Thanks again for all the continued support of this story! Guest M, I wanted to say thanks specifically for your sweet review, and also ask if you would mind expounding on the last sentence. You said a lot about Sue and Jack, but then you just said that the dynamic with Bobby and Tara is different. I'm not sure which way you meant that, if you consider it a good or bad thing, or even whether you specifically meant their dynamic is different than Jack and Sue's, or that my writing of it is different than their relationship in the show. Whichever you meant is fine, I was just curious and since I can't respond to guest reviews I figured I'd ask here.
Meanwhile, let's dive much deeper into Jack and Sue's minds for this scene, and play a little with how it goes while we're at it! If you like the direction the end of the scene heads but are frustrated with how it actually ends, you might want to check out my collection of one-shots called Chance Encounters, specifically the chapter titled "Practice," which is, at the time I am posting this, chapter 14, but that will be shifting at some point when I finally go through and edit all the chapters.
Sue stood still in the living room, apparently intent on examining something. Jack, curious and perhaps slightly concerned, went over to see what had her attention so fully. He was surprised to see that she held, and was quite intently examining, the wedding photo they had chosen for the mantal display, a nice photo of the two of them side by side placed in a simple gold-colored frame. She glanced up as he got within her peripheral vision, but the expression on her face was inscrutable. He was sure she had some sort of specific opinions and feelings, something she was thinking about as she looked at it, but for as much as he was able to glean from her facial expresison, she might as well have been looking at a picture of a rock.
His own thoughts were abundant. I wish it was true, wish it was a photo of our real wedding, wish she was really my wife, was definitely his own dominant feeling on the subject, but as he couldn't say that and, as he felt compelled to say something, he went with the nearest truth to his next-most-prevalent thought.
"I still think the one where I was holding you was nicest." And he did think it was nicest, but what he was really thinking was how nice holding her like that had been, and how, if his first thought were reality and this was from their actual wedding, he would want to display a picture that showed his wife and his feelings for her to much greater advantage, not this one that could just as easily have been a generic photo that came with the frame. Maybe they should change their cover story and tell the Vanderwylens they were both employed as "the picture that came with the frame" models.
"It was," she agreed, startling him out of his brief reverie. "It was just a little too . . . ."
Real. Neither of them said it, but their eyes locked and they could read it in one another's faces, the first clear thing he'd seen on her face since entering the room.
She cleared her throat as she replaced the frame on the mantel. "Uh, we should make sure we both have the same answers for any questions Betty and Joseph might ask."
"That's good," Jack agreed as they sat side by side on the couch. "Continuity is always good undercover."
They sat a moment, Jack unable to think of any words with which to follow that, until Sue apparently decided it was up to her to suggest some questions. "So, where did we first meet?"
He considered a moment, then said, "I picked you up in a bar."
She gave him a look of clear disapproval so he tried again. "Uh, we met through an online dating service." This one she seemed to be considering but he quickly backtracked. "No, that's for guys who can't get dates any other way."
"Actually, that could work," she said. At his slightly hurt expression she said, "No, I just mean that, it's one of the ways people meet these days. It's believable."
He raised his eyebrows. "Maybe I should try that."
"Excuse me, you're a married man," she teased, but was he imagining it or did she actually have a slightly hurt expression for a moment there?
"Right," he agreed, "to a lovely woman I met through an online dating service."
She wrinkled her nose and shook her head once she'd seen him say the whole sentence out like that. "Doesn't sound right." He nodded his agreement while just managing to hide a smile that she used such a hearing turn of phrase. She did sometimes, of course, but often when expressions referenced sound she would change them, or joke about it. Now, she was evidently too focused on the present question to even consider it. Biting her lip, she contemplated more, then said, "We met through friends!"
He nodded vaguely, clapping his hands lightly as he tried to focus on her words rather than her lips that she abused so often and that he longed to kiss away the—crap, he was not focusing. Best to pose his own possible question. "Was it love at first sight?" Um. Maybe not the best question with which to try redirecting his thoughts.
"Definitely," she said without hesitation, smiling and nodding, and he tried not to let his heart jump too wildly as he noted the slight twinkle in her eye that guaranteed some teasing was to follow. That twinkle was born out when she added, "—for you. Love at third sight for me."
"Hey!" he protested, whacking her with a throw pillow.
She giggled. "Hey, don't forget, I was busy being embarrassed when we first met! I was entirely in the wrong place!"
He stopped his assault with the pillow and raised an eyebrow at her. She felt her face grow hot as she said, "Because . . . I was supposed to meet up with our friends at one restaurant and . . . accidentally went to another . . . and was embarrassed to arrive so late?"
"Or," he said, "because it takes you longer to know a good thing when you see one." She raised an eyebrow at him, but was just relieved that he hadn't pressed the issue of what they undoubtedly both knew she'd actually been referring to. And it sent his mind reeling. If she was clearly referencing when they really first met, were there other things she was referencing for real? At first sight, she walked in firey and walked out embarrassed. Second sight, he had seen her in the cafeteria and asked to join her. And she was right, he was already taken with her by then, but she was still awkward and embarrassed through most of the conversation. But that was when she'd demonstrated her lip-reading abilities for him and he'd asked her to join them the next day in the office. So third sight was—it was that day in the office, when he introduced her to the rest of the team.
Oh, good grief, he was blowing this way out of proportion. He's the one who had told her to stick close to the truth when possible, she probably wasn't actually hinting at anything, she was just drawing on their first meeting because it gave them less to remember. Unless—
"When was our first kiss?" he blurted out next.
Sue shifted uncomfortably. He wondered if she was thinking the same thing he was. When would we have had our first kiss if we were together for real, or when did I first imagine kissing you?
But she only drew a deep breath, as though steadying herself, and said. "I don't think they'll ask that."
Right. Good thinking. He should just retreat from this dangerous line of questioning. "Maybe not," Jack agreed carefully. "But we should have an answer just in case they do." Dangit. Strategic retreats had never been his strong point.
She hesitated, then asked apparently decided to avoid answering by throwing it back to him instead. "When do you think we had our first kiss?"
"Third date," he replied without hesitation.
"Third?" she asked in surprise. "I thought you'd say first."
"No, you said you didn't fall for me until the third date. If I'd kissed you on the first, you would've fallen for me on the first." The jesting way he spoke only slightly tempered the heated look he gave her. She looked away quickly, then back to him with a curious expression.
"What? What are you thinking?" he asked, suddenly worried he'd gone too far.
"Actually, I'm wondering how you and I ever ended up together."
She said in the same way they often tossed teasing barbs back and forth between them—admittedly, with her landing most of the hits—but the small smile and tilt of her head looked almost . . . flirty? Hopeful? Oh gosh, this woman had no idea what she was doing to him. He glanced away, then back again, trying to keep his face within her view and his mind on the assignment, rather than on how much he wanted to throw himself at this gorgeous, frustrating, brilliant woman and prove to her what he was certain a kiss could accomplish between them.
Instead, he clapped his hands together again, clasping them if only to avoid reaching for her, and burst out with the very next question he could manage to grasp onto. "Okay, here's one we should know. What do you like best about me?" Wait, no, that wasn't—ugh, he was really bad at not trying to draw out more information! Trying to make it sound like he had been just teasing, in the hopes that would ease the tension a little, he put on a somewhat cocky air as he added, "And, uh, feel free to go into detail."
She hesitated a moment before saying, "I don't think we need to know that. And even if we did, I don't think we have enough time."
He smirked, enjoying the turn this one was taking. "You mean for you to go into detail about all the things you like about me?"
The mischievous twinkle returned as she said, "No, for me to come up with one," then lept up and darted off before he could respond. He remained where he was, reeling from her barb and trying to remind himself that easing the tension by turning that one into a joke had been his own idea so he shouldn't be upset that it had worked.
At the doorway, though, she hesitated, stopped, then turned back, twisting her fingers nervously together, mirth gone from her face. "You don't . . . think they'll expect to actually . . . see us kiss, do you?"
He raised an eyebrow, rising to stand eye-level with her. "People don't usually request that of couples visiting their home for the first time, do they?"
"I don't think so, but would they think it was weird if they didn't catch us, you know, giving one another a little . . . peck . . . or something?"
"I . . . don't know. Would, uh—" He glanced away again, but making sure to keep his lips where she could read them. "Would it upset you if . . . if we did?"
She swallowed, then shook her head slightly, unconsciously taking a step closer to him. "I just . . . um, first kisses are often a little . . . awkward . . . right? I mean . . . we wouldn't want to look like we . . . had never . . . ."
He drew in a sharp breath, heart thudding, trying hard to walk nearer to her smoothly rather than limping his way over. "I mean . . . if you want . . . if you think we should . . . practice . . . I mean, we could . . . ."
He reached out and took one of her hands, disentangling it from the other and rubbing his thumb soothingly across the back. She didn't say anything in response, but reached her other hand to rest at his waist, and he brushed the back of his free fingers against her cheekbone. They kept staring at one another, barely moving, barely breathing, then she nodded just slightly as she whispered, "Probably should," and they slowly leaned toward one another—
And she suddenly started and jumped back, fumbling at her waistband. "I'm sorry," she was saying, "I'm sorry, my Blackberry—"
He realized it must have vibrated, though he hadn't heard the buzz that usually accompanied that—apparently he was too distracted. Swallowing his disappointment, he nodded. "Yeah, no, you take care of . . . what you need, um . . . ."
She looked at it, then back at him. "Oh, it's my mom! I'm sorry, Jack, I need to take this, I promised her I'd call and haven't had a chance yet."
She walked into the kitchen, beginning her conversation with her mom, and Jack watched her go with a mixture of regret and relief.
He was her training officer, he was the head agent on the case. She was his superior in every way that mattered, but he was her superior in every way that the Bureau would see things. It was one thing to take advantage of the opportunity to relish what it could be like being so . . . domestic . . . with her. To treat her to dinners and find ways to spend time together and to do little things for her as he could, all under the excuse of the undercover assignment. It was another thing entirely to take advantage of her, and that was something he had no intention of doing.
On the other hand, she was the one who had asked . . . basically offered . . . and if for some reason they really were expected to be seen kissing . . . .
He shook his head quickly and headed up the stairs to get ready for the evening. Not that he intended to do much to get ready, it was just a barbecue, nobody would expect him to show up in a suit or anything. Just . . . he might not be expected to kiss Sue, but surely he would be expected to sit closely with her . . . perhaps even to have his arm around her. Maybe he should just shower . . . change into a slightly nicer casual shirt . . . shave again, add a small dash of cologne. Just so he wouldn't offend her sense of smell.
That's all.
