Someone you might have been (part 37 of 39)
My computer is deaddeaddead. Very dead. I'm working on a greatly reduced system until I can get it sorted. Thank you to everyone who offered advice and hugs. You guys are great. <33333 ALSO, everyone should go check out pockahtee's totally awesome fanart she did for me! Go here to admire the pretty!
Someone you might have been
Secret agent!Jared/Jensen
part thirty-six
banner made by the fabulously talented nyaubaby
By the sounds and the way the SUV moves, Jared guesses they’re being loaded onto a ship of some kind. He really hopes they’re not taking the long, watery route back to the US. On the other hand, maybe it’ll take that long to get Jensen to give him yet another version of the truth.
Of course, seeing as Jeff Morgan is apparently in it up to his neck too, maybe Jared should be looking to him for answers.
"One of you want to tell me what’s going on?" he says.
Jeff and Jensen exchange looks. Jensen’s expression is sullen and stubborn, and he shakes his head at Jeff. It feels like Jared’s come in on an argument that’s been going on for a while. Jeff gives him that fucking grin again.
"Don’t look at me like that, Jensen. We tried it your way and it was a goddamn disaster. Now we do it my way."
Whatever Jeff’s way is, Jensen pretty obviously doesn’t like it. He sinks back into his seat, rocking anxiously, hands flexing open and closed. He watches Jared like he doesn’t even realise Jared’s watching him right back. It’s been driven into Jared over the years and years that he’s done this job that whenever things don’t go as expected, number one priority is to reassess the situation and come up with a new reading to operate upon. He should be asking questions, demanding answers, but he only goes on watching Jensen with this strange sense of cold concern.
"C’mon," Jeff says finally. "Damage’s done. We can do it this time, Jensen. We’re almost there."
The promise of ‘there’ instantly attracts Jensen’s attention, and his odd, too-intense gaze snaps to Jeff. He lets out a small breath and nods. Then he looks back at Jared, wets his lips and says, "I’ve been working for Jeff for the last-"
And just as Jared’s almost getting answers, Jeff opens his fucking mouth and interrupts. "Drop the revisionist bullshit," he says. "Haven’t you fed the poor guy enough lines already? Give it to him straight. I don’t think you gotta worry about him thinking less of you, he’s stuck with you so far, hasn’t he?"
Jensen’s lips go tight and thin but he’s only quiet for a moment, before he takes another breath and says, more firmly, "I went to Jeff because I thought I could use him. Turns out, he wanted to use me right back. Mutually beneficial partnership." He smiles thinly at Jeff and the smile says that while the partnership may be mutually beneficial, it’s not particularly amicable. "I worked the Coalition end of things for him. He kept me informed and gave me an extra line of protection."
"Why?" Jared says.
Jensen looks to Jeff again, his expression faintly desperate. And Jeff isn’t budging.
"Whatever it takes, that’s what you promised me," he says. "I told you this wasn’t gonna be easy, and you said whatever it takes." He shrugs and moves to the SUV doors. "I’m gonna go check in with Cortese and Hodge. Give you some privacy."
After he’s gone, Jared leans forward in his seat towards Jensen. He doesn’t try to touch him, just looks at him steadily.
"Tell me what was a lie and what was the truth," he says. And he knows he’s hoping that it was all lies and that Jensen can be someone he’s allowed to be in love with.
Jensen doesn’t answer for a long while. His lips are parted, like he’s trying to find where to begin, and he doesn’t look straight at Jared.
"I met Mike, I got myself recruited into the CIA, I joined the Coalition, I was transferred into ISA and over the course of about two years, I brought down twelve agents. Some I fed false info, others I handed over to my associates within the Coalition."
His gaze flickers back to Jared and if he sees the hopelessness on Jared’s face, he doesn’t respond to it. His eyes are bright, shining. "I was incredible, Jared. I brought them down one after another and nobody even looked at me. My name wasn’t even mentioned." He says it in a tone of faint surprise.
"Then what?" Jared says, as flatly as he can manage.
"Jessica Alba." Jensen pauses, frowns. "I hated her. She was neurotic and insecure and a diva and she made stupid demands. And I killed her and… the world wasn’t a better place. Nothing really changed. It made me start thinking, y’know, about how many people would have to die before the world was better. And I know there’s no such thing as a bloodless revolution but… I think I should be willing to die for the cause, not kill for it." He looks at Jared and smiles, sharp and crooked. "I hated Jess but I don’t think I ever really got over killing her. Killing her was my first big mistake."
"And that’s when you went to Jeff?" Jared says.
Jensen shakes his head. "No. I went to Mike." He laughs and rubs the back of his neck. "Y’know, considering I’m so good at reading people, you’d think I’d’a seen how that one would go down."
He laughs again but it becomes a sigh. "I’d been hurt on assignment, helping my agent, and Mike put that together with me saying I didn’t like what I was doing anymore and he figured my agent was getting to me. So Mike did what he does best, and blew him up. He thought he was protecting me and…" Jensen wets his lips again before he says, "I don’t think Mike’s ever gonna realise that I’m not that kid he knew anymore. I’m not, I can’t be. I’ve tried, but I can’t be."
When he looks at Jared, Jared tries to think of something comforting to say. But the only thing he can think is, something like you’ve made some fucking terrible choices but I still love you, but yes, those choices you made, really fucking terrible, terrible and stupid and how could you? But yes, I still love you. I still love you. Which doesn’t seem reassuring enough.
So he just looks at Jensen until Jensen drops his gaze, flushing slightly and fidgeting in his seat.
"I figured it was penance," he says. "I figured I got myself into this, and trying to get myself out would only raise the body count and so I would just, y’know, just have to learn to live with it. I got by. I managed to avoid having to kill anyone, didn’t raise any suspicions at ISA. I did okay. Then I met Chris."
"You didn’t really kill him," Jared says in a rush.
"I did," Jensen says. "He…Oh God, Chris was…" He scrapes his fingers through his hair, his eyes screwed shut. The sound of water beneath them is thick and heavy, almost sickening. "He was like you, kind of. He never gave me a chance. I tried so hard not to give a damn about him. But he just… he got right in and, y’know, I’d never had a friend like him before. He saw how fucked up I was and he wanted to help. He got it all figured out, everything I’d done, and he still wanted to help me."
Jensen hasn’t looked at Jared for a while now. It seems more important that Jared say something, anything that isn’t accusatory or angry or disappointed. But Jared can’t, because he doesn’t want to stop Jensen talking, not yet. Not when he’s finally hearing what he thinks might be the truth.
"He asked me outright if I was a double. And I said yes. Second big mistake. I should have lied. Convinced him he was wrong. I let him get involved and he’s dead because of it. And I can’t let that happen to you-"
There’s movement: the SUV being taken somewhere, a lot of metal clattering and then the doors open and Jeff’s there. He gestures them out, herds them across the slippery deck of the tanker they’re on, towards a waiting aircraft. Jared glances around through the blustery wind and notes how few people there are present, and how the majority of those are clearly agents.
He sticks close to Jensen, distractedly falling back on routines of threat evaluation and locating potential weapons, and he’s aware that his planning still encompasses how best to protect Jensen should a situation arise. He supposes he’ll eventually give up on expecting that to change.
It’s important that he now knows the truth. It should simplify things between them. It means that any relationship between them from here on in is based on the truth. Jared knows the guy finally. But Jensen has not gone from good guy to bad guy and back; he’s gone from good guy to bad guy to a guy who’s somewhere in between. Everything comes in shades of grey but Jensen’s managed to reinvent the shade.
Inside the aircraft, Jeff somehow ends up between Jared and Jensen, and Jensen turns his face to the window and stays silent. Jared watches the tanker disappear below them as they rise and idly toys with the notion of asking Jeff where they’re going and how he’d force the information out of him once Jeff refused.
:::
It feels like forever before Jared and Jensen are alone again. After the flight that lasted an eternity, they’ve been hustled from the aircraft to an underground garage, driven for fucking miles, and then deposited at God knows where. Through the window of the office they’re in, Jared can see a small paved courtyard with a few tidy tubs of plants. He’d guess they’re somewhere around Washington, considering travel times and climate.
Jensen has settled in a chair, nursing a cup of coffee and with a pack of cigarettes close to hand. Once he’s done with the coffee, he methodically and carefully begins to tear strips off the cigarette pack.
Jared has remained standing. He gives Jensen time to pick up where he stopped, but when he doesn’t, Jared says, "You were telling me about Chris Kane. I wanna hear the rest."
Jensen’s hands still for a moment. Then he looks up at Jared, and in the fading sunlight his bruises look like shadows. "He tried to help me." For a moment, it seems like that’s all Jared’s going to get out of him. Jensen slides back into himself, introverted and lost in his own head. Frustrated, Jared thinks about taking him by the shoulders and shaking him. Or maybe kissing him and begging him to explain it.
Then, as if he never stopped, Jensen says, "We came up with a plan. To explain all the asking around Chris had been doing about me, I would make a report to Kripke and Kring saying that Chris suspected I was a double but I was dealing with it and I would report again if the situation changed. And Chris went to someone in ISA to talk about what could be done. Someone he said he could trust. And I can just bet how that conversation went down."
Jared’s not sure he needs any more explained about Chris. He kind of thinks he gets it and it’s so ugly - it’s ugly enough to explain so much of what’s wrong with Jensen. He starts to tell Jensen that he understands, but the switch has been flicked and Jensen doesn’t even hear him.
"He’ll have gone to whoever it is he thought he could trust," says Jensen blankly, "and he’ll have left my name out and he’ll have said that he knows there’s a double in ISA and that he wants to do something about it."
Jensen rubs the pad of his thumb over his lips, backwards and forwards, and Jared watches the gesture with detached fascination.
"I knew as soon as the door sealed on him and I couldn’t get him out. I figured it out then but it was too late. They told me I was just directing him to a console that would fake access. They made me walk him in there and the door sealed and I figured it out." Jensen chews on his lip and adds, "Only thing that’s still a mystery is how it could have never fucking occurred to me that there’d be more than one Coalition agent active in ISA."
"I’m sorry," Jared says.
"I couldn’t not do anything. Do you get that? After Chris, just being fucking miserable wasn’t enough. It was wrong what they did to him, what they did to me. I had to make it right." Jensen shrugs jerkily and his hands shake slightly as he lights a cigarette. "That’s when I went to Jeff. And I’ve lied to him to keep Mike and Tom alive, and I’ve lied to Mike and Tom to keep, y’know, the rest of the world alive. And I’ve done nothing but lie to you. But I promise you, I’m telling you the truth now. All I want, all I’m looking for is justice. I’m just trying to put an end to the killing."
If Jared spends long enough thinking about how much he loves Jensen, it’s easy to believe him. He is so in love with Jensen that he will willingly accept that this is the truth. Because this is a truth he can bear. If this is true, then Jensen has done bad things and made bad choices, but he is not a bad person. Not all the way through.
If this is the truth this time.
He looks Jensen in his big green eyes and only sees himself reflected.
"Where did I fit into all of this?" he says.
Jensen hesitates, like he was hoping for something else from Jared, maybe a loudly voiced declaration of faith. Then he says, "I only ever tried to protect you. I knew the other double in ISA would target you so I got Mike to convince Kripke and Kring that I could co-opt you. Basically, between Jeff and me, we kept the crises to a minimum, kept the body count low as we could. And you were part of that. I was just supposed to keep you alive."
He worries his lip, looking down at the cigarette in his hands. Quietly, he says, "There was never supposed to be anything between us. I screwed up."
Neither of them breaks the silence that follows.
:::
By the time Jensen’s chain-smoked his way through half his pack of cigarettes, Jeff makes an appearance. He drops a bulging file on the table in front of Jensen and says, "We’re on. 48 hours. Think you can handle it?"
Jensen grimaces and flips the folder open like it’s infectious. He sighs and looks up at Jeff, casts a meaningful look at Jared and says, "I’ll do my bit. Make sure you do yours."
It prompts an eye-roll from Jeff, but he looks at Jared and says, "C’mon, I’m not leaving you around to distract Jensen. Boy’s got a lot of work to do."
Jeff leads him down a deserted hallway and into a very neutrally decorated and very neutrally lit lounge. Wherever the hell they are, Jared isn’t supposed to get any clues from the décor. Jeff gestures him towards the couch and heads to the small kitchenette to make more coffee.
"So," Jared says, "I guess you need me for something. Something Jensen doesn’t want me to do."
Jeff doesn’t look up from the machine as he answers. "The double in ISA sends a secure data transfer to Kripke and Kring once a month. If we can get hold of the data they’re sending, we can figure out who they are. But Kripke and Kring have some really impressive security in place. We were close to getting Jensen in to put a trace on the network when Rosenbaum was supposed to hand you over to Kripke and Kring." Jeff shoots Jared an amused look. "Then Jensen contacts me to say he’s aborting and that he was setting you loose and I should get ISA over to pick you up before Rosenbaum can recover you."
"So now Jensen’s got no choice but to do it your way," Jared fills in. "Which means sending me in, right?"
"Right," Jeff agrees.
"Okay, yeah. Count me in."
Jeff goes still in the middle of making coffee and gives Jared his full attention. "He tells a good story, doesn’t he?" Jared raises an eyebrow and gives Jeff nothing. "Listen, I wanna get this ISA double about as much as anyone, Jensen included. But it’s not gonna be done without Jensen’s involvement, and I don’t want you going into this with some false idea of him. I’m guessing it’s probably too late for that but…"
"You don’t trust him," Jared says, and he’s surprised by the bitterness in his voice. Jesus, even Jared isn’t sure if he trusts Jensen this time round. But he needs someone to believe in Jensen, someone who isn’t certifiably crazy.
Jeff considers the question carefully and Jared prays for someone else to champion Jensen’s trustworthiness.
"Seems to me," says Jeff, slow and thoughtful, "that if Kripke and Kring hadn’t been stupid enough to put Jensen face to face with the reality of what he was doing, there’s a real good chance he’d still be doing it."
chapter thirty-eight
Someone you might have been
Secret agent!Jared/Jensen
part thirty-six
banner made by the fabulously talented nyaubaby
By the sounds and the way the SUV moves, Jared guesses they’re being loaded onto a ship of some kind. He really hopes they’re not taking the long, watery route back to the US. On the other hand, maybe it’ll take that long to get Jensen to give him yet another version of the truth.
Of course, seeing as Jeff Morgan is apparently in it up to his neck too, maybe Jared should be looking to him for answers.
"One of you want to tell me what’s going on?" he says.
Jeff and Jensen exchange looks. Jensen’s expression is sullen and stubborn, and he shakes his head at Jeff. It feels like Jared’s come in on an argument that’s been going on for a while. Jeff gives him that fucking grin again.
"Don’t look at me like that, Jensen. We tried it your way and it was a goddamn disaster. Now we do it my way."
Whatever Jeff’s way is, Jensen pretty obviously doesn’t like it. He sinks back into his seat, rocking anxiously, hands flexing open and closed. He watches Jared like he doesn’t even realise Jared’s watching him right back. It’s been driven into Jared over the years and years that he’s done this job that whenever things don’t go as expected, number one priority is to reassess the situation and come up with a new reading to operate upon. He should be asking questions, demanding answers, but he only goes on watching Jensen with this strange sense of cold concern.
"C’mon," Jeff says finally. "Damage’s done. We can do it this time, Jensen. We’re almost there."
The promise of ‘there’ instantly attracts Jensen’s attention, and his odd, too-intense gaze snaps to Jeff. He lets out a small breath and nods. Then he looks back at Jared, wets his lips and says, "I’ve been working for Jeff for the last-"
And just as Jared’s almost getting answers, Jeff opens his fucking mouth and interrupts. "Drop the revisionist bullshit," he says. "Haven’t you fed the poor guy enough lines already? Give it to him straight. I don’t think you gotta worry about him thinking less of you, he’s stuck with you so far, hasn’t he?"
Jensen’s lips go tight and thin but he’s only quiet for a moment, before he takes another breath and says, more firmly, "I went to Jeff because I thought I could use him. Turns out, he wanted to use me right back. Mutually beneficial partnership." He smiles thinly at Jeff and the smile says that while the partnership may be mutually beneficial, it’s not particularly amicable. "I worked the Coalition end of things for him. He kept me informed and gave me an extra line of protection."
"Why?" Jared says.
Jensen looks to Jeff again, his expression faintly desperate. And Jeff isn’t budging.
"Whatever it takes, that’s what you promised me," he says. "I told you this wasn’t gonna be easy, and you said whatever it takes." He shrugs and moves to the SUV doors. "I’m gonna go check in with Cortese and Hodge. Give you some privacy."
After he’s gone, Jared leans forward in his seat towards Jensen. He doesn’t try to touch him, just looks at him steadily.
"Tell me what was a lie and what was the truth," he says. And he knows he’s hoping that it was all lies and that Jensen can be someone he’s allowed to be in love with.
Jensen doesn’t answer for a long while. His lips are parted, like he’s trying to find where to begin, and he doesn’t look straight at Jared.
"I met Mike, I got myself recruited into the CIA, I joined the Coalition, I was transferred into ISA and over the course of about two years, I brought down twelve agents. Some I fed false info, others I handed over to my associates within the Coalition."
His gaze flickers back to Jared and if he sees the hopelessness on Jared’s face, he doesn’t respond to it. His eyes are bright, shining. "I was incredible, Jared. I brought them down one after another and nobody even looked at me. My name wasn’t even mentioned." He says it in a tone of faint surprise.
"Then what?" Jared says, as flatly as he can manage.
"Jessica Alba." Jensen pauses, frowns. "I hated her. She was neurotic and insecure and a diva and she made stupid demands. And I killed her and… the world wasn’t a better place. Nothing really changed. It made me start thinking, y’know, about how many people would have to die before the world was better. And I know there’s no such thing as a bloodless revolution but… I think I should be willing to die for the cause, not kill for it." He looks at Jared and smiles, sharp and crooked. "I hated Jess but I don’t think I ever really got over killing her. Killing her was my first big mistake."
"And that’s when you went to Jeff?" Jared says.
Jensen shakes his head. "No. I went to Mike." He laughs and rubs the back of his neck. "Y’know, considering I’m so good at reading people, you’d think I’d’a seen how that one would go down."
He laughs again but it becomes a sigh. "I’d been hurt on assignment, helping my agent, and Mike put that together with me saying I didn’t like what I was doing anymore and he figured my agent was getting to me. So Mike did what he does best, and blew him up. He thought he was protecting me and…" Jensen wets his lips again before he says, "I don’t think Mike’s ever gonna realise that I’m not that kid he knew anymore. I’m not, I can’t be. I’ve tried, but I can’t be."
When he looks at Jared, Jared tries to think of something comforting to say. But the only thing he can think is, something like you’ve made some fucking terrible choices but I still love you, but yes, those choices you made, really fucking terrible, terrible and stupid and how could you? But yes, I still love you. I still love you. Which doesn’t seem reassuring enough.
So he just looks at Jensen until Jensen drops his gaze, flushing slightly and fidgeting in his seat.
"I figured it was penance," he says. "I figured I got myself into this, and trying to get myself out would only raise the body count and so I would just, y’know, just have to learn to live with it. I got by. I managed to avoid having to kill anyone, didn’t raise any suspicions at ISA. I did okay. Then I met Chris."
"You didn’t really kill him," Jared says in a rush.
"I did," Jensen says. "He…Oh God, Chris was…" He scrapes his fingers through his hair, his eyes screwed shut. The sound of water beneath them is thick and heavy, almost sickening. "He was like you, kind of. He never gave me a chance. I tried so hard not to give a damn about him. But he just… he got right in and, y’know, I’d never had a friend like him before. He saw how fucked up I was and he wanted to help. He got it all figured out, everything I’d done, and he still wanted to help me."
Jensen hasn’t looked at Jared for a while now. It seems more important that Jared say something, anything that isn’t accusatory or angry or disappointed. But Jared can’t, because he doesn’t want to stop Jensen talking, not yet. Not when he’s finally hearing what he thinks might be the truth.
"He asked me outright if I was a double. And I said yes. Second big mistake. I should have lied. Convinced him he was wrong. I let him get involved and he’s dead because of it. And I can’t let that happen to you-"
There’s movement: the SUV being taken somewhere, a lot of metal clattering and then the doors open and Jeff’s there. He gestures them out, herds them across the slippery deck of the tanker they’re on, towards a waiting aircraft. Jared glances around through the blustery wind and notes how few people there are present, and how the majority of those are clearly agents.
He sticks close to Jensen, distractedly falling back on routines of threat evaluation and locating potential weapons, and he’s aware that his planning still encompasses how best to protect Jensen should a situation arise. He supposes he’ll eventually give up on expecting that to change.
It’s important that he now knows the truth. It should simplify things between them. It means that any relationship between them from here on in is based on the truth. Jared knows the guy finally. But Jensen has not gone from good guy to bad guy and back; he’s gone from good guy to bad guy to a guy who’s somewhere in between. Everything comes in shades of grey but Jensen’s managed to reinvent the shade.
Inside the aircraft, Jeff somehow ends up between Jared and Jensen, and Jensen turns his face to the window and stays silent. Jared watches the tanker disappear below them as they rise and idly toys with the notion of asking Jeff where they’re going and how he’d force the information out of him once Jeff refused.
:::
It feels like forever before Jared and Jensen are alone again. After the flight that lasted an eternity, they’ve been hustled from the aircraft to an underground garage, driven for fucking miles, and then deposited at God knows where. Through the window of the office they’re in, Jared can see a small paved courtyard with a few tidy tubs of plants. He’d guess they’re somewhere around Washington, considering travel times and climate.
Jensen has settled in a chair, nursing a cup of coffee and with a pack of cigarettes close to hand. Once he’s done with the coffee, he methodically and carefully begins to tear strips off the cigarette pack.
Jared has remained standing. He gives Jensen time to pick up where he stopped, but when he doesn’t, Jared says, "You were telling me about Chris Kane. I wanna hear the rest."
Jensen’s hands still for a moment. Then he looks up at Jared, and in the fading sunlight his bruises look like shadows. "He tried to help me." For a moment, it seems like that’s all Jared’s going to get out of him. Jensen slides back into himself, introverted and lost in his own head. Frustrated, Jared thinks about taking him by the shoulders and shaking him. Or maybe kissing him and begging him to explain it.
Then, as if he never stopped, Jensen says, "We came up with a plan. To explain all the asking around Chris had been doing about me, I would make a report to Kripke and Kring saying that Chris suspected I was a double but I was dealing with it and I would report again if the situation changed. And Chris went to someone in ISA to talk about what could be done. Someone he said he could trust. And I can just bet how that conversation went down."
Jared’s not sure he needs any more explained about Chris. He kind of thinks he gets it and it’s so ugly - it’s ugly enough to explain so much of what’s wrong with Jensen. He starts to tell Jensen that he understands, but the switch has been flicked and Jensen doesn’t even hear him.
"He’ll have gone to whoever it is he thought he could trust," says Jensen blankly, "and he’ll have left my name out and he’ll have said that he knows there’s a double in ISA and that he wants to do something about it."
Jensen rubs the pad of his thumb over his lips, backwards and forwards, and Jared watches the gesture with detached fascination.
"I knew as soon as the door sealed on him and I couldn’t get him out. I figured it out then but it was too late. They told me I was just directing him to a console that would fake access. They made me walk him in there and the door sealed and I figured it out." Jensen chews on his lip and adds, "Only thing that’s still a mystery is how it could have never fucking occurred to me that there’d be more than one Coalition agent active in ISA."
"I’m sorry," Jared says.
"I couldn’t not do anything. Do you get that? After Chris, just being fucking miserable wasn’t enough. It was wrong what they did to him, what they did to me. I had to make it right." Jensen shrugs jerkily and his hands shake slightly as he lights a cigarette. "That’s when I went to Jeff. And I’ve lied to him to keep Mike and Tom alive, and I’ve lied to Mike and Tom to keep, y’know, the rest of the world alive. And I’ve done nothing but lie to you. But I promise you, I’m telling you the truth now. All I want, all I’m looking for is justice. I’m just trying to put an end to the killing."
If Jared spends long enough thinking about how much he loves Jensen, it’s easy to believe him. He is so in love with Jensen that he will willingly accept that this is the truth. Because this is a truth he can bear. If this is true, then Jensen has done bad things and made bad choices, but he is not a bad person. Not all the way through.
If this is the truth this time.
He looks Jensen in his big green eyes and only sees himself reflected.
"Where did I fit into all of this?" he says.
Jensen hesitates, like he was hoping for something else from Jared, maybe a loudly voiced declaration of faith. Then he says, "I only ever tried to protect you. I knew the other double in ISA would target you so I got Mike to convince Kripke and Kring that I could co-opt you. Basically, between Jeff and me, we kept the crises to a minimum, kept the body count low as we could. And you were part of that. I was just supposed to keep you alive."
He worries his lip, looking down at the cigarette in his hands. Quietly, he says, "There was never supposed to be anything between us. I screwed up."
Neither of them breaks the silence that follows.
:::
By the time Jensen’s chain-smoked his way through half his pack of cigarettes, Jeff makes an appearance. He drops a bulging file on the table in front of Jensen and says, "We’re on. 48 hours. Think you can handle it?"
Jensen grimaces and flips the folder open like it’s infectious. He sighs and looks up at Jeff, casts a meaningful look at Jared and says, "I’ll do my bit. Make sure you do yours."
It prompts an eye-roll from Jeff, but he looks at Jared and says, "C’mon, I’m not leaving you around to distract Jensen. Boy’s got a lot of work to do."
Jeff leads him down a deserted hallway and into a very neutrally decorated and very neutrally lit lounge. Wherever the hell they are, Jared isn’t supposed to get any clues from the décor. Jeff gestures him towards the couch and heads to the small kitchenette to make more coffee.
"So," Jared says, "I guess you need me for something. Something Jensen doesn’t want me to do."
Jeff doesn’t look up from the machine as he answers. "The double in ISA sends a secure data transfer to Kripke and Kring once a month. If we can get hold of the data they’re sending, we can figure out who they are. But Kripke and Kring have some really impressive security in place. We were close to getting Jensen in to put a trace on the network when Rosenbaum was supposed to hand you over to Kripke and Kring." Jeff shoots Jared an amused look. "Then Jensen contacts me to say he’s aborting and that he was setting you loose and I should get ISA over to pick you up before Rosenbaum can recover you."
"So now Jensen’s got no choice but to do it your way," Jared fills in. "Which means sending me in, right?"
"Right," Jeff agrees.
"Okay, yeah. Count me in."
Jeff goes still in the middle of making coffee and gives Jared his full attention. "He tells a good story, doesn’t he?" Jared raises an eyebrow and gives Jeff nothing. "Listen, I wanna get this ISA double about as much as anyone, Jensen included. But it’s not gonna be done without Jensen’s involvement, and I don’t want you going into this with some false idea of him. I’m guessing it’s probably too late for that but…"
"You don’t trust him," Jared says, and he’s surprised by the bitterness in his voice. Jesus, even Jared isn’t sure if he trusts Jensen this time round. But he needs someone to believe in Jensen, someone who isn’t certifiably crazy.
Jeff considers the question carefully and Jared prays for someone else to champion Jensen’s trustworthiness.
"Seems to me," says Jeff, slow and thoughtful, "that if Kripke and Kring hadn’t been stupid enough to put Jensen face to face with the reality of what he was doing, there’s a real good chance he’d still be doing it."
chapter thirty-eight