Episode tag to episode 3.13, "Boy Meets World," in which Sue seeks clarification on just what Jack meant when he assured Danny that "Sue and I" would be there for him.
AN: Gah, I'm so sorry this took so long! I've been distracted with writing several new ideas, and in these later chapters I still have more writing to get done as well. I also have . . . I'm not certain, maybe 7 or 8 new stories that will be inserted into their correct spaces earlier in this work, and I'd wanted to get the first one done before posting this next chapter, but it has taken on a life of its own and is getting LONG so I wanted to at least give you this short little one to read in the meantime.
"Jack, can I ask you a question?" Sue asked over their Thai food that evening. After closing out their most recent case on a terrorist cell, which was a particularly difficult one emotionally for several reasons, they had both decided they deserved to go out to eat that night.
Not on a date of course. Because members of the same unit couldn't date. This was just two teammates and friends celebrating. Alone. At a restaurant. Where they weren't on a date.
"Technically," Jack said, slurping some noodles into his mouth and talking around them, "that was a question already."
Sue made a face at him.
"Eh, we just solved a big case, I guess I can let you have two," Jack teased.
Sue hesitated for a moment, because his teasing wasn't quite in the tone of the question she had. He seemed to recognize this, his face growing both serious and curious as he motioned for her to proceed.
"I just wondered . . . um, two different times you told Danny that you and I would be there for him, and of course we will, but . . . I just wondered why you said it that way."
"What way?"
She shrugged, swallowing a bite of food more as a stalling tactic than out of hunger. "When we were in the interrogation room with him the other day, you told him, 'Sue and I want to help you.' And then when we met up with him today you said, 'Sue and I want you to know we'll be there with you through it all.'"
"Well . . . we will, won't we?"
"Yes, of course, just . . . ." She sighed, frowning a little as she tried to figure out how to ask what she wanted to know without asking what she wanted to know.
"Just what?"
"Um . . . I mean, you didn't include the rest of the team. But you also didn't only refer to yourself. You spoke of you and I. As a pair. Or . . . maybe as individuals who both would be helping him? I guess that's what I mean . . . did you mean we together would help him, or we each would help him?"
Jack nodded slowly, seeming to grasp what she really meant but wasn't quite asking. "Well, I know we'll both be there to help him as often as we can all along the way," Jack said carefully.
"Yes," Sue agreed, her voice lilting slightly to indicate she expected him to continue.
"But . . . we often do things like that together as well. We make a great team, the two of us, don't we? A good partnership?"
"Absolutely."
"And . . . I think . . . well, it's like how Amanda says you've been something of a second mom to her, I think Danny could use your influence similarly. But he could also use a second dad. I think for a kid like him it just makes more sense to mention us both together like that, and to do things together. Don't you?"
"Together as a . . . family?" Sue suggested.
"Something like that." Jack laughed a little. "Not exactly how I pictured us having our firstborn, but . . . ." He stopped, eyes growing wide. "I mean . . . how I pictured my . . . my own . . . ."
Sue smiled, glancing down at the remnants of her food shyly for just a moment before looking back to him and saying, "Not how I pictured it either."
Jack stopped stuttering and studied her face in wonder, trying to discern precisely what she meant. "How you pictured . . . your firstborn?"
"Well . . . ." She stirred the sauce in the bottom of her dish as she considered her response. "By the definition you just implied, that would actually make Amanda my firstborn, but Danny would be our firstborn," Sue responded, not quite answering the question but giving enough information for Jack to draw some conclusions.
Jack drew in a sharp breath, then asked, "Um . . . are, are you done eating? Do you want to, uh, go walk off some of this food?"
"Sure," she responded with a slightly nervous smile. Jack settled the bill while Sue gathered Levi from where he lay under the table and then waited by the door. When Jack was done and approached Sue, they both headed wordlessly out into the city night.
They didn't discuss which way to head, but just started meandering together down the sidewalk, Levi trotting along at Sue's side as she and Jack walked near enough that their arms were brushing. After several strides in comfortable, companionable, and contemplative silence, Jack drew Sue's attention to his face at the same time he drew in a deep breath, and then asked, "So, when I said those things to Danny . . . when I told him we'd be there for him . . . what did you want that to mean? Us each individually, or we two together?"
Sue hesitated, opening her mouth a couple of times before chancing a response. "I guess . . . I find that difficult to answer when I'm still not entirely sure about your answer. I mean, you kind of skirted the question."
"Well," Jack countered, "you kind of skirted asking the question directly."
They paused walking briefly, looking at one another, then both burst out laughing. Levi sat down, looking between them in some confusion. When they'd settled a little, they slowly continued walking and Jack started speaking again. "We're quite the pair, aren't we? We both want to know what the other one is thinking before either of us will share our own thoughts, so neither of us wants to be direct about anything."
Sue's remaining giggles died out as she said thoughtfully, "If we can't for our own sakes, maybe . . . maybe we should learn to be a little more direct for the sake of a little boy who's now entering the foster care system. Not that that's always bad, but there's so much uncertainty about it . . . ."
"I know what you mean," Jack said wistfully.
Sue sighed, then stopped walking, stepping slightly to the side, out of the way of passers-by. Jack followed her, waiting to hear what she had to say.
"Alright, how's this for direct? Jack, I want to adopt him."
"I know," Jack said, "but how would you be able to—?"
"Not me," she interrupted. "Us. I want us to adopt him."
Jack stared for a moment, blinked a couple times, tried to speak a couple times, then finally said, "Don't . . . don't two people adopting the same child usually have to be . . . married . . . or at least living together in a long-term relationship, for that to work?"
She could feel her cheeks flushing but she held his gaze as she nodded. "Is that objectionable to you?"
"Objectionable? It's—in the interest of being more direct—it's a dream come true. I just . . . don't want it to come true for the wrong reasons."
"I don't want it to not come true for the wrong reasons, either," Sue countered.
Jack tilted his head in confusion at that. "What do you mean?"
"We've been dancing around this—this," she said, gesturing between them, "for more than two years without ever really properly talking about it. If wanting to adopt the same child is what it takes for us to learn to be more direct with each other . . . maybe that's the thing that will keep us from being afraid to be more direct for so long that our fear keeps us from ever saying anything at all. Ever doing anything at all. I don't . . . Jack, I don't want to lose out on the possibility of what we could be because we're both too scared. Since the first day I met you I've known I wanted to be with you, and the longer I know you the stronger that gets, but it wasn't until I saw you telling a boy that you and I would be there for him that I realized I wanted us to be there for him, not just together, but together as a couple. Because we're both highly capable people, but together we're unstoppable. But more than that, just because I always want to be with you, and . . . and please say something to indicate that I'm not just making a complete fool of myself here," she finally wound up, unsure what the stupefied expression on Jack's face meant.
"Oh no," Jack said quickly, shaking himself into action and taking her hands. "No, sweetheart, not at all."
Her face lit up, though cautiously. "Sweetheart?"
He nodded, quirking half a smile. "If you don't mind."
Her smile turned to a full-blown grin. "Not at all."
"Sue," Jack said, removing his right hand from her left to place it along her cheek, "are . . . are you asking me to marry you?"
"No," she replied with a cheeky smile. "You don't get out of that. I still fully expect you to get down on one knee and go through the asking part yourself." The merriment flowed out of her face to leave only intense sincerity as she said softly, "But I am telling you that I'm in love with you, Jack. I have been for a very long time. And if I'm right in thinking that you feel the same way . . . I don't know, I'll find a different team to transfer to or something, but not only do I fully believe you and I are worth fighting for, Danny is too, and . . . I think it's worth fighting for the three of us to be a family."
Jack had slowly been moving closer and closer to her as she spoke, and now was nearly pressed up against her, having released her right hand so he could brace his left hand against the brick wall she was leaning on, his right hand still caressing the side of her face and hair.
"I think so too," he said. "To all of the above. Except I hope we can find a way to keep both of us in the same unit but we'll have to do some research tomorrow and see if there are any loopholes. Meanwhile though . . . tonight . . . ."
"Yes?"
He leaned forward slowly, pressing his lips to hers, slowly moving them against hers, building from a slow, sweet kiss, into a deep, passionate one. When they finally broke the kiss, eyes glittering at one another, he pulled back just enough for her to see his words as he whispered, "I love you too. So much."