[For Arthur] Operation: Open Window

[lysistrategic]

Joan's mind wheels over her conversation of the morning, even though it's not a topic she's raised with Arthur yet. No, at the moment, she and her husband are acting quite the opposite of their ages, having an early afternoon picnic on a blanket the grass by the reflecting pool. She sips the chilled fruit wine they drink in the afternoons rather than wasting the branded alcohol the island saw fit to provide her and when Arthur slips his hand into her hair to try to drag her in for a kiss, she raises her bare foot up to toe him in the thigh.

"Behave, Arthur," she says mildly, but her eyes are lit with a smile that promises a very good night for them later. "There's no name for the color Emily will turn if she catches us making out like teenagers."

Comments

[carriesabigstick]

That 'argument' didn't dissuade Arthur at all in his quest for the kiss. He chuckled softly as he continued to try to capture her lips and countered. "Emily will think that it's sweet that an old married couple can still make out as teenagers." His thumb lightly caresses her skin at the nape of her neck.

[lysistrategic]

Her eyebrows both sweep upward at that pronouncement. "You have met Emily, Arthur. She turns six shades of crimson if she wanders into the kitchen for breakfast and you're kissing me good morning in front of the kettle." Of course it doesn't precisely stop her, at the moment, from enjoying his caress. She allows her eyes to drop closed while she murmurs, "I signed up for some classes this morning," primarily to change the subject.

[carriesabigstick]

Arthur pauses in his quest for the kiss at Joan's comment, but only momentarily. "Have you? That doesn't really surprise me. What classes?" They both had very active minds and in a world where it didn't get the daily exercise it was used to, Joan would have found a way to give it a work out.

[lysistrategic]

Joan gives him a mild look, eyebrows arching. She knows her husband will be expecting things that are expansive in the usual ways for them, learning another language or political theory. "I thought--" Her voice softens, fingertips stroking along the the bulky muscle of his bicep. "It might be a good idea to work on unwinding a little--" They'd talked about it with their Agency-approved counselor, of course, but there really is never time for operatives to do anything like that. "So I signed up for beginning drawing and painting, yoga and meditation."

[carriesabigstick]

"Unleashing your creative side. I like that." Arthur placed a kiss just on the side of her jaw under her ear. "Stretching your muscles with yoga." His chuckle was warm with a hint of husky. "It wouldn't be tantric would it?" He might be teasing, perhaps a little, but there was also a little bit of serious hope.

[lysistrategic]

Flushing lightly (yes, he can still embarrass her even now), Joan pushes his shoulder lightly. "Hush, you." She recovers herself quickly enough to tuck her head down between his head and shoulder and leave a kiss there before she murmurs, "If I'm practicing tantric yoga, it'll be alone with you in our bedroom."

[carriesabigstick]

"One on one learning. I like that." Arthur places another butterfly soft kiss just to the right of her lips. "All kidding aside, I'm glad you're taking time to explore other sides. Maybe I'll look into seeing what classes are offered."

[lysistrategic]

"I think you should." Joan's hand rests on his chest as she reaches behind her to set her wine glass down and out of the way. "I know you weren't ready to retire and that we'd planned to fight it all together, but we can hardly do nothing and wait to be returned home." She frowns and watches her hand move against his chest. "If we ever will. Now that you've been here awhile, what do you make of it, Arthur?"

[carriesabigstick]

The question deserved a thoughtful response so Arthur didn't immediately answer. Instead he placed his hand over hers where it rested on his chest. "I don't think we're part of an experiment of mind control or drug use and there are more things in heaven and earth." He said with a slight smile. "However, no one will convince me that someone isn't behind it all. Nor do I think the arrivals and departures are pure random. There is a common denominator, we just have to find it."

[lysistrategic]

Joan nods her agreement and blows out a quiet sigh. "People have been looking, but there seems no way to test the theories, beyond slow, painful refinement of them and no way to ensure the data is good." She frowns at that, since they're part of the problem, or at least she, Annie and Auggie are. "Anyone might be lying about who they are and what they were doing before they arrived. Take John, for example. He had good reason to hide who he'd been, but did we not know him to have been Jack the Ripper--" Naturally, she had explained this to her husband who had been very much less than pleased with that choice of companions. "His appearance might look to be one thing and actually be quite another."

[carriesabigstick]

The only indication that Arthur had any reaction to the mention of John was the small muscle tick in his jaw.

"What about the medical community? Science doesn't lie and while not everyone has gone to a doctor or clinic, there should be some blood samples that they could do a comparison to if there was a common physical denominator." Though he knew the likelihood of that was small. Still there had to be something that was a common thread through them all.

[lysistrategic]

It's strange, Joan thinks, that Arthur's reactions to the people in her life used to make her tense. Now, while he's talking, he lifts her hand to place against the ticking muscle in his jaw and gives him what she imagines to a very wifely look of reassurance. A wifely looked back by the steel of her Krav Maga training and operational brilliance.

"I made a contact today--" She brushes at a bit of flower fluff sticking itself to Arthur's shoulder. "One that has and is probably willing to share anything he does know. He's former FBI and he was one of the first to arrive here, some six years ago." An answer to a different question, the real question, maybe, but she does suggest, "And I do imagine the medical and scientific communities have put in considerable effort on this, judging from the number of astrophysics and quantum mechanics type classes available."

[carriesabigstick]

Arthur knows that Joan didn't compromise her identity with a comparable revelation that she works for CIA to her contact. Old habits die hard and inter-agency cooperation is rare. So if he did know she was CIA the offer to share information likely wouldn't have been given. The positive side of his being on the island for six years, which Arthur actually wouldn't want to think about, is that he hadn't been made head of his Division at that time so the name Campbell wouldn't have been familiar in that way.

"That sounds promising. I would imagine that they would have quite a lot to observe in the six years."

[lysistrategic]

"He's..." Joan tilts her head, gaze drifting off to the right while she tries to explain what she observed. "Not what I'd expect from the FBI. Fairly open, friendly but with that same intuitive flash we run into from their best profilers. I retained plausible deniability, but I wouldn't be surprised if he'd placed me with the Agency."

They can speak more of Dale later, as she's come to the point she'd meant to raise. "How much do you suppose it matters now, my covert status? Taking all of the possible alternatives, it seems likely they've already replaced me, or I'm a copy of myself, or I'm dreaming--" Insane, in a coma, any number of alternatives. "Even assuming we return, our careers with the Agency are probably over." Strange that that should hurt when she's been thinking more and more about what Geena'd said about leaving and being happier away from Langley.

[carriesabigstick]

Arthur was silent, letting his thoughts work through different scenarios and every one of them came to the same conclusion. “We’ll have to pass a psych eval no matter what happens when we return.” That was a when, never an if. “They would put an interim leader in our roles as they wouldn’t want to seem to hasty to replace us without making a show of finding us. Even if we’re in a coma somewhere or drugged. The interim would at least stay in place for a few months and then they’d make a move to a more permanent position.”

It would likely be Jai or at least he’d make a bid for it.

[lysistrategic]

Joan nods her agreement while her fingertips stroke the placket of his shirt where she's used to having a tie to straighten in this moments when vulnerability makes it difficult to speak. "In other words, unless this is a dream and we wake up a day or so from when we left, or they can prove we were held captive and even then, at best we're consultants. You're too visible to put back into place and Jai will already have my job."

A tight frown crosses her lips along with a flash of irritation. "I'd been considering it, a more public career, if and when you left the Agency, but not like this. I was ready to fight, but I don't see how we can fight this."

[carriesabigstick]

Arthur reaches out and puts his hand over hers on his shirt and squeezes softly. “We can still spin it to our advantage, play the sympathy angle, but you’ll have to fight extra hard to even start to get part of it back.” She was right, for him, his career as the head was over but he was okay with that. Arthur would back Joan no matter what she wanted to do and he would take the CIA to the mat to get her job back. Or his for her.

[lysistrategic]

"And Annie and Auggie?" They're her operatives. Even if they don't work for her here, they're still her people and she's looking out for them. She frowns deeper and looks past Arthur's shoulder. "You know as well as I do, Annie's career is over. Maybe as DSC, I could shield her. But it'd be six to eight months, maybe a year, realistically, before I'd have that kind of pull, and that's after we convince them to take me back." Her fingers curl between the buttons of his shirt, frustration tightening her jaw. "I'm less worried about Auggie. He's invaluable. I don't know... Jai has a weakness for Annie. It might be better for her if I didn't try. She has a promising career ahead of her."

[carriesabigstick]

“Jai’s weakness will help Annie and our distancing.” Arthur says with a nod, agreeing with his wife. Annie and Auggie had a much better survival rate. He reaches out to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “I’m afraid that you dug a hole with Jai and the upper echelon when you turned down their offer for my position and said you’d fight.”

[lysistrategic]

"I'd do it again even knowing this was coming." Joan tilts her cheek against his hand, eyes closing for the feel of his fingers against his skin. "You're my husband, and you're the best DSC the Agency has had in decades. I wasn't about to let them ride you out on a rail, even if it meant getting your job. If I'm ever DSC, I want it to be because I earned it and you're done with it, not because I turned on the one person who should always be able to trust me."

There's a tight flutter in her chest, even now, saying it. They'd fought so hard - against each other, with each other, and then finally together - to save their marriage. If there's anything good in this unintentional vacation, it's that they finally have time to enjoy each other.

[carriesabigstick]

It hadn't surprised him that Joan hadn't taken their offer, they had miscalculated on a very fundamental level. He did regret that because of him, her career would suffer from this --- whatever this island was.

"You have earned it, even before their offer." Arthur tells her honestly, his gaze meeting hers. "You would have had a better chance to fight Jai on your return." He gives her a hint of a smile, "even though we know the inevitable outcome, that doesn't mean we will give up without a fight." Part of it was to prove that they wouldn't roll over and beg but also a part of it was to make Jai's life miserable in the interim.

Arthur understood some of the choices Jai had made. He didn't agree with most of them but he did understand. Jai had picked the road he was traveling on, and Arthur was fine being the bumps in that road.

[lysistrategic]

Joan flushes just slightly at Arthur's adamant defense of her and his praise of her skills. She remembers how angry it had made her to learn she'd been discussing it with Geena and it seems petty now, but it's relevant. "I know you asked Geena about protecting me from Operation: Lynx," she says and waits for his response, gaze steady, because he's from before her in time and she hasn't told him she knows.

"It doesn't seem like DSC was what you had in mind for my career." That's a little cooler than the first statement, even though she loves him for the support. She's not a noisy feminist, but she definitely is one, and Arthur knows better than to make plans for her outside of their worklives where he's her boss. This treads too close to the line, even if it might never matter again.

[carriesabigstick]

Arthur had no idea how Joan could have possibly found out about that. Geena certainly wouldn't have told her unless ---- unless it would have suited her purpose or Joan wouldn't let something drop and Geena have told her to either shut up or distract her.

"Plausible deniability when it hits the fan." He didn't bother to evade. Joan knew and that was that. "As for your career, I always knew that your abilities would far outreach DSC. I didn't want you to be tainted by anything that I had been involved in." Arthur wasn't going to apologize for believing that his wife could be anything and make more of a difference as a Senator than as head of the DSC.

[lysistrategic]

"It hit the fan." Joan is firm but quiet in saying so, and her fingers don't leave their hold on his shirt. She's known since he arrived that she came from after him in time even though she'd arrived on the island first. Several times, she's mentioned it, but it's never been of import before now. "Jai namedropped it to an inquiry committee. You told me about it and that you'd spoken to Geena." That comes out a bit more gently, because as upset as she'd been at the time, it had mattered to her that he confessed it. "I went to Geena to fact-check and I was leaving my meeting with her when I arrived here."

Somehow it had never seemed important before today, but she thinks, abruptly, it explains part of why she'd been so desperate to reconnect with him when he arrived. "It's all right, Arthur. I know you were protecting me. It doesn't matter anymore that I wish you'd chosen someone other than Geena." It had given her a chance to apologize, after all. "I felt...diminished. Like a protege, rather than your partner and wife."

[carriesabigstick]

Arthur's hand rises to cup Joan's cheek, his gaze intense on hers. "I never think of you as a protege, and it was as your partner and supportive husband that I did it." He knew that Joan would have wished him to go to anyone other than his ex-wife, without her having to say it, but the truth was Geena had been the best choice. She knew their world, and she had a very sharp legal mind.

"I won't apologize for wanting to protect you. I always will, but I should have taken your possible point of view into consideration." It didn't mean that he would have done anything differently only that he would have considered her feelings.

[lysistrategic]

"Taken my possible point of view into consideration, but not changed your behavior." It's deeply wry and only slightly bitter. It's difficult to be angry over something so far removed from them in time and space when Arthur's touching her like this.

"At home, we probably had a weekend row over this, you know. You probably spent it in the guest room and I probably hated every second of it." Her eyes close and she tips her cheek into his hand. "I miss the work, Arthur, but I don't miss that."

[carriesabigstick]

They probably had a holiday weekend row over it rather than just a two day one, but he was getting better at considering her point of view. Better.

"I really was ready to retire and support you in any endeavor that you decided you wanted to do, especially as my successor, but I'm not a man of leisure. I couldn't retire to putter around the house." He smiled slightly, "as nice as that image is of being a house husband, I would have had to have something occupy my mind." There's a part of Arthur that wonders if he'll go stir crazy on the island.

[lysistrategic]

"As appealing as you'd be as a house husband--" Joan thinks about it for several heartbeats, then shakes her head. "You would be miserable and so would I. After three weeks of puttering around, you'd have rearranged everything in the kitchen and medicine cabinets and I'd be indicted for manslaughter."

She's smiling, but her breath releases as a low sigh. "We need something meaningful to do here or we're going to lose our minds." The words come rushing out before she can stop them: "I'm thinking of going overt on the island."

[carriesabigstick]

"And no jury of your peers would convict you." Arthur adds with a chuckle but his expression sobers at Joan's comment. Not that he disagrees but there are implications. "If you do go overt, and there really isn't a reason not to beyond two. You have to consider Auggie and Annie. Those that know all three of you, how do they assume that you know each other? It won't necessarily blow their covers but they'll need to come up with plausible deniability."

Arthur's connections had been easy, Annie's work in the Smithsonian would put her in the same social circle as him for fund raisers and Auggie's work would do the same. As his wife, that could also be their connection but as he was already overt, it would have people looking at Annie and Auggie and wonder.

[lysistrategic]

"To the extent that they know anything, it's that we were working together on some high-level committees for African and Middle East cultural and technological development when each of us left the timeline and I was their boss," Joan explains the cover they've used. "But very few people have asked or been told outright. Our circles don't overlap any more here than they do at home, with the exception of the odd meal here or there and a few acquaintances in common."

It bothers Joan more than she likes to admit, how little they see of each other. Especially Auggie, whom she will always count as one of her dearest friends. Her loyalty to them is absolute, but she can't help but wonder if, out of the office, it runs the other way. For Arthur, that fear is probably very nearly transparent, but no one else would think to look. No one but Arthur knows that the loyalty of her people means everything to her, or that she fears their loyalty runs to him and not her.

"Cooper can be trusted," she says, shoving aside her concerns. "Of that much, I'm certain. He won't reveal anything he learns to anyone." Her fingers curl against Arthur's chest again. "But we'll talk to Annie and Auggie first. Protecting them comes before my frustration with idle uselessness."

[carriesabigstick]

It is only from knowing his wife so well, that Arthur sees the signs of Joan's thoughts. He wonders what could have happened between his time and his wife's. A thought he never thought that he'd have, but something clearly did for her to doubt their loyalty to her. Arthur knows that they would protect Joan long before they would him away from their world when his being their superior didn't matter.

"I will trust your gut instinct over anyone's, even a file full of documented information. I wouldn't give Annie and Auggie an option, but let them know that you are contemplating it. More of a surgical strike to give them a heads up rather than soliciting their opinion." Because while their lives will be affected, in the end the final decision was Joan's.

[lysistrategic]

Joan smiles softly and shakes her head as she smooths her hand down his chest. "I'm not their boss here, Arthur, just their friend." And with Annie, even that's tentative. "I don't have the right to overturn their lives without consulting them. They've both been here longer than I have and have lied to friends for a long time. You know how that goes. I won't make that decision for them, not without giving them a chance to distance themselves, create a story that they didn't know I was CIA, pretend to be livid for being used, or stand by me if they choose."

She tilts her head up to press a gentle kiss to his mouth. "I'm glad you're here, my love. I've missed your counsel, even when I don't take it."

[carriesabigstick]

That had been what he'd meant but he let Joan think she hadn't taken his counsel. Arthur had only meant that in the end the decision to come clean was her own and they couldn't influence it. Influence the timing, but not the final decision.

"It's always good to have another set of eyes look at a situation. It doesn't mean that you agree with the counsel, but that you listened." He returned the soft kiss. "I'm used to you listening and then following your instinct." Arthur chuckled softly, "But you always listen." It was one of the many reasons why she was an exceptional leader.