jack figured that was his cue, so he stepped into her line of vision, waving his hand for her attention. As soon as she looked up into his face, he said, "You didn't do something stupid, I did."

"Jack?" she asked in surprise.

"Though," he continued, "a secret girlfriend wasn't the stupid thing I did. I promise you, I'm not dating Rhonda."

Sue glanced around, looking very confused, then asked, "How did you find me?"

He quirked half a smile her way. "Hey, I'm FBI, remember?"

"So you, what, put a tracker on me somewhere?" she asked, only half-joking.

"Nah, most of FBI work is just good old fashioned pounding the pavement. I went to your apartment first, actually. When you weren't there—or at least, I was pretty sure you weren't, and was hoping you weren't just avoiding me—I started considering places you might have walked to clear your mind."

"Where did you try?"

"Oh, the same places I like to go on my runs–around the various parks, the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, the various federal buildings around there. All the places that remind me what an honor it is to serve in the position I hold."

Sue gaped. "You . . . I went to all of those places. You practically just followed my exact path."

He smiled. "Great minds think alike?"

"Or stalker minds," she said, but her teasing tone was finally back.

"Why?" he teased back. "Are you stalking me?"

She laughed, but then grew serious again as she asked, "But . . . you're really not dating Rhonda?"

He rolled his eyes at the mention of the woman. "Speaking of stalkers." Making sure she could see how serious he was, he said, "I'm not. I was, a few weeks ago. I broke up with her . . . not very far into it. We really only went on a few dates. She's a lawyer, I hold a law degree—technically, I passed the bar too, I just don't practice law. Anyway, even though we didn't click right away, I kind of thought that common ground might mean something could develop there."

"Well, if you only went on a few dates that's not a lot of time for something to develop."

"Well, it was enough time to realize that I didn't want it to. She's a shark. Underhanded tactics, shady dealings. I realized I wanted nothing to do with her. Apparently, I wasn't quite forceful enough when I said I didn't want to see her anymore after our third date."

"How did she know you'd be at Bobby's party? Or is that that 'stupid thing' you mentioned?"

"Come to think of it, you're right. That was also a stupid thing. So that's two stupid things, but the other one was specifically tonight. Yeah, I had mentioned it to her, just talking about what a big thing it would be. And I mean, I told her he'd rented out a club for it, but I didn't tell her where, and I told her what night but I didn't give her a time frame. She must have found someone else going to get the info from, or maybe even called Bobby directly."

"He would tell her?"

He shrugged. "If she said that I'd invited her but she couldn't come, she wanted to surprise me, forgot the details—he's a bit of a romantic and a jokester, it wouldn't be hard to convince him to keep something like that from me."

She nodded her understanding. "So . . . if that was the stupid thing from another time, what was the stupid thing tonight?"

He turned a little more fully toward her and, tentatively, dared to take her hands in his. "The stupid thing I did tonight," he said carefully, "was to fall back on social politeness and not immediately tell a grasping harpy to take a hike, when a gorgeous woman immeasurably more amazing was standing right in front of me. Not because I didn't want to, but because I was still trying to figure out how to do so without making a scene. It wasn't until after she was so rude to you that I started to be more direct about it, and it wasn't until you ran off and she physically held me from following you that I actually got downright impolite."

She smiled a little. "I don't know if it counts as impolite when it's in self defense," she said.

"It wasn't. Self defense wasn't enough. I wasn't willing to go that route until it was in defense of you."

She inhaled sharply, searching his eyes, then softly asked, "Why?"

"Because," he said, starting off slowly and picking up speed as he went, "you . . . marched into what you thought was HR and demanded a new position when you weren't being treated fairly. Because you're brilliant and amazing and gorgeous and funny. Because you have had to work harder than anyone else your whole life and yet people still make you work even harder to prove yourself over and over again even though you're smarter than most of the people making you prove yourself. Including me. Because . . . I didn't have to take time to see if we could click. I knew it the day I met you. I was intrigued, fascinated even, when you came into my office, but that day at lunch . . . I immediately wanted to spend every single lunch with you for the foreseeable future and beyond. And because every time I see you, I want to . . . ."

"Want to what?" she whispered.

He slowly released her left hand from his right, and brought his hand up to her cheek, ever so slowly, giving her all the time she might need and more to back away from his touch. She didn't and once his hand touched her, she nuzzled ever so slightly into it. He stroked his thumb along her gorgeous high cheekbone and said again, "I want to . . . if you want to too, then I want to . . . ." Then he started to lean forward, still moving as slowly as he could, ever so slowly, and before he got too close for her to see his lips he whispered, "Do you want to?"

"Yes," she breathed back at him.

That was all the invitation he needed to lean forward and press his lips to hers in a slow, sweet kiss. When he pulled back again, they were both smiling foolishly.

"If it's okay with you," he said, still caressing the side of her face, "I think as soon as I'm back in the office I'm going to start looking into any possible loopholes for teammates being in relationships."

"You are?"

"Yeah. I'm hoping for the best of both worlds."

She grinned. "Me too."