My story begins right after the season 6 debrief. If you haven't seen it, search 24 debrief on you tube and it's the first thing.
He was staring with disbelief at the grave stone wondering how he got there. After that so called debrief Jack had walked for a few hours just blowing off steam. He was so angry and still so alone. With no friends left and his daughter finished with him, this was the only place left to go. They were his people, but they were dead. A dull cloud of agony hung over him as he read the engraved letters over and over again.
"Excuse me."
Jack jumped, surprised by the interruption, and turned around.
"I'm sorry if I startled you."
His tension began to rise. Human interaction caused it. Ever since he got back it had been happening. At a loss for words, he felt the desire to run, but she spoke again.
"Did you know my brother?"
At once he began to ease as those words penetrated his brain. Immediately he met her eyes without fear. She looked like Tony, but some years younger. With her simple question she became Jack's only friend, a bridge, and an inhabitant in his silent world.
"I-" he choked. "I'm Jack." and put out his hand.
The woman looked at him. The neutral expression of a stranger quickly vanished. Her face was so kind that, for the first time in months, Jack felt safe. She did not take his hand, but instead reached out to embrace him.
She knew who Jack was.
They sat on the bench side by side, maybe 20 yards off from the headstone of her brother and sister-in-law
She had dropped the beginning of friendly probing, knowing full well that this man knew her pain and had volumes of his own. They simply sat together not needing to speak.
After some time though, Jack found his voice and quietly asked "Did he tell you I was alive?"
She nodded.
Jack knew he could trust her, because Tony had trusted her that much.
"Did anyone tell you what happened that day? ...The day they died?" He asked, feeling familial obligation to this woman he had only just met.
She looked at him. "They told me it was a cover. Tony was supposed to die with her."
Jack looked down as a wave of memory hit him. He would tell her the whole story, but could not do that now. Without acknowledgment they were both aware they would see each other again.
Silence again settled over them. It was not uncomfortable.
After a few more minutes he looked towards the grave and then whispered as if out of reverence "What is your name?"
"Sophia"
"You look like your brother" He said and offered her a small smile.
She smiled too.
And then he asked about what he had read, but did not want to be true.
"Sophia?"
She looked at him.
"Michelle was pregnant?"
"Yes, Jack. It was a little boy."
Then the words on the stone were true. Henry Antonio Almeida (unborn) right beside both of his parent's names.
Jack's face fell into his hands and he wept for Tony and Michelle, and for himself that he didn't also die with Teri and their baby.
When he had finally stopped crying, she embraced him again. Jack accepted.
"Where were you since they died?" Sophia asked once they had separated again.
He didn't want to answer. That place, those 20 months should never again be breathed into the world, but he wanted her to know him. For the first time in years he wanted a new connection, this connection. So, he said it.
"I was- ... because of what I did, the reason we staged my death, I was abducted by the Chinese ...the same day Tony died."
Impulsively, he showed her his hand, the surface of the sea of wounds. "They tortured me for 20 months." he said quietly.
This she did not know. Deep sadness filled her expression.
"When did you return?"
"A month ago." He said and closed his eyes. Those circumstances were also not worth remembering. He was alone because of them.
She looked down, choosing her words.
"Jack, can I see you again? I'd like to be your friend if you'd like to be mine?"
He looked in her eyes again, almost surprised to be wanted. He had just wept in front of her and in a few words told her he had nothing but baggage. Secretly, he still felt he was the reason his friends were dead. Jack did not expect an invitation into her life.
"Yes." He said, in barely a whisper. "I would."
Sophia smiled at him. "I'd like that." Opening her bag she took out a pen and a random receipt. On the back of it she wrote her phone number and address. Handing it to him, she said "Come visit me. We'll talk more." And with that, she got up and kissed him lightly on the cheek. Walking back to the headstone she made the sign of the cross, kissed her hand and placed it on each of the engraved names. Then she was gone.
Jack sat there playing with the receipt in his fingers. Visit her? For the last month he had wandered like a wraith and lived like a fugitive. Afraid, alone, and empty. A mess. On the brink of disappearing to anywhere but LA. He looked over to where Tony and his family were lying in the ground, as if looking for guidance. Tony had left him behind, and also his little sister. Jack would be her friend. Though she would eventually see what he was and let him go, he owed it to Tony to respect her wishes. Finally Jack got up to leave. He looked one more time at the headstone. "You never told me about your sister." and he walked away.