Mr. Jarvis dropped Peggy off at the hospital, reticent to walk her inside, the memory of Ana’s shooting fresh in his memory. Peggy understood but still wished she wasn’t alone as she walked down the mostly-empty hallways. She pushed the door to the room open gently, finding Daniel asleep in a chair beside Jack’s bed. Jack was pale and his skin was shiny with sweat. His chest moved only slightly up and down. The sight stopped her in her tracks.

It was no secret that she and Jack didn’t get along, and she had often gotten the fleeting urge to beat him up herself – not to mention she had almost shot him not too long ago – but seeing him like this was… well, she didn’t like it.

She shook Daniel’s shoulder, who spluttered awake. “Hey,” he said, blinking slowly.

“Hey,” she said quietly. “How is he?”

Daniel looked over at him. “They said the next twelve hours are the pivotal ones. Either he’ll wake up, or…”

Peggy pursed her lips. “You should go home, get some rest.”

“This chair is not that uncomfy, you know.”

“And you need to get your agents together, chief.” She looked at Jack again, brow furrowed. “We need to figure out who did this, and why. And you need rest if we’re going to do that.”

“I would’ve thought you would want to be on the front lines of that.”

“There’s a good chance whoever it was will come back to finish the job,” she said. “I don’t want to leave him alone.”

Daniel looked a little sheepish.

“Get some rest, Daniel,” she said, squeezing his arm. “If you hurry, you might be able to get Mr. Jarvis to give you a ride.”

He nodded and kissed her cheek. “See you.”

She watched him leave and sat down in the chair. How Daniel had managed to fall asleep in it, she had no idea.

They were lucky the hotel staff had found Jack when they did, before he had lost too much blood. She and Daniel had been at Daniel’s place when they got the call. He had gone to the hospital, and she had gone to the crime scene. The bloodstain on the carpet had been very large. It appeared that some of Jack’s papers had been messed with, but she couldn’t tell if anything was missing. Only Jack would know that.

As well as the person who shot him.

The wound made it clear he was shot at close range. No one had heard it, so likely a silencer was used. It all felt very planned, very professional.

As unsettling as they were, it helped to go over the facts of the case as she sat there watching Jack. They were much more concrete and controllable than this. A crime scene, she could handle, a hospital room, not so much.

She sighed. “It’s just like you to get shot and ruin my lovely vacation,” she said. “And now I’m here because, for some reason, I feel a little bit responsible for this. Actually, no, there’s no reason I should feel responsible, but I still do.” She huffed. “Even unconscious, you’re insufferable.”

Jack, of course, did not respond.

Peggy was quiet for a little while. She watched Jack until she couldn’t anymore, and then she watched the door until she was worried about not watching Jack.

She considered herself a reasonably patient person. She could sit in a car for hours on a stakeout. She had managed several months at the SSR before Howard showed up without doing anything stupid. But the minutes ticked by slowly as she resisted the urge to pace around the room.

“Perhaps this is some insane scheme to make sure I come back to New York, instead of transferring to LA, because you’re too proud to ask,” she said to Jack. “Getting shot so I realize that I would miss not seeing your infuriating face every day. Which, I suppose I…” She shook her head. “In any rate, if you die on me, I shall be incredibly displeased.”

Talking made the oppressive silence of the hospital a little bit more bearable, and it wasn’t like Jack could hear her, so Peggy just kept talking.

“I meant everything I said, by the way.” She leaned back in the chair, crossing her legs and trying to get more comfortable. “You are a good man. You make mistakes, obviously. Lord knows I’ve done that too. I feel like we are more similar than you would care to admit. More than I would normally care to admit.”

She looked at him again, his pallid face, coming to a decision. If he couldn’t hear her, then she supposed she could say whatever she wanted.

“I know, you know,” she said, voice soft. “About you.” She looked away again. Even though he couldn’t hear her, this still felt too personal to say while looking at him. “Your feelings for me. I think everyone does. I didn’t believe it at first, obviously. Thought it was just a rumour the guys passed around.” She paused. “I don’t know if it’s still the case of course. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve changed your mind since taking over as chief. I can sometimes have some trouble with authority figures.” She smiled a little. “Maybe it’s best I don’t transfer to LA. I don’t want to ruin this thing with Daniel by being an obstinate agent who won’t listen to orders. That might put a strain on our relationship.”

Peggy’s mind strayed back to the facts of the case. “I don’t think you recognized your attacker,” she began. “If you had, you would have put up a fight, but as far as we can tell, they took you completely by surprise. It was a professional hit, silencer and everything. You were on the phone with Molly from the New York Office when it happened. She says that after the shot, she could hear paper rustling.”

She stood up and began to pace around his bed.

“So, the person who shot you presumably did so because of some information that you knew and had on you at the time,” she continued. “But it could not have been anything about the Council of Nine or Whitney Frost, because then they would have gone after Daniel and I as well.”

She frowned and looked over at Jack, who could, of course, still not contribute to her brainstorming.

“As chief, I suppose you have access to information that I do not, but then again, so would Daniel.” Peggy realized, again, that she would have to wait until Jack regained consciousness before she could really get any answers about this. She sighed and sat down again, looking at Jack in concern. “What have you gotten yourself into this time, Jack?” she asked softly.

It was another hour of impatient waiting, of pacing around the room, reciting the facts of the case to herself over and over again and still not coming to any concrete conclusions, before Jack woke up.

She was standing at the door, peering out into the hallway, because she thought she had heard something, when he said, gravelly and just over a whisper, “Peggy? What happened?”

She turned around, relief flooding her features and she rushed to his side. “Oh, thank God,” she breathed. She searched his face. “How do you feel?”

Jack looked down at his bandaged chest, lifting a hand to touch it and wincing. “Like I got shot?” he said. He frowned. “I was at the hotel, packing up. I was… talking to Molly about you staying in LA longer. I…” His eyes widened. “My– my briefcase, my papers. I heard him going through my papers after he shot me.”

Peggy nodded. “That’s what we thought, but we couldn’t tell if anything was missing,” she said.

“If you could get my briefcase, I could–” He tried to sit up, winced at the effort, kept trying anyway, and then Peggy pushed him down by his shoulder.

“You need to rest now,” she said. “I’m going to get the nurse.” She began to go out the door but then heard him shifting in his bed again and spun around. “Lie down,” she said firmly, then smirked a little. “Do as Peggy says.”

Jack rolled his eyes and looked at her with the barely-disguised irritation she was used to. It made her feel a little better as she went out to find a nurse. That after the panic and worry and babbling to herself for hours, things were on their way back to normal.

♥ epicalliope ♥