Episode tag to 3.2, "The Body Shop," post-episode, in which Jack overhears a conversation not intended for him re: someone who likes his eyes, and decides to do something about it.
AN: To my knowledge, there is no supply closet off the conference room. But I couldn't find anywhere that would be easy for the ladies to have a presumed-private conversation where Jack might accidentally (at first) overhear. So for the purposes of this story, there is.
~0~
Jack didn't make a habit of eavesdropping. Well, not outside of investigative purposes. Technically, this might count as investigative. It wasn't deliberate, but since he'd been trying to find something in the supply closet off of the conference room, and since the ladies had come in and started talking without apparently realizing he was there . . . well, they were already talking before he realized he should possibly make his presence known.
"I can't believe I said that!" Sue was saying.
Tara and Lucy were both giggling. "Hey," Tara said, "he has nice eyes, there's no denying that."
Oh. Oh, that. Yeah, Sue had said that. He smiled slightly, remembering how adorable she'd looked when she realized what she'd said.
"I mean," Lucy added, "I've told you before, he's as cute as they come."
This conversation was definitely not intended for Jack to hear. But if he made his presence known now it would be more awkward not less. They probably wouldn't talk much longer anyway, right?
"I know," Sue sighed. "But you're not the one who outright stated that his eyes are the nicest of anyone on the team!"
That set Lucy and Tara into fits of giggles again. "Well, we're not the ones in looooooove with him," Lucy teased.
On second thought, maybe they would talk longer. Hopefully a lot longer. This was definitely essential investigative work.
"I'm not in love with him," Sue argued. "...exactly."
"Oh?" asked Lucy and Tara together, and Jack could practically hear their raised eyebrows.
"So what are you, exactly?" Lucy pressed.
"I'm . . . I mean, we're . . . friends . . . . I mean, you didn't think it was weird when I said the perfect combo of us would have your smile, Luce!"
"Uh-huh, and you didn't get all embarrassed and awkward about it either."
"I . . . just . . . ." There was a lengthy pause before Sue tried again. "He just . . . has . . . ." Another lengthy pause. "I mean, it's just one feature out of . . . ." One more pause, followed by, "Gahhh, why does he have to be so heart-stoppingly adorable?!"
The sound of a slap startled Jack, before he realized it must have been Lucy and Tara sharing a high-five.
"Finally!" Tara shouted.
"I swear, that's the most I've gotten her to admit since before she left for Quantico!" Lucy added.
"Shut up," Sue said, which would have been utterly shocking coming from her if it hadn't still had such a friendly tone to it. "I just . . . I would hate for him to think that of all his qualities, his eyes are the only part I think a perfect mixture of all of us would have from him, you know?"
"What else would you take from him?" Lucy asked.
"Shut up," she said again.
"No, really," Tara added, "you might feel better if you . . . you know, if you talk about it."
"Come on," Lucy goaded. "What else of Jack would you include?"
It was silent and for several long moments Jack was afraid Sue would never answer, and then afraid she was signing her answer and he would never hear it. Then she said, so softly that even in the silence and straining to hear he barely caught it, "His passion."
"Whooo!" teased the other two ladies.
"Not like that! I mean . . . I wouldn't know about that. I just mean how passionate he is about his job, about caring about people, about seeking the truth . . . ."
"And that would almost certainly translate to other areas," Lucy teased. This was followed by a light whack and a soft, "Hey!"
"Stop picking on her or she won't tell us anything else!" Tara admonished.
"Okay, okay," Lucy said. "What else, Sue?" After a moment of quiet, she added, "I'm sorry, I was only teasing, I didn't mean—"
"No, it's not that," came the slightly husky voice of Sue, as though she was either crying or trying not to. "It's just . . . I guess when we started working together I figured either as Jack and I got to know each other more that spark would fizzle away, or else one of us would ask to transfer to a different team at some point so we could try dating. Instead it's just . . . just as strong as ever, maybe even stronger, but we also make such a great team on the job. And every time I think we're getting closer, every time I think maybe we're going to broach the topic of a possible relationship, we somehow end up further apart, and . . . I just never know for sure how he really feels about me."
"Ohhh, honey, whether he's willing to admit it or not, he definitely is at least as into you as you are to him, I promise you," Lucy said. "He can't hide it."
"And yet I didn't see him out there making a fool of himself saying a super FBI agent made up of parts of all of us should have my . . . I don't know, I don't even know what he'd say!"
As the ladies tried to comfort Sue and assure her that there were plenty of things about her that Jack certainly admired, Jack's own heart was breaking. He had been so focused on not letting his interest in Sue be obvious to others that he hadn't considered how that might feel from her perspective.
Well, that changed today.
~0~
At the end of the day, Jack approached Sue's desk, waving his hand slightly to get her attention. "Hey," he said, as soon as she'd seen him. "Uh, do you have plans after work? I have some different signs I've been practicing, sort of inspired by this latest case, and I was hoping you could help me out."
"Oh!" Sue said, surprised by the request. Jack had learned a fair amount of ASL over the years but had never specifically requested a time just to practice it. "Um, yeah. I mean, no, no specific plans, so yes, I can help you out."
"Great. Um, wanna grab some dinner? And, uh, since you're teaching, I'm buying," he added.
~0~
When they got to dinner and settled at their table with their food, Sue said, "So, what specifically are you trying to figure out?"
"Well," he said, "I know a lot of signs for body parts but not all of them."
"Oh! Oh, um, if you're thinking, like, the way that they had a kidney removed and stuff, a lot of those signs are just fingerspelled and then you point to the general area of the abdomen."
"No, I kind of figured that. No, I guess it's less about how to sign certain words and more about understanding directionality with them."
"Okay, like what?"
"Like, I know that things like eyes, nose, mouth, you just point to, right?"
"Sort of. I mean, you point to your eyes, you tap your nose, you circle your mouth unless you mean the lips themselves and then you sort of indicate those with a bow shape like this." She demonstrated. "But if you just pointed to them that would get the message across too."
"So if I were to say," he began, then paused his speech to sign, Your nose is cute, "would I point to yours or my own to sign nose?"
She blinked a few times, then said, "Um . . . I, I guess that depends on, um, on how you're trying to convey things, proximity to m—uh to the person you're talking about, stuff like that, but, uh, I'm not sure you said what you meant to there. You just said—"
"Or," he interrupted, "if we were creating that super FBI agent like Bobby brought up before, and I wanted to say," and again he stopped speaking to sign: Your eyes are beautiful too, "—is that how I would convey that?"
There was no way he'd mixed that one up. She blushed and glanced down at her hands for a second before looking back at him. One of the harder parts of having to read lips that nobody really seemed to consider is that there was no looking away from someone during an uncomfortable conversation. "Um, yes, I . . . I think you said that the way you meant to."
"Oh good," he said. "So, what if I said," and here he signed, No need to combine people, you're already perfect. "Is that right? I would indicate your whole person like that?"
She blushed again. "I don't know if it's right, but yes, you signed it correctly."
"Or if I said," Your lips look so kissable, "would that . . . get the message across that I wanted? Or is there a better way to say that?" The literal signs he'd used were, YOUR LIPS SEEM ABLE I-KISS, which was certainly a viable way to say that.
She considered for a moment, watching his slightly nervous face as he waited for her to answer him. "Well," she said slowly, "in the case of a super FBI agent I'm not sure that would be pertinent, but if you wanted to convey that to, say . . . a woman you were interested in . . . that's certainly one way to convey it, but . . . ."
"But?"
"Well, a better one might be . . . to demonstrate."
He smiled. "Well, for the sake of . . . improving communication," he murmured as he leaned toward her.
Their lips met only briefly, but when they separated, both their eyes were shining. After a moment, Sue cleared her throat. "Yeah, that . . . I think that would get the message across."
"How about this one?" My heart belongs to you.
She smiled. And mine belongs to you.
He leaned back in and captured her lips once more, a little longer than before. When he pulled back, he said, "Yeah. I think we've finally achieved the necessary communication."
~0~
Bonus scene: a year and a half later
Sue walked up behind the recliner Jack was relaxing in and wrapped her arms around her husband, kissing his cheek. He turned his head to properly kiss her mouth, then she moved around to seat herself half next to him and half on his lap as he set his paper aside and wrapped his arms around her.
"I was thinking," she said as she settled into place, "remember when we first got together?"
"Which time?" he teased. "I remember when we first met, I remember when we spent a week married—which was not nearly as much fun as really being married, especially since we had to sleep in separate rooms—and I remember an absolutely delicious first kiss that I wasn't supposed to be enjoying nearly that much since it was undercover work . . . ."
She giggled, but playfully smacked his arm. "The official first time. You know, when we were all joking about using different parts of us to create a super FBI agent?"
"Mm-hmm, I remember you liked my eyes."
"Still do," she responded, tracing around one half of the set with her forefinger and thumb. "They're mesmerizing."
He watched her for a moment, then said, "If you had a reason for bringing this up you'd better get to it or you know we'll both be too distracted."
She laughed. "Well, I was just thinking about that again, but what if instead of combining the whole team, it was just a combination of the two of us? I mean, no Tara's brain—"
"Or Bobby's looks," he teased.
"Eh, I'm partial to your looks anyway," she responded, then punctuated it with a quick kiss.
"Don't tell Tara."
"I'm pretty sure Tara would rather I be partial to your looks than her boyfriend's. But besides that, what were the other things we talked about?"
"Hmmm . . . we didn't discuss it all at the same time, but I seem to recall a later discussion about my passion." He'd told her about overhearing the conversation only days into their relationship, his conscience wouldn't allow him to do otherwise. Given the outcome, she could hardly be mad at him for it, but it had been a joke between them ever since.
"Mmm, but maybe we should leave your sneakiness out of it."
"Hey, it was a good result wasn't it?"
She grinned. "The best, but I never took you for an ends-justify-the-means kind of guy."
"Very rarely, but in this case . . . ." He shrugged.
"Well . . . besides your passion, I was thinking about also including your conscience but if you're going to make exceptions to your standards like that then maybe we should go with my conscience instead."
"Oh, yours was always the better option. Along with your smile."
"Ah, and my nose, if I recall."
"And your heart, whoever said that at the office had that one right from the start."
"Your leadership skills. And your dimples."
"Sue—not that I'm not enjoying listing things we love about each other, and believe me, I could go on all day, but—is there a specific reason you brought this up?"
"Well," she said, taking his hand from her waist and shifting it slightly to splay out over her flat stomach, "I can't guarantee that they'll be an FBI agent but . . . someone will have a good blend of you and I, and I was just considering what that blend might look like."
He stared at her a moment. Blinked a few times. Stared some more. "Are—you're—are you serious?" he stuttered out.
She let out a delighted laugh as she nodded. "But, um . . . much as I love Levi, I do hope our baby doesn't have his floppy ears."
He laughed too. "I don't even care, as long as they're ours," he said, and for lack of any better way, he expressed his happiness by drawing his wife into a deep, loving kiss.