Sitting Tight

Disclaimer: I just love 24, I don't have any share in it.

Author's Note: This is a short scene between Jack and Chloe. It's the middle of the "day," and they are stuck in a basement lit by two tiny windows up by the ceiling. The stairs collapsed, and the basement level is too tall to climb up to the door. It's not actually particularly shippy--it's just too much fun to write Chloe.


"This is your fault."

Jack paid no attention to the very dusty blond woman who was glaring his direction as he studied the room. He eyed the windows speculatively. "Even if we could get up there, neither of us would be able to fit through."

Chloe turned her glare to the windows. "It's barely big enough for my head, Jack."

"Damn it!" Frustrated, he kicked at some of the ruins of the staircase, now mostly broken splinters of wood jutting up at odd angles. He was ignoring several scrapes from their fall through a rotten step, even though one was bleeding pretty badly. Chloe was scowling even more fiercely than usual as she held her left arm to her body.

"You were too close behind me. It would have held if you weren't breathing down my neck."

Jack shook his head, shaking off the minor frustration he felt whenever Chloe started in. Expressing annoyance only made her respond in kind. "Okay, Chloe. I'm sorry."

She glanced up at him, then back down to her arm. "Sure. Whatever," somehow making her abrupt tone sound like an honest acceptance and not a brush-off.

They stood in silence, having already called CTU for an extraction that would take up to thirty minutes; things were, as usual, mind-numbingly boring when they weren't insane. Finally Chloe huffed and perched atop a relatively flat piece of rubble, her expression and cradled arms making her look like a temperamental child. Jack almost but didn't quite smile. Chloe looked up and caught his expression.

"What?"

"Nothing. Is your arm okay?"

"No."

"Is it broken?"

"No." A pause. "It's just a scrape."

Jack went over to her and sat down. "Let me see." Reluctantly, he pulled her other hand away. A long gash ran across her upper arm, and the moment Jack took her hand off it, blood welled up.

She pushed the wound back together and said, "I'll be fine."

"Damn it, Chloe. You'll need stitches. That's deep." He started unbuttoning his shirt.

"What are you doing?"

He took his shirt off and brought out his knife, cutting strips off. He folded some of the material and placed it over the gash, then tied it on securely.

"At least it's better than nothing."

"You look ridiculous."

He supposed he did. Chloe grabbed the remnants of Jack's shirt.

"Here. Yours aren't as deep." She mopped up blood from several cuts on his arms and dabbed almost gently at a cut on his abdomen, right underneath his ribs. He vaguely recalled something trying to stab him there as they fell, but hadn't really noticed it while he was preoccupied with trying to find a way out.

"Thanks."

"Yeah." She shifted on the beam. "Sorry about the shirt."

Jack shrugged. He'd lost better shirts, and for stupider reasons. He thought.

They sat together waiting for their rescue party to show up. Neither of them said much as the light from the windows grew dimmer until the door above them flashed open and a ladder poked through.

"You guys okay?" someone hollered down to them.

"Mostly, but Chloe's injured."

This statement earned him another glare, and he allowed himself a real smile as he helped Chloe over the broken boards to where the ladder had come to rest, even to the point of almost smiling at her winces when she had to use her left arm to clamber over crates.

As she started up the ladder, she muttered back at him, "It's still your fault."

And Jack wasn't sure, but he thought—just maybe—he saw her smile quickly just before she turned away.