The Most Tragic Thing About Nina Meyers
By EmptyWord

Summary: One-shot. "So it wasn't that she wanted his forgiveness or his trust or his anything."

Disclaimer: 24 is the property of 20th Century Fox.

It wasn't that she couldn't get the job done when it was asked of her. In that, she was as alike to Jack Bauer as no one else could be. She knew the stakes, down to the last innocent life, down to the last digit of a financial transaction. She knew the dangers too, the pitfalls and the obstacles, the political and legal minefields with every step she took. But she kept her eyes forward and her feet moving; she didn't stumble or hesitate or lose focus. She couldn't afford anything else and was vitally aware there was simply nothing else to be done.

It was the life she knew. She didn't like using a word as crass as mercenary, but it was close enough of a vernacular to describe the only means of survival hers had ever had. Nothing could deviate from the necessity of survival. Morals, compassion, and even guilt were luxuries she might have entertained had she the spare time for them.

So it wasn't that she couldn't carry through with what she knew was necessary. She just saw something in Jack that made it more of a struggle than it should have been.

When he talked with his wife on the phone and revealed the hint of a smile that didn't quite suit his face, or when he dressed down an employer with an arrogant severity barely tempered with compassion, or when he politely acknowledged District orders and then proceeded to break every rule in the book, she found her thoughts straying down a path she could not afford.

It was ridiculous, she knew, but it was something she had to continually remind herself of.

When she'd reached the end of her path, was one step away from crossing the finish line, and was making her last great escape, it was fitting, somehow, that he would be the one obstacle she couldn't get past. With bullets denting the windshield and the right front tire giving out, she realized she'd underestimated him for the first time. She didn't like the feeling.

But nothing had ever hurt her more than his bellowed "I trusted you!" Stung and bitter despite herself, she had thought savagely, I'm glad I killed your wife.

She couldn't think much beyond his enraged face for the next few hours, but she came to her senses in time enough to wrestle out full immunity and deportation to a chosen country for herself. Another first arrived for her as she left CTU headquarters, inclined her head back, and wondered if she might have had a chance at a different life.

But no one had ever offered her that chance, not even him, and she wasn't going to dwell on maudlin and impossible hopes. Hacking off at the root all her attachments to CTU, she made her next transaction and received her next assignment. His last words to her became a nightmare that looped relentlessly in her mind whenever she took pause.

She wasn't prepared for the hurt that choked her, years later, when she saw him again. He wasn't the Jack Bauer she had known but a shell of himself, hateful, enraged, and in pain beneath a brittle veneer of control, and that soothed her almost as much as it hurt her. She felt vindicated that he had suffered in the years between, as well as unreasonably resentful that she hadn't been at his side for any of it. That his eyes accused her every time they traded glances was an awareness she pushed aside to join the unceasing repetition of his last words to her.

And when he kissed her with the desperation of a man with nothing to lose, she damned herself for knowing him too well. She couldn't be the woman who acted on dreams rather than necessity, and she wouldn't be the woman he manipulated. Not ever again. So she pushed him gently back and gave him the most honest thing she could: "I'm sorry, Jack."

She had never wanted for everything to turn out as it had, but she didn't truly regret involving him, hurting him. Because she was remarkably selfish and not quite as impassive as she should have been.

It wasn't that she was besieged with nightmares or that she'd lost every chance at happiness. It wasn't even that he couldn't look at her without hatred blazing in his eyes. In all that, she could still find a certain solace in her conviction of necessity. She was a veteran of carrying out what needed to be done and living with herself afterward.

So it wasn't that she wanted his forgiveness or his trust or his anything.

The most tragic thing of all, thought Nina Meyers as she looked into his eyes for the last time and heard the final, echoing click of his judgment, was that he had never really known her. Not really.

Thanks for reading!
April 26, 2009