Episode tag to 1.15 "He Said She Said," post-episode, in which Sue contemplates the merits of textile accouterments as romantic gifts.

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Sue sat in the bullpen, staring at the paperwork on the desk in front of her, not really comprehending anything on it. On her lap was a Hawaiian shirt she was fiddling with absentmindedly.

Everyone else had headed home. She should have as well, she really didn't have anything pressing she was working on, but she needed the quiet (visually speaking) of nothing going on around her. If she went home, Lucy would immediately realize something was wrong and want to talk.

And that would be hard when, really, there wasn't something wrong. Not exactly. Just a sort of . . . unsettled sense.

Levi put his paw on her leg. She looked down at him and he looked over at the door, alerting her to someone's presence.

Jack.

"Oh!" she said. "Hi! What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same thing," he responded. "Didn't you know the workday ended already?"

She gave a small smile. "I just needed to think for a while. It's been quite a week."

"Hasn't it?" he responded, nodding knowingly. "Well, I can leave if you want more thinking time, but if you want to talk, I don't mind listening too."

Talking with Lucy wouldn't have been possible. But with Jack—

"Actually . . . I did have just one question for you. About everything from this week, I mean."

He half-seated himself on the edge of her desk. "What's that?"

"Was there ever a time . . . I mean, everyone backed me so instantly, even Myles, but he did question if it was possible I might have made a mistake, and . . . did you . . . ever wonder? I mean, did you think . . . ?"

"Not for a moment," he responded quickly.

Her heart lightened as she read those words and she breathed a sigh of relief. Still she had to ask, "Why not? I mean, you weren't there. How could you be sure?"

"Because I know you. Not just because I know your character, although that would be enough. But I know you, I know your observational skills. You see things that people trained in observation for years aren't aware of. People try to insist that your deafness makes you more prone to error, but training to read lips and function in a hearing world despite not hearing has made you have to be aware of things in ways hearing people never have to be. You miss things outside your line of vision, sure, but you see details on every case that I and dozens of other agents with more training and years of surveillance experience overlook. There was never any doubt in my mind that you knew exactly what had happened and that Pete was lying to save his own skin."

She smiled, feeling tears prick her eyes as she reached a hand up to grasp his in gratitude. "Jack . . . you have no idea how much that means to me."

"I don't—but I do, as much as I possibly can without living the life you've lived."

After a moment in which they just looked at one another, unspoken communication passing between them, she released his hand and cleared her throat of her emotions. "So, uh . . . you still never answered why you were here."

"Oh, uh, I was looking for you, actually. Just, you know, to check in on how you were doing after the insanity of this week. When you weren't answering your BlackBerry I called the house and Lucy said you hadn't left work yet. I had just been eating at a café around the corner so I figured it was easier to stop by and see you in person instead of trying to call you again."

"Oh!" She looked at her BlackBerry and saw that she had indeed missed his call and one from Lucy as well. She should call her back soon and let her know she was alright. "I wasn't paying attention I guess."

He gestured to the shirt in her lap and said as casually as he could, "A bit, uh, distracted thinking about your gift-giver, huh?"

She wrinkled her brow a bit in confusion. "What? Oh . . . yeah, I guess, among, um other things I've been thinking about."

"What other things?"

She shrugged. After a moment, she asked, "Why were you eating at a café by yourself? Or were you not by yourself?"

He shrugged too. "Just . . . didn't feel like going home yet."

She nodded. "It must be lonely without Allie there anymore," she said, then nearly bit her tongue in frustration at herself for blurting that out.

"Sue, I—Allie wasn't staying with me," he said quickly. She opened her eyes wide in surprise, then tilted her head in a silent question, which he was already starting to answer. "I, um, I'm not sure . . . why, but I wanted you to know that. She was . . . she was over a lot, but she has another friend who's local, a college roommate of hers, and she stayed there and just came over to help me with household chores and stuff after the heart attack."

She nodded her head slowly. "So . . . you were eating at a café alone because you didn't have her to help you anymore?"

"I was eating at a café alone because . . . ." He paused, looking very undecided, and then apparently made a decision to split the proverbial log wide open and let the chips fall where they may. "Because the only person I really wanted to be with has started dating a guy she met in a dog park this week and I'd never ask her to do anything other than follow her heart."

She stared. She wasn't even sure she looked surprised. It was entirely possible that, in her present state of shock, her face was entirely blank. She simply blinked a few times at him.

It was also entirely possible possible she remained in this blank stare too long, because he suddenly said, "I should go," looking awkward and possibly slightly regretful. As he was heading out, he turned back, walking backward toward the door still, and said, "I, um . . . I bet you'll look great in that shirt." He turned back to complete the journey out of the room and this suddenly very awkward situation.

He was just about at the door when she blurted out, "David and I aren't dating."

He swung back around so fast she thought he might fall over. "You're not?"

She was standing by then and the contents of her lap spilled to the floor. Not one shirt. Two. She scooped them up, embarrassed, but he had already seen. "I mean," she said, balling the shirts as small as they'd go and trying to stuff them in her purse and distract him with her words, "we went on one date, sort of, and he sent me this shirt, but we've never really talked about a long-term relationship or anything and . . . I'm really not sure I want to. To go on more dates with him, I mean. I only wanted to because . . . ."

"Was that the jersey I gave you?" As she'd been talking and stuffing shirts into her purse, he'd been walking back across the room, so when she looked up and saw him asking that question, he was only feet from her, staring at the now overstuffed purse in her hands in wonder.

She flushed. He darted his eyes up to hers.

"Was that the jersey I gave you for Christmas?"

She hesitated, then nodded. "I was . . . thinking about . . . about two different men who have given me shirts as gifts this past year. And how, in each instance, it could have been seen as either friendly or romantic, even though a shirt typically isn't considered a romantic gift."

He nodded slowly, thinking, then asked, "You only wanted to date him because . . . why?"

She drew a breath. It was all or nothing at this point. He'd mentioned wanting to be with a woman who had started dating someone she'd met in a dog park. It was up to her to choose whether to lay her own heart on the line as well.

"Because . . . the man I really want to be with . . . was saying something to me about near-death experiences causing you to think about the things you haven't been doing, and I thought he meant us. But then his old high school girlfriend walked into his hospital room and our conversation got cut off, and he never brought it up again so . . . I thought he didn't want me after all and I was trying to find a way to move on."

He reached toward her, brushed a tear from her lower lid before it could fall, brushed a lock of hair behind her ear.

Then he spoke, and while she couldn't hear his voice, everything about his face said that he was speaking in the softest, gentlest way to her. "When I said your character was enough reason to believe you, that was the truth. When I said that you notice every detail and I knew you couldn't have been mistaken, that was the truth. Do you want to know the biggest reason I believed you?"

She nodded, unable to trust her voice just then.

So, with every ounce of love and trust in him, he leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers.