The Agent & the Analyst, Part 6: Redeemed
Title: The Agent & the Analyst, Part 6: Redeemed
Words: 2800
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Jensen is a surly government analyst and Jared is the bodyguard that always smiles.
Notes: Part 6 of the bodyguard!verse. Also for the cottoncandy_bingo prompt Remedy.
Part Five
There’s a soft knock at Jensen’s bedroom door, but he doesn’t want to move.
“Go ‘way,” he mumbles into his pillow. He’s well aware the sun is starting to rise, light cracking through the shades drawn over the bay window across from him. But he has no intent to get up until absolutely necessary, which he hopes is never.
He ignores the second knock, and when there isn’t a third, he lightly smiles, betraying the anger and disappointment weighing him down into the mattress.
All worry dissipates as he falls back to sleep with his pillowy comforter cocooning him into his own tiny world where there aren’t internet terrorists out to get him and he didn’t just hand over his most important files to one of their underlings.
His cotton-burrito-wrapped world is a beautiful place full of dreams of having a normal desk job where he doesn’t have command of a dozen passwords, keycards, and security checks. A life where he can call out of work without guilt and ring a friend to play hooky. Or a bed where the incredibly built, gorgeous, and charming Jared Padalecki would be crawl in after him instead of being charged with dragging him out of it.
“Jensen.”
“No. No Jensen,” he grumbles back as he burrows deeper into his blanketed hide-out. “Jensen’s not home.”
The mattress shifts with weight on either side of Jensen’s head, but he refuses to budge. “C’mon, Jensen. It’s getting late.”
In lieu of a response, Jensen turns even further into the mattress, nudging his head beneath his pillow.
“Gotta get to work.”
“I quit,” Jensen mumbles.
“No, you didn’t.”
“Yes, I did.”
“When?”
Jensen doesn’t reply because truth be told, he just really, really, really wishes he had. He could save himself so much embarrassment and so many pitying looks in the office. Maybe he can have Jared quit for him.
Jared sighs then it sounds like he smacks his lips together. “Jensen, come on. You have to get up.”
“I was fired.”
Another sigh, this time harsher, and then Jared rips Jensen’s pillow away. It ends up on the far side of the room and Jensen is now facing Jared in Agent Mode with his intense gaze, drawn eyebrows, and terse voice. “You were not fired.”
“Didn’t you see Worthy’s face when we left?” Jensen insists. He rolls onto his back to look up at Jared since he doesn’t really have any place to hide anymore. “It was definitely telling me to never bother working again.”
“Stop being silly. You’re wanted in ...” Jared trails off and watches Jensen for a few moments then softly smiles before frowning and slanting his gaze away. “You need to go into the office today.”
“For what?”
“To work,” Jared replies, failing to leave the you idiot tone out of his voice.
“I think it’s safer here.”
Jared’s eyes immediately cut to Jensen’s and Jensen now fears there is something else is going on, if there’s a lingering threat elsewhere. He kind of doubts it; Jared probably would have dragged him out of bed much sooner.
That’s a pretty nice thought. Jared’s long fingers closing around Jensen’s ankles with playful force. His wide shoulders shifting and biceps flexing as he tugs Jensen with him. As Jared yanks Jensen to him and shows him how all of his other muscles flex and pull and stretch and ...
There’s a hand in his face snapping quickly, and Jensen wonders how dazed he’d been. “Jensen, don’t make me physically remove you from this bed.”
Jensen blinks. Then smirks and drops his voice. “I was actually just thinking about that.”
“This isn’t cute.”
“Not even a little?”
“Not an ounce.”
Realizing that neither light flirting nor bantering is working, he huffs and goes right for childish whining. “But I don’t wanna.”
It doesn’t seem to phase Jared. He still looks incredibly annoyed. “You are presently making me rethink anything that has happened in the last two weeks.”
Thinking about that - the fact that it’s been two weeks of them fooling around and this is the first time he has Jared this close to him and his bed - Jensen glances over Jared’s shoulder and he thinks the camera can only catch Jared’s back and lower body leaning on the mattress. Just maybe the most of them is out of the frame.
Emboldened, Jensen drags his hand down the center of Jared’s chest and licks his lower lip. “Stay here. Play hooky with me.”
Jared shuts his eyes and wraps those incredibly long and tempting fingers around Jensen’s wrist to keep his hand from moving any further south. “Do not,” he mutters, “do that here.”
“But we’re both here, right now. We should take advantage of the situation.”
With sharp, focused breathing, Jared shakes his head. “You need to be situated at work.”
“Just think about it,” Jensen whispers. “You can unplug the camera feed. Blame it on Kelly. He’s in the wind, no one will know better. And then you stay here with me in my little burrito.”
That makes Jared open his eyes. “Your burrito?”
Jensen feels quite pathetic that his brain-to-mouth filter let that one fly, but whatever. Jared is still hovering; he hasn’t backed off yet. With a small smile, Jensen lifts the edge of the blanket still wound around his chest. “Come join me inside.”
Jared flinches away from the bed, huffing with his shoulders rigidly moving up and down. “Jensen. You have to get up and to the office.”
Jensen feels appropriately shamed, but he doesn’t yet feel the need to move. “No. I’m an adult and I can stay home if I want to.”
“Not if there’s a threat in the house!” Jared replies wildly, angry really.
Of course, that gets Jensen’s attention - and anxiety going - real quickly. “Is there?”
“What if there was?” Jared nearly shouts. “Does that mean you’ll get your lazy, scared ass out of bed or what?”
“Well, not if you’re gonna yell at me,” Jensen mutters.
Jared sighs and runs both hands over his face before letting them drop pathetically at his side. “Will you please, just this once, not fight me and listen to what I have to say.”
Jensen considers the fact that he’s been listening to what Jared says for nearly two months now. He’s been following Jared’s orders and suggestions without question for half that time, and maybe if Jared hadn’t chosen yesterday’s visit from Kelly as the first time to keep his trap shut, they wouldn’t be in this mess.
He considers saying all that with even more aggression than Jared had just shown. However, given Jared’s size and abilities to strangle a man with just one hand, Jensen’s not about to tempt fate.
“Okay,” Jensen says and unwraps his comforter-slash-tortilla to get out of bed and into the bathroom.
“That’s it?” Jared asks. He seems surprised as he follows Jensen to the bathroom.
Jensen stops from closing the door all the way and sighs. “No, that’s not it. But what the hell else am I gonna do? Fight with you all afternoon like a crazy, old married couple? We’re not that orthodox.”
Hesitantly, Jared smiles. But then he frowns. “I’m sorry you’re in a shitty situation.”
“Yeah, well,” he trails off before he sighs. It feels like all energy has drained from his body and he could really go for a nap. He should’ve never left the bed. “You can stop with all the pitying because I’m sure I’ll get enough of that in the office.”
*
And he does. It seems as though everyone on his floor is interested in passing his office and stealing a look inside to see if Jensen Ackles, Senior Systems Analyst, has actually shown his face and survived the royal fuck-up of the century.
He proves them all wrong by holding his head high when he goes to the kitchen for coffee. As he waits for a new pot to brew, he adjusts the edges of his crisp vest, checks the buttons running up his chest, and even straightens his thin tie. He’d decided to go with his favorite three-piece suit to look and feel his best and project his best foot forward. The jacket stays in his office, though, because he’s not about to overdo it.
But maybe he already has.
“Do you have a job interview?” Danneel murmurs as she steps up to him.
Jensen shifts back at her accusation. “What? No. Why?”
She glances up and down his body then widens her eyes. “Because that’s your best suit. You only wear it on special occasions and an interview seems pretty special. Oh my God, did Worthy actually release you? I didn’t think he would, but you never know. Jeffrey said you’ve compromised the department’s research and funding and-”
“Whoa, what now?” Jensen asks with his hands up between them.
Jared steps in as well, moving her away with a grumble of, “You are not helping.”
Danneel is immediately embarrassed by Jared manhandling her away, or for her rambling on about office assumptions. Maybe both. She covers her mouth with two delicate hands and her doe eyes are wide in shock. “Oh my God,” she mumbles into her hands. “I am so sorry. It’s just that they’re all watching us now and I’m freaking out that they’ll find out that I sometimes read Perez Hilton on my lunch break.”
Jensen glances at Jared to find the agent staring at her with his mouth dropped open with awkward silence. Her attention darts between them as she continues to look horrified and mumbles more apologies for running her mouth off.
“We all have our vices, I suppose,” Jensen says to break the tension. “But, as far as I know, I still have a job here.”
She clears her throat, straightens her shirt, and stands firmly. Suddenly he can see how her eyes shine with building tears. “I’m just happy you’re okay. And still here. It says a lot to show up.”
He clears his throat, too, pushing down the budding emotion. “Well, I guess we owe Agent Padalecki for that one.”
She doesn’t get it, and he doesn’t need her to. He just wants Jared to understand that it really is all to him that Jensen is standing in the kitchen right now, in his best suit, and facing a coworker (and friend) who is not turning her back on him.
Jensen finds Jared fondly watching him and it’s a nice moment, except they’re in the kitchenette and as Danneel leaves, Alexia steps into the doorway while fidgeting with the lapel of her jacket. The last he saw of her, he was racing through her department to nail down Kelly. That anxiety and shame reappears as he sees her awkwardly glancing at him then away yet not saying a word.
“Hi,” he says with a curt nod then gets to finally pouring himself a cup of coffee. Jensen doesn’t realize she’s neared him until Jared shifts closer in protection. It’s startling to see Jared react like that, especially at work, but he nods Jared off and carefully smiles for the young, nervous analyst. “Yes?”
She takes a deep breath then whispers, “I think there’s something you should see. In Kelly’s files.”
That sparks Jensen’s interest while filling him with dread. “Like what?”
“Like, his communications.”
“Phone calls? Emails? IMs”
“His log-ins.”
Jensen’s eyebrows rise as he considers a junior analyst getting a hand on that kind of data. “You were watching his log-ins?”
Alexia shrugs then clears her throat like she’s summoning the confidence. “No, but after what happened yesterday, when I heard he was cracking our files and selling info, I started digging into the system.”
“I thought Director Worthy said he covered his tracks?”
She nods and slants her eyes away. “Brock was good, yeah.” Suddenly, she looks back to Jensen and smirks. “But I’m better.”
“How much better?”
“Enough to trace his egress.”
Impressive, Jensen thinks as he leans away from her.
With a nod, he leads her to his office and in one quick minute, she’s walked him through the system and provided codes and macros to break shields Kelly had created to not only hide his communications but to represent false messages in their place. Upon a first - or even second - pass, Kelly’s logs would seem innocent enough with random chatter about his work hours or plans afterwards. But Jensen digs through the system per Alexia’s commands and uncovers a mess of data that he’d forwarded onto outside sources, registration logs that were altered, and best of all, the back end of Kelly’s entire log-in history.
“Holy shit,” Jensen murmurs as he leans back from his monitor.
Alexia sits at the edge of the seat on the other side of the desk, hands clasped together in her lap and her knees bouncing lightly. “I know, right?”
“Holy, shit,” he repeats, now with a chuckle.
“What is it?” Jared asks as he hovers over Jensen’s shoulder.
“Well she was able to -” Jensen stops and smiles at her, because she really deserves it. “Why don’t you do the honors?”
She smiles then bites her lower lip before excitedly explaining herself. “I overran the primary operating system to partition the second OS then horizontally scaled the data to splice the hierarchical model and -”
Jared waves his hand quickly. “How about in English?”
Jensen nods at him. “She cracked through the first database then split the layers of the second in order to separate the data feeds and see where the model veered from standard operations.”
“That is still not English,” Jared mumbles.
Alexia proudly states, “I replicated Kelly’s key to infiltrate his files, traced the path, and identified the end support.”
Jensen grins at her then Jared. “Basically, she hacked into the Secret Service’s system and found the hole that Kelly’s friends came in through then traced it back out.”
Jared is, in a word, shocked. “You can do that?”
Chuckling at the sad state of his life, that a junior analyst found the hole, Jensen shakes his head in his own muddled sense of shame. “Apparently she can.”
“Why?” Jared asks her. “Why would you?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” she asks, suddenly nervous. “Kelly broke the cardinal rule of systems hacks across the world. He deserves whatever he gets”
“What’s that?”
“Don’t get caught.”
Jensen outright laughs because his life is ridiculously fucked and a junior analyst outdid him on his own case while citing the fact she worked so hard to nail Kelly is because the kid was stupid enough to get caught.
“And you don’t screw your country,” she adds with a crooked smile.
“That’s more like it,” Jensen says, again chuckling and shaking his head. Then he looks up to Jared, who’s still pleasantly surprised by the whole issue. “You probably want to bring her down to your people to consult.”
Jared nods and motions her towards the door. “Yeah, we should talk to Morgan.”
“And give her a promotion,” Jensen calls out. “She’s earned it.”
Alexia smiles kindly before leaving with Jared. Moment’s later, Worthy appears in the doorway, head turned to watch Jared and Alexia go.
“Are we once again at the mercy of our junior staff?”
Jensen instantly feels nervous about facing his boss for the first time since admitting that he had accidentally put prime evidence into the hands of an internal threat. But then he relives the last few minutes with Alexia and smiles. “Yes, we are. But this time with good news.”
“And what do you call good news?”
His smile grows as he considers how quickly his life has turned around in just 24 hours. “Alexia cracked the system and has a trace on Kelly’s pathway. She knows where he’s getting in from.”
Worthy tips his head in judgement. “Alexia did? Not you?”
Jensen nods. “She did.”
“You let another junior analyst run circles around you?”
After a moment, Worthy smirks and Jensen rolls his eyes. “Yes, unfortunately. But this time it’s for good. Not evil. And now she’s visiting Internal Observation so hopefully they’ll get a lead on Kelly soon enough.”
“That’s very good. Very good, indeed,” Worthy says with a long nod. “Do we have any names attached to Kelly’s files.”
“Not yet, but I’ll parse the data and pull something out.”
Worthy nods and pats the doorway with a smile. “Get to work then, Ackles.”
Jensen takes a deep breath, feeling how his chest expands with it, and he suddenly feels alive for the first time since yesterday morning. “Yes, sir.”
Part Seven
Words: 2800
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Jensen is a surly government analyst and Jared is the bodyguard that always smiles.
Notes: Part 6 of the bodyguard!verse. Also for the cottoncandy_bingo prompt Remedy.
Part Five
There’s a soft knock at Jensen’s bedroom door, but he doesn’t want to move.
“Go ‘way,” he mumbles into his pillow. He’s well aware the sun is starting to rise, light cracking through the shades drawn over the bay window across from him. But he has no intent to get up until absolutely necessary, which he hopes is never.
He ignores the second knock, and when there isn’t a third, he lightly smiles, betraying the anger and disappointment weighing him down into the mattress.
All worry dissipates as he falls back to sleep with his pillowy comforter cocooning him into his own tiny world where there aren’t internet terrorists out to get him and he didn’t just hand over his most important files to one of their underlings.
His cotton-burrito-wrapped world is a beautiful place full of dreams of having a normal desk job where he doesn’t have command of a dozen passwords, keycards, and security checks. A life where he can call out of work without guilt and ring a friend to play hooky. Or a bed where the incredibly built, gorgeous, and charming Jared Padalecki would be crawl in after him instead of being charged with dragging him out of it.
“Jensen.”
“No. No Jensen,” he grumbles back as he burrows deeper into his blanketed hide-out. “Jensen’s not home.”
The mattress shifts with weight on either side of Jensen’s head, but he refuses to budge. “C’mon, Jensen. It’s getting late.”
In lieu of a response, Jensen turns even further into the mattress, nudging his head beneath his pillow.
“Gotta get to work.”
“I quit,” Jensen mumbles.
“No, you didn’t.”
“Yes, I did.”
“When?”
Jensen doesn’t reply because truth be told, he just really, really, really wishes he had. He could save himself so much embarrassment and so many pitying looks in the office. Maybe he can have Jared quit for him.
Jared sighs then it sounds like he smacks his lips together. “Jensen, come on. You have to get up.”
“I was fired.”
Another sigh, this time harsher, and then Jared rips Jensen’s pillow away. It ends up on the far side of the room and Jensen is now facing Jared in Agent Mode with his intense gaze, drawn eyebrows, and terse voice. “You were not fired.”
“Didn’t you see Worthy’s face when we left?” Jensen insists. He rolls onto his back to look up at Jared since he doesn’t really have any place to hide anymore. “It was definitely telling me to never bother working again.”
“Stop being silly. You’re wanted in ...” Jared trails off and watches Jensen for a few moments then softly smiles before frowning and slanting his gaze away. “You need to go into the office today.”
“For what?”
“To work,” Jared replies, failing to leave the you idiot tone out of his voice.
“I think it’s safer here.”
Jared’s eyes immediately cut to Jensen’s and Jensen now fears there is something else is going on, if there’s a lingering threat elsewhere. He kind of doubts it; Jared probably would have dragged him out of bed much sooner.
That’s a pretty nice thought. Jared’s long fingers closing around Jensen’s ankles with playful force. His wide shoulders shifting and biceps flexing as he tugs Jensen with him. As Jared yanks Jensen to him and shows him how all of his other muscles flex and pull and stretch and ...
There’s a hand in his face snapping quickly, and Jensen wonders how dazed he’d been. “Jensen, don’t make me physically remove you from this bed.”
Jensen blinks. Then smirks and drops his voice. “I was actually just thinking about that.”
“This isn’t cute.”
“Not even a little?”
“Not an ounce.”
Realizing that neither light flirting nor bantering is working, he huffs and goes right for childish whining. “But I don’t wanna.”
It doesn’t seem to phase Jared. He still looks incredibly annoyed. “You are presently making me rethink anything that has happened in the last two weeks.”
Thinking about that - the fact that it’s been two weeks of them fooling around and this is the first time he has Jared this close to him and his bed - Jensen glances over Jared’s shoulder and he thinks the camera can only catch Jared’s back and lower body leaning on the mattress. Just maybe the most of them is out of the frame.
Emboldened, Jensen drags his hand down the center of Jared’s chest and licks his lower lip. “Stay here. Play hooky with me.”
Jared shuts his eyes and wraps those incredibly long and tempting fingers around Jensen’s wrist to keep his hand from moving any further south. “Do not,” he mutters, “do that here.”
“But we’re both here, right now. We should take advantage of the situation.”
With sharp, focused breathing, Jared shakes his head. “You need to be situated at work.”
“Just think about it,” Jensen whispers. “You can unplug the camera feed. Blame it on Kelly. He’s in the wind, no one will know better. And then you stay here with me in my little burrito.”
That makes Jared open his eyes. “Your burrito?”
Jensen feels quite pathetic that his brain-to-mouth filter let that one fly, but whatever. Jared is still hovering; he hasn’t backed off yet. With a small smile, Jensen lifts the edge of the blanket still wound around his chest. “Come join me inside.”
Jared flinches away from the bed, huffing with his shoulders rigidly moving up and down. “Jensen. You have to get up and to the office.”
Jensen feels appropriately shamed, but he doesn’t yet feel the need to move. “No. I’m an adult and I can stay home if I want to.”
“Not if there’s a threat in the house!” Jared replies wildly, angry really.
Of course, that gets Jensen’s attention - and anxiety going - real quickly. “Is there?”
“What if there was?” Jared nearly shouts. “Does that mean you’ll get your lazy, scared ass out of bed or what?”
“Well, not if you’re gonna yell at me,” Jensen mutters.
Jared sighs and runs both hands over his face before letting them drop pathetically at his side. “Will you please, just this once, not fight me and listen to what I have to say.”
Jensen considers the fact that he’s been listening to what Jared says for nearly two months now. He’s been following Jared’s orders and suggestions without question for half that time, and maybe if Jared hadn’t chosen yesterday’s visit from Kelly as the first time to keep his trap shut, they wouldn’t be in this mess.
He considers saying all that with even more aggression than Jared had just shown. However, given Jared’s size and abilities to strangle a man with just one hand, Jensen’s not about to tempt fate.
“Okay,” Jensen says and unwraps his comforter-slash-tortilla to get out of bed and into the bathroom.
“That’s it?” Jared asks. He seems surprised as he follows Jensen to the bathroom.
Jensen stops from closing the door all the way and sighs. “No, that’s not it. But what the hell else am I gonna do? Fight with you all afternoon like a crazy, old married couple? We’re not that orthodox.”
Hesitantly, Jared smiles. But then he frowns. “I’m sorry you’re in a shitty situation.”
“Yeah, well,” he trails off before he sighs. It feels like all energy has drained from his body and he could really go for a nap. He should’ve never left the bed. “You can stop with all the pitying because I’m sure I’ll get enough of that in the office.”
*
And he does. It seems as though everyone on his floor is interested in passing his office and stealing a look inside to see if Jensen Ackles, Senior Systems Analyst, has actually shown his face and survived the royal fuck-up of the century.
He proves them all wrong by holding his head high when he goes to the kitchen for coffee. As he waits for a new pot to brew, he adjusts the edges of his crisp vest, checks the buttons running up his chest, and even straightens his thin tie. He’d decided to go with his favorite three-piece suit to look and feel his best and project his best foot forward. The jacket stays in his office, though, because he’s not about to overdo it.
But maybe he already has.
“Do you have a job interview?” Danneel murmurs as she steps up to him.
Jensen shifts back at her accusation. “What? No. Why?”
She glances up and down his body then widens her eyes. “Because that’s your best suit. You only wear it on special occasions and an interview seems pretty special. Oh my God, did Worthy actually release you? I didn’t think he would, but you never know. Jeffrey said you’ve compromised the department’s research and funding and-”
“Whoa, what now?” Jensen asks with his hands up between them.
Jared steps in as well, moving her away with a grumble of, “You are not helping.”
Danneel is immediately embarrassed by Jared manhandling her away, or for her rambling on about office assumptions. Maybe both. She covers her mouth with two delicate hands and her doe eyes are wide in shock. “Oh my God,” she mumbles into her hands. “I am so sorry. It’s just that they’re all watching us now and I’m freaking out that they’ll find out that I sometimes read Perez Hilton on my lunch break.”
Jensen glances at Jared to find the agent staring at her with his mouth dropped open with awkward silence. Her attention darts between them as she continues to look horrified and mumbles more apologies for running her mouth off.
“We all have our vices, I suppose,” Jensen says to break the tension. “But, as far as I know, I still have a job here.”
She clears her throat, straightens her shirt, and stands firmly. Suddenly he can see how her eyes shine with building tears. “I’m just happy you’re okay. And still here. It says a lot to show up.”
He clears his throat, too, pushing down the budding emotion. “Well, I guess we owe Agent Padalecki for that one.”
She doesn’t get it, and he doesn’t need her to. He just wants Jared to understand that it really is all to him that Jensen is standing in the kitchen right now, in his best suit, and facing a coworker (and friend) who is not turning her back on him.
Jensen finds Jared fondly watching him and it’s a nice moment, except they’re in the kitchenette and as Danneel leaves, Alexia steps into the doorway while fidgeting with the lapel of her jacket. The last he saw of her, he was racing through her department to nail down Kelly. That anxiety and shame reappears as he sees her awkwardly glancing at him then away yet not saying a word.
“Hi,” he says with a curt nod then gets to finally pouring himself a cup of coffee. Jensen doesn’t realize she’s neared him until Jared shifts closer in protection. It’s startling to see Jared react like that, especially at work, but he nods Jared off and carefully smiles for the young, nervous analyst. “Yes?”
She takes a deep breath then whispers, “I think there’s something you should see. In Kelly’s files.”
That sparks Jensen’s interest while filling him with dread. “Like what?”
“Like, his communications.”
“Phone calls? Emails? IMs”
“His log-ins.”
Jensen’s eyebrows rise as he considers a junior analyst getting a hand on that kind of data. “You were watching his log-ins?”
Alexia shrugs then clears her throat like she’s summoning the confidence. “No, but after what happened yesterday, when I heard he was cracking our files and selling info, I started digging into the system.”
“I thought Director Worthy said he covered his tracks?”
She nods and slants her eyes away. “Brock was good, yeah.” Suddenly, she looks back to Jensen and smirks. “But I’m better.”
“How much better?”
“Enough to trace his egress.”
Impressive, Jensen thinks as he leans away from her.
With a nod, he leads her to his office and in one quick minute, she’s walked him through the system and provided codes and macros to break shields Kelly had created to not only hide his communications but to represent false messages in their place. Upon a first - or even second - pass, Kelly’s logs would seem innocent enough with random chatter about his work hours or plans afterwards. But Jensen digs through the system per Alexia’s commands and uncovers a mess of data that he’d forwarded onto outside sources, registration logs that were altered, and best of all, the back end of Kelly’s entire log-in history.
“Holy shit,” Jensen murmurs as he leans back from his monitor.
Alexia sits at the edge of the seat on the other side of the desk, hands clasped together in her lap and her knees bouncing lightly. “I know, right?”
“Holy, shit,” he repeats, now with a chuckle.
“What is it?” Jared asks as he hovers over Jensen’s shoulder.
“Well she was able to -” Jensen stops and smiles at her, because she really deserves it. “Why don’t you do the honors?”
She smiles then bites her lower lip before excitedly explaining herself. “I overran the primary operating system to partition the second OS then horizontally scaled the data to splice the hierarchical model and -”
Jared waves his hand quickly. “How about in English?”
Jensen nods at him. “She cracked through the first database then split the layers of the second in order to separate the data feeds and see where the model veered from standard operations.”
“That is still not English,” Jared mumbles.
Alexia proudly states, “I replicated Kelly’s key to infiltrate his files, traced the path, and identified the end support.”
Jensen grins at her then Jared. “Basically, she hacked into the Secret Service’s system and found the hole that Kelly’s friends came in through then traced it back out.”
Jared is, in a word, shocked. “You can do that?”
Chuckling at the sad state of his life, that a junior analyst found the hole, Jensen shakes his head in his own muddled sense of shame. “Apparently she can.”
“Why?” Jared asks her. “Why would you?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” she asks, suddenly nervous. “Kelly broke the cardinal rule of systems hacks across the world. He deserves whatever he gets”
“What’s that?”
“Don’t get caught.”
Jensen outright laughs because his life is ridiculously fucked and a junior analyst outdid him on his own case while citing the fact she worked so hard to nail Kelly is because the kid was stupid enough to get caught.
“And you don’t screw your country,” she adds with a crooked smile.
“That’s more like it,” Jensen says, again chuckling and shaking his head. Then he looks up to Jared, who’s still pleasantly surprised by the whole issue. “You probably want to bring her down to your people to consult.”
Jared nods and motions her towards the door. “Yeah, we should talk to Morgan.”
“And give her a promotion,” Jensen calls out. “She’s earned it.”
Alexia smiles kindly before leaving with Jared. Moment’s later, Worthy appears in the doorway, head turned to watch Jared and Alexia go.
“Are we once again at the mercy of our junior staff?”
Jensen instantly feels nervous about facing his boss for the first time since admitting that he had accidentally put prime evidence into the hands of an internal threat. But then he relives the last few minutes with Alexia and smiles. “Yes, we are. But this time with good news.”
“And what do you call good news?”
His smile grows as he considers how quickly his life has turned around in just 24 hours. “Alexia cracked the system and has a trace on Kelly’s pathway. She knows where he’s getting in from.”
Worthy tips his head in judgement. “Alexia did? Not you?”
Jensen nods. “She did.”
“You let another junior analyst run circles around you?”
After a moment, Worthy smirks and Jensen rolls his eyes. “Yes, unfortunately. But this time it’s for good. Not evil. And now she’s visiting Internal Observation so hopefully they’ll get a lead on Kelly soon enough.”
“That’s very good. Very good, indeed,” Worthy says with a long nod. “Do we have any names attached to Kelly’s files.”
“Not yet, but I’ll parse the data and pull something out.”
Worthy nods and pats the doorway with a smile. “Get to work then, Ackles.”
Jensen takes a deep breath, feeling how his chest expands with it, and he suddenly feels alive for the first time since yesterday morning. “Yes, sir.”
Part Seven