A little after 7:00 p.m.
The plane jarred as it touched down in Washington, DC jolting Jacob awake.
"You ok, sweetie," the older woman sitting beside Jacob eyed him with concern. "You had me worried for awhile there, thought you were having a nightmare. I was going to wake you up, but so seemed so ...tired" What she was actually thinking was that this young man looked like hell.
"Ah, I'm fine," Jacob assured the woman. "Just, like you said, tired, I, ah had a job in Boston. It didn't go so well."
The woman patted his hand as she rose from her seat. "Then I'm sure you must be glad to be home." She smiled down at him, "and I bet your Rachel will be glad to see you too."
"Rachel ..." Jacob stuttered.
"You kept saying her name," the woman explained. "I figured she was your girlfriend or wife."
"She, she's just a friend," Jacob said as he helped the woman retrieve her carryon bag and they made their way into the terminal.
"Sure, sweetie, whatever you say." She winked at him as she walked away. Friend indeed! She knew the sound of a man in love if ever she heard one.
As Jacob stood in the terminal he acknowledged that the woman was right. He was going home to Rachel. Ever since he had stormed out of the hospital, he had known where he wanted to be. His heart had been bruised and battered by this case and he desperately wanted to be with her. To see her, to talk to her, and, if he was completely honest with himself, to hold her and to be held by her in return. In the weeks since Rachel had been shot, Jacob had come to realize how much he cared for her.
But he was unsure of how she felt about him. And with the trouble Jacob was by now sure he was in with the FBI (after all, one was not supposed to hit one's bodyguard and then disappear) he wasn't sure that Rachel would actually be glad to see him.
Jacob eyed the bank of pay phones and hesitated. Rachel's number was stored on his cell, he wasn't sure he could remember it. After a moment he shrugged his shoulders, picked up a phone and dialled the operator.
"I'd like to make a collect call, I don't know the number off-hand, but the listing is for Alexandra Hood, in Deale, Maryland. My name? Jacob."
Rachel was cleaning up the kitchen with Owen, when the phone rang. Owen ran to answer it.
"Hello? What? Oh, yeah, I want to talk to Uncle Jacob."
Rachel's head snapped up at the mention Jacob's name. She wanted to snatch the phone from Owen's hand, but she restrained herself. As much as she wanted, no needed, to talk to Hood, it was just as important to keep any problems from Owen. She listened as Owen chattered happily to his uncle. After a few minutes, Owen turned the phone over to her.
"Uncle Jacob wants to talk to you now. Guess what, he's coming visit us. Isn't that great?"
"Yeah, that's great Owen. Tell you what, why don't you go up and start your bath. I'll be up after I'm done talking to your Uncle Jacob."
Rachel watched as Owen ran up the stairs. She waited until he was out of earshot before saying anything. She had been so worried that her voice was sharper than she intended.
"Hood, where the hell are you? And just what do you think you're doing?"
Jacob sighed when he heard the anger in her voice. He should have realized that Felix, hell, maybe the whole damn Bureau, had already called her.
"I'm sorry Rachel. I just, just couldn't stay in Boston any longer. I'm in DC. I didn't mean to bother you, but..." his voice petered out.
Rachel was shaken at the pain she heard so clearly in his voice. She wasn't sure exactly what had happened in Boston, but clearly it was much worse than Felix had led her to believe.
"Oh Jacob," she whispered. "Talk to me, please. What happened? Felix called me, he's been frantic. Are you all right? I've been worried out of my mind about you."
Jacob took a deep breath. She had been worried about him. Maybe she wasn't angry after all. Maybe everything would be ok.
"Rachel, things went wrong in Boston, really wrong. I'm not sure I can do this anymore. I want to come down to Deale tonight. I need to talk to you, to see you."
"Of course you can come down here. You don't need my permission. This is your home, yours and Alex's"
"No, I don't want to see Alex or Owen, or anyone. I just want to see you, to talk to you. I'll only come if you say so, if you want me to come."
Rachel was silent for a moment. "When time should I expect you?"
"I'm not sure. There are a few things I need to take care of, need to do, before I can leave."
"I'll wait up."
After hanging up, Rachel thought for a moment and then made the phone call she knew she had to make.
"Hi, Felix, look, I just heard from Hood. He's in DC and he's coming down here. He said he just felt like coming home."
She carefully did not tell him that Jacob had phrased it a little differently – he was heading home to her. To say Felix was thankful was an understatement.
"Wow, that's a relief ma'am. But what should we do? Just let him be and pretend this didn't happen or what?"
Rachel thought for a moment. "Look, let me talk to him. And you talk to Dilworth. See if we can get them to agree to covering up this whole situation. I mean, this is bad for everyone involved, not just you two, but Hood as well. I'll call you tomorrow and we can see if we can salvage this thing. With luck, you can retrieve your wayward protectee with no one the wiser."
Felix agreed readily. He had no desire to see his budding FBI career go down in flames. "Sure thing, ma'am. I'll try to make Dilworth see sense. Talk to you tomorrow."
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
It was almost 11:00 p.m. before Rachel heard the sound of a car in the drive. She flipped on the outside lights and went out on the front porch to greet Hood. What she saw caused her mouth to drop open and the thought go through her head that maybe Felix was right, maybe there was more to the good doctor than they suspected. Because there was Jacob Hood climbing out of a vintage Mustang convertible.
"Ah, nice car Hood, you steal it or something?" Rachel mentally berated herself for such an idiotic question. But Hood, with a Mustang? It was just too freaky to even contemplate.
Tired as he was, Jacob grinned as he pulled a duffle bag out of the back seat. "Thanks, but this is my car. I've had it since college. I picked it up after the one I modified blew up. I've gradually restored it over the years."
Rachel raised her eyebrows. "Impressive."
Jacob walked past Rachel into the house and dropped his duffle in the entrance way. For a while he just stood and stared into space. Rachel was shocked at his appearance. She had seen him go for days without sleep when consumed with a case, but she had never seen him look so exhausted and so hopeless.
"Hey, do you need something to eat? Or do you just want to get some sleep or what?"
To her surprise, Jacob turned and pulled her into a hug. For a moment, they stood there as he held her tightly. Before she could react, Jacob released her and walked toward the dining room.
"What I really want is a drink. And to talk to you. I need to talk to you Rachel, it's important."
Rachel trailed him into the dining room and watched as he poured out a healthy measure of the scotch Alex kept there for him.
As he took a sip, Jacob looked at her over the rim of the glass. "Where's Alex? How much did you tell her about why I'm here?"
Rachel shrugged. "I didn't have to tell Alex anything, she's not here. She had to go to New York, to meet with the gallery owner and a collector. She won't be home until the end of the week."
"Let's go out on the back porch. I don't know, maybe it will be easier for me to talk to you out there."
Rachel smiled slightly, remembering many late night conversations; in cars, on airplanes, in their hotel rooms. It had been easy, in the dim light, to say what was on their minds. For some reason, they had both found it safer to open up to the other when they couldn't see each other clearly.
As Jacob sank down on the swing, Rachel perched on the porch railing opposite him. She decided to try to approach the situation lightly.
"So, Hood, I've got to say you've pretty much amazed me and Felix. I mean really, decking your bodyguard and then showing up here in a vintage Mustang. Got to wonder, what else have you been hiding from us?"
Jacob smiled at her over the rim of his glass, but he refused to take the bait.
"I'm sorry about Dilworth, I really am. But Rachel, he just pushed me to far this time. I guess you could call it the straw that broke the camel's back." He held out his hand to her. "Just sit with me, ok, this is a long story and it will be easier to tell with you beside me."
Rachel hesitated a moment before sliding off the railing. She took his hand and let Jacob pull her down on the swing next to him. Still holding her hand, Jacob slowly began rocking the swing back and forth. Jacob gradually began to recount the events of the past three days.
It took a while because Rachel constantly interrupted, "Why hadn't they? Why didn't they? How could they have missed?"
At each question Jacob would only answer, "That's not the way we work anymore."
It was soon clear to Rachel what Felix meant when he said that Dilworth wasn't a team player. One part of Rachel couldn't find it in herself to blame Dilworth for his actions. He was fulfilling his duties as required by the EPD; she couldn't fault him for not going beyond the call of duty.
But on the other hand, she couldn't believe the man could allow Hood to come to the state he was in. Rachel's heart ached for him as she recognized the agony in his voice as he told her what Marchette had done to the infants, and to Clare. She knew that he held himself partially responsible for what had happened; he always felt that he should be able to fix everything.
But what shocked her most was what Dilworth had done to him.
"Wait, Dilworth, didn't, he couldn't" she exclaimed.
"Rachel," Jacob interrupted her, "yes, he did. He put me in a lock hold, stole my cell, and then locked me in my room as if I were a teenager trying to sneak out after curfew!"
"No wonder Felix said Dilworth looked worried. What he did, that was, that was unacceptable. I mean, to lay hands like that on a protectee, it's, it's just not done."
Rachel smiled slightly as she faced Hood on the swing. "No matter how big a pain in the ass you were when we first started working together, I would never have done something like that to you. And I'll bet none of your other handlers did either. Is that why you hit him?"
Jacob hesitated before answering her. This is where it began to be difficult for him, where he had to tell Rachel how he felt, not just what had been happening.
"No, it was after, when we were in the hospital waiting to see if any of the babies would survive. He was so, so damn callous, he didn't care about all the suffering. He was just glad I was able to save the important baby, the senator's son."
Rachel looked at him with disbelief on her face. "No, he couldn't have said that, couldn't have meant that."
"He did Rachel, he," Jacob wasn't sure he could make her understand.
He stared at her hand, held tightly in his. "He doesn't care about my work; he sometimes acts as if it is just there to annoy him, to make it harder for him to keep me in a little protective bubble. He's not like you. He doesn't want to help, to get involved. And he doesn't care, he doesn't care about me. Not like you do. And the longer you're not with me, the more I find that I just can't do this anymore, I just can't Rachel, not without you."
Jacob looked into Rachel's eyes, lightly tracing his fingers across her cheek and then cupping it. Rachel gasped softly at the touch of his hand on her face.
"I care about you Rachel, I care, maybe more than I should. Since you were shot, since I almost lost you, I've realized how much you mean to me. When I told you I would have had a hard time of it, if you died, I was lying." He took a deep breath. "If you had died, I would have been devastated. I can't lose you."
His voice cracked with emotion, "I love you. And I need you. I need your common sense, your intelligence, even your damn stubbornness to help keep me sane, to keep me from getting lost in my own head. I can't, don't want to imagine my life without you in it. And I have been so afraid to tell you this 'cause I don't know if you feel the same way about me."
Rachel laid her fingers against his lips, silencing him. "Jacob," she whispered, "you're not the only one who's been doing some thinking since I was shot. I've been lying to myself about my feelings for you for months, because, well because, it wasn't professional, because it would interfere with the job. In the last few weeks, I've discovered that there are some things more important than my job." Rachel leaned in and gently kissed him. "I love you too, Jacob, and I can't imagine my life without you in it."
Jacob looked at her, stunned for a split second, before a smile spread across his face. "Really, you're sure?"
Before Rachel could answer, his hands were on her face, her jaw, sliding through her hair as he pulled her close and kissed her. Rachel arms went around Jacob's neck and she tangled her fingers in his hair, as she opened her mouth to his. Jacob groaned as their tongues touched and his hands slid from her head, over her arms and back until he was holding her, pulling her closer to him.
Needing to be even closer, Rachel half climbed, was half tugged onto Jacob's lap. Jacobs's lips slid over her cheek to her neck, causing Rachel to gasp at the feel of his teeth and tongue against her skin. She tilted her head back as Jacob trailed kisses up her neck until he was nibbling on her ear. With one hand holding Rachel tightly against him, Jacob used his other to caress her, sliding his hand from her side to her breasts.
Rachel moaned with pleasure and she twisted her body, pressing against his hand. Rachel could feel his cock, hard under her thigh. Jacob muttered in protest as Rachel pulled away from his kisses, then caught his breath sharply as she was suddenly straddling him and her hands were tugging at the waistband of his jeans, pulling his hips up into her.
Jacob's hands were instantly on her ass, holding her tightly against him. Rachel hands moved to his chest, unbuttoning his shirt. Kissing him, she pushed his shirt aside and moaned against his lips as her hands glided over his chest and shoulders.
The feel of her hands on his skin awoke the need in Jacob to feel Rachel's skin against his. He slid his hands up over her hips to grasp the hem of her t-shirt. As he was pulling it up Rachel broke off their kiss and leaned her forehead against his.
"Wait, Jacob, no," she panted. "Not, here, not like this."
"Wh-what do you mean," Jacob stammered. .
Rachel smiled seductively. "There's a perfectly comfortable bed right inside, I don't want our first time together to be like this. I want it to be perfect."
Jacob froze as he realized what Rachel meant. He groaned, but his time in frustration.
"Rachel, sweetheart, I, we, we can't, not tonight." He shifted Rachel until she was once again in his lap, and he held her tightly against him. "I'm sorry, I wasn't, I just wanted to kiss you..."
"Jacob, what, what's the matter, I mean, don't you want me?"
Jacob inwardly cursed himself; he couldn't believe he was so stupid, so careless to start something he wasn't in a position to finish.
"Sweetheart, of course I want you. I love you and would like nothing better than to make love to you tonight..."
Rachel interrupted him, "then why?"
"Because I love you, too much to take any chances with you. I didn't think, didn't hope, that anything like this would happen between us tonight. It's , uh, well."
Jacob took a deep breath before he continued, "It's been a long time since I've, uh been with anyone, and I, uh don't have any condoms or anything. And since I highly doubt you're on the pill, I don't think we should..."
"What makes you think I'm not on the pill?"
Jacob smiled as he kissed her cheek. "Rachel, love, you're pretty regular, but not that regular."
Rachel was surprised to discover that she could go from aroused to mortified in a split second. "You know when I'm..."
"Let's just say that sometimes your sugar cravings are more intense than others."
Rachel giggled at that and buried her face in Jacob's neck. After a moment, Rachel sat up and looked at Jacob. "I don't care Jacob, I love you and I want you. You said you loved me, nothing else matters, does it?" She began kissing Jacob again, caressing his chest, shoulders.
"Rachel, no stop," Jacob grabbed at her hands, trying to keep her still in his lap. He smiled at her growl of frustration. "I mean it sweetheart. I don't want to take you to bed tonight and then have you wake up tomorrow morning regretting what we've done."
"Jacob! I love you, do you think, I mean, I'd never regret…"
"What if you turned out to be pregnant? You know as well as I do, we're going to have to hide what's between us from the Bureau. Once they find out, well, best case they transfer you off my detail so fast your head would spin, worst case.."
Rachel finished the sentence for him. "They kick my ass out of the Bureau for unprofessional behaviour."
"It's going to be hard enough, hiding that we've become lovers," Jacob said as he lightly skimmed his hand over Rachel's stomach. "It would be pretty damned impossible if you turned up pregnant. I know what your job means to you Rachel. I don't want you to lose it due to my carelessness. I don't want you to end up hating me for costing you something that means so much to you."
At this Rachel slid off of Jacob's lap to sit beside him. Taking both of Jacob's hands in hers she asked him seriously, "What's really bothering you Jacob, the thought that you'll cost me my job or the thought I might get pregnant?"
"I don't know, both I guess. I mean, aren't they the same?"
"No, they're not. We're not going to be able to hide what's between us forever. They're going to find out eventually and when they do, well it's most likely not going to be pleasant."
Jacob opened his mouth to protest, but Rachel silenced him.
"No, Jacob, you need to hear this, Ok? You're right about my loving my job. I do, and a big part of that is 'cause I love working with you. I will hate having to give that up."
"You shouldn't have to," Jacob said. "Maybe by the time they find out, we'll have proved that what's between us doesn't interfere with the job. That you are perfectly capable..."
Rachel smiled at his naivety. "Jacob, it's not about my ability to do the job. Being with you, loving you, it's against the rules. And one thing about the Bureau, they love their rules, so eventually I will lose my job. You have to know, Jacob, one thing I've come to realize since I got shot, is that I love you more than the job. If I have to pick, it's a no-brainer, I pick you."
"But Rachel," Jacob protested.
"No," Rachel insisted, "I've thought about this a lot. Yes, I am willing to try to hide that we're lovers from the Bureau for as long as we can, I love working with you and it will suck big-time when they separate us, but what matters Jacob, is that even without the job, I'll still have you.
I wish things could be different. Maybe if I wasn't in the EPD things could be; but I am and they're not. I wish I could have you and the job, but I can't, so I pick the one that will make me the happiest."
"You're sure?"
"Of course I am." Rachel kissed him gently.
Rachel slid her hands up his arms and reached up to frame his face. "And would it be so terrible if I did get pregnant?
She smiled wistfully, "I want us to be a real family someday Jacob. If it's going happen sooner or later, is sooner really that bad? At least I'd have our baby to keep me company while you and Felix are off having adventures."
Jacob looked at her with a shocked expression on his face. "You can't be serious Rachel."
Rachel's face fell, "I'm sorry, I mean, I just thought."
"What did you think?"
"Well, you told me once that you liked kids, that you were a fan. And you're so good with Owen, I just, I don't know. I just always thought you'd make a great father. But if you don't, well, that's ok too. I mean it, I love you Jacob, no matter what."
Jacob pulled Rachel into his arms, "You're not wrong Rachel, I think having a baby with you would be..." His voice broke.
"Then make love to me Jacob, now, tonight, we don't need to wait."
"Rachel, no, we can't, having a baby is complicated, we need to talk, we need to figure things out; we need to plan."
Rachel shrugged, "What's so complicated? We love each other, we want to spend the rest of our lives together, we both want a family. What's to talk about? To plan? The timing? If I get pregnant tonight, great, we start our life outside of the Bureau a little sooner that we hoped. If I don't, great, we work together for as long as we can and then start our family. I think that's what's called a win-win situation."
Jacob was silent as he digested everything Rachel said. It was so enticing, she was offering him everything he wanted, herself, a family, a future. After his wife's death he had resigned himself to the fact that such things were no longer possible for him. The thought of those old dreams coming true was tempting, but still.
"Rachel, I don't know what to say, to do" Jacob murmured, "I thought you were supposed to be the practical one. If we, I mean, it seems so reckless."
Rachel arched an eyebrow. "I am being practical. I think I am being very practical, thank you very much. I know what I want. I have stated quite clearly what I want. I have advanced a logical argument as to why we should proceed with what I want, and I have convincingly overcome your objections to doing what I want."
"And what exactly is it you want," Jacob asked her.
Rachel stood up and tugged Jacob to his feet. Pulling his head down to hers, she whispered "you" as she kissed him.
Rachel made a small noise that was something like a sigh against his lips, and then Jacob was kissing her, softly at first, and then with more urgency, his arms slipping around her to pull her close. Rachel wound her arms around his neck and parted her lips, taking in the taste of him. Jacob broke off the kiss, putting his hand under Rachel's chin; he tipped her head back until so he could look into her eyes.
Rachel smiled at the look of intensity on his face; she loved knowing that it was her he was thinking about so completely.
Still, her breath caught in her throat as Jacob whispered, "Let's go inside."
