This started as a one-shot but quickly got out of hand. I think it will end up with about three chapters. It picks up in the closing scene of Day 6. A dripping wet and well armed Jack entered James Heller's house just moments earlier to confront him.

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As always, I don't own a thing here, but wish with all of my heart that I did.

HOME AND FAMILY

Chapter 1

Day 6, 5:49am

Jack paced in the den of Jim Heller's Malibu beach house. Their argument raged on. Jack's gun was drawn but no longer pointed at Heller. "Why didn't you try to get me out of China?" Jack hissed angrily.

"I did try," Heller calmly defended himself.

"Not hard enough," Jack shouted. His anger and pent up emotion over the last 20 months finally bubbled to the surface and overflowed. "You had the political power. Was the timing not right? Was it a little too complicated? Or was I just an acceptable loss?"

"Jack, I understand your anger," Jim replied calmly. His mild demeanor was irritating Jack even more than if the older man had screamed back and Jack suspected that Heller knew it and was using it to destabilize Jack's position.

"Shut up!" Jack shouted him down. "You don't understand a thing about me."

"Pop-Pop, why are you shouting?" said a sleepy voice from the other side of the room.

Jack turned quickly surprised by the sound. His eyes fell on the figure of a small girl. Jack guessed her age to be between two-and-a-half and three years old. She was standing in the arched doorway that led from the dimly lit den to the bedrooms down the hall. She was dressed in sunny yellow pajamas and clutched a stuffed koala bear. The little girl had pale blond hair and brown eyes which she rubbed with the back of her free hand. The gesture immediately brought back memories of Kim at the same age. In fact, Jack realized, she looked a lot like Kim at that age. That was when reality hit him like a bomb.

The timing was right. If Audrey had been early in the first trimester of a pregnancy when Jack staged his death at CTU just a little more than three years earlier, their child would now be about two-and-a-half. Jack couldn't take his eyes off of her. He could see a mix of himself and Audrey in the child. It was undeniable; she was the product of their union.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart," Heller said as he reached for the child. She crossed the room looking warily at Jack, who quickly concealed his weapon. "Here," Jim said as she approached the sofa. "Climb up on Pop-Pop's lap."

The little girl did as she was told and nestled her head against her grandfather's neck. "You should use an inside voice," the little girl admonished him as she yawned.

"You're right," he told her. He kissed her forehead. "I was wrong to shout inside. I'll try not to do it again." He glanced up at Jack who dropped his eyes to the floor. "It's too early for you to be up, munchkin. How about if I get you some water and you go back to bed?"

"I want Mommy to get me some water," she whined.

"Mommy's sleeping right now. Do you remember what the doctor said? He told us that Mommy is still very sick and she's going to sleep a lot for a few days. For now, Pop-Pop is going to take care of you just like before Mommy came home. Once Mommy gets better she'll be able to take care of you again."

The little girl nodded. Jack wondered how much of this she understood. She was too young to understand why her mother had gone away and now was back physically if not emotionally. He wondered if Audrey had even recognized her child when she came home. All at once his heart was breaking. He watched Jim snuggle with his little girl and he fought the urge to snatch the child from Jim's arms and take her into his own. He wanted to smother her with kisses and tell her that he was her daddy and that they were a family; that they would live together like a family and that together, they would make her Mommy all better. Instead, he put on his internal brake and stepped back so that he was no longer close enough to touch her.

"I…I'll get her some water," Jack stammered and turned to go into the kitchen. He could feel himself shaking all over, uncontrollably, as if he had a fever. It took him a minute or two of leaning against the kitchen wall to get himself back together, but once he did, he picked up the nearest phone and dialed CTU.

"CTU, O'Brian," Chloe said as she answered the phone.

"Chloe, it's Jack."

"Jack! Where have you been? We've got half of CTU looking for you. You don't have to disappear. Vice President Daniels granted you a pardon; you and Buchanan and Karen Hayes. They can't prosecute you for what you did this morning."

"That's great, that's great," Jack said somewhat dismissively. It was good news, but it wasn't his immediate concern. "I need a favor," Jack said quietly, wanting to make sure that Jim Heller didn't overhear him.

"So what's new?" Chloe muttered sarcastically under her breath.

Jack chose to ignore her. "This should only take a few minutes. I need you to search the vital records database. Audrey Raines had a baby, probably born in Washington, about seven or eight months after you helped me to escape. I need you to find a birth certificate."

Chloe said nothing, but Jack could hear the keys clicking under her fingers. While he was waiting, he went through the cupboards to find a child's cup. He found it on the third try, filled it with water and snapped on a plastic lid.

"Got it," Chloe answered after less than a minute. "She had a baby girl, Jacqueline Alicia, 8 pounds, 4 ounces, 24 inches long."

"Who's listed as the father?" Jack asked. He knew that he was the child's father, but he needed to know if Audrey had put his name or Paul's on the birth certificate.

"Jack, you're not going to like this," Chloe said nervously.

"It's okay, Chloe. I already know that the baby is mine. I just want to know if my name's on the birth certificate. From a legal standpoint this might be important to me if Jim Heller continues to try and keep me away from Audrey. If Paul Raines is listed as the father, I'll have to prove paternity through DNA."

"You're listed as the father," she told him.

Jack let out a quiet sigh of relief. "Good," he said matter-of-factly. "I'll need a copy of the birth certificate."

"I'll send it to your PDA," Chloe responded automatically.

Just as automatically, Jack started to respond, "Fine," but then he stopped and remembered that his PDA had taken a swim in the Pacific Ocean that likely rendered it useless just like his phone. "That won't work," he said instead. "I'll have you fax it to me when I need it."

"When will that be?" Chloe asked. "Morris and I are going home soon."

"I'll keep that in mind. If you don't hear from me in a half hour, go home."

Jack returned to the den with the glass of water in hand. Jacqueline watched Jack approach and reached shyly for her cup.

"Here you go, sweetheart," Jack said with a soft smile.

Jacqueline said nothing but took a long drink.

"What do you say, honey?" her grandfather asked.

"Thank you," she said in a quiet voice. Her eyes flitted upward to meet Jack's and then back down. She took another long drink and handed the cup to Heller. "All done," she told him.

Jim smiled warmly at Jacqueline. His love and devotion to the child were evident. "Okay, let's go back to bed," he said as she stood up with Jacqueline in his arms. She yawned again and rested her head on his shoulder as her grandfather carried her from the room. As they turned the corner, Jacqueline lifted her head to peek over Jim's shoulder at Jack. She waved shyly and then put her head back down. Jack waved back and smiled.

Jack waited until Jim was out of the room and down the hall before stepping behind Jim's desk. He again dialed Chloe's number. She answered on the first ring and Jack wasted no time on pleasantries. "Chloe fax that birth certificate to this number," he glanced down at Jim's fax machine and read the number off to her.

"Got it. You should have it in less than a minute. Can I go home now?" Chloe asked sarcastically.

Jack couldn't help but smile. "Yeah, get some rest. Thanks, Chloe," he said as the fax started coming across the machine.

It was another two or three minutes before Jim Heller came back into the den. Jack was seated comfortably in the big leather desk chair. He was leaned back with his hands behind his head. It was clear to him that, no matter how much Heller was trying to pretend otherwise, his presence was annoying to the older man and he was beginning to enjoy that upper hand.

"Is she asleep?" Jack asked.

"No, but she's tired. She'll fall back to sleep soon," Jim answered without looking at Jack.

"When did you plan on telling me?"

"Telling you what?"

"That I'm her father."

"What makes you believe that you're her father?" Jim asked. Heller could play poker with the best of them. He gave no hint of what was in his hand. If Jack thought that Heller was going to give up easily, he was wrong.

"Well for starters, she was conceived about three-and-a-half years ago and Audrey and I were together then," Jack said coolly.

"That doesn't make her yours," Jim replied in an equally cool tone.

Jack squinted and shook his head. "Are you suggesting that your daughter was sleeping around? Most fathers would prefer not to admit that."

"I didn't say that she was sleeping around, but she was still married."

"So you think she was sleeping with both Paul and me? That still doesn't sound like something you would be very proud to admit."

Jim said nothing as he glared at Jack.

"That little girl couldn't look any less like Paul Raines. Don't insult me, Jim. She's mine and you know it. You may not like it, but you know it's true," Jack spat.

"Believe what you want, Jack," Heller said nonchalantly with a shrug of indifference.

"It's not just what I want to believe, Jim, it's the truth!" Jack grabbed the single page from the fax machine. "It's my name that Audrey put on Jacqueline's birth certificate not Paul's. Now, if you still want to say that Paul is Jacqueline's father, you're going to have to go to court to prove it. I'll happily provide a DNA sample."

Again Jim stared silently at Jack.

"If you think you are going to keep my daughter away from me, you're wrong," Jack told Heller calmly. "You may have been able to get some judge to give you a restraining order to keep me away from Audrey, but I'll fight you to the Supreme Court if you try and keep me away from Jacqueline. Right now, Audrey is in no shape to take care of her, but I am and if I have to, I'll go to court to get custody of her."

Jim cast his eyes downward in a gesture of silent defeat. He headed for the bar in the corner of the room. "Do you need a drink?" he asked.

Jack nodded. "Scotch and water."

Jim dropped two ice cubes into a glass and poured bourbon over them. Then he set the scotch bottle along with a carafe of water on the bar and indicated wordlessly to Jack that he was welcome to pour his own. Jim retreated to the sofa while Jack poured his drink.

Jim didn't look at Jack when he spoke again. "Please don't take Jacqueline away from me." His voice was quiet and he no longer sounded like the take-charge Secretary of Defense that Jack knew so well. "She's the only reason that I've stayed sane for the last few months. When I thought Audrey was dead, her daughter was all that I had left. We've spent the last few months together trying to heal. I've spent more time with Jackie than I did with my own children when they were growing up. Until last night when I got the call that Audrey was alive, Jacqueline was the only bright spot in my life. Now after seeing Audrey and not knowing how well she'll recover from her ordeal, Jacqueline is still incredibly important to me."

"Where is Audrey?"

"Asleep in the master bedroom. The doctor sedated her."

"What did he tell you? What's her prognosis?"

Heller finally met Jack's gaze. "He didn't give me any guarantees. He said that right now, she tested positive for high levels of several drugs. That's how they controlled her. They used the drugs to calm her down and make her compliant. From what he could tell, she must have fought them at first and the only way they could control her was with drugs. He said that she has a number of healed defense injuries, broken fingers and forearms and stab wounds as if she was actively fighting someone off."

Jack closed his eyes and shook his head unable to bear any more pain. "Did they assault her?" He felt bile rise to his throat at the thought of Cheng or his men raping his beloved Audrey.

"The doctor examined her. He said there was no evidence of recent trauma. He couldn't rule out that they raped her earlier in her captivity." Jim looked away. He stood up and walked to the window overlooking the ocean. "It's a father's worst nightmare, isn't it?" he said softly knowing that Jack, having an adult daughter himself, would identify with his own fears. "I almost could accept her being killed in an accident, but the thought of some bastard raping her is more than I can even think about."

Jack nodded. He felt responsible and the guilt was nearly strangling him. He remembered learning after Teri's death that she had allowed herself to be raped in order to protect Kim. The pain and the guilt at that moment were no different than they were now.

Jim continued interrupting Jack's train of thought. "The doctor said that the drugs in her blood stream are long acting. He suggested keeping her sedated for a few days until those drugs are gone. Then he will lighten up the sedation and let her wake up. At that point we'll know how much psychological damage has been done. It's possible that with counseling she'll go on to lead a normal life but it's also possible that they completely broke her and she'll have lost touch with reality and never get it back. We just have to wait and see."

Jack nodded vaguely and sipped his drink. The two sat in silence for a couple of minutes. Jack spoke first. "Why didn't Audrey tell me that she was pregnant?"

"She didn't know until several weeks after your 'funeral'. Then when she found out that you were alive, she wanted to wait until the crisis passed to tell you. That was why she came out to the warehouse that morning after Charles Logan had been arrested. She wanted to see you and tell you everything, but before she got a chance to tell you, the Chinese got to you."

"What do we do now, Jim?" Jack asked quietly. The storm between the two of them seemed to have calmed. They might not be friends, but they weren't enemies either. "I understand why you blame me for what happened to Audrey. I also understand your desire to protect Audrey and Jacqueline, but I love them. I may not have any legal right to be part of Audrey's life, but I do have a right to be part of Jacqueline's. I want her to know that I'm her father and that I love her. I want to take care of Audrey. She and Jacqueline and I should be together. We're a family. I don't want to take either of them away from you, Jim, but you understand how important family is to me. I'll do everything in my power to keep both of them safe. I have no intention of going back to work for the intelligence community. I won't get sucked back into that again. My father's company needs a CEO and I'm the logical choice. I'd like to bring the company back from the kind of work my father and Graem were doing and make it legitimate again. That's the legacy I want to leave for my daughters and my nephew."

"I wish that I could believe you, Jack."

"You can believe me. I won't let Audrey and Jacqueline get hurt the way Kim and Teri did. It won't happen. I won't let it."

Jim took a final swallow of his drink. He set down the glass harder than necessary and let out a long slow sigh. "If I tell you to get the hell out of here, you'll have a lawyer within 24 hours and you'll take my granddaughter away from me, won't you?"

"Yes," Jack said quietly as he held Jim's gaze.

"Then I don't have a choice. Stay here until Audrey gets better. If she's in a position to make her own decision, then it's hers to make. If she never reaches that point, I'll fight you tooth and nail for custody of Jacqueline."

"I can live with that," Jack said. "Now I'd like to see Audrey."

Jim stood and led Jack to the master bedroom where Audrey lay sleeping. "Thank you," Jack whispered as Jim opened the door and stepped aside to allow Jack to enter. Tears filled Jack's eyes as he walked slowly to the bed and sat down on the edge. "Hi, sweetheart," he said softly. He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. "I love you, Audrey," he told her quietly. "Thank you for giving me such a beautiful daughter. I can't wait to get to know her. We're going to be a family, Audrey. I promise you, baby." Jack stroked her face gently and tucked her hair behind her ears. "No one is ever going to hurt you again. I won't let them. You just rest now, honey and when you wake up, I'll be here. Jacqueline and I need you to get better, Audrey," he told her in a quivering voice. "I'll make sure you get whatever help you need. I just want you to get better." He was sobbing quietly as he leaned in close to kiss her lips. "I love you with all my heart, Audrey, and I always will."

Jack sat for a few moments longer just watching Audrey sleep. He hadn't slept in over 24 hours now and the scotch was beginning to take its toll. He could feel his eyes going closed. He wanted to lie down beside her and snuggle against her warm body, but knew that it wasn't the way to gain Jim's trust. The two had found some common ground, their love of both Audrey and Jacqueline, and Jack needed to tread carefully on that ground. He kissed Audrey's hand one more time and then stood and turned to leave the room. Jim stood in the doorway.

"You look like you could use some sleep," Jim commented.

Jack said nothing at first. Something inside of him felt that admitting to needing sleep made him weak. Never mind that he hadn't slept in almost 28 hours now. Never mind that he had spent the last 20 months in a Chinese prison camp where they used every means possible to break him. None of that mattered. He needed to look strong for Jim. He needed to prove his worth and strength as a husband for Audrey and a father for Jacqueline.

"If I could catch a couple of hours I'd be fine. I want to help you take care of Audrey and Jacqueline."

Jim shook his head. "You need a hot shower and about 18 hours of sleep. I have a nurse coming around 9 o'clock to help take care of Audrey. I'm sure that Jacqueline's going to sleep for a while. She woke up when we brought Audrey home a few hours ago. We tried to keep the noise down, but it didn't work. She woke up and I had to explain to her what was happening. So her sleep was interrupted twice. Besides, I can take care of Jackie. I've done it for the last few months. Today isn't going to be any different. You get some rest. You're not any good to either of them if you're exhausted."

"Thanks, Jim," Jack said quietly. He was only moderately surprised by Heller's change of heart. Jack had found the man's Achilles' heel. Jim was deeply afraid of losing his granddaughter to Jack and apparently had decided that making an enemy of a former covert operative wasn't a good idea. By the same token, Jack wasn't stupid. He knew that deep down Jim wanted him as far from Audrey and Jacqueline as possible and he had the resources to make that happen if he felt that he had to. Jack had to make sure that he didn't give Jim a reason to use those resources. So, for now, they would have to peacefully coexist, keeping in mind that their ultimate goal of happiness for Audrey and Jacqueline was the same.

Jack entered the guest bedroom and closed the door behind him. He was beyond exhausted and his body ached from head to toe. More than anything he wanted to simply drop down onto the bed and sleep for a week, but as he looked down at his wet, dirty clothes he knew that sleep would have to wait a little bit longer. Looking at the bed longingly, Jack sighed and dragged himself to the attached bathroom. He reached into the shower and turned the water to hot and then stripped out of his still damp clothes and let them drop to the ceramic tile floor. With that he checked the water temperature and stepped into the piping hot shower. It was a simple act, one that most Americans perform on a daily basis, but Jack hadn't stepped into a hot shower in 20 months. He reached for the soap and formed a lather in is hands. It was so different than the rare shower in the prison camp where the water was icy cold and the soap barely bubbled as he would scrub it roughly over his skin.

The emotion of the moment overwhelmed him. It was suddenly all very real. By all rights he should be dead right now. A little more than 24 hours earlier he had been given up as a casualty of war by his country. But instead, he had survived. That was the story of his life. He was a survivor. No matter how many bad things happened in his life and how many times he wanted to give up and die, he never did. He survived the raid on the Drazen's lair at the port. He survived a suicide mission when flying a nuclear bomb into the desert to detonate. He survived to escape from the Salazar drug cartel and he survived his heroin addiction. He survived a Secret Service plot to kill him. And now he had survived 20 months in a Chinese prison camp. For a moment he wanted to die again. For the moment he thought about how much easier it would be to be dead, but only for a second. There's a reason, he thought. There's a reason that I've survived it all. He knew the reason and it was right here in this house with him. He had to survive to start a new life with Audrey and Jacqueline and no one, not Jim Heller or all of his lawyers, was going to stop him.