Author's Notes: The first chapter for a massive 100-chapter fic for 100situations at Livejournal. It's short, and may be a bit confusing at first, but everything will come together, I promise! Please, drop me a comment and tell me what you think! No flames though, please!

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"Hello, Jack."

That voice...he remembered that voice. It was soft, gentle, like a summer's breeze blowing through the trees. There was a lightness to it, despite the sad undertone to it. Yes, he remembered that voice. It wasn't something he'd likely forget. But now? Now he found it hard to put a face to the voice. Was it Audrey?

"I know you can't hear me, Jack," the voice continued in a quiet tone, "But the doctors said it might help your recovery just being around other people."

Recovery? The word seemed to bounce around Jack's head, as if it were an out-of-control plane searching for a place to land. He was recovering? From what? Where was he? Why couldn't he speak? Why couldn't he move?

A sad sigh. "I probably shouldn't be here. But Mr. Buchanan told me what had happened and..."

Bill Buchanan? He remembered him, yes. He was the director at CTU, where he worked. Yes, that much he could remember. But who was this person speaking with him now? If it wasn't Audrey, than who else could it be?

"I'm so sorry, Jack," the voice whispered, fighting back a sob.

It was maddening...being trapped in the darkness, not allowed to speak, see, move. Jack couldn't remember much about what had happened prior to waking in this darkness, but he knew that something dreadful had happened. He could feel it within his aching heart, with every beat of his heart, he could hear the quiet whispers that foretold his fate, and the fate of his friends.

"You always did have a knack for getting into trouble," the voice said with forced joviality, before sinking into solemnity. "You're a brave man, Jack Bauer...you deserve a better fate than this."

Panic began to rise within Jack. This person was speaking as if he was dead, as if his life wasn't worth living anymore. He found it frustrating being unable to respond to this person who was clearly concerned for him. They had to be a friend, at the very least. Many people had visited him, but this one the only person that had caused his mind to awaken to an almost fully alert state.

A delicate hand traced a path from his forehead down his cheek tenderly. The touch seemed to unlock his hidden memories, allowing them to flow back to him in a wave of thoughts. Everything that had happened in the past several years was suddenly clear to him, especially what had happened in the last 24 hours.

This person couldn't be Audrey...because Audrey was dead.

Jack suddenly found it difficult to breathe, and he could hear his heart monitor spike a little as he struggled for breath. Audrey was dead. He had promised to save her...and he had failed. Now, he was trapped in some sort of coma, unable to speak, weep, cry out. All his emotions were bottled up within his shell of a body.

And it hurt. It hurt more than anything.

"Oh, Jack," the voice murmured, slowly gaining vehemence as it spoke to him. "You have to fight this; you have to wake up. People need you, Jack. You're a hero to so many people. They need someone to idolize, Jack. They need you."

Jack did not stir, which did not surprise Kate Warner in the least. Jack was a soldier, a fighter, a hero even...but even heroes were not invincible, as Jack was proving now. He had always seemed larger than life to her, but that had faded over the years since she last had seen him. As he laid here now, seemingly lifeless in this hospital bed, he looked no more than a broken man...and Kate's heart went out to him.

Even if he awoke, what would he awake to?

Kate had been briefed by Bill Buchanan before she'd come here. Originally, she'd gone to CTU to speak with Jack on a personal matter--her father, Bob Warner, had gone missing several months ago, and had been pronounced dead the moment they found his car in a gully far off the main roads heading into Los Angeles. Blood matching her father's had stained the car's interior seats, and the police said it was far too much blood having been lost for anyone to have survived. Kate had insisted they check around the gully for a body, at the very least, but nothing turned up. While her father was suppose to be dead, Kate could not believe that, would not believe it, which is why she went to CTU, to Jack.

She knew Jack would believe her; Jack had always believed her. While their relationship hadn't lasted the test of time, she'd still kept in touch with him for a short while after they'd broken up. Perhaps it was desperation--perhaps it was something else entirely--but Kate had believed that Jack could, and would, help her find her father...alive, as well.

But her hopes had been shattered upon arrival at CTU, when she found out that Jack Bauer had been involved in a horrendous car crash, and had slipped into a coma that the doctor's didn't believe he would recover from. Not only that, but the woman that he had apparently been seeing had died shortly before the crash...or, at least, that was what she had been told.

She should have gone home then. But she hadn't. Instead, she had requested to see Jack Bauer. If only for one last time...

Her expression softened further as she took in his weakened form, her hand still resting on his cheek. "What has the world done to you?" She let her hand drop to her side then, standing.

He could feel her presence fading; she was leaving. But her voice was still humming loudly in his ears and resounding within his head. The face was materializing before his mind's eye, and he could just make out the outline of the woman's face. It was a woman, yes, but it wasn't Chloe. It wasn't Audrey. Nor was it Marilyn.

"Goodbye, Jack Bauer," the woman placed a dove-like kiss on his forehead.

Blond hair. Radiant blue eyes. A soft, pale complexion. A sturdy countenance. It was all coming back to him. That voice. That touch. The woman in his mind's eye smiled at him, and he recognized it as a memory. He knew that smile. He knew that woman.

Kate turned to leave, her face a mixture of concern and disappointment. What had she been expecting? Jack to magically awake from his languid state? That would be impossible, of course. The doctors couldn't even wake him with their modern medicine. And she was no longer the woman he loved, so what difference would she make? None.

None. The word sounded hollow and cold within her own head as she took a few steps towards the door. Her steps were slow, methodical. She didn't want to leave him...not like this. She may not have loved him anymore, but he was still a friend...and she would always be concerned for his well-being.

Goodbye, Jack, she thought silently.

But just as she neared the doorway, an unmistakably gravelly voice murmured, "Kate."

Her eyes widened as she turned around just in time to see Jack's eyelids flutter open slowly. "Jack?"

"Kate?" he said again, almost as if testing his own voice, unsure of himself.

Kate turned and yelled out the doorway for the doctors, then returned to Jack's side. "It's me, Jack."

He tried to smile, but couldn't find the strength to. Instead, he just whispered, "I know."

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A/N: Please review!