2.19 "The Kiss" episode alternative #1, in which Jack and Sue add the "boss/secretary thing" to their cover story far sooner.

AN: This is the first of my 5(!) episode alternatives for "The Kiss," each beginning at a different point in the episode, and each unrelated to the others. This one begins when Sue was starting to tell Jack they had to call Myles to let him know that his sister was definitely involved, only for Hillary Kern to interrupt to ask about a missing witness list.

When it comes to the point of installing the spyware in the office (you know, the part at which they have the actual kiss) you'll notice that in this and other alternatives I keep having Jack do one specific thing with the folder in order to hide it. These are the facts:
~Sue was carrying the deposition when they walked in.
~Neither Sue nor Jack had a bag or briefcase of any sort with them.

~Sue was looking through a folder when Jack came to get her.
~Neither Sue nor Jack had anything in their hands when they walked out the door.

This is my supposition:

~They probably had to sign into the building so they brought the deposition so there was a plausible reason for why they'd done so.
~The spyware disc had to either be in Jack's pocket or hidden inside the deposition.

~The folder either was what she was looking in for names that included financial records, or was one she had grabbed to put a print-out of said names into.

~If the former, the folder had to be put away before Janice got to them, and I'm not sure when there would have been time for that. But if the latter, they had to get the folder out with them somehow.

~Also, if they were getting the folder out with them anyway, putting the spyware disc in the folder would have been a good move.

Have I watched and rewatched this scene way too many times trying to make sure I had the details right for these and other stories? Absolutely. Nevertheless, based on this, I have come up with my own headcanon for what happened to the folder and I'm sticking to it.

Alright! Onto the actual story now!

~0~

As Jack and Sue entered their temporary office, Sue was saying, "We've got to call—" Thankfully, she turned around to face Jack before she finished the sentence, in time to see someone approaching behind him. "Ms. Kern!"

"I'm sorry to bother you," Ms. Kern said, "but I was going over your brief of the civil action, and there's no master list of witnesses."

Jack looked to Sue, who looked to Jack and immediately decided it would be more forgivable for a secretary to forget that than for a lawyer to not know it was needed. "It's my fault," she said quickly. "I, I must've forgotten to enter them."

Jack put on a stern face. "I specifically told you to include that list."

Sue nodded. "I'm sorry."

"Don't let it happen again."

At that, she started struggling to keep a straight face as she realized how much Jack was enjoying being able to reprimand her like this. Thankfully, Ms. Kern unknowingly came to her rescue just then—well, she knew she was coming to her rescue, but it wasn't in the way she thought she was—by saying, "There's always an adjustment period to new surroundings. I'm sure you'll be up to speed in no time."

Sue nodded her thanks, trying hard not to roll her eyes at the way the woman emphasized her words. No matter how many times Sue said that she could read lips best if people just spoke normally, some people insisted on trying to enunciate excessively for her. It actually made it harder.

Oblivious to this, Jack kept the charade up by turning back to Sue and saying, "I guess we'll have to be a little more attentive to how things work around here, won't we, Sue?"

"Very good," said Ms. Kern, who turned and walked away.

Sue smirked at Jack. "What're you going to do? Fire me?"

"Not just yet," he teased back. Shaking a finger at her and faux-glaring, he added, "But I'm keeping my eye on you."

Just then, Sue noticed someone who had been passing the open door, stop and gawk slightly. At the same moment, Jack heard a slight gasp.

Thinking fast, Sue said to Jack, "Good." With a wink she added, "Because that's just where I want your eyes to be." She sauntered toward the door, keeping her own eyes toward Jack as she closed the door firmly.

He cleared his throat. "Good—good thinking there. Quick. Uh, h-he was gone, um, before you closed the door so . . . I don't know, um, how much . . . more . . . he heard, but, uh . . . ." He cleared his throat again. "But that was good thinking, is it warm in here?" He quickly turned toward the desk to grab some water.

Sue sauntered over and laid a hand on his shoulder, saying softly, "Don't drop the act, there are still windows. Anyway, if people assume that you and I are . . . flirting . . . a lot—" She felt a shiver go through him and she bent to finish the sentence in his ear. "—they might avoid us more when we're together, so we can talk about the case without being overheard," she said, making sure the expression on her face looked like she was whispering something particularly salacious to him in case anyone was watching.

Jack realized what she was doing and smirked up at her, making sure his expression matched the implied conversation rather than the real one. "Good thought—beautiful," he responded with a wink.

She arched a brow and winked back. "You'll find I'm full of those. Now, as I was saying," she continued, sitting in the chair opposite him and crossing her legs seductively, "We need to call Myles."

~0~

It was surprisingly easy for Jack and Sue to fall into a habit of flirting. They already had regular witty banter—some might have already referred to it as flirting, though they would both have denied it—and adding a layer of slightly more blatant (but as though they thought they were being secretive about it) glances, touches, and innuendo took far less effort than either of them was willing to admit.

"Ms. Miller," Jack said, leaning over her from behind and placing his hand on the small of her back as he used his other hand to guide her face toward his enough for her to just read his lips—if they weren't too close to her eyes for her to focus on. "Did you get that extra copy made for us to send with the shipment back to the home office?"

Leaning slightly back into his touch, she responded, "We can . . . look through them together in the office . . . if you want . . . ."

Several other people who had been standing around the copier smirked, but also gave them a wide berth, as though acting like the sea had parted around them would somehow make them think nobody had realized they were coming onto each other so strongly.

Coming up on Jack talking to Janice, Sue said, "Um, excuse me, Ja—uh, Mr. Buchanan?"

"Yes, Sue?"

"There's something you need to . . . see. In the office."

He smirked as he gave her a once-over. "There's often something I like to see in the office." He winked and she blushed. Janice tried to look like she was suddenly very busy with anything else.

Conversations about the case (the real FBI case, not the civil suit that they weren't really working) were held in their temporary office with the door closed as Sue gave Jack gentle massages, or as Jack sauntered slowly toward Sue, hands up and ready to take her by the waist until she would point toward the window and (as far as anyone looking in could see) blushingly remind him that people could still see them. Once or twice, he responded to this by grabbing her and pulling her far into the corner where, with the door shut, nobody could see them by looking through the windows. "For the illusion of it," he had said. Pressed up against him as he held her there (so she wouldn't accidentally shift far enough for someone to see, of course) she had to agree that this was probably best. For the sake of their cover, of course.

~0~

It was working very well . . . until they were back in the bullpen. "So," Tara was saying, as she took Sue through the process for installing spyware on Hillary Kern's computer, "you're going to open this part first—don't worry, this is a dummy one, but in the real one you use tonight, you'll open this and then click right here on this unzip file—"

"I've got something you can unzip," Jack muttered to Sue. She nearly burst out laughing as everyone on the team suddenly looked up at them. Apparently he hadn't muttered it very quietly.

Jack's face was turning redder than she'd ever seen it as he attempted to sputter out an explanation. "I wasn't—I didn't—that just slipped out, I didn't mean—"

Sue finally decided to come to his rescue. "We were nearly caught joking about how he couldn't fire me," she quickly explained, "so I changed the conversation to make it sound like he and I were in a relationship and that's why he wouldn't fire me. Since that became the office gossip anyway, we discovered that blatant flirting was a very effective way to keep people uncomfortable and at a distance when we're together. Makes it easier to discuss the case."

"Exactly," Jack agreed, glad for her more coherent explanation than anything he'd been trying to say. "But since we've been doing that for the sake of the cover, it's sort of become a habit to try to think of ways to slip it into conversation, so that one just sort of . . . slipped out."

"Flirting for the sake of the cover," Myles said looking about him in feigned awe. "I'm amazed they didn't think of that sooner."

"Yeah," Bobby teased, "but what's their excuse the rest of the time?"

That one got both Sue and Jack sputtering and turning red, until Sue finally said, "Uh, Tara, what's the next step?" Ignoring everyone else's continued laughter and teasing, and the amused glances Tara kept tossing to them as she spoke, they continued with the lesson.

~0~

That evening, at Callahan and Merced, Jack was supposed to be keeping watch while Sue did her job. But while the Spyware was finishing installing, and she was tucking the freshly printed list of names associated with financial records into a folder to bring back with them, Jack, leaning against the desk and looking out the window behind Sue so he could see if anyone entered the offices, said casually, "So, I have to say, you're pretty good at the . . . undercover flirting thing."

She bit back a smile and asked, "Am I?"

"Mmm. So good that even I, who know what you're doing, could almost believe you were being sincere with me."

"Well," she responded with the same practiced casual tone, "you're at least that good at it yourself, mister. When you called me beautiful—"

"Oh, that's not fake," he quickly said, then colored slightly. "I mean . . . objectively . . . you are a very beautiful woman. So it's not difficult to . . . ." He cleared his throat. "To notice."

"Thank you," she said with a slight smirk. "And since you, objectively, are a very handsome man, it's not difficult in the opposite direction either."

"I—uh, thank you," he responded, clearly not expecting that.

"Still," she added after a moment, "sometimes when you say . . . some of the things you say . . . you know, as Jack Buchanan instead of—" She gestured to his person, not wanting to say his real last name out loud just in case there was a bug somewhere they didn't know of. "Well, you . . . like I said, you're a very good actor."

He dropped his glance to the floor for a moment, then looked back to her. "What if . . . I said I didn't need to act?"

She bit her lip a moment, studying his face, and then the disc drive popped open automatically, indicating that spyware installation was complete. She quickly grabbed the disc to add to her folder, shut everything down, and they headed toward the door, but before they got there she grabbed Jack's arm.

"What if," she began slowly, "—what if I said I didn't need to act either?"

He stared at her a moment, just as studiously as she had him a minute ago, and then like magnets they were pulled together, in each other's arms, lips locked, hands exploring all over one another's backs, arms, shoulders, necks, faces, hair; as their mouths made at least as thorough an exploration of one another.

They were just fully losing any sense of where they were when suddenly the light flipped on and they broke apart to see Janice standing there. "Sue? Mr. Buchanan?"

"Ms. Clark," Jack said, clearing his throat.

"What are you doing in here?" Janice asked. "Well, I mean, I can see what you're doing, but, uh—"

"Janice, I'm," Sue began, then found she had to clear her throat to continue. "—so sorry, um—" Remembering their excuse for being in the building, she grabbed the spiral-bound copy they had left on Hillary's desk. "We—we got a deposition . . . from a key witness today. And Jack . . . and I . . . wanted to leave a copy."

Standing half-behind her and with the deposition as added cover, Jack surreptitiously tucked the file folder containing the disc up under the back of his jacket and into the waistband of his pants, quickly straightening his jacket after and hoping that if Janice noticed, she would only think he was making necessary adjustments after the activities in which they had just been engaged.

"It's the break we've been waiting for in this case," Jack agreed. "And, uh, well, in the heat of the moment . . . ." He gestured between them and they exchanged embarrassed glances at the same time.

After giving a stern look for several long, awkward moments, Janice's face softened and she said, "Yes, well, it can get hot in here." Plucking the deposition from Sue's hand, she added, "I'll see that Ms. Kern gets this."

"Thank you," Jack said, taking Sue by the arm and guiding her toward the door with him.

Turning back before exiting, he added, "Oh, Janice, ah—"

"Don't worry, I won't say a word to her, be our little secret," Janice quickly assured them.

"Thank you," Sue responded.

"Though I suggest you two either go find a cooler environment, or at least a more private one." Janice added with a wink, and with deepening blushes, the other two rushed out the door.

~0~

"Uh, you were really good back there," Jack said as he and Sue walked down the street toward their cars. "I mean, uh, the deposition line."

She smirked at him. "Is that all that was good?"

He pretended to think. "Hmm . . . no, yeah, that's all I can think of."

She shoved him and he laughed, then grabbed her by the waist, pulling her to him. "Because the kissing part," he added, "wasn't good, that was great."

She grinned and they decided to test it out a few more times, before he started.

"What?" she asked.

"Sorry," he said, "someone walking past just yelled at us to get a room."

"Hmm," she said, twisting her well-kissed lips in contemplation. "I feel like someone else suggested we find more privacy too . . . ."

"Mmm, I like that idea. Your place or mine?"

"Well, my place has Lucy and Levi . . . ."

"So my place?"

"Probably for the best."

~0~

Lucy must've been out walking Levi when Sue called to let her know not to expect her until later. All Sue left on the answering machine was, "Don't wait up, it looks like we're going to take longer than expected."

When Sue still wasn't home by morning, and didn't answer her BlackBerry, nor did Jack answer his cell, Lucy had roused the whole team and had them on search before Bobby burst into his best friend's apartment . . . and found himself in the amusing and yet uncomfortable position of being able to tell everyone exactly what had been keeping Jack and Sue.