A/N: I wrote this story ages ago and thought I'd share the first part and possibly the rest as well if anyone's interested. It's an alternate ending for Season 1 and onwards. Is, or will be, Jack/Nina.

Rating: K+ for now at least

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters except for Nina's family.

Reviews are very much appreciated!

Mason disconnected the phone call.

"That was Jack. The Drazens are both dead."

Nina closed her eyes and let out a small sigh of relief. "Is he all right?"

"He sounded fine." Mason started back into his upstairs office. "Keep me posted if he calls back."

"Sure." She walked behind her desk and sat down, for a moment allowing herself to relax and thus missing Tony slip out of the room.

Teri Bauer, however, noticed and frowned upon his demeanour; the entire office seemed relieved to hear their boss was OK and the bad guys had been caught, why wasn't Tony?

She took a few steps out of the room to go after him but Nina stopped her.

"Teri, where are you going?"

"Just to the ladies room", she lied haphazardly, giving the other woman a slight smile. "I need to freshen up."

"OK, but be careful." Nina walked her to the office door. "As a matter of fact, I think I should come with you."

"Nina, I'm a grown woman. I can go to the bathroom myself. Just stay here in case Jack calls back."

"All right then." Nina frowned, something was bugging her. "But come right back here, OK?"

Teri nodded and started down the corridor.

"Nina? Can you come up for a moment?" Mason was on the stairs.

"Yeah, I just…" She looked after Teri, battling her inner instinct to follow Jack's wife, before walking back into the room. "Is it urgent?"

Mason rolled his eyes. "Is there something that isn't urgent today? Is something wrong?"

"I'll be right there, OK? I just want to check on Teri."

"Fine." Mason walked back upstairs, mumbling something about babysitters.

Nina walked to the bathroom.

"Sorry, Teri, I know you didn't want to be followed, I just wanted to check you're all right."
Silence. Nina frowned.

"Teri?"

Still nothing. She walked to the cubicle doors, cursing under her breath when she noticed they were all empty. Where the Hell was Teri?

The corridor was empty too and Nina rushed back to the office.

"Has anyone seen Teri Bauer?"

A few of her subordinates shook their heads. "Not since she left a while ago."

"Damn it!" Nina walked back to the corridor. "Teri! Are you here?"

No answer. "Teri, don't play with me, not now. Please. I know you're mad at me for sleeping with Jack but…"

She shut up, muttering to herself. "Never mind. We don't need everybody to know that."

After a few moments of running the corridor up and down she saw Tony come out of one of the smaller computing rooms.

"Oh good, Tony. Have you seen…?"

Her sentence was cut short when he pointed a gun at her. Nina could feel her eyes widen.

"What are you playing at? Tony?"

He glanced behind him; the exit was clear.

"I'm really sorry, Nina."

"What do you mean?" Her heart was bounding so fast, her eyes glued to the gun. "Sorry about what?"

"That I have to do this." He raised the gun and she suddenly realized what was going on. He was the traitor.

"No, Tony, please…"

The words were drowned by the gun sound. Nina tried to move out of the way but still felt a sudden, burning pain in her left shoulder, dangerously close to her heart and saw her own blood paint the floor red before her legs gave out and everything went dark.

Jack watched as the guards drove Tony away from the parking lot, handcuffed and guarded, no longer a threat to any of them. He shook his head, closing her eyes for a moment; this was absolutely unbelievable. He had worked with Tony for years, they had become good friends, and he couldn't bring himself to accept he had betrayed all of them like this.

He slammed his hand on the button that opened the sliding doors into the corridor and ran up the stairs to CTU floor. He had to find his family and brief the office; maybe then this nightmare would be over.

He opened the stairway door and nearly tripped on someone lying on the floor.

"What the…oh my God."

His eyes took in the blood and the small frame of the woman on the floor, looking deathly pale.

"Nina?" He kneeled down, already hitting 911 on his mobile and lifted her jaw to get his fingers on the artery in her neck.

"Nina, please." He mumbled, desperately searching for a pulse, his eyes filling with tears. "Don't you dare die on me!"

Something moved under his fingers and he pressed down harder, lowering his head close to her mouth to check if she was breathing. To his tremendous relief, he now felt a faint beat in her neck and an even more faint drift of air on his cheek.

"Thank God." He wiped tears from his eyes and looked at the gunshot wound on her chest; the bullet had to have missed the heart or she would definitely be dead by now. He wondered if Tony had shot her right before trying to escape or if she had been lying in here longer.

"Where the hell are they?" He cursed the Los Angeles paramedics under his breath, touching Nina's cheek. A quiet moan escaped her mouth and her eyes fluttered open.

"Nina?" Jack placed his hands on both sides of her neck to support her head and to keep her from moving.

"Jack?" Her voice was a coarse whisper. "What happened?"

"Don't worry about it now, OK? You'll be fine, just lie still."

"Am I dying?" Her green eyes searched his and he gave her a gentle smile.

"Not if I have anything to say about it."

She turned her eyes down to see the wound, which he had covered with his coat to slow down the bleeding. It wasn't helping much; blood was still flowing underneath. It didn't look good.

"Jack?" She swallowed. "If I don't make it…"

"Shh." He touched her cheek again. "Don't even think about that. You'll be absolutely fine."

"No, I…I need you to know something. If I don't see you again, I…"

"Dad?"

He turned his head to see his daughter standing on the CTU doorway. "Kim? Are you all right?"

"Yes. What's going on?" She walked closer. "Nina?"

She turned her head. "Kim. I'm so glad to see you're OK."

Kim kneeled down next to her dad. "What happened?"

Nina's eyes clouded over and Jack looked at his daughter.

"Kim, go back to the office, OK? I already called an ambulance, she'll be fine. Tell your mother I'll be right there."

"I haven't seen her." Kim frowned. "I just got back here; I thought she was with you."

Jack shook his head, getting a bit worried now. "I'm sure she's here somewhere. I'll just make sure Nina's OK; I'll come find you then."

Nina had closed her eyes to stop a tear escaping, when she remembered what had happened before she had been shot. Teri was still missing, it wasn't good.

"Jack…"

The elevator door opened and paramedics rushed to them. Kim backed away.

"What happened?" A female paramedic took Nina's pulse and hooked her up to a monitor.

Jack stood up. "I found her like this. She's been shot."

"OK, we'll take it from here." The paramedics lifted Nina into a gurney and Jack joined his daughter.

"Will she be all right?"

"It's impossible to say before we know the extent of her injuries." The gurney was moved into the lift and the paramedic glanced at Jack. "We'll let you know."

"Thank you." He watched the elevator doors close and walked to the CTU door, now packed with curious people. "What happened, Jack? Is Nina OK?"

"I'm not sure. We'll brief you all later when we have the details. You can go home, the situation's over. Thank you for your hard work today, everyone."

People scattered from the doorway, talking about Nina and everything that had happened on that day. Jack rubbed his face.

"Kim, wait in the office, OK? I'll go find your mother."

She nodded, taking a seat on Nina's desk and wrapping her arms around herself. People gave her sympathetic smiles as they filed out of the office.

Jack was getting very, very worried now; he had checked most of CTU and Teri was nowhere to be found. Nobody had seen her or heard anything.

He dialled his home phone number on his mobile to check if she had gone home; it was unlikely, though, that she would have left without Kim. Nobody answered.

Frowning, he noticed a few drops of blood leading into a small computer room: was that where Nina had been shot?

Deciding to check it out, he pushed open the door.

Nina felt as though she was drowning.

A white foam-like substance engulfed her and she looked wildly around, gasping for breath and trying to find a way out. Someone was calling her name and she fought desperately to get up towards the light above her.

"Miss Myers? Nina?"

She finally managed to open her eyes and blinked a few times, looking at the white walls before registering she was in a hospital.

"How are you feeling?"

The voice belonged to a friendly-looking nurse who was standing by her bed.

"What happened?" She tried to get into a sitting position but the nurse pressed down on her shoulder.

"Stay down, Nina. You were shot; the doctor will come and talk to you soon. You need to rest now."

"I'm not dead?" She remembered the dream; she had been convinced that was Heaven - or Hell.

"Not even close." The nurse smiled and fixed her pillow. "Rest."

She was met at the door by a doctor. "How are you doing, Nina? Any pain?"

Nina frowned, only now becoming aware of the dull, throbbing discomfort on her left shoulder. "It hurts."

"That was to be expected." The doctor adjusted a drip going into her hand. "We have you on morphine; it should keep the worst pain away. We removed the bullet in surgery and repaired the damage. You'll be fine."

"How bad was it?"

"Well, I'll say you were very lucky; if the bullet had entered your body a few centimetres to the right, you wouldn't have made it. There was no damage to your heart or lungs, but you did lose quite a lot of blood. We gave you a transfusion and with rest, you'll be as good as new."

"Thank you, Doctor." She sighed. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." He smiled. "I'll be back to check on you a little bit later. In the meantime, please try to sleep."

She slept, restlessly, plagued by nightmares, her waking moments haunted by memories of her and Tony, everything she must have missed during the few months they'd been together. It wasn't so bad he'd tried to kill her; she had been an obstacle on his way but he had betrayed them all, the whole office, and the whole country. He had tried to set up Jack, kill him; he had certainly killed Jamey and Nina didn't even want to think about what he had done to Teri.

She shivered with disgust when she thought about him touching her, all the nights they had spent together. How could she have been so blind?

She wanted desperately to see Jack; some sixth sense told her Teri was dead, in a way she had known already when she had been wandering the corridors of CTU in search of her. It would devastate Jack, despite the recent problems he had had with his wife, he had still loved her, loved her enough to get back together with her, to leave Nina. She needed to see him…but she was so tired…

Days passed and she drifted in and out of hazy sleep; waking up to eat and drink, even though very little, reluctantly getting out of bed to walk around with the nurse; seeing a physical therapist who guaranteed her arm would function perfectly well again after a while. On the fourth day she developed a high temperature, shivers and nausea and the doctor watched her, worried, prescribing a course of strong antibiotics to fight the infection that had claimed the gunshot wound. Some people visited her, her friends, colleagues, even bosses but not Jack; that much she gathered in her feverish state. No one told her what had happened, changing the subject every time she weakly brought it up.

A week in the hospital and the infection subsided; she was more lucid and wanted to go home during her waking moments; every time the doctor sternly refused to let her go and she gave up eventually. Her older brother arrived from Louisiana, her parents from Australia where they had been on holiday and she felt guilty for them having to interrupt it because of her.

Christina Myers watched her only daughter sleep and smiled, kissing her forehead. She didn't see her children very much as they were both so independent and reluctant to admit they might still need their parents but now she wowed to stay with Nina as long as possible. When her son Chris had called them in the hotel and told the news about his sister having been shot, Christina had felt her heart crush. She had been so scared Nina would die before she got to be on her side and now she thanked God several times a day for the fact she was going to be all right.

Paul Myers walked into the room, giving his wife a cup of coffee and brushing hair from his sleeping daughter's forehead. Nina's beautiful face was inherited from Christina, the dark hair and green-blue eyes were his but nobody else in the family had the long, thick lashes shadowing her cheeks, which had amazed her parents ever since she had been a baby.

"Chris went to get some things for her", he quietly said and Christina nodded.

"She keeps calling a name in her sleep: Jack. Do you know who that is?"

Paul frowned. "Jack Bauer, maybe? I think he's her boss at CTU."

"Why is she calling for him?" Christina stroked Nina's cheek and she turned her head a little, her eyes opening again.

"Mum?"

"Hey, sweetheart. We're here."

"Dad?" She turned her head to see her father smile at her.

"How are you feeling?"

She sighed and answered with a question of her own.

"How long have I been here?"

"Ten days. You've been sleeping for most of it, though."

Nina nodded, swallowing. "Mum? Can you do something for me?"

"Anything you need."

"I need you to go see Jack."

Christina glanced at her husband. "Who is he, honey? Your friend? Why hasn't he been to see you?"

"Because…"She fought another wave of tiredness that washed over her. "You'll understand when you go over. Please, mum."

"All right. Where does he live?"

TBC?