geeky_agent | OOM: Visiting Family

Current Mood: worried

OOM: Visiting Family

She almost wishes Caiti would be there.

It would mean more questions and more problems, yes. They'd still have to explain Caiti having met Jack already in Morocco two years prior and she just knew that wouldn't go over well.

Still, she can't help but wonder if maybe it would be better to get everything out in the open now. (Not everything.) Caiti had always been good at dealing with problems between her sister and brother and it sounded like she and Jack had gotten along pretty well and she hadn't seen her in months...

This had probably been a bad idea but it was too late to back out now.

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"Am I going to have to have one of those elaborate first aid kits on hand?" he says, raising an eyebrow.

"Being prepared is always a good idea," she tells him, wrapping her arms around him. "But at least the worst is over, you've met pretty much all my family."

"Yeah, though one of them still doesn't know my real name." He moves, wrapping his arms around Chris from behind. "We'll jump that hurdle when we get to it, though. Have you mentioned that to anyone yet?"

"Jeannie asked if Caiti knew about you. I told her that I mentioned to Caiti I was seeing someone, nothing more." She couldn't help but wonder if that was a mistake, maybe she should have said something now. Chris wants to believe she had reasons for doing it, it would be tough to explain without Caiti here and it would have been easier if she could tell them all at one.

"I'm not sure if it's something that's better to mention now or later. I mean right now, they're already finding out a hell of a lot at once, but then if we don't mention it until later, the natural reaction will be to wonder why we left it. Maybe we should just see if there's a moment to mention it. It's not going to be easy either way."

"Yeah." She looks up at him with a teasing smile. "At least Caiti seemed to like from what you said."

That might make it a little easier and, right now, every little bit helps.

"True. And she'll probably want a rematch at chess," he says, smiling himself.

"Oh, she definitely will." One thing that could always be counted on was her sister's competitive streak.

Looking down at her hands covering his, she asks, "Are you tired?"

"Yeah; it's been a long day, though my body keeps thinking it's about three hours earlier. You?" he asks, kissing her shoulder.

She'd been seriously wondering if a midnight stroll around the lake wouldn't be such a bad idea.

But if he was tired, "That sounds like a good idea."

"Shall we go say goodnight, then?" he says, loosening his hold on her, though he keeps hold of one of her hands as he steps back.

"Yeah, we probably should." Before they go back inside, though, she leanis and kisses him.

"Love you."

He kisses her back, his free hand resting at her waist for a moment. "Love you, too."

Hand in hand, they head back into the cabin to say goodnight, the first hurdles over.

Jack's sleeping when raised voices start filtering into his dreams, voices of the guards at the prison in China, yelling questions at him. He jolts awake, taking a moment to remember where he is, and he quickly realizes that though he's awake, the voices haven't stopped.

Sitting up, he can hear Chris' voice, angry, though it's hard to make out the words, and judgeing by the tone of the voice answering her, she's arguing with Ryan. He gets to his feet, wiping the sleep from his eyes and trying to push the remnants of the dream out of his head as he opens the door, making his way down the stairs.

"Chris?" he says a little sleepily, once he reaches the bottom of the stairs.

"It happened two months ago, Ryan! What did you want me to do?" She has more to say but the creaking stairs catches her attention and she just hopes it's not Tori.

Hastily flipping the pancakes onto a plate, she's almost out of the kitchen when she hears her name. "Jack. Morning."

"I wanted you to make an effort to be part of our lives. I don't know why I bother." He interrupts her and notices the noise at almost the same time. If it's Jeannie, she'll demand an explanation. By the time Jack gets downstairs, it's obvious Ryan's attempting to pretend that they weren't just arguing. He doesn't like to lose control and especially not in semi-public.

"Chris made coffee."

Jack shoots Chris a curious look, but doesn't say anything about the argument, for the moment at least. "Great, I think I could use some. What are you two doing up so early?"

"I'm making breakfast," she says with a glance towards Jack, when she speaks again her voice is dripping with sarcasm, "Ryan's keeping me company."

Ryan shoots her a glare and gets another mug from the cabinet. "Here," he puts down the mug in front of Jack, his movements tense and he uses a slight bit more force than necessary when he puts the coffee pot near him.

"Jack can keep you company, now, my dear elder sister."

Great, he's obviously come down in the middle of quite the fight. He pours himself a cup of coffee as he tries to think of anything he can do to keep the peace; all that crisis negotiation training and he's not sure how to keep his significant other talking to her brother.

"You're not staying for pancakes?" he asks, mildly.

Pointing and telling Chris that's just the behavior he meant when he talked about Jack acting like a therapist would be immature.

"I'm not obligated to have breakfast this early."

Jack refrains from mentioning that that's a fairly fancy way of expressing an attitude that's more appropriate to a belligerent teenager. "I just thought you might want to spend time with your sister," he says, unable to keep a slight edge out of his voice.

Not even pausing from dishing out the food, Chris rolls her eyes at him and mutters, "Whatever. You do what you want."

"Why not, you always do," Ryan answers her, not meaning to ignore Jack, but reacting like he didn't hear him.

This time she does turn to look at him, if only to set the rest of the food on the counter. "I am so sorry for not keeping you up-to-date with everything that goes on in my life especially since you're being so understanding now."

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