Worth The Pain
Author's notes: Takes place 18 months after season 5. Will most likely be JackChloe.
Disclaimer: I do not own 24…If I did, Audrey would be dying a slow and painful death and Jack and Chloe would be together.
Chapter One
Rebekah Avery was standing in front of the mirror in her bedroom applying a light pink shade of eye shadow to her eyelids. Finishing, she looked in the mirror, proud of her makeup job she walked across the room to put the eye shadow away in a small makeup chest she had received for Christmas. Rebekah didn't really have any relatives. Her grandparents were both dead, and her parents were both only children. All she had was an older sister who lived in Los Angeles, and a niece and nephew which she had never met. They were nine month old twins. She hated her parents more than anything else in the world, but loved her sister more than anything else in the world, even though she was 16 years older.
Rebekah turned around to look out the window at the quiet San Francisco street on which she lived. She was beginning to wonder where her sister was. It was 5:00 PM, she should be there soon. She didn't really know why her sister had decided this weekend to come up, she never really had time to. All Rebekah knew about her sister's life was that she worked for some place called CTU and that she was a single mother of two. Then Rebekah realised that she had no way to greet her sister, seeing as the last time she spoke to her was nine months earlier when she had given birth to the twins. But that was over the phone, and it was very brief as her sister was very tired. The last time she had actually seen her was two years earlier, when she had come up for Christmas.
A car had pulled up onto the Avery's driveway, and she saw her sister walk out of the vehicle and open the back door, where she was clearly taking the babies out of her car.
Rebekah made a run out of her bedroom, sprinted down the hall, and leaped down the stairs screaming "Mom! Dad! She's here! Chloe's here!"
Rebekah could act very childish for a girl of 16.
Her parents scampered out the door to greet their daughter and grandchildren. Rebekah had wanted to be the first person Chloe would see when she reached home. Looks like her parents had beaten her to that.
Once again the door opened and Chloe O'Brian walked in. Rebekah despised that last name. O'Brian. It was the last name of the man her sister had married and divorced. The name of the man who had cheated on her beloved sister so many times. Rebekah often wondered why she hadn't changed her name back to Avery.
"Hey Rebekah" Chloe said, and Rebekah slipped back once again out of her thoughts and into her life. "Hey Chloe! Long time no see!" She walked up to her sister and gave her a hug. It was clearly an awkward moment for both sisters. Remembering the babies, Rebekah desperately tried to remember their names, she knew that they were named after some of Chloe's friends who died the day the former president was killed. That she remembered. The little girl's name was Michelle something, she couldn't quite remember the middle name, but that didn't matter so much as the first name. The boy's name was harder. He had three names. Was it Edgar Tony Jack? Tony Jack Edgar? She wasn't quite sure. It was a combination of the three that was for sure. Mrs. Avery came in holding her grandchildren proudly, "Hey Rebekah, meet Michelle and Jack" Chloe seemed quite content that her little sister was meeting her children at last.
The family moved into the living room where they talked until dinner, and when they finished dinner, they returned to the living room, where they talked some more. Except it was mostly Chloe talking to her parents, which made Rebekah feel left out, but she always felt left out when she was with her family, so it felt normal to her.
At around ten o'clock Mr. And Mrs. Avery decided that they were tired and should go to bed, anyways they both had work in the morning. This left Chloe and Rebekah sitting on the couch in silence. Eventually Chloe piped up, "Hey, I was going to walk down to that lookout point down the street with the beautiful sunsets. I thought I should give the twins a chance to see it, seeing as they're still awake and won't go to sleep. Maybe it will calm them down. Want to come?" Rebekah said okay, and the sisters walked down the street.
As soon as they left the house, Rebekah began to chatter up about how much she hated her parents. Eventually she said "Your babies are lucky. They're probably never ever going to hate their parents. They've got an awesome mom and their dad is probably pretty awesome too, considering he dated you! They must love the both of you" Rebekah meant this as a compliment, but somehow, she sensed that she had hit one of her sister's soft spots, Rebekah was quite aware that her sister was unstable. Chloe stayed quiet for a minute and then said " They haven't even met their father. He was in jail when I learnt I was pregnant, he was in there because he was a mole. He tricked me, he used me. I thought he loved me, but he only used me so he could get valuable information to leak to the terrorists. If I hadn't trusted him so much then David Palmer wouldn't have died. Neither would've Michelle, Tony, Edgar, or Jack, and the other people I worked with." Rebekah could see tears flowing down Chloe's face, she had no idea that so much weight lay on her sister's shoulders. A helicopter flew overhead, lower than normal. Chloe wiped her tears and said "We should get shelter, I have a bad feeling about that helicopter" Rebekah couldn't imagine why anyone would be suspicious of a helicopter, but Chloe was smarter and older than Rebekah, so Rebekah trusted her. Seeing as they were at the park and had no time to run home, they ran into the single stalled bathroom, which was the only shelter they could find. Chloe took the babies out of their stroller and handed Michelle to Rebekah. Chloe held Jack. She instructed her sister to duck and cover the babies. Just as she did, they heard an Earth smattering ka-boom, and saw the mirror shatter in front of them. When Chloe felt it was safe to go outside, what they found was shocking. The once quiet street was completely destroyed. There was no chance that anyone in their homes could have survived. They were the lone survivors of an unusual bombing.
15 time zones away, in an unknown area of China, a shirtless man was marched down a cold concrete hallway. On his back you could see long scratches, cut deep into his flesh. They were going to kill him. He had not released any information that would be useful to the government of China, so, after 18 months of torture and imprisonment, he was dubbed useless. For the first time in years he was terrified. Searching his mind for a familiar face to comfort him, and coming up empty handed, he thought, why don't they just kill me now? Then he thought, think of someone you love, someone you care deeply about, not just as a friend, something more. The first face that came to mind was Terri. But she was long dead and her face eventually disappeared. The next face was Audrey's but it quickly flickered off. A third face came into his mind, and this time it didn't disappear. It stayed, and it grew brighter. The face was Chloe O'Brian. He had never really realised how much he loved her, until this very moment. Now he was going to die, and he had never told her just how he felt. Now Chloe's face seemed to be talking to him, and it said "Don't let go of me, we have such a great chance with each other. Don't let it blow away. I can never imagine living without you." The face in his mind was right, he still had a chance to survive. When he entered the execution room, the guards grabbed him and dragged him over to a wall, which he would be chained to, and shot. But he was smarter, and he escaped the guard's grip and grabbed his gun. He shot both the guards in the head. They died instantly. The man hoisted himself up onto the wall and opened the tiny window and climbed out. Jack Bauer had escaped. And it was all because he was in love with Chloe O'Brian.
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