A/N Carter finally meets Mark Snow face to face. She and Reese have a brief conversation.
Disclaimer Nothing you see here belongs to me.
New York.
No matter how many times she'd been here, each visit felt like the first. Carter was always amazed by the energy and life that permeated the very air of this city. It was positively pulsating with opportunity. She loved to walk through Times Square, stare at billboards, and drop a few coins into the hats of performing musicians and artists. She loved the food, the fanfare, and the heart of the people. Though she was born and raised in Washington D.C., New York for some reason always felt so much like home.
She was in town only for a few days and was staying with her friend Amanda. They'd known each other since they'd enlisted in the Army together. Amanda had come home from Afghanistan, but unlike Carter who'd gone on to the SEALS, Amanda studied law and was now working in the D.A.'s office. She had a son, a husband and a beautiful house in the Bronx. After her recent mission, Carter appreciated the short period of down time. She was enjoying Mandy's company and was happy to be just an ordinary citizen for the time being.
Two days into her trip she'd gotten a call one afternoon from an unknown number. The voice on the other end introduced himself as Mark Snow. She listened in disbelief as he told her the CIA had been watching her for a while, and that they were interested in her coming to work for them. Initially she thought it'd been a prank, but he assured her this conversation and what he was offering, was no joke. The tone in his voice caused her to sit up straight in her chair, and the hair on her forearms stood at attention.
He began a round of questions and doled out 'what if' scenarios. He probed her thoughts about circumstances that she found challenging as a woman in her position as a leader of her platoon. Thinking back on the conversation, she realized his questions were more behavioral in nature. He was feeling her out, trying to gauge her personality.
They talked about her work history, where she went to college, and why she'd chosen to join the SEALS. She thought of a million different ways to answer the question. She wanted to be better than she was; she wanted to further her military career. Deep down she knew it was partly an unconscious need to prove herself worthy to her father despite not being the boy that he wanted. She wanted to prove that she was just as good, even better. She could have answered in many different ways, but her reply was simple.
"I wanted to prove the naysayers wrong….and…I wanted to serve my country."
A brief silence followed her answer, and when he finally spoke, it was to give her an address in Midtown where they would meet. That was three days ago, and she stood with her hands thrust into the pockets of her jacket and stared at the entrance.
"You wanted more didn't you, Joss? That's what you've been saying for months now," she questioned herself quietly as she watched a couple exiting the café. "Now it's time to take the next step."
She pushed on the handle of the door and walked in, sitting at one of the vacant tables and ordered coffee when a waitress came over. She sat there for ten minutes, wondering if the phone call had all been a dream as she looked at her watch. Maybe he wouldn't show. Maybe he'd changed his mind about her. A big part of her was disappointed at the thought. She knew the agency was difficult to get into. Whenever there was a job opening posted to their site, they had hundreds of thousands of applicants. It took at least six months to get an interview and an even longer time after that to get a follow up one, if you were lucky.
This was a big deal. To her, it was the beginning of an experience she just instinctively knew would matter the most in her military career. For three days she'd thought about it, wondered at the training, the assignments, and the good she could do if she was chosen. She realized this was something that she really wanted, badly. She could almost taste it, and she needed Mark Snow to be here.
She took a sip of the coffee, its bitter taste passed her throat and she grimaced at it.
"God what is this?" she murmured.
"I should have told you not to order the coffee."
She turned in her seat, looking up to see two men in the back of her. One she immediately recognized from the gym. He stood a few inches taller than the other guy, and though they were identically dressed in dark suits, he was clearly better suited for the outfit. His smirk was in place, and as he sat down opposite her she felt herself flush. She was right when she assumed he was military. It made sense now that he was CIA. The mystery of the job suited him very much, she decided. The stealth, intensity and focus needed for the agency were all attributes he possessed quite naturally. She wondered which branch he'd been recruited from. Was it the Army, the Marines? She had to know.
The other guy's voice was familiar, and she assumed he was Mark Snow. He had a receding hairline, thin lips, and a peculiar look in his eye. It was the kind of look that made you wonder if you should trust him or shoot him. He wasn't as easy on the eyes as her mystery man, but though he wasn't ugly in the least, his face was quite forgettable in her opinion.
"Jocelyn Carter," he said as he sat down next to his companion and smoothed his tie.
"Just Carter, thanks. And you must be…"
"Mark Snow," he confirmed, and he reached out to shake her hand. "Sorry we're late. This," he said as her gaze turned to Reese. "…is John. You might have seen him around the base."
"Only a couple of times," she replied sarcastically. "What brings you to New York, Agent Snow?" she asked.
"Technically, John and I are not in New York. We don't exist. But aside from all that, we're here for you, Carter."
Carter looked back and forth between them, trying to take it all in. As Snow went on about the agency's interest in her and her recent missions, she glanced for a moment at John, but was rewarded with nothing more than a slow blink. His face was absolutely stoic, and cold. She couldn't help thinking he looked as if he was on autopilot. If she joined them, if she accepted their offer, would she eventually look like that way too?
"Tell me about Nelson," Snow said, interrupting her thoughts.
Carter's eyes narrowed at the question. If he asked her about Nelson, he probably already knew the details of the incident that happened not long after she made Lieutenant. He simply wanted her side of the story so he could form his own opinion. She wouldn't be surprised at all if they'd already spoken to her Commander about it, even Tom Nelson himself.
The memory was one she would have liked to have kept in the past. However the fact that she was a female SEAL meant it would follow her long into the future. Without further preamble she told him what happened.
"Tom Nelson is what you would call 'a guy's guy'. Athletic, competitive, big ego, pretty sure of himself. He had some behavioral issues early in his military career when he first joined the Navy. Most of them had been worked out when he joined the SEALS. He had a bit of a relapse when I became the leader of his platoon. He had some difficulty being under the command of a woman."
"And how did you feel about that?" Snow asked.
"It was expected, really. If it hadn't been Nelson, it might have been some other Operator, so it came as no surprise to me. A lot of men feel a woman has no place in the SEALS, let alone be a leader of a team of men who feel she's inferior to them. It also came as no surprise to me that Nelson was responsible for some off color pranks pulled on me."
"Such as?"
Carter's smile was sardonic, remembering them all. Snow was watching her, every expression, and every movement. The revelation of the pranks that were intimate in nature was an attack of her femininity and her ability to lead. If she was going to get this job, she had to show them that her gender would not hinder her in any way, regardless of whether it was called into question or not. Snow's eyes were searching for flaws, so when she spoke again she looked at John. Though his expression was unreadable at first, there was something beneath the depths of his blue gaze. There was something that said he understood.
"There was a package delivered to me. A box. A box that contained a hundred yellow panties that were tied up in knots. Apparently my 'panties were in a bunch'."
At her last sentence, Snow huffed out a laugh. It sounded weird coming from his mouth. She still looked at John and his eyes hadn't wavered from hers either. He was engrossed in her story, and her grip on her coffee cup was a bit tighter. She tried to relax. It had been a while since she'd spoken of the prank; she was surprised that she still felt so strongly about it.
"So, at a training exercise I challenged him. He didn't get the reaction he'd hoped for. He thought- along with his other friends- that I'd go running to the Commander and have them disciplined. It'd make it seem as if I couldn't handle my new position, that I was ill equipped to be their Lieutenant. But I had some discipline of my own in mind. I knew it had to be firm, it had to be hard, and it had to be public."
Carter shrugged, turning the coffee cup idly in her hands. She'd successfully gained both of their interest now. Both were silent, attentive, waiting with baited breath for her to continue.
"Of course his ego and male pride wouldn't allow him to turn me down. He fought well, but I was better. I had to be. He had good training, so I didn't expect him to go down easy. But he did go down, rather soundly I might add, and he was as embarrassed as hell for weeks afterwards. The rest of the platoon wouldn't let him forget it. I'm not one hundred percent sure, but I'm told he got a delivery of boxers not long after too."
"Were they also tied up in knots?"
It was the first time John had spoken since they sat down. She saw a gleam in his eye, a slight smile and what she thought was admiration for how she handled herself and the situation.
"Who can say?" she shrugged. "But he never challenged me again. So this job in the Agency….what's it all about?"
"It'll be the most important job of your career," Snow answered. "It'll be the hardest thing you've ever done, and if you do decide to join us, you can never go back home. Literally maybe, but figuratively, no. Your life will never be the same. You said you wanted to serve your country? This is the best way you can do that. You have twenty four hours to accept or decline the offer. After which, you give me a call at this number." He slid a business card toward her with a number scribbled on the back. "And you have two minutes to solve this maze."
"What…?"
Carter looked down as he placed a sheet of paper in front of her with a circular maze. He placed a pencil on the side of it and looked at her. She didn't have time to ask him if he was serious, because he started a timer on his watch and she knew her ability to think quickly on her feet was being tested once again.
She grabbed the pencil, staring at the lines, the curves, and for a moment paper and maze started to bleed into one. She willed herself to focus, to think of it as another mission she and her platoon was on. When the lead finally touched the paper, she trailed it from beginning to end, almost as expertly as she would if she were leading her crew to another accomplished mission.
With a few seconds to spare, she handed him the paper and pencil. His face was unreadable, he was careful not to show if he was impressed or not. He simply folded it and tucked it into a pocket of his coat.
"Thanks for meeting with us, Carter," Snow said as he stood up. He reached out to shake her hand again. "I look forward to hearing from you."
She watched as he walked out, and then turned to John as he spoke.
"Good luck, Carter," John said, shaking her hand for the first time. While letting go, she rubbed her thumb over the inside of his palm. It was rough in a few places, and she smiled. This man knew his way around weaponry.
"What were you? Army? Special Forces?"
"You don't miss anything do you?" He answered in slight amusement. When his cheeks rounded briefly, his face practically lit up.
"I have a feeling you don't either. Although I still can't quite figure out where I've seen you before," she admitted.
He towered over her and she remembered his long reach when he'd fought with Jason in the gym on the base. What would it be like to have this man in her platoon? What would it be like to watch him work, to see him hold a rifle in his big hands?
"We might have crossed paths one time or the other," he said shrugging. "Plenty of time to swap stories later if you decide to accept Snow's offer."
"Do you think I'm gonna need that good luck?" she asked as he started for the exit. He stopped and turned around to look at her.
"You don't need it," he said. It felt as if it was a difficult admission for him. "It's up to you now. You have to decide….just how badly you want this."
The stoic look on his face came back, easier than it was for him to smile at her just a moment ago. A part of her felt a little disappointed by that. As she watched him leave without another word, she realized he was right. The job was hers, even though Snow tried to be nonchalant about it. She had to decide what she wanted to do. The ball was in her court.
How badly did she really want this?
The tumbler sounded on the top of the wooden bar as the last of its contents went down Reese's throat. The whiskey was good, and it was doing its job of helping him to relax. He hated being idle, it left him with too much time to think about things he needed to forget. Things he couldn't seem to get out of his mind. He needed an assignment, and fast.
The bar was dark, cigarette smoke wafted through the air, but it was unusually empty tonight. He looked up at the flat screen that was mounted on the wall and stared at the basketball game that was on. The volume was down, and the only sound in the room was coming from the jukebox, a melancholy tune. It fit the mood he was in perfectly.
It was Jessica and Peter's second anniversary. The bar was where he'd bumped into Peter, where they'd talked, and where Kara had reminded him that he could never go back to his old life again. He knew it made no sense to torture himself this way, but he needed the familiarity of pain, of rejection he felt when he thought of her. He needed some connection to her, to prove that a part of him was still human. With every mission, every new objective, he felt a part of his humanity slipping away.
Jocelyn Carter reminded him so much of what he used to be, of what he still wanted to be. She was still idealistic in nature; she still had warmth and optimism. She was still a truly good person deep down. He knew she'd make an excellent partner. She was highly skilled, extremely intelligent. She had drive and she was willing to do whatever it took to get the job done.
A part of him wanted her to say yes. He wanted to be around her, because for some reason she sparked a fire in him that had long been burnt out. But a part of him wanted her to refuse. He knew the longer she worked the job, the longer she was an agent, her innocence and what made her who she was would slowly start to erode. She'd end up becoming just like him. And he didn't want that.
The buzz of his cell phone interrupted his musings and he answered the call, putting it to his ear.
"Carter's a go. We leave for Williamsburg tomorrow."
Snow's two sentences filled him with a mixture of relief and regret. He paid his tab and left the bar, the aftertaste of whiskey in his mouth suddenly sour.